Patch notes

New

• Signature abilities at class levels 20 and 30. Every class gets two more signatures (Last Stand, Steel Storm, Frost Nova, Recall, Disengage, Hunter's Mark, Sanctuary, Resurrect, Shadowstep, Garrote, Soul Siphon, Dark Pact, Rootbound, Mountain's Patience), each taught by your class mentor through a quest.
• 31 new abilities further up the skill trees: a level 5 rung on the melee trees, a level 20 rung on every tree and a level 25 one for the Crossbow. Every ability now has an effect of its own.
• More creatures in the wilds. Kobolds, Ogres, Cyclopes, Griffins, Manticores, Dragonkin and a rare Chimera live in their zones; two new dens, the Old Cut and the Switchbacks, and two small caves, the King's Tomb and the Slag Mine. Four nests of eggs can be broken: sometimes a young one hatches, and break enough and the mother comes for you.
• Brown Bears for new tamers. The Young Brown Bear can be tamed at Taming 5, the Woodland at 10 and the Old at 15.
• Sounds for the world. Creatures have voices, spells have their own sounds, the workshops' machines sound as they work, and wooden floors sound like wood under your feet.
• Painted interface art (try it): Options > Interface > Painted art swaps in painted ability icons, slot borders and banners. It is off by default while we finish it.
• A water mill turns on the Eastern Road's river bank. Rangers' tier II and III gear now has a hooded mantle.
• On phones: if your connection drops, the game reconnects you where you stood instead of sending you to the login screen. If the game closes unexpectedly, it offers to send a crash report next time (you can switch this off in Options).

Changed

• New mountains. The mountains around the Vale and Thalorion are reshaped to look natural, the Barrens' mesas look worn by wind and water, and the Ember Waste's summit is a proper volcano. The ground you walk on is unchanged.
• Quicker attacks. Bow shots and spear throws loose sooner, your first melee swing shows the moment you press, and creatures' strikes line up with when they hit.
• Softer interface sounds: the click, hover, open and close sounds were remade to be quieter and warmer.
• Icons drawn from the 3D models for the class gear, the decorations and the long weapons.

Fixed

• Bags left on the ground are no longer lost when the servers restart.
• The Skeleton Archer now draws its bow and looses its arrows; its bow used to stay still.
• The King's Bridge is whole again and its full arch is open underneath.
• Several cliffs, ruins, statues and decorations were partly see-through from some angles.

New

• Class gear. Every class has its own gear set in three tiers, worn from class level 10, 20 and 30 (other classes can wear it 10 levels later). Your class mentor hands out Marks for quests and daily errands; crafters turn Marks and materials into the pieces. Every class also has a tabard in its colours.
• 40 home decorations. Furniture, rugs, lights, shelves full of goods, garden pieces (fences, planters, a well, a pond) and a banner for each class, made at the crafting stations. Two rare trophies drop from bosses.
• New hair styles and beards at character creation: a topknot, a mohawk and war braids; a high bun, a crown braid and a long braid; and stubble, braided and forked beards.
• The towns come alive. Hanging shop signs and lanterns sway, crest banners hang on the halls and gates, standards stand at the waystones, chimneys smoke, the windmill turns, and the Forge, Potter's Shed and Workshop have working bellows, a potter's wheel and a loom. A statue of the Soulbringer stands in Brightwater's square, and there are docks and boats by the water and ruins out in the wilds.
• Weapons by metal. Copper, bronze, steel and moonsilver swords and maces, the Obsidian Blade and the Iron Broadblade now each have a look of their own instead of a tinted copy.
• Signature effects. The class signatures now have their own effects.
• /ignore hides a player's chat and trade requests. Reports you send with /bug and /reportplayer now reach the staff straight away.

Changed

• A new look for the interface. Windows, tooltips, the action bar and the minimap share one style; tooltips compare an item with what you wear; rare and better items glow; cooldowns show their seconds; level-up and quest banners; soft interface sounds; and a UI size setting (80-140%) in Options. Windows are now fully solid.
• Icons drawn from the 3D models for many weapons and tools, so the icon matches what is in your hand.
• On phones: camera swipes work anywhere off the buttons; the shop and your bags share the screen instead of overlapping; buttons can be made bigger and swapped for left hands; phones start at a larger interface size and 30 frames a second (60 in Options); haptics for being targeted, a heavy blow and a refused ability.

Fixed

• Four wooden crossbows were held off the shoulder until your first fight.
• The level labels on locked bag slots were too small to read.

New

• Trade with other players. Right-click a player (or long-press on a phone) for the new player menu: Trade, Invite to party, Follow, Inspect, Whisper and Report. In a trade, both sides offer items and coin, both press Accept, and after a 3-second wait both Confirm. Nothing changes hands until both have confirmed. /trade <name> works from chat too.
• The Workshop and the General Store in Brightwater Vale. The Workshop holds the woodworking bench, the tanning rack and the tailor's station, with Edwin the joiner at work. Greta now keeps the new General Store on the square. The chapel-plot shop is now the Apothecary, where Sister Elowen keeps the Alchemy Table.
• Regeneration in a fight. You now regain a little health and mana during a fight too (0.5% of your health and 1% of your mana a second), far less than at rest.
• Track quests from the quest log. Each quest in the log has a Track / Untrack button.

Changed

• Slow connections. Short stalls of up to about 6 seconds are now smoothed over instead of snapping you back, and the game shows "Reconnecting..." while your connection is unsteady.
• Effect tooltips say who cast a buff and show the time left in minutes and seconds.
• The Scribe's Desk lists every scroll, and greys the ones you can't write yet with the reason.
• Area heals (Group Heal, Mending and others) now also heal the pets and summons of the players they reach, and no longer heal through walls.
• Harvesting walks you straight to the nearest working spot instead of around the rock.
• No experience while dead, including from your pet's or summon's kills.
• The King's Bridge on the Eastern Road has been rebuilt: a proper arch over the river and both parapets.
• The tavern stairs now lead through a real stairwell to the upper floor.
• The Shovel and the quills have their own look in your hand, and the road cart's wheels turn.

Fixed

• Casting a ward while your own ward still holds is refused without spending the cast.

New

• Class signatures. Every class now has two special abilities of its own, one at class level 1 and one at class level 10. A new character learns the first from the trainer in Wardenrest (use it once to learn it). The second comes from your class mentor, as a quest, once your class reaches level 10. Characters who already play get their level 1 signature at their next login.
  • Warrior: Rallying Shout, Intervene.
  • Mage: Blink, Mana Ward.
  • Ranger: Track, Camouflage.
  • Cleric: Mending Touch, Purify.
  • Cutthroat: Cheap Trick, Smoke Bomb.
  • Hexblade: Hex, Cinder Brand.
  • Earthwarden: Earthen Grip, Stoneskin.
• Buff slots. Helpful effects now sit in slots: Offensive, Defensive, Utility and Aura, one of each at a time. Food and Drink are slots of their own, beside the potion and the oil. Casting a buff of your own into a slot that is taken replaces it (and tells you); a buff from someone else does not push yours out. Your effect bar shows them in slot order, one icon for a spell with several parts, all its lines in one tip, and a coloured corner for the slot. The tavern's drinks now count as Drink effects. The Character sheet has a Passives list.
• Scribing. A new crafting skill. Hanklen, the scholar in Brightwater Vale, teaches it, and there is a Scribe's Desk in Brightwater and one in Thalorion. Write scrolls (parchment, vellum, inks and quills) that teach other classes' signature abilities and some combined-skill forms. A scroll teaches its ability once, it can be traded, and you need the ability's class level to read it.
• Bag slots. Six places beside your backpack for bags (four from the start, two open as you level): a bag in a slot saves backpack space, and still weighs what it did. A gathering bag has a place of its own beside the tool belt. Tailors make three sizes, and gathered materials (ore, logs, clay, herbs, fish, hides) inside weigh half. Slotted bags are dropped with your pack if you die past level 10.
• Craft several at once. The crafting window has a count (1 to 99, or all you can make). The craft repeats at the normal time, with its own experience, and stops when you run out of materials, take a step, are hit, or press again.
• Right-click at the bank. With the bank open, right-click an item in your bags to deposit the stack, and one in the bank to take it out.
• Crafting halls in Brightwater Vale. The crafts now have houses. The Forge (a smithy and hearth, with the anvil and the jeweler's bench inside) and the Potter's Shed (wheel and kiln) are new. The Kitchen Hearth is in the tavern (the campfire in the square is gone), and Stonebrook's smithy keeps its anvil under a roof. The shop shutters are drawn open.
• A restart warning. If the servers must restart for an update, you will be warned in game 15 minutes before, with reminders as it counts down.

Changed

• Weapons, magic schools, Stone Shaping, Defense and Block train at half pace when they are not one of your class's own skills. There is no level cap on them; they just take longer.
• Group and area heals reach pets and summons: yours, and those of every player the heal reaches.
• Creature bodies lie 30 seconds longer before they vanish, so there is more time to skin them. Respawn timing is unchanged.
• Staff tools (for game masters) have improved.
• Android. The Android download is back, built with this update.

Fixed

• The tavern in the Peaks: its stairs and the upper floor can be walked, and the icicles that floated at its door are gone.
• The Eastern Road cart is no longer something you can talk to, and its two drovers walk behind it and push, both ways.
• The vineyard near Old Maudie had a gate that closed nothing. It is gone.
• Thalorion's west edge: rocks there let you climb past the edge wall and fall off the map. They are gone.

Thank you to everyone who played on the first day. Here is what we fixed from your reports.

