Difference between revisions of "Patch Notes"

Revision as of 15:27, 20 October 2017

Below you'll find information on each major playtest release, including what's been added/changed. As we move forward in the testing schedule we will eventually switch to a more traditional versioning system.

Known Issues

Here's a quick list of things you may notice that are wrong with the game, but we haven't had a chance to fix yet.

• Elite weapons are currently *not dropping with affixes.* This will be fixed in a patch soon. In the meantime, keep in mind that if you are griding for loot, the weapons you are getting will have the correct stats but if they are Epic they are missing that key feature.
• Artificing sets do not currently require you to insert a shard into them to "power" them. In the final version, the type of shard that you use will determine how long the set will last before wearing off of the weapon/armor.
• We didn't have time to add in the rest of the Runemage spells and portal spells for this test. They will be coming in the next one. In addition, there are a couple of mechanics for the other combat classes that we'd like to add as well. Just a heads-up.
• The stones to summon Elongata may not light up correctly, but they are working.
• When using the Oculus Rift, right now there are no loading screens, so you may see transitions between the character select screen and the main game, or when transitioning between zones, where you see an hourglass appear and the game seems "stuck." This is normal for now.

October 20, 2017

Welcome to the third OrbusVR Closed Beta test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide.

Major New Additions

• Revamped Networking Layer has been implemented which should hopefully result in fewer disconnects and other networking bugs.
• Added 5 new overworld zones to the game: Lucian Plains, Lamvavora Frontier, Frosted Spit, Greater Lucian Wilds, Greater Lamavora Frontier, and Greater Obnobi Desert. The overworld map is now complete!
• The Artificing (also known as "runesmithing") crafting system has been added. This is a major new system that allows you to work with other players to craft tile sets which enhance your own unique playstyle.
• Added around 5-10 hours of new quests to the game, including the conclusion of the main story quest, and around seven "main side quests."
• There is now a "cap" in the speed at which Ranger arrows can be fired. It's set pretty high so it shouldn't affect most players, but is necessary to prevent system abuse in the future.
• Re-designed the "AoE danger" combat system. We now have more we can do with this and you'll see enemies using varied shapes and sizes more frequently. In addition, when a monster is "charging" their AoE attack, they now take significantly less damage. This is a reflection of the fact that AoE attacks are powerful attacks that are meant to be dodged, but at the same time enemies doing them were too easy to defeat because those outside of the AoE range would be able to freely attack the enemy in a defenseless state.
• Enemies which perform healing spells will now charge up their attacks with a short animation. If you stun the enemy during this time (e.g. with the Warrior Shield Bash or the Musketeer Gravity Orb) the heal will be interrupted. We intend to use this mechanic for more than just healing spells in the future. Specifically, the Forest Golem and the new Corrupted Wolf enemy both have interruptible healing attacks.
• 6 new elite enemy types added to the world in the Wilds zones, along with 6 corrupted animal types. These enemies travel together in roaming groups and are very difficult challenges.
• Added a "key" system where some doors in the game world can only be unlocked with the proper key. This is used throughout the questing now.
• Open world PvP mechanics have been added. Specifically, portal spells cannot be cast in Wilds zones. Bandits can never use portals in any zone. And if you die in a Wilds zone, you will drop all of your non-soulbound (tradable) items.
• If you enter a wilds zone and have tradable items which are eligible to drop upon death, you will appear to have a large backpack on your back. If you don't see a backpack, then the player has nothing worth fighting over.
• The Airship system has finally been fully implemented. The airship now makes stops at several locations throughout the world, including all major cities and villages.
• Added about a dozen new potions to the game world, as well as many new fish and lure parts. The itemization for Alchemy and Fishing is now complete. Potions now have associated journal pages telling you their recipes, which can be unlocked through a combination of questing and discovering them in the world. Also finalized aging for all potions in the game (not all potions are agable, but many now are).
• Added the ability to break down equipment (armor and weapons) into shards. These shards are used as a part of the Artificing profession, or may also be sold to NPC vendors to gain dram to use for repairs and trading.
• You can now sell shards and other ingredients (such as fish and herbs) to NPC vendors. All of the Apprentice Smiths throughout the world will be happy to purchase them from you if you're in need of some extra dram.
• The ability to slide while in combat has now been made a permanent feature of the game. During combat, by default you can slide at a slow speed. Holding down the Grip button of the controller will cause you to Sprint. This uses up your Stamina. If your Stamina bar depletes, you will need to wait for it to recharge before you can Sprint again.
• Teleporting during combat is now also linked to your Stamina bar. If you teleport a short distance, you will find that you can now teleport again without waiting for the whole bar to fill up. If you deplete your stamina bar via sliding or teleporting, you will have to wait for it to charge back up to teleport a further distance.
• There is now a cap on how much damage you can do to a monster that is significantly lower level than you. This should only come into play when you are (for example) a Level 20 going to a beginner zone. The fights there will still be fairly easy for you but we don't want you running around decimating the entire population in 10 seconds.
• If you attack a monster that is normally not grouped while you yourself are in a party, the monster may call for help. This is to help even out fights where groups of five players were taking on single monsters and not really finding a challenge. This does not apply to pre-grouped monsters, elites, dungeon groups, etc. The goal here is that grouping up is still the best way to level up, but we want it to be somewhat challenging still.
• You can now upgrade your Fellowship's level at the Fellowship Registrar in Guild City; you must have the correct amount of XP, but Fellowship Certificates are not required at this time.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed bugs related to the inventory tooltips -- these should now work much more reliably.
• Major changes to the Warrior hit detection system, such that you should now reliably be able to hit the enemy you are attacking when groups of enemies are in front of you.
• Fixed a bug where Aged Healing Potions weren't visible when equipped.
• Merchant stall owners no longer have to buy one of their own goods to correctly see funds available to withdraw.
• Only allow integers when setting prices for merchant stalls.
• Chain bonus XP will now only be awarded if multiple party members kill the target. This is to prevent a loophole where people would join a party, then split up and solo grind but still receive the chain bonus for grouping.
• Fixed an issue that could cause game crashes to occur when switching between zones and teleporting home.
• Fixed rounding of bounty amount above player's head in-game.
• Fixed a bug with Elongata which would allow a player not at the top of the aggro list to remain near her and not take damage.
• The list of members in your Fellowship will now scroll properly when there are more than 5 entries.

