Version: 3.18 - beta 4 ** Saved characters from version 3.17-> are compatible with this version. ** Find a complete newslist for version 3.18 after these beta 4 fixes and additions: - fixed: being able to utilize unpaid raw materials and then drop them without getting asked for payment If you utilize unpaid raw materials now you will have to pay for them as a whole. - fixed: problems to pay for unpaid items if you had wielded or weared them 'Unpaid' tag still remained after completing the trade and debt list wasn't handled correctly. - fixed: if you were demanded for payment while crafting something debt list and unpaid tags weren't handled correctly This could leave you with with unpaid items that you never had to pay etc. - fixed: being called "disreputable traveller" without a reason NPCs might occasionally call you "disreputable" without a reason. - fixed: companions lighting fires under you If you happened to stand on a location where NPC was building a fire you could get burnt a bit. - fixed: character's thirst got completely extinguished when you drank from a nearly empty container when very thirsty - fixed: sages did favours (healing & teaching) also for characters with bad reputation Now they won't heal you nor teach you new rituals if your overall reputation is low. - fixed: peaceful NPCs never climbing over fences Most of the time they still shouldn't do it, but if NPC ended up in a pen with no doors they stayed there forever. Now peaceful NPCs do climb over fences if they end up banging their head against it for long enough. - fixed: companions got stuck in the water if they departed while swimming - fixed: empty containers sometimes worked as a water source in wound treatment - fixed: sage (and other NPC) herds In some forester or vagabonds villages you could find penned NPCs instead of penned animals. - fixed: village reputation being transferred from a previous save to the next You could find already hostile village with your next character if your previous character had angered some village. - fixed: being thrown out of a village while unconscious caused village to go empty - fixed: ghost village syndrome In rare occasions all NPCs and animals could disappear from a village. This often resulted in bumping into "ghost NPCs" with no description. - fixed: being able to haul items while swimming - fixed: if NPCs refused to accept delivered items these items were nevertheless added to their inventory - fixed: hauling mode didn't stop even if you picked or pushed all the items being moved - added: crawling is now fatiguing - added: two most influential penalties displayed in physical condition messages: Previously you were notified only about the highest penalty modifier. Not it goes like for example: "You can't run any longer due to being wounded AND being fatigued." - balanced: new visitors in villages are kept on eye more closely You may find some NPCs following you when you wander around the village. This makes stealing more difficult. - fixed & balanced: bleeding wounds Fixed: - It was possible to faint from bloodloss during trying to stop the wound from bleeding. Now character always stays conscious until the treatment is finished. - Very well-healed wounds, with only a little injury score left, could start to bleed again after failed treatment. This doesn't happen anymore. Balanced: - Poor success in an attempt to stop a wound from bleeding now foremostly affects to treatment time. It's less likely that you need multiple attempts to stop the bleeding from now on. Changed: - Describing bleeding wounds. "BL" abbreviation is now used to mark bleeding wounds in injury screen. This replaces previously used "bleeding" tag in wound descriptions. - added: you can close and open doors behind your back, and you don't have to specify a direction if there's only one door around. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Complete newslist for version 3.18 starts here: Version: 3.18 - beta 3 Released: Dec-18-2013 ** Saved characters from version 3.17-> are compatible with this version. ** BETA NOTICE: This is a beta release - there are likely to be bugs. Many of the listed improvements will be tweaked and polished further in patches to follow. - overhauled: trading in villages and item ownership There are no more shop-like storehouses from where you can purchase goods only with craftsmen. That is history. Period. Goods in each village are now owned by the whole community and you can start trading for them with any adult village member. It doesn't matter in which building the goods are stocked, they are all available for trading. Previous mechanism where trading would start right after picking up something from a storehouse is also history. Now you can freely pick up items from buildings and in around village and start trading for the collected items when you are ready. Trading for the collected items is started by talking to any adult village member. In short, to obtain village goods by trading do as follows: 1) pick up the goods you want to purchase 2) talk to any adult in the village 3) trading will start It's that