New

• A heal for others. Clerics now start with Mending Touch: it heals the friend you have targeted (another player, your own pet or summon, or a party member's pet), or you when no friend is targeted. It needs the friend in range and in sight. Clerics who already play get it at their next login. G picks the next friend near you.
• Your pet's hits show as numbers over what it fights, in green, as your own do. Summons too.
• Taming is easier to learn. The stable master's Taming lesson gives you a Raw Meat to start with, and when a tame cannot start (no bait, too weak, too far) you are told in the middle of the screen, not only in the log.
• Moving house keeps your furniture. Reading the Charter of the Townhouse now offers the move at once, and your furniture comes with you to the new house where it stood. A piece with no room is set close by, or put in your pack.

Changed

• Running from a fight. You keep your target, but while you run away your character faces the way it runs, not back at the foe. Standing still or stepping sideways, it faces the foe again. You can no longer parry or block a blow from behind while running away.
• Call Pet costs a third of your maximum mana.
• A failed tame (the creature turns on you) still teaches a little: a quarter of the Taming experience a tame would give.
• Smoother movement on a slow or unsteady connection. The server is more patient with late or bunched movement, so a player on a weak line no longer snaps back a step, and is not dropped for a stall of under 30 seconds.

Fixed

• Wild Boars in Brightwater Vale could not be tamed ("That creature is bound to another"). They can now, from Taming 10.
• A tamed wolf fighting a cow only pushed it back and never bit. Pets now reach big creatures properly.
• Pet names went back to the creature's name in the world (the pet window had the right one). Fixed, for you and for everyone who sees your pet.
• The Kiln in Brightwater could not be seen (it was drawn far away). It stands by the Potter's Wheel again.
• Clay in Wardenrest needed a shovel nobody there could give you. The Gatherers' Trail lesson now gives one.
• A street lamp stood in the way near Old Tamsin in Brightwater. It is gone.
• Captain Aldric still showed "!" after you took his quest. He now shows it only when he has something to offer.
• The Lord Protector's hall in Thalorion: a player could get stuck near the council. The broken seal there no longer blocks your way.

New

• The game runs on our own servers now. We built them ourselves for this game, and from this update every land is played on them. You should find play smoother, and nothing else is meant to look different. Your characters, bags, banks and quests carry over as they were.
• Dying costs something now. This is the biggest change for players who already play, so please read it.
  • From level 10 up. Once your class has reached level 10, a death takes 10% of your experience: your class level's and each skill's. A level lost takes the perk choices above it with it, and they return when you reach that level again. Under level 10, and anywhere in Wardenrest, a death costs nothing.
  • Your remains. Your backpack, with everything in it, and your coin are left where you fell. They are yours alone for 15 minutes, then anyone's for 15 more, then gone. Quest items never drop: they are kept for you in a Traveller's Pouch. Each piece you wear also has a 3% chance of dropping into the remains.
  • Protection. The shrine keepers (Mother Aveline in Brightwater, Sister Wenlow in Thalorion) sell a Blessing of the Mind (keeps your experience and perks), a Blessing of the Soul (keeps your worn gear) and a Blessing of the Physical (keeps your pack and purse), or all three together for a fifth less. A blessing costs 50 coin for each level of your class, and you can hold each once. The Amulet of Keeping, worn at the neck (120 coin for each level), keeps your pack, purse and worn gear, but not your experience. A blessing or the amulet is used up only when it actually saves you something, and the amulet is used first.
  • The death screen shows every time you die and says what was lost, or "Nothing was lost.", and where your remains lie.
• Homes. A new hamlet, Hearthmere, has a waystone beside the Thalorion and Wardenrest stones at the end of Brightwater's west road, and another outside Thalorion's west gate. Captain Aldric points you to it once you have been through the siege of Thalorion (the quest A Place of Your Own). Wend the Steward on the green sells the Homestead Deed (250 coin): read it, and Osric the Gatewarden's Home Gate opens on a walled plot that is yours alone, with a cottage and a garden. A new home comes with a table, two stools, a lantern and a shelf.
  • Decorate (H). At home, set furniture out, turn it, move it and pick it up again. Wend sells plain furniture (8 to 160 coin), two chests (the Oak Chest holds 16 slots, the Iron-bound Chest 24) and the Charter of the Townhouse (300 coin) for a two-storey house.
  • Make your own. Furniture, decorations and nine crafting stations (the hearth fire, anvil, tanning rack, alchemy table, woodworking bench, tailor's station, potter's wheel, kiln and jeweler's bench) can be made and set in your home, and used there.
  • Visitors. You choose who may come in: only you, your party, up to 20 names, or anyone. At the Home Gate you can visit a home by its owner's name or from the list of homes open to you, and see your visitors out again.
• Taming and pets. A stable master (Hesper in Brightwater, Orrin in Thalorion) teaches you the new Taming skill, starting you at skill level 5. Wear a wolf, boar or bear down below half health, put bait in front of it, and Tame: a six-second channel in which you must stand still. Raw Meat is the basic bait; Seasoned Bait (Cooking 20) and Prime Bait (Cooking 50), cooked at a campfire, raise the chance. The stable master's quest A Hand to Eat From starts you off with a Young Wolf. Wild Boars now roam Brightwater Vale.
  • The fiercer the creature, the more Taming it asks for (five times its level), and the higher your Taming, the surer the tame.
  • A pet has a level: it gains experience from fights, its health, blow, hide and pace grow, and it opens new moves and traits as it grows. The pet window (the pet bar's name opens it) shows its cards, stats and abilities, and lets you rename it. Orders are U attack, O follow and N stay.
  • The stable keeps four pets and one is out at a time. A pet that falls comes back after three minutes, or at once for coin at the stable master (20 coin and 5 for each level it has).
• Summoning. A new skill: call a creature to your side that follows you, fights what you fight and takes your orders. Call Familiar (from the Tome of Summoning) is for anyone, and the Earthwarden, Hexblade, Cleric and Mage each have a summon of their own (the Stone Sentinel, the Bone Thrall, the Spirit Wolf and the Ember Wisp). The higher the skill, the longer they stay and the harder they fight; from level 50 two may be out at once.
• Eight seeking spells, one for each school of magic. At skill level 15 (read the school's Tome, which Sister Elowen sells): Hunting Embers (fire), Frost Seekers (ice), Arc Hounds (lightning), Seeking Shards (stone), Riptide (water), Hunting Gale (air), Grave Wisps (shadow) and Mending Motes (life). They need no target: each bolt flies to a foe of its own, the closest first.
• Dodge and Parry. Two new skills, and fights now have more in them: a blow can miss, be dodged, be parried (from the front, with a weapon in hand) or be blocked with a shield. They train as you use them. Heavy armour takes from your dodge, and cloth never does.
• Farming. Buy seeds, a Hoe, a Watering Can and a Scythe from Old Maudie in Brightwater Vale, and work the Vale's field of 12 plots beside her: till, plant, water as it grows (each watering adds to the harvest), wait, and cut. Eight crops, from radishes (ripe in three minutes) to corn (fifteen). A plot is yours until you harvest it, or until it has stood ripe for half an hour. Old Maudie buys what the field grows.
• Brewing and the taverns' drinks. Pick apples, grapes and wild honey in the meadow east of Old Maudie's stall; grind flour and roast malt at a campfire; then cook Ale, Cider, Glowcap Mead and Spiced Wine, and Apple Tart, Cornbread, Roast Roots and Farmer's Stew. The barkeeps now sell drinks, too, each with a 15-minute buff in the food slot; Mirefen, the Barrens and the Peaks each have a drink of their own.
• Pottery and Jewelcrafting. Two new skills, found by doing the work.
  • Pottery: dig clay with a Shovel (Greta sells it) from clay banks, throw it on a Potter's Wheel and fire it in a Kiln (they stand together in Brightwater and Thalorion). Bowls, pots, crucibles, platters and urns, and glass vials blown from desert sand.
  • Jewelcrafting: at the new Jeweler's Bench, cut gems (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Amethyst, Moonstone), set them into rings and amulets, and cast silver and gold in a Pottery crucible. Jewelry is no longer made at the anvil; smiths who made it start with some Jewelcrafting.
• Tailoring, and crafting up to level 100. The new Tailoring skill spins flax and bog cotton into thread at the Tailor's Station (in Brightwater, Thalorion and Wardenrest), weaves cloth and sews robes, hoods, gloves, slippers and bags. Every craft has new tiers up to level 100: tin and bronze, then Moonsilver, Starfall Steel, Deepiron, Dravensteel, Threadsilver and Voidsteel; Barkhide, Duskwing, Deepscale, Lochscale, Rift Hide and Voidhide leathers; new woods, cloths, potions, resist potions, oils, elixirs and dishes with timed buffs; and the deep ore, wood and herb spots in the five new lands that feed them.
• Doors and furnished taverns. Shops, taverns and stables now have doors: E opens one, E shuts it, and it shuts itself 15 seconds after the last of you has gone through. Creatures cannot open them. Inside, the taverns have a bar, shelves, barrels, tables, benches and stools, with the barkeep behind the bar and patrons seated.
• The Eastern Road, rebuilt. A new valley with a river, a ford, the Kingsbridge and the Old Watchtower, and a waystation inn, where Tilda keeps the bar and sells Waystation Fare. A cart and two drovers walk the road from the inn to the bridge.
  • Four quests: What the Field Grew and The Drovers' Toll from Mother Ashby, The Briar Warren from Provos and The Kingsbridge from Bertram the carter.
  • New creatures: Root-thralls in the Rooted Field, Waylayers in the Drovers' Hollow and a Waylayer Lookout past the bridge, Blackthorn Wolves, Lake Crocodiles, the Briar Hounds and Pups of the Briar Warren with the Briar Mother at its heart, and two rare ones, the Hill-Sayer and the Old Ram.
• Four errands in Thalorion. Bare Shelves and Canvas for the Cart from Cassia's carter Tomas, and Links for the Chain and Bronze for the Winch from Ulfric the smith.
• The Hollow has been filled in. Wildlife, brigands, a crypt with a chief at the back of it, and new bodies for the creatures there.
• A better crafting window. A crafting station's list can be sorted by name, level needed, time or whether you can make it now, filtered by words or to what you can make, and a recipe you cannot make says why.
• Hotbars are kept on the server. Each character's bars follow it to any computer, and a new character starts with clean ones.
• Auto-run. Num Lock runs you straight ahead with no key held. Press it again, or Move forward or Move back, to stop.

