Beta 2.6 "Mercantile" was built with late-game in mind. The addition of trading with wandering merchants (NPCs), new legendary items and old educational scrolls opens the door for a lot of possibilities and added progression. Metal items have also been reworked to be much more worth it and rewarding over early tiers of crafts. Especially in the case of copper, where it is now work hardened/cold worked, giving it a unique use case over iron which still needs to be forged with fire. As always though, it's important to grow and help the new players out there getting into Wayward. Which is why we also spent a lot of time focusing on early balancing and making the game a bit easier to get into. Things like completely redoing the help and hint system (now notes), extending the Starter Quest to include more early game problem solving, disabling auto gather by default (no more bloody hands!), and nerfing some early game baddies should help address many of the complaints from new players. Those newer players also having issues with low item durability (possibly before they figure out the item quality system) should also have a better time increasing durability with the addition of animal glue, making reinforcing much more accessible. And those weight/inventory comments? With the inclusion of being able to craft from adjacent chests, this should help reduce some of the tedium of item management and help new players unlock even more recipes early on. What about multiplayer? Well, with the new "move to tile" feature, movement should be a lot smoother and more consistent, especially for players that are far apart geologically. We have also fixed up all those lost chat messages by adding in message filtering, allowing players to view just chat messages instead of game and chat messages mixed together. This can also be customized to filter all types of messages in the game. We aren't done with the early or late game. As always, we constantly need to be tweaking and improving these things as new content and systems get added. Of course, this is just a small tease of some of the new things in the game. For more information, take a gander at the video and wall of text below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC3AGkCN4n8

New

• Added NPCs to the game that will spawn rarely and randomly in your world that you can barter and trade with.
• You can now pathfind/move automatically to a tile using ctrl + left click (or middle mouse click) by default. You can preview the path by holding down ctrl. (Thanks Amax!)
• You can now use adjacent tiles with items or containers as a source for crafting ingredients and recipe discovery.
• Added tons of new legendary properties that are applied based on the item including damage, defense, stats, reduced item weight and many more.
• Added a new "Notes" system to replace the previous hint system, providing non-intrusive hints and flavor to discovering the mechanics of Wayward.
• Dying in hardcore mode will no longer instantly delete your save. You can now explore the world as a ghost, and retain worlds where you are a ghost.
• Added animal glue, crafted from boiling animal bones and tissue.
• Added coconut containers along with more coconut depth including dismantling to coconut husks, peeled coconuts and coconut meat.
• Added "bone meal", to be used for fertilizer with compost and soil to create fertile soil.
• Added a new set of obsidian tools and weaponry.
• Added preview thumbnails to save slots in the load game menu.
• Redesigned the help menu to feature a list-based layout to quickly find help articles with shortcut/navigation support.
• Added "old educational scrolls", a new item that can help train specific skills.
• Introduced the slippery "mudskipper" creature.
• You can now filter the controls in the options menu.
• Added two new skin tones, two new hair colors.
• "Dead bushes" have been replaced with tumbleweeds with unique functionality.
• Added three new milestones, "Pacifier", "Merchant", and "Notekeeper".
• Added a console mode for dedicated servers.
• Added the ability to pause multiplayer games (within the multiplayer menu).
• All items are now able to be legendary tiered (not only equipables).
• Added an option to disable visibility of helmets (will only effect your character).
• Added more books and writings.
• You can now make sand casts with clay, sandstone, and rock, instead of just wood with new types of sand casts added.
• Added "stripped leather", dismantled from leather hides and used as cordage for strings.
• You can now "build" bedding items, allowing you to use them directly on the ground instead of directly from your inventory.
• Added a new action, "smother fire" to piles of dirt, sand, etc. used to extinguish fires.
• Added a chat button that can send messages using mouse controls.

