The Dwarves of Glistenveld News

[h3]🐰Easter Mode🐰[/h3]
Hope you're ready for the hunt as Easter Mode is enabled (until April. 30th)!
In Easter Mode, you will experience the following changes to the game:

1. Atmosphere - The environment has a different look and feel.
   
2. Mobbits - Mobbits are larger than normal, and provide more meat!
   
3. Easter Eggs - You will find easter eggs sprawled about everywhere, even hidden in the walls! You can harvest easter eggs using the gather instruction, and they can be stored on tables similar to meals. How many can you find? (Find out at the bottom of the Stats window)
   
4. Map Tables - Among other resources, Map Tables will be able to highlight any nearby Easter eggs in your minimap!
   
5. Pet Mobbits - It's what you've all been waiting for! Collecting 50 easter eggs in a level will earn you a pet mobbit!
   

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Clan Creation Menu - Clan creation has moved to its own section in the main menu. Now, instead of creating a new clan each time you start a new game, you create a clan first, which you can then play with in all 3 main modes: campaign, skirmish and caverns modes!
   
2. Clan Creation - We've also added 2 new features to clan creation. A description area where you can write lore about your clan, and a starting technology for you to choose. Now when you play new games in the campaign, skirmish or caverns modes, you start with your chosen tech already unlocked. We hope this enables for more personality to the clans you create. Both options have a default value, so if you just want to skip through and jump into the game you still can.
   
3. Brewery - This new tech unlocks the brewing of beer! Root beer can be drunk by your dwarves to restore stamina, a small amount of hitpoints, and makes them drunk! Dwarves can take Root Beers with them just like meals.
   
4. Instruction List - A new management UI will now appear in the list when you click the Dwarf icon in the Instruction Panel (bottom-left), the same way you can open the Dwarf List and By Laws. Rather than listing all your dwarves, this UI lists all the clan instructions you currently have, grouped by type. From there you can open any respective assignment UI and assign/prioritise/remove any instruction you see fit.
   
5. Battle-Hold - A new type of hold button, next to the regular hold button. While the hold button is supposed to hold a dwarf in place, the battle-hold won't hold them still, but instead prevents them from performing any action other than attacking enemies and fleeing to recover hitpoints. This should help allow a bit more autonomy during assaults with larger groups of units.
   
6. Storage Signposts - A new building that helps your dwarves correctly prioritise storage. In cases where players want to build multiple separated bases, priority storage was an issue. You may have observed a dwarf walking across the map to deliver items miles away. Now their range is limited to 20 tiles, but this can be extended by building signposts, that connect regions of storage together.
   
7. Storage Auto-Collect - A new button allows you to toggle a group of connected storage to automatically assign pickup instructions when they become full. This is mostly useful for minecart drop-off points. Note: You can set this option for food barrels and tables as well.
   

The small stuff:

1. Potpies - Along with unlocking root beer, the Brewery tech also allows you to cook up a new type of meal: Potpies! By combining a regular meal with root beer, potpies gain the effects of both for that extra kick!
   
2. Tables now use the same system as food barrels for prioritising specific meal / potion types, for easier setting.
   
3. Storage Arrangements - New button 'Apply to Neighbours' makes it easier to change a group of storage from one type of arrangement to another. When switching the first storage, click Apply to Neighbours and any connected storage that had the same previous arrangement will be changed. This functions like a paint-bucket tool.
   
4. Storage Priority - The new behaviour surrounding storage signposts replaces the priority numbers in storage arrangements. Instead priority is determined simply by how restrictive the storage is. A storage that only allows 1 type of item will be prioritised over one that allows 2 or 3, which will also be prioritised over one that allows more.
   
5. Assignment UI - In the case of building and supply instructions, using this UI to tell dwarves to prioritise something immediately now applies to the specific building selected, rather than the instruction as a whole like other types of instruction.
   
6. Eating & Resting - Fixed some confused dwarf behaviour, most notably when both food and rest are needed.
   
7. Radius Markers - When selecting or placing buildings that have a functional radius (such as support posts, map tables or the new storage signposts), all buildings of that type now mark a collective perimeter, so you can see the total coverage! This also applies when hovering over their respective build buttons in the instruction panel.
   
8. New Setting - New setting under Gameplay that allows you to configure what a dwarf does when they first spawn from a spring. Do they immediately go rest and eat? Or do they wait for your instruction?
   
