News & Patch Notes

• Your emotes have bodies now. Type laugh, shiver, dizzy, jump, rage and friends and your character acts it out — bobbing, trembling, slumping, puffing up — and so does everyone around you, with reduced-motion honored. A second wave adds two dozen more, from stomp and guffaw to curtsy, flex and bigoof, while stare and flirt sway gently and float little hearts. There's a new lean as well, on its own or aimed at someone.
• A guide to the money. The Game menu now carries a Currency Guide explaining Gold, Crowns, Bonus Crowns, Loot Tokens, Boss Tears and Quest Points in a line or two each.
• Starting out. Creating a character now drops you straight into play instead of back at your character list. Finishing the tutorial hands you a chain of missions to follow instead of an empty journal, and the New Verden mission board sorts its notices by how well they fit your level. The starter weapon from your care package survives logging out now, and retires with a ceremonial line at level 8.
• New Verden says what it means. The town's under-street hatches, false-front cottages and killer doors describe what waits below or behind them — including when to bring a light — the Old Ruins junction signpost bands all eighteen destinations by danger, and the east-wall Goblin Path teleporter no longer yanks a level-1 graduate out of town.
• A death ray looks like a death ray. The grave lance is a dark violet shaft with an acid-green core and the classic bone-white skull at its head, so you can tell it from a lightning bolt at combat speed.
• Comfort. Inventory, ground, spell and bag rows scale their text and icons to your screen — larger on phones, tighter on desktop. On Android, the login card remembers you and offers Continue with Google in a single tap.
• Fixed: four sounds that had been silently missing play again, a music regression that had reverted the loudness pass and dropped 175 newer sounds is repaired, your paperdoll refreshes when worn gear is destroyed, stolen or dropped, a kept stack no longer loses its do-not-sell mark when it merges with an unkept one, and characters standing in a poison cloud stop wearing dark slabs.

Updated later the same day, after the balance council weighed in: the red-or-gold choice now applies to every piece, and the pouch is no longer part of the retirement at all — details in the bullets below.

• Two weeks' notice, straight from the Wizard. On August 23 the twelve classic Sokoban wizard pieces retire: they become trophies — yours to keep, display and appraise, but no longer wearable.
• You come out ahead. The Wizard of Sokoban himself sets up shop that day: soko convert turns an old piece into a bound voucher, and soko redeem trades a voucher for the matching red-tier piece in the class set of your choice — warrior, samurai or sorcerer — a full tier above what the old gear ever was. Converted pieces stay in your hands as trophies, marked with the Wizard's own stamp.
• No deadline, ever. Conversion never expires; retire your pieces whenever you're ready. Nothing is deleted and nothing converts without your say-so.
• Every piece redeems red or gold — your choice. The old pieces changed hands too many times over the years for anyone to argue about receipts, so the Wizard doesn't: every voucher redeems at your choice of red or gold tier, no questions asked. The top shelf is open to everyone.
• The pouch stays. It's a utility bag, not gear — it isn't retiring, it isn't converting, and the earlier plan to pay a crown credit for it is withdrawn. Your pouch keeps working exactly as it always has.

• The fountains run clear again. Public fountains across the realm — Minath, Alaria and beyond — had been running an unfortunate yellow since mid-July; the alchemists finally traced the contamination and the waters are blue once more. Players reported that one.
• Sound follows what makes it. A looping sound now re-aims as its source moves, so a growling monster circling you swells, fades and shifts from one ear to the other instead of staying frozen where you first heard it — and something that wanders into earshot after you arrive is audible now.
• Ball and cone spells find their weight. Each now carries a pause after casting scaled to how strong it is — none at all for the lightest, and a heavy spell's pause shortens as your skill grows — with missile speeds matched to the same scale. A poison cloud also drifts much further before it thins out.
• Fixed: pressing a button you haven't bound yet points you at button-bind <n> <command> instead of a command that doesn't exist, and the flying balloon names the exit beneath it the way walking does, without calling out route markers.

