Vagri! Were sure many of youve been waiting for more information about our next DLC (shaping up to be expansion-sized once again) and the time has come to deliver just that in the form of a special story trailer were excited to share: [previewyoutube=TkUKrDakcGY;full][/previewyoutube] So, there you have it. Some exposition delivered by award-winning voice actor Phil Rowe, along with a title reveal and the year of release. Although the latter is fairly vague, we can already say that we are aiming for the first half of 2025, as weve been working on it very diligently for months now. Theres still a lot to go, but were making good progress and were very satisfied with how its shaping up. Can you guess where itll be set? There are quite a few indicators, we think. We cant wait to share more, of course, including a launch trailer with some gameplay closer to release, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can wishlist the DLC on Steam.

Holiday Deals

In other news, weve teamed up with fellow developer Balcony Softworks to promote each others work and created a limited time bundle that includes Balrum and Vagrus, called Resourceful Realms. Plenty of story, exploration, and resource management strategy for everyone who loves to delve into such challenges.
Lastly, you might be keenly aware that the Steam Winter Sale is on, with discounts to many great games, including Vagrus.
With a super busy but satisfying year behind us and a very exciting one ahead of us, were taking a break soon, if only for a bit. See you after that, but until then have some fun, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team

[ 2024-12-19 19:23:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

This weeks update addresses several issues, removes the much criticized Chinese and Japanese machine translations and features some Quality of Life optimizations. Alongside this, we are continuing to work hard on our coming DLC, and will endeavor to share more about it as we progress. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.180

General Improvements :gift:

• After considering the overwhelmingly negative player feedback, we removed Chinese and Japanese machine translations because we felt that their quality was not up to standard.
• Slightly increased/optimized savegame loading speed.
• Greatly optimized the storage of archive logs, which will aid us to better identify certain types of issues in the future.
• Added Dual Shock 4 and Dual Sense support.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Changed the language selection screen texts to better indicate that those were not official translations.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed an issue that caused manual saves to be impossible if the players vagrus had special characters in their name.
• Fixed an issue that caused the loading screen to lock up.
• Pressing Shift+1 on the Settlement main screen no longer opens the first Event on the Story pane in addition to opening the players Crew pane (its expected behavior).
• Further optimized the performance of the Outer Realms location.
• Fixed an issue that caused the minus button on the Discipline UI to zero out the value instead of lowering it by on

As ever, more is coming, so stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-11-21 15:29:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, As we approach the end of 2024, it's time to give an update on our upcoming DLC. While our hope was to release it this year, it has become clear to us that it is an unrealistic target. We cannot announce its release date just yet, but we can be sure that it will take at least until next year to complete, and with good reason.
What is that good reason? we hear you ask. Well, lets call it a habit at Lost Pilgrims. While developing large bits of content like the next DLC, we keep enriching them to have better density of content than previous releases. Part of this is organic, the rest is a deliberate attempt to push the envelope. In this case, the region is not going to be as large as the Bronze Desert of Sunfire and Moonshadow, but we are trying to do something special with depth. This includes stories, NPCs, enemies, varied and complex quests, improved reactivity, and so much more. Needless to say, we shall keep you updated as things develop, writing here and on Steam about the DLC and how it is coming along. And of course, as we move closer to release, well be introducing you to more folk like those pictured below, though we can promise theyll not all be cannibals. Well ride the line between keeping your eyebrow raised and you cracking the code, because thats what we love. However, the theme and location of the DLC is so telling that its quite difficult to reveal something without giving it all away.
Vagrus is currently taking part in Steams AdventureX Sale. If youve been on the fence about jumping into our newest content or have a friend who you want to introduce to the Riven Realms, you can make it happen.
Until next time, see you out there in the wasteland, vagri; dont get too caught up in the struggles of the Riven Realms. Theres much, much more to come! The Lost Pilgrims Team

[ 2024-11-07 12:30:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

This weeks update addresses several issues that weve been aiming to fix since our last patch. It also adds several new small Quality of Life features that further streamline UI and UX elements across the board. Alongside this, we are continuing to work hard on our coming DLC, and will endeavor to share more about it as we move closer to the end of the development cycle.
As has become a habit, Vagrus is currently taking part in Steams Turn-Based RPG Fest, which marks the occasion of our final sale before price increases come into effect for Sunfire and Moonshadow and the Season Pass. So, if youve been on the fence about jumping into our newest content or have a friend who you want to introduce to the Riven Realms, you can make it happen for the old price with a discount to boot. The detailed patch notes are below, as usual. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.176

New or Updated Features :gift:

• Improved the particle effects on the campaign map.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• From now on, Perk category Event choice dependencies also indicate whose Perks are required (vagrus only, whole comitatus) just like in Tests.
• Changed the display of Quality dependencies without an added Quality level requirement so that they are easier to understand (the tooltip will no longer refer to a 0 requirement).
• When starting a new game, the dialogue options of Agos can now be navigated by using number keys on the keyboard. We also added hover highlighting to them.
• Removed the redundant X button from the Hunting and Foraging Results window.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed an issue that caused Companion Combat Skills that forced the target to move (for example, Javeks Hypnosis) to have no effect when the target was surrounded by other entities. Now the target can swap places with every eligible character when forced to move.
• Fixed a rare issue that caused the Ahskulite Retinue not to disembark, blocking players from passing through Realmgates and in general causing a lot of headaches. Ahskul disapproved, though He is sated now.
• The right side Character Sheet in Companion Combat that is supposed to be empty when no enemy is selected will no longer display Renkailons stats (sorry Ren!).
• Fixed an issue with controllers (including Steamdeck) that caused Events happening upon leaving a settlement/point of interest to immediately activate entry into that place.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Game Log to display the wrong information (stat changes) related to Camping if it was canceled.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Character Sheet to be missing its background when opened during Hero Select.
• Fixed an issue that caused overwatch-type attacks to not trigger when an enemy is force-moved into the overwatched position.
• Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to switch between summoned entities or close the window on their Character Sheets when using a controller.
• Fixed an issue that caused the radial menu to be open when returning to the campaign map from the Main Menu.
• You can no longer softlock the game during the Deputy tutorial.
• You can no longer accidentally (or intentionally if you knew how) skip the Outrider tutorial.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to move farther in Forced March than they had MPs for if using double clicking.

As ever, more is coming, so stay tuned, and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-10-02 15:10:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, This week wed like to broach a matter for the sake of transparency. Reality in the context of global gaming industry trends has set in, and the result is hard times for everyone. We are no exception and, since we have an insatiable desire for creating quality DLCs, this has left us in a rather precarious situation. Financially, our DLCs need to break even for it to make sense for us to produce them. Indie game development is a passion, thats true, but its also a business that needs to sustain itself and the developers. To that end, we have decided to increase the price of our Sunfire and Moonshadow expansion (SaM), along with the Season Pass, which will of course only affect future purchases.

A Little Background

We were halfway through the development of SaM when we knew that its scope had grown far beyond what we had originally planned. We were, however, happy with the path it had taken, and wanted to keep a consistent quality throughout as well as enough bang for your buck. Player feedback has vindicated its length and quality, with some saying that the expansions breadth encompassed hundreds of hours of additional gameplay. We are happy for it to have had so much good feedback, but there remains an issue.

Sales

Our revenue predictions were spot-on, but due to the increased scope of the expansion, our costs were far higher than expected. With inflation ravaging our studio much like it has most of the worlds economy, the expansion was very expensive for us indeed. This is why we will be increasing its price.

Old Acquaintances

This DLC took longer than we expected, but by this point, we had already learned our lessons from the previous expansion. Again, we put in a great deal of extra time and added many additional features, as it would seem we cannot help ourselves. Thus, we set a realistic price one that we intend to keep the same. Unfortunately, however, sales on this DLC were not as high as we would have hoped.

The Future

Our next big release will be our upcoming region DLC, which like all the others has already been enriched by a large scope and a wealth of ideas. Again, it seems that this is just what we do. The number of art assets, NPCs, questlines, and stories in the Riven Realms is growing larger by the day, and we want to do our best to bring you as much added value as possible. To help pay for all this, we will be selling this third DLC at a slightly higher price. Lastly, we are considering adding some cosmetics for sale to those who may be interested; these would be alternative sets of clothing for Companions and would be marketed as supporter content. If you would be interested in these sorts of additions, please let us know as always we are eager to hear from you. You can join our Discord and interact with us directly if you so wish.

Conclusions

And so, to summarize:

• The price of Sunfire and Moonshadow will go up to $19.99
• Old Acquaintances will stay at $8.99
• The Season Passs price will increase to $34.99

The price of the third DLC (in the works and included in the Season Pass) is yet to be determined, but it will better reflect our production costs. We are considering putting Companion cosmetics on sale and would appreciate your feedback about this idea. Of course, the decision to increase some prices did not come about easily and we understand that this is not good news. However, we also believe in transparency and sometimes unfortunate things happen, too but theres a silver lining: we will have one more sale before these new costs come into effect. So, if you havent grabbed what youre interested in yet, now might be the time to do so! Thats a wrap for now, so well say goodbye and wish you luck out there, as we always do. Stay safe, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team

[ 2024-09-12 10:18:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

As weve alluded to in recent posts, the recent release of Old Acquaintances has set the creative part of the team into action on our next DLC, but what have our programmers, UI, and quality assurance people been up to? Why, improving the game, of course. This is why were happy to present some impactful quality of life (QoL) changes that will help make your Vagrus experience all the smoother.

Companions and Character Sheets

The first complaint weve received multiple times and for which weve been trying to find a solution for a while is related to the information available for Companions Skills. Currently, it is possible to use the arrow indicated on the right-hand column below to view the next Skill level above your current one by clicking on it. In the screenshot, you can see this is possible for both Suppressing Shots and Defensive Cut.
Now, you will be able to view all levels of the Skill. This means if you have Poison Arrow I. on Criftaa then you will also be able to see the statistics of levels II. and III. But thats not all: previously obtusely presented Skills like Criftaas multi-phased Suppressing Shots will now allow the player to toggle between their phases; the first phase is for the overwatch portion of the Skill, like in the picture above, while the second phase indicates how much actual damage it will do when it is triggered by an enemy. Toggling between the two phases can be done simply by toggling the brown box just to the right of the Skills name.
Weve also got changes coming for summoners. Previously, the issue was simply that one could not know what creature is going to be summoned and what its stats are. The below mockup put together by our wonderful UI designer illustrates how the player will be able to bring up information about the summoned creature from the character pane.

Campaign Map

The next serious QoL change were making is to campaign map movement and its simple: you will be able to double-click on the node you wish to move to and you will go there. No more clicking on the node then on the footprint icon, which some have decried as a finicky waste of time (it probably was). As we continued working on these features, however, another crucial element loomed large: key bindings. They needed to be revamped to make some of the games controls more intuitive and logical. Thus, we set ourselves to the task of not only streamlining the handling and navigation of the comitatus, but also overhauling the default key bindings. One of the main goals here was to dramatically reduce the amount of clicks or keys the average sequence of actions takes and create a more modern, intuitive user experience. Weve mapped out the changes below so you can take a look for yourself.
For some, the commands here will be nothing new but there is one entirely new addition: the Comitatus Tabbing command. This will bring up the default comitatus menu and allow you to move or tab between different panes within that. Weve worked hard on these changes and were very excited to deploy them. As usual, let us know what you think! Below you can check out the whole inventory of changes.
Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.175 - Codename: Conrectus Ligaturae

New or Updated Features :gift:

• You can now double-click to move on the campaign map.
• Revamped key bindings: defaults have been changed to be more intuitive and grouped by topics or UI categories, and new hotkeys have been added.
• The Leadership Perk Command has been reworked: it now unlocks all advanced Crew Combat actions passively and when Resourcefulness is spent, it raises Combat Strength and Defense by 15% as well as turns Critical Failure rolls to Failure.
• The effects of multiple Terrifying Perks no longer stack. Stacking caused Skills that target multiple positions with characters with the Perk to be close to useless.
• You can now butcher Beasts and Mounts directly at your Outpost instead of having to move them to the comitatus.
• You no longer lose Mounts when Fighters leave you during Events (ie. Outriders do not take their Mounts) for narrative reasons.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Combat Skills with multiple phases are now displayed differently (better communicating these Skills) on Character Sheets. You can switch between the effects and stats of the different phases.
• You can now check the stats and Skills of creature(s) that summon type Combat Skills spawn. Details are on the Character Sheet.
• Improved the visuals during an Evade sequence in Companion Combat so that players will have an easier time understanding what input is required from them in cases where the target position has to be interacted with.
• Evade is now displayed as a percentage on the Character Sheet.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed an issue that caused the erroneous display (and only the display) of framerate in Options.
• Fixed an issue that caused Renkailons Caltrops Skill to cause a lock in Companion Combat.
• Ironed out the discrepancies in Renkalions Loyalty changes caused by player choice after his storyline is concluded so now they should work as was originally intended.
• Companions now lose less Loyalty from becoming Severely Wounded, as was originally intended.
• Fixed a rare issue that prevented Javeks ending slide from appearing despite his quest being completed in that playthrough.
• From now on, hiring the forces of Dragonlands factions to defend your Outpost actually costs money, as advertised by the choice. No more freebies, sorry.
• Fixed a glitch that caused Mount/Dismount to not always work as intended in Crew Combat, especially in relation to ambushes.
• Fixed the wrong tooltip display of Impervious Ward in Crew Combat.
• All relevant Factions purchase Salt from your Outpost more often, making it much rarer for it to pile up.
• Players have encountered further issues with the Wazirhai Curse quest, so we have attempted to fix some outlying problems that may have arisen from old scripts; were crossing fingers that we wont have to return to this again.
• Reworked the Aid tutorial: it now only activates when it is the players turn after a character was Downed and it also provides enough Resourcefulness to use Aid. These changes prevent any locks that could have happened previously.
• Fixed a bunch of offset and oddly displayed tooltips.
• Multiple text-related improvements, as usual. Thanks for all the reports and feedback!

As ever, more is coming, so stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-08-27 14:25:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

This new patch brings with it one really important and big change and some other fixes we applied since our last update. The large change in question is the altering of how victory works in a campaign. Previously, you were able to win the game, then choose to continue playing. This caused a lot of consistency issues with Ending slides, as you were unable to check them later on and so even if something changed (like a major questline that has its own slide was completed) after the victory, players would miss them. And so from now on, once you retire as part of a victory, you will not be able to continue playing afterward. You can complete the victory condition and then play indefinitely until the time comes you decide to conclude the playthrough and then retire to experience the Endings. Of course, you can also save the game, retire to check the slides, and then load to play more. Because this will affect savegames where players have already retired but kept on playing, we have reset the Ambition quests in all such savegames to the point where you only have to retire to finish the playthrough. Doing so, you will be able to see the (now up-to-date) slides again. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.172 - Codename: Victorious

General Changes :pencil:

• Reworked several old generic Events to be more in line with current quality and style.
• Crime and criminality received an entry in the Glossary to explain how it works.
• You can no longer play after completing a victory condition and retiring. This change was necessary because playing after this point caused several issues with Ending slides and their states in a continued game. You can still play indefinitely but once you commit to retiring to win a campaign and watch the Ending slides, you are returned to the main menu. NOTE: We have reset the last step of the Ambition Quest for every player past that point in current saved games, so they can simply complete that last step to retire or go on playing as long as they want before that.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Each ending slide now resets scrolling to the top.
• Fixed an issue that prevented sending reports via the built-in Bug Reporting Tool (though note that there are still pending issues with it we are working on).
• The Kal-rish enemies now have all their Skill art assets straightened out (they were missing one and used another instead).
• The Black Moloch enemy is visible again! The trickery of Demons is truly nefarious.
• Fixed an issue that caused the game to lock up when an enemy using the Skill On Guard was defeated by a multi-phased Skill.
• The Skill Taunt on the Manumitteris hireling is now Incorporeal, as was intended, meaning it cannot be Evaded or Blocked, but Mind Resist can still neutralize it.
• Fixed an issue that caused Faction Offers to be generated at a higher (unreachable) tier than intended
• Fixed an issue that caused some players to be unable to trigger The Curse of Wazir quest even after prerequisites are met (completing The Expansion of Wazirhai, defeat Undead threatening the settlement, and waiting a couple of in-game months). The fix is retroactive, so you can now return to trigger the quest if you havent already.
• The Skill of the Evocator Mortis hireling Raise Dead is now Enervating (preventing it to be used multiple times in a Round).
• Repositioned the legend box of the Chart on Steamdeck and other 16:10 ratio displays so that its always visible now.
• Fixed an issue that caused certain settlements to be impossible to highlight on the Chart. NOTE: This issue might have other, separate reasons, so please report to us if it still keeps happening.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-07-12 17:52:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Hot on the heels of last weeks Old Acquaintances release, today were deploying a hotfix to ameliorate the issues that players have reported. We are happy to see that there were no big problems, and even happier with the great feedback weve received from the players currently enjoying the DLC. This hotfix also includes further use of DeepL technology in the machine translation of Vagrus's vast text base, notably adding translations for the contents of the 'Clandestine' Update and the Old Acquaintances DLC itself. Additionally, the update incorporates improved translation quality across the board (for most of the machine-translated languages in the game) due to the recent improvements of DeepL technology. As always, we will be closely monitoring feedback from our Discord, the Steam forums, and all other channels. In the meantime, we hope you are enjoying the new content and wish you luck out there. Stay resilient, stay vigilant and conquer the wasteland! Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: We tried our best giving you a polished product, but given the game's complexity it might happen that something slipped under the radar. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.170.0618W

• Fixed an issue where controllers brought up the radial menu in the wrong place when interacting with nodes out of March range.
• Fixed an issue with Event text scrolling speed when using controllers and setting the scroll speed either on the minimum or maximum value.
• Changed the default Movement direction with Combat Skills involving movement. Now the default is staying in the same line (instead of the topmost line), though all valid positions are still available, of course.
• Fixed a rare crash caused by opening Price History in settlements.
• Bonus Resourcefulness is now granted the first time a Companion is Downed during the Tutorial if there is not enough to use Aid to prevent a softlock due to the Tutorial prompt.
• All Companions Prowess can now be reset in Dissonance Mode (including Eylani, Vorax, Sedarias, and Javek).
• In most Events where you needed fighters for a choice, but Outriders and other armed crew made sense, now those fulfill the requirements, too.
• Various (mostly minor) spelling, grammatical, scripting, and stylistic fixes in Events, especially in Old Acquaintances.
• Machine translation was added to the new content of Clandestine Part I. as well as Old Acquaintances.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-06-21 09:06:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

The time has come to release our next DLC, Old Acquaintances, which adds Javek and Sedarias to the main game, two Companions weve met in the prologue scenario previously. Both of them changed drastically in the time that passed since we first saw them and both offer extensive questlines to tell their stories, replete with new NPCs, enemies, allies, lore, and rewards. The DLC also contains the Freelancers Guild, a specialized mercenary organization that allows you to recruit new hirelings (from a selection of four) to round out your crew. They can be found in the four major cities of the North and the Onyx Outpost. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2672530/Vagrus__The_Riven_Realms_Old_Acquaintances/ Alongside the new content, the accompanying Patch (detailed below) contains a number of improvements and fixes to improve the general experience of Vagrus. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.170 - Codename: Old Acquaintances

New Content :gift:

• The DLC Old Acquaintances will now be unlocked to all its owners. It includes two Companions for the main campaign Javek and Sedarias with fully-fledged storylines including new enemies and rewards, their own Skills, Prowess progression, as well as four new Hirelings available at the Freelancers Guild in TorZags Shelter, Deven, Avernum, Larnak, and (for owners of Sunfire and Moonshadow) the Onyx Outpost.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Clarified the visual guidance of Evading, including when you Evade to a position occupied by another character.
• Clarified the visual guidance of Javeks Hypnotize Skill.
• We streamlined tooltip behavior while using a controller based on feedback and expanded their functionality.
• Changed the Move Skill in Companion Combat, giving it better feedback and a more streamlined usage.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Steam cloud saves are now working and can store up to 200mb of save files.
• Tutorial windows no longer appear minimized under any circumstances.
• Owned DLCs will now always show up properly under Extras in Vagrus games in GOG and Epic Games Store libraries.
• Event choices with an Achievement dependency now show the proper icon (chalice).
• When using a controller, the Chart tutorial no longer scrolls the same way as the Chart is zoomed in and out.
• Fixed a rare issue occurring on GOG and the Epic Games Store, causing players to be unable to select the Knowledge Ambition upon vagrus creation when owning the Vorax Free-LC.
• You can no longer turn back in the initial parts of Pilgrims of the Wasteland when using a controller.
• Fixed an issue caused by owning more than 10.000 Bross upon loading a game.
• Fixed an issue that caused the game to freeze in Companion Combat when Suppressing Shot would trigger an Evade.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-06-12 17:00:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=VdsuE051DeI;full][/previewyoutube]

Hey everyone,

The time is finally nigh: we have a release date for Old Acquaintances and a fresh release trailer to boot! The DLC will drop on the 12th of June, 2024, and those of you who have already played the Pilgrims of the Wasteland scenario will surely recall the identities of the two returning companions. For those who do not, the man by the campfire is Javek, a remarkable telepath and sorcerer with unique abilities, while the bony hand that pushes through the black sands of Arenas Negras belongs to Sedarias, a Knight of the Black Sun and defender of the Empire. How these two companions with strikingly different backgrounds will return, what paths will they take, and what hardships will they face? All of these answers await you in the DLC, along with new enemies, abilities, quests, and locations. Additionally, players will be able to employ new hirelings through the Freelancers Guild. For a full breakdown check out our refeshed store page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2672530/Vagrus__The_Riven_Realms_Old_Acquaintances/ With that, we must leave you now, for the wasteland beckons; stay safe, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team

[ 2024-05-30 08:08:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

This time, we come to you with a nice package of changes to the game. The first order of business: The Prologue (Demo) This scenario offers players a fixed timeframe within which they can play Vagrus without purchasing the game. Since its release in May of 2023, weve been eyeballing it for quite some time, and have finally overhauled it with many of the quality of life improvements the main game has seen. See our Steam post here for more information.
And now, onto the patch for the open-world campaign: Patch Notes 1.166 As part of an ongoing effort to address any concerns players may have, improve the game across the board, and offer hotfixes to any issues that have cropped up, were releasing another build today. Scroll down to the patch notes section to see exactly what smaller issues we have fixed and read on if you wish to know about some of the more significant gameplay changes. Dissonance Mode Changes As part of the lead-up to our coming Old Acquaintances DLC, some members of the team have been taking on board the feedback regarding certain aspects of the games difficulty, and thus, we have decided along with a slew of other things to revamp Vagruss Dissonance Mode. Most importantly, once we release this update, players will be able to switch their Wasteland Mode savegame into Dissonance mode at any time. After the switch, if they then save the game, two copies will be available in the Main Menu: one will contain the old Wasteland save and a fresh, new Dissonance mode savegame. Players only need to click the new icon (circled below) and they will be taken to a transition screen where they can confirm the change.
Were also working on adding several additional elements to Dissonance Mode, but before we get into that, lets talk a little bit about the goals of the game mode. It is no secret that Vagrus - The Riven Realms simulates a difficulty more often found in old-school RPGs, which is why we knew at release wed have to implement a mode that would be a little more forgiving. That mode was and still is Dissonance Mode. While Wasteland Mode simulates dynamics closest to what we feel is the reality of the Riven Realms, its alternative is set up to give players various advantages and make things slightly easier. It is, by no means, an easy mode. Dissonance Mode confers the following benefits to players:

• The vagrus receives a hidden advantage in Tests and other percentage rolls
• Companions heal at a faster rate while resting
• Reduced enemy Accuracy in Companion Combat
• Respeccing Companions can be done an unlimited amount of times
• Trading is, as a whole, slightly more profitable
• Supplies are cheaper
• Hunting or Foraging have higher yields
• There are greater breaks between random Crew Combat encounters
• The player has more favorable odds in Crew Combat encounters that occur randomly
• Penalties for missing crew are less harsh
• In general, the game is more forgiving to players from the start of a playthrough and for a longer time

Those benefits are already in play, but the trouble was that players could only begin a new campaign in Dissonance Mode. Consequently, if a player was struggling to survive there was no way out; they simply had to start a new campaign. With the mode now accessible during a playthrough, those players will be able to curb some losses and effects through Dissonance Mode. It is important to note that once a savegame in Dissonance Mode is made, there is no going back in that game; this would cause too many issues and exploits. The player can, however, return to their old Wasteland Mode save. We are also considering offering some further optional benefits when the switch happens to somewhat set off the previous hardship, some of which are immediate. These are subject to change but currently include:

• Stat boosts for comitati (Nutrition, Vigor, Morale, and Obedience)
• Upfront coin to help propel a vagruss operations
• A workforce boost to help the comitatus along (especially so if the comitatus is already dangerously low)

After this has been implemented, all players will need to do is select any savegame already in Wasteland Mode and load it into Dissonance Mode. Doing so will give a number of warnings (most notably that it is a one-way change), but after you click through, both immediate bonuses and long-term benefits will be accrued moving forward. Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.166 - Codename: Dissonant

New Features :gift:

• The ability to switch Wasteland Mode savegames to Dissonance Mode is now available.
• Introduced a tooltip mode for controllers, albeit it is incomplete as of now.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• From now on, players will always gain the Insight reward for every tenth Codex entry (the fix was for an edge case related to saving and loading a game when the Insight was awarded).
• The Outposts overseer is now more aware of what is going on at the Outpost and wont nag the player upon leaving the Outpost to fix things that were not broken in the first place.
• All Custodia type enemies are now visible again.
• Fixed a number of bugs connected to the Outpost, most importantly one that stole money from the Outpost (yikes).
• The Goods and pieces of Equipment whose effects on the Outpost were removed will no longer be visible in text-based Outpost interactions.
• Fixed some edge cases that caused players to be unable to continue their savegames from the Demo in the main game.
• Improved some Glossary entries to be more helpful and more informative.
• Fixed a number of typos and textual errors in Events.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-05-23 13:17:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

We havent released a new build since way back in February, so we have got a slew of changes to discuss. While the changes are wide-ranging and significant, weve broken down each batch into easily digestible sections, the first of which is the Outpost and its coming update. For those of you looking for an abridged breakdown of what weve been working on you may simply scroll down to the patch notes.

Refurbishing and Redesigning the Outpost

The Outpost feature has been on our minds for a long time but with all the other pressing matters it kept getting pushed down our priority list. In the end, however, we were able to dedicate a week to making improvements, focusing on adding clarity and showing more information to players. Please note that while these changes are final for the time being, we welcome feedback and will patch accordingly. To better understand all of the Outposts issues, we asked our players on the various forums and on our Discord server to provide feedback. This has been extremely useful, as it has flagged multiple areas where the design was already covered but the game did not communicate it sufficiently. One good example is the consumption of Supplies at the Outpost. Due to its location in an extremely desolate environment, Scouts had little to no chance to hunt and provide for the crew there, which was never intended to work like that. As a result, players believed they needed to keep hauling Supplies to the Outpost themselves. For many, this turned its Upkeep into a chore, as they would never be able to journey far from the Outposts proximity. This, however, was a matter of miscommunication. The reality was that the crew automatically bought any missing Supplies to run the place from nearby comitati in the background and the UI failed to communicate that fact. Realizing that we had to remedy that created an opportunity: one that allowed us to include an option for players to choose where their Outpost gets their Supplies from. There are now multiple options (from cheapest to most expensive):

• From nearby settlements (requires to have Beasts at the Outpost)
• From passing comitati for a higher price
• From Factions based nearby, which is even more expensive but will in turn help raise your Reputation with them

We have also added a new element called Work Shifts. Work Shifts allow players to set an amount of hours per day that their workforce will toil at the Outpost. Generally speaking, longer hours increase production but take a heavier toll on the crews Vigor, Morale, and Obedience. They also increase the potential for accidents or mishaps at the site, essentially offering the player another risk versus reward scenario for their operation. For this reason, we advise that you only set higher Work Shifts when the comitatus returns frequently to the Outpost and can take various measures to ameliorate problems if needed.
UI improvements have been made across the board; these focus on getting more accurate and better information across through the UI. Equipment that affects the Outpost is now highlighted in the Equipment section under the Warehouse tab and the length each such Equipment covers the needs of the Outpost for is also displayed. Green is used for anything beyond a year, yellow for half a year, and red for anything below. Equipment lost due to getting broken, eroded, or expired (in the case of animals) is indicated on a pop-up screen to the returning vagrus so they can bring replacements on their next arrival.
Players were instrumental in helping us decide on several further changes, and to that end, wed like to offer our thanks. Though far from an exhaustive list, these changes include the following:

• Scouts now decrease the chance of the Outpost getting attacked
• The number of Equipment that affects the Outpost in some way has tripled
• We went through all the UI panels to add missing tooltips and/or extend them with further information

While additional changes may still be on the cards, we are satisfied with the areas weve covered thus far, and we believe that all mechanics are now communicated in a much clearer fashion. As always, we encourage feedback and discussion regarding the new Outpost on both our forums and Discord server.

General Quality of Life and Design Improvements

As we close in on the release of our Old Acquaintances DLC, the portions of the team that are not busy drawing or writing have been hard at work on a plethora of miscellaneous QoL improvements, the fruits of which have now been made public.

Mercenary Tasks

Weve always endeavored to make some sweeping changes to how Mercenary Tasks work, and happily, weve now had the time to implement them. These tasks have always had time limits, yet now, they function far more logically. This is to say that after you complete an elimination or defending task, you may return to the faction that gave it to you at any time after you do so, while in the past the time limit was still active, even after you had completed but havent turned it in. Additionally, we have made significant changes to the corresponding UI for the Tasks, which will now be presented much like quests, displaying all appropriate information in an orderly fashion.

Companion Loyalty Details

You asked for it and weve implemented it: more detailed information regarding Companion Loyalty changes. We have achieved this by providing an additional option in the main menu, which will allow players to choose between Basic (the same change log messages that were shown in the past), Indicative (additional information that will let you understand the gravity of the Loyalty changes), and Off, which wont show anything at all regarding Loyalty. The last might just be the best choice if youre looking for a fully immersive experience!

Tests in Events

Tests in Events now indicate (via icons and tooltips) whose Perks are taken into account in the given Test: the whole comitatuss, only those of the Companions previously selected to accompany the vagrus, or only the vagruss.

General Design Improvements

Heres a selection of design changes that weve also included in the update:

• Negative Resistance values now raise damage from the specific type as it was originally intended (for example, a -50% Cold Resistance raises a Cold type damage of 2 to 3). The way Resistances work against Effects remains unchanged (ie. they provide a chance to entirely negate Effects when the Resistance roll is successful).
• Damage from Critical Strikes in Companion Combat is now always calculated from the upper half of the used Skills damage value (for example, if the damage of the Skill is 3-6, then Critical Strikes from it are always calculated as if a 5 or a 6 were rolled). This makes Critical Strikes deadlier for both foes and Companions.
• Critical Strikes in Companion Combat are now always Armor-Piercing, which also raises their usefulness but also makes it possible to down very armored enemies even without the right abilities (albeit still being very, very difficult).

General QoL Improvements

Lastly, we have also made a number of smaller improvements to make life easier for players:

• We have reworked tooltips and general UI elements to provide more detailed information in a more understandable way
• We concluded another round of performance improvements all across the board (related to both CPU and GPU usage)

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it at least for now. Were sure to have further improvements on the way, though for the time being we are primarily focused on our upcoming DLC. More news is coming on that front soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can check out the aforementioned patch notes below.
Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.165 - Codename: Shore Up

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Outpost rework: most of the UI (buttons, structure, tooltips, and more), mechanics, and balancing received a major rehaul.
• More pieces of Equipment have an Outpost-related effect now.
• Savegame files made in the free Demo can be loaded up automatically in the full game from now on.
• Negative Resistance values now raise damage from the specific type as it was originally intended (for example, a -50% Cold Resistance raises a Cold type damage of 2 to 3). The way Resistances work against Effects remains unchanged (ie. they provide a chance to entirely negate Effects when the Resistance roll is successful).
• Damage from Critical Strikes in Companion Combat are now always calculated from the upper half of the used Skills damage value (for example, if the damage of the Skill is 3-6, then Critical Strikes from it are always calculated as if a 5 or a 6 were rolled).
• Critical Strikes in Companion Combat are now always Armor Piercing.
• Penalties for successive Evade and Block attempts in the same Round have been doubled (for example, the second attempt in the Round incurred a -5% penalty and now it incurs a -10% penalty).
• Timers on Mercenary Tasks now stop when it makes sense narratively (and so timed task bonuses are granted based on this moment in time, not the moment of the turn-in). Once the timer stops, players have more freedom to turn in these Tasks. For example, the timer on Defense Tasks stops when the vagrus successfully defeated the foe during the defense battle.
• Added a new setting to Options: Companion Loyalty Details. You can now use it to set the nature and depth of information the game log and Events provide on the Loyalty changes of Companions: Off: No feedback is provided. Basic (Default): Only the fact of the change is provided and its direction. Indicative: The measure of change is also provided (for example: Greatly disapproves, Slightly approves).
• The highest Loyalty tier for Companions was renamed from Amicable to Loyal.
• Companion Upkeep (daily) is raised by 5 Changers for Companions assigned to a Deputy role and this is reflected on their character sheet and the tooltip of Companion Upkeep.
• Further tweaked and enhanced the controller experience.

Updated Content :gift:

• Some Perks that Harvek was supposed to have but were actually missing were added back in. Players who have him in their comitatus receive a complete reset on him and regain the Insight to be able to respec him.
• GorGoro received new, easier gift options in his Banter. Additionally, his personal questlines first segment awards a lot more Loyalty now.
• The Prowess (2) requirement to trigger Renkailons personal questline now has an alternative of a Renown requirement.
• Entering Avernums Ossuary is now possible even with the Disdain of Ahskul property (allowing the completion of Nedirs questline in a playthrough where you aim for certain achievements).
• Eylani now loses Loyalty when you decide to fight against beasts in Kaburs arena.
• New entries on Companion Loyalty and the Outpost were added to the Glossary.
• We have added a hidden, alternative way to get a certain quest item for Vrak the Haunteds quest whereby you can circumvent having to interact with the Ahskulites in Deven (allowing the completion of Vraks quest in a playthrough where you aim for certain achievements).
• Removed much of the Coal from Scrapheap in Pilgrims of the Wasteland to avoid players accidentally buying it out and going broke during the early tutorial.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• The display of chances in Crew Combat (Critical Success, Success, Failure, Critical Failure percentages) now shows the actual percentages (this was only a display issue).
• Reworked the Faction Reward Filter button on the Settlement UI to be more logical, displaying the active filters status.
• Long savegame names will now be broken into more lines and they show in full on the loading screen.
• The (glitchy) highlighter on selected choices in Events was changed to a more subtle underline.
• The new Enervated Skill effect now has a proper icon and tooltip explaining it on the Character Sheet.
• The minimize button on tutorial popups was moved to the top right corner.
• From now on, you can only change font size while the Event UI, Journal, and Codex are closed to prevent locks, and other issues.
• All Mercenary Tasks now display objectives in the quest-style (using status-sensitive bullet points).
• The Mercenary Task UI in the Journal was significantly improved and now presents more information more consistently.
• The requirements of using certain Advanced Tactics in Crew Combat that were nebulous before are now much more informative (including why you cannot use one when you do not meet said requirements).
• Added and improved various new Crew Combat tooltips to provide better information on mechanics.
• The bug that caused the Outposts Consumption to be erroneously displayed was fixed.
• The Font Size slider in Options became more informative (providing a percentage as well as demonstrating actual font size below the option, not in a janky tooltip).
• Equipment tooltips no longer display the price you originally bought it for (it was obsolete and confusing).
• Localized steps and choices in Events are now marked differently if they were merely machine-translated or were translated by a person.
• Vitality and Power Regeneration are now correctly displayed on Companions character sheets.
• Tests in Events now indicate (via icons and tooltips) whose Perks are taken into account: the whole comitatuss, only those of the Companions previously selected to accompany the vagrus, or only the vagruss.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed missing or glitchy dependency icons in Events.
• You can no longer win the main campaign by retiring to your own upgraded Outpost while not having the Wealth Ambition (this was possible by choosing a combination of options during the Outpost upgrade process).
• The Ahari and Chimera Legion Faction tabs now always display valid (including unlocked) Faction presence locations.
• Cadmador does not show its faction locations any longer, as was originally intended.
• Passengers headed to the Sunken Tower will no longer show up until a path to said location has been unlocked by the player through quests.
• Removing a Deputy that provides an Equipment slot for the /comitatus/ now refreshes the slots immediately, preventing players from keeping Equipment in a closed slot.
• When owning no Beasts of Burden, swapping to a different Beast Type no longer modifies Movement Points.
• The font size of the Glossary will now reflect the one set in Options.
• Great Lamps are no longer sold in core game territories when you do not own Sunfire and Moonshadow.
• Tweaked Companion Combat AI significantly, especially regarding the avoidance of performance drops and the use of Overwatch-type Skills.
• Performance improvements all across the board (regarding both CPU and GPU usage).
• The Spell Penetration Perk now provides the -15% Resistance it advertises.
• Fixed several bugs related to Mercenary Tasks (mostly related to Escort Tasks with interim targets).
• Fixed various glitches, typos, and performance issues in the Glossary.
• Dragging Market listings and dropping them earlier than your own cargo space will not purchase them now but cancel the interaction as it was supposed to.
• Fixed an issue that caused parts of some localized (machine translated) tutorial windows to be off-screen.
• Your Scouts can no longer find perilous calerus Events (that would slay an unprotected comitatus) when you have protective Equipment equipped.
• In Crew Combat, you no longer need an active character to Stand Down once the enemy is retreating (as opposed to Pursue where you need someone to pursue the foe).

Coming Up Next

• The option to change between Wasteland and Dissonance modes during a playthrough
• New DLC: Old Acquaintances

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-05-08 15:27:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Great news, everyone: today we at Lost Pilgrims are excited to announce the release of a new Praetor Edition of the game coinciding with Steams Spring Sale. Similar to the Centurion Edition, the Praetor Edition will feature the updated soundtrack, which we wrote about at length here, the Patronage Pack, and heres the kicker: the Season Pass, too. The Season Pass is a package that includes our major expansion, Sunfire and Moonshadow, and two upcoming DLCs we plan to release: a Companion DLC and a Region DLC. Picking up this is a great way to support the ongoing development of Vagrus and nab some of our upcoming content at a slight discount to boot.
Perhaps the best thing about the Praetor Edition aside from the glorious art, mind is its simplicity. Weve set it up so that buyers will always receive the package discount on the products they dont already own; this way, no matter how many Vagrus products you own, you only ever get the ones you dont. This discount is cumulative with any ongoing sales that are taking place on various platforms, like Steams Spring Sale. And yes, we are taking part in that sale, so if youre looking to get the best bang for your buck, keep your eyes peeled for us.
But wait, theres more! Wed be remiss if we didnt mention our plans to expand the Patronage Pack to include more goodies for those who wish to support the team in such a generous way. Another way to show support is via our Patreon page, where you can unlock wallpapers, early access to articles, and more for a monthly contribution. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/37029/vagrus__the_riven_realms_praetor_edition/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=post&utm_content=art The Praetor Edition is a great way to complete your set of Vagrus products. Its the games Collectors Edition, except without all the wasteful spending and tedium other such editions force you to endure. Perhaps most interestingly, when our next two DLCs are released, any Praetor Edition owner will have immediate access to every conceivable extra to boot. What will those DLCs contain? What locales or adventures will they explore or delve into? Well, well keep that close to the chest for now. Development continues apace as we strive to bring you more of the wasteland, so until that time, do as you always do: stay tuned, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-03-14 17:05:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

As we have mentioned before, while we are working on the upcoming DLCs already, we would also like to expand Vagrus with smaller content drops both the core game and the Expansion. The first of such additions comes in the form of this update, which adds the starting segments of a lengthy questline to all owners of Sunfire and Moonshadow. Without getting into spoilers, the quest deals with the Dreamwalkers followers and will take you to places previously unseen. To start it, you have to have interacted with these strange fanatics several times and explored the Bronze Desert.
With this update come a handful of fixes, too, as usual. Now let's jump into the details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Update 1.1.60 - Codename: Clandestine Part I.

New Content :gift:

• The first part of a new, extensive questline was added to the Expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow.
• A new settlement can be revealed during the questline with a lot of interactions and locations.
• New enemies and new rewards make their first appearance during the questline.
• Cadmador, a Draconic Faction, can now be revealed during the questline (albeit they are not a fully-fledged Faction by intention).
• Some new banners can be acquired for your comitatus - can you find them?
• Added a way to gain the Spires Codex Entry for those who already completed Vraks quest and somehow missed it.

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Skornars Level 3 Commanding Shout Skill was tweaked: it does not give an additional Action for two Rounds but instead gives Skornar an additional Action for the active Round, too. This additional Action on Skornar cannot be used for Commanding Shout (see why below).
• Some Skills received a new effect called Enervated. This prevents these Skills from being used more than once per Turn.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Renamed several banners to be more in-line with the setting.
• Ending texts can now be scrolled.
• Escort Tasks that have a midpoint destination will now provide information about the status of that objective (ie. whether you have already been there).
• Tooltip transparency now also allows you to click on buttons under them.
• We got rid of the small node/diamond symbols at the bottom of the Whats new? window and pages are numbered instead.
• The close icons on Price History are now distinct the left one (-) closes only Price History, the right one (x) closes the Chart, too.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed a Companion Combat AI issue that caused the erroneous calculation of the usefulness of Skills with certain effects (Buffs, Debuffs, DoTs, and HoTs). The AI will now use these Skills more often. This will also cause calculations to go faster, so Companion Combat will be quicker with some enemies. NOTE: This may cause certain enemies to overuse previously neglected Skills. We are testing it as well but please let us know if you come across such cases. Thank you!
• We concluded a round of optimization, so the game will not chew through graphical memory so vigorously.
• We have identified and finally fixed the bug that caused infinite turns in Companion Combat, preventing the end of battles even after all enemies have been defeated in the Sunken Tower.
• Many text inconsistencies, as well as stylistic and grammatical errors were fixed across a number of Events.
• The expanded location images in Events should now always display the proper artwork.
• Tooltips for entities below the Journal can no longer appear while the Journal is open.
• Characters with Spell Penetration will no longer get a -15 Resist All debuff at the beginning of each combat Round.
• You can no longer equip several different Tent type Equipment on the comitatus.
• The Prince of Kabur can no longer intervene on your behalf in the Ahari-Chimera Legion war once the breaking point is reached.
• The rare case of a tooltip blocking its own button (happened in some resolutions) was fixed.
• Inconsistencies caused by the glitchy Display Mode setting that prevented certain resolutions to show up were fixed.
• Fixed an issue that caused certain Escort Task-related Passengers to trigger an Event outside the settlement where they joined you that said they joined you (again).
• Fixed some mismatching Escort Task flavor texts (regarding their objectives).

Known Issues:

• The tooltip on the Equipment Burheks Traps is misleading, but it actually works as intended.
• The F1 bug reporting tool may not work for certain users under certain circumstances.
• Certain enemies might overuse previously neglected Skills (those with Buffs, Debuffs, DoTs, and HoTs). We are testing it as well but please let us know if you come across such cases.
• Crew Combat success and fail percentage displays are one step behind the actual state of things (calculations work under the hood though).

Coming Up Next

• Pilgrims of the Wasteland rework and tweaks.
• Outpost tweaks to enhance its earlier usefulness.
• Clandestine Part II.
• Additional content for the core game and the expansion.
• Fixes, balancing, and tweaks.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-02-12 09:38:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Our original plan was to kick the year off with a neat content update (more about it here) in early February together with a host of fixes but the team crushed so many bugs in January some of them critical that we decided to release the update earlier. So here we are. Well follow this up soon with what we originally intended. Very soon, actually. As always, the majority of the bugs we have fixed were reported by our amazing community. We cant thank you enough for helping us improve Vagrus, but well try with additional content in the future. Now let's jump into the patch details! Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.151 - Codename: Primo

Updated Content :gift:

• We took steps to alleviate the narrative dissonance caused by the setup of Certain Crew Combat encounters versus their defeat texts in Events. Setups were significantly altered (e.g. in the Criftaa tower fight at the end of her questline or the Sand Wyrm fights at the entrance of Tectum Carvos) so that enemies in them do not disengage so easily (or at all), causing a defeat for the player when, in fact, they won.
• Interactions with the Darkstone Garrison of Hakhtarast after finishing the Ahari quest there have been improved to better depict the state of the settlement.
• Lady Zahrajas comment on the state of the north will be more context-sensitive depending on dates and/or having interacted with Sunfire and Moonshadow content.
• Added a new way to acquire the Sand Wyrm codex entry if you missed it during the questline concerning Tectum Carvos.
• Faruds comments on Tamarra are now more context-sensitive to the state of her questline.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Tooltip sizing was rebuilt from scratch: the new system is more robust with various fixes. For instance, tooltips can never float out of the screen.
• Event choice dependency tooltips in Kadaath or your Outpost now correctly display owned Equipment, Gear, Items, and Goods even if they are in the warehouse.
• Tasks will no longer disappear from your Journals Active pane while standing on the target Node before actually turning them in. They will be shown as Ready while standing on the target Node but revert to Active when moving away from it.
• Maximum Resourcefulness upgrade tooltips on the Leader UI have been clarified further to make a distinction between your current maximum and the absolute maximum of 12 Resourcefulness. Now they always display how much Insight it costs to raise the stat and mention only the absolute maximum until it is reached.
• The display of potential Faction rewards were changed to show all contextual/conditional requirements for certain rewards (e.g. a specific Beast Type to gain a bonus) and you can also see which of these requirements you currently satisfy.
• Updated how Trade Tasks display the Goods you have to deliver to the destination to be more streamlined.

Updated Features :shiny:

• The yields of Critical Successes in Hunting were tweaked to give more Supplies but less random Goods.
• Hidden Compartments and Smuggers Compartments Equipment received the minimum 100 Cargo capacity requirement, thus preventing vagri from hiding everything they own if it was a small enough haul.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Numerous fixes to wording and style in Events, correcting typos, and improving texts otherwise.
• Bandul and Ahari no longer take slaves in Crew Combat Appease interactions.
• The Esc button can now be used to navigate back from the Savegame menu tab.
• The tooltips of effects that belong to the comitatus (like Crew Properties) will now add up bonuses for the same stat from different sources.
• Fixed the way Tasks can be arranged alphabetically and chronologically. This was working in a very confusing manner previously. Chronological ordering takes the date of gaining Tasks as a basis for the arrangement (Tasks that were taken later are toward the top of the list) with Active Tasks and the date of turning in (those turned in more recently are toward the top of the list) for Completed Tasks.
• A very rare DLC requirement inconsistency preventing certain players from loading their manual saves was resolved.
• Camp Events can no longer trigger during nights spent in settlements.
• Characters can no longer Evade twice in the same Turn of Companion Combat (for example, when Evading from an attack and into an overwatched position), and thus will no longer cause a softlock by doing so.
• Gifting Beasts of Burden to the locals of Shahsgabat will now work as intended (removing a Beast properly).
• Non-hovering Characters who were floating over positions in Companion Combat no longer do so.
• The Suncallers tiny shadow was fixed. They might revel in sunlight but they do cast shadows like everyone else.
• All characters that were offset in their Companion Combat position were fixed.
• Multiple instances of the Resistance stat from the same source (e.g. the same Gear) are now calculated and displayed correctly on Companions (i.e. added together).
• The infinite swarming of certain enemies in Defend Tasks was fixed.
• Fixed the location artwork issue at the Umbra River Bridge location.
• Fixed an issue that caused Abolitionist faction location unlocks (via cyphers) to not work if you have reached the maximum unlocked locations in the base game. Cyphers are counted separately between the Expansion and the base game now as intended.
• A lot of named enemies had their (modified) stats erroneously displayed or (in some cases) their stat modifications did not work at all. These were fixed, causing some boss fight encounters to be significantly more difficult, as intended.
• Activating Auto-Scouting no longer causes issues with the calculation and display of Movement Points and March Movement Points.
• Pieces of Equipment can not be placed into locked slots directly from the Market panes list.
• Fixed an issue that caused Faction reputation rewards for delivering certain Passengers to be displayed differently in the Journal and in the popup window upon their arrival, preventing the right amount of reputation to be added to your standing (often this meant no reputation at all).
• All legionnaire and elite legionnaire enemies that belong to the Chimera Legion now use their proper, unique artwork instead of the common Imperial variants.
• Fixed an issue that allowed an exploit to use infinite Insight when generating a new player character.
• Hunting and Foraging will now actually grant yields when successful even if the comitatus is camped via an Event.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the skipping of compulsory camping during Event sequences.
• Tooltip flickering on high refresh rates was fixed.
• Machine Localization: Certain characters from Chinese and Japanese fonts that caused display issues specifically on the character creation screens and ending slides should now appear properly.

