Release 60

Went live 11/14/2018 · 63 change items · official notes ↗

In short

Release 60 is live, focusing on improving overall game performance and quality of life. A major effort was put into reducing frame rate hitches and load times, with specific attention given to the Spectral Peaks scene which has received significant visual and technical upgrades alongside new challenging creatures and a Tier 10+ designation. Combat calculations have also been optimized, particularly benefiting group fights, and network logic improvements should result in more consistent creature behavior across all clients.

Players will find several additions to existing systems. Fishing receives substantial updates including Phase 2 content like a dedicated expedition scene accessible from multiple coastal cities, rotating daily bonuses for Player-Owned Towns, new recipes, and the ability to fish while seated. Salvage rates for Grandmaster patterns have been dramatically increased, and more player-made items are appearing in low-level loot. Updates also include new dynamic Player-Owned Towns with interconnections, seasonal content like 2018 Winter items, and additions from recent livestreams.

Finally, a number of user interface improvements and bug fixes have been implemented across the board – including combat, quests, and decorations. A Crown Shop has been added for convenient gold crown purchases, and players now have options to disable item comparison or opening the Options menu with the Escape key. Weight limits on reagents and Crowns of the Obsidians have also been significantly reduced.

AI-generated summary (google/gemma-3-27b) — may contain errors; the full notes below are authoritative.

Other (63)