• Your summon takes orders. pet attack sends it at whatever you've targeted, pet attack <id> at a particular monster you can see, and pet passive stands it down — a player asked for a way to point a summon at something its own instincts would have walked past. An order that stops making sense, because the target died or left the map, simply lapses and normal behavior takes over.
• Health bars over your own summons. A creature you summoned carries a health bar the same way a monster you're fighting does, so you can see at a glance how your companion is holding up. Another player request; other summoners' pets still draw you nothing.
• Jump leaves the rest of you free. Casting Jump no longer parks your looking, talking, casting and pack for the length of the two-square hop — only your feet ride it out.
• Safer saves. A login on a server mid-rotation that would have quietly dropped gear that server didn't recognize is now turned away instead; try again a moment later and you land with everything intact. And a flaky lookup can no longer take away a living character's house.
• Fixed: reconnecting — a page refresh, or picking the game back up on a second device — keeps your guidance and Hall of Records listing toggles showing their real state.

• Travel there hands-free. The new travel command walks you along your tracked mission's route, stopping the moment you're hurt, move on your own, or type travel stop — and your journal's tracked mission gains a Travel action. Out on the continent the compass aims down a real trail now, instead of through the mountains.
• Open windows by name. window inventory on — or ground, spells, messages, chat, combat — so any window can sit on an alias or key you choose. A player asked for it.
• Comfort & control. An off-by-default Settings → Interface option lets a gamepad's bumpers walk the button bar and the left trigger press the highlighted slot. The damage flash gets an off switch and a threshold, so by default only a hit taking 5% of your max HP paints the red rim. Dragging gear in your web inventory drops it where you aimed again. And the Settings dialog keeps one size across its tabs.
• The Minath Monster Arena keeps score. Clear one of the built-in arenas and you get your results and the Town Crier's shout — a player reported that neither ever came.
• For new characters who type. The first missions name real commands — loot chest, sell all — instead of telling keyboard players to tap, the shop errand marks the store's door on your map, and the talking lesson lets you walk out instead of holding you there.
• Combat & spells. A weapon that procs a spell no longer breaks its own concentration on your next step, so the whirlphlosion axe's frost wave grows to full size — two players reported that one. A siren's lure drags you without locking you out of looking, casting or your pack. And fireballs stop chewing the garden doors inside Minath homes.
• World. The Crypt of Ernzof's doorway dwarf hands out the quest again, Kyalami's Memorial Tower no longer turns away characters above level 5, Sokoban's weapons hit harder across the set, and the Obsidian Precipice's boulders take a share of your health per hit and shatter into rubble.
• On a phone browser, shop floors name the item you step on, exits name the teleporter underfoot, and your mail opens the tappable mailbox — affordances the iOS app already had.
• Fixed: walls in fog draw as walls instead of dithered floor, a bare apply on a marked staircase no longer hits the mission marker, a bayonet still attached to your gun can be repaired at the anvil, the newbie-house quest stops pointing you at unreachable lava, auto-eat will lick an Everlasting Gobstopper when nothing else is left, and Friends Only Mode returns when a hardcore run ends.

• who names your guild. Your guild shows beside your level and race everywhere the player list appears — typed who, the #who dialog, guildwho, and the Who's Online page. A raid leader recruiting for boss runs asked for it.
• Know what your gun really does. appraise reports malfunction chance and reload speed as the wielder actually gets them — a parrot on your shoulder reads as the real 0, with the gun's own number in parentheses when the two differ.
• Health bars beyond monsters. A wall or gate you're attacking now carries a health bar while you damage it, so you can see how close it is to giving way.
• A bigger free stall. Your free bazaar stall is rebuilt roomier at 8x8 the next time you walk into it, with your goods and your own placements exactly where you left them.
• The auction-house concierge answers in numbered lines, one match each, and those numbers are the ones bazaar find <number> takes — a player sent in a screenshot of the old wall of text.
• Stay out of the index. Settings has a per-character toggle to keep that character off the public Hall of Records player list.
• Your commands list makes sense. Some sixty verbs that used to pile up under "Other" — enter, swim, learn, forget, equip, keep, the shop verbs, the greetings — are filed under the category they belong to, each with the description its own handler gives.
• Combat. A large character — an uncoiled naga with a wall at their flank, say — no longer loses the shot at launch; the arrow leaves the bow.
• Comfort & clarity. Flipping the command box in or out of the Messages window no longer takes the caret out of your sentence. Steering with the fire pad stops parking your other actions for a step. Builder Mode's archetype sheet keeps its title and close button clear of an Android status bar.
• Fixed: reloading after a long session reconnects you to the server you were actually on instead of timing out, your summoned pet comes along through a world rotation even when you're set down somewhere unexpected, a teleporter whose destination differs only in capitalization works again, an offering paid from your wallet costs what it asks rather than the coin stack you were carrying, and name sword of hover names the sword instead of vanishing.

