Release Dates

Template:Tocright Episodes are the major content updates for this game. There are supposed to be 5 episodes and the 4 additional episodes are supposed to be released in subsequent years after the initial game release at the end of 2014. This page will contain the overview of the episode releases only. The Patch Notes can be found here.

Episode 1

Release 1

December 12, 2013 @ 10:30 Central - December 14, 2013 @ 22:00 Central (Actually lasted until December 16, 2013 until 10:00 Central)

• Install / Patching system: Step one for you guys to play the game is for you to download the game and then patch the game. Since this is the first hands on impression of the product, it is critical.
• Login / Registration: Players should be able to log in using their existing accounts and if they have not yet registered, they should be intuitively led to the steps to register.
• Character Creation: Players should be able to create and customize their character. Creation / Customization options for Release 1 will include: name, gender, head shape, skin tone, hair style, hair color, and eye color.
• Single Player Online: All public releases prior to commercial launch will be online only. For Release 1 and 2, it will be constrained to single player online only.
• First Town: Our first town, Owl’s Head will be open for exploration. This is important for testing purposes so we can better tune our performance metrics on real user machines. For Release 1, exiting the town will just funnel you back into the same town (anyone see Groundhog Day?)
• Conversation: Important that players converse with the townsfolk so we can start expanding the dialog system. As you talk to NPCs, we will be tracking your conversations and using them to add more content based on your input.
• Bag Inventory: This is a hot topic in the forums so we want to get it in your hands for feedback on preferences. Immersion vs. ease of use, let the battle begin!
• Equipment: Players will be provided with several chests full of “ph@t lootz” (armor, clothes, weapons, etc.) for trying on for size.
• House Claiming: Players will be able to select a house from the entire list of player houses (even Lord of the Manor!) for free so that we can test out the various size houses on the lots and allow players to test drive the various houses so they can have a better idea of which they ultimately want to own.
• House Decorating: Chests full of furniture and decorative items will be provided so you can stress test the decoration system and try out various styles of interiors. Help us figure out all the ways you can break things! (Look forward to screenshot contests on this!)
• Metrics: All the while you are playing, we will be stress testing our metrics system. This system is critical to maintaining a balanced economy, tracking exploits, and gathering data to improve the experience.

Release 2

January 23, 2014 @ 10:00 - January 25, 2014 @ 22:00 (extended until January 27, 2014 @ 10:00)

• Crafting: We will be opening up crafting for testing with more than 100 recipes. Chests full of crafting resources will be provided. Crafting will initially focus on refining and production for smithing, tailoring, and carpentry.
• Town 2: An additional municipality (likely village sized) will be open for business! Entering the swirling blue portal in the ring of stones will take you from one town to the other. We chose Kingsport for Town 2.
• List Inventory: For those who prefer spreadsheets to immersion. The inventory battle royale continues! Setting this option will change all containers into lists except for crafting tables (coming in R3).
• Character Customization++: Characters from R1 will be wiped, but you will now have even more options when creating your character! Now there are even more ways to look unique, including: facial features, scaling, and more content (hairstyles, head shapes, skin tones, hair colors, etc.) We were also able to include helmets and offhand items (torch and shield).
• Jumping: Tired of not being able to jump that fence? Well tire no more as we now have jumping. And not just any old jumping but player controlled height jumping. A quick tap on the spacebar barely lifts the player but holding down the spacebar allows the player to clear those pesky walls with a high jump. Long term jumping will use focus and will likely be affected by weight carried.
• Run Speed: Many of you commented on the slow run speed so we increased it by 50%, which feels much more satisfying. We will continue to tune this and balance it with an upcoming Dash skill that uses Focus as well as the Sprint buff in the Light Armor School of combat.
• Mac & Linux: OSX and Linux support is now working (with a few caveats). The game currently requires a two button mouse and while a trackpad technically works we are not fully supporting it yet. For Linux, Unity only officially supports Ubuntu so if you are running other versions it may not work. Also Mac & Linux are not yet patching so these builds are only available via direct download.
• Recipe Log: We had originally planned to put crafting in R2 without a recipe log but quickly discovered how amazingly not fun that was. Discovery is great but not having any record of that discovery is just punishing. So we got in a recipe book that will track your recipes. Press "R" to access this in-game!

Release 3

February 20 - 22, 2014

• Open Multiplayer Online: FINALLY we will let you see what the other players look like.
• Chat: You know, so you can talk to your friends! The chat interface now sports a tabbed interface and filters for different channels.
• Emotes: More than 18 emotes online so you can look like a clown with your friends. NOTE: We wanted to use facial animations in several of the emotes so they ended up taking a bit longer than planned. Also the additions of jumping and walking took up animation time. Our final count of emotes is 19. On a brighter note we just added another animator to shore up our animation efforts so our animation speed is going to rise dramatically.
• Town 3: A third municipality opens up (the tiny forest village of Braemar). This is a new type of village that starts tiny and overgrown. The forest gradually becomes cleared out as it becomes more populated.
• Shopping: Shopkeepers will be open for business for selling and buying.

