Birthright News

[h3]Introduction[/h3]

Finally we are ready to release Dedicated Server support. Moving forward we will be back on our 6 week cycles of content patch releases. And everything will be supported both in Single Player and Multiplayer.

This change required changes in most of the code base. And the player bug reports before this patch helped tremendously to find, and fix, bugs while also completely rewriting parts of it to be better.

We use Steam integration and in the future plan to include Scoreboards for Kings & Queens and what not. For the actual Network code we heavily use Unreal Engines solution that is also driving Fortnite.

Special thanks for testing goes to SinDevourer, AresLegion, Ozzy "Meat" and Amarum.

[h3]Dedicated Server[/h3]

We will start hosting a first Official server with this release. But also continue hosting Test server before each Patch release.

To host your own Dedicated Server head over to this forum thread where we will answer questions, update the documentation and discuss the need for more config variables and what not:
Dedicated Server Forum

• Chat Bubbles are added in a radius around Player on WM using Enter key
  
• Players can open a Trade panel with each other
  
• Players can join Ongoing Battles/Sieges on either Attacker of Defender side but not on Undead side
  
• Players can join Ongoing Skirmishes but only on the Attackers side and help out
  
• Players can join Ongoing Dungeons but only on the Attackers side and help out and each joined Player will increase Dungeon Spawns for their level
  
• Players can join Ongoing Fight Pits because technically they are Skirmishes
  
• Players can not yet join Ongoing Arenas but will come soon
  

[h3]Other Major Updates and Changes[/h3]

Audio has been remade and have a more correct Sound behavior and Air Absorption. All audio are subject to these changes.

Combat

• Using a Shield now lets you check Parry before shield Block
  
• Mounted Archery is added (still need better Animation for high rotation)
  
• Parry animations and behavior is rewritten
  
• Added more than 45 new Recruit troops from Settlement Extensions
  
• Added more than 40 new Unique Champion enemies
  
• All Spawn Tables are updated
  
• AI behavior is more defensive
  
• Stumbling or Falling to the ground is no more rag dolling
  

World Map

• AI will Recruit based on their needs
  
• AI will calculate both Personal strategies and Faction Leaders also bigger Faction Strategies
  
• Navigation fixed on all Water areas
  
• Added Navigation check for Spawning to avoid bad places
  
• Many Seasons and Weathers have been reworked
  
• Settlement Extensions have been updated, re balanced and with new Recruits and Production
  
• Added over 20 new Avatars for Character Creation
  
• Added over 10 new Herald symbols for Factions
  
• 16 new Battle/Skirmish maps
  
• 2 new Dungeon Themes
  
• 25 new Point of Interests
  
• 5 new Settlement Events
  

[h3]Upcoming Patches[/h3]

Moving forward we will be keen on patching bugs and problems that are discovered with smaller minor patches. And Content Patches will be aimed at every 6 weeks again.

Next Patch World Extensions

First will be the "World Extensions" Patch that introduce building on the World Map. Farms/Houses for your living and stashing important items, Fields for growing more Wheat/Fruits/Tobacco and other structures like Watch Towers that decrease chance of getting Raided.

This will also introduce Work Slots in all Extensions (Settlements too), where Prisoners can be dropped to increase production, or more imprisoned to lower Escape Chance.

All built World Extensions will become under Tax regulations from the nearest Settlement. Automatically paying parts of the harvests and income.

This will also make sure in Multi Player that Mid game Players have an interest in getting New Players to settle nearby their owned Settlements, rather than harassing them. But ofc the choice is up to every Player ;)

Second Next Patch Kings & Queens

This patch will focus on the End game Players fighting for total control of the Kingdom, and those who manage to take it.

Kings & Queens will introduce global Taxation on all Settlements to The Citadel where they reside. This money will be spent to make sure the Kingdoms overall Turmoil is low and Peaceful.
This will ensure harder times for other End game Players to make a move for the Throne.

