Horse Genetics

Long promised, and finally here! This is one of the most outlandish features we've added to the game: we've modeled the genetics of ridable horses, using over 1500 genes to create nearly-countless possible horses, including many real-world horse breeds as well as fantasy ones. When these horses mate, we use real-world genetics rules to create offspring that are a realistic mix of both parents. These genes control the horse's appearance, speed, temperament, and more. Getting horses: there are simple new events in each outdoor area (except Rahu, for now) which run every hour or so. Defeating the Horse Thieves in these events will release a handful of wild horses, and more horses can spawn in the vicinity after the event ends. What can you do with these horses?

• If you don't know the Riding skill, you can attempt to "pet" wild horses which will eventually teach you Riding. (You can also just train Riding the usual way, which is faster, but costs Councils.)
• If you have the Riding skill, you can attempt to tame these horses (if you have their favorite food).
• If you have the Animal Husbandry skill, you can speak to a stablemaster to breed two tamed horses (a male and female) together.
• If you have the Genetics skill, you're a very high-level player and you likely already know who to speak to in order to unlock the new Ungulate Genetics sub-skill. With this skill and the right equipment, you can view the actual genome of horses, both in the wild and in your stables.
• Once you have bred a new horse, you can use animal crates to package them for transfer or sale to other players.

If you already purchased a horse from Mythander, you may be wondering what happened to that horse. Nothing has happened to it, but it cannot be used for breeding. There are more details to discover, but we'll leave them for you to figure out! Other Horse- and Genetics-Related Changes:

• You now gain an additional stable slot when reaching level 25 and 50 in Racing skill.
• Reduced individual gene mutation chance by an order of magnitude, from 0.1% to 0.01%.
• Genes mutations are more likely during the full moon.
• Backers who purchased a Thoroughbred Breeder or Horse Lord Shop package can now claim the two horses of good genetic stock that are included in those packages. Make sure you have two empty stable slots!
• Improved various genetics and breeding-related UIs.

Instanced Guild Halls (Soft Launch)

We're hard at work on Statehelm, the last major city that needs to be added to the game before we can officially "launch" (leave Steam Early Access). One of the big features in Statehelm is being able to lease your own instanced apartment, and/or Guild Hall for your guild. That feature requires a ton of new tech, so in this update we're testing that tech by letting guilds lease Guild Halls in the Red Wing Casino. To get a Guild Hall for your Guild, find the door near Riston in the casino. There is a 100,000-Council fee and your Guild will need to be at least level 1. (There will also be a daily rental fee eventually, but we're waiving those fees during this soft launch.) When you enter the Guild Hall you'll see a console near the door. This allows you to enter "Edit Mode", which lets you "install" items, moving and placing them as desired. When you leave Edit Mode, the items become locked in place. The Guild Hall available in the casino is very bare-bones, so you will need to provide your own lighting and decorations. Decorations like torches and tables can be crafted from recipes trained by Leah Bowman and Amutasa. You can also purchase basic decorations (like wall torches) from a Guild Sign if you are willing to spend Guild Credits on them. Many game-world items, such as chairs, paintings, and so on, can be "installed" into the Guild Hall also. You can always Uninstall items to retrieve them back into your inventory. Other things to know:

• The casino Guild Hall has a limit of 50 installed items at a time.
• You can drop items on the floor in a Guild Hall and they will never be auto-destroyed. You can have at most 50 items on the ground before being unable to drop more.
• There are several new Guild Permissions related to the Guild Hall; guild leaders may want to review these
• There are two new Guild Chests that can be installed and accesses in the Guild Hall. These chests can be purchased from a guild sign. Once set up in the guild hall, you can purchase slots in that chest in the same way as other guild chests.

Note: this is the first time we've ever had instanced areas in Project: Gorgon. Adding this required significant new technology. And while we're 99% sure all of this new code is perfectly debugged, we don't recommend dropping any precious heirloom items on the ground in your Guild Hall during this soft launch.

Treasure Effect Changes

Archery: We've made some big improvements to Archery! To help you adjust to these changes the Transmutation costs for Archery will be reduced this month.

