We're introducing a new, ongoing video series this week, and we're calling it Nosgoth Class Warfare!

This new series will explore every Class available for play in Nosgoth, and serves as both a primer for new players and a refresher for veterans. With each video, we'll provide an overview of the selected character along with a breakdown of their Weapons, Special, Primary, and Secondary abilities and a few helpful strategies to boot.

For our inaugural episode, we're highlighting Clan Dumahim's stealthy predator, the Reaver. Swift, silent, calculated, and poised, this particular Vampire is a natural hunter who outthinks and out-hunts his Human prey.

Check out the full video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHEuJYRqOSA

We're introducing a new, ongoing video series this week, and we're calling it Nosgoth Class Warfare!

This new series will explore every Class available for play in Nosgoth, and serves as both a primer for new players and a refresher for veterans. With each video, we'll provide an overview of the selected character along with a breakdown of their Weapons, Special, Primary, and Secondary abilities and a few helpful strategies to boot.

For our inaugural episode, we're highlighting Clan Dumahim's stealthy predator, the Reaver. Swift, silent, calculated, and poised, this particular Vampire is a natural hunter who outthinks and out-hunts his Human prey.

Check out the full video below:

IFrame

Last week saw the release of the oft-requested Private Matches feature in Nosgoth. Previously, playing with friends meant playing on the normal playlists. Excellent fun, but sometimes you want that fight for supremacy to only include your nearest and dearest... or your rivals! With the new Private Matches option, the lobby you set up is yours, and can only be accessed by friends, and people using the special server code for that specific match. It also includes something else we have seen a lot of requests for.... 5 v 5!

Private Matches are an exciting new addition to Nosgoth, and will really allow for some interesting competitive play, to go hand-in-hand with our ESL announcement last week. This is merely the start however, with more options and improvements to come in future updates!

To start a private game, click on Play and then Private Match. You’ll see two options here. To create a new private game, hit Start Private Server.


You’ll be able to specify the details of the match here, such as the mode, lobby size (up to 5v5), and map. Once you’re happy with your settings, hit Start Server.



At this point the lobby is ready, and joinable. To share this lobby’s special server code (shown below the map image), just click on it, and it is automatically copied to your clipboard. You can then share that code with the world. Everyone can “ready up” here, and as lobby leader you have the option to Force Start the match.



To join a lobby using the special serve code, just copy the code as shared by a friend (or enemy!), and click in the Server Code box. It is automatically pasted there and you can click on Join Private Server to go straight to that lobby.

Note, you won’t be able to earn XP, Gold or achievements in private sessions.

So, what are you waiting for? It's time to organise some Nosgoth matches! Stay tuned for further updates and improvements to Private Matches, and as always we’d love to hear your feedback.

Following on from our new game update on October 27th, we’re very excited to announce the upcoming Nosgoth ESL Beta Cup Series!

With our newly integrated private matches and ESL features, you’ll be able to organise matches against other teams, structuring the competitive side of Nosgoth so many of you have already been enjoying.

From November 9th, you’ll be able to take that one step further, by taking part in the ESL Nosgoth Beta Cup Series, launching in both Europe and North America, with the first monthly final happening early December.
http://play.eslgaming.com/nosgoth/global/

The Nosgoth ESL Closed Beta Cup Series will feature weekly and monthly competitions, with prize pools for both. Each week, the top team in the European Beta cup and top team in the North American Beta cup will each win a €200/$200 prize fund. At the end of each month, the 8 teams that gather the most points over the past month will then compete for a total prize of €500/$500 in the monthly final!

Fancy yourself as a bit of a Nosgoth pro? This will be your chance to put your skills to the test. For more information, and to register for the Nosgoth ESL Beta Cup Series, check out the ESL Nosgoth portal site here: http://play.eslgaming.com/nosgoth/global/

If you are an active, competitive Nosgoth player, the ESL are also looking for admins, so head to their site for more detail. Looking for team members, to take on the world? Pop over to the Nosgoth Steam forums "Warband" board, or our newly created Warbands/Clans sub-forum on the official site, to meet other players!
Steam http://steamcommunity.com/app/200110/discussions/5/
Official forum: http://forums.eu.square-enix.com/forumdisplay.php?f=175

All that remains now is to wish everyone luck! We will regularly be featuring news and content here, so even if you aren't taking part yourself, keep an eye out for more spotlights on competitive Nosgoth play.

