Welcome to the yearly Zhia Lian event - aka Halloween! You'll receive two quests from Zhia Lian when you log in after the update. Completing these quests will unlock more and more -- there's about a hundred quests in all, including three brand new group quests for high-level players. This update also contains some small bug fixes and tweaks.

• If your selected creature dies, it now updates properly (loot button will appear & name color will change)
  
• Fixed bug that caused speech bubbles to stick around forever
  
• Fixed bug that caused floaty numbers to queue up while off-screen and then display all at once
  
• Fixed bug that would crash client if you logged out and then back in while something is selected
  
• Floating numbers now respect the size settings (Size of Combat Numbers)
  
• Darkened outlines around Experimental UI names
  
• Mounted players can now be selected, and their nameplates are positioned better

• Legs in Sun Vale now trains a Riding ability for spiders when in their travel mode.
  
• Fixed all tier 1 Bat ability cooldowns.
  
• Fixed bug that causes vendors with low gold amounts to sometimes have large gaps in their Sell tab.
  
• Added POI markers near the portals in Kur Mountain so they are easier to find.
  
• We now show a subtle cooldown overlay on all abilities when the global cooldown is in effect.
  
• Non-humanoids display better on the character selection screen and in the Persona window.
  
• Improved nameplate placement, highlighting, and selection colliders for all monsters.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented camera panning if you clicked on certain GUI elements, such as floaties or speech bubbles.
  
• Sped up Hare "ear-scratching" animation, which is used mostly for support abilities.
  
• All animals will now stick-to-ground more smoothly.
  
• Fixed issues with cow appearance under certain lighting.
  
• Fixed error resulting from rapidly changing appearances.
  
• Fixed bug that causes "Loading 1 additional assets" to stay on the screen forever.

This is a small bug-fix update that covers some important initial bugs (as well as some pretty minor stuff that got fixed in passing).
We're planning another update next week to address more complicated bugs. Your feedback is *essential* to this process, so a big thank you to everyone who has reported problems or shared their experiences so far!

• ExperimentalSelectionUI setting now saves properly.
  
• The Experimental Selection UI now respects font sizes and updates settings in real time instead of requiring a relog.
  
• New settings for the Experimental Selection UI, located under GUI/Experimental Selection UI:
  
  • Flash Selected Nameplates: Should nameplates flash when something is selected? Defaults to enabled.
    
  • Speech Bubble Font Size
    
  • Name Font: Allows selection between serif and sans-serif fonts for entity names. Defaults to serif.
• Fixed Werewolf Hunting Speed.
  
• Fixed Winter & Dark Werewolf armors.
  
• Mounts will no longer show up in the character select screen.
  
• Adjusted fox mount animation so it sits in the saddle instead of hanging on.
  
• Snow Raven form and Deer now stick to the ground appropriately. In addition, animals that stick to the ground now take most decorations into account.
  
• Deer will once again fall over when dead.
  
• Lowered volume of spider skates by half.
  
• Fixed some wonky looking selections for doors and a fire in Eltibule.
  
• Slightly decreased egg drop rate for Ice Hen.
  
• All bugs which caused client out-of-sync issues (E.G. entities being too-far-away to attack, not moving, not animating etc.) should now be fixed.
  
• Fixed the color-picker window.
  
• Fixed some NPCs in Kur that were inaccessible.

Welcome to our latest update! There's a lot of important changes, so we'll dive right in. It was hard to prioritize all the different changes, so please at least skim over the topics to make sure you know what you need to know!

If you find issues, please report them ASAP! Given the number of changes, we may need a quick hotfix to address any big problems. (And regardless, we'll do another update next week to start the Halloween event!)

We've made large changes to Eltibule and Kur Mountains.

The changes to Eltibule are largely cosmetic in this update, replacing the ground map, trees, foliage, and many props. The map is roughly the same, although there are changes. The most important change is that the exit to Kur Mountains is now beyond Hogan's Keep -- you need to go through the Keep to reach it.

The changes to Kur Mountains are broader: this will be the future home of the orc playable race, and the old map didn't work for that. This is a new terrain, and pretty much everything in the map has changed location. We tried to keep things in rough relative position, but please be careful when you first venture out!

Many areas of spawned monsters and foraged items have shifted or become larger. For example, you will likely run into more winterhue and rabbits during their respective times of day. You might also run into a lot more orcs. So please let us know if you run into trouble with areas that seem too sparse or too dense. The cold weather mechanics in Kur Mountains are unchanged.

If you were logged out in either Eltibule or Kur Mountains, you will be transported to the new entry point of that zone on login.

Note: there was a problem with this new system and it was disabled at the last minute, except for the level cap on AH pets. To repeat, this cap is NOT active right now. This is how the system will work in the future, though.
We've tweaked the way that treasure effects on items behave when your active skills are more than 25 levels apart. Here's the rundown: If your two active skills are more than 25 levels apart, we automatically downgrade your equipped gear by temporarily lowering the treasure level until the mods are below the cap. So if you have Archery at 25 and Sword at 75, the Sword treasure mods will be capped at 50: the lower-level skill plus 25.

• The base effects of the gear ("white label effects") don't have any scaling info so they just stay the same all the time.
  
• If no lower-tier effects are usable, that effect is just disabled.
  
• A new icon in the effect bar explains that they are downgraded, and lists which slots are affected.
  
• Equipped item tooltips display the correct downgraded information (or an indication that the enchantment is disabled) if the item is affected by skill level disparity.
  
• Looking at the abilities themselves will also show that the capped effects are being used.

If one of your active skills is Animal Handling, we also cap your pet's level. If your Animal Handling skill is more than 25 levels higher than your other active skill, we automatically reduce the level of your pet to the lower-level skill plus 25. If a pet is already summoned and your skills are changed in a way that would result in its level lowering, it is automatically unsummoned.

Another important change we wanted to call out: Necromancers no longer need to be in a graveyard to raise standard skeletons. Instead, you need Necromancy Powder, which is created by powdering bone in a graveyard late at night.

• Necromancers automatically learn the recipe to do this at level 2.
  
• If you are already level 2 or higher in Necromancy, the recipe has been automatically added to your recipe book.
  
• The recipe requires a femur or other large bone, and can only be performed in a graveyard during the in-game hours of 10pm and 4am.
  
• All tiers of the ability "Free-Summon Skeletal Archer" have been removed.
  
• All tiers of the ability "Raise Skeletal Ratkin Mage" are unchanged: these abilities still require you to be indoors and have a ratkin medallion.

We had to cancel our recent Boss Invasion event due to server lag. We've made some internal optimizations to fix this, but one of the most important fixes has gameplay ramifications. (And it's something we should have fixed long ago... it just wasn't a priority until now.)

The biggest performance problem was area-of-effect (AoE) buffs! When several hundred players (and their pets) were grouped into a tiny clump, these buffs would apply to hundreds of entities -- so many that it actually takes a noticeable amount of time on the server. When a bunch of players in this clump are all applying buffs at the same time, it generated lag.

AoE buffs are balanced around the idea that they might apply to an entire hunting group of six players (and their pets). Definitely not hundreds! That's a performance problem as well as a game-balance problem. So we've tried to fix it. But we also want buffs to continue to work intuitively in 95% of day-to-day situations.

Here's the new rule: AoE buffs and heals affect at most seven players (and their pets). If there are more than 7 players in range, the caster and their group-mates are prioritized first. If the caster is targeting another player that isn't in their group, that player is also always included. (This is so you can continue to offer "drive by assistance" in dungeons.) After that, players are picked randomly until seven are chosen.

For simplicity, we count seven players, and automatically include those players' pets. e.g. If a player and their pet are both within range, the pet will get buffed if the player does. If a pet is in range but the player isn't, that pet still counts as one player (for purposes of picking seven).

We hope that this system will be invisible most of the time, only being a problem when there are more than six players fighting the same monster. (In those cases, the nerf is intentional.) If this rule causes unforeseen gameplay problems, we'll revisit it.

We wanted to call out a small but important change: Indirect damage effects (such as Damage-over-Time effects, Damage-Reflect effects, and Delayed-Damage effects) previously did not generate monster hatred, but now do. Each point of indirect damage generates as much hate as a point of direct damage.

This is an experimental change. We'll be watching closely, and we'd love to hear your feedback after you have a chance to play with this some.

