Greetings, fellow Wizards! Today is finally the day. After a long stretch of intense development followed by a month of hands-on testing with players, we’re finally ready to officially launch our Citadel Reignited update! If you’ve been following along, you’ll no doubt be aware that this is by far the most significant update we’ve released since our Early Access launch. We’ve added a ton of new gameplay features, while adding a significant amount of polish to take the game’s balance and presentation to the next level.

One quick note: Make sure you return your game to the main branch of the game to ensure you are fully up to date. Right click Citadel in your Steam library, click “Properties" and open the “Betas” tab. From there, you should select “NONEt” from the dropdown field.



To really give you guys an idea of just how enormous this update is, let’s take a look at all the new gameplay features and content we’re injecting into Ignus:

One of the most ambitious new additions we’ve included in the Reignited update is a complete and total overhaul of our entire spell system. In the previous version of the game, spells were treated like any other unlockable recipe. You’d use knowledge points to unlock them, and that’s it.

We decided that Citadel is at its core a game about experimentation and creativity, and that we should extend that into our spells. With our new Spellcrafting system, players can use powerful Essences found around the world to craft a large variety of spells. These spells can then have their attributes be further modified and customized, allowing an even greater degree of variety in spellcasting.





To learn more about Spellcrafting, take a look at this much more in-depth post.

Since our Early Access launch roughly one year ago, we’ve heard many, many requests from players for the addition of Farming. After months of work and refinement, we’re pleased to say that Farming is now ready to enter the world of Ignus with the Citadel Reignited update!

Now that the update is live, you will be able to use your precious Knowledge Points to buy Farming Plots and Sprinklers. Farming Plots, as you might imagine, house the actual plants you wish to grow. By placing any of the world’s plants into a Deconstructor, you can acquire seeds to fill your plots. Once you’ve planted your seeds, erect a Sprinkler nearby and have it spread the water and fertilizer your plants will need to grow big and strong.





For more info, take a peek at this post we shared with a greater amount of detail about Farming!

Even louder than the calls for Farming were the requests for a wider selection of character customization options. Many players, particularly those of the RP community, expressed disappointment at the limited degree of cosmetic options available when creating a character. This is feedback we wholeheartedly agreed with, and took it upon ourselves to improve the situation with Citadel Reignited.

With this update, you will have full control over the shape and size of various parts of your character’s body via a range of new slider-options. From head size and neck length, to the proportions of your arms, legs, chest and torso, you will be able to tweak your character with a brand new level of detail. Want to make a scrawny, short goblin? Or perhaps a hulking, muscle-bound giant? Anything is possible with the flexibility of our new character creation!





Check out this post from a little while ago for even more details about Character Customization!

Tackling raid balance has been an on-going priority for us at Blue Isle Studios, and we’ve made some significant improvements with this update to get the state of raiding to a much less griefable place. We believe that raiding another player should take some time and effort to accomplish, and that it should not be so easy that a player can quickly an entire server’s worth of bases.

To that end, we’ve made the crafting and acquisition of raiding materials a much more laborious process. We’ve also reduced the number of charges you get with Siege spells once you’ve acquired them. With these changes, players who wish to target and raid another player may do so with some effort, but they will not be able to attack and destroy multiple other players in the process.

We’ve also implemented a selection of new notifications and alerts to provide greater transparency to players who have been raided or are in the process of being raided. When another player attacks your base, you will receive a pop up alerting you to the siege. This pop up will also tell you the name of your attacker, allowing you the opportunity to retaliate. Additionally, any time there is a raid in progress it will be made visible to all other players on the server via a notification on the map screen.





To learn more about these big changes, and how they will improve your raid experience, click here.

To make the world feel more alive, we've also added a new cooking system to the game. You can now forage for plants and hunt wild game, and use their spoils to create a variety of new cooked meals. These meals will not only replenish your mana and health, but will also often apply powerful buffs, providing you with the upper hand in combat.