Coming Up Next

• The Dreamwalker questline Part I.
• Bug fixes and balancing continue at full speed

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2024-01-29 15:14:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Its that time of year again and so we at Lost Pilgrims wanted to wish you all Happy Holidays! Enjoy your well-deserved rest, spend time with your loved ones, or just chill, play your unplayed games, read, eat, or do whatever makes you happy. We are winding down as well after we take care of a few things and although well monitor the usual channels, well hunker down until early January because the last half a dozen months have been quite exhausting for the Pilgrims.
Of course, we wouldnt want to leave you without something of a holiday gift as well as a bunch of fixes weve been busily working on with a lot of help from our awesome community. The former is a quest that is available to any vagrus with enough Handjari reputation to visit Prince Faisal, called The Canvas of Fate. Its replete with tragedy, ambition, and a dedication to art we hope youll like it. As for the fixes, the list below provides the most important ones, so lets jump right in. Important Note I. It has also come to our attention via crash reports that for some reason, quite a number of our players are on earlier versions of the game (pre-hotfixes). So please make sure that Vagrus is updated to the latest version at all times. Important Note II. Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1501207T - Codename: Winter Canvas

New Content :gift:

• The Canvas of Fate quest for the Handjari was added (access at Prince Faisal)

Event/Story Fixes :pencil:

• Mysteries of the Dead Forest quest can now be completed when you have at least 25 Deadwood Samples
• Faction presence in Ahar Kadah end states were altered (Ahari, Chimera Legion, and Handjari)
• Ahar Kadah now proudly displays the House Ectorius banners in their victory state of the Of Survival and Blood quest
• Several soft-locks in the Breach of Stygios Lumber Camp were fixed
• Mehdar Ahara is no longer accessible to vagri with less than Tier 2 Ahari faction reputation at any given time
• Further fixes were applied to the quest Suboptimal Efficiency so that players with older saves (specifically with wrong objective states) can also progress the quest
• You are no longer able to perform the slave nourishment step in Oil Field Daratan twice in quick succession
• Upon reaching Tier 4 reputation with Nemesis factions now turns the opponent factions reputation to Tier -5 automatically (as was originally intended)
• Upon completing either of the Nemesis questlines, changes occur in Ahari and Chimera Legion faction presence across a number of settlements (retroactive for those who had already completed a Nemesis questline)
• Upon completing the quest Princes Triumph, Handjari faction presence rises in several settlements (retroactive for those who had already completed the quest)
• From now on, the Blessings of the Sadirar quest will now show up in a completed state in the Journal properly for those who have completed it
• Some soft-locks in Events were fixed
• Some portrait and background artwork issues in Events were fixed
• The spreading of Abolitionists in the Bronze Desert now works as intended
• Fixed an issue that caused some objectives in the repeatable quest Princes Commissions to trigger their reward sequences twice

UI changes :shiny:

• When a Passenger disembarks via an Event choice and thus offers no regular Passenger reward, the UI display is now clearer about this fact
• Added all missing enemy and ally Skill texts
• In Crew Combat, we fixed some texts that could overlap
• The mixed Beasts warning (Outpost) window shows up only at the right times now
• Non-available Companions should not show up in tests as modifiers
• The Odd Jobs window not showing up to display results was fixed
• Fixed the appearance of the word comitatus on the Task pane in the Journal
• The Legionnaire Peltas combat characters Trench obstacle visual displacement was fixed
• Enduring Effect name font size now scales with the available space on the UI

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Selling salt to the Handjari at your Outpost now properly gives reputation with the faction
• Fixed anomalies caused by the renaming of the Outpost
• Fixed the issue of two entities occupying the same position in Companion Combat
• Rolling a critical success on hunting and foraging provides extra loot now properly (as originally intended)
• Tarkian Tents were fixed and they now provide the advertised bonuses
• Odd Jobs now correctly use 2 MPs if the player has enough remaining MPs instead of always using up Vigor
• It is no longer possible to enslave 0 enemies in Crew Combat
• You cannot enslave more enemies than the number of living characters in Crew Combat
• The Archive Rumor button has returned in all its former glory
• Various minor crash fixes

Known Issues:

• Escort Tasks and related anomalies
• Equipment and Goods art assets are sometimes loaded a bit late or even mixed up

Coming Up Next

• Further bug fixes and balancing tweaks for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Additional Content for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Outpost UI and balance tweaks

Happy Holidays again and stay vigilant as you conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-12-12 12:44:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

Fresh off of our expansions release exactly two weeks ago, were right back into bringing you an offer for Vagrus at the Steam Autumn Sale. Starting today, anyone looking to pick up the base game receives a whopping thirty-four percent discount on it, as well as on our patronage pack, and the original soundtrack.
On top of all this, as is typically the case around this time of year, the Steam Award Nominations are now open! Wed certainly be grateful if you were to nominate Vagrus for the Labor of Love Award; and, if youd like to, you can do so here. If, like many of our dedicated players, youre enjoying Sunfire and Moonshadow, our new expansion, wed just like to say that were grateful for your support. A sprawling new area jam-packed with content approaching half of that of the base game is yours to explore, and, were we able to, wed offer a discount on that, too. Unfortunately, the expansion is on its 30-day sale launch cooldown along with the Vagrus Season Pass. The latter is a discount for 3 DLCs in and of itself, as well as helps support the production of future content we have planned. So, if youd like to see more of the wasteland in the coming year, you can do so with the Season Pass. Thats all for today, pilgrims; stay safe out there, stay fresh, prepared, and vigilant and most importantly conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-11-21 18:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Why are we reposting this?: Apparently, Steam does not allow a build to be linked to a DLC release announcement type post, so the game was shown to be last updated in August. Hence, we are reposting our patch notes along with the Hotfix I-II notes to be able to provide the algorithm a post about a new build. #indiedevlifehacks

Hey everyone,

Hot on the heels of our expansions release, we were ready to deploy our first hotfixes. These hotfixes address a swathe of bugs weve become aware of since the content first went out a few days ago. Among the matters addressed are those that appeared in yesterdays known issues and several others that we are still working to fix. Please bear with us while we do our best to clear any problems and bugs as they become known. Checking the "Send Crash Reports" box on the Disclaimer screen helps a lot in becoming aware of things early, so thanks to everyone who did that. It has also come to our attention via crash reports that for some reason, quite a number of our players are on earlier versions of the game (pre-hotfixes). So please make sure that Vagrus is updated to the latest version at all times. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.

Hotfix I-II. v1.1501109Z - Live as of Nov 9, 4 AM for all OSes

Hotfix I

• Deputy tutorial crash fixed- it is extremely awkward that we put this bug in with a performance improvement "fix" the day before release, sorry about that...
• Camp UI calculation glitch solved
• Several behind the scene crashes solved
• Ambition texts still referring to the in-game 10-year limit were removed (Explanation here)
• Allies can now be properly recruited in the later stages of the Nemesis questlines
• A rare controller bug during the tutorial right before leveling up Morwen was fixed
• A rare Steam Deck specific navigation issue in the Outer Realms was fixed
• The occasional Movement Point weirdness in the Outer Realms was fixed
• [spoiler]Fixed a Nemesis questline Companion Combat "boss" animation[/spoiler]
• Some NPCs received additional talk options sensitive of the state of the Nemesis questlines
• The Forsaken Colony Codex entry can be attained by new means now
• Some quest markers were updated
• A number of smaller spelling and text issues were ironed out
• A bit more informative "What's new?" pop-ups were added to point out where to start the Expansion

Hotfix II

• Outpost capacity miscalculations from extremely old saves solved and some tweaks applied to the calculations, too
• Outer Realms movement glitch with controller was fixed and some polish was applied
• Settlement art enlargement related UI issues were fixed
• Various smaller Event fixes, including some background image updates in old quests

Now on to the original Patch notes of the major release we published on Tuesday (Nov. 7, 2032). Let's jump into the details!

Patch 1.501106U - Codename: New Realms

New Content (Sunfire and Moonshadow) :sun: :moon:

• Sunfire and Moonshadow Expansion is released at the same time as this update.
• Content and quests that come close to half the vanilla campaign in size.
• The gigantic, seething Bronze Desert and the twilit Lands of Shadow are accessible
• New settlements and points of interest in the added regions, including oil fields, oases, and frontier outposts.
• New faction: the Handjari work for them to earn their friendship and rewards.
• Nemesis factions: The Chimera Legion and the Ahari are embroiled in a cruel fight for survival. Choose a side and fight for their victory!
• Brand new music to accompany the Expansion, soon to be added to available OST.
• Breathtaking artwork featuring the new regions and locations of the Expansion.
• A great many new NPCs with their own stories and personalities.
• An abundance of new Gear and Equipment.
• Well over a dozen new enemy types, both in Companion and Crew Combat encounters.
• New banners for your vagrus to display proudly.

New Content (General) :gift:

• New content related to the Outer Realms was added for everyone (No DLC required). It involves a quest and a new unique location with its own Outpost.
• Some new art assets were added to previous Events in the main campaign.

New and Updated Game Design (Sunfire and Moonshadow)

• The Twilight mechanic was introduced with a new Lamps Equipment slot and all sorts of lamps to counter the negative effects of darkness.

New and Updated Game Design (General) :shiny:

• The main campaigns in-world time limit was removed entirely for various reasons. You can read about it here.
• Day of the week type of dependencies were added, so you might come across choices that only appear on a certain day of the in-game week.
• Camp defense Fighter requirements were reduced for all voluntary crew members.
• Outposts were reworked in a major way (see below).

Outpost-related Changes :sun: :moon:

• A brand new Outpost User Interface was added
• Warehouse: you can store your Goods and Equipment at your Outpost
• Statio: your own mansio at your Outpost where you can store your Mounts and Beast, as well as switch between beast types
• The Outpost license fee was reduced by 2000 Bross (upon loading a save where you already paid for it, you get that money back as a reimbursement automatically)
• The Outpost upgrades resource requirements were somewhat reduced
• The Outpost production was tuned down to be in line with the cheaper setup
• Mounts are no longer used for salt production
• Certain pieces of Equipment stored in your Warehouse provide bonuses for Outpost activities (e.g. Mining Equipment enhances resource yields)

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• The Camp UI now uses a single lock feature that locks all in your current settings for rations, guards, and so on.
• The Price History tab has been improved, offering new sorting options and making it easier to navigate between settlements for easy comparison.
• The Scouting UI has been enhanced to make the available options clearer.
• The Custom Notes UI has been improved, making it easier and more enjoyable to jot down your thoughts.
• Chart legend improvements have been made for clarity, including the introduction of multiple-category Chart entities.
• Giving away Equipment in Events has been improved. Now, you can choose to give away or keep your currently equipped pieces of Equipment and you are warned if you are about to part with your only piece of a type of Equipment.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Breaking camp conditions are now synchronized with the tooltips, providing a clearer understanding of the requirements.
• The process of moving Gear between Companions has been improved. Unequipped Gear of the same type will be equipped first if available. Furthermore, in Events and Tasks, you will offer unequipped Gear to meet conditions first.
• The Insight tooltip is now clearer about the purpose and use of Insight.
• Various elements on the Camp UI have been fixed.
• Passengers are now more willing to indicate their desired destination: before you take them, you can click on the Destination icon to see where they are going on the Chart, and you can also click the new button at the front of each Passenger entry now to see their destination on the Chart.
• Some node background anomalies have been fixed, primarily those related to the day and night cycle in settlements.
• The delay and graphical glitch when the Codex is opening has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue that caused the travel time between settlements in some cases to appear out of place.
• Resourcefulness can no longer overflow.
• Discovered settlement and POI nodes are now consistently displayed on the Chart, whether or not the player has clicked on them or merely moved through them.
• The Loader's Guild storage unit lottery now provides rewards as indicated on the UI. The Guild has been kindly asked not to deceive players any longer.
• If an Event is active, you can no longer use hotkeys to interact with inactive windows.
• Events sometimes caused you to exit settlements when it was not intended, and at other times, you remained within the settlement despite the narrative suggesting otherwise. The entire system has been adjusted to ensure consistency.
• Anomalies in Beast type swapping have been resolved, especially in cases where the settlement did not possess the type of Beast that matched that of your comitatus.
• The text overlapping on Crew Combat buttons has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue that caused unresponsive Camp UI buttons after engaging in Companion Banter.
• At times, it was possible that theme-specific music was not playing in certain regions. The orchestra has been instructed to be more attentive to the surroundings and play the appropriate tunes for each location.

Known Issues:

• There is a rare controller-related bug during the tutorial right before leveling up Morwen
• Allies are not recruitable for the nemesis show-down quests (fix coming very soon)
• A rare Steam Deck-specific navigation issue in the Outer Realms

Coming Up Next

• Bug Fixes and Balancing Tweaks for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Additional Content for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Outpost UI and balance tweaks
• Machine translations for the Expansion

Stay vigilant as you conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-11-10 10:36:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Xeryn is about to become even more captivating as we proudly announce the release of our highly anticipated expansion: Sunfire and Moonshadow, featuring a vast new region to explore. As of now, it is available to the public on all major PC platforms and it can be purchased as part of our Season Pass, which includes two future DLCs. Check out the trailer here: [previewyoutube=KgoVBmy15zw;full][/previewyoutube] Brace yourselves for adventures filled with treacherous challenges and untold secrets waiting to be unveiled. A swathe of new settlements, new enemies to conquer, new stories to be a part of, a large cast of characters, and new quests to complete through which you can make your mark on the continent await you. Thats not all, however, as the Bronze Desert introduces a central conflict involving three new factions the Ahari, the Chimera Legion, and the Handjari. The expansion features content approaching half the size of the core game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2297000/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1762031/ It is also important to note that weve just done away with the in-game campaign time limit (those elusive 11ish years). This became necessary because theres just so much to do now (with all the free DLCs and now the expansion) that it would have created a requirement from players we felt would be against the slow and methodical style of Vagrus. Unfortunately, expanding the time limit was not a good option either, especially considering future content. More on this in the article we penned on the issue. We have also hammered out quite a number of issues in our latest update. Now let's jump into the details! Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.501106U - Codename: New Realms

New Content (Sunfire and Moonshadow) :sun: :moon:

• Sunfire and Moonshadow Expansion is released at the same time as this update.
• Content and quests that come close to half the vanilla campaign in size.
• The gigantic, seething Bronze Desert and the twilit Lands of Shadow are accessible
• New settlements and points of interest in the added regions, including oil fields, oases, and frontier outposts.
• New faction: the Handjari work for them to earn their friendship and rewards.
• Nemesis factions: The Chimera Legion and the Ahari are embroiled in a cruel fight for survival. Choose a side and fight for their victory!
• Brand new music to accompany the Expansion, soon to be added to available OST.
• Breathtaking artwork featuring the new regions and locations of the Expansion.
• A great many new NPCs with their own stories and personalities.
• An abundance of new Gear and Equipment.
• Well over a dozen new enemy types, both in Companion and Crew Combat encounters.
• New banners for your vagrus to display proudly.

New Content (General) :gift:

• New content related to the Outer Realms was added for everyone (No DLC required). It involves a quest and a new unique location with its own Outpost.
• Some new art assets were added to previous Events in the main campaign.

New and Updated Game Design (Sunfire and Moonshadow)

• The Twilight mechanic was introduced with a new Lamps Equipment slot and all sorts of lamps to counter the negative effects of darkness.

New and Updated Game Design (General) :shiny:

• The main campaigns in-world time limit was removed entirely for various reasons. You can read about it here.
• Day of the week type of dependencies were added, so you might come across choices that only appear on a certain day of the in-game week.
• Camp defense Fighter requirements were reduced for all voluntary crew members.
• Outposts were reworked in a major way (see below).

Outpost-related Changes :sun: :moon:

• A brand new Outpost User Interface was added
• Warehouse: you can store your Goods and Equipment at your Outpost
• Statio: your own mansio at your Outpost where you can store your Mounts and Beast, as well as switch between beast types
• The Outpost license fee was reduced by 2000 Bross (upon loading a save where you already paid for it, you get that money back as a reimbursement automatically)
• The Outpost upgrades resource requirements were somewhat reduced
• The Outpost production was tuned down to be in line with the cheaper setup
• Mounts are no longer used for salt production
• Certain pieces of Equipment stored in your Warehouse provide bonuses for Outpost activities (e.g. Mining Equipment enhances resource yields)

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• The Camp UI now uses a single lock feature that locks all in your current settings for rations, guards, and so on.
• The Price History tab has been improved, offering new sorting options and making it easier to navigate between settlements for easy comparison.
• The Scouting UI has been enhanced to make the available options clearer.
• The Custom Notes UI has been improved, making it easier and more enjoyable to jot down your thoughts.
• Chart legend improvements have been made for clarity, including the introduction of multiple-category Chart entities.
• Giving away Equipment in Events has been improved. Now, you can choose to give away or keep your currently equipped pieces of Equipment and you are warned if you are about to part with your only piece of a type of Equipment.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Breaking camp conditions are now synchronized with the tooltips, providing a clearer understanding of the requirements.
• The process of moving Gear between Companions has been improved. Unequipped Gear of the same type will be equipped first if available. Furthermore, in Events and Tasks, you will offer unequipped Gear to meet conditions first.
• The Insight tooltip is now clearer about the purpose and use of Insight.
• Various elements on the Camp UI have been fixed.
• Passengers are now more willing to indicate their desired destination: before you take them, you can click on the Destination icon to see where they are going on the Chart, and you can also click the new button at the front of each Passenger entry now to see their destination on the Chart.
• Some node background anomalies have been fixed, primarily those related to the day and night cycle in settlements.
• The delay and graphical glitch when the Codex is opening has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue that caused the travel time between settlements in some cases to appear out of place.
• Resourcefulness can no longer overflow.
• Discovered settlement and POI nodes are now consistently displayed on the Chart, whether or not the player has clicked on them or merely moved through them.
• The Loader's Guild storage unit lottery now provides rewards as indicated on the UI. The Guild has been kindly asked not to deceive players any longer.
• If an Event is active, you can no longer use hotkeys to interact with inactive windows.
• Events sometimes caused you to exit settlements when it was not intended, and at other times, you remained within the settlement despite the narrative suggesting otherwise. The entire system has been adjusted to ensure consistency.
• Anomalies in Beast type swapping have been resolved, especially in cases where the settlement did not possess the type of Beast that matched that of your comitatus.
• The text overlapping on Crew Combat buttons has been fixed.
• Fixed an issue that caused unresponsive Camp UI buttons after engaging in Companion Banter.
• At times, it was possible that theme-specific music was not playing in certain regions. The orchestra has been instructed to be more attentive to the surroundings and play the appropriate tunes for each location.

Known Issues:

• There is a rare controller-related bug during the tutorial right before leveling up Morwen
• Allies are not recruitable for the nemesis show-down quests (fix coming very soon)
• A rare Steam Deck-specific navigation issue in the Outer Realms

Coming Up Next

• Bug Fixes and Balancing Tweaks for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Additional Content for Sunfire and Moonshadow
• Outpost UI and balance tweaks
• Machine translations for the Expansion

Stay vigilant as you conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-11-07 16:06:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Its been quite the year since we started developing Sunfire and Moonshadow, our first expansion. Those of you whove been following us know that it is introducing a new vast region to explore with a swathe of new settlements, new enemies to conquer, new stories to be a part of, a large cast of characters, and new quests to complete through which you can make your mark on the continent of Xeryn. Thats not all, however, as the Bronze Desert introduces a central conflict involving three new factions the Ahari, the Chimera Legion, and the Handjari. The expansion features content approaching half the size of the core game. [previewyoutube=KgoVBmy15zw;full][/previewyoutube] We have already shared many of its numerous teasers and tidbits, and now we have very good news for those who have been looking forward to getting their hands on it. *Drumroll* The release date for Sunfire and Moonshadow is officially the 7th of November! Weve been looking forward to it for quite a while now and we are eager to share the anticipation with you all. So much love has been poured into its development; we can only hope that when the time comes, youll be able to enjoy playing it as much as we have creating it.
Furthermore, we are adding a Season Pass that will allow players to buy both the expansion and a further two upcoming DLCs! This way, we will gauge interest in our unannounced DLCs, one of which will be adding two companions to the core game (planned release in the first half of 2024) while the other will add a new region (expected around the end of 2024). The Season Pass will grant you a small discount on all that is included, and will greatly support future content creation as well. Until then, stay patient, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-11-02 13:08:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is the Year of Our Lord 2754 You will never feel the suns warmth under a blue sky, never hear the wind in the branches of a tree, and never swim in the ocean, all because you had the misfortune to be born on the Ship, chained to a fate you didnt choose. You have never seen Earth and youll never see Proxima Centauri either. Youre doomed to live and die on the Ship in the name of the Mission, like your father before you, like his father before him. The Ship is old. She had already been twenty years in service when she was rechristened Starfarer - a pretty name for a retrofitted interplanetary freighter. No one is certain the Ship will actually reach its destination, and nobody much cares, since no one alive now will live to see it. Might as well get on with your life and try to make the best of it.
From our friends at Iron Tower Studio comes COLONY SHIP - an isometric, party-based RPG inspired by Heinleins Orphans of the Sky. Your character's world is a generation ship, a massive spacecraft on a centuries long voyage to colonize a distant planet. The Ship's original government has been disbanded following a violent mutiny and you must negotiate a treacherous path among your fellow passengers and the contentious factions striving to dominate the Ship. Your choices will determine who your friends and enemies are.




A generation ship is a perfect ant-farm where different societies can coexist within a limited space, influencing and affecting each others' development while fighting for that limited space, which adds 'the end justifies the means' pressure.
Your adventure starts in the Pit - a sprawling heap of vacant cargo containers slowly getting filled up with those who couldn't afford to stay in the Habitat or needed to get away from its bosses and factions. Out here, folks live free and die fast...
Once tasked with adapting Terran plants and grasses to the alien environment of Proxima Centauri, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. Quickly overwhelmed by out-of-control mutant vegetation, it more closely resembles a deep jungle than a research complex. In addition to the abnormal plants, oversized pest control species bioengineered to safeguard the colony's farmlands are also on hand to punish the careless.
Before the Mutiny, the rooftops of the Habitat supported a sprawling amusement park. There, the people of the Ship could experience at least a few of the novelties they would never enjoy on Earth or Proxima: walk barefoot on real green grass courtesy of Hydroponics or soft, red-tinted 'Proxima' sand; sit under tall, artificial trees; and watch the sunrise on gigantic screens suspended all around. This last was said to be indistinguishable from the real thing, not that anyone aboard had ever seen it. Nowadays, the three remaining rooftops are heavily fortified platforms, patrolled by armed guards. The sky-screens went dark long ago, a frivolous luxury in a decaying world. The grass underfoot and simulations of golden fields have likewise vanished, replaced by watchtowers and checkpoints. With enemies on all sides, cheap entertainment is a useless distraction from reality and its harsh demands.
Come try the demo and play through the entire first chapter: https://store.steampowered.com/app/648410/Colony_Ship_A_PostEarth_Role_Playing_Game/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms

[ 2023-10-25 09:22:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its been a while since we posted an update on the release of Sunfire and Moonshadow, and given our previous announcement in May on aiming to release the expansion in Q3 2023, its only fair that we share a project update. In the last few months, the whole team has been hard at work to set up and fill the huge new region we picked for our upcoming DLC that slowly grew into an Expansion. Its been a daunting task given the size of the Bronze Desert and our goal to keep the standards we set in the main game regarding engaging storytelling and activities. We wanted to pick a region that was not tied up by existing in-world historical events too much, so we could be free of those constraints when designing new storylines but that freedom also meant that there were more things to expand upon and work out the finer details of locations, NPCs, dynamics, and storylines. Overall, it has taken a lot longer to create all the content we set out to but we are finally getting there. Our progress has been impacted by external factors as well, namely sickness and some changes on the team. Life is turbulent these days with the economic pressure mounting up on firms and individuals alike so its natural that such changes occur even if their timing wasnt ideal. Another factor that played into delaying the expansion beyond Q3 as you have surely figured we were gonna share here was the crowded RPG release schedule of the last two months with Baldurs Gate 3, Starfield, and a number of smaller titles. Not wanting to be overshadowed by those giant games and their marketing machines, we decided to go further: expand and polish our DLC until we are happier with it, and, of course, find a more suitable release slot. While we have not nailed down the exact date yet, we are still aiming for this year, so just bear with us a little longer.
Thanks for your continued support. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-09-25 15:11:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our friends at Kitfox Games and A-Sharp just released Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out today! Combining rich narrative, deep world-building, and strategy gameplay, the stand-alone sequel to 2019s Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind launches today at $24.99, with a 10% launch discount, click to buy now! A bundle including the game and its soundtrack will also be available on Steam at a discount. Watch the launch trailer: [previewyoutube=nhnY1PkQUMw;full][/previewyoutube] The Six Ages 2 Soundtrack is also available for purchase:
Six Ages 2 is all about life after myths. Death, disaster, despair. This new installment in the Six Ages series is a stand-alone survival-storybook combining interactive fiction and turn-based strategy. The world is ending, and your small clan's survival depends on how you manage its relationship with the remaining gods and their followers.

Managing your clan is complex, but may require you to:

• Explore the wilderness
• Trade with (or raid!) your neighbors
• Settle disputes mundane, spiritual, or political
• Improve livestock pastures
• Make offerings
• Build altars
• Travel to the Otherworld

Whether you're dealing with angry ghosts or clan policy, there's rarely one "right" or "wrong" answer, because the deep simulation will make your particular situation unique. Remember that your choices have socio-economic impact, and your advisors often squabble amongst themselves, but some consequences might not be obvious for decades and could affect future generations of a character's bloodline. In Lights Going Out, you can continue a game you began in Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind, or start a new story in this Great Darkness. Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out is immensely replayable, with over 600(!) interactive scenes with multiple, system-driven outcomes. Short episodes and automatic saving mean you can play even when you only have a minute or two. The built-in saga records your story for you, while advisors help you track your promises, though their personalities will often judge your actions. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2278010/Six_Ages_2_Lights_Going_Out/?utm_source=discord&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms For more information on Six Ages, visit https://www.sixages.com/. Follow them on Twitter. To talk to the devs and other fans of Glorantha, join us on the Kitfox Discord.

[ 2023-08-21 18:42:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

All rejoice for we have excellent news!

First of all, Vagrus the Riven Realms has finally gained verified status on Steam Deck! Its been a long haul, but we have finally reached our goal. We were originally able to attain the simple playable badge, and then, through continuous testing and grit among certain team members, we created and released a build last week that Valve was able to test and approve for verified status. Wed like to express our gratitude to you, the players, without whom we might not have made it this far. The game is already live on Steam Deck, but if you are familiar with it, you may now notice the presence of a new, shiny verified badge. Naturally, we recommend you give it a go!
These efforts have been part of a general push to get the game to as many platforms as possible, while continuously bringing new quality-of-life features to Vagrus. This includes support for controllers and most small screens, translations into a variety of languages (mostly machine-based), and an overwatch rework to name but a few. Then theres our forthcoming expansion, the most recent devlog of which you can check out here. All in all, weve had our hands quite full. In other news, we are delighted to inform everyone that we have partnered with the devs over at Worldwalker Games LLC and Trese Brothers to present you with a kickass bundle! Get ready to grab three award-winning games: Vagrus The Riven Realms, Star Traders: Frontiers, and Wildermyth, all in the Endless Adventures Bundle offering a 10% discount on all three games! It is very important to note that the bundle is here to stay and the 10% can be combined with any other sales discounts, so if you are looking for a good deal, it might be worth checking back during a Steam sale.
Each of these award-winning games offers hundreds of hours of playtime, with a wealth of stories and character-building opportunities, and all in all, a simply stunning amount of content. Lets look into the details, shall we?
With more than 30 character classes, hundreds of talents and ship components, and nine factions to champion (or use entirely for your own ends), Star Traders: Frontiers presents countless ways to play this sci-fi captain RPG. Discover black markets and smuggle your way to a fortune; rise through the ranks and command a starfighter carrier; brave wild worlds and discover new stories and become the kind of captain you want to be.
Wildermyth is an imaginative fantasy adventure RPG that uses an incredible procedural storytelling system to take your unique heroes on their own journey every playthrough. Tactical combat encounters are rich with options and enemies, and even having a character taken down offers choices that will impact your partys story. Get new heroes, new enemies, new story events, and new maps every time you play.
Last but not least, Vagrus The Riven Realms offers a vast, open world to explore, filled with unique locations, strange factions, and a colorful cast of characters in this caravan-based RPG with an immersive and detailed dark-fantasy setting. Recruit a wide variety of companions to aid your ventures, fight cruel and terrifying foes, uncover secrets, and survive challenges that make it immensely satisfying to succeed.
Intrigued? Do check out the bundle and remember: the discount can be combined with any other discount during any Steam sale event! In the meantime, stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-08-08 16:36:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

While the main focus of our team is, of course, working on our upcoming Expansion, Sunfire and Moonshadow, we have also been making some progress with bug fixes and smaller improvements. We finally managed to get a bit of time from Valves Steam Deck assessment team and received their recommendation, so we have applied some changes to remediate their concerns. Hopefully that will do the trick to receive the Verified badge. We have also eliminated a number of localization related issues. Mostly, we moved hardcoded stuff to dictionaries or text templates, but there is much to do on that front still, so stay tuned! Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.340721K- Codename: Decked

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed an issue where the hyperlinks were not working in the bottom textbox of the Main Menu.
• Fixed an issue related to the buttons of the Crew UI.
• Fixed a bug where the Imperial comitatus icon in the Task pane of the Journal was blank.
• Companion Combat in the Crystal Library will no longer crash.
• Fixed a visual bug where the campfire in Agoss scene had a blank white rectangle in its place while the asset was loading.
• Fixed an issue where some Equipment had the wrong art.
• Fixed a bug related to using the Companion Combat effect Cleanse.
• Fixed a stuck UI issue related to buying and butchering Beasts and Mounts.
• Multiple issues related to the Initiative Order in Companion Combat were fixed.
• Fixed an issue where the Back to Cargo button was unclickable on the Offer Items part of the Crew Combat UI.
• Fixed a bug where comitatus upkeep was only deducted after every other turn.
• Fixed the Event UI sometimes scrolling down all the way to the choices by default after displaying the steps text.
• Fixed a bug where the event UI would become stuck after sending a bug report.
• Fixed an issue where Equipment icons were not visible after butchering every Beast of Burden.
• Fixed a rare issue caused by opening the Rest UI in a settlement, then the Deputies UI and switching tabs then closing the window, which caused a stuck Camp UI.
• Fixed a bug where during vagrus creation players would not get the bonus perks from Race, Ambition, etc. if they left everything as default.
• Some UI elements were unselectable using a controller. This should now work as intended.
• Fixed an issue where the game would crash if you used a controller and a character was down during the Aid/Inspire tutorial in the second tutorial fight.

Known Issues:

• Escort Tasks and related anomalies.
• The Event UI can act funny in 21:9 aspect ratio.
• Blank Equipment icons appear if the throwout UI is triggered from a Settlement (they refresh later).

Localization Issues

• There are many places in the UI where the translated text still appears in English. We are progressing with fixing these slowly but steadily.
• No mod.io Language packs for a number of languages. Volunteers are welcome.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-07-26 18:52:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, In this next installment of our little devlog series focused on the upcoming expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow, we are taking a look at the three new factions that your vagri will be able to ingratiate themselves with, earning their respect and a slew of rewards, of course. Note that this post contains mild spoilers, so if you wish to wade into the expansion completely blind, perhaps postpone reading this until you have done so. Before we talk about each of the three, we have to make a distinction between the regular factions the type the ones already in the game belong to and the new type, the nemesis factions. Nemesis Factions Nemesis factions come in pairs and they relate to each other exactly how it sounds like: they hate each others guts and will not be reconciled nor tolerate anyone allying themselves with their foe. For this reason, befriending a nemesis faction will ultimately lock you out of befriending their opponent in the given playthrough. Sure, you can play both sides for a while when you begin exploring the new regions but it will come to a decision soon enough. This is fundamentally different from regular factions where you can essentially tank your reputation by working against them or for their enemies but you will almost never reach a point of no return even if you lower your reputation to the absolute minimum (in theory, that is, because crawling out of such a pit is extremely time-consuming). Not so with nemesis factions. Once a certain threshold is reached with one, their foe will forever be closed off from interactions and they will become your dedicated enemy, too.
Also, due to their nature, nemesis factions are more local and will only have effects, tasks, and interactions in their own areas of interest, not in all regions of Vagrus. They are still powerful, with their own forces, bases, bonuses, boons, and rewards, but they will not have a faction presence or interest outside of their zones. The Ahari and the Chimera Legion The first pair of nemesis factions ever to appear in Vagrus are the Chimera Legion of the Bronze Deserts Legate and the Ahari, Bandul insurrectionists opposing the Imperial occupation. The Ahari are a faction of Bandul who follow the guidance of Ahar, the Great Sun, whom they worship as their one and only god. The Suncallers, spiritual guides who originally looked after holy oases and can channel Ahars devastating magic, have taken up leadership of the secretive group recently. Ever since then, the Ahari have been growing and becoming bolder, not content with resisting Imperial harassment but waging a guerilla war against the Empire, and to hell with collateral damage. When allying yourself with the Ahari, you will have to find them first, as they are a clandestine and elusive organization, hiding in the deep desert, where their kind are masters of misdirection and survival. Rumors are circulated about a new leader emerging recently and taking the Ahari into an even more violent direction but nobody has managed to substantiate those claims yet.
The Chimera Legion, on the other hand, are not at home in the Bronze Desert at all. Having completed their previous assignment by the Imperial Senate, they were stationed in the arid wasteland when their commanding officer was appointed as the Legate of the region. This task might seem like unimportant guard duty but because of the war against the Green Continent beyond the Bronze Desert, Imperial forces making their way across the wasteland require constant supervision. As for the Legate, a decorated career military officer, keeping the locals in check and securing the Path of Glory has been a challenge, but some say that it has also moved her into position to carve out her own fortune in this remote, chaotic region.
One thing is certain: no quarter will be given by either side of this escalating conflict. When pressed and having to take sides, who will you choose the expansion drops? The Handjari Handjari are a new faction that were adding to the roster of currently existing ones. And, yes, this means that if you own the expansion, their faction presence will show up in the main game areas, too. Competitors to Imperial Trading Houses (but on fairly good terms with them), the Handjari are the alliance of a loosely connected Tarkian trade princes and their substantial commercial empires. Specifically, Prince Faisal al-Turhen, the Coiner, Patriarch of Akena, Victor of the Battle of Garesh, is the leader of the Bronze Deserts Handjari and he oversees most of the regions trade in the name of the Empire, their allies, of course. The Handjari of the Bronze Desert have their own interest in the conflict between the Ahari and the Chimera Legion but they are rarely directly involved. On paper, they support the Imperials but you might find that their agenda is more complicated than that. In general, staying on their good side unlocks a great number of opportunities for enterprising vagri.
That concludes our second devlog on the expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow. In the upcoming weeks, well have more of these posts on certain aspects of what weve been brewing up. Until then, stay tuned, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-07-20 20:21:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, With the announcement of Vagruss first expansion behind us, we thought that itd be a good idea to create a short series of devlogs about certain frequently appearing topics regarding Sunfire and Moonshadow. The first of these the one youre reading is about the region itself and its boundaries, with some lore tidbits sprinkled in. So, lets get to it! How Does it Measure Up? Lets not beat around the bush. The playable area of the expansion has the following borders:

• The Brown Mountains in the west and northwest
• The coast of the Northsea in the north
• The River Lethe in the east
• Voldanos Shield, the Dead Forest, and the River Umbra in the south and southeast

Of these, some might deserve a short explanation, though we would not want to give away too much too early. The reason for not being able to travel past the Brown Mountains to the north is that the only traversable pass, the Pass of Glory, is kept open only for Imperial legions that are traveling to the frontlines past the continent and back. The lands beyond are either uninhabited or under martial law, so no free commerce is allowed anyway. Then theres the Dead Forest, an accursed place where simply getting too close to the ailing trees can kill you, but nobody risks going in too deep. Moreover, beyond the forest and the mountain range called Voldanos Shield lies the Plains of Agony an ineffable, corrupted, nightmarish wasteland that none have returned from since its formation following the Calamity. And while you could theoretically pass over the Rivers Lethe and Umbra, each of these respective crossings are blocked for different reasons; these you will have to discover yourself. And so you would have roughly the area below, which is more than a third but less than half of the original playable area of Vagruss open-world campaign.
The large majority of that playable area is the Bronze Desert with the foothills and coast surrounding it but down south travelers can descend into twilight made manifest as they reach the benighted Land of Shadows. Last but not least, there is the city of Kabur, Jewel of the North, a rich and diverse metropolis the likes of which can rarely be found in the Riven Realms. What is the New Region Like? The Bronze Desert is one of the largest contiguous deserts of a continent notorious for its arid wastelands. That said, it is markedly different from the dry badlands you have already come across in the game. For one, its natives, the Bandul, and their culture, is unique and cannot be found elsewhere on the continent. Then, there are the Tarkians lots of them who are not native but have certainly made a home away from home for their people. Imperials round out the list of the most prominent inhabitants, and as ever, their industrious and warlike ways have left their mark on the Bronze Desert. Even now, their war rages in the far north, and their legions are constantly on the march to and fro the frontlines. The three factions were adding to the already imposing list of potential allies mirrors these three people in intricate ways (more on them in the next devlog post). They say that the region was already a desert long before the Calamity and it is true. For that reason, the people, creatures, and phenomena native to the Bronze Desert are much more in tune with the nature of this wind-beaten, sun-scorched realm. And so it would be potentially fatal ignorance to believe that the Bronze Desert is an empty, lifeless place. The many oases, outposts, and oil fields are teeming with nomadic wanderers and traveling opportunists alike, while the deep desert and the cold wasteland nights are stalked by many a strange creature.
And yet, the Bronze Desert is not the only realm of the expansion. As an almost anathema to its sun-drenched, coppery sands and blazing skies, the Land of Shadows is a dark, oppressive, benighted land that has been cursed into eternal twilight by the Calamitys ruinous fallout. Even though few dare tread these forsaken plans and twilit forests, opportunities such as lumbering and mining draw enough interest to turn this region into a frontier an extremely dangerous one at that. If the allegedly living shadows and life-draining trees werent enough, now a strange skittering echoes through the mountains to the west which brings dire portents to anyone trying to make it in this land of darkness.
So How Does One Get There? A fair question, considering that hawk-eyed vagri such as you might have already noticed that the region outlined above does not have a direct border with the one in the base game. At this time, we can only say that it will be a unique, never-before-seen method of travel that we have spent a lot of time and love developing, and which the dark gods willing will be able to serve as a gateway to future content. For now, however, we shant give more away; instead, we hope that when you get to see it, itll be as exciting to explore and use as it was creating it.
That concludes our first devlogs on the expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow. In the upcoming weeks, well have more of these posts on certain aspects of what weve been brewing up. Until then, stay tuned, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-06-07 15:09:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

The time has finally come to announce our upcoming expansion for Vagrus and go into a little detail about what weve been working on for the past seven months. Its been a long, hard road, and while were slowly making our way to the finish line, we still have a great deal of testing to do, plus numerous final touches to iterate upon. Its a terribly exciting time at Lost Pilgrims Studio, and its time to share at least some of it with those who made it possible: you, the players. The expansions store page is available for viewing and is ready to be wishlisted here on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2297000/ Those of you who watched Tacticon may have already seen our short teaser, but rest assured, weve embedded it in this post for your perusal (and speculation!). First, we want to answer the most pressing question, however what exactly is this expansion about? Weve put together some of the key details below, as well as the trailer beneath it: Occupying the northwestern corner of the continent of Xeryn, a desert older than the Calamity lies between the Brown Mountains and the River Lethe: the Bronze Desert. It is a realm torn by war in more than one way. The Empire rallies its immense legions here, sending them north toward the Green Continent to lay waste to its lush lands while the elite Chimera Legion remains behind to oversee this arid staging ground. Deep in the desert, however, lurks a different threat that of the Ahari. Birthed by the native Bandul and tempered by their unwillingness to yield in the face of Imperial oppression, the Ahari seek to win back their sacred oases and holy sites, fighting an impossible campaign of terror. Amidst it all are the Handjari, sworn allies of the Empire and stewards of the greatest city in all the Bronze Desert Kabur, the Jewel of the North. The stage is set, the stakes are high. Who will you, a mere vagrus, align yourself with? The mysterious Ahari and their Sun God or the cruel Chimera Legion and their ruthlessly pragmatic leader, the Legate? Your decisions will shape the fate of the region writ large, paving the way for a new, uncertain future throughout the Realms. [previewyoutube=wWJYG04v2_A;full][/previewyoutube] Sunfire and Moonshadow offers a new, vast region to explore complete with a swathe of new settlements, new enemies to conquer, new stories to be a part of, a large cast of characters, and new quests to complete through which your vagrus may make their mark on Xeryn. With all this, as well as the introduction of a central conflict involving three new core factions the Ahari, the Chimera Legion, and the Handjari the expansion features content roughly one-third the size of the core game. We hope youre as excited as we are to return to the Riven Realms and explore and exploit an entirely new region. Well keep updating you on the exact date of the release as we know more, but for now, rest assured the expansion will drop sometime in Q3 of 2023. Until next time, stay vigilant, stay awesome, and conquer the wasteland! Oh, lest we forget: we have also deployed our latest Public Beta built to the default branch here on Steam. Enjoy! Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patch notes v1.1.340510E

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Removed the option to show the current version number in the upper right corner. It is still visible in the main menu under the Currently Known Issues section.

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Redesigned Overwatch mechanics.
• Implemented a new diagonal Push/Pull feature that opens up more strategic opportunities and challenges for Companion Combat.
• The Main Menu background can be changed now with the corresponding button on the bottom-right of the screen.
• We have added a wider range of available resolutions.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed a bug where the enemy Flee chance increased with actions that give additional Chase.
• Implemented an array of controller improvements.
• The tooltip of Explore is now fixed on the node radial menu.
• We have made some fixes related to the Settlement UI.
• Fixed a bug where there was no sound the first time a new game was started.
• Fixed a rare crash at the beginning of PotW.
• Fixed a bug where the quantity of remaining goods were displayed incorrectly when a stack was bought by dragging.
• Some faction related UI issues were fixed.
• Fixed crashes caused by gears in the deploy.
• Fixed a crash related to scouting.
• Longer tooltips can no longer go out of the screen.

Known Issues:

• Escort Tasks and related anomalies.
• The Event UI can act funny in 21:9
• Blank Equipment icons if the throwout UI is triggered from a Settlement (they refresh later)

Coming Up Next

• Obstacles in Companion Combat.
• Outpost UI

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-05-11 18:23:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

For those of you who have been brave enough to venture on our Public Beta Branch, we have just deployed a new build for you. Check it out and let us know how you find these changes. P.s.: the work on additional content is still going on full steam, dont get worried by the slim Public Beta build. --------------------------------------------------

Public Beta Patch 1.1.340419T

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Implemented a new diagonal Push/Pull feature that opens up more strategic opportunities and challenges for Companion Combat.
• Redesigned Overwatch mechanics.
• The Main Menu background can be changed now with the corresponding button on the bottom-right of the screen.
• We have added a wider range of available resolutions.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed a bug where the enemy Flee chance increased with actions that give additional Chase.
• Implemented an array of controller and Steam Deck specific improvements.
• The tooltip of Explore is now fixed on the node radial menu.
• We have made some fixes related to the Settlement UI.
• Fixed a bug where there was no sound the first time a new game was started.
• Fixed a rare crash at the beginning of PotW.

Known Issues:

• Escort Tasks and related anomalies.

Coming Up Next

• Controller support /Beta/ refinements.
• Obstacles in Companion Combat.

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-04-20 20:34:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

Are you ready for our Community Items?

Many of you might be familiar with Steam Trading Cards and other community items. Essentially, you can collect cards for playing games for which the feature is available. Complete sets of cards can be crafted into game badges that appear on your profile, earning you marketable items, such as profile backgrounds, emoticons, and coupons. They contribute to your Steam Level and are a fun way to show your love and dedication to the games you love.
Since we most definitely love Vagrus, we wanted to provide you with yet another way to engage with it and so we proudly present our very own community items. By playing the game, you are able to collect Steam Trading Cards, which you can turn into backgrounds, emoticons, and coupons. Players already owning the game should retroactively receive a number of cards corresponding to the amount of time they have spent playing Vagrus (capped at 6, half the maximum available by Steam default).
Our trading cards feature companions, backgrounds are beautiful displays of (mostly) location art, while badges and emotes consist of a set of coins and fun icons from the game, respectively.
The full list of all the neat little goodies to collect is as follows:

• Badges (6)
• Trading Cards (12)
• Profile Backgrounds (9)
• Emotes (10)
• Animated Profile Backgrounds (3)
• Animated Avatars (3)
• Animated Avatar Frames (3)
• Stickers (2)

You may find some of these in the Steam Points Shop.

