Update 47: March & April 2025
Hi, all!
We want to give another quick thank you to everyone who participated in the April 11-14th playtest.
We were pleased with the results (see below) and continue to learn a significant amount from each playtest. We look forward to more playtests this year!
One cool thing about this playtest was that it was our first opportunity to use the new Petition system. It was great to see that the person behind the system actually topped the chart (by a wide margin) for answered petitions. Good work, Swanny!
With that in mind, we hope we were able to quickly resolve most of your issues over the weekend. We’ve included some Customer Service related stats from the playtest in the data below.
We’ve also kicked off our ongoing closed test with friends and family, per our posted roadmap.
Aside from all that, there's just a ton of the usual work going on, especially with the additional team members who’ve come onboard since January.
Things are moving on schedule and we’re pretty excited to see how the year continues to progress towards Early Access in 2026.
Enjoy the update!
April Playtest Results
New Additions
Joseph/Runaf joined us in March as a game balance designer & programmer.
Lisava joined us in April as a quest designer.
Steve/Khad joined us in April as an environment artist.
Jesse/Encrypt128bit joined us in April as a programmer & UI designer.
Concept Art & UI
Created character concepts for fire giants, specters, and bears
Created environment concepts for Keepers Bight, Evershade Weald, Deep Dunes, and Rothold (Module 1 zone)
Created concepts & textures to support the polishing of Shaded Dunes, which served as a “model” zone for texture finalization
Painted new foliage for use in the Calafrey Region
Created new banners for goblin and Night Harbor factions
Created new textures & trimsheets for Night Harbor
Integrated the crafting UI with existing “Bag” windows for item-based crafting, and updated station-based crafting to match
Added bulk crafting support to both crafting UIs
Added “Close” and “Random” (/dice) buttons to UI elements using placeholders
Updated the Host UI to match the new Pet UI, and made Host UI health bars non-draggable
Character Art
Updated several player hair options
Started work on the shark model(s)
Completed a new Night Harbor leather armor set
Completed the bear model
Polished the Myconid model
Started work on the pack donkey model
Animations
Myconid rig
Myconid animations (started)
Horse rig
Horse animations
Human riding animations
Human music animations (updated)
Ratman animations (updated):
Right-hand swing 02
Offhand swing
Death
Walk
Run
Wood elf animations (updated):
Spear attacks and stance
Additional two-handed weapon attacks
Punching attack cycle & kicks
Blocking, dodging, parrying, taunting, and stunned states
Jump cycle
Environment Art
Continued work on Keepers Bight
Continued work on Evershade Weald and Faelindral
Started work on Rothold (Module 1 dungeon)
Texture finalization pass on Shaded Dunes
Started Night Harbor finalization
Added more street signs to Night Harbor
Expansion work on Night Harbor Sewers
Fixed Unity 6 issues with rain appearance and lightning rendering
Updated night volumes to have visible clouds
Lighting pass in one of the secret mini dungeons
Texture pass on Fallen Pass POI (more to come)
Added Vale of Zintar POI
Added Vale of Zintar environment props
Prop work on Shallow Shoals
Created some tradeskill stations
Placed new harvesting nodes
Started work on an unannounced EA “expedition-focused” zone
Started work on an unannounced Module 1 dungeon
Audio & Music
Fixed lots of small audio issues (SFX, positional audio, etc.)
