What works, what doesn't

We are building a big game one piece at a time, and this page is the running list of where it stands. It moves as we do, so look in again now and then.

The rule we hold to is simple. A thing counts as working only when it behaves the way it should in a real, finished game. If it is half built, or close but not quite right, it sits under being worked on or not yet rather than getting quietly faked.

Working now

• Logging in, making a character, and walking the world
• Fighting monsters, taking their loot, and climbing levels, with a chime to mark each level you gain
• Your weapon's own damage feeds into every melee swing now, so a stick and a long sword no longer hit alike and a better blade is worth carrying
• Gear that has to fit you. Every piece of equipment is gated by level and, past the basic peasant set, by class. A fresh character can no longer strap on endgame armor, and a Wizard's robe will not go on a Warrior. The starter Stick, Dirk, and attire stay usable from level one
• A clear info panel on every item. Examine anything in a shop or your pack and you see a plain line telling you what it is, its damage or stats, and the level or class it asks for, where most items used to show nothing at all
• Two small abilities every Aisling carries from the first step: Look, which reads the tile in front of you (the name of the place, the gear another Aisling is wearing, or the item on the ground), and Nis, which tells you the hour and the date
• Walking into the buildings. Step into a shop or house doorway and you go inside, where before most town entrances were shut to anyone on foot
• Mileth's shops, which buy and sell with the right keepers behind the counters, each stocking exactly the goods it should. The armorer Torrance now carries his full set, necklaces and rings included, with their numbers squared away. Prices are sorted too: the wildly inflated tags a lot of gear was wearing have come down to sensible numbers, and the same price holds wherever an item is sold
• Selling your finds. Cian the alchemist pays real coin for the spoiled food and oddments you drag up from the crypt, where that junk used to be worth nothing, and the dark wizard Dar buys his reagents too, so clearing the crypt is your earliest steady income
• Eating and drinking. Food restores a little health, the orange, purple, and red healing potions mend a chunk or fill you outright, and there is a small mana draught now too, the Beag Spiorad Deum off Cian's shelf, the first thing that tops up your blue bar from a bottle. Strong drink and spoiled food bite the other way, draining health when you swallow them, though never enough to kill you
• The Mileth bank, where Cassidy keeps both your gold and your items in a vault of your own with no limit, the Merchant Board up on the wall beside her. Abel has its storehouse too; Rucesion has none, so an Aisling there banks back at Mileth or Abel
• Choosing your path (Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Priest, Monk) once you reach level five, with Aoife at the Hall of Advancement just outside Mileth. A new Warrior, Rogue, or Monk gets a starter weapon to match; a Wizard or Priest takes coin and a class book instead and begins barehanded
• The Mileth Inn, the first town room we can call finished. Riona the innkeeper greets you for a little experience, records your birth onto your legend, and sells you the Tutorial Book, which now opens and reads as a short beginner's guide
• Dying. Fall in battle and you take the chill of Sgrios, lose a little experience, and revive at the Mileth temple at full health, rather than being stuck as a ghost with no way out
• Your first quests: Gerard's floppy hunt in the tutorial garden, Cian's "A Little Bit of That" and Callough's "Spare a Stick" in Mileth (the last has you walk the ground to gather branches), the lonely brute Throttler out in the western woods who sends you to find him a wife by speaking aloud in Mileth, and a few of the masters who reward you for hearing their lectures
• Clickable signs across the towns and roads. Signposts and notice boards give a useful note when you click them now, naming the place they stand beside and what you will find there. (We first tried pointing you with compass directions and it backfired, a placard three steps from the inn telling you the inn was north had people wandering off north, so each sign just names what is next to it.) Wired through the tutorial path, the roads into town, the churches and shrines, the village squares, the civic halls, the college's reading rooms, and the woodland crossroads; the rest of the world's signs come as we reach those places
• Reading and posting on the message boards that are up. Every grey community board around Mileth, Abel, and now Rucesion is its own board you can read and pin your own posts to, from the town squares to the bank, the civic halls, and the roads between them. The rest of the world's boards come with their towns

