Greetings Wurmians!

This beta update is HUGE with a capital, well, everything! It catches Wurm Unlimited up to 1.9.0.0 with Wurm Online, containing the archaeology cache system, priest overhaul system, and the new fishing system. The priest rework notes are also quite extensive, so will be in a separate post The new fishing system is the last project worked on by senior developer Tich, before her passing. Unfortunately she did not live to see it go live, but we finished it off and launched it in her honour. To further honour her memory we have included a statue of Tich, doing her favourite thing, fishing!) Changed classes is pretty extensive, and as such will be included in a separate link later on. We expect this beta to be around for 2-4 weeks before going live, during which we'll be performing one or two updates to tweak and update to add a few performance improvements due in WO in the next update. As usual, please report any bugs you find on our Steam forums, official forums athttp://forum.wurmonline.com, or discord athttps://discord.gg/wurm And as always, Keep on Wurming! The Wurm team.

Changes and Additions:

New: Archaeology changes and additions.

• Wood types have been added to wooden items.
• New statues have been discovered.
• Fix for some moonmetal fragments.
• Tweaked base difficulty for investigating to be a bit easier overall.
• You can also now get an extra bonus in areas that are considered valuable according to Archaeology, making fragments a bit easier to gain at higher levels in those locations.
• New: Archaeology caches have been added
• Once a report is completed enough, the center tile of that deed can then be found via Get direction on the report.
  • Using the Get direction function on the center tile of that deed will unearth an archaeology cache.
  • Inside the cache will be an assortment of unidentified fragments including a larger percentage of statue fragments and a relic of the former deed.
  • Amount of fragments is determined by archaeology skill and report ql with a minimum of 10.
  • Once unearthed the report will be consumed.
• Change: Archaeology journal improvements
  • Journals will now hold a number of reports up to the ql of the journal, with a minimum of 22.
  • Placing a piece of paper or papyrus greater than 30ql inside the journal will automatically turn it into a blank report
  • Reports can also now be moved in and out of journals via drag and drop.
  • Tweaked the chances for location info to be recorded in a report to be a bit lower than previously to balance for caches.
• Some Archaeology statues with solid bases can now have items placed upon them.

New: Fishing is now interactive with many new features and items.

New item: Fishing rod

New fishing reels

• Light fishing reel
• Medium fishing reel
• Deep water fishing reel
• Professional fishing reel

Fishing Reels

Fishing Reels are added to rods so that they can be used for fishing. A fishing reel holds up to 1 line (which in turn may contain other things), and may be placed in a rod. Fishing Reels will take damage from use, with rare fishing reels taking less damage and less likely to break rod. Rare reels make it easier to reel the fish in.

New handles for fishing:

• Handle - same item as current in-game version.
• Wrapped handle - same item as current in-game version
• Reinforced handle
• Padded handle

New fishing lines:

• Basic line - used on pole, may only contain a (wood or metal) hook
• Light line - used on basic fishing reel, used to catch smaller fish
• Medium line - used on fine fishing reel, used to catch medium fish
• Heavy line - used on deep water fishing reel, used to catch large fish
• Braided line - used on professional fishing reel, used to catch special fish

Floats

Floats can be added to lines which affects which fish are more likely to be caught. There are 4 types of float:

• Feather - part of butchered loot from rooster, pheasant and hen.
• Twig - found on bush tiles.
• Small moss - taken from moss.
• Bark - found on overaged birch trees.

Floats will take damage over time when used, and will need replacing from time to time.

Hooks

• Hooks are added to lines to catch fish. There are 3 types of hook:
• Wood - same as current item, better for fly fishing
• Metal - same as current item, better for deep water / sea fishing
• Bone - made from goblin skulls

Hooks behave as a container, which may contain bait, and will take damage over time as they are used. Wood type will affect how fast a fish turns up

Bait

When used on a hook, bait increases the chance of catching particular fish. There are 12 types of bait:

• Fly - You catch these using a pottery jar with a bit of honey in it, on animals that require grooming.
• Cheese Piece - Cheese Broken into smaller pieces.
• Dough Ball - a small ball of dough.
• Wurm - Found on dirt and mycelium tiles.
• Sardines - Caught using fishing nets in shallows.
• Roach - Caught in shallow waters.
• Perch - Caught in shallow waters.
• Minnow - Caught in caves.
• Fish Bait - Small fish chopped up.
• Grub - Found in shrivelled trees, prised out using an awl.
• Wheat Grain - from wheat!
• Corn Kernel - from corn.