We've made some relatively small changes to Mentalism.

• "Electrify, System Shock, and Panic Charge restore 30 Health after a 15 second delay" => 53 Health after a 7 second delay
  
• "Mindreave taunt -500" => "Mindreave taunt -665"
  
• "Reconstruct restores +30 Health and causes the target to take 24 less damage from attacks for 10 seconds" -> "Reconstruct causes the target to take 18 less damage from attacks for 30 seconds"
  
• "Revitalize restores +30 Health and causes the target to take 30 less damage from Psychic and Nature attacks for 10 seconds" => "restores +30 Health and causes the target to take 26 less damage from Psychic and Nature attacks for 12 seconds"
  
• "Psi Health Wave heals all targets for 90 health after a 25 second delay" => "Psi Health Wave heals all targets for 109 health after a 15 second delay"
  
• "Psi Armor Wave and Psi Adrenaline Wave restore 202 armor to all targets after a 25 second delay" => restore 139 armor to all targets after a 15 second delay
  
• "Psi Power Wave and Psi Adrenaline Wave restore 70 power to all targets after a 25 second delay" => restore 56 power to all targets after a 15 second delay
  
• "Panic Charge boosts the damage of all your attacks +23 for 20 seconds" => +57 for 20 seconds
  
• Fixed several other treasure effects that didn't get more powerful after level 80.

There are various other treasure changes, including a nerf of Warden's Privacy Field ability.

• Archery: New (Head, Main Hand): "Heavy Multishot boosts the damage of your Nice Attacks and Epic Attacks +167 for 10 seconds"
  
• Archery: "Acid Arrow Taunt -1260" => "Acid Arrow deals +280 damage to Armor"
  
• Shield: Display Fix: "When you are hit, all Shield abilities taunt +10 for 20 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)" now correctly states the stack count, "10 times", instead of "15 times". (It already stacked the correct number of times; this was a simple typo fix.)
  
• Spirit Fox: Display Fix: "While Blur Step is active, Soul Bite has a 33% chance to deal +7 damage and hit all targets within 7 meters" => +124 damage. (It already dealt this much damage, it was just incorrectly listed as +7.)
  
• Staff: "For 30 seconds after using Phoenix Strike, your Survival Utility and Major Heal abilities restore N Health to you" => Fixed bug that caused this to restore Power instead of Health as intended.
  
• Staff: "After using Headcracker, you take -N% damage from Psychic attacks for 15 seconds" will now stick around for the entire 15 seconds. In addition, we fixed a bug that caused the level 85 version to be weaker than the level 80 version.
  
• Warden: Privacy Field ability: reduced base damage at all tiers. (The highest tier changed from 275 => 196.)
  
• Warden: "Privacy Field deals +65% damage to melee attackers" => +48%
  
• Warden: "When Privacy Field deals damage, it also ignites the suspect, dealing 180 damage over 12 seconds" => 156 damage over 12 seconds
  
• Warden: Small tweaks to several other warden treasure. (These were formula revisions.)
  
• Minigolem abilities Healing Mist, Invigorating Mist, Haste Concoction, and Rage Mist have increased area-effect range.

In addition, all treasure effects should now persist through zoning and logout. The following effects previously were not doing that and have been fixed:

• "While Unarmed skill is active: any time you Evade an attack, your next attack deals +X damage"
  
• "While Unarmed skill is active: you gain +4% Melee Evasion and any time you Evade a Melee attack you recover X Armor"
  
• "When you are hit, Finish It damage is +X for 20 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• "When you are hit, all Shield abilities taunt +X for 20 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• "When you are hit by a monster's Rage Attack, the current reuse timer of Stunning Bash is hastened by 1 second and your next Stunning Bash deals +X damage"
  
• "When you are hit by a monster's Rage Attack, Reinforce restores +X Armor for 60 seconds (stacks up to 10 times)"
  
• "Privacy Field causes you to recover X Power when a melee attack deals damage to you"

All animals forms should now be able to ride horses or use a unique travel mode.

• Spider form has a new travel mode: Spider-Form Travel Mode can be learned from Legs at Animal Town in Sun Vale. You must be Comfortable with Legs.
  
• Many animal forms can now ride horses, including: Hares, Foxes, Giant Bats, and Butterflies. Riding a horse in these forms behaves just as if you were riding in a bipedal form.

Mount Fixes & Tweaks:

• Mounts now come to a stop more slowly, except when stopping to interact with something. Note that you can stop more quickly by holding the "move backward" key.
  
• Safe Fall no longer persists while mounted.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed prevention of fall damage by mounting.
  
• Dying from a projectile while mounted should no longer let you walk around while dead.

• Player butterflies no longer have +25% Mentalism Base Damage; instead they have +10% Psychic Damage and +10% Nature Damage.
  
• There is a new butterfly-only recipe which allows you to drink nectar from flowers (or flower arrangements). This consumes the flower and buffs your Health Wave, Armor Wave, and Power Wave abilities for 30 minutes. The potency of the buff depends on the quality of the flower(s). For now, this recipe can be learned from Yavazek in Sun Vale.
  
• Butterfly dances are a bit more unique now with different particle effects for each move. And butterflies now float subtly while moving or dancing. Very pretty!

• Stuns should now properly affect all forms.
  
• Ducks can now fit into areas that all other forms can.
  
• Shrunk the pigeon hitbox.
  
• Your Persona window will now correctly update when you switch between forms.
  
• Most animal forms now adjust the camera so that the new form remains in the center of the screen.
  
• Foxes and spiders now "stick" to the ground, similar to hares.
  
• Polished deer animations, including new dance moves.
  
• Added new dance moves and color variations to fox dances.
  
• Spider dance variants B & C are now slower & faster versions of the base dances.
  
• Added new dance moves to giant bat dances.
  
• Spiders, foxes, and bunnies now all kinda-sorta look like they are swimming & flying.
  
• Added falling animations to giant bat, spider, & fox.
  
• Improved animations & visual effects of giant bat attacks.
  
• Spider abilities should now be quieter.
  
• Polished some spider attack particles.
  
• Sped up some Hare attacks.
  
• Fixed the specularity on player cow texture.

The reward from the VIP Challenge is here! If you logged in during the Challenge, then you can collect your limited edition vanity pet from now until November 30th. The Ice Hen is our first interactive vanity pet, released in remembrance of The Great Egg Famine of 2018. Your personalized Ice Hen has a chance to lay eggs at a higher rate than wild chickens. Now you have the power (and the chicken) to help ensure we never run short of eggs ever again!

You can collect your pet in game by opening the Persona panel (it's the face icon towards the bottom of your right-hand bar) and then clicking the gift box icon at the bottom, or you can type /redeem in chat. Once you have redeemed your Ice Hen, you can summon it by clicking the "Manage Cosmetic Pets" button on your Persona panel.

Do not procrastinate collecting this gift, because after November 30th this pet will never be offered again!

Many of the backer packages (from Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or the Gorgon Shop) comes with small in-game benefits. In this update, we've hooked up a couple more of those features. Players who purchased a package that included free Lycanthropy/Teleportation skills, or the ability to create a stack of Duke's Cakes, can now access those rewards through the redemption panel.

Again, you can collect your rewards by opening the Persona panel (it's the face icon towards the bottom of your right-hand bar) and then clicking the gift box icon at the bottom, or you can type /redeem in chat.

Please note that the Teleportation rewards can be redeemed on *all* of your characters, while the Lycanthropy benefit can only be redeemed on a single character, so choose wisely! Redeeming the stack of Duke’s Cakes works very similarly to redeeming player title scrolls -- any character on the account can redeem the cakes, but only once a week.

In addition, players who purchased a Grand Duke or Archduke backer package can now send out their proclamations and decrees all across the land -- that is, make short world broadcasts. Each proclamation can be up to 255 characters long, you may make up to three proclamations, and each proclamation has a 7 day timeout period. A Council Proclamation Form can be found in Hulon's house in Serbule Keep.

Player-broadcast proclamations are not considered official and do not have any effect on gameplay. They also include a short disclaimer so that they can easily be told apart from admin or game system broadcasts.

We're working on a new selection UI, and in this update you can start helping us test it (if you want to)! The new UI changes the way that selected objects are highlighted and the way their information is displayed when they are selected.