April Fool's Day Sale

To celebrate this [strike]crazy[/strike] happy occasion, Vagrus and its DLCs will be available for purchase at a discount throughout the upcoming weekend.
Until then, stay tuned for more, and conquer the wasteland! -The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-03-30 07:58:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

As you may know, terra supra, the northern part of Xeryn, is dotted with perilous and deadly places most people tend to avoid. Now, we are going to take a look at these, focusing on the ruined cities of yore. Embark with us upon a dread journey into the most dangerous ruins in the Riven Realms. Be warned, though, they are not for the faint of heart! Arx Mortis The Desert of Black Sands is a terrible place where no living thing can exist for more than a few hours due to its life-draining curse. At night, a strange bluish-white, sickly glow can be seen on the horizon: the dread mirage of Arx Mortis, the City of the Dead, and the source of all evil in the region. The place used to be Calderum, and it was the capital of the Sanvorati province. Known as the City of Light, Calderum was turned into its most horrible caricature by the Calamity. These days it is a dead city filled with eerie moaning and groans, cast in perpetual twilight, and beset by bone-chilling cold and a pale, warmthless light emanating from the faded rocks that are almost all that remain from its beautiful buildings and walls. The curse affected the surroundings of the city as well and thus the Desert of Black Sands was born, bereft of life and joy, and light forever.
Rhadamantis Rhadamantis lies in the ancient valley of the River Lethe. It is known far and wide on the continent that touching the rivers waters will almost certainly erase ones memory. Constant change storms rise from the valley and strike out north and west. Furthermore, the cursed ruins of the city itself are rumored to change people in even more despicable ways. Everything in the region is considered accursed, and it is said that people exiled from their tribe often wandered up the valley to meet their doom. Still, most travelers maintain that no sane person has any reason whatsoever to venture even close to Rhadamantis, so this region is largely abandoned. Unfathomable dangers lurk in these lands and the shattered city, the gray, broken ruins of which spread out on both sides of the Lethe for miles under strange skies. Is the doom that reached ancient Rhadamantis, oldest of cities, the same as the creeping blight that took over Agathon to the southeast?
Scorponar The strange desert called the Plains of Bone used to be a place of rolling flats and gentle hills, but now it is a rocky desert region of gray and beige sands, as well as large piles of bones. In its heart, travelers can find the ruins of the once beautiful Madrigos, an Imperial city famous for its wealth, hospitality, and snow-white marble walls. Today it is a forsaken ruin that has become the capital of the Scortaur, a race of scorpion-men who hunt all other races mercilessly and uncompromisingly on and around the Plains of Bone. They call their city Scorponar, and very few can tell the tale of seeing its shattered buildings and crumbling walls. Those who did see it talk about bone scaffolding and fortifications from ivory taken from the surrounding plains , flayed bodies hanging from battlements, and banners crafted crudely from the skin of the Scortaurs victims. Scorponar is a place of horror and despair, with the old white stone of Madrigos peeking out from under the colorless sands like broken teeth or shattered bones. Much like a dreadful nest of poisonous wasps, Scorponar belches forth vermin when kicked, which has happened whenever someone decided to put an end to the Scortaur threat by attacking the ruins and failed spectacularly every single time.
Vaelenesthil Vaelenesthil is a great Elven ruin in the region of hills on the southern edge of the Bronze Desert. Before the Calamity, the place was a city-state of Elves that was loosely associated with the elder races realm of Dor Anthelas. Its inhabitants were famous for creating a magnificent garden in the otherwise arid regions of the northwest, although these Eldin (or Green Elves) were disinclined to contact and educate humans though they were not hostile either. They traded with the Imperials and the Bandul locals but remained diplomatically detached from them. The Calamity devastated the tranquil hills and great forests south of the city, turning them into cragged, arid rock desert and into the Dead Forest, respectively. Vaelenesthil's Elves did not survive the magical cataclysm and no account of their fate exists. Today, the city's ruins are half-buried under rocks and sand at the center of maze-like ravines and valleys that make them very difficult to approach. The few travelers who dare enter speak of cracked marble towers and domes, heralds of a faded beauty, but not much else. No gardens or riches remain, except perhaps deep below the ruins, though none have lived to tell the tale after delving below. There is talk of strange noises, voices, eerie lights even odd scents during nights that make people avoid Vaelenesthil altogether. However, in truth, most ruins on the continent have such phenomena attributed to them. Some whisper of the great ruins being haunted, fearing in equal measure the terrifying, azure apparitions that lurk in the night and at its tenebrous crannies and nooks. Such accounts are few and far between in the Fourth Age of Xeryn, though one such story does exist a story we wrote of a comitatus that dared venture forth into its depths, facing down Yrg and the even more horrifying denizens that reside there. If you fancy a read, you can find that story here. Sadly, as of yet the story remains unfinished, but we dont want to give everything away now, do we?
Carravon, the Howling City Carravhon, called the Howling City, is one of the most prominent ruins of the middle regions of Xeryn. It is of Elven origin, and it is said that the ancient magic of those fey people made the winds around its silver towers go mad. For that reason, no living soul has been able to enter Carravhon since its fall during the Calamity. Carravhon was an independent Elven city-state on the edge of the Empires arboreal middle provinces. It seceded from Dor Anthelas - the Elven kingdom of the continent - many thousands of years ago when the Elven Queen Orowen aen Mur Dramwa took her people over the continent and settled at the foot of the Sepis Mountains. There the Elves built a city of wonderful white marble and clear silver, and were foremost among those that taught the humans, thus aiding in their rise to dominance. Cultured and learned, Carravhons Elves were the masters of music. Orowens singing voice was said to be able to make people weep in joy, and her magic worked wonders through that voice. When the Calamity burned and destroyed everything, Carravhon was not spared either: the magnificent city shook and collapsed, its residents and music falling silent forever. Now situated at the far end of the Singing Winds, Carravhon is a haunted place. The ruins look pristine from afar. The city was built of white marble with Elven decorations of silver and gold running in floral patterns along its slender towers and clean walls. Golden domes were rising above gardens and parks. Now only desiccated trees remain but the shining metal decoration and white marble can be seen even from afar, drawing many treasure hunters close who then fail to return. People speak in hushed tones of the voice of Queen Orowen being carried on the melodious winds of the desert but anyone going close to the ruins themselves tell tales of a horrid, deafening cacophony coming from there on the brutal gales and tornadoes. Quite recently, the city has seen a lot of activity. A series of earthquakes and terrible, screaming winds burst out of the ruins northward, opening up the earth in giant, snake-like chasms. Ever since, the wind does not relent, burning the mind of anyone who ventures too close.
The Dread City of Agathon Once a marvel of culture, creativity, art, tradition, and learning, Agathon stood as a symbol of prosperity long before the Calamity struck. Nestled in the ancestral lands of ancient Daromar southeast of the River Lethe, the great city fell into ruin in the wake of the Calamitys decimation, and it is said that it has now been entirely consumed by a fleshy, membranous mass of interwoven organic matter, infused with an entropy that corrupts everything it touches. The dreadful corruption is said to have originated from the nearby source of River Lethe to the northwest, from whence it spread, enveloping and consuming everything in its path. During the Restoration Period in the Fourth Age, legionnaires and settlers attempted to retake the city, only to perish against the tide of otherworldly corruption that the strange organic growth brought with it a growth, which, according to some accounts, ails its victims with a sickness not dissimilar from the Taint or as is sometimes the case in the area, through Change Storms. For these reasons, the Imperials soon learned that survival in or near the confines of the Dread City was an impossibility, though their losses were already manifold. They named the accursed region the Plains of Agony and forsook their attempts for good. To this day, the reasons for the citys surrounding corruption and deadly effects remain an enigma, for few dare to approach its dreadful, looming presence, and even fewer have returned to tell the tale in the thousand years that have passed since its thaumaturgical downfall.
As you can see, the Calamity has caused great damage to the once-great cities of the Empire but even worse - it cursed them so that they now cling onto a bleak, terrifying existence, waylaying travelers and corrupting whole regions around their sad remains. However, if you like reading about these kinds of things, we might return with another round of perilous ruins from the wasteland. Until then, stay safe, stay sane, and conquer the wasteland! -The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-03-16 17:56:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Today we are releasing a large patch with features that weve been talking about for some time, most of which are a reiteration from the post we released about a public Beta weeks ago. With that Beta now over, you can now scroll down to see all of the details regarding our implementation of full controller support, UI and text zooming, improved initial game loading times, and much, much more. Alongside these, we have also implemented a new pop-up window for players to see whats new when they load up the game, and a DLC catalog, which lets you see what content you already own, as shown below.
Indie Cup Celebration 2023 As part of our recent participation in the 2023 Indie Cup and this patchs release, we will be offering a 28% discount on Vagrus - The Riven Realms between the 22nd and 27th of February. So, if you have a friend who has been waiting to buy the game at a discount, now is the time!
Hand-held Porting, Screen Optimization, and Accessibility Were proud to finally release what our best and brightest pilgrims have been working on here at Lost Pilgrims Studio. The first major change is porting.
Included under porting is the optimization of Vagrus for all mobile devices, tablets, and, of course, the recently released Steam Deck. Naturally, the main goal of these projects has been to bring the game to a larger audience; an audience that can play on the move, which certainly suits turn-based games such as our own. Another key aspect it has allowed us to address is accessibility. Players have, at times, expressed concerns about the font size in Vagrus, and with us focusing on porting, we have also been able to implement a zoom feature for the PC client. We are still in the process of fine-tuning and fully integrating the feature, but we are confident that in doing so we will improve user experiences across the board. First, we optimized the formatting of the text to be legible on handheld devices. But is it possible to read all the wonderful prose that players have come to expect from the Riven Realms on a small screen, you ask? Absolutely! Just use the new double-tap to zoom in, as shown below.
Weve also included another screenshot of a closer view after the player has used the double-tap feature, of course! Check it out below.
Because we want to make sure that players user experience does not suffer even slightly while using a small screen, players will also be able to scroll or swipe to navigate the UI, as captured below with the Journal.
Heres the subsequent result of the player swiping left
Multi-platform Controller Support We have now implemented full controller support for standard X-box controllers and Switch gamepad layouts. Although everything should work on most other controllers, assuring that is our future goal and the feature needs to be adequately tested before we can ensure flawless functionality. We have created a modern navigation system on the UI and for all functions from scratch, specifically for controllers. In other words, it isnt simply the existing cursor-based system repurposed for controllers. Direct buttons have been assigned for specific functions to make things easier.
Selecting and switching between UI elements during gameplay is also comfortable.
What about analog stick use? Weve come up with a radial menu to best tackle that.
We have also implemented an easy drag & drop system to be used at various points of gameplay. We have simplified Perk selection and trading functions in settlements, too.
After a long time in development, we are ecstatic to finally release these new features, and hope that they will improve player experiences across all platforms. Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch notes v1.1.300221S - Codename: Magnificatus est Controls

Content Changes

• Knowledge victory questline: [spoiler]Increased the drop rate for Pristine Crystals in the Crystal Archives.[/spoiler]
• Slightly better price for Spice in Larnak, [spoiler]should you bring some from Tectum Carvos when it becomes available.[/spoiler]

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Controller Support! Now you can also use your controller to conquer the wasteland.
• DLC status can be checked on the updated Extras screen.
• A new pop-up window has been added so you can see whats new in Vagrus.
• Dissonance mode has become a little easier.

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Revamped Bug reporting screen (and backend integration on our side).
• A new, Full UI Zoom feature can be activated in the Video Settings. It makes the games texts easier to read and manage on smaller screens.
• Tutorial windows have been resized and repositioned while UI zoom is active.
• Players can zoom in on an active UI window using the UI Zone Zooming feature also found in the Video Settings. UI Zone Zooming has 3 modes: Pinch, Double Tap, and Direct Button.
• A button has been added to check the location info of newly acquired Rumors.
• We replaced the Hold Space text with a button which you can use to go to the next step of the tutorial. You can still hold space as before.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• The game no longer freezes on the Throw-out pane after a Mount-up + Dismount Outrider combo
• Fixed a bug where Movement Points were not refreshed on a new day after inventory overflow
• A number of tooltips that were disappearing have been fixed
• Predicted Authority can no longer exceed 6
• Fixed a bug where Event texts were chopped off on resolutions higher than 1080p (Full HD)
• Fixed a bug where the Heat Shielding Crystal was not working in some cases
• Some UI inconsistencies in Pilgrims of the Wasteland have been fixed
• Reenabled shadow effect on Load Game/Save Game screens
• Fixed a bug that caused certain Companion Combat preparation animation phases to be missing
• Fixed a bug where the decals of DOT Skills were missing
• The name field of the description in Companion Combat is now empty when theres no character to show the description of
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the combat background was black if Companion Combat was triggered in a settlement
• Finndurarths missing Skill SFX has been added
• Fixed a visual bug where the positions of the frames in the key bindings menu were off
• Fixed the issues with the Autoscout features chance to find Events and/or fights

Known Issues:

• There are still some inconsistencies with UI zooming and the new tutorial windows
• Sometimes escort/rescue Tasks do not work correctly
• The character sheet pictures are sometimes not correct in Companion Combat
• Sometimes Gear is shown to be still used by a Companion who has already left the comitatus

Coming Up Next

• Controller support /Beta/ refinements
• Obstacles in Companion Combat

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-02-22 09:52:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

finally, we got to a point where we are able to share with you what we have been working on for the last few months, albeit on the newly created public Beta branch (join at your own risk!) to allow the bravest of our vagri to take whats coming for a spin. Here's how you can join:
So whats new on that public beta branch? Basically, everything we have added for hand-held porting and controller support, as well as screen optimization and accessibility features. A more detailed rundown of these can be found in our previous devlog here. As a small surprise, the Patronage Pack DLC now includes two additional wallpapers, one for each of our free DLCs: Vorax & The Seekers of Knowledge. Enjoy! Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.30.0126J - FIRST OF ITS KIND PUBLIC BETA

Content changes

• Knowledge victory questline: [spoiler]Increased the drop rate for Pristine Crystals in the Crystal Archives[/spoiler]
• Slightly better price for Spice in Larnak, [spoiler]should you bring some from Tectum Carvos[/spoiler]

New/Updated User Interface Features :shiny:

• Revamped Bug reporting screen (and backend integration on our side)
• A new, Full UI Zoom feature can be activated in the Video Settings. It makes the games content easier to read and manage on smaller screens.
• Tutorial windows are resized and repositioned when the UI zoom is active.
• Players can zoom into an active UI window using the UI Zone Zooming feature also found in the Video Settings. UI Zone Zooming has 3 modes: Pinch, Double Tap, and Direct Button.
• A button has been added to check the location info of newly acquired Rumors.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• The game no longer freezes on the Throw-out pane after a Mount-up + Dismount outrider combo
• Fixed a bug where Movement Points were not refreshed on a new day after inventory overflow
• A number of tooltips that were disappearing are now fixed
• Predicted Authority can no longer go over 6
• Fixed a bug where Event texts were chopped off on resolutions higher than 1080p (Full HD)
• Fixed a bug where the Heat Shielding Crystal was not working in some cases
• Some UI inconsistencies in Pilgrims of the Wasteland were fixed
• Reenabled shadow effect on Load Game/Save Game screens
• Fixed a bug that caused certain Companion Combat preparation animation phases to be missing
• Fixed a bug where the decals of DOT Skills were missing
• The name field of the description in Companion Combat is now empty when theres no character to show the description of
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the combat background was black if Companion Combat was triggered in a settlement
• Finndurarths missing Skill SFX was added

Known Issues:

• There are still some inconsistencies with UI zooming and the new tutorial windows
• Sometimes escort/rescue Tasks do not work correctly
• The character sheet pictures are sometimes not correct in Companion Combat
• Sometimes Gear is shown to be still used by a Companion who has already left the comitatus

Coming Up Next

• Controller support /'beta'/ refinements (e.g.: campaign map movement)
• Deal with the slaves option at the end of Crew Combat
• Obstacles in Companion Combat

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-01-27 08:11:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope all of you had a great holiday season, feel recharged, and are looking forward to the New Year. After a much-needed break on our side, we are ready to start the year now, reinvigorated to bring Vagrus to more devices and deliver a new DLC this year. On the development side, we have been working on implementing small screen and controller support to enable playing Vagrus on Steam Deck (and eventually, other handheld devices, too). We did expect that tackling these additions would be a daunting task, though truth be told, it has proven even more difficult than we had hoped. Nevertheless, we are nearing a point where our progress may be worth sharing on a public beta branch so more folks with Steam Decks and controllers could chime in. We are implementing a new version of the in-game reporting tool. Not just to make it easier on the eyes but to improve their classification and automate part of the process on our end, thereby helping us not to lose track of anything important. Stay tuned for these changes.

Important Notice - Price Changes Coming

We published a thread on our discussion forum back in November about this but we would like to draw everyones attention to the upcoming price changes again. Especially, as the currently running discount cycle (Jan 12-16, 2023) is the last sale during which Vagrus can be bought at its current price. As you may have read in the news, Steam has updated (and is said to be doing so more frequently) its regional pricing tables to better reflect the turbulence of current exchange rates, and we are following suit. In some currencies, the game will actually become cheaper, while in others the price will remain the same or increase slightly. Some background on this: in our view, regional pricing is a great thing, allowing players who live in regions where their purchasing power is much less to buy games via Steam at a reduced price. Steam's system requires developers to set a fixed price for those regions which, as the exchange rates move, becomes outdated. We can also see that countries with the lowest prices account for a disproportionate amount of copies sold, which indicates that despite Steam's region-lock efforts, these currencies are also being used for resales. We understand that no one likes price increases. We live in a country with 50%+ inflation on food, so we get it. We also have to pay for said food, so sadly, we do not exactly have the luxury to ignore these changes. We want to stay afloat and keep enriching the world of Vagrus. We hope everyone can appreciate this.

• Currencies with no price change: USD, CAD, AUD, NZD, RMB, JPY, IDR, PHP, VND, CLP, COP, ZAR, SAR, AED, and ILS.
• Currencies with the price decreasing: MYR, SGD, THB, MXN, TWD, PEN, KWD, and CRC.
• In any other currencies, the price will increase (including the CIS regional USD price).

Skittering in the darkness

Last but not least, a bit of a shameless teaser; something is brewing in our kitchens at Lost Pilgrims, and its not just coffee. We simply wish to present you with an image, of a land whose denizens and inhabitants have been exterminated, but not by the Calamity What could have happened? You will be able to find out, in time.
Also, in our next lore update, you will be able to read about the most dangerous ruins of the continent. With all that out of the way, stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2023-01-13 17:05:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Holidays everyone!

Oh, its that time of the year: jingles and laughter. Not in the Riven Realms or at the Lost Pilgrims office, though. We close this year by preparing with new dangers, difficult decisions, and harsh consequences for our upcoming DLC. Its gonna take quite a while still but we hope that itll be worth the wait. Meanwhile, on the development side, we have been working on implementing small screen and controller support to enable playing Vagrus on Steam Deck (and eventually, other handheld devices, too). We expected tackling those to be a daunting task but truth be told, it has been going even slower than we had hoped so, despite our best efforts, we are not able to share it before the holidays. It would be just too risky to release it before its thoroughly tested by enough people.
And with that, we are closing the books on this year. We will also be taking a little time off to recharge our batteries. As for the greeting card above, we did hold a photoshoot in the office for it but we worked so much on Vagrus that our images turned into in-game characters in the end. To anyone who doesnt have Vagrus or its DLCs yet, we would like to wish you Happy Holidays with some pretty neat discounts, too.
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-12-22 18:05:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our friends at MuHa Games (Thea I-II.) and Slitherine have just released their amazing game here on Steam.




Imagine yourself looking into an arcane mirror and finding the other side calling out to you, promising great power and knowledge. You step through Imagine you see before you a realm where all the mirrors connect, where the very essence of Magic resides. The twin worlds of Arcanus and Myrror, ripe for the taking Whatever power and status you might have had before, here you must start anew. You will need to re-learn your magic and prove your worth to your new subjects. Imagine leading your new subjects to conquest, carving a mighty empire, one that can fuel your thirst for knowledge and power. In time, you would meet other Wizards, each rising from equally humble beginnings, each striving for the same prize - the ultimate power promised by the whispers from the mirror. They will be your rivals. You might ally with them, for a time but war is inevitable. Crush their armies, conquer their cities, and take their spellbooks. For, In the end, there can be only one Master of Magic

Master of Magic is out now.

Are you ready to become the most powerful wizard?

Master of Magic is developed in partnership between Slitherine and our friends from MuHa Games. It is the reimagining of the timeless classic released in the 90s: the original Master of Magic can be considered a milestone in the fantasy strategy genre, inspiring a whole range of titles. The new Master of Magic stays faithful to the original, with an updated game experience and in-depth content.
Fight and conquer the two parallel dimensional planes of Arcanus and Myrror, forge alliances, expand your dominion or dominate the world, every spell counts on the way to rule the world. Lead 14 fantastic armies of otherworldly creatures, from orcs to elves and draconians for a total of more than 200 unique types of units. Use powerful spells based on a complex system of 5 schools of magic and 18 customizable wizard traits.
Research over 200 spells, and use over 60 special abilities and 250 unique items, to become the Master of Magic. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms

[ 2022-12-13 16:05:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

As some of you may remember, roughly one and a half years ago we started the initiative known as #TurnBasedThursday. At the time, the goal was to bring together other game developers and allow them to show off their games on inclusive Twitter threads. At first, the threads were small, the engagement scarce, but these soon grew along with the developers involved with them. The developers integral to the efforts included the likes of Terra Randoma, Trese Brothers Games, Hugging Dragons (responsible for Wicked Lands), and, at the time Strateture. After much hard work and collaboration, with a number of new devs joining the effort, we worked hard alongside these other creative indie devs, growing #TurnBasedThursday to such an extent that we felt it warranted its own event and sale on Steam. Thus, through petitioning Valve, Turn-based Fest was born. Now, we are thrilled to announce that the festival we and others worked hard to create is finally here starting on the 8th of December and continuing through until the 12th. Naturally, it involves large discounts on a plethora of great titles, including Vagrus. You can find all the details on the Steam sale page or on the Turn-based Fest website. More than 300 titles participate, including RPGs, sims, grand strategy, deck builders, roguelikes, city builders, and much, much more. With all that said and done, its come time for us to take a look at those awesome deals ourselves, so, on that note stay vigilant, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-12-09 09:42:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

Recently, we have shared posts pertaining to various areas of development, such as multi-platform controller support (featuring an adaptive button UI and drag & drop system), mobile and tablet porting & screen optimization of Vagrus for all mobile devices and the recently released Steam Deck, and finally, Localization in the shape of community translations. This post is going to be a bit different.
Steam has just launched its Autumn Sale as well, filled with huge discounts! This is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of an amazing deal and stock up on hundreds of hours of the splendid SRPG experience that Vagrus has to offer for the coming rainy, cold, and dark days.
In other related news, the Steam Awards nominations are now open! Allow us to ask for a little assistance here. If you feel like nominating Vagrus for the Labor of Love Award, please do so here! We have been working on Vagrus for over a year since its initial release, which has been made possible by the unwavering support of our players. Moving forward we will keep pushing to make our beloved game better, to create more content, and bring it to more people. We owe you a debt of gratitude for keeping us going; your support and encouragement is indispensable. Stay safe and conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-11-24 13:25:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello all,

This week were proud to reveal a little more about what our best and brightest pilgrims have been working on here at Lost Pilgrims Studio. The first major change is something we foreshadowed in a Steam post a while back porting. We will also be covering the integration of controller support across platforms later in this post, so read on if youd like to know more about that.
For now, back to porting. Included under that heading is the optimization of Vagrus for all mobile devices, tablets, and, of course, the recently released Steam Deck. Naturally, the main goal of these projects has been to bring the game to a larger audience; an audience that can play on the move, which certainly suits turn-based games such as our own. So, without further ado, lets examine what weve been able to achieve so far, starting as so many players do with Agos the enigmatic vagabond who introduces players to the Pilgrims of the Wasteland scenario. Another key aspect it has allowed us to address is accessibility. Players have, at times, expressed concerns about the font size in Vagrus, and with us focusing on porting, we have also been able to implement a zoom feature for the PC client. We are still in the process of fine-tuning and fully integrating the feature, but we are confident that in doing so we will improve user experiences across the board. As you can see above, weve optimized the formatting of the text to be legible on handheld devices. But what about in-game? Is it possible to read all the wonderful prose that players have come to expect from the Riven Realms? Absolutely! Just double-tap to zoom in, as shown below.
For the sake of following up, weve also included another screenshot of a closer view after the player has used the double-tap feature, of course! Check it out below.
Luckily, thats not all. Because we want to make sure that players user experience does not suffer even slightly while using a small screen, players will also be able to scroll or swipe to navigate the UI, as captured below with the journal.
And since weve set a precedent of following up, heres the subsequent result of the player swiping left
Multi-platform Controller Support We are working on full controller support for standard controllers and gamepad layouts including PCs, mobile devices, and at some point we hope we can get things working on hand-held and desktop console ports as well. It is important to note that all this is still very much work-in-progress, most of what you are about to see and read is subject to change, and the implementation is quite time-intensive, so please bear with us. That said, PC players are likely to be the first ones to enjoy controller support. We have created a modern navigation system on UI and for all functions from scratch, specifically for controllers. In other words, it isnt simply the existing cursor-based system repurposed for controllers. Direct buttons will be assigned for specific functions to make things easier.
Selecting and switching between UI elements during gameplay will also be comfortable.
What about analog stick use? Weve come up with a radial menu to best tackle that issue.
We are also working on an easy drag & drop system to be implemented at various points of gameplay. We are simplifying Perk selection and trading functions in settlements, too.
Though they are deep in the pipeline currently, we hope that when released these changes will help improve player experiences across all platforms. In the coming months, we will be able to share more and more of what weve been working on and intend to release. Vagrus is also currently taking part in Steam's Autumn Sale, so if you or a friend is looking to pick the game up for a discount, the time is now, pilgrims! As always, stay safe stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-11-22 18:05:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

Good news, everyone: Lost Pilgrims Studio will once again be participating in Adventure Xs Narrative Convention. For those not in the know, the event is held annually in London and its primary goal is to bring together devs and gamers passionate about interactive storytelling. As it stands, AdventureX is the UKs only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming, which is why we attended in 2019, and are ecstatic about being a part of it again, if only online this time. Aside from the in-person event, there will also be a live stream that you can check out here, and if youd like to follow updates from the organizers, you can do so via their Twitter account here. Perhaps most importantly, this also means that well be running a sale as part of the event, so if you have got a friend who is a little on the fence about purchasing any narrative games, now is the time!
For those interested in a little trip down memory lane, you can also find some pictures of our attendance in 2019, with the first featuring a wonderful snap of our creative director and world builder, Geri:
The second shot below shows our amazingly talented graphic artist clearly deep in an explanation Szonja:
Thats all for today. Be sure to check the convention out, and of course stay safe, stay sane, and conquer the wasteland! Take care and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-11-05 09:30:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone,

This one is going to be an update on localization. A while back, we cited the games complexity, size, and it being a niche game that resulted in a relatively low sales volume as factors that made any kind of localization unlikely. Despite that, we have been encouraging players to still wishlist the game and let us know what languages they would like to see it translated into in a dedicated localization thread and promised to reassess the situation after a while to see what is desired and viable and what is not. A year has passed since, and it is time for us to do just that, which led to a good and bad news kind of situation. The bad news is that sales figures and declining wishlists in non-English-speaking regions made the prospect of official translations not viable. BUT the good news is that we have been and still are eager to reach people to show them the world of the Riven Realms. We would like to ensure that even those whose level of English proficiency represents a language barrier can have a chance at adequately understanding and enjoying the game. Thus, we have already started working on things that would help them. Sadly, the way we built the game and stored data were unconducive for effective localization. We had to restructure our Event Editor tool and change several things in Unity, etc. This was quite tiresome and the process has been ongoing for months now. However, weve been gladly dedicating working hours to pave the way to localize larger chunks of text. Smaller things in the UI, however, are very tedious work, so we cannot promise to make it work for every little detail. Admittedly, our focus lies in making the story and the most used elements translatable.
Since the base game and the DLCs combined contain about 1.3 million words worth of text, volunteer translators are unlikely to pop up. As a result, our approach was to subscribe to a machine translation tool called DeepL and generate localization files in various languages that will be made accessible and editable in order to facilitate fan translations through polishing said files. We are still not entirely sure as to the demand for such an endeavor or if the underlying technical facilities are indeed there. In case it could work and it garners sufficient interest, we are planning to allow fan translation groups to add their own translations and improved machine translations through Steam Workshop. Signups for such groups will be open for whoever wishes to undertake translations. This is all still subject to deliberation along with the exact details and the way of going about the entire process. A reason for this approach is that we are not planning to actually incorporate the fan-translated texts into the game proper, merely to facilitate translation for community translator groups who would be actually working on them and under whose banner their respective addons will run. As a result of all that outlined above, we still dont know how much interest this project will generate and how enthusiastic our players will be, so we are not expecting quick developments in the matter. Naturally, the quality of machine translations is very far from the level of an official translation, making them rather unfit to create the kind of atmosphere and immersion we believe is needed to fully enjoy the game. Thus we cannot in good conscience recommend using them as the main language, of course. In short, these machine translations are more likely to be a sort of an aid for those who, from time to time, wish to look at raw translations in their native tongue. The player will first have to acknowledge a disclaimer stating that what is to follow is machine translated and not intended to be taken as a full-fledged official translation for the game. Once that is out of the way, the player will be able to set a primary and a secondary language through the UI. All events and codex entries will be displayed in the primary language and the secondary language texts will assist in understanding the primary language texts.
The machine translation tool DeepL has its limitations and so we go as far as the subscription options go. Thus, initially, only some supported languages will be covered. We aim to create this localization model in a way that will allow contributors to set up files that match the structure. The game itself will then be able to manage these files and make new languages selectable as primary and secondary languages in-game. Due to versioning, every non-translated text will automatically be displayed in English.

That said, we are looking for community translation coordinators for each language.

Since we are not going to have adequate capacity or competence to review translations, we welcome volunteer groups to form and start working together, but we cannot take on the role of an arbitrator either. Eventually, if enough progress is made and the files become available through Steam Workshop, they can be submitted and maintained by said volunteers as well. Coordinators will receive beta branch access to the game to cooperate with us to set up this localization file system. During the selection of coordinators, prior participation in such projects and credentials will play important roles to make sure they are reliable and competent, as they will be responsible for the translations and reviews. In order to improve translations based on machine learning, compiling a dictionary of specific words and expressions for the machine would go a long way, so that the AI does not come up with its own strange translations. Teams working on such a dictionary will also be encouraged. Last, but not least, we are overjoyed to have been able to afford long development hours to lay down the groundwork for the localization environment and for the whole thing to even be able to kick off. The whole venture, however, will be tons of effort and consist of countless iterations, so we kindly ask for your patience. Take care and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-10-12 08:52:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today we celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the full release of Vagrus The Riven Realms. We are happy to have reached this point, and perhaps most importantly, we couldnt have done it without the help of our backers, supporters, and players along the way. So heres to you, vagri, for all your encouragement, assistance, feedback, and goodwill! In this post, well be taking a little bit of a trip down memory lane, from the beginning and creation of the game to its release exactly one year ago. Well finish up with a small glimpse into the future of Vagrus and what players can expect moving forward. We first imparted our vision for Vagrus back in 2017, establishing Lost Pilgrims, with a small team of just four developers. We had and still have a love of games, strategy, and tabletop roleplaying, but when it all started, we might say that we were a little naive. Not because releasing a game we could all be proud of was impossible indeed, where we stand now makes it more apparent than ever that it wasnt. However, we were naive in that we did not fully comprehend the gargantuan task in front of us, nor the intensity with which we would have to work to create the game we wanted and promised to our backers. Weve always said that the game is a labor of love, and thats exactly what we needed to cross the finish line: love. Oh, and a lot of hard work, naturally!
Nevertheless, in July 2020 we released our first public build an Early Access version of the game already featuring a ton of content. We continued to plod forward before eventually dropping a full release of the game on October 5, 2021. We were blown away by some of the critical reception to the games launch, some of the highlights (like being included in IndieDBs PlayersChoice top ten), having the game covered by numerous high-profile media outlets, along with receiving a plethora of awards and nominations, most of which can be found on our Steam page for those interested.
All in all, we were greatly honored by the critical reception of the game, and by the wealth of positivity about it from many independent content creators on YouTube, such as SplatterCatGaming, who covers indie games extensively (and covered ours here). After the success of the games full release, we immediately set ourselves to the task of finding a new office, and to recruiting additional Lost Pilgrims. The process began with kos, a graphic and UX/UI designer. Then, in February, we took on Viktor and Beni as coders and programmers, and finally, in April, we welcomed James and Zeli to the team as new writers to be able to keep adding content in the long run. We were also able to create various merch for the game provided to those who backed us on higher tiers or who purchased the Emperors Edition. While we were certainly elated to see what we had worked on brought to life in physical form, the process was far more daunting and difficult than we had anticipated. Regardless, you can take a look at merch here, and wed also like to say that there are those who have still not claimed their goodies because we do not have their addresses; if thats you, please dont hesitate to get in touch with us and we will send it along.
Moving forward now, lets focus on what has happened since release. We have continued to improve the game, adding a slew of quality-of-life features such as custom notes, map movement UI reworks, a slew of Companion Combat improvements, and a complete overhaul of Scouting as requested by the community on many occasions. On the content side, we started out with Kingpins of the Realms: a sizable patch introducing new questlines for the Loaders and Carpenters guilds, then releasing our first free DLC with the new companion Vorax in May. More recently (last week) we released Seekers of Knowledge, our second free DLC and major content addition, which has further expanded the ways players can achieve victory in the game by acquiring Codex entries and working towards the Knowledge Ambitions fulfillment. It is our hope that these pieces of content will pave the way for our next big DLC a paid piece of content that we have just begun working on, and that will open up an entirely new region for vagri eager to continue or resume their journey in the Riven Realms! Provided that everything goes swimmingly when we can release this content next year, we have many more ideas for future additions to the game moving forward.
We hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, and a short glimpse into the future. We have a great deal more to speak about in the coming weeks, so until then stay tuned, stay safe and conquer the wasteland! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-10-05 11:37:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

REVERTED DUE TO MAJOR EVENT ISSUE

A number of players reported that after the patch they could not reach the bottom choices in events which made the game unplayable. It does not always occur - probably why our regression tests did not pick up on the issue - and we are unable to reliably repro and thus fixed so until the root cause is found and the issue is resolved we had to reverse this patch. Sorry about the inconvenience. -------------- The Original Post ----------------------------------------------------------

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the amazing welcome of the Seekers of Knowledge DLC and our patch published parallel with all kinds of improvements. Seeing so many new players and hundreds of old ones who picked up the game again made the whole team very happy, especially with the games full release anniversary coming up soon. Expect a post on the day from us with a summary of the first year.
So, with a content and code update of such size, there were indeed some issues that we needed to iron out. Thanks for everyone reporting them and sorry for the inconvenience they may have caused. This hotfix will make the game much more stable while we continue to work on further fixes, improvements, and who knows, we might even start on new content. ;) And now, let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.250930K The Seekers of Knowledge - Hotfix

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Game will no longer crash when ESC is spammed before an Event loads
• Crash while Finndurarth used Electrify to kill an Orc Marauder with Die Hard perk was fixed
• Fixed a crash related to the tutorial pins
• Icons are no longer multiplying when dragged repeatedly in the Cargo menus Owned Equipment section
• Crash involving Nedirs Conflagration and a Wights Grave Call cast on the same position was fixed
• Texts and event choices are now fully visible in ultrawide resolutions
• Fixed a bug where in rare occasions, the game crashes when entering the first fight of Pilgrims of the Wasteland
• In case the comitatus moves via a camp/quick camp order, and the movement is interrupted by an Event, camp/quick camp will not come up automatically
• Various problems related to the comitatus having excess cargo were fixed
• Heat Shielding Crystal will no longer be unequipped automatically
• Fixed a bug where the game crashes during vagrus creation in rare instances
• Sedarias will start the second PotW fight in Block mode as originally intended
• Fixed a bug where the game crashes if an Event comes up after camping in rare instances

Currently Known Issues:

• Escort tasks-related anomalies
• Crew combat chance percentages are sometimes shown in reverse
• Some infrequent crashes are still being investigated

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-09-30 13:56:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

This time, we've got a new free DLC for you, along with revamped Scouting, a Glossary to clarify gameplay mechanisms and UI elements, as well as major backend improvements. It would be no understatement to say that this is a huge stepping stone for us and the Riven Realms.
Before we get into anything, feel free to check out our highest-ever discounts as Vagrus - The Riven Realms is participating in the TactiCon sales between September 22nd and 26th. Having already touched upon some elements that this patch will be covering, lets get into the most important points and details.

Scouting Rework

We think we have managed to enhance player agency by bringing Scouting to a place where it offers a great deal to those who are willing to make use of its more niche qualities while incorporating enough concrete drawbacks that it does not become a default or even mandatory choice for vagri traversing the wasteland. To support that, scouting results remain visible for three in-game days (or turns).
Manual Scouting is conducted in your general surrounding area, which can be expanded greatly if you have enough scouts at your disposal. Covering a large area can be a great way to find specific things you really need or want; for example, great hunting and foraging nodes, or combat encounters if you play an aggressive comitatus. It is also important to note that the more distance covered, the lower the chance of success becomes in general. Also, Vagri may now use Resourcefulness to guarantee success during manual scouting, which can be especially useful if you absolutely need to know specific results.
While out traversing the wasteland with Auto-scouting on, you are not prompted by results in the same way you are when you initiate Manual Scouting. Results that can be moused over will show on the campaign map, but to get a full overview, you will need to click the emblem in the top left corner. Contextual options allow you to set up rules about when to stop the comitatus if you want to investigate something you found along the way.

Glossary

The Glossary does not contain story or lore content but rather it is aimed at clarifying game mechanisms and UI elements. It is accessible in the game by pressing G or clicking on the eye icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
The Glossary is structured into seven main categories representing the main facets of Vagruss gameplay mechanics. These categories are Story, Combat, Comitatus, Factions, Trading, Settlements, and the Campaign Map. All of these have subcategories, which in turn have their own subcategories, making the Glossary appear in a three-tier structure. Thus, when you browse the Glossary, you can read more about a certain topic by navigating to subcategories, after which you can easily switch back to higher levels. [previewyoutube=-Y63F3bY_8o;full][/previewyoutube] Entries contain references to other entries of relevance. You can just click on a highlighted word or expression to navigate to its entry. There is also a search function that comes in handy when you know what you are looking for, but youre not sure where to find it. Please note that the Glossary is still very much in Beta; by no means do we consider it final. Therefore, we would appreciate your feedback so that we can improve its usefulness to players (the easiest way to provide feedback is always our discord server or via the bug-reporting in-game tool).

Seekers of Knowledge Free DLC

[previewyoutube=iRdSQ2qa8KA;full][/previewyoutube] We are also releasing our second free DLC Seekers of Knowledge! With it, we are aiming to enrich the already vast playable realm and to further add to the victory paths available to players. The DLC introduces the Sunken Tower, a massive new dungeon and the focal point of the releases new stories. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2079340/ Once known as the Tower of Akarius, the Sunken Tower was home to a host of esteemed Elven, Human, and Dwarven scholars all of whom worked tirelessly toward the unified pursuit of knowledge. Millennia have passed since that time, however, and due to the Calamity, the Tower now wrestles with a different fate. A fate where its once proud denizens languish in the recesses of its hallowed halls, seeking respite, unable to escape the terrible curse that has beset the place. This free DLC introduces a variety of new enemies, NPCs, quests, and the new Knowledge Ambition, which tasks the player with amassing and uncovering all kinds of knowledge to achieve victory. The quest encompasses a story that will inevitably see vagri descend into the darkest depths of forbidden knowledge and madness-inducing truths that are best left forgotten. A bit of a designer's note (or notes, we should say) for Seekers of Knowledge and how to play it:

The points below are not really spoilers but do NOT read more if you want to go in completely blind.

[olist]

Although you can switch to the new Knowledge Ambition from Freeplay in an existing playthrough since it takes quite a lot of time to complete the new Ambition, you might be hard-pressed to complete it in the allotted time limit in an advanced playthrough. Thus, consider a new playthrough in this case if you care about achieving victory this way.

lso, because exploring the Tower completely is a long affair as well as a difficult one, it behooves vagri to stretch the related questline for a whole playthrough and not try to do a lot in one visit to the place. Space it out. This might be intuitive to some players, less so for others, but the intent was to explore the Tower in bursts and then return to other stuff, go back to the Tower, explore some more, etc.

Because it is not entirely evident where the quest begins, here's a little pointer: [spoiler]Those who seek knowledge should look for books and those who peddle them.[/spoiler] [/olist] For more on this, hit up the spoiler channel on our Discord server if you wish and ask! Some preview build testers can point you in the right direction. And now, let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.25 - Codename: Seekers

Seekers of Knowledge Free DLC

• The Sunken Tower can now be unlocked via questing
• A massive storyline centered around the Tower was added (it can be played through without doing the new Knowledge Ambition)
• The Tower is a massive dungeon that changes each time you enter - it can be explored bit by bit, unlocking more dangerous locations, secrets, and precious Insight
• A number of new enemies, Gear, and commercial Items were added to give the Tower its own challenges and rewards
• The Knowledge Ambition can be selected during vagrus creation or switched to from Freeplay

Content Update :gift:

• A number of new opportunities added to obtain certain Codex entries to already existing locations and Events
• Two new achievements connected to the newly added questlines

New or Updated Features

• Scouting update (new representation of results and a revamped Manual Scouting)
• Added the Auto-scouting feature
• Added the Glossary

Design Tweaks

• The Renown Victory condition raised to 40 Renown to be more on par in terms of difficulty with Wealth and Knowledge Ambition victory conditions
• The Church of Sergorod is now the opponent of both the Ratharnak Alliance and the Scythichnis Covenant (and vice versa)
• Significant combat AI improvements (the game may have gotten harder)

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Added a new text template to the Gamelog
• New Prowess tooltip was added when there is insufficient Insight
• A new Prowess button has been implemented
• Companions now have 5 status lines instead of 4

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Finndurarth storyline crash was fixed
• The Block/Evade button is available only after the tutorial in Pilgrims of the Wasteland
• Companions are no longer falsely indicated as wounded
• Events that negatively effect Movement and Autocamp will now calculate MPs correctly
• Double position character markers form a single block now
• "Damage" text in Crew Combat Actions is no longer white
• The tutorial will recommend Aid instead of Inspire when there is a Downed Companion
• Goods tooltip will mention Price History only after Price History has been unlocked
• A lot of minor tutorial-related polishing
• The bottom choice box text is no longer obstructed in Events
• Fixed some cases where Companions occupied the same position in combat
• The long tooltip on the Factions tab has been fixed
• Event tests are no longer rigged massively in the players favor
• Dragonlands-related Points of Interest (POIs) will not offer slaves as passengers
• The bug related to incorrect percentages shown for Odd Jobs has been fixed
• "Due to" Game log text will not be displayed twice
• Skills with self-targeting phase in the Combat Log have been fixed
• Players can no longer receive Yrg beasts through crew combat but will receive Supplies instead
• Various settlement background art-related bugs fixed
• A large number of mistakes, typos, and issues with texts all across the board were corrected

Whats Coming Up Next

• Optimization to Steam Deck and other tablets
• Controller support

Currently Known Issues:

• Escort tasks-related anomalies
• Crew combat chance percentages are sometimes shown in reverse

Since we are adding a massive amount of content, revamping Scouting, and changing backend technology by implementing Unity addressables, there are bound to be issues that neither we nor our testers realized or flagged, so we will be taking all feedback sent by next Monday and address serious issues in a hotfix the same week. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-09-22 17:01:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Great news, vagri: after testing our new content as much as possible, we can now put down a release date for what will be our second free DLC Seekers of Knowledge. Thats right; mark your calendars, because Seekers of Knowledge will be dropping on the 22nd of September. With this DLC we are aiming to enrich the already vast playable realm and to further add to the victory paths already available to players. The DLC itself unlocks a variety of extensive questlines and introduces the Sunken Tower; a massive new dungeon and the focal point of the releases new, unique stories. Once known as the Tower of Akarius, the Sunken Tower was home to a host of esteemed Elves, Humans, and Dwarves all of whom worked tirelessly toward the unified pursuit of knowledge. Millennia have passed since that time, however, and thanks to the Calamity, the Tower now wrestles with a different fate. A fate where its once proud denizens languish in the recesses of its hallowed halls, seeking respite, unable to escape the terrible power that has beset the place. Along with the Sunken Tower, this DLC introduces a variety of new enemies, NPCs, quests, and the new Knowledge Ambition questline, which tasks the player with amassing and uncovering all kinds of knowledge to achieve victory. The quest itself encompasses one of the largest stories yet to be told in the Riven Realms a story that will inevitably see vagri descend into the darkest depths of forbidden knowledge and madness-inducing truths that are best left forgotten. Conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-09-20 15:06:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Revamping campaign map movement and scouting into a sleeker system finally allowed us to move on to other things our players have expressed the need for. First off, many of you wanted more information and clarity on gameplay mechanics to be able to better understand its complexity rightly so. That is why we are publishing a Beta version of the new Glossary. The Glossary This feature doesnt contain story or lore content, but is aimed at clarifying game mechanisms and UI segments. It is accessible in the game by pressing G or clicking on the eye icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
The Glossary is structured into seven main categories representing the main facets of Vagruss gameplay mechanics. These categories are Story, Combat, Comitatus, Factions, Trading, Settlements, and Campaign Map. All of these have subcategories, which in turn have their own subcategories, making the Glossary appear in a three-tier structure. Thus, when you browse the Glossary, you can read more about a certain topic by navigating to subcategories, after which you can easily get back to higher levels. [previewyoutube=-Y63F3bY_8o;full]<>[/previewyoutube] Furthermore, entries contain references to other entries of relevance. You can just click on a highlighted word or expression to navigate to its entry. There is also a search function that comes in handy when you know what you are looking for, but youre not sure where to find it. As stated above, the Glossary is still very much in Beta; by no means do we consider it final. Therefore, we would appreciate your feedback so that we can improve its usefulness to players (the easiest way to provide feedback is always our discord server or via the bug-reporting in-game tool). Unity Addressables There is something else we have been spending a lot of time on, and probably most of our players wont even realize its outcome. It is about the Unity Addressables function. Essentially, it assigns keys to assets (most prominently art), acting as a reference ID, enabling us to move art assets out of the so-called Resources folder in Unity. The primary purpose of using Addressables is for game assets not to take up memory when they are not being used, only when they are.
This is because the way it used to be was sub-optimal and hindered the porting of the game to Android and iOS. Doing things this new way will allow the game will run more smoothly on more low-end PCs and eventually, on smaller devices, such as tablets. In practice, this means that location arts in settlements and events or combat backgrounds along with all character assets including animations, icons, and portrays are now treated as addressables, which required a lot of restructuring. We have been working on this for almost two months along with other tasks and we dare say we are more than content with the outcome. This way, we managed to reduce the initial loading time, the games memory usage, and the installed game itself is now 3.4 GBs instead of the 4.6 GBs it used to be. We are definitely planning to pursue further optimization not only in this direction but also to achieve a more enjoyable gameplay experience on smaller displays. Furthermore, we are going to explore the possibility to add controller support benefiting devices such as Steam Deck or eventually other consoles as well. With all that said, we are gearing up for the next (free!) content DLC, Seekers of Knowledge. More on that very soon. Until then, stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! Thats all for today, so for now stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-09-15 13:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello All,

As it has become standard since the release of Vagrus, the team has been hard at work on another much-requested update this time its scouting were addressing. Players have been expressing their concerns about the state of scouting for some time now, and were happy to announce that we think we have managed to bring it to a place where it offers a great deal to those who are willing to make use of its more niche qualities while incorporating enough concrete drawbacks that it does not become a default or even mandatory choice for vagri out traversing the wasteland. The end goal of these changes is indeed quite similar to our aims with the recent hunting, foraging, and marching changes adding player agency. We consider agency to be a central design philosophy at the core of all these changes and we intend to continue iterating on both present and future updates with this in mind. Manual Scouting So, lets delve into the specifics of manual scouting first. Previously, players had to choose which nodes they wanted to check, allocating scouts appropriately. Now, manual scouting instead uses your general surrounding area, which can be expanded greatly if you have enough scouts at your disposal. Covering the same amount of surrounding terrain will inherently cost more if you have a smaller number of scouts, and less if you have more scouts. Lets illustrate with a few examples. In the image below, the player is about to scout the surrounding area.
In the next example (below), the player has many more scouts to utilize, and thus, not only is the movement cost reduced, but the distance available is far, far greater.
Examining these two examples, the question quickly becomes well, how much is it possible to cover? And the answer is: a lot. It will cost you dearly in more ways than one but covering a large area can be a great way to find specific things you really need or want; for example, great hunting and foraging nodes, or combat encounters if you play an aggressive comitatus. Here is an example of a much larger area covered, shown near the outskirts of Deven.
It is also important to note that the more distance covered, the lower the chance of success becomes in general. Another large change weve made to manual scouting relates to the use of Resourcefulness. Vagri may now use Resourcefulness to guarantee success in one of the four categories shown above, which can be especially useful if you absolutely need to know specific results, regardless of actually failing or succeeding. Manual Scouting Results When you receive your scouting results, each node will be flagged by a small banner that corresponds to an item on the scouting result list. Below is an example of this flagging, in an instance where a large number of scouts were sent out to explore many nodes surrounding the comitatus, and where Resourcefulness was used to guarantee the success of finding Events. Looking closely, both failure and success can be seen at different nodes, but because the search for Events was bolstered, those results show even on the nodes where that failure occurred, or, specifically, nodes 54 and 59.
Additionally, from now on, when scouting in general, the results shall remain for three in-game days (or turns, gameplay-wise) on the campaign map. This allows players to plan their trips around areas that they had already scouted, consequently maximizing their returns on scouting endeavors. Simply mouse over the previously scouted nodes before the three days expire, and you can check those results again, as shown below:
Having now covered the overhaul to manual scouting, lets do a deep dive into our newest feature: Auto-scouting. Auto-Scouting Auto-scouting allows you to scout ahead of your comitatus without spending movement points. The main trade-off of doing so is that your chances of success are significantly reduced when compared to manual scouting, which also means that you may lose scouts more frequently while doing so. There are also two modes you can switch between one where you simply scout the terrain directly in front of your comitatuss current trajectory, and one where you cover adjacent nodes, too. The former is represented by the highlighted rightward arrow shown below on the UI, while the latter is depicted by the three multiple arrows which branch outward:
In this situation, the comitatus is set to scout everything on its path, and to stop automatically when a node has a base hunting and foraging chance of 45% or higher, along with an average yield of 245 Supplies. Other conditions can be set, too, one merely needs to toggle between the other options here: the axe represents conditions set for Crew Combat encounters, while the scroll represents conditions that can be set to stop in the case of Events or Mercenary Tasks scouted. Auto-Scouting Results While out traversing the wasteland with Auto-scouting on, you are not prompted by results in the same way you are when you initiate manual scouting. Results that can be moused over will show on the campaign map, but to get a full overview, you will need to click the emblem in the top left corner. Results will then be shown in a list as below:
The path scouted is also represented to the left of the list, displayed as an orange line on the campaign map. The results of each node and its corresponding number (shown as 11-15 here) remain visible for three in-game days (or turns, gameplay-wise), which means that charting your return journey from a settlement can prove to be a very fruitful endeavor indeed. Now lets look at a few more examples, this time using the second mode of auto-scouting through which your comitatus scouts the surrounding terrain. In the below example, Ventures (meaning Events and Tasks) are the conditions through which the caravan stops automatically, set at a minimum of 15% on nearby scouted nodes:
Two things become apparent from this example firstly, your chance of success drops dramatically when scouting both forward and adjacent nodes, and secondly, when you set conditions such as these your comitatus will stop less frequently because of auto-scouting. This is because it is generally harder to scout for Events than nodes that are ripe for hunting and foraging. Lets take a look at the results in this instance:
In this final example, we can see both the nodes already scouted (denoted by the orange coloring) and an Event that was scouted and is now shown by the emblem with 89 next to it. As it turns out, this node has a 100% chance to trigger an Event this is because it is a fixed Event. Whats most important, however, is that Auto-scouting allowed the vagrus to see the Event before moving forward onto it, thus giving them a moment to consider how they might prepare for such a situation. Along with Manual scouting, which is great for feeling out a larger area all around the comitatus as well as looking for something specific in a given region, Auto-scouting, which is great for finding opportunities along a journey, is the final piece of the puzzle that reworks campaign map movement and scouting into a newer, sleeker system. We are looking forward to hearing from our community about both Manual and Auto-scouting and hope that it opens new avenues to exciting gameplay. Thats all for today, so for now stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-08-24 15:32:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our team at Lost Pilgrims Studio is delighted to announce that we have been chosen for an ongoing event this week, which aims to showcase some of the smallest studios and their indie games. Called the Tiny Teams Festival, the event is run by Yogscast and will be covered online through both Twitch and YouTube. Several streamers who are involved in the event have requested keys to play Vagrus The Riven Realms and naturally, were happy to comply. You can check out those streamers below:

• Hylian Fiend: https://twitch.tv/hylian_fiend
• Shambugi: https://twitch.tv/shambugi
• Pagrax: https://twitch.tv/pagrax
• Freyn: https://twitch.tv/freyn

Coverage is also provided through Yogscasts main channels (these links are not yet live, but will be when the event has begun):

• http://youtube.com/yogscast
• http://twitch.tv/yogscast

Additionally, you can check out all the other games involved in the festival here. We have also decided to offer a twenty percent discount on our Centurion Edition during this time, though only until the festival is over. So, if theres a friend youd like to recommend the game to, or you simply want the most of Vagrus, you can visit our Steam store page for more information here. Theres a lot more to come in the next few weeks for Vagrus, and we cant wait to share it. Of particular note, we are now testing our next DLC Seekers of Knowledge. This DLC will be free to those who own Vagrus The Riven Realms, and we hope that it is merely the first in a chain of new pieces of content that we develop. For now, however, stay tuned, stay safe and conquer the wasteland! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-08-01 16:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

Originally, we havent scheduled a patch before the next DLC, but since that is still in progress and youve reported a few larger bugs which is always much appreciated we decided to release one anyway. The new major scouting features are still being tested, however, we squeezed in a few smaller changes into this build, so its more than just a simple hotfix. Event image panning is a new effect you may have heard of already, while House Venari and the Carpenters Guild becoming one anothers associates is a meaningful change in the life of the comitati roaming Terra Supra. [previewyoutube=pSallHnMm0A;full][/previewyoutube] Furthermore, we have turned on Cloudsaves. Its supposed to be easy-peasy but getting the config and cross-platforms sync right took longer than we initially anticipated. Nevertheless, we managed to crack it eventually! Please give us a shout if it works or not. Thank you! Important for macOS users: if you cannot find your save files, please refer to this post about the possible folders they may be located in. Now let's jump into the patch details. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.21 - Codename: Spectacular

Content update :gift:

• Carpenters Guild and House Venari are each other's associates from now on
• Some crew stats (mostly Reptile beasts) have been slightly tweaked

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Event and Settlement image panning added
• Closing enlarged settlement picture with ESC now works
• Finndurarth's Fly II skill will not change skill slots

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Deploy max number of characters is working properly again (no more exploits here, sorry)
• Dead Weight related crash fixed
• Bladedance layering fixed
• Taunted AI improved

Whats Coming Up Next

• Scouting Changes
• Glossary (beta)
• Knowledge Ambition (Codex-related victory)
• Sunken Tower free DLC

Currently Known Issues:

• Escort tasks-related anomalies
• Crew combat chance percentages are sometimes shown in reverse

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-07-27 09:50:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello all,

The team has been hard at work on a variety of impactful changes; this build is the culmination of those changes in the lead-up to our upcoming free content: The Sunken Tower (DLC). A teaser about the Tower and its associated knowledge victory questline is coming soon. The build itself introduces several quality of life improvements to general gameplay, including Quick Camp, automarch, daytime hunting and foraging, and automatic supply acquisition. The goal of these changes is to streamline core gameplay loops and minimize micromanagement for players who enjoy those less while still leaving the same options open for others. For more information about specifics regarding these changes you can view our recent devlog post, which covers each change in detail and check out our summary video below: [previewyoutube=l-frlnryKAA;full][/previewyoutube] Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.20 - Codename: Roamers of the Wasteland

New Features

• Daytime Supply Acquisition (aka Hunting and Foraging)
• Set up Auto Supply Acquisition rules during camp
• Automarch option
• Quick camp option

Bug Fixes

• Slice and Dice animation sped up
• Overwatch skills now break move+attack skills
• Conduit now has its proper POW animation
• Various smaller fixes/polish

Coming up next

• Scouting design changes
• Glossary (beta)
• Sunken Tower free DLC
• Knowledge Ambition (a Codex-related victory path) and related quests

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-07-07 14:14:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello All,

Back in October, when we published the game, we opened up a pinned discussion on our Steam Community Hub where our players were encouraged to post improvement ideas. The topic received 82 posts containing hundreds of ideas. Weve been monitoring them but between managing a steady supply of ad hoc issues, hiring new Pilgrims, and creating and publishing the Vorax DLC, we didnt have much time to give the matter the attention it deserves until recently! After combing through these posts, we then further consolidated repeated requests and related ones, eventually arriving at the list of 48 suggestions shown below. From there, we were able to discuss, debate, and eventually categorize everything to a point where we could move forward with development for those features.
After examining and considering various suggestions, it quickly became clear that the most talked-about improvements were pertaining to map movement, camping, and scouting. As a result, we ended up focusing on the first two of these, and we will be releasing a new build with a variety of additional features that correspond to the requests made in the near future. In this post, we would like to discuss a few of those features.