Each time a fish bites on a baited line, the bait will take damage (e.g. the fish eats a bit of it). Bait is not required to catch fish (i.e. you can catch fish without bait), but the chances are a lot lower. Different fish prefer different bait.

Fishing Net

The fishing net can be used to catch small fish in shallow waters. Small fish may be used directly, or turned into bait to use on larger fish. This is the only way to catch sardines.

Keep Net

A keep net may be attached to a boat, and is used to preserve freshly caught fish (i.e. reduce decay). It can also be planted on the ground next to a player. Note that it must be planted, in water, to behave as a container; just dropping it will not allow fish to be placed in the keep net. It can only be picked up when empty.

Tackle Box

The tackle box is a special new container designed to streamline fishing. As well as being a convenient place to put spare floats, lines, bait, and other fishing paraphernalia, it automatically replaces fishing consumables as they are used up. In particular, as bait and floats are consumed (i.e. reach 100 damage), if your tackle box contains a suitable replacement, it will be automatically be moved to the rod when it gets to 100 damage at the end of the fishing action. The tackle box needs to be in inventory to work, and a consumed item will only be replaced by the same type of item (e.g. a feather float will only be replaced by another feather float; it will not be replaced with a moss float). The auto-replacing will happen at the end of the Fish action. The auto-replacement depends on fishing skill, with each item type having a specific skill requirement:

• Bait will be auto-replaced at 10 skill
• Hook will be auto-replaced at 30 skill
• Float will be auto-replaced at 50 skill
• Line will be auto-replaced at 70 skill or at any skill if reel exists.
• Reel will be auto-replaced at 90 skill (does not apply to fishing poles as they dont have reels).

When an item is consumed (i.e. it wears out), you will get a message at the end of the fish action.

Spears

In addition to rod fishing, this update includes spear fishing. This utilises the current spears already in game, with no functional difference (as far as fishing is concerned) between metal and long spears.

Fishing Rod Rack

The rod rack is a new container for storing fishing rods and poles when not in use. It operates in a similar fashion to a polearm rack, and has different models for empty and utilised states. Rod racks may be placed and secured.

Fishing Buoy

Buoys can be used to mark fishing spots. They are floating items that are anchored to a particular item, and may be used to show special fishing spots, for example. Buoys use the same placement rules as sign posts, except they need to be placed on underwater tiles. They operate as light sources (similar to a street lamp), and may be dyed. If blessed will not use fuel, but do require fuel to be lit.

Water

All water tiles are now categorised into 6 groups:

• Sea - open water
• Sea shallows - open water shallower than 25
• Lake - enclosed water, larger than a pond
• Lake shallows - enclosed water shallower than 25
• Pond - enclosed water, not big enough to be a lake
• Water - not big enough to be a pond

Note: Any water tiles underground, uses Lake or Pond (or Water) Note:The calculation is performed on server start so modifying water sources will not change their type until the next restart.

Brackish water

Lake water is considered fresh, while sea water is considered brackish. Brackish water can be drunk and used for cooking as usual (with no ill effect), and can be boiled to make salt - 1 salt per kilogram of brackish water.

General Attributes

All fish now have a set of attributes which determine where and when they are more likely to be caught:

• Preferred water type (lake, sea, etc)
• Minimum and maximum depth.
• Feeding height.
• Rod types.
• Time of day - some fish like to feed in the morning, afternoon, evening or even at night
• Baits - each fish has a favorite bait, some baits it likes, others it is less likely to eat, and some it will never touch.
• Outside or in caves - some fish are only found underground
• Rare fish can only be caught on special tiles (which are out at sea).