We’ve also taken this momentous opportunity to reevaluate the quality of Citadel’s presentation and make changes where we can to make the game as clean and slick as possible.

To start, we’ve given an extremely thorough upgrade to every menu in our game. From the tame list, to the server browser to even the Knowledge Tree, everything has been made simpler, cleaner and significantly more attractive! On top of that, we’ve also given a big overhaul to the general appearance of the game’s world. We’ve improved the quality of our lighting, and have added a ton more vibrancy to the game’s colour pallet.





This update is so loaded with tweaks and changes that it's practically an entirely new experience. Hop on in now, and please continue to share your feedback! It has been a huge help in setting all these new systems and features up, and we truly value it.

If you haven't played in a while there's also a ton more new content that has been added since our Early Access launch, including:

• Three large, cooperative Boss Dungeons
  
• Over 40 new weapons, armors and trinkets
  
• More than 10 new monsters and enemies
  
• An entirely new set of Marble construction pieces
  
• A selection of new furniture and other decorative building pieces
  
• Trap doors and spike pits
  
• Upgradeable attack and defense structures
  
• Structure material swapping
  
• Broomstick League
  
• Quests
  
• Time Limited world events

Greetings, fellow Wizards!

The time is almost upon us for the wonderful improvements and new gameplay systems from our Public Test Servers to be merged over to the main branch! Starting August 3rd we will be pushing newest build of the game to all live servers! Check out our recently released teaser trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UtgB4aX5w4
If you haven't had a chance to read about this huge new update, take a moment to revisit some of our previous posts! In a nutshell, you will now have access to:

• A brand new system of dynamic spellcrafting
  
• Cooking and a full range of new recipes
  
• Farming of plants and herbs
  
• Full character customization
  
• New raid balance and PVP notification system
  
• Complete menu and HUD overhaul
  
• Expanded quest variety and availability
  
• Full balance pass on all gameplay systems
  
• Visual improvements
  
• Much More!

This massive new content drop represents the beginning of a new phase in Citadel's Early Access development, and we can't wait to have it live and available for all to play and enjoy! This will be especially exciting for PVE players, as they will now be able to play all the newest incarnation of the game on full PVE official servers.

As we mentioned when we started the Public Testing of this update, we will be initiating server wipes on launch day to accommodate the new content. It will unfortunately not be possible for us to preserve structure and player progress from the old game, and we apologize for the disturbance this may cause some players. We will be archiving and uploading all old server data for you to download, preserve and rehost on a private server at your leisure, but please understand that doing so with the new build may result in a very buggy experience.

We look forward to your continuing feedback, and we hope you enjoy this next big step for Citadel come August 3rd. Thank you for your continued support, and we hope to see you in the new Ignus very soon!

Our big Test Server patch is now available! If you missed the big post we put out earlier this week about this huge update, I’d recommend you check it out here. It will give you the broad strokes of what’s new and how it will impact your gameplay experience.

If you need help accessing our Public Test Servers, check out this post for full instructions,

This very large update has been driven directly by your reactions and feedback to the new systems and balance changes we introduced to the game since the start of the test phase. We want you, the community, to see that this is a test in the truest sense of the word, and that your input matters a great deal to us going forward with this new content.

Please, feel free to take a look at the full list of changes below and continue to share your feedback with us on the forums. As always, we will be listening carefully to your reactions for future development considerations! Thank you again for all your patience and support as we iron out the kinks, and we hope to see you in Ignus after the patch!