GLHF!

Halloween is almost upon us, and we're celebrating the occasion with a week-long event for Nosgoth, Devil's Night. From Monday October 27th through Sunday November 2nd, you'll be able to get exclusive items and rewards, for ONE WEEK ONLY!

As part of the end-of-game reward system, during Devil’s Night only, all Mysterious Items which drop will have a new Ghostly visual and audio effect to be unlocked, along with the stat modifiers you'd normally expect on these drops. It will apply to all Mysterious Item drops, for all Human Weapons and Vampire Special Abilities, and the drops are randomly generated. Once the event ends, it won't be possible to unlock these exclusive items, making you the envy of all your friends.



Also available during the event week will be several special in-store items:

• Exotic Items
  Exclusive Devil's Night versions of the Human Weapons and Vampire Special Abilities (27 in total), with regular stats, but with the new Ghostly visual and audio effect as a permanent bonus
  
  
• Player Banners
  New banners will be available, marking Devil's Night, giving you a new way to customise your profile in lobbies

Devil's Night will start with a game update on October 27th, and will run through Sunday November 2nd. Once the Devil's Night event ends, any items you unlocked during the week are yours to keep, but you won't be able to unlock them after this, so don't miss out!

Today, we are very excited to bring you the introduction to an upcoming class for Nosgoth. This class is currently in development, and will be joining the game after the release of our Open Beta this Winter, but we simply couldn’t wait before sharing some information with you all. This will be the first blog about her, with several more to follow. In today’s very special sneak preview, we share the history and lore behind our upcoming Vampire class – the Summoner of Clan Melchahim …

The official blog

Summoner – Clan Melchahim

Last of Kain’s lieutenants to be raised, and the weakest: Melchiah was an immortal cursed with a body that was nonetheless decaying; he was an immortal forever destined to be treated as inferior by his brethren. While Melchiah flayed human victims and used their skins to cover his putrescence, to him the ability to reformulate his body was a unique gift that in time could make his Clan the most powerful as well as the most numerous. For now he hid his festering resentment behind a mask of civility and unquestioning service to the Vampire cause. To do anything else would be to invite his humiliation or destruction - Kain was an unforgiving god.



From their patriarch, the Melchahim inherited the same outward weaknesses and secret potential. While in them it was still a latency into which they had yet to grow, all were filled with mingled dread and excitement about the fate that awaited them. Vain - and jealous of the beauty of the Razielim especially - the Melchahim experimented with any number of ways to strengthen their bodies and hold off the underlying decay. Scientists and alchemists laboured over strange concoctions which they force-fed or transfused into human slaves. Hundreds were sacrificed, hideously disfigured or poisoned from within, but as long as the Melchahim used only the old or sickly, this wastage was tolerated.

While some Melchahim researchers muttered resentfully among themselves, sure that if they had better stock on which to experiment they would have greater success, others felt that this was a distraction from the true answer to their plight. There was a secret that Melchiah shared with a few of his most trusted counsellors and generals, and at his command they began a new line of study: the path of necromancy.

Unbeknownst to his brothers, Melchiah had delved deeper than any other into the mysteries of the Underworld, an arid realm parallel to the one they all inhabited and populated by the lost souls of the dead. Melchiah’s researches were focused initially on trying to halt and ultimately reverse the decay which was the bane of his existence. Speaking with the dead, manipulating souls, and siphoning their life energy were all avenues of exploration for Melchiah and his chosen helpers, and while they had little success in reversing their own condition, the necromancers did discover a wealth of other mysterious arcane lore about what they came to call the Dry Lands.

When Raziel was ordered cast into the Abyss, Melchiah watched without visible emotion, but internally his joy was boundless. His upstart brother, preening and proud, was here laid low before them all, his fate that of any other traitor to their lord. Melchiah renewed his silent vow to never make the mistake of angering Kain in the same fashion… only for Kain himself to suddenly vanish without warning.