9. Various other fixes & improvements, including minecart behaviour, losing/ignoring 'move building' instructions, and roots sometimes appearing invisible when buried in a wall.
   

That's all for now, stay safe and Happy Easter!

Fix for rendering issue when hovering over minecarts / other vehicles
Fix for long saving time in large maps and engineers getting stuck using forges

[h3]🎄Christmas Mode🎄[/h3]
Glistenveld is getting wintery as Christmas Mode is enabled (until Jan. 7th)!
In Christmas Mode, you will experience the following changes to the game:

1. Atmosphere - The place is looking wintery with a change of colour palette and mist!
   
2. Christmas Roots - Roots have now been decorated with Christmas lights! Unfortunately there are no blink patterns you can change...
   
3. Presents - Random presents will appear in each map, some buried in cave walls to be mined out, others in water to be fished for and some just laying around! Each contains one of six small random gifts!
   
4. Chests - Chests are now decorated as 'locked' presents!
   
5. Snowprints - All units will leave prints in the frosty dirt, giving you insight into their habits!
   

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Iron Weapons - For now these reside in the Iron Armour tech, but you will be able to craft Battleaxes, Warhammers and Halberds for your warriors! The battleaxe deals bonus bleeding damage, the warhammer stuns and knocks enemies back, and the halberd has a 2 tile reach! We have yet to decide where to put these in the tech tree, so enjoy the overpowered Iron Armour tech until then!
   
2. Caverns Mode - A new version has been released featuring: Lava caves! Complete with a new enemy, new resources, and various fixes and improvements for the mode. We want to keep the lava caves mysterious, so no further details will be provided!
   
3. Configurable beds - Beds can now be configured to disallow particular dwarves from resting in them, based on class or trait. Want to separate those noisy-nostrils from the group? Well now you can!
   
4. Dwarf-list UI - To help you manage your clan, instead of only being able to see levels & abilities, there are now 2 new views: Equipment & Traits! Also improved description of current activity in Abilities view, and selected dwarves will now be highlighted here as well!
   
5. Battles - Besides fixing a number of bugs relating to dealing crits and damage in general, the icons for block, parry, dodge & fumble have been improved and other icons like 'hold' or stat labels have been made less intrusive during combat.
   
6. Skirmish - Various improvements including more fish in regions like Mines, and a fix for the chaotic pathing style occasionally getting stuck.
   
7. Instruction panel UI - Minecarts and tracks have been moved into the Resources tab, since their role is to cart resources around. Infrastructure buildings have been better lined up so alternate or similar buildings appear in the same place on the next page.
   
8. Resistances - There are many types of damage or effects in the game: bleed, frenzy, fire, knockback, and we've finalised our design on enemy resistances. Currently you'll have to use trial and error to identify them, but we'll work on making this clearer in a future patch. If you guys like how another game conveys this information, feel free to share!
   
9. Map Tables - You can now inspect the traits of any enemies within the radius of your map tables, allowing you to take more strategic action against them!
   
10. Ruins Music - New music has been added for ruins regions in all modes and during waves in Stronghold Defence!
    

The small stuff:

1. Items - More picking up & dropping item animations. Fun fact: this uses the same code that enables NPC dwarves to jump gaps in the campaign. We spawn item particles that jump to the Dwarf's location!
   
2. Prioritising instructions - Until now dwarves that were hungry would ignore you when you tell them to prioritise a build and go eat instead. Although this behaviour makes sense, we felt it would be better if they performed the build anyway, but received the Aggravated trait instead.
   
3. Storage arrangements - Any storage you own with arrangements set now have little signposts with an asterisk, to help distinguish between global and specialised storage.
   
4. UI improvements - The recipe popup when hovering over items to craft now features a description of what that item is for. Stats & Accomplishments UI now have icons for each of the statistics. Dwarf-list and other scroll-type UI, as well as the tech-tree, now have a subtle opening animation and SFX. When any building is claimed a dashed border will now appear around it; this used to only happen with items. Double clicking a building that is being claimed will centre view and highlight the dwarf that is claiming it.
   
