It is with a heavy heart that we announce we are closing down Windborne today. First, we want to thank the community, who has been so loyal, patient, and shared kind thoughts and ideas with us along the journey.

We have attempted to secure the needed funding to finish the game in various avenues and unfortunately what was once a not-so-completive market has now been flooded with games of this style. Windborne has been a labor of love for this studio since its inception. We have spent countless hours designing and creating a striking world to share with everyone. We have decided that after much business development around the title with no positive movement in funding that we will be delisting Windborne on Steam.

The community has played the game in its current form over 100,000 hours. The game will still exist in your library to continue to enjoy, explore, and create if you own it. We care very much about our players and the trust they put in us, and we want to provide them with as much value as is possible. Because of that we’re going to do the following things.

1. Every owner of Windborne will receive 5 copies of Windborne in their Steam inventory that they can gift to other players. The game will no longer be available to purchase, but it will continue to work online. Owners can gift the copies to their friends so that they can enjoy the game with others in multiplayer.
   
   
2. Every owner of Windborne Order of the Dragon will additionally receive 3 copies of both Defense Grid 2 Steam Special Edition and 3 complete bundles of Defense Grid: Containment bundle – these copies are giftable or usable as they choose.

Everyone here at HPE thanks you, the community, for continuing to stand by us and for the love you have shown for Windborne. You are a driving force in our continuing desire to make FUN. We still continue to hope that Windborne will make an appearance in the future in its complete form, as we love it very much.



What is Windborne?
Windborne is a sandbox creation game that currently provides players with individual islands, basic quests, crafting, exploration, mining, multiple biomes, multiplayer co-op play, and interaction with interesting creatures.

Why is it being cancelled?
We’ve been trying very hard over the last year to pull together the resources needed to take Windborne farther in its development. We reinvested every dollar earned on Windborne back into the game, but haven’t been able to afford to continue it at the level required to make significant progress. We worked to have a smaller team continue to work on the game, but that also became more costly than we could afford. There have been many near opportunities to partner with others to continue development on Windborne, but they never fully materialized and at this point, it is likely best to recognize that we don’t have the resources to continue development and end our efforts to continue Windborne’s development.

Can we get our money back?
No, there is no money with which to refund players. Every dollar spent on purchasing the game has gone into development of the game and Hidden Path had invested 10 times more money than the game has earned into the development of the game with a hope of future completion and sales. We’re not going to see any return on that as well. The entertainment experience that has been available until now has provided players with over 100,000 hours of play to this point as well.

We care very much about our players and the trust they put in us, and we want to provide them with as much value as is possible. Because of that we’re going to do the following things.

1. Every owner of Windborne will receive 5 copies of Windborne in their Steam inventory that they can gift to other players. The game will no longer be available to purchase, but it will continue to work online. Owners can gift the copies to their friends so that they can enjoy the game with others in multiplayer.
   
   
2. Every owner of Windborne Order of the Dragon will additionally receive 3 copies of both Defense Grid 2 Steam Special Edition and 3 complete bundles of Defense Grid: Containment bundle – these copies are giftable or usable as they choose.

Will you release the code so the community can build, similar to Minecraft? Why?
We will not be releasing the code for the community’s use. The main reason this is not in our plans is that we hope to one day still complete Windborne. We still actively talk to publishers and investors about this game weekly because we love and believe in it so much. If it becomes possible to finish Windborne we will make sure that the community receives finished copies as well.

Why didn’t you tell us sooner that the game would be cancelled, it seems like you knew?
We had conversations in play with potential funders that were moving in very positive directions, so we did not know until recently that we would not be able to finish the game to a level of completion that meets our standards. Once these talks started to move the opposite direction, now, we immediately decided we needed to share all of this with you. Our community is key to the success of our business and we never take that for granted which is why we are telling you everything we know at this moment.

What did you learn about Early Access?
We learned quite a bit going through early access. Early Access also changed tremendously during our development process of Windborne. There were not a lot of cases out there to pull from so it was a “learn as you go” process. First and foremost, we learned that communication is key, and not just communication but very clear and concise communication. Early Access as a means to fund the completion of a game is not something we would advice to anybody. This was not clearly outlined when we entered into EA, it has since been changed to illustrate this.

Why did you use Early Access like kickstarter rather than just doing a Kickstarter?
We didn’t view this as a kickstarter as our product was deliverable in its current form; it just was not at a level that we would like in order to call it complete. We have done a kickstarter in the past and learned that maybe the audience we needed to reach, gamers, didn’t quite live there. When Early Access became and option it seemed to make the most sense to go where the community goes.

Will you finish Windborne in the future?
We would love to finish Windborne in the future! Nothing would make us happier as it is a game this studio has invested a lot of love in.

How much money is needed to finish the game?
There is no black and white answer to this question. It depends on the direction of the game. Do we add in x, y, and z or do we focus on x and maybe add y and z as DLC down the road if the game sells well. There are many other factors that weigh in here too; e.g. self publishing vs. publisher, platform options, etc.