With each Lieutenant left to his own devices, each now eyed his brethren with mounting suspicion. Melchiah, fearful of his stronger siblings, returned to his experiments with a renewed urgency and lack of restraint. Even members of his own Clan were sacrificed and cannibalized in hidden necromantic laboratories as his researchers delved deeper into practices they had previously feared to pursue. Flesh-sculptors started grafting not just skin but whole body parts onto subjects, paving the way for Melchiah to start reshaping his own form. Soul-wrights discovered new ways to fuel their sorceries of destruction, protection, and summoning.

The true extent of these depravities the Melchahim managed to keep secret from the other Clans, but the results were to become evident when the plots and squabbles between them erupted into open warfare. Those of his brothers who thought that the youngest Clan would be easy prey found themselves unpleasantly surprised, with their first brutal assaults and stealthy infiltrations alike slowed or thwarted by the Summoners’ previously unseen capabilities.

The Underworld has its own ecology, with the souls of the dead feeding on each other. Some particularly malicious souls fuse into new entities that prey on lesser souls or are in turn hunted by older, larger carnivores. Some like the scavenging vermin known as Sluagh or the predatory Archons are only found in the land of the dead, while others like the restless Shades can be found in both realms. During the centuries of relative stability Kain’s victorious empire had brought to their existence, comparatively few Vampires had perished. Now, as the civil war raged on, a fresh crop of Vampire souls was released into the Dry Lands. In their search for ways to maintain their edge, the Melchahim made use of this new resource, gathering the souls of dead Vampires of their own Clan and melding them with lesser souls into a new breed of hunter, twisted and ravenous creatures the Summoners named Ghouls. While permanently resurrecting a necromantic construct was beyond their capabilities, the Melchahim were able to briefly weaken the barriers between the worlds and let Ghouls – the packs of Stalkers, hulking Slayers and cannibalistic Devourers - through to feast.





The transition from fighting their own kind to fighting Humans made little difference to the Summoners of the Melchahim – the souls of both sides were all fuel for their necromancy. Melchiah was quietly satisfied that his Clan had survived at least one threat to their future survival, and while having to commit his resources to the war with the humans was an annoyance, at least it distracted his brethren from prying more closely into his private affairs.

Now, powered by stolen souls and allied with creatures from the realm of the dead, the elite Summoners of Clan Melchahim stalk the battlefields of Nosgoth again.

Today sees the release of a new game update for Nosgoth. This update features a whole host of changes and updates, including Mysterious Items, Immolation, a new Deceiver execution, bug fixes, and more! For full information on each point, check out our patch notes, available here. http://www.nosgoth.com/game_updates



In-game Event: Double XP!
To celebrate this new update, we've got a special surprise! We're rewarding everyone with double XP, from now through SUNDAY (October 19)! During that time, you'll earn double the amount of XP you normally would. Note that this extra XP is calculated on your total, so you won't see a popup or graphic indicating the extra amount, but it will update the actual amounts for you.



Mysterious Items
This update includes our brand new Mysterious Items: ultra rare rewards that are sometimes-obtained post-game. These items will seem familiar at first, and appear like the current Weapons (Human) or Specials/Primary Attacks (Vampire), but actually have hidden Rechargeable Properties. Once you equip one and start using it in matches, the item will start gaining its' own XP and will level up. With each level, another secret is revealed.

Tier 1 - All Rechargeable Properties are unknown
Tier 2 - The first set of Rechargeable Properties are unlocked (1 Positive, 1 Negative)
Tier 3 - The second set of Rechargeable Properties are unlocked (1 Positive, 1 Negative)
Tier 4 - Unique Visual FX are applied to the item
As we detailed last week, and you can see in screenshots we included in the blog, these visual effects include Flame, Frost, Lightning, Shadow, and Toxic, to start with.





Immolation - Alchemist Ability
A new ability for the Alchemist was added in today's update, allowing her to forfeit a portion of her health in exchange for a powerful self-explosion. It will instantly damage any enemy in its' Area of Effect. We have seen some great reactions to this ability off the back of last week's blog, and we can't wait for everyone to try it out!