Changed

• Shops. Right-click an item in your pack to sell it (a left click no longer does). The shop's new Buy back tab holds the last ten things you sold; it is emptied when the server restarts. Your bags now open by themselves beside the bank and beside a shop, and close again with them.
• No travel in the middle of a fight. Waystones, the Home Gate and skipping the lesson now say "Not in the middle of a fight." /unstuck works in a fight after a 10-second wait, as long as nothing hits you.
• Travelling no longer heals you. Your health, mana, stamina, effects and cooldowns come with you through a waystone, and the same goes for logging out and straight back in.
• Meditation now trains when only your health is down, not just your mana and stamina.
• Every waystone's beam is one light sky blue, so you can tell them from a long way off.
• Logging in: after five wrong passwords in a row for one name, each further try has to wait a little longer (up to a minute), and a new account can no longer use one of the commonest passwords. A normal login is not slowed.

Fixed

• A player's death now plays its fall.
• The barricades in Deraku's lesson and in the siege are raised stone, not a pink box.
• The Eastern Road's cart faces the way it moves, and you cannot walk through it.
• Old Maudie, Nell, Marta and Sister Ailith have hair now.

New

• Choose your look. When you make a character, an Appearance panel beside the figure lets you pick the hair, one of 12 hair colours, the skin tone, six face sliders (face, nose, jaw, brow, cheeks, ears), and for men a beard and a moustache; elves and half-orcs can wear piercings. Random rolls a look, Default puts it back. Holding a face slider brings the camera in to the head and shoulders. Other players see your look in the world.
• Change Look. On the character screen, Change Look lets you change a character's appearance again at any time, free.
• Delete and restore characters. Delete on the character screen asks you to type the character's name. A character of level 5 or more can be restored from the list for 7 days, and its name stays taken until then; under level 5 it is gone at once and its name is free again. An account holds up to 8 characters, counting those that can still be restored.
• Seven new quests.
  • In Brightwater Vale, once you have dealt with the rats: Old Tamsin's Silk and Teeth (Giant Spiders in the lake woods, and their silk), and three for Captain Aldric, one after the other: The Grove That Mends (the druids' grove north-west of town), Kagan's Lot (the Disciples of Kagan south of the road, and a Prayer Cord from one of them) and The Queen of the North Hill (the Harpy Queen and her court: bring friends).
  • In Mirefen, Dock-Ward Mira's Fen Bounty: Hummock Vipers, again every day.
  • On the Jagged Peaks: Hearthsinger Ingrith's Bear Grease (Ridge Bears, and the Bear Fat they now drop) and Scout Tobben's Cold Wolves (Snow Wolves, again every day).
• My reports on the website. Signed in, My reports at the top of the site shows what you sent with /bug in the game's chat, its status, and the team's answer when there is one. Only you see it.

Changed

• The five new lands' quests give 60% more experience (the coin rewards are the same), and Thorn-hounds give 75 experience (was 45).
• The creature camps in the five new lands hold four instead of three.
• Each land has its own sky in the game now. Before, every land drew the same plain blue sky. Thalorion's sky is overcast under its sleet; the Hollow is grey and cold, the Ember Waste red with haze, and the Barrens and the Peaks less glaring.
• The new lands' ground has its true colours. The Peaks' snow no longer looks like flat white paint: it glints and shades cold, and banks up round the foot of rocks. The Barrens' sand and mesas and the Ember Waste's ground were white too; the Ember Waste's crust now glows in its seams. The Hollow and Mirefen had the Vale's green meadow and now have their own ground.
• Gravewatch's churchyard and the Hollow's dead woods are laid out by hand instead of scattered at random.
• Loose rocks and props no longer stand on steep ground, in every land, and they sit down on the ground instead of floating on the low side of a slope.
• The Brightwater square's cart has moved off the copper vein to the east market stalls.
• Mirefen's arrival point has moved out of the narrow alley beside the longhouse into the lane.
• A closed helm (the Great Helm) hides the beard and moustache; an open helm keeps them.
• When you mine, you stand a little further back from the rock, so the pick's head lands on the seam.

Fixed

• Walking at an angle into a place where several edges meet (the side of a cart on a slight rise, for one) no longer stops you dead; you slide along as you do elsewhere.
• The Hollow's puddles drew as white discs on the grass; they are dark water now.
• The Hollow's dead grass and brambles drew as grey sheets and piles of planks; they show as grass and brambles now. The Hollow's grass was the Vale's green lawn, and now is its own.
• The trees you can cut in the five new lands all looked like the Vale's green oak; each now has its land's own tree (a dead snag in the Hollow, a cypress in Mirefen, a palm in the Barrens, a spruce on the Peaks, a charred tree in the Ember Waste).
• Gravemoss and Blight Lily patches looked like the Vale's green fern and flowers; they are a dark grey growth and low pale-flowered pads now.
• The Hollow's dead-tree bark, gravestones and rocks, the Barrens' sandstone and the Ember Waste's rock, crust and bark had lost their textures and drew flat grey.
• The Ember Waste's crater rim and ridge no longer have a saw-tooth edge.
• Hiding the interface (F10) now hides the "Protected until level 10" marks too; they were left standing in the sky.
• The Hollow's first quest sends you to Brother Aldous, the sexton's real name (its text said Sexton Mael).
• Crow Ford's quest marker in Mirefen is on Crow Isle, where its text sends you.

New

• The five new lands are open. The waystones to the Hollow (levels 8-11), Mirefen (10-13), the Barrens (12-15), the Jagged Peaks (14-17) and the Ember Waste (16-20) no longer turn you back: take the Eastern Road's east stone to the Hollow, its lake-shore stone to Mirefen, Thalorion's south stone to the Barrens and its north postern stone to the Peaks; the Ember Waste is over the Peaks' saddle.
• The shrine keepers have chapels. A small stone chapel now stands behind the shrine keeper in Brightwater Vale and in Thalorion.

Changed

• After a death you get up 15 seconds later (it was 5), at the nearest shrine or safe place. Dying still costs nothing.
• The Frost Drake has moved down the climb. It no longer sleeps beside the Ember Waste waystone on the Peaks' saddle, where a traveller back from the Ember Waste arrived right next to it; you now meet it on the way up, well below the stone.
• Creatures plan their way round slopes too steep to climb instead of trying to run straight up them.

Fixed

• The camera no longer dips into the ground when you look up with a slope behind you.
• Sitting down in the middle of a harvest now stops the work, so the tool no longer stays in your hand.
• One of the Hollow's iron veins stood against a fallen trunk, so one side of it could not be reached; it has moved a little.

New

• Five new lands for levels 8 to 20. Past the Eastern Road and the mountains behind Thalorion: the Hollow (a dead forest, levels 8-11), Mirefen (a swamp, 10-13), the Barrens (a desert, 12-15), the Jagged Peaks (snow, 14-17) and the Ember Waste (a volcano, 16-20). Each has a camp with a hearth, a smith or a healer, creatures of its own, things to gather, seven quests and a boss or an elite to beat. They open once they have been tested: until then the waystones to them stay cold and turn you back.
  • The way there is by waystone: the Eastern Road's east end to Gravewatch in the Hollow, its lake shore to Stiltwick in Mirefen, the south of Thalorion to the well outpost in the Barrens, and Thalorion's north postern to Highfold in the Peaks. From the Peaks' saddle a last waystone leads down to Forgecamp in the Ember Waste.
  • Thirty new creatures, from Barrow Dead and Pond Ghouls to Glacier Golems, Magma Golems and Flamefiends, and four bosses: the Hollow Warden, the Many-Throated, the Frost Drake and Forgelord Ignarok. The Last Knight, the Rime Troll and the Cinder Wyvern are elites. The Hollow Warden calls the Barrow Dead to his side when you fight him.
  • Thirty-five quests (301 to 347): a marked road, a lantern line to relight, a gold vein, a ballad carved up a mountainside. The Hollow's last quest and the Barrens' last quest each ask you a question you can answer two ways.
  • New things to gather and make: greywood, cypress, palm, spruce and charwood timber, iron, gold and silver ore, obsidian and sulfur, new herbs and fish for each land, and the dishes, draughts and gear that come of them (an Iron Broadblade, a Winter-Pelt Jerkin).
  • Each land has its own air: snowy ground on the Peaks, an ember haze and lava glow in the Ember Waste, mist in the Hollow and the fen.
• Gathering has levels now. A resource asks for a skill level, and tells you when you are short: "You need Skinning 3 to skin a Giant Spider." The higher the node, the more experience it pays. Tools can now carry a tier that makes you work faster (5% for each step above copper, up to 40%); the first tools with a tier come later.
  • Skinning has levels too: wolves, hide beasts and rats stay at 1, spider silk and harpy feathers need Skinning 3, a thorn-hound's hide 5, a drake's scale 18.
  • Armour and weapons now name the combat or armour skill they belong to. For now every piece asks only level 1.
  • The recipes moved up with the skins: tanning thorn-hound hides is Leatherworking 5, fletched arrows Carpentry 3, and Grilled Pike needs Cooking 5 (the River Pike first comes at Fishing 5).
• Copper veins rebuilt in the field. The copper veins in Brightwater Vale and Thalorion are now dark-grey boulders, and Wardenrest's is set into the rock face. Their copper seams break off one by one as you mine them, and each vein gives three ore before it goes dark.
  • Sparks and rock chips: every pick swing throws orange sparks and stone chips from the seam with a metallic ring, and your character steps up to a natural foothold beside the rock face instead of standing inside the boulder.

