Game updates
This page includes the five most recent game updates. You are welcome to tidy up the formatting and add wiki links, but please keep any discussion in the Talk pages as these Game updates are meant to be verbatim from the launcher update notes. Game updates can be found on the launcher, or at the following link: http://cdn.projectgorgon.com/news.txt
If you are returning to the game and want short summaries of what was changed, see Quick Notes.
For information on possible future content, please see Knowledge of the Future.
Click Here for a complete archive of Game Updates
Update Notes: November 13, 2025
This is a minor update to end the Zhia Lian event and start the Harvest Season event. There were also a few fixes ready to go, plus a new skill and big changes to Cartography.
Fixes
- - Fix for "World Interactions" not providing Lore XP
- - Fix for dying XP: now when you die from a specific cause, you cannot get XP from that cause again for 1 day (and in some cases, 10 days). Previously, you could only get XP from it again within 1 day, and then you were locked out of gaining any more XP for that cause.
- - Fix bug causing party frames to duplicate sometimes
- - Additional adjustments to character-creator preview (with more to come; this is a WIP snapshot)
Assessment
when a player examines another player, they previously saw all of that player's badges in alphabetical order. Now, the number of visible badges is determined by the player's Assessment skill level. To raise the Assessment skill you need only examine other players. Results are no longer listed in alphabetical order, instead listed in order of subjective impressiveness-level, so that if you have a low Assessment skill you see only the most impressive badges.
Cartography
Previously, the Cartography skill was using placeholders for the total number of map squares that can be cleared on each map. We've analyzed player data to see how many map squares are really accessible on each map during regular play. We've discarded the outliers, which are usually players who were able to get out-of-bounds in one way or another.
This means that in some cases, the game may show that you've cleared more than 100% of a map's fog. Congratulations, you are truly an intrepid explorer! But you get nothing beyond bragging rights: you can't earn additional Cartography XP for a map once you've reached 100% for it.
Each square of fog is now worth more XP than before, allowing players to actually reach Cartography level 100. (In fact, players can go beyond level 100, up to level 105, if they get 100% in every single mappable area. This was done so that players who aren't extremely anal-retentive can still reach level 100. The levels beyond 100 currently grant no additional rewards.)
We've recalculated everyone's Cartography skill level with these new XP values. Your map fog is NOT cleared or altered in any way -- we just re-evaluated how much XP you should have for clearing the amount of fog you've cleared.
Finally, and most importantly, leveling the Cartography skill actually does something now! As you level up you will receive up to +25 inventory slots, +4 stable slots, and various other nice things.
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Update Notes: November 2, 2025
This is a minor bug-fix update:
- - Fix bug preventing some in-game windows from popping up after using the new character creator
- - fix bright red turkey pet
- - Demo players can no longer get the Zhia Lian Whimsical Challenge quests (since they mostly can't actually participate in them)
- - Add a "Toggle Armor" button to character-creator preview
- - Fix bug causing saved character-creator submissions to disappear whimsically
- - Minor adjustments to rakshasa head in character-creator preview
Scene geometry fixes:
- - Plug hole in rock wall in Serbule Caves (#17031)
- - Remove trees from rocks in Vidaria (#16991)
- - Adjust lights near sculpture in Goblin Caves (#17047)
- - Adjust collider on head sculpture in Serbule (#17057)
- - Adjust swarmer spawns in Vidaria (#17062)
- - Raise terrain to cover towers in Serbule Keep (#17068)
- - Removed Occlusion Data from Eltibule causing occlusion issues (#17181)
- - Close terrain rocks with colliders in Vidaria (#17111)
- - Change water asset on Ri Shin Shrine in Kur (#17203)
- - Adjust ice elemental spawns in Kur so they don't spawn inside colliders (#17195)
- - Rebake Occlusion Culling in Kur Mountains (#17208)
- - Change Giant Statue Layer to Terrain in Serbule (#17204)
- - Plug hole in rock wall in Area Cave 1 (#17213)
- - Increase detail on giant stone hands and head in Serbule (#17199)
- - Plug hole in rock terrain in Eltibule (#17132)
- - Add palisades to Sir Taggart's Camp in Vidaria (#17164)
- - Remove deposit spawns from atop camp tents in Kur (#17175)
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Update Notes: October 31, 2025
This is a minor update to fix a few annoying bugs. We also have a preview of our new character creator for you to try out. If you're so inclined you can help us find good character presets for others to use! You will be credited in-game for the look if we use it. You can access the character creator preview right after logging in, before choosing your character.