September 15, 2017

Welcome to the second OrbusVR Closed Beta test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide.

Major New Additions

• All characters have been returned to the training area by Guardian Bart. This is because even if you previously leveled up, while your level will remain the same, the gear you have is now underpowered. So you will need to spend some time grinding monsters to get new loot drops to power up your character with the new loot system.
• The loot system for the game has been completely redesigned. Now loot will drop much more frequently, there are more stats to consider, and it should feel like more of a progressive leveling in power rather than a big jump when you get a new piece.
• Note: In the future unwanted loot pieces will be able to be broken down into shards, which will be a component of the Runesmithing system. We haven't had a chance to implement this yet, so for now you can either choose to destroy unwanted gear/weapons, or save them in your Personal Chest at your House to break down in a future test.
• The combat system has been re-worked to follow a more gradual increasing power curve, rather than the previous system which featured large jumps at early levels but little differentiation at higher levels. Fighting same-level monsters should feel basically the same as before, but you will find that higher level monsters are now much more difficult.
• Warrior: Doubled the amount of hitpoints available in the shield. Increased the damage done by the Wound combo attack. Increased the damage of the Cleave combo attack.
• Musketeer: Reduced the overall healing amount of all abilities, particularly the Renew Orb and Lifewell.
• Musketeer: The turret will now always attack and heal the lowest-health (percentage-wise) enemy that is a valid target.
• Runemage: There is now a cooldown on how frequently a Player can be resurrected using the Resurrection ritual. After you resurrect a player, they will be unable to be resurrected via the Resurrection Ritual for 10 minutes. This is to prevent battle tactics involving having an out-of-combat Runemage constantly resurrecting targets in the middle of fights. Players self-resurrecting at Graveyards do not trigger this cooldown or extend it.
• Runemage: Slightly decreased overall damage of the Fireball spell. Increased the damage bonus when using Ice Lance on a slowed target. Increased the damage of the Affliction spell.
• Ranger: Increased the damage of the Power Shot attack, slightly increased its cooldown. Increased the damage of the Exploding Arrow attack. Increased the damage of the Rain of Fire attack.
• Introduced Player-run Market Stalls. Those who backed the game at the Merchant tier will have the opportunity to test these out during the Beta. In the future non-Merchant backers will be able to lease a stall for in-game currency.
• Added in the new Desert Dungeon, which features around 20-30 minutes of content for a well-geared group, including two new boss fights and a whole host of surprises.
• Reduced baseline out of combat regen for all players.
• Introduced the new Intellect and Strength attributes, which will appear on Rare-level (and above) armor. Intellect increases the damage of your special abilities (e.g. Runemage spells, Ranger poison, Warrior combo moves), while Strength increases the damage of your physical (base) attacks (e.g. Warrior basic strikes, Ranger basic arrows). For Runemages, Strength increases the movement speed of your missiles slightly.
• Added itemization support for capes, rings, wrists, and different weapons for each class. More than 30 new items were added to the game for these slots, although many of them are post-16 drops so you won't see them just yet.
• Added Fellowships to the game, which are special groups of players who choose to forge a more permanent bond. You can create a Fellowship by visiting a Fellowship Registrar in Guild City.
• Note: Currently Fellowship Certificates are not required to create a fellowship. Your Fellowship will gain XP, but it is not possible to upgrade it to a Level 2+ Fellowship yet.
• Added the Fellowship Hall to the game, which can be entered via Guild City. Like a Player House, this is a special instance that you can access only with your other Fellowship members. Note that although it normally requires a Level 2 Fellowship to unlock the Fellowship Hall, at this time all Fellowships have access.
• Your Player Compass can now be used to talk to your Fellowship. Just shake the compass and it will turn green. When that happens talking to the compass will broadcast the message to your Fellowship rather than your Party. Shake to turn it back to normal and speak with your Party members instead.
• Added the Private Messaging feature, which allows you to send PMs to players on your friends list and in your Fellowship. To send a message, just choose their name from your Social menu and press "Send Message." Once sent, you can continue to use the same conversation to send additional messages to the same player.
• Added Potion Aging to the game. Now in the basement of your Player House you will find a Potion Aging rack. Place potions into the chest next to the rack and they will begin to age. Potions age in real-time, even if you are logged out of the game world. When a potion has aged long enough, it will turn into something new. If you leave a potion on too long, it will become an Overaged Potion, and is the same as a Ruined Potion.
• Not all potions are able to be aged. If a potion has no possible aging effect, leaving it on the potion rack will not cause it to be ruined.
• Added our first cinematic cutscene to the game. It will show the first time you log in after creating a new character. In addition, it will show the next time you log in for existing characters that haven't previously seen it. You can skip the cutscene by pressing the Menu button if you wish.
• The Alchemy brew process has been re-worked. Now, when you add an ingredient to the pot, you have a 5-second window to add another ingredient at the same temperature. Alchemy recipes on the Wiki and in the Journal have been updated to better reflect this. Hopefully that should be less confusing overall.
• Added the Teleportation Device which allows you to return to your Player House once every hour. New characters will have this item in their inventory from the beginning. Existing characters can get one by talking to Francis outside of Chef Lethrow's house in Highsteppe.

Major Bug Fixes

• Added a "deadzone" around when you first notch an arrow to your bow to prevent it from spinning around like crazy.
• Adjusted the bow drawback position on Rift setups to be a little better.
• Fixed a group of bugs which could result in "invisible monsters" attacking you.

August 18th , 2017

Welcome to the first OrbusVR Closed Beta test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is now an in-game tutorial to get you started, but the guide contains a wealth of useful information as well.

