Patch Notes

Below you'll find information on each major Sprint update and minor patches, including what's been added/changed.

June 22, 2018

Version 6.10 Launched Hard Mode Waystation Crypt Raid. This is the same Raid that has been available now for several weeks, but with increased difficulty for those looking for a higher challenge.

• Each of the fights has had its difficulty increased from a raw numbers perspective. Some fights have had additional mechanics (or “twists” to the existing mechanics) added as well for added challenge. Others retain their same mechanics, but the mechanics have been boosted in terms of the number of people affected or how often they occur.

In addition to the increased difficulty of the fights, you can look forward to the following:

• A new set of gear which retains the same base look as the normal mode gear, but with some additional added flourishes to indicate that you’ve taken on a tougher challenge.
• We have decided that the gear which will drop from the Hard Mode Raid will be Level 21.2. The gear which drops from the upcoming Expert Mode Raid will be Level 21.4. So it will be an upgrade over the gear available currently in the Shard Dungeons, which will remain Level 21.0.
• A new Raid Token currency specific to the Hard Mode Raid which can be earned once per boss per week, and used to purchase gear from a new vendor.
• A new Windup Necro Boss and a new cape specific to the Hard Mode Raid.
• Note that the Hard Mode and Normal Mode raids do not share a lockout for purposes of tracking loot or trash kills.

Other:

• Re-worked the way that the AoE telegraphs and the Runesmith proc notifications work internally. You shouldn’t notice a difference but it may hopefully lead to some performance improvements.
• Moved the status icons back to where they were previously above other players and enemy’s heads, but put them above the top-most health bar on the local player’s weapon.
• As noted in another thread, all effects which increase damage done also now increase healing done.
• Added new Hard Mode Raid vendor to the game, which sells Level 21.2 gear and weapons in exchange for Hard Mode tokens.

June 18, 2018

Version 6.06

• There should no longer be a 1-2 second delay between when you slash and when your hit registers if you are not gazing directly at a target.
• When you use your Charge attack, it will also register as a regular hit now so you can use it to start your next combo.
• The hit detection should be back mostly to the level it was before, there is still a difference in how the “Up” hit detection is working, which we’re leaving in for now to get more feedback on it, but we may end up reverting it depending on what people think about it.
• The damage for basic attacks has been re-normalized (and fixed). There was an incompatibility with some of the changes from last night we didn’t notice in testing, so sorry about that.
• We made some adjustments to the charge mechanic. We felt with the current really-fast-charging implementation it wasn’t really getting the desired effect of having you “pause and rest” between attacks. It now takes longer to charge (around 1 second for 3-step combos, 1.2 seconds for 4-step combos), but when you do the charged attack you gain a bonus damage of 3 or 4 full-strength basic attacks, as well as a 30% bonus to the effect of the combo (e.g. damage for wound, threat/healing for Provoke, damage for Cleave). Math-wise this means it’s equivalent damage to either charge once between combos or just ignore the charge mechanic entirely, and then doing multiple charges between combos will continue to have some diminishing returns but can still be useful if you want to give your arm more rest or don’t need maximum DPS/threat.
• The white splats should no longer show up on downward swings.
• We fixed an issue which was causing a frame-rate dependency on the Warrior’s hit detection, so if you were having swings not register that should hopefully fix that problem.
• We fixed the issue of the status effect icons being on top of the Super bar on all classes.
• We rolled back the Musketeer changes, so now the orbs will not be disappearing anymore, but they will disappear from your hand if you are holding them too long again. We’re working on a better long-term fix for that, but we felt like the new patch was a step backwards.

Version 6.05

• The Ranger’s trap has had some quality of life improvements. In particular, now it should deploy much more reliably, including exploding immediately if it contacts an enemy directly (as opposed to just bouncing off of them and then hitting the ground).
• The Warrior has had a new mechanic introduced in the form of the Sword Charge. This mechanic can be activated after doing a combo move by holding your sword at approximately a 90-degree angle to your body for about a second. You will then hear a sound which indicates that the sword is charged, and then the next time you strike an enemy, you will perform the same combo as the last one you did. So essentially you can, for example, do a Wound combo, then charge and strike once to do the same combo again. The amount of time that it takes to charge the sword increases with each subsequent charge without doing a full combo. We’ve attempted to tune it such that you should be able to do 1 or 2 charges for each combo that you do. You can of course do it more than that as well, but in doing so you will be doing less damage than the combo. Still, that might be okay if you are just “lazily” grinding. The intent of the mechanic is to give you the ability to play the Warrior class without needing to do nearly as much repetitive motion over and over again as before.
• The Warrior’s hit detection has also been improved, and now will prioritize targets which you are looking at if there is a group of enemies in front of you. The “direction” detection has also been improved so it should be more accurate and the VFX accompanying it should be more distinct.
• Fixed a bug with the Musketeer which was causing orbs to reset out of the hand/gun after they were loaded but before they were fired.
• Fixed a bug which was sometimes causing enemies to target dead party members as their primary target in some boss fights.
• Fixed a bug which was preventing the Fisher’s gloves from being dyed properly.
• The Shard Dungeon mutations have been rotated.
• A bug that allowed tombstones to always restore durability when recovered has been fixed.

June 1, 2018

Version 6.0

• The Waystation Crypt Raid is a 10-person raid featuring 5 bosses, increasing in difficulty from “pretty easy” to “hard” from a mechanics perspective. These bosses will challenge your group coordination in new and interesting ways that we’ve never done before, and we hope you have a blast working together to overcome them.

• To enter the Raid, head to the Necropolar. If you have never been to the Necropolar before, there is a secret entrance in the Zoological Gardens Redtail Enclosure. Once in the Necropolar, follow the frozen river, staying left at the fork, and the entrance will be a portal on your right.

Raid Parties

• The maximum number of players you can add to a Party has now increased to 10. If your party size increases above 5, you will receive a notice that you have joined a Raid Party. Raid Parties cannot receive loot or XP outside of raid dungeons. In addition to that, all the original dungeons in the game have been modified such that you cannot have more than 5 people in them at any given point.

Raid Lockouts

• Today we’re introducing a new system for saving your progress in the Raid. Whenever you kill a boss, that boss as well as its associated trash pulls will not respawn the next time you enter the raid. The lockout is based on the leader of your party, so if you want to save your progress you’ll have to use the same Party Leader for each attempt.

• Regarding loot, you will be eligible to receive 1 “chance” at a drop from each boss in the raid per week. Non-gear drops including dyes and the Windup toy can be received even if you have already used up your gear drop, however note that the Windup toy only drops on Boss 4 and 5.

• The lockouts for both progress saving and loot will reset at 12:01 AM Server Time (US Central Time) on Tuesday mornings.

Raid Tokens

• In addition to your base chance to get loot from Raid bosses, you will receive one Crypt Token from each boss per week. These tokens can be exchanged at the Raid Shop vendor in Highsteppe to get gear. You can choose to purchase gear for any class, regardless of your current class or the class you were playing when the token was earned. Please pay close attention to what gear you are buying, as there are no refunds.

• When you buy a piece of gear from the vendor, it will roll just like you had gotten a drop from the Raid boss directly.

Tagger Tool

• To aid in your strategies, a new tool has been added to the game which allows the Party Leader to mark symbols above monsters when in a Dungeon or Raid. You can acquire this handy new tool for 1 Dram (practically free) from the Dragon Shop vendor in the Zoological Gardens.

Windup Necro Boss

• New to this patch we are introducing a new Pet called the Windup Necro Boss. This is a cute, fun pet that is a miniature version of the 4th boss from the Raid. Note that this is a very rare drop and it is soulbound.

A Note on Difficulty

• While these fights do end up being fairly mechanically challenging, if your group has been doing T6+ shard dungeons for a while you will outgear them, which may make them a little easier than for freshly-geared 20’s. As such my expectation is that as groups learn the mechanics throughout the day, we’ll see the first clear at some point. (Of course who knows I could be wrong, haha). We will be releasing hard-mode Raids in a few weeks with some added mechanics as well as a more difficult tuning to challenge groups that are geared to the teeth but want to see how much they can overcome.

• So if you’re new to the game or just hit 20, please find a group and check out this content, as it should be very doable (if difficult) for you, and a lot of fun!

• And if you’re already in T10+ Shard Gear, enjoy the new sights, sounds, and mechanics and get some fun new drops, and then get your strategies down for the Hard Mode Raid which is coming soon.

Miscellaneous Other Changes

• Fixed a series of stuck in combat bugs.
• Fixed a bug which was leading to crashes when loading into new zones or dungeons (hopefully).
• Fixed an issue causing large amounts of lag when it was snowing in the Necropolar on Rift headsets.
• The “party in combat resurrection lock” mechanic now applies to the entire dungeon instance, regardless of how far away your party members are.
• Fixed a bug which may have been affecting the Soulkeeper AoE attack.
• Attempting to loot an item will now reset your logout timer.
• Tentacles from Tentacle Elites will no longer count toward Shard mob completion.
• The public character API has been updated to include records of your fastest kill on each boss in the raid, as well as the last 10 bosses you have killed (similar to how it works for Shard Dungeons). We’re also now showing your total number of boss kills for each of the World Bosses.
• Fixed an issue which could sometimes incorrectly kick you from a dungeon because you weren’t in the correct party.

May 29, 2018

Version 5.79

• The mutations for the Shard Dungeons have been updated to “Last Stand” and “Discontent”.
• The Reincarnation Brutal Mutation will no longer resurrect the same target more than once.
• Attempted to fix a bug where Ranger arrows and Musketeer orbs weren’t regenerating. Basically now every 5 second the server will “force” the client to update the available arrows/orbs. This will cause a bit of a graphical “hiccup” right now if you’re paying really close attention where for example the particle effects might move a bit. This is just temporary so we can track down the underlying issue. If you were having this problem before please let us know if this fixes it for you or if you’re still having those orbs/arrows go missing.
• The underlying base chance to get a Dragon Pet with a bonus when breeding has been increased significantly.