You can switch to using the new selection UI by going to Settings->Special and adding the line "ExperimentalSelectionUI" (without quotes) to the special settings box. After you have done that, a new header will appear in Settings->GUI called "Experimental Selection UI". All new-UI settings will go under here, although there's currently only 1 setting. This is an experimental change, so please give it a try and then give us your feedback!

• Chat tabs now turn green instead of italic when there are unread messages.
  
• Unread notifications can be turned off for chat tabs, in the "Edit Tab" menu (by right-clicking the tab itself).
  
• Tracked skills now persist through sessions.
  
• The "Hide Known Recipes" filter on vendors is now just "Hide Known", and applies to both recipes and abilities.
  
• The enter key can now be used to confirm item summons and splits.
  
• When summoning an item, the amount to summon is now automatically selected so you can quickly change it.
  
• Player-bestowed title messages will no longer show color tags in chat.
  
• Recipe tooltips now accurately state when an ingredient is not consumed, instead of "(% chance to consume)".
  
• Hovering over an effect when it wears off will now properly update the tooltip.
  
• Equipment gained from a barter will now show the proper level when hovered over in the barter window.
  
• The tooltip icon cooldown overlay should no longer appear on items.
  
• Fixed stretching icons in Player Work Order sign and crafting UI.
  
• Fixed rounding error in client display. Certain buffs could make it seem like you had 1 more Max Health than you did.
  
• Quests that cannot be abandoned now have a greyed-out "Abandon Quest" button with some informative text. This should make it clearer that this inability to abandon some quests is intended, and not a bug.
  
• More clearly delineated item attributes from the info below them when there's no enchantments.
  
• Optimized NPC vendor UI to remove freeze-up when first opening the UI or switching tabs when there are a lot of items present.
  
• Better handling of on-screen messages that display as soon as you enter a new area.

Previously, several graphics settings were only supported in older areas (such as Serbule) and not newer areas (such as Povus). The following settings now work in both old and new areas: tree-draw distance, tree billboard distance, grass distance, and grass density.

• Maximum tree-draw distance increased from 2000 meters to 3000 meters.
  
• Minimum tree-draw distance increased from 0 meters to 100 meters.
  
• Minimum grass density increased from 0% to 35%.

All graphics presets have new default values for tree-draw distance, tree billboard distance, grass distance, and grass density. This may slightly impact FPS. Note that any overrides for tree-draw distance, tree billboard distance, grass distance, or grass density that you may have set have been reset to their default values, and will need to be re-adjusted.

• Added a new Graphics setting, "Realistic Non-Bipedal Placement", which is like "Realistic Foot Placement" but for non-humanoids. This will make non-bipedals "stick" to the ground realistically, rather than just float above it. Currently only implemented for bunnies, foxes, spiders, and horses.
  
• Added animations when humanoids evade attacks.
  
• Added particle effects to recipes for Shamanic Infusion and Fire Magic.
  
• Added a new visual effect to Take The Lead.
  
• Revamped Priest attacks (animations, visual effects, and some sounds). This has the effect of speeding up some attacks.
  
• Revised armor appearance to be less washed-out. This is most noticeable on metal armors.
  
• Numerous appearance loading improvements and fixes, which could cause the loading screen to hang or fail.

• Rewrote water wells. Now instead of being a single-use interactible that fills one jug of water, it works in a delay loop, filling water repeatedly until you move away from the well (or run out of empty bottles). It starts slowly and then accelerates.
  
• Ursula's Curse: when Ursula appears, she immediately targets the cursed player.
  
• Equipped gear can no longer be transmuted.
  
• Show error messages when attempting to transmute equipped or low-rarity gear.
  
• Dropping items no longer stacks them on top of each other, they are spread out in a grid around the dropper.
  
• Increased chance of dropping Ilmari gems on all four types of Rahu mineral nodes.
  
• Added actual fire to static campfires (like those in Kur Mountains) when they are fed with wood.
  
• Projectiles will no longer stick around indefinitely when shot at ghosts.
  
• Dead humanoids should no longer skate around dead some of the time.
  
• Fixed recipe Secret Calligraphy: Hemorrhage to give the intended effect.
  
• "Astounding Cloth Shirt (Max-Enchanted)" and "Camouflaged Astounding Shirt (Max-Enchanted)" now have the proper pre-requisites.
  
• Changed effect name of Agonizing Speed Potions from Bleeding Speed to Agonizing Speed.
  
• Changed instances of "Amazingly" inks to "Amazing".
  
• Emptying bottles of water no longer counts for quest "Holistic Wellness: Drink Water".
  
• Serbule Hills outhouses are now easier to interact with, and have a more appropriate search animation.
  
• Added Pet owner's name to the name of some of the vanity pets - Death on a Leash, Fae Dragon, Radish, Winter Beet (and the new Ice Hen).
  
• "Level 10-20 Event Loot Key"s are now properly called "Level 15-20 Event Loot Key"s.
  
• Fixed typo in Jumper's quest "The Bridge Bully" that indicated the wrong direction (southeast instead of northeast).
  
• Fixed typo in Fist of the Green Man (wayword -> wayward).
  
• Fixed typo in quest "A great new calligraphy bench".
  
• Changed "Kill Toxic Frogs in Gazluk While Nude" to "Kill Toxic Frogs in Povus While Nude".
  
• In quest "Kill Barghests in Gazluk", fixed "klil" typo.
  
• Changed mushroom name from "Groxmak" to "Groxmax".
  
• Converted all quest titles containing 'Halloween Event:' to 'Zhia Lian Event:'.
  
• Assorted improvements to server and client performance.

This is a minor update to make adjustments to the Summertime Experience event which starts tomorrow. There are a few other changes and bug-fixes:

• Add better handling of rapid changes in a humanoid's equipment. This should fix the bug where some players' textures display as bright pink
  
• Remove duplicate Blitz Shot 6 training option from Alravesa
  
• The "Heed The Stick" mod that grants mitigation from direct attacks will now always last 10 seconds
  
• More debug info to track down remaining "stuck on loading screen" bugs
  
• The local player mesh is now optimized again, this functionality broke as part of recent loading optimizations
  
• Deselecting an object that has just changed (such as a flower as part of gardening) will no longer re-select the object, or previously-selected objects
  
• The Healing-Suit Tester (a high-level boss) now recovers less health when there's only a few healing crystals

This is a minor update. It addresses the following bugs:

• Fix bug that could cause the loading screen to get "stuck" with a few remaining downloads
  
• Fix bug that caused queued ability icons' green highlight to stick around longer than it should
  
• Remove framerate stutter when opening the quest window (when it had hundreds of quests in it)
  
• Better error handling when reapplying particle effects
  
• Fix bug that prevented ghosts from loading correctly
  
• Fix bug that causes hotkeys to break when an appearance failed to download (for any reason)
  
• Fix bug that caused the Skill Tracker to disappear if positioned on the left side of the screen
  
• Fix typo in instruments ("Enabled musical performance" -> "Enables musical performance")
  
• Add better handling of dynamic music; this should fix bugs with background music overlapping instrument music, and background music not playing at all
  
• Fixed bug that caused Ultra Item Rafflers to be counted toward an area's max-temporary-entities count. (Only this raffler was bugged)

And non-bug changes that happened to be ready:

• The player rabbit model now uses the new animation system instead of the legacy system. (This is in preparation for future content)
  
• Player rabbits will now "stick" to the ground better, so it looks like they are on it (similar to how humanoids have realistic feet placement)
  
• Removed the ability to select 'Set limit per customer' on Item Rafflers. This is now permanently set to 1
  
• Players can no longer buy a ticket for their own raffles
  
• All Item Rafflers can now be used to raffle Event Loot Keys

Welcome to our 364th update! This one is jammed full of new features and bug fixes. Let's take a look!

Since our recent addition of mounts, animal-form players have been asking for their own mounts. But some types of animals should really be able to travel on their own! In this update, we've given those quadrupeds a new "travel mode" which makes them behave as their own horse.

Once a player meets the requirements, they can learn the appropriate technique from a trainer. After that, the Mount UI will appear (even if they don't have a horse in their stable), and they can "mount up" while in that animal form. This also lets these characters equip a saddlebag, if they have one. They can also earn Riding XP by "riding themselves." Don't think too hard about it.

A couple things to note:

• Bounceweed now has a new effect on these animals, increasing their animal-form top "travel speed".
  
