Version 1.0.3 available to test

[Jonas]

Patch 1.0.3 has now been uploaded to the beta branch. We've tested it ourselves to make sure it doesn't introduce any new problems, but as usual we'd appreciate it if those of you who are bold enough would give it a quick check to see if all seems fine on your own machines.

Despite the fact that we've only worked on this patch for a week, it's a big one this time. We've finally got to the point where we can start looking at usability improvements and small new features. You'll find a few such changes and additions in this patch already.

We've gotten a bit closer to tracking down the loading crash that some players are still experiencing, but we believe the crash still exists in this patch. We think it may be an issue with the version of Unity that we used for the game. Fixing it is our current highest priority.

Beta Branch Instructions

To get the patch before it's released for everyone, you need to change to the Beta branch if you haven't previously done so. Right-click on the game in your Library window and select Properties. Switch to the tab labelled "Betas" and type "beta16Viking" (without quotes) into the code field. Then click "Check code". A new option will appear in the drop-down called "beta - beta branch". Select it and the game will automatically update to 1.0.3.

Change log: General Fixes

• You can now disable the game's time limit - see below for instructions
  
• Fixed fire particle effect crashing the build
  
• Fixed the campaign map triggering travel events and vice versa (which was preventing a lot of events from triggering)
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing faction reputation checks in conversations to always think you had 0 reputation (note: as long as your reputation with a faction is between -20 and 20, the faction screen will not display any changes, but your reputation is changing - that's just a UI issue that we hope to address in the next patch)
  
• Fixed a bug whereby Drugged and Intoxicated would stick around forever if they were applied during a conversation (they now last 3 hours each, so walk it off)
  
• Added a player message for when you get status effects through conversations and when they're removed over time
  
• Stat numbers are now coloured red if they're being reduced by an injury or status effect and orange if they would be reduced but they actually can't go any lower
  
• Status effect icons now show up in the same places as injury icons (most importantly in the character screen and in the follower selection menu)
  
• Added a new tutorial pop-up about the timeline
  
• Fixed item removal nodes removing the wrong item if the intended item was equipped (specifically, Ketill's personal quest was removing his bow instead of his talisman)
  
• Fixed the Toss ability
  
• Added adjacency checks to the activation conditions for Heavy Swing and Hook and Slash (the latter already had a within-rush-distance check, but that's not enough)
  
• The game will now no longer autosave during sequences where saves are disabled
  
• Fixed conversation kills without takedown animations not updating the animation state of the victim (which would cause them to still be standing around and looking alive after you killed them)
  
• Made some improvements to loading times
  
• Fix the issue where the absent characters would still eat in camp
  
• Fixed an issue where followers could die in combat if an injury got worse while incapacitated
  
• Fixed characters not going to the right positions and playing the right animations during camping
  
• Added check for null ref when determining flanking
  
• Removed party spawner from character creation
  
• Added localisation strings for the Worldmap for the save menu
  
• Messed a bit with some of the pre-set characters' morale, including raising all your huscarls (except Asleifr, because he's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)
  
• Fixed the player marker being placed on your previous campaign map position if you sail to Scarborough from somewhere else and leave by foot
  
• Fixed the Denmark campaign map thinking you're in Erlingr's farm the first time you leave the Homestead after the prologue
  
• Fixed Ribe's description referring to Ragnhildr as a thegn instead of a jarl
  
• Fixed the player's ship sails not getting the right colours from the player model anywhere other than in the Homestead
  
• Added animation sound effects to the random filler characters in the cities
  
• Replaced some of Ribe's characters with filler characters to shave the loading time down a bit and made sure that all filler characters who are sitting down in all three cities have their colliders disabled
  
• Made some corrections to the French localisation
  
• Status effects are now removed from dead people
  
• Reduced the amount of consumables and throwables you find in lootable objects
  
• Reduced the amount of salvage you can get from crates, barrels, and baskets
  
• Added Hungry and Starving counts to the party information panel on the travel maps
  