If so, what will you do for the current community?
If we were able to complete Windborne in the future we would make sure that the current community received complete copies of the game as well as any extra perks that the game might possibly offer.

Can we offer free help to finish it now?
Unfortunately, no matter how much free help was offered there are still great costs associated with completing the game, any game.

Will I be getting anything in the future since I did OOTD?
To reiterate the answer above all OOTD purchasers are getting an additional 3 copies of both Defense Grid 2 Steam Special Edition and 3 complete bundles of Defense Grid: Containment bundle – these copies are giftable or usable as they choose. This is in addition to the giftable copies of Windborne we will be giving you as well.

Windborne Signs, Ladders, and Launchers Update, 7/22/2014

• New features:
  
  • New Climbable (vines, ladders)
    
  • New Launcher (you can shift-click it in gather mode to switch between various directions)
    
  • New Signs (Iconic Standing Sign, Iconic Wall Sign, Iconic Floor Sign, Standing Sign, Floor Sign, Hanging Sign)
    
    • Activate normal signs to write text on them. Click in the text box to write on the sign.
      
    • Shift-click iconic signs to go through the icons
  • You can turn on auto-gather in settings. This makes it so you continually gather in gather mode without holding down the right mouse button.
• Misc fixes/polish:
  
  • UI Consistency update (buttons, scrollbars, etc)
    
  • Fly-to-player no longer teleports you inside the target player
    
  • Physics is now turned off for plants, ladders, etc. You can place these even if standing in the block.
    
  • Wall and brick blocks are much more efficient (they hide geometry that is obscured). This is retroactive.
    
  • Hand auto-hide is less annoying
• Bug fixes:
  
  • Many crash fixes
    
  • Pets tamed as a client no longer act like they belong to the host
    
  • Malik/Ferals only take one block from item stacks (you won’t lose all your gold in one swoop)
    
  • Music volume setting is less sensitive
    
  • Player/Character loading is more safe and tries to handle/recover corrupted characters
    
  • Some broken UI crafting filters were fixed

Hi, everyone! Echo here (posted by Nerdmaid). It's been just over a week since we released the World Traveler, and I thought I'd take some time to talk about where we're going next.

This patch which addresses some minor bugs that we missed in the update, as well as a recovery tool which should help those who are in the middle of a save when the power goes out (It happens more frequently than you’d guess). I’d like to thank everyone for the feedback and reports – they help us a lot, and we go through every one of them.

Now we’re going to start focusing on our next update, which means that we probably won’t update the game for another 5-6 weeks, but we still have a lot of things going on:

• Kaboom, our community rep, runs weekly build challenges and live streams (follow us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/windbornegame )
  
• We’re active on twitter at https://twitter.com/WindborneGame
  
• We post dev updates periodically on our website:
  --> Blog: http://www.hiddenpath.com/blog/category/windborne/
  --> Forums : http://www.hiddenpath.com/forum/forum/hidden-path-forums/windborne-general-discussion
  
• The Windborne Steam Community is pretty active - http://steamcommunity.com/app/221560/discussions/

What’s planned for the next update? Well, we like it being a surprise, but I can give one hint right now: Exploring is going to become a very important part of the game.

As always, thanks for your support, and feel free to give us feedback at any time!

Patch notes:

• Fixed a number of crashes
  
• Flits and Pinchers now follow you after being tamed
  
• Visiting Gallery islands is more reliable
  
• Pets won’t follow other players
  
• Character select now shows your entire character
  
• Re-added the recipe for Super Marble Bricks
  
• Control settings are more reliably saved
  
• Those who play in our live streams with Kaboom now may receive a special gift!

5/19/2014



Windborne - World Traveler



The free World Traveler update is coming today! We go on sale tomorrow to celebrate!

• New features
• See yourself for the first time and customize your appearance
• Learn to make clothing and choose your fashion (Order of the Dragon members start with a special surprise)
• Share your island with others and visit their islands
• New creatures to discover
• Tame pets who give you special abilities
• Use the Research Table to learn new recipes from items
• The sun has returned and the world is much more vibrant
• Can you discover the secret of the mysterious lantern and the Nightshade furniture set?
• Who is Malik the Cursed and what does he want?
• More Detail
• You can now customize your appearance!
• Choose from 3 faces, 2 genders, 5 hair styles and 5 hair colors. More coming!
• Learn to craft clothing. There are four sets in the game- can you find them all?
• The first character you create will inherit your current inventory and recipe knowledge
• Island menu
• The island menu now lets you browse your islands
• Press F10 to take a screenshot that represents your island for the gallery
• The friend pane lets you join existing friends islands, or find new friends
• The community gallery lets you see what others are working on
• You can enable strangers to visit your island in the social menu (Z)
• More improvements coming!
• Recruit pets
• You can use a bell to recruit a wooly, pincher, or flit
• Learn the bell recipe by doing quests or researching one from a friend in the Research Table
• Pets give you buffs while they are following you
• Use the new pet (P) menu to call or dismiss your pets
• Nightshade set
• A new furniture set has been added to the game. You don't learn it through scrolls
• Can you find all the pieces?
• New lighting model
• The world now has a sun, with better sunrises and sunsets
• Overall lighting was brightened and the world is more saturated
• Torches and lamps are much brighter now
• Placing a lot of torches/lamps in an area will not make part of it overly dark
• Particle effects have been updated (More coming!)
• Misc
• You can hide all of the UI, including your hands, with F9. Press F9 to get it back.
• You can use the Home/End keys to play in third person
• Your hands move out of sight after a few seconds as you move around the world
• The sphere in your hands is now an appropriate size

