Hello everyone. We just rolled out a large new patch to The Repopulation. Highlights include an upgrade to the 1.1 Beta, an upgrade to Python 2.6.4, mission and engagement upgrades, item color coding, stealth improvements and more. Build notes are included inside, as well as a mixture of old and new screenshots:

• Effects and Abilties
  • You will now disappear from view when in stealth mode. This had been broken since the port to T3D. We've also made adjustments to the Stealth calculation.
  • The Knife Tactics ability: Sneaking Thrust will now last longer.
  • The Military ability: Hold Tight should now be a defensive buff. It was previously bugged and radioing in for an air strike.

• Engagements
  • Adjusted the number of monsters needed to kill in the Dank Dungeon engagement.
  • Added additional GM capabilities to force actions in an engagement.

• General
  • Client side improvements to help prevent the command buffer from backing up.
  • Mouse-related dragging improvements.
  • Adjusted the movement system to make it easier to control. There are now three movement flags on a character: Base Movement, Bonus Movement and Hinderance Movement. It will only use the highest effect that is active in any of these
  • Reduced the base movement speed for players and NPCs.
  • Increased the walking speed somewhat to compensate for the reduced movement speed.
  • Increased the movement bonus of vehicles to compensate some for the reduced movement speed.
  • Added in a new entry level vehicle at a lower cost point. This vehicle can be rented using a single use control key at an affordable cost.
  • Vehicles will no longer take any weight modifiers into account when determining its base movement speed.
  • Terrain Negotiation is now functional. When you move through rough terrain, you will have a change to raise your Terrain Negotiation. Raising this skill will give you a bonus to your movement speed on difficult terrain in the future.
  • Faugea kills are now tracked on your character, along with the other species. For those new to the game, we track kills within each species, and players receive a scaling bonus to their combat vs. that species based on how many they have defeated in the past.
  • Added new immortal capabilities including the ability to artificially boost movement speed.
  • Improved some of our backend features so that we can build a safe sandbox for content people to produce content without them or us needing to worry about them accidentally breaking anything outside of the content scripts.
  • Our servers have been upgraded to use Python 2.6.4, instead of the previous Python 2.5.2. This should result in better server side performance.
  • All characters now begin with a simple light source to aid them in dungeons or in the wilderness at night.
  • Fixed problems with a couple of ShapeConstructor related issues with certain models.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to fall through the terrain if they hit a hard angle while in a fast moving vehicle.
  • Fixed a Navmesh related bug.
  • Fixed a Forest related bug where the collision boxes on some objects were too large.

• Graphics
  • The wall around Freedomtown should no longer be half visible in Basic Lighting.
  • Updated to the latest version (1.1 beta 1) of the Torque 3D engine. This has resulted in some new ways to tweak your graphics settings, as well as some visual upgrades.
  • Added seven new monster models.
  • Fixed a bug that happened when switching between Basic and Advanced Lighting.
  • Fixed a particle related bug.
  • Fixed the specularity on the brown rocks in Plymouth.

• Items
  • There are new Motion Sensor Implants that will make aid in detecting hidden beings.
  • Added a number of Undead related items.
  • We've modified Unique items so that you may only have one of them at any given time. Previously this check was only performed when equipping those items in an equippable slot.
  • Fixed a bug with Ultra Light Armor
  • We've added additional loot tables, and variety within those loot tables.
  • The Item Quality level is now displayable in the Tooltips and Information Windows. The name of the item will be color coded by its quality level. It follows the following format:

Junk: Grey Common: White Uncommon: Green Rare: Yellow Legendary: Orange Epic: Red

• Missions
  • Upgraded the Quest Helper and information window. Rather than popping up a new window with quest information you can now expand it through panes.
  • We've added a new series of instanced missions based on a series of new mine dungeon templates. These instances feature some random rare crafting nodes, in addition to the normal assortment of generated dungeon fixtures. These instances are much larger than any of the previous instances and are targeted at tier 2+ characters.
  • Added a slew of generated Extermination missions. These missions can be attached to any monster in the database, and you will randomly receive missions to kill them when you are within the proper tier. Previously we had to set these all up manually, and there are still manual verisons for special cases. The new system though allows us to have some more variety in kill assignments.
  • Mission dialogs can now check to see if a character has a specific mission currently in progress and use that to perform different branches.
  • Loot Chains can now also be rewarded through the DialogAction system. This means they could come at any stage of a mission if the template supports it.
  • We have the ability to fine tune the exact chances that a player will receive an ability Card through the mission system.
  • You will now be able to see how far progressed you are in a particular step of a mission through the Mission Helper window. For example, if you had to collect 5 items from a particular type of mob, it will now show you how many you currently have obtained, rather than only updating the progress after you had collected all five.
  • Combat missions can now fine tune a list of monsters that can be killed for that specific mission. For example there were some Slayer missions before where you had to slay 10 Vultures. Any Vulture mob would do as the check was by race. However, that only worked well for lower tier areas. Although there were tougher variants of Vultures in some places, it would have always been quicker to kill the easier ones. We can now set up the template to require multiple monsters to be used for that kill step, and also to mark them on the map. But we can also disallow others of that race, which allows us to have different tier versions of kill missions within the same species.
  • Added a check to make sure a mission is currently active (and not just offered) in a couple places where it wasn't being checked previously.
  • AutoActions can now reward credits, where they were not previously.
  • Added additional tiers to generated Combat missions.
  • Added the Underworld Mission template: Fixing the Foreman. This mission template takes place in the new Mine instances.
  • Added the Combat Missions templates: Precious Seronium, Ending Their Suffering, We've Been Overrun, and Destroying the Evidence. These missions take place in the new generated Mine instances.
  • Adjusted the rewards of many missions.
  • Some missions where giving inproper NPC locations, this has been fixed.
  • Fixed a bug where the your Helper was not being properly updated in some cases.

• User Interface
  • Stealthed opponents will now have the heads up display over their heads fade out when they are out of sight.
  • When you mouse over an interactive object it will now be displayed with a silhoute around it.
  • We've temporarily added the silhoutes from interactive objects to the your current target. This will be replaced with our old target selectrons when AFX becomes available for 1.1, but this provides a short-term solution in the meantime.
  • There is now options in the Options Menu for Refract Texture Scaling, Terrain Detail Scaling, Anaglyphic 3D rendering, and Foliage Wind Distance.
  • Pressing the Escape key while you have an item on your cursor will now remove the item from your cursor.
  • You can now right click on usable items to use them. Previously they needed to be drug to the action bar to use.
  • Right clicking an empty slot in your action bar will now open up the Macro Editor.
  • There is now a time indicator on your Action bar.
  • When you are inside of a cloning area there is now an icon on your action bar that will indicate it.
  • There is now a camp window that will display the amount of time remaining until you log out of the game.
  • The in-game map uses new icons to indicate points of interest, players, or missions.
  • Optimized how the Buff Window works internally.
  • Removed the option for Interior Level of Detail bias, as we are no longer using any DIFs.