• The Crypt of Ernzof. A new dungeon and quest out of Glacier Point: the Frost Dwarves went into exile after their war with Besar, and someone has to find out what became of King Ernzof and his court. Level 15 and up.
• See where your skill points went. The new trained command lists the points you've actually spent per skill and how many are left — a player asked for it, since skills folds every bonus into one total.
• Know your damage. Another player request: drink an enlightenment potion or type body and your derived offense bonuses are spelled out.
• Crowns, in two numbers instead of four. Your wallet now reads Crowns (unrestricted) and Bonus Crowns (spendable at most crown machines, not redeemable for gold or giftable). Players said four was overkill; nothing you own or can spend changed.
• Full moons. On a full-moon night, outdoor light lifts one step. Purely something to look at.
• Bazaar. bazaar mine pages ten listings at a time with bazaar more, the way bazaar search does, and a listing keeps its number across pages.
• Samhoc. The castle quest points you to the right throne room again, and the dungeon beneath the castle is reachable once more — Kris is standing there on purpose.
• Combat. A missile weapon now searches every quiver you carry, not just the first. Your target card drops the moment the target dies or you clear it, instead of lingering. And a hardcore run ended by a monster another player charmed is a setback, not a retirement.
• Fixed: a gift that fails mid-hand-off no longer leaves the item in two places, a failed bazaar purchase can't duplicate what you bought, an item that destroys itself as you drop it stops reappearing, a world rotation that catches you in a portable hole sets you down outside it rather than at your savepoint, spellbooks can no longer teach monster-only spells, and game audio stops when the server restarts under you.
• The manual's death-and-recovery page is honest now: the walk back to your gravestone doesn't reclaim the XP — a Resurrection spell or scroll cast on it, or the crowns rez machine, is what does.

• Size your health bars. A new slider in Settings → Combat scales the on-map health bars from 75% to 250% — both the floating monster bars and your own. Players asked for it after squinting at them in full bleed.
• Hotkeys for your windows. In full bleed, Alt+I, G, S, M, C and B open and close Inventory, Ground, Spells, Messages, Chat and Combat, so a window you closed with its x is one keystroke away instead of a trip through View → Windows. Another player request; each binding is listed in that menu.
• Run and gun. Tapping a direction on the fire pad now steers you while autofire keeps shooting, instead of refusing to move — a player reported that one. Aimed shots, like a map tap, still explain themselves rather than walking you somewhere.
• Combat & balance. A cannonball bills its direct target once, not twice. Fan-hammering a six-shooter before you've faced anywhere refuses up front and costs you no rounds. And a bare fire from a standing start takes the shot instead of asking which way.
• Hardcore runs end by a real hand. A kill landed by another player's summon, pet or charmed monster sets your run back, but no longer retires the character for good.
• Pets keep up. Your pet can follow you onto the Continent now without VIP, where summon travel used to leave it behind at the border.
• Dungeons. A level whose zones share a theme scatters its hazards once instead of twice — crypt floors were laying down double the coffins, and double the undead that come out of them.
• Fixed: a gift that aborts mid-hand-off lands at your feet instead of vanishing, new mail lights the badge with the message already in your mailbox, a mine cart that loses its map lets its rider go instead of wedging them, and a hiccup during a world rotation no longer paints an error banner.
• Under the hood: a burning creature's flames now move in step with the fire beneath it, a spell's flames stop lingering on screen after the spell is done, and a client that dialled its effects down for a slow stretch can climb back to full speed instead of staying there all session.

