What’s New in Shroud of the Avatar – September 11, 2026

Today’s update brings a mix of critical fixes and quality-of-life improvements that make the world feel more stable and immersive. One major fix addresses a long-standing issue where recalling chat history with the arrow keys could crash the client—now, all one-line text boxes are safeguarded against the same risk.

The dreaded world-entry freeze (#6893) has been tracked down and resolved. The root cause was an untimed wait in DirectX 11’s flip-model swapchain, and the client has now switched to the BitBlt path—this change is active in deployed builds and will be default in the next release.

Siege timers are now in sync with the game’s interface. Previously, master restarts would trigger sieges even when the page said they were off. The scheduler now waits for the latest tunables poll, ensuring accurate state tracking.

Courage Club battles are no longer stalling. Opponents were being trapped behind walls in sealed alcoves during certain rounds, unreachable and unkillable. The fix ensures all ten spawn points across multi-opponent rounds—including boss rounds—work as intended, with enemies now properly positioned and accessible.

Taming’s Summoning skill has been rebalanced to level at the correct rate. No more waiting for 27 casts per level—now it takes about 3, making progression smooth and fair.

Two more control points—Sanctus Spine and Brightbone Pass—now behave like Eastreach Gap: waves escalate past the eighth, enemies grow stronger and faster, and the final named enemy appears every run, not just 10 out of 11.

Guild and town portals are now live and fully functional. A new 24 GB server powers a system supporting 896 guilds and 439 towns, with real-time chat (refreshing every 5 seconds), presence indicators, leader-run pages, and secure sign-in at guilds.catnipgames.net. Guild chat is now members-only on the server side.

Map scaling issues affecting Jaanaford, Vertas, Elad’s Lighthouse, Etceter and Soltown Catacombs have been corrected—no more stretched or warped terrain.

Mac players no longer see ghostly pale panels in the Eastmarch sky; these were leftover exit markers from town loading, now properly cleared.

Fishing fights are now more challenging and fair: the line no longer recovers while you’re fighting the fish, meaning every out-of-zone moment counts. A top-tier angler now lands 78% of common fish and 11% of the rarest.

Finally, book pages now appear on aged paper in both windowed and 3D Immersive View, and creatures in player dungeons can once again walk through doorways—fixed by resolving small terrain misalignments that previously trapped them.

Summarized from Chris "Atos" Spears' work log at Catnip Games.