• World
  • Stealthed NPCs will now be hidden from sight. Be careful when wandering through certain areas.
  • Added a new generated instance type that take place in the mines of Kalazar, Wailing Chasm, or Timbertol.
  • Added the first undead, in the form of zombies. These are tied in to some experimental research in the Kalazar region.
  • Raid bosses will now have a chance of dropping more drops per kill.
  • Added a good number of new Bandit mobs to the world.
  • Added new physicians, thieves, assassins and doctor based mobs.
  • Added three new NPC factions.
  • Monster or NPC loot tables have been adjusted to provide even more random loot.
  • The OWON/FPR Commanders and Sergeant Majors should now be attackable by members of the opposing faction.
  • Adjusted the entrances to some dungeons to make them more attractive.
  • Added new points of interest and exploration points to the Wailing Chasm.
  • We've added Pit Traps to some of the dungeons.
  • There is now a new section that is acessible in Wailing Chasm. It features some monsters intended for groups.
  • Added some missing NPCs to zone lists, making more missions available in more zones.
  • Added new mini-boss spawns adn spawn locations in various zones.
  • Setlang and Chasm Hounds now have unique species abilities.
  • Chasm Hounds have had their difficulty increased.
  • Added new tier 2-3 bosses.

Should be the last patch before Alpha Phase 3. Some features/content in this patch. Should be a few more bits of content by the end of the week.

• Missing constructor files that would cause the client to crash added.
• Added some mines that are attached to Wailingchasm along with a few missions and some new spawns.
• Update to mission display GUI. Now will show up in a stack list like other controls. You can control+click to abort a current mission.
• Adjusted FPW/OWON commander aggro values.
• Standardized most use commands to be right mouse click. They all should be this way now.
• Added a highligher shader that renders a blue outline around targetted NPCs and when you get close enough to an interactive object. The NPC outline is till AFX is implemented. The shader is not perfect so if you see some issues with it just be aware we are aware of the issue.
• Added a new run animation. Will have more soon.
• Plymouth's nighttime is slightly more lit than before.
• Added a camp window when you camp so you can see the timer and cancel easily.
• Adjusted max move speed so immortals can fly around the map much faster.
• Time added above the Macro buttons along with a little (CC) flag if you are near a Cloning Center.
• Custom Macro Window now works. You can right click on a slot to change it, delete it, add custom macros, etc.
• Escape will now clear out the cursor and move the object back to the previous location. It will cancel out any purchase on the cursor or any ability as well. There are some checks to prevent slot stacking, but if you see anything fishy let us know.
• Added some instant death triggers *he he*
• Unique items should work as intended.
• Added some automatic generated kill quests. There are 3 sets (1 NPC, 2 NPC, 3 NPC). The 2/3 NPC require more kills and give better reward loot.
• Added a few more map icons
• Added more color coding to the tooltips and for items to better tell quality.

This patch mainly introduces the speed changes into the game (movement changes). Wanted to do this before more players got on and got angry at going slower. Hopefully in the not so distant future we have a better teleportation system in place so you can move from point to point if you have enough credits (and eventually have player owned teleportation hubs)

• Work started on Kalazar Mountains (Tier 3 zone)
• Fixed a bug in Freedomtown that was causing Invisible walls.
• Combat particle bug fix.
• Adjustments to stealth to fix some issues. More work (like fading) to come later.
• Buffer size adjusted to allow more messages from client to server. Increased the send rate to 5 per second from 4 per second.
• Made a few other adjustements to the buffer overflow area/bug. Noticed it seems to be when the local client's python stops ticking. Put some noisy traces into the logs to verify this.
• Speed of movement has been cut in half. This is to fix a few issues and bring the animation better in sync with the movement rates.
• Put in a catch if you fall through the terrain to put you back above it. Hopefully this will be fixed at sometime.
• Fixed some issues with AI warping that causes massive problems with the speed changes.
• Updated some icons in the game.
• Drag/Click reaction time changed a bit on the icons. Not 100% fix for this as it does get confused every once and awhile, but it should be much better of not double clicking or getting stuck in a drag operation compared to before.
• Movement effects have been modified quite a bit. Before we had a stacking system where it was hard to properly add movement effects together. Now we have a base/bonus/reduction value for each along with the base movement value based on the equipment. This allows us to put in full on movement stop effects and you will no longer stop moving unless there is a 100% reduction effect on (such as with heavy armor and sneak/crouch/etc)
• A lot of abilities/effects changed. Crouch is a bit faster, Prone can move just slightly, sneak adjusted as well. Things like sprint properly bonus your current movement speed (so you want to be running with it).
• Armor effects on movement along with reduction values (unless it is 100%) do not factor into vehicle speed.
• Vehicles sped up a bit from their previous version (with a reduction in speed of 2x they aren't the same speed as before though). Also added some more gravity/lift values to all vehicles.
• Added a new lower level vehicle that is the slowest of all the vehicles, but is still fast compared to running. There is also a 1 use rent version available at a low cost.
• Work started on a tier 3 mine instance.

This patch includes a major update to the Engagements system, map upgrades, basic lighting improvements, and a number of upgrades to the mission system.

• Crafting
  • Doubleclicking on the Crafting Station will now automatically open it, rather than asking you if you wanted to.
  • Added 9 new mob dropped recipe books in the Smithing, Firearms Crafting and Melee Crafting sets.

• Effects and Abilities
  • Fixed a bug related to an AoE Knockback isFacing check.

• Engagements
  • The engagement system has received significant updates. For those who are unaware of this system, engagements are instanced events that occur randomly. Players can flag themselves as Available for Covert Ops or Available for Emergency Response in the Social window. If they are flagged, they are added to a queue. When a new engagement is spawned it selects players from the queue based on the necessary criteria. Engagements are designed to be able to be PVE or PVP. The PVP versions are similar to Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft or Scenarios in Warhammer. The PVE versions are similar to Public Quests in Warhammer, except in an instanced environment. When the engagement is over, loot and rewards are automatically assigned and the player is teleported to wherever they were before accepting the engagement.
  • Engagements can now be set to link certain zones to certain engagements.
  • There can now be respawn points in an engagement.
  • There is now an Engagement window that can provide more information on that particular engagement.
  • Engagements can now have multiple sequences and multiple kill lists or save/rescue lists that need to take place before they advance to the next stage.
  • Sequences can be time limited with a failures or successes being based on objectives being completed within the time limit.
  • Engagements and Battles can now have their respawn rates tweaked to a finer degree.
  • Added a new engagement that takes place in the Dank Dungeon.

• General
  • Monsters should no longer stack up on top of players when fighting multiple mobs.
  • Monsters in engagements should no longer begin stacked on top of one another.
  • Added more control to corpses and looting, so that we can control the decay rate, whether or not to hide names, etc on different objects.
  • Added two new military achievements.
  • Immortals now have the ability to add or remove faction.
  • Fixed some issues in the battle code.
  • Resolved some bugs wih the mob variant system.
  • Fixed a tracking related bug that occured during timeswitches.

• Graphics
  • Basic lighting has gotten a facelift. Shadows have been re-enabled and there is now a baked lightmap for terrain in basic lighting.
  • Decals are once again functional and have been activated. There is now an option in the Options Menu to disable them if you.
  • We've improved the particle system so that it can use a wider variety of special effects.
  • Added a number of new weapon models.
  • Tweaked the Faugea's materials.
  • Fixed an environment/cloud related server side issue with indoor zones.
  • Fixed some UV issues with the brown rocks in Plymouth.

• Items
  • Added new particle effects to ranged weapons, aerosol weapons and flame throwers. This includes things like dust kicking up on the ground near a player when you miss an shot at them, seeing the sprays of aerosol from your weapons.
  • Melee weapons have also received a number of new particles, including particles when certain weapons are equipped, and others when they land an attack.
  • Added a number of new items that are created and dropped by the Faugea species.
  • Added new collectible items to the Lesoo and Faugea species.
  • Flame Throwers now have an activatable Flame Wall ability. This ability will lay a wall of fire in front of your feet that will last for 30 seconds. If anyone passes over the flame wall, it will cause them to take Fire damage over time. This ability is activatable, which means you must click it when you wish to use it. You can still attack normally with your flame thrower, as was the case previously.
  • Added a new type of Robot Parts.