Other fixes/changes:
- - Fix map issue causing minimap to not scale or follow properly. The fix for this also fixes the party UI duplication bug
- - Remove colliders from trees in Sun Vale causing people to fall through the ground. (Temp fix; the trees need to be replaced)
- - Fix terrain flickering in Serbule Hills
- - Recipes to improve mastercrafted hammer or club have been split into two recipes, one for hammer and one for club. The previously-existing recipe applies to hammers and the new recipe for clubs is in loot
- - The recipe "Blacksmithing: Improve Prophesied or Foretold Staff via Crafting" has become a Carpentry recipe
- - Fix bug with mod "If attack kills an enemy via direct damage, gain X Power and Hasten Current Reuse Timer of Pound To Slag -Y", it now properly affects Pound to Slag
- - Zhia Lian Whimsical Challenge changes
- - Main tier quests now require 250 items
- - New set of quests that only require 125 items for low population time slots
- - Added special display icon for the Serbule Spider Invasion to note when the event is in progress
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Update Notes: October 22, 2025
This is a minor update to start the Zhia Lian Celebration. Zhia is waiting impatiently for you to log in so that she can communicate with you.
This update also has bugfixes including some important stability improvements. Finally, it includes a bunch of nerfs because we want to get all the nerfs out of the way before launching new systems in Statehelm (Very Soon (TM)). Even more finally, it includes a revision to monster looting rules.
Boss Monster Loot Changes
Most named "boss" monsters have a 3 hour "loot timer", meaning that if you kill the monster again within 3 hours, you get much lower-quality loot. In this update we're expanding the timer to also change how loot permissions work.
Attacks by a player that has already looted the monster recently no longer "group-lock" the monster to that player's hunting group. (Other players in the hunting group can still lock the monster by attacking, provided they haven't looted it recently.)
In cases where the monster dies without any group locking it, the old behavior was that the person who did the most damage gets first dibs on loot. That's still the rule, but with the extra caveat that players who have already looted the monster recently are never chosen over players who haven't.
The intent of this rule is to reduce friction in places where multiple groups are hunting the same boss monster. It's still "first come first served" for groups who haven't killed it yet, but hopefully this will prevent the same group from needlessly re-tagging the boss. This change also makes it safe for players to stick around and help later groups kill the boss without danger of screwing up looting permissions.
Bug Fixes
- - More fixes for audio panel related to in-game voice chat features
- - graphical performance improvements mainly to help users with low-end graphics cards
- - Reinstall the out-of-bounds barrier in Serbule
- - Adjust sunlight brightness in multiple areas
- - Fix bug preventing the following augment from dropping: "Look At My Hammer causes your next ability to deal double direct damage"
- - Fix "Word of Power: Elemental Immunity"
- - Reduce visual clutter of trees in Kur Mountains
- - Fix bug causing item rafflers to permanently affect your deployed count when they disappear before being configured
- - Pulse of Life no longer deals damage to the target
- - bugfix: loot generation: Sword skill is now compatible with Druid skill
- - Upgrade Unity version to fix a Unity exploit
- - A new "bad network" icon is displayed in the effect bar when your connection to the server is poor enough to impact gameplay. The intent is to give players more info about what's going on when weird things are happening. This in turn can help us understand reported issues
- - fix issues with pet follow logic, especially when their master is flying or standing in inaccessible locations
- - Portal Summoning Device - Nightmare Caves now drops you at the true beginning of the Nightmare Caves
- - Beginners Buttermilk and Black Soup are now stackable to 5 (previously 1)
Nerfs!
We've nerfed some systems and treasure effects that are too problematic to work around. Nerfs are always cases where we the devs messed up we couldn't find a fix aside from nerfing. I apologize for these mistakes and the impact they'll have on you. The bright side is that the nerfs below are all the planned nerfs prior to the game leaving Early Access.