Major New Additions

• All player levels, inventory, etc. has been wiped to begin the Closed Beta. In addition, all non-established characters (those created during the Open Alpha) have been deleted.
• Added the new Obnobi Desert zone, including 6 new enemy types and a new World Boss, Sanyael. The level cap has also been increased to 16, and Tier 4 gear has been added to the loot tables.
• We've added a number of options that you can now use to customize your locomotion in the game. Check the "Locomotion" tab under your Player Settings menu for more information. In particular, you can now choose to Strafe, choose to use your Head/Controller/Play Space as the forward motion direction, or even use both thumbsticks at once to do a stafe/turn combo.
• We've re-worked the game controls so that you can now generally always use the touchpad/thumbstick on either controller at any time to control your movement. So, no more needing to use the "arrow hand only" when you're a Ranger, for example. The one exception to this rule currently is that you cannot press the trackpad/A button on your wand hand while you are a Runemage, as it interferes with spell casting. We are looking at options to get around this, though.
• As part of the above, you now use the Trigger button, rather than the Trackpad/A button, to cast your lure when you are Fishing.
• Removed the slight pause/delay that occurred before you began moving with trackpad/thumbstick locomotion.
• There are now unique background music pieces for each major zone in the game, and you will hear the music change when you move between zones. In addition, added music to the Character Select screen.
• Major status effects (those lasting more than 1 minute) will now persist between gaming sessions and zone transitions. This means, for example, that if you take an Empowered Strikes potion the effect will remain after you log out and back in or move to a new zone. If you log out, the timer on the effect is "paused."
• In addition, your bandit flag and bounty reward should now persist when you leave a Wilds zone. Use caution because guards will attack you on sight if you are a bandit!
• Added the Friends List feature to the game. You add a new Friend by finding them in-game and using the Nearby Players menu (the same way you invite someone to join a party). Currently your friends list just tells you which of your friends are online, but we will expand that feature in the future to also tell you where they are located in the world and allow you to message them in-game.
• Added lots of new notifications to the game for things like gaining XP, gaining dram, and acquiring items. This should make it much more obvious when you gain a reward from a quest or gather a harvestable item.
• Your aggro radius for monsters for non-combat classes (currently, just Fishing) is now determined by your highest-level combat class. So if you are Fishing in a high level zone and you are only a Level 1 Fisher, you will not instantly aggro things from very far away.
• Guards in town will now attack monsters that get near to them, which should help keep areas such as graveyards and villages clear of monsters for low-level players.
• Added a new "cape" armor type to the player armor. Right now everyone just gets one at the beginning and you can't change it, but we should have itemization for this slot in the next patch.
• Guardian Bart will now give you a map of the area around Highsteppe during your training which you can find in your Player Journal. In addition, your journal now features pages explaining some in-game concepts such as death and durability damage, looting, etc.
• Fixed the skybox so that stars should now appear sooner and stay out later, so there is less of a "blank black sky" that can occur.
• Other player's teleport lines will now only appear when they are in combat.
• The Elongata world boss has been moved to its permanent place in the Patraeyl Rainforest, and has been re-tuned for Level 16.
• Re-worked the Graphics options in the Settings menu. Now there are Low, Medium, High, and Ultra settings. High is the default.
• The Player Settings menu has been re-worked to use tabs instead of the scroll bar. The New Character menu on the Character Select screen will receive the same treatment soon.
• The "swipe down to open the Menu" finger gesture has now been disabled by default. It can be re-enabled in the Settings menu. Instead, we will now by default encourage you to use the Menu button on your controller to open the Player Menu. The swipe gesture is a really fun idea, but it's a little too easy to trigger it by accident.
• When using the Oculus Rift Touch controllers, you can now "point" your finger to select menu items by using the Oculus-standard gesture of holding down the grip button when lifting your finger off of the Trigger button.

Major Bug Fixes

• Re-worked some parts of the Player Menu (such as the font choice) which should eliminate the "glitching letters" bugs.
• Fixed a bug where if you became a Giant and then transitioned between zones, you would be stuck as a giant until re-logging.
• Fixed a bug preventing people from properly being able to attack King Stag enemies.
• Fixed many bugs related to memory leaks, performance issues, etc. on the client.
• Fixed an issue which was causing tooltips to not surround the entire content of their text.
• Fixed a bug where you could get stuck in combat during the tutorial zone if you attacked a dummy and then didn't fully kill it.

July 27, 2017

Welcome to the OrbusVR Open Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the First Time Player's guide. There is now an in-game tutorial to get you started, but the guide contains a wealth of useful information as well.

Major New Additions

• The inventory system has been overhauled. Now you have 200 inventory slots on your inventory screen, but each item has a weight associated with it. If you are carrying too much weight, you will become overencumbered and move very slowly. More details available on the Dev Blog.
• You can now fish off of docks and other non-shore areas. When the bobber reaches your fishing pole's location it will auto-reel in the rest of the way just as if it had hit the shore.
• Broken equipped items will now be highlighted in red on your equipment screen.
• Runemage Reagents are now required for casting Runemage rituals, including portals and resurrections. The reagent is not debited from your inventory until the ritual has been completed, so you won't accidentally lose one by starting the wrong ritual by mistake or messing up a step in the ritual.
• Muting a player will now persist between zone transitions and gaming sessions on the same computer. So if you mute someone, they should stay muted forever now until you unmute them.
• Major performance improvements, especially in hotspot areas such as villages. Changed up some of the settings that are affected by the High/Medium/Low Graphics Settings toggle. In general, you should be able to run the game on High now if you have a higher-end VR computer (e.g. GTX 1070+), Medium if you have a lower-end VR computer (e.g. GTX 970+), and Low if you have a minimum-requirements VR computer (e.g. RX 290+). We will eventually be separating options into individual toggles so you have more control over your graphics settings.
• Added haptic feedback when your hand enters the sheathing area on your back, so you know when you can pull out weapons, when to release loot bags, etc.
• The Player Compass now has a distance filtering feature, so larger landmarks will appear on the compass from farther away, while smaller landmarks will only appear when you are closer. This should alleviate some of the clutter.
• Moved the King Stag spawn for the Tutorial Questline to the North end of Highsteppe, so it's up on the plateau now instead of requiring you to go down the stairs and back around past higher-level creatures to find them.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused you to be unable to continue fishing if you sheathed your fishing pole while the bobber was in the process of casting.
• Fixed a bug which was causing fishing pole lines not to break while reeling in fish.
• If a fishing bobber is in the water and you switch your class (or unequip your fishing pole), it will no longer be stuck.
• Fixed a bug which caused disabling your voice chat in the settings menu not to do anything.
• Fixed a bug which caused voice chat distance to be incorrectly set, meaning people sounded too loud when they were close to you.
• The Red Truffle will no longer appear to be collected unless you're on the correct quest, to help alleviate some confusion.
• Fixed a whole class of bugs related to the Warrior and their inability to reliably hit some creatures, such as the deer and fox. It should work every time now.
• When starting in the PvP Arena, you will now start with a Runemage wand.
• When joining a PvP Arena game, you can now damage players who were in a party with you when you joined the game.
• Fixed a bug where hair style 10 wasn't showing up properly when selected.
• Fixed a bug which allowed you to repair lures.