• Made some tweaks in initialization to prevent crashes when loading Ribe
  
• Fixed not all keybinding options being shown at all times
  
• Fixed a background not tiling in the pause menu
  
• Improved the colour correction in Orkneyjar
  
• Improved colour correction for Caustantin's Hall and the dungeon in Legacæstir
  
• Improved the colour correction in the dream sequences
  
• Removed birds from the 2nd dream since they weren't animating
  
• Fixed the movement value localisation not being correct
  
• Fixed a tooltip not being localized in the camping todo list
  
• Fixed issue with abilities not getting deselected when a character was immobilised
  
• Added an animation for characters sleeping in beds (for Eyfura and Bjørgdis)
  
• Tile objects (ice, campfires, brambles, etc.) now trigger when combat starts (e.g. you are instantly set on fire if you stand on a campfire); however, characters no longer start on a tile with a hazard (these may appear to contradict each other but the result is that things will run as they should but your characters should be smart enough to not step on hazards on their initial turn)
  
• Illumination does not get removed at the end of the turn anymore
  
• Characters standing inside a campfire will now be illuminated in addition to burned
  
• Optimised the reflection probes in all campsites, hoping that'll fix or reduce the crashes some players have reported during the timelapse
  
• Made the AdvanceTime debug command only accept positive numbers

Change log: Quests

• Made it so you can trigger the Althing and end the game if you have 100 Prosperity even if you haven't completed any other questline
  
• Fixed a bunch of Play Once Only-related issues in various conversations
  
• Fixed Valerius never showing up on Orkneyjar unless you got the quest to kill him from Iovita before turning on her
  
• Disabled saving during Hrodgærda's attack on Skjern
  
• Fixed Hrodgærda's reinforcements breaking if you've built palisades before the final attack on Skjern
  
• Disabled saving game inside the passage grave in Skerninge
  
• Fixed the goal to talk to Bildr in the feud quest re-appearing in your quest log if you get it from another character after completing it already
  
• Fixed not being able to complete the Seeking Sanctuary quest if you had killed the refugees before talking to Æthelfled
  
• Fixed being able to recruit the persecuters in Legacæstir if you had already killed the cult
  
• Fixed not being able to make the persecutors in Legacæstir leave you alone under certain conditions
  
• Fixed the cult in Legacæstir not leaving the ruins if you had convinced them to join you at Orkneyjar
  
• Fixed cult members in Legacæstir not running away if you had turned the cult hostile
  
• Fixed the Ab Urbe Condita fight being able to re-trigger if you had already fought it but not handed in the quest
  
• Fixed not being able to hand in the Seeking Sanctuary quest to the persecuters if you had turned the cult hostile
  
• Fixed triggering an empty fight if you had already dealt with the refugees before turning the cult in Legacæstir hostile
  
• Fixed Iovita attacking you if you approached her after having given her the Aquila
  
• Fixed the fight in the Legacæstir dungeon triggering even though you had already fought it
  
• Fixed getting stuck by the bridge in Legacæstir if you had already fought the persecutors (ah, that quest really is the gift that keeps on giving)
  
• Fixed the conversation with Finnguala upon your return with Donncoirce not playing if you'd clicked on her before it was active
  
• Disabled the option to tell Ragnhildr you killed the Rats if you didn't kill the Rats
  
• Made the Red Wedding party not spawn if the Wait goal is Inactive, instead of if Wait is Not Completed and Not Failed
  
• Moved the goal marker for the first Red Wedding goal from the groom's father onto the house door so it doesn't go to a campaign map marker when the wedding party despawns
  
• Fixed the Red Wedding party spawning in during the night if they had previously spawned in during the day
  
• Fixed the scared man in the Barghest quest spawning in during the day if he had previously spawned in during the night, but at the same time accidentally inverted his spawn conditions so he now spawns only during the day - will fix that in the next patch, as it doesn't break anything
  
