World of Terraria

Part 2/3
Written by Blue (Developer of Terraria)

With all the game-play changes and enhancements to make the game feel more challenging than your every day sandbox title, we are making sure to improve the GUI.
Redigit mentioned many of the improvements to the GUI in his last Dev Blog and since then, he's put many more into play. Things like; NPCs being able to sell back things you sold to them, and Ammo slots to help declutter your inventory some, make the player able to handle better the new challenges without making them feel overwhelmed. I know a lot of players will enjoy the option to lock their hot bar, so they don’t accidentally click to switch to another item during a hectic battle.

Enemies are also getting some changes to make sure a player who is fighting them wont always die because they can't spam heal any longer. Healing yourself will be simple out of battle, as standing still for a while will regen your health. And the Nurse will find herself being very useful during Goblin Invasions as the battle lasts long, and you won't be able to continuously rely on your potions.

Dungeons now re-quire a bit of exploration to be done before you can just grab all the good gear. The introduction of keys and locked chests has created a sense of ‘working towards a goal’ that was missing in the dungeon before. Along with the new trap (see spinning spike-ball) and an increase in spike spawns in all newly generated worlds dungeons, we feel this makes the place a whole lot more challenging and fun to explore.

Overall the game is more rewarding to play now. It's no longer a "I don't care about getting hurt because I can heal" situation all the time. If you wish to progress, you need to take your time, be cautious and make sure you set your gear a certain way that works for your play style and tactics. In multiplayer, having a team with a meleeist and a ranged player will now seem more useful, as teamwork will bring rise to a feeling of safety and strength.

We hope the new changes bring a more 'satisfied game-play' feeling to players, and the changes don't upset too many people. But as I said, they need to be done if future additions are to work correctly.

Ill leave you with a few more of the ‘smaller’ changes we've made, although a few were very hoped for by many players.
Cactus no longer cause knock-back (they still hurt you) making running through a desert less of a hassle.
Thorns are now destroyed after you touch them and receive damage.
Band of Star Power now adds 20 mana to your maximum, and no longer adds mana regeneration.
Lava Slimes no longer spawn lava when killed.


We understand how anxious everyone is to have the update, and we know its the longest you’ve had to wait for one. However we still have a bit more testing to do before 1.0.6 is ready for the world to delve into, but we are hoping to get it to you sometime sooner rather than later.

(CONTINUE...)