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Project: Gorgon News

Update Notes: March 16, 2022

This is a minor bug-fix update to fix issues with our latest major update.
  • Fix problems with projectiles that persist after monster death
  • Reverted unintentional lighting change that made certain dungeons extra dark (including "under the model home" and "Dark Chapel" dungeons)
  • Fixed treasure effect "Nip boosts the damage of Basic, Core, and Nice attacks +X for 6 seconds" which actually buffed the enemy, not the attacker
  • Item prompt now only shows when appropriate for NPCs
  • Fix floating barrels in Goblin Dungeon
  • Stop auto-running when using an ability on an enemy
  • Fix minor padding issue in crafting window ingredients

We'll be back with more fixes and features soon!

Update Notes: March 11, 2022

In this update we've done a ton of polishing and bug-fixing, and we have some new content for the Eltibule region.

Eltibule Content

After a very long hiatus on the game's storyline, we've started expanding it again. We've only added a few new steps in this update, though it may be somewhat obvious where things are headed. We'll be adding more storyline quests in future updates.

Until now, the storyline ended with the quest "Chasing Dalvos to Eltibule". That quest completed when you talked to Oritania, and there were no further quests. Oritania now has a new storyline quest which she will bestow after "Chasing Dalvos to Eltibule" is complete. You will need to run some errands for her first (although you may have already done those errands for her in the past).

There is also a new "top floor" to the dungeon underneath Eltibule Keep. Most of the top floor has low monster density, making it more approachable to players who don't yet have solid level 30 equipment. There is also a new quest on this top floor, which starts in the first room. (The new "top floor" connects to the older floors, which are almost completely unchanged.)

UI
  • Polished all of the main UI windows to have consistent header fonts, colors & sizing.
  • Organized the GUI/Features settings with headings.
  • Augment sub-skills now show up under the "Augmentation" umbrella skill in the Skills & Abilities window.
  • Fixed an issue with Skills being displayed in a weird order in the Skills and Abilities window.
  • Repeated searches within the Skills & Abilities window will no longer mess up Skill name padding.
  • Reunited Toxic Flesh 9 with its friends Toxic Flesh 1-8 in the Special Abilities window.
  • Mushroom Farming max grow-box bonus is now displayed in the Skills and Abilities window.
  • Set correct error message for abilities whose parent skills are not high enough level, most notably when Fairy Magic is higher level than Mentalism.
  • The right-click hotbar submenu "Change Skill" will now display in 2 columns when you have 25+ combat skills. This prevents the list from going off the screen.
  • Tightened the display of the right-click submenu that displays list of combat skills.
  • The Crafting window now has an XP bar, displays the associated skill under the recipe name, and has a star icon to quickly favorite the selected recipe.
  • Clicking an item while the crafting window is open will now place that item into any applicable ingredient slots.
  • Attempting to craft with an ingredient in storage will now show an accurate error.
  • Improved algorithm for single-clicking an inventory item with the crafting window open:

    • If there are multiple ingredient slots, it will no longer swap them and will instead fill successive slots.
    • If there is a single ingredient slot, it will swap any existing ingredient in the slot.
  • Empty stable slots now have a custom UI that is more descriptive.
  • The mount preview window should no longer be black.
  • Polished pet UI, including highlighting the currently-selected mode (Assist, Guard, etc.).
  • Added a new setting, "Automatically show pet UI?" under GUI/Features, which auto-shows the pet UI when a pet is summoned. Defaults to true.
  • Added an option "Close mount window after action?" to prevent mount window from closing after performing an action.
  • Properly resize Dismount button text.
  • Mount anxiety bar now changes from green to red as anxiety increases.
  • Added Riding to list of toggleable shop skills.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from toggling off Riding skill when using the shop search golem (if you first talked to the golem while on a mount).
  • General polish of the transmutation window.
  • Transmutation now always uses the new transmutation window.
  • Polished the Quest Tracker a bit.
  • Added an icon to quest list headers when one of their quests is completed. (It's a little green dot.)
  • Tracked quests can now be right-clicked to view the Quest details or untrack the quest.
  • Allowed locking of the hotbar from the right-click menu of the ability icons.
  • Sidebar is no longer movable when attached to the main hotbar.
  • The minimap now starts at the correct location when changing zones.
  • The second floor map of Gazluk Keep now uses the correct map pins.
  • The item comparison tooltip now properly disappears when the compare key isn't held in, and the equipped item in the comparison is more obvious. (It has an "Equipped" label.)
  • Chat bubbles & selection boxes for yourself should no longer be jittery.
  • Scaled down selection boxes for large rabbits, so they stay more-or-less centered on the rabbit itself instead of hovering over its head.
  • We now update a selected target's description in real-time (if, for instance, someone's title changes while you have them selected).
  • Monster name colors now update properly when the monster dies.
  • The monster Rage-Full indicator (in Combat Info) now only displays on attacks that actually require full Rage.
  • Removed blue power bars from above target heads.
  • Polished favor bar in the NPC interaction window.
  • Julius Patton's favor increase text now lines up properly with his storage unlock.
  • Moved the effect icon for "background downloading" to the end of the effects list, and only show it when background downloads are active for more than half a second. This should prevent pop-in of the icon repeatedly, which shifted the rest of the effects icons.
  • Float item pickups to the correct place when they go into a different inventory pack than is currently selected.
Graphics & Animation
  • Added a new "Gather" animation for collecting fruit from trees/bushes.
  • The transmutation animation is now quicker, and can be skipped via clicking on it.
  • Changed animation for all fae recipes.
  • Fixed fairy swim animation.
  • Fairies should continue looking like they're floating when using most emotes.
  • New pickup animation for rabbits.
  • Revamped Knife Fighting animations.
  • We now correctly orient knives during stab animations.
  • Add particle effects to bard songs that last as long as the song is active.
  • Improved mount ability animations.
  • Add particle effects to mount abilities.
  • Reset horse state completely when swapping between mounted & unmounted.
  • When mounting, the camera now raises so your head is still in the same position on the screen.
  • Polished spawn premonition particles.
  • Eltibule: replaced legacy Unity trees with speedtree trees to fix problems with LODs. (The actual tree choices are still a work in progress, but good enough for now.)
  • Eltibule: fixed LOD on "casino castle" (the facade entrance to casino).
  • Removed advanced graphics setting for "Tilt Shift". (It hasn't actually done anything for a long time.)
  • Added advanced graphics setting for "High-Quality Anti-Aliasing". Previously this was always enabled when you set the graphics quality to "Great" or higher. (And that's still the default, but now you can override it.)
  • Added two new graphics settings:

    • There's a new Advanced Graphics Setting for "Torch Flicker". This is on by default for "Great" or higher graphics settings. It's a relatively inexpensive graphical flourish.
    • There's a new Advanced Graphics Setting for "More Lightsource Shadows". This causes some torches and fires to cast dynamic shadows. This is a MUCH more expensive graphical flourish, but it looks neat in the goblin dungeon. This feature is off by default for all quality settings (even Ultra).
  • Fixed camera reversal when entering Serbule sewers via the lake.
Abilities and Treasure Effects
  • "Headbutt and Knee Kick Damage +X" now correctly applies to Headbutt instead of Barrage (and still applies to Knee Kick, of course).
  • "Provoke Undead deals extra damage" will no longer do double the specified damage to the minions.
  • "Basic Attacks restore X Power" now properly restores the power.
  • "Trick Foxes have +X Max Health and +X Max Armor" now properly gain the specified Max Armor instead of a Taunt boost.
  • "Ridicule taunts and causes target's next attack to miss" now applies the chance to miss to the target instead of the caster.
  • "Spirit Pounce hits all enemies within 6 meters" now displays in the ability tooltip.
  • Fixed the icons for various treasure effects.
  • Elemental Ward's darkness and trauma mitigation effects will no longer display if they aren't active.
  • Bulwark Mode's health & armor leech effects will no longer show up in the effects list.
  • The treasure mod for System Shock's DoT now correctly reports the DoT damage type as Psychic instead of Trauma.
  • The armor ability from Gazluk War Wizard Armor ("War Wizard's Battle Cry") now has a reset time of 180 secs and restores 300 power.
  • The armor ability from Gazluk Death Trooper Armor ("Death Trooper's Battle Cry") now restores 350 armor as well as 350 health.
  • Attempts to transmute a mod with no possible replacements will now be prevented.
  • Endurance mods will now show up on crafted gear as intended, and can be extracted.
  • Endurance mods can now be transmuted into generic mods.
  • One of the treasure effects that gives small +Armor bonuses previously had no requirements and now has endurance-level requirements.
Other Bug Fixes
  • Toned down the rate of XP decay in Povus (until there are more high-level players to work on it).
  • We now put abilities on cooldown immediately, and refund cooldown if you are stunned before ability goes off.
  • Reverted an old change to in-combat fly costs. The earlier change raised flight costs exponentially the longer you were flying, which definitely did fix the exploit we were trying to fix, but took away a lot of the fun of being a fairy. (Now the cost is still not cheap, but it increases linearly instead of exponentially.)
  • Fixed a bug that caused pets to reduce the total XP value of monsters they fought.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Saddlery skill to give permanent health/power bonuses for leveling it up.
  • Fixed bug that prevented you from earning Riding XP if your bonus synergy levels put you over the level cap.
  • All effects that require a specific active ability will now persist while mounted, such as Summoned Skeletons, Battle Chemistry buffs, etc. The only exception is Bulwark Mode, which will be dispelled as normal.
  • Fixed an issue with mounting/unmounting in water sometimes not updating your speed correctly.
  • Humanoid illusions can now ride mounts (including some skeletons).
  • Banana & Guava trees now have 3 of their respective fruits.
  • Add bananas to banana tree models.
  • When a tree has no fruit but still has wood, its name now changes to "Harvested Tree" to denote the change.
  • Guava trees now yield Maple Wood when they run out of fruit.
  • Banana trees now yield Cedar Wood when they run out of fruit. (What, you've never heard of banana cedars?)
  • Made it clearer which foods and effects are meals vs snacks.
  • Recalling to the underwater teleport circle in Sun Vale will no longer teleport you to the circle near the druids.
  • Fixed Carpal Tunnel chairs that were embedded in the ground.
  • Fixed errors for some golems in newbie caves.
  • Filled in the mini-pools in the caves in Gazluk, making them shallower to prevent exploitability.
  • Kur beds can now be slept in properly.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the server to think you were floating when you first enter a new area (until you move). This could lead to messages like "You can only do that when standing on the ground" when trying to drop items, and cause your mount to generate anxiety (because it thought it was flying).
  • Newly spawned entities will place themselves on the ground quicker.
  • You now stop auto-running after interacting with something that is too far away. This would cause problems when interacting with things while mounted.
  • Added a lore note in the tomb of James Eltibule I.
  • Replaced the lore note for James II (found in a secret place in Eltibule). Note that this text canonically replaces the original lore.
  • Misc. lore cleanup; notably, moved the text of "Sedgewick's Journal" from a static entity into a lorebook file.
  • Fixed yet more references to "Davlos". (It should be Dalvos.)
  • Roshun the Traitor's favor should no longer reset for fae.
  • Nelson Ballard's small talk is more accurate (to indicate that he accepts all Carpentry items, not just hand-made ones).
  • Glajur should now teach everyone Phrenology, unless you have both the skill and the research recipe for each individual phrenology.
  • Irkima will now offer a hangout if you've finished Probing Tavilak's History.
  • Added a new favor to Jesina in Eltibule which is automatically given to "scary" animal players. After completing this quest, you can interact with her normally.
  • Game client now retries Steam authentication if the first attempt fails for any reason. (If the second attempt also fails, we show an error message like before.)
  • Added a new redemption package for our 4th Anniversary on Steam. Redemption will run Mar 11 - Apr 30.