May 21, 2018

Version 5.75

• In particular, this patch adds a new Pet Bonus mechanic to the Dragon pet system. The following bonuses are available:

Teleportation Cooldown reduction Auto-loot nearby loot bags (does not apply to loot from Wilds kills, or boss chests including the Trickster’s Chest) Auto-harvest nearby resource nodes

• New dragons bred will have a small chance to receive one of the 3 bonuses. In addition to that you can purchase a new Dragon Bonus Pet Treat from the Dragon Pet vendor which will give your pet a guaranteed bonus chosen randomly for the 3 available.

• We’ve also fixed a bug which was causing some dragons to show up with “Undef” traits. If that has happened to one of your dragons, just place it into the Terrarium for a few moments and it should fix itself.

• Finally, in this build the sounds have been adjusted to change some of the death sound of the creatures to be less realistic, and the volume levels of the new SFX have been better normalized with our existing sound effects.

May 17, 2018

Version 5.72

We are rolling out a few changes to the way the Trickster Chest works this morning based on feedback from the community. Beginning after the server reset in about 10 minutes (and in time for the next spawn of the chest), for 30 minutes (real-time) before and after the chest’s spawn, an area around the chest will become “lawless”, turning everyone nearby into Bandits without Bounties. Your Bandit timer while you are in this area will never decrease below 5 minutes.

Practically speaking this should mean a few things:

   Since everyone near the chest will already be a bandit, there is no incentive not to go ahead and engage in attacks ahead of the chest spawning.
   Since everyone is a bandit, everyone will spawn at the Jail, meaning your strategy will need to revolve around when to best make your move, as opposed to just camping a whole area for a long period of time.
   Since everyone is a bandit with a 5 minute timer, you will have to be able to remain undamaged and not deal out damage for 5 minutes if you want to logout after taking the chest’s contents. (Which could end up being a valid strategy if people are attempting to guard the exits instead of engaging in fights near the chest).

30 minutes after the Chest has spawned, the Bandit flag/timer will stop being re-applied in the area, so if you are still alive you will wait 5 minutes and then your bandit flag will clear as normal.

In addition to this, the loot in the Wilds Chest has been increased and it will now drop 2 sets of items from a potential loot table, which includes the loot that was in there previously plus some Wilds materials, rare dyes, etc.

May 16, 2018

Version 5.71

• The new sounds in the Highsteppe zone should now be working for the enemies.
• Hopefully fixed a bug which was causing some folks to have issues stalling out/crashing intermittently at the game’s initial loading screen.

May 14, 2018

Version 5.7

General Patch Notes

• The Highsteppe zone’s static assets (such as buildings) have been re-worked to better match our new art style.
• Several new quests have been added to the game which take place in the new Necropolar zone. To begin them, you must have completed the quest “Faction Hero,” then speak with Markos.
• While in the Necropolar zone, you will receive a stacking debuff called Deep Chill, which does slowly increasing amounts of damage. Sitting by the fires spread throughout the zone will clear the debuff.
• The Player Chest in your Player House can now be upgraded to unlock two additional tabs for 10,000 and 100,000 dram respectively. To upgrade it, just select tab 6 and 7 and press the Upgrade button.
• The Pack Mule and Finely Aged Concentrated Healing Potions are now both fully working as intended. The Pack Mule potion will increase the base amount of weight you can carry in your inventory for 1 hour (up from 20 minutes).
• We’ve re-worked some of the internal client-side networking in the game to move sending packets off the main thread. This should result in performance improvements and hopefully fix some disconnect and desync bugs as well.
• Invisibility Potions will now break on the wearer if any damage is done or received. This was always how it was intended to work. We may in the future add some counter-play to this potion (such as a potion that allows you to detect invisibility), and if we do that we may change this back, but for now we fixed it to work according to the original intent.

PvP Mechanics

• The Warrior’s Shield Slam now causes a 90% slow on enemy player targets for 2 seconds. In addition, all buffs on the target that have a remaining duration of less than 10 seconds are cleared.
• The Runemage and Musketeer Decurse abilities will now clear 1 friendly buff from enemy player targets. Note that many long-term buffs such as those from potions (e.g. +Strength, Pack Mule, etc.) cannot be decursed.
• The Ranger and Musketeer’s Poison abilities now apply an additional effect onto enemy player targets which reduce their incoming healing by 15%, which can stack up to 5 times. The additional effect lasts as long as the base Poison effect.
• Bandits can no longer initiate trades with other players.
• The new logout system will prevent bandits from logging out for the duration of their remaining bandit timer, or 5 minutes, whichever is shorter.
• The Trickster’s Chest will now spawn in the Wilds on a set schedule. Note that the schedule is based around in-game time.

A note on Player Slow effects

Slow effects on Players in combat reduce the speed at which your Stamina bar regenerates. That means if you have a full Stamina bar and are slowed by 90%, you can still teleport away or sprint using up your existing Stamina. However, if you Slow someone who has just teleported or used up their stamina bar while sprinting, they will be much more vulnerable. This gives a natural defense against slow effects to players who make smart decisions about when to use up their Stamina bar and when to save it to escape.

Pet Mechanics

• We’ve introduced the Happiness rating to Dragon Pets, which you can increase by petting your Dragon once every 5 minutes, or by feeding it a Pet Treat. Happiness will slowly degrade over time whenever you Dragon is equipped.
• At this time, we are delaying the implementation of the Dragon Happiness Bonuses while we consider and re-work those based on the community’s initial feedback. We should have them out the door later this week.
• Dragons have gained a much higher speed, so they should be able to follow their owners more closely.
• Haptic feedback for petting Dragons will now no longer trigger when the Player is in combat.

May 07, 2018

Version 5.69

• Adjusted fishing mechanics to better work with the new way that the red line increases. It should generally feel much easier to catch lower-level fish now.
• The accept button will no longer be pushed off the page for sells over 9999 dram
• Emerald Dye should now have an icon in your inventory
• Various item spelling corrections
• Fishermen should no longer gain experience by “body pulling” while in a party
• The level 20 warrior talent cooldown sound effect should no longer trigger if you do not have a level 20 talent selected

April 27, 2018

Version 5.66

This patch introduces the Ancient One, the new World Boss in the Tradu Mines area. Summoning it requires one of each of the Tradu Fragments which can be gained by completing the Tradu Mines dungeons.

This World Boss is designed to be a bit of a difficult fight mechanics-wise, but the majority of those mechanics should be fairly easy from a “gear check” standpoint, with the exception of the tanking.

The World Boss will drop a total of two new rings and a new cape.

April 23, 2018

Version 5.6

Rare Fish

• The highlight of this new patch is improvements and fleshing out further of the Fishing class. There are 3 new types of fish available in the world, all of which are “rare” fish which don’t follow the usual rules. They will appear in different bodies of water depending on a variety of factors (which the avid fisherman will need to discover if they want to be able to reliably catch them on an ongoing basis).

• Two of these fish are ingredients in new potion recipes which allow you to quickly “mass produce” Concentrated Healing Potions, Luck Potions, and Empowered Strikes Potions.

• Go back and speak with Ernest to start the new quests available to learn about these rare fish, gain new fishing gear (with stats!), and unlock these new potion recipes.

Stats on Fishing Gear

• The new gear from the questline now features Strength, Intellect, and Luck stats. The Strength stat affects how easy it is to catch fish. All fish now have their own Strength stat, and how your Strength measures up against the fish’s determines how much “jerking” the fish will do, which affects how easy it will be to reel it in without snapping your line. You’ll want to acquire some fishing gear with Strength on it before attempting to catch the new rare fish. Intellect increases the likliehood of receiving “nibble” alerts, which will be vital to helping you track down where the rare fish are located. And Luck is now even more beneficial while fishing, affecting not only your chance to catch a fish, but now Luck gives you a chance to catch two fish at once on the same cast!

Gold Rush Cape Reward

• When the new patch goes live, those of you who earned the Gold Rush achievement over the weekend should be able to visit the Backer Rewards vendor in Highsteppe and claim your new cape.

Other Changes

• The fishing pole now has a HUD so you can see your health as well as any active buffs while fishing.
• Fixed issues with the line not breaking while fishing, and tweaked it overall to be a little more difficult to catch strong fish.
• Fixed an issue which was preventing Player Market stalls from properly supporting selling Dragons and Runemsith tilesets; both of these should be working now.
• Fixed a bug which was sometimes causing the Player’s Dragon Terrarium not to appear.
• Fixed an issue which sometimes caused the Pet Dragon to take aggro during some boss fights.
• If you move your position greatly while fishing, your bobber will now reset. You have quite a bit of wiggle room, but if you were previously casting off a dock then moving to your bobber, that will no longer work.

April 16, 2018

Version 5.5

Pet Breeding

• Pet Breeding is a new mechanic to the game which we are introducing today which adds a new “crafting” class to your Player House. You’ll now find that you have a small dragon terrarium in your home, into which you can place two pets in order to produce a new one! The dragons now have a variety of genetic traits, including primary color, secondary color, spot color, size, and type. By breeding different dragons with different attributes in these traits together, you can create your own combinations over time.

• The Pet Breeding system is actually pretty complicated, so you’ll find a new book sitting on the table in your house which goes into the details of how to get started. There’s also a new vendor in Guild City which will sell you a few dragons to get started on your pet breeding adventures.

• As with all things we introduce, this is just the “first pass” at this mechanic, and depending on the level of community interest, we will continue expanding it in the future. Right now we are planning on adding in some additional mechanics around the pet itself apart from breeding, such as the ability to have a “happiness” rating on the pet which can be improved by taking it around the world with you and feeding it treats, so look for that in a future update.