New Features

Automarch and Quick Camp

Quick Camp and Automarch will make exploring the Wasteland easier and more efficient. While they will be turned off by default, you will be able to turn them on in the Options menu under Game Settings. Toggling Automarch on will make it so that when you choose to travel beyond your normal Movement Points (MP) limit, your comitatus will proceed forward and expend March Points automatically. With this feature toggled off, you will instead automatically stop moving when you run out of MPs. Multiple quality of life changes have been made to camping, too. First off, you will no longer need to go to a node before deciding to camp, you may now also simply click the normal camp icon at your destination node, and when you get there, the camp UI will pop up automatically. Quick Camp, on the other hand, is an entirely new feature. When toggled on through Game Settings, it will give you an additional option from the radial menu when you travel, which allows you to instantly camp, ending the day without the usual camp UI popping up. Quick Camp will use all the settings you have locked in from your previous regular camp, such as how much you wish to pay your crew or how many rations you want to give them. The below image shows exactly how these features will look: the top left tent icon will make your camp UI pop up when you reach that destination, while the colored tent icon is for Quick Camp.

Daytime Supply Acquisition

As an alternative to acquiring supplies when you camp and end the day, you will be able to also acquire supplies during the day! This can often be useful, as the node you choose to hunt or forage on may have a significant impact on the results. In almost all cases, this will cost 2 Movement Points (MP). If you do not have any remaining MP, it will instead cost 1 Vigor. You can send out multiple hunting and foraging expeditions during a day, though these will face increasing penalties depending on the outcome of previous attempts.

Supply Auto-acquisition settings

You might also notice that we have renamed the whole process to Acquire Supplies, partly because of another new feature we will be integrating, namely, Auto-acquire Supplies. This feature functions just how it sounds: it allows the player to set predetermined conditions that will automatically get your workers, scouts, and slaves to the task of hunting and foraging, provided that the node you occupy meets those conditions. In the example below you can see the new feature in action; the top slider below each category represents the minimum chance of success for that action to be triggered when you next strike camp. Here, the auto-action requires an average base chance of success of 48% for hunting and 30% for foraging, respectively. Below that, we can see another slider that represents the minimum average supply yield from a node, which can function as an independent condition or together with the above slider, simply by toggling the two buttons that sit between them.
Thats all for today. We will be releasing our new build shortly (probably next week), and are currently developing a large piece of free DLC content: The Sunken Tower. A teaser about the Tower and its associated knowledge victory questline is coming very soon. Until then as always stay safe and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-06-30 12:31:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

We fixed a bug that broke a few major questlines. Also, the Prologue (free Demo version of the game) has been updated, so if you have been hesitant to give it a go, now is the time to check out what the game looks like for free!

macOS save folder back and forth glitch

Previously, there had been a macOS issue, wherein the game created new save game folders, thus leading players to believe that their saves were lost. That issue could be solved manually, but the game once again uses the correct folder, so the saves need to be placed back into their original folder. In both cases these folders can be found following this path: /Users/username/Library/Application Support
If you have any problems, feel free to contact us on our Disord server. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.15 - Hotfix:

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Wealth victory fixed
• Vorax questline fixed
• Skornar questline fixed
• Fort Larius questline fixed
• Mac save folder destination fixed

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-06-13 16:13:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

As usual, weve been working on fixing issues and adding new features as well as improvements. The most significant additions include our new name generator, along with the custom journal and chart notes features. As for improvements, besides smaller optimizations across various parts of the game, we have made the Companion Combat AI significantly faster while the initial loading time has been shortened as well. Now let's jump into the patch details! Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.15 - Codename: Notas Et Effectus

New/Updated Content

• Four new random events

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• You can add custom notes to your Journal
• You can add a maximum of five custom notes to each point of interest on the Chart
• Vagrus creation random name generator has been added (with lore-friendly names)

Gameplay Improvements :gift:

• Additional Codex tagging has been added to existing entries
• Companion Combat performance has been improved
• The Black Rot condition has been fixed - it now affects crew and companions

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• The Character UI has new parchment frames
• Enchanted/Impervious color changed from purple to turquoise
• Some character portraits have been adjusted to better fit their frames
• Scrollbar corrections on the UI so that it is more streamlined

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Enemy portraits on an opened Character sheet during combat now face the intended direction
• Companion Combat action-related crashes fixed (Nedir's Famulus and Assassin's Battle Narcotics Skills were the culprits)
• Skornar's Defender Perk bonus is now granted on the same turn when someone is moving next to him
• The maximum available Codex entries are now properly shown in each game type
• Fixed a Camp UI-related soft lock (there might be more!)
• Fixed the Deputy tutorial related soft-lock if Morwen is severely wounded
• Frame misalignment is fixed in Companion Combat
• Combat Traits have been reworked, so upgrading more levels at once is now possible if other requirements are met
• Initiative order icons now only appear after the fight has begun
• A Burrow Skill related bug has been fixed
• Fixed the bug causing the frame of the Companion who got placed the last to disappear on the combat field
• A proficiency point exploit has been fixed
• A vagrus creation exploit has been fixed
• Crew change is now visible on the Camp UI on the first day
• Several tooltips that lacked color coding are now fixed
• The hotkey for Empower and Inspiration are now fixed (they are no longer inverted)
• Item and Gear lists, as well as the Passenger scroll bar disappearing, are now fixed
• Waiting multiple days in Events now works properly

Coming Up Next

• Map movement and Scouting changes
• Knowledge Ambition (a Codex-related victory path) and related quests

Known Issues:

• Escort Task-related anomalies
• Crew combat chance percentages are sometimes shown in reverse

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-06-02 14:10:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our friends at Hooded Horse and Mohawk Games have just released their amazing game here on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/Old_World/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms Designed by Civilization IV and Offworld Trading Company designer Soren Johnson, Old World is a revolutionary historical strategy game where you lead your dynasty over generations of rule against rival kings and queens. Wage massive wars, manage your court, and build a dynasty or watch your empire crumble to dust. What legacy will you leave behind?




Old World plays like a marriage between Civilization and Crusader Kings: how you interact with your family and rivals is just as important as how you manage your growing empire! There's a 10% launch discount on Old World, and if you buy the game before June 1st, you'll get the brand-new Heroes of the Aegean DLC included for free. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1952840/Old_World__Heroes_of_the_Aegean/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms Check out Old World, and tell our friends at Hooded Horse that we sent you!

[ 2022-05-19 11:42:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

the new update is here, and with it comes a free DLC Companion! Note that all the features and changes are automatically accessed via the update, while the Undead chef Vorax is available by downloading the new DLC for free. Now lets see in a bit more detail what each of these additions bring. As ever, you can find the detailed patch notes at the end of the page.

Companion: Vorax

First and foremost, the update brings a new free DLC, which adds a new Companion to the game: the garrulous Undead cook called Vorax. You will find that Vorax is a good fit for almost any comitatus, bringing perks to the table such as his Deputy role Supercargo, as well as his cooking during camping and combat Skills that make him a great support fighter. He comes with his own, expansive Loyalty quest chain, which involves a cooking challenge as well as a less gleeful delve in his dark past.

Initiative Track Changes

To grant more immediate agency to the player during combat and to brush things up for increased visual clarity, weve adjusted combat design so that changes to Initiative will take effect from the active moment when they occur. Furthermore, downed and stunned characters will now show up in the Initiative order, along with new visual adjustments that show their diminished state.

Key Bindings

Responding to your requests, we have added key bindings to this update. From now on, you will be able to find customizable bindings in the menu you may assign up to two bindings for each action. Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.1.00 - Codename: Voracious

New Content :gift:

• New Companion: Vorax with his own Loyalty quest-chain, combat Skills, and abilities

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Passenger details UI was changed in the mansio, we streamlined the representation of information
• Key bindings were added to the options menu
• Selection skirts are now in front of characters instead of behind them
• UI tooltips (such as Codex or Journal) now pop up in Settlements, too
• Added Equipment and Gear drag&drop highlights
• Equipment will automatically unequipped when a requirement is no longer met
• New Initiative order animations have been added
• Crew change list on CampUI will not cut off longer texts
• Further improvements to the Game Log
• Drag & Drop sound effects were added for character portraits, as well as highlights for Equipment and Gear
• Now you can turn on/off Crew Combat and Companion Combat animations separately
• Various fixes for ultrawide screens

New and Updated Features :shiny:

• Game Log now indicates if Equipment is unequipped automatically and specifies the reason
• Added option to turn Ambience and Narration on/off

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Fixed the bug causing Outriders to dismount in case of maximum Cargo
• Maximum Cargo will no longer exceed 600 on the UI
• Anomalies with resolution changes have been fixed
• The position of Conflagrations circle has been fixed
• Companion selection now filters Deputies in Event choices
• Fixed a UI-wide related bug that resulted in the vagrus being kicked out of a settlement sometimes
• Various Achievement fixes
• Taunt Skills are now working as intended
• Fixed the bug causing Hireling Loyalty changes being listed in the Game Log

Known Issues:

• Companion Combat performance drops
• Escort Task-related anomalies
• The occasional disappearance of sliders from Equipment and Item lists

Coming Up Next

• UI improvements and bug fixes
• Free note-taking feature on the Chart and in the Journal
• Obstacles in combat

LudoNarraCon

A final piece of good news: Vagrus will be taking part in the LudoNarraCon promotion and sale, so between May 5th and 10th you will be able to purchase the game for the largest discount yet!
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig | Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord

[ 2022-05-05 16:51:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

here is another short list of much-needed fixes that should stabilize the latest build while maintaining the quality of the game. A huge thanks to everyone who reported issues and gave us feedback over at our discord server! Important Note: There is always the chance that despite our best efforts we broke something. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.0.51 - Easter Hotfix

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Camp shadow pops up parallel with the camp UI (will no longer slow down the transition)
• Fixed the bug causing Movement Points to not replenish after camping
• Fixed the Perk UI-related crash that occurred on Hirelings
• Fixed disappearing allies in more instances after starting Companion Combat
• Fixed a Game log crash when clicked on reputation tier change during events
• Fixed an Event script error that led from the authorities of Deven to another storyline altogether
• You can now talk to Renkailon while on his recruitment quest (he reiterates what needs to be done)
• Eylani is now always deployed in the last fight of her questline

Lastly, on behalf of Lost Pilgrims Studio, happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it! The Companions are already busy hiding and finding eggs. :) Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-04-14 16:08:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

We managed to squeeze in quite a number of improvements and reworks while new content is being created by the team. It includes a lot of things that we have been unable to rework until now, so we're super satisfied that we got around to them. In this patch, we specifically concentrated on Companion Combat UI and the Game Log, but there are a lot of other additions and fixes, too. We've collected a few here for your convenience, but you can find the detailed patch notes at the end of the post, too.

Companion UI

We reworked the majority of the UI pane for Companions and much of what we did was based on player feedback. The interface now comes across as much more obvious, easier to read, including targeting information on skills as well as other information represented by icons (each with its own tooltip). Power cost is also prominently featured now.

Gear and Prowess Options

The improved Companion UI is now readily accessible during combat deployment and Companion selection (during Events) to provide more agency to players. This means that you can now change Gear and level up Companions on these screens, too (except in Crew Combat ambushes and its subsequent rounds).
Matching these changes, enemies in Companion combat also received their own pane with stats and information that you can browse to be able to make decisions regarding your Companions' Gear and Perks.

Companion Selection Rework

This specific rework involved moving the Companion portraits from the left onto the Event scroll itself so that the Companion UI can open in its place.

Assigning Deputies on the Fly

A new feature snuck into this new build, too: you will be able to reassign Deputies during the day at the cost of Resourcefulness from time to time. The timer is an in-game week just like with some of the other Leadership skills (lowered by the Authority stat).

Game Log Changes

We've felt for a while now that despite providing important information, the game log is not as informative as we would like it to be. And so we took our tools to it to give it a nice facelift and rework.
First off, important items in the log will now be clickable: codex links, journal references, chart, and so on. This change makes it much easier to find the things the log is about and dig deeper if you wish. Additionally, save files now include the entries in the log, so if you open the game after a hiatus, you will be able to get back into the swing of things much easier using the game log.

Companion Combat UI Changes

Health bars received a major overhaul - gone are the round meters divided into 5 parts. They were often quite difficult to decode, as a single segment in the case of larger enemies often represented 5-8 Vitality points. Thus, it the meter did not budge even after several smaller hits, confusing players. We've been looking for the right design for a while and now we think we've found it, so we took the time to implement it. The new health bar displays Vitality in a percentage-based gauge.
Enemies that take up two spaces received extra care: we got rid of their weird double round bases and gave them a longer health bar along with a single, large targeting box.
Another addition is that the bars will indicate expected damage (or heal) when hovering over them with an activated Skill.
We've rolled with this display style and implemented it so that now after a damaging attack (or healing Skill use), the Vitality meter shows the damage for a moment before subtracting the value from the target.

New Blood on Hit Types

Another small, albeit quite immersive, change we've finally gotten around to is that creatures that do not bleed or have an irregular blood color received their own blood decal when hit. No longer will Cinderborn and Splinters bleed but have their specific kind of damage represented in combat.

Character Sheet Changes

In Part I. of upcoming changes, one of the most significant changes was the updated character sheet that can be opened and used in the deployment phase and during Companion selection in Events. You may have noticed it there that the sheets themselves received an overhaul, too. The whole Skill section was revamped to be more informative and less cluttered with text. All sorts of information is now displayed that Skills were lacking, along with new icons to ease the identification of combat Skill attributes and effects.
Targeting now has its own block with sets of icons that make a simple reading of the Skill more intuitive. Categories like Impediment were broken down into sub-classes such as Push, Pull, Stun, and so on, so now you get more detailed information on what will happen upon using the Skill. A large number of tooltips were added to compliment the changes. Whew, and that was only the big stuff. And now, let's jump into the patch details. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.0.50 - Codename: Prepared

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Character UI is: - Now openable before Companion combat (except in ambushes) so you can change Gear or level up to be able to face the adversities - Now available for enemy characters so you can check their stats and Skills in advance - Now also available during Companion selection in Events, allowing you more freedom to change Gear or level up Prowess, too (or simply check what's what)
• Camp shadow added to camping for more immersion
• Shift + left click now works on Crew in the mansio (for hiring or kicking them out in bulk)
• Changing Deputies during the day is available for some Resourcefulness
• Game log now shows more updates and most entries are clickable to access the relevant information

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Reworked Companion selection UI in Events
• Completely reworked Vitality and Power bars in Companion Combat
• Campaign map node radial menu highlights were added
• Enduring Effect tooltip updated on Crew and Character UIs
• A new standalone Character UI was implemented, which is now visible in the deploy phase and during Companion select
• Unused Skill boxes were removed from the enemy Character UI
• Simplified the Outrider feedback on the Crew UI
• Added tooltips to main menu options
• Added a new option to remove the Companion Combat position frames (for those that want a less busy UI)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Skornar won't retaliate when in Guard Stance if the triggering attack Downs him
• Out of Action is now logged only once in the Combat Log, not twice
• Stats affected by Gear now update instantly
• Vagrus background dependency tooltips were reformatted to avoid script-like text
• Fixed a bug preventing converting Mounts to Outriders when having less than 1 cargo slot
• Locked foraging will not trigger working odd jobs in settlements from now on
• Workforce related calculations were fixed
• The smelter in Avernum deducts 15 Scrapmetal instead of 20, as displayed
• The Ahskulite retinue will now properly remove themselves from the party when you convince them to go back to Deven by themselves

Known Issues:

• Vitality bars sometimes blink briefly during Round switching
• Combat performance drops
• Escort task-related anomalies

Coming Up Next

• New Companion: Vorax - FreeLC for all owners of Vagrus
• Options to change key bindings

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-04-07 13:32:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

A fellow indie developer team from our hometown has just released their role-playing game so we are very happy to share this Steam cross-promotion post with you all. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374930/Black_Geyser_Couriers_of_Darkness/ If youve ever played Baldurs Gate or Icewind Dale, youll feel right at home in the old school Black Geyser. Developed by a small indie studio in Budapest, Hungary, its a love letter to those titans of the genre, with plenty of its own twists. Developed since 2015, backed on Kickstarter, and having entered into Early Access in August 2022, its launch is today at 11 AM EST (4 PM GMT).




Black Geyser is set in Yerengal, a world where dark gods have brought nothing but venality and greed. For centuries, the Devil-god Rothgor has spread fear and terror, waging war upon the mortal races. Eventually banished, the nation of Isilmerald has enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity. Yet discontent has begun to fester once more, and a bloody civil war is brewing between the capital Isilbright and the wealthy mining town of Deron-Guld. [previewyoutube=oNVCb5PmJ-I;full][/previewyoutube] Like any classic isometric CRPG, life starts out at the character creator. There are 5 playable races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Feldegug and Rillow) and 13 unique classes, from 4 unique class groups (Priest, Outlaw, Warrior, and Wizard). Each plays completely different from the other and theres enough here to suit all styles. After tinkering on the attribute screen (time to panic over those points!), youre dropped into a world thats plagued by pestilence and mysterious abductions. Without wishing to spoil the story, its your job to uncover the hidden legacy of your birth, across a world youre free to explore. Since its Early Access and over the last seven months, Black Geyser has taken the time to improve almost all areas of its game. The entire purpose of getting the game into the hands of players as soon as possible was clearly to refine its vision, identify problem areas and put them right. Having delivered over 20 huge updates, including Mac and Linux support, Black Geyser has made sweeping changes. From vastly improved loading times, to clearer player tutorials, improved crafting, new zones, enemies and questlines, the small development team have ensured they've focused on addressing and reacting to key player feedback.
As a CRPG with a large open world with dozens of unique locations, exploring, interacting with NPCs and managing Black Geysers tactical-combat-with pause is key. Just like most party-based titles of old, youll need to recruit key allies, discover their motivations, choose your formations and deck them out in any weapons and armor you can lay your hands on, whether thats from taking on epic bosses, or stealing from a nearby inn (just dont get caught by the guards). Black Geyser is undoubtedly a challenging experience, but first and foremost it puts its story and unique greed mechanic at the center. The choices you make will either advance the cause of the Goddess of Greed, or maintain the flame of hope to impact directly on the game world. Yerengal is brimming with content to discover, with varied grim biomes that have plenty of atmosphere that are filled with dangers. If you camp for the night, theres every chance youll be ambushed. If you stray too far from the beaten track, dont be surprised if you encounter enemies waiting to smash you to a pulp. With a branching narrative spanning more than 300,000 lines of text and multiple endings, theres more than 60 hours of content available here, not including all the side quests and secrets to uncover. Scratching that old school itch is the name of Black Geysers game, and with future launch plans set to bring pets, strongholds and additional content, its launch this week is only the beginning. Available now on Steam at a discounted price before it launches into 1.0 today ($29.99). Are you ready to be corrupted by Black Geysers greed? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374930/Black_Geyser_Couriers_of_Darkness/

[ 2022-03-17 15:00:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy International Women's Day

First of all, on behalf of us at Lost Pilgrims Studio, we would like to thank all the fantastic women in our lives and by extension, commend all women everywhere. Keep on rocking, ladies!

Our New Office

With the new year come new challenges and new momentum as well for Lost Pilgrims. As a part of that we've now moved into a new office space after a long period of working exclusively from home. During the Covid years the studio had to adapt to the unfortunate situation and admittedly, this arrangement was quite hit-and-miss for the majority of the team. Now that we are also recruiting, we decided to move into an office again - at least those of us who have to communicate and iterate on a daily basis. As fates would have it, the new office is just a block or two away from our previous one and is in an office building that is in a better general condition. Here's a photo of the empty office on the day of moving. It was a cold day, the first Monday of the new year.
Moving into a new office is a logistical hurdle on its own but due to the general wood shortage and IKEA being literally empty after Christmas, we could only get used desks - at least it's easier on the environment, eh?
The photo below shows phase 2, when we were looking for the screws as well as good places for desks. It was slowly coming together.
Phase 3 (below): desks are in place and a handful of chairs were also deployed. We could not procure used shelves in the desired color and style but we managed to get a Kallax shelf set from the IKEA on the other side of Budapest. Irafons smiled on us!
Phase 4: the Kallax and the rest of the furniture were assembled. Great success!
With that, the new office was conquered and since then, the team's core has been working there every weekday. The personal interactions were sorely missed and we're very excited to be able to hang out and work on Vagrus again. Just like with game development, while the front end looks good, there are still a few things to be tied off in the back. :D

Pizza Time

Because of your continuous support, we are still up and running and now that we have moved into our new office, we can finally enjoy the pizzas you have bought us via the supporter option. This is the sorta treat that the inhabitants of the wastelands would go to war for! Fortunately, our delivery arrived in time so we haven't had to raid the local pizzerias.


All jokes aside, we are grateful to be able to share these simple, fun moments in the team (and with you with these posts) while working on the game.

All Merch Dispatched & Fig Campaign Closing

We are happy to report that after a long, drawn-out battle with boxes, wrappers, and the employees of the postal services, we managed to send out all the physical rewards we could. All that remains are a handful of rewards where some information is missing (we did not receive a name or an address from the customer) or that wasn't picked up. But the vast majority of the rewards are on their way - if not at their destinations already. (A number of US packages are still held up and waiting for entry at Customs.) Altogether, the process was quite exhausting but the moments when the various items of merch arrived were great. By the time of penning this post, everyone on the team has received their T-shirts and had a chance to fiddle with the physical rewards.
The artbook turned out to be a fan and team favorite. Picking the finished order up from the printer and moving it around on this tiny cart was quite a funny sight to behold.
They barely fit in the trunk of the car!
Packing for delivery was much less exciting but there is a certain pressure involved: you want to make sure that everything arrives to its destination intact.
Of course, those that have no funds to hire people to handle fulfillment, nor to rent a warehouse, have to face the consequences: no living room for a couple of months!
Luckily, order has returned by now and all that remains is a stack of Collectors' Editions - which, turns out, is quite an amazing sight!

Closing our Fig Campaign in March

Fig is shifting their focus to investments only without the crowdfunding side, so it's time for us to move on as well. With barely a few pledges in the last few months, it was a no-brainer to decide that we are closing our Fig campaign down (on 13th March), and will eventually look for a new place to sell our merch through. A big Thank You! to everyone supporting us over there - our earliest supporters along with our friends on Patreon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-03-08 14:01:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

we have a new patch for Vagrus, which is incidentally the first to add sizable new content - namely, the faction leader NPCs and interactions for the Loaders' and Carpenters' Guilds, something that has been lacking compared to other factions. Each of them can give you a new quest to further get into their good graces (and get a little something-something for yourself in the process, of course). Below are the detailed patch notes. Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.0.20 - Codename: Guilder

New/Updated Content :gift:

• Carpenters' and Loaders' Guild bases of operation, their Faction Leaders, and a faction quest each were added

New and Tweaked Features :shiny:

• Loyalty feedback: the game log and Event results now show what companions like and dislike (but deliberately do not expand on how much they like or dislike the choice)
• Dissonance mode difficulty was further lowered in several ways: - Simply trading Goods on the Market is now slightly more profitable - Faction Tasks now pay slightly more - Supplies now cost less in certain regions - The chance of running into Crew Combat encounters is now slightly lower - Working and defending crew requirements got a bit lower

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• New, unique Deputy art assets on the Deputy screen for each role
• Added "and" and "or" in event dependencies to clarify them
• "Not" dependency tooltips have been added
• Mercenary/Trade Task tooltip on Chart was added
• Faction descriptions were streamlined
• Chart default position added when opening for the first time
• Keyboard zoom on Chart was implemented
• Overlapping Markers now shuffle
• Added a new button in the Codex that opens the Chart for Point of Interest entries
• Vagrus creation text lengths altered to fit boxes
• Deputy tooltip now shows the available characters for that role
• Relevant Camp UI tooltips also show up on the Crew UI
• Leadership Perk tooltips now indicate the Resourcefulness cost of use Renown gained from reaching
• Faction standing thresholds are now indicated in the game log
• Cargo throw-out visual was polished
• Companions screen visual was polished
• Crew Details box visual was polished
• Deputy screen buttons were improved
• Campaign map radial menu buttons now react to hover and clicking
• Main menu options colors were adjusted
• Journal visual was polished
• Market Buy and Sell buttons were improved
• Camp UI's End Day button was improved
• Chart text outline was tweaked to be more legible

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Incorrect Ward (defense) calculation in Crew Combat was fixed
• Beast Swap and Slave Sell buttons' tooltips are updated and indicate the real reason when inactive
• Various Proficiency-spending-related bugs have been fixed
• Chart text corrections
• In restricted settlements, hotkeys will not open Mansio/Market anymore
• Force Shield III now grants buff to Finndurath as it supposed to
• Perks going negative after Gear swap issue fixed
• The stickyUI stuck on the screen (pun intended) issue resolved
• Wind shaman icon asset resolution fixed
• Criminality feedbacks are now hidden everywhere as was always intended
• Fixed some broken Codex links in events
• Broken Crew Combat enemy and comitatus mini-flags fixed
• Avernum smelting yield was rebalanced
• Average price shows up on Goods tooltips in settlements on both the Market and Cargo sides
• Sell button tooltip fixed
• Grit calculation has been fixed

Known Issues:

• Companion Combat performance drops
• Escort Task-related anomalies
• Occasional disappearence of the slides from Equipment and Item lists

Coming Up Next

• User Interface improvements and bug fixes
• New Comapnion Free-LC

As you can see above, next up is a whole new Companion, so expect news about him soon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-02-23 10:37:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, we are happy to share that Vagrus has been included in the Big Adventure Event (#theBAE) on Steam organized by Hitcents. The event will be running between January 20 -24 with 100 demos and games. As part of #theBAE and with our schedules finally lining up with our dear content creator friend, KormakrTv, we recorded a special Vagrus session for you all. While showing off the game, Kormakr have had a little chat with Sztaszov, Lost Pilgrims' co-founder and game designer on Vagrus - The Riven Realms. Check out the event if you missed the actual livestream! The event will be on air here on Steam from 12:00am CST/7:00am CET, 22st of January. We hope you will enjoy the show. Conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-01-21 17:44:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, we are happy to share that Vagrus has been included in the Big Adventure Event (#theBAE) on Steam organized by Hitcents. The event will be running between January 20 -24 with 100 demos and games. As part of #theBAE and with our schedules finally lining up with our dear content creator friend, KormakrTv, there will be a special Vagrus Let's Play on his twitch channel. While showing off the game, Kormakr will chat with Sztaszov, Lost Pilgrims' co-founder and game designer on Vagrus - The Riven Realms. It's a great opportunity to ask any questions during the stream, so come along and watch it if you can. The event will be on air from 8:30am CST/3:30pm CET, 21st of January. We're looking forward to talking about the game and our future plans as well. See you around, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2022-01-19 13:55:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

we've had a final patch for this year in the works for a while now. This one also includes fixes and tweaks primarily before we move on to adding chunks of new stuff next year. Still, rounding these glitches out first was more important than rushing headlong into creating new stuff, so we hope you appreciate the work we put in this one. We would hereby like to express our appreciation and gratitude to the awesome people who have been active on our social media platforms, sharing articles and links, voting on Vagrus in award shows, giving advice to people on our discord and other platforms, or helping us by reporting a lot of large and small things that could be tweaked or fixed in Vagrus. It would be difficult to list you. But you know who you are. :) Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.0.17 - Codename: Bombus Magnificus

Content Tweaks

• House Venari faction rewards have been reworked
• Various faction reward tweaks (Only reclaimables, not Enduring Effects. The new rewards are claimable in addition and will not replace the old ones. We are uncharacteristically generous in this regard... but the Holidays are coming up, so enjoy!)
• Some Equipment and Gear stats were tweaked
• Explorer starter item changed to be more in line with other Callings
• You can get a second Heat Shielding Crystal in case you accidentally sell the first one (it might not be easy, however)
• Hollow Eyes are now silent in combat, as they should be
• Killing tax collectors will have more severe consequences: Bounty hunter attacks start on a slightly lower Imperial Criminality rate (as a warning) while on higher criminality, the legionaries try to apprehend you
• Small economy tweaks so that the rumors do not contradict actual market prices

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Loyalty tooltip has been updated to indicate the order of Loyalty levels
• Authority and Resourcefulness tooltips have been updated to be more precise and informative
• Companion background texts and Faction descriptions were tweaked (fixed length and polished texts)
• Blessing of Unbinding description now refers to a more generic source of the effect

Event Fixes :shiny:

• Several journal inconsistencies were fixed
• Choices leading to the wrong step in several Events were fixed
• A lot of Event text has been polished across the board
• Garrik is no longer recruitable twice (sorry) SPOILERS AHEAD
• [spoiler]The final showdown in Garrik's questline was tweaked not to spoil a surprise ahead of time by applying a certain buff too soon[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]Eylani's loyalty adjustments in events have been revamped and some gift-related choices are now visible in her banter[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]You can no longer ask about ingredients from Thadraz during Gor'Goro's questline when you've already delivered them[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]Skornar's stealthy prison break now does not refer to fighting patrols if it was successful[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]Eylani's personal quest progression related to Tectum Carvos was rewritten a bit not to refer to the town's current state so much (seeing that it could be vastly different depending on the time of doing her quest)[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]Finndurarth-related story inconsistencies have been fixed in Salum[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]Agoram now blesses the party with Unbinding in Finndurarth's last quest step (if you called him to the Conclave)[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]The Source of Discord quest was tweaked so that you can complete the (optional) dream-catching step even if all the required sub-objectives are already completed (this makes it so that patient players are unlikely to miss this optional objective)[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]The description of the forum of Tectum Carvos - as well as its initial description - now reflects the town's state better in relation to the major questline there[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]The shamans are always back at Kotrar when you return the trial contingent[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]A Terathion's Fall event softlock when there were no choices is now fixed[/spoiler]
• [spoiler]There are now no rumors about Wyrms after their final defeat[/spoiler]

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Camp UI soft-lock related to the throw-out UI resolved
• AOE attack Skills now hit all intended targets
• Fixed the bug where Companions could occupy the same position
• Various Acrobatics-related positioning bugs have been fixed
• Jhakra Alpha's Roar accuracy has been nerfed further
• Morgarthan's strange glow should be gone now
• Victory screen texts were improved where they were a bit wonky

Known Issues:

• Combat performance
• Various Escort tasks related anomalies

Coming Up Next (in early 2022)

• Faction leaders for the two criminal syndicates (with a faction quest each)
• A new companion as a Free-DLC
• Criminal system tweaking
• Continued bug fixes and tweaks
• UI improvements

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-12-22 12:40:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, this last month has been slow but we managed to push out new builds for both the main game and our demo last week, so that's a relief. Throughout November, most of our team members were either on sick leave or vacation, while the rest of us were trying to finish tasks related to our physical Vagrus products or were busy formulating plans for the future of Lost Pilgrims. Bear with us though, as we are getting closer to realizing these plans. For now, let us look at what we are working on in more detail.

Producing Merchandise is Hard

When you have a game full of content, you might think that it's easy to "pull together stuff" and produce merchandise from it but in reality, anything you want to use needs some rework to fit for that new purpose. Still, that was within our domain. What came as a bigger shock was how hard it was to find partners for the actual production. No one wants to deal with small order numbers or produce on the level of quality we aimed for. Just as an example, we tried four suppliers to produce our Emperor's Edition boxes but in the end, we ended up giving the job to a creator who makes them by hand because that was the only way that the final product would meet our expectations. But hey, at least now we can say they are truly "handcrafted". With the little delays eating into our timeline and due to the game's rocky launch, we had to pause our merch production for October but once our hotfixes were rolled out, we got back to it and everything seems to be on track. So expect some new posts about the ready products soon.
Overall, it also means that we will only be able to start merchandise deliveries this month (December 2021).

Planning Our Future

We promised to share our plans soon after launch, but to do that, we needed to make said plans first: assess options and decide where and how we would like to get to with the game and with our studio. Video games, especially indie games, often earn half of their lifetime revenue in the first month of their release. From that perspective, the launch of Vagrus was satisfactory. Not bad but not particularly amazing either. We have enough runaway to continue but we also need to find and create additional revenue sources within a reasonable time to ensure our long-term financial stability, especially considering our debt payments in the future.

Continuing with Vagrus

With Vagrus, being short on content- and improvement ideas has never been an issue. The challenge we face now is how to split our resources between improving the base game and creating new revenue sources like DLCs, ports, and so on. We received tons of great insights from our players. That helps us in prioritizing our endless improvement-idea list. So we would definitely like to implement some of those sooner rather than later. The question is how far we can go with those before switching to porting and other endeavors. We are a tiny team, you see, with a single coder, so presently that is a bottleneck we have to account for.

Hedging long term

The solution to the above conundrum would be to grow the team (aka: hire more people), so improvements and other development areas could run parallel. It's a risk but one we are leaning toward taking, hoping that our community will appreciate those efforts and supports us on the way. Of course, hiring and onboarding new folks take time too, so if we do that, it will slow down things even more for a period of time. But then, afterwards, the new speed can be higher, so naturally, it's an investment into the future.

The Next Months and Beyond

There is little left of 2021 but we do hope to get some work done and then build on that in early 2022. So here's a vague outline of what to expect (subject to change of course, due to a number of unforeseeable reasons):

Plans for PC:

• Continue with general bugfixes
• UI design improvements based on community feedback
• Smaller content bits (stories, NPCs, additional options, portraits, etc.)
• DLCs

As for the latter, we are currently considering three DLCs by the end of 2022 on top of smaller content additions:

• DLC1 (Free) - A new Companion [yes, a Supercargo steamthumbsup]
• DLC2 (unsure if Free or Paid) - Additional major storyline(s) within the currently available playable area
• DLC3 (Paid) - A new region with new stories

Opening New Revenue Sources

The above-mentioned DLCs can be one new source we could count on (naturally, only the paid DLCs). Their creation requires a significant investment, though, so they are not exactly a surefire way to drum up money for the future. Thus, we are trying to come up with other avenues as well. For example, once the game is fairly stable, we will be looking into potentially releasing it on other, smaller platforms (like Humble, Epic, etc.). Their potential is tiny compared to Steam but maybe the effort is low enough to release on them and get access to a new audience.

Porting to handhelds

While Nintendo Switch and iPads seem like two good candidates, there is a lot to be reworked on the UI to make it usable on their smaller screens, not to mention controller support, if we can solve it, otherwise, we will just need to stick to touch controls. Porting would certainly require a higher investment (time and effort) but one that looks promising enough to explore further as an option. Update: - thanks Rusty Dragon for pointing out - we forgot to mention Steam Deck which comes into play here too, requiring all the UI re-work but not extra porting effort, hopefully.

Merchandise

Having gone through the pain of creating our merchandise portfolio, it would be great to leverage that better and make it into a revenue-generating thing.

Reinvent our Patreon presence

With the game released, we need to revisit our content pipe anyways, so it's also a great time to consider how we could offer other and better things on Patreon that would be appealing to more people to pitch in. We'd love to hear your input on what you think we could do, like offering Tiers that include physical merch rewards, perhaps? Would you see more, exclusive posts about the world of the Riven Realms or perhaps about the creation of the game? Let us know.

Partner up

Perhaps there are mutually beneficial partnerships out there for indiedevs that could enable us to upscale our team. We are exploring this avenue too. As always, thanks a lot for your continued support, it means a lot to us! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-12-02 14:53:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

While our team is recovering from Covid/other illnesses, we finally managed to pull together a patch worth of bug fixes. More fixes are coming soon, but for now, let's take a look at what else we're working on.

Merch Shipped Soon

Despite all the hurdles (production issues, massive paper shortage, etc.) our Vagrus-related merchandise is in the last stages of production. Shipping will start as soon as we receive the finalized items from the printing factories. We are sorry about the delays, it has been a difficult road to get here.
Should you be interested in placing a last-minute order, you can do so on our Fig page making a $1 pledge and shop for 'Add-Ons'. Note that considering all the global shipping issues we can hear about on the news, we cannot guarantee delivery before the Holidays. Now let's jump into the patch details: Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.0.16 - Codename: Lil' Bugger

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Outpost progress-related bug (image and required crew not advancing properly) in older saves has been fixed
• Various Outpost management related tweaks
• Longer Journal entries can be scrolled all the way down
• Goods placed in Hidden Compartments will stay there after loading the game
• Camping during events can not be interrupted
• Mercenary Task-related throw-out UI bug has been fixed
• When a Perk is unlocked but we have insufficient Proficiency, a tooltip line now indicates how many points you lack to buy that Perk
• Some save file exploits fixed
• Fixed a few Event script issues

Known Issues:

• Combat performance
• Various Escort tasks related anomalies
• A shed-load of bugs you folks reported but we have not gotten to process yet. On it!

Coming Up Next

• Bug fixes and tweaks
• UI improvements
• Early 2022 - A new companion as a Free DLC

The launch of Vagrus was good enough to give us some runaway to figure out the best way forward. While are still weighing our options on how to make the game and the studio financially stable in the long run and we are planning a post giving you a peek into our thought-process on that soon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-11-25 14:50:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks, Having played decades of tabletop RPG campaigns in the setting and Vagrus' narrative landing north of one million words in the form of stories and codex entries, Story-Rich certainly rings true when it comes to our game. If you enjoyed the setting and stories of Vargus, it would be an honor to receive your nomination in the Outstanding Story-Rich Game category. Thank you very much for your support! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer Ps.: the category template art of Steam does seem a little off from the dark tone of Vagrus but hey, here goes anyway. :D

[ 2021-11-24 18:16:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey, everyone! While we work on our next patch and formulate our plans for this and next year, we wanted to say thanks to our indie developer friends at Sever studio who helped us with a great Vagrus cross-promo post on their The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Steam community page at the time our launch. The timing is just great as they have just announced their new game:Mother of All Secrets, an RPG of mythical intrigues and occult mysteries. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747660/Mother_of_All_Secrets/ If you are one who's into the text-based game, consider following and wishlisting the game, so you won't miss the upcoming news, latest devlogs, and sneak peeks! Mother of All Secrets, a mystery RPG about an orphanage where the fates of the heroes irreversibly change with every tick of the clock. Become one of the pupils and unravel the mysteries of the House by influencing the minds, hearts, and plans of its inhabitants. Here's their official trailer: [previewyoutube=nlJLqRXFtbA;full][/previewyoutube] Get ready to dive into the very heart of the events that unfold inside the orphanage's closed society. Hand-drawn graphics will immerse you into the reality of your new home. Create your own character and live out a unique story only you decide how to spend each and every hour. Go about uncovering the asylum's secrets however you like. Make friends or enemies at your own discretion. Explore the darkest and most dangerous corners of the House. Unravel other people's schemes and draw up your own plans. Obey or risk breaking the cryptic rules that govern the orphanage and face the consequences.
Also don't miss other games from Studio sever and 101XP, including critically acclaimed narrative-driven RPG The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. If you are interested in getting a glimpse of the game, check its free prologue now OR participate in the community event to win your personal Deluxe Edition.