• Sailing gets its sea legs. A broadside that can't clear the muzzle now bursts and says why, instead of silently eating the round you paid for. A ship stays under way until the last passenger steps off, rather than mooring herself when the first one does. Tap-steering no longer locks you out of looking, casting or your pack for a step. A portable hole can't be opened below decks. And crew below decks ride a world rotation out aboard their hull, not sealed in an empty copy of it.
• Dying works properly again. A death restart is no longer turned away by the gates that seal a map, so you restart instead of standing where you fell with your gravestone down and the monsters still on you.
• Random dungeons play fair. A cavern's vault gets a real locked, trapped door like every other vault. A key on the critical path is never hidden behind a lock the level gave you no way through. Nothing hostile spawns inside a village palisade. Levels promised light stay lit. And a dungeon that follows you across a rotation stops rerolling its monsters stronger each time.
• Spells. Magic mouth hands your mana back when it stops to ask what to engrave, so a mouth costs one cast rather than two. Shadowstep's @target opener reaches five tiles now instead of demanding you stand next to your mark.
• Comfort & clarity. Dropping, throwing and picking up work right through the minutes before a rotation. A player reported wizard-only verbs like drain and migrate showing up in an ordinary commands list — they're gone. keep now protects your starter food from auto-eat. And a word like "hover" inside an emote, a letter or a chat line stops being swallowed.
• Fixed: an emptied pack and a cleared ground view update on screen, a moving light no longer blinks a waypoint's glow off, and a refused hand-off during a rotation says the server restarted instead of blaming another login.
• World touches: the priest is himself again instead of a year-round snowman (his Christmas coat still comes out in season), Zyxxryth's crash sequence really does unlock the three doors it promises, and Ramtusk's second spooky painting is no longer a blank frame.
• Under the hood: fewer redraws when lights move, when you walk, and during big fireballs.

• Selling and giving work right up to a rotation. Shops take your loot and pay refunds, and handing an item to another player goes through, in the minutes before the world rotates.
• Spells stop charging you twice. Eighteen more spells — bless, repair, charging, the blade spells, charm and paralyze among them — hand back the reagent, food and mana when a mistyped target opens the chooser instead, so picking from the list costs one cast, not two.
• A mouse sweep is not a purchase. Hovering an item row no longer reaches the machine underneath it: vending machines, upgraders and the resurrection machine stay quiet until you actually click.
• Vaults are vaults again. A random dungeon's locked room now materializes with a real door — locked, sometimes trapped — instead of a gap in the wall, and its guardian stands inside the room rather than on top of the treasure.
• Boulder blast, bat blast and arrow volley look like themselves again instead of tinted flame, and each cell of the blast animates on its own beat rather than pulsing in lockstep.
• Combat & balance. A pirate's parrot now actually lowers your gun's misfire chance, the way it always advertised. Henteko Forest generates at the difficulty it was meant to have. Sword sounds thin out during a long grind, while a fresh fight's opening blow always lands loud.
• Comfort & clarity. Setting the over-the-map combat feed to off or combat-only is honored in every layout now — a player reported that one. With the Messages window closed in full-bleed, a small pill brings the log back. skills files guild penalties under Guild skills instead of Natural, from another player report. And your button bar keeps your own icons when you've cleared its commands.
• Fixed: a refused sign-in says so instead of blaming your player file, the tip refusal names your Gifted wallet, your item list can no longer arrive after the updates that index into it, and the door into SirPam's sidescroller area no longer turns you away.
• Under the hood: less redrawing per spell tick and per monster retarget, and crisper flat artwork on standard displays.