Hey guys,
I am proud to present you our first and unique new skill: Invention. We've had many discussions about the game's economy and how difficult it is to maintain prices for item drops. The skill aims to solve that problem by introducing a sink for most unique boss drops. You can read more in the dedicated Invention section below. There's also an initial implementation start of Activity Hiscores to boost competition for boss runs, minigames, etc. As well as a lot of fixes and engine improvements. You're now also able to select higher quality textures with 0 performance impact.
New skill: InventionOur new skill, Invention, consists of 2 basic concepts:
- Item Deconstruction: obtain energies
- Item Creation: transform energies into new items
Deconstructing items gives you energies that can be transformed into either degradeable auras or equipment upgrades. You can train the Invention skill wherever you want as long as you own an Invention Energy Box. It can be obtained by having a chat with Manglethorp, who can be found south of the Grand Exchange. Click on the Invention skill and you will get a map marker.
We also already prepared the wiki entry for Invention:
https://emps-world.net/wiki/InventionNot every item in the game can be deconstructed, only those found within the Invention skilling interface or on the wiki page. I have plans for more energy types and upgrades in the future.
Oh yeah... and here's the skillcape emote nobody has seen yet:
God Wars Dungeon HardmodesThere's now hardmodes for bosses in the GWD: General Graardor, Kree'arra, K'ril Tsutsaroth and Commander Zilyana. The fight is more intense and aimed at a group of 3 people. You will probably require a dedicated tank because some mechanics will deal a lot of unblockable or difficult to block damage. Fighting hardmode gives every participant a 3% chance for a new and unique drop: Artefacts. Those are needed to upgrade GWD equipment via the Invention skill. The other drops remain the same and will reward the top 3 damage dealers.
Here's a picture of the Zilyana hardmode fight.
Activity HighscoresI've implemented a system in-game that tracks completion time for boss instances and stores every completion. The completion time is transformed into a score value and will be listed as highscores on the homepage. I am still working on visualization for the homepage and need some test data. You can already see your score when clearing a boss instance but it is not yet compared with others. My aim is to create weekly and monthly top players for several categories with unique reward containers.
Game fixes / changes:- Home teleport can no longer be spammed.
- NPCs have been made easier to taunt, especially bosses. They will now focus you even if you are further away from them than other players.
- The invincibility frames after a teleport have been increased. We don't want you to die by a projectile right after teleporting.
- Hunter potions can now be noted.
- The gates west of Canifis leading into the swamp can now be used.
- The Falador party room was updated. Balloons will no longer get stuck on the floor and the timing for popping balloons and items dropped afterwards has been improved.
- Silly jester stick can now be equipped.
- Tank armours are now lost upon death and fully degrade during the process.
- Rugs no longer remove staircases in POHs.
- Unholy cursebearer now correctly registers as undead monster.
- The calculation for price checker has been updated. Most recent trades of an item now have a higher impact on the price calculation. There is a cap so manipulating prices won't be possible. I would like the price checker to reflect recent changes faster though.
- Several "members only" texts have been removed from the game since they haven't been accurate for a while.
- Dieing with a herb sack or gem box will now drop its contents when being in the wilderness.
- Animations for stringing bows and crossbows have been sped up to better reflect the creation process.
- The timing of animations on stairs has been improved.
- Magic and Ranging potions can now be noted.
- A bug was fixed where adding friends would delete people from the ignore list.
- Golden chaotic weapons can now be properly repaired again.
- Caught butterflies now correctly boost your stats again and can no longer be used inside the duel arena when the no potions option is enabled.
- A lot of item descriptions (mostly invention & several others) are now synchronized between server and client. Meaning that the description is guaranteed to always be accurate. This will reduce the amount of work required for future balancing patches.
- The equipment requirement interfaces are now automatically generated and can be changed without requiring a server restart. This makes it much easier to guarantee that correct skill requirements are shown and to add new items in the future.
- You will now be notified when dropped items upon death are moved outside of a boss room.