Update Notes: February 9, 2022

This is a bug-fix update. Here are the fixes:
  • Fixed bug causing some entities to be invisible and some particle effects to be permanent
  • Fixed issue that prevented monsters from fully loading, causing a permanent loading screen
  • Prevent placing a saddlebag inside of itself
  • Put an ability on cooldown only when the ability successfully completes
  • Added crossbow mods back to crossbows. This also fixes crossbows thinking they are legacy because they have crossbow mods on them
  • Fairies now sit on horses properly
  • Fixed the avatar pictures on the login-screen & persona window when character is on horseback
  • Elevation changes while flying are now smooth when Camera Vertical Smoothing is turned on
  • Remove duplicate "Read more about V.I.P." buttons from UI
  • Bring horse to a full stop before interacting with an object after moving via right-click (and bring the horse to a stop quicker). This fixes the issue with the player attempting to collect something with a delay but not actually collecting the thing
  • Forbid mounting/dismounting while performing an attack. This should prevent some edge-casey bugs that prevent you from using abilities
  • Toggle saddlebag window instead of showing it every time the button is clicked
  • Show floaties again for DoTs on self
  • Properly dismount horse when un-mounted due to a DoT
  • Change "Mount Anxiety Cost -20" to "Mount Anxiety -20" for horse calming abilities
  • the Riding skill gives bonus Max Health and Max Power when active
  • Mount doesn't gain or lose anxiety while the client is still showing the loading screen

Update Notes: February 2, 2022

This update introduces mounts! There are also a LOT of new user-interface features. Read the "UI Improvements" section carefully, it's full of useful stuff!

Mounts

In this update, you can learn to ride a horse. This mount is useful for traveling and can also serve as extra storage. All the horses in this first version look and behave exactly the same. In the future there will be multiple breeds of horse that use the genetics system to allow a huge variety of mounts, but first we need your help testing the basics! We'll continue to polish and improve the basic functionality for a few updates, and when things seem good, we'll start introducing more mount types.