• New treasure effect: (Chest) "After using Fire Arrow, your next Archery attack will simultaneously shoot a Fire Arrow 10 at a target within 8 meters of that attack's main target. This extra Fire Arrow consumes ammunition as normal."
• New treasure effect: (Legs) "After using Mangling Shot, your next Archery attack will simultaneously shoot a Mangling Shot 9 at a separate target within 8 meters of that attack's main target. This extra Mangling Shot consumes ammunition as normal."
• (Hands, Feet) "Fire Arrow deals +26% damage and taunts +1475" => "Fire Arrow deals +160 damage and taunts +1475"
• (Head, OffHand) "Archery Base Damage +50%" => "Archery Base Damage +50%, Anatomy Critical-Hit Chance +3%"
• (Legs, Feet) "Blitz Shot Damage +46%" => "Blitz Shot Damage +53% and Critical Hit Chance +10%"
• (Ring) "Heavy Shot deals +18% damage and reuse timer is -5 seconds" => "Heavy Shot deals +18% damage and reuse timer is -6 seconds"
• New treasure effect: (Chest, Necklace) "Heavy Shot Damage +390"
• New treasure effect: (Legs) "Aimed Shot deals +88 damage, has +13.5% Critical Hit Chance, and also grants this Critical Hit Chance bonus to your next Archery attack"
• New treasure effect: (Hands) "When an Archery attack Critically Hits, you erupt in a burst of acid, dealing 89 Health and 89 Armor Damage to all foes within 8 meters. This effect is increased by treasure that boosts Acid Arrow."
• New high level loot-drop treasure augment: (Feet) "Acid Arrow and Poison Arrow hasten the current reuse timer of Fire Arrow by -5 seconds"
• (Head, OffHand) "Max Power +42 when skill Archery active" => "Archery attacks that Critically Hit restore 43 Power and boost your Anatomy Critical Hit Chance +1% for 20 seconds"
• New treasure effect: (MainHand) "Anatomy-Based Critical Hit Damage +48.5% while skill Archery active"
• New treasure effect: (OffHand) "Archery attacks that Critically Hit deal 396 Poison damage over 12 seconds. This amount is further increased by treasure that boosts Poison Arrow's damage-over-time"

This may be a good time to mention that Critical Hits are determined once per attack, based on the primary target. If an area-effect attack is a Critical Hit, it deals bonus damage to ALL targets regardless of their anatomy/phrenology/etc type. (This is kind of weird, and might change, but that's how it works right now.) Fire Magic:

• "When you are near your Fire Wall, you heal 12 Health per second." => "When you are near your Fire Wall, you heal 15 Health per second. Fire Wall reuse time is -3 seconds."
• "Fire Walls deal +65 damage per hit." => "Fire Walls deal +52% damage per hit. Fire Wall reuse time is -3 seconds."
• "Fire Walls have +220 Max Health." => "Fire Walls have +220 Max Health. Fire Wall reuse time is -3 seconds."
• "Fire Walls' attacks taunt +310%." => "Fire Walls' attacks taunt +310%. Fire Wall reuse time is -3 seconds."
• "Frostball, Scintillating Frost, and Defensive Chill boost your Nice Attack Damage +83 for 7 seconds" => for 10 seconds
• "Molten Veins restores 145 health to any Fire Walls within 10 meters" => "Molten Veins and Flesh to Fuel restore 145 health to any Fire Walls or other pets within 10 meters"
• Fire Mages can train new fire wall variant spell research recipes from a floating sphere in Povus. (These recipes will eventually be obtained from an NPC in Statehelm.)
• Scintillating Frost now once again has a frostier ball than Frostball.

Hammer

• (Legs, Necklace) "Rib Shatter deals +210 damage to targets that are knocked down" => "Rib Shatter deals +140 Damage. If target is Knocked Down it deals a further +44% damage"
• (Chest, Feet) "Seismic Impact deals +70% damage to targets that are Knocked Down" => "Seismic Impact deals +160 Damage. If target is Knocked Down it deals a further +49% damage"

Unarmed:

• (Chest, Hands) "Cobra Strike and Mamba Strike boost your Nice Attack and Signature Debuff ability damage +67 for 7 seconds" => +105
• (Necklace) "Cobra Strike Damage +100" => "Cobra Strike deals +100 damage and boosts your Melee Evasion +14.5 for 7 seconds"
• New treasure effect: (Main-Hand) "Mamba Strike deals +67 damage and boosts your Melee Evasion +5.25% for 6 seconds"
• (Head, Off-Hand) "Mamba Strike Damage +59 and Reuse Time -1 sec" => "Mamba Strike Reuse Time -2 seconds". This effect is now only available on Off-Hand items. Head items with this treasure effect have become Legacy. You can transmute this effect off of the item to un-Legacy it, or you can get a random replacement item. Visit the Legacy Item Helper golem in Serbule for more assistance.
• New treasure effect: (Head) "Mamba Strike boosts your Melee Evasion +10% for 10 seconds"
• (Off-Hand, Head) "Slashing Strike boosts your Melee Evasion +5.25% for 5 seconds" => "Slashing Strike deals +64 damage and boosts your Melee Evasion +5.25% for 5 seconds"
• New treasure effect: (Ring) "Slashing Strike deals +64 damage and worsens the target's Slashing Vulnerability +16% for 60 seconds (this effect does not stack with itself)"

Weather Witching:

• New treasure effect (Main Hand): "Storm Shield targets all ally pets within 20 meters, but ability reuse time is increased +5 seconds"

Writ Challenge Wrap-up

Our first Writ Challenge went really well, and we will be adding it to our event rotation to be an annual Summer event. From now until the end of November 17th, you may /redeem your Writ Challenge Rewards Pack. This contains all Non-Community Chest rewards that were unlocked during the challenge: 10 Glamour Credits, Limited Edition Cosmetic Pet, 6x Orran's Super Inventory Expander Potion, Liquid Super Buffs (24 Hours), and a Sparkler Crate. Please note that the Liquid Super Buffs will self destruct 60 days after claiming, so don't forget to use it!

Other Bug Fixes & Tweaks

• Sun Vale: Ranalon Guardians are higher level to match the rest of the area (were level 23, now 35).
• Fixed bug with the AI configuration for several types of skeletal archers. These archers were supposed to flee if their target got too close, but they didn't.
• Some NPCs were supposed to give out higher-level versions of their reward-items at certain times (such as Christmas or when increasing Favor Level), but they were configured incorrectly so those items had the NPC's base level. This is usually lower than the intended level
• Slightly improved distribution of stats across the bee genome to increase available virility and intelligence.
• Change wording of Recall Heart's Home so that it's accurate: "Sends you to the Teleportation Circle that you have recalled to the highest number of times" -> "recalled from"
• New setting: "Cloth Physics": Provides more control over cloth physics simulating, allowing you to enable it only for yourself, for other players, or for everything (or turn it off completely). Found in Settings > Graphics > Advanced > Animation & Physics.
• New setting: "Easy-Drop Items": Allows dropping items by dragging them out of the inventory window. Previously this was hidden, it is now accessible from inside the Inventory window's Settings (the gear at the top right).
• New setting: "Mute Guild Quest Sounds": Mutes update sounds for guild quests. Found in 2 areas: Settings > Sound > Other, and by right-clicking on the floating "Quests" HUD element.
• Contextual keybinds in Settings are now organized a bit better into subcategories: Corpse Actions, Build Mode, & Other
• Several new items have been added to Riston in the Red Wing Casino and the guild credit shop.
• Sparklers last longer (from 7.5 seconds -> 11 seconds).
• Multicolored Sparklers' emitted light now changes color.
• Watcher pets now float off the ground a bit more.
• Fae Dragon pets no longer continuously divebomb while idling; they only do it every once in a while.
• Improved a *lot* of visuals in Serbule Hills
• Fixed bug that could cause the server to hang up on players during long loading screens.
• Giant bats are slightly cuter. (You may need to re-bat to see this change.)

Update Notes: September 30, 2024, Patch #2

This update fixes some issues with the update earlier today:

• Fix bug causing the scroll wheel to no longer zoom the camera in and out
• Fix bug preventing vegetation and terrain features from appearing in some areas
• Fix for horse feathering not appearing
• Reduce size of Wall of Coldfire's icon
• added missing portal entity for Nightmare Cave Summoning Device
• Update the book "Secrets of the Ungulates" so it requires Non-Ruminant Anatomy instead of Ruminant Anatomy
• Watcher Pet now hovers slightly higher from the ground
• Adjusted mount points for hats on new Giant Bat model
• Fixed bug that prevented evasion-reply effects from working