• The particle on the animal form's footsteps while traveling is a placeholder.
  
• Not all animal forms have a travel mode yet; others' travel methods are coming soon!

• Sanja in Kur teaches wolf players to enter travel mode. This requires Werewolf level 40.
  
• The werewolf Hunting Speed abilities (1 through 3) are no longer sidebar abilities. They are now Riding abliities, meaning that you should place them on your ablity bar while "riding yourself" as a wolf. They are still unlocked via the werewolf altar as before.

• Silvia in Sun Vale teaches deer players to enter travel mode.
  
• Silvia also teaches Bounding Speed, a deer-only Riding ability.

• Both Raul and the Suspicious Cow train player cows how to enter travel mode. This requires Cow 25 and Comfortable favor.
  
• Both Raul and the Suspicious Cow train Cud Speed, a cow-only Riding ability.

• Norbert trains player pigs how to enter travel mode.
  
• Norbert teaches Porcine Speed, a pig-only Riding ability.

Archery is a combat skill that can be learned early. It's not the easiest skill to get into (as you must either learn to make your own arrows or buy them), but the intent is that the skill rewards the extra effort: it has strong damage plus a lot of battlefield control (e.g. stun/mezz/movement). Archery was a very popular skill in alpha, but fell off in popularity over time. The skill had only a couple of great skill pairings, and its treasure hasn't been as exciting as some newer skills' offerings.

In order to make Archery more appealing, we've kept the existing builds and skill pairings intact, and added a bunch more treasure effects. Some of the new effects synergize with older Archery treasure effects. Others were added to make the skill a better companion to other high-damage skills. We've also fixed some bugs in the skill's high-level treasure effects.

Archery's Basic Shot was about as standard as a basic-attack could be, but there was a variant version called Blitz Shot. Blitz Shot was faster, but had reduced range and increased Power cost. These two abilities have been combined into one, taking the best features of both.

Internally, we renamed Basic Shot to Blitz Shot, and deleted the old version of Blitz Shot. So if you were using Basic Shot before, you'll now see Blitz Shot on your ability bar. If you were using Blitz Shot before, there will be an empty spot on your ability bar... just put Blitz Shot back into the slot, and you're good to go.

But note: there's two new tiers of Blitz Shot! Previously there were 7 tiers (ranging from level 1 to 80). We've added two more tiers, for a total of 9. This way players get a new tier of Blitz Shot every 10 levels or so. The only down side is that if you're high-level in Archery, you'll need to learn these new tiers. They are trained by Floxie in the Fae Realm. This also affects Faebows: you'll need to learn the newest tiers of Blitz Shot before you can use "Blitz Shot (Energy Bow)".

Also note: as a minor side-effect, the level requirement for Long Shot 1 was changed from level 12 to 13. This will only matter if you happen to be exactly level 12 in archery: in that case, you've already learned Aimed Shot 1 prior to this update. Your character will still know the ability, but you won't be able to use it again until you reach level 13.

Many of Archery's treasure effects were bugged such that they didn't correctly scale past level 80 (or in some cases past level 70.) These bugs have been fixed, and pre-existing high level Archery gear will automatically have the corrected stats.

We also made lots of small changes to older treasure effects. All small number changes have been omitted for brevity, but all substantial changes are listed below. (As always, the most up-to-date numbers are available in the game's JSON data, so third-party tools will have all the latest numbers after they update.)

Also note that most of the numbers here are for the hypothetical level 100 versions.

• Changed treasure effect: "Long Shot boosts your Armor Regeneration (in-combat) +16 for 15 seconds" => "Long Shot and Hook Shot Damage +121"
  
• Changed treasure effect: "Restorative Arrow restores an additional 126 Health over 30 seconds" => "Restorative Arrow restores 58 Power"
  
• Changed treasure effect: "Restorative Arrow boosts target's Nice Attack and Epic Attack Damage +188 for 10 seconds" => "Restorative Arrow covers the target in a barrier that mitigates 40 damage from Crushing, Slashing, Piercing, Acid, and Fire attacks. Lasts for 20 seconds or until it has absorbed 200 total damage."
  
• New treasure effect for off-hand: "Restorative Arrow targets yourself and all allies within 30 meters and restores +52 Health, but reuse time is +10 seconds"
  
• New treasure effect for off-hand: "Hook Shot Damage +132. Non-Elite targets do not call for help."
  
• New treasure effect for feet, necklace: "Long Shot increases target's vulnerability to Trauma and Acid +10% for 20 seconds. (Max of 2 stacks.)"
  
• New treasure effect for hands, necklace: "Hook Shot increases target's vulnerability to Fire and Poison +10% for 20 seconds. (Max of 2 stacks.)"
  
• New treasure effect for head, feet: "Hook Shot and Bow Bash deal +200% damage to Stunned targets."
  
• new treasure effect for legs, ring: "Poison Arrow deals +480 Poison damage over 12 seconds"
  
• New treasure effect for head: "Blitz Shot deals +59 damage, and the damage type becomes Poison."
  
• New treasure effect for ring: "Direct Poison and Acid Damage +124 while Archery skill active."
  
• New treasure effect for necklace: "Direct Fire Damage +124 and Indirect Fire Damage +16 (per tick) while Archery skill active."
  
• New treasure effect for hands: "Multishot deals +99 damage, and the damage type becomes Fire."
  
• Buffed effect: "Aimed Shot deals 132 additional health damage over 12 seconds" => 270 over 12 seconds.
  
• Buffed effect: "Multishot restores 90 Health to you after a 15 second delay" => 132 health after an 8 second delay.
  
• Buffed effect: "Long Shot restores 61 health to you after a 15 second delay" => 86 health after an 8 second delay.
  
• Buffed effect: "Fire Arrow suddenly deals an additional 400 indirect Fire damage after a 12 second delay" => 500 after a 6-second delay.
  
• Ability change: Hook Shot base damage increased slightly at all tiers.

• Chew Cud, Moo of Calm, Stampede: these abilities can be used while stunned.
  
• Changed treasure: "Stampede boosts your Slashing/Crushing/Piercing Mitigation vs. Elites +8 for 30 seconds (stacks up to 5 times)" => +16
  
• Changed treasure: (Hands, Feet) "Chew Cud increases your mitigation versus Crushing, Slashing, and Piercing attacks +18 for 10 seconds" => "Chew Cud increases your mitigation versus Crushing, Slashing, Piercing, and Fire attacks +18 for 10 seconds. Against Elite enemies, mitigates +18 more"
  
• Changed treasure: (Chest, Ring) "Chew Cud increases your mitigation versus Crushing, Slashing, and Piercing attacks +18 for 10 seconds" => "Chew Cud increases your mitigation versus Crushing, Slashing, Piercing, and Cold attacks +18 for 10 seconds. Against Elite enemies, mitigates +18 more"
  
• Changed treasure: "Stampede boosts your Slashing/Crushing/Piercing Mitigation vs. Elites +8 for 30 seconds (stacks up to 5 times)" => +20
  
• New treasure: (Ring): "Stampede boosts your Fire/Cold/Electricity Mitigation vs. Elites +20 for 30 seconds (stacks up to 5 times)"
  
• New treasure: (Necklace): "Stampede deals +860% damage if used while you are stunned"
  
• Changed treasure: "Cow's Bash heals you for 66 health" => "Cow's Bash heals you for 66 health and reuse timer is -1 second"
  
• Changed treasure: "While Cow skill is active, you regenerate +40 Health every 5 seconds and resist +20 damage from Elite Crushing, Slashing, or Piercing attacks" => now resist all Elite damage types (not just Crushing/Slashing/Piercing)
  
• Changed treasure: "Chew Cud's chance to consume grass is -42%" => "Chew Cud restores +80 Armor. Chance to consume grass is -42%"
  
• Changed treasure: "Graze boosts your out-of-combat sprint speed by 8.5 for 30 seconds" => "Graze boosts your out-of-combat sprint speed by 3 for 50 seconds"
  
• New treasure: (Necklace) "Stampede deals +1050% damage if used while you are stunned"

• Ability change: Soothe: all tiers have higher base damage; reuse timer changed from 15s to 13s; Power cost increased
  