Changed

• Combined skill mana costs now scale with the combined skill's level, growing by 2.5% per level above level 1 (10 mana at level 1, 20 at 41, 35 at 100) alongside its damage and healing, so high-level combined spells cost mana in proportion to their strength (before your skill's mana-cost reduction is applied).
• The Sand-Wrapped Soldier now stands as tall as the Skeleton Warrior instead of looking small beside him.
• Kexoti and Sejal are men in the game's text, as in the story (Sejal was a "she" at Highfold).
• The Story page on the website is now the full poem, with short introductions of the six who bring the Soulbringer into the tale: Deraku, Sejal, Provos, Elyntis, Kexoti and Pavogani.

Fixed

• A waystone no longer turns you back in the middle of a fight with "your progress could not be saved": experience earned while the trip was saving made the save look unfinished. The trip now saves again until it catches up.
• Other players no longer slide across the map after a teleport. When a waystone or a party hand-over moved someone, you saw their body glide the whole way from where they were before; now they appear where they landed.
• Clicking or tabbing to a creature in plain view beside a rat or a rise in the ground no longer reads as hidden: the line of sight now ends at the creature's middle, not at its feet.
• The Air spell's impact no longer throws its streaks as far as it did.
• Forbidden Lore now also speaks when a combination fizzles or lashes back: it tells you what your skills would make once strong enough, and the nearest forbidden recipe. Before, it spoke only when a forbidden combination broke apart.
• Creatures returning to their post no longer re-aggro at the edge of their leash and run out a second time while turning round at home.
• Thrown weapons that land on a target no longer change into the last weapon thrown when you mix different throwing weapons on the same foe, and throws still waiting on a target are dropped in a bag where they landed if you disconnect or leave the zone.
• Grass backfaces on stamped meadows no longer flash dark triangles when viewed against the sun.

New

• Four new classes: the Cleric, the Cutthroat, the Hexblade and the Earthwarden, beside the Warrior, the Mage and the Ranger. The character screen says what each class is, and a class's own skills train 15% faster.
• Perks. At every fifth class level you choose one of three perk cards, and at 25 and 50 a keystone. A gold star by your portrait says when a choice is waiting; Perks on the Character sheet opens them. Undo is free for 10 minutes; after that a mentor swaps a perk for another card of its level. Characters who have already climbed get their missed choices waiting.
• Class milestones at class levels 10, 20 and 30: a small lasting gift for the class you are.
• Class forms and the mentors. Each class has two forms taught by its mentor in Thalorion, at class levels 5 and 15, through a short quest each; at 10 and 25 you may learn another class's two forms from its mentor. Gurm the Mentor stands north of Brightwater's square and swaps perks; Vara and Corvan Hale have joined the mentors in Thalorion.
• Changing class: your first change of class at a mentor is free. After that it costs 100 coin, at most once a day, and the mentor's window tells you the price and the wait.
• A new interface. A carved walnut-and-iron frame on every window, new lettering, and a quieter screen: the log hides its panel when idle, the XP line is a thin strip, and the tracked quest has its own card.
  • Books: the Character book (Paper doll, Stats), the Abilities book (Spellbook, Skills, Evolutions, Combine) and the Journal (Quests, Map, Lore) open as tabbed books at the left. C, P, K, V, J and L open their pages.
  • One bag window: the backpack and every bag in one window, with sort, search, kind chips and rarity rims. A bag can be pulled out on its own and docked back.
  • The fight: new party frames in their own column, the target's cast bar, and combat focus (Z), which hides everything but the fight.
  • Arrange your screen: type /hud to move, size and lock each part of the screen (each character keeps its own layout). The options have a UI scale, a text size, two colour-blind palettes and Reduce motion.
• The chat log scrolls: the mouse wheel or a drag over it, a thin scrollbar, and a "new messages" chip when you have scrolled up.
• Your party on the world map, across the whole zone.
• The bank, part 2: keep coin in the bank as well as things, and the vault door swings open while you do business. The second Brightwater teller is now Odric Penhallow. Thalorion has tellers of its own.
• Phones: one layout either way up, with five big buttons, the rest behind More, the books and bags as sheets, and a full-screen map you can pinch and pan.

Changed

• Thalorion is rebuilt to be easy to find your way in: a walled city round a central square, three wide gates, two straight streets, and the keep, the inn, the bank, the shop and the Great Hall round the square. A saved spot that is now inside a wall brings you back at the nearest open place.
• The world map and the minimap are redrawn from the land itself: real hills and shadows, the ground's own colours, lit trees and roofs, and a light paper tone. The minimap's dots have a dark rim so they stand out.
• Combining: a made skill's Fusion path now grows what the skill is, and Quickened works on made skills. A combination now needs skills of some weight behind it, so two very low skills fizzle, and the newer named recipes ask for skill 15. Your existing combined skills are rebuilt once under these rules.
• A Barricade raised on a wall walk is a thinner one that fits the walk, and no longer hangs off the wall's edge.
• Party copies: once everyone has handed the quest in, a party's copy of Thalorion sends you home after 10 seconds, so nobody is left in a copy where the people they need are missing.

Fixed

• Standing on a pier no longer makes you swim.
• Cutting a thread alone: a blow no longer breaks your cut when you are on your own, so it can be done solo.
• The combine window showed the numbers of your previous picks after a quick change.
• The Echo perk and the Mage's milestone no longer skip weapon abilities' cooldowns.

New

• Five core stats: Might, Agility, Intellect, Vitality and Spirit. There is nothing to spend or assign: they grow from what you do, and the same action that trains a skill feeds them. Swing heavy weapons, chop, mine and carry heavy loads for Might; shoot, throw, fight with daggers, skin and run for Agility; cast, combine, brew and cook for Intellect; take hits, guard and run for Vitality; heal, meditate, fish and combine for Spirit. They keep growing after a skill reaches 100, and each point comes a little slower and is worth a little less than the last, so they never run away.
• What they do. Might adds damage with heavy weapons and carrying room. Agility adds damage with bows, daggers and thrown weapons, a little swing speed and cheaper running. Intellect strengthens spells and heals, adds mana and lowers combining instability. Vitality adds health, health regeneration and stamina. Spirit speeds up mana and stamina regeneration and eases Synthesis fatigue and backlash. A message in your log tells you when one rises ("Might is now 23").
• A Stats block on your Character sheet shows all five; point at one to see what it does and what is training it. Existing characters get their stats worked out from the skills they have already trained.
• Creatures fight by threat. A creature now goes for whoever has caused it the most trouble: damage counts, and so do healing, barriers and crowd control. A heal adds half its worth in threat, so the healer is not forgotten but is not first in line. A creature's current target shows a red "!" marker, and your party frames show who is being chased.
• Taunts for the Defense skill. Challenge pulls a creature onto you, and War Cry pulls the pack. A guard in town draws threat too.
• Party fights are fairer. Creatures lose interest only when the whole party has gone, a wiped boss resets, a pack calls its friends again, and the winning party shares the class experience and opens the loot bag together. The Rootherd's Root Lash reaches your farthest fighter, its phases shake fighters off, and the Bone Dragon picks by threat too.
• Eleven new level-1 starter abilities, one for every weapon skill: Quick Slash (sword), Hack (axe), Stab (dagger), Thump (mace), Thrust (spear), Spike Thrust (polearm), Staff Jab (staff), Jab (fists), Quick Shot (bow), Snap Shot (crossbow) and Quick Throw (thrown). They cost only a little stamina and wait only for the global cooldown, so a new character always has something to press while there is breath for it, and each can evolve like any other ability.
• A world map. Press M to open a map of the zone drawn from the land itself, with the roads, the water, the roofs and the waystones. It shows named areas, the places your quests send you, and the people and creatures you can see. The corner minimap now uses the same map, and Shift+M hides it.
• Quest tracker and pointer. The tracker under the minimap shows each open quest with its counts and how far away it is ("64 m NE"). Click a quest to track it, and click it again to open the map on its target. A gold diamond marks the tracked quest's spot in the world, with an arrow at the screen edge when it is out of sight. On the M map and the minimap the tracked quest's places are drawn in gold, and All quests shows the rest faintly.
• A bank in Brightwater. Talk to Corwin or Ysolde the Teller behind the counter in the bank to open your 48-slot bank. Drag things between it and your backpack, or shift-click an item to move the whole stack. Bank items weigh nothing and are never lost when you die, but a tool or ammunition must come out before you can use it. Coins stay in your purse, and you have to stay near a teller to do business.
• Kagan cultists cast. Acolytes and Disciples of Kagan raise both hands and throw a shadow ball from range, with a dark burst where it lands. They keep their distance, drain your soul, and call acolytes to their side.
• Unarmed fighting looks like fighting. Fists are closed, and a bare-handed fighter throws a jab, cross, hook and uppercut from a brawler's stance with a forearm guard. A Barbarian kicks with the legs.
• A staff fighting set. The staff has its own thrust, overhead, sweep and low sweep instead of borrowing the spear's, and stays upright at a full sprint.
• Every element has its own look. Fire, frost, lightning (now a blue-white), earth and the rest each have their own gathering glow, bolt and impact. Healing, wards, veils and knacks no longer look alike, a wall rises from the ground and crumbles at its end, a ward's shell flashes at a blow and shatters when it breaks, and zones are marked on the ground with a ring that draws itself round. Creatures show their big attacks coming with a closing ring.
• Creatures flinch when they are hit, even the ones with no hit animation of their own, and a death plays once and stays down.
• Items across your back (a bow, a crossbow or a shield) are drawn over the shoulder, and the archer's draw and put-away work on that side.