July 14th, 2017

Welcome to the seventh OrbusVR Closed Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is now an in-game tutorial to get you started, but the guide contains a wealth of useful information as well.

Major New Additions

• Added the new Pet System, with the first pet, a Dragon! To acquire yours, speak with the NPC in Highsteppe near the market stalls.
• Added additional equipment slots for ring left, ring right, wrist, back, and pet. Gear for these slots will be coming out in the coming months.
• Added a stats screen which is visible when adjusting your character's equipment.
• Reworked the settings panel to be larger to contain more settings and information.
• Added volume sliders for each individual type of sound in the game (BGM, SFX, etc.)
• Added hair which can be selected when creating a new character.
• Occlusion culling is now enabled for the overworld, which should hopefully increase performance.
• Other players will now show you their current levels unless you are a bandit or they are a bandit, in which case you will instead see a relative strength indicator like any other enemy.
• Added names which will appear above the heads of important NPCs.
• When you attack a creature in the game, the name of that creature will now appear above its health bar, so you can more easily track down creatures to kill for quests.
• The Player Journal will now list the correct name of the creature (rather than the "internal" short name) for quest objectives.
• Waving to NPCs to begin conversations should now be easier to trigger.
• Added better client-side detection for loss of connection to the server.
• Added better collision detection in certain areas of the world to prevent you from accidentally teleporting into walls.
• Added the Tombstone system and death penalty. Now when you die you will leave behind a tombstone, and you will take a 40% durability hit to all of your equipped gear. Returning to your tombstone within 20 minutes will restore 30% of your durability (for a net loss of only 10%). You can also visit Apprentice Smith NPCs in the major villages and cities to repair all of your equipped gear for a small fee.
• Note: You will not take durability damage if you are below Level 4 (as your max level between all classes), or if you are in a PvP Arena or a PvE instanced dungeon.
• Added ability to have "OR" quest objectives, where you can complete one or the other to finish the quest. In particular, you can now turn in a Ruined Potion to the Witch of Mulbirth to complete the quest chain if you fail to correctly make Tinny's Potion.
• Added a "Show Helm" option to the settings menu, where you can change between showing your hair style or your equipped helm.
• Added coloring to important dialogue options. Blue dialogue options now indicate lore-related dialogue which is optional but important to the story. Be sure to visit each of these options before continuing onward in the dialogue if you want to hear everything. Green options indicate important player choices which will have some effect on later story/gameplay.
• The new Launcher (0.7) has been re-worked to utilize a better CDN for file downloads which should result in faster overall speeds when many people are downloading files at the same time.
• New Characters will no longer begin the game with a Beginner's Wand. Instead, they must complete the first Witch of Mulbirth storyline to acquire their wand. As the Runemage is an advanced class, it's not recommend that you start the game off playing it right off the bat until you are comfortable navigating the game world.
• Added Graphics Quality options on the Settings screen. You can choose between High, Medium, and Low. High is recommended if you have a "Recommended" spec VR computer, while Medium should be appropriate for "Minimum" spec VR computers. Low can be used as a last resort but you will see a significant graphics quality drop. The default setting is "High."
• Re-did the in-game notifications (e.g. "Quest Accepted", etc.) to be lighter-weight and better match the new dialogue boxes.
• Re-did the way that the detection of jump points (e.g. going up/down stairs) works when using the Sliding Trackpad locomotion...should now work much more reliably.
• The aggro radius has been adjusted to linear instead of exponential. What this means practically is that even match monsters will continue to aggro at the same distance as before, while monsters that are much higher than you will not aggro you from nearly as far away.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which could cause the sun to show through the terrain in the early dawn/dusk.
• Upgraded the internal SteamVR SDK to the latest version to hopefully fix SteamVR freezing/stall bugs.
• Fixed a bug where a broken empty bottle could appear at the Alchemy Station in your house.
• Fixed a bug which caused the name not to appear when selecting a character on the login screen.
• Redid the entire proximity voice chat system from the ground-up to fix issues which would cause voice chat to fail in some circumstances.
• Fixed a bug which could cause shadows and fog not to appear when transitioning from inside to outside.
• Fixed the basement of the Chef's house so that it is now walkable.
• Fixed an issue which would cause the shaders on the eyes/mouths of NPCs, and the Player Journal, to go "haywire" when it was cloudy.
• Fixed a bug which could cause you to join the game in the wrong zone (usually the Lucian Wilds), where you then had to do "Return to Graveyard" to see other players and NPCs.

June 30, 2017

Welcome to the sixth OrbusVR Closed Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is now an in-game tutorial to get you started, but the guide contains a wealth of useful information as well.