This will be done thru paying Bounty Contracts for those who hunt down problems creating Turmoil and get others to help out with global Kingdom problems.

Low Morale Characters might get Player Bounties on them too.

[h3]Families[/h3]

Family system is now in full effect where your Next in Lineage can replace your character upon death. Carrying on the Family legacy and all it's values.

Personal reputation is lost but Family/Faction reputation stays.

As always this feature is added on Base Characters meaning all creatures also has it in effect. Trolls, Wolves, Bandits etc can all have their Family making bonds of marriage and growing in power.

[h3]Primogeniture[/h3]

Each Family has a set Primogeniture, rules for succession and inheritance. The three types are:

Agnatic Lineage is determined by Male in first order, Male Siblings precede Female children. The most common of all types.

Absolut Lineage is determined by seniority and age among all children. This only happened late in real history (Kingdom of Sweden first to adapt it in 1980).

Matrilineal Lineage is determined by Female first order, Female Siblings precede Male Children. Never done in human history only done by few animals. Someone got to be the first among humans ?
Beware playing a Family with such divergent ideas can be very hard. But those who succeed will write history.

[h3]Type of Wedding and Children[/h3]

For Humans there are basically two different types of marriages:

Common Wedding
These weddings usually involve a ring or a band of good cloth, that is placed on the bride to complete the ceremony. This can vary between families and culture but the more effort you put into it, the higher chance of getting a happy spouse and many children.

Lord Wedding
Made mostly between Lords and seldom does a Lord take a Commoner. But it has happened and many times because of great beauty and lack of better options. This is all about Political power and strength.
Usually have higher chance of bigger Family than Commoners. Due to better health care and a more protected environment.

Bastards
More evil Lords that use Prima Nocta are regarded as having Bastard Children who are regarded among the lowest of low ranking Family members. And oftentimes children are made from lofty nights during Festivals or women selling the warmth of the bosom. These are all Bastards though and sometimes have to fight for their rights, if any even exist.


[h3]Summer vacation and Multiplayer[/h3]
As we announced earlier most of the team is now on Summer Vacation trying to get back to more normal life post-covid here in Sweden :)
However the remaining ones will spend the coming month to crunch on Dedicated Server support. After this we will have better knowledge on how far off we are to start with public testing of Dedicated Server support.

As mentioned before all the big parts of hosting World Map, Trading, Dialogues, Replicated Characters, Starting Battles/Skirmishes/Dungeons etc are all working already.

Now the focus is tying everything up and fixing all the bugs and kinks that are left.

Happy Summer to everyone and hope it will be a Sunny one! :)

[h3]Settlement Events[/h3]

New system with lots of custom Events happening in Settlements. These events can greatly impact the Settlement or Players.

You will find Farmer's Markets, Beggars, Executions, Music Festivals, Village Marriages, Thieves, Lords using Prima Nocta, Witch burnings, Full Revolts, Ongoing Plagues, Ambushes and much more! Many leading to intricate quests.

But be wary before you get entangled in the complicated politics. The outcome may not always become what you intended. But who doesn't want to become the Village Champion when you finally get the chance ?

[h3]Combat Strafe/Dodge and Stamina[/h3]

You can now double-tap movement keys (left/right/back) to make a quick dodge. This uses Stamina that generate over time. Coming patches Armor will impact this further with -% movement speed. But for now all Armor are equal.

[h3]Rank Icons[/h3]

Previously in Battles Lords had a Gold Star icon and Followers a Silver Star. While these two symbols are still the same, the system is reworked and more ranks has been added with more to come. Giving more indications of difficulties and other important information.

A Hill Troll might have 1 Star difficulty, a Minotaur 2 Star and Armored Trolls 3 Star as examples.

[h3]New Creatures and Spawn Tables[/h3]

Many new Creatures that will be faced in Dungeons and the new Spawn Table system is in place that will make it easy for creators to make Spawn distribution for Enemies and Bosses.