• Enhanced character customization options added
  
• New Raiding Notification system integrated
  
• Amethyst Crystal no longer works as a pure siege modifier, and must be refined into an Unstable Gem
  
• Raid In Progress now broadcast to other players via the map
  
• Increased XP rewards from enemy NPCs
  
• Small resource nodes respawn time reduced to 20 minutes, large nodes reduced to 4 hours
  
• The Weapon skill tree has been reverted to its original layout
  
• More colour variation for mid-tier armor capes
  
• Spell SFX improvements
  
• Extract VFX improvements
  
• Various spell fixes and balance adjustments
  
• Added spell type identifier to Spellcrafting screen
  
• Rune no longer required for crafting Stone Head Axe
  
• Can no longer attempt to harvest if it would exceed your carry limit
  
• Fixed a bug causing players’ HUD indicators to not be visible in the safe zone
  
• Fixed a bug preventing attack towers from functioning properly
  
• Fixed a bug where tames would not always release after their tame time had elapsed
  
• Reduced XP requirements for tame leveling
  
• Number of available spell charges/energy reduces greatly when a “Siege” modifier is applied
  
• Fixed damage popups not working for mounted players
  
• Players must now unequip quest items before turning them in
  
• Increased loyalty time conferred to tames via some cooked foods and raw meats
  
• Increased the power of Wand and Gauntlet weapons
  
• Additional low level quests and quest givers added
  
• Delete Character button added to ESC menu
  
• Fixed an issue with the Deconstructor screen closing
  
• Weapon swap can now be executed with mouse wheel
  
• Low end food items rebalanced
  
• Passive mana regen buff added to Fresh Berry Salad
  
• In-game VOIP has been fixed

At Blue Isle Studios, we’ve been working hard at improving the game while riding the wave of feedback we received during the first iteration of our Public Test Server sessions. From the start, the purpose of this test has been to gauge player reactions to experimental new content, and tweak it in the direction we feel best reflects the interests of the community.

To that end, we will be launching a huge patch chockful of changes based on your feedback to the Public Test Servers (not the main branch servers) this Wednesday. Today’s post will outline what will be changing, so let’s get started!

The biggest addition to Citadel in this week’s patch is a huge upgrade of our Character Editor. As many players noted during our first year of Early Access, our character customization options were quite limited: Players were historically only able to modify two physical components (ie: head type and hairstyle). With this update we’ve upgraded this with a total of thirteen new customization options, all of which (aside from head and hair) can be precisely tweaked and modified with full slider support!



You can see this new system in action in our livestream archive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5N9lIk7_tg
We’ve heard some concerns from players about how these options might impact gameplay and whether or not certain characters will have a PVP advantage. This will not be the case: All players will have the same hit boxes, will have the same jump height, and will function in every other way exactly the same as any other player. This is a purely cosmetic update that we hope will empower players to create their own unique identity and take the Citadel roleplaying experience to a whole new level! We hope you’ll enjoy!

We’ve been following player feedback from the test server very closely, and one thing was made very clear by the community: raiding in the test build is far too easy. With the current balance, players are able to very easily obtain Amethyst Crystal which, when applied to a spell, gives them the ability to do damage to another player’s structure. Because of the ease of acquiring Amethyst Crystal, many players found that they couldn’t build nearly as fast as raiders could raid. This is clearly not ideal, and we’ve made it a priority to address it in this patch.



The first step was to make the raid spells more difficult to craft, and the easiest way to do that was to remove pure Amethyst Crystal as a siege reagent. To now use Amethyst Crystal in raiding you must first refine it into Unstable Gem, which requires you to acquire 20 Amethyst Crystal, 20 Flawless Rune Gems and have access to a Forge. We hope this balance change will still make raiding a realistic pursuit, but will also slow it down to a place where it’s not significantly easier to raze a structure than it is to build one.

An additional change we’ve made is to reduce the number of charges available for spells with attached siege modifiers. We want the siege spells you create to be powerful for a player to break into a reasonable portion of a structure, but not so powerful that it can entirely level everything someone worked hard to create. Combined with the additional layer of work involved mentioned above, we think this change should effectively reduce the likelihood of griefing.



On top of that, we’re adding measures to expose players who raid to potential retaliation. Raiding in Citadel was always meant to encourage rivalries, but we never really gave players the tools necessary to develop those relationships. Being raided was purely an experience of having something and then seeing it disappear. Now, when any part of your claimed structure is damaged, you will not only be notified that if happen but be told who did it.