Community Feature Requests

• Basic controller support. You can find more information on the official wiki at http://windborne.gamepedia.com/Windborne_Default_Controller_Mapping
  
• Allow rebinding through bindings.ini in the game directory. You can find more information on the official wiki at: http://windborne.gamepedia.com/Custom_Keybinding

Other Community Requests

• Blocks
  - Lowered crafting cost of ‘stone window’ and ’iron blade’
  - Fixed auto-morph map of tables
  - Fixed ‘Highborn Dresser’ to close properly
  - Fixed ‘Highborn Roof Cap’ to align properly below the roofline
  
• Multiplayer
  - You can see and trade with Jin in multiplayer games
  - You can see and harvest Woolies in multiplayer games
  - Throwing spheres should show properly in multiplayer games
  - Island owner’s dragonling is visible to other players
  
• Misc
  - Apply audio settings before music starts playing
  - Clicking on links in the launcher now will launch in default browser (and not IE)
  - Shrunk some fields so full block name shows up
  
• Quests
  - Clarified ‘craft a fine highborn item’ quest

Stability

• Fix several crashes on startup and network connection
  
• Make a backup of the profile just in case something bad happens while writing
  
• Fixed a crash that would happen when several people connected to a game at once

Hotfix :

• Fixes an out of memory problem that was causing occasional crashes on lower end systems, or after playing for several hours
  
• More performance improvements

Community features:

• You no longer craft glass blocks from your craft menu (the recipe will still appear but you can’t click on it- we’ll fix that)
  
• Put 5 sand in the stove to create a Glass Block
  
• Shape a Glass Block to get 5 Glass Panes
  
• Tuned down the volume on some ambient sounds

Voting and new blocks!

You can now vote on what you think we should add (click on the voting option from the main menu of the game). We will update and adjust the list over time- please let us know on the forums what you'd like to see!

Community driven features

• New players permissions default to off. Press ENTER to ask the host for edit permissions
  
• Reminder: Hosts can give edit permissions through the 'Z' social menu
  
• Voting is in- you can get to it from the main or pause menu
  
• Fireflies are back at night, and the desert has heat shimmer again
  
• New Glass Block you can craft out of 5 glass panes
  
• New skylights in each set (you can learn them from uncommon scrolls)
  
• New Highborn and Desert chandelier (you can learn them from rare scrolls)
  
• Added inner corner connections to the Desert and Highborn Shingles and Roof

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a crash preventing people from joining a multiplayer game
  
• More performance improvements
  
• Fixed flicker of grass on some blocks
  
• Added in some logging to track down the invisible-chunk crash

Patch notes:

• Community driven features
  - Added FOV slider in graphics settings
  - Added Brightness slider in graphics settings
  - Added VSync control in graphics settings
  - Shift click when crafting to queue up 10 items at a time
  - Crafting speeds up when you make things in bulk, up to double speed after 5 items
  --> Rarer items are tougher to craft, but common items are faster
  - Holding shift while moving will let you sprint
  --> Normal movement is 5% slower
  - Holding jump repeatedly jumps
  - Clarified several quests
  - Order of the Dragon dragonling now does a better job of keeping up with you and not getting in your way
  
• Multiplayer
  - Connecting to a friend should be much faster in some cases
  - Fixed some sphere sync issues in multiplayer
  - Fixed several connection bugs
  
• Stability and Performance
  - Include dxdiag information in crash dumps to help us track the stubborn bugs down
  - Fixed a crash on launch
  - Fixed several crashes when creating, deleting, and changing islands
  - Sped up grass rendering
  
• Misc
  - Fixed some sounds which weren’t hooked up to the SFX volume
  - Added new drop orb sound
  - ‘Ches’s are now ‘Chest’s
  - Removed some input lag in the inventory and game
  - Added character limit to creation word (12 characters)

Thank you everyone for submitting issues in the launcher- they are enormously helpful. Keep them coming!

• Fixed a crash on launch
  
• Fixed several rare crashes
  
• Added extra logging to track down crashes we can’t reproduce
  
• Fixed furniture quest
  
• Corrected some spelling and grammar on quests, clarified other quests (‘craft a fine item’)
  
• Fixed a few multiplayer bugs
  -No more invisible blocks (although you may see a brief flicker when friends edit blocks – we are looking into that)
  -You should be able to activate shrines and other objects more than once in multiplayer
  -The island name should be correct when joining another players game
  -Other players shouldn’t be called ‘Other Player’ anymore
  
• Changed how empty seeds work
  -An empty seed will give you a random island (use ‘shoe’ for the old starting island)
  -Numeric seeds give you different islands now