Gear Infusions and Affix Rerolling

• We’ve heard the lamentations of the higher-level players who are getting all this great new gear in the Shard Dungeons, only to find that the secondary stats are worse than what they already had. We want gear progression in the game to be steady, not take two steps backward every time a new tier of content is released. As such beginning today you can sacrifice your old gear at the Infusionist located in Guild City in order to upgrade your newer gear.

• The rules for doing this are simple. You can upgrade armor or weapons. Place the new piece into the top (“Target”) box, and the old piece into the bottom (“Source”) box. When you do so, a calculation will be run to show you what stats will be changed on the target piece. Any secondary stat that the target piece already has, which is lower than the corresponding stat on the source piece, will be upgraded. So for example, if you have a weapon with +100 Strength and +100 Intellect, and another weapon with +110 Strength and +90 Intellect, you can sacrifice the latter to give the former +110 Strength / + 100 Intellect. Note that the source weapon is destroyed as part of this process.

• As for affixes, you can now use Glimmering Shards (received from breaking down Epic-level weapons and armor) to re-reoll the affixes on your Epic weapons and rings. Just select the shard in your inventory, then choose the target, and "apply’ the shard to the target. The affix will be re-rolled immediately. For Legendary weapons, you need an Effervescent Shard, which can be gained by breaking down a Legendary weapon. Both affixes will be re-rolled. Note that you are guaranteed for both Epic and Legendary gear not to receive the same affix you currently had in that “slot” with the re-roll.

Pillar Teleporting

• Beginning today, when you approach a teleport pillar in-game, you will find a Menu listing all of the other teleport pillars which you have previously unlocked. (As a reminder, to unlock a pillar just get close to it at least once). For the cost of a Runemage Reagent, you can choose any other pillar to be instantly teleported to.

• Note that Runemages can still create portals beginning anywhere, whereas to use the new teleport pillar system you must actually go to another pillar first and have unlocked it previously. We have also introduced three additional teleport pillars spread throughout the higher-level zones today as well.

Beta is now Default

• The previous Beta branch is now the Default branch for all users on both Oculus and Steam. This brings our chunk-loading system as well as the new Warrior hit detection to everyone in the game. We think we’ve fixed all the reported Beta-specific bugs, but if you come across anything new today, please let us know.

New Sound Design

• Today marks the beginning of our new sound design in the game, courtesy of our new team member Jesse! As of this morning’s patch the new sound design is implemented in the Highsteppe area, and you’ll find new ambient sounds throughout the region as well as new attack and death sound effects for each monster in that zone. We’d love to hear what you think of that, so please let us know!

New Armor Designs

• We’ve listened to your feedback and re-worked the armor designs for the new Shard Dungeons gear. You’ll find that what was the modeling for the Spiro set is now used as the modeling on the Techno set, and there is a totally new design in place for the Spiro set. We’ve also got an even more epic-looking version of that Spiro design ready to go to use for future content such as Raids.

If you already had that gear, you’ll find the new models are already active after the patch goes live, and all dyes, etc. have been preserved.

Miscellaneous Changes:

• Pets should no longer block spells and arrows, so it should be safe to bring them with you to more places.
• Pet treats can now be purchased from the Pet Shop vendor in Guild City for 50 dram.
• Note that while the original Kickstarter backer dragons are still untradable, the new bred dragons are.
• The Wiki has received a lot of updates by the Dev Team and should have more up to date information on a variety of areas.
• Note that since we have decided to use the shards from breaking down gear for the new affix re-rolling system, we’ve decided that we will not be moving forward with our previous plan to use the shards to “power” Runesmithing Tilesets. We may still in the future introduce a mechanic where those “wear off” over time, but it will not involve the shards.
• Muting people should hopefully be working fully, if it’s not for you please let us know.

April 9, 2018

Version 5.1

• When you fail a timer on a Shard Dungeon, the person who activated the dungeon will now immediately receive a shard for two less shard levels than the current attempt. So it is no longer necessary to actually finish the dungeon to receive the downgraded shard, but you still have to finish (even after the timer is up) if you want loot. Note that the downgraded shard is now two less levels, not three less levels, than the current attempt.
• If you complete a Shard dungeon in less than 15 minutes, you will receive a shard upgraded by two shard levels rather than just one.
• Monsters/bosses in Shard Dungeons will now drop their normal, non-equipment loot (such as dyes, fragments, etc.) while you are running the dungeon.

April 2, 2018

Version 5.03

• Fixed the new Legendary Runemage wand being sideways.
• Fixed an unintended mechanic where you could kite the Mistkeeper boss around a shelf.
• Fixed already-existing Ranger Tradu Mines equipment where the armor was swapped between the Shoulders and Chest. The total armor between them is staying the same but the values will be swapped next time you log in.
• Further tuned the trash requirement for the Shard Dungeons, lowering it a bit across the board.

March 30, 2018

Version 5.0

Patch 5.0 includes the new Shard Dungeons and completes our Sprint Three content.

• Introduced Shard Dungeons, our new high-level content for advanced players. Each time you enter a shard dungeon you’ll take on a scaled-up version of our existing dungeons, where the monsters have increased health and damage. Work your way up the ladder tackling more and more difficult content for better rewards!
• Introduced Mutations, which are special effects which are active while doing Shard Dungeons. There are Major and Minor mutations. As you advance up the ladder of the Shard Dungeon levels, you will find more and more of these activating to increase the challenge of your run.
• Complete the Shard Dungeon in less than 30 minutes to receive an upgraded shard. If you don’t complete it in 30 minutes you are still eligible to receive loot at the end of the dungeon run, so it’s always worth finishing the dungeon if you can!
• Slow effects on monsters now have a diminishing return if the monsters has been slowed for more than 10 seconds continuously while trying to reach a target. The duration of the buff is not affected (to avoid affecting combos and tilesets), but the monster will begin to regain movement speed even though the Slow buff is applied.
• Introduced two new Tiers of Armor to the game, which will drop from Shard Dungeons 1-5 and 6-10 respectively. This is Epic-level Armor with a new look inspired by the Tadu Mines. Armor will scale linearly in the Shard Dungeons from Levels 20.3 through 21.
• Weapons will also scale from 20.3 through 21, however the Epic-level weapons retain their same model.
• Introduced new Legendary weapons to the game. You have a chance to get Legendary weapons beginning at the Level 3 Shard Dungeon. Your chances to get a Legendary weapon increase significantly with each additional shard level.
• Legendary weapons receive two random affixes from the same available pool as Epic weapons (see note below).
• You receive one Guaranteed Roll per day for the Shard Dungeons as a whole. Every time that you are eligible to receive a drop at the end of a shard dungeon, if you haven’t used your Guaranteed Roll yet for the day you will be asked if you want to use it. If you do so you will get a guaranteed drop from the current Shard Level you are doing.

Notes on Shard Dungeon Loot

A few things to note specifically about looting in the new Shard Dungeons:

• You will not receive any loot while running the shard dungeon from enemies directly. Instead, once the dungeon is complete (by killing all the bosses in the dungeon as well as a set amount of other enemies), you will receive a Boss Chest at your current location (note that right now these literally spawn right where you are so you’ll have to move to actually loot it, but we’re working on that.).
• This “initial roll” has the same chance to give you a drop as the combined chance of killing two bosses. Or, put another way it’s double the chance of a normal boss drop.
• In addition to that, a random member of your party will be guaranteed to get a drop from this initial roll if you have a 4+ player party. Everyone’s chance at this guaranteed drop is 100% equal, it does not take into account contribution done during the dungeon run.
• After receiving either an equipment drop or “pity dram” from the initial roll, you can choose to spend your Guaranteed Roll to get another Boss Chest if you desire. Note that if you spawn this second chest before looting the first, the tooltip may not appear outside of the chest – it still has an item inside of it, though.
• With the changes we made to the loot system last week, if you get DC’ed after the boss chest has spawned you can still re-connect and receive the chest. However, you must be connected and inside the dungeon when the last boss/enemy is killed to “complete” the Shard Dungeon in order to get the loot drop, so keep that in mind.
• In addition to the above, the Shard Dungeon “marks” who is in the dungeon currently once at least one boss is killed and 40% of the other enemies are defeated. Only those people in the dungeon at that time are eligible to receive loot at the end of the dungeon. So if you need to replace a member of the party after that point, they can help you finish the dungeon but they will not receive any loot.

March 27, 2018

Version 4.85

• Journal Tabs are now in the game! This is a new feature where you will see a series of buttons available below your Journal which you can press with your finger to jump directly to that section of the book. Sections are available for quest information, alchemy recipes, Runemage spells, etc.
• On the Warrior, the effectiveness of the Blessing of Might has increased from 10% to 15%.
• When using Improved Rush, the cooldown of each charge of Sword Rush has been increased to 16 seconds from 8 seconds. So you can still use two charges back-to-back, but the charges take longer to build back up overall.
• The Musketeer’s Turret should now behave correctly with Total Recall and Empowered Turret active, no longer leading to situations where your Turret wouldn’t regenerate.
• When using Total Recall, the overall cooldown of the turret will no longer be reset when you re-deploy the turret. However, the ability to deploy a totally new turret still won’t appear until your old turret has been destroyed or expires. So basically if you re-deploy your turret several times over 30 seconds, then destroy it, you will now immediately be able to deploy a new one, rather than having to wait.
• Fixed a bug causing monsters to attack Empowered Turrets with the Poison modifier active.