Major New Additions

• We've added a significant number of quests and new NPCs to the game, including Guardian Bart, the first NPC you will encounter who will walk you through the basics of the game!
• When you create a new character, you will now begin the game in the training area and Bart will guide you through the first level, teaching you how to play the game.
• If you want to test this content for us (please do!), just go to the Training Area above Highsteppe, then equip your Sword and sheathe it, and then talk to Bart to begin.
• All quest progress from previous tests has been reset. If you did a quest before you can re-do it again. Hopefully we shouldn't have to reset quest progress again in the future.
• There's now 7-10 new NPCs with different models (hooray!) in the game, including round 10-15 quests to do, which are suitable for Level 1-4 characters. These quests are "real quests", in that they are part of the real story of the game.
• In particular, the important NPCs of Guardian Bart, Muriel Cenn, Chef Lethrow, Bishop Roma, and the Witch of Mulbirth can now be found and talked to. Each has tasks for you to complete!
• Added the new Player Journal to the game! This handy tool allows you to view your current quests, and also contains "field notes" on various interesting pieces of the world, such as your fishing escapades, Alchemy potions, Runemage spells, etc. To use it, just grab your Player Compass and turn it upside down.
• Added quest entries for all quests which will unlock automatically in your Journal when you accept the quest.
• You can hold your Journal up to key spots in the world to unlock additional information.
• We've overhauled some of the graphical aspects of the game, particularly the lighting, skybox, and water. The day sky now features rays of sunlight and the night sky now features an amazing set of stars!
• There is now a weather system in addition to the day-night cycle in the game world. You may encounter rain, thunderstorms, cloudy, and clear (sunny) days and nights.
• Added "Special Items" to the world which can be picked up and interact with quests. The Knight's Emblem is an example of one of these items in the Forest Secrets quest.
• NPCs now have the ability to "shout" (say something to you pre-emptively) as you get near them.
• There are now different indicators on top of NPCs to indicate their status to you -- exclamation mark if they have a new conversation for you, silver question mark if you are on a quest for them but can't complete it yet, and a golden question mark if you have a quest to turn in to them.
• The Polymorph spell will now only put you in combat if the monster you attack was previously also in combat.
• You can now re-position the dialogue of an NPC by waving at them again even if the dialogue has already started.
• Increased the chances of catching common fish including Sunfish and Green Bellied Bass.
• The Ranger's trap has been re-worked. It now lasts for 20 seconds (down from 30), has a 45 second cooldown (up from 30), will stun the target for a maximum of 20 seconds, and no longer heals the target when trapped.
• Hard CC (including Polymorph and the Ranger's trap) can no longer be used on Elite monsters. Elite monsters are indicated by the blue banner that appears on their relative strength indicator icon.
• The amount of XP that you gain for killing monsters, and the radius at which monsters will aggro you, is now determined by their relative strength to you. If you are killing same-level monsters you will get the same XP as before, while killing Weak or No Challenge monsters will result in somewhat, and greatly, reduced XP (respectively). You receive a bonus to XP for monsters that are higher than Even Match as well.
• There is now a section in the Launcher that allows you to enter comments and send us your Output Log automatically. Please do so if you encounter a bug or a crash!
• Re-did some of the game models, including introducing deer and foxes to the Highsteppe area. Also re-worked the location and levels of the creatures in that zone to be a little more beginner-friendly.
• The Healing Potion recipe has been slightly simplified, and no longer requires any Jocud to craft. The Alchemy wiki page has been updated accordingly.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which could cause the "Continue..." and other dialog option buttons to stop functioning sometimes when you were talking to NPCs.
• Dummies in the tutorial area will no longer attack you.
• When joining the PvP Arena, if you were previously in a party, you will still be able to attack all players once you join the arena.
• Fixed a bug which would cause the text on the Fishing Pole to be backwards if used in the left hand.
• Fixed a bug which caused the thumbstick locomotion to sometimes be unreliable on the Oculus Rift.
• Fixed a bug which could cause you to get stuck when using the sliding locomotion near the shores of lakes.
• When you die as a Bandit in the Wilds, you should now correctly go back to the Jail in the beginning zone when you reawaken.
• Fixed a host of bugs relating to zone transitioning and load-in. You should now not lose inventory/quest progress when switching between zones, you shouldn't load into a zone "outside" of the zone and need to use Return to Graveyard, etc.
• The Black Boar model has been re-done so that it should no longer present issues for Warrior players.

June 15, 2017

Welcome to the fifth OrbusVR Closed Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is not yet a full in-game tutorial, so it's important to review the guide before starting, otherwise you will have a hard time playing the game.

Major New Additions

• The Alchemy Discipline has been added to the game! You can take fish and gathered ingredients such as herbs, and combine them together to create potions! There are currently 5 potions available to craft in the game. For more details, see the Alchemy page.
• Ore mining has been added to the game! Using the Harvester tool, simply strike an ore rock to harvest the ore inside. Ore will be used in a future update for the Runesmithing profession.
• In addition to "kill X monsters", quests can now have objectives to talk to other NPCs or gather items (either as drops from monsters, harvestables, etc.).
• We've added a few more quests and NPCs to the game (although they all still look the same right now). In particular, if you head up to the Training Area above Highsteppe, you can start working through the beginnings of the in-game tutorial quest. There's still a lot of content missing from it, though, so only the truly curious should check it out at this point.
• The enemy healthbars have been redesigned to be more sleek. In addition, now instead of showing the level of an enemy, we show a Relative Strength Indicator. This is part of an ongoing effort to focus more on relative strength of enemies (such as in games like FFXI). In addition, health bars will now only appear on enemies after they have been engaged in combat.
• Player Trading has been added to the game! Just choose a player's name from the Nearby Players list (at the top of your Player Menu) and select the "Trade" option. You can trade any items which aren't Soulbound.
• Items in the game are now classified as "Tradable" or "Soulbound" (the default). You can tell if an item is tradable by hovering over it while pointing at it. If it says "Tradable" than it can be traded, otherwise it is Soulbound.
• Items in your inventory which are stackable can now be stacked. Just select the item, then select an identical item in a different spot, and they will stack together if possible. There's not currently any way to split stacks, however.
• The underlying Default networking type has been re-done utilizing a UDP protocol. This should result in a much better experience for everyone, including players who have some packet loss to our servers.
• Instead of auto-starting conversations, NPCs that have something to say to you (with an exclamation mark above their head) will now talk to you when you wave at them with an empty hand.
• We've re-done the way that NPC conversations are presented to the player. Now instead of a speech bubble we're using our new text rendering engine to present the text.
• Quest status (including what quests you are on, and how far you are toward completing them) will now remain between logouts and zone transitions. That also means that if you complete a quest once you can no longer re-do it multiple times by going back and forth between the zone.
• Many NPC conversations can now be repeated (such as if you decline a quest).
• The drop rate of non-gear items (such as crafting ingredients and lure parts) has been increased.
• The chance to catch fish has been slightly increased; however, it should now be generally faster to catch fish since you should have more parts to make lures as well.
• You can now trade currency in addition to items.