Special Tiles

Special tiles are an area where special (rare) fish may be caught. They will now move with the season, and have been recalculated (i.e. they will have moved on server restart). Non-special fish types may be caught on special tiles, but special fish can only be caught on special tiles, and a lesser chance if close to a center spot. These areas can overlap, so its possible to find places where two special fish can be caught. Special tiles are only found in open water (i.e. sea). Finding and recognising tiles is unchanged, and uses a pendulum.

Misc Info:

• Added lore action to rod/pole on boat, and rod/pole/spear/net on tile. Gives a little information on what might be found in areas.

New: Chicken coop added

Requires 50 Fine Carpentry skill to create and continue.

Coop info

Coops contain multiple sub items inside.

• Nesting Box, This is where the loaded hens reside.
• Feeder, this is where you place food.
• Drinker, this is where you place water.
• Egg Box, this is where you get the eggs from when they are laid.

Locks and permissions

• Coops are lockable and spawn on creation with a 1ql small padlock.
• Coops have manageable perms, like any other lockable container.

Loading

• You can only load hens into the coop.
• To load a hen, one must first lead one, then right click the coop and click "load creature".
• To be able to load the creature there must be water in the drinker and food in the feeder.
• You can only put food in the feeder that can be planted. Example: pumpkin seed, or corn.
• Loadable chicken count is QL / 10 + rarity (max 13 for 100ql fantastic).
• QL must be greater than or equal to 10 to load a chicken.

Feeding and watering

• Polling for the feeder and drinker happens every 4 hours at which time, creature count in food is subtracted from the feeder. E.g. if there are 4 hens loaded 4 food will be subtracted.
• Also 250 grams of water for each hen will be subtracted from the drinker.

Egg output

• Eggs will be created every 12 hours.
• Eggs will have a small chance of being fertile.
• Egg ql is dictated by the ql of the coop.
• Egg count is equal to the count of the chickens.
• If either the feeder or the drinker is empty on egg poll the chickens will be unloaded on the center of the tile where the coop resides.

Misc. info

• You cannot load a coop with chickens in it.
• Chickens in a coop, on deed, count towards the ratio.
• You cannot bash a coop with chickens loaded.
• The egg box will only hold 100 eggs.

New: Tower influence chaining system on PvP servers:

Influence Chaining

An influence chain is any land that a kingdom has influence over that is fully connected (chained) back to a valid starting point for that influence. All kingdom capitals and starter deeds (for base kingdoms) are considered a chain start point, and any tower or deed in a kingdom must connect back to that start point via influence chaining. In order for a tower or deed to be considered chained to a kingdoms influence, it must have a continued chain of influence (from kingdom towers) back to a chain start point. Towers radiate an influence out to 60 tiles from their base, and deeded land has influence as well. Because of this, any new towers built must be built within a 100 tile range of another tower of the same kingdom (minimum range remains 50) in order to continue the chain. In order to carry over the current state of towers on the servers at the moment, any tower within 120 range of another will still be considered chained, and allows for a valid spot between those two towers to build a new one to maintain the chain should one tower be destroyed after the update (and can no longer be rebuilt at 120 range). There are a few penalties involved with this system to promote completing and holding chained influence:

• Any tower outside of chained influence will no longer respawn tower guards.
• Any deeds outside of chained influence will respawn spirit guard waves 3 times slower.
• Any deeds outside of chained influence will no longer have guards maintain fences, bridges, floors and walls - similar to when a deed has less than a month of upkeep remaining.
• Any deeds outside of chained influence will have on-deed mine doors take 3 times as much bashing damage.

Tower Conquest

Towers will no longer be able to be conquered to convert them to your kingdom. To remove a tower, you will have to bash/destroy it, then reconstruct a new one within your tower influence chain. Bashing a tower will now spawn waves of guards when it reaches 30, 60, and 90 damage, and waves will become more challenging as the damage increases. At 90 damage, the kingdom that owns the tower will get a message in the Deaths tab stating that the tower is under attack.When the tower is destroyed, there will be a global message to all kingdoms on the server that the tower has been destroyed.

New Tutorial

• A new tutorial system has been added. The system can be run from anywhere by existing players by typing /tutorial.

