While most of the world is "enjoying" the cold, Wayward is about to get hot, especially with its revamped desert biome, two new modes of play, and a new set of songs, composed by Austin Dhillon. After a long year of work on Wayward and releasing two of the most requested features by the players (that being multiplayer and NPCs), we decided to take a step back and work on something less requested, but just as important: replayability. https://youtu.be/7ZgjkHXiWEM We are introducing two new modes of play:

Custom Mode

Pick and choose modifiers to customize your Wayward experience. You can significantly change the difficulty and feel of the game using different combinations of options.

Challenge Mode

Previously called Daily Challenge, this difficult mode now has randomly generated modifiers and quests intended for quick playthroughs and races with friends. With these new modes, the breadth of options at your disposal should allow you to play Wayward the way you see fit. Another part of that replayability aspect is multiplayer. It was hard and tedious to get a group together to play. We have introduced a brand-new server browser that will allow you to not only find your friend's games easier but will also allow you to find new friends by joining their public games. Additionally, you can now simply copy a code within the "World" menu and share it with anybody you want to join your game. You no longer must rely on Steam to facilitate multiplayer. Speaking of which, we have implemented Discord rich presence allowing Discord to share what you are doing within Wayward but also enables you to invite others to your game. Other Discord members can even ask to join your game as well. Along with the replayability theme, we also added a ton of new content including three new creatures, three new plants, and tons of items featured primarily in the desert biome. A few other stand-out additions include:

• Added hitching posts, an item and doodad that will allow players to tether creatures, a contest winning idea submitted by Xechorizo.
• Added wells that can be built to collect and store fresh, unpurified water. This idea was a contest winner, submitted by Adrien S. Enzo.
• Added metal cookware, flour, dough and hardtack as an intro into baking. Hardtack itself was a contest winner, submitted by RatElemental.

Oh ya, and how about that new music? Beta 2.7 is dropping with 9 new tracks! 9 tracks that serve as the long awaited follow up to the original tracks, composed by Austin Dhillon. These hip-hop inspired tracks range from dreamlike to dark and provide a mysterious backdrop to Wayward's survival experience. Typically, we would have spent another month on beta 2.7, but we are attempting to speed up our release schedule a bit. This means less substantial updates, but a bit more frequent. We also wanted to release during the holidays for most people. Enjoy and please continue reporting issues and submitting suggestions! Wall o text begins forthwith:

New

• Added a "Custom" game mode that allows setting different game options and modifiers.
• Challenge mode has been redesigned with unique sets of quests and custom difficulty modifiers for quick play sessions.
• You can now see a list of all open multiplayer servers via a server browser in the Multiplayer menu.
• 9 new music tracks, composed and produced by Austin Dhillon have been added to the game.
• Added hitching posts, an item and doodad that will allow players to tether creatures, a contest winning idea submitted by Xechorizo.
• Added wells that can be built to collect and store fresh, unpurified water. This idea was a contest winner, submitted by Adrien S. Enzo.
• Added metal cookware, flour, dough and hardtack as an intro into baking. Hardtack itself was a contest winner, submitted by RatElemental.
• Introducing the "Aloe Vera" plant. Useful for its antiseptic qualities and application to the skin to sooth burning pain.
• Added the quick and nimble "Antelope Jackrabbit" to the reworked desert biome.
• There are now multiple types of sand, "beach sand" and "desert sand" with unique properties in regard to plant life and creature spawning.
• Added a new type of desert tree. Introducing the "Joshua Tree" that produces fruit and leaves suitable for cordage.
• Added a new type of cactus for the desert. Introducing the tall and girthy, "Saguaro Cactus".
• Added the dangerous "Rattlesnake", a new creature spotted in the desert biome.
• Added a shareable game code for multiplayer games (due to new Steam privacy settings not showing "Join Game" in some cases).
• Legendary items now have flavorful names based on what kind of legendary are.
• Added a few new books and added a randomized book to the player's starting inventory (based on milestone unlocks).
• Added support for LAN. You can now connect to multiplayer games using an internal IP address.
• Adding a new desert-dwelling creature. Introducing the "scorpion", the arachnid known for its ominous stinger.
• Some creatures, including the claw worm will now help grow and heal plants when moving over them and at a higher chance when tamed.
• Scrolls and maps will no longer be consumed on use and can be shared between players. They can also be dismantled into "shredded paper" along with books.
• Added Discord Rich Presence to Wayward, allowing players to view game details within Discord and join others in multiplayer games if they send an invite or are asked to join.
• Added a way to export/import global save data (for debug/testing) within the options menu.
• Implemented a GPU power preference option (to lower/raise power consumption for better battery life or performance).
• Added support for Challenge Mode in multiplayer.
• Added three new legendary properties.
• Added "Playtime" support for Steam Workshop modifications. This will allow users to search mods by playtime and display if they have used individual mods in the past.
• Added "Operator" and "Huntsman" milestones.
• Added a "best" item sort option (for highest quality/durability, lowest weight).
• Added a couple new garden templates that can spawn randomly on world generation.
• Added a new note and help article for explaining item qualities.