Being worked on

• Rucesion, the third town. Reached by walking the Western Woodlands road to its far end and crossing the bridge into town, with a dock at the south of the square that opens the map of Temuair so you can sail home. It is not laid out like Mileth: it is an open-air market, a wide plaza with the shops set around the edge, each its own little building you step into. We cleared the seven made-up guards and townsfolk who were loitering in the square, opened the shop doors that were painted shut, and gave Braz's jewel room the door it never had. The keepers are all in and trading: Marcelo the bladesmith, Carlos at the armor shop (whose element charms now do something, below), Huberto the tailor, Antonio in the storehouse, Braz the jeweller with his rings and the great two-handed Claidhmore, Baltasar selling lockpicks, and Maria at the inn with her Spring Bouquet. The church is the Temple of Luathas, the god of wisdom, with Ereno tending it and Gabriela keeping a smaller shrine to him up the north road. The civic quarter east of the road has its clerk Eduardo in the Town Hall and the Bailiff Ramiro in the Justice Hall, and the boards in both are writable. Still to come: a small set of wares (the gem family) that waits on systems we have not built, joining the Luathas fellowship, the town's politics and trials, and the dark Chadul realm off the town, where Jonathan stands at the threshold but which you cannot yet reach.
• Element charms. Carlos's armor shop in Rucesion sells the five element charms, four necklaces and a belt, and they change how you fight. Wear an element necklace and your blows carry that element, hitting an ordinary monster about four times harder than a bare swing; wear the defense belt and blows of its element coming at you land softer. It runs on a wheel: fire beats wind, water beats fire, earth beats water, wind beats earth, so the charm that quadruples your damage against a plain creature can fall flat against the one that counters it. This was never really a missing system, the wheel was wired into our combat math all along; it just had nothing you could put on to use it. Built and behaving on our side. Still to come: the feel of it in the live client, the woodland gear meant to drop with an element on it, and the combined element-and-stat pieces that wait on the gem system.
• Day and night. The world keeps the hour now. Almost every outdoor map, the town squares, the roads, the fields and forests, the deserts and beaches, the open seas and the fairgrounds, brightens through the morning and darkens at night along with the in-game clock, where before only Mileth and a few of its roads dimmed and everywhere else sat at permanent noon. Indoors is left out of it on purpose, so shops, houses, inns, caves, and dungeons keep their own light and the crypt stays as black as ever. Better than three hundred maps gained a time of day. The lighting is wired and confirmed on our side; what is left is to stand in the live game at dusk and watch it fall, and the great mass of unnamed filler maps are kept bright until we name and place them.
• Fishing. A new way to spend an afternoon, down at Abel. Buy a Fishing Rod and Fishing Bait from Kamel at the Abel Fish Market, equip the rod, keep the bait in your pack, and walk out to the Abel Coast, where there are fish moving in the shallows. Click one to reel it in: mostly a Fresh Cod that mends a quarter of your health, sometimes a risky Fresh Blowfish, rarely a Mushroom Cap, and now and then a fish that makes off with your bait or an old boot. Built and behaving on our side. Still to come: the feel of it in the live client, the way the rod sits on your character, fishing off the other coasts, and the island-fishing event the rod's twin is meant for.
• Travel between regions. Mileth is no longer an island. Walk east out of town to the far edge of Mileth Village Way and the map of Temuair opens; click a place and you go there, with roads to Abel, the Western and Eastern Woodlands, Pravat Cave, Piet, the Kasmanium Mines, Loures and the Loures Harbor, and Rionnag. Every destination has a portal home, so nothing is a one-way trap. The woodlands and the mouth of the mines are filling in (below), and the woodland roads now run all the way through, the eastern one deep into the trees and the western one out to Rucesion. The towns the other roads reach are mostly empty for now and get built out later, and we have not yet watched the map itself draw on screen in the live game, only confirmed that the travel under it works. The other regional maps (the seas and the hidden valley) are still to wire in.
• The Eastern Woods. The first great hunting ground past the Mileth Crypt, reached by taking the Eastern Woodlands road off the map of Temuair. You land at a crossroads, a safe spot with a lone beggar and gate signs that name where each path leads, and a long string of hunting circles spreads out behind it, running from about level nine at the edge out to seventy-six in the farthest. Mantises, wolves and bees in the early circles, then kobolds, then goblins, then a run of all-goblin circles, and deeper still the hobgoblins, the Shriekers (walking mushrooms, not goblins at all), and the fey, the quick little Wisps and the Faeries. The two corners the crossroads gates used to point at with nothing behind them are filled in now: the Enchanted Garden and the gentler low-level Wasteland have their mantises, vipers and wasps, and the garden also holds the Glioca Horse, a pale steed sacred to the goddess of compassion that you cannot kill and that will not chase you, there only to be a horse. The quiet spots off the circles have their keepers and their character too: Coibhi the old druid tends the standing stones of the Druid Circle, Rowena listens to the sylvan song in a hidden glade, Baki is the one goblin in the wood who would rather talk than bite from his hut, and the Lover's Glade and Grasslands 18 are scenic clearings to wander. Every beast gives up its real parts, the pelts and eyes and skulls and bee products and a Faerie's Wing, and the deep wisps and faeries will now and then yield an Ard Ioc Deum, the strongest healing potion in the game. The circles read their proper names now too, "East Woodland 7-1" and the like. Still to come: the rarer items on these lists, the gem and god-touched gear families, wait on systems we have not built.