Major Bug Fixes

• Loot for the final boss in the Jungle Dungeon will no longer be stuck to the ceiling.
• Don't allow party invites to interrupt Reawaken dialog boxes.
• You will now get credit for killing a monster on a quest even if you kill it with your first attack.
• The Warrior's shield now appears in the correct position when viewed on other players.
• Hunter's Mark should no longer appear sideways occasionally.
• The Warrior's Hamstring effect will now correctly slow enemy players.
• Crafting items will no longer keep growing continually in size when switched back and forth between your hands.
• King Sweetie Apples will now show up correctly in your inventory.

June 2, 2017

Welcome to the fourth OrbusVR Closed Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is not yet a full in-game tutorial, so it's important to review the guide before starting, otherwise you will have a hard time playing the game.

Major New Additions

• Ranger levels have been reset to Level 1 for all characters. In addition, all inventories have been reset. This is the last inventory reset that we anticipate needing to do during the Alpha.
• The Ranger class has been re-worked, introducing several new arrow abilities and bringing back the Ranger's trap. See the Ranger Play Guide for more information.
• The Fishing class has been greatly enhanced, including the ability to catch multiple different types of fish based on the lure, location, and time of day that you are fishing. Check out the Fishing Play Guide for more information.
• The Jungle zone and a new Jungle Dungeon have been added to the game. The Jungle Dungeon features 3 new bosses with interesting mechanics to fight, and the Jungle zone features seven new enemies.
• The level cap has been raised to 12.
• When you catch fish, they will now go into your inventory as items.
• Fishing lures now have a durability, which decreases each time you cast them. In addition, if your line snaps while trying to catch a fish, your lure will break immediately.
• You now have a chance to get a "nibble notification" if you are fishing in a body of water where fish are available to catch but you are using the wrong lure.
• Added the Ranger Spread Arrow, Darkness Arrow, and Piercing Arrow. Also added the Ranger's Mark ability and the ability to equip different arrows to your equipment.
• The Ranger's trap now causes a hard CC on the enemy it explodes onto, both stunning and immobilizing the enemy for up to 30 seconds. Any damage will break the effect. In addition, the target's health will be restored to full when they are trapped.
• The Warrior's Taunt ability now gives maximum aggro on a target, plus the aggro equivalent of a Provoke combo maneuver. This means it should be effective on targets even at the start of fights.
• Some items in the game (particularly fishing lures) now have durability. When the durability reaches zero, the item will remain equipped but will act as though nothing is equipped in that slot.
• The third tier of equipment has been added to the drop tables for the new zone and dungeon.
• You will now only receive loot for the class that you are actively playing. Loot chances slightly increased to make up for this. In addition, this means that bosses should now generally drop loot that you want.
• Bosses will now always drop a piece of loot as their "guaranteed drop" for a member of the group, as opposed to crafting ingredients.
• When you become a Bandit during World PvP, there is now a timer that will appear for you to see underneath your XP bar that shows how long it will be until your Bandit status expires.
• Bandits now have cash bounties on their heads. All players can see the current bounty for a bandit. The bounty will increase if a bandit kills additional players. If the bandit timer expires, the bounty does as well. Players who kill a bandit split the bounty according to the same aggro percentage formula as a monster kill.
• When Bandits die, they will now respawn near the Jail in the beginner zone, rather than at the graveyard for the current zone they are in.
• Box colliders around monsters have been re-worked to be more standardized.
• Warrior combo effects will now appear at the point where the Warrior's sword hit the target, rather than at the center of the monster. This should make it easier to see the combo effects on large creatures and bosses.
• The Warrior's Sword Rush cooldown will now only trigger if they successfully teleported to the monster.
• The Warrior's "Up" combo is now slightly less sensitive, which should cause it to mis-recognize less often when fighting large creatures.
• The Warrior's shield block detection has been reworked to better function on large creatures and bosses.

Major Bugfixes

• If you place a Musketeer orb on top of an existing orb already loaded into your gun, the already-loaded orb will re-appear as available to use rather than getting "lost".
• The Ranger's super effect should no longer get stuck on their bow if they die while doing their Super.
• Your "coin" should no longer reset between logouts.
• Ranger and Musketeer arrows/bullets will no longer collide with the firing player if the bow/gun is held close to the body.
• Decurse (both the spell and the Musketeer orb) will now function correctly.
• Fixed an issue which could cause you to stop hearing someone else talking until you went far away from them and then came back.
• Fixed a bug where the Dino Boss in the Jungle Dungeon wouldn't reset his barriers when the party wiped.
• Fixed a bug where the poison pools on the ground from the Lizard King boss wouldn't reset when the boss was killed.