With this we added many new Creatures in a first wave. And much more diverse effects comes with this new system where mixes can also happen such as Bandits having Wolves, or Trolls taking over Dungeons becoming Bosses.

Scorpions

• Sand Scorpions - Common and not dangerous but be cautious of the tail stings poison since it stacks
  
• Red Scorpions - Has much stronger Poison and tail stings should be Blocked with a shield or perfect Parry
  
• Black Scorpions - Very deadly due to armor piercing claws and movement slowing poison that quickly captures a Armored target
  

Mummies

• Normal Mummies - Common with Undeads and very slow. Good target practice.
  
• Burned Mummies - Tougher and can take a beating. Has secret effects.
  
• Blood Mummies - Remnants from sacrifices. Slow but sometimes very dangerous with secret effects.
  

Ghouls

Comes in many shapes and forms on Graveyards and Old Ruins. Usually chopping practice for seasoned Adventurers. But be cautious of being cornered by many of them together.

Minotaurs

New Boss creature that hit very hard and usually swings large 2 handed weapons. Don't think you can ram it with the Horse. These creatures are fearsome if not able to Swarm them or Dodging very well.

Can be found in higher level Dungeons and sometimes in the World looting

More Trolls and new Troll Armors

• Hill Trolls - Common around hills and mountains. Easy when prepared but any mistake can be deadly.
  
• Cave Trolls - Uncommon but can be found around Bridges sometimes. Usually stack more loot because they tend to live longer.
  
• Armored Trolls - Usually found in formed Warparties from Caves that grew strong. Can be extremely dangerous even for a full Cavalry.
  

New Wolves

Changed the old Wolves to much better asset with fur, tons of animations and different variations all from Puppies up to Dire Wolves.

Wolves can now also be members in other parties. Excellent to distract ranged soldiers quickly and shut them down.

[h3]New World Followers[/h3]

Deverda Barlow A mysterious Astrologer travelling the World. Some say she's a Witch others that she can see the future.

Keith Hammon A talented locksmith that claims to be able to open any lock in the Kingdom. And maybe even make locks himself that are unbreakable.

[h3]Changes to Character Panel / Inventory[/h3]

Many smaller changes have been made to improve speed and effectiveness when working with your Army and Followers. New way has been added to level up Characters without selecting them etc.

While reforming these changes we found some bugs we believe is the root to some reported weird behaviours around this.

More reforms to GUI will be made where needed. And thanks for all feedback that helps making it better! :)

[h3]Audio Settings[/h3]

Finally you can adjust Volume for different layers such as Master, VFX and Music. We plan on adding more connected Layers that Player requests and a configurable sub-mastering system too for fine tuning.

[h3]Summer Time and Multiplayer[/h3]

The Summer is here and so is vacations. But we will work on next Patch (Families, Marriage & Birthright) the coming 4 weeks. After that is released half the team will go on a 4 week holiday.
The other half is going to focus on Dedicated Server Multiplayer and hence create a 4 week gap without any Patch release before we are back to normal.

However since we are way ahead of estimations for dedicated server, we only have a few things left before releasing it as Experimental and testing. And chances are we are done with all the basics to go Experimental branch.

Basically what we got left in the bigger picture is Steam integration (for unique persistent Player ID and Lobby discovery of servers), add Websockets to make coordination of game instances event driven and the last step of After Battles to correctly hand the Players over back to World Map instance.

Otherwise World Map is working overall already in testing. And starting Battles/Skirmishes/Dungeons work good with all features even Dismemberment.

When a Player starts a Battle/Skirmish/Dungeon a new symbol is placed on the World Map that others (even AI) can use it to join that ongoing battle, or rob a Player that just looted the Dungeon.

This step will open some beta testing but still we need another important feature (Building), that is planned later, to get many of the needed tools for Multiplayer. Such as building your hidden Camp to store things early game. And investing in Saw Mills/Mines/Farms on the World Map to improve material generation while also targets for Pillaging by others.