• The Western Woodlands. The second great hunting region, the western counterpart to the Eastern Woods, reached by taking the Western Woodlands road off the map of Temuair. Sixteen circles, and they all hold their right wildlife now. It is the high country: you arrive around level thirty among wolves, kobolds and goblins, then it is goblins for a long stretch, the Soldiers and the bigger Warriors and the heavy Guards, each circle a tier meaner than the last. Push deeper and the goblins give way to hobgoblins and the walking-mushroom Shriekers, and at the very end of the chain the fey turn up, Faeries and Wisps, in circles that run up near level a hundred and twenty, so the western woods carry a hunter well past where the east leaves off. Follow the chain to its far end and you cross a bridge into Rucesion, the third town (above). The loot keeps pace: skulls off the goblins and kobolds, the odd Goblin Helmet or Wooden Club, fur and locks off the wolves, and at the deep end a Faerie's Wing or a strong healing or mana draught, a Mor Ioc Deum or an Ard Ioc Deum. The circles read their proper names too, "West Woodland 8-1" and so on, where they used to wear a generic import muddle. And out in one of the deeper circles stands a lonely brute named Throttler, who will send you to Mileth to find him a wife: stand near one of the town's women and say "Throttler Wife" out loud, she presses his letter into your hand, and you carry it to him for a hundred thousand experience, the first quest in our world you finish by speaking. Still to come, same as the east: the gem and god-touched gear on these drop lists wait on systems we have not built.
• The Kasmanium Mines. The mouth of the mines, the high-level cave region off the map of Temuair, has its watchman now. Sennaan stands at the entrance and will tell you what waits below, a war raging in the deep warrens between the Draco and the Grimlok, and warn you that only the most seasoned Aislings have any business going further down. The threshold reads its right name and is a proper, peopled place. The mine floors below it are not built out yet, so for now the entrance is as far in as the region goes.
• Abel, the second town. The road to Abel and its town square are walkable, and the shop doors that used to be sealed all open now: the bank, tavern, inn, restaurant, armorer, goods store, weaponsmith, combat master's hall, magic shop, fish market, and the coast. The shops are finding their keepers and their wares. The armorer, Steinar, is fully stocked; the storehouse keeper, Lamont, trades two Priest hats and a fifty-million-coin gold bar where he used to stand in an empty room; the magic-shop keeper, Egil, buys your spare healing draughts; and Bodil, the combat master, teaches the new Warrior taunts and the Throw skill instead of waving you off elsewhere. The gear in the weapon, armor, and goods shops carries its right stats now too. And the fish market has its keeper at last: Kamel, who used to stand at an empty stall, sells the rod and bait for the new fishing out on the coast (above). The sea route south out of Abel still waits on a stretch of world map we have not built, so for now you leave the way you came.
• The tutorial. It is a real walkable opening now, not one crowded floor. You wake on the Path of Beginnings carrying the right starter kit in your pack, which you put on yourself: your green attire, a pair of boots, an apple, two slices of bread, and a stick. A guiding spirit meets you in a dialog and tells you what you are holding and where to go, instead of a line of text along the top that is easy to miss. The teachers live in their own houses off the Path, each reached through its door: Myles the wizard, Gerard the gardener, and an arms merchant, Tealor, who sells your first weapon and shield at sensible prices. A harmless creature called Kardi wanders the Path to practice on. When you are ready you walk East off the edge of the map, the spirit asks if you are sure since the road runs one way, and you awaken upstairs in the Mileth Inn beside Riona, with a Dirk, two small rings, a thousand coins, and five thousand experience for finishing. Leaving is reliable now whatever you do at that prompt: walk straight out, turn the spirit down and come to it later, or close the prompt outright. An earlier version could leave you stuck on the edge with no way to make the question return. Still to come: moving the teachers into proper interior rooms and a full walk-through of the whole opening in the live game.
• Mileth. The shops, bank, trainer, inn, and class choice all work, and the town keeps filling in with the people who belong in it. The Shrine of Glioca off the east road can be entered at last, with Meaveen its keeper to tell you of the goddess of compassion; the Mileth College and its five reading halls (Library, History, Literature, Philosophy, Lore) hold their scholar-keepers, with real book titles on every shelf-sign; and the Town Hall and Justice Hall have their clerk, Aliran, and the Bailiff, Connlaoi. They join Daithi the special-skill master selling lockpicks, Colm the courier at the post office, the restaurant and tavern with their cooks and barmaid and storyteller, Naomhan tending the church, Dar the Black Magic Master in his hut, the masters Devlin and Keallach in their halls, and Gregory beside Aoife out at the Hall of Advancement. We also went over the town's warps after a walk-through and fixed two that read as glitches: the College's lecture-hall doors used to spit you out inside a wall, and a stray warp in the village center flung you sideways across open ground for nothing. Both behave now. Still to come: the rest of the town's quest chains, a small set of shop goods (the gem family) we have not built yet, and the wider business of the shrine and the halls (see below).
