Hi folks! What, this? Why, it's only the single biggest performance boost we've ever shipped, why do you ask? :D

• Much faster game simulation!
  With this update, even the largest saves we've received from players are now running at or near full speed on our test machines! This is a CPU-side optimisation, and I expect that the biggest improvements will be seen by players with large games, many players logged in at once, and at least three or four active world regions, with bigger savings the larger your world gets. There will likely be little or no difference for people who currently have just one or two regions active, and folks who are GPU-limited due to huge amounts of placed scenery will still be GPU-limited. (But hopefully running the simulation at max speed at least won't make their frame rate actively worse any more)

• More use of background threads for AI!
  In this update, all player planning has been moved from the main thread to background threads. This means that (for example) five players all randomly happening to choose the same frame to rethink what they want to do will no longer cause frame rate microstutters! Those big choices about where to go and what to do are all now happening from background threads.

• Compressed model data for all buildings and scenery models.
  Making models require less data in VRAM improves rendering performance! (this will matter more for folks on low-end hardware, though)

• Icons as event indicators!
  In this update we replace the "+XP", "+LVL", "-LVL", "DEAD", and "IM" floating text indicators with localization-friendlier icons. There are still a few more of these text indicators to convert over to icons, and the specific icons being used in this build are not final, but I feel like this is already a big improvement! These new icons can still be turned off using the view options settings button near the top right of the HUD, the same way the text ones could.

• Fixed a bug which caused GMs who are currently searching through game logs to find evidence to incorrectly show their status as "Failed to find evidence" while they're doing it. Oops!

• Fixed a bug during panic logout scenarios where players would not consider nearby potential inns as places to go to logout if the inn had a high price set. (the 'price' on an inn is the price to move into that inn as a permanent home; merely logging out there - especially in an emergency - is always free). This was causing spurious "Couldn't find an inn to log out" messages, even when plenty of inns were available!

• Fixed dungeon ambiance sounds continuing to play if you quit directly from a dungeon view to the in-game desktop.

• Fixed a bug which caused buzz to stop giving any new-subscriber benefits at all if buzz grew past a total value of 1,000. (the intention was for the benefit-per-extra-buzz to reduce at that point, but what was actually happening was that the whole benefit was being removed once you were past that threshhold. Now fixed!)

...and a whole bunch of other more minor tweaks and bug fixes!

So, an update on me: A week ago, I tested positive for Covid. Luckily, this build had entered testing several weeks before that, so I didn't have to do a lot more work on it; just monitor the bug reports from players and QA, and it all went quite smoothly, so delivering this update hasn't disrupted my rest too much! (honestly, writing these release notes is the most work I've done since testing positive!)

In terms of the illness, I actually feel pretty good now; almost all my symptoms have gone away over the last few days, leaving only a small cough and a gravelly voice to remind me that I'm sick. But the rapid tests are still returning positive Covid results, so I'm going to continue taking it easy and mostly just resting until they say otherwise! I'm hoping it won't be too long; I'm *super* excited to get moving on with the next big update!

We'll talk more soon, and I'll post another announcement with how I'm doing if the Covid diagnosis drags on too much longer.

-T

• Weapon sizes for a character can now be adjusted in the costume editor. (use the 'Weapon Scale' slider while adjusting the character's right arm to change the weapon's scale). We also now do some better placement of weapons if you change the model used for the character's right arm!
  
• Fixed an issue which could cause the character type buttons in the class, NPC, and Monster design lists to occasionally flicker for a frame if you had more than 9 of one type of character and scrolled down in the window.
  
• Prevent the user from setting a buggy building as 'online' while a developer is trying to debug it (naughty naughty!) :D
  
• A few other miscellaneous fixes to the behavior of certain UI widgets inside grid widgets.

• Fixed already-placed monsters and NPCs not being given or updating their weapons when their character type's assigned weapon types are changed. (This was working in the initial release of the Weaponry Update, but was accidentally broken as part of a bugfix in Hotfix 1)
  
• The character model editor preview now shows the character with a randomly selected one of the weapon types assigned to the class. If you'd like to change it, you can set the preview weapon to be used over on the model editor's "Settings" tab, and also change the ilvl of the weapon being previewed.
  
• If you feel like a character's greatsword just isn't 'great' enough, or its dagger just isn't stealthy enough, you can now adjust the scaling of a character type's weapons, as an additional slider on the "Adjust" interface for the character type's right arm. (I need to find a better, easier-to-find place to put this, but it's functional over here for now!)

• Release trailers which include new player classes now show those new player classes using the weapons they're supposed to be using, instead of showing them all carrying swords. (oops!)
  
• Fixed a crash which could happen when you unpaused the game, if you had destroyed and then replaced a player character class while the game was both online and paused.
  
• Fixed single-frame animation glitches visible in the Ability preview window if you changed the character's model while viewing the ability preview.
  
• Set up an archery target in the ability preview window, replacing the Giant Ominous Sphere Of Darkness™ as the target of previewed attacks.
  
• Fixed an issue where pooled checkbox widgets were not being properly reset before being reused elsewhere in the UI. I *think* this was entirely benign, but it put some scary-looking messages in the game logs so I've fixed it!
  
• Fixed a few small (once per run only) memory leaks; about 10-15kb of RAM was being leaked in total, and was reclaimed when the game exited. Not a big deal for anyone, but it makes my dev tools happier!

• New weapon models! Our limited old weapon models have been removed, and are now replaced by literally 200 new weapon models, spread across 14 categories, and mapped to increasing quality levels so that higher item-level (ilvl) weapons look cooler and more dangerous than lower ilvl weapons!
  