Improvements

• Trees will no longer be inexplicably randomized which often did not produce all resources from the tree, especially when gathering during the ripening stage. Rocks/mountains will also no longer be randomized fully.
• You can now change the positions of the static elements in-game (stats, messages, and the menu bar).
• Implemented better support for high DPI displays, reducing blurry graphics and other rendering artifacts.
• Resource gathering (as well as carving and harvesting) will now produce resources in steps on each action at a time instead of all items at once.
• "Auto Gather" is now "Auto Gather/Harvest" and has been disabled by default.
• Scared creatures will no longer flee from you outside of small radius, making it so they will no longer be found near shorelines most of the time.
• You can now randomize your character name separately from your customizations.
• When connecting to a multiplayer game, it will now reveal how many players are connected and what your ping is via messages.
• Special mountain resource types (limestone, talc, iron, etc.) will no longer switch to their normal forms when depleting the resource, instead, they will have a mix of all resources present at the same time.
• Aberrant creatures will now drop high quality items and provide higher quality resources on carving (including the legendary tier) instead of dropping purely random items.
• Messages are now retained between saving and loading the game.
• Reorganized the way highscores are displayed, added colorization and difficulty icons.
• Iron and wrought iron armor now look unique from each other.
• Added a "close container" action if a container is opened to add back in the functionality to close containers with the item menu.
• Clay now spawns as part of normal world generation.
• Hooded items will no longer show helmets underneath them.
• Added more multilingual and international keyboard bind support.
• You can now scroll through the message history when the messages dialog is closed.
• You can now filter messages based on their sources (for instance, chat, combat, skills, etc.).
• Mod options now have subtabs in the options menu. Clicking on their options button in the mods menu now scrolls to their own section instead of the mod options section.
• Wearing gloves/boots will now protect players from status effects caused by gathering/harvesting and stepping on certain plants/doodads.
• Added a quest for learning quickslot usage in the Starter Quest (due to auto gather/harvest changes).
• Botany and mycology will now be used for harvesting benefits instead of planting. Gardening will now be used for planting instead of harvesting.
• You can now create a passage of lava when digging down into lava.
• You can now consume glue (why though?).
• "Heal Creature" is now "Heal Other" and will work on other players and entities.
• There is now a maximum length when renaming items, creatures, etc.
• Rolling back to a previous version of Wayward will now warn about save corruption and provide a way to close the game.
• Improved the creature graphics of sandcats, imps, harpies, goats, and claw worms by adding outlines.
• Reduced walking sound volume slightly.
• "Carve with tool" is now shown when facing gathererable tile events and harvestable doodads and carving can now be used as a shortcut for gathering/harvesting them.
• "Fertile dirt" terrain has now been renamed to "fertile soil" to match the item counterpart.
• In-game iconography (for the menu bar and equipment slots) have been increased in pixel depth and now have increased readability.
• Added bind colorization to the menu bar button tooltips.
• Tile events (tumbleweeds and honey fungus) are set up to be gathered instead of harvested, as it is always a destructive process.
• Bones can now be dismantled into bone fragments with a hammer.
• You can no longer "Collect" (pick-up) doodads when there are players or corpses over them.
• Added a starter quest for building wooden chests and creature taming.
• "Drop on Gather" is now "Drop on Gather/Harvest" and will now log what item was harvest/gathered and dropped in messages.
• Improved the look and color of shadows under hair.
• Music is now stopped/restarted when muting/unmuting.
• Added a bit of variation/randomization in the amount of resources gathered from plants/mountains, especially during their final stages for plants.
• The difficulty and whether you've won or died in a save is now shown in the save slot tooltip.
• The harvest action will now be applied to all resources that do not destroy the plant. Using "Gather" on harvestable plants will automatically use "Harvest".
• Combined the effective/ineffective damage messages if the damage types matched multiple armor pieces with conflicting resistances/vulnerabilities.
• Category and skill sorting layouts in the crafting window will now display alphabetically and will reverse itself if selected again.
• Resource gathering skills will now provide bonuses to how many resources you gather/harvest/carve at one time.
• Clay terrain templates now appear more organic.
• Clay brick houses will now possibly spawn items and doodads (like other generated templates).
• Improved the visual communication with bad (left) and good (right) drink liquid icons appearing on container items.
• Added a keybind for saving the game.
• The "friends" menu now automatically refreshes every few seconds.
• Wrought iron no longer appears with "rust" on it visually and features a new color scheme.
• Gathering/harvesting messages will now reveal which hand was hurt during gathering if auto gathering/harvesting.
• "Amber" is now "copal" and requires to be ground to be melted for use in reinforcing items.
• Resting or sleeping when in real-time mode will no longer make reference to hours.
• Some rudimentary touch support has been re-enabled.
• Orb of influences will now reveal if the impact was negative or positive when rubbing.
• Renamed the "archery and firearms" skill to "marksmanship".
• Ornate capes are now repaired and reinforced with the tailoring skill. (Thanks ghostyTrollcrow!)
• Wooden spears and swords now use the woodworking skill to craft.