Started work on a new epic music piece
Robert was on an European tour with Marko Hietala & Tarja Turunen
Design
UI
Replaced the placeholder bank coin icons with the new inventory coin icons
Removed shadow boxes that were obscuring the inventory coin icons
Renamed the deprecated “Arms” slot to “Shirt”
Systems
Coins now only drop from the expected NPC races
Readjusted the coin values per level game-wide
Adjusted the merchant values of several items
Implemented PvP debuff durations
Implemented PvP Server item loot/coin loot
Hardcore and Self Found player flags no longer change the nametag color
Increased “Sphere of Influence” in Shaded Dunes, Sungreet Strand, and Evershade Weald
Reduced mana regeneration rates by roughly 10%
Reduced health regeneration rates
Reduced the “Rested” bonus from 25% to 15%
Increased the net experience rate
Slightly normalized the bonus/penalty from killing mobs of various cons
Adjusted the combat balance for levels 1-4 to be more consistent with 5-60
Gameplay balance pass on generic dropped/crafted weapons and armor
Gameplay balance pass on early game named and quest drops
Economy balance pass on early game enemy drop values
Lowered the threat generated by stat debuffs
Lowered the additional threat bonus that Taunt provides
Balanced the defense skillup rate to better align with other skills
Lowered the skillup modifier, specifically when failing to cast an ability (fizzles, missed notes, etc.)
Manually tuned enemy and player AC values during the first few levels to better align with combat from level 5+
Added a large bonus to the dual wield skillup rate to better align with other melee skills
Rewrote the Armor Class mechanic to remove “hidden" AC bonuses based on class; scaled up player equipment AC to improve the impact of gear
Added an accelerated catchup bonus for Offense & Defense skills to help classes who fall behind based on their combat roles
Content
Additions and tweaks to Evershade Weald population and itemization
Added an Alchemy trainer to Night Harbor
Caves of Irem placeholder population
Fixed a bug where Necromancer NPCs would not use abilities
Decreased the Tel Ekir zone respawn time
Increased the cooldown for NPCs who can cast Gate
Fallen Pass level range adjustments
Added Fallen Pass spawners
Added Evershade Weald NPCs to facilitate playing and testing
Added Evershade Weald population to cover more level ranges
Added Keepers Bight early base population
Continued population work for Shallow Shoals
Continued population work for Night Harbor’s harbor district
Continued population and quest work for Vale of Zintar
Implemented additional Sungreet Strand content
Started Wood Elf starter quest writing and implementation
Continued Deep Dunes design and mapping work
Started Deep Elf faction and city (Ail’vorith) design work
Misc. fixes to mob data
Traits
The Herbalism trait now starts with a Trainee's Herb Pouch
The Miner trait now starts with a Trainee's Ore Pouch
The Alchemist trait now starts with a Trainee’s Mortar and Pestle (replaces the Trainee's Alchemy Kit)
The Duelist trait was renamed to Ambidextrous
The Blacksmith trait now starts with a Trainee's Smithing Hammer (replaces the Trainee's Hammer and Chisel)
Tradeskills
Adjusted armor crafting components to require other tradeskills
Added a poison making placeholder recipe
Gathering nodes are now available in Evershade Weald and other zones
Alchemy now uses a mortar and pestle for crafting various components
Added a loom (tailoring) to Night Harbor
Added a cauldron (alchemy) to Night Harbor
Added various new herbs
Added new alchemy supplies
Fixed various underground node locations
Added a recipe for Throwing Daggers
Arrows are crafted from Wood instead of Wood Boards again
20, 100, 200 Arrows and Throwing Daggers are now craftable (20 have the same component count that 5 used to have)
Removed 5, 10, and 15 count recipes for all craftable Arrows and Throwing Daggers
Reduced the Campfire trivial skill level
Reduced the Stonehead Arrow trivial skill level
Fixed an issue where higher tier Cloth Bolts could not be crafted
Itemization
Changed AC values game-wide as mentioned above (this will continue)
Several items have received balance passes
Herb, ore, and lumberjack pouches are now sold at Herbalism, Mining, or Lumberjacking Supplies vendors