Nerfs In the Future?
In the past couple of years of development, we've settled onto a pattern of only nerfing things after observing their impact on the game for a long time -- at least six months. This has the upside of showing us that most things we initially want to nerf don't really need nerfing. But the downside is that when we do end up nerfing things, they've been in the game a long time and are commonly used.
Going forward the plan is to have six-month "Nerf Updates". These biannual updates will include any necessary nerfs. These updates will also be when we make major changes to combat skills, ones that require players to revise their characters. The hope is that by bundling big changes into these semi-annual updates we can provide more predictability and less FUD.
Changes to "When X Skill Active" Treasure
When a treasure effect says that it buffs an attribute while a particular skill is active, that previously just meant that the skill was one of your two active combat skills. In this update, "active" also means "usable":
- - Warden gear requires you to be in an animal form
- - animal-form combat skill gear requires you to be in that specific animal form
- - gear for a weapon skill requires you to be wielding that weapon
- - gear for Priest and Necromancy check that there aren't any disallowed items equipped
Psychology
- - Psychology treasure effect: (Hands, Feet) - "Mock deals +125% damage, taunts +500, and hits all targets within 20 meters, but reuse timer is +1.5 seconds" => "Mock hits all enemies within 20 meters and taunts +1000, but damage is halved and reuse timer is +1.5 seconds"
- - This effect was previously available on Hands and Feet; it is now only available on Hands. Feet-slot items that have this effect have become Legacy items. You can use Transmutation to remove this effect and un-Legacy-ify the item. Alternatively you can visit the Legacy Item Helper golem in Serbule for a random replacement item.
- - New psychology power: (Feet): "Bonus Taunt to All Attacks +2180 while Psychology skill active"
We realize this is a major change for some players and apologize for the annoyance of having to revise your character. To facilitate this, Psychology transmutation is set to be cheaper this month.
Crossbow
- - Crossbow treasure effect: (MainHand, OffHand, Ring): "Crossbow Ability Reuse Time -12 seconds" => "Crossbow Ability Reuse Time -5.75 seconds and Damage +240"
Changes to 'Teleport Alts'
- - if a player uses Elmetaph's newbie quest to teleport to a spot deep inside the dungeon, their bind point is now at the entrance to that dungeon. (This mostly affects spots deep inside Errruka's Cave.)
Rebalance to Foretold Item Boosts
We're also going to refactor the potency of Foretold/Mastercrafted specific boost recipes. This change was planned for this update, but we've postponed it because we found a way to implement it that is less obtrusive and annoying -- we'll be able to just alter the items in-place. This will happen in the next update.
Coming Soon...
We're working furiously on a bunch of big updates that will arrive in the coming weeks, including a major character-art revision. Next week we'll have a way for you to help us test those changes before they go live. Stay tuned for more info, and happy Halloween.
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Update Notes: September 12, 2025
This is a patch fix for the large update earlier this week.
- - Address bugs that caused the game to crash
- - If you have more crashes please report them!
- - A whole bunch of graphical adjustments, especially in Serbule/Eltibule
- - Disable refraction dispersion on all waters. This was causing a weird outline/glow around characters and objects
- - Fix typo in completion text for Support the War Effort
- - Remove some instances of mobs spawning underground in Vidaria
- - Increase spawn rate of Rimy Kuvou and Frostbelch Frogs in Vidaria
- - Increase respawn rate of demons in Vidaria
- - Increase likelihood of obtaining Frozen Grizlark & Icy Frog Skin
- - Zazzamath can now receive gifts
- - Zazzamath now has a combat level requirement to talk to
- - Tweak Pitre's preference wording to make it clearer that he just wants regular Food and Cooking Ingredients
- - Fix shadow pop-in issues in Eltibule, Kur, & Vidaria
- - Improve precipitation performance at the highest quality level
- - Increase default tree billboard distances for some quality levels.
- - Fix bug causing some settings to not trigger the "Save Changes" button and thus not properly save their changes
- - Potential fix for flashing trees in some zones on Linux
- - Add much more granularity to Water graphics settings
- - Improve highest-end Water reflections
- - Fix for Desert Overseers not despawning after the druid event ends