Changed

• Targeting is friendlier. Tab picks what is in front of you first and hostile things before friendly ones, and skips livestock and anything behind a wall. Clicks are forgiving: a near miss still picks the creature, and a live hostile wins over a corpse. Right-click attacks. A ring on the ground marks your target, and the target frame shows what your target is targeting. Pressing an ability or F with nothing targeted picks a target for you.
• Melee abilities walk you to the target when it is out of reach, and a hotbar slot turns red while the target is out of range. If something hits you and you are idle, you turn and fight back.
• Combat feels quicker. Your press shows at once (the cast bar and the swing start straight away) and, if the server turns it down, it fizzles on the bar. A press just before the 1-second global cooldown ends is kept and fires the moment it can, and a weapon ability's blow replaces your next swing. A hit now flashes and gives a short stop.
• A weapon ability needs its whole stamina cost, with enough left for your next swing. When you are short it is turned down ("You are too tired.") and your swing carries on, instead of the last of your stamina leaving you too tired to swing at all for several seconds. Each ability's tooltip shows its own stamina cost (a starter blow costs 4).
• Corpses are let go sooner, so a fallen creature no longer holds your target.
• The second hotbar is off Shift. Both bars are always there, and Shift is free for other things.
• Combining: a craft now makes a Knack even when a heal goes in, and a heal takes on and is named for what else you mix into it. Alchemy counts as a mending craft, a heal weighs a bit more than harm, and the spells of one skill count once when the shape of a combined skill is decided. Your existing combined skills were rebuilt once under the fixed rules, so they may have changed.
• The Character sheet's text is bigger (labels, notes and the smallest print), with room made for it.
• Item tooltips stay on screen, flipping to the other side of the pointer at the left edge.
• Buy in bulk. A merchant has a quantity box and x1, x5, x10, x20 and Max buttons.
• Potions and food go on the hotbar. Drag them from your pack to a slot; a potion's slot shows the shared cooldown.

Brightwater Vale

• The farm is dressed: mossy fences and hazel round the edge, crops growing on their beds, and an uneven paddock.
• Clearer water that you can see through, with depth colour, a bright shore line and the sky in its surface.
• No more trees popping in as you walk: they fade between detail levels, and the trees, meadow and moss sway in the wind.
• The falls roar and the forge crackles and rings, louder as you come close. The falls' pool lost its white shelf and its pale wedge, and the river no longer shows a jagged edge at the cliff.
• The colours are closer to the art: the day is graded like the renders with a gentler haze, and the ground, rock slopes and cliffs take the same stone and tone. The farm's big crop plants, which looked near-black, are lit properly.
• The giant spiders' camp moved off the farm and into the lake woods.

Fixed

• The Rootherd could not be hurt after a wiped or abandoned fight, or when it had been pinned in place. It now lets go of the fight and its copy.
• /exit takes you out of any instance, even one nothing else will let you leave.
• Other players' combined skills are visible to you now instead of showing nothing.
• The bank vault could be walked into through the gap by its door; the closed vault door now stops you.
• Sprinting feet no longer slide along the ground.
• The camera no longer gets stuck inside a tree crown: the crown is drawn as a shadow only while the camera is in it.
• The Character sheet's values, slot names and stat summaries had gone missing; they are back.
• Hip weapons clear the thigh, and a staff's crown points ahead when you cast.

Changed

• Players no longer bump into each other. You walk through other players (people and creatures still block you), and arriving in a zone where someone already stands puts you a step or two beside them.
• The Rootherd has been toned down: 1,600 health (+350 for each extra player), softer blows, a Ground Slam and Boulder Throw that hit less hard, and a slightly slower swing.
• A creature whose target dies turns on whoever else was fighting it (the one who hurt it most first) instead of walking home and healing.
• Triage keeps the ghouls in check: no more than four at once alone, five with two of you, and they wound the patients more gently.
• Party quests: when one of you takes Triage, the siege, the Bone Dragon or the Rootherd, party members close by get it too. Quest items such as Rat Tails, Goblin Ears and tufts of wool drop for each party member who still needs them, in a bag of their own.

Fixed

• Arriving in a zone with another player could shove you forward and through walls.
• Logging out and back in could leave the ground and trees missing.
• Other players saw a meditating character stand up and sit down over and over.
• A mined-out copper vein still blocked your way.
• A Brightleaf patch in Brightwater sat on the bank's steps.

New

• Brightwater Vale has been rebuilt. The town, the bank, the woods, the cliffs, the falls and the lake are all new, with meadow grass and new trees, hedges and flowers. The quests, the people and the creatures are where you know them.
• Most damage wins. The loot, the class experience, the quest credit and the first right to skin a creature now go to whoever dealt it the most damage, not to whoever landed the last blow. A party counts as one, with everyone's damage added up.
• Combining from level 5. For now, two skills at level 5 really do combine (before, they always fizzled), and the sixteen named recipes open at level 5. These values are for testing and will go up again later.
• Phones get a Chat button on the screen, so you can chat (and send /bug reports) without a keyboard.

Fixed

• The waystone pads are drawn under their stones again in Brightwater, both ends of Thalorion and on the Eastern Road.
• Shields sit on the outside of your forearm in a fight, face out, on every body.
• The farm's crops, planters and flowers no longer look like dark metal.
• Phones: the character select, the model preview and the portraits no longer break on phones where anti-aliasing is off.

The tool belt

• Press B (or the Tool belt button beside Drop in your backpack) to open your tool belt: twelve slots for your tools, and nothing on it weighs anything. Hatchets, pickaxes, fishing rods, knives, saws, hammers and the cook's spoon all fit; anything else stays in your backpack.
• Work straight from the belt. Chop, mine, fish, skin and saw with a tool on the belt and it comes into your hand for the job, even with a sword or a staff held. No more swapping tools in and out.
• Drag tools on and off, or shift-click one in your backpack to hang it on the belt (shift-click it on the belt to put it back). The belt is saved with your character, and a new character's hatchet starts on it.

Fishing

• Buy a Fishing Rod from Greta in Brightwater or Wenna at the waystation, hold it in your hand, and look for rings spreading on the water with a little red float in the middle: that is a fishing spot. There are three in Brightwater Vale (the river pond, Stonebrook's pond and the lake on the river), one in the pond outside Thalorion's west gate, and one in the stream at the end of the Eastern Road.
• Stand on the bank and press E to cast. Wait for the bite -- "A bite! Press E to reel it in." -- and press E again quickly, or it gets away. Each spot gives five fish, then rests for a minute and a half.
• The fish: a Pond Carp from the ponds, a Perch from the lakes and the stream, a River Pike from a lake once your Fishing reaches 5, and the rare Silver Trout anywhere from Fishing 3. The more Fishing you have, the sooner they bite and the likelier the rare ones.
• Cook them at any campfire: Grilled Fish (heals 35), Fish Stew with a Brightleaf (heals 40) and Grilled Silver Trout (heals 50). Food is not held to the potion cooldown.

Alchemy

• An Alchemy Table stands beside Sister Elowen in Brightwater. Bring herbs and an Empty Vial (Greta and Wenna sell them) and stir up potions with the table's own spoon: the Minor Health Potion, a Stamina Tonic (Alchemy 3), the Minor Mana Potion from a Glowcap (Alchemy 5), an Antidote that washes out venom and bleeding (Alchemy 10) and a Regeneration Draught that heals 60 over twelve seconds (Alchemy 15). Every one shares the one potion cooldown.

Carpentry

• A Woodworking Bench stands beside Old Tamsin's wood yard -- a low lumberjack's bench, so it no longer hides you from your own camera. Bring a Hand Saw (Greta sells them again) and saw oak logs into Oak Planks, and planks into the Wooden Staff, the Crooked Staff, the Wooden Buckler, the Short Bow and the Hunting Bow. At Carpentry 10, the Rootherd's Heartwood makes the Heartwood Staff, as good as a Crystal Staff.
• Arrows are made at the bench now, not the anvil (bolts stay at the anvil). The shops still sell everything they sold.

Polearm Fighting

• Two new weapons at the Stonebrook smithy: the heavy Iron Halberd and the lighter, quicker Iron Pike. Both are two-handed and reach four metres -- further than any other weapon -- and both ride across your back out of a fight.
• Sweep (level 1) cuts your target and every foe in the half circle in front of you. Whirlwind (level 10, once every 45 seconds) cuts every foe around you.

Also new

• Fishing, Alchemy, Carpentry and Polearm Fighting each have their own evolution paths (open them with V), and the three crafts make knacks when you combine them, like the other gathering and crafting skills.
• With four new skills in the mix, your combined skills are rebuilt once when you next log in. They keep their place on your bar, their level and their progress.

New sounds

• Combining is heard now: the ritual's hum, the click of the window, a success that grows with the tier, the fizzle, the backlash and the break.
• Buffs sound as they start and fade, and a barrier cracks when it breaks. Ground zones crackle, squelch and hum, pillars shock, raised stone grinds, chains zap and drains pull.
• Fishing: the cast's whoosh, the float's plop, the bite, the reel and the splash as a fish comes in (or gets away).
• Work at the stations: stirring at the Alchemy Table and the cooking pot, the saw at the Woodworking Bench, and the polearms' Sweep and Whirlwind whoosh as they cut.