Herb, ore, and lumberjack pouches now indicate that they are only suitable for storing those types of materials
Ore Pouch renamed to Mining Pouch, and can now carry Stone, Limestone, and Coarse Sand
Revised the cost of ability scrolls between levels 1 - 50 (some costs decreased, others increased)
Ornately Carved Iron Spikes are now NO DROP
Lowered the weight of Fire Beetle Legs and Scarab Beetle Legs
Scarab Carapace is now size “Small” (slot size, not racial limit)
All Face, Hand, Head, Neck, Shoulder, Waist, Wrist slot items are now size “Small”
All Shirt slot items are now size “Medium”
All plate breastplates and greaves are now size “Large”
Adjusted bronze costs
Replaced/changed some named items
Increased fabric scraps drop rate
Fabric scraps/rusty armor/tattered armor now drops from all NPC classes
“Arms” slot items have been changed to “Shirt” and now drop again
General Abilities
A large portion of the damage done by abilities like Strike, Stab, Rend, Frenzy, Shield Bash, Slam, Purifying Blow, Quick Shot, Round Kick, Celestial Strike, and Ambush now comes from an equipped weapon or item slot
Pets now use weaker versions of the above abilities (possibly temporary)
Rebalanced pets
Abilities that can be used without breaking another effect, such as Stealth, have had their ability tooltip updated to indicate this
Fixed grammatical errors in Ward the Dead and Ward the Elements line tooltips
Heal cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Heal healing amount reduced from 70 to 65
Greater Heal cast time decreased from 3.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Exceptional Heal cast time decreased from 4.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Using Cure spells on other targets no longer shows that you cured yourself
Corrected damage in tooltips of the Swirling Shadows line
Swirling Shadows line movement speed reduction changed from 30%/35%/40%/45%/50%/60%/70% to 30%/40%/50%/55%/60%/65%/70%
Conjure Food amount of food summoned increased from 5 to 20
Conjure Drink amount of drink summoned increased from 5 to 20
Feign Death split into two abilities: Monk and Necromancer/Shadow Knight versions
Necromancer/Shadow Knight version now has a 1.5 second cast time, 30 mana cost, and is no longer innate
Monk Feign death moved from Level 1 to Level 4
Necromancer Feign Death moved from Level 4 to Level 8
Shadow Knight Feign Death moved from Level 6 to Level 12
Flameburst damage decreased from 4 (L1) to 7 (L4) to 3 (L1) 6 (L4)
Flameburst mana cost reduced from 8 to 7
Fixed various issues where the Life Drain line had incorrectly assigned ability levels for Necromancer and Shadow Knight PCs and NPCs
Life Drain mana cost reduced from 8 to 7
Life Drain cast time increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds
Knockback abilities now interrupt casting
Adjusted the minimum range of several abilities to more logical values
Fear chance to break on hit reduced
Fear duration increased for multiple abilities (PvP duration remains the same)
Many abilities with a % chance to increase/decrease damage have been fixed
Charm ability tooltips updated to properly reflect their max duration
Archer
Scatter Shot range increased from 15m to 20m
Illuminating Shot will now aggro regardless if it misses or not
Bard
Added ability: Sonnet of the Unseen
Healing Hymn now uses the String skill
Sonnet of the Unseen now uses the Wind skill and requires a Wind instrument to play
Unifying Anthem disabled temporarily
Cleric
Supplication line no longer grants Fulfillment (considering a replacement)
Supplication line duration increased from 30 seconds to 60 seconds
Supplication IV is now Level 50
Holy Focus mana cost reduced from 50 to 30
Summon Food level reduced from Level 12 to Level 4
Summon Drink level reduced from Level 12 to Level 4
Conjure Food level increased from Level 24 to Level 32
Conjure Drink level increased from Level 24 to Level 32
Shock damage decreased from 5 (L1) to 8 (L4) to 3 (L1) to 5 (L4)
Shock mana cost reduced from 9 to 7
Atonement damage reduced from 12 (L4) to 15 (L8) to 11 (L4) to 14 (L7)
Tooltips of Holy Fortitude line fixed
Druid
Encircling Roots mana cost reduced from 120 to 75
Encircling Roots duration increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Corrected a tooltip that incorrectly stated that Encircling Roots is unresistable to non-immune targets
