Today’s hotfix is focused on putting the Monthly Mission requirements back to their intended values. We're still working to fix the Invite issue and are hopeful to have a fix in later today, but we're not quite there yet. We’ll have more news soon.

Bug Fixes

• Reduced the criteria numbers for the October Monthly Mission back to 35 Legendaries, 35 Skeleton Special Enemies and 10 Incursions.
  
• Fixed an issue that was preventing some players from launching the game.

Feature

• We’ve heard you, Defenders. You don’t want to sit through the tutorial. Even though it’s educational and good for you. So go ahead, skip it. Players who skip the tutorial will be sent to the Easy version of The Gates of Dragonfall without the tutorialized elements. If you select Play and not Play Private from the Main Menu, you may have other players in your first match.

Today’s hotfix is focused on putting the Monthly Mission requirements back to their intended values. We're still working to fix the Invite issue and are hopeful to have a fix in later today, but we're not quite there yet. We’ll have more news soon.

Bug Fixes

• Reduced the criteria numbers for the October Monthly Mission back to 35 Legendaries, 35 Skeleton Special Enemies and 10 Incursions.
  
• Fixed an issue that was preventing some players from launching the game.

Feature

• We’ve heard you, Defenders. You don’t want to sit through the tutorial. Even though it’s educational and good for you. So go ahead, skip it. Players who skip the tutorial will be sent to the Easy version of The Gates of Dragonfall without the tutorialized elements. If you select Play and not Play Private from the Main Menu, you may have other players in your first match.

Frantically storyboarding.

Getting HF1 out the door, Content Update 1 & 2 planning, and trying to take over the world.

Finishing up some final touches on some new challenges for the event. Otherwise brainstorming some new builds, and an idea for skill spheres for Freeplay and beyond.

This week I’m doing some much-needed overhauling of our tutorial, making sure our INSANELY SCARY BEWARE spooky event is good to go, and setting up for this week’s internal playtest of our new boss fight.



Many thrills and chills await y’all in less than a week! I’m looking forward to hopping on and playing with some of you during the event, watching some streamers tackle it (if they’re brave enough - it’s pretty scary), and seeing if anyone can uncover all the spooky secrets hiding in the maps.

Look, spooky is getting closer and closer. Making sure all those bugs are fixed. Can’t wait to see people playing on the brand new maps. The Incursion is gunna be super dope.

Trying to test the Spooky Event and also the constant influx of hotfix builds. So far behind.

R&D for future rigs and setups for skins. Prep work for Carl, sniping bugs as they come. Polishing and finalizing the Spooky Maps and any content related to it.

I love cookie crisp cereal! They’re GRRRRRREAT!

Trying to upgrade some last minute visuals. Normally I veto these things... but I’ll look the other way this time. Wait, I want to look at the visuals. What do I do!?

Troubleshooting the live game is part of my day to day now. I think it’s worth noting we almost have no server crashes; this means less random disconnections from the user’s standpoint.

We’ve encountered some matchmaking issues that are only being exposed now because of the amount of users… we are working on it. I have to confess that when they started showing up I went into a frenzy mode and started cutting stuff up… of course none of that made it in but we did learn a few things from that: first; keep it cool (always keep it cool), secondly; there is quite the room for improvement.

Last but not least … we have another engine programmer working with us: welcome Matt!

He is actively working on client optimization (you guys probably noted that the win32 os clients are working again!... for the most part). Expect further improvements there as we have already identified some of the problems you guys are having.

Working on a new boss level (temporary name carl), creating basic geo such as walls, floors and trims.

We're working side by side with the artists/designers team on the new boss level, Carl.

The level is coming along pretty fast and furious!

Bug juggling! Trying to get the Playtest Group going for this milestone, whilst keeping the RQA folks stomping on the bugs.

Frantically storyboarding.

Getting HF1 out the door, Content Update 1 & 2 planning, and trying to take over the world.

