Update 46: January & February 2025

Written By Shawn Lord

Hi all!

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this one, so here’s another quick “thank you” for a wonderful 2024.

Now, let’s get into it!

April Playtest

We’re planning an open playtest from Friday, April 11 - Sunday, April 13.

We’ll likely continue to have stress tests and quick spot checks in the weeks leading up to the test, so keep an eye on our Discord for updates and more info.

See you there!

Expenses & Roadmap

Expense Report

We know how important it is for the community to believe in the health and sustainability of the project. You’re investing your time in us and our world, and we want you to be well-equipped to make a fair assessment.

MnM may not be for everyone, but we’ll always be open about how we operate.

  • As of 2025, we’ve spent $104,725 on the development of Monsters & Memories (2020-2024).

  • Our total spend for 2024 was $37,217.10.

You can read more details on the breakdown of expenses and our transparency pledge once we’re in Early Access on our Development Costs page. Our hope is to be one of the most transparent companies in the industry.

Roadmaps

We’ve updated our Roadmaps page. The high-level roadmap now correctly shows the Early Access starting target of Q1 2026.

Please note that we’ll modify these dates if we feel that more time is needed. We’re not under budgetary pressure, but we’re also eager to get you in and playing.

New Additions

We’ve been negligent in posting new additions to our team in the last couple of updates, so here are the guys who’ve come onboard in the last 4 months:

  • Steve/Swanny joined us in November as a Web Application Developer

  • Joaquín/Kuinu joined us in November as a 3D Animator

  • Dragan/Soleres joined us in November as a Texture Artist

  • Andrew/Autokey joined us in January as a 3D Animator

  • Bryce/Rift joined us in January as a Tradeskill Designer

  • Pavlo/Paul/Fromhome joined us in February as a Programmer

Concept Art & UI

  • Keepers Bight POIs and structures

  • Deep Dunes/Caves of Irem

  • Player carts

  • Foliage and environment textures

Character Art

  • Horses and horse accessories

  • Myconid model and texture

  • Treant model and texture

  • Several new armor sets

  • Gothic weapon set

Animations

  • Ratman

  • Wasp

  • Wood Elf (bow and throw)

  • Dragon

  • Horse (rigged)

Environment Art

  • Lighting implementation (post Unity 6 upgrade)

  • New texture implementation

  • Keepers Bight

    • Waterfalls and rivers

    • Orc Fortress area

    • Sacred Tree

    • Massive hollow log and roots

    • Hanging Garden Inn

    • Penshaw fishing village

  • Highpoint Terrace

    • Grounds, waterways, and towers

    • Palace façade

  • Deep Dunes

    • Terrain and geo progress

  • Tree shader and pipeline

  • Shallow Shoals (nearly complete!)

    • New ship

    • New islands

    • New mini-dungeon

    • New shipwrecked dhow

  • New ruins and caves have appeared in Evershade Weald

    • More props and undergrowth are in the works

  • Sungreet Strand geo and road updates

  • Skeleton player models can now be used as props

  • Modular prison bar set

  • New mini dungeon in [redacted]

  • Night Harbor Sewers geo updates

Audio & Music

Giant

  • Body cracking up mid-air while falling to the ground

  • Body falling to the ground rumble

  • Taking damage

  • Attacking

  • Dying

Wasp

  • Buzzing

  • Attacking

  • Taking damage

  • Dying

Abilities

  • Clobber

  • Taunt

  • Armor Break

  • Sprint

  • Charge

Spells

  • Fire casting

  • Fire projectile

  • Fire impact

General

  • Distant wolf howling in Night Harbor (rarely at night)

  • Hotkeys to quickly mute/unmute music and sounds

Design

Content

  • The nefarious Pasha and her Gilded Claws have taken residence in Night Harbor; seek them out!

  • Several lower level outdoor zones have had their respawn time slightly increased

  • Fallen Pass, Glass Flats, and Tel Ekir respawn times increased

  • Evershade Weald population and early itemization work

  • Minor Bone Construct encounter fixes

  • Wyrmsbane population and itemization adjustments

  • Tel Ekir population naming adjustments

  • Night Harbor Crypt fine tuning

  • Vale of Zintar population work

  • Shallow Shoals population work started

  • Sungreet Strand grain cellar prep work

  • More Night Harbor MUD actions added

  • All existing MUD actions in Night Harbor reviewed/edited

  • Various quest dialogues reviewed/edited (ongoing)

  • Lore work for Wood Elves (Faelewyn), Faelindral, Evershade Weald, and Keepers Bight

  • Lore work for Deep Elves dusted off; more to come

  • Deep Dunes mapping and initial blockout

  • Expedition dungeon mapping and discussion kickoff

  • Some abilities have new sound effects

Systems

  • Wood Elves now start in Faelindral/Evershade Weald

  • Experience gains decreased to expected levels

  • You can now toggle the PvP flag by using the /pvp command, toggling it off starts a 5 minute timer until it's disabled

Traits

  • Adjusted tooltip text for readability

  • Swimmer minor non-combat trait enabled

  • Added Herbalist minor non-combat trait

Tradeskills

  • Herbalism

    • Added to the game

    • Herbalism trainer and merchant are now available

    • Sickle is now properly used to harvest Herbalism nodes

  • Woodworking

    • Woodworkers can now process wood into wood boards at a sawmill

  • Fletching

    • Added new arrow types and recipes

    • Arrow recipes now use wood boards instead of wood

    • Added 5x, 10x, 15x, and 20x yield recipes for each of the following:

      • Stonehead Arrow

      • Copperhead Arrow

      • Bronzehead Arrow

      • Ironhead Arrow

      • Steelhead Arrow

      • Mithrilhead Arrow

      • Cobalthead Arrow

      • Adamantiumhead Arrow

General Abilities

  • Pets now only cast beneficial abilities and buffs on themselves and their master (shouldn't include Elementalist auras)

  • Primary “slow” durations increased

    • Exhaustion remains at 1 minute

    • Enervation increased from 1 minute to 2 minutes

    • Fatigue increased from 1 minute to 3 minutes

    • Lethargy increased from 1 minute to 4 minutes

    • Debilitation increased from 1 minute to 5 minutes

    • Tooltips updated accordingly

  • Bind Wound now uses Bind Wound skill instead of Alteration

  • Placate spells can once again be used on more than one target

  • Swirling Shadows line has had its damage increased and duration increased by 12 seconds per spell

  • Removed “Limit 1" from the Root tooltip as it can be cast on multiple targets simultaneously

Bard

  • Traveler's March is now Percussion

  • Dissonant Riffs line is now Brass

  • Hymn of Inspiration is now Brass (temporarily)

Beastmaster

  • Added ability: Shrink Companion

Cleric

  • Exceptional Heal is now level 32, down from level 36

Druid

  • Grip of Nature duration increased from 30 to 60 seconds

Elementalist

  • Fixed an issue where Summoned Manastone did not have its clicky effect

Enchanter

  • Enfeeble duration reduced from 2 minutes to 1 minute

  • Enfeeble now reduces Strength, Dexterity, and Agility by 5, up from only Strength by 2

  • Enfeeble line fleshed out with abilities: Enfeeblement, Infirmity, Frailty, Torpefy, Cripple

Fighter

  • Armor Break tooltip now indicates a 30 second duration

Necromancer

  • Life Drain line scaling changes

    • Life Siphon is now level 16, up from level 12

    • Life Leech is now level 24, up from level 16

    • Life Tap is now level 36, up from level 20

    • Life Guzzle is now level 48, up from level 24

    • Life Duct is now level 54, up from level 28

    • Life Flume is now level 60, up from level 32

  • Fixed an issue where Summoned Lifestones did not have their clicky effects

Shadow Knight

  • Life Drain line scaling changes

    • Life Siphon is now level 26, up from level 22

    • Life Leech is now level 34, up from level 26

    • Life Tap is now level 46, up from level 30

    • Life Guzzle is now level 58, up from level 34

    • Life Duct removed

    • Life Flume removed

Shaman

  • Now has access to the Enfeeble line

  • Lurching Impairment is no longer limited to one target (but has a 2min cooldown)

Tech

Fixed

  • Fixed channeling animation on player and Ashira races

  • Several fixes for head tracking

  • Reduced speed while climbing and fixed backwards animation

  • Killing blows now report the total damage done by the attack and not just the amount needed to kill the target

  • Throwing daggers will now have a visible projectile

  • Ensured one ability from each stance is on when zoning or learning spells

  • Prevented client side display glitch when toggling stances while you have multiple separate cooldowns available

  • Fixed a bug where clients would randomly gain ultravision

  • VFX now scales with the caster for on-hit effects

  • Fixed animation never ending after fishing

  • Fixed stacking of various shielding buffs

  • Fixed nametag jitter

  • Fixed /scribeallspells not updating the client immediately

  • Fixed a bug where you couldn't memorize an ability after memorizing another

  • Fixed innate book not updating when scribing an innate ability

  • Fixed the 11th and 12th hotbutton slots not saving

  • Fixed auto-follow causing self-interrupt even when standing still

  • Removed orient to ground component from drake, orc, and wasp

  • Fixed required level on ability descriptions showing 0

  • Fixed moving abilities in spellbook creating duplicates

  • Fixed /set level on npcs not working correctly after multiple sets

  • Fixed an issue where /set level couldn't set npcs above lvl 60

  • Fixed hidecorpse not showing help text when used with no arguments

  • Fixed corpses not loading correctly (such as in the standing pose) when they are shown after being previously hidden when entering the zone

  • Fixed the model loading system sometimes not loading a model

  • Fixed Entity.AddComponent not working on disabled entities

  • Fix scroll bars auto-scrolling after clicking them

Added

  • Added support for mounts, stabling, and mount inventory

  • Initial implementation of housing

  • NPCs can now swim

  • Summoned pets now have a generated name by default

  • Added sounds to bow autoattacks

  • Added animation event handling components to Ratman model

  • Added Find unused opcode tool

  • Added /ignore

  • Added /afk

  • Added /ignored command to list all players you are currently ignoring

  • Added autoclear afk setting

  • Brightened party member name color

  • Added friends list

  • Added /charinfo command to show what zone you are currently bound in

  • Added /disband to disband your party

  • Added /timemod command

  • Added /split command to split coins with your party

  • Added additional options to show and hide corpse commands

  • Added looted option to /hidecorpse

  • Added /hidecorpse allbutgroup

  • Made party member corpses appear when they join your party if they were previously hidden

  • Added settings to change the display of your name or other client names (none, first only, first and last, first, last and guild)

  • Unified how settings are saved

Mounts now exist, can be ridden, have stats, and can carry various bag types.

Mounts can be stabled and beckoned. Stabled mounts are local to the area/zone, meaning you need to return to that zone to beckon (recover) them.

Housing can now be purchased. Customization is currently in progress.

In Closing

As we said before, thanks a ton for a fantastic 2024!

We look forward to seeing you in the playtest in April, and any stress tests we fire up before then.

As always, if you want to help us out, the best way to do so is to keep spreading the word:

See you in the next update!

Shawn Lord
Next

Update 45: November & December 2024