Deceiver - new alternative Execution
Following on from the release of our Reaver, Sentinel and Tyrant alt executions, we're happy to now bring you the alternative Deceiver execution! As with our previous alternative executions, it is available to purchase through the in-game store, and when equipped, will replace the default execution.


Balance
This update brings a few changes to existing abilities and classes, again all detailed in our patch notes. The list is too long to include here, but it includes a lot of adjustments to various abilities.



Bug Fixes
A few bug fixes are included in this release as well, and are further detailed in our patch notes. This includes:

• A fix for a looping audio bug some players experienced
  
• Further fixes to the "ghost players" / 4v3 matches issue
  
• Additional debugging for an issue causing some players to occassionally be unable to spawn in the second round, so we can hotfix the issue soon

So, as you can see, it's a pretty hefty update! Whether you're a frequent Nosgoth player, or you haven't been seen on the battlefield for a while, you will want to check this update out, and get your hands on that double XP!

In a world dominated by vampires, death is indeed a release -- and starting with this week's update, your fallen human enemies will know its embrace more intimately than ever.

Available for purchase in the Store and accessible from your character's inventory, Executions are a gruesome new way to enjoy supremacy over mankind! Once equipped, each class-specific Execution automatically plays as a replacement for the existing default animation (Press "X" over a conquered human opponent).

Though executions don't provide any sort of advantage or performance increase, they still look pretty cool. Stay tuned for awesome videos that will show off what the executions look like in-game. For now, make sure you check them out using the preview built into the store!

The Reaver, Sentinel, and Tyrant Executions are available for purchase right now with a unique Deceiver Execution coming soon.


Here are the patch notes for today's (September 16, 2014) game update:

Alternate Executions
- Vampires now have alternate executions available for purchase from the Store
- Default execution items have been granted to all players for the classes that they own.
-Each class now has a "default" Execution item.  Reaver and Tyrant executions are part of default inventory now, and Sentinel and Deceiver are granted with the class unlock.

Hunter
Whip
- Damage reduced to 200, was 250

Tyrant
- New VFX for Ignore Pain and Enrage

Jump Attack
- You can`t cancel your Jump Attack Cooldown via jumping to a spot that is at the apex vertical limit of your jump


UI and Store
Party
- Added an “Invite to Party” widget on the bottom bar that makes it easier to send invites to friends playing Nosgoth

Inventory
- Items can now be filtered by these types: Boosters, Perks, Armor, and Executions.

Purchase Options
- Equipment is now available in “7 Day” and “Permanent” options
- Perks are now available in “7 Day” and “Permanent” options
- Boosters are now available in “7 Day” and “30 Day” options

Bugs and Performance
- More optimization work on The Fane and Sommerdamm maps
- Fixed some collision issues in The Fane and Sommerdamm maps
- Fixed more issues with the chat box not closing when hitting the Escape key
- Fixed an issue with Sticky Grenade not always sticking when it should

Now the Nosgoth Free Weekend has ended, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all the fantastic support this weekend. We had such a great response to Nosgoth from gamers everywhere, we were thrilled to see so many of you playing and loving the game!

Nosgoth is Free To Play, and currently in Closed Beta until this Winter. All of your progress has been saved against your Steam profile should you want to come back to Nosgoth when we move to Open Beta. If you cannot wait until Open Beta, and you want to carry on taking part in the brutal war between Humans & Vampires you have two choices:

• We regularly invite players who have registered for access into the Closed Beta. To register your interest simply complete the registration process and wait to be invited. Closed Beta signup
  
• You can get immediate and permanent access to the Closed Beta when you become a Nosgoth Founder

Leading on from the Free Weekend, we're aware that some of you have been experiencing issues with party matchmaking during that time, and we want to let you know that resolving these issues is our top priority. We're sorry for any inconvenience it caused during this weekend, when playing with friends, and we're working to resolve that as soon as possible. Keep an eye on our forums, Facebook, Twitter, and right here on Steam, for notifications about our patches. Our official blog is available here

We hope to see you again in Nosgoth, and we'd love to hear your feedback, so make sure you stop by our forum. Our Free Weekend FAQ is available here.

We are always grateful for community feedback as we strive to give players the best experience possible. Thanks once again for taking part, and we hope you all enjoyed your time with Nosgoth.