Performance: Performance work will mainly focus on improving frame rate and reducing hitching during gameplay. Work will also continue to be done on load time reduction on the few outstanding scenes that are not meeting our 15-second load time target.
Bug Fixing: Time will be allocated to a general sweep through all systems, features, and content to reduce overall bug counts.
Crafting & Economy: We will continue expansions to the fishing system. We will also dramatically increase the salvage rates for in-game patterns (common patterns will be almost 100%). Additionally, we will continue systemic and game-wide upgrades to the quality and quantity of loot.
Player Towns & Player Housing: Updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns (POTs) that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
Livestream and Seasonal Content: We will add recent livestream stretch goal items and 2018 Winter items.
Quality of Life Improvements & User Interface Polish:
Ornate Viking Longbow: This newest addition to our ranged weapons lineup is beautifully carved with knot work and dragon heads! You can purchase this Longbow and the Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
Spectral Peaks T10+: For R60, Spectral Peaks received several major updates. This scene should run more smoothly now and with improved visuals. Additionally, the previous inhabitants of this scene have fled and been replaced by some of the most challenging creatures to be found in all of Novia. This scene is for brave adventurers only and has an entirely new boss fight in what were the abandoned mines. All of these changes have resulted in the scene being upgraded to a Tier 10+ scene!
Spectral Peaks: As part of the revitalization of Spectral Peaks, a large performance pass was made on this map to ensure optimal performance while you are dying to the creatures there.
Unity 2018.2: We are now on the latest official release of the Unity engine, version 2018.2. This brings a number of optimizations throughout the engine.
Combat Formulas: Work was done to reduce the amount of overhead done in combat formula calculations. This should help performance in group combat situations.
Network Logic: Network logic has been reworked. This should greatly improve the visual sync of most creatures to their behaviors on all clients. This is most noticeable with trolls and dragon attacks with visible tells. Work will continue on this next release to fully implement these changes for all skill types in all lag situations.
Bug Fixes: Lots of bug fixes were made in combat, user interface, music, scenes, quests, conversations, decorations, equipment, and more. View the complete list here.
Fishing Phase 2:
Increased Salvage Rates for Grandmasters: We have increased the salvage rate for Grandmasters in Salvage. Pattern salvage rates have been increased by over 6 times while Component salvage rates were increased by 3 times.
More Player-Made Items in Loot: We have increased the rate at which player-made items sold to merchants appear in low-level supply bundles by over 100 times.
Fully Encumbered Blocks Loot/Trade: Characters cannot gain items via loot or trade if doing so would cause them to exceed the weight limit of 3x their base capacity. “Loot” includes items from corpses, adventure chests, resource nodes (excluding agriculture), fishing, and world items. Making this change fixes numerous bugs and exploits. Players who are already exceeding this amount will still be able to move but not pick up any new items until they get under the 3x cap. NOTE: These new rules do NOT limit crafting.
New Recipes: We added several new recipes in R60.
Fishing Expedition Scene: Boats in various coastal cities (Aerie, Ardoris, Kingsport, Mud and Port Graff) will take you to this new tropical scene completely dedicated to fishing.
Fishing Holes in Snowy Mountains POT Templates: Player-Owned Towns with Snowy Mountains biomes now have fishing holes in a new section along one edge of the area.
Rotating POT Fishing Bonus: Each day, two randomly selected Player-Owned Towns will receive a fishing bonus. Many fishing merchants, all Town Criers, and a mix of other NPCs will now talk about “rumors” when asked, and sometimes the rumor will tell which towns are currently offering the fishing bonus.
Fishing while Sitting: You can now fish while sitting which makes it even more relaxing!
New Fishing Food Recipes: In Release 59 we added over 25 new fish. In Release 60 we have added cooking recipes for the common and uncommon varieties of those fish.
Pacu: A new fish was added. Rumors abound where it can be found.
Butchery: Fish can now be processed using Butchery to extract fish fillets for cooking from Uncommon trophy fish. We will be adding these for Rare fish in R61.
Cooking (Recipes on cooking merchants): Fried Catfish, Fried Carp, Baked Cod, Broiled Mackerel, Sautéed Sunfish, Lemon Garlic Tilapia, Tuna Steak, Baked Pacu.
New and Updated Dynamic POTs:
Arcadia: Upgraded to Municipality.
Astrum: Upgraded to Municipality. Added interconnection with Valoria.
Brittany Fort: Interconnection with Brittany Fields is now a boat.
New Heaven: Added interconnections with Ahnen Hain and Brittany Wharfs.
Sea Bear’s Black Market: Upgraded to Municipality.
Valoria: Added interconnection with Astrum.
Whyte Roc: Upgraded to Municipality.
Release 57 Livestream Items: The Release 57 Livestream items were all Dungeon themed in honor of the launch of the Player-Made Dungeon system. In Release 60 we have added the last two stretch goal items.
Release 58 Livestream: Dragon Egg Decorations: These dragon egg decorations come in 8 different colors and players can choose 3!
2018 Winter Rare Items: In Release 60 we have added a ton of 2018 Winter Rare Items to the Add-On Store that will only be available until February 1, 2019 (and will then expire forever). This year we added functionality to the Menorahs where they now light the correct number of candles per day during Hanukkah (note this is retroactive for all Menorahs).
Candle Helm
Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern: Prison Cage
2018 Menorah
2018 Snowman Mask with Moustache
2018 Snow Family
2018 Small Ornate Wall Garlands 12-Pack
2018 Ornate Wall Garlands 12-Pack
2018 Ornate Mantle Garlands 12-Pack
2018 Ornate Garlands Mega Pack
2018 Yule Gift Box Set
2018 Yule Stocking Set
2018 Ornate Yule Wreath Set
2018 4-Story Yule Tree
2018 Large Yule Tree
2018 Yule Tree
2018 Tabletop Yule Tree
2018 Yule Card 5-Pack
Crown Shop: There is now a shopping interface that allows you to purchase a selected set of gold crown items from anywhere in the game. This includes Obsidian potions, dyes, fireworks, lot deeds, and other miscellaneous items.
Full Groups in LFG: Full groups are now displayed in the Looking for Group menu. This will now give a more accurate view of how many groups are playing in the game at any given time.
Disable Item Comparison Option: Players now have the option to disable item comparison.
Escape Key Option: Players now have the ability to disable opening the Options menu when pressing the Escape key.
Bludgeon Balance: 5 bludgeon skills were improved to make the Bludgeon school more competitive versus the other weapon schools. Also, hammers and maces had their strength bonus boosted slightly to compensate for lack of poison effectiveness versus axes.
Ghostly Echoes (aka “Courage Must be Frigid”) quest: This quest given by Esmeralda in Highvale Outskirts has had a significant polish pass, namely improving text, adding compass markers, closing “gaps” in between stages, and fixing bugs.
Control Points: “Mages of Mystery” are now in all control points. In addition to a small fee to teleport a player to the far side, each mage can now teleport players to any other control point for a larger fee.
Overworld Movement Buffs: Dash, Sprint, Fleet Flute, Essence of Wolfe, and Berserker’s Stance will now work on the Overworld.
Crowns of the Obsidians & Reagent Weights: The weights of reagents and Crowns of the Obsidians (all types) have been reduced dramatically. Crowns are now zero weight and reagents have been reduced from 0.05 to 0.01 each.