News & Patch Notes

• Racial emotes, aimed and listed. Vampire and pixie emotes now show up in the "Emote to" picker alongside the rakshasas', and vampire and rakshasa emotes now work when aimed at someone (snarl <name>).
• Berserk shows its cooldown. When your rage ends, the cooldown appears as its own chip, and the berserk click command grays out until it's ready again.
• Long bodies, better moves: a long naga's jump now plans its corner turns at cast time so the leap follows cleanly, and multi-tile ninjas can now Shadowstep behind their targets.
• Comfort & clarity: the Mail window now says when there are more messages than it's showing, your saved window layout can no longer be overwritten by an early save during login, the pet detail window opens clear of the pet card in both layouts, and the chat-mode setting highlights the mode actually in effect when your saved pick isn't offered.
• Gauges & gamepads: in full-bleed mode the gauge cluster now scales with the map instead of staying at one size, and the button-bar cursor goes away when your gamepad disconnects.
• Smoother spell effects and fog rendering, and arriving at your own home is quicker.
• Fixed: two dozen cave teleporters around Hammerfell work again, seven objects that had lost their artwork (the mages guild pillars and the elven blacksmith among them) look right again, the archery tutorial now points at Eye of the Dragon to match the guilds' quest swap, and save-character buttons show a proper pointer cursor.

The retirement announced below went live today — a week later than the August 23rd we promised, and we're sorry for the wait.

• Old Sokoban gear is now trophies. The classic blue Sokoban wizard pieces and the legacy Red and Gold Wizard's variants can no longer be worn — but they're yours to keep, appraise, trade, and show off at home.
• The Wizard of Sokoban has set up shop in the Tower of Sokoban in Alaria. soko convert turns an old piece into a bound voucher (the piece stays with you as the trophy); soko redeem trades a voucher for the matching piece of today's class sets — samurai, warrior, or sorcerer, your choice at redemption.
• You come out ahead. A classic blue piece pays a Red voucher; a legacy Red piece pays two Red vouchers; a legacy Gold piece pays a Gold and a Red. Redeemed gear is unbound.
• No deadline, no pressure. Convert whenever you like; each piece converts exactly once.
• Under level 30? Redeemed Red and Gold pieces wear at 30 — the farmable new blue class sets have you covered at 25 until you grow into them.
• The t-shirt converts to a robe-slot voucher (it has no class-set twin), and the pouch is not retiring — it stays an ordinary, wearable item.

• Mission journals spell it out. Thirty missions whose journals showed only a bare "Step 3/9" now describe every objective — which building, NPC or key a step wants, your place in the chain, and the exact command whenever one is required.
• Getting around: auto-travel now takes spiral stairs in the right direction instead of silently stopping, travel no longer falsely reports a refusal at certain teleporters, tapping an exit takes exactly the one you tapped, eleven mission waypoints that pointed into lava or walls now point at walkable ground, and twenty areas whose doorways and teleporters could refuse you at the threshold now place you properly inside.
• Combat & balance: the new Sokoban sorcerer set no longer drags down staff skill, the vampire's Sanguine Blast and Bolt now respect no-magic zones like every other spell (a refusal costs no blood or cooldown, and Blast's description now correctly says magic damage), recast resistance spells no longer lose track of one another, and the rakshasa tiger's spell points come back to their intended curve at next login.
• World: the moon now changes its face at the very midnight its phase turns, and the Challenger's Arena display cases have been restocked to match the real prize list — the ten top prizes are on show, and three retired scythes are gone.
• Fixed: Hammerfell City's general store loads again, the Sword of the Elements really can turn up on an angel's rare artifact roll, and a rare inventory glitch that could briefly show your pack out of step is gone.

• Friendly mermaids now return from shark form with their proper appearance.

• Auction House stalls: every stall now has an exit back to the Minath Auction House, even when its home showroom is closed or unavailable.

• Mission reward chips now include the complete quest reward, including both catalog and mission-side loot tokens.

• Demon Hordes' cave gruglord now stays at its intended strength instead of occasionally becoming an out-of-band elite.
• Rearrange every item in your pack. On Brave and other browsers, starting a drag deeper in a long inventory no longer shifts the list out from under the pointer, so items below the first few rows move where you drop them.
• Helmets carried by orcs are now called orcish helmets, so autobag rules can filter them separately.