March 26, 2018

Version 4.81

• The Runemage’s Super was mistakenly affected by the change to Ice Lance that was previously made, and has been boosted back to its intended damage. You will see much higher damage numbers from this than before, but again this is the same damage that was actually being done when multiple targets were being attacked by these “single cast ray attacks.”
• Ice Lance bonus combo damage has been buffed a little (about 10%). It’s still doing less damage than it was before when the bug was present, but it should be a little more powerful now.
• The delay between casting Ice Lance and/or the Runmage Super and casting another spell should now be slightly reduced (down to 0.75 seconds from 1 second).
• The effectiveness of the Renew and Poison effect on the Musketeer’s Empowered Turret has been slightly increased (by around 15%).

March 23, 2018

Version 4.79

• The looting system has been re-worked such that loot that is assigned to you (e.g. loot bags and Boss Chests) will now still be visible even after you log out and back in order leave the zone and return. This should hopefully make it easier for people to collect loot if they get disconnected for some reason.
• Changed the way the stacking works on several of the new buffs for the talents. These talent buffs still won’t stack multiple times for the same player, but they can now stack up to 3 times for different players, to help alleviate any restrictions about group composition. This applies to the Warrior’s Bleed effect on Rage, and the Runemage’s Frost and Fire DoT effects from the Tormentor tree.
• In addition, the Runemage’s Affliction DoT can now stack up to 3 times, either from the same or multiple Runemages.
• The Ranger’s Overcharge was re-worked such that the base benefit of the 7% per globe boost is now applied to any special arrows that you are using before the globes are used up by the Overcharge shot.
• In addition to that, the Ranger’s Poison arrow behavior has been standardized such that the number of globes that you have charged up when you originally fire the arrow determines the tick damage, rather than the number of globes that you have charged up when the arrow strikes the target.
• A bug was discovered with the Runemage Ice Lance where it was sometimes striking the same target twice instead of once. This was happening with the base Ice Lance and also when the Ice Lance received its bonus damage when a Slow effect was on the target. This bug has been fixed, so Ice Lance will now only strike a target one time on each cast.
• This puts us in a weird position because on the one hand, this was more damage than was originally intended for Ice Lance, but on the other hand it’s been a bug for so long that it’s pretty much baked into game at this point. Therefore, we have increased the base damage of Ice Lance as well as the bonus damage applied. So you will see larger numbers appearing for the Ice Lance casts, but this was not actually a buff to the real amount of damage that was being done previously.
• The Musketeer’s Empowered Turret will now apply its own Poison effect to the target even if you have also applied Poison.

March 20, 2018

Version 4.78

• Ranger Multishot now just has a chance to give an additional damage boost to your shot. It’s the same damage as before.
• Warrior Bleed and Shield Spike should now work properly.
• Fixed an issue which was causing some “tick” based Status Effects (such as the Warrior Bleed) to not tick for the correct number of times before expiring.
• Fixed an issue with Lifewell not lasting 20% longer when using Improved Lifewell.
• If you shoot an orb (such as Decurse) at an Empowered Musketeer Turret, which doesn’t empower the turret, the old behavior of the turret exploding and amplifying the effect will now occur.
• The Musketeer Turret now has a slightly larger box collider around it to make it easier to hit, since sometimes after you re-deploy it, it is a little off from where it appears.
• Fixed a bug with the Musketeer where if you had Renewed Synergy and Improved Renew, the refreshed Renew wasn’t an Improved Renew.
• Turned off some logging on the client-side voice chat which may have been causing some additional lag.

March 19, 2018

Version 4.75

Talent System

The main highlight of the new patch is the Talent System.

• To select your talents, just go to the new “Talents” tab from the Inventory screen. You can choose your Talents from anywhere (as opposed to needing to go to a particular NPC as we originally planned), and resetting them will require imbibing a Potion of Forgetfulness, which can be purchased from the “Odds and Ends” NPC in Guild City for 500 dram each. There will be no penalty for resetting your talents more often, other than the need to have a potion handy.

New VoIP System

• We’ve completely re-worked our VoIP system from the ground up. It should be much more reliable and higher-quality now. In addition to that there are no longer any limits on the number of party members of fellowship members who can be talking at once.

This change should be pretty much seamless, with a few small exceptions:

• Currently there’s just one Voice volume slider, not a separate slider for Party and Fellowship, so you can’t control those volumes separately.
• Currently there is no “effect” added to the Party of Fellowship chat, other than it not being 3D like the proximity chat is.

Fishing Gear

• There’s now additional fishing quests available from Ernest Trimm, which rewards cosmetic fishing gear which is quite creative and fun to wear.

Musketeer Battle Resurrection

• The Musketeer class can now cast their Lifewell orb at their turret to Resurrect a nearby teammate, even if they are in combat. Note that this still requires a Reagant, and can only be done once every 20 minutes.

Other/Miscellaneous

• If you cast a spell as a Runemage, and then switch to another class, your active spell will be canceled.
• Audio Chat indicators should work much better most of the time with the new VoIP system. There is a bug where sometimes an indicator won’t work at all for a single person though and we are tracking that down.
• The Runemage’s Resurrection ritual now obeys the same rules as the player Reawaken button, and will not work if allies nearby are in combat, even if you yourself are not. This is to prevent players from logging out and back in and then resurrecting teammates in combat.
• Spells should no longer go through enemies.
• Warrior should no longer be able to use Sword Rush to charge to the practice dummies in the Tournament of Mages area or the stalactites in the Cave Dungeon.
• The Indestructible Affix should now work properly for for the ring slot.

March 8, 2018

Version 4.63

• Potentially fixed an issue where the Warrior’s horn wasn’t broadcasting at the correct location after a charge.
• Potentially fixed an issue where Runemage spells were passing through monsters incorrectly.
• Added the Dram Major, Pumpkin Major, Bee Major, Taffey Major, Crimson Accent, and Cobalt Accent dyes to the game.
• Adjusted the dyeable areas on a few different armors based on community feedback, including the Warrior Jungle, Musketeer Desert, and Ranger Proto sets.
• The Crimson dye color is now actually a bright red, as was originally intended.

March 5, 2018

Version 4.60

New Dye System

The highlight of this patch is the new armor dye system, which allows you to change the primary and accent colors of your chest, gloves, shoulders, and helm. As of right now there are 16 Primary and 8 Accent dyes available in-game, and we have plans to continue adding in more colors in the future. The dyes themselves can be found across various activities in the game world, including Alchemy recipes, enemy monster drops, etc. In addition, there is a new NPC in Highsteppe who will sell you some of the base dyes as well as an accent dye for dram.

• The Dye NPC will also sell you Major and Accent Dye Washes, which can be used to remove the dye coloring from an already-dyed piece of gear.

• To use a dye on a gear piece, just select the dye, then select the gear to dye with it, then confirm.

New Warrior Hit Detection – Beta Branch

I’ll posts more details about this in the Beta forum thread, but there is a new Warrior hit detection system which is available to test out if you are running the beta version of the game.

Streamlined Tutorial

We’ve gone back and streamlined the tutorial so that you get out into the world sooner, with the option to go back and learn more later. If are able to create a new character and try that out we welcome your feedback.

New Quests

There are new quests which can be done for Level 16+ characters, seek out Ludwig Sarrow in the town of Fisherman’s Crust, Hulthine Servant in Lucian Plateau, and the Brotherhood to get started on those.

Other than the highlights we’ve also:

• Fixed the Runemage missile collision detection so that it should no longer “go through” objects such as the training dummies in the Tournament of Mages area.
• Main Story Quests will now be designated by “MSQ” in the Journal next to their title.
• The glowing orbs in the Mist Keeper fight will no longer cause you to get stuck in combat.
• You can no longer use your Teleportation Device in the Wilds, even if you are not a bandit.
• Fixed a bug with the Potion Keeper fight where the box wasn’t showing up sometimes.
• Spriggs (and other spawned-in boss minions) should no longer give XP or loot drops.
• Non-weapon items can now show their rarity in their tooltip. So things such as potions, ingredients, dyes, etc will now start showing up with different tooltip title colors.

February 25, 2018

Version 4.52

• Spriggs and the Donkey Cart should finally be fixed to not give XP or loot. If you see this still happening please let me know.
• Bandits will now drop tradable loot if they are killed in a safe zone.
• We’ve added a new Leaderboard to the website for “PvP Arena Wins.” In addition we’ve added a link to the Leaderboards to the main site. Note that we just start tracking this from today forward.
• Fixed a bug which could keep you stuck in combat when attacking the floating orbs in the Mist Keeper fight.
• Added prevention against people using the OpenVR Advanced Settings tool to change their height and/or playspace offset, which was leading to some exploits.

February 16, 2018

Version 4.50

Tradu Mines: 2 More Wings!

• The highlight of this patch is the opening of the last two wings of the Tradu Mines, the Tradu Skywalk and the Tradu Forest. As with the previous wings in the Tradu Mines, each of these dungeons features two new bosses that will challenge your group with new, unique mechanics and should provide ample entertainment for many, many hours.

• Each of these wings also follows the new loot system, meaning there are now a potential of 4 guaranteed drops that each player could get per day if they were to run all the wings fully.

Super Re-Balancing

• The Supers of all the classes have been re-balanced to be more even. This means that for some classes (like the Runemage) the super will be slower than before, while for others (like the Ranger) the super will charge faster. In general we have “squished down” the spectrum of possible super charge times for all classes. Previously, for example, if you got everything “just right” as a Ranger – used your ability arrows and Charged Shot as often as possible,shot from max distance, and never missed – you could charge your Super very quickly. But if any of those things were missed, your Super charged extremely slowly. We’ve kept those same bonuses, but we’ve basically made it so that the “floor” is higher and the “ceiling” is a little lower.

• We’ve also applied the same type of “maximum Super charge per second” scaling to the Runemage and Warrior as we did to the Ranger, which should smooth out the Super charge time much more.

