1. UnReal World
  2. News

UnReal World News

Version 3.83 hotfix for zoomed-in map lags

A quick hotfix update to remedy occasional lag on zoomed-in maps has been released.
This issue was met with version 3.83 most notably on Windows 11 systems.
No other changes. Cheers, and happy adventures! ːurw_sageː

Version 3.83 released

Version 3.83 is now released and live!

Bugs found during the beta period were very scarce, so for those who were playing the beta version already the changelog doesn't bring any additions. The most notable features in version 3.83 are weapon/tool hafting and the haft wear out mechanics, and pausable arrowmaking and tanning.

This version has also undergone upgrade of SDL and SDL_mixer libraries, which will hopefully prove stable and clear few rarely encountered audio oddities with some system setups and sound cards/drivers.

.....aaaand here's the changelog:

Version 3.83 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: hafting spears, axes and shovels - and their separate heads and hafts

Axe and spear items now consist of two parts; the heads and hafts. Shovel item now also consists of two parts; the iron blade and haft. Wooden shovel is an exception as it's made out of single piece of wood.
Haft refers to the wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage. When the haft breaks the separate head remains, and can be hafted again. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head, or shovel blade to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon or tool.
For hafting, there are now new craftable "axe haft", "spear haft" and "shovel haft" items. In reality the haft shape and proportions do vary depending on the axe or spear type, but in order not to make things overly complex the two generic spear and axes hafts work for all the different types of spears and axes.
The different axe and spear heads now also exist as separate items. For the axes there are handaxe head, carving axe head, broad axe head, woodsman's axe head and so on. And for the spears there are kaumolais spear head, northern spear head, and so on. Blacksmiths still sell these weapons readily hafted so the heads aren't commonly found on their own.
When the haft breaks the head and broken haft do drop on the ground, along with pause prompted game message. You can then carve a new haft and haft the head to assemble a working weapon or shovel again. The broken hafts are of no use and are best utilized as firewood.
Crafting hafts and the process of hafting can be found from [M]ake menu under a new [H]afting category. The following self-explanatory options are available there:
* Axe haft
* Spear haft
* Shovel haft
* Haft a weapon or tool
* Remove the haft
The first three options are used to craft a new haft, followed by the actual hafting option to assemble a working weapon or shovel. You may also remove the haft at will for example to replace worn out haft early on. However, removing the haft may damage it a little bit so it's not recommended to do unless necessary.
Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself require CARPENTRY skills. The haft quality and success in hafting has significant impact on the finished weapon or tool usability. Poor hafting may result in lowering the item quality even below the head quality itself. Thus the finished axe, spear or shovel quality now refers to overall usability with the used haft, and the success in hafting. On the other hand, you may also manage to raise the finished weapon quality higher than the head quality itself with a perfect and perfectly fitted haft.
There are new game encyclopedia (F1) entries for the relevant topics: AXE HEAD, AHE HAFT, SPEAR HEAD, SPEAR HAFT, SHOVEL BLADE and SHOVEL HAFT

- added: hafts wearing out in use

Hafts of the axes, spears and shovels now wear out in use, and will eventually break.
Axe hafts wear out in all the regular woodworking and timbercraft tasks where they are used. Shovel hafts and wooden shovels wear out in digging pits and preparing the soil. Spear hafts mostly wear out in combat.
In all the cases the wear is relative to the task the weapon or tool is used for. Thrusting a spear into a large moving animal such as elk or bear may put the haft under serious strain. Likewise, felling big timber is more strenuous for the axe haft than doing casual carving.
The haft wear out level can be noticed in character's inventory with the progressing wear bar.
Hafts are in the risk of breaking apart when they've worn to about 80% of the original condition. Accumulating haft damage can also lead to decrease in the axe or spear overall quality.

- modding add: new crafting requirement entries

{Hammering tool}
This defines requirement for a tool that is used to hammer things in place. It's used in hafting an axe.
The butt of an axe is commonly used as a hammering tool, but clubs, pieces of firewood or stones can be also used as a substitute.

{Axe or carving knife}
This defines requirement for a tool used in rough woodworking and carving. It's used in crafting hafts to carve out their rough shape from a slender tree trunk.
Axe is the preferred tool here and always the best option, but usage of knives is allowed as a substitute - even though they make the task significantly slower.
The common woodworking axes such as handaxe, carving axe, and woodman's axe are the most suitable ones. If a knife is used the sturdy ones such as skramasaksi, northern knife, kaumolais knife or hunting knife work the best.

Both of these entries can be utilized in diy_*.txt and biy_*.txt modding at will.