Summon Food level reduced from Level 12 to Level 4
Summon Drink level reduced from Level 12 to Level 4
Conjure Food removed
Conjure Drink removed
Added ability: Summon Firewood
Added ability: Conjure Firewood
Moon Flame damage reduced from 3 (L1) to 6 (L4) to 3 (L1) to 5 (L4)
Moon Flame mana cost reduced from 8 to 7
Moon Fire damage reduced from 15 to 11 (L4) to 14 (L7)
Moon Embers mana cost reduced from 35 Mana to 30 Mana
Charm Beast mana cost increased from 25 to 60
Charm Beast cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Charm Beast max target level added and set to Level 23
Added ability: Beguile Beast
Elementalist
Crushed Malachite reagent cost slightly reduced
Conjure Food level increased from Level 12 to Level 28
Conjure Drink level increased from Level 12 to Level 28
Summon Cloth Bandage bandage amount decreased from 50 to 1
Restrain the Elements moved from Level 8 to Level 12
Restrain the Elements duration reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds
Elemental Fury no longer grants Spell Haste
Elemental Fury line expanded by new abilities: Elemental Torrent, Elemental Surge, and Elemental Onslaught
Charm Elemental mana cost increased from 25 to 60
Charm Elemental cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Charm Elemental max target level added and set to Level 23
Added ability: Beguile Elemental
Enchanter
A large number of missing spell scrolls have been added to the House of Candor's Enchanter Spell vendor
Adjusted the Enchant Metal Bar line to have more logical mana costs
Enchant Metal Bar line now has ability icons
Fascinate mana cost reduced from 120 to 75
Fascinate duration increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Fascinate is no longer unresistable
Tranquility, Insight, and Brilliance durations decreased from 60 minutes to 30 minutes
Charm max target level added and set to Level 11
Added abilities: Enthrall and Beguile
Fighter
Fixed an issue where Frenzy and Shield Bash were only getting reset by Rend 10% of the time instead of 20%
Also corrected the tooltips of Frenzy, Shield Bash, and Rend to all show 20%
Frenzy now does an additional 1 (L1) to 25 (L60) damage
Shield Bash additional damage now scales over levels properly
Inquisitor
Magic Disruption Shell
Magic Disruption Shell cooldown increased from 5 minutes to 30 minutes
Now grants Recently Exhausted debuff after expiring
Duration increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds
Aura of Magic Resistance now also grants a 5% Damage Reduction from Spell Damage
Monk
The Fists of Flame proc from Way of the Flame has had its damage over time changed from 1 (L4) to 16 (L60) to 1 (L1) to 16 (L60)
Fists of Flame no longer stacks unexpectedly
Necromancer
Filled out the Blood Pact/Death Pact line with abilities: Shed Bones, Shed Flesh, Lich, Demi Lich, Arch Lich
Added ability: Lich Spirit
You can no longer use Sacrifice on yourself
Sacrifice temporarily disabled due to further issues
Corrected damage in the tooltips of the Swirling Shadows line
Restrain the Dead moved from Level 8 to Level 12
Restrain the Dead duration reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds
Charm Undead mana cost increased from 25 to 60
Charm Undead cast time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
Charm Undead max target level added and set to Level 23
Added ability: Beguile Undead
Paladin
No longer has access to Battle Cry
Now has access to the Supplication line
Aura of the Pious tooltip updated to properly reflect the amount of AC given to your party
Aura of the Pious AC increased from 1 (L1) to 20 (L60) to 1 (L1) to 30 (L60)
Aura of the Pious Physical/Spell Damage Reduction removed
“Rez” abilities added to Paladin Spell Merchant
Ranger
Shroud and Greater Shroud now share a cooldown
Rogue
Ambush now requires a dagger
Vial of Smoke reagent cost reduced
Evade threat reduction increased from -25 (L1) to -250 (L60) to -100 (L1) to -1000 (L60)
Avoidance Spell Damage Reduction decreased from 40% to 20%
Shaman
Spore Discharge healing changed from 10 (L4) to 600 (L52) to 10 (L10) to 600 (L52)
Conjure Food removed
Conjure Drink removed
Spellblade
Aura of the Arcane ability tooltip updated to properly indicate that the Aura also gives an additional 10% Spell Damage to your party
Infuse Weapon line duration increased to 2 minutes