• Ability change: Cause Terror: all tiers have higher base damage
  
• Ability change: But I Love you: all tiers have higher base damage
  
• New treasure: (hands) "Fast Talk targets all enemies within 10 meters and Power cost is -18"
  
• New treasure: (chest and feet) "But I Love You and Cause Terror Damage +58%"
  
• Changed treasure: "Fast Talk heals you for 74 armor" => "Fast Talk reduces target's rage by -1190 and reuse timer is -2 seconds"
  
• Changed treasure: "Inspire Confidence restores +104 Health after an 8 second delay" => "Inspire Confidence restores 60 Power over 9 seconds to all targets"
  
• Changed treasure: "Soothe further reduces target's Rage by 1210" => "Soothe reuse timer is -1 second and it further reduces Rage by 1370"
  
• Changed treasure: "Fast Talk taunts -540 and reduces Rage by 900" => "Fast Talk taunts -2196"
  
• Changed treasure: "Inspire Confidence increases the damage of all targets' attacks +16 for 30 seconds" => +69 for 30 seconds
  
• Changed treasure: "Tell Me About Your Mother restores 177 Armor to you" => "Tell Me About Your Mother restores 123 Health (or Armor if Health is full)"
  
• Changed treasure: "Soothe boosts the healing from your Major Healing abilities +56 for 10 seconds" => "For 10 seconds after using Soothe, your Major Healing abilities restore +68 Health and your attacks generate -30% Rage"
  
• Changed treasure: "But I Love You boosts your Nice and Epic Attack Damage +91 for 8 seconds" => 10 seconds (fixes description typo; actual effect was already 10 seconds)
  
• Changed treasure: "Cause Terror Damage +214" => "Cause Terror deals +214 damage and restores 46 Health to you"

• Blocking Stance: Reduced bonus mitigation vs. elites by 50%. Thus Blocking Stance 1 now mitigates +5 and +5 more vs. elites; previously it mitigated +5 and +10 more vs. elites.
  
• Changed treasure: "Deflective Spin restores 82 Health instantly and provides +58 Mitigation from all Elite attacks for 15 seconds" => restores 82 health and provides +37 mitigation from all Elite attacks for 10 seconds
  
• Changed treasure: "Blocking Stance mitigates +15 physical damage (Crushing, Slashing, Piercing) for 30 seconds. Against Elite enemies, mitigates +30 more" => "... Against Elite enemies, mitigates +15 more"
  
• Deflective Spin ability: "You take X% less damage from all attacks for 15 seconds." => 10 seconds
  
• Changed treasure: "Deflective Spin costs -11 Power and mitigates +13 damage from each attack for 15 seconds" => "Deflective Spin damage +100. Targets' next attack deals -10% damage"

• Shield: "While Bulwark Mode is enabled you recover X Power per second" -> "While Bulwark Mode is enabled, abilities cost -X Power to use"
  
• Shield: "Elemental Ward mitigates +40 elemental damage (Fire, Cold, and Electricity) for 30 seconds" => "Elemental Ward mitigates +40 elemental damage (Fire, Cold, and Electricity) for 30 seconds. Against Elite attackers, mitigates +40 more"
  
• Shield: "Slashing Mitigation +8, Piercing Mitigation +7, Crushing Mitigation +7 while Shield skill active" => "While Shield skill active: Mitigate Slashing +16, Piercing +14, and Crushing +14. Versus Elite attackers, these values are doubled"
  
• Take the Lead abilities: now boost sprint less. (Take the Lead 6 was +10.5, now +6.5)
  
• "Take the Lead boosts your sprint speed by an additional +5 and you recover 48 Power after a 15 second delay" => "Take the Lead boosts your movement speed +3 and you recover 58 Power after a 15 second delay"

• Ice Armor: now has reduced mitigation vs. elites. (Was 27 and 54 more vs. Elites; is now 27 and 27 more vs. Elites)
  
• New treasure: (Chest, Hands) "Blizzard Damage +150 and you gain Elite Resistance +10% for 20 seconds"
  
• "Ice Spear heals you for 58 health after a 15-second delay" => "Ice Spear heals you for 80 health after a 7-second delay"
  
• (head, feet) "Frostbite causes all target's attacks to deal -22 damage (this effect does not stack with itself)" => "Frostbite causes all target's attacks to deal -22 damage, and their Rage attacks are further reduced by 10%"
  
• Ice Veins, Ice Armor, Cryogenic Freeze: these abilities can be used while stunned

• Animal Handling: treasure effect "Animal Handling pets recover +X Armor every five seconds" now actually recovers the armor.
  
• Bard: Fixed bugs that allowed abusable "stacking" of bard song healing.
  
• Bard: Added damage type (trauma) to Song of Discord description.
  
• Fairy Magic: The treasure mod 'Fae Conduit's Power cost is -X and reuse timer is -Y seconds' now actually reduces the reuse time.
  
• First Aid: Reset time changed from 30s to 20s for Treat Disease [1-4], Set Broken Bone, Moss Bone Repair, and Soberize.
  
• Rabbit: effects that change Bun-Fu Blast and Bun-Fu Strike damage to cold will no longer revert the damage type later on.
  
• Unarmed: New treasure effect: (Hands): "Cobra Strike, Mamba Strike, and Slashing Strike deal +50 damage and can be used while stunned. Doing so removes the stun effect from you."
  
• All metal armor has been rebalanced to give slightly less Max Armor and slightly less Armor recovery from combat refresh. In exchange, it now has modest Power recovery from combat refresh.
  
• Pulling a target toward you (with E.G. Hook Shot) will no longer fling the target off into the distance if you are standing on top of one another.
  
• Bonus pet health and armor from treasure effects will now persist through the pet's death.
  
• After zoning, pets will now have the correct state selected in the UI instead of always Follow.
  
• The werewolf altar buffs to increase physical mitigation have been changed into percentage-based vulnerability buffs.
  
• Transmutation costs will be reduced for the next month for Archery, Cow, Staff, Psychology, Shield, and Ice Magic skills

Some high-level boss encounters have been tweaked as follows:

• The healing crystals now have a much more pronounced effect on the boss's regeneration. When all 8 crystals are up, he recovers 100% of missing health every 5 seconds.
  
• Healing Crystals now have 8000 max health each instead of 125.
  
• Destroyed crystals respawn more quickly.
  
• Nearby "Healing Suit Technicians" are now Elite.

• More eggs spawn at the beginning of the encounter.
  
• Eggs have more health (but still not all that much).
  
• When eggs hatch, they now spawn an Elite urak that wanders.
  
• Eggs respawn more quickly.

• The expert's assistants are now Elite, and more numerous.

• Arkura has been upgraded from a named Elite to a Sub-Boss, with commensurate bonuses to health, damage, and annual compensation.
  
• Some of Arkura's skeleton minions have been replaced by (elite) Mutterer Cabalists.
  
• Arkura and her minions have exceptional help-shouting capability.

• Has more health and lots more regeneration.

• Zukelmux's summoned backup are now Elite.

• Beakhorse is a bit more powerful (especially the beak).

• The captain and her crew have all been promoted one or two tiers of potency. This makes Captain Evergloam an Epic Boss.
  
• This does not change their loot, because their loot was already epic-tier for some reason.

• Security crystals have more health (but remain extremely vulnerable to knockback).

• Hotfeather has more health and offensive power.
  
• Hotfeather and friends have larger help-shout radii.

• Summoned assistants are more powerful and numerous.

• Chet Thunder is stronger.

• Both have been promoted from Elites to Basic Bosses.

• Eeaeiikik has been promoted from Elite to Basic Boss.
  
• Funguile is a bit stronger.

• Both have been promoted from Elites to Basic Bosses.

• Vemuta has been promoted from Basic Boss to Epic Boss.
  
• Some of the myconian students in each teaching cluster are now elites. (Randomly picked, with higher chances of elites in Vemuta's cluster.)

• Imarak has been promoted from Basic Boss to Epic Boss.
  
• Imarak's adds are a bit stronger.
  
• Young mantises in general are stronger.

• Guzyerp has been promoted to Epic Boss, with commensurate loot improvements.
  
• Nearby bears are a bit tougher.

• Guztok's hobgoblins are a bit tougher in general.
  
• Guztok is more epic.
  
• Guztok now calls for Elite backup after taking a little damage.