simple, but there's more to learn. Here are the most important changes in detail: * Those chubby craftsmen who used rule storehouses do still exist but they are just regular villagers now. * There are no more shop-like storehouses with signs beside the door. People naturally still stock their goods in buildings so you should bravely enter them to see what's inside. MIGRATION NOTICE: Villages you have visited in the previous version continue to have storehouses with signs beside the door. But this doesn't mean that they wouldn't stock tradable goods in other buildings as well. * Collecting items you want to trade for can be done by picking them up, starting to move them, or packing them on your pack animal. * You can collect several items from several different buildings and start trading only when you've got everything you want. Compared to previous "pick-and-trade" system it's far easier to wander around the village, grab what you want, and finally trade a long list of items at once. * Villagers can also start self-imposed bargaining if you have held the unpaid items in your possesion for too long - or if you try to sneak away with unpaid items. You may also hear villagers shouting you to come talk and trade. It's wise not to hesisate when you've been asked to pay. * It's easy to change your mind if you don't want to trade for something you happened to pick up. Dropping unpaid items back to their place, or close by, removes them from your debt list. Picking, touching, feeling and examining items is not a decision to buy them. However, you will naturally need to pay for unpaid items you may have destroyed, hidden or lost. * When paying your debt you can select multiple item stacks in your inventory at once. Your trading partner then accepts or rejects offered items, giving verbal feedback where necessary. * Offering unpaid items back to the villagers will simply make your trading partner reclaim them. This can be used as a way to ease your debt, or change your mind, if you notice having difficulties to pay what they want. However, it's always best to collect and trade for items you can actually afford. * More detailed feedback about payed vs. asked ratio. After every offer NPCs will tell you how happy they are about the bargain so far. There are ten different lines they can say and these will give you a better picture about how much more you should give them to have a deal. * Inability to pay your debt When villagers start bartering demanding you to pay for unpaid goods there's also "I can't pay" chat option available. This option can be used if you've picked an excess amount of debt and find it impossible pay what they want. If the option is chosen villagers will reclaim their goods from your possession. Inability to pay on demand always lowers your trading reputation, so it's best to use this option only when necessary. If your trading reputation gets suspiciously low villagers may even banish you from their village. * Unpaid item tagging Unpaid items will appear tagged as [unpaid] or [taken] in your inventory. These tags will help you to check and manage goods to purchase before bartering. If you manage to steal something, these tags will wear off in a week or two so that you won't be reminded of item's previous ownership forever. * Dealing with thieves Leaving a village with unpaid goods despite of villager requests to start bartering, will label you as a thief. At this point it is not possible to start bartering anymore. Before villagers label you as a thief they have actively tried to come barter with you, so it's practically impossible to steal something by accident. If villagers consider you a thief they'll first tell you to drop the stolen goods, and will then attack to claim their goods by force. If you are unwilling to drop the stolen goods they'll try to beat you unconscious and then take what is theirs. The good news is that now they'll spare your life, but don't hesitate to hurt you badly. Dropping stolen goods will cancel the pursuit, but your reputation is already smudged. After you have been defeated, or willingly dropped the stolen goods, villagers will decide how to deal with you from now on. Their decision depends on the value of goods you tried to steal and your previous breaches. If their tolerance is exceeded you will be banished. Even if you were allowed to stay your reputation is nevertheless smudged. Even a single grand theft attempt is enough reason to get banished. And the word gets around. - improved: one-to-one trading Trading with individual NPCs to obtain items from their personal inventory has undergone few improvements: * You can freely select items you desire from NPCs inventory using the common inventory menu. Selecting multiple item stacks, or for example only 4 of 12 available arrows is possible. Naturally only the items he/she is willing to trade are available for selection. * When trading starts you can offer multiple items at once from your inventory. One-to-one trading is started the same way as previously; talk to them and choose trade option. Notice that one-to-one trading with villagers is