Path of Idle Immortals Playtest · published · build 25279460
Every newly created character started with an empty NPC roster — the seeder ran before city data finished loading (which only completed ~42 seconds after boot) and silently skipped. Exploration encounters therefore only ever said "you met a mysterious stranger" with nothing to interact with, and city panels showed no residents. Fixes: character creation now waits for city data; the admin/city file loads run in parallel (city data ready tens of seconds sooner); and old saves with an empty roster are automatically re-seeded on load — no action needed.
The NPC encounter window used to be an AI-chat interface — players without a configured AI model (most players) were greeted with a disabled input and nothing else. It now runs the built-in script dialogues: proper greeting, meaningful choices, and requirement checks (realm, level, spirit stones, items, reputation). AI chat still works if you have it configured — the script mode is the fallback that guarantees everyone can talk.
Thirteen written dialogue sets — wandering merchant, sect supplier, mystery dealer, herbalist, blacksmith, passersby, elders, innkeepers, storytellers, fortune tellers, gate guards, teleport mages, and a mysterious beggar — are now distributed across NPCs by stable assignment. Meet enough cultivators and you'll find each one has their own story.
Charity rations, a beggar's token, a mystery jade pendant, a millennium lingzhi, the Scripture of Forgetfulness, an explorer's map fragment and an Alchemy Primer — all with unique line-art icons (tome, map, token...) and names in all three languages. A guard test now ensures no dialogue ever references an unregistered item again.
No save-format changes this release. Old saves load as-is; empty-NPC saves self-heal on load.