• Runemage: The Super is still dependent on alternating your spells (although the penalty is not as severe), and on not missing spell casts (although, again, the penalty/bonus is not as severe). Casting 1 spell every 1.5 seconds will allow you to generate maximum Super.

• Ranger: Pretty much the same as before, with bonuses granted for not missing and shooting at a distance, but the penalty for close-up shots has been greatly reduced, and the base Super per shot was increased.

• Warrior: As long as you are blocking a hit and making a strike at least once per second, you are generating maximum Super now. Emphasized sword hits over blocks (although both contribute), so Super generation should now happen much more quickly in solo DPS play. Combos add additional Super but are not as vital as they were before.

• Musketeer: Increased the value of the Super per each Orb hit. There is still a bonus for hitting multiple enemies, but the bonus has been reduced so that it’s nice but not vital, so your floor of Super generation (e.g. in Solo play) should be much higher. If you are hitting 5 or more enemies with an Orb, you are generating maximum Super, but again the difference between hitting 1 enemy and 5 enemies is not nearly as large. Finally, the Super is tuned around using an Orb around once every 2.5 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Charged Strikes affix only procing every 11 times rather than 10 as intended.

February 10, 2018

Version 4.15

• Fixed an issue which was causing people to not be able to logout and then log back in when using the Websocket connection type.
• Fixed an issue which was preventing you from using the left/right turn on the Oculus Touch controller without first touching the top of the joystick.
• Fixed a bug which was allowing Runemages to charge their Super by hitting the Musketeer Turret.
• Fixed a bug which allowed you to become a Musketeer, put out your turret, and then change to another class, and the turret to stay in-game.
• Fixed a bug which could sometimes cause the Resurrect menu to go away if you hit the button too quickly after it appeared and members of your party were in-combat.

February 5, 2018

Version 4.12

• Added icons to all the potions in the game
• Added a new panel to the login screen which contains an excerpt of the latest blog post as well as the ability to activate the Websocket connection type (or de-activate it) directly from inside the game. The “-connectws” command-line argument is no longer required.
• The preference of connection type will save between gaming sessions. In addition, this means it should now be possible for Oculus users to activate this connection type if they have been experiencing crashes with the original default type.
• Made some changes to the Websocket connection type so that it is now a direct connection to our server, which should reduce the latency some users were seeing with it. It should now be just as low-latency as the default connection type.
• Added a “bob and splash” effect to the bobber when you get a bite while fishing, which should hopefully make it easier to see when you get a bite when using Windows MR headsets.
• Fixed a bug which was unintentionally allowing the Donkey Cart to drop items and give XP when killed. Since it’s a defenseless mob that doesn’t fight back or put you in combat, it should do neither.
• Fixed a bug which was sometimes incorrectly disconnecting you from a dungeon even when you were in the correct party when entering the dungeon.

February 2, 2018

Version 4.10

• The Tournament of Mages practice area is now available. A mysterious and unknown element has placed a fire-burning brazier near the entrance of a walled-off area. As you approach, you hear a whisper in your mind, “Light the fire, and test your skill. Only the best shall prevail!”
• The practice area is located near the Corner Path, Southwest of the entrance to the Maeo’s Sanctum dungeon, across the bridge. Note that there are three practice areas right now, and they are a shared resource. Each “practice run” takes a maximum of 1 minute to complete, so please take turns if there are others waiting.
• Your personal best record in terms of score is automatically tracked and you will receive a notification when achieving a new best score. We will determine the top scores after a couple of weeks and then hold the actual Tournament. More details on that to come, but for now just see how high of a score you can get!
• Fixed a bug which was causing the Fireball 2 spell to sometimes be recognized as Fireball 1.
• If you leave the party once you enter a Dungeon, you will now be disconnected from that dungeon instance after 10 seconds.
• Added an additional graveyard near Guild City.
• Fixed reflection issues with some assets in the Tradu Mines.
• Changed the terrain the Arena to be more in line with the new art style.

January 29, 2018

Version 4.0: Content Patch One

• The Tradu Crypt and Tradu Lab dungeon wings of the Tradu Mines are now available to play. To enter the Mines, follow the path in the Lamavora Frontier near the waterfall. Each wing features 2 new bosses with additional challenging mechanics that should test even the most seasoned adventuring groups.
• Tier 5 Epic Loot has been added to the game, featuring the "Proto" series of armor as well as a new weapon for each class. This gear is "Level 20.25", so it's slightly better stat-wise than what's been previously available in the game, in addition to its new styling. This loot is only dropped by the bosses in the new Tradu Mines dungeon wings.
• A new loot system has been implemented for dungeon boss encounters in the end-game dungeon. Once per day you are eligible to receive a guaranteed drop from each wing of the dungeon. That means if a group of 5 runs the same wing two and a half times (and kills 5 bosses total), everyone in that group is guaranteed to get a drop. Your guaranteed drop resets every day at 12 AM Server Time.
• Note that you still retain the base drop chance on each boss kill to get an equipment drop, in addition to your guaranteed drop. A new page has been added to the Player Journal which tracks which wings you have already received your guaranteed drop for the day in.
• A new loot system has been implemented for the World Bosses. World Bosses will no longer drop regular equipment, instead only dropping their specific ring and cape. The drop chance of these items has been greatly increased. In addition, now as long as you cross a certain threshold of effort when killing the boss (which should be easily attainable), you always have the same chance to get a drop, so bringing extra people to the World Boss raid is no longer a hindrance loot-wise.
• Aberrations in the Wilds will continue to drop Epic Tier 4 Level 20 gear, and the chance of them dropping that gear has been greatly increased.
• When killing a Boss (either a dungeon boss or a World Boss), now when the boss dies a Boss Loot Chest will appear, rather than a regular Loot Bag drop. Open this chest to receive your reward. Bosses will now drop dram for those who don't receive an equipment drop from them.
• The duration and effect of all Slow effects in the game have been standardized. Runemages will now slow by 25%, 35%, and 50% (for Frostbolt Level 1, 2 and 3). Musketeer's Frost Orb now slows by 35%. The Warrior's Hamstring attack remains a 50% Slow. In addition, Slowing effects are now multiplicative, not additive. So a creature slowed by a Frostbolt Level 3 and a Hamstring will be slowed by a total of 75%, not 100%.
• The duration of the Slow effect from Frostbolt Level 2 and 3 has been slightly reduced.
• When you are in a Dungeon, you can no longer release to the graveyard if your fellow party members are still in combat. Instead, you will be prompted to wait until combat has ended before you can Reawaken.
• Long line-based AoE attacks (such as those from the Aberrations in the wilds) have now been correctly fixed. You will now only take damage if you are inside the box, and you will always take damage if you are inside the box.
• Made a change to the Warrior hit detection such that it is now possible to hit enemies even if you are inside of their box colliders. It's still a little difficult to pull off an "Upwards" swing in that situation though, and we're continuing to work on that.
• Tradu Lab Fragment and Tradu Crypt Fragment items have been added to the game, and drop off the Mist Keeper and Soul Keeper (the last bosses) in their respective dungeon wings. These are the tokens you will need to collect to summon the World Boss in the Tradu Mines once it's available to play. You will need tokens from all four wings to summon the boss.

January 8, 2018

Version 3.50

• Lore Books have been added to the world. These are books which are located in various locations throughout the game. Like the Player Journal, they can be picked up and read. When you're done reading them, just grab it by the spine and give it a little toss, it will go back to its original position. You can return and read these later if you wish. Some of these contain information that was put in your Journal during quests. We will be removing those Journal pages in a future update since it wasn't intended to stay in your Journal long-term.
• Fixed an issue with the underlying voice chat system which could cause errors which would cause hiccups when invalid packets were delivered.
• Fixed the spawners for herbs in various zones which were leading to an unintended level of scarcity of those items, particularly Weeping Krodo and Sydazoran.
• Changed the PvP Bandit system. Now, there is a five minute "Bandit with No Bounty" penalty that will be applied for the following actions:
  • Attacking a player in the Wilds who is not a bandit, but the player surviving the attack
  • Picking up tradable loot on the ground which was not originally dropped by you. Note that Player Loot (as opposed to Monster-dropped loot) now appears as a Backpack in-game rather than a Loot Bag.
  • If someone in your party becomes a Bandit, then you will become a Bandit with No Bounty automatically as well.
  • If you kill another player then you will become a Bandit with a bounty, just like previously.
  • Any loot that you drop while a bandit (either with out without a bounty) is free-for-all loot.
• Being a "Bandit with No Bounty" is the same as being a bandit for most purposes. Any player can still attack you, even if that player has their PvP Safety enabled, without becoming a bandit themselves. You cannot be aided unless you are in a party with another player who is also a Bandit. However, the key difference (other than the fact that Players will not receive a bounty for killing you) is that NPC Guards will not attack you, and your name will not be Orange when your bandit status is cleared.
• You can now walk through Harvestable nodes in the game world.
• Status Effects were previously allowing one more max stack of each effect than intended (if the maximum stack was greater than one). This has been corrected. In addition, when the max stacks of a Status Effect were reached, all instances of that effect were being removed. This has also been fixed.
• Fixed an issue which was still causing some Status Effects (such as Bleed from the weapon affix and the Poison status effect for the Musketeer and Ranger) to tick for one less tick than intended in some cases.
• Changed the way that the Lifesteal affix works. Now rather than being a very small amount of healing on each attack, instead there is a small percent chance for the affix to proc and return 100% of the damage done by an attack. The overall healing provided by the affix has overall been increased by this change.
• Fixed several issues regarding Aberration mobs and aggro, including an issue where if you aggroed the Aberration then caused it to retreat, it would no longer bring its minions with it when subsequently aggroed. The aggro range was also incorrect.
• The first Market Stall Auction is now available for everyone who wants to bid on a stall. Please see the following forum post for more information: https://community.orbusvr.com/t/market-stall-auction-for-january-leases/5577

January 1, 2018

Version 3.40

• Fixes for some crash-related issues
• Based on your feedback and our own internal metrics, there’s more grinding that’s required than we were targeting especially if you are a mostly-solo player. As of this patch the amount of XP gained from monster kills has been boosted by approximately 30%.
• Stacking the Lifewell orb, where you have 2 or 3 of them going at once under the same target, seems to be breaking a lot of the difficulty of some mechanics, e.g. making it to where the tank doesn’t even have to worry about dodging attacks. This isn’t an issue in small group or dungeon play where you are typically only bringing one healer, but in large group fights it’s leading to unintended strategies. As of this patch, we are modifying the way that the Lifewell orb works (more on this below).
• The health bar on other players has been moved up a little to hopefully cause it not to be blocked by players wearing some helms.
• Fixed a bug where when you exited the Jungle house you always ended up below ground.
• Fixed a bug which was causing the Autorun to trigger only when grabbing an object, rather than only when not grabbing an object, as it should be.
• Fixed a bug which could allow you to Shield Bash friendly targets such as guards.
• House keys now have a weight of 0, so just keep them in your inventory all the time :slight_smile:
• When spawning in, you now have a period of approximately 10 seconds where you will not aggro any monsters to give yourself time to load in.
• The numbers appearing above another player’s ghost to tell you how long they must wait to be resurrected should now properly show in minutes rather than seconds.
• Fixed a bug which was causing some Status Effects to “tick” for one less total number than intended.