The Death Penalty sign in Serbule Keep now lets you switch to "DEATHCORE" death penalty. DEATHCORE death penalty is not really intended for regular use; it's for special situations, such as a guild all agreeing to participate together.

In DEATHCORE penalty, you simply cannot respawn at all. If other players know how to resurrect people, they can still resurrect you, and special items such as Eternal Greens can still respawn you. Other than that, though, if you die, you will stay dead forever!

There are no additional benefits for using DEATHCORE over Hardcore. There will never be any extra reason to enter DEATHCORE mode except for the challenge and the bragging rights.


If you use Discord a lot, you'll be excited to know that we've added some basic Discord integration.

There is a new "Discord Integration" tab in Preferences where players can decide what info is displayed about them in Discord (while they are playing the game): their character name, guild name, and/or general location. The default setting is to not display any info in Discord, so if you're not interested in this feature you can just ignore it.

There's also a new chat command /discord to quickly join the official Project: Gorgon Discord server!

• Skills can now be tracked, similar to Quests. Click the star in the Skills & Abilities window to track a specific skill. Tracking a skill makes it always visible in the HUD, showing the current level and XP bar. The HUD can be right-clicked to quickly jump to the skill.
  
• When XP is gained in a non-combat skill, the skill will briefly show in the HUD to display the amount of XP gained and the skill's current level.
  
• Fixed XP bar and level display for phrenology recipes.
  
• Right-click to select combat skills now splits the UI at 20 skills instead of 25.
  
• Active Skill XP bars (at the bottom of the screen) now animate XP gains, and show the number of XP gained.
  
• Separated out "Action" emotes from regular emotes. Action Emotes are emotes that are part of a gameplay action, such as burying or eating a corpse. They can now be filtered differently from non-action emotes (for example /wave or /em emotes) in the chat window. By default, they are enabled in any tab that had emotes enabled.
  
• Added tooltip functionality to the list of chat channels when editing a tab. Currently only Action Emotes have a tooltip; everything else is pretty self-explanatory.
  
• Removed extra whitespace in front of some emotes.
  
• Overhead rage meters now flash pink when they are full.
  
• The "Examine" button will now appear when you select yourself.
  
• Non-fiction books now properly display colored text instead of a color code.
  
• Item attributes are now displayed in a vertical list in tooltips.
  
• Tooltips that are too large to fit on the screen can now be scrolled by a key. This defaults to Shift + V.
  
• Long player-written book titles should now fit in the item tooltip.
  
• All equipped items should now update properly in the persona window.
  
• Item short descriptions should no longer overlap their names in tooltips.
  
• Fixed bug that caused items with expiration dates to always show April 4.
  
• Tooltips for equipment in barters now correctly indicate the rarity of the resultant item.
  
• Non-repeatable completed quests now have their own tab in the Quest Log.
  
• Storages can be manually reordered again.
  
• Recipe complete text no longer covers up ingredients, and fades out more quickly.
  
• Fix bug that would sometimes cause map pins to swap their north/south coordinates.
  
• Prevented casting bar from resizing too small and effectively disappearing.
  
• Meal and snack levels are now highlighted in tooltips, and displayed in the food's effect description.
  
• We now check that a progress bar is actually active before trying to animate it.
  
• The "Overhead Name Fade Distance" slider is back, which allows you to control how far away something must be before its name disappears. The slider is in Settings > GUI > Overhead Labels.
  
• Modified XP bar animation when a skill levels up - it will now fade out instead of drain.
  
• There is a new contextual keybind for crafting: Use Current Recipe. It only works when the crafting window is open, and defaults to the X key.
  
• Crafting recipe hotkey is now part of the button itself instead of off to the side.
  
• Handled error when a child skill is obtained before its parent skill is.
  
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused "FAVOR LEVEL UP!" to stick around forever.
  
• Fixed bug that would break the chat window with some unclosed tags, E.G. by typing "<a href="

The entity appearance-range optimization is no longer an "Experimental Optimization"; it is now a regular optimization and is enabled by default. You can configure it like other advanced graphics settings (in the Settings window under Graphics). The relevant slider is now called "Maximum Entity Simulation Distance" to better describe what it does.

While this option was experimental, it was always set to 100 meters (unless you used the AppearanceRange special setting to change it). The default range is still 100 meters for most graphics settings, but if you're using "Amazing" or "Ultra" graphics settings, it now defaults to 200 meters. Note that this is more expensive than before, so if you're using Amazing or Ultra graphics, your framerate may be reduced from the last update! You can easily return to the FPS you had before, though: just set the "Maximum Entity Simulation Distance" slider to 100.

For super-powered computers: if you want to be able to see entities more than 400 meters away, you can use the new special setting InfiniteEntitySimulation. Adding this to your Special Settings window will cause all entities to be simulated regardless of distance from you. (This is equivalent to turning off "Experimental Optimizations" prior to this update.) Note that this will tank your framerate unless your machine is quite powerful! To stop using infinite range, remove this setting from the Special Settings window, save settings, then restart the game.

Note: the AppearanceRange special setting no longer does anything. It can be removed from your Special Settings list.

• Removed the "Experimental Optimizations" check-box for now (because there are currently no experiments running).
  
• Fixed some Exceptions that could cause memory leaks if an appearance fails to load.
  
• Visually re-equip all weapons when a character leaves combat. Weapons will appear/disappear during combat to account for certain attacks (you can't pull a bow string back with your sword in hand, for instance), but they would often remain permanently invisible. They should now reset after combat.
  
• Phrenology recipes no longer perform the "sit" animation.
  
• Sped up some hammer animations, so the attacks land quicker.
  
• Sped up "Fight Me You Fools" animation.
  
• Revamped Animal Handling animations.
  
• Revamped "ouch" animation (which plays when taking DoT).
  
• Sped up Armor Patch & First Aid abilities, so their effects trigger sooner in the animation.
  
• Effects with particles that don't last the entire duration will no longer re-show their particles after the initial display; previously they would display again every time a character's appearance changed, for example when you equipped a new piece of gear or mounted your horse.
  
• Added particles to most teleport recipes.
  
• Added particle effects to all distilling recipes.
  
• Added particle effects to transmutation repair recipes.
  
• Spirit foxes no longer float above the ground.
  
• Improved appearance loading, which should reduce lag in Serbule related to the merchants loading in.
  
• The MaxActiveLoads special setting now controls more of the appearance-loading code path, meaning that it has more effect. If you use this setting, you may want to remove it or change its value after this update, as the old values are probably not optimal for you anymore!
  
• We now properly account for ingredient durability when crafting. If an item does not meet the ingredient durability requirement, it cannot be used. For example, you cannot use a Firkin with 10% durability remaining to make a cheese that requires 15% durability.
  
• When summoning an ingredient, durability is now taken into account (when applicable). The lowest-durability item that still meets the ingredient requirement will be summoned first. If no items in storage meet the durability requirement, items with remaining durabilities lower than the requirement will be summoned. For example, if you have no Firkins with 15%+ durability, any Firkins with <15% durability will be summoned.
  
• Stackable items can now be sent to mystic saddlebags even when the saddlebag inventory is full (as long as the item in question has enough room left in its stack)
  
• There is a new NPC in Serbule Hills. Cleo Conyer is a newbie vendor in the Tapestry Inn. Cleo has one Favor quest at the moment.
  
• Yurra the hag now shows up in front of the Serbule Hills newbie exit to give direction to newbies who escape the island via the caves.
  
• Kalaba's quests now correctly reference "Crude Phlogiston" instead of "Rough Phlogiston".
  
• The Serbule stage now counts toward the Halloween event, "Staged Death".
  
• Fae Navy Shield now counts towards the Cell Matrix Repair requirement.
  
• Some quests in the log that were missing NPC names now have them.
  
• Shields can now be glamoured (into other shields).
  
• We now set the correct levels of musical conch recipe results.
  
• Fixed bug where playing your own music via instrument would prevent zone music from ever playing again.
  
• Repeatedly messaging someone who is ignoring you will now return an error to inform you that you've been blocked.
  
• Adjusted portal selection boxes so they are more reasonably sized.
  
• A human's 'Current Community' can now increase beyond 100 if their Max Community is greater than 100. Previously, a bug prevented Current Community from going above 100.
  
• Monsters that flee will no longer be considered fleeing when they return to their original position.
  
• Fixed a problem with werewolf buffs expiring before the next full moon.
  