• Missions
  • We've added the ability to double click an object or an item to start a mission.
  • Missions (both static and generated) can give loot from any tier through any action, so long as it is defined in the quest template. For generated missions this means you can now have multiple rewards in one mission if the template is designed to support it. For static missions this means you can now receive random loot rewards if the templates calls for it.
  • You will now automatically track all generated mission NPCs on your map. You do not need to click the mission in the mission helper window for that to happen. If you wish to have the guiding arrow though you will need to do so. Static mission NPCs are also automatically marked.
  • We've expanded the mission system to be able to play animations during different stages of an animation. We're currently using this for NPCs to give off emotes when certain things take place.
  • Fixed some mission tracking related issues that could occur previously if you logged out during the middle of a mission. Sometimes the tracking didn't update properly when you logged back in.
  • Added a new static mission to Pontoc City that takes place in the Tikt Tunnels.
  • Added a new static mission to Wailing Chasm that allows players to slowly raise their reputation with the shadier types by providing stingers for poisons.
  • Added a new rare mission template: The Truth, The Whole Truth.
  • The static missions: Freedomtown Defense and Plymouth Defense will now accept Lesoo Leadership Beads in addition to the zone specific requirements from before. They will also reward players with a chance at loot.
  • Added a chance to obtain generated loot to all Lost and Found and One Time missions.
  • Adjusted the rewards on the Rare Nickel Collection.
  • Added a new hidden static mission.
  • Adjusted the faction rewards on many missions to try to bring them in line with the level of progression desired.
  • The Town Supplies static quest NPCs will now have a quest indicator above their heads.
  • Fixed a minor bug in the following mission templates: An Urgent Request, Hardware Pickup, Byna Berry Muffins, Unholy Creations, Breaking and Entering, Weapons Runner, and Paranoid Hacker. This bug was allowing players to talk to the NPC who gave them a certain item more than once and to get several version of the mission's unique item. These items were worthless but should not have been given as they cluttered inventory space and might confuse players.
  • Fixed a bug in the tracked locations of the Patrolling Plymouth mission template.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the Harvesting information entry to overwrite the Crafting one.
  • You should no longer be offered the Patrolling Freedomtown mission while in Plymouth.

• User Interface
  • The mapping system has been improved in a number of ways. Points of interest, and mission-related NPCs are now automatically plotted on the map. Previously you had to track them in order for them to appear on the map, but they are now permanently indicated there. It should be noted that you must be in range and the mission that you are currently on must be flagged for mission tracking in order for this to happen.
  • There is now an option to disable decals in the Graphics Options Menu.
  • There is now an Engagement window that can provide more information on that particular engagement.

• World
  • We've added a large new dungeon in the form of the Tikt Tunnels, which are located underneath the Wailing Chasm. This dungeon is populated by Faugea.
  • NPCs can now emote random speeches, emotes or animations from time to time when players walk near them. They can also use special abilities such as buffing the player. We hope that this adds some more life to the world. You'll find a few places where NPCs will emote these things.
  • There are now random ground spawn chests that can be found throughout the world. These can result in valuable items or collection items. These are rare spawns, and are designed to encourage exploration. They become more common the further you stray into the wilderness.
  • You can now double click to exit instances, access Control Point Mainframes, access the Control Panel in your home, DNA Stations, accessing Faction Teleportals, or opening the crafting station, rather than needing to confirm it.
  • Added several new types of Faugea, Cyborg and Crawler mobs. This includes new bosses.
  • Added two new special abilities to the Faugea species.
  • Made another major but hidden improvement to the Faugea species. Players will need to discover what those are though for themselves though.
  • Made some adjustments to native species factions. Some of the native species now have dislikes and disputes with some of the other species or tribes.
  • Wailing Chasm has a new loading image.
  • Added Timbertol Pass Station to the list of trackable points of interest in Plymouth.
  • Pontoc City's slumlord has returned.
  • Reduced the steepness of the road to Timbertol.
  • Adjusted the direction in which some of the NPCs in Plymouth and Wailing Chasm were facing.
  • Fixed the exploration point for Pontoc Lookout.

Sorry it took so long to get this one out. Holidays and website redesign and some other general things came up. On the flip side some of those “things” include map fixes, better pathing, drag and drop UI changes, gravity/player sticking to the ground changes, and a bunch of other random stuff. Some pretty cool stuff in this patch. Here is to breaking something with it .

• Control Points
  • Control Points may now have their settings boosted or penalized through the mission system. This allows things like sabotage missions, or missions that will improve a certain feature of that city.
  • Fixed a bug that was allowing control points to have values higher than their intended maximum.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing military training upgrades to not be properly applied to control points.

• Crafting and Harvesting
  • Added the ability for recipes to accept multiple options as an ingredient. For example, you can use the highest grade of a Hammer on high or low end recipes, but you could not use the lowest grade on some of the high end recipes.
  • Added a variety of Rare crafted armor and weapons, along with the associated recipes. The recipes are uncommon drops and will drop from the appropriate loot tables.
  • Fixed a sound related bug in crafted weapons where only the Uncommon or higher variants were producing the proper weapon sounds.
  • The Batch of Kosha Seeds recipe should now take Kosha Seeds instead of Byna Berry Seeds.
  • Increased shard drop rate.
  • Bandages can now be created by those with First Aid skill. These are similar to Health Stims except they have a longer usage time and are primarily intended to allow those without high First Aid skills to be able to bandage themselves outisde of combat.
  • Pharmacists can now create Anti-toxins which have one charge of Cure Poison.

• Effects and Abilities
  • Effects can now have a gravity modifier.
  • Effects can now have a fall distance modifier on them.
  • Fixed a bug with Knockback effects.
  • Removed the directional check for Area of Effect knockbacks.
  • Adjusted the Charge ability.

• General
  • AI is now using a hybrid Navmesh system. For general purpose AI, we are using the same quick and simple AI system as before for pathfinding. However, when that system encounters any problems (such as reaching a wall) it will engage into the Navmesh system to find the best way around that object. The most noticable difference will be inside of dungeons or cities. Currently, only Plymouth city is using this, but it will be added to more areas in the future.
  • Adjusted gravity to make the player better stick to the ground.
  • Adjusted the distance “bounce” check. Players running should be able to go up stairs now without bouncing off them.
  • Added the ability to adjust the gravity or distance through the effects system. This is currently being used to adjust the gravity on vehicles.
  • Jump should now work properly on all surfaces.
  • The camera shake effect on impact has been adjusted. It now only shakes if you take damage when falling.
  • Self damage, such as Falling damage, will no longer trigger an auto-attack.
  • Fixed a zone server related bug.
  • Made some internal Editor changes that should make it easier for us to populate zones more quickly than was previously the case.

• Graphics
  • Added in a new monster model. This model will be used in tier 3+ zones.
  • Added new graphics to the control points in Wailing Chasm.

• Items
  • Weapons that cause no damage, such as the Paralysis Pistol, can now process their effects despite it. This fixes the Paralysis Pistols. These weapons do no damage, but can keep a single opponent permanently paralyzed if they do not resist. They do have short range, however.
  • Shotguns now have a higher chance of knocking back your opponents.
  • Added new region specific items.
  • Added several new, upper tier grenades.