- modding add: [nowear] and [wearpct:num] tags to specify haft wear out accumulation rate

Axe, spear and shovel hafts wear out also when they are used as tools in crafting or building tasks.
There are these two new tags to customize the wear accumulation rate as the intensity of tool usage varies depending on the task.

[nowear] tag means that the used tool doesn't wear out at all.
[wearpct:num] specifies custom wear out percentage rate (1-100) in relation to the highest rate (100) where tool is used intensely during the whole task.

Examples:

{Axe} [nowear]
Here an axe is needed, preferably a carving axe, and it doesn't wear out at all in the said crafting/building task.

{Cutting_weapon} [wearpct:25]
Here a cutting weapon, preferably an axe, is needed. It wears out in 25% rate compared to the continuous intense axe work. Maybe the axe is needed only 25% of the time in this crafting/building task.

- removed: hard staff and throwing axe

These two weapons have been removed for being somewhat anachronistic and not that important.

- added: pausable tanning

Tanning is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused tanning simply use the tanning option again standing beside the partially finished item.
This applies only to the last and most laborous stage of the tanning process which is softening the hide with a beater. The preceeding, faster processes of cleaning the skin need to be done in one go.
Partially tanned hides will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- added: pausable arrowmaking and arrow shaft crafting

Making arrows and arrow shafts is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused arrowmaking simply use the same option to make arrows or arrow shafts again standing beside the said partially finished items.
For blunt arrows this means using [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Blunt arrow" option. For all the other kind of tipped arrows use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow" option. And for the arrow shafts you would naturally use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow shaft".
Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: maximum number of arrows or arrow shafts to craft in one batch

The maximum arrow or arrow shaft batch production quantity is increased up to 10 at one go.

- changed: arrow shaft crafting time

Now that the making of arrow shafts is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 90 minutes.

- changed: blunt arrow crafting requirements

Now that the blunt arrow making is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 2 hours.

Number of slender tree trunks required is also modified so that you can craft three blunt arrows out of one slender tree trunk.
Blunt arrows are now also prone to outcome quality modifiers, so your tools and expertise determines if the finished blunt arrows will be curved or superior or something in between.

- modding add: [yield:num] tag

[yield:num] tag is used to specify for how many produced items the single raw material entry is enough for. Ie. how many finished items it can yield. The tag is used in diy_glossary.txt for making blunt arrows as follows:

{Slender trunk} [yield:3]

This means one slender tree trunk can yield three produced items ie. blunt arrows. So, for example to craft six blunt arrows you would need 2 trunks. Crafting 7-9 blunt arrows you would need 3 trunks, and so on.

- enhanced: rendering of the terrain type images

Terrain type images on zoomed-in map are now rendered directly to the screen using the available resolution. This makes the images appear more crisp and clear.

- fixed: being able to fish facing away from the water

- fixed: companions performing some tasks too fast

Due to miscalculations in companion time counters they managed to complete some tasks, eg. felling trees, all too fast. The issue was mostly noticed in woodworking tasks, but you may find some other companion performed tasks also to appear in slower more reasonable pace now.

- fixed: villagers not reacting if you attacked a hired companion of their own group in their own village

- fixed: villagers accepting too many items if they were offered in one go during the first trade

- fixed: terrain type image not updating when climbing across terrain boundary

This happened only when using the climbing skill.

- fixed: the fish splashing and spawning despite of the ice

Occasionally you might find fish splashing in the water even at locations with ice cover. This happened if the water froze again after the spawning had already started in the open water.

- fixed: Bewitched Wolf quest not generating correctly

This quest might have been missing for few versions, so enjoy if it now comes your way.

- fixed: triggered item traps remaining in set status

This might rarely happen with loop snares and paw-boards. The graphics also show the traps being set and ready, despite of the fact that they were actually triggered already.

- fixed: placing any items to a pine tree with bear skull produced the bear skull placement message



Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Version 3.83 beta for Windows released

The work with new version, 3.83, is soon finished and we hereby ease the anticipation with an early beta release for Windows. Thus, version 3.83 beta for Windows is now available as a beta branch you need to opt-into at your Steam Library. This will be explained below.

Once the Windows version stability is confirmed, wrapping things up for all the supported operating systems will follow and we aim to have have 3.83 stable version released this month.

The most notable additions in version 3.83 are weapon/tool hafting and the haft wear out mechanics, and pausable arrowmaking and tanning. Find full changelog at the end of this post, but first let's have a closer look at the hafting and haft wear out mechanics.

