This first post-Early Access update (discounting the emergency fix for issues affecting Linux and Mac) contains mostly Bug Fixes and User Interface improvements. It’s been a great experience launching the Early Access, and I’m truly humbled and actually a bit surprised at the reception the game has gotten. It’s been almost naught but intelligent, patient, encouraging and insightful feedback and bug reports. I hope to do this justice by delivering quality EA updates and eventually a great finished game.
The patch notes for 0.9.79 can be found on the forums or on Steam, so I won’t repeat them here, but instead focus on what is coming. There are two main areas that improvements will be focused on during the coming updates (apart from addressing the known issues and any new bugs that pop up):
The ‘New Player Experience’:
There is little to no help for a new player when it comes to figuring out the UI, the goal of the game and what the mechanics are. Especially as it is not always obvious if a mechanic is fully, partially or not at all implemented.
A Steam user, AlguLoD, has been awesome enough to make a guide on Steam which goes through the fundamentals: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=886192013.
I’ve been adding tool tips and “NYI” tags (which indicate not-implemented mechanics and/or content) in some places for this latest update, and will continue to do so. But this is of course not enough, and there needs to be a proper tutorial-like experience for new players. Rest assured, this is very high on the priority list, but for this update I’ve had to focus on various game-breaking and/or very annoying issues.
To make the game more approachable while waiting for the tutorial to be added, I’ll do my very best to get a video up soon where I go through the various elements of the user interface and how to play the game. I had hoped to have this ready by now, but the work of getting .79 ready took more time than expected.
Wizard Trait Mechanics:
There are a lot of traits that need work, and I’ll try to do a mix of small, gradual improvements across the board combined with focused, bigger improvements of specific traits.
The Warlock Dark Pact mechanics will be expanded, building on the work done in a recent update. The Favor gained from completing quests will be translated into various gifts. The various actions required to complete the quests will also have a bigger impact on how the various factions view the Warlock. The diplomatic landscape should reflect that most cultures are not particularly fond of blood sacrifice, holy sites being defiled and dark powers being fed morsels of arcane energy.
On that jolly note, I will end this update. The next you hear from me should be a Video update with some guidance on how to play the game.