Lastly, anytime a player damages another player’s structure it will be made visible on the map for all other players to see. Now, raiders will be completely exposed to other players, but it’s up to those players to decide what happens next. Does the community band together to defend the structure? Turn a blind eye to the raid in-progress? Or perhaps they jump in as an active participant.



Another resounding point of feedback from the first version of the test server was the palpable lack of resources, which in turn caused a major strain on some players looking to craft and build in areas that have already been picked clean. To resolve this we’ve made some major reductions in the time it takes for resources to respawn. Previously, a large tree or stone node would take about 24 real hours to respawn. We’ve dramatically reduced this to somewhere in the ball park of 4 hours. Smaller nodes, on the other hand, are down to as short a period of 20 minutes. These changes should have a dramatic impact on resource abundance.

On top of that, we’ve also given the resource yield of these nodes a bit of a bump. You will notice after this update an increase in the amount of resources extracted from a tree or a rock per tick, which should help increase the speed at which players can build a home and get settled. Keep in mind that, as always, the rate of extraction can also be further increased by increasing your damage stat.

Another frustration shared by players of our Test Build was the difficulty of managing your mana in the early game. Fighting monsters and harvesting resources can take its toll on a new Wizard’s mana reserves, and it caused a lot of unnecessary stress for new players.

To ease this, we’ve given the Fresh Berry Salad item from the top of the cooking tree a serious boost by adding a passive 1 mana per second regeneration buff to it on top of its current effects. While this will seem trivial to higher level players, this will make a humongous impact on reducing the tedium of low level gameplay.



On top of that, we’ve also doubled the amount of XP you will receive from low level/early game enemies. This will help you level up faster, making the first handful of levels a little breezier and help fighting enemies feel more worthwhile.

Another big request, which we're happy to satisfy, is a return to the old weapon tree layout. The quality-tiered layout that we last tried was highly experimental, and we were hoping to gauge your reactions before fully committing to it. It became clear that players weren't feeling it, so we'll be switching back.

As a consequence of this switch, all players will have all their KP refunded on the release of the update. You should not lose any progress, you will just have to reapply your points.



We’ve also thrown in another small but exciting feature that players have been requesting for a while now: a delete button. Many players have requested the ability to start fresh with a new character on an official server, so we’ve decided to accommodate that request. After the patch has launched, you will be able to delete your character in-game via the ESC menu.

We’re still hard at work on this patch, and will be up until its release later this week. To see all the final features and changes, check back in on the day of the patch for the full patch notes. Thank you again for sharing your feedback, and we look forward to sharing more information with you all very soon!

We want to extend a huge “thank you” to everyone who has already taken part in the public testing of our huge update! You’ve been truly wonderful about sharing your feedback, and have helped us greatly in honing and refining this massive reimagining of the Citadel experience.

Thanks to your input, we’re preparing a large patch for the test build to address some of the primary concerns you’ve expressed. Chief among those, we are taking steps to alleviate a number of early-game frustrations, ease the grind of building, clarify the functionality of the spellcrafting system, and make raiding and PVP much less griefable. We’ll be sharing more info on these changes in the coming days, with the patch itself launching later this week, so stay tuned!

With today’s post, we’d like to introduce you to a new system we have yet to discuss publically: enhanced character customization! One of the biggest requests since we initially launched our Early Access campaign was for an expansion of the cosmetic options available to players when creating their character. We’ve been working very hard to create a system that allows a much greater degree of role-playing flexibility, and are finally ready to share it with the world!



Following the next patch, you will have full control over the shape and size of various parts of your character’s body via a range of new slider-options. From head size and neck length, to the proportions of your arms, legs, chest and torso, you will be able to tweak your character with a brand new level of detail. Want to make a scrawny, short goblin? Or perhaps a hulking, muscle-bound giant? Anything is possible with the flexibility of our new character creation!