Wizard
Fixed Invert Gravity mana, cooldown, and resist rates
Invert Gravity temporarily disabled due to further issues
Arcane Bonds and Arcane Shackles area of effect size increased from 0m to 8m
Tech
Fixed
Fixed and adjusted damage caps for weapon damage abilities
We now prevent NPCs from pathing through geometry while in water volumes
Monks can now use melee/weapon abilities without a weapon equipped
Fixed cooldown regression with Enchant Ally/Host abilities
Reduced instances where too many lights in an area cause a black, pixelated artifact
Fixed right-clicks not opening crafting containers
Shift-click on crafting containers once again opens all containers
Blind effects quickly fade instead of instantly dropping
Prevent “dancing" skeletons in Wyrmsbane caused by failing grounded check when touching walls
Fixed bard songs not persisting through zoning
Fixed several loopholes possible while holding items on cursor
Fixed errors when interrupting NPC channeled abilities
Activated abilities now only begin their cooldown once they are deactivated
Fixed cooldowns not showing correctly in the pet window and aura bar
Fixed channeled abilities stopping early if your mana is less than the cost when it ticks
Fixed an issue making some harvesting node drops rarer than designed
Normal pets can no longer be stabled (though the horses miss their strange new friends)
Using /follow again on a followed target no longer toggles it off
Items with no classes defined will show Class: NONE and no longer show required level text on ability scrolls
You can no longer scribe spells that accidentally have no classes
Made feign death re-aggro chances editable with more resolution
Enabled rich text on chatview input field and block <size> tags
Your own nametag is now party-colored when in a party
/r now displays better with the modern chat mode
Report window category and subcategory now default to say “select a category/subcategory" and the selection is required to submit the report
The chat font size setting no longer adjusts the input field font size
ESC no longer opens the menu by default; added a setting to re-enable this functionality
Changed the default setting for ESC
Fixed the UI theme setting not working
Fixed friends/ignore list not being shared between all of your characters
Fixed /r in modern chat mode replying to most recent tell instead of the most recent tell at the time when you first typed /r
Fixed the rested state in self consider messages being inconsistent with the rested messages that appear when you increase or decrease rested state
Fixed consider message when you are on an enemy's hate list
Fixed %t and %me not working in /shout; the tags are now capitalization agnostic
Fixed auto-follow not coming to a proper stop
Fixed the spellbook tab not showing up when first loading
Fixed full class/race names not working in /who queries
Fixed the inability to place an item in an inventory slot on the hotbar
Fixed the ocean sound trigger blocking other raycasts in Sungreet Strand
Fixed the layer of some sound volumes in TelEkir that were blocking LOS (yes, sounds were blocking LOS)
Fixed the cursor not showing on new lines when editing a macro
Fixed checking current target instead of target when spell was cast, which could fail abilities at the end of a cast if you switched targets
Fixed links going into the wrong chat window input field sometimes
Fixed F7 targeting general npcs instead of friendly players and pets
Fixed ESC not closing inventory if you've clicked another view after opening it
Fixed music zone in the wrong layer of Wyrmsbane Tomb
Fixed the bug report subcategory not updating properly after camping and re-entering the world
Fixed the /listcorpses result message displaying the wrong name in the resulting messages
Fixed modern chat mode matching channel patterns that were not at the beginning of the text
Fixed buff effects not loading right when zoning/logging in
Fixed avatar rotation in the main menu and paperdoll being framerate dependent
Fixed the bug that eventually breaks zones over time
Fixed the pause command for NPC AI, especially around edge cases relating to end of combat and pathfinding
Fixed DX11 builds
Fixed a bunch of errors (What errors? No clue. Ask the tech guys to elaborate in Discord. I just assemble these frickin’ updates!)
