Hello everyone,
This release was… a lot more work than I thought it would be. I ended up putting a whole bunch of extra stuff in, I just can’t help myself I guess. This marks the last “fun stuff” release for some time as I am now going to take a sledge hammer to the engine in search of a seamless world (only 3 weeks behind schedule). There are a large number of changes. tweaks and fixes in this release so let’s get to it.
Shaman
This is a new class focused specifically around bringing support utility to the game. The Shaman has no instant offensive spells, instead bringing self heal, targeted heal, and mass heal to the table. In addition healing runes are no longer sold by Char and instead must be crafted by Shamans – I am certain this will cause outrage on launch but am confident once people get up to speed there will be fortunes to be made on the player market by business minded rune sellers.
- New support class, the Shaman
- New weapon type “rod”, works just like a staff but deals Nature damage by default
- Mage and Shaman spells work with both Rods and Staffs
- Poison element is now known as Nature
- Shamans are able to craft:
- Mana Runes
- Holy Runes
- Physical Runes
- Nature Runes
- Healing Runes
- Shamans are able to cast:
- Self heals
- Targeted heals
- Mass heals
- Mind Games for self peel
New Scrolls
With the addition of a new class it seemed a sensible time to introduce a scroll that allows you to add an additional character slot to your account. To make this work I had to do some weird poking around in the character selection UI so please be sure to report any new issues with this screen on discord.
- New “Character slot” scroll
- Costs £5
- Adds an extra character slot on use
- Maximum of 5 extra character slots
In addition people are frequently asking me to set up something like a patreon or accept paypal donations (eh, if you have been here a long time you will know why that’s never going to happen again :D) and I figured while I am in this area of the codebase and we are doing a decent sized release now is as good a time as any to put something in specifically for players who want to support the project. The intention here is to give people some quality of life improvements if they want them, but to ensure you can play perfectly fine without ever becoming a supporter.
- New “Supporter” scroll
- Costs £5
- Adds 30 days of “Supporter” status to your account
- You get a little star icon in chat so everyone knows you are special
- You get a little star icon on your player details UI so people can’t help but notice how special you are
- 100 more bank slots
- 50 more friend slots
- You can track your supporter status in the “My Account” screen
I must mention at this point that due to my personal fears over server performance the default number of bank slots for verified accounts has been reduced from 250 to 200 in light of this change. If you currently have 250 items in the bank but do not wish to become a supporter, you can access the missing 50 items in your bank by withdrawing items and re-opening the bank. Sorry about this, decreasing the bank size always results in sadness.
Drinking
If the news of the default bank size reduction has got you furious, perhaps a drink is in order. Hudson stopped watering down his drinks so you can now get completely hammered.
- Drinking alcohol will progressively make your character more drunk
- Track if you are currently drunk with a new status icon
- The more drunk you are, the harder it becomes to walk in a straight line
- Drunks are prone to hiccups
- If it all becomes too much and you can make it back to Hudson, drinking enough water will sober you up
Android support
Couple of small things here…
- Screen rotation lock now supported
- Client will full-screen (hide the nav buttons and header) if it can
Other stuff
As always I tend to potter around as I go.
- Confirmation screens for using a rename, gender change or supporter scroll
- New icon for “regen disabled” status
- The “regen disabled” status icon now chooses when to display in a nicer way so the UI feels less duct taped together
- Stats screen now stats accuracy is for distance weapons
- Saved a small bit of horizontal space in the android chat UI
- Spell, item and hotkey cooldown timer alignment improved
- You can destroy full stacks of items now even if you have a bajillion bananas
- Melee and Ranged skills now train significantly faster for other classes (because why not), though still 10x slower than their primary class (was previously upwards of 40 times slower)
- Concussive shot and mind games will no longer switch a monster onto the target it already had if that target was not you. Instead, if the monster is targeting another party member and a re-target would have resulted in it re-targeting the same person, it will now target you instead. So err, yeah, be careful.
- Spell casting is prevented if a spell requires ammunition yet no ammunition is currently equipped
- Bosses now guarantee a soulbound max stat item, however this item will now be any piece of equipment from that monsters standard loot pool. That means a Knight you could get a soulbound max stat spellbook hehe. Maybe you could use it as a pillow or something.
- Healing runes are no longer sold by Char :<
- Notifications for trade, parties, friends coming online / offline now display a bit more information relating to what is happening
- Players joining and leaving your party now display as notifications
- Party UI now has a specific labeled “leave” button
- Status icons are now sized power of 2 for our like… eyes
- Class skill training ratios tweaked slightly
- Leaving a party via the chat now has an “are you sure?” screen
So…
As always I have tried my best to test everything but I am sure something somewhere is now broken so please report any issues over on the discord. This will be the last you hear from me for a while until I am ready to start testing the new version of the world engine which I suspect will take me at least a month. I do hope you enjoy the changes in the meantime.
Liam