These new customization features will be added to the game with the next patch later this week. For a much closer look, we’ll be showcasing this big new feature in a livestream tomorrow at 4PM ET! Tune in to see us create some characters while talking about all the new changes (derived entirely from your feedback) that will be included in the next big patch! Make sure you follow us at twitch.tv/PlayCitadel and come prepared with your questions for the devs!

Greetings, fellow Wizards! Today is the day everyone has been eagerly looking forward to: Public testing of our much-hyped update has officially begun. Starting right now, you will be able to access a special test branch of the game, granting you an early opportunity to try our new spellcrafting, farming and cooking features.

Additionally, Citadel has been rebalanced and reimagined from top to bottom. Player progression has been tightened up, AI and optimization have been greatly improved, and the Ignus’ visuals have been enhanced with a ton more life and vibrancy.

To access this new version of Citadel you will need access to our “publictest” branch of the game. To gain access, right click Citadel in your Steam library, click “Properties" and open the “Betas” tab. From there, you should now be able to select “publictest” from the dropdown field. Doing so will immediately begin the download of the testing version of Citadel!



We’re very excited to hear your thoughts on the newest iteration of Citadel: Forged with Fire! To that end, we’ve added a new “Public Test Feedback” sub-forum here on Steam. Please feel free to use this venue as a place to share your feedback, describe your experiences, or share any glaring bugs or issues you may encounter. This test build is by no means the final version of this update, so we’ll be monitoring this space closely for your reactions!

On behalf of everyone here at Blue Isle Studios, we’d like to sincerely thank you for the patience and enthusiasm you’ve shown us during the wait for this big new content drop. Though we’re approaching the finishing line, this is still very much a work-in-progress. This is your chance to share your thoughts and help us put the final touches on this exciting new content! We hope to see you in the new and improved Ignus!

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UPDATE: We've uploaded the archive of this livestream for anyone who may have missed its original broadcast. Take a look below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cvx1maCK1A
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As we mentioned in a previous post, open testing of our huge new re-imagining of Citadel is just one week away! Starting June 27th, everyone will have access to a test branch of the game where they can try out the new spellcrafting, farming, cooking, UI improvements and overall game rebalances. We’ll be listening intently to your feedback, so be sure to hop on the forums and share your thoughts!

To showcase this new content and give everyone a little taste of what they can expect, we’ll be hosting another Developer Livestream tomorrow, June 21st at 4PM ET. Head on over to Twitch.tv/PlayCitadel and give us a follow to make sure you don’t miss out! We’ll be reading through chat and answering your questions, so be sure to come hang out!

We're really excited to get the test build of this significant new iteration of the game out into the hands of the community. As always, we're deeply appreciative of your support and feedback, and can't wait to show off the brand new version of Ignus. We hope you'll tune in!

:pyrant:

We're ready to share some exciting news on our big forthcoming update! We’ve made huge progress on polishing up the game-changing patch featuring spell crafting, farming, cooking, a menu and HUD overhaul, and an overall complete rebalance of Citadel's progression and combat.

While the full release is still a little while away, things are really starting to take shape in our test build. Starting June 27th, we’ll be opening the floodgates and allowing everyone to jump in and put the new systems through their paces! We’ll be setting up an entirely new test branch of the game that will be available free for everyone to dive right into. A whole new sub-forum will be created for you to share your feedback, giving you, the community, a huge opportunity to help us further shape this massive new content before its official release.

For a sneak peek at what you can expect in this new update, join us on Thursday for a developer livestream! We'll be giving our first live-gameplay look at this new content, and will be answering questions all along the way!



One last update to share regarding the next big iteration of our game: Based on the widespread feedback we received from the public we will be canceling our Legacy server plans. Upon the full release of the big update, wipes will occur universally on all servers. We apologize for the upset our previous plans caused many of you, and want to reassure you that we are listening to your feedback. All structure and character data will be saved and uploaded by us for you to download and continue playing with.