• Fixed a bug on the item info panel: the list of vendors for an item is supposed to prioritize vendors in the current area, but didn't actually put them at the top of the list as intended.
  
• Reduced barter price for Pitch Black Dyes on Orran to 15 Crafter's Guild Tokens (previously 20).
  
• Added Orcish Steel and Orichalcum to the list of Orran barters.
  
• Added The Fungal Fortress to the Civil Service event.
  
• The Hardcore Altar in Gazluk now buffs +10% Max Health and damage (up from +5%)

This is a bug-fix update. The purpose is mainly to fix a UI bug when viewing alcohol casks, but we've also included some other fixes and changes that were ready to go.

We've heard some reports of issues with golf balls occasionally "glitching" in various ways. We're still investigating these, and will fix them as soon as we can. If you have a reproducible situation that causes problems, please bug-report it!

You can now purchase "Glamour Gourds" with Guild Credits (from any Guild Sign). These work like Glamour Berries, with a few caveats. When you buy a Glamour Gourd, it is automatically attuned to your account. Glamour Gourd items also don't stack in inventory. (The latter is a technical limitation because attuned items can't be stackable.)

We're using these Gourds instead of Glamour Berries because we want to avoid reselling for now. We want these items to be a reward for doing guild quests, not a way to make Councils off of other players. It's possible that we're being overly cautious here, in which case we'll make further changes in the future.

• Alcohol items now show their effect information when examined.
  
• Fixed the start and goal beacons for holes 8 and 9 in Pennoc's Pennant.
  
• Rebalanced reward tiers for Pennoc's Pennant based on initial scoring this round. (This only affects the reward tiers you haven't received yet, of course.)
  
• Improved legibility of the recipe UI window.
  
• Fixed skill reward text-wrapping UI issue.
  
• In addition to Glamour Gourds (discussed above), you can also buy Portal Summoning Devices with Guild Credits (sold at any Guild Sign).
  
• Increased the cost of Extra-Gigantic Coin Sacks at the Guild Signposts. Cost increased from 2 to 4 Guild Credits.
  
• You can now occasionally find Live Event Credit Vouchers (worth 10 Live Event Credits) when playing the high-stakes match-3 game in the casino.
  
• Added a Portal Summoning Device for Fungal Fortress that is available through Riston and the Guild Sign.
  
• Fixed client bug that could cause items in your storage vault to display incorrectly if you clicked and dragged really fast.
  
• Riston now sells VIP Tokens, as well as Povus Teleportation Devices, for Live Event Credits.

Project: Gorgon is on sale for 50% off! We've been working hard to polish and improve the game, and now we want to share it with new players -- at a discount!

If you're still on the fence about joining us, why don't you check out our free demo? The demo lets you play a BIG portion of the game, and your demo character will auto-upgrade to a real character when you buy the game. It's a great way to explore the breadth of content that PG has to offer.

If you checked us out during Alpha but haven't been back since we started Beta, this is a great time to see what's changed. We've been smoothing out newbie game flow, removing irritants that frustrate players, improving general quality of life, and making the game's content more accessible, discoverable, and useful. Not to mention all the features and content that we've added recently, like horseback riding, animal husbandry, and a big new level 80+ outdoor zone.

Just for extra fun, we've got some newbie-accessible events lined up for the next two weeks, including an Easter-themed bunny invasion, a golf tournament, and a risk-free chance to try out an animal form.

See you in Alharth!

This is a quick patch to address some bugs in today's earlier update, including a fix for teleportation.

We fixed a bug that let you start Kalaba's quest "Phlogiston Basics" from his Favor menu, before he taught you Transmutation. If you did this, he wouldn't actually teach you Transmutation! If this has happened to you (meaning you have this quest but you don't know the recipe the quest refers to), just cancel the quest in your quest journal. That will fix the NPC logic and you'll be back to normal. Kalaba will give you this quest automatically after teaching you the skill (after you finish his two panther-related quests and he asks you about a "business opportunity").

Werewolves were randomly losing their Norala buffs and Tokens of Norala. We can't reproduce this bug, but we think we fixed the root cause. We'll keep an eye on things to make sure. We don't have an easy way to restore the exact number of Norala Tokens you lost, so we've just decided to give every werewolf a dozen extra tokens during this full moon. Type `/redeem` in chat and you'll see a redemption called "Werewolf Fix: 12 Tokens of Norala".

• Fixed: some recipes (including common Teleportation recipes) could not be used
  
• Fixed: some portals in Serbule Crypt had sunk into the ground
  
• Fixed: some title scrolls caused client errors when dropped on the ground

Continuing our focus on improvements for new players, this update makes some changes to Transmutation. We are also premiering our new glamour mechanics (which some other games call transmogrification). And we have exciting news - we're going on sale for half off!

• Some recipes aren't able to be used right now, most notably certain teleportation recipes. We'll be fixing this in a client patch later this evening.

Project: Gorgon will be 50% off from April 18 at 10am PDT (1pm EDT) to May 2 at 10am PDT (1pm EDT)! This is a bigger discount than we've done before, because the game is in better shape than ever and it's time to get more players involved! (And as we talked about in the latest dev blog, we need more mid-to-high level players to help us balance combat. You can read the dev blog on our forum, or you can read it in-game by typing /blog in chat!)

So this is a great time to get friends into Project: Gorgon! If your friends are on the fence, remember that our free demo lets you play a BIG portion of the game, and your demo character will auto-upgrade to a real character when you buy the game.

Transmutation is an important skill that we expect all high-level players to take advantage of. It allows you to randomly replace treasure effects on your equipment, fine-tuning them to your specific gameplay style. But for such an important skill, it's been pretty obscure.

Higher level combat requires transmutation in order to keep up with the difficulty curve. But transmutation was hard to find on your own at the appropriate level, and confusing to boot. We found that players who discovered how to use transmutation to their advantage tended to stick around, while players who missed it tended to stop playing when they couldn't keep up. This is a huge problem, so we've made some changes:

Previously, you learned Transmutation after becoming friends with Makara, a hermit in the Ilmari Desert (a level 50+ area). Makara is still the advanced Transmutation trainer, but now you can learn the basics from Kalaba in Eltubule, a level 20+ area. Kalaba offers to teach you Transmutation after you complete his second panther-killing quest; he teaches the basics and has Favors that give more XP, recipes, and prisms. Eventually these favors culminate in a request to meet Makara in the Ilmari Desert for advanced Transmutation training. (If you have previously learned Transmutation through Makara, you won't be affected by this change.)

In addition, some of the mechanics of Transmutation have been tweaked to remove some of the frustration: now when you use Transmutation to replace a power on an item, you won't roll the old power again immediately after. We track the last two replacements on each item and prevent them from being rerolled. (Since we weren't storing this info until now, existing items have no history, but it will get filled in as you transmute.)

We also realized that new players often don't even know what an enchantment *is*, because items have their own built-in powers (which are non-fungible) as well as enchantments which can be changed. We've redesigned equipment tooltips to help make this more intuitive. (See below for more on that.)

Other related changes:

• Added a Transmutation table to Kalaba's work area in Eltibule.
  
• The Transmutation level requirement for "Distill Rare Magical Item (0-30)" is now 5 (instead of 10).
  
• The Transmutation level requirement for "Repair Transmutation Damage 1" is now 10 (instead of 5).
  
• We now allow transmuting when shield wax is on an item.
  
• Fixed a bug with the transmutation animation swipe not working correctly.
  
• Changed "power" to "enchantment" in the Transmutation window, for consistency.

Glamour Berries are a nifty cosmetic feature that let you make your equipment look like other equipment. This can be really useful when your tired of wearing non-matching armor! (Some other MMOs call this process "transmogrification", but that word seemed too close to "transmutation", so we call it "glamouring".)

Glamour Berries are magical fae fruit that can permanently make any one piece of gear look like another piece of gear. This is only an illusion, though -- the glamour has no effect on the item's stats or behavior. This includes NPC behavior: NPCs automatically "see through" glamours, so they will react to you as if you were wearing the original item. For instance, if you're wearing "hideous" clothing that's been glamoured into something beautiful, NPCs will still think you look hideous.

Here's other important details:

• Any piece of armor can be glamoured to look like any other piece of armor that goes in the same equipment slot. Main-hand and off-hand items can be glamoured to look like similar items (e.g. you can glamour a sword to look like another sword, but not a hammer or a shield).
  