[h2]Hafting spears, axes and shovels - and their separate heads and hafts[/h2]

Axe and spear items now consist of two parts; the heads and hafts. Shovel item now also consists of two parts; the iron blade and haft. Haft refers to their wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head, or shovel blade to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon or tool.

Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself requires CARPENTRY skills. In this list of hafting requirements there's a new "hammering tool" entry. Axe haft needs to be pounded tightly into the eye of the head, so a hammering tool is required. The butt of another axe, if available, is the best option but you can do this hammering also with a club, solid firewood or even a stone.

[h2]Hafts wearing out in use[/h2]

Hafts of the axes, spears and shovels now wear out in use, and will eventually break.
Axe hafts wear out in all the regular woodworking and timbercraft tasks where they are used. Shovel hafts and wooden shovels wear out in digging pits and preparing the soil. Spear hafts mostly wear out in combat.
In all the cases the wear is relative to the task the weapon or tool is used for. Thrusting a spear into a large moving animal such as elk or bear may put the haft under serious strain. Likewise, felling big timber is more strenuous for the axe haft than doing casual carving.

Here's a bear fighting scene with a companion called Aimo.
Aimo's spear haft breaks at the critical moment, but he wisely proceeds to grab the fallen spear head.
If need be, spear heads can be used as sort of substitute for a weapon, although far less effectively than a proper spear.


[h2]How to opt-into 3.83 (beta) for Windows[/h2]

  • First, quit the game if you were playing it.
  • Right-click UnReal World in your Steam Library, and select Properties from the drop-down menu.
  • Click BETAS and you'll see a dialog where to enter beta access code.

  • The access code for this release is urwbeta383win
    Type in the access code and press Check Code button.
  • Selection to Opt into 3.83 (beta) appears. Click it, the update starts, and you've got it!

Should you encounter showstopping problems with this beta version just go back to BETAS selection and choose None from Select the beta you would like to opt-into drop-down menu.
This returns your game back to the previous stable version 3.82.


[h2]Changelog[/h2]

Version 3.83 (beta) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

BETA NOTICE:

This is a beta release. There are likely bugs, things are still somewhat under construction, and some of the listed improvements will be tweaked and polished further in patches to follow.


- added: hafting spears, axes and shovels - and their separate heads and hafts

Axe and spear items now consist of two parts; the heads and hafts. Shovel item now also consists of two parts; the iron blade and haft. Wooden shovel is an exception as it's made out of single piece of wood.
Haft refers to the wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage. When the haft breaks the separate head remains, and can be hafted again. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head, or shovel blade to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon or tool.
For hafting, there are now new craftable "axe haft", "spear haft" and "shovel haft" items. In reality the haft shape and proportions do vary depending on the axe or spear type, but in order not to make things overly complex the two generic spear and axes hafts work for all the different types of spears and axes.
The different axe and spear heads now also exist as separate items. For the axes there are handaxe head, carving axe head, broad axe head, woodsman's axe head and so on. And for the spears there are kaumolais spear head, northern spear head, and so on. Blacksmiths still sell these weapons readily hafted so the heads aren't commonly found on their own.
When the haft breaks the head and broken haft do drop on the ground, along with pause prompted game message. You can then carve a new haft and haft the head to assemble a working weapon or shovel again. The broken hafts are of no use and are best utilized as firewood.
Crafting hafts and the process of hafting can be found from [M]ake menu under a new [H]afting category. The following self-explanatory options are available there:
* Axe haft
* Spear haft
* Shovel haft
* Haft a weapon or tool
* Remove the haft
The first three options are used to craft a new haft, followed by the actual hafting option to assemble a working weapon or shovel. You may also remove the haft at will for example to replace worn out haft early on. However, removing the haft may damage it a little bit so it's not recommended to do unless necessary.
Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself require CARPENTRY skills. The haft quality and success in hafting has significant impact on the finished weapon or tool usability. Poor hafting may result in lowering the item quality even below the head quality itself. Thus the finished axe, spear or shovel quality now refers to overall usability with the used haft, and the success in hafting. On the other hand, you may also manage to raise the finished weapon quality higher than the head quality itself with a perfect and perfectly fitted haft.
There are new game encyclopedia (F1) entries for the relevant topics: AXE HEAD, AHE HAFT, SPEAR HEAD, SPEAR HAFT, SHOVEL BLADE and SHOVEL HAFT

- added: hafts wearing out in use

Hafts of the axes, spears and shovels now wear out in use, and will eventually break.
Axe hafts wear out in all the regular woodworking and timbercraft tasks where they are used. Shovel hafts and wooden shovels wear out in digging pits and preparing the soil. Spear hafts mostly wear out in combat.
In all the cases the wear is relative to the task the weapon or tool is used for. Thrusting a spear into a large moving animal such as elk or bear may put the haft under serious strain. Likewise, felling big timber is more strenuous for the axe haft than doing casual carving.
The haft wear out level can be noticed in character's inventory with the progressing wear bar.
Hafts are in the risk of breaking apart when they've worn to about 80% of the original condition. Accumulating haft damage can also lead to decrease in the axe or spear overall quality.