* Missions

• Added the ability for generated missions to alter the exploration point or current monster you are seeking through the actions of the mission. This allows us to have missions that involve patrolling multiple points and for those points to change during the course of the mission.
• Added the ability for missions to modify any of the control points values. This enables missions to do things like add structure points for collecting resources, or improving the local hospital, etc.
• There is now a Journal for static missions available. You can access this by using a new button on your Mission Helper. While the majority of the missions in The Repopulation are generated, it was previously difficult to remember where the static missions where. The new journal not only helps you keep track of those mission, which are often repeatable. But it also allows you to create your own entries of notes regarding anything that you'd like to remember for later.
• Generated missions can now be targeted at a specific faction.
• NPCs who give static missions will now have an blue indicator over their head.
• Portions of the tutorial will be stored in your Static Journal for viewing at any time later. They appear under the topic: Introduction.
• Interacting with a Teleportal device or a Control Point Mainframe computer will add a new entry into your Journal that provides information on how the faction teleportals and control point and siege system works for future reference. This is a permanent entry, but it can optionally be removed from your journal.
• Added the military mission templates: Scouting Freedom Post, Patrolling Freedomtown, and Patrolling Plymouth. These are all scouting missions that reward military experience in addition to the normal rewards.
• Added the following harvesting mission templates: Building Materials and Construction Materials. These missions are faction specific missions that are only available to players who are in a region under their control. They may only be completed while that control point is under your control, and will reward military experience, as well as granting a bonus to the structure points of that town.
• Added five new Town Supplies missions. These are static missions that are available in control points from Construction Foremans. They require you to collect a bulk shipment of Wood or Stone for the local construction efforts. These missions only offer a small reward for your efforts, but they grant the town a bonus to its Structure Points. Those structure points can be spent by the mayor to improve the town. You also gain a reasonable amount of reputation with the Common folk for your efforts.
• Fixed a bug in the Routine Delivery mission template.

• Pets
  • Pets will now slow down prior to reaching you if they have been following and you stopped. This helps prevent pet rubber banding.

• User Interface
  • Added drag and drop options for the Inventory, Macros, Buy, Sell, Trade, and Vault windows.
  • NPCs who give static missions will now have an blue indicator over their head.
  • Adjusted the default window positions. If you are an existing player and would like to use the new defaults, you can select the Reset UI button on the GUI pane in the Options Menu.
  • The maps for Plymouth, Freedomtown and Wailing Chasm have all been updated and improved.
  • The tracking window is now enabled by default.
  • The menu tab swizzles on your Action Bar can now be cycled to the left or right.
  • Updated some of the introduction tips.
  • Fixed a bug zoom-related bug in the mapping system. Also fixed the map “back tracing” if you got near the corners in some situations.

• World
  • Wailing Chasm has reached its third revision, through the work of Stadi Thompson. With each of our three outdoor zones now being up to date, we'll start focusing on bringing new zones into the game.
  • Spawngroups can now contain unique loot tables. This allows us to create regional items that only drop in a certain location, but are dropped from monsters on a shared loot table. This is being tied into static faction missions at the time being, but may become useful in other situations in the future.
  • Added new local factions, and static quests that will allow users to raise their reputation with that local faction. These factions will be tied into regional rewards in the future.
  • We've added in a new Hunter/Prey system that allows us to flag certain monsters as Hunters, and others as Prey. Hunters may attack Prey for food, but Prey will only attack hunters if cornered.
  • Added three new exploration regions to Freedomtown: Red Lake, Wailing Pass and the North * west Pass. Players who visit these locations will see a minor but permanent to one of the following stats: Swimming, Terrain Negotiation, Polearm Defense.
  • Added the ability for certain areas to not allow vehicles. Inside of Plymouth City for example no longer allows you to drive in a vehicle.
  • Added a new monster species. The Raxin are giant quadroped that use a new model. They have very soft flesh, which makes them vulnerable to physical damage, but are quite resistant to other forms of damage.
  • Added Construction Foreman NPCs to each control point. These foreman allow players to complete static resource gathering missions that will allow players to give that control point a bonus to the amount of structure points that they generate. This allows a city to build or rebuild more quickly than usual.
  • Added several new static mission related NPCs to Plymouth and Freedomtown.
  • Added a Clan Registrar to Freedomtown.
  • Made adjustments the roads in Freedomtown.
  • You should no longer fall underneath the world when zoning into Plymouth from Wailing Chasm.

• Started on some overhead chat stuff for NPCs. Not really implemented yet, but you will see it every once and awhile.
• Fixed some missing icons for gloves.
• Close button added to loot window.
• Added an auto attack on damage option.
• Increased the particle distance on the forage emitters. Fixed the particles on those as well.
• Added initial resource abilities to new characters (old ones should get them as well I believe).
• Fixed up some death issues with going to the right spots.
• Turret targetting effects now properly work (siege weapons)
• Freedomtown had spawns revamped. Much like plymouth now in progression.
• Added a new road and a pond to Freedomtown.
• Moved the drakes in Freedomtown.
• Adjusted some bosses. Still have more adjustments to make.
• Setup sunflares in the zones.
• Adjusted the stat chart quite a bit. Most armor got tweeked and so did a lot of NPCs.
• NPCs can now be flagged to behave (and apply stats) like they have light/medium/heavy/u-heavy armor.
• Vultures got a pass over and are more consistant.
• Fixes to a tree model.
• Armor movement adjustments lessened (you will go a bit faster)
• Adjusted the run animation (not done with these yet as it has major stick in ass effect) and there is an idle crouch animation in right now as well.
• Parry was greatly adjusted in this patch. Polearms/Rapiers are now better at this while most 2 handed weapons are poor (excluding polearms of course). You have to be able to parry though to have a chance to parry *unlike some other skills such as shield block*
• DNA rewards will now get a little popup over your head letting you know DNA was rewarded.
• Fixed the running into wall bug.
• Fixed an unequip/equip bug that was causing issues.
• A few new missions added.
• Update to the binary to fix some flag and other related issues.
• Vehicles should work properly now instead of crashing.
• Fixed up variant code so it properly adjusts the level and exposes that to the game. Variants should be more difficult.
  • Adjusted how variants work for the most part. The unique ones (crazy named) are more rare and MUCH more difficult. They are Raid Tier 1
  • There are size adjusted NPCs that are size and level changed.
  • There are “difficulty” adjusted NPCs that change their level, damage, hp, haste, etc. Top of this ladder (Legendary) is flagged Raid Tier 1
  • Variants will now drop DNA (most of the time depending on challenge), items, credits (unique only).
  • All difficulty increased variants will now drop some kind of uncommon/rare items as well. The more difficult stuff will drop the better goods. This is weapons, armor, and a bunch of new implants.
• Added some gems/shards that can show up in the ore resources. Shards are rare, gems are rare/ultra-rare/extremely-ultra-rare. Shards will be added in shortly into the crafting lists while the gems are just store and use later for the time being.
• NPC buyback rate doubled.
• Energy increased by 30 for everyone.
• Adjusted the loot table code to shuffle them every time. Should prevent “top stack” selections making them more even in loading objects.
• CON increases should happen a bit more often now. The first 40 points should be much easier and after that a bit easier than before.
• PC raced NPCs should drop credits now if they are explicitly set based on the credit table.
• Stacks of new implants added for the loot tables for variants.
• Added a few new lanterns that could get dropped as well.
• Next level of books/crafting goods are in both Plymouth/Freedomtown near their respective WC entrances.
• Adjusted the handguns that weren't able to be dual wielded.