On the website

• A Combining guide (Guide -> Combining): what goes in, the shapes your skills can take, the elements and their reactions, the tiers, what can go wrong and how to avoid it, example results, and hints at the named recipes still waiting to be found.

Combining, rebuilt from the ground up

• What you make now depends on what you put in. Put weapon skills in and you get a weapon strike (or a shot, with a bow, crossbow or thrown weapon) that hits with the element you mixed in. Magic makes spells: bolts, bursts that catch everyone round the target, chains that jump from foe to foe, and fans of bolts. Life and Water make mends. Defense, Shield and Meditation make wards. Stone Shaping makes zones of burning ground, mud or brambles, and walls and pillars. Shadow can make a veil that hides you from creatures. Gathering and crafting skills make knacks that speed your work for half an hour.
• Every effect is real. Slows, stuns, roots, knock-downs, silences, chains, drains that heal you, burns, bleeds -- if the combination promises it, it does it. Two elements together often make a reaction (Steam, Wildfire, Hailstorm and more) that adds its own twist.
• Anything can go in. Skills, spells and abilities, two to five of them, each at level 5 or more. A spell you put in is kept, but goes back to Novice. Seven new named recipes wait to be found: Nightshot, Gale Lance, Shieldwall, Veil Step, Wildcraft, Still Waters and the Thunder Pillar.
• The window tells you before you commit: what it will be ("this will be a weapon strike that slows"), and how unstable it is, in green, amber or red.
• Combining is a ritual of 3 to 6 seconds. A blow, a step away or a stun breaks it, and only the mana is lost. You cannot combine in a fight.
• Reaching too far can backlash. Big combinations at a low Synthesis level can lash back: you are hurt, your skills are kept but lose their progress toward the next level, your spells lose their rank, and you must rest a minute before trying again. Your Synthesis level makes it steadier.
• Some magic is opposed. Life and Shadow tear each other apart: the window shows BREAKS in red and asks you three times. If you go on, the skills are destroyed -- but the right pair, at the right levels, may make something forbidden.
• Your combined skills have been rebuilt under the new rules when you log in. They keep their place on your bar, their picture, their level and their evolution progress. You will see one message telling you.

New buffs and effects

• Wards and buffs show in the row under your health with their time left: Ward (less damage), Barrier (soaks blows), Resist, Focus (faster mana and stamina), Steady (shorter stuns), Swift (faster on your feet), Knack (faster gathering and crafting) and Veil. One of each at a time; your own can't be renewed the moment it ends.

Also new

• Fifteen new abilities. Reach level 10 in a fighting skill or a school of magic and a new ability joins your spellbook and your bar. Each has its own rank (Novice to Master) and its own evolution path, like every other spell and ability.
• Rending Slash (Swordfighting): a cut that leaves the wound bleeding for four seconds.
• Hamstring Chop (Axe Fighting): a low chop that slows the foe by 30% for four seconds.
• Sweep the Legs (Staff Fighting): a heavy blow that throws the foe down.
• Gut Punch (Unarmed Combat): a punch that leaves the foe too winded to use anything for a moment.
• Kidney Shot (Dagger Fighting): a stab that stuns.
• Impale (Spear Fighting): a thrust that holds the foe where it stands.
• Hobbling Arrow (Archery): an arrow into the legs that slows the foe by 30%.
• Scorch (Fire Magic): a bolt of fire, and the foe burns after.
• Ice Lance (Ice Magic): a lance of ice that roots the foe.
• Static Charge (Lightning Magic): lightning that crackles through a foe for six seconds.
• Boulder (Stone Magic): slow to raise, but it hits hard and knocks the foe down.
• Hush (Shadow Magic): darkness that silences a foe, so for three seconds it cannot cast.
• Tide Mend (Water Magic): healing over ten seconds for you and the allies near you.
• Wind Blades (Air Magic): three blades of wind in a fan.
• Greater Heal (Life Magic): a big heal on yourself, with a short cast.
• Harpies, rats and thorn-hounds can be skinned. Harpies (the Harpy Queen too) give Harpy Feathers, giant rats a Rat Hide and thorn-hounds a Thorn-hound Hide. Three feathers with the usual copper ingot and oak log make 15 arrows at an anvil instead of 10. Three rat hides, or two thorn-hound hides, tan into one Cured Leather at the rack in Stonebrook. The traders buy all three.
• Captain Aldric gives you a Skinning Knife with his pelt task, "Proof of Courage", and Foreman Hild gives one with "Hides for the Bellows" if you have none. You keep it.

Changed

• Young wolves' pelts come from skinning. A young wolf now drops its pelt in about one kill in twenty. Skin the body instead (stand at it and press E with the knife in your bags): every young wolf gives a pelt that way. Aldric's and Hild's tasks tell you how.

Fixed

• The hidden character screen no longer steals your keyboard. Pressing Space in the world could open an invisible race list that swallowed clicks and drags.
• Gem drops stay on the Skeleton, Rat and Thorn-hound loot after an update.

Fixed (from your /bug reports)

• Thrown back to the login screen. Pressing Tab, Enter or Space in the world could press a hidden button on the character screen and log you out; going back in then said "Could not reach the world". Both are fixed.
• Bags inside bags. Crafting windows now count ingredients in bags inside your bags, and hovering an item in an inner bag shows its details.
• Windows. Shop, crafting and bag windows can be dragged by their title, stay on the screen, and remember where you left them. Opening many bags fills the screen in columns instead of running off it.
• The Combine window now scrolls through every skill you have.
• Crafting experience. Each recipe now pays by its level, what goes into it and how long it takes, instead of 20 for everything: a Leather Jerkin is worth about eight times a Copper Ingot.
• Spells level up. Every spell grows by being cast: Novice, then Seasoned, Veteran and Master. The spellbook, the tooltip and the character sheet now show each spell's rank, and the chat names the spell when a rank is ready to take in Evolutions (V).
• Thalorion has gathering. Oaks in a woodlot outside the west wall, copper along the slope behind the north wall, and more herbs. Copper now looks like copper: a rocky outcrop with green and orange seams.
• Crossbows are held in the hands again, by guards and players.
• Sprinting looks better: the feet keep up with the body.
• The forge in Stonebrook no longer stands inside a house, and a few other buildings and fences that overlapped were moved apart.

New

• Skinning. Kill a wolf, a cow, a goat, a boar, a bear, a giant spider or a drake, stand at its body and press E to skin it. Wolves give a Wolf Pelt and the hide beasts a Rough Hide, for the tanning rack in Stonebrook; giant spiders give the new Spider Silk and drakes the new Drake Scale. You need a Skinning Knife in your hand or your bags: the Stonebrook smith sells them. A body now lies for 30 seconds, and whoever killed it, or their party, has it first for 10. A blow stops the work.
• Meditation. Sit down (X) out of a fight while your mana or stamina is below full, and you get both back faster, with a soft glow round you while it works. It starts at 10% faster and grows to 40% as the skill rises.
• Combine spells and abilities. The Combine window now lists your spells and abilities under your skills. Put any of them together, with or without skills, to make something new. A spell you combine is kept, but its rank goes back to Novice.
• Minor Mana Potion. A blue potion that gives back 40 mana, sold beside the health potion and dropped by druids and the followers of Kagan.
• Tanning at the rack is now done with a knife, standing at the hide; the rack lends you one.

Changed

• Evolutions are harder, and they fit their skill. Each step of a spell or ability's path now strengthens its own skill tree (a fire spell's path: more fire damage, cheaper fire spells, stronger burns). A step needs many more uses than before (250, 1,000 and 3,000) and a skill level (15, 30 and 50). Nothing you already took is lost. Some defence and reflect steps that did nothing before now work.
• One potion every 20 seconds. After a potion you wait 20 seconds before the next. Food is not held to it.
• Hides come from skinning. The wild wolves, cows, goats, boars and bears now drop a pelt or hide in about one kill in ten.
• No limit on /bug reports. Send as many as you find.
• Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update.

New

• A launcher that keeps itself up to date (1.3.0). When a newer launcher is out, it fetches it, checks it, and opens again as the new version: you see "Updating the launcher..." for a few seconds, then the game updates as usual. If it cannot (a launcher kept in Program Files, say), it shows the old "A newer launcher is ready" note with a link instead.
• One last download by hand. A launcher from before this one cannot update itself yet: get 1.3.0 from the Download page once and save it over the old one, in the same folder, so it keeps the game you already have. After that, new launchers come by themselves.
• The Android test build updates itself too. At the login screen it says when a new build is ready, downloads it, checks it, and hands it to Android's installer; your character is kept. The first time, Android asks you to allow installs from Legends. This build has to be installed by hand once (from the Download page); after that, updates come to you.
• The game's own icon. The game and the Android app now show the launcher's moon-and-dragons badge instead of a blank icon.

Changed

• Steel armour, finished. Steel Gauntlets now cover the whole hand (a dark plate glove), and Steel Leg Guards show plate thighs instead of two straps.
• Under the hood. The game's servers and the website moved to a newer version of .NET, and the game now carries a map of every zone's ground and walls for the movement work to come. Nothing about play changes yet; the download grows by about 2 MB.
• Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update.

New

• The story's threads are alive. The ghouls' violet threads in Thalorion, the Bone Dragon's gold joint threads, the Rootherd's root threads, the last thread in the Pool and the Bound Stone's tether are now glowing, living strands. Each ends in a knot you strike; they pulse, and a cut sends out a burst. A cut root's end reaches back towards its stump as it regrows, and a knot that is sealed for good turns to ash.
• A QUIT button on the login screen. Esc leaves the game from there, so you no longer need to close it from the taskbar.
• "Took off X." in the chat. Taking something off now says so, as putting it on already did.
• A new Android test build. Download it from the Download page: the old one will not connect after this update.