- A flashing arrow is now shown on top of items you've lost upon death. The arrow removed when your death timer runs out (3 minutes) and hidden when you are more than 100 steps away from your death location. The flashing arrow is removed when either your bones are picked up or when the timer runs out. The death timer orb & flashing arrow are disabled when another player kills you - there is no drop for you to pickup.
- Completing a Slayer task is now mentioned in your chat including the amount of slayer points gained.
- The charges for upgraded elemental gear has been increased from 30,000 to 40,000. Once all charges are lost the item fully degrades and no longer refunds either a whip or an elemental crystal.
- Ticket gain at the Warrior's guild is now affected by double xp timers.
- The code for using various item teleports in the game has been updated. It will now only consume the item when you are definitely able to teleport. This includes ring of duelling, amulet of glory, games necklace, void seal and ferocious ring.
- Additional inventories now show their current and maximum capacity.
- Event Point store no longer sells auras. Don't worry, you can still use your old auras but not get any new ones! A clue scroll box has been added that can hold any clue scroll or reward box. It can be upgraded 3 times to increase inventory size. This upgrade is permanent and stays when the box is lost.
Engine fixes / changes:- Players are no longer floating on GE tiles.
- The worldmap viewer's text descriptions now have priority over icons. Some area names could not be read because they were hidden beneath icons.
- Searching in large banks (1,000+ items) will no longer cause flickering. There was a problem with the game client not being able to cache more than 1,000 item instances, which is necessary for searching.
- The header text in skilling interfaces now has priority over scrolled content.
- While scrolling you are no longer able to move or click interfaces. This fixes a problem where quickly moving the scrollbar up would move the entire interface.
- The general "make interface" for bows, crafting, smithing, etc. has been overhauled. Fonts have been changed and text now has proper line breaks if it's too long to be displayed:
- Holding down CTRL in any interface now prioritizes the "all" option. This works in every interface that gives you an options menu.
- Holding down SHIFT key now also activates all actions the CTRL key does.
- Optional higher quality textures can now be enabled:
It brings more detail to models by using original texture colors without much filtering applied. - Protection prayer descriptions have been updated. They now contain the exact values applied when activated.
- The quality of images and scaling has been improved. You'll no longer find white borders around interface images. It's now also possible to increase the UI scale to 2.25 and 2.5 for 1440p and 2160p monitors.
- An issue with water planes on multiple heights has been fixed. Water will no longer lose its transparency & shader code. Water reflections still only appear on the water area closest to your character.
- Modern hit splats have been updated to cause less clutter during intense fights. The total duration of how long a hit splat is active has been reduced by 25% and the fade out animation has been sped up.
- A few animation artifacts have been fixed: windmills and boxtraps flickering. Overall the process of animation smoothing has been improved and will cause less flickering for repeated animations.
- The positioning of several interfaces has been updated. This was done to ensure that interfaces always open at mostly the same position on your screen.
Thanks to everyone who has tested the Invention skill in our test world and gave feedback. It has taken quite some time to design and create a custom skill from scratch. I hope you'll enjoy a new skill and aren't too sad about all max and completionist capes being unequipped.
All the best,
Thomy
Further fixes (September 4th):
- Ferocious ring teleports no longer dupe themselves and bug out inventory slots.
- Invention daily tasks can be completed.
- Invention xp rates for anger weapons, comp ogre bow and hunters crossbow increased.
- :: can now properly be used again in clan chat.
- You can now type longer messages in-game. The message will auto scroll and auto linebreak.
- The restock timer for shops has been doubled. It now also resets when somebody buys an item.
- Barrows equipment can now be fully repaired again.
- A visual issue with water reflections of roofs has been fixed.
- Run energy aura now requires energies you can obtain for its level requirement.
- The amount of charges tier 3 auras have has been increased. All auras have had their charges restored, so nothing's lost! Have a look at the wiki for the exact numbers: https://emps-world.net/wiki/Invention
- XP lamps can now give Invention xp.
- Hardmode bosses are now properly recorded in kill logs.
- Silk can now be used to remove poison from items.