• Glamoured items can't be dyed (because glamours hide the original paint, so dyes wouldn't do anything).
  
• You can glamour a piece of gear as often as you like, as many times as you like.
  
• Glamouring the equipment doesn't attune the equipment; in fact, attunement doesn't affect glamouring at all.
  
• Glamours can be copied: if you glamour an item to look like another glamoured item, the new item will have the same glamour as the other item.
  
• If you glamour an item to look like something that is animal-only (such as Werewolf Armor), the glamour will only be active when worn in that animal form. It will look un-glamoured in other forms.
  
• We haven't yet implemented UN-glamouring, so the effect is very permanent! (But you can always apply a different glamour on the item.)

The VIP Program gift for April is 12 Glamour Berries -- check the Redemptions button on the Persona window (or type /redeem in chat) to get them. Glamour Berries can also be purchased for 20 Event Tokens from Riston in the Red Wing Casino, or rarely found in the high-stakes casino Match-3 games. In the next update (or soon thereafter) we'll also be adding a way to obtain some with Guild Credits.

Related changes:

• Due to internal changes, certain "head gem" items, such as the Orbiting Gem, are no longer shown on your character when you're in an animal form -- they are only visible when you're a biped. The old behavior was accidental, but it was fun, so we expect to add new animal-specific floating gem items soon. Affected items are: Orbiting Gem, Rohina's Mind Gem, Monger's Boon, Ever-Hateful Jack O' Lantern, Ever-Glaring Jack O' Lantern, and Fae Navy Communicator.

Items - weapons and armor and potions and foods and all sorts of items - are extremely important. They're information-dense, and getting all that information into a readable, comprehensible form can be really tricky. We've rewritten the item information blocks that are shown when you hover over an item (called "tooltips") to help make some of that info more understandable. These tooltips are a work in progress, so we'll be reacting to your feedback and suggestions, and we really need your bug reports!

Changes:

• There's now a "short description" right underneath the item name that tries to point out the most important aspect(s) of the item. Some items do not have a short description.
  
• "Attributes", "Enchantments", "Augment" and "Shamanic Infusion" for equipment are now grouped together in a display that's easier to digest and (hopefully) makes the underlying mechanics more obvious.
  
• Augment rarity is now displayed in the tooltip.
  
• Augment tooltips now explicitly indicate the required rarity of the item it can be placed in.
  
• Dynamic stats (durability, doses, waxes, & craft points) are now more obvious when they show up.
  
• Added an indicator to tooltips for items that can be used, such as "Right-click to Drink".
  
• Shield short descriptions are now accurate (instead of "Level X OffHandShield").
  
• Crystal color now displays in the tooltip.

Known Issues:

• When you raise the Tooltip Font Size to the higher ranges allowed by the slider, equipment tooltips don't fit on the screen well. We'll be working on this in future iterations.

• Added an "Always compare items?" setting under GUI/Features. This auto-compares items without having to hold the Alt key. Defaults to off.
  
• Added a purchase confirmation to player-vendor purchases. The amount over which the confirmation presents itself is set by the "Purchase Confirmation Amount" setting, under GUI/Other. Default is 10,000 councils.
  
• Active combat skill levels are now displayed on the bottom bar.
  
• Skill tree collapse states are now character-specific.
  
• Skills are now added to the Skills & Abilities window when you first earn XP in them, instead of when they first hit level 1.
  
• We now show skill levels in the skill list on the Skills & Abilities window.
  
• We now display your new skill level in the pop-up message when leveling up.
  
• Loot Mode is now displayed properly in the UI; previously it would reset every time you logged in.
  
• Monster info should no longer get cut off in the combat info window.
  
• Inventory items can be used via double-click while the Crafting window is open.
  
• We now account for XP mods when displaying the addition in the crafting XP bar.
  
• Sped up the minimum crafting repeat time from 2 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
  
• The "repeat" feature of the Crafting window now takes into account durability and consumption rate when calculating the max number of times you can repeat the recipe.
  
• The quest tracker respects the "Show Quest Tracker" setting again.
  
• Tracked quests are now saved properly.
  
• The quest log now displays the associated NPC's name in the list of quests.
  
• The chat channel of the current tab will now remember when it is switched via a command, such as '/p' or '/n'. So if you switch to another tab and then back, you will remain in that channel. This should reduce mistells.

• The "High-Quality Anti-Aliasing" graphics option now uses a different anti-aliasing algorithm that doesn't cause as many visual artifacts. (The old one could cause a type of unintentional "motion blur".)
  
• We now properly set camera effects (vignetting, blur, etc.) when entering a new area.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused heavy framerate loss when certain static objects were selected in the world.
  
• Removed the "Overhead Name Fade Distance" setting for now, as it didn't actually do anything.
  
• The change in moving upward to falling during a jump is now smooth instead of instant. (The jump physics still isn't 100% realistic but it should look a little better now.)
  
• Added particles to Fire Shield ability to make it more obvious when the effect ends.
  
• Polished fairy Free-Flutter animation.
  
• Fixed several bed sleeping animations.
  
• Polished Brambleskin particles.
  
• Animated Crafting XP & NPC Favor bars.
  
• We now do better handling of your currently-selected entity's appearance changing (such as Vendor Fox coming out of its box).
  
• Fixed mounting/dismounting bug that would enable infinite jumping.
  
• Reduced lag, and fixed a bug that caused the screen brightness to change, when mounting the first time.
  
• Prevented ice fishing holes from falling through the ice or being un-clickable.
  
• We now only reduce selection box size when entities are behind the player. This should make things like large doors and trees easier to click on.

• Added keybinds for corpse actions, such as Autopsy, Bury, etc. They default to keys 1-6, and can overlap with non-corpse keys (such as ability keys). The corpse action keybinds are used only when the corpse window is open.
  
• Added a "Loot All" hotkey for corpses that defaults to Spacebar.
  
• Werewolf-altar buffs now last until the next Full Moon (instead of the next Waxing Gibbous Moon). Note: since this patch is happening DURING a full moon period, things are a little weird - if you logged in yesterday as a werewolf, your timer is currently set to end on the next Waxing Gibbous Moon. If you log in today or tomorrow, your timer will be updated so the buffs last until the next Full Moon.
  
• Werewolf's "Lunacy" buff ("You feel powerful.") now buffs Max Health +30% instead of +30.
  
• Fixed bug with treasure effect "Tundra Spikes deals +19% damage, gains +8 Accuracy, and lowers targets' Evasion by -16 for 20 seconds". The evasion debuff did not stack with itself (if you had this effect on two pieces of gear).
  
• Uncommon items in loot now glow green, but do not have an associated humming sound.
  
• Characters now have some control over their jumps while mid-air (e.g. jumping with no momentum and then moving forward).
  
• Higher-level poisoned blades can now be used for lower-level Poison Knife abilities.
  
• Loot bonus related Words of Power now last 1 hour instead of 15 minutes.
  
• Dead pets can now always be interacted with.
  
• Enemies can no longer sink into the floor.
  
• Corpses of sheep and floating skulls can now be walked through.
  
• Fix typo in Spider Speed effect.
  
• Sarina, the enslaved fairy in the Goblin Dungeon, no longer just pretends she is leaving after you free her. She now uses a nearby teleporter to leave. It's also now possible for multiple players to finish the quest by talking to her as she leaves (or before she leaves) rather than having to re-kill the goblin boss.
  
• You can now loot fruit trees even if your inventory is full (in which case your inventory will become overflowing). You cannot loot fruit trees when your inventory is overflowing.
  
• Bone Meal can now be stored in gardening-related storages.
  
• Work Orders for Healing Potion Omegas are now correctly labeled Mycology instead of Alchemy.
  
• Work Orders for werewolf armors are now correctly labeled Armorsmithing instead of Blacksmithing.
  
• Cloth enhancements now require a tanning rack.
  
• Changed references to "Enhancement Points" to "Craft Points" for consistency. "Craft Points" is shorter and thus easier to display in the UI.
  
• Changed Serpentine to an Orange Crystal instead of Orange + Green.
  
• Hiral now gives juices at each favor level-up.
  
• Added durations to pineal juice descriptions.
  
• Torches in Eltibule now turn off when they're not lit.