• Treasure guardians will now spawn more consistently, increasing the difficulty slightly.
• The bull boat now uses a leather hide instead of tanned leather. (Thanks Axxron, Scourge of the tts!)
• Added some missing skill types for dismantle items (which were defaulting to tinkering previously).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an oversight that did not take into account repair requirements when repairing doodads. (Thanks blay.paul!)
• Fixed a rare case of a multiplayer server shutting down 3 minutes after a client connects. (Thanks Renzourin!)
• Corrected some instances where fire did not spread or overflow to certain tiles/item/doodad scenarios. (Thanks ghostyTrollcrow!)
• Added a workaround for the 'GL_EXT_frag_depth' extension not being supported on some hardware.
• Fixed an issue with the Explorer milestone that did not unlock tiles by gathering from them. (Thanks helixA!)
• Fixed client crashing not disconnecting players from server in some instances.
• Fixed multiple issues that would result in focusing on the search filter when clicking on a dialog. (Thanks ghostyTrollcrow, Svarog!)
• Fixed having hashtags in directory paths not being able to load modifications. (Thanks timestop1528!)
• The dedicated server identifier is now randomized, correcting connection issues when importing a client-sided save game and trying to connect to your own server. (Thanks Jaxic!)
• Fixed not being able to set more than one secondary bind.
• Fixed a bug that froze the game while trying to rest while a hint window was up. (Thanks PaladinQueen!)
• Fixed the default dialog opacity being 5000% instead of 50%. The default has been changed to 80%.
• Fixed a bug that would double terrain items when digging cave entrances back up after being covered. (Thanks WandNova!)
• Fixed a bug that always returned the bonus minus 1 when using consumable items with a skill/quality bonus. (Thanks ghostyTrollcrow!)
• Fixed changing the language not updating the translations in the current screen.
• Fixed the fullscreen option not being checked on first launch of the game (even though it is fullscreened by default).
• Fixed Steamworks not working on 32-bit Linux.
• Fixed the usableWhenPaused action option not working. (Thanks Amax!)
• Fixed a graphics issue that occurred on some hardware in WebGL 1 mode where half the screen (diagonally) rendered incorrectly.
• Fixed some unclear messaging regarding offering items to already tamed aberrant creatures. (Thanks UrbanGear!)
• Fixed not being able to search for "chemistry" items and crafts within the craft/item filter. (Thanks Axxron, Scourge of the tts!)
• Fixed lava not illuminating the caves if it was the first time you went down and saw lava.
• Fixed an issue where the game would notify you of increasing health instead of decreasing after traveling.
• Fixed languages not being added to the language dropdown if the options menu was opened, and then the language mod was enabled afterwards.
• Fixed a memory error from adding too many lava/lighting tiles (through custom means/modifications).
• Corrected the tailoring skill description by mentioning leather when it should not have. (Thanks Lyceq!)
• Corrected a Steam bug that allowed non-Steam friends to join friend-only games.
• Fixed some multiplayer desyncs.
• Fixed some metal chests not requiring fire or anvils to craft.
• Fixed a graphical issue on macOS where some icon animations were blurry.
• Fixed the "Grasp" action reducing durability when nothing was available to grasp.
• Fixed an issue where automatically enabling a language (through enabling a mod) did not save it as the language selected.
• Fixed filled liquid containers and lit torches not using the proper skill when reinforcing them. (Thanks ghostyTrollcrow!)
• Fixed a bug that produced low durability items that did not show their red border when gathering/harvesting from plants that were low durability.
• Fixed corpses from named creatures not appearing in quotes.
• Fixed legendaries with a chemistry skill bonus not working or displaying correctly.
• Fixed an issue where item quality benefits were not appearing for items that didn't have a skill associated with them.
• Fixed a bug where you could dig close to both seawater and fresh water and produce water that did not contaminate. (Thanks PaladinQueen!)
• Fixed an oversight that allowed dead trees to heal over time. (Thanks ladyimp!)
• Fixed starvation not causing the hunger bar to shake.
• Fixed an issue where you could lose a flooring or any "set down" item permanently when using it to "extinguish" an open fire.
• Fixed an issue where checking/unchecking options did not update quick settings.
• Fixed "Open Mods Folder" not opening the mods folder for users that didn't have a readme.txt.
• Repeated disassembly and re-crafting of items will no longer scale the component's max durability with the new crafted item. (Thanks the rift!)
• Fixed wooden poles and copper arrows not counting as flammable items.
• Fixed named creature corpses not showing as their names if there was more than one of the same type on a tile.
• Fixed not being able to change to a time before 7:30am on the first day (affected Debug Tools). (Thanks Amax!)
• Fixed a bug that did not take into account stamina reduction for alternate creature carving skills such as botany or mining (for certain unique creatures).
• Fixed grammar issues in messages and tooltips when multiple items were renamed the same thing and were placed on the same tile.
• Fixed an issue where template spawning would leave tile events (honey fungus) attached to nothing.
• Fixed save names that were too long pushing save buttons off of the button viewport.
• Corrected a harvesting message typo.
• Fixed shortcut actions (like using dig on a tree to gather) from doubling their delay.
• Fixed "carve with tool" being an option when facing a creature inexplicably.
• Fixed an issue where "Reload and Continue Game" did not save other player data in a multiplayer game.
• Auto saves no longer happen while resting/sleeping (leading to some pauses/freezing after resting/sleeping). (Thanks sechsauge!)
• Fixed a typo in doodad and creature rename interrupts.