Changed

• The Rootherd fights where it stands. It strikes from its own edge, and a boss no longer pushes you down the road until it resets.
• The brought-down Bone Dragon lies still. Its fall plays once, without a flinch afterwards.
• Creatures fall before they vanish. They tip over when they die, and the body stays where it fell. Creatures keep apart by their real size, so cows, spiders and goblins no longer stand inside you or each other, and bosses hold their ground.
• A cleaner screen. The quest tracker hides while the Backpack or Spellbook is open. World names and E prompts hide while a shop, station or dialogue is open (hostile creatures keep theirs). Enemy names behind your character are no longer drawn over you. Tooltips are solid and always on top, and log text stays inside its panel.
• Accepting a quest from too far now says "Come closer to Captain Aldric." (with the name of whoever you asked) instead of nothing.
• The camera stays under roofs instead of poking through them.
• Things moved clear of what they sat in. The herb patches and the tanning rack no longer stand in houses, logs or stairs. Copper veins are smaller rocks, and harpy attack markings fade at the edge.
• Carried things sit better. The pickaxe rides across the shoulder blades, swords slide down the outside of the thigh when put away, hatchets hang straight, staves clear the Plate, and Leather armour sits right on Human and Elf men. A bow's arrows fit its quiver, the knife fan spreads, and the javelin is drawn again, lower.
• Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update.

Fixed

• Spellbook and hotbar together. The book holds still, your keys do what you set them to, and no spell is cast by accident.
• Chopping and mining are no longer "Interrupted." right after you start them.
• Fire arrows fly with their flame. Brightleaf blossoms show on the flowers, and work bars fill from empty.
• The Skeleton Archer no longer clubs with its bow.
• Legs stop running in place when you press against a rock, and the campfire's stones are walked around.

New

• Armour you can see. What you wear on your head, body, legs, feet and hands now shows on your character, for everyone near you and on your character sheet. There are four sets, each better and heavier than the one before: Leather, Studded, Steel and Plate. Greta, Brannoc and Wenna the Pedlar sell them, and goblins, root-thralls, the Bone Dragon and the Rootherd drop pieces. Full sets take off about 23%, 33%, 38% and 42% of a blow; 42% is the most anyone can have. Most characters who have played will look a little different: everyone got Leather Boots from Captain Aldric and the Copper Helm from Hides for the Bellows, and both show now, as brown boots and a copper helm. The game grows by about 150 MB.
• Jewelry and gems. Your character sheet has a neck slot and two ring slots. Five gems (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Amethyst and Moonstone) turn up in copper veins (all but Moonstone), on a few creatures, and one from each boss. At the anvil you make a plain copper ring or amulet (Brannoc sells them too), then set a gem into it. Four of the gems each ward off one element and Moonstone gives mana; every piece adds a little health. Jewelry is not drawn on your character yet.
• Herbalism. Pick Brightleaf, Silverroot and the rare Glowcap by hand: stand at a plant with three small blossoms and press E. They grow in 22 places across the Vale, outside Thalorion's west gate and on the Eastern Road. A Glowcap patch needs Herbalism 3, about ten picks; Silverroot now and then gives a Glowcap at any level. Cook meat with a Brightleaf at a campfire for a meal that heals more than plain cooked meat.
• Leatherworking. A tanning rack stands in Stonebrook's square. Cure wolf pelts and the new Rough Hide into leather there, then make the leather set (cap, gloves, boots, leggings, tunic, and at Leatherworking 10 the Leather Jerkin) and a 10-slot satchel.
• /unstuck. Wedged between a house and a fence, or anywhere you cannot walk out of? Type /unstuck in the chat box and hold still for 10 seconds, out of a fight. You are taken to the nearest safe place, the one you would come back to if you died. Once every 5 minutes. /stuck works too, and /help lists it.
• A new launcher (1.2.0). It puts the game in your own user folder (AppData\Local\LegendsOfTheSoulbringer), so the launcher can sit anywhere, even on your Desktop. When an update stops, it says why in plain words and offers Try again. It asks you to close the game before it changes the game's files, keeps a launcher.log you can send if something keeps going wrong (Open folder shows it), and from now on tells you when a newer launcher is ready. Get it from the Download page. If you already have the launcher, save the new one over the old one, in the same folder: it keeps the game you already have. The old one still works.
• Look speed and invert. Esc, then Options, has a Controls part: Look speed (25% to 300%) and Invert look, for turning the camera with the mouse.
• Small things. The Eastern Road has its own music, with the wind over it (it sounded like Brightwater, gulls and all). Wenna the Pedlar sells a Hatchet at the waystation, which the Ringed Thorn needs. The 31 items that had no description have one, and the Hand Saw, the Crate of Bolts, Maren's Whistle and a few more have their icons.
• No invite box, and a way back from a forgotten password. The new-account card no longer asks for an invite code. The login box, in the game and on the website, now says who to ask if you forget your password: a new one is set for you without stopping the game, and nobody is logged out.

Changed

• No changing armour in a fight. Head, body, legs, feet and hands cannot be put on or taken off until about 6 seconds after the last blow: the game says "Not in a fight." Rings, the amulet and what you hold change as before.
• An out-of-date game is turned away, with or without a build number. A game left open over an update, or installed before games carried a build number, cannot enter the world. It says: "This game is out of date. Close it and start it again from the launcher, which will update it." Everyone updates through the launcher anyway. The Android test build is let in; download the new one after each update. Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update.
• Wolf pelts come from wolves. Cows, bulls, goats, ibex, bears, crocodiles and boars drop a Rough Hide instead, and spiders, harpies and the other beasts no longer drop pelts. Wolves keep theirs, so your quests are unchanged.
• Names over heads show the name only. No more "Cow 1": a creature's level is in the target frame, in its danger colour. The frame no longer says "attacking" (an animal you have struck reads "fighting back") and lets go of a target dead for 10 seconds or more than 60 metres away for 5. When two names would cover each other, the farther one is lifted. Creatures keep apart: they no longer stand inside one another or inside you.
• The screen says less, and says it plainly. Banners show one at a time, long enough to read, and wrap; when more than three come at once, the last says "More in the log." The keys strip and the welcome line show only to a newcomer. Chapter cards fit their titles. The character screen no longer says "Loaded 1 character(s)." and says so when the servers are down.
• Raise Wall and Raise Pillar rise the way your body faces, which in a fight is toward your target. Attack markings on the ground have a clear edge and a soft fill, and lie on the land, slopes too.
• The detail level picks itself. If you have never set it, the game picks it from your graphics card: Low for graphics built into the processor or under about 3.5 GB of video memory, Medium under about 5.5 GB, otherwise High. Esc, then Options, changes it, and your choice is kept. The Download page says the same, and that the game is tested on an RTX 5060 Ti.
• A household can sign up together. From one home connection the game now takes 15 logins a minute (it was 5), 20 tries at a new account in 10 minutes (it was 3) and 10 new accounts an hour. On the website, only posting counts towards its limit.
• Your first hour has more: the browser's own download warning, Chapter Two at Thalorion's east waystone, /unstuck, why to party up, and what to do about a forgotten password, an out-of-date game or when you are asked for your log. Arc Five's task says your party shares the kills, and Maren's Whistle is a keepsake of the siege.
• A weapon drawn or put away is hidden for a moment, about a tenth of a second, as it moves between your hand and your hip or back, instead of jumping there through you. It stays until real draw animations are made.

Fixed

• Nights are dark again. Leaving the character screen left its stage light on in the world, like a second sun.
• The Skeleton Archer holds a bow. It had a skeleton knight's sword and shield.
• Weapons in the hand, once more. Your other hand takes a staff's or a spear's shaft or lets go of it cleanly, not halfway. Staffs, swords and tools keep out of your legs and body, a bow's lower limb keeps out of your thigh, and a shield on the arm faces out in the fighting stance and turns out of your thigh and chest. Things in your hand keep out of the ground: the crossbow no longer sinks into it when you crouch, and a staff slides up through your hand so its foot rests on the ground. A staff stays upright in the hand (it leans a little when you sprint, on purpose), and its crown stays in front of your chest when you cast. A spell cast with a sword, a bow, a tool or a shield in hand leaves toward the target, the casting arm swinging that way.
• What you carry stays out of you, once more. A weapon on the hip hangs closer and straight down, and hangs still when you stand, with its widest part (a guard, an axe blade, a mace head) kept out of you. What is put away is lifted off the ground as you fall, what is laid beside you keeps clear of your head, and the tunic is a little fuller at the hips.
• Goblins and Kagan's followers walk. They slid along in one frozen stride; their legs now move as they go.
• Swimming, the triage yard and the campfire. Your body sits in the water, back at the surface, instead of lying on top of it. The wounded lie on the ground under the awnings (one sat on an awning's roof), and a campfire's ring of stones is solid.

New

• Raids on Brightwater. About every hour and a half, horns sound on the north road. Two minutes later three waves of goblins, skeletons and a hobgoblin come down into the square, more of them the more people are playing; everyone who kills a raider is paid at the end, twice as much if the square holds, and the town watch shoots raiders too.
• The quest log. Press L for every quest you have taken, under Active, Ready to hand in and Completed: what each asks, how far you are, who gave it, who takes it back and what it pays. On the minimap, quest givers now show their ! or ?.
• A guide for your first ten minutes. A new character gets a banner at the top of the screen with one thing to do at a time, in your own keys: walk, take Captain Aldric's quest, open the quest log, fight a wolf and open your bag. Skip ends it.
• The old ballad. The first time a character enters the world, a card titled "The Soulbringer" shows three lines of the old ballad of the first man to take that name. Characters made before see it once, at their next login, and the gate guards, Deraku and Pavogani have a word or two about it.
• The Old Crowned Coin. Skeletons sometimes carry an old gold coin with a crowned head nobody in Thalorion knows. The money-changers take it for the gold.