• Fixed some resist information on most NPCs. You should as a whole do more damage. Most of the “races” now have specific resist values that mitigate/enhance phyical and energy damage and some element damage.
• Fixed uncommon item crafting missions.
• Armor plates will now be consumed.
• New color rankings for skills ranks to better break apart the higher masteries (no red higher ranks).
• Double clicking equip/stack stuff now works.
• /clone will work as it should now.
• Update to the Information screens for abilities/armor/weapons. Should have numerical data in there now for most things.
• Harmful abilities no longer self target.
• Major changes to the Content Database. A lot more data there for abilities/items.
• Clicking code has been fixed up hopefully.
• Fixed defense checks for crafted weapons.
• Bonus to skillup chance if you are in an alliance.
• Certain zones grant bounses to skillups now (instances, etc)
• Reset UI button added to Options.
• Dark Vision Goggles work as desired now. Added True Light Goggles that do more of a normal vision thing at night. Dark Vision goggles amplify the green levels making it easier to see at night, the True Light amplifies both red/blue as well.
• Death timer changed to 1 minute instead of 5.
• Fixed some death related issues. Should be able to clone and not get warped 5 minutes later.
• Adjusted Gnooberry bush's name location.
• Fixed the water vendors for the beginning mission.

• New road/terrain/sun changes for Freedomtown along with a lot more props.
• Added a few new epic/one time missions in.
• Scatter Shot self targets so you don't need to target an enemy to use it.
• Fixed Pistol Whip.
• Penetrating Shot changed to Penetrating ARrow for the Bow Tactics ability.
• Momentum gains are about 5x faster than before.
• Most leg abilities can injure a leg now and if you use another ability during that brief time period on their legs it has a chance to break.
• New abilities added for Rifle Tactics. Check the Content Database for a list.
• Adjustments to the shadows in the 3 ourdoor zones. Should look better than before.
• Added an option to turn the shadow quality down to Medium. Will improve performance by roughly 5-15% depending on the situation.
• Added Depth of Field (DOF) as a click option in the options once again.
• Plymouth has a few more folliage items and rocks around now (mostly with collision).
• Plymouth trees foliage now sway when you are close to them. Looks pretty cool.
• Adjustments to the Terrain Ground area.
• Adjustments to Wailing Chasm's terrain.
• Fixed the DNA/Skill scrolling issues.
• Robots should no longer crash when trying to summon one.
• Health bars should be showing back up. This got rid of some wierd glitches I was having as well.
• Plymouth city (model) no longer will cast shadows for the time being. We are reworking this model and baking in some stuff for future improvements.
• Added Gathering/Mining/Fishing/Foresting abilities to replace the attack with tool style we had. Each require 5 seconds like Foraging does and uses similiar code. Gathering is a starter ability everyone will have the others are beginner abilities. All abilities still require the right tool and do similiar skill checks to make sure you aren't gaining ton of points on easy stuff.
• Some more audio changes. We had a playlist but it was having problems so we pulled it. Starting music added though.

This update is a mixture of graphical updates, optimizations and new features. We've updated Freedomtown in the same fashion that Plymouth was recently upgraded. A Need/Greed/Pass looting system has been introduced, as well as a major change to the way our death system works. We've also ported to v1.1 of the Torque 3D engine, which has resulted in numerous improvements.

• Audio
  • We placed a big focus on improving our Audio in this patch. You'll hear a variety of new and improved Audio. Most species now have new sound effects, and environmental effects have also been added.
  • Certains NPCs and Monsters will occasionally make random idle sounds.
  • Client side audio effects are now requested in a more bandwidth efficient manner.
  • Added new sounds that are unique to certain weapons.
  • Special abilities now have a variety of unique sounds.
  • Added many new environmental sound effects to different objects in the game.
  • Tied the sound system into our day and night system so you'll notice different sounds at different times of day. The bars will likely get rowdier as the night goes on, for example.

• Combat
  • If you are in-combat you will no longer be able to regenerate. Previously you could so long as you were not attacking. Now if you are taking damage will also not be able to regenerate.

• Effects and Abilities
  • Added the First Aid based abilitys: Revive, and Resuscitate. These ability allows you to revive fallen allies but have a high skill requirement. Resuscitate revives allies with greater health.
  • Combinations now have the ability to check for active effects in either the Target or the User.
  • There are now instant attack abilities.
  • There are now armor negating effects.
  • Special abilities can now trigger an extra attack from your main hand.
  • Added the ability for certain beneficial abilities to be immune to cancellation.
  • Certain effects can be flagged to cancel upon zoning.
  • We now have the ability to more accurately tweak Disarm percentages on a per ability basis.
  • We added more control to having abilities scale up with players based on stats or skill level, and tweaked the majority of our skills to take advantage of it. The goal here is for there to be few “upgrades” and to have most abilities instead scale up.
  • Fixed a bug that was allowing human NPCs to use any ability, even ones that their skill level did not allow.
  • Energy tank tactics will now properly raise when an Energy Tank successfully absorbs damage.
  • Swordfighting Tactics, Knife Tactics, Pistol Tactics had a lot of abilities reworked and are more ready for Beta. Sword/knife tactics are mostly damage based and Pistol is support based. Will update the Content Database so you can check them out. The desc for the new abilities should be fairly imformative of what they do now.
  • Added the Swordfighting Tactics based ablity: Bleeding Slash. This slash wil do instant damage, followed by a 5 second bleeding effect.
  • Added the Swordfighting Tactics based ability Blade Flurry. This ability drains Momentum every tick, but will increase your attack speed by 30% until your Momentum is completely drained.
  • Added the Swordfighting Tactics based ability: Gaping Slash. This ability will attempt to open the wounds of an already bleeding opponent, causing them to bleed more profusely.
  • Added the Swordfighting Tactics ability Deadly Slice. This ability will drain your momentum slowly, but until it is expired it will increase your Melee Damage output by 30%.
  • Counter Slash will now reduce your attack speed by 15% when it is active.

• Graphics
  • You may now optionally have a Depth of Field effect displayed. You can change this through your settings.
  • We've moved our trees and rocks from ShapeReplicators to Forests. This allows us to better place and distribute everything in game and should result in better looking maps with trees that can be affected by the wind.
  • Improved skin and hair coloring.
  • Plymouth's terrain should now look less blurry in the distance. This was more noticable if you had your groundcover settings set to low previously.
  • Integrated a new death system. Under the old system players could /clone themselves at a point and when they died they were recloned at that point automatically. The new system does not immediately respawn a player, but instead allows them to lie dead for up to 5 minutes. During that time a skilled medic or someone possessing the proper equipment can return the player to life. If players do not have a medic nearby they can release and be respawned at their choice of control points that are under the control of their faction or guild, or in a safe spot in the zone. They will also be given the option of respawningback to their /cloned position if that zone is still under their factions control.
  • Players are no longer eligible to /clone themselves in a zone that is under enemy control.
  • Characters can now use the /release command to bypass release system and respawn automatically.
  • We've made some adjustments to our gravity and physics.
  • Engagements should no longer be offered to zoning characters.
  • More server side performance improvements. We've dramatically reduced our server side workload in this patch.
  • Human NPCs now have a death animation.
  • We've made some additional tweaks on the idle and disconnection code.