Balance

• Copper tools, equipment and weapons are now "cold worked/formed" and no longer require casting or fire (except for when repairing).
• Decreased default claw worm spawn chances and increased the effectiveness of reputation on either reducing or increasing the chance.
• Reduced the maximum durability limit on items, giving more incentive to craft higher tiered items at higher skill levels/qualities.
• Reduced chance of crafting legendary items (based on recipe item quality), weighing it more on skill rather than items due to the inclusion of legendary ingredients.
• The odds of less "useful" plants have been increased on world generation (including poison ivy, tumbleweeds, fly amanita).
• Skill legendaries can now have higher skill values and may include decimal values.
• Chickens will now spawn at positive reputation levels instead of negative ones.
• Goats and slimes will now spawn with positive reputation.
• Disassembling items will now incur a 25% durability penalty on all base components instead of 50%.
• Decreased the chances of receiving same or higher quality items from plants with quality (especially at legendary levels).
• Decreased all resistances of giant rats, giant spiders, claw worms, and zombies by 1-2 points.
• Decreased the chances of spreading plants retaining their parent's quality slightly.
• Nitre, coal and iron will now be rarer in comparison to the other ores and minerals.
• Fishing rods, fishing nets, and all hoes now provide positive reputation on crafting.
• Decreased effectiveness of reinforcing slightly (due to inclusion of animal glue).
• Increased durability and defense for all metal items; however, also increased the attack for medium to high tiered creatures to compensate.
• Collecting (or picking up) doodads that are on fire will now burn you if you are not using a tool.
• The stone knife now requires a handle and string to craft, but has increased durability.
• Stone spears no longer specifically require wooden poles (and can use bone poles instead).
• Stone arrows now require intermediate skill level instead of advanced.
• Trampling can now occur on all growing plants during the seedling through vegetative stages.
• Decreased the rate of egg production on chickens.