May 18, 2017

Major New Additions

• Warrior and Musketeer levels have been reset to Level 1 for all characters. In addition, all inventories have been reset.
• The Warrior and Musketeer classes have been greatly re-worked and expanded, including new orbs, new abilities, and a new Super ability for each class. See the Warrior Play Guide and the Musketeer Play Guide for all the latest information.
• Client-side networking code has been re-written so that all network functions are now off the main application process. This means that if you experience a high latency spike or packet loss, your game will continue to render smoothly. Previously you would see 'glitches' of it showing the SteamVR home screen/lighthouses. Note that if your latency is very high, you still won't have an optimal play experience, as you will see monsters and players jumping around, but at least now it shouldn't cause graphical lag.
• Added an in-game indicator which will appear above your XP bar on the top of your screen if you are experiencing latency greater than 300ms.
• The World Boss, Elongata, should no longer respawn repeatedly after being summoned. Instead, you need to re-summon it each time after you wipe. This also means that if you defeat it, you'll have plenty of time to grab loot without worrying about dying again.
• Reduced the interaction radius of the hand so that you should now be less likely to accidentally grab other items such as your Player Compass by mistake. Increased the interaction radius of the Musketeer orbs to compensate for this.
• The Runemage Pushback spell now also has a short stun, matching the behavior of the new Musketeer Gravity orb.
• The accuracy of drawing Runemage runes now affects how powerful the resulting spell is. There is a difference of approximately 30% between the least accurate and most accurate spell cast. The overall Runemage accuracy detection threshold has been increased to its final level, which is pretty close to where it was at the start of the last test.
• Added a new effect to the Runemage wand which will appear when either a) you fail a spell completely, or b) you succeed in casting a spell with a very high accuracy.
• Monsters will now seek targets that they can attack even if they can't reach their exact spot. What this means is that Monsters will be much less likely to reset just because you are standing next to a tree or a pillar.
• Examined the Rock Golem boss fight in the dungeon and did a lot of work to make sure that the boss will not reset during the fight, and will reset properly after a wipe instead of getting stuck in the room.
• Added an overlay effect which will tint the edges of your vision red if you drop below 50% health, increasing in opacity the lower in health you are.
• Entirely re-worked the way that Warrior sword hit detection works, so it should work much better now in general, and especially for those with higher-latency connections. It should be extremely rare now to "miss" a swing that goes through an enemy.
• Your Personal Chest has been added to your house. To open it, just grab the lid and lift up with your free hand. This will open up a secondary inventory screen where you can add or remove items that you want to store in your chest. Note that at this time, all items must be in your Inventory if you want to equip them for combat.
• Our first crafting experience has been added, Lure Crafting for the Fishing Discipline! This is just a first pass, but you can read more about it on the Fishing play guide.
• If you attempt to pick up a piece of loot and your inventory is full, the loot bag will fall back to the ground and you will receive a notice telling you to clear some space.
• The way that the Warrior taunt ability works has been re-worked; you will now receive the highest aggro + 10% when taunting.
• Placed pillars in the starting area which feature the runes for Fireball, Frostbolt, and Affliction. You can practice your runes by standing near the pillar and tracing the rune using your wand.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed bugs in the dungeon where monsters would wander into walls, then jump out at you later.
• Took out ability of players and monsters to climb up into the farmhouse at Cenn's Farm, which should prevent issues with monsters being unreachable but attacking you.
• Turrets, spells, and other items should no longer become 'stuck' if a player dies or disconnects. This should fix the 'debris field' that was appearing during large group boss fights against the World Boss.
• In particular, Musketeer turrets should now always despawn when their player dies.
• The menu button can now bring up the menu during combat, and pressing it again will dismiss the menu.
• If you kill yourself inside of your Player House, you will no longer become stuck and unable to leave.

May 5, 2017

Welcome to the second OrbusVR Closed Alpha test! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide. There is not yet a full in-game tutorial, so it's important to review the guide before starting, otherwise you will have a hard time playing the game.

Major New Additions

• Runemage levels have been reset to Level 1 for all characters. In addition, all inventories have been reset.
• The Runemage class has been greatly re-worked and expanded, including dozens of new spells, the Runemage Super ability, the Resurrection ritual, additional Portal destinations, and more. See the Runemage Play Guide for all the latest information.
• The "activate spot" on the Player Compass has been widened, so it should now be much easier to make sure that you are talking to your party.
• You can no longer use nav jump points (such as going across bridges or down stairs) from a long distance. Instead you need to be fairly close to trigger them.
• The Resurrection menu will now follow you around if your location changes significantly (such as if you had your headset on the floor when you logged in and you were already dead).
• The XP system has been completely re-worked. Now XP is granted based on your contribution to killing a creature, and player groups receive the largest XP bonuses. Read more about this on the blog post.
• The 300% global XP bonus has been re-instated.
• The Player Menu will now always open in the same place regardless of where your finger is when you swipe downward. In addition, the Menu button on the controller will no longer open the Menu when you are in combat. Finally, swiping downward while the Player Menu is already open will have no effect, which should prevent you from accidentally closing the menu when preforming actions such as deleting items.
• Healers now generate aggro on monsters when they heal a player that the monster was already attacking (or planning to attack). Aggro for healers has been tuned such that they can heal twice as much as the damage output of a DPS class before pulling aggro.
• The attack potency of the Warrior has been increased by approximately 35%.
• The server-side collision system has been reworked to be more performant, which should aid in better detection of fast attacks such as Warriors quickly swinging their swords.
• The Warrior's shield will now regenerate its hitpoints when the Warrior is out of combat.
• The Dungeon Rock Golem Boss's base damage has been re-adjusted to be in-line with the correct tuning. It was previously around 10x too low. In addition, the Boss now has an animation to show when it is in a weakened state, and the length of the weakened state has been increased to 10 seconds. The boss's HP has been increased accordingly. Finally, the Golem Boss's key mechanic will correctly reset if the boss resets, rather than requiring you to return to the graveyard to reset it.
• The groups of enemies in the Dungeon have been re-tuned to account for the new ability of the Runemage to polymorph an enemy.
• Glowing crystals have been added to some parts of the Dungeon so that only the beginning area is truly covered in darkness.
• All boss monsters (currently, the Rock Golem Boss and Crab Boss in the Dungeon) will now always drop at least one piece of loot upon dying. They have also been granted their own loot table with items that can only be gained by killing the bosses.
• Runemages can no longer begin rituals while in combat. In addition, taking any damage while in the process of completing a ritual will cause the ritual to end without success.
• The long-range grab indicator will now be hidden when you are holding an object.
• Fixed a bug which was causing enemies to float in the air when coming down a slope toward you. They should now obey the laws of gravity.
• The Harvesting system has been added to the game, which allows you to equip a Harvester tool (currently a pickaxe) to gather flowers and herbs out in the world. See the Harvesting page for more information.
• Added a "quick slot" system to the game which allows you to equip up to two tools to your toolbelt. The tools are only visible when you have at least one free hand available.
• Inventory items can now stack on top of each other. The herbs and flowers which you can harvest will stack to 100.
• The damage numbers in the game have now been separated, so that your own numbers appear in red, and other's damage numbers appear in yellow. In addition, your critical hits will now have a special visual effect where the number goes up instead of down and grows larger than normal.
• Healing spells in the game can now critically hit for double the healing, just like damage spells.
• The World Boss, Elongata, has been re-tuned. The explosion effect which occurs has been changed to be better reflect the attack, the minion's levels have been increased, and it should now not be possible to attack the boss without receiving damage from a far away place.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the Warrior's sword throwing ability did not work correctly if you were using the Front Facing setup option to turn around.
• Fixed a glitch where when you were fighting the World Boss, Elongata, there was a constant loud noise coming from the boss.
• If you somehow manage to die while inside of your Player Housing, you should now resurrect at the front door.
• Fixed a bug which was causing the left hand to appear all yellow instead of only outlined in yellow when it was highlighted.
• Monsters will no longer turn around in-between charging and performing their red-area attacks.
• The Musketeer's Frost orb now correctly slows monsters.
• Runemage portals should now be more reliable in getting you to your destination.

