Hey Outlanders! We've been hard at work decreasing friction, increasing immersion, and building off the feedback given to us by you all!
With that, we're happy to announce that the road to the city has changed!
Version 1.3.6 introduces an entirely new tutorial, major interface improvements, smoother navigation, revised learning activities, and a substantial collection of fixes across the world of Mage Duel.
New players can now begin their journey with a guided quest through the city outskirts. Returning players will find redesigned panels, improved language presentation, more natural navigation, refined audio and environments, and fewer rocks pretending not to be solid.
There is quite a lot here. Let us begin.
The Outskirts
A new introductory tutorial has been added.
- Learn how to play Mage Duel by completing a short questline through the city outskirts.
- Meet a welcoming new cast of characters:
- A friendly merchant.
- A clever scholar.
- A strange old man in the bushes?
Follow the path from the portal to the city while exploring the environment, smelling the flowers, and watching the trees sway.Why does it vaguely smell like coffee out here?The tutorial can be skipped by following the path into the city.We recommend staying, but we are not your supervisor.Added floating notifications introducing the controls.WASD movement, mouse camera controls, and TAB pathfinding are now explained.Added dedicated three-dimensional interface elements for the Thread Collection tutorial quest.Flat instructions were no longer sufficiently dimensional.Updated the Arabic tutorial characters so their English text is easier to read.Clarity has successfully entered the chat.Ensured that the tutorial sparkle trail appears correctly and follows the terrain.The sparkles have been reminded that the ground is, shockingly, solid.Improved various camera angles, terrain materials, character placements, and environmental details.The outskirts have received the traditional combination of landscaping and quiet judgment.Added and corrected missing collision boundaries on walls, stones, cliffs, and other scenery.The environment has resumed behaving like matter.Encounter Interface
Language Presentation
- Added separate presentation modes for left-to-right and right-to-left languages.
- Who would have thought trying to make them work together would be a difficult process?
Left-to-right responses now appear in a selectable, read-only text surface.Text can be inspected and selected without activating the input interface.Font sizing is now consistent.The NPC response area can now be scrolled for easier reading.You can inspect the text without the interface becoming emotionally attached to it.Right-to-left responses retain their existing formatted presentation and Copy All support.Normalized the speed at which incoming characters are revealed.Normalized the completion speed of the character-reveal animation.The text and its animation have agreed to finish at approximately the same time.Added a burn-in animation to incoming messages.If words are going to appear dramatically, they may as well commit.Encounter Controls and Information
- Made Report Agent Message available at all times.
- If the agents get a bit wonky, this provides a one-click way to let us know.
Removed the Mood display while the system is being reworked.For now, everyone is feeling “under construction.”Fixed an issue where NPC information appeared while hovering over the Gorgeous Pedantic Bird.The GPB has stopped leaking other people’s personal details.Fixed an issue where typed responses cleared immediately instead of waiting for the input field to unlock.Your words will now remain present long enough to be useful.Fixed an issue where the Travel To? panel could appear when first speaking to an NPC.Introductions should no longer immediately become transportation negotiations.Rethemed the post-encounter Travel To panel.Travel now matches the décor.Added sorting to the Travel To panel so quest destinations appear first.Important places have successfully moved to the front of the line.Fixed incorrect scaling boundaries on the Travel To panel.The panel should now fit inside the panel-shaped space provided for it.Floating Interface
Characters
- Combined Conversation History and Social Network into the new Characters panel.
- Two panels went in so one panel could come out.
Updated Conversation History to use pages instead of one enormous scrolling list.History remains extensive, but it now respects pagination.Removed the standalone Notepad panel.Your thoughts will need to find new management.Glossary and Lore
- Integrated the Glossary into the floating-panel system.
- Vocabulary now lives where the rest of the interface does.