not possible if you are carrying some unpaid community owned goods. In that case they will ask you to pay for the goods you taken first. - improved: village inventory and restocking Previously we used to find goods lying around only in villages that used to have separate 'shop like' storehouses. Now some basic toos, weapons, utensils and foodstuff can be found in almost any settlement. Village property is naturally culturally dependent and quantity of stocked necessities depends on village population. Wealthy cultures still remain as a best source to find extra items, but the cool thing is that you can now occasionally find interesting goods among more isolated cultures as well. Restocking has been balanced and improved. It's now more accurately based on village population and culture. Visiting villages has now more surprise potential than previously. Instead of always travelling to west to fulfill one's craving for certain items it's now possible to find necessary goods from seemingly isolated settlements as well. With new kind of stocked goods around you can learn about diet, source of livelihood, common game animals and used tools of each culture just by wandering around their village. Villages now look and appear much more lively and inhabitated. * Better food supplies Villages now have better food supplies than previously. Type of stocked food is culturally dependent and the amount is based on village population and lifestyle. You may bump into large piles of smoked fish in islander villages or witness a steady supply of dried reindeer meat in the north etc. * Furs - a completely new type of village property Almost all the cultures stock some sort of furs, but there's significant cultural variation in type and quantity. Northern and eastern cultures tend to have most abundant fur supply. - added: reputation with village Character's actions affect to his/her reputation with village. Word gets around quickly so all the inhabitants pretty much always share the general opinion about you, provided that you have earned your reputation within the social group in question. There are several reputation categories which all are tracked individually. And within each reputation category there are several grades of good and bad. NPCs will treat you according to reputation category that fits the situation. For mixed reactions, or when your overall reputation matters, NPCs can draw a conclusion based on comparing and computing multiple reputation categories. Earned reputations will be revealed to you in NPC comments during talking, or when they find enough reason to shout a comment. Reputation categories are: * Trading reputation Increases by trading frequently, effectively and reliably. It also matters how generous your offers are and how valuable deals you make. Reliability in trading means that you don't change your mind too often, and are always able to pay your debt. Decreases with inability to pay, hesitation, changing your mind too often or avoiding to pay in time. It's especially bad for your trading reputation if you "forget" to pay, and need to be notified about it frequently. Pros: NPCs may occasionally cut prices and don't hurry the payment. You can wander around the village with unpaid goods more freely. Cons: NPCs may demand excessive prices and hurry you to pay. You can wander around the village with unpaid goods less freely. * Violent reputation Earned by attacking peaceful villages. Degree and repetitiveness of committed attacks matters. * Offender reputation Earned by doing mischievous or forbidden activities in a village. These would include setting traps, building fires etc. Be aware that [p]ushing village goods around is now also a minor offense. * Theft reputation Obviously earned by stealing, or trying to steal. People rarely want to trade at all with notorious thieves. * Helpfulness reputation Increased by helping and doing favours for villagers. Currently the only way to help villagers is to give them goods by using deliver-chat option. The more valuable goods you deliver the the higher you'll be ranked as a helpfull soul. BETA NOTICE: In the future there will be more ways to help villagers, but even now it can be useful to use your excess goods for gaining positive reputation among villagers. * Dodginess A general factor which is increased by acting in a way that annoys villagers, or makes them suspicious. Dodgy characters will be kept on eye more closely. Thieves, violent ones and even really suspicious traders may earn a reputation of being dodgy. * Familiarity Familiarity reputation classifies how well-known you are within a certain community. Familiarity is gained by overall interaction, visits and time spent with a certain community. You enter their village as a stranger and people slowly start to know you better and better. Familiarity may have some impact on all the other reputation categories and very noticeable impact on how NPCs talk to you. - overhauled: NPC AI and village policy for dealing with breachers There tons of new rules and AI improvements considering how NPCs react when somebody misbehaves in