Changed

• The game is a much smaller download. It takes 1.9 GB on your drive instead of 5.8 GB: its pictures are kept to the size they are seen at, and only the creatures you can meet come with it. This update replaces most of the game's files, so it takes longer to fetch than usual; the next ones are small again.
• Updates download only what has changed. The new launcher rebuilds the game from the parts you already have, and checks there is room on your drive first. Get it again from the Download page; the old one still works, but fetches whole files.
• Anyone can see and cut the threads. The necromancer's thread in the triage hall and the knots on the Bone Dragon, the Rootherd and the Bound Stone are in plain sight: stand at a knot and press E. Threadsight and its T key are set aside for a later update; Kexoti still teaches the Mending.
• The Siege of Thalorion can be won alone. On your own you get half a minute between waves to reach the winch, and a blow no longer undoes your winding: the pawl holds the turns you made, and you take it up from there. A party plays it as before.
• Two-handed weapons and shields. Staffs, bows, crossbows, spears and two-handed blades take both hands, so putting one on sends your shield to your bags, and the other way round. Out of a fight, bows, crossbows and shields are slung on your back, and are taken up again when a fight starts.
• Creatures that chase you run. A creature that chases faster than it walks now breaks into its run; one with no run is slowed a little, a fifth at most, and its legs keep pace. Creatures that back away walk backwards at their own speed, so archers and casters give ground more slowly.
• Brightwater's woodcutter is Old Tamsin now. She was Old Maren, easy to take for Sergeant Maren in Thalorion, and she now splits logs at her stump with the Hunting Axe instead of sawing the air. The wounded woman beside Orrin in the triage hall is Nell now; Wenna the Pedlar keeps her name.
• Cooking and smithing are done at the work. You walk up to a pot or the anvil and work it from its side, instead of stirring the air a step short of it. Brannoc the Smith stands at his anvil in Stonebrook too.
• Some evolution paths have new names. Water Magic's Tidecaller is now Floodwarden, Archery's Stormbow is Volleymaster, and a few steps along the way were renamed. What they do is unchanged.
• The website tells the old ballad. The Story page has the whole ballad and two legends under the story, and says the dead come up to Thalorion's south gate (it said the north road). The Bestiary marks the creatures you cannot meet in the world yet.
• Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update. A game left open from before cannot join.

Fixed

• Chapter One no longer gets stuck. If the siege, the triage or the council ends without you (you logged out, crashed, died too far off or wandered away, or the siege ran out of waves), Deraku, Kexoti or Veylin offers it again. Taking The Council while it already waits for answers now counts, and the wounded guard's question leaves your quest list once he is gone.
• Your account name works in any capitals. "Grandma" and "grandma" are the same account, in the game and on the website, and Enter now logs you in. On the character screen a login lasts an hour, not five minutes, so taking your time over race and class no longer ends in "The ticket has expired."
• The game says plainly when the servers are down. The login box no longer shows a web error page, and a game started from a taskbar pin finds the servers instead of looking on your own computer. If the connection to the world drops, you are taken back to the login screen, told why, with your name filled in.
• The game keeps running when it is not the window in front. Switching away to read a page froze it, music and all, while creatures could still hit you.
• Holding Shift to run no longer blocks the number keys. Running at a wolf and pressing 1 used the empty second bar, so nothing happened.
• A low rise no longer spoils a clear shot. Throws and shots are now checked from your chest, so a fold in the ground between you and a creature in plain view no longer gives "No clear shot." Walls, trees and rocks still block them.
• Weapons are held the right way. Staffs stand crown up in the hand and lie across the back, swords and knives hang hilt up at the hip, the smith's hammer is held by its handle, and the other hand takes the shaft of a spear, a crossbow or a staff. Bows sit square to the arrow, and shields sit on the forearm on every body.
• What you carry stays out of your body. Weapons on the hip and the back sit clear of you and give way to your legs and arms, a crossbow no longer swings into your belly as you wind it, and what you carry is laid beside you when you sit or fall. Skirts bend with the legs, and townsfolk wear trousers under their tunics.
• People and creatures move as they should. You turn to face what you attack, cast at or shoot, and townsfolk turn to you when you talk to them. Creatures move smoothly instead of in jumps and stop their legs when they stop, and names over heads keep up when you turn quickly.
• Mother Ashby has her hair. She was bald at the waystation.
• Music plays on the login and character screens. They were silent, and taking a quest now rings a chime.

New

• The road east is open. Finish Chapter One and Pavogani is waiting at Thalorion's east waystone. The road leads past Mother Ashby's waystation and over three hills, and something has gone wrong with the third.
• Five quests: The Follower, Mind the Third Hill, The Sentinels, The Pool and The Rootherd.
• New creatures. Thorn-hounds grow back what you cut from them unless it burns. Root-thralls climb out of the hill when you wake the Sentinels.
• The Rootherd, the third hill's guardian gone wrong. Your party fights it in its own copy of the road. Cut the threads that feed it, then seal the cut ends with fire or stone before they grow back. It rises again a month after it falls, as the Bone Dragon does.
• Chapter One follows you east. How the gate held, how the council voted and what you picked up on the keep's steps all show on the road.
• New things to learn and carry: Mend Stone (Provos shows you), the Blackthorn Charm, and the Rootherd's Heartwood. The Heartwood is staff wood better than iron, though nobody on the road can work it yet.
• Wenna the Pedlar keeps a cart at the waystation, and sells the Tome of Fire Magic: the Burned Stone wants fire.

Changed

• Chapter One's closing card now sends you to the east waystone.
• A boss fight that ends without the kill can be tried again. If the Bone Dragon flies off or the Rootherd sinks back, speak to Deraku or Provos when you are ready. Before, the quest stayed open with no way to call the fight back.
• Close the game and start it again from the launcher to play this update. A game left open from before cannot join the new road.

New

• A waystone stands outside Thalorion's east side. It is cold for now. The road east opens with Chapter Two, which is being made.

Fixed

• Sergeant Maren has her hair. She was bald in the supply yard.
• Out of arrows, you are told so. With the target behind a tree or a wall, an empty quiver said "No clear shot." and the bow kept trying. The same for an empty hand of throwing knives.

Changed

• The Siege of Thalorion waits for the Vale. Captain Aldric sends you to Thalorion once you have finished Brightwater's tasks, ending with Hild's hides for the bellows. Hild tells you when it is time to go back to him.
• The giant rats are a fair fight now. A rat calls only the one beside it, notices you from a little closer, and the nest is spread wider, so they come one or two at a time. Each is also a little weaker (70 health, softer bites). Before, the whole nest came at once, and a newcomer on The Rat Problem had little chance.
• Old Maren gives you a smith's hammer with Steel for the Watch, so you are never stuck at the anvil without one.
• Fall near Stonebrook, come back in Stonebrook. You return at the nearer town, not a long walk away in Brightwater.

New

• Gallery: pictures of Brightwater, Stonebrook, the lake, the camps and Thalorion, taken in the game as it is.
• What's new in the launcher: the launcher shows the newest of these notes beside the Play button.
• A link to the site shared in a chat or on a forum now shows a picture and a line about the page.

New

• A welcome for newcomers. A new character's first minute brings a card that says where you are, shows your keys, and points you to Captain Aldric. There is also a page for it: Your first hour.
• The front page shows whether the game is up, how many are playing and where, and which version is live.
• Heroes: every character has a page. It shows class and level, the skills learned and the names transcended ones took, titles, the Bone Dragon slain, Chapter One finished, and whether they are in the world now. The boards rank the first to finish Chapter One, the dragon's slayers, the highest levels, the transcended, and the masters of every skill. Look anyone up by name.
• More to hear: the Bone Dragon's wings as it flies over and the ground shaking as it lands; a potion as you drink it; and the creak of your gear as you walk.

New

• Sound. The world was silent; now it isn't:

  • music for where you are and what is happening: Brightwater by day and by night, Thalorion, a fight, and the Bone Dragon;
  • the valley's ambience through the day, the water's edge, gulls over the lake, and the wind on Thalorion's walls;
  • footsteps that change with the ground;
  • blows, blocks, spells, arrows and bolts;
  • the dragon's breath and roar.

  The volumes are in Esc → Options.

• Options. Full screen, a borderless window or a window; the window's size; vertical sync; a frame limit; the level of detail; and the sound volumes. Your choices are kept on your computer.

• Who to talk to. A gold ! over someone means they have a task for you. A gold ? means you can hand a finished task in to them, and a grey ? means a task you are still working on ends with them. The minimap shows them too.

• The town watch. Crossbowmen guard Brightwater's roads and Stonebrook's. A wolf that chases you into town will not get far, and the kill still counts as yours.

• The end of Chapter One. When the council names you Defender of Thalorion, a card marks the end of the story so far. Chapter Two is being made.

• Hide the interface: press F10 for a clear view, for screenshots. F10 or Esc brings it back.

• Report a bug from the game: type /bug and a few words in the chat. Your name, where you are and the time are kept with it. Every report is read.

Changed

• Cooking is done with a large wooden spoon at the pot. Your weapon is put away while you work, and you no longer stir the pot with a sword.
• The wolves near Brightwater have moved their den west of the town. Before, they lived so close that they followed people into the square.
• Skill experience in the log is gathered into one line per skill, instead of a line for every blow.
• Steep banks by the lake show their stones and sand properly instead of a flat grey smear.
• Bright flashes from spells and heavy blows are softer and take the colour of their element.
• Raise Barricade and Kexoti's Mending have their own icons on the bar.