Modding

• Hooks are now registered via the @HookMethod decorator instead of a mod.json field.
• Added an API to add custom stats.
• Added an API to add new status effects.
• Added modding support for tile events via addTileEvent.
• You can now add custom corpses for creatures by adding another corpse description object to addCreature.
• Added an optional hook priority system. Each hook can choose its priority relative to other mods that use the same hook.
• game.isTileEmpty now takes an ITile. Added a game.isPositionEmpty to replace the old functionality.
• Added modding support for overlays (sprite layer used for making walk to tile graphics).
• Added an OnItemDamage hook.
• Added a proper @returns to getTileLightLevel. (Thanks Amax!)
• The return of most hooks is now type-checked, and invalid results are ignored.
• Added support for adding custom NPCs.
• Added a suite of NPC-based hooks.
• The menu bar button mod support now requires a description object that supports custom icons, a tooltip, and an onActivate method. Removed the OnButtonBarClick hook.
• Added a GetPlayerMovementIntent hook.
• Added a usableWhenPaused property for actions.
• Added a PreLoadWorldDifferences hook.
• Added an OnItemQuickslot hook.
• Removed the GetNextMusicTrack hook in favor of editing or creating a custom EnumCursor which can handle which music track to go to.
• Removed the CanClientMove hook.
• Logging now supports multiple sources. Mods now have their own loggers accessible with this.getLog().
• Fixed getContainerReference not accepting the proper amount of arguments.

Mods

• Introducing TARS, a Wayward bot.

• Added a spawn NPC section.
• Added a kill all NPCs button.
• The default backslash bind will now work for international keyboards as well. (Thanks Bud!)
• Fixed displaying modded things in dropdowns all lowercase and without spaces. For example, "glassbottlefilledwitharainbow".

• All creatures now have corpses.

• Released a music mod, "Alpha Tracks" which adds two Wayward tracks used earlier in production.

Technical

• Improved the performance of inventory and crafting sorting/updating.
• Added a new property limitFps, defaulted to monitor refresh rate in launch options. Can be raised or lowered for additional performance/power saving.
• Screen and menu transitions should now be smoother.
• An error will now be displayed when trying to import very old save games from the Steam Workshop (instead of simply not working).
• Changed the text system to use a more powerful interpolator, allowing arguments, colored text, and more in the future.
• Updated music to use Web Audio APIs. Music no longer has to be faded/muted on loading.
• Added a new property disableVSync to disable VSync when set to true in launch options.
• The stats system has been reworked. All humans and creatures now use the same system.
• Refactored enum iteration to use functional programming techniques, drastically increased the speed/performance of getRandom and getLength.
• Added a new angleBackend property in launch options that will switch the back-end renderer with the following options: "default", "d9", "d11", "software", "gl", "gles" for additional hardware debugging.
• Updated Wayward to use Electron 2.0.2.
• Updated Wayward to use TypeScript 2.9.1.
• Invalid (nonexistent) hair and skin colors now still work in existing characters or worlds.
• Rewrote the Stats UI to be generated on the fly based on the stats that exist on the player.
• Console output can now be filtered by source when in developer mode.
• Added a new error message for save loading failures.
• NewUi Components can now have custom context menus.
• Utilities are now separated into different files (and their own namespaces).
• Added a new colorProfile property in launch options that will force a color profile for the game with the following values: "srgb" (default), "rgb", "gamma24", and "none".
• Changed BindingManager to capture presses globally, not per screen, to simplify the code and make the behavior more consistent.
• Refactored most of the NewUi to simplify it, preferring a functional programming style.
• Tile events now supports a graphicVariation property like doodads and no longer require to spread with spreadMax property.
• Added NewUi dialogs, to eventually replace all the old dialogs. They can snap together and they resize with the viewport. As of this update, only four dialogs are using it: Messages, Notes, Quick Settings, and Edit Filters (for Messages).
• Added a way to use Random utility functions as non-seeded.
• Added additional GPU logging when enabling additionalLogging in launch options.