[ 2021-11-02 14:15:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

We are putting out another round of fixes today. Though the list is shorter than usual, it has some bugs on it that we've been trying to squash for a while now. Hopefully, they won't cause any trouble from now on. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.015. - Codename: Wasted

New Content :gift:

• New Jagged Waste codex entry added to all vagri

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• "P" hotkey now opens and closes Price History (the Chart remains in the background)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Merging UI glitch (causing several interfaces to merge into a mess) is now fixed
• "Less than a stack" drag&drop exploit is no longer possible
• The issue causing various New Game related anomalies like ruined Velarias or Fort Larius has been fixed so it should not reoccur in the future
• 'Cull Their Ranks' now shows the correct number of deployable companions
• Withdrawing money from the outpost causing a crash fixed
• Mount crew stats not showing up when 'All mounted' is now fixed
• Abolitionist-related Tasks now always point to valid destination settlement (with unlocked Abolitionist presence)
• Shift + click on the Outrider converting buttons (+/-) now work on the Crew Combat UI
• Settlement UI no longer pops up randomly during Crew Combat

Known Issues:

• A rare soft-lock when various UI actions follow each other mixing Event, camping, crew, and companion combats in a particular fashion we've not been able to reproduce
• AI taking too long in Companion Combat is still being looked at by the team

Coming Up Next

Bug fixing continues. Meanwhile, the team needs to regroup and assess things post-release, so this time we'll just say that our plans will be revealed soon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-29 12:08:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

A new week, a new patch! We keep tweaking things and adding smaller stuff for now while fixing bugs. Some are tougher than others, of course, so bear with us. Most of the fixes and tweaks were made possible due to a passionate and active player base - we can't thank you enough!
Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.012. - Codename: Settled

Improvements and Tweaks :gift:

• GorGoro receives a tiny Loyalty boost if you visit Drius every 40 days or so
• You can now buy booze for the crew in Larnaks Bumbling Boatman
• 3 new equipment added (Perimeter Alarms and Traveling Saddles can be bought in some markets, while Mount Blankets can be acquired via other means)
• Removed the Evade malus from GorGoros Armor so that certain builds are not unfairly gimped retroactively (Dragonsteel IS very light and flexible!)
• Several characters received the ability to invest Proficiency points into the Religion Perk (to variable degrees)
• Skornars Guard Stance was tweaked so that he retaliates once in a round (maximum) on Level 1, twice on Level 2, and three times on Level 3
• Lowered Skornars insanely high Cold Resistances across the board (he is still very good at resisting cold)
• Specters received a new combat Skill called Chill of the Grave, which can lower the targets Cold Resistance for 3 rounds
• Mining stealthily at the Hills of Plenty was tweaked so that your actual mining skills and workforce decides your yield, not your skill in sneaking (yields from this can never reach the potential of legitimate mining, but you can still mostly avoid being caught with the right amount of stealthy Perks)
• Skornar can now enter the Tomb of Kathovras with more of his buddies
• Added a long, long codex entry to all characters called 'the Imperial Calendar' (you asked for it!)
• Tectum Carvoss Tarkian population is now willing to sell you some specialized equipment (some only after helping the town with the siege)
• Reworked the faction quest rewards and for Houses Venari, Darius, and Oquo to make them more in line with each other (including Oquos presence rising in case of your success in Larnak)

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• We unlocked the Companion and Deputy buttons on Leader UI again
• Inactive effects on Statuses now indicate why they are inactive similarly to Equipment inactive effects

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Players whose Outpost questline was locked from progressing (because they progressed far before 1.01) can now fix their questline via an Event step at the Officium Factum in any of the major cities
• Consumption and Workforce calculated erroneously while fully mounted are now fixed
• The 'Cull Their Ranks' action in Crew Combat now always allows for the maximum number of Companions to be deployed
• Prowess nodes on the level-up UI now indicate the gated levels correctly
• Frenzy Perk granted by the Smoldering Heart is now working properly
• Some Outpost-related background calculations were fixed
• Now you can actually profits from your outpost's piggy bank
• Garrik and Skornar personal questline Achievements are fixed (should be retroactively restored with the right journal entries completed)
• Corrected the faulty turn-in step of the Golden Theory once you finish Kandakes requests
• Fixed an instance where the Event choice took you to the wrong step in Avernums Carpenters Guild
• Skornars Prowess unlocks occurring at the wrong points in his questlines are now fixed
• Skornar's Axe Swing not triggering from Guard Stance fixed (again, hopefully permanently this time)
• Fixed another instance of softlocking paths in the Wayward Souls quests Artakin Tomb
• The test dummy bandit was again removed, this time from the final battle of the Wyrm War questline (replaced with the correct battle)
• Living Shadows as Mercenary Task opponents are now properly indicated as Impervious
• Corrected Kral Hestaeras NPC portraits across her appearances in Tectum Carvos
• You can no longer deploy other characters alongside GorGoro in his one-on-one duel in his questline (and the fight now has the Arena Maximus background)
• The Dread Reavers guide quest marker repositioned again (hopefully to its final place - note that it is not retroactive, so if you were on the quest step before the update, you see the old marker)
• You can ask the Stinger Lord and the Quiet Man about Wyrm-related things when on the right quest step (but dont expect much from them)
• The Perk Flyer was removed and the single instance it was in a Test was replaced with Finndurarth (she is the only character with limited flight abilities)
• Fixed some quest items not being removed (not retroactive)

Known Issues:

• A rare soft-lock when various UI actions follow each other mixing Event, camping, crew, and companion combats in a particular fashion we've not been able to reproduce
• AI taking too long in Companion Combat is still being looked at by the team

Coming Up Next

Bug fixing continues. Meanwhile, the team needs to regroup and assess things post-release, so this time we'll just say that our plans will be revealed soon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-26 12:16:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

We've been trying to catch up since the launch last Tuesday and get on top of some of the bugs that many of you reported while also rounding out the missing Outpost and Wealth victory path ending parts. Although some bugs are still being hunted, the latter two are now being added to Vagrus. This means that you can now build your own outpost out in the wasteland (one specific spot for now, room for expansion later), and upgrade it bit by bit so that in the end it yields you profit from time to time if managed properly. It is important to know that no new UI or feature comes with the outpost, since Vagrus is not a game that involves building stuff - the outpost is instead presented in Event format like it was envisioned from the beginning (and similar to other victory paths). Once completed, the outpost can be used for vagri with the Wealth ambition to win the game (but can be completed with all vagri). It's super expensive to do that, mind you, giving you a nice endgame goal and challenge. Along with this comes a list of bug fixes and adjustments. Thank you for highlighting these! Your help in identifying and squashing issues is priceless. As for the future, we can see that many of you have been very vocal about which direction the game should go and we truly appreciate all the constructive input and the potential you see in Vagrus. That said, the last few months especially were unbelievably exhausting for our tiny team, and we are not ready to decide on where exactly to go just yet (we have plenty of exciting ideas and plans, of course). We'll take a little break to recharge and start working out our plans for post-release Vagrus with fresh minds. Again, thank you for all the support we received from you all! Bug fixing will continue in the meantime, of course. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements and additions, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.01 - Codename: Outpost

New Content :gift:

• Your outpost can be completed and upgraded via related Events
• Wealth victory is now achievable via the outpost questline (although vagri with other Ambitions can also buy and upgrade the outpost to its full potential)
• The Venari Agent and Senior Agent hirelings have been added
• Added more character portrait options to Dark Elven and Demonkin vagri

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• You can now use Shift+click to mount/dismount by 10 units
• The Deputy UI drag-and-drop area has been enlarged (it's easier to drop Deputies into circles)
• In settlements without slavery, the tooltip will now correctly indicate the reason for not being able to deal in slaves
• Crew condition tooltip effects now roll-up from Perk levels into individual lines

Updated Mechanics :shiny:

• Companion Prowess storyline gating was moved to 4, 6, and 8 (from 3, 5, and 7) to alleviate the unintended combat difficulty increase with the addition of companion loyalty events
• Winning a battle against enemies lessens the impact on your material losses (fleeing survivors can still take stuff and the enemy can still cause harm to beasts and perishable cargo during a fight, so some losses will remain)
• Choosing the 'enslave' option lowers Abolitionist faction reputation
• Staying on the lowest or highest reputation point barrier with a faction disables their knock-on reputation effects for other factions
• A number of market- and economy-related tweaks
• Removed the estimation of days of travel from settlements in your Chart that are not reachable in the game (though this may be somewhat immersion-breaking, the Chart this way might cause less confusion when planning journeys)
• Beast lures received a buff, making them more useful during Appease

Bug Fixes :bug:

/Contains spoilers for some quests/
• Mansio 'Rest' button fix (it will no longer kick you out of the settlement, nor will it cause any other UI issues)
• You can no longer assign Deputies without them actually having the right Perk
• Settlement Artwork collapses properly upon clicking and does not get stuck on your screen (see Known Issues for an exception that still remains for now)
• Skornar's upgraded Axe Swing will properly trigger in his Guard Stance
• Multiple listings of the same equipment will not show up as equipped, only the one that really is equipped
• Fixed a crash caused by riposte-type skills killing the attacker
• Combat Skill Cleanse effect tooltip was fixed
• Your companions after Bestiaris Arena fights will now properly be deselected (making subsequent fights like the challenge battle non-restricted companion-wise)
• Statistics are now shown (and work) on several previously glitched pieces of Gear and Equipment
• The first navigation Equipment slot is open by default while the second gets opened up by assigning a Scout Master deputy
• Skornars slave trading in Pilgrims of the Wasteland is now not repeatable ad nauseum (used to allow you infinite money with enough clicking)
• Cleaned up some Companion portrait mistakes in Events
• The Golden Theory delivery steps now show the correct amount of goods you need to bring to Kandake
• Corrected various errand quest errors in the initial Kernak Waystation event
• The aptly named BottomFront Dark Elf mercenary was replaced with a regular one, sadly
• Wayward Souls quest blocked progress fixed (when delving into the tomb)
• Dread Reavers guide chart marker repositioned to the correct place
• Various Garrik personal storyline fixes, including: specialists are now recruitable only once, the final achievement for storyline fixed, brothel interaction that blocked progress is fixed, some wording at the smuggling den improved, and the bug that prevented you from picking up the gang in Lumen is fixed (you should get the passengers in your savegame if you progressed further without getting them)
• Blessings of the Sadirar quest (with the 4 blessings to access the upper village) fixed
• Criftaa will get to fight alongside all your companions at the last stage of her quest at the tower (not just the few she skulked around with)
• Harveks personal villa fight will now have the correct enemies (although the 50 VIT Brigand test dummy is very sad about this)
• You can no longer tell Caepasius that you failed after turning on him in the Trouble at Fort Larius questline (he holds grudges, that one)
• The rumor about Ashs slave market was reworded not to confuse anyone about the slave prices there
• The issue preventing Eylani from joining the comitatus is fixed (she will magically appear in your comitatus if you recruited her but then never showed up)
• Fort Viridium now allows you to rest there and to stock up on some (expensive) supplies and sell them some goods (via event choices, not the market tab)
• Successfully investigating the lizard symbol for Finndurarth will not unlock the last part of that questline, too
• Thadraz now actually returns your Smoldering Heart when he completes the armor for GorGoro (sneaky Dwarves!)
• Morgarthans Gaol can now be equipped on other Companions beside Nedir, as originally intended (its bonuses were also tweaked)
• Skornars Shield Bash upgrades now have and show the proper requirements
• The Dread Reavers will be now less confusing when it comes to their destinations during a certain part of their questline
• We added options to lower your criminality in Larnak and Avernum, too, you scoundrels, you!
• Harveks payback in the Mines of Plenty now actually requires him to be there with you
• Various objective markers were updated or fixed
• Half-Elves receive minor maluses for Imperial factions at character creation to offset their great potential a bit
• Added clarification to Attributes tooltips as well as some Leadership abilities
• The Draconic Trading House factions now correctly indicate which settlements are included in the tax exemption on Tiers 3+ (the previous, unfortunate wording created some confusion)
• Several Companion storyline fights were tweaked (especially Skornars and Nedirs early battles)
• Criftaa now actually dies when you have her murdered following the KrogVor showdown
• Victory screen slides where the text was too large to fit the box are fixed
• Your weird nightmares will not give you insight infinitely from now on (just several times, as it was intended)
• Certain Crew Combat encounters that caused issues in Events when the foe retreated too early were tweaked - they might be tougher now but cases when they flee and can not be stopped, causing a defeat should be lessened)
• The unintended, overly eager interest in metal (resulting in crazy prices) in Sadirar settlements have been toned down to what was originally intended

Known Issues:

• A few Settlement and Camp buttons are disabled until we find the cause of lockups they cause
• Edge cases can softlock UI - you can load the game to fix it for now
• Loading the game while the settlement art is open causes the UI to crash
• AI taking too long in Companion Combat is still being looked at by the team

Coming Up Next

Bug fixing continues. Meanwhile, the team needs to regroup and assess things post-release, so this time we'll just say that our plans will be revealed soon. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It helps a lot and it is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-16 18:16:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

This one is mostly just a quick temporary fix, for the time being, aimed at circumventing an underlying UI bug that causes several interfaces to soft-lock or to stop responding, breaking the game for some players. We are working on a permanent fix for the issue but until then, some buttons on the UI that cause the lock are disabled:

• Companion and Deputies while on the Leader UI
• Assign Deputies on the camp UI
• Companion Stats button on the camp UI

You can use all of these functions while not resting or not in settlement. We have also implemented a forced UI rebuild when Loading a save file, this will help by shortening the time of getting out of a soft-lock/UI glitch. Bear with us. In the meantime, we've fixed a few other things, included in this hotfix. Check out the list below. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.005 - Temporary Fix for UI Issues - Codename: Confined

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Garrik's personal storyline's final NPC portraits were added

Bug Fixes :bug:

• The issue causing drag and drop not to work properly (or at all) for Deputies is now fixed
• For now, UI-related issues can be fixed by reloading a savegame (instead of restarting the whole game as before). NOTE that it is a temporary solution aimed at lessening the impact for you while we are investigating the underlying cause of the UI bug. Because of this, until we fix the major UI-related bugs, some buttons will be deactivated! These are: Companion and Deputies while on the Leader UI; Assign Deputies and Companion Stats buttons on the camp UI.
• A lot of Event-related small fixes based on player feedback
• The quest 'One Last Job' can now be turned in in Deven without having to unlock the Dark Elf Prince
• Fighter and Outrider consumption is now properly affected by Equipment and other effects
• Hunting extra loot (like Hides, Bones) is no longer accidentally overwritten by Supplies

Known Issues:

• The above-mentioned UI glitches still persist
• The later part of the Wealth victory path / Outpost building is not yet in
• Some performance issues (including longer initial loading time)

Coming Up Next

• The rest of the outpost building and Wealth victory path
• Faction leaders for the two crime syndicates
• Smaller user interface fixes/improvements

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-09 12:46:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Everyone,

Let us begin by thanking you all again for all the constructive feedback as well as the positive reception of the release of Vagrus! Of course, as most releases go with complex games, we managed to slip some glithces past testing before hitting 1.0, so today we're releasing a hotfix for these as well as adding more variety to character creation for the open world campaign. Important Note: There is a small chance that we broke something with the update. Please assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 1.001 - Codename: No Rest for the Wicked

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Three new leader races (Dark Elf, Demonkin, and Kalani human)
• Leader races and backgrounds received a major overhaul
• Additional leader portrait variations

Bug Fixes :bug:

• The confusion-causing Prowess tooltip is fixed (the right one appears from now on)
• Gear tutorial bug circumvented (equipping the talisman on Morwen is optional)
• 'Delayed' achievement triggering prematurely is now fixed
• Smaller Event script fixes based on player feedback, including reduced Insight rewards for some story stages (they used to be quite outlandish)

Known Issues:

• The later part of the Wealth victory path / Outpost building is not yet in
• Some NPC portraits are missing in Garrick's personal storyline
• Some performance issues (including longer initial loading time)

Coming Up Next

• The rest of the outpost building and Wealth victory path
• Faction leaders for the two crime syndicates
• Smaller user interface fixes/improvements

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-06 17:52:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

The day is upon us! Vagrus - The Riven Realms is out now! [previewyoutube=a9YepcSLYEI;full][/previewyoutube] And by Ahskul what a journey this has been so far. Speaking of which, there is a bit of a parallel here that could be drawn between caravans trudging across a barren, post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world and a tiny studio scrambling to deliver a huge open-world game but we let's not go there on this fine day! :D What's truly important in this whole journey is that it would not have been possible without the continued, constructive, persistent support of so many of you, the players. Everyone who spent hours and hours delving into the Early Access, everyone who dropped a few kind words or a review of the game, shared posts, talked to friends about Vagrus, sent bug reports, pointed out typos, and of course, bought the game - you are what made all this work worth it. If you could keep this up by playing the game and sharing this post we would be eternally grateful. https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer Size and Content With companion questlines, a new companion, and a new region, the game grew by about 30-35% compared to the last public Early Access build, with a lot of UI and feature improvements. Because of this large amount, there are certainly still glitches here and there but the team is ready and eager to address those as they rear their ugly heads. We also have some unfinished business regarding the Wealth victory path and the adding of new playable races, which we'll get around to presently. For a detailed description of what is to come, check out the previous devlog post here. Below you will find the full patch notes, which is basically the same in a bullet point list. The Future Because the Riven Realms have been part of our lives in one form or another for 30 years, rest assured that we have no intention of abandoning the game now that 1.0 is out, of course. On the contrary, our plans involve improving mechanics, adding content, and creating DLCs if there is a demand. We'll share more detailed plans when the tumult of the release abates somewhat. And again, thank you for coming along for the journey with the Lost Pilgrims!

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button) and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Version 1.0

New Content :gift:

• The westernmost region of the Searing Plains (with a number of settlements and lots to do)
• Eylani, a new recruitable Companion added
• Companion Personal Storylines (for all 9 available Companions)
• Wyrm War Storyline (a long, late game storyline)

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Most of the UI was completely overhauled (Crew, Settlements, Companion Perks)
• New Conditions tab on the Crew UI
• Now you can track the Loyalty status of your Companions (Companion pane)

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Equipment tooltip improvements (Lances, Guard Animals)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• In Crew Combat, when checking actions that involve Companion Combat, the number of maximum deployable Companions is now visible
• Hunting and Foraging now has quantity caps
• Multiple types of wheels can not be equipped at the same time (sorry!)
• Outrider-related background calculations are updated
• Workforce calculations are updated
• Disappearing settings in the Options fixed
• Traverse button random deactivation fixed
• No longer will loosing a Deputy slot unassign all Deputies
• Fixed the bug that caused Tasks to disappear after using the Exploit Leadership Perk
• Encourage button fixed
• Banners will not carry over to new games (sorry!)
• Fixed the bug that allowed Equipment to be equipped in a locked slot
• The market of The Last Oasis now restocks its goods over time (finally!)
• Prowess tooltip in Events fixed

Known Issues:

• Slight performance issue in certain stages of the game
• Loading times on certain hardware take a bit long
• Some NPC portraits in late stages of certain storylines are missing

Coming Up Next

• Wealth Victory and outpost building storylines' later stages (so that you can complete them and win the game)
• The two crime syndicates will each receive a glorious leader and a quest
• New playable races
• More leader portraits

Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-10-05 16:10:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

This weeks devblog is all about the plethora of quests being added to Vagrus with the full launch on October 5th. The update will include a revamped UI, a new companion to recruit, and plenty of quests to find on your journies across the wastelands. Lets take a look at whats coming!

Revamped User Interface and Extended Campaign Map

The cartographers of the wastelands have been hard at work preparing a new version of the Chart. There will soon be eight new points of interest on the campaign map with the remaining part of the Searing Plains becoming accessible along with them. These locations are deep in the desert so don't forget to resupply your comitatus before you set out on an expedition. Vagrus crew and settlement UI panes are also getting some much-needed upgrades to make navigating the menu a more user-friendly experience. We previously covered some of the changes in Devlog #56, and you can even find a short video showcasing many of the changes on our YouTube Channel. [previewyoutube=hhSe5eM7QoA;full][/previewyoutube]

Companion Quests

In Devlog #57, we detailed how each companion in the game will have a loyalty questline. These long, complex stories will allow characters to level up to Prowess 9 and give you some incredible rewards, though you might need to raise their loyalty through gifts and other means as well. Multiple endings are also available for some of the companion quests.

Introducing Eylani, the Newest Companion

An opportunity for recruiting a new companion is opening up! We are adding Eylani, a Half-Elven warrior, wanderer, beastmaster, and huntress. Not only is she a formidable frontline fighter able to tank a lot of hurt but can also use Striker, her falcon, to disrupt enemies, as well as overwatch positions to cause good damage. You will be able to meet with her in one of the new locations. Additionally, Eylani will also have her own companion storyline!

The Sand Wyrm Invasion Quest

Take caution while traversing the endless dunes! It has been reported that hordes of abominable Sand Wyrms have attacked comitati traveling across the Searing Plains. Try to slay the monstrous Wyrms with your allies before the creatures cause even more mayhem!

Embark on a Spiritual Journey with the Sadirar Tribes

Among the scorching dunes of the wastelands, you may stumble upon its native inhabitants, the spiritual Sadirar. As a part of a new questline, you'll be guided by the Shamans of the four tribes who will enlighten you about the four elemental Great Spirits.

A New Ambition

We're also planning to add a new Ambition: Wealth. It's still in development and has to undergo a thorough testing phase, which means that while it will be available at character creation at the time of the launch, it may not be implemented all the way through, but rest assured: even what's left out will be coming to the game in a matter of one or two weeks. The challenge it poses comes from its appeal: as part of their win condition, players will be able to build their own outpost. Wealth will be coming as the second available Ambition for new vagri, next to the already available Renown option. Changing from Freeplay to Renown or Wealth will be an option as well.

Centurion Edition

On October 5th, the Centurion Edition of Vagrus will be released. It includes the base game, Soundtracks, and the Patronage Pack at a special launch price. Those who already own the game base will be able to purchase the DLC individually as well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As we get closer to the launch, wed like to take a moment to thank all of you for your continued support - this game would not have been possible without you, the players. We look forward to sharing exciting news with you all post-launch! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-09-28 13:03:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

The time has come to reveal the miniature of Finndurarth that is packed in the game's Collector's and Emperor's Editions (available via fig)! It is a 40mm scale figure and here you can see the 3D model that is the base of the final product. [Shipped in three pieces so it needs assembly.] Soon, we'll reveal painted versions of it, too. Although we are thinking about releasing these minis for sale separately, we can't make promises due to the difficulties involved with their production. But if you are dying to get your hands on one, you can still upgrade to the Collector's or Emperor's Editions - for now.
For a long while now, Geri has been working on what we call loyalty questlines for the eight companions in the game. These are long, complex stories, often with branching endings, personal to each companion. In this project update, we wanted to give you a heads-up about certain aspects of these without spoiling any content. How Loyalty Questlines Work Until now, players have not been able to start these questlines (although the beginnings of some of these were available in certain cases, like Criftaa or Harvek) but now companions will open up more easily about what they want or proceed with their personal story. This means that you'll always need the specific companion to continue their quest. By following these stories, you'll have the chance to earn the companions' trust, discover more about them, and gain Insight as well as a wide variety of other rewards. Prowess Gating The other important aspect of these personal storylines is companion progression. Prowess levels have been gated from the beginning because the design was that you have to progress with the loyalty questline to be able to level up a companion. Prowess levels 3, 5, and 7 can only be unlocked if you progressed past certain points in the companion's storyline (with 7+ levels only available after completing the whole story).
Loyalty Another great addition of these questlines is that a lot of sections provide opportunities to gain Loyalty for the given companion. Until now, you could only use gifts to raise Loyalty, but that will not be necessary if you follow the quests. No longer will your most trusted lieutenants complain over and over again while you wait for gifting cooldowns. Rewards and Endings Unique Gear or Equipment, valuable Faction reputation, treasures worth a fortune - these and more can be yours if you follow through with companion quests. Of course, not all companions are made equal, nor are the rewards or endings of their stories are equal in any way. Lastly, although some companions have only one ending to their personal questline, most have choices and consequences in their story that produces several outcomes, often with differing rewards. Hope you are just as excited for the upcoming 1.0 release as we are. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-09-09 16:48:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

As we teased in our latest post, IGN has picked up our Official Release Date Trailer as an exclusive for the live show they hosted as part of Gamescom. Watching our game trailer live on such a prestigious event was a blast, and now it is time to share it with all our players and followers!

Vagrus 1.0 will be released on October 5, 2021.

Regional pricing is also coming on that date.
Here's the video posted on IGN's Youtube channel. Feel free to like, comment, and share to spread the official release date, and also to motivate IGN to continue releasing Vagrus related news in the future as well. It helps a great deal. [previewyoutube=ROY7ieCcWWc;full][/previewyoutube] We hope that you folks are just as excited as we are! Now comes the final push before the release. Thank you for the continued support, - The Lost Pilgrims Team Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-08-27 20:15:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

So Steam has this new Event type called 'Game Discount' and we thought we would give it a go now that Vagrus is discounted* by 10% to celebrate its upcoming new trailer with the official full release date. Tune in to Gamescom Studio. between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.]
If you are new to Vagrus try the FREE Prologue to get a taste of what to expect.
Thanks, cheers, The Lost Pilgrims Team * The discount runs between Aug 25. 10 am PDT and Aug 31. 10 am PDT https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-08-25 17:00:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have some amazing news to share with you all today: IGN - the biggest gaming news site - has picked up our Vagrus release date reveal trailer as an exclusive for their live show streamed from the [url=https://www.ign.com/articles/gamescom-2021-schedule-announcements-how-to-watch-games]Gamescom Studio.
That means that our full release date will be revealed live on August 27 as part of the Gamescom show. It's a huge opportunity for us and the game to reach new audiences and help us with a final push before the release. Tune in to Gamescom Studio between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.] You can find all the various ways to watch Gamescom shows here (details are being added by the IGN team). Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-08-24 16:52:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

This week's devlog post is about the shiny new User Interfaces for settlements and crew. Settlements There are a large number of settlements (cities, towns, villages, outposts, encampments) that you can visit in Vagrus, all of them unique locations even though they share some characteristics and features. For a long while now, we have planned a rework for the original UI - as we usually do with all UI elements, really. The most apparent change is that we did away with the tabs on the side and introduced buttons on top that now match other UI elements (but kept the stack of papers design that everyone knows). This allowed us to fill out the larger available space and show more on one screen. The Stories pane now also has hover effects (in the same way as the Event choices) and numbering, so you can use the keyboard to select from the available stories. There have been other changes in the background, too, like the subtle substitution of a better-quality parchment under all of it, or tweaks to scrolling, among other things. With all these, we feel that the settlement UI has become more user-friendly and intuitive with some QoL elements you can personalize in the menus. We hope you'll like it! Reworked Crew UI In the long line of UI reworks, our next stop is the crew UI where all the panes will now receive a lot of changes and upgrades. We planned to make these changes earlier but the design was in motion all the time - with new stats and mechanics being added - and so other things were completed and added before these in the end. And so now, so close to 1.0, we finally got around to implement the new crew UI. Apart from tweaking the visuals, there were technical considerations as well. Most importantly, we had to have UI elements on a single paper instead of four overlaid ones, with buttons switching between different contents of the page. This is not only more efficient with resources but also solves issues with the overlaid pages getting stuck, leading to soft-locks, which had us blocking this UI during settlement resting. The redesign solves this issue at last. Additionally, the buttons on top now share the same design as on other UI panes, resulting in a more unified look, which boosts usability. The most spectacular changes appear on the Crew Pane since new stats were added to the display here. Among these is the workforce requirement and production of crew members, as well as their Combat Strength and Defense scores, along with the usual Upkeep and Consumption values. The same is true for Passengers, too, making it clearer when some of them pay with work beside coins. The other vastly reworked part is the Companion Perk sheet. The formerly tiny and crowded Perk pane now opens onto the larger sheet and is thus easier to see and navigate. We love this new, clean design and we hope that it'll be well-received.
As ever, we are grateful for the continued support - this game would not have been possible without you, the players. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-08-11 14:42:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

As we are gearing up for the 1.0 release of Vagrus, we are finally coming around to implement the victory mechanics, which means that you will soon be able to complete a playthrough! There are caveats, of course, since we are still in Early Access, but we thought it was time to discuss what to expect (now and later). The Design Even in the first game design documents, winning the game was connected to Ambitions - Wealth, Fame, Knowledge, as well as some hidden ones perhaps. That is, you will select an Ambition at character creation and you win the game by reaching that Ambition through gameplay, then completing an Event that will reward you with a victory. Freeplay Once victory is achieved, the game offers you to continue in Freeplay Mode. This is mostly for fun or if you wish to complete some additional stories, because Achievements are turned off, and the longer you go, the less sense some stories will make when you put them in the context of elapsed time. Still, we wanted to give players the chance to keep on wandering the wasteland if that was their desire. Victory Screen(s) Once you complete a victory, you will receive a victory screen - for now. We are planning a series of screens touching upon the most important storyline states and companion questlines, but initially, only the single Ambition-related screen will be added, primarily because we want to hold back on story reveals and endings until 1.0. Also, only a Renown Victory is available for the time being as some things are still being worked out for the other two. Abolitionist Rework
We've been working on the Abolitionists, too. It is a unique faction that is a bit hidden and up until now, their presence was very minor apart from their main base of operations. The build now includes a new system that you will be able to use to unlock new faction locations for the Abolitionists. This involves getting ciphers from an already unlocked location (initially their main base) and taking it (within a time limit) to a new settlement where it will unlock the faction's presence there.
What is the point of this? Most importantly, it allows you to get Tasks from these locations, making it possible to raise your Abolitionist reputation to its maximum more fluidly. Apart from that, some quests involving the faction at certain places now require you to unlock the specific location before interacting with the cell there. This system fleshes out the somewhat shunned Abolitionist more and we hope that it will lend the much needed depth and infrastructure to a slaveless playthrough. We hope more of our players are now motivated to try a successful Abolitionist run. New Wyrms
By 'alternative Wyrms' we do not refer to a group of odd subculture, but a series of new enemies that are coming to ruin your day! These Sand Wyrm variants share the general look of the basic creature with slight modifications (and in some cases, differences in size). The reason for this diversification is that the long, high-end storyline involving them we are working on called for more and more varied enemies to make fights interesting and keep players on their toes. And so please welcome the Armored Wyrm, the Frenzied Wyrm, the Spitter Wyrm, and the Great Wyrm. We hope that they will cause the right amount of trouble. We are looking forward to hearing your reactions to the Renown victory aswell and see how easy or difficult you find it to reach. Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-07-30 21:15:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks, In case you have not heard the good news yet, we are participating in DreamHack Beyond with Vagrus between July 24- July 31. This unique game show does not only have their Steam sale page active already, they have also created a video game that you can log into, pick your avatar, and walk around in a Rick and Morty reminiscent world.
Within the game, you can roam around and check out rooms full of video game and creator booths, talk to NPCs, and complete quests. You can claim a free ticket with the link here, and start playing here: DreamHack Beyond Game. Enjoy! Cheers, The Lost Pilgrims Team During the event, Vagrus is available with a 10 percent discount. https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-07-27 13:21:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

with so many of you well over the hundred hours mark in the game, it was high time for us to add the opportunity to actually win it. The first winning condition we have implemented is the Renown victory. The other two, Wealth and Knowledge will become available in the 1.0 release later this year. No worries, though, meeting the winning condition and actually retiring with your vagrus are two separate things. Even after you are able to win the game, you can decide to continue playing and trigger the victory screen later in the associated in-game Event, essentially postponing the victory (and the game's end).

The Movement (Warning: mild spoilers in this paragraph!)

[spoiler]The Abolitionist faction is a secretive one that only engages a vagrus when they see a like-minded individual, so many players have never met them. Still, even the vagri who did may have felt that their reach was rather limited in the previous builds. With this release, they receive a new mechanic that allows players to unlock interactions with them in many other locations over time as they gain the trust of the faction. This spreading mechanic also serves as the means to get faction Tasks from them in those unlocked locations and even have the chance to increase their faction presence in the settlement of your choosing.
[/spoiler] There are a number of other improvements as well, detailed in the patch notes below. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 0.7.00 - Codename: The Famous and the Furtive

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Renown Ambition can be selected during vagrus creation
• Renown win condition implemented (triggered by the player from an Event)
• The option to change from Freeplay to Renown Ambition added (at the same location as the Renown victory Event chain)
• Callings now grant a temporary commission boost on the applicable Tasks (Trade or Mercenary)
• A great number of market, task, and equipment related tweaks
• Shorter initial loading time

New Content :gift:

• Option to unlock Abolitionist faction locations in numerous settlements via contacting cells
• A new NPC and quest line added that leads up to Renown victory (but part of the Event chain is playable by any vagri)
• New types of Wyrm enemies added
• New Jhakra and Legionnaire visual variations added

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Companion combat area targeting perspective added
• Leader UI rearranged a bit so the vagrus's details would not overlap
• Companion Perk UI runs a bit smoother (but still needs further improvement)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Various trade and Task generation related fixes and tweaks
• Very rare Kindly Sister VIT to POW convert crash fixed
• Occasional Oghre Tantrum crash fixed
• Encourage now works during +1 Days in Events
• Liberating slaves now yields the correct amount of reputation with the Abolitionists
• Several animation sizes have been fixed
• Applied a great number of combat decal refinements
• Various other UI and/or bug fixes

Known Issues

• Companion Perk UI is bugged and lags - this will be fixed in a later build

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Coming Up Next

Crew and Settlement User Interface update and the first set of Companion loyalty questlines are inbound. Between July 24 and 31, we are participating in DreamHack Beyond with Vagrus. Find us in the festivals' virtual world in Hall: Normal Hive 4 in the RPG Games room. You can claim a free ticket though the following link: DreamHack Beyond. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-07-22 14:41:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=CRidAlq_NIg;full][/previewyoutube] This week, we return to talk about the recently updated Companion Combat targeting options that suit different play-styles. The changes include a number of options from the main menu that allow the configuration of the way you target your foes and friendlies during the fights in Vagrus:

• Using keyboard only? Aside from picking a Skill with the keys '1-4' (and '5' for Move), you can use 'Tab' to switch between available targets, and 'Space' to confirm the action.
• Are you fine with mousing over stuff while resting your index finger? Hover over the target and trigger the skill from the keyboard without ever having to click with the mouse.
• Want to do away with having to confirm? Sure, attack like a pro without having to click twice by switching off confirm in the options.

Visual Improvements There are also visual upgrades, like Area Targeting boxes instead of the previous visual effects on the metal bases of the characters.
We also added visual queues about Move + Action Skills in the form of the 'foot' indicating where the character is going to move while the player picks the target of the second part of the Skill. Overall we are quite happy with these changes and the visible improvements of Companion Combat and while there are still further upgrades planned, we hope you like them already and find the best combination fitting your play-style.
Let us know how you like the options, and which type of targeting is the most usable for you! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-07-14 14:31:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

The greatest thing about running open development is receiving amazing feedback from players that helps improving your game. The hardest thing about open development is identifying what the actual problem is that your players are having an issue with. The perfect example of all this is Crew Combat in Vagrus, which is an aspect of the game that players complained about fairly regularly. After adding the Flee/Appease option, it got slightly better but not as much as we had hoped. While digging for the reasons, we came to some interesting realizations. Whenever we heard someone getting irked about how they bled out against a much stronger enemy, we asked whether they tried appeasing them and they pretty much all said "No, 'Flee' implied losing big time". So we renamed the button from Flee to Buy off/Lure Away to better indicate the appease options lying underneath it. It got slightly better again. Yet many players still ignore it. When we asked why, we learned that they had a bad experience with it. They used the Auto Offer function that gave away all their slaves, which in turn resulted in a workforce shortage and sent them into a death spiral. Boom. Never touched the option again. The Auto Offer function was indeed something that we left unfinished. It only offered money and crew, but not cargo, nor items. Thus, it often proposed a deal that was far from being optimal. So from the player feedback, "Crew Combat is insanely hard" we got to "a small piece of the Appease feature was left unfinished and coupled with no explanation, it led players to fight unwinnable battles they should be just avoiding". The good news is: the current build has Item Offers and improved Auto Offers in it. And hope to see more players get the hang of when and how to avoid fights that are way out of their league. Item Offers Items are a resource that is often overlooked. They have no weight to be considered in the cargo hold and can accumulate silently. Items looted from events or combat encounters can turn otherwise unfortunate ventures profitable - if sold in the right place. It also makes sense that these valuables be traded or used during Crew Combat appeasing. They can even add new flavor, since the various enemy types are interested in different items - tribal folk in trinkets and charms while Necromancers in ancient tablets and arcane texts. We even decided to introduce beast lures and Undead charms that are highly effective against those kinds of foes.
Items are split into two categories. Well, more like three. The items listed in blue are the ones that will help the player the most to successfully Appease the enemy (or aid their Flee in case of Beasts or Undead). The second group lists the items that can also be used but with less efficiency. There is also an implicit third category of items that the player owns but cannot be leveraged in the given situation. Auto Offer Improvements With Item Offers added into the mix and considering the feedback we deciphered, we spent some time shoring up our Auto Offer logic, too. For one, now it offers cargo and items as well, though it does not apply advanced mathematics to optimize the offer, there is an underlying logic that takes the enemy's goal into account. It will offer Supplies and edible goods first to voracious opponents, valuables to looters, mounts to poachers, and so on. We think - and hope - that these changes brought us one step closer to addressing some of the unintended difficulties players face in the game as we continue to improve other features as well. As ever, we are immensely grateful for all the support and feedback! Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-07-07 15:00:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Companion Combat is an important facet of Vagrus even though players have quite a lot of control over how much they want to engage in it. At the same time, it is the most complex part of the game when it comes to code, so whatever changes we make requires more time relative to other parts. After we added Mercenary Tasks, our focus has moved back to improving Companion Combat, partly because a lot of players opt to enter it from Crew Combat, so it is our goal to keep these fights interesting for as long as possible. The current set of changes are thus aimed at spicing things up a bit: more movement and thus further emphasis on positioning instead of spamming Skill 1 while standing still. The changes include: Push-Pull Improvement: When enemies are pushed into or pulled into another enemy, instead of being damaged slightly and staying at the previous position, the two combatants switch places, potentially setting weaker targets up for attacks or messing with their available Skills.
Skills Involving Move Action: These Skills no longer require a free position to move into. Instead, the acting combatant will switch places with the one on the target position. In the example here, Gor'Goro charges forth, switching places with Harvek in the front line.
Here, Harvek jumps back, taking Renkailon's position while throwing his dagger.
Multi-phase Skills: Speaking of Renkailon, one of the changes is not mechanical but visual, namely that Skills that have multiple phases will now perform these during the same camera zoom clash animation as originally intended, making it much more pleasing to the eye.
Acrobatics Perk: Acrobatics is a Perk that is typically used by certain very agile characters - and opens up a new mechanic for them. When a combatant with this Perk Evades an attack successfully, they do not move onto a random empty position but can choose where to Evade, even onto an occupied spot, thereby opening up new tactical considerations.
Diehard Perk: This Perk essentially saves a combatant from becoming Downed 30% of the time. When successful, Diehard makes it so that the character stays standing. Although far from reliable, it can save you in a pinch.
Although that's it for now, more improvements on the way for Companion Combat. Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-06-30 14:45:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

it was amazing to see how our latest patch was received. So many great new reviews and quite a few previously negative ones flipped to positive. We appreciate you all immensely for your vote of confidence! Especially as apparently we left a huge bug in the game that made the late game easier, instead of the early game, as we originally intended. So that's getting fixed but what else comes in this new patch, you might ask? Let's dive in! Crew Combat Appease Improvements Appease is a feature that is still not used by many players, though it often holds the key to avoid major losses. With better Appease conversions, the option to offer items going forward, and the improved Auto Offer function, hopefully more players will benefit from this feature. Have we mentioned adding Beast Lures and Ahskulite Charms to distract beasts and Undead from your fleeing forces? Yep. Those. too, are now in the game.
Companion Combat Targeting Changes to targeting include making a number of new options to configure how you preferred to target your foes and friendlies:

• Using ony the keyboard? Beside picking the Skill with keys 1-4 (and 5 for Move), now you can use 'Tab' to shuffle through available targets, and 'Space' to confirm.
• Okay with mousing over things but want to rest your index finger? You can now hover over the target and trigger the Skill from the keyboard without ever having to click with the mouse.
• Want to do away with having to confirm? Sure, attack like a pro without having to click twice.

There are also visual upgrades, like Area Targeting boxes instead of the previous visual effects on the metal bases of the characters. While these changes are not final and there are further improvements planned, we hope you like this already and find the best combination fitting your play style. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 0.6.20 - Codename: Target Acquired

New/Updated Features :shiny:

General

• Tweaks to the starting comitatus crew composition and beast type stats to enable an easier start
• New open-world starting tutorial added about the game being hard, and also Wasteland vs Dissonance Modes
• Dissonance Mode Heal (camp & event) boost
• Increased the workforce offered on a number of low-income passengers

Companion Combat

• Area targeting as an option (instead of having to click on the character bases)
• Area targeting visual update
• Previously targeting steps only worked in this order: Skill > Target > Confirm; now you can also do Target > Skill > Confirm
• You can switch Skills without having to select the target again
• Character selection refreshes the Skill bar to show which Skills can be used on the given target
• Change between targets using 'Tab'
• Confirm Skills with 'Space'
• Option to 'Target First Available' - after selecting a Skill, the first available target gets automatically selected
• 'Hover as Selected' option added
• UI, logic, and performance improvements to the new targeting features
• Unfocused enemies will fade to have a better focus on the target(s)
• Added SFX for a number of enemies

Crew Combat

• Item offering option added to Appease/Bribe
• Auto Offer functionality extended to offer Cargo and Items as well
• Beast lures and Undead Charms added in Events (mostly shops in settlements)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Supply price limit period (Late vs Early game) corrected
• The disappearing character UI during successful Evade with the Acrobatic perk fixed
• Maxed out Cargo hold vs Stash anomalies solved
• Vitality mod anomalies in Dissonance mode after combat & camping fixed
• The bug where market and events did not refresh after 'One more day' fixed
• Journal scroll bar no longer cuts into text/assets
• Exquisite Banner Renown modifier counts towards Event dependencies now
• Various Task/Passenger related validations and auto-repair jobs added
• Rare Discipline/Liberate crash bug fix
• Fixed when some Trade Tasks were not visible on the Chart
• Failed Escort Tasks and stuck Passengers are fixed

Known Issues:

• There is a rare bug where the skill selection with keyboard misfires. Planning to apply a hotfix once we are able to reproduce and resolve the issue
• The Companion Perk UI is buggy (lags). Planing to rebuild it.
• Long initial loading time - we will see if we have time to do something about it before 1.0

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Coming Up Next

As we work on rounding out the content for the 1.0 release, we are also continuing our final UI upgrades: Crew and Settlement panes will come next. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-06-24 17:26:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

What is this 'Dissonance Mode', you ask? Essentially, it is a game mode you can select when starting a new game, and that shifts the experience toward a more narrative route, easing up on the management and combat mechanics to transform Vagrus into more of an exploration game with a strong visual novel element for those that find the challenge too taxing. We decided to include this game mode due to player feedback, but the decision to do so was not an easy one because we dreamed up Vagrus as a game that closely fits its setting: a cruel, harsh, merciless world that pulls no punches but once the challenges presented by it are conquered, the sense of accomplishment would be all the more satisfying. So if the world is presented as savage and unforgiving while the difficulty is lower, it can easily cause what is called ludo-narrative dissonance, which in the broadest terms means that what you are told in a game does not match what you play. This kind of dissonance has been reported by a number of players in times when more experimental patches caused the economy to pour money on enterprising vagri. Most of this feedback described the lack of challenge and the resulting tension, which caused the dissonance, eventually leading to players to abandon a playthrough. However, not everyone is looking for the same thrills when they play video games, and those players that do not enjoy the tactical combat or the strategy aspect of managing resources and logistics will ultimately feel that they want to delve into the world but not at the cost of a steeper learning curve. Well, Dissonance Mode is tailored for them. In general, it comes with easier combat challenges and a more forgiving economy, allowing players to explore more freely. However, with the removed challenge comes the removal of Achievements, too. It is our hope that those who still wish to earn these badges will get practiced in Dissonance Mode and then go on to enjoy the full experience that we'll from now on call Wasteland Mode. The list of what Dissonance Mode and 'an easier playthrough' exactly entails is not final yet and will probably change quite a lot until the final release. We'll see what to add partly based on future feedback. Here is the list of impacts [effective from v0.6.02 going live (hopefully next week)]:

• Cheaper supplies
• Significantly distorted RNG in the players' favor
• Higher level Trade and Mercenary Task commissions available from the start
• Easier Mercenary Tasks (lower opponent combat stats)
• Higher trade-distance market premium (wider price differences between source and sell locations resulting in higher possible profits)
• Constant 'Favored' Property on Companions granting them extra Vitality and Accuracy
• Lower chances of Crew Combat encounters, especially in the early game
• Slightly easier Crew Combat encounters
• Lower defense rate requirements to guard your camp
• More allowing workforce rate requirements before the Severely Understaffed and Critically Understaffed states are triggered
• Healing chances are higher (both during Camp and via Events)

There is, of course, the possibility that a number of players choose a Mode that is not suited for them consistently, causing them not to enjoy the story without the challenge in Dissonance Mode or become disheartened by the cruelty of Wasteland Mode, but our hope is that in the end, more of them will find the right alternative in the two modes available. Now that Dissonance Mode was added to the game, we are looking forward to your feedback on it. Until then, stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-06-18 19:14:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Wildermyth is out of Early Access!

Our friends at Worldwalker Games have just released the 1.0 build of their amazing game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/wildermyth/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms Wildermyth follows heroes over their whole careers, from their pitchfork days to their powerful primes, and on into old age and memory. Its a party-based procedural storytelling RPG where tactical combat and story decisions will alter your world and reshape your cast of characters. Sometimes described as "Fantasy XCOM" or "Single Player D&D", if you like turn-based squad combat and characters who grown and change in response to your choices, check it out! There's a 20% sale running this week.

Here's what's new in the 1.0 release:

[See the full patchnotes on Wildermyth's community site: here]

All the Bones of Summer

A five chapter campaign focused on Drauven. This story follows both human and Drauven heroes over the span of the campaign. It's complex and beautiful. Something the team can be extremely proud.

Achievements!

Over 50 achievements have been added to the game. Each achievement unlocks a piece of concept art or a theme skin. You can browse your achievements in the legacy browser or on Steam.

Theme Skins

Some themes now have skins that can be unlocked with achievements. Theme skins are cosmetic variants, and once unlocked, they can be chosen in the customize section in the character sheet.

Ability Upgrades

When a hero levels up, they will now often see 4 choices instead of 3. The 4th choice is for upgrading an existing class ability or theme attack. This is a very big change to how heroes are built, and it will allow players to be more intentional with their builds, and differentiate heroes more.

Generic Campaign Chapters

The team has revamped their generic campaigns, and it's a huge improvement! Now instead of seeing generic events, each chapter will have an omen, capstone, and victory events that fit together, with a custom capstone mission. Some chapters also include custom keystone missions. These chapters will be mixed together to create a whole campaign. Some are monster specific, and some work for any monsters, but they all have unique battle maps and stories that match what's going on in the overall campaign. Right now there are over 20 chapters in the game, with several more on the way.

Launch Week Schedule

• Tuesday: Nookrium
• Wednesday: Penny Arcade Acquisitions Inc. C Team
• Thursday: ReformistTM
• Friday: Paul Soares Jr
• Saturday: Seri! Pixel Biologist
• Sunday: Blind IRL & friends

Purchase or wishlist and follow Wildermyth for up-to-date information about its development. https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/wildermyth/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms

[ 2021-06-15 19:04:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

As we teased in our latest devlog post about Mercenary Tasks, we have extended Crew Combat with a new feature: you can decide how to deal with the enemy from now on following a victorious battle. The option appears on the Crew Combat UI at the end of the fight opposite your heal options provided that your enemy surrendered (remember, only humanoids can), fled, or retreated but you caught some of them while pursuing them.
Your options are: Recruit: Depending on their willingness to join, this results in a few fighters, scouts, or workers to be added to your ranks. That, of course, will not sit too well with your existing crew who have fought them just moments ago, and the result is Morale loss. It's also considered to be a 'kind' action and certain companions may like or dislike it for the same reason. Conscript: Somewhat similar to Recruit, except joining is not voluntary, and so in this case, neither your existing crew nor the newly added members are happy about it, leading to an even more significant Morale drop. Enslave: Instead of joining as free crew members, all surviving enemies are pushed into slavery. As expected, a massive drop in Obedience accompanies this decision. Release: Once you stripped the foe of their valuables, you set them free. It may sound kind but in fact, it's a relatively cruel decision given the dangers of the wasteland. Execute: This is a drastic measure that is considered 'malevolent' and brings no benefits since the valuables of the enemy have been turned over anyway at the time they surrendered or got caught. Imprison: The last one is an option that players will only see when they have an active Mercenary Task to capture such enemies (be them bandits or other faction rivals). Hence the timing of us implementing this feature alongside Mercenary Tasks. These expanded options provide further incentive, strategic depth, and even immersion to Crew Combat encounters and we hope you'll like them and provide us with the usual valuable feedback. Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-06-09 12:57:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

In Part I. of our breakdown of Mercenary Tasks, we discussed what this new kind of gameplay element brings to Vagrus, how it works, and began describing the types implemented in the current build. Now it is time to delve into the rest of the Mercenary Task Types:

Escort

This type is a classical RPG task: take someone (or several people) to a location and protect them on the way there. There are simpler variants - usually lower level Tasks - where you have to take them between settlements. In contrast to most regular passengers, these have known enemies hunting them, so an attack during your journey is almost certain - with several attempts at higher Task levels. Losing Crew Combat against the attackers fails the Task. A future update would change this so that certain passengers can be killed and then these Escort Tasks will indeed focus on keeping them alive in the fight. A more difficult variant is where the passenger's destination is out in the wasteland and once you take them there, you need to wait until they finish their business, then escort them to their final goal.

Abduct and Rescue

These types are the opposites sides of the same coin in some respects. Both would have you find a location in the wasteland, win a battle there, be joined by a passenger whom you need to take to their destination. The biggest difference is that the passengers do not join you voluntarily in Abduct Tasks, of course. Both types carry the risk of being attacked on the way to the final destination as the foe tries to recapture the passenger.

Capture

In this type of Mercenary Task, you do not escort or take certain passengers but rather have to gain them from defeated enemies, that is, capture prisoners and turn them in at the given location. Most of the time, this can be accomplished in more than one Crew Combat encounters, but it depends on how many of the enemy flee or are killed during the battle. Somewhat connected to this is the mechanic that allows you to decide the fate of the remaining captured enemies after a Crew Combat encounter. This means that during Capture Tasks, you could take the right kind of enemies prisoner, hastening your Task completion. The details of this will be discussed in a future post. Be sure to try Mercenary Tasks with the right kind of comitatus now that they are added to the game and tell us what you think! Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-06-03 14:31:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

One of the latest content updates (Patch 0.5.30 Codename: Brimstone and Bones) brought with it a spacious region to explore, the most prominent part of which are the Smolderbone Flats. Players who took the 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' standalone story for a spin surely recognize this place, as it was an important location in that story. And yet you will find that much has changed since your last visit, with 10 years passing, allegiances shifting, and new threats rising.

Companionship

One of the most important additions is a new companion you can hire to serve in your comitatus. It is none other than Skornar, the kingpin and former marauder who ran a gang of smugglers in 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. What trouble did he get himself into? You will have to find out for yourself. Skornar is a stout man who can take quite a beating despite his age, but he can also dish out one. His shield and armor allow for a defensive play-style enhanced by his ability to retaliate against attackers. He's also a veteran traveler, marauder captain, and lover of tall tales. He'll most likely fit right in.

Avernum

Avernum itself is home to the private army called the Avernus Legion and its master, the Prefectus. Although Imperial in name and culture for the most part, the city has always been fairly independent. And with the sources of attainable ore in this metal-starved world, as well as the blacksmiths to work it into weapons and tools, Avernum has become a power in its own right, overshadowing all but the greatest of Imperial cities.
Should you not be drawn to the metallurgists and forges, worry not. Avernum has other services and attractions for enterprising travelers, such as the Carpenters' Guild's headquarters, the Imperial arena, or the odd but certainly very powerful mage who set up shop here decades ago.