• Graphics
  • The menu buttons above your Action Bars now have new graphics from Michael Yatskar.
  • We've added new levels of detail to numerous objects in game, which should result in higher frame rates. Adjusting your shape's detail bias in advanced optoins will make this more noticable. At full detail bias you will not pop into the lower levels of detail until you are further away, but at minimum you may only use the highest levels of detail if you are right next to an object. Those on slower cards can take advantage of this to improve their frame rates.
  • Made adjustments to the shadowing system so that we can apply different logweights to each split distance. This has resulted in better looking shadows.
  • Added new types of Groundcover decorations to Plymouth.
  • Added new decals to Plymouth. Decals are not rendering right now so this is kind of a moot point.
  • Small performance optimizations to the shape rendering.

• Missions
  • Improved the effectiveness of our Ability Card reward system. To the end user this works the same way as it has before, you will only be able to gain abilities that you qualify for, but it handles it more efficiently and should results in more frequently being awarded with special abilities from missions.
  • Missions which give skill up checks can now place a time limit on how often a player can attempt to complete them. For example, if you find the Injured Traveler in the wilderness you will no longer be able to keep attempting to bandage them. If you have failed they may make you wait some time before attempting it again.
  • Made adjustments to the mission and engagement loot tables.

* User Interface

• Made many visual updates to the User Interface. Square buttons have been replaced with more attractive bitmap based buttons, and some layouts have been shifted around to make using them as simple as possible. The larger scale UI changes are listed in further details below.
• The Loot Window will now allow you to select select to select if you Need, Greed or Pass on any loot. The default is to select Greed, but players can modify that so you default to Pass if you do not wish any loot. When loot is found in a group the item will go into a queue which will automatically set to either Greed or Pass, depending on your settings. If you wish to alter your selection for a piece of loot, you may do so. After 20 seconds have passed everyones selection becomes locked and the loot is distributed. For those unfamiliar with Need, Greed or Pass looting. You should select Need if you would use the item and it would be an upgrade. You would select Greed if you don't really need an item, but would like to have it, either to sell or to use as a backup or for an alt. You'd select Pass to leave yourself out of the roll for this loot. At the end of the time period anyone who selected Need to get the first chance, and roll against one another. If noone selected need, then whoever selected Greed will roll for the loot. The roll is done automatically by the system. Loot will only be rolled for on Uncommon or higher quality levels, it will not be rolled on for vendor fodder. You can mouse over the item bitmap in the loot roll window to get the details on that item in a tooltip.
• The Abilities window is now sorted by the Skill used. So for example if you have abilities in the Rifle Tactics and Survival Trees you will have different pages for each skill. This should make it easier to manage and keep track of your abilities.
• The login window and main menu have been integrated into a single menu.
• You may now type your username in lower case at the login screen and it will properly find you still.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the UI to not scale properly in widescreen resolutions in some cases.

• World
  • We've introduced Freedomtown 2.0, courtesy of the design work of Stadi Thompson. The new zone is more visually appealing and also better laid out.
  • Freedomtowns spawns and mob layouts have gotten a renovation similar to the one that happened in Plymouth a few patches ago. We believe the difficulty progression is better than it was before.
  • Adjusted NPC pathing in Plymouth City.
  • Adjusted the landscape in different parts of Plymouth.
  • The river has re-appeared in Plymouth.
  • Gave certain NPCs different sound sets so that they can emit idle sounds when you are speaking to them.

• Other
  • Worked on the disconnect issues. The reconnect time was changed from 5 minutes to 4 minutes and a bug was fixed that should hopefully nix this issue. Logging out of the Character Select Window now works properly now and you don't have to wait 5 minutes to get back in.
  • Decals have been disabled from rendering because of a bug. This is actually a bit slow and gained a bit of performance for Basic Light users.
  • Font cache is now shipped with the client so you *shouldn't* need to install the font. Tested in a clean Win7 install so far with no issue.
  • New icon for the installer. Should be a new one for the client app soon as well.

This was kind of an abrupt stop in the middle of some work patch as we are now porting the engine to the latest update. Hopefully this fixes some of the bugs we are experiencing (some of the crashes) and we gain a few tools that will help us with level design/building. There looks to be some performance updates for Advanced Lighting as well that should greatly help there. Anyway, that is the next patch, this patch was the work up till that dropped on our plate.

• Missions will reward Cards now. There is a separate chance to reward a card than loot and it will reward a card all the time it is suppose to and one you do not have. While the chance per mission is anywhere from 10-30% most of the time based on the mission, you should receive cards on a more regular basis. There is a limit on the types of cards (tier based) so higher level missions will reward higher level cards. You still can get lower level cards though on higher level missions.
• Improved performance on the servers. Nothing that will probably be seen, but should help in the long run.
• Added more tree changes to the zone and some better LOD. Should help with performance a bit.
• Fixed the mayor elections for control points.
• Initial changes in for need/greed/pass for groups. It will force the popup for any green (uncommon) or better item. I don't believe the corpses are round-robbin looting yet though for everything else.
• Death animations added for humans.
• More UI work. For the most part it is done now.
• Ability pane is broken down into sections and by skill. The sections are the 6 you see in the skill pane. You can do everything you could before but move the abilities in the pane around. You can still click on them to use them or drag them to the macrobar. They are sorted in alphabetical order by skill group and arranged by when they were aquired.
• Password is no longer stored on the client for new installs. It clears it in cleartext and well that is just bad. If you delete your prefs it won't store it anymore, but you will have to type your password everytime you login.
• Fixes to make sure any format for a username will work just fine.
• Shields drain twice as fast from damage now.
• You will not do a full regen while taking damage.
• Ability AI should work properly now. Still have a few bugs to fix up there, but they were selecting improper abilities and that was resolved.
• New Death/Respawn system in. Still needs a bit more work. You can pick where to respawn. Right now the mobs keep hitting you though after you die..
• River was added back in.
• Martial Tactics skills had a comb over. They are for the most part set and ready for Beta. Damage was adjusted for most of the striking commands and off balance chances add for most abilities. A lot of other stuff was lowered down to make it fit into a tier 5 max list. Of note is Comback Rally and Dizzying Flury. Comback Rally increases your attack speed and improves your damage taking capabilities at the cost of momentum and Dizzying Flury increases your damage dealing capabilities even more, but makes your armor somewhat useless. Both are for short bursts.
• Started on the Sword Fighting abilities but didn't get too far. Quick Slash will actually do a 2nd attack now. Was workign on that code and should be fully complete in the next update.
• Disarm abilities updated to use proper checks now.
• Online wiki was updated. Skill's primary state is reflected (stat they increase) and some descriptions added. Will have more soon.

Where the last few updates have focused heavily on content and playability, this one took more of a turn towards the visuals and interface. Plymouth has a completely new and much improved look from Stadi Thompson. We've also introduced the third revision of our User Interface from Mikael Pettersson. In addition to this you can find numerous changes the weather, fog, cloud, lighting and shadows of the game. To make a long story short, we've improved our visuals significantly while making small adjustments to our frame rates. That's not to say the update completely focuses on graphics though, as a number of other improvements and bug fixes went in, as well. We also had to take out the river in plymouth for this patch as it was causing loading issues, it should be back in shortly after we figure out what the issue is. Lastly, a few bug fixes went in to catch some errors in the logs and hopefully it will help to boot players out properly after 5 minutes. Crosses fingers.

