The road out of Mileth
Mileth has been the whole world for a while. This opens the gate. Walk east past the village and the map of Temuair unfolds, with roads to a dozen places beyond the starter town. Your gear has to fit you now, the crypt runs far deeper, and a new master sets up to teach the elements.
Walk east, and the world opens
Until now Mileth was an island. The square, the shops, the crypt, and that was the edge of everything. Head east out of town onto Mileth Village Way, follow the road to its far edge, and the map of Temuair opens in front of you. Click a place and you travel there:
- Abel
- the Western and Eastern Woodlands
- Pravat Cave
- Piet
- the Kasmanium Mines
- Loures and the Loures Harbor
- Rionnag
- and Mileth itself, whenever you want to come back
Every destination has a portal on its edge to bring you home, so nowhere is a one-way trap.
One word of caution. Travel works, but most of these places are still rough. The roads reach them; the towns are next, so expect plenty of empty rooms and unfinished corners when you step off the map. Getting there is the new part.
Gear that has to fit you
We have named this missing in nearly every update, and it is done. Up to now a brand new character could strap on anything in the game, endgame armor and weapons included, dug out of a chest or handed over by a friend. Over now.
Every piece carries a level and, past the basic peasant set, a class. Try to wear something you have not grown into and the game tells you so, it "does not seem to fit you, but you could grow into it." A Wizard's robe will not go on a Warrior, and a sword meant for level fifty stays in your pack until you are level fifty. The starter gear stays usable from level one.
| Item | You need |
|---|---|
| Stick | level 1 |
| Dirk | level 2 |
| Claidheamh | level 14 |
| Oak Staff | level 19, Wizard only |
| Long Sword | level 56 |
The engine already knew how to enforce this; the gear just had no requirements attached. We pulled the real numbers in for every piece and covered the gate with tests, so it holds.
Deeper into the crypt
Last time we rebuilt the top of the Mileth Crypt, floors one through eight. Now the work runs all the way down to floor thirty.
The deep crypt has a proper cast, each creature on the floors it belongs to, at a sensible early-to-mid power, hunting and fighting back, the magical ones throwing a bolt of darkness.
| Floor range | Joins the dungeon |
|---|---|
| 9 to 18 | the Chest, a mimic that looks like treasure until it bites |
| 11 to 22 | the White Bat |
| 15 to 26 | the Kardi |
| 19 to 30 | the Marauder |
| 23 to 30 | the Succubus |
| 27 to 30 | the Wraith |
We went back over the entry floors too. The Centipede on the first two floors no longer hunts a fresh arrival on sight; like the mice and spiders beside it, it only fights back once you strike. And the treasure Chest does what a chest should now, spilling a fat pile of gold when you crack it, instead of the oddments it was wrongly dropping.
A master of the dark arts
Dar, the wizard in his hut just off the Mileth square, used to hand out a single errand. Now he does what his sign says. His hut reads "Mileth Black Magic Master," and he teaches.
A Wizard can walk in and learn the elements, fire, water, wind, and earth, in their lesser and base forms. A Priest can learn a first curse, Beag Cradh. Dar still sells a blank Parchment Scroll, still buys the reagents you carry up, and still runs his errand for anyone who wants it.
Smaller touches
A handful of quieter fixes rode along.
Every item shows a plain, factual line when you examine it now, what it is, its damage or stats, and the level or class it asks for. Before, all but a couple dozen showed a blank panel.
The sixteen Wizard elemental spells each play their own cast sound. A Mor Srad no longer sounds exactly like a Beag Srad, and fire no longer sounds like earth.
We went over every skill and spell against our records and set a few right, the Priest's Cradh and Mor Cradh curses bite at their proper strength, the Rogue's Hide and Needle Trap cost what they should to learn, and a couple of wrong icons and a stray cooldown got corrected.
Finishing the tutorial hands out the right reward now, a Dirk, a Small Emerald Ring, a Small Spinel Ring, a thousand coins, and five thousand experience. The Dirk also stopped quietly draining fifty of your maximum mana, a leftover penalty that was crippling a new caster's tiny pool the moment they picked up their first real weapon.
And the road out of town lost a guard who had no business on it, so Mileth Village Way is the quiet stretch it ought to be.