Lots of fixes to statics and widgets
Fixed banking and trading edge cases
Fixed an error where stale clients can remain forever on the server
Fixed harvesting rolls
Fixed several issues that were keeping wind instruments from being used
Fixed buff threat applying twice (sorry about that buffers, and no, you can’t get your lost exp back)
Various LOS, fall damage, and random teleport to safe position fixes
Camera should no longer clip in many cases
Fixed long respawn time mobs forgetting their timer sometimes during a server reboot
Fixed error with ignore lists causing unintended behavior
House names can no longer be naughty (we’re looking at you, “ASS Apartments”)
Added/Changed
(Speaking of…) Added player housing (including the ground work for personal, shared, guild, and shop/tavern/inn spaces)
Added rentable stalls (for all you flea market RPers)
Added placeable items
Optimizations, fixes to memory leaks, faster server zone start and zoning times on client
MUD action respawn timer (so now you can sit and farm pickles from the pickle barrel one at a time… forever)
Added lot of log tooling to help with CS
Environment supporting work for all zones
Boats are almost working properly!
Changes to /rewind, /unstuck, /stuck, /gohome
New “static” commands (i.e. new stuff can be triggered by interacting with things like doors)
Enhancements to /petition and /report
Tradeskills no longer have level caps
Adjustments to client mana, health regen, and mana regen
Adjustments to all health and max health
Some balance changes to charmed pets
Charm break chance tuning
Added Holy Resistance
Added Race type: Plant
Character starting items can now vary based on their starting location
Stat buffs can now affect instrument modifiers
Re-aggro chance decrease per successful FD up to 6 successful feigns
Allow instrument requirements in an ability's primary skill HID to require that the player is holding an instrument of that type when using the ability
Added MinTargetLevel field to the ability table, which defines a minimum target level an ability can be cast on
Added “Always type here" context menu option for chat window
Added some more emote commands
Added optional client name param to emotes such as “/wave Playername"
Added some more emote commands
Added [GM] prefix to the sender name of tells received from a GM flagged character
Added a new consider message for when you've aggro'd an NPC that wasn't already seething at you
Added additional command aliases to /target (ta, tar, targ, targe)
Added /yell
Added a /whotarget command
Removed the Make Campfire ability as it is now a tradeskill recipe
Added some shader glue code
Added some pathfinding glue code
Salty desert environment glue (because apparently Ali is very into glue this year… will update to duct tape before EA)
/guildmotd now accepts uppercase characters
Debug tooling all around
Netcode optimizations and security pass
Occlusion improvements
Experience readjustment
Added a bunch of secret zones to data, so they could be used
Made changes to login flow to better suit live ops
Added message feedback to harvesting so players understand when skillups are no longer possible
Added support for bard instrument skillups & instrument-specific missed notes
Addressed a serious bug where certain stat debuffs in combination with snares could fully root enemies
Addressed a bug that blocked melee abilities from exceeding a set value and rewrote the melee ability skillup formula to better reflect the current ability design
Updated our spell scribing and memorization formula to scale effectively based on level and cap out at a more reasonable duration
Split the presentation of tradeskill recipes apart into a new series of difficulty ranges to better communicate skillup and success chances
Rewrote the crafting combine success rate so it remains consistent as you level, with a higher success rate on safer combines and a lower success rate on riskier combines
Rewrote the crafting skillup rate to be slightly more forgiving in the early stages, then ramping up as players make progress
Added a ton of new features and capabilities to our Customer Service tooling
Petition, Bug, and Datamining tooling tested and iterated on during the playtest
Added the data aggregation tooling used to pull the playtest data shown above
In Closing
We just surpassed the 13,000 mark in Discord! So, here’s a quick shout out to the random bots with waifu profile pics that helped push us over the line! If you’re reading this, just please refrain from sending anyone DMs.
For the rest of you actual humans (gnomes, dwarves, ogres - but not goblins), thank you for reading this far!
As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a ton going on at the moment with no signs of slowing down.
We’ll try to get another update out at the end of this month (May), but if that doesn’t happen for some reason, we’ll make it up to you in June. Man… summer is almost here. Wow.
As always, if you want to help us out, the best way to do so is to keep spreading the word:
You’ve been doing a great job of that so far, and we can’t thank you enough!
See you in the next update!