• Crafting and Harvesting
  • Increased the maximum number of ingredients a recipe can contain.
  • Robotics crafters can now create Sorted Robot Parts, which are a component for the new Fix Up Robot ability.
  • Fixed a harvesting related bug that was allowing players to bypass needing the proper tool.
  • Made a number of adjustments to Pharmaceutical recipes and progression.
  • There are now new types of Poxy Flowers. The first tier Poxy flowers are also more accessable via Forage as well.

* Effects and Abilities

• We've made more improvements to the stat and diminishing returns system. These changes provide us with more control over ranges, and allow us to make individual stats directly affect certain skills.
• Made improvements to the way negation/dispel abilities work.
• Haste abilities have all had their percentages adjusted.
• Added the Robotics based ability: Fix Up Robot, which is used to heal a robotic pet, but requires Sorted Robot Parts, which can be created by Robotics crafters.
• The Counter-Attack based ability Counter Move has had its skill requirement significantly reduced.
• The Shield Tactics based ability Raise Shield has had its skill requirement raised by one tier.
• The Swordfighting Tactics based ability Counter Slash has had its damage reduced.
• The meditation skill tree has been renamed as Spiritual Arts, and can now encompass more abilities.
• Made many adjustments to Combat Healing abilities and items.
• Fixed a recently introduced bug that was causing Taming to not work.
• Fixed a recently introduced bug that was causing the Gather DNA Sample ability to not fucntion properly.

* General

• Faction messages have been disabled. This is an area that we are seeking tester feedback on. We have some hidden factions that we don't want players knowing about, or how to increase those factions as they work with some of the underlying features that are currently a secret. Those factions should never display, but we may re-enable faction messages for generic factions later based on tester response. The positive of not showing them would be that player actions do matter, and players won't know how much they matter, which should keep players acting in line. Many of your actions do have an effect on the world, so killing some hapless Farmer for fun, will have a negative effect most likely. With a hidden faction system you won't know the extent of that. We are open to the idea of placing normal faction messages back in though, and this should for the time being be considered an experimental feature. Let us know what you think on the forums.
• There is now an idle timeout period. If a player sits in one spot for too long this will engage, and eventualy it will remove them from the game.
• Players can now /afk to set themselves as away from the keyboard. This will extend their idle timeout time when done, allowing them to stay in the game while afk longer. It will also place a denotation above their character names on other players ShapeNameHUDs. It will also notify incoming tells that you are AFK and may not respond immediately.
• We've updated the game's installer. The new installer will automatically install our custom font as part of the install process, and is up to date with the most recent changes. There is still an issue with Vista and the font there.
• Fixed some mouse related issues.
• 3D Audio had broken in the port to T3D 1.0 or 1.01. It has been fixed.
• Fixed some PVP related bugs.
• Selecting the High detail setting in Options will now enable Sun Shadows, where previously they were disabled unless you went into Very High.
• You can now camp even if you are in a vehicle.
• Added a cap to the maximum haste that a player or monster can have at any given time.
• Fixed a bug that was causing some NPCs to become stuck in one of their animations after they had died.
• Fixed a bug related to Turbo in vehicles.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing players to skill up on monsters that were a bit too easy for them.
• Fixed a bug that was causing player clothing (not armor) to not properly switch texture when equipped.
• Adjusted the skill up rates of many skills.
• Updated the Content Database to the latest information. Also, added a sorted by requirement to abilities so you can see all abilities a bit more easier.
• Adjusted the mass of the objects in the game. This will stop “ramping” off of non steep slopes. Did increase the jump force a bit though.

• Graphics
  • We have modified the Scattersky code so that we can have better control over the fog color on each map.
  • Lighting and Shadows have been tweaked in many areas. This should reduce any artifacts indoors, and imporve performance in many cases. In addition to this outdoor zones have had their ambient lighting reduced, and sun brightness increased, which should result in better looking and more varied lighting in outdoor scenes.
  • We've made a number of adjustments to the clouds and sky to improve their visual quality and performance.
  • The weather system has seen many improvements. The fog gets denser and darker along with the clouds when the weather is bad, it gets much denser during a thunderstorm now, and lightning has also made its first appearance. The transitions between these changes should now be smooth and less noticeable.
  • There are new Icons to indicate if an NPC is needed in any of your current quests, their difficulty level in relation to you, or if a monster is geared towards a group or raid.
  • Made adjustments to our skinning code. This fixed a nasty network hiccup.
  • We've added new materials to many of the objects in game. This includes some nicer normal and specular maps and as well as diffuse and material tweaks.
  • Resolved a nearplane clipping related issue.

• Items
  • Usable items can now be set to be time limited, so that you can not spam click them.
  • Usable items can now use skill checks and grant skill raises.
  • Adjusted the strength and value of Robotic pets.
  • Made adjustments to Item Incumbrance. You will be able to see the Incumbrance in the tooltips. Skill value and STR now effect this as well.
  • There are some new looks to some of the Tier 1 and 2 Light and Ultra Light armor pieces.
  • Combots now have a very short ranged attack (less than a shotgun) or a long range melee attack, whatever you like.

• UI
  • We have integrated UI revision 3. As you can see many areas have been completely redesigned on the UI. There are still several things that need doing, but we took a step towards our final UI in this update. We'll describe the individual changes below.
  • All windows now have a new background frame, there are a couple different versions of these frames, with different windows using different frames. In general though it should be easier to drag or close the new windows and they should look better.
  • Many of the windows are now titled.
  • The map now tracked color coded points. An orange point indicates a point of interest, and an NPC is represented in Blue, and group mates will be represented in purple. Hovering over the any of the dots will display the name in a tooltip. Tracked objects also appear on the map.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing mouse over tooltips for items or abilities to sometimes open and close rapidly instead of staying on.
  • The Crafting UI has seen some significant changes to accomodate a large recipe selection.
  • Fixed an alignment bug on the Skills Pane.
  • The Mission helper window now has more space for text on each mission, as well as a new appearance.
  • The Map is now located in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The controls are now embedded on top of the map. You can drag the map by dragging the header area on the top of the map.
  • The buffs window is now just to the left of map and docked to the top of the screen.
  • Each player in the group now receives their own mini-box with vitals information.
  • The Group Window now includes an icon next to each players name that indicates that at which they are most skilled. For examples players whose highest skill is a medical skill would have a first aid indication next to their name, where one who were skilled with melee weapons may have a mace as an icon. The purpose of these icons is to allow others in the group to have a basic idea of what it is your character does best, and thus help determine a possible role for each player in the group. It should be noted that characters could be equally skilled at multiple skills, but this will only select an icon from the field at which they are the very best at. Take it as a guideline, and not a rule. It should be noted the current icons are programmer art and will be replaced in the near future.
  • You can now monitor your groupmates Energy and E-Shields from the group window.
  • If a player is Idle or AFK it will appear next to their name on the ShapeNameHUD.
  • If players try to login but their character is timing out in the world (from a linkdeath for example) it will give them a message indicating such and an estimated timeout time.
  • Healing now has its own type of Pop Up Text that will appear above players heads when it occurs.
  • Pet damage will now appear in the Pop Up text.
  • The breath (underwater) and casting bars have been moved to their own location on the main GUI. They will only appear when necessary.
  • There is now a target window that will pop up on top of the action bar. This windows will appear when you have an active target, and will display their Health, Energy and Shield levels, if applicable. If you are attacking that target, the border will appear in red to indicate such.
  • There is now a pet window that appears to the right of the group window if you have a pet. This is a miniature window that will display your pet's name and health. If they are in engaged in combat, the border will turn to red.
  • The status panel used to be on the upper left hand side of the screen previously, and indicatd your health, stamina and energy, as well as providing a drop down menu to access each of the different windows in the game. The status panel has been removed, and is now included as part of the Action Bar. More details on that below.
  • The action bar UI has merged with the Status Bar and the Window Selection menu in one streamlined interface to conserve screen space. Your vitals can now be found in the middle of the rows of action bars. The twizzles to change pages on the action bars are now located to the left and right sides of the action bars themselves. The Window selection menu has been merged with the old quick jump menu. This menu now has its own left and right buttons allowing you to cycle through diffferent pages of window information. The icons currently being used are temporary programmer art, and will be replaced soon.
  • The default zoom on the Character Selection 3d Preview and New Characer Previews has been zoomed out so your head will not be at the edge of the window.
  • The Siege Window now features a color coded window. The border of this window will be green if you are in a friendly control point, and red if you are in an enemy control point. It will still show the damage level of the current control point, as was previously the case, but has a new look.
  • The Tracking window will now update slightly faster than previously.
  • Fixed several issues with the UI for the conning system. It should now give more accurate results.
  • Traps should also no longer have a conning indicator, as they are hidden.
  • If a monster is sufficiently stealthed, they will not indicate a Con indicator until they become spotted.
  • When you increase a skill, it will now be echoed into your Chat Window, as well as appearing in the pop up text above your character. This should make it easier for players to monitor their progress through the logs.
  • The Looking For Work, Looking For Group, Available for Covert Operations and Available for Emergency Response toggles have been moved from the PDA Window to the Social Window. There is also additional text here to make each feature be easier to understand.
  • The PDA Window has been split into two different windows: the Mail Window and Auction Window. The layouts have also changed somewhat, and the screen space has been reduced.
  • The DNA Window and Auctions Window can now be added to the bindable keys from the Auctions Window, if you desire. By default the Auction Window is toggled with the U key, and DNA Window with the semi-colon key.
  • The Chat Window, and Chat Tab Window are now attached as a single window and have a new skin.
  • The chat tab that you are currently using will have a highlight around its border to make it easier to recognize.
  • Skill/Stat gains will now show up in the message HUD as well as popped over the head.