Lifewell Orb Changes

The Lifewell Orb is intended to serve as a small heal over time that can be used after incoming group damage to heal up a whole party or group, or provide some healing over time for the tank to counteract ongoing damage. However, by stacking 2 or 3 (or more) of these on top of each other, players were able to become nearly invincible in a lot of situations, which was unintended.

Now, when you are standing on at least one Lifewell, you will receive a short-term buff similar to the Renew orb which grants you healing over time. The buff is automatically refreshed every few seconds as long as you are standing on a Lifewell. However, like the Renew buff, it cannot stack multiple times, and as such standing on top of more than one Lifewell has no additional benefit.

This also provides two additional advantages:

• You can now easily tell if you are correctly standing on the Lifewell, as you will see the buff appear.
• You can actually move through the Lifewell and receive healing for a short duration even after you leave its location, which can be useful in fights where there is a lot of movement or for example if you were standing on a well that you need to leave due to e.g. a danger zone appearing there.

Note that the total amount of healing you receive if you stand on a Lifewell from the beginning until it expires is unchanged.

December 27, 2017

Version 3.35

• New implementation for playing video cutscenes which should hopefully resolve the crash issues some users were experiencing, as well as provide better performance.
• Enables Static Batching for increased performance in some areas.
• Fixes the auto-run so that it will not trigger when you press the Grip button while grabbing other objects such as your Pickaxe or Compass while moving.
• Adds the ability to grant surnames to Level 20 Characters.
• Fixes a bug where blocking attacks of neutral NPCs (such as the Pilgrim) with your shield would cause them to aggro you.
• Updated graphics in various places of the world including the walls around Guild City, as well as additional decorations and “static” NPCs throughout the world.
• Fixed an issue where players on the SteamVR version of the game were no longer sending data to the server when their SteamVR overlay was active. This was probably leading to all kinds of weird behavior including getting disconnected or even crashing.
• Fixed numerous reported crash-causing bugs and exceptions.
• Added an additional locomotion option under the Turning options called “Strafe + Snap.” This is the same as the “Strafe + Turn” option but uses 45-degree snap turning instead of smooth turning.
• Made the Ranger trap lighter weight so it’s easier to throw. Also increased the size of the collider for detecting if an enemy walks over it by approximately 50%. Finally, the trap’s cooldown will no longer trigger if the trap is thrown and doesn’t land on the ground. So now if for example you throw it on top of an enemy and it gets stuck there, you can try throwing it again a couple of seconds later.
• The Character Login screen, when logging into your account the first time, should now correctly support all characters that are available on our keyboard. In addition, when you press “Enter” after entering your password it will show as asterisks like a standard website form.
• The aggro ranger of low-level characters in the Wilds has been reduced to make up for the fact that the Wilds elites have a much larger-than-usual aggro range in general. In addition, we’ve moved the spawn points of the Wilds groups so they are less-close to the graveyard and zone entrance.
• Increased the spawn rate of the Redtails at Cenn’s Farm – there are still a lot of new people joining who are getting stuck there waiting.
• Re-did grass in the Jungle so the main road is more obvious.

December 22, 2017

Version 3.30

• Re-worked the way that the Ranger bow's rotation works such that it should now no longer "go crazy" on Rift setups when holding your wrist straight. The actual aiming of the bow remains unchanged, but it should just no longer rotate in crazy ways when drawing it back.
• Players who have been a bandit in the last 24 hours (real-time) will now have their name presented in Orange rather than white.
• In the Cave Dungeon, the stalactites will now respawn every 30 seconds to help prevent a situation where there are no stalactites left to fight the boss with.
• Vendors will now auto-close when you are walking away from them.
• Fixed a bug where the game would begin to lag when walking far away from a Market Stall vendor with the window still open.
• The next time you login, any achievements that you previously earned but were not yet recorded on Steam/Oculus (e.g. because they were earned during the Head Start period) will now be credited.
• Adjusted the spell pages for the Frostbolt Level 1, Ice Lance, and Arcane Ray spells to better match what you need to do to cast them. The actual spell detection of these spells has not changed.
• Fixed a bug which could cause players to be incorrectly labeled with the wrong name and appearance sometimes.
• If you die before an enemy dies (such as a boss), you will now always have the same chance of getting loot as everyone else in your party, even if you don't make it back to attack the boss before it is killed.
• When you receive XP for killing a monster, if your current combat class level is less than that of your highest combat class, you will now receive a 33% bonus to the XP to adjust for the fact that there are not many quests to do while leveling your secondary classes.
• Fixed a bug which was assigning stats such as Armor to capes from World Boss drops. We have also adjusted all existing inventory to remove these stats from existing capes.
• The radius of the Warrior's taunt horn-blast ability has been extended by approximately 30%.
• Fixed a bug which was preventing shards from being acquired from breaking down all items. Now every time you break down a piece of equipment (except Fishing Lures) you should receive a shard.
• Warrior shields now have 0 weight in your inventory.

December 20, 2017

Version 3.20

• We've added sound effects to the UI when opening menus, swapping gear, and selecting options.
• There are now long-range grab indicators on the chests in your Player House. You can use them to grab and open the chest from farther away, which allows you to open the chest while standing up and keeps your inventory menu from clipping inside of the chest.
• The in-game keyboard has been re-worked such that there are more special characters available, and they are accessible by pressing the Shift key along the number row (just like a normal keyboard).
• Re-worked the Zoological Gardens in the Rainforest area with new graphical assets to make it look more like a zoo and less like a torture area for captured animals.
• Fixed invisible colliders causing spells/arrows to randomly explode in odd places in the Desert
• Re-worked the voice chat range of Other Players such that a) you shouldn't hear other players talking loudly from really far away, and b) you should now be able to better tell from what direction someone is speaking.
• Lowered the spawn rate of Queen's Ear in Highsteppe back down to normal levels.
• The Apprentice Smith vendors have adjusted the prices they are willing to pay for some items. The price of a gatherable ingredient (such as herbs and ore) will now be based on its rarity. Common and uncommon items now sell for much less than they did previously. The price of Minor and Major shards has been increased to help make up for this reduced income stream.
• Fixed a bug where the last spot in the Market Stall wasn't showing its price correctly to the stall owner.
• Fixed a bug where you would sometimes have to press a key twice to get it to register after pressing the Shift key on the keyboard.

December 18, 2017

Version 3.15

• When you see other players teleport and/or slide, you will now see a smoother transition from where they were to where they went. With sliding, it still looks like short bursts of teleporting rather than a totally smooth slide, but it should be much less jarring.
• The game client will now better detect when you are DC’ed from the server and show you an error message.
• Added a change that causes your locomotion to freeze for a very short period of time after you have a “hard transition” between two points (such as entering/exiting your Player House, or a dungeon). This should not really be noticeable, but it might help solve a bug for some people who were still getting stuck below-ground after leaving their house.

December 16, 2017

Version 3.10

• Fixed bugs relating to ending up underground when transitioning between instances such as the Cave Dungeon
• Fixed a series of bugs in the Cave Dungeon including the terrain not appearing correctly on lower graphics settings (causing enemies to appear to be in the ground), and the boss crashing the instance when doing some special attack abilities. In addition, the stalagmites should now respawn correctly if you wipe on the boss encounter.
• Fixed a series of bugs relating to Market Stalls and multiple shards. Now even if you are on different shards you should see the correct inventory for the stall.
• Removed the guard from the area new Narrow Orchard who kept killing sprites that were needed for quests.
• Fixed the placement of some monsters in the Frosted Spit so they don’t end up in the graveyard.
• Fixed the way that monsters call for allies. Now this will only happen if you are in a party and your party members are nearby.
• Added a vendor in Guild City which sells Fellowship Certificates and House Deeds for dram.
• Slightly decreased monster speed to make up for the fact that they now pathfind much faster and don’t pause as frequently. The idea is that you should be able to outrun a monster if you get a head start on it, but that if a monster is already on top of you, you can’t just kite around it in a circle.
• Re-worked some of the implementations of the lower-level spells including Frostbolt Level 1 and Fireball Level 1 to be more generous in their recognition of the spell cast.

December 15, 2017

Welcome to the start of Early Access on OrbusVR! If it's your first time joining us, a very warm greeting to you. And if you've been with us for a while now, we're glad to see you again!