NOTE: Now that we have this functionality coupled with crafting we have removed many of the loot chests and greatly reduced the content that can be found in them. The chests mentioned in the Ten Ton Hammer article were only for very early testing of R3.

• Configurable Controls: We completely understand the myriad reasons why players desire the ability to play the game with different control schemes so we have started adding this functionality. This first version is quite basic so expect us to expand what controls this can change as we get further in the schedule.
• Crafting Improvements: We made a bunch of improvement to make crafting more useable while preserving the experimentation and discovery aspect.
  • Auto Place: Once you discover a recipe you can double click on it in the recipe log to automatically place all ingredients and tools on the table.
  • Take All: There is now a “take all” button that removes everything on the table
  • Starter Recipes: Crafting Log now starts with a handful of recipes
  • Recipe Status: Recipes now display the status of whether they can be crafted including details about what ingredients you have, or do not have, in your inventory
  • More Recipes: 52 more recipes bring our grand total to 153.
• Walking: With the run speed increase it became increasingly obvious that we need an option to walk.
• Friends & Anti-Friends (Blocking): Friends and Blocking were originally R4 goals but we managed to sneak them in for R3.
• Player Housing in SPO: We originally planned to disable all housing in R3 because of the complexity of dealing with ownership in multiplayer. We realized though that we could leave it functional in single player online without having to spend time solving the multiplayer issues in R3. This means you can still experience house ownership and decoration, but only in single player online mode.
• Player Made Music: The Bards of Poets’ Circle Guild selected a set of songs for us to include in the game and we have spread them around the three maps for your listening pleasure.
• Ladders: Using ladders will now teleport you to the next floor of a structure

So now that it is clear what you can expect we should also be as clear about what you should not expect:

• Crafting:
  • resource gathering
  • repair
  • enhancement
  • skill checks (results are always 100% successful)
    • Long term, the percentage chance to make items will depend on a myriad of variables and can result in a variety of results including: making the item desired, making a simpler version of the item that will need to be enhanced, or making a damaged version of the item that needs repair.
• Performance:
  • fallbacks (LODs, etc.)
    • This means the game will be quite slow on older machines, and due to memory usage might be unstable in certain conditions (like densely decorated areas). With each release we will be doing further optimizations and adding to our fallbacks to improve performance.
• Game Loop:
  • a complete game loop (adventure, loot, spend, craft, quest, etc.)
    • For R3 there is just character creation / customization, NPC conversation, home decoration, the beginnings of crafting, and basic multiplayer functionality (chat, friends, etc.).
• Advanced Player Housing
  • waterfront properties
    • able to view the waterfront houses we created (including the Lighthouse and Lord’s Houseboat) so you will find them in Kingsport as static buildings that you can visit.
  • basements
  • home exterior decorations
  • ceiling decorations Expect to see these appear in future releases.
• Swimming

Release 4

March 20 - ?, 2014

• Hidden Vale: A hidden island north north east of the mainland with numerous biomes to explore via the overworld map system
• 10 Hidden Vale Scenes: With the opening of the overworld, we need something to do between the cities so we will be turning on the first 10 scenes including wilderness, caves, and dungeons.
• Combat / Magic: Those first 10 scenes might have stuff in them, so we’ve decided we should give you a way to fight back! A wide array of combat and magic skills, along with the ability to assemble these skills into decks, will now become available.
• Advancement and Skill Trees: Players will start earning experience points for fighting, crafting, and questing. This will lead to level increases and skill points which can be spent to learn new skills or improve existing skills.
• Quests: Players will be able to participate in quests that will send them around the world and even change game state in the scenes based on quest flags. Testing this early is important because our quest system operates differently than the current standards (e.g. no exclamation points or convo trees).
• Loot: Creatures and quests will generate loot including gold and resources.
• Crafting: Resource Gathering will be added to crafting including resource nodes placed in the world. Item wear begins happening and in turn, Repair will now be available. Item enhancement will now also be possible, allowing upgrading of items to more powerful versions. On top of all that, more recipes will become available
• Player Housing: The housing system will be relaunched with persistence in the online space. Housing choices will now be based on backer level, add on purchase, or what can be bought in the game. Waterfront housing will also come online.
• Wearable Dyeing: Clothing and Armor will now be dyeable
• Swimming: Jumping was just the first step to giving players a much greater feeling of movement freedom. In R3, players will be able to swim along the surface of the water. Like jumping, swimming will eventually be governed by game systems like encumbrance and focus.
• Social Systems: moved to R3

Release 5

April, 2014

Release 6

May, 2014

Release 7

June, 2014

Release 8

July, 2014

Release 9

August, 2014

Episode 1 Officially Released

Estimated Release Date: October 31st, 2014

Episode 2

Estimated 1-2 Years after Episode 1

Episode 3

Estimated 1-2 Years after Episode 2

Episode 4

Estimated 1-2 Years after Episode 3

Episode 5

Estimated 1-2 Years after Episode 4