We don't want to explain all the ins and outs of how mounts work because we're hoping it's understandable enough that you can figure it out in-game. If it isn't, we'll need to make things more obvious! But here are some basics you should know:
  • You can purchase a horse from a trainer in Hogan's Keep, Eltibule. The total cost is 6000 councils. You'll also need an empty stable slot to store the horse.
  • All players who log in this month can redeem a pack of basic horse tack. Click the redemptions button at the bottom of the Persona window.
  • There is also a new crafting skill that lets you create better tack. The trainer is in Amulna and the skill requires Leatherworking 50 to learn.
  • Players in an animal form can't ride horses. However, they can access the saddlebag even when not on the mount, so there's still some benefit. (Animal forms will eventually have a travel mode, but we haven't decided how it will work yet.)
  • We've talked in the past about revising how "sprint gear" works, and we still intend to do that, but not until mounts are more thoroughly tested. For now, there are no changes to how gear works.
  • You can access your saddlebag while on your mount, and you can also access it while NOT on your mount, as long as you're in an area where you could theoretically ride the mount. (In other words, you can't access your saddlebag in dungeons.) The Red Wing Casino is a special case: even though you can't ride a mount there, you can still access your saddlebag.
  • If you have a backer package that includes a horse, basic riding skill, and a saddlebag, you can now redeem that feature. Click the redemptions button at the bottom of the Persona window. NOTE: horses require a stable slot. If you don't see the redemption, make sure you have an open stable slot!
  • If you have the "Thoroughbred Breeder" package, those horses are not yet available -- they'll be added when horse genetics are in. You can safely redeem the free horse+riding skill+saddlebag now; you'll get the two "breeder" horses at a later date.
UI Improvements
  • Added a new window for cosmetic pets, accessible via a button in the Persona window. Pets are summonable from the window directly or can be placed on the sidebar like before. All cosmetic pets have been moved here from the Skills & Abilities window.
  • Added a "Hotbar Layout" option for attaching the sidebar to the main hotbar, which turns it horizontal and places it underneath the active skills hotbar. You can access this in Settings, under GUI/Features, or by right-click the sidebar and selecting "Attach to Hotbar", or "Detach from Hotbar" when attached.
  • Added the setting "Camera Vertical Smoothing" under Controls in the Settings window. This causes the camera to smoothly follow the player vertically instead of being directly tied to them. Enabled by default.
  • Added options to individually lock most HUD elements, either by right-clicking on the window's titlebar or by clicking a lock icon. To enable the lock icons, go to Settings->GUI->Features and check the "Show GUI Locks?" option.
  • Added confirmation to stable slot purchasing.
  • The Transmutaion window has been redesigned. Due to its complexity, we'd like your help testing it! When you use an item workbench, you can choose between the old and new interface. Please try out the new interface first. We're leaving the old one available in case there are bugs. (Both interfaces use the same server-side transmutation code "under the hood"; only the interfaces are different.)
  • The "Hide Known Recipes" toggle is no longer displayed when the Sell tab is selected.
  • Added a hotkey in Settings, under Keys, that bypasses players and pets when clicking, titled "Hold to Bypass Clicking Players & Pets". For example, while holding this key you can click on a player who is blocking your view of a corpse and select the corpse, not the player.
  • When a party member dies, the party status window should now display the text "DEAD" in all of the attribute rows, rather than 0's or, worse, incorrect non-0 values.
  • Added a search bar to Special Abilities in Skills & Abilities window.
  • Added a news ticker of player activity to the login screen.
  • The skills window now lists previously-earned skill rewards under the list of upcoming rewards.
  • There's a new hotkeys to summon your mount. It defaults to Shift+NumLock. (The Auto-Run key defaults to NumLock, so you can press Shift+NumLock, then NumLock, to start traveling.)
  • There's a new hotkey to view your saddlebag. (It doesn't have a key by default.)
Animations & Graphics
  • We now take animations into account when attempting to queue an ability. E.G. When summoning a pet and then queueing up another ability, the summoned pet animation will finish (thus actually summoning the pet) before firing the queued ability.
  • Polished all Necromancy animations and particle effects.
  • Sped up animation and removed the movement slowdown for Dig Deep & Push Onward.
  • Slightly sped up animations for First Aid and Patch Armor.
  • Improved Fae Bee attack animations.
  • Fixed a bug with players not standing back up after dying.
  • When initiating flying mid-jump, the jump will properly be canceled and the character can no longer fly sideways/diagonally.
  • We now delay shooting of some archery projectiles until the proper moment; they were shooting right away.
  • Fixed LOD issues with buildings and some terrain objects in Rahu.
  • Adjusted camera settings and draw distances in Eltibule to reduce the horrendous pop-in. This change may impact performance for some users on low-end machines, but hopefully not too badly!
VIP Changes
  • We've cleaned up the half-assed VIP panel in the settings window. It now explains what VIP is, and has a link to the Steam store page for non-VIPs that may want VIP.
  • Most of the features under the VIP section now actually require VIP. The exception is basic chat logging, which will remain permanently available to everyone. The option is still in the VIP section, labeled as a "VIP preview feature". Note that combat logging does require VIP.
  • Added new combat logging options, including ways to log indirect damage and healing amounts. (These options show the raw damage/healing amounts, but it's not always easy to tell which ability caused which indirect damage/healing. This is something we want to show in the logs, but it will require some rearchitecting. So this is an incremental improvement.)
  • VIP members who log in during Jan 25 - Feb 28 can redeem a February VIP gift package: a Sturdy Music Box.
  • New permanent VIP benefit: VIP players gain +15 saddlebag slots.
Favor Fixes
  • We realized that many NPCs did not have their target level set in data, effectively making them level 0 NPCs. This made them more receptive to gifts than intended. We've fixed these NPCs, and as a result they will give somewhat less favor for gifts. (This is a bug-fix, not an overall balance change. We're fixing bugs in preparation for balance work.) Affected NPCs include:
    • Gorvessa in Hogan's Basement
    • Yalox in the Goblin Dungeon
    • Glajur in Kur Tower
    • Percy in Eltibule
    • Sem in Snowblood Shadow Cave
    • Rubi and Cassie in the Warden Cave
    • Laura Neth in Kur Mountains
    • Ratuk the Thinker in Kur Mountains
    • Mope in Povus
    • Hirochi in Rahu
    • Ichin in Rahu
    • Wintria Irasca in Rahu
    • Silvia in Sun Vale
  • Several NPCs who said they liked "Magical Equipment with Skill X prereq" actually liked anything with that skill prereq, including textbooks. Now they only like actual magical (i.e. loot and crafted) equipment. Those NPCs are:
    • Alravesa in Ilmari(Archery)
    • Falkrin Overstrike in Ilmari (Hammer)
    • Sand Seer in Ilmari (Fire Magic)
    • Sugar in the Warden Cave (Deer)
    • Leah Bowman in Povus (Animal Handling)
    • Ashk in Rahu (Mentalism)
    • Lady Windsong in Rahu (Druid)
    • Jumper in Sun Vale (Deer)
    • Raul in Sun Vale (Cow)
    • Silvia in Sun Vale (Druid)
  • Crafted belts and buckles now count as 'magical equipment' for favor gifting.
  • For the purpose of gifting favor only, textbooks now cap how much an NPC will value them. This does not affect their actual Council value, just how much favor an NPC will give for the gift.
Mount-Related AI Changes