Improvements

• Redesigned the skill and milestone dialogs. They're easier to read, cause less lag, and you can now sort/filter them too.
• The quality of items and doodads are now shown in their names, and in all cases they are now colored, giving additional context to messages.
• Item piles/stacks are now limited based on item weight (rather than a max of 12 across all items).
• The Starter Quest has been redesigned with the new questing system.
• Players will now be notified overhead of missed attacks and zero damage hits.
• Tooltips for tiles have been redesigned. They are now broken into "sections" for each thing on the tile, and important information is highlighted in the description.
• Character selection is now skipped when joining a dedicated server you've joined before.
• Smaller creatures will no longer trample plants.
• NPCs will no longer become hostile from taking damage from non-player sources.
• Players will now receive reputation loss/gain when damaging and killing other players based on their opponent's reputation.
• Merchants will now always keep a minimum stock of four items (excluding those taken by players).
• Items that have no defined durability will now produce damaged item sounds and warning messages (this includes most crafting resources).
• Tooltips for NPCs, players, high quality items, and aberrant creatures now have borders in their tooltips matching their respective colors.
• Players will now receive reputation loss/gain from their tamed creatures attacking and/or killing other players based on the target opponent's reputation.
• Items that are not repairable will no longer mention they are "in need of repair".
• Cartography now reveals which direction the map is in with varying degrees of accuracy (based on cartography skill).
• Added in a resting delay between each turn to allow the "Cancel" button to function more consistently.
• Named or tamed creatures no longer "inexplicably" die.
• There is now a separate mouse turn delay option, allowing you to set a unique value for keyboard and mouse movement delays for turning.
• Books will now be renamed after reading them based on what they are.
• Water creatures will no longer spawn in bodies of water that are too small when fished or baited with food items. Sea creatures will also no longer spawn in fresh water through these means.
• The appearance of tattered maps has been tweaked and positional information will now display in the map dialog.
• You can no longer set down flooring over top of fires and other tile events.
• Improved the screen animation when dying with respawning enabled.
• Slither suckers will now adapt to the tiles they are placed down on instead of being dropped as an item or not at all if they could not naturally move on the tiles surrounding the player.
• Added a new untradable item grouping for some items that will no longer be bought/sold by merchants.
• Black powder use with weapons will no longer require a full item each use, but rather use its durability as "charges".
• You can no longer fish up badderlocks (seaweed) from fresh water sources.
• Multiplayer options are now saved with worlds. Loading a game that was last open to multiplayer will ask if you want to load it as multiplayer again.
• The "insect" item category is now referred to as "bait".
• Importing a save game now only displays JSON files (the file extension Wayward uses for saves) by default.
• Improved performance of dropping many items into deep water.
• Spiders no longer bleed red blood. Wat.
• Items and corpses in lists, such as those that would appear in messages or tooltips, are now sorted by item quantity.
• Sleeping or resting with a lit torch will extinguish it or cause fires around the player.
• Cooked insect meat is no longer considered an "insect".
• Stamina regenerated during sleep and rest is now scaled based on maximum dexterity/stamina.
• Increased the visually differences between wooden spears and wooden poles.
• Improved dialog scroll controls by increasing their width and reducing resizing anchor sizes (as they could expand over scrollbars previously).
• Tweaked the "exceptional" purple color to be more readable when used for text.
• Added in an option to enable/disable protected crafting items to apply to items inside protected containers. (Thanks Stungun!)
• Built legendary illumination torches will now produce their legendary effects.
• Music tracks are now dynamically chosen and weighted based on the player's current situation in-game. This feature can be disabled in the options.
• New UI dialogs now remember their locations/sizes the last time they were moved/resized, so that if the screen scale changes, when the screen scale returns they return to their saved positions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed world tooltips from rapidly flashing on/off if hovering over an object while using an item/performing actions. (Thanks Monkeys!)
• Fixed facing directions not working in multiplayer games (for clients).
• Fixed a bug that did not save legendary properties on doodads when placed and picked back up.
• Prevented movement/scrolling speed from affecting creature movement speed.
• Fixed an issue joining servers with very large worlds (larger than 40MB).
• Fixed weapons using black powder even when you did not have any ammunition available.
• Fixed some walk to tile issues when near or on the world's edge. (Thanks Arnkh!)
• Disabled pausing the game during the death animation.
• Fixed a visual glitch when lava appeared near rock/mountain faces producing a colored border until the save was reloaded.
• Tweaked the rendering order of some in-game graphics so certain objects will not pop in/over the character any longer.
• Fixed legendary containers from being re-rolled on use. (Thanks DanekJovax!)
• Copal resin is now considered a "powder". (Thanks Arnkh!)
• Fixed bind names (bindPress) not being able to be translated.
• Fixed a bug where walking into a trap door spider with attacking (left/right hands) disabled would not reveal it.
• Fixed a bug where traps would not revert back to the correct item properties (leading to randomized weight, unmodified names, etc.) when being set off.
• Fixed an issue where anchor and control elements for new dialogs would be offset with small resolutions.
• Fixed errors when loading a save with an unknown note (from a disabled mod).
• Fixed a bug that passed a turn when attempting to decode a map that was not of the current world.
• Fixed a disassembly exploit where it would be possible to always return one item even if the recipe only used one item, allowing infinite repeated crafting/disassembly. (Thanks Dez!)
• Fixed being able to craft stone arrowheads and other stone tools with obsidian. (Thanks Arnkh!)
• Fixed the "Menu Cancel" bind not working to go back from some menus, like the Options menu.
• Fixed a rare issue where corpses could be displayed in the wrong graphic.
• Fixed hooks not registering correctly if another hook had been registered to the same priority but was deregistered.
• Fixed soil being duplicated and then dropped when digging up caves repeatedly. (Thanks Xech!)
• Legendary items that had a reduced weight will no longer update to new weights (when changed) that would lead to 0 or negative weight items.
• Fixed some mods staying partially enabled when connecting to a non-modded multiplayer server.
• Fixed an oversight that caused reduced effectiveness of offering items to creatures to increase the maximum happiness level.
• Ghost movement in simulated turns mode no longer passes turns for living players.
• Fixed a bug that caused NewUI save data to be synced to clients in multiplayer. The fix for this may require players to reorganize their dialog/UI positions. Apologies!
• Fixed the "Encumbered" note causing errors if you had less than 3 unique items in your inventory.
• Fixed some options appearing cropped when not using the pixel font. (Thanks Dolphin!)
• Fixed many spelling misteaks.
• Fixed the "New Game" menu showing an incorrect save name and not letting you play the Challenge mode when at the maximum amount of save slots.
• Fixed "enter" not causing a sound in interrupts when choosing "yes" or confirming.
• Fixed the "open server" check button in the world menu defaulting the server to real-time mode rather than simulated turns.
• The paused icon in real-time mode & multiplayer is now clickable, and the game no longer automatically unpauses when the host closes an interrupt.