[h3]Gore and Dismemberment (more is more)[/h3]

We are pleased to introduce a Gore and Dismemberment system that is dynamical. Right now it is always happening on character death with added Gore. More is more, but in the future we will tweak and change this a lot.
This system is currently in effect for all Humans and Undead. However it will work with any Skeleton so we will later add Horses (cutting off legs etc), Trolls, Wolves, Bears and all coming Beasts.

[h3]Seasonal Tarot Card Effect[/h3]

Every change of Season a new Tarot Card is now drawn being in effect for the whole Season. Since there are 22 Major Arcana cards, there are 22 different Seasonal effects.

These effects vary greatly but some examples:

Wheel of Fortune will make the Carnival enter and camp near The Citadel while The World will start a Golden Age increasing all Production and Prosperity in the world for the Season.

The Sun will start a Long Summer season, regardless of next one, increasing Food production and just makes the perfect Weather all long. The Moon will trigger a Blood Moon every night lowering Morale of soldiers and increasing night spawns.

The Hierophant will open The Oracle for everyone regardless of reputation or importance in the World. Be sure to us it's lower services and maybe you can establish a relationship ?
The Magician card will give Silk Road effect where the Old Merchant will enter the World. Not someone to easily get a reputation with but probably has a thing or two to sell that you would want.

And much more that you have to discover when the Tarot decides the faith of the world. Be sure to use it's disadvantages as advantages and rise when others suffer.

[h3]New World Followers[/h3]

Our new writer/scripter Mia is rolling with full force and many new Characters/items are now introduced with special Quests and intervening stories both with each other but also with the World and its history.

To mention some of the included this Patch.

Britus Smith is a blacksmith with a life goal to start his own smithy. However, he was assaulted and robbed of all his belongings where he also lost his Royal Journeyman's Certificate and has thus problems getting hired.
He would do anything to get it back.

Andrina Morwen is a young woman who is mute but has an incredible hand with animals and often called a animal whisperer, especially with horses. Her father was a skilled Archer that served in the Royal Army and taught his daughter everything he knew about the bow and arrow. So she is quite a skilled bow-woman.

Alvin Whit - also called "Alvin the Jest" is a Jester with a tragic background that gives him nightmares so horrible that he sometimes loses his will to live.

Bellamy Moonfall is a warlock/pagan man who is quite egoistic and obsessed with gaining power, wealth and influence. He wants to achieve status in his life by getting a position as an adviser to some high-ranking lord.
He would not hesitate to use Black Rites and forgotten magic in evil purposes. Some say his ways are connected to the great Purge when the Old Kingdom fell.

Lucius Kane seems to be a really nice person and have a clean appearance. But he works as a contracted Headhunter who likes gold more than people. His life goal is to work for someone rich and important and save enough money to become financially independent. Some people might find him odd and feel at unease around him.



And as always tons of bug fixes and smaller additions to Quests, Levels, Combat and Dialogues. The Loot system is also expanded on and will increase.

The Multiplayer situation is that we now have a functional World Map that can run and all basic things such as Characters, Settlements, POIs, Weather and Time systems.
We are still not showing much of it and will wait a little longer before doing that. But we will soon start working on starting multiple Combat as a Dedicated Server which is the last big stepping stone before working on all details.

Dungeon System have been vastly improved with better level scaling vs difficulty, more Bosses and more varying enemies.

Several new Themes are introduced and Dungeon Generation is much more advanced. We are close to where we want the system to be now and will continue to improve in the future with many more spawn tables, loot tables, bosses and themes.



New Recipe system with over 100 Epic/Legendary weapons has been added. Some can be looted in Dungeons. Require expensive materials to Craft and the recipe is consumed in the process.



More World Followers are introduced with missions.

Many Combat bugs have been fixed. As well as introducing new attacks for 1 hand without shield.

Tons of changes have been made preparing for Multiplayer with Dedicated Servers. World Map can run as a Dedicated Server with Clients connecting and creating a new character. But still a lot of work before we will start releasing this to the public in any shape or form.