The Sadirar

A peculiar tribal people, the Sadirar are made up of several tribes, each worshiping the Great Spirits that embody the elements. They are masters of the western deserts and on the whole are a relatively peaceful folk. In this build, you can visit the village of the flame-worshiping Utvorar and the oasis of the water-worshiping Vitrar. Their shamans deal in special goods and services that might interest any industrious vagrus.

Paths To and Fro

There were quite a number of story-lines that led to this very region and most of these can now be concluded or at least continued. Have you undertaken a job for House Venari or are you looking for the Invisible Arena? Or perhaps you are interested in stories that begin here? Bounties, investigations, errands, and quests will present themselves to those that look.
It is a good time to return to the Riven Realms if any of these grabbed your attention. With Brimstone and Bones, the main campaign's size grew considerably and we are now very close to adding the final zones to round out the map. But that is not the end of the story content - we'll be working on companion quests and longer, more complex questlines, too. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-26 14:31:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

it's been a long time coming but finally Mercenary Tasks are live in today's build. These not only add a ton of variation and replayability but also go a long way in softening up story content and allow the running of a combat oriented comitatus for players. Fair warning, though: just like none of the other income sources work by themselves, Mercenary Tasks do not either. Combine them with Trade Tasks, passengers, and stories, with an emphasis on whichever you prefer over the others. Mercenary Tasks are received from factions. Each faction is unique when it comes to the ratio of Trade and Mercenary Tasks you can get from them as well as the type of mercenary contracts they hand out. Enemies in these missions can be almost any kind, from beasts to outlaws and Undead - even the mercenaries of other factions. It's perhaps good to clarify here that major changes to Point of Interests on the campaign map (like razing a settlement) are always the result of an active choice by players in story-lines and not Mercenary Tasks. Mercenary tasks are similar to Trade Tasks: both are repeatable, procedurally generated options that influence Faction relations and serve as a way to earn money. Accordingly, they always involve locations out in the wasteland on unnamed nodes. Perhaps the easiest way to learn more is to watch a video about this feature: [previewyoutube=tISB1slrDKs;full][/previewyoutube] You can read more about Mercenary Tasks in our design posts: Part I. (already here on Steam) and Part II. (on our website).

Dissonance Mode

Another big change that comes with this build is Dissonance Mode, which you can select when starting a new game from now on. While based on our statistics (thanks to everyone for ticking the box!), the vast majority of players gets the hang of the game after a few botched trials, there are others who are looking for a more relaxed experience. Dissonance Mode is still not 'easy', so we try to avoid calling it an Easy Mode, nor is it a Story Mode since it is the cruel story itself that is left unsupported by the more lenient gameplay, but still, it's something along those lines, easing up on the management and combat mechanics so that you are less likely to be wiped out during a playthrough. Note that Achievements will be disabled in Dissonance Mode.

Combat Improvements

Just like for Mercenary Tasks and the Dissonance Mode, we will have a detailed design post about all the combat changes that are rolled out in this release but in short: skills involving movement or push-pull mechanics now switch around enemies making the tactical aspect of the companion combat more challenging and - hopefully - more exciting. You can find additional information on the exact improvements below. Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 0.6.00- Codename: Conquers and Dissonance

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Mercenary Tasks were added to the game
• Wasteland and Dissonance Modes are now selectible upon New Game
• 'One More Day' option to continue your playthrough after the 10 year mark added (alas with Achievements disabled)

Companion and Crew Combat

• Push/Pull now switches the characters behind each other. Both roll Resist & immunities apply (Stunned, Immobilized, and Downed combatants can also switch place this way)
• Move +Action Skills no longer need an empty space but auto-switch with the other party member occupying the target position
• Downed Companions can now be dragged away to switch places with an active Companion using a full Move action
• Combat Skills with multiple phases are presented in the same camera zoom
• Garrik's 'Salvaged Rune' Skill now works as intended: it randombly draws a rune from several possible ones - each affects the enemy in different ways
• 'Acrobatic' Perk now available (you can select where to Evade!)
• Decide the fate of the foe if they surrender in Crew Combat or if you capture them as they flee or retreat - they can be let go, enslaved, and more!

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Passengers and Trade Tasks now have chart markers by default
• We have also added a selector that allows you to filter which markers you want to see
• Inside a settlement, you can see the destinations of all available tasks and passengers with the :eye: filter turned on
• Factions - Active tab filter buttons added
• Equipment filter buttons on the Market added
• Event choice hover SFX added

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Boosting Chain Lightning now works as intended
• Some end of the day exploits prevented
• Various smaller fixes and Event script tweaks

Known Issues:

• Load times are getting higher and higher. We plan to address the issue closer to the final release.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Coming Up Next

So we said that the Smolderbone region was the last one... but yeah, let's go for one more! Then that's it, promise. :) Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-19 16:44:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Riven Realms, the setting of Vagrus, is a harsh, violent place. Up until now, many players have felt that their ventures are the primary targets of this cruelty but with Mercenary Tasks, you will have the opportunity to return the favor. This facet of gameplay has been in the works since we began developing Vagrus, and it not only adds a ton of variation and replayability but also goes a long way in softening up story content. Along with the branching story and trading, we consider mercenary work as one of the three pillars that hold up the game. Of course, we leave it to players which facet they want to concentrate on at times in each playthrough. Mercenary Tasks even allow for a completely combat-oriented gameplay, concentrating on forging a warband from your comitatus. Mercenary Tasks are received from factions. Their orientation influences the ratio of Trade versus Mercenary Tasks with a given faction and also the type of mercenary contracts they hand out. Enemies in these missions can be almost any kind, from beasts to outlaws and Undead - even the mercenaries of other factions.

Eliminate

The simplest, most common type. You have to reach a location indicated on your chart, find the right node, then defeat the enemies, sometimes once, other times in a series of Crew Combat encounters. Victory and crushing the enemy is all that matters.

Defend

You have to reach a location and defend it against the enemy. An option to reinforce the location with fighters from your own crew is always present in this type. The cunning vagrus plans ahead and brings extra forces to be able to reinforce, of course, for weakening yourself before a battle might prove disastrous even though the number of warriors given thusly lowers the fight's difficulty somewhat. After the decision of reinforcing or not, there is some waiting, since the enemy you have to defend against takes some time to arrive. This also makes planning ahead with supplies important. Just like with Eliminate, there can be a single enemy wave or several.

Conquer

This type is a sort of a combination of Eliminate and Defend: first you reach the location, then defeat the enemies already present there, then organize the defense (you can reinforce it similarly to Defend), wait for the enemy to arrive and beat it back. Should you fail the first time, you can attempt to complete the Task again until the deadline is reached. Alternatively, you can move on after defeating the enemies the first time and hope that the place defends itself. In this case, you must reinforce it with fighters, however.

More To Come

As you can see, Mercenary Tasks mix things up in the best way possible and add a huge amount of variation. In Part II. we are going to discuss the rest of the types: Escort, Abduct, Rescue, and Capture. And who knows, in the long run, we might be able to add even more Mercenary Task types.
Mercenary Tasks are coming to Vagrus soon so stay tuned and let us know what you think once you give this new feature a spin. Conquer the wasteland, The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-17 13:55:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

There has been a number of Quality of Life changes to the game in the last couple of months and we wanted to collect them in one post.

Comitatus UI

The comitatus UI on the top left over the campaign map is one of the most frequently used interfaces in the game and we wanted to add several stats to make it more informative. To save space, we changed text to icons and now it also displays Nutrition and Obedience, as well as Combat Strength and Defense for Crew Combat.

Traverse

Another addition to the comitatus UI is the button to use the Traverse Leadership Perk - the last one missing from that category. Activating it converts 3 March Movement Points to regular Movement Points, which can be done every 3 days for 4 Resourcefulness.

Deployment Autofill

When deploying your companions in Companion Combat, now you have the option to autofill the positions using the new button. The order in which they are deployed depends on their health (Wounded entities come later).

Formations

Similar to Autofill, this improvement helps with Companion Combat deployment. You can save and load three different formations. Especially since you can enter Companion Combat from Crew Combat, players have come up with their preferred setups so using Formations, they can access them very easily.

Chart Node Cards

These cards unify settlement and POI cards with quest and Task markers. Button mechanics are the same now and there is a significant visual tune-up, too. For settlements, Codex, Price History, and Mark buttons are available, while quest and Task markers have buttons opening the relevant Journal entry as well as Mark options.

Chart Markers

These were improved to show how many nodes fall into the area designated by the marker. They are color-coded to be easier to differentiate even at a cursory glance. Better yet, preview versions of these same markers are available for Tasks and Passengers (if the destination is unknown for your character), so you can better calculate travel times and risks. We hope you'll enjoy these changes - we have put a lot of work into them.

Also great news

Vagrus has made it into the finalists in the Digital Dragons Indie Celebration competition! Besides the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places awarded based on the votes of the jury, there is also a Community Vote you can participate in here. The list is in alphabetical order, so Vagrus is the last one. ;)
By the way, the voting for Untold Games Awards' community award is still on, so if you haven't, head over there, too, and have your voice heard. Words can not express how much we appreciate your continued support. Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! -The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-10 14:33:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

In this short article we've collected the recent changes to the Event UI in a more detailed format. This is something that's been a long time coming and we believe that it improves the playing- and reading-experience considerably.

Choice Boxes

There is a frame around each choice now, and the whole box thus created is clickable while also providing visual feedback when hovered over, too. These choice boxes help differentiate the various choices better and contain everything you need to make the choice.

Dependencies

What you have and what you need to make choices are called dependencies (a fancier name for 'requirements' really) and from now on, these are much better differentiated. Each category has its own icon and detailed tooltips. Optional dependencies are now signified as such, and many hidden, story-related dependencies at least show up to inform players that they are lacking something for that choice.

Tooltips

A great number of improvements were added to tooltips in Events, which mostly deals with the clean-up of dependency tooltips.

Buying and Selling

Specialized shops or ad hoc deals are often encountered in Events. From now on, the choices that lead to buying or selling are better marked, with more information on the price (and its relation to prices elsewhere). You can also see the right icon for items, equipment, goods, and gear in these choice boxes.

Enhance

Last but not least, we have implemented the 'Enhance' Leadership Perk, which can be used to raise your choices in Tests presented in some Event choices. This has been planned for a long time and we hope that it will lessen the impact of the somewhat more arbitrary Tests and give you a measure of agency.
The team has done a lot of awesome work on the Event UI and we hope you'll like these improvements when you get your hands on them in the next build! Until then, take care, and conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-05 15:02:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are immensely honored, happy, and proud to share that Vagrus has been nominated for two awards in the upcoming Unfold Games Awards show. It feels like quite an achievement for a game still in Early Access, especially since over 400 high-quality games entered the contest. The nominees were selected by a panel of 20 judges comprised of top industry professionals. The two categories are: - Audience Award - Vote for Vagrus - Best Game Design Award We cannot express how much these mean to the whole team, how their love for the game and dedication to turn it into something truly special got recognized in the form of these nominations. The Audience Award is, of course, one that will be awarded on the votes by players so we would very much appreciate your show of support for Vagrus under the link [url=https://unfoldgamesawards.com/index.php?p=nominees&category=11]here:
We are also grateful to You, our players, for having made it possible for Vagrus to get here. Your continued support, constructive critisicm, and dedication to the game keep pushing us to deliver more and better. Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland! -The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-05-03 17:02:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

This time, we come to you with a double feature of sorts, combining two topics into a single devlog post: changing the types of the beasts of burden of a comitatus and the mechanics of Trade Offers.

Beast Types

The vagrus's ability to change the type of beasts their comitatus uses has been planned to be added to the game from the beginning but it had to wait until recently for a couple of reasons. The first being that there were a number of other - more important - things to be added before and also because changing between only two types would have been a bit lackluster, but the third type was locked behind content that we got around to just lately (and is available since the addition of Larnak). Of the three types of beasts, two are accessible in most settlements in-game. Mammals are slightly more common, which means that you can buy them in greater number in mansios, except in the deep deserts where reptiles are more common. Neither of these two types are better than the other in all respects. For example, reptile beasts of burden carry more cargo and move a tad faster but march less effectively and have a much larger consumption. Reptile mounts are slightly better at combat but less effective on long journeys than horses. Mammals are cheaper and so make it easier to scale up your comitatus but require more animal care, thus more work. The third type, insectioids, work as an upgrade in basically every aspect and cost a lot to obtain. This type is meant for high-end comitati in general. Changing the beast type of your comitatus happens in the mansio and it changes both your beasts of burden as well as mounts to the selected type at once. From then on, you buy beasts and mounts for the new, active beast type, meaning you can never have mixed beast types in your comitatus.

Trade Offers

Commerce in the Riven Realms is held in the iron grip of Trading Houses through official monopolies or the control of locations that produce valuable goods. A simple merchant who deals in smaller quantities of wares can not begin to imagine what profit these factions work with, especially compared to what the actual manufacturing or harvesting costs. Yet there are considerable expenses involved in these operations, too. If the hardships of travel over the accursed wastelands were not enough by themselves, factions regularly wage bloody wars for resources, mostly in the shadows but often openly as well out on the frontier - and these are astonishingly expensive. In accordance with the above outline, we have always wanted players to only have access to large quantities of wares through factions. We had a lot of the feature in place, including UI elements, but we needed dynamic pricing to work before being able to add Trade Offers. Until it could be implemented properly, the temporary solution was to control stocks through the market of settlements, but it was less transparent in many ways - a lot of players neglected to check back to depleted or markets with a seemingly low goods density, believing that it will never change. The concept of Trade Offers is not complicated: factions that have presence in a settlement post bulk offers for buyers and sellers alike. The content and quality of these offers depend on a variety of factors, including the faction's interest in and the supply-and-demand of the wares in question, the extent of their presence, as well as the player's unlocked Trade Offer tiers (from I. to III.). Trade Offers can only be bought and sold in full stacks, and beside the normal price, vagri can get a better deal when spending faction reputation. Although factions do not sell their wares cheaper (except at higher standing with them on the source nodes of the goods), each unit of the offered stack costs the same, which is a great advantage over the dynamically changing market price even though it may seem that the initial couple of units cost less at the market than the offered ones. The result is that large scale trading is mostly viable through faction Trade Offers. Apart from fitting the setting of the game, the point of this design is to keep smaller comitati more viable through normal market trading while to upkeep larger ones you would have to progress through factions. This is only true of course if the player wishes to delve into the trading aspect. Trade Tasks remain for those who mostly care about a fixed, certain profit without risking their coins. We hope you will like these new additions - they certainly add new levels of depth and strategy when it comes to comitatus management. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-04-28 14:30:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=7u1s_LIW7LY;full][/previewyoutube] Dear fellow vagri, This short video was made to give you a rough idea about how the new comitatus equipment screen and system were changed. Categories have been revamped, with new ones added into the mix.
The new mechanic allows players to use these items in more diverse and specialized ways. New types of equipment, like armaments, tools, and animals were added while we ironed out the older ones as well to make it more consistent and interesting. Many pieces of equipment are available for several slots, so you can mix and match in more ways than one. Another change is that Deputies are now linked to equipment in a new way - they will open up extra slots for certain types when assigned to their post, further deepening the system. Now you'll be able to make use of more equipment at the same time and come up with combinations that better suit a large variety of situations in game. We also added a lot of new pieces of equipment with the last several patches, making the list of available ones fairly long by now, including some unique ones only acquirable through questing and faction reputation. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-04-21 14:31:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=L7wVhvi6vYQ;full][/previewyoutube] With the arrival of Factions to Vagrus, you guys got a new way to specialize your comitatus. Up until the addition of Faction rewards, however, this meant some obscure (albeit very welcome - we're looking at you, road tax) boons and perks but then with claimable rewards, Factions quickly became our players' new best friends. The Name of the Game In its core, the system is well-known in video games: build more reputation by doing repeatable, procedurally generated Tasks as well as unique stories, unlock higher tiers of Standing with a Faction by doing so, and receive your rewards. The higher the Standing, the better the rewards - it is that simple. Or is it? Of course, staying friendly with a Faction might be a challenge of its own, seeing how they tend to hate each other so passionately. This means that gaining reputation with a Faction will reduce reputation with their enemies, albeit not with the same intensity. It was deliberately implemented this way so that you can not get all the goodies in a single run - a balancing act, a tool of immersion, and a factor in replayability.
The Rewards Two kinds of rewards are bound to Faction Standing:

• Prizes: These Gear or Equipment rewards are one-time only redeemables. Once you have the Standing, you can claim them at a settlement with the right Faction presence. There is some overlap between prizes here and there but you also get a lot of unique rewards among them to make them more interesting. The higher tier ones are powerful and valuable additions to any comitatus.
• Boons: These are always Enduring Effects and they will stay applied to your comitatus until you lose the required Standing with the given Faction, in which case you'll lose the boon. However, upon regaining your Standing, you can again claim these effects by simply going to a settlement with any kind of presence for the Faction in question.

All in all, we are very happy with how Factions - and the related rewards - have turned out in the game. There is still some tweaking to be done, perhaps overhauls of rewards as well, but we have had a very positive feedback from our player base and we're very excited to see how these awesome rewards will motivate you guys to delve into the Faction system. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-04-14 14:38:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

the time has come to revisit the region that featured in Pilgrims of the Wasteland, the tutorial/prelude of Vagrus. We opened up that very zone for the open-world campaign, albeit we are 10 years in the future compared to that prologue story, so expect some changes. There was a bit of a switcheroo involving several patches in the works and eventually the choice fell onto pushing this out in part to fix a game-breaking bug from the previous patch. For this reason, expect a smaller update in the near future that irons out a few things regarding the currently added content, although we might end up merging that with Mercenary Tasks, the next larger addition.
Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.
Now let's jump into the details:

Patch 0.5.30 - Codename: Brimstone and Bones

New Content :gift:

• The Smolderbone region is finally open, as well as a new part of the Searing Plains. They include five new points of interest: the city of Avernum, Omphalat Outpost, as well as the tribal settlements Vitrar and Utvorar, plus the dreaded Writhing Oasis.
• A number of stories and quests that lead to this zone continue, and a lot of new ones begin here, too.
• A new companion, the veteran warrior and former kingpin Skornar can be recruited in Avernum.

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Defender, Diehard, and Marksman Perks implemented.
• Skill dependencies implemented for Burrow, Eviscerate, and a number of other enemy Skills. In some instances, these Skills appear as new (like Eviscerate) but mostly they got more restricted in their use by the tweaks.
• Considerable changes to market prices.
• A number of fixes/design changes to Trade Offers.
• Enemy Mounts and Beasts gained through Crew Combat are now turned into supplies when your comitatus uses the Yrg beast type.
• Enemy combat resistances nerfed all across the board.

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Most Event UI crashes/bugs fixed - not all of them, though
• Various smaller fixes and Event script tweaks

Known Issues:

• Skornar's Guard Stance retaliation attack upon successful block may not always trigger. We are investigating the reason.
• Load times are getting higher and higher. We plan to address the issue closer to the final release.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Coming Up Next:

Mercenary Tasks, along with a focus on spicing up Companion Combat. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-04-09 17:47:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our friends at Iron Tower Studio have just released Colony Ship on Early Access. You can play the first chapter of the game and explore the first three locations. Colony Ship is an isometric, turn-based RPG inspired by Heinleins Orphans of the Sky. Your character's world is a generation ship, a massive spacecraft on a centuries-long voyage to colonize a distant planet. The Ship's original government has been disbanded following a violent mutiny and you must negotiate a treacherous path among your fellow passengers and the contentious factions striving to dominate the Ship. Your choices alone will determine who your friends and enemies are.
Turn-based combat with action points and different attack types with different pros and cons. Gather a party of adventurers or explore the Ship alone.
Turn-based stealth: action points, noise and alert meters, and takedowns.
Dialogues with various checks: stats, skills, reputation, items, deeds, etc. [hr][/hr] You start the game in the Pit, a container town sitting in one of the Ship's cargo holds. From there you can travel to two nearby 'locations': the Armory and Hydroponics. These and other locations will change and evolve throughout the game.
The Pit. The Free City. Ever since you were a kid, this has been your home: a sprawling heap of vacant cargo containers slowly getting filled up with those who couldn't afford to stay in the Habitat or needed to get away from its bosses and factions. Out here, folks have lived free and died fast, with those who survive earning their keep by either "diving" into the wreckage of Mission Control and bringing back valuable relics of the past, or figuring out a way to make money off the fools who do the diving.
Your destination lies ahead a triply reinforced door flanked by twin auto-cannons drawing on a seemingly inexhaustible power supply. No one made it past during the Mutiny, and no one's made it past since. Like the proverbial flaming sword outside of Eden, it sits as a guardian, a symbol of ancient strength, and a promise of marvels beyond.
The Hydroponic Division was originally conceived to adapt Terran plants to the anticipated environment of Proxima Centauri. Extensive gene-editing was employed to develop resistance to alien fungi and pests, and accelerated adaptation hacked into the plants' genetic code. Like many other critical systems, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. The carefully cultivated flora and fauna was left on its own in harsh environs designed to propagate rapid and brutal evolutionary cycles. When men returned to reclaim Hydroponics, they discovered an environment as wild and hostile as any Earth jungle. [hr][/hr] Party members with personal quests, development arcs (reflected in changing portraits), agendas, and beliefs. The first chapter gives you 3 party members out of 10:


... and introduces a party member who might join you later:
[hr][/hr] Wishlist and follow Colony Ship for up-to-date information about its development milestones and get notified about its release when the time comes. https://store.steampowered.com/app/648410/Colony_Ship_A_PostEarth_Role_Playing_Game/

[ 2021-04-06 13:16:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

this next patch is a bit lean on content but that is because we are gearing up to the next one that has a huge new region with tons of adventures awaiting - and it is coming sooner than you think! That said, this current update contains a pile of new features and Quality of Life improvements that will hopefully make you happy - like a completely reworked Event UI, Test boosting that allows you to use Resourcefulness to improve chances in Events, additions to Chart markers that makes it easier to find things in the wasteland (but still keeps it a challenge most of the time), new Hirelings, combat Skill tweaks, and a lot more!
Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 0.5.29 - Codename: Perky

New Content :gift:

• 1 new Venari and 3 new Oquo Hirelings became available at their respective headquarters
• New Deputy Perk options now available on most companions (most of these you have to unlock via Prowess progression)
• New SFX for a few enemies

User interface improvements :pencil:

• Event UI revamp including buy-sell icons, hover effect, the whole choice box clickable, dependency icon improvements, and tooltip improvements,
• Test chance boosting is now available (normal & advanced with the 'Enhance' Perk)
• Revamped Mini-comitatus UI (campaign view top left) with more information
• Revamped Node & Marker cards on the Chart
• Chart markers are differentiated by colors and icons from now on
• Added the use of preview markers: this allows you to check the destinations of Tasks before picking them up
• Enemy banners added in Crew combat for flavor and categorization
• 'Ready' sub-header added under Journal Tasks

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• 'Enhance' Perk and functionality enabled (allows you to raise Test chances further in Events).
• 'Traverse' Perk and functionality enabled (allows you to convert MMP to MP every few days).
• A shedload of balancing changes to Companion Skills.
• Tasks no longer automatically grant the settlement destination on the chart. Instead, they spawn a marker similar to quest markers that can be used to locate the settlement.
• Passengers also get a marker. Their destinations also is now clickable in the mansios (so you could preview the direction they are heading to).
• Several tweaks to market prices aiming to make cheaper goods a bit more profitable while curbing the effortless riches on expensive goods (let us know how you find these).
• Trade task commissions got a ~8% increase to make them more worthwhile

Bug fixes :bug:

• Faction offers no longer accumulate the available offer quantity infinitely (hopefully that puts an end to the 1k bross rounds)
• Sand Wyrm burrow got an interim fix - a proper fix will come at a later time
• A number of smaller bugs squashed
• Can no longer poach Yrgs from Crew Combat
• Crew Combat offerings no longer disappear when clicking 'Back'
• Event occurrence tweaks regarding the frequency of wind and dream events
• Another round of infinite insight exploits closed off

Known issues:

• The initial Loading time might have gotten even higher as we had added the new nodes for the upcoming content patch (hidden from players for now)

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now?' - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it.

Coming up next

Meanwhile, we keep working on two major patches simultaneously. On the content side, the Smolderbone region has been coming along nicely, while the development of our single largest outstanding feature, Mercenary Tasks, is progressing well, too. We are not sure at this time which one will be ready for release first. Let us know in the comment section which of them you are waiting for the most. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-03-30 18:29:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=SFQQYD3slPU;full][/previewyoutube] Hirelings Hirelings are a new kind of ally we have recently added to the game. They are in effect companions but can only be hired for a limited time - and for a steep price. They have no story of their own because they are only meant to represent nameless mercenaries, rounding out the abilities of your companions or making up for something you are missing in your comitatus. You always hire these henchmen from certain Factions.
Types and Use There are two kinds of hirelings: non-combatants and combatants. The latter can take part in Crew- and Companion Combat encounters, and are quite capable in both, armed with their own Skills and Combat Traits. Non-combatant hirelings do not fight but provide their versatile skills to anyone who can pay them. They will be added in a later content update. There are stronger variations of each hireling available to those vagri who can pay more.
Abilities and Limitations Hirelings can not be leveled up, their Prowess is fixed. However, they start at a higher level, which makes them much more powerful than most starting companions. Several hirelings have Deputy Perks, which can make them useful when you want to obtain a character with a specific role. Hirelings' combat skills complement those of your own companions, with most of the mercenaries adept at crowd control, tanking, or support Skills.
Where to Get Them House Venari is the sole purveyor of hirelings at the moment but you do not have to be on friendly terms with them, only neutral, to be able to make use of this service. Higher standing with the Faction will give you a significant discount on hirelings. If you are interested in these specialized mercenaries, seek out the Venari villa in the city of Larnak in-game! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-03-17 15:31:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, 2020 has been a challenging year for us at Lost Pilgrims as much as for anyone else but it also brought a number of things that we really appreciate. One of these is a gingerbread Vagrus fan art. Yes, that's a thing! Besides the Krawag we also received orc marauders and three replicas of the pilgrim with the lamp from our logo. Those have not survived long enough to be part of the final photoshoot, though.
The First Open-World Region But let's rewind for a bit - to the start of 2020, in fact. It was a year we entered with big hopes, albeit with a lot of uncertainty. In January, we were in a frantic push to share the first open-world region of the game with our Fig and Patreon Backers, finally revealing our true vision for the game. We were all very excited to hear what people thought about it. On March 26, the time has come to taste the pudding as they say. It was yummy but the crust was a bit too hard: new players struggled with the strategic aspects of Vagrus. After a few weeks, we knew that the game was not ready for an Early Access release in May as we had originally planned. We needed to implement Trade tasks first, along with a number of improvements in other areas. COVID Impact Soon after publishing the open-world patch, our team opted to work from home-office. An interim measure, or so we thought at the time. It took some getting used to but eventually, we got the hang of it. The occasional scare that one of us got the virus was not helping our mental health, and we had a storm gathering on the financing side. The private investment round we planned for spring tanked as one by one our candidates pulled out due to the global pandemic. We had to pull our belt in a few notches while working hard to get ready for Early Access and start generating some income. In the end, we held a smaller round of investment the same week that we released the game into EA. It wasn't fun but it bridged the gap until our first revenue share payment. Early Access on Steam After some shuffling around due to the Steam Summer Festival and Summer Sale date changes, we set a course to release the game at the end of July. We knew we were developing a niche game with a lot of reading from the start, so we set our expectations accordingly. Compared to that estimate, our debut ended up being a huge success (while remained modest in the grand scheme of things, of course). Most importantly, it was enough to keep us going. The amount of initial feedback quite frankly overwhelmed us. At a certain point, we were over two weeks behind with processing our bug reports and other forms of communications we received but gradually worked it down to an acceptable threshold. From all that insight from players, we gleaned new truths on how we should prioritize the upcoming features and fixes. It quickly became apparent that crew combat needed some additional love first. The good news was that there were plenty of people enjoying the game even in its Alpha state, which gave us hope and strength to march forward. A Growing Team and Game We got to know Laci, who joined Lost Pilgrims as a programmer, back in February and kept in contact, with the turbulent times of COVID ever-delaying our target-date for joining forces. His commitment to safely hand over his previous project to his replacement was something we admired a lot and proved that we picked the right person to join our team. We added new content and features one after the other. Most recently, the largest content drop to date opened up the Deven region with a lot of new things to do. Looking at Steam, one can find many players with 60-70 but some over 150 hours of playtime. It's hard to grasp for how long some folks might play Vagrus when all the content will be added and finalized. At the end of summer, the team decided to make home-office permanent and we canceled our office rent. With the second wave of the pandemic hitting not very long after, it proved to be a wise decision.
Social Numbers It's been a while since we shared our progress in numbers. The trends have been similar to previous years. Traditional social media platforms grew a little but not significantly while the number of our following on gaming portals has more than doubled - a clear sign that most people follow their gaming news where they play. The good news is that since Vagrus's Early Access release on Steam and other platforms back in July 2020, the revenues coming from those places cover the cost of our small development team, which means we can safely continue working on the game, adding new features and content with each patch to the great satisfaction of our existing player-base who come back to play and see more of Vagrus. Perhaps the most significant news of 2020 for our team was that from our Early Access revenues we could expand our crew and so Laci joined us later in the year. He has proven himself an excellent and fitting addition to our team and we have high hopes as to our reinforced ability to deliver a great game during the course of 2021. We still have a lot to do, of course. First, to add all the regions we plan to include in the final release, then to build on that and develop mid- and end-game content that connects all the places like a web. On the game design and code sides, the biggest ticket will be implementing Mercenary tasks, a feature that is much more complex than the already existing Trading tasks. As it stands, Exploration tasks will likely be added in a post-release patch only but who knows. We have an incredibly long list of other improvements we plan to cover until the 1.0 version, ranging from visual enhancements through complete User Interface revamps to Quality of Life features requested by our players. We very much look forward to this new year and we'll see what it brings. Thank you all for everything and cheers, The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-03-08 11:20:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks, so we uh... broke a few things again. Early Access for the win! If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details:

Patch 0,5.27..M - Codename: Luminous - Hotfix!

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Crashes connected to Ashlander and Sand Wyrm variation character resolved
• Companion Combat Formations crash if the saved companion is no longer with the comitatus resolved
• Formation exploit allowing the deployment of companions not picked during hero select removed
• Formation exploit allowing more companions to be deployed than the max limit removed
• Gear and Status effects now added even if the companion does not have the given perk [They still do not count toward Combat Trait requirements]
• Companions showing as Wounded even on max health fixed (you need to camp one night for the code to recognize the actual health status)
• Event scripts related to the Oquo questline in Larnak corrected
• Larnak Hive quest line fixed
• The rare bug where Nedir could not be fitted out with any Gear resolved
• Nedir's Famulus is now always (re)summoned on full health
• Larnak is now by default visible on the chart just like the other major cities

Known Issues

• Formations are still not perfect. We will improve the logic and its tooltip in a future build.
• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time.
• The visual presentation of Companion Combat skills with two phases is not final yet.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-03-01 18:40:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

this patch is our biggest to date in terms of complexity including a new region and a number of big features, so the tendency of taking on a lot seems to become a tradition for Lost Pilgrims by now. Important note: considering the extent of these improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process of adding stuff and failed to notice despite extensive testing. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server.

New Content

Larnak is huge, although somewhat smaller than Deven and Tor'Zag's Shelter. The city has several unique districts, shops, temples, adventure hooks, and more. Larnak is the headquarters of House Venari, as well as home to the embassy of an insectoid people that arrived to negotiate with the Empire. A dark threat is also appearing on the horizon, as the long-disappeared Sand Wyrms are returning in great numbers to prey upon travelers of the scorching deserts that surround the city. Ash is a small town in the middle of a grey silt desert west of Sun Rock. Run by House Darius, it has become the largest slave market near and far. Unique opportunities await vagri with no scruples about forced labor. The Forsaken Colony to the southwest of Larnak is a mysterious place. Abandoned along with the mines and an odd Yrg hive nearby, it has been largely avoided for decades. However, something stirs there at the far end of the desert and a new presence might have set up shop in the old colony. We have also added a proper Oquo headquarters in the Drusian Quarry as well and the Dread Reavers continue their journey. Find these and more hidden stuff in the new build!

New Companion

Nedir the sorceress joins the companion roaster! Without spoiling too much, we can say that she is a spellweaver who specializes in fiery displays of destructive power as well as magic involving... well... Demons. She is completely in control of course! At least if you want to believe her.

Hirelings

To top it off, we have also added Venari Hireling characters who can be hired for a period of time to help out with the toughest of challenges, albeit for a small fortune.

Factions, Factions, and Factions!

Dynamic pricing was the first step to our final economy design. The second: Faction Offers is now added with this patch. As the Factions own sole rights to trading in bigger quantities, finding enough goods to trade from the market can be quite challenging (and expensive with the prices shooting upwards with each bought stack). For the affiliates of the big Trading Houses though, the flow of goods opens up right away. Gain good standing with them and you will find their buy and sell Offers on the now enabled Faction Offers tab [Only in the open-world section]. Use a portion of your accumulated goodwill (reputation) and the deal becomes even sweeter.
Faction Rewards open up with each tier of Faction standing. Some of them you can reclaim at each of their headquarters, others are awarded simply by reaching new tiers (and lost when falling below a tier's threshold). These new rewards include:

• One-time obtainable rewards (like equipment and gear) can be reclaimed for most unlocked faction tiers. Some of these are not attainable anywhere else in the game.
• Constant effects, like increased worker efficiency, ambush chance, or Odd Jobs bonus. These are unique for each faction per tier and they have several levels you can unlock on higher tiers.
• New vagrus and comitatus customizations in the form of banners. Most factions give you their banner upon reaching a high tier of standing. You will be able to change banners on the leader UI.

Mounted Fun

Did we mention the third beast type becoming available for high-end comitati? How about the option to mount up your whole crew (provided you do not have any beasts and have enough mounts for all your crew including companions, passengers, and yourself)? Well, it would take too long to describe every fix and improvement in detail, so let's just switch to our traditional Patch notes format. Here goes: --------------------------------------------------

Patch 0.2.27 - Codename: Luminous

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Faction Offers / Access to Faction reserves
• Faction Rewards (gained for each tier of standing)
• Buy Market info via your Faction connections
• The third beast type enabled (attainable via quests)
• Mount-Up (though not quite feasible yet, more enablers to come)
• Companion Combat formations (save and deploy your fav positionings)
• Hero Select autofill and remove (filling order based on health rate)
• Venari hireling characters (expensive professionals to hire)

New/Updated Content :gift:

• The Larnak-Ash region
• Venari HQ in Larnak
• Oquo HQ in Drusian Quarry
• New Companion: Nedir
• Dread Reavers on the road again (though technically this time you are on the road for them)
• Three new music tracks [Deven, Larnak, and an alternate Jaggest Waste]
• Brand new enemies, as well as new versions to existing ones

Updated Game Mechanics :tools:

• A great number of changes to the effects of existing and new equipment/gear/statuses
• In many cases, changes to the availability of equipment and gear (now often available as Factions Rewards only as opposed to the market)
• Stronger versions of equipment added - sometimes the original ones nerfed a bit to make the upgrade noticeable without breaking the balance completely

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Indicators added on both the Crew Combat and the Companion Combat side to better indicate which unit participates in them, and also if they were Elite or Leader units
• Market prices and quantities now shown in stacks when the 'mass trade button' is pressed
• Tooltip improvements all across the board

Bug Fixes :bug:

• The trickling reputation rates were in reverse for Opponents and Adversaries, now corrected which will make it a great deal easier to remain on good terms with opponents
• A great number of insight and reputation exploits closed off [sorry, not sorry :P]
• Event decisions impacting Faction presence in settlements were not working property - fixed and reconstructed for prior saves as well based on journal entries
• All known crash root-causes resolved
• Various other smaller fixes

Known Issues

• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time.
• The visual presentation of Companion Combat skills with two phases is not final yet.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team Coming up next... Mercenary Tasks and a return to Avernum. Yes, you read it right! Stay tuned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-02-25 19:03:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks, Our concern that we may have broken some things with all the changes stuffed into the Beasty patch was not baseless it seems. We hope that the glitches have not botched the experience much. Although the game will have fewer bugs with this patch we have certainly not squashed all of them, so if you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. After releasing this hotfix, we will continue working on the next big patch, which will include Ash and Larnak. Stay tuned for that, too! Now, let's see the list of things we fixed and added:

Patch 0.5.26 - Beasty Hotfix

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Thee immunity Perks added: Thick Skull (vs Stun), Immovable (vs Push/Pull effects), Fearless (vs Fear effects)

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Butchering crash solved
• Price History UI off the screen on certain screen resolutions fixed
• Action Select buttons work again on the Crew Combat UI
• The bug that opened an exploit that allowed the instant healing of Wounded companions at the end of crew combat was removed. Now it works just like healing during Camping (as intended)
• Corrected the issue when the outcome of the companion combat started from crew combat overrode the results sent back to the encompassing Event (and sometimes the Event got stuck)
• Turning off the Open World Tutorials in the Options no longer suppresses the New Game starting-event with Agos
• Renkailon throws two daggers instead of one once again
• AI triggered Companion turn skips no longer occur in companion combat

Known Issues

• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time.
• The visual presentation of Companion Combat skills with two phases is not final yet.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-02-03 16:43:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks, this patch is a beast in all sense. So many new features and changes have been added that if you ever considered starting a new play-through, this might be the perfect time for it. A shedload of tweaks has been applied to make the early game a little more forgiving (without making the late game easier), and we look forward to your feedback on the direction of these changes. Important note: considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details.

Patch 0.5.25 - Codename: Beasty!

New/Updated Features :shiny:

• Dynamic pricing allows for higher profits in smaller quantities. See our detailed design post.
  
• Enter Companion Combat from Crew Combat - actions enabled
  • The two combats 'run parallel' - you get to play first the Comp combat and see the result impacting the Crew combat side
  • You can decide which companions fight in which combat but only in one (meaning their CS/Def do not count in crew combat)
  • Every Crew Combat round allows you to fight six rounds in Comp combat. After that, the battle continues
  • Victory (killing all enemies) achieved within the six rounds causes 10 grit damage to the enemy
  • Defeat ( all deployed companions pushed to downed/out of combat) results in serious morale loss (so you better take it seriously)
• Summoning Skills for Necromancers and Hollow Eyes
• Price History is a new tool for all vagri to track goods' prices across settlements
  
• Equipment design changes - new slots, unlocked by deputy assignments
  • Equipment can be mounted into one or more slots specifically and the Miscellaneous slot is no longer a default for all
  
  
• Faction Flag selection (incl. minimap flag)
• Beast Type change option at the Manios between Mammal and Reptile
  

New / Updated Content or Game Mechanics :gift:

• Created alternative versions for some of the bandit roster characters
• Few dozen Event balancing changes
• Beast & Mount Buy-Sell ratio corrected
• New game default beast type: Mammal
• Indirect Faction reputation change is not limited to the [-1 : 3] tier range
• A metric ton of smaller economy & crew combat tweaks
• Some Equipment stat changes [a shed load of new equipment coming soon as Faction Rewards]
• Road Tax event priority change (High to Preferred)
• Road Tax event no longer considers goods in Stash
• Road Tax event option to pay with Supplies
• Leader and Elite unit kills cause additional Grit loss to the enemy [regardless of dying from comp combat or crew combat damage]

User Interface Improvements :pencil:

• Graphics config within Options (no pop-up)
• Options menu overhaul
• Combat Clash Speed option added (1.5x set as default)
• Combat Round Announcements
• Character turn announcement
• Turn off tutorials for Open-World gameplay
• Equipment is now listed in two columns

Bug Fixes :bug:

• Criftaa Suppressing Shot + Evade crash fixed
• Negative Power stat companion freeze fixed
• Mass trading buttons removed from Discipline and Liberate screens
• Selling equipment when full cargo exploit fixed
• Empty Odd jobs result after settlement Rest due Scouting lock on the Camp UI
• Deputy perk refund exploit removed
• Death animation restored to its original size

Known Issues

• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time.
• The visual presentation of Companion Combat skills with two phases is not final yet.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-01-28 18:15:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

first of all, Happy New Year. We made it to 2021 at last. It's been a while since we posted a devlog entry and we figured that this would be a great time to do so. Today's topic, Dynamic pricing, has been on our minds for a long-long time, and finally, we've decided to pull the trigger on implementing it. To provide a little background on why we need it, let's review what happens in the current build of the game when you go trading.

Current Goods Pricing

Buying and selling goods on the market do not affect those respective prices. The first stack you buy will cost exactly the same as the last one you grab from that market. Similarly, the first unit of pottery you sell will go for the same amount as the 535th unit you dump on the locals. This means that after you figure out what makes sense to trade in small quantities, you can rely on repeating that no matter how big your comitatus grows and end up making the same rounds over and over again. The whole thing turns into grinding, which never was our intent, of course.
It's problematic from an immersion perspective as well since dumping twenty stacks of pottery on an oasis camp makes absolutely no sense. What the heck would they do with that many, right? Lastly, but just as importantly, that system created an economy balancing issue, too. As once the size of your comitatus grows, it becomes more and more profitable to repeat tried and static routes. While the buy and sell prices are the same regardless of the quantity, the other costs (upkeep, consumption, etc.) are not scaling linearly with the cargo size. We have struggled with this through numerous attempts at balancing, failing in a new way every time. [olist]

A low profit per stack created a suitable challenge for bigger comitati but smaller ones had an extremely tough time surviving.

When we raised the profits high enough to make it relatively easy for smaller comitati to make a living, by the mid-late game players were swimming in money (known as the golden age of vagrus players, with many owning 10,000+ Bross).

Right now we are in the middle where smaller comitati still struggle while there is little challenge for high-end caravans since money is never a constraint for them. [/olist]
Our solution?

Dynamic Pricing

The main change in this system is that markets react to the quantity available to them. The more of the same goods you sell on a market, the less they are willing to pay for it and similarly, the less quantity of a trade good remains on the given market, the higher the price they expect for it. It's a well-known concept: in economics, they refer to this as the 'invisible hand' that balances demand and supply at the right price.

But how does this help with the issues we listed above?

It allows increasing the profit margins to the high spectrum, so smaller comitati would have an easier time while effective trading still maintaining a challenge for mid- and large-sized caravans. The higher quantities you buy and sell, the closer the buy and sell prices become, so the profit margins stick closer to your cost-efficiency.

Does that mean that the game will become much harder for mid- or large-sized comitati?

Yes and no. Doing the same as before, running exactly the same trade rounds regardless of size, will not work well any longer. Players trying that will quickly see their profits dwindle and might feel that the game just got harder for them. The answer is partly in: 'the bigger no longer means better' but also in: 'diversity over grinding'. Instead of trading in 2-3 types of goods in massive quantities, the best profits (better than before in small quantities) can be achieved in trading in many goods at once. Getting great deals and distributing between multiple locations along a trade route work much better. It will be something new and challenging until players figure it out; also much less repetitive, hence more enjoyable, we hope.
It will surely take several iterations to balance this new system. We have already started testing it internally but the ultimate trial by fire will come when we make this available to you all and hear your insights: stories of success and failure. Learning those will help us tweak the system further and get closer to a good balance between challenging and enjoyable. Hope you are just as enthusiastic about these upcoming changes as we are! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2021-01-05 20:46:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

We at Lost Pilgrims Studio want to wish you all Merry Christmas (or whatever else you celebrate in your neck of the woods at this time of the year) and a hopefully-much-better 2021 than this year has been globally! We hope that you are safe and well in these dark times. Keep a weather eye on the horizon, as we'll continue working hard on Vagrus, releasing content and features continuously, to be able to deliver a final game (in 2021) that has the high quality we aim for as well as our quirky, unique touch. :) The Lost Pilgrims Team
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-12-23 19:02:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

our last patch with the Deven subregion and Crew Combat improvements was our biggest release since entering Early Access. Unfortunately, it also brought more bugs/setup issues that slipped through the cracks. Sorry about that. But now we are happy to share with you this 0.521 build that is, though, mostly a hotfix patch for 'Codename:Plunder', also has some new Quality of Live features we have been planning for some time.

Let's start with those QoL additions:

• Objective area markers added on the Chart for a number of questlines - typically for those where you need to scout within a given area, so you would know at least the approximate location. Note that this is the first version of this feature and will change over time when we add Mercenary and Exploration tasks as they will use the same system. Also, we might add an option in the main menu to turn these off so hardcore explorers can hunt for these locations solely based on rumors and other clues.
• Exploit Leadership perk is enabled, which now allows players to use Resourcefulness to reroll available Trade faction contracts in settlements once per seven days.
• Goods category filters added on the Market to help finding the exact things you are looking for.
• Specify quantity button added for those playing via Steam Remote Play using their iPads (or somethin').

Okay, so what got fixed? Here go the patch notes.

Patch 0.5.21 - Codename: HighLife!

New/Updated Features

• Objective area markers
• Exploit Leadership perk to reroll available Trade Tasks
• Goods category filters on the Market
• Specify quantity button on the Market
• Goods pilfered by the enemy can be taken back if you destroy them in Crew Combat
• Entering major settlements with a larger armed force now requires a license
• Vagrus now runs in the background

Bug Fixes

• Heritage of Hatred questline location is now actually on the map
• Blessing of Unbiding works on companions - time to hunt some specters
• Eliminated over 300 nodes and 2000 lines from the overpopulated areas of the campaign map
• The Wyrm's Teeth shows up on the Chart as intended
• The event connected to the Wyrm's Teeth now properly pops up (if all dependencies are met)
• Initiating banter during the rest before the Gor'Goro Arena match no longer breaks the game
• Chapter I. save in the PotW story fixed
• Applied a great many changes to Crew Combat calculations
• Approximately 300 Crew Combat templates rebalanced (probably needs 3-4 more passes before release :P)
• Crew Combat Action with 'Not against Beast/Undead' requirement fixed
• Crew Combat casualties now properly show up on the conclusion screen and at the time of camping

Known Issues

• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time.
• Scouting result crash - still unable to reproduce.
• The visual presentation of Companion Combat skills with two phases is not final yet.

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team P.s.: thanks for all the Steam award nominations. We love you too! If you like the game and/or the direction it's heading, posting a review is a great way to help the development. Much appreciated. Cheers!

[ 2020-12-05 08:23:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

a few weeks ago we published a long post on the changes coming. Today, we are happy to share that the changes are live as of posting this! Better yet, we have included two additional features that we managed to implement in the meantime.

A quick recap of what we have added:

(Skip ahead to see the bonus additions)

New Content:

• The Deven region with one major settlement, Deven, and a smaller one, Sun Rock, as well as a lot of new ground to explore.
• The Church of Ahskul faction is fleshed out in all its macabre glory.
• Try your luck at tomb robbing in the Valley of Sleepers - if you dare.
• The Ratharnak Alliance's headquarters were extended and moved to the Mines of Plenty.
• Your journey with the Dread Reavers continues!
• A lot of new (shorter and longer) storylines you can follow through.
• The Dark Elf companion Renkailon can now also be recruited through story progression.

Crew Combat Improvements:

Looting in crew combat

• Destroy the enemy or make it flee and get all their valuables
• Gather/Harvest items, money, and goods from fallen enemy units
• Catch - with a small chance - the surviving mounts of your Outriders who fell in battle
• Extract supplies from mounts that did not survive

Of course, the Riven Realms remains a dog-eat-dog place, so none of this loot is available if you lose or are forced to flee. Also, 'immersion is king' even when it comes to looting. Do not expect desperate lowlife tugs attacking your comitatus carrying heaps of valuables. Now, in case you are the aggressor and ambush their camp with all their possessions... that is another story. Provided that you are okay to prey on the weak. Will your companions approve? Will you provoke the Empire's ire?

Combat preparations

• You can mount Fighters or dismount Outriders right before crew combat (except if you are ambushed)

Goal (objective) selection changes

• Now you select a goal on the defensive side as well, so you can choose what you defend the most (crew, beasts, cargo)
• The main target of the enemies is only revealed in the second round
• You can change your objective at the end of each round
• Added the option to flee or retreat even during ongoing crew combat (albeit at potentially heavy losses)

New 'defense' stat introduced

• It better reflects how easy or hard it is to take out certain enemies and characters (ie: Outriders are much harder to damage for example)
• You can improve your crews' combat strength and/or defense stats with equipment and properties separately

'Actions' in crew combat (tactical commands)

Giving more tools to the vagrus, we are now enabling 'Actions' in crew combat. These can significantly influence the outcome of crew level combat encounters. Our ultimate goal is to enable entering Companion combat directly from Crew Combat but even until then, players can choose from a number of actions (more to come), like:

• 'Launch a mounted attack' that increases the effectiveness of Outriders for the round
• Form a 'Shield Wall' to increase the defense of your Fighters
• 'Insult' the enemy to increase the chance of them making a mistake

Impervious crew combat enemies

Specters, Haunts, Living Shadows. Horrors that are immune to mundane weapons. Improve your companions, gain the blessing of Gods, gather rare magical items to defeat them. Alternatively, do the only thing you can if you come across these deadly enemies... FLEE!