April 21, 2017

• The PvP Arena is now available for play.
• There are some new hidden easter eggs for you to find in the game world...
• Added additional logging to catch errors in zone transitions.
• Fixed performance of lights in the dungeon.
• The Golem Boss and Crab Boss in the dungeon now have larger radii that they can travel to before resetting to make fighting them make more sense. (server-side patch)

April 20, 2017

Welcome to the first test of the OrbusVR Closed Alpha! We're thrilled to have you back with us in-game. From here on out things are going to move very quickly. If it's your first time here, please be sure to review the Getting Started guide. There is not yet a full in-game tutorial so it's important to review the guide before starting otherwise you will have a hard time playing the game.

If you're coming back after participating in a previous Stress Test, here's what's changed:

Major New Additions

• Re-tuned combat to be more appropriately challenging, especially for solo adventurers at lower levels. Generally speaking, a same-level monster should be a challenge for a solo player but beatable, and solo players should have a hard time taking on 2 on 1 or more. An elite should require 3+ adventurers to defeat. Note that some classes (such as the Ranger and Musketeer) are inherently easier to solo with than others -- in particular the Runemage is very challenging to solo unless you can consistently cast your spells accurately nearly every time.
• Re-did underlying network architecture to be more reliable for spotty Internet connections.
• Added grass to the ground
• Added the Player Compass to the game, including Party Voice chat.
• New icons for the inventory screen that actually match what they're for.
• New launcher which will auto-update your game files to make sure you're always on the newest version of the game.
• Introduced day-night cycle which is now synced to the server, so all players will see the same sky.
• Added first version of Player Housing to the game. You can enter your player house next to where you start the game in Highsteppe. There's nothing to do in your house currently other than enter it and exit it, though.
• The Warrior class has been re-worked. Now your shield can actively block all attacks from enemies and has a separate health pool which will cause to temporarily "break." Blocking attacks also generates aggro.
• Added support for long-range grabbing of items such as loot bags. If you see a white circle in-game, hold your hand toward the item and the circle will widen, then you can use the Grip button to grab the item.
• Added basic support for currency in the game. There's not really a way to get any yet, though.
• Added new Character Creation screen, which allows you to customize the skin tone, eyes, and mouth that are used for your Character in-game.
• Introduced the official Naming Policy for the game.
• In-game health bars will now always face your position, rather than face toward the direction the creature is looking.
• There is now an in-game line which will appear when another player is teleporting to show you where they are going.
• Added the new Guild City to the game world.
• You can now reach M'aat's Keep in the game world by going through the cave near the bridge to the Guild City. The entrance to the cave dungeon has moved to where the Pigmen spawn.
• There is now an indicator in-game which appears next to the player's name to show who is talking. Eventually the player faces will animate to show this as well.
• If you are using the Front-Facing setup, you can now use the thumbstick/touchpad to turn left/right in 45-degree increments without holding down the Grip button.
• If you wipe on the Rock Golem boss in the dungeon, the key mechanic will now reset so that you can attempt it again without needing to reset the whole dungeon.
• The Ranger's damage output is now dependent upon how far back you 'draw' your arrow before firing it. This is to combat the "Rambo firing" approach from previous tests.
• You can now no longer change your Combat Discipline (class) while you are in combat.
• The "Back to Start" menu option has been renamed to "To Graveyard", as it now just kills you and lets you respawn at the closest graveyard.
• The "Bug Help" menu has been moved under the Settings menu and is now called "Bug Fixers".
• The positioning of the "hand" models has been changed so that they better reflect the natural positions of your hand when holding the controller. Instead of starting "palm downward" then are now "palm sideways."
• You can now scroll through the list of nearby players if there are more than 10. Just use the scrollbar to the right of the list by selecting it with your pointer and moving downward.
• Pressing down on the thumbstick or sliding down on the trackpad while Trackpad Locomotion is enabled will now cause you to slide backwards.
• When you are in a party, you can now gain a Chain XP Bonus. The bonus begins at 1.1x and can go as high as 1.5x. You have a limited time between each subsequent monster kill to keep the XP chain going. Your current bonus is shown under your XP Bar when you look up. Only monsters that are one level below you or higher will trigger the bonus.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue preventing you from picking up loot sometimes.
• Fixed LOD issues on housing models in Highsteppe.
• If a monster is unable to path to a player, it will now immediately reset instead of getting stuck running in-place and becoming unattackable.
• Fixed missing death animations for some creatures such as the Sheep and Wolf.
• Runemage rune detection has been loosened so it should now be slightly easier to cast spells successfully.
• It should now be much less likely that you will get stuck in combat after killing monsters that use status effects (e.g. spiders).
• Fixed a bug where the Warrior's sword couldn't hit things even when it was drawn after teleporting around (server-side patch).
• Fixed a bug where some monsters would get stuck and not take further damage. (server-side patch)
• Fixed a bug where if you used the Runemage's portal spell to transfer between zones you would get stuck in-between zones and nothing would sync.
• Fixed a bug causing performance issues client-side.
• Fixed a bug causing over-logging of errors due to the voice chat in the game.
• Fixed a bug causing the Wenderwood trees not to show up properly.