• The Mileth Altar. The altar in the southwest of the Mileth square works now. Stand near it and throw a gift worth more than 500 coins onto the stone; it vanishes in a chime, and you can do this once every three hours. After ten offerings the Gods reward you, a ring and a heap of experience and a mark in your legend, more generously if you are a Priest. Unlike the old way, the altar only takes a gift that counts: a too-cheap or too-soon offering is left on the ground with a word of explanation rather than swallowed for nothing. Built and behaving on our side; we have not yet stood at the live altar and made an offering ourselves. The altar's other rites (the wish coin and weddings) are not built.
• Skills and spells. Every one of the five paths has an opening kit to train at the Mileth trainer: the Warrior's melee line, the Rogue's dagger work plus Hide and Needle Trap and the early thrown opener Throw Surigum, the Monk's Kick line, the Wizard's four elements across the lesser-to-astounding ladder, and the Priest's prayers of healing and curse-breaking, plus the poison line, where a Priest lays Beag Puinsein and Puinsein on a foe and a Monk learns Ao Puinsein to purge it. The Warrior also has a way to grab a monster's attention: Taunt (learned at the Mileth trainer), and Spit and Insult (learned from Bodil over in Abel), each landing a small hit and wrenching the monster's aim onto you, off whoever it was chewing on. The abilities unlock at their proper levels, with the right stat behind each element. That is still a small slice of the hundreds the game holds, and most trees, tiers, and the proper class guild trainers are still ahead. Riona can also teach a Peasant to swim, though there is no water event in the world to use it on yet.
• The Mileth Crypt. All thirty floors carry the right cast, where before only the top eight did. Timid mice and spiders sit up top, centipedes that fight back once struck, then bats, scorpions, and great bats as you descend; deeper still come the Chest (a mimic), the White Bat, the Kardi, the Marauder, the Succubus, and the Wraith, each on the floors it belongs to. Three of them have their signature tricks: a Scorpion's sting paralyzes you, the Chest lulls you to sleep, and the Kardi freezes you stiff, locking you out of moving or casting for a few seconds while it gets free hits. The bats and the deeper casters throw a bolt of darkness. We also rebuilt the crypt's tangled staircases against its real layout: stairs that led to the wrong floor or to nothing at all now go where they should, so where only a fraction of the dungeon could be reached from the entrance before, nearly all of it connects now (sixty-six of its seventy-three floors and rooms). The seven that stay sealed have no doorway we can source and are most likely secret or unused. Both of the entry vestibule's staircases work, and the second one now opens onto the Mileth Sgath Pit, the criminals' pit: its keeper Kieran stands at the entrance, and two Shadow Hungers loom in a cell behind a wall you cannot cross, look but not touch. Still to come: the Succubus's charm and the Wraith's bewitching, a finer look at the loot, the crypt's bosses and quest lines, and the law-and-sentence machinery that would actually throw a criminal into the Pit.
• Combat. Low-level fights miss now, on both sides. At equal level with no gear, roughly one swing in four simply whiffs, for you and the monster alike, and your aim improves as you out-level your foe and stack up your Hit with rings and gear. A miss flashes a red "Miss" over the target so the whiff actually shows. The exact chances are ours and still being tuned by feel. Magic Resistance also earns its keep now, cutting the damage of spells thrown at you, and the element of your gear now feeds into the damage too (above). What is left: the flat damage bonus printed on armour and trinkets is not counted yet, and some of the imported gear carries wild stat numbers we want to sanity-check before they go live.
• The fuller death system. The basics work. A friend reviving you on the spot with a Red Potion, the visible ghost and skull, and a death pile of dropped items are still to come.
• Monster stats and behavior. Tuned toward a measured feel rather than the inflated source numbers, but not yet matched creature by creature. Some monsters now cast, a blow can miss a well-armoured target, and a few crypt creatures can paralyze, sleep, or freeze you. The woodland beasts each know whether to hunt you on sight or only swing back when struck. Fear, flight, and the charm and bewitch tricks are still missing.
• Groups, mail, and the interface. Handled and working on the server, and the mail now has its in-world face in Colm the Mileth courier. What is left is the live two-player, in-client test that only a pair of clients can give us, and sending parcels of items and gold between players.
• Consumables. Food, the healing potions, the new mana draught, and the harmful drink and spoiled food all do their job. The cures and buff brews, along with a few spoiled things we have no grounded numbers for yet, are still inert and on the list.