• Impervious enemies are marked with purple borders and their defense stat is colored as such, too
• Only your Enchanted companions and/or crew can damage Impervious enemies in crew combat. Enchanted combat strength is highlighted - the axe and the CS value are colored purple.

Miscellaneous Changes:

• Event UI performance updates to ease the jittering
• Higher Authority now reduces Companion loyalty penalties
• Outriders now automatically dismount to create cargo space in case the throw-out screen is (or would be) triggered

And the additional changes we managed to squeeze in:

• With the game growing, so did loading times but finally, we got around to add a loading screen that also gives tips to new players.
• Made a massive number of smaller performance improvements, which together - hopefully - have a tangible effect on how the game runs.
• Implemented the Command leadership perk that opens up advanced Crew Combat Actions.

Let's dive into the detailed list of changes:

Patch 0.5.20 - Codename: Plunder!

New/Updated Features

• Crew Combat changes - Looting added - Goals on the defender side added & option to change your goal between rounds - Defense stat introduced - Actions & Advanced Actions with the Command Leadership perk added - Impervious enemies now appear - Mount/Dismount at start of combat added - Retreat/Disengage/Flee options mid-fight now possibel - they take a full round to execute
• Load Screens added with tips
• Updated mechanics - Outriders auto-dismount to free up cargo space if needed - Keeping an 'army-sized' comitatus got a little harder

New/Updated Content

• Deven region added with the settlements Deven and Sun Rock and a ton of new content
• Renkailon can be now recruited normally (without Braxius' involvement)
• Ratharnak HQ moved to Mines of Plenty; Church of Ahskul more prominent in Deven (their new HQ)
• The Dread Reavers hit the road again and get into all kinds of shenanigans

UI Improvements

• Progress Counter shown on certain Quality journals
• Animation and decal refinements
• Various smaller UI changes & Tooltip updates

Bug Fixes

• Sorcerer's Apprentice background is back
• Shedload of smaller fixes

Known Issues

• We will explore options to reduce the initial loading time
• Scouting result crash - still unable to reproduce
• The visual presentation of companion combat skills with two phases are not final yet

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team P.s.: If you like the game and/or the direction it's heading, consider nominating Vagrus for a Steam Award. Originally we meant to recommend the Story Rich category but people kept referring us to the Games you suck at award which is for hard games. What do y'all think? [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660/Vagrus__The_Riven_Realms/]

[ 2020-11-27 20:11:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks,

we just wanted to give you all a quick development update. We are pushing hard to publish the next big release still this year. Here's what's coming if all goes according to plan:

New Content:

• The Deven region with one major settlement, Deven, and a smaller one, Sun Rock, as well as a lot of new ground to explore.
• The Church of Ahskul faction is fleshed out in all its macabre glory.
• Try your luck at tomb robbing in the Valley of Sleepers - if you dare.
• The Ratharnak Alliance's headquarters were extended and moved to the Mines of Plenty.
• Your journey with the Dread Reavers continues!
• A lot of new (shorter and longer) storylines you can follow through.
• The Dark Elf companion Renkailon can now be recruited through story progression.

Crew Combat Improvements:

Looting in crew combat

• Destroy the enemy or make it flee and get all their valuables
• Gather/Harvest items, money, and goods from fallen enemy units
• Catch - with a small chance - the surviving mounts of your outriders who fell in battle
• Extract supplies from mounts that did not survive

Of course, the Riven Realms remains a dog-eat-dog place, so none of this loot is available if you lose or are forced to flee. Also, 'immersion is king' even when it comes to looting. Do not expect desperate lowlife tugs attacking your comitatus carrying heaps of valuables. Now, in case you are the aggressor and ambush their camp with all their possessions... that is another story. Provided that you are okay to prey on the weak. Will your companions approve?

Combat preparations

• You can mount fighters, dismount outriders right before crew combat (except if you are ambushed)

Goal (objective) selection changes

• Now you select a goal on the defensive side as well, so you can choose what you defend the most (crew, beast, cargo)
• The main target of the enemies is only revealed in the second round
• You can change your objective at the end of each round
• Added the option to flee or retreat even during ongoing crew combat (albeit at potentially heavy losses)

New 'defense' stat introduced

• It better reflects how easy or hard it is to take out certain enemies and characters (i.e.: outriders are much harder to damage)
• You can improve your crews' combat strength and/or defense stats with equipment and properties separately

Actions in crew combat (tactical commands)

Giving more tools to the vagrus, we are now enabling 'Actions' in crew combat. These can significantly influence the outcome of crew level combat encounters. Our ultimate goal is to enable entering Companion combat directly from Crew Combat but even until then, players can choose from a number of actions (more to come), like:

• 'Launch a mounted attack' that increases the CS of Outriders for the round
• 'Form a Shield wall' to increase the Defense of your Fighters
• 'Insult' the enemy to increase the chance of them making a mistake

Impervious crew combat enemies

Specters, Haunts, Living Shadows. Horrors that are immune to mundane weapons. Improve your companions, gain the blessing of Gods, gather rare magical items to defeat them. Alternatively, do the only thing you can if you come across these deadly enemies... FLEE!

• Impervious enemies are marked with purple borders and their defense stat is colored as such, too
• Only your Enchanted companions and/or crew can damage Impervious enemies in crew combat. Enchanted Combat Strength is highlighted - the axe and the CS value are colored to purple.

Miscellaneous Changes:

• Event UI performance updates to ease the jittering (still not 100% but we are committed to fix it as soon as we are able)
• Higher Authority now reduces Companion loyalty penalties
• Outriders now automatically dismount to create cargo space in case the throw-out screen is (or would be) triggered

We are looking forward to all of you getting your hand on the new update and hearing about your experience. In case you like the game and/or the direction we are taking with it, please consider leaving a review. It's a huge help. Thanks and see you around, vagri! The Lost Pilgrims Team

[ 2020-11-13 18:10:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

One of the most requested additions by our Early Access players has been Companion progression for a while now, and it's no surprise. Being a party-based RPG at its heart, Vagrus has a roster of unique Companions that are your most trusty lieutenants with their own backstories, skills, and personalities. It is only natural that they can become stronger with time and effort - and we have naturally designed this progression system in the beginning, but we held off on adding it because there were a lot of specifics to work out and the EA experience functioned fairly well without it. Now, however, the time has come to introduce the progression system to see what our players and fellow vagri think about it.
Prowess and Insight Character levels (exclusive to Companions) in Vagrus are called Prowess. You unlock new levels of Prowess by spending Insight - the same Insight you can spend on your vagrus. Once you gain a level, you can spend Proficiency points on your Attributes, Professions, Combat Traits... and now the all-new Companion Traits and revised Combat Skills, too. These round out progression with the ability to make your Companions much stronger in combat. The Prowess cap will be 5 for the time being, as we are still testing higher-end progression (and mostly lack high-end content), but it is more than enough for a significant rise in power.
Combat Skills You have seen them already but the Combat Skills now have fully developed second and third (maximum) levels. These level ups potentially change the Damage, Accuracy, Critical Chance, and effects of the Skills, often quite drastically. A good example is Garrik's Gas Bomb that covers more and more ground with level ups.
Additionally, several of the Companion Skills were revised to be more desirable in certain situations. A ton of enemy Combat Skills are also now working as intended, but more on that in another post.
Companion Traits Each Companion now has a set of unique Traits that raise several baseline stats like Vitality, Armor, Resistances, base Accuracy, Power, and more. This is the only way to change these stats apart from Gear, so you will have to think hard about what to pick. Especially because most of the Trait levels - as well as Skill levels - have requirements. Requirements We've planned to include Attributes (Mighty, Savvy, Tough, etc.) one way or the other in the progression from the beginning but we did not want to assign incremental stat increases to them directly. The way it works now, most Combat Skill levels and all Companion Traits have Attribute requirements you need to unlock before being able to purchase them. This means that with each Prowess level, you need to consider what build you are going for, what your desired Trait is, and plan accordingly when it comes to purchasing Attributes. This also means that no Companion will be able to unlock all their Traits and Skills by reaching Prowess 9 (the absolute maximum), so you'll have to plan builds.
As ever, we are very excited to see how the community reacts to the progression system. We hope that we can build on this system from now on and we'll be able to round out Companions fully in the future based on this. Even now, though, the system's depth is intriguing, and every Companion can focus on certain things ahead of others to specialize according to your needs. Let us know what you think! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-11-04 15:42:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone,

and first of all let us thank all of you who shared their views regarding our planned priorities. We took that to heart and worked tirelessly to implement Companion Progression, which includes raising the Prowess cap from two to five, introducing Companion-specific traits that increase stats, and much more. It is important to mention that the Companion loyalty storylines that will in the final game open up Prowess 3 and 6, are not yet in the game and not planned any time soon either. Our plan is to add those once all the planned regions are added first, so those questlines can be placed to their ideal location rather than crammed into the currently available territory.
We have also made various other improvements that make Companion combat more interesting:

• Diminishing returns will help against enemies with high Block or Evade stats, and though it is applied on the player side as well, some of the Companions have access to the Resolute perk now that allows them to ignore diminishing returns, meaning they can Evade or Block without getting a debuff.
• Thanks to some AI improvements, the enemies will now be much better at using complex skills instead of spamming a unit's base attack or even just skipping turns or swapping when out of position somewhat.
• The mechanics of many combat perks, like Channeling or Life Leech, that are available through companion progression or as gear effects, have been implemented giving even more Companion upgrade options.

Beside changes on the code side, we are opening up a new subregion in this patch for the first time, the salt basins above the Mines of Plenty. The area includes Salum, the headquarters of the Scythichnis Covenant as well as the Auguros Work Camp, a prison colony of the Empire. [previewyoutube=BWxw9ztB1E8;full][salt mvideo or image][/previewyoutube] Let's dive into the detailed list of changes:

Patch 0.5.16 - codename: Salty!

New/Updated Features

• Companion progression - Prowess cap raised from 2 to 5 - Second level skill upgrades enabled (and can be boosted to third) - New companion-specific Traits added that raise baseline stats such as VIT, ARM, ACC, etc. - For an interim period, companions can be 'reset' during camping (via the 'brain' button on camp/rest screens)
• Companion Combat - Diminishing returns on Evade and Block introduced - New 'Resolute' combat trait available for certain companions; this trait makes the companion unaffected by diminishing returns - AI improvements - enemies can now use complex skills and are less likely to skip their turn - Skills involving movement or two phases now work as intended (their animation is split into two so that is still not final) - Enemies may now seem to have gotten new skills whereas in truth, those just started to work properly - Initiative order altered to accommodate enemies with multiple actions per round; also to properly remove/add characters losing or gaining actions (i.e: Stunned or Aided)
• New combat traits implemented: Arcane Leech; Blood Magic; Channeling; Durable Spells; Frenzy; Life Leech; Siphon; Spell penetration

New/Updated Content

• The salt basins region added with settlements, events, and a questline
• Gor'Goro has a new fourth combat skill

UI improvements

• Camp UI 'X' button added (the most requested feature ever :smile: ) - goes inactive if any camp action is started, like banter, etc.
• Companion combat decal flips finally work for enemies used as allies, as well as some other decal effects fixed
• Animation and decal refinements
• Various smaller UI changes & Tooltip updates

Bug fixes

• A bunch of Resourcefulness/Authority/Perk base/effect related bugs/potential exploits resolved
• Save/Load issues around camping resolved
• Companion combat skill effect resists against Impervious enemies now properly work (no Bleed status vs Specters, sadly)
• DOT damage kills now trigger companion combat victory when defeating the final enemy
• Wrong node-path taken bug fixed
• Various smaller fixes

Known issues

• Scouting result crash - still unable to reproduce
• Crew combat looting does not work yet
• The visual presentation of companion combat skills with two phases are not final yet

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nope. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. We are eager to hear how you find these new changes. With Companion Progression added, we are refocusing on the most critiqued area - well actually two areas - of the game: crew combat and companion combat. Our first priority will be to implement our planned Crew combat looting design and depending on how long that takes, we might take a crack at Crew combat Actions, too, soon afterward. While Companion combat has received a number of feature updates, the visual representation is still far from what we imagined. Beside the generic goal of making it 'better paced and more impactful', we are planning to improve specifically how we visualize targeting and complex skills, and also explore adding turn/round announcements and initiative order animations - the list goes on. This may take a while, so no promises on the deadline but we thought it was important to share that we are working on it. In terms of content, our eyes are set on Deven and the surrounding area already. It's coming. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! - The Lost Pilgrims Team P.s.: We are still receiving a high number of messages, bug reports, and improvement ideas via the various channels so we might not be able to respond to everyone but we're trying our best.

[ 2020-10-14 13:29:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Lately, we have been working on Crew Combat to further enhance its mechanics and the latest improvement is the 'Flee' feature. Let's check it out!
Flee! Fleeing will now be added to a selection of Crew Combat encounters with the following considerations:

• You do not always have the option to flee. It depends on the encounter.
• While trying to flee, your combat strength is significantly reduced.
• Your Flee value comes from your crew composition, equipment, and crew combat attributes among other things, resulting in a percentile chance.
• The enemy's Chase modifier further alters the chance of fleeing.
• Flee chances represent how successfully you can flee from combat. You will suffer damages even in case of a successful flee, albeit much less than you would by staying in a fight where you are outmatched.

Appease Appease is an option that further changes fleeing when you can use it.

• Sometimes you have the option to try to appease your enemies. Again, this is dictated by the combat encounter.
• When you choose to appease, you offer to leave behind a variety of things for the enemy but depending on your foe's type and motivation (crew combat attributes), they may or may not appreciate them equally or at all. Some Perks increase the effectiveness of appeasing your opponents.
• If you offer enough things to satisfy their craving, the appeased opponents will not chase you at all. In case of a partial offering, some of them might still do but the damage caused by them will be comparatively less.

You can see a demonstration of these mechanics in the video below. [previewyoutube=JrIxXxzCbHc;full][/previewyoutube] No need to die against a horde of Jhakrae or a throng of Undead (or to load your game...). Run away and live to fight another day! :) We hope that these changes will significantly improve the WIP Crew Combat experience, making it less of a Load Game fest. Let us know what you think once you have tried it. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-09-23 16:46:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow vagri, we thought that this would be a good time to take a look at the recently implemented User Interface changes in Vagrus. With the Factions tab, you can track your standing with the various factions of the game's world. At a later point in the developement, it will be possible to claim rewards for each unlocked reputation tier (although there are already a lot of implicit benefits and rewards for high reputation with almost every faction). The Leader Status and Perk Summary UI pages might seem superfluous gains at first, but they round out the status effect UIs, as well as provide vital information about Perks, so it is indeed a very important milestone in our march towards completing the game's interface. Below you can read about each of them in more detail. Faction UI In short, factions are organizations you can gain reputation with. Enough reputation points unlock tiers of faction standing that award the player with all kinds of goodies: discounts, items, equipment, and better paying Tasks, to name a few. Factions are often at odds with each other, so gaining reputation with one might lower reputation with another or two. You can absolutely lose standing, which results in losing the passive benefits of that tier. Most factions also provide quests and other content with the right tier unlocked. There are several places where you can find factions on already existing UI elements. First and foremost, factions appear as a separate UI tab under the Leader main UI (since faction relations belong to your character the vagrus). You can check your standing with all factions here as well as what each tier provides, read about all the factions, and check on their allies and enemies. Apart from that, factions also appear on the settlement UI, where Tasks can be taken, turned-in, and rewards are redeemed, provided the faction in question is present in the given settlement. Faction presence is also varied, with headquarters allowing for the most interaction. The majority of factions have a presence in large cities, though. There are 11 factions currently in game, though several of them are partially implemented and will be fleshed out more with upcoming content patches. Some of them you have already encountered when playing the Open-world campaign, like the Church of Sergorod, the Ratharnak Alliance, the furtive Abolitionists, or one of the Imperial Trading Houses. We'll discuss them in more detail in a future post. Leader Status All kinds of long-lasting and temporary status effects can be received that affect the vagrus, your character, and these are listed on this pane. Its addition became especially important with the coming of Faction rewards, many of which provide bonuses borne by the leader of the comitatus (while companion- and crew-related effects get listed on their respective UI elements).
Perk Summary With this addition, you can check each Perk's cumulative value. These are collated from your vagrus, your companions (including their Gear), equipment, and enduring effects. You can also see the breakdown of these Perks ordered into categories. Naturally, this UI only shows Professions and Attributes, as only these can be gained from multiple sources.
We hope these additions will make your lives in game easier. Stay tuned, for more is to come! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-09-16 15:09:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Folks,

Thank you for all the feedback you shared with us in the last few weeks! This was immensely useful from the smallest bug reports to the super-ambitious ideas on how to turn Vagrus into a AAA title [thanks for crediting so grand a potential to our tiny team], and we appreciate you taking the time to help us with your insights. One of the most commonly flagged missing feature was the option to Flee from Crew Combat encounters, and so after the first bundle of quick-fixes, we shifted our focus to that. Soon after starting to design Flee, we just felt that Appeasing enemies -bribing them to let you go without even having to run for it - was so tied to the Flee mechanic that it only made sense to implement both. And so we did. We also made a number of tweaks, including the change that Tax collectors no longer factor in cargo from Trade tasks when calculating the tax amount. It took a little more time than we originally planned and we wanted to make it available as soon as possible, so it has not been extensively playtested. The game might have become a tad too easy with these changes - please share your views about that once you had the chance to play a couple of hours with this new build.
Okay, time to dive into the list of changes:

Patch 0.5.15 - codename: Flee!

New/Updated Features

• Crew Combat Flee including the first version of Appease - In case the Enemy is the attacker, you may choose to Flee instead of fighting - Some Enemies are slow and easier to flee from while others are good at chasing and you may be better off fighting them - Increase the chance of your Flee by Appeasing the enemy with leaving stuff behind - Based on their attributes, enemies accept offerings and appreciate them on a different level - Auto-offer does not work for goods yet
• Crew combat enemy-demands scale a bit better
• Tax collectors no longer factor in Trade Task cargo when coming up with the tax amount. At the same time, tax immunities through Factions also reduced.
• The accidentally released Perk Summary Tab properly implemented now
• 'Manual' companion heal phased out by natural healing replacing it completely - as planned
• Loads of perk related updates and fixes: - Perks granted by gear/etc do not count towards certain requirements (other Gear, Perk prerequisites, etc) - Gear/Deputy/Combat perk requirements only consider the companion's base perks now - On the Leader and Companion Perk UIs, only the base perks are indicated - Perk insight and proficiency costs consider base perk levels only (no overcharge for levels granted by other things)

UI improvements

• Companion Perk UI refreshed (still not the final version, though) - Split to three columns now instead of the previous four and also added new tooltips

Bug fixes

• Settlement Slave/Mounts sell, also Banter misdirects to the Chart fixed
• Dream event script fixed
• Fixed disappearing proficiency points on deputy skills
• Price tooltip resets when all goods are sold
• 'Location ?' bug on the 'Load game' screen fixed
• POTW Chapter 9 autosave occasional load-back issue resolved
• A number of typos and event script errors fixed
• Tooltip improvements
• Various smaller fixes

Known issues

• Gear & Status bonuses will be added back to the Companion and Leader Perk UIs
• Scouting result crash - unable to reproduce
• One combat decal crash - unable to reproduce

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nop. 'Was it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. Now that we have released Flee, we are moving on to design and implement Companion Progression, which will move the cap on companion Prowess to five from the current two and bring along new combat traits to increase companion stats. It already looks and feels awesome, we think. We are also changing our approach to content releases and instead of very rare big drops, we plan to open up new campaign map areas in smaller chunks. The first one will most likely be the salt basins above Mines of Plenty, including Salum, the headquarters of the Scythichnis Covenant and the Auguros Work Camp of the Empire. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team P.s.: We are still receiving a high number of messages, bug reports, and improvement ideas via the various channels so we might not able to respond to everyone but we're trying our best.

[ 2020-09-02 18:39:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have always planned a fairly elaborate system of healing mechanics but when creating 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland', we first focused on getting the main features ready and implemented a more streamlined, placeholder set of healing rules. Out with the Old The PotW system simply had you use a relatively valuable resource - medical supplies - to fully heal one Companion at a time during camp. This is not only too 'gamey' but also very obtuse and not what we intended for the game or the setting. The old healing system did have hidden statuses, however they were not used for anything really:

• Hurt: Received after losing 50% Vitality, limits Maximum VIT to 80% until removed.
• Wounded: Received after Downed, limits Maximum VIT to 60% until removed.
• Mortally Wounded: Received after falling Out of Action, limits Maximum VIT to 30% until removed.

In spite of these elaborate statuses, healing remained the same: the use of a medical supplies item healed Companions up to their Maximum VIT right away. In with the New When Crew Combat was added, we implemented an elaborate system that was used to heal up your wounded Crew and Companions at the end of each skirmish. It was based on rolls stemming from the Healing Perk. Now that we decided to rework Companion healing, we basically use the same principles for natural healing. During camping, you roll for natural healing for each Companion that is not at Maximum VIT. The heal roll chance comes together from the following factors:

• Major impact from Heal Perk levels (from Companions, the vagrus, gear, etc.)
• Minor impact from Herb Lore Perk levels
• Major impact from settlement accommodation if any (second or third Rest tiers only)
• Major impact from taking it slow with the comitatus (spending less MPs before camping)
• And most importantly: from medical supplies (item) if you choose to use them

Even without many impacting factors, Companions recover VIT more often than not, except if the natural healing roll is a Critical Failure and in that case can even lose VIT but only until it reaches 1, so Companions can not die but their condition can worsen. The statuses from the old system still exist, and if a Companion reaches the temporary limit (for example, 60% of Maximum VIT when Wounded), a successful natural healing roll removes the current status and applies the next 'higher' one (for example, a Wounded Companion then becomes Hurt). A Critical Success results in a two-stage jump.
Medical Supplies Using Medical supplies provides a huge advantage, as it removes the status even if the Companion has not reached the associated temporary VIT limit. It also increases the chance of status improvement and VIT recovery greatly. Previously, one full healing required one medical supplies item with a 100% result. Now, there is a chance on the result and hence these healing items can be lost or retained based on a chance with each usage. Normally, this depends on the roll, like treating a Wounded with a success roll has a 10% chance to use up the item, while rolling a fail increases that chance to 20%, and so on. We implemented the natural healing part already but left the Event heal option in too for the time being, at least until the changes on the Camp UI can be implemented, allowing the players to decide on the usage of medical supplies each time they strike camp. This new system is much better-suited to what we were planning from the beginning, and is also more fair, although healing will be slower and so you'll have to think twice before jumping into combat too soon. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-08-05 15:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Folks,

Our EA release has been an emotional roller coaster on both sides. Most managed to hold on tight, some even got to the finishing line (took them ~50 hrs on average) but there were also many who fell out of the carts. Sorry about that. Know that most of the root causes are bugs and not intended design.

Have we entered EA too early? - we asked ourselves. Well, Yes and No.

In retrospect, parts of the game could have been much better balanced, some critical features should have been added before the release. On the other hand, we did not have enough fresh eyes and those areas were confirmed 'okay' by hundreds of veteran players who played on way harder versions than the current one (survivor bias). Considering that, it is great that we got a new wave of players and learned about those issues, so now we can focus on the right things. Truth be told, if we entered EA a few months later we would have developed a bunch of new stuff and jumped into the same hot water. It will get better, though, promise. Time to dive into the list of immediate fixes we have applied.

Patch 0.5.14 - codename: Bandage

• Almost all crash bugs fixed (still chasing one in the companion combat)
• A massive number of performance improvements
• Chapter 9 autosave added at PotW climax combat sequence
• Trade Tasks a bit more profitable
• The bug that preventing low-level Trade Tasks generation resolved
• Another bug hindering Trade Tasks generation in general fixed
• Crew combat strength calculation corrected
• Crew combat difficulty introduced slower (The true answer will be 'Flee', though)
• Random Crew combat on Point of Interest nodes bug resolved
• Scouting into multiple directions costs less Resourcefulness
• Scouting Movement Point cost got a little cheaper too
• The tax percentage reduced on non-cargo valuables in the generic Road Tax event
• Imperial 'wanted criminal' status increases slower but still can get locked out of Tor'Zag
• Fixed the issue where companion recruitment events could be repeated
• Companion loyalty losses in events and due to game mechanics reduced a bit
• The bug that caused permanent Resourcefulness loss resolved (for the future only)
• Some wide-screen problems (like chat-heads covering text, etc.) solved
• Brand new GFX setting boost performance
• V-sync option now properly saved
• Music loop time setting added
• Corrected the sound balance (it was accidentally heavy on the right channel)
• A metric ton of typos and event script errors fixed
• Tooltip improvements

'Is Vagrus properly balanced now'? - Nop. 'Is it a step in the right direction?' - We think so. Please let us know how you find it. From next week we will start to design and implement the Flee option in Crew Combat, also diminishing returns on Evade and Block in Companion combat to stack against RNG better. We are hoping to roll these out too within a few weeks. After delivering those two and some smaller improvements, we plan to focus on bigger tickets, like Faction Rewards, Companion Progression, and more. Stay tuned, stay alive, conquer the wasteland! The Lost Pilgrims Team P.s.: We are flooded with messages, bug reports, and improvement ideas sent to us via the various channels so we might not able to respond to everyone but we're trying our best.

[ 2020-07-31 21:09:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=mgtG1Jdr0aw;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks to all the insights you have shared with us during Vagrus' Open Access period, the game has grown and improved massively in the last twelve months. We are proud to share that we kick off our Early Access journey with over fifty hours of available content that we look to expand further during our EA period, which is expected to last until the eventual full release sometime in 2021. We have come very far but if you dive in for the first time and play the current build, please keep in mind that the game is in no way finished yet - see bugs and less polished areas for what they are: potential to make the game even better. Your help by reporting those using our in-game tool (F1) and sharing your experiences on our Discord server (discord.gg/vagrus) will continue to be the key for learning about and prioritizing focus areas in our development process. Check out our game and if you like it, spread the word, and dont forget to leave a review on its store page! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-07-22 15:15:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

The time is upon us! As we have previously announced, a permanent version of Vagrus' free Demo has finally landed on Steam today (July 10) following its success on the Steam Summer Event, released as a separate application here on Steam called Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue. You will probably be pleased to know that this incarnation of the demo has a small set of achievements you can complete, too.
The Prologue is made up of two parts:

• The first section of the standalone story 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland', which is also the tutorial of the game.
• A taste of the Open-World main campaign with character creation and the first five turns to play.

The Demo has about 2-3 hours of playable content (depending on playstyle), and it is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. To help us and the game, consider writing a review about the Prologue on Steam and recommend the game to your friends! Please bear in mind that the Prologue is a Demo of an Early Acces game. Some aspects are still being polished. You may find our disclaimer here, and we appreciate you submitting bugs and ideas on this thread here. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-07-10 15:17:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

We promised that we would bring Vagrus - The Riven Reams to you in Early Access on Steam when we felt the game was ready for it. Today we are proud and exhilarated to announce that the time has come, and now we know the exact date.

Vagrus - The Riven Realms enters Early Access on Steam on July 22, 2020.

[previewyoutube=mgtG1Jdr0aw;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks to all our crowdfunding Alpha backers and our demo testers, Vagrus has grown and improved massively in the last twelve months. We are proud to share that we kick off our Early Access journey with over fifty hours of available content that we look to expand further during our EA period, which is expected to last until the eventual full release sometime in 2021. We took our time. We have added and improved features that, based on insights from our players, we felt are essential before entering Early Access, but we know that the game is in no way finished yet. We have plans regarding where we would like to end up by the time of the full release, big plans in fact, in terms of content, features, and polish. When you play the current build, keep that in mind - see bugs and less polished areas for what they are: potential to make the game even better. Your help by reporting those using our in-game tool (F1) and sharing your experiences on our Discord server (discord.gg/vagrus) will be essential in identifying and prioritizing focus areas in our development process. We have compiled a short Q&A about the upcoming release that you might find informative:

Q: How much will the game cost?

A: The base price will be $29.99 with an initial launch discount. We do not have plans currently to increase that for the full release but with all the added content and features, it may happen.

Q: I have already bought my Steam/GOG.com key elsewhere but it says its locked. Why?

A: Your key will only become active when we release the game into Early Access, so on July 22. You will be able to access it right away from then on.

Q: How can I help before July 22?

A: Join our Discord community and help us by spreading the news about the upcoming Early Access release so that we can reach more people and learn about their player experience, which we can make the best use of during this EA period.

Q: There is a separate Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue that is due to release on July 10 on Steam. Is that a different game?

A: After the success of our Demo during the Steam Summer Festival, we decided to make that free demo available for players in the long run so they could get a sense of Vagrus and see if it was their cup of tea. We wholeheartedly encourage you to try the free Prologue demo when it comes out to help you with your purchase decision. The Lost Pilgrims Team
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha and Preview builds at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-07-02 14:58:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

The demo of Vagrus is more story-driven so we would not want to spoil it for you, however, our dear friend, Nookrium agreed to stream the open-world part for you. Enjoy! He will be in fact looking to meet himself in the game as we love his indie game videos so much that we decided to use his likeness for a non-player character (NPC) portraits.

[ 2020-06-20 21:41:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

The time is upon us! As we have previously announced, new versions of Vagrus' free Demo are coming to Steam.

There are going to be two iterations of the Demo on Steam:

• Up until and during the the Steam Game Festival, the Demo is downloadable from the Summer Festival Page (any only from there).
• As the event ends, Steam will automatically remove the Demo for users' libraries. Fret not though, the demo will continue to exist in the form of a separate Prologue app. It will be available here not long after the Game Festival, releasing on July 10. The Prologue will also include a set of achievements.

Both both cases the The Demo will be available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Interested in the setting of Vagrus - the Riven Realms and want to understand more about the strategic aspects of the game? Or have a question regarding development or the team? Ask Us Anything on our Vagrus discord starting 11 AM EST (5 PM EU). JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER To streamline the discussion and make it easier to follow, we'll set up a separate channel where only devs can chat. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Website|Youtube| Fig| Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Discord

[ 2020-06-17 09:05:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Interested in the setting of Vagrus, the Riven Realms? Want to understand more about the strategic aspects of the game? Have a question regarding development or the team?

Ask Us Anything on our Vagrus discord starting 11 AM EST (5 PM EU).

JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER

To streamline the discussion and make it easier to follow, we'll set up a separate channel where only devs can chat.

Do not have questions yet? Try the demo of Vagrus - The Riven Realms for FREE during the Summer Edition of Steam's Game Festival.

[ 2020-06-12 15:09:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

According to players currently testing the open-world, it is hard to make a living as an independent comitatus in the Empire. That was an intended design choice, because almost all the trade is controlled by factions on the continent, be they Trading Houses, religious organizations or criminals. With their Imperial trading monopoly licenses or their raw negotiating power, factions buy and sell at significantly better prices. With that in mind, we have planned to include a Task-system from the beginning and we are now getting closer and closer to implementing it. What we call Tasks now in Vagrus are essentially procedurally-generated contracts offered by factions. If you fulfill the Task, you get rewards and reputation with these factions. At this time, we are concentrating solely on Trade Tasks, though there are going to be other types later on. The main goal of the Task system is to allow players to ease into the open-world part without having to have an extensive meta-knowledge of what can be bought or sold for a good profit in the different parts of the Empire. While completing these Tasks for a fixed commission, players also earn reputation with factions, gaining access to higher tier Tasks, better market prices, and one-time rewards. The design considerations and building blocks we are using for Trade Tasks are as follows:

• Many Tasks have a time-limit to complete.
• Early delivery increases your reputation reward.
• If you failed to deliver in time, you lose reputation. It does not matter if you just tarried too long, lost the goods due to unfortunately circumstances, or sold it elsewhere like a true swindler. To make it less appealing, you lose significantly more reputation than you would have gained, and can not get a new Task from the given faction until you either complete the delivery or pay for the 'lost' goods.
• There is a limit to how many Tasks you can accept at any given time (though if it is in general or per faction is yet to be decided).
• Parameters for Tasks (like destination, cargo type, etc) are generated procedurally, though typically within certain boundaries depending on the faction that offers it.

Tasks are intended to be expanded in future milestones with Mercenary and Exploration type commissions, too. This milestone is to lay the foundation for those as well. We are hyped as a Jhakra in heat by the prospect of adding this feature set to the game, as we think it'll make it much, much deeper and provide a ton of things to do for players. What do you think? The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-06-10 15:54:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

TL;DR: Vargus has been selected by Valve for the upcoming Summer Edition of the Steam Game Festival.

The Summer Festival is an online event between June 9 and 14, during which Steam promotes demos on its main page. It's a huge opportunity for a small developer studio like us: we can show our game to a wider audience, not to mention the chance of it being covered by press and other content creators. So you can imagine that we are really excited to be part of this event. Now, let us see all the things that happened recently around the game in a little more detail. The First Month After Open-World It's hard to believe that we are the end of May already. The first month after revealing the Open-World campaign of Vagrus has been both amazing and exhausting beyond what we expected. We have received tons of feedback; some of you played the game for over a hundred hours. Based on that, we worked hard to patch out a large number of bugs and event script errors, as well as adding some quality of life improvements. Milestone Changes Most importantly and based on our players' insights, we re-prioritized our development milestones to ease the early game learning curve, which proved to be too steep for a lot of new players. Then, once we finished the combat AI improvements, we started working on Tasks. You can read about those two here (Combat AI) and here (Tasks). Demo on Steam Parallel to Tasks and developing content for the next large region to be added, we started to make preparations for our eventual Steam Early Access release and - as an important in-between step - for the release of our Demo on Steam. Turns our it was a good investment of our time as it was picked up by Valve for the festival! The three main reasons why we believe publishing a Demo is a good idea:

• We get a 'temperature check' on how the current level of polish sits with our future players
• We can refine the messaging (if needed)
• It generates hype
• And uhm... buy some time so we can finish implementing the Task system in the background

What do these mean in practical terms? After we release the Demo, players will have the chance to provide feedback on it - what they liked and what they hated; and a lot in between. What captured their imagination and what felt lacking. There is no game that ticks all the boxes for everyone, we know that. We also know that it is better to have a game that some people feel passionate about rather than one most players classify as 'okay'. Nevertheless, it is important to dig into those reviews to understand whether it was a genuine problem that we do want to address, or a mismatch in expectation with what a certain player had. In the case of the first, we have the chance to make changes in the game before we release it into Early Access, while for the second, we need to tweak our messaging to avoid, or at least minimize, such mismatches. Then there is of course the wish to generate hype. People playing the Demo will - fingers crossed - feel passionate about the game and sign up to be notified when it comes out, or even decide to support the development via our currently running crowdfunding campaign. So in conclusion, we hope you check out the Demo at the Summer Festival if you haven't already elsewhere, and let us know what you think!

[ 2020-05-21 20:36:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Manual Save

We have thought long and hard about how to deal with manual saves in Vagrus, because there are a lot of complications stemming from certain game elements. Do we let players choose mid-combat? Do we let them save mid-Event? Is there a point to Event tests if manual saves scumming works? These are just a few of the many questions that have arisen. Eventually though, we could not imagine Vagrus without being able to save manually. We never set out to make a rogue-like and the Riven Realms can often slay even the best vagri quickly and cruelly. You might also want to replay certain quests differently and you should be able to load your game in such cases. So now that so many things are changing before the release of the Open World campaign, the time has come to implement manual saves and so you will see it pretty soon. That said, we will later add an Achievement to those crazy folks who can play through the game without ever saving manually.

Hunting and Foraging

Keeping your comitatus well-supplied - or in some cases even keeping it from starving - has always been intended to be challenging in Vagrus, and it makes sense: you are the leader of a daring traveling company in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where resources are often scarce and terrible encounters can turn a simple trip into a living nightmare. But we also hear you, dear players, when you say that sometimes it is a bit too difficult to keep your crew from starving, and so we are working on a couple of small features that we have planned to include from the start and that would make life easier for you when it comes to supplies. Let's take a quick look at what these are. Foraging Foraging is a camp mechanic and you can use it to send out workers or slaves (or both) to gather supplies in the camp's vicinity. This yields supplies when the day is ended, albeit not a lot. Its role is to provide a relatively steady stream of supplies to help out with long journeys over the wastelands. When sending out workers, the success chance is based on the yield of the region modified by the number of workers and their Vigor. In case of a critical fail, you can lose Vigor and even - very rarely - workers. When sending slaves, Obedience is reduced, then depending on the test, you can have one or more slaves escaping. In both cases, the Survival perk levels also factor into the test you roll. Hunting Hunting is a riskier business and it is a new way to make use of your scouts. The supply yield of hunting is either high or very little depending on the test roll that is based on the region's base yield, the number of your scouts, and your Hunting perk levels. The Venatoris deputy role also grants significant bonuses for this action. Hunting at the camp also tends to bring back secondary loot derived from beast kills, like hides, ivory, or chitin. There is also a chance that you will lose scouts when going hunting - the dangers of the wasteland are never to be underestimated. Loot (yay!) A very welcome side-benefit of both foraging and hunting that sometimes your crew finds and brings back loot from these excursions. Loot is mostly taken from fallen creatures of the region (like ivory or bone) but sometimes they can find other things as well. This loot is never abundant, mind, but can sometimes give you a nice little bonus. Scouting We are thinking about giving scouting results a new use: it would reveal the node's yield for hunting and foraging. These have a range for the region but individual nodes can be much more or much less abundant in supplies to claim. It is not sure when this will be added yet. So that is a short rundown of what we are planning for this feature. We hope it will help with the cost of living and surviving the wastelands of the Riven Realms. What do you think? The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-05-13 14:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=5LZxYu3t6uo;full][/previewyoutube] Initially, we built Companion Combat without too much focus on the combat AI, knowing full well that it would be a massive task to code and having most of the combat features locked before we do so would make it overall a more efficient undertaking. Thus, vanilla Companion Combat AI was 'equipped' with nothing more but brute force, running thousands of random choices without any direction that were then evaluated in the back end by a not-too-sophisticated point system spiced up with a dash of random generation aiming to make the AI choose sub-optimal scenarios too from time to time. Otherwise it would have been much too strong. That unfortunately had its share of drawbacks. It was either extremely slow (too many iterations) or dumb (not enough iterations). After some tuning, we went for the middle ground with a rather slow and occasionally irrational setting. Truth be told, it felt awkward every time we saw someone stream the game like that and initially planned to return to it earlier but our players felt more concerned about other areas of the game, so we moved it behind other open-world features on our priority list. Now that the first open-world region is in the hands of our backers and patron testers, we finally got around to improve AI, too. First Objective: Increase Speed We introduced a number of new attributes for all characters to drive their behavior, such as:

• Row preference: Melee or range preference, or being versatile in both. That allowed to eliminate all simulations from non-preferred positions on the battlefield.
• Tactical level (TL): Only characters with higher tactical awareness look for high certainty of their available options, while the ones with lower TL could drop the iteration numbers in the simulation drastically.
• Expected damage: It is calculated based on the characters' average damage. Characters finding a 'good-enough' option stop the simulation and look no further. The higher the TL of a character is, the higher that imaginary bar of expected damage is set.

Second Objective: Optimal Positioning When an AI - in any game - makes a dumb move, most of us feel lucky, even happy for a moment but then we immediately start to resent it. We want to beat the game with our superior strategy and not because of the AI's inferior tactics. Thus, we added new priorities for the AI:

• Row preference: It was already mentioned above but beside helping with efficiency it also increased the effectiveness of the AI as enemies naturally priorities moving into their preferred rows allowing them to use their most impactful Skills.

• Use cover: It is much harder to hit characters in cover with ranged attacks, so it only would make sense for the enemy units to use that advantage (even if only on higher TL).

• Use swap: Why spend two actions on shuffling around each other when you can swap? The players can do it, and so can the enemies now.

Third Objective: Colorful Skill Usage Balancing a tactical game is very difficult and can barely ever be perfect - we knew that from the beginning. We are also aware that for a single-player game, variety and challenge is more important than being perfectly balanced, so when we design enemies, we do not mind them having a mix of stronger and weaker skills. On the other hand, we would like the AI to use all of them, even if not with the same frequency, so now the AI takes into account:

• Effect prop points: Our old AI gathered 'points' during its simulation for instant and overtime damage as well as heal, also for getting targets stunned, killed, or downed. In the new version, we plugged in buffs, debuffs, and impediments too, so those skills would be assessed on their true merit.
• Cleansing matters: We also take into consideration cleansing (meaning removing) effects, since those can be equally helpful or painful, depending on the situation.
• Choice pooling: To ensure that weaker skills are used occasionally, we pool all viable options, sort them based on their scoring, then pick from the top number of actions on the list, where the number is determined based on the character's TL. The higher their TL, the narrower the pool, resulting in better choices.

We have worked for weeks on these changes but are quite happy with the final outcome. The next build will include all these changes and we hope to see you guys try them very soon. Gbor, Lost Pilgrim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-04-29 15:51:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

A Huge 'Thank You!'

We are grateful to everyone who has tried the game and shared their experience of the Open-World prototype. A very special thanks to Deviant, mithc, SomeCommonName, and TheBrightKing for all their testing efforts. With hundreds of hours of gameplay under their belts, their detailed feedback on the use of different systems, balances, and mechanics were immensely useful for us, helping to prioritize what we need to improve first.

So What's in the Current Patch?

Most importantly, the Companion Combat AI improvements, about which we will release a separate post in the near future here. Also, various tweaks to the trading background systems to make the early game a bit more forgiving until we add Tasks. Beside those, we made a metric ton of typing and script corrections, squashed bugs, and added some smaller quality of life features.

What's coming next? We listened to You

We have decided to split our Companion Combat improvement Milestone (milestone 19) into two. In this build, we are releasing the enhancements made to the combat AI speed and logic, while the part that was supposed to cover adding new skills to enemy units will return as a separate milestone later on. Instead, we are refocusing our efforts to some early game improvements, most notably: Trading Tasks. Tasks are jobs commissioned by factions for a fixed fee. Players can take on these Tasks knowing the exact money they will receive without having to dig deep into the trading meta from the start. They are the best and most reliable way to earn reputation with factions, too.
So the benefit of placing Tasks to an earlier spot on our development roadmap is to allow players to ease into the open-world part without having to have an extensive meta-knowledge of what can be bought or sold for a good profit in the different parts of the Empire. While completing these tasks for a fix commission, players also earn reputation with factions, gaining access to higher tier Tasks, better market prices, and one-time rewards. You can find some more details on Tasks in the description of our Milestone 20 here. Okay, time to jump to the patch notes so you guys can experience this new build yourselves. Enjoy!

PATCH NOTES v0.5.04

New Features

• Milestone 19 Companion Combat AI improvements
  • The AI takes its turn much faster
  • Opponents move between rows based on their preference (melee, ranged)
  • Enemy units take advantage of cover
  • Enemies are now able to swap positions

New / Updated Content or Game Mechanics

• Trade was made slightly more profitable in the early game with small comitati while significantly harder in the mid/end game
• Tweaks to Workforce and Guard requirements to make high-end comitatus size a little more costly (requires more crew to run one)
• A number of Perks have been merged to make them more impactful
• A shed-load of typos and event scripts corrected (anything you reported is supposedly fixed now )
• Carrying Passengers for longer distances is now slightly more profitable
• Scouting has a slightly better chance now (but still not justifies keeping scouts, that will come with Hunting and Tasks only)
• Added a few new visual and sound effects for enemy characters

User Interface Improvements

• Throw-out window can now be manually triggered from the Cargo pane (to get rid of contraband, unwanted goods, etc.)
• Goods tooltips improvements (now shows both Buy and Sell prices)
• Panning on the Chart with keyboard arrows added

Fixes

• A number of bugs causing all kinds of grief fixed (left some in so you can keep reporting them)
• Fixed the bug that prevented crew combat to come up during camping. Expect to be ambushed during the night more often. Finally!

Coming Up Next

• Trade Tasks
• Factions pane and Faction rewards
• Hunting and Foraging
• ...
• More Sound Effects
• Companion Level Up and Progression

[ 2020-04-22 15:07:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our friends from Dark Crystal Games team released the second content patch for Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG.
Encased is an old-school isometric RPG, heavily inspired by the original Fallout, Baldurs Gate and Divinity. Story takes place under the mysterious Dome, left by unknown civilization. Player has to fight for life in the harsh post-apocalyptic wastelands, explore anomalies, solve mysteries of the Dome and decide the fate of humanity.
New content patch adds many new locations, characters and mechanics to the game. Players will be able to meet ferocious cyberhyenas and heavily armed raiders, recruit the new companion and witness the dynamic day and night cycle under the Dome.

Main changes of the patch:

• Reworked locations. The Concord starting station was changed the most. New NPCs and interactive items were added.
• New enemies. New monsters are waiting for you in the wastelands! Cyberhyenas, crazy raiders and overgrown mutants.
• New locations and story. Main storyline got new quests. Get ready to complete them in unfamiliar locations.
• Day and night cycle. Now all areas under the Dome can be flooded with sunlight or enveloped in the darkness of a cold night.
• New random encounters. We've added a lot of random encounters, be more careful when traveling through the wastelands!
• New weapon and armor. The arsenal of the main character and his team was increased! Find new ways to kill your targets, while wearing new armor to protect yourself from danger.

It's the perfect time to see how the isolated world has changed in Encased, even if you weren't familiar with the game before!

[ 2020-04-15 16:02:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Riven Realms has been around for over two decades now for us who created it for our tabletop campaigns, and the setting has quite a lot of currencies, even if one only considers the continent of Xeryn. When we set out to develop Vagrus, we picked three coin types not to overcrowd the UI: the Lyrg, a copper coin; the Bross, a silver coin; and Draka, a rare and very valuable golden coin. These are all coins that are used fairly often in large-scale commerce on the continent, and they are also fairly easy to identify as the copper-silver-gold trio of currency is fairly common in historical and fantasy settings. Problems arose soon from the fact that a lot of common, everyday things are bought and sold for a smaller currency called Changers. For example, food for a day typically goes for around 2-3 Changers, or the daily wages of a worker are also typically around that sum. However, we had no Changers, so we implemented Supplies to represent 10 points of Consumption each. Individual crew wages were raised to 1 Lyrg - the absolute minimum - but this started an internal inflation that led to the rise of a lot of goods and services to make ratios match the world and to allow vagri to earn enough to pay upkeep. Unfortunately, this led to a situation where Drakas became very common, even in the beginning of the game, which in the metal-starved world of the Riven Realms goes against the lore and atmosphere, eroding immersion. Recently, us Lost Pilgrims decided that Changers have to make a return, and they have to do so before the Open World campaign launches (otherwise the change would mess with saved games later). At first, you might think this is a simple decimal shift, but it sent ripples out that shook most areas of the game in one way or another. On the technical side: Code had Lyrg/Bross/Draka hard-burned in several places, which had to be altered. Our databases, however, store prices as numbers only, so it was fairly straightforward to have prices shift (for example, if something used to cost 1 Draka, 2 Bross, and 5 Lyrg, now automatically costs 1 Bross, 2 Lyrg, and 5 Changers). On the design side, things were looking much more complicated:

• The silver trading goods used to cost one or more Drakas per unit, but now only cost one or more Bross, so we had to make them more expensive (it did not make sense in world or any other way to have a bar of silver cost a few silver coins). This of course inflated the prices of all metals further, including Scrap Metal, which you know very well from Pilgrims of the Wasteland. This caused further changes in that prologue section because now you have no funds to buy the metal for the main quest.

• Naturally, making metallic trading goods more expensive resulted in all gear, equipment, and items becoming more expensive, too. We'll have to tweak these prices as we go on.

• Now that we have Changers to work with, we could de-scale the Supplies-Consumption situation explained above and eliminate the decimal multiplication. One Supply is now indeed one meal, which equals one Consumption. However, this causes Supply goods stacks to now be much less effective, so we are raising the number of Supply goods in one stack significantly to make up for the multiplication loss.

• Then there is the question of Drakas, that are now effectively eliminated from the game. It is not a problem from a lore perspective, because gold is indeed very rare and mostly only extremely rich people see them with any kind of regularity. Now that said, your vagrus may indeed become such a person in the game, so we will probably add Drakas in some form or another later on.