- modding add: new crafting requirement entries

{Hammering tool}
This defines requirement for a tool that is used to hammer things in place. It's used in hafting an axe.
The butt of an axe is commonly used as a hammering tool, but clubs, pieces of firewood or stones can be also used as a substitute.

{Axe or carving knife}
This defines requirement for a tool used in rough woodworking and carving. It's used in crafting hafts to carve out their rough shape from a slender tree trunk.
Axe is the preferred tool here and always the best option, but usage of knives is allowed as a substitute - even though they make the task significantly slower.
The common woodworking axes such as handaxe, carving axe, and woodman's axe are the most suitable ones. If a knife is used the sturdy ones such as skramasaksi, northern knife, kaumolais knife or hunting knife work the best.

Both of these entries can be utilized in diy_*.txt and biy_*.txt modding at will.

- modding add: [nowear] and [wearpct:num] tags to specify haft wear out accumulation rate

Axe, spear and shovel hafts wear out also when they are used as tools in crafting or building tasks.
There are these two new tags to customize the wear accumulation rate as the intensity of tool usage varies depending on the task.

[nowear] tag means that the used tool doesn't wear out at all.
[wearpct:num] specifies custom wear out percentage rate (1-100) in relation to the highest rate (100) where tool is used intensely during the whole task.

Examples:

{Axe} [nowear]
Here an axe is needed, preferably a carving axe, and it doesn't wear out at all in the said crafting/building task.

{Cutting_weapon} [wearpct:25]
Here a cutting weapon, preferably an axe, is needed. It wears out in 25% rate compared to the continuous intense axe work. Maybe the axe is needed only 25% of the time in this crafting/building task.

- removed: hard staff and throwing axe

These two weapons have been removed for being somewhat anachronistic and not that important.

- added: pausable tanning

Tanning is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused tanning simply use the tanning option again standing beside the partially finished item.
This applies only to the last and most laborous stage of the tanning process which is softening the hide with a beater. The preceeding, faster processes of cleaning the skin need to be done in one go.
Partially tanned hides will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- added: pausable arrowmaking and arrow shaft crafting

Making arrows and arrow shafts is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused arrowmaking simply use the same option to make arrows or arrow shafts again standing beside the said partially finished items.
For blunt arrows this means using [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Blunt arrow" option. For all the other kind of tipped arrows use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow" option. And for the arrow shafts you would naturally use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow shaft".
Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: maximum number of arrows or arrow shafts to craft in one batch

The maximum arrow or arrow shaft batch production quantity is increased up to 10 at one go.

- changed: arrow shaft crafting time

Now that the making of arrow shafts is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 90 minutes.

- changed: blunt arrow crafting requirements

Now that the blunt arrow making is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 2 hours.

Number of slender tree trunks required is also modified so that you can craft three blunt arrows out of one slender tree trunk.
Blunt arrows are now also prone to outcome quality modifiers, so your tools and expertise determines if the finished blunt arrows will be curved or superior or something in between.

- modding add: [yield:num] tag

[yield:num] tag is used to specify for how many produced items the single raw material entry is enough for. Ie. how many finished items it can yield. The tag is used in diy_glossary.txt for making blunt arrows as follows:

{Slender trunk} [yield:3]

This means one slender tree trunk can yield three produced items ie. blunt arrows. So, for example to craft six blunt arrows you would need 2 trunks. Crafting 7-9 blunt arrows you would need 3 trunks, and so on.

- enhanced: rendering of the terrain type images

Terrain type images on zoomed-in map are now rendered directly to the screen using the available resolution. This makes the images appear more crisp and clear.

- fixed: being able to fish facing away from the water

- fixed: companions performing some tasks too fast

Due to miscalculations in companion time counters they managed to complete some tasks, eg. felling trees, all too fast. The issue was mostly noticed in woodworking tasks, but you may find some other companion performed tasks also to appear in slower more reasonable pace now.