Not yet

• Most quests, from the rest of the Mileth chains to the long roads later on
• The further towns past Mileth, Abel, and Rucesion, which the roads can reach but which are mostly empty until we build them out, and the deeper dungeons and mine floors beyond what is hunted today
• Lock-picking, the locked chests and the rogue tools that open them, so a set of lockpicks is for now a tool waiting for its job
• Crafting, the wider mining and gathering, guilds, reputation, and nation citizenship
• Religion and worship: joining a god's fellowship, the prayer necklace and spell, the clergy ranks. Meaveen can tell you of the Glioca Fellowship and Ereno and Gabriela of Luathas, but you cannot yet join either
• Town government and its justice: the elected Demagogue, the votes, the laws, the trials, and the Sgath Pit sentence that throws the worst criminals to the Shadow Hungers. The civic halls in Mileth and Rucesion have their faces and the Pit is a room you can visit, but the system behind them is not built
• The rest of the Altar of Mileth's rites: the wish coin and weddings (laying an offering for a reward works now, above)
• The gem family of wares (the cut and uncut stones the jewellers and gem traders deal in) and the gear that combines an element with a stat bonus, both waiting on the crafting and gem systems
• The rest of the world's message boards
• The dark Chadul realm off Rucesion and the other endgame zones, and seasonal events
• Daily draws, chests, and the other old extras, which we mean to give to everyone with no paywall

How to read this

Think of the whole game as a checklist that runs from your first step in the tutorial to the deepest endgame. We are walking it in order, turning "not yet" into "working" as we go. When something is rough, it is on the list, and we will get to it.

Found something broken that is marked working here? Tell us. That is exactly the kind of thing we want to know.

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