News

Levels

• Every level gained is now said on the line that earned it, picked out in colour
• Every tenth level in a skill is announced in the world chat
• The skills tab and every profile show total level, every skill added together
• The status bar says combat beside the number, since that is the level it shows

New characters

• A new character starts with two minor healing potions as well as the 100 coins

Deaths

• Every death is now counted, including a duel lost. Deaths before today were not
• A player's profile shows how many times they have died
• The leaderboards have a board for deaths
• When a boss kills somebody, the world chat says so. A death while still weakened by the last one is not announced

Travel

• Clicking a place on the map sets you travelling there. Each road takes 15 seconds
• While you travel, your route is drawn on the map and a marker walks along it
• You arrive when the walk is done. Until then you are still where you set out from
• Stop leaves you at the last place you passed
• Nothing can be started and no building can be used while you are on the road, including the one you just left
• Arena challenges lapse when you set out
• The notification when your queue runs dry says where you arrived

Contracts

• A contract pays 100% of what its kills paid, up from 50%
• A new contract on something near your level asks for 20 kills, up from 15
• If notifications are on, you are told when a contract is done. It can be turned off on the account page

Signing up

• After signing up, follow the link in the email to confirm your address, then sign in

Profiles and leaderboards

• A player's profile shows their levels rather than their experience
• The leaderboards and the kill counts on a profile are updated once an hour

Leaving

• The account page says what is kept after you leave and for how long

Auction house

• Your characters cannot buy each other's lots. Lots listed by your other characters no longer appear on the market
• The recent average price counts every item sold, so one item sold at an unusual price moves it less than a large lot
• The price filled in when you sell is never below what a vendor would pay

Mail

• A mailbox holds 200 letters. A letter to a full mailbox is refused until its owner throws some away
• One character can send another up to 10 letters a day

Characters

• An account can make up to 3 new characters a day
• A character can keep up to 10 loadouts

Signing in

• The account page has Sign out everywhere else, which signs out every other device and leaves this one signed in
• A device stays signed in until it has gone 30 days without being used, however long ago you signed in on it

Chat

• There is one chat room for everybody, wherever they are standing, in place of a room for each zone
• Each line shows the place it was said in, after the speaker's name
• The last 50 lines said anywhere are there when you arrive
• Your own line appears as soon as you press Say
• The list of who is here still shows who is in your zone, and now names it
• Muting works as before

News in chat

• Chat tells everybody when a player finds a ring or a necklace, kills a boss for the first time, reaches level 99 in a skill, or reaches 99 in every skill
• It also tells the result of every duel fought in the arena
• Muting a player hides the news about them too, including duels they fought

What happened

• The list of what happened keeps a week of your tasks. After more than a week away it starts empty, though everything those tasks earned is still yours

Notifications

• A game page left open on a computer no longer holds back your notifications once nobody has touched it for ten minutes
• When your queue runs out while you are away, the notice arrives two minutes later, and not at all if you have queued something since
• Letters, sales and challenges still arrive straight away

Queue

• Identical tasks queued one after another are shown as one line with a count, such as Fighting a goblin ×49. The count goes down as each one starts
• Each line has Remove one and Remove all. A single task still has Remove
• A finished task shows its result sooner once its countdown reaches zero

What happened

• When a queued task cannot start, such as a craft whose materials have run out, it is skipped along with the identical tasks directly behind it, and they appear as one line saying how many and why
• Only fights open to show their log. Everything else is a single line

Interface

• Pages in the world are quicker to draw, the bank most of all

Notifications

• The game can notify you when your queue runs out or you die, when a letter arrives, when something you listed sells, and when somebody challenges you in the arena
• Turn them on or off for each device from the Notifications section of your account page
• Choose which of the four you want in the same place. All four are ticked to begin with, and the choice covers every device
• Nothing is sent about the character you are playing while you have it on screen
• Letters and challenges from players you have muted are never announced
• On an iPhone or iPad, add Embershard to your Home Screen, open it from there, and turn them on in it
• Signing out stops notifications to that device until you sign in on it again

App

• Embershard can be installed as an app from Chrome or Edge, or added to the Home Screen on an iPhone or iPad
• A new icon, in the browser tab and wherever the game is installed
• A game left open in a background tab no longer redraws itself each time a task finishes, which saves battery. It catches up when you come back

Interface

• Here, Character and Travel look like tabs, and switching between them no longer makes the top of the page jump
• The dark buttons press in when clicked, and stay pressed until the game answers
• The chat is framed like the map, and headings have new dividers
• The page has a paper texture, the task, skill and health bars look cut into it, and corrupted places look mildewed
• Text boxes, checkboxes and scrollbars match the page
• A fight, loadout or challenge you opened stays open when a task finishes
• To save a loadout, press Save what I am wearing and give it a name. The box closes once saved
• Gear shows the level needed to wear it next to its stats

Reference

• Items in your bag, your bank and what you are wearing open their page in the reference, and so do monsters where you stand
• At the crafting stations, each recipe and its ingredients open their page in the reference, as do the ingredients at the enchanting bench

Map

• Every place on the map has its own mark: towns, camps, woods, fens, water, mountains, the volcano, gates, castles, fields, barrows, roads and burned ground
• Dungeons have their own marks for each room, and are drawn on darker ground
• A place with a way into a dungeon carries a dark seal with an arrow showing whether it leads down or up
• A few major places are drawn larger
• Corrupted ground is shaded grey on the map
• The whole map has a border, a compass rose and a title. Woods, fens, mountains and other open ground spread past their own point
• The public world map has a key to the marks
• Places no longer shift on the map when you arrive, or when a way down appears under them. Where you stand is shown by the orange ring
• The empty space under the whole map is gone

Travel

• Click any place on the map you can reach and you walk straight there, rather than one road at a time
• The way there can only pass through places your level lets you enter
• Dungeons are still entered from the place their door is on