• World
  • Plymouth has undergone a major facelift. Expect to see more of the same in the other zones soon. The zone is still being tweaked at the time of the patch, and you may find some things like rocks floating in mid-air or signs that are floating, etc. In some cases spawns may be in odd locations, etc. This will continue to be tweaked as we go. What we do want feedback on is any performance related issues with the new zone, or general suggestions or comments.
  • Improved our random spawning system so that we have more exact control over the frequency at which different monsters can be spawned from the same spawner.
  • There are now patrol paths down the roads in Plymouth for wandering NPCs.
  • Fixed the pathing of a number of NPCs in Plymouth.
  • Added Occlusion Blockers to the walls in Wailing Chasm, which should improve performance in those areas.
  • Fixed an issue with instances that was causing players to not be warped into the proper instance.
  • Resolved a bug that was causing Turrets to turn and aim, but not fire on enemy players.
  • Human NPCs are no longer allowed to cast teleport spells in combat.
  • The Vulture species Charging ability has been reduced. The haste associated with it has been reduced, and the evasion bonus has also been reduced. The reuse time has been increased.
  • The Hokfig Shell special ability (for Hokfig Species mobs) will still cause them to attack slower while it is in effect, but it the rate at which it slows them has been drastically reduced.
  • Resources have lost their patrol priviledges. Ore will no longer sneak up on you…sneaky ore…
  • Made adjustments to the Resource to Monster ratio in Plymouth. You'll now see more monsters, and less resources.

• Missions
  • Generated or static quests can set a flag to automatically recalculate your top skills. For example, your top skills will now be recalculated the minute you choose a profession in the starting tutorial. This allows your character to have the proper categorization icon (see UI changes) and begin having properly configured generated missions right away.
  • We put an additional check in when players log into the world that will clear out any old and unaccepted missions. Previously if a player disconnected improperly those missions were sometimes not deleted and it would cause a player to reach their maximum amount of generated missions as a result. This is now fixed.

• Pets
  • You will now see damage/healing popups over your pets

• More UI redesign. Nearing completion here. Should see major changes with the tome gui (the button/macro thing at the bottom) and the player information window has been merged into a single alliance (group) window. Pet and target windows are now in place. Also, the active ability bar will show up toward the middle of the screen when you are waiting to finish an ability (like gather dna). Hope to add some bits of this to the docs soon to identify what the images are as they are used to determine the strength of your alliance memeber (healer, tank, robotics, etc).
• Fixed up a few more places to catch some server → client communications.
• Fixed the animation issues with moving dead things and other odd idle issues.
• Will see popups for damage for your pets (damage done and damage received). Shows up like your damage done to a target for now.
• Added popups for healing as well. Will show up on pets as well.
• Fixed gatherdna/tame skills.
• Fixed a problem with healing abilities.
• Added the Fix Up Robot ability. Allows you to take robot parts and make a craftable item and then use those to heal your robot during/after battle.
• Adjusted the price and levels of the DT Combots. Will adjust a bit more down after more content as added as the lv5 robots are pretty decent now. Reduced their use values to 20 as well, but they can be repaired. The lv1 robot is fairly cheap now and the single use lv1 robot was increased in price slightly.
• 3D audio should work again. Should hear grunts and all sorts of lovely things during battle. Will get new sounds in soon.
• Fix for Quest Helper to completely skip over inactive missions. If you had missions and couldn't see them this is why.
• Fixes for instances. Some code was screwed up. Need to test sewers, but industrial instances are working and spawn NPCs.
• Inactive missions will be cleared out at login as well as logoff. Inactive missions are ones you didn't decide to accept or refuse.
• Fixed a few things there were creating bugs in the logs. Nothing major, but got rid of some spam.
• Combots now have a short firing range so they don't have to be exactly on top of a target. Still a very short range (less than shotguns).

• New UI redesign. Still a work in progress, but you should notice most of it is done. Windows should be easier go grab and some more work will be added on the chat window soon to make it less of a PITA.
• Fixed up most of the map plotting issues. There are now 2 separate dots for targets (NPCs) and destinations (POI). If you hover over the dot it will display the name of the plotted point as well.
• Fixed some cursor location issues. The Item Info Windows should position themself better and windows that use transparency when they lose focus should work properly.
• Added a 6th button to the crafting window and adjusted the size of the window to better fit. Removed some extra captions from the window as well.
• Progress bars should show up properly now. Cleaned up that code so they should work better and be more accurate. If you click on one it will now display a % as well.
• Fixed up some pathing issues with the NPCs in plymouth and created patrollers down the roads in plymouth.
• There is now idle/afk/disconnect values. 2 minutes to idle, 3 to AFK, 15 to disconnect. If you get disconnected from the server it is 5 minutes till you can log back in. Should get rid of the player logged in issues when the client crashes or you close down the window instead of camp/quit. Values will probably be adjusted in the next patch once everything is known to be working properly (5/15/30 most likely).
• You can now use /afk to set yourself afk for tells and it will now flag and display yourself as AFK in game. Idle and AFK status both do this now so someone can tell if you are Idle or Afk.
• Preliminary alliance changes. More in next patch.
• Fixed up some bugs with the camp/client crashing code. Fixed a bug that was causing a crash as well. If you keep crashing try deleting your prefs.cs file and if you have a tools folder to do some building let us know so we can send you an update.

http://www.therepopulation.com/gamewiki/doku.php?id=overview:patchhistory_old