V0.9.0 : Multiplayer Battles Are Here!

Gladiators! I'm thrilled to launch V0.9.0 at long last, featuring multiplayer battles!

This has been a long time coming, and was of course promised when the game launched in Early Access. The S&S series has not had proper multiplayer since Swords and Sandals III Multiplae Ultratus back in 2007 ( which sadly didn't last long when the servers crashed, never to recover.)

So what you see here today is at last fully working multiplayer against actual real life people. I'm really fascinated to see what happens with this, what tactics will become popular, what classes will need re-balancing, who the greatest gladiators will be and so on.

With multiplayer now live, the game is now feature complete. I'm going to monitor multiplayer over the next week or two, do some bugfixes and balancing and then I will launch the game into 1.0 Full Release.

A few notes for you:

• ELO Rankings ( kind of based on chess rankings ) are coming in a few days, so until then the leaderboards are still just based on Power Score rather than actual wins/losses/skill levels of players.
• There's a chat panel in each realm room but if I see this being used to abuse players or for too much mischief, I'll have to turn it off - so I'm trusting you guys to be responsible and kind to each other.
• Multiplayer is a 'bonus' mode for the game, not a full on massive experience, so it is a little bare-bones. If I find all of a sudden there's 10000 players playing, I'll throw lots more at it to add new features and so on - right now I'm kind of at capacity and the game's scope is complete, so at this point 'it is what it is', but it is for the most part a fully playable experience!
• If the servers go down, I'll monitor them and add more bandwidth - right now the setting is pretty low.
• You have to create a new "multiplayer" gladiator to fight in the multiplayer battles, you cannot take a single player campaign gladiator in for balance reasons.
• Try not to cheat with cheating tools - I don't have sophisticated anti-cheat stuff in there but there's a few checks and if you cheat, your gladiator won't be able to keep fighting multiplayer battles. Besides, where's the honour in beating someone just because you falsely bumped up your stats?

Cheers gladiators, I really hope you enjoy this update and perhaps I'll see you in the arena!

Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios

V 0.9.0.A Patch Notes

--- NEW FEATURES ---

• Multiplayer now arrives in Swords and Sandals Immortals! This is still a work in progress and you may encounter some issues. I will look to improve the experience based on feedback where I can.
• Please bear in mind, Multiplayer is a bonus game mode and not designed a sophisticated experience, that is to say this is no League of Legends, there are no guilds, matchmaking etc.
• It's kind of 'bare bones' just because I don't have the resources to work too much longer on it. If it becomes hugely popular I'll be able to pour more into it.
• The ELO Ranking (based on chess) is coming this week, and will rank gladiators based on games won/lost and quality of foes.

--- BALANCE CHANGES / STAT FIXES ---

• Reduced the amount of XP won per battle after character level 5 (on a sliding scale - as you level up you need to win 3 or 4 fights to level up instead of just 2.)
• Increased value of defence stat from 0.75 % hit chance per point to 1.0

--- BATTLE CHANGES / FIXES ---

• Fixed a bug where Clamp XOR's flamethrower particles did not always go in the correct direction
• Enemies will no longer yield to you in tag team battles
• Your character name panel is now highlighted in yellow when it is your turn

--- SHOP FIXES CHANGES ---

• Shops will now restock every 2 days ( down from 3 days )
• Shops now remember if you use the grid view or the wide item view

--- MISC FIXES AND CHANGES ---

• Fixed an issue where text looked jagged on some monitors in full screen mode
• Added camera tracking to the overworld map when the gladiator is moving ( the camera will properly follow them without the need to double click to return focus to them )
• Added Klergish Xorg voice set ( thank you to user Xorgius )
• Potential fixes for some achievements not firing
• Changed Defensive Stand and Furious Anger achievements to 5 hits/misses (down from 10)