- fixed: villagers not reacting if you attacked a hired companion of their own group in their own village

- fixed: villagers accepting too many items if they were offered in one go during the first trade

- fixed: terrain type image not updating when climbing across terrain boundary

This happened only when using the climbing skill.

- fixed: the fish splashing and spawning despite of the ice

Occasionally you might find fish splashing in the water even at locations with ice cover. This happened if the water froze again after the spawning had already started in the open water.

- fixed: Bewitched Wolf quest not generating correctly

This quest might have been missing for few versions, so enjoy if it now comes your way.

- fixed: triggered item traps remaining in set status

This might rarely happen with loop snares and paw-boards. The graphics also show the traps being set and ready, despite of the fact that they were actually triggered already.

- fixed: placing any items to a pine tree with bear skull produced the bear skull placement message



Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Haft them axes, haft them spears

[h3]The best of 2024 to all of you who roam the unreal world![/h3]

We'll open the new year with a glimpse into what's cooking in the development chambers at the moment. And that is, hafting of the axes and spears is underway.
It's relatively complex and fundamendal addition and I guess we'll be putting out a new release when it's all finished. There's still lots of work to do, but here's a first sneak preview of the upcoming hafting mechanics.

So, in the next release axe and spear items will consist of two parts; heads and hafts.
Haft refers to their wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage.
When a haft breaks the separate head remains, and can be hafted again. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon again.

Now let's meet our test character Terhi and let her show how the hafting in UnReal World goes.


One day the haft of her trusty woodsman's axe broke leaving the head lying on the ground.
For all the different axes and spears their heads now also exist as separate items.
Blacksmiths still sell these weapons readily hafted, so the heads aren't commonly found until the axe or spear haft breaks.



Crafting the hafts and the process of hafting can be found from [M]ake menu under a new [H]afting category. The first two options are used to craft a new haft, and the latter for actual hafting to assemble a working weapon with the head and the haft.
Terhi now proceeds to craft a new axe haft.



Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself requires CARPENTRY skills. Terhi has managed to craft a fine axe haft, and then she proceeds to actual hafting.
In this list of hafting requirements there's a new "hammering tool" entry. Axe haft needs to be pounded tightly into the eye of the head, so a hammering tool is required.
The butt of another axe, if available, is the best option but you can do this hammering also with a club, solid firewood or even a stone.



The hafting is done and she managed to assemble a decent woodsman's axe. Let the timberwork continue!


The haft quality and success in hafting has significant impact on the finished axe or spear usability. Poor hafting may result in lowering the weapon quality even below the head quality itself. The finished axe or spear quality thus now refers to overall usability with the used haft, and the success in hafting.
On the other hand, you may also manage to raise the finished weapon quality higher than the head quality itself with a perfect and perfectly fitted haft.

So, this is how 2024 starts feature wise. Stay tuned. ːurw_sageː

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.82.

Season's greetings from the real world at present-day Savo

The year is nearing its end - so let us send you our winter season's greetings with this post.

Firstly, we wish you all the best with the festivities and holiday season you might have at hand,
and happy new year!
Then, as a season's speciality let us entertain you with little something recreational from the real world at present-day Savo.

The winter has come, and for devs like us it means the balance between coding and cross-country skiing must carefully maintained. So, a week ago Erkka (co-designer) came over for a visit - and we went exploring the real world on skis.


Sami (UnReal World creator) with the red hat, Erkka (UnReal World co-designer) with the green hat.

Over the years, we've found ourselves doing many kind of media works more or less related to the game world or inspired by the iron-age culture. And now, quite spontaneously, we ended up doing small stop-motion animation - and then thought of publishing it as 2023 season's greetings at Enormous Elk YouTube channel.
There's more, and surely more sophisticated content to explore, if the channel wasn't familiar to you already. We call it Tanssivat tontut in finnish, which would translate as Dancing goblins or Dancing household spirits in english.
https://youtu.be/du2pkQUN9Fg?si=aOPZkYand2qcKmFW

And lastly, for myself the last weeks have been more busy with horseback riding and archery than coding. In early December I did three horseback archery demonstrations at different stables which required quite a bit of both time and energy. But hey, sometimes one has to ride a horse to endure extended still sitting periods in front of the computer. And maybe it's good for one to try out the bow for real if he intends to simulate archery in the game. So, this also falls into category of in the real world at present-day Savo. Let the bow skill speculations start.
https://youtu.be/oPaZKJluLDQ?si=vAzUS2KX986sx7ux

Let's see you in 2024, with all sort of new achievements, features and adventures to follow in the real and unreal world.
Cheers!