• Fixed Rurik not disappearing from your longhouse after day 150 as he should
  
• Disabled the dialogue option to sacrifice a mercenary in Skerninge because it wasn't working
  
• Fixed Hulda only appearing the first time you load Skjern after the prologue
  
• Fixed the option to have Kveldulfr craft for you never appearing during the summer if you didn't ask him about the smithy during the winter
  
• Went over a bunch of conversations and added more reputation changes and increased some of the existing ones
  
• Gave the Eoforwic blacksmith a check to bypass her introduction text on subsequent visits
  
• Added morale decreases for your love interest if you get caught cheating
  
• Disabled the option to side with Aiblinn in Dun Phris if you don't control Orkneyjar at that point
  
• Fixed Leofric showing up in Osred's hall even if you fight him before going there
  
• Fixed Grainne talking about Conall as if he's dead even if you brought him in alive (in English and German - we're awaiting translations for the other languages)
  
• Fixed a weirdly inconsistent bug where Grainne would sometimes not spawn in Caustantin's hall after Mac Taidg Must Die until you left and re-entered the hall a few times
  
• Fixed not getting the proper ID for a randomly selected character in the stray boat event
  
• Fixed being able to talk to Maban before you catch the thieving child, thereby never being able to complete that goal; also fixed being able to enter the houses before you get the relevant quests
  
• Removed the extra coin pile in the merchant's house in Eoforwic and fixed the level transition goal marker in that scene and the shire gerefa's house showing up at 0.0.0 instead of the door
  
• Made it so you can pick up the knife in the wall in one of the entrable homes in Eoforwic and set the loot to owned
  
• Set everything to owned in the 2nd Eoforwic house and made the lord of the house lie in his bed
  
• Changed the Viking attack in Yngilwood so the player starts, and tweaked the cover in the hex map
  
• Fixed the injured man in the swamp sticking around if you had treated him
  
• Fixed the robbers on the ridge in the swamp not reacting if you had gone there once before
  
• Fixed an NPC Speech node in the TravelInfection random event that should have been a Stored NPC Speech node
  
• Fixed a potential problem with the feud quest in Ribe not triggering; unfortunately we couldn't reproduce it, so we're not sure if the fix works
  
• Small tweaks to the eating and drinking contest in Ribe
  
• Fixed a typo "somethng" in the conversation with Ingimarr in his house
  
• Tweaked the trader hex map in Skerninge
  
• Fixed a misspelled character reference in the toothache camping event
  
• Fixed the Forbidden Tribute quest in Eoforwic trying to spawn the wrong character when you had defeated the lynch mob
  
• Made a rock that was throwing warnings in the treasure cave not batching static, and rebuilt lighting as a result
  
• Fixed Vrangr sticking around in the Marsh if you came back to it after you had let him go
  
• Fixed a hex map issue in Yngilwood that could cause players to get stuck on a hill
  
• Fixed the huscarls still showing up in Skjern over the summer if they had spawned in once, even if they had since left the hird
  
• Fixed being able to hand in the Debt Collector quest multiple times
  
• Fixed being able to get the Debt Collector quest again if you had already handed it in under certain circumstances
  
• Fixed an issue where you could get the Debt Collector quest again if you had failed to get the payment from Gaius Aelius
  
• Fixed an issue where the Debt Collector quest would not get closed if you had gotten the payment before ever talking with them
  
• Added a missing check to the conversation with Grainne if you defeat her, to check if Aife was part of the fight
  
• Fixed the Old Man in the Marsh not entering dialogue if you had freed Mani
  
• Fixed a rogue hex in the bandit camp and not being able to walk between the barricades
  
• Added the missing "Blacksmith" area map marker localization for Orkney to all localizations

Disabling the Time Limit

By popular demand we've implemented a way for you to disable the game-over that you'll normally get if you run out of time in either campaign. Time will still pass as normal and the timeline will appear to progress, but once it reaches the end, nothing will happen.