Refactored the Lore interface to use a grid of icons instead of a scrolling list.Ancient knowledge has adopted modern spatial discipline.Added burn-in animations when lore is unlocked.Discovery should be at least a little ceremonial.Lore entries now open in a smaller, independent detail panel.The large panel has learned to delegate.The detail panel burns in the selected entry and can be closed separately.Even exposition now comes with its own exit strategy.Keybinds and Controls
- Removed the former N, H, and G shortcuts.
- Several letters have been relieved of duties they were no longer performing well.
Repurposed C to open the Characters panel.It stands for the thing it opens, which felt like a radical idea.Added Q as the shortcut for the Journal.One more key now leads directly to introspection, without requiring you to reach across the keyboard.Added a Controls section to the Settings menu showing all currently active keybinds.The controls can now explain themselves.Navigation and Autowalk
- Added spline-preferred NavMesh movement for player autowalking.
- Routes should now feel more natural and less like the shortest possible line through municipal property.
Added a setting to enable or disable post-encounter autowalking.Players who prefer to explore manually now have one fewer panel making decisions on their behalf.Added quick settings during character creation for:Romanized Dialogue.Autowalk.These options can now be settled before entering the world.Thread Collection
- Updated difficulty scaling.
- Earlier activities now focus more heavily on translation and word-in-context prompts.
- Gentler exercises have been moved closer to the beginning.
- Moved fill-in-the-blank activities into the later difficulty groups.
- The gentler exercises have moved closer to the beginning, where they were repeatedly asking to be placed.
Added a unique tooltip for each Thread Collection activity variant.The interface will now explain what it wants before evaluating what you did.Fixed an issue where the green correct-answer highlight could remain visible during the following question.Previous success will no longer follow you around demanding recognition.Fixed an issue where longer answers could overflow the summary panel.Large words are now being contained responsibly.Mage Duel Arena
- Added a burn-in animation to incoming prompts.
- Makes things a little more dramatic, no?
Added a chance to hear the audio associated with the sentence you are expected to translate.Multimodal for the win.Fixed an issue where the next round could begin while the summary panel was still visible.The game will now wait for you to finish reviewing before starting again.Swapped the positions of Return to Overworld and Play Again to match the Thread Collection interface.Button geography has been standardized.Overworld
- Moved the guard farther away from the Mage Duel Arena in the Mandarin world.
- He was standing a little too close to the action and making it difficult for players to join in.
Removed unnecessary collision boundaries above the Mandarin world’s small rope fences.The fences will continue being fences without extending invisibly into the sky.Adjusted the Gorgeous Pedantic Bird’s collision effects.Increased the cooldown.Reduced how often the effects occur.She was a bit loud, no?Updated various terrain and environmental materials.Several surfaces now sound and behave more like the surfaces they resemble.Adjusted several camera angles.The world has found its better side.Fixed missing or incorrect environmental collision boundaries.Rocks, walls, and cliffs have resumed enforcing their physical presence.Audio
- Fixed missing or broken footstep sound effects on multiple characters.
- Walking should once again sound like walking.
Added tutorial materials to the footstep audio profiles.Grass no longer sounds like stone.Corrected several additional footstep effects.A surprisingly large number of feet required administrative attention.Fixed footstep audio mixer routing.Your volume settings do matter. We promise.Settings and Presentation
- Fixed the lighting and fog in the main-menu scene.
- The beginning of your journey now has a more dramatic buildup without losing the menu in the weather.
Updated outdated tooltips shown during loading screens.The interface has stopped giving advice from the recent past.Additional Fixes
- Fixed a major issue where selecting Return to Main Menu could break the game.
- Returning to the main menu now returns you to the main menu. Crazy!
Fixed various wording, interface, animation, positioning, collision, and presentation issues throughout the game.A broad coalition of small problems has been politely dismantled.
The city outskirts are open. The sparkles know where the ground is. The main menu works.
Thank you to everyone who has played, reported issues, and shared feedback. Without you, this wouldn't be possible!