Overall, we are happy that we went with the change (of Changers, heh...) despite the added work, especially because it would have been much more problematic later on. Additionally, our tabletop RPG souls are now at rest that the setting and the game are not at odds. :)

A big shout-out to Alder's Blood

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to chech out here on Steam! Alder's Blood is a tactical-strategy with stealth-based combat, RPG elements, crafting, resources gathering and management, exploration and rich storyline. Set in a grim world, where mankind killed their God and is facing extinction. [previewyoutube=MpNnpI2vlXU;full][/previewyoutube] Whishlist it now because it will be released on this Friday on 10/04/2020 so you can grab immediately this gem. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-04-08 14:30:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, we wanted to provide an update on Vagrus as we come close to releasing the first Open World build. We've been talking about it for a long time now, we know, but we hope you will appreciate the ambition of this small team, along with all the effort and heart poured into the game when you get your hands on it. As it stands now, funding for the milestone is almost complete and you will be glad to hear that we've been working on this for over a year now so we are ready for the release. Opening It Up We are so ready, in fact, that today (3/19/2020) we started to give access to the build for our most hyped Fig Backers to filter out the larger bugs or errors that slipped past testing. We want to have some time to adjust, but then the plan is to give access to all backers in March - if the testing mentioned works out fine then sooner than you think. What It Brings A ton of stuff, really. This is the game we've been working on, compared to which 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' was only a small appetizer. That said, this large segment is only the beginning, and areas (with their content) will be added later on at intervals. We have discussed this an other details of the Open World Campaign here. In short, a gigantic area with

• dozens of settlements and points of interest to explore,
• six Companions,
• over 20 new enemy types,
• five new soundtracks,
• character creation,

and a ton of story content for you to discover are coming in the build. We are very excited to see and hear your reactions, how long it takes you to find all the content, and of course to find out how difficult it is to stay alive for players in the cruel wastelands of the Riven Realms. See you soon on the dark continent! The Lost Pilgrims ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-03-19 18:33:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown:

Race

The first such choice is Race. The Riven Realms is home to a lot of unusual creatures - some may be found in other fantasy games though probably quite different from their counterparts on Xeryn - while others are quite unique. Initially, you will be able to choose from six Races and we'll be adding new ones later on.

Background

Another way to spice things up a bit is character background. These are former professions or occupations (for example, aristocrat, veteran, criminal, scholar, or priest) and they provide additional Perks and resources to your character. Of course, not all combinations are possible - you won't see an Orc Slaver, nor an Imperial Savage.

Calling

Trader, Mercenary, or Explorer. Though there are only three options here, this choice has a much greater impact on your starting crew, Leadership Perks, and some other stats. You are by no means locked in such a game-style later on, however, as character progression for your vagrus is very open-ended.

Ambition

This choice sets your victory condition for the game. Initially, you will only be able to start freeplay (no victory condition) but later on you'll be able to choose from Wealth (you win by becoming rich), Knowledge (you win by learning everything possible from the Riven Realms), Renown (become well-known), and finally - towards the end of the dev cycle - a story-based Ambition.

Perks

With all starting Perks calculated (deriving from Race and Background), you will now be able to spend your starting Insight on rounding out your character further.

Customization

At the end of character creation, you will be able to customize your character by giving it a name and selecting a portrait (later on also a banner to represent your comitatus). [previewyoutube=GoRjtcvMqF0;full][/previewyoutube] In the video above we are now presenting a little sneak peak into how it looks in the current build. As you can see, there are a lot of combinations to begin with and we're planning to expand on it in a big way. Stay tuned, for exciting times are coming to Vagrus! [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/835650/Rising_Lords/]

A big shout-out to Rising Lords

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to wishlist here on Steam! Rising Lords is a medieval turn-based strategy game with card and board game elements. Send your serfs to fight and die in your name... or let them prosper, and use them to your advantage! [previewyoutube=j8dTS_kumX4;full][/previewyoutube] Wishlist it to get reminded about Rising Lords' release on 29.05.2020. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-03-04 15:30:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=fI2NQd_QauE;full][/previewyoutube] The video above is a little peek into how Crew Combat works. At first, you can - as the attacker here - set what you wish to accomplish by assaulting the foe. Then a 3-round fight commences where you can decide which type of your crew and which companions fight. You can see the chances of a successful round above between the current Combat Strength of each side, and the casualties after each round are allocated based on that roll. Later on, we'll be adding special actions that you can perform each round to bolster your chances. Crew Combat is the most common way you will handle violent conflicts as you roam the wastelands of the Riven Realms. We wanted to give you a rundown of the basic concepts here so that those interested might find some insights.

Disposition

Each Crew Combat encounter identifies the two sides as either the Attacker or the Defender. The player's comitatus can typically be the attacker when they raid small settlements or prey upon other travelers, while they are often found as the defender when getting accosted by monsters, outlaws, or worse.

Ambushes

When you are the defender, a hidden test is made based on your comitatus' vigilance against the attackers ability to ambush (various stats govern this test). If you are ambushed, there are serious penalties on your Combat Strength, representing your inability to set up your fighters properly. Other than that, you will be restricted in the use of Combat Actions when they are added later to the game. Whether you are ambushed or not, a fight is about to go down.

Appeasing the Attacker

In the current builds, the only option is to fight. At a later stage, we intend to add a Flee option, though it will not be a reliably successful option. You can increase the chance of success with offering what the attackers demand, like offering 'bribes' to bandits, or leaving supplies for monsters. Appeasing the enemy will not always be an option: mindless Undead or motivated bounty hunters can not be bargained with. Nevertheless, fleeing results in losses, but - in most cases - less so than trying to defend yourself in an unwinnable fight.

Attacking and Goals

If you are the attacker, you have the option to leave the opponents in peace and just Move on. This might be useful when not wanting to fight because you are already bruised, when not wishing to upset a certain faction, or when bumping into something you probably can not handle.
If you do decide to attack them, however, you need to first select a goal. This is mostly dependent on the type of enemy, and involves things like looting their cargo, trying to catch some of them to force them into slavery, and so on. Some options may not be available, like on image below you can see that the enemy has no mounts, so Poach Beasts can not be selected.

Fighting in Crew Combat

Once you get into the actual combat, your forces are shown on the left, while the enemy is on the right. The Combat Strength (CS) total of each side is displayed on their respective banners. One side will have to defeat the other in no more than 3 combat rounds. Your CS is mainly calculated from the crew that takes part in the fight: fighters, scouts, outriders, and of course Companions. Vigor and Morale have significant impact on CS, and there is also equipment as well as conditions that can influence its total value. Slaves and Passengers can be also be armed for the fight, but only at a considerable cost.

Wounds

Why not send everyone in every case? Well, because you risk the lives of those who you pick to fight and you might want to prevent that. However, if you sustain significant damage, your non-fighing crew can be slain as well regardless. So sending forth only a small team is often ineffective, too. In another conflict (image below) we did have the option to poach beast, but it turned into a botched attempt: many of our crew members got wounded. The red circles around their portraits indicate a wounded combatant. By default they are taken out of the next round of fighting so you do not risk losing them but sometimes you need to send them into fight regardless (to avert greater losses).

Rounds and Rolls

As stated above, Crew Combat normally lasts for 3 rounds. Each round, a roll is made to determine whether the player wins or loses the round. Outcomes can be Critical Failure, Failure, Success, and Critical Success. The percentage boundaries for these are calculated based on the compared CS of each side. If there is no definite combat result by the end of the third round, an 'aftermath' round follows that calculates the final result. Crew Combat ends prematurely if:

• Either of the sides is completely destroyed.

• The attackers fulfill their goal and disengage.

• The enemy loses its Confidence test in a round and retreats or flees.

Healing

If the comitatus survives the fight, a Heal phase commences, in which your skills in healing (along with that of your Companions' skills and your store of medical supplies) determine how many wounded crew members you can save.

Sweet Victory and Bitter Defeat

So how does victory come about at the end of all this? Well, during combat, both sides get points for Success and Critical Success attacks. Attackers gets points for snatching goods or other things according to their initially set goal. Defenders get points for preventing the attackers in said goal and also for keeping their crew safe, which is represented by the percentage of crew that survives.
This is a simplified run-down of how Crew Combat works, and as you can see, there are a lot of depth to it, which will be further augmented by the addition of special actions that your vagrus can perform, as well as the option to attempt to flee. We hope you enjoyed this outline and that you'll have a lot of fun with Crew Combat in the game.

A big shout-out to Urtuk: The Desolation

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to wishlist here on Steam! Urtuk is an open world, tactical turn-based RPG in a low-fantasy setting. Guide your band of adventurers through the ruins of an ancient world. Recruit new followers, loot the corpses of your fallen foes, and do your best to survive in this harsh and unforgiving realm. [previewyoutube=lCusfFXtB6E;full][/previewyoutube] It is in Early Access now so you can get it for 10% less! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-02-19 15:30:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1240020/Thea_2_Wrath_of_the_Sea/]

Our dear Friends at MuHa Games just released their new - FREE - DLC for Thea 2: The Shattering - Wrath of the Sea.

The Wrath of the Sea expansion focuses on Thea's sea biome, but it also introduces a returning goddess, new race, and much more.

Feature list

• Water demons faction as guaranteed faction on Ice Biome
• New race: Blue Orc Pirates (with corresponding new child growing up options)
  
• New end game questline (not for the faint hearted)
• Several unique characters to be gained via the new questline
• New sea-based events
• Roaming sea enemies
  
• Additional land-based events
• Return of the goddess Mokosh
  
• Gathering and crafting on boats
• Sea non player settlements
• New food resource: seaweed
• Two new pets: the parrot and the crab
• Baby trolls will now have a chance to grow up into teenage trolls
  
• Pineconettes have a chance to become young leshy
• Loot from defeated pirates can include pirate ships
• End screen that sums up your quest choices
  

Time to download this gorgeous looking Free DLC, don't you think? Click here and enjoy!

[ 2020-02-10 16:46:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here's another bunch of videos that showcase some of the milestones we have recently delivered. We've been quite busy.

Enduring Effects

[previewyoutube=iZ7VJU54sqw;full][/previewyoutube] In this short video we demonstrate Enduring Effects (long-lasting attributes that help or hinder your comitatus), with the Blessing of Sergorod now appearing on the (redesigned) crew UI. Sharp-eyed viewers can spot other UI differences as well.

Obedience

[previewyoutube=qu8jiPSNqr8;full][/previewyoutube] In this video we demonstrate the workings of the Obedience mechanic, which represents how well-behaved your slaves are. A slave is liberated first in the video, which immediately raises Obedience (by the indicated number in the action popup). This is quite expensive however, as slaves cost a lot of money. Then slaves are punished several time to demonstrate how that mechanic works. You can pick how many slaves you punish, which can raise the Obedience bonus or penalty. There are also diminishing returns to pacifying them so, and you can end up losing Obedience just like at the end of the video.

Workforce

[previewyoutube=j3M2gKzYU8c;full][/previewyoutube] This short video shows where the 'workforce' stat appears on the crew pane. Selling slaves and sending away workers results in a severe drop in generated 'workforce' and so the comitatus becomes more and more understaffed, incurring serious penalties.

Butchering

[previewyoutube=gX6AA7-hutE;full][/previewyoutube] Beasts of burden and mounts that a comitatus uses are large animals. They are the lifeblood of a traveling company, carrying people, cargo, and supplies on long journeys through desolate wastelands. Sometimes, however, they can literally become sustenance - in cases when you run out of supplies or when there are not enough workers to tend to them. Still, these creatures are usually very valuable but sometimes butchering them can be the difference between life and death out in the wasteland. The video here shows how a depleted caravan gains a lot of rations by using this simple but important new feature. Hope you enjoyed these quick delves into some of the recent features. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/899460/Shores_Unknown/]

A big shout-out to Shores Unknown

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to wishlist here on Steam! Shores Unknown is a turn-based tactical RPG rendered in a rich, low-poly aesthetic. Build your own team of mercenaries, forge alliances, wage battles, and journey beyond the seething wall of fog known only as the Murk in this decision-influenced, narrative-driven adventure. [previewyoutube=76uMUmp-66U;full][/previewyoutube] Wishlist it to get reminded about Shores Unknown's release in Q2 2020. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-02-04 15:30:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Kickstarter campaign has begun!

Our dear Friends at Trese Brothers just kicked off their new campaign for their upcoming title: Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

Cyber Knights is a tactical RPG that plunges you and your team of hackers, mercs and thieves into the neon-soaked future of 2231.

Look at this beautiful map

Sneak up on your enemies

Time for a good old fashioned shoot-out

[url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tresebrothers/cyber-knights/]

Now, it's really time to jump over to their Kickstarter campaign. Enjoy!

[ 2020-02-03 17:10:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear future vagri, we've been busy implementing the milestones backers unlocked on Fig in the last few months but thought to give a heads-up to those of you primarily following us here on Steam. In the following collection of short videos we demonstrate some of the many recently added features to the game. Stay tuned, for we'll soon return with another round of short vids about a whole other set of features. Chart Exploration [previewyoutube=yg4u3YAdf7I;full][/previewyoutube] Your chart is one of your most important tools in Vagrus, and we keep adding to and expanding on it with subsequent builds. Milestone 10 unlocked what we referred to as 'chart exploration', which really means that from now on, Rumors, Passengers, and Codex entries you gain of locations also reveal them on your Chart, adding a whole new depth to hunting for information and mapping out the region. The short video above shows how the player purchases a Rumor on a certain quarry and gains its location on the Chart afterwards. Companion Select [previewyoutube=QrhB_5m9mSA;full][/previewyoutube] This video showcases the feature we refer to as 'heroselect', though the people you are selecting from are rarely heroes. Rather, they are your Companions, and you will often be asked to select a certain number of them to take on ventures or on segments of missions. In the video, you can see the arena fight Event ask you to select four Companions you take into the fighting pit. After selecting your Companions (and before rejoining the others), Perk tests, combat deployment, and all other effects only calculate with the selected Companions' stats. Hidden Stash and Contraband [previewyoutube=gplANMyDBPg;full][/previewyoutube] This video demonstrates the difference between showing up to the gates of a major city with contraband in your cargo hold and contraband hidden in your stash. In the first case, you can try to bribe or con the guards but it's a difficult (and often expensive) venture, which can end in fines, faction reputation loss, or worse. Contraband tucked away in the hidden stash - a piece of equipment you can get from certain places - hides the goods from the inspection however, and you can safely take them into cities and hope to find buyers. Hope this gave you a rough idea what we've been working on. We'll soon be back with more! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-01-22 15:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

In the meantime, Patch 0.4.9 went live mid-December and all the goodies it brought can be checked out below or in-game, of course! I hope you enjoy the fixes and additional features, we'll be back soon with more. New Features - MS 6: Crew Combat Alpha - MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics (Partial delivery): Liberate or Discipline Slaves to gain Obedience. Unrest will be added in a later update. - Butcher beasts or mounts for supplies - Warning triggers if an action would result in cargo loss Here is a short video featuring the Crew Combat: [previewyoutube=fI2NQd_QauE;full][/previewyoutube] Additional milestones delivered that will only appear in the main campaign - MS 10: Chart Exploration - MS 11: Companion Select during Events - MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband New / Updated Content or Game mechanics - New sound effects for a number of creatures - Camping without guards decreases Obedience - Radial menu icons automatically pop up on the campaign map - Node sizes increased for Point of Interests to better indicate them - Goods tooltips now show more trade information - Merged a few perks to make them more impactful Fixes - Passenger destinations are now generated correctly in new games (thanks for catching and reporting this!)! Old saves remain bugged. - New Day save now works after combat encounters in the Fighting Pit event - Cargo slot changes are now applied immediately - Fixed tutorial pins for closing the Journal and the Codex - Fixed a bug causing Companion conversation portraits to be empty - Healing companions no longer triggers the incorrect Event result text - Fixed the Journal entry order for The Black Knight chapter V, Eliminating the Abolitionist Camps - Clicking on the Journal or Codex during "Hold space..." tutorial/narration is up now does not open them Coming Up Next - More Sound Effects - Vagrus Creation for the Main Campaign - Companion Combat tweaks and additions - Factions UI - Animations for all characters ... - Open World Prototype The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2020-01-08 15:26:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey All, it's been a long time since we posted a project update, and we have a number of important news to share so here we go!

Lost Pilgrims is 2 Years Old

It is hard to believe that we founded the studio two years ago - who would have thought that time was going to fly so quickly. We have achieved many things and learned a LOT about game development. We lived through highs and lows alike, but the most important thing is that we persevered. Just to give you an idea, here are a few highlights:

• Founded Lost Pilgrims in 2017 December
• Hired Szonja in March 2018
• Published the demo of Vagrus in December 2018
• Show-cased Vagrus for the first time in Dubrovnik in April 2019
• Since then we attended: DreamHack Summer (Sweden), PlayIT (Hungary), GameDevDaysGraz (Austria), and most recently AdventureX2019 (United Kingdom)
• Kicked off our crowdfunding campaign at Fig in May 2019, and since then raised over $50,000
• Our narrative designers have written close to 400 thousand words of story and lore
• Our graphic designers created hundreds of amazing art assets
• Nobo has written approximately 113 thousand lines of code
• We released six patches for Vagrus, the content and improvements of which our Fig Backers and Patrons can enjoy via the Discord library

It sounds quite exhausting even just to think of all the work that was involved. Therefore, a HUGE THANK YOU is definitely due to the team. So, what comes next?

Open World Patch Scheduled for Q1 2020

We worked really hard to get the first Open World region of the game ready by the end of 2019 but truth be told, we are not happy enough with the overall experience just yet. We did know that it would not be as tested and refined as the Pilgrims of the Wasteland story was (which is currently included in the available Alpha build) but wanted to reach a similar level of polish. Achieving that is going slower than expected, however. It is partly because even just this first region is over twice the size of Pilgrims - in terms of narrative and content -, and way more complex due to its open-world nature. Thus, reaching the same level of stability and gameplay experience has proven to be a task that needs more time and effort. We want it to be a positive experience right away, so that even if players encounter bugs and incomplete features, the overall look and feel of the game would be very much to their liking. We want them to feel that the available content and gameplay holds so much potential that they just have to come back and play again, or better yet, tell their friends about it.

The Last Patch of 2019

One of features we have spent more time with than we had originally planned is Crew combat. We always wanted to have something like that but its overall importance increased significantly when we decided to give it a more prominent role in gameplay. The key trigger for that was the insights we received from our Alpha players: that while they liked the Companion combat look and feel for key moments, for the recurring bandit and Jhakra attacks they felt it was taking to long, keeping them away from progressing the story. Thus, we decided that those random encounters will mostly occur in the form of Crew combat but players who like the thrill of Companion combat will be able to switch to that (more on this in a future post). That change in direction brought with it the need to design a system that allows for a more rapid progression of combat encounters, but one that players can still enjoy visually and that still presenting a fair challenge. We iterated the design many times, and finally came to something that we are happy with. That increased complexity, though, took its toll on our hours, and it is still not yet finished. However, we do want to share where it stands now so we are planning to release this first version of the crew combat in our next Open Access Fig patch still this year. Hopefully, people will like it and share ideas how to improve it further.

A big shout-out to Nowhere Prophet

Before we conclude this post here's a game we can wholeheartedly recommend you to try out. Nowhere Prophet is a roguelike deck-building game. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world inspired by indian culture and sci-fi literature. In this broken world you lead a desperate band of outcasts in their search for a safe, new home. With two new leaders added in it's recent patch it is definitely worth to check out. [previewyoutube=IadayVADjTw;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]

In Conclusion

Hope you guys enjoyed this post with its mixed topics. As always, there are no words how much we appreciate your continued support. Happy Holidays to you, your families, and friends! Gbor, Lost Pilgrim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-12-18 16:19:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

We went to London to exhibit Vagrus at AdventureX 2019 on the first weekend of November and it's time to talk a bit about all the amazing things that happened there. The two-day event was full of awesome speakers who gave talks about the aspects of narrative in video games, be it writing, design, methods of storytelling, or other intriguing subjects. Wish we had more time to attend these but the two of us very so busy talking to participants and showing off Vagrus that we could only watch a handful of speakers, taking turns. We did have a great time chatting with people though - the event was very cozy, intimate even: a lot of like- and open-minded people coming together for a common interest's sake.
Similarly, we had too little time to check out the projects of many fellow indie devs who were also exhibiting there but many mages looked fantastic even at a cursory glance. Although the majority of titles were pure adventure games, the sheer variety and inventiveness of the genre blew us away - no two games were too similar. Just like Vagrus is a hybrid of narrative adventure, RPG, and strategy, some games showcased at AdventureX were displaying platformer elements, while others were puzzle games at heart or cinematic adventures. The upside was, of course, that there was always someone talking to us about the game and someone else playing at the same time. Many attendees ended up playing for over an hour, reading stories and learning game mechanics, which is not a typical sight at gameshows. A lot of people loved Vagrus, the kind words and exclusively positive feedback was really heartwarming. Many of those we spoke to would not believe that such a small team could develop something this ambitious in such a short time.





This, together with how smoothly the event was organized made AdventureX 2019 a fantastic gameshow experience. If you are interested in narrative-heavy games and have the chance to visit the next show, we highly recommend taking part. Given the chance, we would surely go again. Geri, Lost Pilgrim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-12-04 15:16:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

One of the great benefits of our successful crowdfunding campaign is being able to expand on parts of the game we felt we were unsatisfied with. One such area was Sound Effects, which was largely (but not exclusively) populated by placeholders up till recently.
We are now happy to announce that we have began to cooperate with Gbor Szab, a sound designer (and a great guy!) who is creating amazing effects for our combat characters and will go on to recreate sounds for all other areas of the game. We are very happy to work with him even though he seems to be enjoying creating sound effects for horrid monsters and undead a little too much. :) Some good examples can be sampled below: Jhakra Alpha - Roar Congregated - Flail Yrg Warrior - Acid Spit The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-11-20 15:28:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Obedience is a stat describing how disciplined (or disgruntled) the slaves owned by the comitatus are at a given time. It was implemented to give a rather fluid drawback to owning slaves: they might provide a free workforce but keeping men and women enslaved does have its risks even if it is 'part of the system'. You typically lose Obedience if you do not guard your slaves well enough (too few fighters to look after them), if you get or buy a lot of new slaves, if you do not feed them enough, if you arm them in Crew Combat, or keep choosing options in Events that endanger or embolden them. With a high Obedience, your slaves over-perform and you can end up with some small surprise Events (with a positive outcome). This is in addition to the fact that you won't get a headache thinking about what can go wrong. Low Obedience is where it all goes from bad to worse. Slaves start to steal, escape their bonds, or even commit more serious crimes. You can try to punish all the slaves in this case in the hopes of raising Obedience but it can backfire. So how can you keep slaves in check? Well, a thoughtful vagrus might consider liberating slaves from time to time, which raises the Obedience of others to a great extent - if there is a chance of becoming free, they will work more diligently towards it. Nevertheless, it is a very expensive route to take, as slaves cost a lot of coin. Then there is the Deputy role of Slavemaster, who generates Obedience, making a critically low score very unlikely (and also can punish unruly slaves more reliably). Some equipment also has similar effects. Additionally, certain Events can positively affect Obedience and it behooves you to pay attention to those. But if you could easily influence everything about Obedience inside your comitatus, it would be too easy, right? And this takes us to Unrest. Unrest is a region that belongs to regions in the game. In most cases, there is no Unrest but from time to time, dynamic changes can occur during the game that raises this stat: Abolitionists or other elements cause strife among the slave population, or your own actions can cause Unrest to change, and this can easily affect your own slaves. Thus, high Unrest lowers your Obedience - the longer time you spend in such regions, the more Obedience you'll lose. All in all, we've been poised to implement a fairly complex system to make your journeys interesting and in-depth mechanics-wise, and we feel that Obedience-Unrest is a great part of that. We are very excited about how players will react to this when the Open-world campaign opens up later this year. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-11-06 16:47:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Workforce is a fairly hidden stat that measures the complete work output of your comitatus. There are a lot of tasks to be done around a venture like yours in the game, and your workforce has to meet the requirements. These include feeding and tending to beasts and mounts, logistical tasks (such as loading or setting camp), cooking, and much more. This is represented by each type of crew member generating a certain amount of 'workforce need'. To meet this requirement, your workers and slaves generate 'workforce' (with sometimes passengers potentially adding to the mix as well). Ideally, the workforce generated is enough to cover your needs but this can change fairly rapidly out in the wasteland. For one, low Morale and Obedience - a stat we will tell you more about next week - affect workforce and by losing crew you lose workforce directly. When you fail to produce enough workforce, bad things start to happen:

• Understaffed (lower workforce than the requirement) applies Movement Point penalties.
• Severely understaffed (workforce below 50% of the requirement) applies severe Movement Point penalties.

Additionally, with the new Enduring Effects and the brand new property system we've developed to support them it is possible to assign temporary buffs and debuffs to this stat, too, which goes a long way to spice things up a little. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-10-23 13:05:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Key Highlights on what's included in the new release

• Milestone 3 - Extended Narration Voice Over for Agos
• Milestone 7 - Character Idle Animations in Companion Combat
• Milestone 8 - Enduring Effects (it means curses, of course)
• Milestone 9 - Random Passengers, and
• Milestone 12 - Workforce Mechanics (partially).

The have been or will be game design posts about all but one: narration so let's focus on that for a second. New Content: Extended Narration It has taken much longer than expected to reach Charles - the voice of Agos the Wanderer - due to some personal matters as well as his change of career. We are happy to share that now we have all the narration recorded for Agos through-out Pilgrims of the Wasteland, and even for the beginning of the main game as he leaves your comitatus after sharing his story. We plan to make a few minor sound editing changes to these new recordings but wanted to delay this build no further, so we will do that in a subsequent iteration only. When playing the PotW story, it gives so much to it already that we think you will like this a lot. Also, here's a shout-out for Charles' new focus as he instructs singers on how to become more confident. Check out and sign up to support his Patreon page if you are interested.
So, with that happy image of Charles, let's recap everything in our Patch notes. Well, actually...before jumping into the details of the patch, we would like to ask you guys tolend us a hand with something. We use a tool called Airtable and we outgrew their free plan so we need to pay for it in hard coin (~hundred bucks/year/user) going forward. They have a referral program, though, which grants us $10 credit for each newsign-up coming through our: referral link (it costs you nothing). We do believe it's a great tool that you may even make use of but that is not actually needed, just to register in case you wanted to help with footing the bill this way; which also means we, instead, can spend that money on even more and better content. Yay! Thanks in advance!

PATCH NOTES v0.4.5

Behind the Scenes :construction: - Upgraded to Unity 2019.2 - enabling the efficient animation of character variations - Property system implemented - allowing us to add a whole heap of mechanics later on New Features :eyes: - Combat Idle Animations added (some may not be final) - Enduring Effects system used for Sergorod's Blessing & Mushroom Rot in Pilgrims of the Wasteland (& many more to come in the main campaign) - Crew Pane UI changes to accommodate adding Enduring Effects (&more to come :wink: ) - Random Passengers now appear (sometimes) in the settlement mansios - Random Settlement conditions also added but will only come into play in the main campaign - Workforce Mechanics now requires you to have enough workers/slaves to tend to your comitatus. Otherwise, your Movement gets severely hindered. :muscle: - Goods tooltips now show some price info New / Updated Content :gift: - Narration voice over through-out the complete Pilgrims of the Wasteland story - An additional random event on the wasteland :scroll: Bug Fixes - Inspire leader skill now grants its buff immediately (as intended) - Re-engineered how Movement Points are calculated (players should not notice much other than it now calculates correctly) - Tutorial box tweaks for 16:10 screens - Passenger count indicated properly even if they come through events - Various small equipment effect fixes - Nodes in reachable distance shown correctly while scouting - Enemy character sheet available only during the player's turns Coming up next - MS 6: Crew combat :skull: - MS 10: Chart Exploration :eyes: - MS 11: Companion Select during Events - MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband - MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics :triumph: The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-10-17 15:12:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

As the new Trading system was shaping up for Milestone 5 alongside the emergence in our storylines of some of the less lawful factions (such as the Loader's Guild), we figured we would need a sub-system for smuggling goods as it makes sense that these organizations would be willing to hire a vagrus to do just that. The key to this are the comitatus equipment called Hidden Stash and the contraband property of certain goods. These goods are either monopolized by the Empire or some kind of organization or are outlawed completely. Good examples of the former are Obsidian Blades (Imperial Trading Houses have a monopoly on them) while Dragonbone is for the latter. Whichever the type is, goods such as these are contraband, and if you have any of them in your cargo hold, guards in major cities will stop you and confiscate it at the gates unless you can pass a difficult test of hiding it. Unless you have them stashed away in your Hidden Stash, of course. When equipped, it converts some of your cargo hold into a stash that can be used normally, except that contraband put in it is disregarded by checks and guards. Alternative smuggling methods include bribing the guards or having connections in the criminal underworld or Imperial organizations or Churches (though these inevitably lower your reputation with said factions). Once smuggled into town, contraband goods have to be sold to the right people, too, so there are still further considerations. We are also looking into adding different ways contraband will work with different powers (such as Tarkian cities, the Dragonlands, and so on) later on, as well as adding specific faction Tasks that ask you to smuggle certain things into faraway cities. So if you are interested in risking smuggling, it could become a viable option for your comitatus. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-10-09 14:21:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

In short: GameDevDays was phenomenal. The speakers and the community made it an absolutely amazing experience for us. It started off a little rough considering that we could not borrow a reasonable size car for the trip to Graz and with all the tech equipment we needed to bring along it was a miracle that everyone could squeeze in. In the end we did get there even if a bit cramped. The next hoop we needed to jump was a mix-up with our accommodation (someone was already in the room we booked :O ) but eventually we solved that, too. From then on, our trip just became better and better. The organizers of the show were helpful and easy-going, the venue was really cool for the size of the event, and then there were the speeches. It would be hard to list all of them, but our favorite two were probably Josh Sawyer (Obsidian) and Marta Fijak (11 Bit Studios). The visitors who played Vagrus all praised its art, music, story, and enjoyed it so much that one guy that they often ended up playing for hours on end. Someone managed to establish a new record: he played for three hours straight. On the second day we had to put an additional laptop to work so more people could try the game without waiting for long. The greatest moment of course was when RPG dev legend Josh Sawyer came to our table and played the game himself.
As the lead designer of many great RPG titles (Neverwinter Nights 2, Pillars of Eternity I-II, Fallout: New Vegas), Josh is a role model for us and his works are very important sources of inspiration, so him playing Vagrus and talking about RPGs was a dream come true. Our team was beaming when he joined us for a team photo, too (see the header image of this post). The conference was an eye-opening experience from a community perspective as well. With support from the city of Graz and Technical University Graz but mostly thanks to the many dedicated organizers and volunteers from the gaming community, this event felt like everyone knew each other and looked at each other as friends. We listened to the local GamedevTunes orchestra with awe at the opening of the event and at the closing night-out, not only because they were awesome but because having a group so enthusiastic to practice and play on stage game soundtrack tributes from within an already small game developer subculture was almost unbelievable.






All in all, we had a great time in Graz and felt that we met more enthusiastic Vagrus fans than at any gameshow before. We would not be surprised to find ourselves attending GameDevDays Graz on future occasions as well. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|FacebookInstagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-10-02 14:30:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

For the last couple of weeks, Szonja has been busy animating our idle characters after we had finally managed to settle on a process. There are still a lot of things to test and work out but after the first few prototypes we came to several important conclusions. For instance, we decided to have two distinct types of idle combat animations. One would be a very simple 'breathing' anim that is the default one for characters, in an endless loop. The other is a more pronounced movement that sometimes breaks up the more monotonous breathing one. A good example is when Javek fiddles with his goatee or when Gor'Goro brandishes his axe and stomps on the ground. We may even end up using the latter type for character activations in combat. But for the time being enjoy these gifs that provide a glimpse into the future for our Companion combat idles. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-09-25 14:30:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are actively working on what we call Enduring Effects for the game. What are these? Well, in short and to put it simply, these are all buffs and debuffs that last for several in-game days or are permanent (until removed somehow). They come in a variety of types and can be used for a lot of things to enhance gameplay and narrative alike. Challenges and Results The challenges of implementing such a system are more complex than one would think simply based on how they are supposed to work. We had to create a property system and make it compatible with a huge number of stats and attributes across a variety of in-game entities. Though it involved some heavy lifting (mainly from coding) and it is almost impossible to demonstrate, we are very satisfied with the results. The goal was to have a system that allows content creators to go wild and expand indefinitely, to keep adding stuff wherever the story or the gameplay requires it. Enduring Effect Types Apart from the simple distinction of positive and negative effects (that aid and hinder the player, respectively) we identify a number of parameters that set Enduring Effects (EEs) apart into neat little categories. Leader: This type of EE affects your character, the vagrus. Typically it'll modify stats like Resourcefulness (or making certain Leadership Skills cheaper or more expensive), or alter Perks your character might have. A good example is Inspiration, which raises the maximum Resourcefulness temporarily, or Blessing of Bal Ur Kaal, which raises the level of social Perks like Charismatic, Con, and Persuade. Crew: EEs of this kind affect your crew and only your crew (meaning they don't affect Companions for example or your character). Crew-related stats are typically altered by these, such as Vigor or Morale. Examples include Favor of Irafons, which gives MP to your comitatus, or Hangover, which lowers maximum Vigor for a day. Companion: This type of EE affects a specific Companion or all of them. Since these characters have a wide range of abilities, combat skills, and Perks, these EEs tend to be complicated more often than not. The Blessing of Sergorod, for example, gives a Companion some Accuracy and Critical Hit boosts, while the Wrath of Sergorod makes it so that enemies are more accurate and score criticals more often against your cursed Companion. Comitatus: EEs that effect your whole comitatus can be more complex, modifying a wider variety of stats and mechanics. They tend to have a Companion-related EE counterpart that is automatically assigned when the parent EE is assigned. Black Rot, for instance, is a dreadful disease that is very contagious. When your comitatus receives this EE, it is transferred to all Companions currently in your employ as well - and keeps killing your crew and Companions until you can rid yourself of the horrid sickness. Disdain of Ahskul affects the whole comitatus, making it more common that Undead show up as random encounters as well as buffing Undead type enemies against you. Hope this allowed a little glance into what goes on behind the scenes and gives you all an idea of what to expect from this feature package. Next up, we'll probably talk about animation. See you around, dear Follower! The Lost Pilgrim team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|FacebookInstagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-09-18 14:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Milestones Revealed on Fig

We have just announced some new features and enhancements that are coming down the line. There are smaller and bigger ones, all leading up to the major release that will be the Open World campaign of Vagrus. Every new build we create is immediately shared with our Backers over at Fig, so it's definitely worth checking out our milestone tracker below.

Laurels All Around

In our endeavour to get Vagrus into the sights of as many cRPG lovers as we can, we applied for featured spots in a number of nearby game shows - successfully!
Not only did we get invited to present Vagrus the game itself but our art design and developer pitch has been rewarded as well making it into the official selection of said shows (see above). That reminds us to bring to your attention the upcoming opportunities to meet us in person:

• Game Dev Days 2019 in Graz (Austria) on September 6 - 8 GDD 2019

• The Strasbourg Fantastic Film Festival in Strasbourg (France) on September 20-22 FEFFS

• AdventureX 2019 at The British Library in London (United Kingdom) on November 2-3 AdvX2019

Needless to say, we are extremely proud and grateful to everyone who helped us get here. So again, thanks for your support, know that it means a lot to us and to the project! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-09-04 12:05:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are extremely proud to announce working alongside Chameleon Comix and Ian Livingstone on a City of Thieves graphic novel. Ian has been our hero ever since our little group of friend gathered around one of his books in elementary school. It has been without a shadow of a doubt a key moment in our lives to turn towards table-top roleplaying games, and eventually start our indiegame development studio, Lost Pilgrims. Having this opportunity to work with him is a dream come true and it's even better since we are joining forces with one of those friends huddling around said book. Gyula has been a long time member of our RPG group, played countless hours on our own world, The Riven Realms too, and he now leads this awesome project with his comic books publishing house. Interested in hearing more? Be sure to follow Chameleon Comix and Lost Pilgrims, and meet us at our stand next to Ian's at Fighting Fantasy Fest 3 at the end of August. This is a small project compared to Vagrus but it still feels great that such esteemed author like Ian Livingstone thought us worthy to carry on and support his Fighting Fantasy Universe this way.

[ 2019-08-28 07:36:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ever since we came up with the idea of Vagrus, a game where you manage a comitatus, we knew we needed to develop an elaborate, dynamic trade system that would serve as one of the major features of the game and would also aid in fleshing out a living world.

Basic Premises

While trading was always to be one of the main sources of income for the player, we also wanted to avoid creating a pure trading simulator game. It's not that those are not fun for the right people - stories about Gabor dominating the Auction House on our server in World of Warcraft for a period of time still surface in conversations among friends - but because our strengths lie elsewhere. Our unique setting, The Riven Realms, and telling stories with memorable characters was the first and foremost motivation to create Vagrus, so it was also much more likely to excel in that rather than in a simulation - which we knew relatively little of. For the same reason, our goal was to come up with a game design for trading that supported story-telling and wasn't gonna overshadow it. Hence, trading in Vagrus is just profitable enough to keep you going, to cover the upkeep and consumption of your crew but not much else, making the player look for additional opportunities in the form of Events, carrying passengers and news, or taking on contracts or tasks (a feature we plan to add later on). Many players highlighted how deep yet consistent the lore and general workings of The Riven Realms felt to them. With a setting so strongly established and transmittable, the challenge of game design is how to integrate other more 'gamey' features into it without breaking immersion too much. With trading, the idea was to create the feel of a natural flow of goods from where they produce them to where others consume those.

The Design

After several prototypes, which either were too complex or too shallow, the one we have been working on implementing into Vagrus during the last few weeks involves quite a number of variants. Source and Demand For each settlement, from cities to encampments, we mapped out which goods are created there and whether that was enough for that place. Do they produce a surplus or need a bit more from other sources, or perhaps are completely dependent on the merchants of the realm to bring certain goods to them, or they do not trade at all; we came up with a scale with ten stages describing all kinds of scenarios. Goods on the Road If something is not mined, crafted, or produced locally, then it's imported from the closest place where they have a surplus. Of course, no one in their right mind would risk their money - and especially their lives - to carry cargo for the sake of doing good. They do it in hopes of profit, which directly correlates to how distant a location they need to transport those wares from. Towards the right direction that is. In some games, it's enough to carry goods and it's value increases based on how long you have been holding on to them. Not in Vagrus. Players can only make a profit by following the natural commercial flow, from sources of goods to where they are are less available. Carrying cargo between two main sources will result in a net loss if one considers the cost of labor and upkeep. The Size of Settlements Of course, commerce is different in a big city than in a small encampment next to a quarry. It impacts the range of goods available on the market, their quantity up for sale, and their prices as well. Cities are generally a bit cheaper since more comitati pass through them, keeping the vital flow of goods running. Conditions The Riven Realms is a living, breathing world with a grim reality beating down on its inhabitants. Famine, epidemic, oppression, and rebellions are all too known phenomena. Such events affect the market in many ways. A source location suffering from a plague would have less available workforce, leading to the drop of production and ultimately to the rise of prices. Famine in an area means the drop in the number of paying customers and so merchants often drop their prices to be able to make any trade at all. Time is of the Essence For the flow of goods to appear even more realistic, we record conditions in time and their effect ripples through the region(s) like a whiplash. The farther the distance between two locations where essential trade occurs (a source and a buyer) the later in time the players will see the prices going up. It may well be that a slave revolt has already been dealt with by the time the price of pottery increases in a place importing that.

The future

Gaining advanced knowledge about an epidemic that stopped, which enables one to sell all their hoarded cargo before the prices on the market drop, can be worth a fortune. Gathering rumors like that would be no small feat but extremely profitable if acted upon. With the current implementation of our trade system we are not yet adding the generation of rumors about the change in conditions but it is certainly something we would love to add to the game sometime in the future, so you might see it as a future milestone in our Fig.co campaign. Let us know what you think about the design and how our development progresses, and of course, thank you very much for your continued support! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-08-01 08:25:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

As we are getting closer and closer to releasing the first playable build of the main campaign of Vagrus, it is perhaps a good time to talk a bit about the differences between the open world campaign and 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. The focus of this is going to be narrative design and stories but there are going to be implications on gameplay as well.

Encounters of a Random Kind

One of the most noticeable differences between the standalone story and open world (thought the second part of Pilgrims has this to some extent) is the frequency and importance of random encounters. These Events appear while you are traversing the Riven Realms. The longer it is you haven't come across an Event or encounter, the more likely it is that something will come up. Part of the encounter Events are unique to each location (regions or sub-regions) while others are more generic and thus can appear in a wide variety of locations. The intent was to give interesting (and dangerous) things to do while en-route to some place and of course, to keep players from becoming careless while 'just traveling'.

There's a Right Place for Everything

Another significant part of Events in the open world part are fixed in location. You can find them by the use of Scouting (or by happening upon them on their node) and interact with them by using the Explore button. A much more elaborate form of these fixed Events are settlement and point of interest Events. We like to call these persistent Events, though many will disappear upon completing them due to narrative reasons.

Have Anything for Sale?

The aforementioned settlement Events are also mostly persistent; many of these you can repeat again and again, as these represent facilities, shops, tasks you can take, or activities you can do in cities or villages. The selection of these Events gives character and utility to settlements; it also makes players travel between them a lot when certain functions are only accessible (or are only profitable) in certain places.

A Tale for the Ages

The meat and potatoes of content when it comes to Events are of course quests and storylines you can take part of. These are typically started in settlements, though some are accessed through random Events, too. Such storylines come in all sizes and varieties. A certain part of these will be dedicated to Companions' personal questlines. These don't only give backstories to your heroes but are also tied into their progress: Prowess levels 3, 6, and 9 are unlocked by reaching certain points of their questlines. The impact of quests and stories on the world and the player vary as well but many influence one or the other. Tone also plays into this: Vagrus is low key for the most part but sometimes the player does have an influence on things, for example, in deciding which Trading House wins a rivalry to dominate a settlement. Or if a camp of outlaws get to thrive or be ousted by the Empire.

Challenge Accepted

As you can guess, writing and testing all this complexity is quite a task: the challenge to judge and balance the size and difficulty of Events grows exponentially as more and more content is created. Another tough part is to find the sweet spot of the frequency of random Events, as well as their distribution spatially and even in a timeline (would a story activate only in certain season or at a given point of time?). We have our work cut out for us but the intent is to create a living and changing world that feels dangerous but certainly one you'd want to explore. We are eager to share the Open world prototype with our Alpha Backers to get feedback about all this and to see what you think of the branching, layered narrative. There are still many things to complete beforehand but we are progressing well, so you can probably expect an announcement about it in the next few months. The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-07-25 14:52:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

At long last, Scouting is making its way intoVagrus. It is a vital feature in navigating and surviving the many wastelands of the continent of Xeryn.

What is Scouting for?

Scouting has two main uses. First, it can give you an indication of what to expect when moving onto specific neighboring nodes on the campaign map. Though these are given in percentages (what are the chances of a fight, and event, or that nothing happens) it still gives a rough idea of risks so that players can make informed choices. Second, Scouting can indicate if there is something fixed on a specific node (either a fixed Event or a Task objective for a faction). This is immensely helpful when looking for something out there in the wilderness with only vague directions to go on.

How do you use Scouting?

You can use Scouting when standing on a node. When you do so, you will have the option to select which neighboring nodes you wish to send scouts to - more than one route costs Resourcefulness for each additional node scouted. Naturally, you'll need scouts to even initiate this action. Scouting costs Movement Points: you have to pay equal to the highest route MP cost. The chance of success for each scouted node depends on how many scouts you send that particular direction and a Scout Master deputy provides further bonuses.

What are the risks of Scouting?

Apart from spending the Movement Points (and potentially Resourcefulness), your scouts have a chance not to return (having fallen prey to one of the many dangers of the wasteland) when you roll a critical failure. This makes spamming Scouting a bad idea, even with a Scoutmaster whose presence reduces the chances of a negative outcome.

Success vs Critical Success

A successfully scouted route provides percentage chances of an Event, combat encounter, or nothing happening. A critical success provides exactly what is going to happen (Event, encounter, nothing) and in case of an event or an encounter, it gives a relative idea of what to expect (obstacles, boon, chance for combat, the challenge rating of a fight, etc).

Scout Master

One of the deputy roles, the Scout Master is extremely useful when it comes to Scouting (as expected). When this role is assigned, it provides flat bonuses to critical success, and reduces the chance of a critical failure. Additionally, you can send scouts to a second node without paying Resourcefulness. We are very excited to be able to now test Scouting and see how it impacts exploration in the open-world part of the game. We are even more excited to be able to include it in the game builds soon and see how players react. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-06-20 08:56:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Have you played the previous Open Access build ofVagrus? Or are you considering just now to dip your feet into the deep lore of the Riven Realms for the first time? Visit ourcrowdfunding campaignand you can jump right in with some pretty neat improvements (via Discord).

The Story Behind the Patch

Truth be told, we got trigger happy. We went further and deeper with some of the changes than we originally planned to, thinking that preparing the system for future features and enhancement will make our job easier later on and it would not impact our delivery timelines much. The first part we still stand by but the second... we were, well, a bit naive. We pulled ourselves into complexities we did not consider, game design decisions we thought to make only later on, not to mention testing and retesting every little thing. Especially the Journal part, which has already been an integral part of the game, proved troublesome to revamp. With all the changes, the hardest part was making the save files compatible backwards. We knew we would break the system - on purpose - we just did not expect to break it this much - not on purpose. Well, that and the untimely sickness grabbing our coder lead resulted in quite a bit of delay. We learnt from it though: gotta keep biting smaller chunks so we could keep up the pace of updates we would like to give you folks. With the first two milestones delivered in this patch, we are going to start working on Scouting next. Mock-ups are ready; we've given it quite some thought, so we are fairly confident to deliver it in the indicated timeline.

Flash news

We have been invited to showcaseVagrus at Dreamhack Summerbetween June 15-17, so if you are coming too, don't forget to drop by our booth and say hello. But back to the present. Here's the list of changes. Let's call it:

Patch Notes 0.3.7

Behind the Scenes

• Revamped the complete Journal engine to prepare the module for new features
• Relocated Passengers and Rumors between databases to allow expanding their use in the future
• Companion combat deployment logic upgraded to have more control over deployment restrictions (aka: so the Narrative designers could make things even harder for you )

New Features / Content

• Delivering News: from now on you can carry news between settlements, and trade with them at theMansio
• Eight combat backgrounds refreshed
• New location art for Avernum

User Interface Changes

• Divided theJournal tabsinto Objectives, Qualities, Rumors, News, and Tasks (which is currently limited to Passengers) [includes a new UI art asset]
• Combat deployment icons added to indicate who can/can not/must be deployed, is locked to a position and/or wounded
• New/Improved Tool-tips and Tutorials for the above features

Bug Fixes

• Companion healing camp event now only displays wounded companions
• A number of event tweaks

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Game Jolt |Itchio |IndieDB Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-06-12 09:57:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

The soundtrack ofVagrusis of key importance in conveying the powerful atmosphere of the setting. Be it foreboding or hauntingly beautiful, the score by George Olah captures the essence of the ravaged world of the Riven Realms perfectly. Even more importantly, the majority of fans and influencers have told us that one of the most important parts of theVagrus experience for them was the music. Ever since we started working with George, we usually had him pour over the specific environment artwork and game world descriptions for each theme and together we listened to fantasy music that evokes the feeling we were looking for in that environment. With our tabletop RPG background, we were aiming for ambient, atmospheric music that goes well with each region of the game. Yet it was important for the environment tracks to be non-intrusive not to detract from the reading parts. You can now get a taste of the main theme of the game above and listen to some other themes over atour SoundCloud page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Game Jolt |Itchio |IndieDB Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-06-06 13:56:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Throughout your journeys as a vagrus, you will come across many people who want to get from one place to another on the broken continent of Xeryn. This might seem trivial but travel over the accursed wastelands of the Empire a perilous venture which makes most people try to avoid it whenever they can. Those who that do undertake journeys often pay comitati such as yours to take them where they want to be. In-game, this provides an optional source of revenue to help you keep afloat but one that requires you to plan your path ahead considering several factors, including where your passengers wish to go and how long you have to deliver them there. Passengers are available at mansios (and are randomized) or sometimes in events (where they are specific). You do not only have to feed them on the way but also have to protect them as attacking monster or outlaws can easily slay them. Mind you, some of them can even give you a hand in defending your comitatus (more on that later). You can see the statistics of passengers related to crew on the Crew Pane, while other information can be observed in your Journal (redesigned to include a Passengers Page). We feel this system adds another layer to planning and risks during travels in Vagrus, one which also has the potential to tell tiny stories of people who risk a lot by venturing forth with you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig|Game Jolt |Itchio |IndieDB Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook Instagram|Patreon|Discord

[ 2019-05-29 12:06:03 CET ] [ Original post ]