Major Additions

• The old Launcher method of playing the game will no longer work! Instead, you must have the game on either the Steam or Oculus Store and launch it from there. The first time you log in, you will enter your OrbusVR email and password to link your accounts together. This will transfer over all previously played characters and other account settings as well.
• Added a new options to the Settings menu under the Graphics tab to Enable/Disable the cutscene movies that play during the questing. Some people were having crash issues with these movies, so if that happens to you just disable it and then you can continue.
• Monsters will now dynamically call for help correctly when players are in a large group. When they do so, the other monster will rush to the rescue of its partner. In addition, they will give preference to calling for help from the close by monsters, rather than any random monster nearby.
• Updated the monster pathfinding system so that the monsters should no longer "stutter step" when you are kiting them, which should make it a little easier for them to catch up to you.
• Changed the way that Vitality scales across classes. Previously Vitality gave a set number of hitpoints regardless of class. This didn’t really fit in with how we want it to work because it meant that, for example, one extra point of Vitality was much less valuable to a Warrior than a Runemage. Now Vitality points scale according to class type, so a Warrior gets more out of a single point than a Mage does.
• When blocking an attack, the Warrior now generates much greater aggro than previously. This change is meant to coincide with the flavor of the class which is that we want everything attacking you and you soaking damage, not relying on dealing lots of damage to hold aggro. We’ll keep playing with this as well.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which wasn’t properly scaling up the armor of drops depending on class type. For example, plate armor for Warriors should have more armor on it than cloth armor for Mages. This will take effect in future drops, but generally speaking you should see much higher values of armor on drops for Ranger, Warrior, and Musketeer.
• Made a few changes to the new way that the Warrior hit detection determines if you were blocking your own attack, should be a little more generous toward the Warrior now.
• Fixed a series of bugs which could lead to lots of graphical lag when in highly-populated areas such as Highsteppe with lots of other players around.
• Fixed a bug which could cause spell effects to start overlapping when casting multiple Runemage missiles in a row.
• Fixed a series of crash bugs caused by an internal shader issue.

December 12, 2017

Welcome to the OrbusVR Early Access Head Start! If it's your first time joining us, a very warm greeting to you. And if you've been with us for a while now, we're glad to see you again!

Major Additions

• A lot of static props and NPCs have been added to various locations in the world to help make it feel more alive. We'll continue this trend in the future as well!
• Re-did the Resort area environmental assets
• Many new icons added to the game so there are fewer "Missing Icons" floating around.
• You are now limited to creating two characters per account.
• The Highsteppe House key has been added to the default inventory. If you choose a different house (using a House Deed), you will give up this key in exchange for your new house key.
• The Stuck Combat button is still in-game for now to help you if you encounter a bug where you are stuck in combat when you shouldn't be. However, you can now only use it once every 10 minutes. In addition, we've re-worked the way the button functions such that if you use it when you are stuck in combat legitimately it should keep working fine, but if you use it while trying to "cheese" content (e.g. while in the middle of a fight) the monster will put you right back in-combat if you continue attacking.
• The Beginner's Rod (fishing pole) has been removed from the default inventory. To get it, just talk to the Master Fisher at the Fisherman's Hut down the road from Highsteppe.
• The NPCs in the game now have simple voice prompts that will play while speaking with them and reading their dialogue.
• In addition to the opening cinematic, there are now a total of 6 cinematics in the game which you will view while completing the Main Story quest.
• Changed the XP bar along the top HUD to be purple to better differentiate it from a health bar.
• The Runemage's super ability will now only charge when the spell that you cast strikes a valid enemy target.
• The Alpha/Beta XP bonus for killing monsters has been removed. Monster kills will now grant approximately 50% as much XP as they did previously.
• Equipment drops are now more likely to drop when killing Elite enemies, and much more likely to drop when killing Boss enemies, to make up for the fact that multiple players are involved in those kills. In addition Bosses are now more likely to drop Epic gear.
• The participants of a Private Message conversation should now appear correctly in your PM inbox.
• If you delete a PM, and the person who sent that PM sends a new message in that thread, it will now be re-added to your PM inbox. So you can treat the PM delete button as a "hide unless they reply again" button from now on.
• The cooldown time of the Teleportation Device has been increased to 25 minutes.
• We have begun the process of implementing the ability to teleport between Teleport Pillars in the game. For now, you can begin "unlocking" Teleport Pillars by getting near them (they will show a yellow VFX when they unlock). Then when the system is fully implemented you won't have to go unlock them again.
• All zones now have a soft-cap and a hard-cap limit to how many players can be in them at once. If a zone reaches its soft-cap, we will spin up another shard of that zone. However, if you are a player in a party and one of your party members is in the zone that is at its soft-limit, we will allow you to join that zone. If the zone reaches its hard-cap limit, no new players can join the zone.
• In addition to the above, we will now always prioritize placing you in a shard with your fellow party members. Note that this takes effect the next time you enter a zone after joining a party. So for example if you are all in Highsteppe and there are two different Highsteppe shards, join a party together (assuming you are Friends, since Friends can invite each other to parties from anywhere), and then just re-enter the zone (for example, by entering and exiting your Player House) and you should be in the same shard together from then on, assuming the zone still has room underneath its hard cap. Hopefully the way we've designed this sytem, once you are in a party the vast majority of the time you should just never have to think about the sharding system because you will always be with your party on the same shard.

Major Bugfixes

• When entering text, there should no longer be a random space inserted after what you were typing before, before the number you were typing, etc.
• Whether or not your weapons (such as your shield) are equipped or "stowed" should now always be correctly synced between yourself and the server. So no more invisible shield doing Shield Slam stuns or blocking attacks. This should also fix bugs where other players would not see your weapons out when you had them out.
• The Musketeer's orbs (and other things such as Runemage spells which rely on hitting the ground) should now function in all indoor locations (including Roma Interior, etc.)
• Re-did the way that equipment changes work in relation to health. Now if you change classes, if the new class's level is significantly higher than your current class, you will need to wait for your health to regen up to the new maximum amount, rather than it instantly being full. You will however instantly gain full health when transitioning between zones or leveling up (or when logging into the game).
• Fixed a series of bugs related to potions all giving you maximum health rather than a set amount that varied for each potion.
• The Ranger's trap cooldown will no longer reset when you attempt to grab the area where the trap should be when it is on cooldown.
• The Warrior's shield should no longer regenerate its health instantly while out of combat. Instead, it will regenerate over time, like the main Player Health bar.
• Fixed a series of bugs with the Warrior's shield and detection of blocking attacks. Now the same logic is used to detect if an attack is blocked by the shield both from the "monster attacking player" perspective and the "player attacking monster" perspective. The previous behavior of deciding if a monster's attack is blocked is unchanged, but now it should not be possible for Warriors to hold their shield in one spot and block monster attacks while still attacking the monster and not having their attacks blocked.
• Fixed a bug where you could add the same player to your Friends list multiple times.
• Fixed a bug which prevented Level 20 players from contributing towards their fellowship's XP.
• Many bugfixes around picking up quest items not working.
• Fixed bugs around some NPCs not showing the correct dialogue indicators in-game.
• Bugfixes around some things not having the correct weight.
• Fixed the position of Bishop Roma in Highsteppe.
• Fixed a bug where if the Musketeer died with their super active, it would stay active forever.
• Fixed a bug causing 100% Drop Rate quest items to not always drop correctly while in a group.
• Fixed graphical bugs with the trees in the Jungle zone being transparent.
• Your ring will no longer appear when your hand is hidden (e.g. when you grab something off of your toolbelt).
• Fixed a bug where the stalactites in the Cave Dungeon were flipped incorrectly.
• If you select a Mouth type other than 1 when you create your character, it will no longer lose that information and revert back to the the first mouth type.

December 6, 2017

Major Additions

• Rings have been added to the game with stats. Currently there are 3 Rare rings that can be acquired simply by killing level 12-19 creatures. There are two Epic rings as well which can be acquired by taking on Elongata and Sanyael and defeating them. Note that unlike other equipment, rings feature pre-set tertiary stats (such as Wisdom, Luck, Crit, etc.) Epic-level rings are eligible to have a random affix as well.
• Implemented the Wisdom stat, which increases the rate at which your Super ability recharges.
• Increased the base luck of all players from 0 to 50. You're now a little more lucky!
• Adjusted the scaling of the Vitality stat a little -- it was resulting in too many hitpoints being given especially at Level 20.
• Slight re-tune of the Ranger class. The base damage of a regular arrow has been reduced by 10%. In exchange, the base damage of the Poison arrow, Charged Shot, and Explosive arrow has been increased by 10%, and the bonus damage of each precision globe has been increased from 5% per globe to 7% per globe -- meaning the max bonus for precision globes is now 35%, up from 25%. This is an overall buff to the damage output of the class, but also shifts more of the damage to needing to fill up precision globes and rely on ability arrows instead of just using basic arrow shots.
• The Journal Pages for the following Runemage spells have been adjusted to better reflect how they should be drawn: Fireworks, Arcane Ray, Arcane Missile, Frostbolt Level 1, Fireball Level 2, Affliction Level 2, and Pushback.
• The spell recognition for the following Runemage spells has been tweaked to offer better results: Affliction Level 2, Fireball Level 2.
• The Arcane Explosion spell has been removed from the game. It was too similar to the Arcane Missile spell both in form and function, so it was deemed redundant.
• The Reporting system has been added to the game. Now you will find that you can Report nearby players if they are doing something which violates our Code of Conduct, such as harassing other players. These reports go directly to the Dev Team.
• Added the "Personal Bubble" mechanic to the game. Pressing both of the Menu buttons on the controller at the same time will now trigger your Personal Bubble, which automatically Mutes all players in the game temporarily. You can press both of the buttons at the same time again to turn it off, otherwise it will expire after 5 minutes. This is meant to serve as an easy shortcut you can use to get out of a situation if you are feeling uncomfortable while playing the game.
• Changed the new Group Finder so that now if you have an active listing, the "Add Listing" button changes to "Remove Listing", to allow you to preemptively remove your listing if you don't want it to show anymore (e.g. because your group is full).