their village. Minor breaches are now dealt in less lethal way than previously, and in general NPCs have far more options than just to attack and kill the offender. Here's a summary of overhauled "UnReal World law and punishments": * Banishing Banishing is a general non-lethal way to deal with those who have committed minor breaches. Banishing procedure replaces the current standard of activity where villagers "just get angry" if you did something bad. Length of the banishing period varies depending on your violations. There may be various preceding activities prior to banishing, but if it's not a murder you committed, you'll usually get away with it alive. When you get banished, for whatever reason, it goes like this: First NPCs will tell you that you have to leave. If their orders are ignored they attack, trying to remove you by force. They don't hesitate to hurt you badly, but those who are banished will not be killed. Forceful removal continues until you escape willingly or have been knocked unconscious. And when you regain conciousness...you have been carried out of the village and dumped into wilderness location of their choice. So you are banished not only in theory, but in practice as well. If you return to the village during the banishing period you'll get the same treatment again. And as the word gets around banishing can become very harsh punishment. * Dealing with violent troublemakers Starting a fight with villagers is now less lethal, provided that no one gets killed. There are consequences, though, as attacking the innocent is naturally unacceptable. There are no changes in common behaviour where villagers defend each others if one of their own is attacked. The new thing is that when villagers now fight for self-defense they do not aim to kill the brawler, but to give them troublemakers a beating they have begged for. How badly you'll be punished depends on how violently you have behaved and for how long you'll keep brawling. When villagers have given you a justified crackdown they decide how to deal with you from there on. If you have fought the villagers only to a small degree they may consider the incident settled and allow you to stay - with a smudged reputation. If you have fought persistently and hurt them badly you'll get banished for some time. If you get defeated in a fight you started but never gave up, your life is spared but villagers may distrain some your weapons. And they will also forcefully remove you from their village. * Dealing with offenders We know that there are certain things you are not allowed to do in villages; setting traps, building fires, deconstructing buildings or harvesting crops etc. There are no changes in this regard, but NPCs now deal with offenders in a less lethal way than previously. They do not try to beat you dead anymore over a bunch of snatched turnips or inconsiderately built campfire. If you have committed an offense, villagers foremostly try to tell you off so that you'll hear it loud and clear what's allowed and what's not. If you do not take their warnings seriously and continue mischievous behaviour you'll get banished from the village. * Dealing with murderers It's simple and merciless; murderers will be killed. - added: spreading of news Word of your good or bad deeds gets around and news spread across the villages. Spreading of news is simulated based on village population and assumed interaction between villages. News delivery time depends on distance between villages, likeliness of travelling inhabitants and importance of the news. Especially alarming news are delivered faster and people usually try to spread news of an attack to neighbouring villages as fast as they can. Dead mean don't deliver news, so to silence them all is to silence the news. News spread first from source village to closest neighbouring villages. From there on the news will be delivered to villages further away if necessary. So villages can acquire news through several intermediate sources. Number of intermediate sources affects to how people react to the news they have heard. It also matters how many sources are telling the same news. For example: You are labeled as a notorious thief in certain village. When the news about this reach the closest neighbouring village (secondhand knowledge) people there most probably also treat you as a thief. In the villages further away people may get suspicious towards strangers after hearing rumors about thieves (thirdhand, fourthand etc. knowledge) - but they don't judge you right away. Upon entering a village where people have heard news about you they first come to check you out and talk their mind. You'll be told what they have heard and their attitude towards you comes clear. - improved: selecting living targets Whenever you need to select a distant target you can quickly switch selection between creatures in sight by pressing [+] and [-] keys. This is most handy in any situation where you want to select a living target quickly; examining them, talking to them, throwing things at them. [+] selects the next farthest creature. [-] selects the next nearest