New Journal system added

• The journal system is designed to guide players from their first steps in Wurm to more advanced steps.
• Completing 50% of a tiers goals will unlock the next tier.
• Completing 100% of a tiers goals will give the player a small reward.
• This update includes tiers 1-7 as well as a tab for tutorials.
• As this system replaces the personal goal system, we will be phasing that system out. The deadline is 1 month after the launch of the update.

Misc Additions & Changes

• New: Added title for 100 Restoration.
• Change: We've taken the time to review how climbing works, and have adjusted stamina drain to be tied closer to skill, with up to 2x less stamina drain near 100 skill (Non linear).
  • If the climber has goat shape it will not stack, instead preferring to use the goat shape bonus over climbing skill.
  • Tick size has been adjusted, and difficulty is based on slope of the tile.
• Change: Unicorn passengers must be same kingdom as dominator.
• Change: Build missions that require paved surfaces can now be build on any road type tile
• Change: Cloth clothing has had a few items added and a few others changed. See list below:
• Hoods:
  • A new White Cloth Hood has been added.
  • The version which was known as Cloth Hood previously is now created as Blue Cloth Hood.
  • Legacy versions are still called Cloth Hood but can no longer be created as such.
• Sleeves:
  • White Cloth Sleeves have been added.
  • Legacy Cloth Sleeves are now created as Red Striped Cloth Sleeves using white cloth sleeves and cochineal.
  • Plain White Cloth Sleeves are used to make Red Cloth Sleeves.
  • Both White Cloth Sleeves and Plain White Cloth Sleeves can be dyed.
• Jacket:
  • White Cloth Jacket has been added.
  • Legacy Cloth Jacket is now created as Red Cloth Jacket.
  • Legacy versions are still called Cloth Jacket but can no longer be created as such.
• New: Hell Horses and Unicorns will now give birth to foals, similar to horses.
• Change: You can no longer see your % chance to pick a door or fence gate if you're greater than one tile away.
• Change: Dirt in inventory can now be discarded the same way as logs and shards.
• Change: You can now plant / secure the Puzzle King's crystal ball.
• Change: Glimmersteel runes of Fo, Magranon, and Jackal as well as the Silver rune of Fo have been changed from 10%, 5%, 5%, and 5% increase to skill bonus respectively to 10% and 5% of the difference between your current skill and 100 as a direct bonuses to effective skill when determining action success.
  • Note: This does not mean items and resources are created at a higher than your skill cap, but will improve success chances for that action.
  • TL;DR : Glimmersteel Fo/Jackal runes will now increase skill calculations for success chances.
• Change: The quality reduction upon smelting has been scaled down and adjusted:
  • Smelted lump is capped by pot ql.
  • Items that cannot be improved and are not capped by the 20% of total skill when created will now receive a ql penalty when smelted
    • -7.5% to -2.5% for common metals,
    • -12.5% to -7.5% for moon metals and alloys.
  • Items that can be improved will no longer receive the penalty when smelted.
• New: Shoulder pads are now dyeable.
• Change: Metallic shoulder pads are now able to spawn from rifts as any metal type at a low chance.
• Change: The Tin Rune of Jackal now correctly uses the spell version of Refresh and cannot be used while moving.
• New: New horse colors added.
• New: Hens and Roosters can now be white, black or brown.
• New: Added Statue of Tich - can be crafted with marble shards. Metal versions are available through archaeology.
• Change: Show death reason on corpse description for Cared For creatures.
• Change: You should no longer waste a full sap harvest if your bucket is full upon beginning the action.
• New: 100 Forestry title added
• New: Priests of demigods can now create and continue their template god colossus.
• Change: Adamantine runes of Jackal will now determine the color upon rune creation and show the rgb value in the rune examine message.
• Change: Priests can now remove mine doors with a crowbar.
• Change: Priests can now place mine doors.
• Change: Wand of the Seas and Rod of Eruption usage instructions have been improved.
• Change: Frantic Charge now grants up to 10% faster swing speed based on power.
• Change: Find on Wurmpedia right click will now open Wurmpedia in an external browser window.
• Change: Merchants can now be placed in stalls under bridges.
• Change: Completed or failed missions will no longer appear on your mission list if older than 3 months.
• Twitter character limits have been increased.
• CA Help messages are now logged on the server.
• A BML builder class has been added.
• Change: Certain creatures can now be sacrificed outside missions:
  • Anaconda
  • Black Bear
  • Brown Bear
  • Black Wolf
  • Whale
  • Wild Cat
  • Cave Bug
  • Crab
  • Crocodile
  • Deer
  • Dolphin
  • Goblin
  • Hell Hound
  • Hell Scorpius
  • Lava Spider
  • Mountain Lion
  • Octopus
  • Pheasant
  • Large Rat
  • Scorpion
  • Seal
  • Spider
  • Tortoise
  • Troll