Major Bugfixes

• The NPCs in the game have finally learned how to spawn in facing the correct direction, so you should see things such as the Market Stalls actually looking correctly placed now, NPCs not all just facing one direction, etc.
• Adjusted the voice chat distance for other players. The maximum distance at which you can hear someone has stayed the same, but the voice volume should now fall off more slowly so the net effect is that you should be able to hear people from a little farther away.

December 5, 2017

Major Additions

• Housing Deeds have now been implemented into the game. If you have a Deed, you can speak with the NPC Broker in front of the houses that are located in four locations in the world, including near the Guild City farms, Tarth Fa Dathrun, and New Kingsport. One you speak to them, you will exchange your Highsteppe House Key for a different key. Then your house entrance will be in the new location, and you will also exit there when you leave your player house. NOTE: During the Beta, the Highsteppe house is unlocked for everyone (since existing characters don't have keys), therefore even after you get a new house you will still be able to enter that one. That is intended behavior for now but it is not how it will function once Early Access begins.
• You can acquire a House Deed and a Fellowship Certificate for testing from the Order solider near Bishop Roma in Highsteppe. Note that when Early Access begins these are rewards that will be given out based on the tier at which you backed/purchased the game.
• The first prototype of the Group Finder system has been added. You'll find it in the Social menu (where you view your Party and Fellowship) under the new "Find a Group" option. Selecting this will show you a list of all currently-active group listings. Select a listing to send a PM to its owner, pre-filled with your currently-equipped class and level. You can also add additional comments.
• You can only have one listing at a time -- adding a new listing will automatically remove your old one. In addition, listings will auto-remove when you logout or if more than 2 hours has elapsed since you added the listing.
• To go along with this new feature, you will now find a new "Invite Party" button when viewing a Private Message thread which allows you to invite the other player to your Party regardless of where they are in the world.
• You can also now invite players to your Party directly from your Friends list and Fellowship list, regardless of where they are located in the world.
• When you Mute a player, their hands (and weapons) will now also disappear. This is to help serve as an anti-harassment option which you can engage if you need it.
• If a player is in a Fellowship, that Fellowship's name will now appear below their player name when you see them in the game.
• You now have the option of deleting Private Message threads. Deleting a thread will hide it from your inbox, however the other participant will still be able to see it unless they also delete it on their end.

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing new Private Message notifications to not appear to the recipient if the message was sent when they were in a different zone than the sender.
• Fixed all remaining bugs related to picking up Special Items such as the Diluvian puzzle cube pieces throughout the world.
• Fixed bugs which could cause other player's blue teleport lines to be stuck on even when they weren't teleporting.

December 4, 2017

Major Changes/Additions

• A Fellowship Certificate is now required to create a fellowship or upgrade them. There's no place to currently get these but we'll be adding that shortly.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed the Vitality stat not showing up correctly when viewing your inventory
• Fixed issues with waving to engage Markos' dialogue
• Fixed issues with some journal pages clipping
• Various fixes to inventory items that should/shouldn't be deletable
• Bugfixes and changes which should improve the stability of the client for some players.
• Questfix: Whiskey cart no longer has invisible guards
• Fixed areas in the world where teleporting wasn't working properly such as the Lucian Plateau

November 30, 2017

Major Additions

• The Oculus Rift now has loading screens for transitioning between instances (not currently right after login, but you should see it for example when entering/existing your Player House).
• The Airship route and has been re-worked, and the airship itself has received a makeover to match the new art style of the game.
• Rune pillars have been added to the game for most of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Runemage spells. Rubbing your journal against the pillars will add the spell to your journal. Note that this does not work with Teleport pillars, only Runemage spell pillars.
• Various rocks and other environmental features have been updated throughout the world to match the new art style.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug causing certain species of moose turning invisible.
• Fixed a bug causing the Coconut Milk not to show up as an ingredient on the crafting table when it was in the chest.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused Guardian Bart not to greet you properly when first loading in after creating a new character.
• Fixed bugs with the Maeo's Sanctum (Cave Dungeon) terrain not working properly.

November 28, 2017

Major Additions

• IMPORTANT: Character names are now limited to 12 characters. If this affects your existing character, please reach out so we can help you change it to something else, otherwise it will be automatically truncated as we enter Early Access.
• When creating a new Character, if you press the "Create Character" button without closing the Keyboard first, we'll close it for you automatically now.
• Added a new option in the Graphics menu under the Player Settings which allows you to turn off/on the Tips signs throughout the Tutorial Area and Highsteppe.
• There are now different symbols above the heads of NPCs in-game to differentiate between Main Story quests, regular quests, dialogue-only, vendors, and repair smiths. The Main Story quests are the ones with a Star on a blue diamond.
• Made sure all quest items have a weight of 0.1 rather than 1.
• When on the login screen, fixed bugs related to weird weapons showing up, and made it so that all gear (other than weapons) shows up equipped on your character.
• Runemages that are using the dual-joystick "Strafe Left, Turn Right" Locomotion option on Oculus Rift can now use the joystick on their Wand hand even with the Wand equipped.
• When monsters in a group roam, they will now roam together. The roam distance of monsters in the Wilds has been greatly increased again.

Major Bugfixes

• Bugfix: If the Spirit's AoE ability hits the Musketeer's turret, it counts as damage and the Spirit gains health. (Now all monster AoEs will ignore items such as Musketeer Orbs).
• Bugfix: Using a last ingredient when crafting a lure does not remove it from the crafting table.
• Bugfix: Players are able to destroy their starting weapons, fishing rods, teleportation device, etc.
• Bugfix: Teleportation device always shows "60 min." on other players. It should not show any time at all.
• Bugfix: When transitioning between zones or when the effects of the Drink of Ithiac wear off, taking another potion does not cause the loresight-related items to show up. They should now always show up properly if you have the buff active.
• Bugfix: Fixed performance problems related to shadow-quality changes.
• Bugfix: Various journal pages clipping (e.g. Healing Potion recipe, Highsteppe map, etc.)
• Bugfix: If you die with your bow arrow notched, the string of the bow will be stuck pulled-back when you resurrect until your relog. Also leads to the arrow itself gripping in a weird position.
• Bugfix: Musketeer orbs don't explode on the floor of various indoor instances, including the Order Prison, Library Archives, etc.

November 15, 2017

Welcome to the fourth OrbusVR Closed Beta test, a.k.a. the Neverending Story. This officially marks the beginning of OrbusVR being available to play 24/7! If it's your first time playing, please be sure to consult the Getting Started guide.

Major New Additions

• The world may look quite different to you when you first log-in, but we hope you enjoy it! We're in the process of completing a major re-work of our art style, which you can read more about on the blog.
• We won't bore you by listing everything we've already changed in the game world (e.g. new trees, re-colored monsters, new NPC styles...), but this did eat up a lot of our resources since the last test, so the rest of the additions are going to be a little shorter than usual.
• Adjusted the Graphics Settings options available. There is now a new option called "Standard" which is now the default. If you have a "Minimum" VR computer, you will most likely want to run the game on Medium. A "Recommended" VR computer could run the game on Standard. A 1080-class graphics card should be able to run it on High, and a 1080ti-class card should be able to run on Ultra. Obviously you may want to sacrifice visual quality to ensure there are no framerate drops or during big boss fights, so please play around with those options and choose the one that fits your preferences best.
• Added information to the Loot Bag when you are holding it that will show you the Attack or Armor rating of what's in the bag if it is an equipment drop.
• All affixes with the exception of Lifepull have been implemented into the game. We've created a list of the available affixes on the Equipment page so you can peruse it and look at their effects. Note that although they are all mechanically implemented, we'd like to do more with a lot of them (for example, Lighting Forged will deal damage but there isn't a visual effect right now). We'll keep improving those over the coming weeks.
• Did some work on the Market Stall system for player-owners. In particular, now when you move around the inventory of a stall, the stall will be temporarily "closed." This is to prevent players from "sniping" items as you are adding them and setting their prices. Simply press the Save Prices button when you are done and the stall will be open for business. In addition, as a precaution if the price of an item is set to zero dram, players will no longer be able to "purchase" it.
• Added teleport trails to the game which show an effect when a player teleports, both as a fun effect and so that you can tell where they went. We will continue refining this effect and have plans to allow you to change your effect via cosmetic items.
• Major re-work of the Ranger class, introducing the Shot Rating system.
• Major re-work of the Runemage class, introducing many additional spells. The spell runes for the Level 1 and Level 2 versions are now available on the Runemage page of the Wiki. The Level 3 runes can be discovered by exploring in-game.
• Major re-work of the Warrior class, introducing two different shields that can be equipped into the Class slot. Important: Existing Warriors need to talk to the man in the green hat next to Bishop Roma in Highsteppe to acquire their shields. Newly-created characters will start with them in their inventory.
• Details of all of these new class mechanics can be found on our blog.

Major Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug causing some lure parts to be soulbound and/or to not stack correctly.
• Fixed a bug with Market Stalls preventing owners from withdrawing currency from the stall until they bought one of their own items.
• Fixed a bug allowing soulbound items (such as equipment) to be sold in Market Stalls.

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.
• The boss at the end of the Desert Dungeon has been fixed and will now die correctly when the appropriate strategy is used. In addition, the overall difficulty of the fight has been reduced -- now one of the three enemies has the hitpoints of a boss, the others have the hitpoints of an elite.
• Creatures including the deer, boar, and other animals now have fixed hitboxes which should no longer "drift" off to the side during combat.

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.