creature. Target selection dialog naturally shows these new keybindings so you won't miss to use them when needed. - changed: key command to talk to someone is now [C] It's a keybinding of its own, no need to bring up extended commands. This was changed for the sake of fewer keystrokes. In addition, target selection cursor is located at nearest creature by default. - improved: NPC speech Your reputation and familiarity affects how NPCs talk to you. Now they make it clear how they feel about you and can say the same thing in different ways. Depending on your reputation they may respond kindly or unkindly, praise you or call you with names. People can also react and speak differently depending on your culture. Lots of NPC sentences have been rewritten. There's fresh speech to discover here and there. * When greeting NPCs there's now an option to introduce yourself. * With familiarity reputation in effect villagers may also occasionally shout varying greetings when you enter their village. * If you've done something that has angered the villagers you can find out the reason by talking to them. Instead of not responding at all, now they usually shout a short line about what has made them mad. - added: quicker access to companion commands Upon talking to your companion the list of companion commands is displayed first. This is because we most often talk to companions to command them. To start a regular conversation you can choose general talk option at the bottom of the companion commands menu. - added: hunting companions Companions can be commanded to attack a target of your selection. This makes your companions now hunt for real. It's also possible to command your companions to attack hostile people, mostly Njerpez, who have not noticed your party yet. Your companions will also notify you about a kill. They will stay beside the downed animal and shout for you to come over. This continues until you arrive, or they find more important tasks to do. - added: you need to keep your companions fed It's your duty to take care that your companion has enough food during your time together. Use the usual "Deliver" chat option to give more food to your companion. If your companion is running low on food he/she will start talking and let you know about it. Or you can keep an eye on your companion's inventory. Companions have tendency to eat in the morning and at about same time as you do. For curiosity, there's also a message displayed when you see them eating something. If your companions experience prolonged shortage of food they may eventually leave you. - added: more versatile world location descriptions In addition to currently existing terrain and region name information such as "Cliff at Steephill", locations on the world are now also descriped relative to cultural regions and specified with compass points. * Locations inside cultural regions are specified with eight compass points: "South-eastern Kaumo", "Northern Driik", "No man's land in eastern Kiesse" etc. * Locations on no man's land outside cultural regions are descriped in relation to nearest neighbouring culture and specified with four cardinal directions: "No man's land south of Koivula", "No man's land west of Driik" etc. New location descriptions appear in information box of character's current whereabouts, and whenever verbal information about certain location is told for a reason or another. So we'll get these kind of location/region descriptions from now on: "Cliff at Steephill, Western Sartola" "Spruce mire at Murder woods, No man's land north of Kaumo" "Koivulais Village at Hightop, Northern Koivula" - overhauled: marking of time It was about time to get rid of the julian calendar. The marking of time is now changed to something quite different; a system that most probably has been in use in iron age finland. The year is divided into two halves, summer and winter. In between come midsummer and midwinter points. The periods between these four dates are of equal length consisting of 13 weeks with 7 days in each. Between the quarters the weeks are counted in reverse. That's because for ancient people it was most important to know how far away the next important transition period is. Months, moon periods, still exists and are important. The year is divided into 12 lunar months, but the month names are now different; they are english translations of finnish month names. We'll get this kind of dates from now on: Summer, Fallow Month, Day 1 of 4th week before midsummer point, Latter Winter, Center Month, Day 7 of 2nd week before summer After a while following the 'unreal calendar', calculating weeks in reverse and thinking of year in two periods (summer and winter) with mid points in each becomes strangely natural. And most importantly, there's a whole new feeling in experiencing the passing of time - and waiting for summer or preparing for winter. There's also a game encyclopedia (F1) entry about MARKING OF TIME. - improved: character's death reason descriptions Death reasons are now formed in more complex and informative manner. The idea is to display more information about who/what