Finishing up some final touches on some new challenges for the event. Otherwise brainstorming some new builds, and an idea for skill spheres for Freeplay and beyond.

This week I’m doing some much-needed overhauling of our tutorial, making sure our INSANELY SCARY BEWARE spooky event is good to go, and setting up for this week’s internal playtest of our new boss fight.



Many thrills and chills await y’all in less than a week! I’m looking forward to hopping on and playing with some of you during the event, watching some streamers tackle it (if they’re brave enough - it’s pretty scary), and seeing if anyone can uncover all the spooky secrets hiding in the maps.

Look, spooky is getting closer and closer. Making sure all those bugs are fixed. Can’t wait to see people playing on the brand new maps. The Incursion is gunna be super dope.

Trying to test the Spooky Event and also the constant influx of hotfix builds. So far behind.

R&D for future rigs and setups for skins. Prep work for Carl, sniping bugs as they come. Polishing and finalizing the Spooky Maps and any content related to it.

I love cookie crisp cereal! They’re GRRRRRREAT!

Trying to upgrade some last minute visuals. Normally I veto these things... but I’ll look the other way this time. Wait, I want to look at the visuals. What do I do!?

Troubleshooting the live game is part of my day to day now. I think it’s worth noting we almost have no server crashes; this means less random disconnections from the user’s standpoint.

We’ve encountered some matchmaking issues that are only being exposed now because of the amount of users… we are working on it. I have to confess that when they started showing up I went into a frenzy mode and started cutting stuff up… of course none of that made it in but we did learn a few things from that: first; keep it cool (always keep it cool), secondly; there is quite the room for improvement.

Last but not least … we have another engine programmer working with us: welcome Matt!

He is actively working on client optimization (you guys probably noted that the win32 os clients are working again!... for the most part). Expect further improvements there as we have already identified some of the problems you guys are having.

Working on a new boss level (temporary name carl), creating basic geo such as walls, floors and trims.

We're working side by side with the artists/designers team on the new boss level, Carl.

The level is coming along pretty fast and furious!

Bug juggling! Trying to get the Playtest Group going for this milestone, whilst keeping the RQA folks stomping on the bugs.

Free Gem Offer

• As thanks for being patient while we work through our Open Alpha growing pains, we’re giving everyone 100 free gems! In order to receive the gems, you’ll need to login to the game between now and Tuesday, Oct. 27th.

Content

• Item icons in the Inventory now have colored frames depending on its rarity. For example, Legendary icons now have orange frames. Hipster icons have black, bold frames. #sounique #sospecial
  
• You can create characters in the group tavern now.

Bug Fixes

• Put in a potential fix for the issue where the matchmaking service was doing wonky things when we hit a high number of concurrent users. We wanted to get this fix in before the weekend, so the speed at which we needed to get this in has a side effect. We are dividing our matchmaking into three different regions: Oceanic, United States and Europe. For a short period of time, players will not be able to change regions or matchmake with a friend who is in a different region. Tentatively next week, we plan on releasing a way to change regions manually, and shortly after that, a way to change regions dynamically based on a friend invite (this work is in-progress now).
  
• Fixed an issue where Bearkira’s slowing effect wasn’t wearing off on some enemies.

Known Issues

• A merge issue has reverted the requirements of the Monthly Mission back to their pre-cutdown numbers. This will be fixed in tomorrow's hotfix.
  
• You won’t be able to skip the introductory cutscene on the first viewing. If it shows up again, you’ll be able to skip it.
  
• Fugazi is still on indefinite hiatus. Not a known issue with the patch. Just a known issue with life.

Free Gem Offer

• As thanks for being patient while we work through our Open Alpha growing pains, we’re giving everyone 100 free gems! In order to receive the gems, you’ll need to login to the game between now and Tuesday, Oct. 27th.

Content

• Item icons in the Inventory now have colored frames depending on its rarity. For example, Legendary icons now have orange frames. Hipster icons have black, bold frames. #sounique #sospecial
  
• You can create characters in the group tavern now.

