Patch Notes:

• Compete in the Leaderboards.
  • The community Leaderboards are now available on the website, you can find it by using the the "Games" drop down at the top of our site or by clicking here.
  • There are 7 categories to compete in.
    • Overall Score - uses your gold, chests, level, telepads, and quest completion to create a meta score.  Basically the more you do in the game, the higher this score will go.  It does not consider play time, however.
    • Gold - is based on how much gold you have on your character.
    • Chests - is based on how many chests (and hidden chests) you have found.
    • Level - is based on your character's level and experience points.
    • Time Played - is based on how many minutes you have played the game.
    • Quests - is based on how many quests you have completed.
    • Telepads - is based on how many telepads you have discovered.
  • Each board allows multiple players to share the same rank, tieing, if you share the same scores.
  • Additionally, there are character specific pages where you can view a character's ranking in each category and view a nice summary of these stats.
  • If you can't find your character in the leaderboards, we will be making a search tool soon, allowing you to quickly look up your character's profile.
• The game now runs at 60 FPS.
  • With the game running at 60 FPS now (up from 30 FPS), it enabled us the ability to make the game's camera (and animations) to run smoother. The more frames available to move things, the smoother they appear.
  • As a result of this change, every aspect of the game had to be reviewed and improved.  Please create a new character and play through the game and report any problems you encounter with the new FPS.
• The game's camera was rewritten from the ground up.
  • Improving how smooth the screen pans.  Previously as you walked around the screen would "vibrate".  It made looking at anything but your character difficult. The reason for this vibration was a mixture of the game running at 30 FPS, floating point errors, and a frame delay between each tile you change.
  • The new camera code was applied also to the minimap, which is also now smoother.
• Player and NPC walk speed adjustments.
  • All entities speeds have been reduced slightly.  The reason for this is that we never intended on the players moving so quickly.  It was an oversight that they zoomed around the map.
  • The speed decrease of the player is minor.  There was a patch a couple days ago where we made the player's speed too slow. Keep in mind, the player will get a dash ability and more speedy options as the game develops.
• Overlay Effects are now available.
  • The first of which has been added to the forest map. A leaf coverage shadow overlay is now appearing in the Southern Domhan Forest map.  Check it out! It really sets the mood.
• Quest Changes:
  • The "Welcome to Aetheroia" quest:
    • Exp gain reduced by 50% (50 exp). As a result you will no longer level instantly when completing the quest.
    • The "chest" you must loot as part of this quest is no longer considered a lootable chest in the leaderboards.  As a result there are now 105 chests to find in this Alpha.
  • The "Tackle and Bait" quest:
    • Overall Exp gain increased by 50 exp.  This is to keep the leaderboards balanced for those who gained 50 exp from the welcome quest, new players can still obtain the same net exp from this quest instead.
• Bug Fixes:
  • Entity z-sorting when first arriving on the map should now be sorted.  Previously when you would teleport to a map you would always appear below the entities near you. Such as telepads or nearby NPC's.
  • Other players who are having inconsistent network connections with the server will now smoothly corse correct instead of snapping into their true position.  This will result in players sometimes sliding diagonally between tiles, but its better than seeing a player snap around constantly.
  • The Launcher Download new version button should now be fixed in the new versions of the launcher.
  • NPC's should no longer be able to fall down hills and get stuck below them.
  • Certain quest marker icons should no longer have white lines appear around them at certain resolutions.
  • Fixed the issue where sometimes you would be stuck in a "cutscene" after a failed quest objective, making it so you couldn't move.
  • Screen panning should no longer cause a drift (getting out of alignment) after walking across a long map.

Please note: You will need to download a new launcher to experience this patch. The old launcher's download button does not work. Re-download it . Thank you!

March 2020 Funding Goal

We are half way to reaching our monthly funding goal.  As an added bonus for helping us reach this funding goal we will be super charging the battle creation and feature set. This will enable us to add more than just a basic prototype to the next Alpha patch, and allow us to add more battle features sooner, including more example skills and spells, item usage, and more time spent on spell effect and animations.

If we do not reach the funding goal then these extra features will be postponed for future patches. So if you are excited to see battle added, please consider helping us reach this goal. Your funding contributions help us keep going.

As a special thank you for your support in helping us fund the development of Aether Story, we will also be giving those who donate at least $10 this month a limited edition Golden Pupper, named Lucky!  This pet will never be made available in the future, so don't miss out.  Once this month is over, you will never be able to get it!

Donate now!

Please let me know what you think of the changes in this patch! At the very least drop a like on this blog post!

Join us in Discord to discuss Aether Story:  discord.gg/phanxgames