To activate this:

1. First find your config file. It should be in \Documents\My Games\Expeditions Viking\Config.
   
2. Open Config.ini with your text editor of choice (Notepad will do nicely).
   
3. Locate the [PlayerSettings] section and add the following line at the end of it: TimeGameOver=False
   
4. Save the file and open the game.
   
5. To verify that the time limit is disabled, hover over your marker or the icon at the end of the timeline. It should say, in a red font: "Running out of time is currently disabled." Note that this will only show up in the English or English (Norse Names) localisations so far, because we haven't had the new strings localised yet.

Disabling the time limit will also disable all difficulty-related achievements for finishing the game, because you haven't finished the game on Medium, Hard, or Insanity - you've finished it on a lower, lamer difficulty of your own design ;)

As mentioned somewhere in the changelist above, to complement this new feature we have also changed the "advancetime" cheat so it no longer accepts negative numbers.

Of course there are things that stop making sense when you disable the timeline. We assume that if you do this, you don't particularly care about the narrative consistency of the game, so you won't complain to us if the game suddenly skips almost a year into the future, and a title card proclaims the year to be 789 AD when your in-game clock says 790 or something like that.

Video crash bypass instructions

If your game has been crashing immediately after character creation or immediately upon opening, try adding the following anywhere in your config file:

[VideoPlaybackSettings]
DoPlayVideos=False

The side effect is that you will not get any videos. This is mainly a problem for the end of the game, since the denoument will not play. We're still working on a "proper" fix for a later update.

[Alex]

Well done, devs!

[Zloth]

Messed a bit with some of the pre-set characters' morale, including raising all your huscarls (except Asleifr, because he's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)

He can't help it, he was coded that way.

[Frenchie]

Originally posted by Jonas:

Change log: General Fixes

• You can now disable the game's time limit - see below for instructions

Yessss

[hardwiredsin]

Thank you! Going to update to it now.

[Stormy]

You're doing a great job at communicating and fixing problems, I've been holding off on buying the game because of the bugs but I'll definitely buy it now that I see everything is being taken care of.

[Kordanor]

Added a new tutorial pop-up about the timeline

When does it show?

[Zloth]

Originally posted by Kordanor:

Added a new tutorial pop-up about the timeline

When does it show?

It showed for me when I left town, though I'm just starting the preperations phase.

Also, a little bug: the "page 1 of 3" looks like some sort of xaml funkiness:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=922755499

[Kordanor]

Originally posted by Zloth:

Originally posted by Kordanor:

When does it show?

It showed for me when I left town, though I'm just starting the preperations phase.

Also, a little bug: the "page 1 of 3" looks like some sort of xaml funkiness:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=922755499

Thanks!

Though ofc some ingame events showing that time is progressing and an issue whould have been much better.

Also the Power and Wealth are still just some random values. Some more involvement with these would ne nice as well.

[Quintus_Fontane]

Removing the ability to slightly adjust the timer to cheat just a little bit and replacing it with breaking the timer completely is a bit on the sledgehammer-blunt side of things, but... I understand why you've done it.
Anyway, looking forward to testing. Hell of a change log right there, thanks guys.

[LootNScoot]

I am seriously impressed how quickly these issues are getting fixed. Even with the issues, this game was great, now, its gonna be amazing! You guys have something to be proud of, seriously!

[OutsiderSubtype]

Definitely appreciate the rapid patches.

[Frenchie]

Been on 1.0.3 for about 3 hours now without an issue yet. Will keep on looking.

[cloudsora]

I was trying to test out the config time thing and it no longer lets me change my video settings afterwards.

[TectonicWafer]

After you sack York for the Picts, is it supposed to reset to being a normal un-sacked town the next time you visit it?

[Ysmired]

The time limit was absolute trash.
First playthrough: I just wanted to travel around, make sure I find every location, enjoy camping for more random events, revisit places, then bämm end of your rope!