Gm Changes:

Upon further investigation of causes of lag we have identified the GMTOOL being the culprit of some rather long lag spikes. We have taken steps towards addressing the spikes but be aware that searching for an offline player using GMTOOL can cause spikes.

• GMs should no longer become visible when changing kingdoms, meditation path and faith.
• Get info on tile now distiguishes perimeter and village tiles.
• Added logging for the Disintegrate spell.
• Fish was removed from the GM summon menu since they were a temp creature with no physical interaction.
• GM renamed bulk items will return to their proper template name when put into a bulk container instead of renaming everything to the custom name.
• Added #online command to check if a player is online, what server they are on, and if off line how long they have been off line for in real time. Usage is #online playername
• Added new ArchGM+ command:
  • #reloadItems - checks for all subitems of the given itemId and forces them back into that item.
  • To be used to reload boats with deleted inventories upon crossing server
• Using #changemodel will no longer make you visible when using or wearing off.
  • changemodel will now inform a person of equal or higher power of the attempt and what model.
  • changemodel will accept full model names as well (i.e.: model.creature.gmdark)
  • When changing models, you will no longer pop visible.
  • When the illusion effect wears off, you will no longer pop visible.
• GM Bugfix: Mine doors no longer show opening if the watcher cannot see the player opening the door.
• Demigod+ can collapse a tile with the wand without having to create a shaker orb first.
• Adjusted the Get Info command on tiles to be more readable, and add extra functionality.
• Demigod+ can now destroy pavement on bridges and prepare bridge tiles for paving with the wand.
• Added focus zones which will auto replenish dirt, ore and trees.
• Added GM spawned leather drinking boot.
• GM Get Info has been improved to clarify info and give additional info.
• GM: Get info on tile now distinguishes perimeter and village tiles.

Client changes:

• Modern renderer only: major performance improvements
• Reduced stutter during structure loading
• Place outline will now show correctly for all objects (rafts, kilns)
• New: New water visuals havebeen added.
• New water visuals require the Renderer option to be set to Modern.
• New: Resolution scale (supersampling) option has been added to the Postprocess settings.
  • Essentially rendering the game at a given multiplier of the resolution, very demanding on the GPU, eliminates jagged edges and adds additional detail.
• Change: Updated quickbar with more icons
• Change: Swimming sounds no longer play when you are not swimming.
• Change: Wiki search bar now opens default browser instead of ingame browser.
• Change: Player texture rendering improvements.
• Change: General performance improvements.
• New: Added a setting under the text tab to enable/disable multicolored event/combat text.
• New: Quick keybinding - you can now create a key bind by holding a key while mouse hovering a right-click menu option.
• New: Added optional head bob during animations.
  • This can be disabled in the Graphics tab of the Settings, under 'Enable Head Bob'.
• New: Revamped the animations with smoother blending.
• New: Display fruit on harvestable trees and bushes.
• Bugfix: Fixed glitchy door, gate and mine door animations.
• Bugfix: Fixed player animations snaps and glitches.
• Bugfix: Fixed incorrect torch lamp flame size.

Art Changes:

• Fixed textures for support beams, statuettes, darts and tool belts.
• Added normal and specular maps to rocksalt vein, fixes exaggerated shininess.
• Tentacles spell now has graphics and animation.
• Huge bells and large bell resonators now properly show all metal types, bell tower shows wood types
• Stone house oriels will display ivy again
• Fixed glimmersteel and adamantine plate upper arm textures
• Updated Wurm University pmk textures
• Bugfix: Animations of actions starting on floors will no longer use the building animation.