caused the injuries/situation that eventually lead to death of the character. An example of pretty much most complex death reason description would be: "He started to bleed after being hit by Kaumolais Hunter and fainted from the bloodloss. While unconscious, he was hit by Kaumolais Sage and died from severe injuries." Death reasons are often shorter than this, but at least you always get to know what/who eventually did the finishing blow. - overhauled: list and archive of ancestors Ancestors archive is now persistent. The list and statistics of your deceased characters will stay between version updates. Extensive amount of data is collected and saved for each deceased character. This data is not used that much just yet, but allows fascinating ancestor related features to be implemented in the future. * Memorial page, displayed after your character's death, tells the reason of death and character summary in fresh and more detailed way. * 50 latest deceased characters are listed and stored in ancestors archive. This data of the deceased will be utilized more extensively in the future. * Upon viewing the list of ancestors you can dispay memorial page of each ancestor at will. * TEASER OF THE FUTURE: Your characters won't die in vain. They leave a persistent mark. Some day, in some version, you'll hear legends about them. And that's just for starters. - added: fresh images Start picture, one character portrait and couple of background images. (Eventually we'll renew the remaining low-res outlook completely) Credits for additional image editing go to Paulo Marcelo from Brazil. - added: CTRL and 0 now toggles between normal and maxed out map view Previously CTRL+0 was used only to restore zoomed map view to normal. Now, if you use with when map view is already normal, it sets maxed out view. Quick toggling between max/normal map view. - added: NPCs shut doors behind them - added: peaceful NPCs withdraw from your way This means easier moving in crowded villages. - added: starving pet dogs may eat carcassess So don't go hunting with a starving dog if you want to get hides of your kills intact. - modding add: [TERRAIN:] tag used in diy/biy requirements now recognizes also exact terrain tile names This tag is used to specify required wilderness map terrain tile name regardless of location on zoomed-in map. Example entry: {[TERRAIN:Conifereous forest]} 'Be at conifereous forest' Notice the usage of both curly and square brackets and also DO use your own defined 'requirement description'. - modding add: [TILE:tile name] and [NEARBY_TILE:tile name] diy/biy requirement tags These tags are used to specify required character's location related zoomed-in terrain tile name. [TILE:] requires character to be located on specified tile. [NEARBY_TILE:] requires character to be located beside specified tile. Example entry: {[NEARBY_TILE:Spruce]} 'You need to be nearby a spruce' Notice the usage of both curly and square brackets and also DO use your own defined 'requirement description'. - modding fix: inability to add new western or eastern character portraits Number of portrait pictures for these two cultures was limited. This is fixed now. - fixed: smelling when the food is ready from far too great distances Now you can smell when the food is ready roughly from 2*smell/taste tiles away. This was broken so that you could also smell when smoked or dried food was ready - that's fixed, and not possible anymore. - fixed: "hurt, helpless and afraid" scenario sometimes caused an instant death from too many wounds - fixed: burning stones - fixed: disappearing pets Heavy duty fix this time. If your pets still happen to disappear the game will notice it and auto-restores them on the fly. In addition you'll be given instructions to notify about the bug. - fixed (again): pet/companion duplication This bug hasn't been as annoyingly regular as it used to be, but there were few occasions where it could be triggered. These instances have been fixed now and hopefully we got completely rid of this bug. - fixed: fighting NPCs picking up useless items such as tree trunks - fixed: no sprite for buckler item Bucklers do have a basic shield sprite now. Previously discovered bucklers remain spriteless. - fixed: picking up fish catch Detailed catch description will be displayed but now the fish will be located at your feet rather than auto-picked. You can then pick them up at will. - fixed: pets eating food from villages - fixed: incorrect display of meat cuts being prepared - fixed: thrown staves getting stuck to target - fixed: clubs not working as treshing tools - fixed: sections of ice covered sea appeared as open water on zoomed in map - fixed: when pouring something to an empty container the source container wasn't emptied expectedly and something always remained. - fixed: fish weight being re-randomized upon loading character - fixed: pets leashed to a tree still followed after zoom-out The bug occurred if tied pet was nearby the character upon zooming out. - fixed: discrete per-minute delays when doing tasks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------