Thank you again for all your ongoing patience and support as we prepare this next iteration of the massive world of Ignus! We'll share more specific details about how you can access this test branch as we get closer to the 27th, and we look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts about this gigantic content drop!

In the coming months we’ll be launching a huge update adding a ton of new content including spell crafting, farming, cooking, a complete menu and HUD overhaul, a full rebalance of player progression, and many more massive game-improving refinements and new features! We'll continue to share more information as the release of this mega content drop draws closer, so stay tuned for more details!

As part of this update – thanks in large part to the constant flow of feedback shared by the community – we're also planning to make some very significant changes to player progression, gameplay balance and world layout. From the layout of the Knowledge Tree to the costs of various crafting recipes, these changes will greatly alter the game's balance and pacing. They will be significant to such a degree that server wipes will be necessary to ensure a fair and level playing field going forward. Our current target for this update is early-to-mid July, though this window may change as we continue to push forward in development.

To ease this transition, and to ensure that we don’t alienate our existing, long-devoted Citadel player base, we will be taking steps to preserve our top 10 currently most active servers. Though they will still get the new balance and progression changes, all structures and player progress will be maintained. These servers will be relabeled as “Legacy” servers to ensure that new players understand that the players in this world have begun with a significant advantage, and that they should consider starting their adventure elsewhere.

Based on their level of activity, the following servers will transition into “Legacy” status after the update:

• TheBrink(OfficialEurope)
  
• CitadelUSEast33
  
• CitadelEurope11
  
• Tokoree(OfficialUSEast)
  
• Elundriel(OfficialUSEast)
  
• Luminous(OfficialUSWest)
  
• ShadowCape(OfficialEurope)
  
• Akatore(OfficialEurope)
  
• CitadelEurope4
  
• CitadelEurope5

A side effect of maintaining these servers is that there are likely to be a handful of unexpected technical issues and edge cases unique to these anomalous worlds. A number of skills that once existed no longer do, and there may be some unanticipated side effects to player progress persisting from the old Knowledge Tree. Some parts of the world have been redesigned to accommodate new resource types, and an array of new “no-build zones” have been added to further prevent players from embedding their base under rocks and in the terrain. The new design of Citadel is simply too different from the current balance to truly ensure these servers will make a full, smooth transition. While we are still committed to providing support to our “Legacy” servers as best as we can, we hope you’ll understand that there may be some issues that we simply will not be able to fix on these grandfathered servers.

As a side note, we’d advise anyone on one of these eventual “Legacy” servers to move their bases away from the rock walls at the northernmost reaches of Ignus. We will be extending a large no-build barrier to prevent players from concealing their bases via exploits.

We're excited to push Citadel into the next chapter of its development with this big update, and can't wait to share it with the community in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more information, and we'll see you in Ignus!

Good afternoon, Wizards! Today’s patch is small, largely due to a long weekend and shortened work week here in Canada. While we did consider altogether skipping today’s patch, we decided to go ahead and share an additional fix we had ready for a few lingering instances of the “Decay Bug" still being reported by some players.

Though most people noted an immediate improvement after last week’s patch, a few players were still finding that certain areas were showing some unexpected decay. Thanks to your feedback, we’re adding one more check to the decay system to hopefully further prevent this. With today’s patch, if a structure piece should be labeled as “abandoned” by the game, it will check all adjacent pieces to ensure that they are “abandoned” as well. If any of those pieces should not be abandoned, the game can safely assume that the piece in question is in fact owned by the same person, and will promptly correct the mistake.

We suspect this change will clean up the last remaining “Decay Bug” issues. As always, we appreciate your patience and support as we work to eliminate this bug once and for all. Should this change not solve your problems, please do continue to share your reports in our Bug Reports sub-forum, as they have been instrumental in our on-going investigation.