    We've made some small changes to how monsters react to players when they are on a horse. We'll be refining these ideas in the future.
  • While you are mounted, melee-centric monsters have 33% reduced player-detection radius. (They still respond to help shouts at the same distance, however.)
  • While you are mounted and not in-combat, melee-centric monsters ignore your out-of-combat pets. (But ranged attackers will still shoot at pets, which will bring the pets into combat. And then melee monsters will notice it! So best not to rely on this overmuch.)
Other Changes
  • When mining in Povus, there was a chance to receive the message "You didn't find anything valuable that time, but you can still try again." This seemed like a failed skill-check to players, but it was actually just random. We've replaced this with an equivalent change to mine very-low-value items (such as Pebbles and Flint). This way it's clear that you haven't failed at anything, you just have more mining to do. (The total number of high-value items in each node is unchanged.)
  • Items with shamanic infusions on them should now be transmutable. The infusions also show up differently in the UI with the new transmute window.
  • Crossbows mods will no longer appear on non-crossbow off-hand items.
  • We now prevent right-click movement when dead.
  • Bulwark Mode is now fully dispelled on death. (Previously a few side effects of it would stick around.)
  • Chat logs now include timezone offset when you login to the game (to aid automated tools).
  • Fixed Amutasa's broken "Install Augment" option when your favor level is too low to augment.
  • You no longer stop auto-running when using an ability without a channeling time. This functionality can be re-enabled via the "Always Stop Auto-Moving when Using an Ability" option in the Settings window under Controls. Note: You WILL stop auto-running if you use an ability outside of its range and have Auto-Move to Attack turned on.
  • Added collision to the gates in Rahu.
  • Fixed the MacHack3 special setting so that it works more reliably: you no longer have to re-apply it whenever switching areas.
  • Removed MacHack1 and MacHack2 special settings because they didn't actually help Mac users fix the visual problem. You can now just type MacHack instead of MacHack3 in the special settings. (Although MacHack3 continues to work.)

SUPER BUFFS Event!

In celebration of the new year and the outstanding level of support we have received from the PG community, we want everyone to start off the new year with a little something in their pockets! So, for ONE DAY ONLY (Jan 1), we have turned on a whole bunch of our special event buffs and cranked them to max, including double combat and crafting XP!!! These buffs will turn off at midnight server time (US EST), so get out there and grind it up while you can! Enjoy the super buffs and we thank you again for playing and supporting Project: Gorgon! Happy New Year!