  
• Selectable weapon types per player class! For each player class, you can set none, one, or multiple weapon types for that class to use, so there's no more mages carrying axes or barbarians with wands (unless that's what you want!)
  
  
• For the first time, you can now also specify weapon types for your monsters and NPC characters to use!
  
  
• Since we now have visual differences between high-quality and low-quality weapons, we no longer hide low-quality weapons when their wielder outlevels them! So if you have a level 20 paladin who is still carrying around that flimsy old broomstick that he bought as a practice weapon when he was level 1, you'll see him carrying it around while you're looking at him and mocking his life choices.
  
  
• New combat animations! We've boosted way up from 4 combat animations to 20, across our two stances ("humanoid" and "quadruped"). You can now specify for each combat ability which animation it should use, and whether it should use a bow/crossbow/gun animation when one of those weapons is equipped. So if you want a healer class who fires off their heals using a crossbow when one is available, that's now possible!
  
  

  The complete list of weapon categories is now "Axes", "Bone Weapons", "Bows", "Crossbows", "Curved Swords", "Daggers", "Greatswords", "Guns", "Hammers", "Maces", "Spears", "Staves", "Swords", and "Wands", each of which contain between 10 and 20 weapon models tied to different ranges of weapon item-level (ilvl).
  
  By default you'll start with the "swords", "axes", and "wands" weapon categories available, and the other categories are available via development projects. (Or if you just want everything all at once, there's a Custom Rule you can apply to your save for that!)
  
  Note that only humanoids who have a humanoid right arm/hand can be given visible weapons. (Sorry about that, we just never figured out a way to attach a sword to a chicken's wing without it looking silly!)
  
  Also note that there was a minor issue with the old 'golem' costume which caused bow/crossbow/gun animations to play a little weirdly on that specific costume. If you're in an old save and have issues with a golem and those weapons, you may wish to reapply the new 'golem' costume preset to get the fix!

  
  ....and of course, there's also a whole bunch of bug fixes and other minor improvements that come alongside this update.
  
  In terms of "what's next", I've actually got another under-the-hood performance patch in testing just behind this one, which reduces VRAM usage and should deliver notable CPU performance improvements for folks with really large games. Expect to see that one within a week or two!
  
  Until then, big thanks to everybody who's been sending in feedback and bug reports; they're always huge helps!
  
  -T

• Fixed players sometimes getting stuck inside buildings, walls, and fences which were placed inside monster zones. Also, we now trim monster zones so they don't overlap with buildings and other obstacles. (we were already doing that if you placed the buildings before the monster zones, but now we also do it if you place the monster zones and then the buildings)
  
• Fixed developers getting 'stuck' in debugging mode and never returning to developing mode if you deployed a newly developed technology and then started work on a new technology all while the game remained paused.
  
• Developers now continue working on any debugging task which they've begun even if the servers go online, even if the bug policy says to only work on fixing those bugs while offline.
  
• Fixed multiverse gibs. (gibs were visible across multiple dungeon instances)
  
• Fixed players sometimes being able to remain online even when the servers go offline.
  
• Improved the display of technology requirements in the technology list to separately color code whether each requirement is satisfied or not. This should make it much more intuitive to figure out why a particular technology is or is not available to be developed right now.
  
• In the technology list, technologies for which you have fulfilled all their requirements but do not have enough money to develop them are now displayed in yellow instead of red, and are sorted together with other technologies for which you've fulfilled requirements, instead of previously being sorted with other technologies you can't currently work on. Additionally, if you earn enough money to afford the technology while the window is open, the tech's status updates immediately to let you start development. (previously required you to close the window and re-open it to update for your new amount of money available)
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented you from re-starting work on a technology that you'd started on once before and then cancelled, unless you had enough money to pay the purchase price *again*. (we didn't actually charge you a second time, but the UI wouldn't let you re-start work unless you had enough money that we could have charged you again).
  
• Fixed buildings sometimes retaining highlight colors instead of fading back to normal, if you ran the cursor over them very quickly. This was most common when changing the destination of a quest or when using the 'destroy' tool.
  
• Fixed three music tracks accidentally being added to the 'region music' list, which caused them to sometimes randomly be played at top volume unless you disabled them manually. Sorry, this one was absolutely my fault! (I mean, all of these were my fault, but this one was *especially* my fault!)
  
• Fixed parties getting stuck if they took a flight path or a vehicle which passed over/through an unowned region. This also fixes parties which are already stuck during the load by teleporting them back to the nearest owned and walkable bit of ground.
  
• Fixed some misbehaviour in the spinner widgets (text edit boxes with little up/down arrows for editing numbers) if you had your number format set to either "1.000,50" or "1 000,50".
  
• Fixed the text edit boxes inside spinners always initially placing the cursor at the far left of the text edit box, regardless of where you'd clicked; now the cursor is inserted correctly on the first click.
  
• Changed the colors of the "cost" text when using an editor tool. Previously, the cost string was displayed in red if it was going to cost money, or in white if you couldn't afford it (or green if it was going to gain you money to use the tool). Now we've reversed that; it's now *red* if you can't afford the cost, and *white* if you can.
  
• Fixed the subscriber information window display of 'Expertise' values to be consistent (previously, it showed values 0-3 using strings and 4-5 using numbers. Now we show both for all values!)
  
• Fixed rendering of module building block frame.
  
• Fixed a small number of crashes which could occur if a subscriber tried to log in but their character was in an unowned region (say, due to that region being sold while they were offline), plus some other confounding factors which prevented our attempts to rescue the subscriber.
  
• Brought back the pre-version-release autosave.