Bug Fixes

• Put in a potential fix for the issue where the matchmaking service was doing wonky things when we hit a high number of concurrent users. We wanted to get this fix in before the weekend, so the speed at which we needed to get this in has a side effect. We are dividing our matchmaking into three different regions: Oceanic, United States and Europe. For a short period of time, players will not be able to change regions or matchmake with a friend who is in a different region. Tentatively next week, we plan on releasing a way to change regions manually, and shortly after that, a way to change regions dynamically based on a friend invite (this work is in-progress now).
  
• Fixed an issue where Bearkira’s slowing effect wasn’t wearing off on some enemies.

Known Issues

• A merge issue has reverted the requirements of the Monthly Mission back to their pre-cutdown numbers. This will be fixed in tomorrow's hotfix.
  
• You won’t be able to skip the introductory cutscene on the first viewing. If it shows up again, you’ll be able to skip it.
  
• Fugazi is still on indefinite hiatus. Not a known issue with the patch. Just a known issue with life.

https://youtu.be/4a52oPtUAI8

Are you tired of your Hero having boring old flesh? Do you long to feel the wind on your ribcage? Do you believe that thin is in? I mean, really, REALLY believe it? If so, then take a look at our Grave Danger Costume Pack!

From now until Novemeber 2nd, you can pick up the Grave Danger Costume Pack! It includes:

• 3000 gems
  
• 4 Skeleton Costumes [Limited Edition Costumes]
  
• Headless Horseman Premium Pet
  
• Exclusive “Bone Collector” Title

Shake a leg bone, Defenders! This pack won't last long!

https://youtu.be/4a52oPtUAI8

Are you tired of your Hero having boring old flesh? Do you long to feel the wind on your ribcage? Do you believe that thin is in? I mean, really, REALLY believe it? If so, then take a look at our Grave Danger Costume Pack!

From now until Novemeber 2nd, you can pick up the Grave Danger Costume Pack! It includes:

• 3000 gems
  
• 4 Skeleton Costumes [Limited Edition Costumes]
  
• Headless Horseman Premium Pet
  
• Exclusive “Bone Collector” Title

Shake a leg bone, Defenders! This pack won't last long!

Our team worked over the weekend and into today to fix the server issues occurring. We have a solution that will go into a patch targeted for Wednesday. As thanks for being patient while we work through our Open Alpha growing pains, we’re giving everyone 100 free gems! You rock, and we can’t wait to keep squashing these bugs together.

In order to receive your gems, you’ll need to login to the game between Wednesday (after the patch goes live) and Tuesday, Oct. 27th.

Since we’re in Early Access, here’s a little more information on what happened with our service:

It wasn’t the actual servers (we have plenty of those). The problem was our matchmaking service bottlenecked while handling the requests for new server instances. And oh boy, there were a TON of requests for new instances coming in very fast. We tested for this before launch using way higher numbers than what happened over the weekend, but the organic behavior of live players is unpredictable and exposed bottlenecks our testing didn’t show. What we’re releasing should solve the immediate problem, but there’s more work to be done, so expect further improvements in the future.

Our team worked over the weekend and into today to fix the server issues occurring. We have a solution that will go into a patch targeted for Wednesday. As thanks for being patient while we work through our Open Alpha growing pains, we’re giving everyone 100 free gems! You rock, and we can’t wait to keep squashing these bugs together.

In order to receive your gems, you’ll need to login to the game between Wednesday (after the patch goes live) and Tuesday, Oct. 27th.

Since we’re in Early Access, here’s a little more information on what happened with our service:

It wasn’t the actual servers (we have plenty of those). The problem was our matchmaking service bottlenecked while handling the requests for new server instances. And oh boy, there were a TON of requests for new instances coming in very fast. We tested for this before launch using way higher numbers than what happened over the weekend, but the organic behavior of live players is unpredictable and exposed bottlenecks our testing didn’t show. What we’re releasing should solve the immediate problem, but there’s more work to be done, so expect further improvements in the future.