Balance

• Some creatures will now have a chance to skip movement for a turn (with the chance being different for each creature) but all creatures will now have a lower chance to become uninterested. Affected creatures will generally have a higher attack now.
• Fishing rods no longer require bait when crafted but casting to catch fish will now use bait to attract them to your hook or net.
• Increased the stamina received from drinking and eating most types of food.
• Creatures that may spawn from dropping food into water, fishing, or gathering treasure will no longer move or attack after spawning.
• Aberrant corpses will now increase reputation if the creature was normally non-hostile.
• Added a spawning cap to merchant NPCs.
• The taming quest within the Starter Quest has been moved further down the line.
• Tactics will now raise when using throwing or marksmanship as a combat skill on successful hits.
• Books now have a higher chance to be a "special" book.
• Glass flasks are now less durable, require more ingredients and are harder to craft.
• Creatures will now trample plants when attacking from a tile that has a plant.

Modding

• All mod registrations are now done via a new suite of @Register decorators. Check out the modding guide or the Troposphere modification to learn how it's done!
• Mods can now add their own sections to tile tooltips/inspections, with @Register.inspectionType.
• Added support for adding Workshop tags for modifications via mod.json.
• Mods can now register custom ItemTypeGroups, for use in recipes or item sorting.

Mods

TARS

• Improved base building logic. Bases should now be built in better locations.
• Fixed attempting to gather from tiles with other players on it.

Debug Tools

• Fixed fog and lighting options being global instead of per-player.
• Fixed the FOV/FOW not returning after healing from death.
• Noclipping movement is no longer delayed when overweight.
• Fixed "walk to tile" path not being reset when teleporting.
• You can now teleport on top of impassable doodads and terrain when noclip is enabled.
• Added the ability to set plant growth stages.

Technical

• Added a new "questing" system; the system that is used for Challenge Mode quests. It comes with mod support, so mods can provide their own quests (modders: see Starter Quest to learn how it's done).
• Updated Wayward to use Electron 3.0.12.
• The actions system has been rewritten in order to more strongly type action execution and provide a more robust API. Modded actions will be different as a result. See the Debug Tools or Troposphere mods for examples.
• The language system has been rewritten to fix many longstanding issues. Pluralization rules are now handled by language-provided regular expression replacements, numbers are now translatable, and most hardcoded strings have been removed.
• The max save size has been doubled.
• System hardware (CPU, GPU, and memory) is now logged for easier troubleshooting.
• Added an openGpuInfoPage launch option to allow opening GPU info page (chrome://gpu) for debugging GPU issues.
• Updated Wayward to TypeScript 3.2.