Bug fixes:

• Bugfix: Rose seedlings have been removed from the mission item list.
• Bugfix: Various text, spelling and grammar fixes.
• Bugfix: The 'Take Portion' option should only display when a cooking utensil knife is activated.
• Bugfix: Crafted lunchboxes will once again be tin instead of lead.
• Bugfix: Added second title to the /title command output.
• Bugfix: Lock type will be checked when replacing locks on vehicles and items.
• Bugfix: War Machines will no longer decrease village / player rep if the creature hit is the one firing.
• Bugfix: You can no longer use your body parts, inventory, or an inventory group to desecrate an altar.
• Bugfix: Creature cages can now be turned.
• Bugfix: Locate Soul no longer takes power off the item when located from outside the max distance.
• Bugfix: Runes when used on one's self or another creature will now properly broadcast the action to other players.
• Bugfix: Fixed a few more mission descriptions with items which were too generic.
• Bugfix: Recipe list now correctly list lunchbox, tin instead of lunchbox, lead.
• Bugfix: Fixed an issue with the improper triggering of the Kill a wild sly creature achievement.
• Bugfix: Potion of butchery imbue now works properly when butchering a corpse.
• Bugfix: Fixed watcher text when someone unloads a creature from a cage.
• Bugfix: Champions can now gain faith titles.
• Bugfix: Removed second rename option from archaeology reports.
• Bugfix: Statue fragments should now identify as statues instead of containers.
• Bugfix: You can no longer crush, pick seeds or plant processed vegetables.
• Bugfix: Branded, cared for, geared, hitched, bred animals should no longer die for overcrowding on server startup.
• Bugfix: Bury all with grave stones will now destroy all items on the corpse.
• Bugfix: Wagoner container removed from mission item list.
• Bugfix: More text and grammar fixes.
• Bugfix: KOS players on pve servers are no longer considered enemies.
• Bugfix: Hatchet head model fixed.
• Bugfix: Fixed a few spelling and text errors.
• Bugfix: Cared for horse corpse should now be the same color as was the horse.
• Bugfix: Issues with the hover text for players fixed as noted:
  • Village role text is now properly capitalized.
  • Health statues is now on the first line with player name instead of on the second with village role.
• Bugfix: Fixed an issue which caused some merchant returned items to be broken apart by the mail spirits.
• Bugfix: Animals should no longer leave a duplicate corpse if they die after crossing to a new server.
• Bugfix: Avengers of Light have been removed from the mission list.
• Bugfix: Damage under 1.0 is now shown on items in the mail for 2 decimal places.
• Bugfix: Items inside containers in a trash heap will be destroyed before the container preventing heap overflow. Only 100 items will be destroyed at a time.
• Bugfix: You can now create and continue outside only items under a bridge.
• Bugfix: Items inside equipped saddle sacks and saddle bags will now take damage similar to items in other containers on a deed.
• Bugfix: Fix to prevent custom named lit items to lose their custom name when carried across servers.
• Bugfix: Arrows now count as weapons when casting enchants.
• Bugfix: Mail cost for items with internal non removable compartments adjusted.
• Bugfix: You can no longer cast dirt on items which are not really containers but can have things placed on them.
• Bugfix: You can no longer take a bite out of a fish and put it back into the fsb which lead to never ending fish.
• Bugfix: Chopping wood in your inventory now ignores the amount of items in a pile on the ground.
• Bugfix: Keybinds for push (and other moving actions) should perform at the same distance as would the context menu for those actions.
• Bugfix: You can no longer throw empty container slots.
• Bugfix: Empty saddles can now be banked again.
• Bugfix: Fresh herbs properly lose their 'fresh' state when put into crates.
• Bugfix: Fixed a caged animal issue which sometimes prevented server crossings.
• Bugfix: Champions will now properly get 80 actual channelling instead of effective.
• Bugfix: Deny all permission on branded horses will now override deed permissions.
• Bugfix: Examine info for small and large nails has been changed to metal instead of iron since nails can be other metals now.
• Bugfix: Bashing Walls/Fences/Fence Plans/Mine Doors now requires you to stand still during the action, moving will now cancel the action.
• Bugfix: Dead players will no longer receive loot from uniques.