5. Sneaky goblins - Some goblins will feature a new trait which makes them a little stealthy!
   
6. Item piles - Some items in storage will now appear in a more organised, sensible manner.
   
7. Antidote Potion - This wasn't being consumed automatically when encountering green gas or draugr frenzy cry.
   
8. AI logic improvements - Engineers were claiming entire piles of items for crafting, preventing other engineers from working similar jobs if items were not well distributed. Dwarves with nothing to do were still holding onto items instead of putting them away. Held units when told to interact with something would invariably stand on top of it, rather than next to it. Dwarves will now search for meals within a larger radius between jobs. When assigning equipment to dwarves, they will now search across a much larger radius.
   
9. AI performance - AI for mobbits, spiders and goblins were doing some naughty things and overloading the pathfinder in some circumstances!
   
10. Rendering performance - We've been finding various areas to improve performance, such as unnecessary animation changes off-screen, piles of items being rendered one item at a time etc, though still more work needs doing on this front!
    
11. Various other fixes & improvements, including mushrooms not responding to changes in moisture until harvested, and improved rendering of the save/load previews.
    

That's all for now, stay safe and Happy Holidays!

[h3]Halloween Mode[/h3]
Glistenveld is getting spooky once again with Halloween Mode enabled (until Nov. 10th)!
In Halloween Mode, you will experience the following changes to the game:

1. Atmosphere - The atmosphere of the game is more dramatic with fog and a change in colour palette!
   
2. Pumpkins - You will find random pumpkins in each level. You can harvest these to get a tasty pumpkin stew, which dwarves treat as equipable meals!
   
3. Webs - You will find random webs that stick to units and slow them down, or feed the spiders!
   
4. Bats - When you start a new skirmish mode game, you'll find a few more bats roaming the tunnels!
   
5. Bubbling waters - Water has turned greenish and bubbles.
   
6. Green blood - Units and creatures flash green when injured, instead of red.
   

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Boulder Trap - A new type of defence, triggerable either by pressure plate or manually with a dwarf. The released rolling boulder will bowl over anyone in its path (friend or foe), trigger pressure plates and explode into fragments of stone on impact with walls! If the boulder rolls over another Boulder Trap in its path, that trap will open and take the boulder as ammunition. This allows multiple traps to be used to preserve the boulders and create a lethal perpetuating defence!
   
2. New Level 8 Abilities - Until now the Warrior was the only class to have a complete set of level 8 abilities. New Miner abilities include Tunnel King (while mining, motivates nearby dwarves to work faster) and Tunnel Whisperer (hears echos through walls to reveal nearby caves & rooms). New Forager abilities include Trusty Pan (Attacking has a chance to stun their target) and Beard Farm (Periodically grows mushrooms from their beard). New Engineer abilities include Silver-Tongue (Trading with a Trade-Stall gives back gold coins or very rarely an artefact or magic ring) and Tinker Bot (Allows the Engineer to pick up items from a distance, even over obstructions).
   
3. Ability UI Update - Choosing a new ability for your dwarves used to only show your current choice. The new UI shows all future abilities for that class as well, similar to a skill tree. This should allow for more strategic decision making.
   

The small stuff:

1. Personality-specific Dialog - This was already implemented behind the scenes but never explicitly shown. In some dialog, the nearest dwarf to the action might interject with a comment, relevant to their personality trait. This will now be accompanied by their trait in brackets, showing the relevance of their personality to that remark.
   
2. Tech Tree - Viewing techs in the tech tree now provide useful links directly to the relevant Guide entries, for further reading!
   
3. Building bridges - Engineers were always picking up 9 stone regardless of how much stone was actually required to complete the bridge.
   
4. Inspired & motivated - Recently we've been adding rising / falling particles over dwarves to show their buffs / debuffs. Inspired and motivated are the latest buffs to include these new particles.
   
5. Skirmish - Added hidden gem crystals around spawns, some of which are buried (similar to roots).
   
6. Missing descriptions & guide entries - A number of spider-related objects were missing descriptions, and added a bunch more missing entries to the guide.
   
7. Minecart Storage - Fixed some issues with minecarts & storage arrangements, in particular to do with picking up buildings.
   
8. Placement ghost - The 'ghost' that appears when you're about to place a building has been upgraded to have better detail, and should no longer appear so pixelated.
   
9. Draugr - A unique ominous battle music now plays when fighting Draugr in particular.
   
10. Various other fixes including the option to 'Send Home' allies not working as intended, and tutorial refinements.
    

That's all for now, stay safe and Happy Halloween!