• Vampires: two new sanguine abilities. Sanguine Blast rings you in spectral cold paid for in your own blood, and Sanguine Bolt is a draining lance that carries the stolen life back to you — both on the vampire skills menu.
• Nagas: your base form now has a venom bite that scales with your level, and shedding your skin now leaves you a keepsake skin to keep — by player request.
• Pets: your pet's status card now opens into its own movable window, pet attack <name> works by name on every client, an ordered pet that can't see or reach its target goes back to defending you instead of standing idle, and a pet collar no longer binds permanently to whoever handles it mid-hand-off.
• Mix your own sound: Settings now has seven per-channel volume sliders under Sound.
• Guilds: the Archers' and Pirates' entry quests have swapped — Pirates take on Pirate Island, Archers the Eye of the Dragon.
• Combat & balance: the Volcano's flying boulders no longer one-shot you, Blink's range now scales with the caster instead of a flat three squares, Rakshasa panthers shrug off unarmed-skill penalties, and the new Sokoban sorcerer set can wield whips.
• Pixies finally flit: four pixie emotes written in 2003 but never hooked up — flit, flutter, sprinkle and flap — now work; type pixie to list them.
• Missions: talk steps understand talk, ask and chat, reading a sign counts from the tile beside it, Ranged Skill Training's kill step now points at the archery targets, and a mission already in your journal no longer re-checks its accept requirements against you.
• Comfort & clarity: character creation remembers the look you picked for each race while you browse, logging in shows one themed loading screen instead of two silent spinners, dropping an item into an alphabetized pack now explains the A-Z ordering, and closing a door or chest says so — exactly once.
• Fixed: a refused quest gift names the NPC instead of "null", typed get <name> can pick up reachable items on neighboring tiles, pressure plates notice weight changes they used to miss, puzzle gates can no longer crush you endlessly or seal you into a dead-end alcove, auto-travel re-paths instead of stalling when a step doesn't move you, the enchanter says up front that starter crowns don't count, and a noisy item in someone's pack now sounds from wherever they are.

• Autodrink: type autodrink to keep your buff potions topped up — name the classes you want maintained (autodrink fire, autodrink resists, autodrink all) and whenever one of those effects wears off, the game drinks a matching potion from your pack to renew it. autodrink list shows every class; autodrink off stops it. It only drinks when the effect is actually gone and you have a potion on hand, and a class whose potion stops helping switches itself off.

• Sokoban's final prize deal: redeemed prizes now come out unbound — yours to trade — and old trophies convert to tiered vouchers: a blue becomes one red voucher, a legacy red two reds, a legacy gold a gold plus a red, each voucher redeeming at its own tier.
• Artifact hunting: six artifacts that could never drop anywhere now fall — rarely — from a fitting world boss, Bauhdyre's tiara finally drops for real, and the display copies of Hofud and other famous pieces can no longer be pocketed.
• Combat & balance: monster spellcasters hit players noticeably less hard, autofire picks its ammo by real expected damage instead of a name match, raid bosses now visibly charge the sword before a Justice strike (at the same rate for every race), and a monk's pet no longer counts as illegal armor — a rule now checked at login too.
• Missions: classic quest mode now goes quiet only for quest missions — tutorials and Bazaar deliveries keep their full guidance — the Ranged Skill Training mission points at the Master Archer's real location, and the casting-training signs now correctly say Lore is the only requirement.
• Comfort & clarity: bag popups float above the inventory window and remember where you put them, hover your character card's name to see your full title, first logins get a proper welcome instead of a bogus "last login" date, and bolt spells draw as one continuous beam instead of flickering cell by cell.
• Password doors and NPCs now understand you even when your racial accent garbles the password — say the word, get in.
• Fixed: doors set to stay closed actually stay closed, fear no longer follows you across a map change, the mages guild shop's free fur stack is priced, coiled nagas no longer misfire diagonal jumps, login rate-limits show one clear message instead of a confusing pair, travel no longer claims "path blocked" when the real reason is your vehicle, and race names in character creation stay inside their tiles.
• World: the Atlas of Wyvern has been rewritten to match today's one-continent world, the Conqueror Wurm finally has artwork of its own, wall sconces animate properly again, and instrument music is evenly balanced — the tavern harp no longer drowns out the room.