Hey everyone! The day has finally arrived and I couldn't be happier of what Of Blades & Tails has become over the past 3 years. It's been a wild and exciting journey. I'm grateful for everyone of you who helped with their feedback from the first demo back in 2021 and throughout the last year of Early Access! I'm not gonna lie, the last 6 months or so have been pretty intense. Working on an open-world RPG, managing community and trying not to wipe everyones progress with each major update is not an easy task, especially if you have a full time job and family :) It's so great to see that eventually everything worked out! Especially the fact that you could play the game from the early demo to 1.0 (over 2 years) with the same savegame and not losing all your progress along the way. That has always been an issue for me as a player when it comes to EA. Therefore I implemented a savegame migration strategy early on and it did the job quite well. There were 2 updates that required a reset of the players attributes/abilities, but everything else could be silently handled under the hood. Not least because of this it has been possible to receive a wide range of valuable feedback across the whole game and not just the first 10 hours or so, because players were forced to restart after each update. That being said, some of you sure wonder what future plans I have for Of Blades & Tails! The honest and probably not very satisfying answer to this is: It depends... ;) First of all I will definitely work on player feedback and fixing any major issues that might come up! Extra content post-launch will depend on how well the 1.0 release goes. So that's something I can only evaluate in the coming weeks. And because of the intense nature of things in the past months I would definitely like to slow it down a bit / take a little break / regain energy. So TL;DR I will get back to the topic of future content in a separate post. Some time in December seems appropriate! :) Now with all of this out of the way, [b]I wish you all a ton of fun with Of Blades & Tails 1.0![/b] I wish I could erase my knowledge of the game to be able to play it blind and make all the discoveries for the first time! It definitely is the kind of game I always wanted to play. So I hope you'll like it, too :) Last but not least, here is our fresh Release Trailer! [previewyoutube=lP1VSi4npuE;full][/previewyoutube] [hr][/hr] [h2]Feature Highlights during EA[/h2] A summary of all highlight features that have been added during Early Access, in chronological order. [list] [*] Stealth talent and gameplay [*] Achievements [*] Detailed in-game statistics [*] Treasure Hunting [*] Reworked health recovery and balancing [*] New region: The Haunted Forest (with a unique survival mechanic) [*] Engineering talent [*] Beastmastery talent (with abilities to temporarily tame creatures) [*] New region: Levendell and surroundings [*] Equipment modifications [*] Illusion Magic talent [*] Reworked unarmed combat [*] Random seeds that add more variety to each playthrough [*] New region: The Barrenland [*] A Combat Arena where players can compete in leaderboards [*] New "Challenge (Hard)" difficulty mode [/list] [hr][/hr] [h2]Changelog v1.0.0[/h2] [h3]Game World[/h3] [list] [*] The main quest "Over Hill and Dale" can now be completed. [*] The story quest "Of Haughty Antlers" and following can now be completed. [*] A new region has been added: The Wasteland [*] New biome and dungeon types have been added. [*] Multiple new locations have been added to the wasteland. [*] A final encounter has been added. [*] 4 new dungeons have been added. [*] 2 quests have been added to the Adventurers Guild. [*] 1 quest has been added to the Mages Guild. [*] New types of enemies have been added. [*] 6 new legendary items have been added, incl. 2 artifacts. [*] A new human lore piece has been added. [*] New music tracks have been added. [*] New secrets and hidden encounters have been added. [/list] [h3]Mechanics[/h3] [list] [*] A new item and mechanic has been added: [b]The Magic Detector[/b] [*] Magically hidden objects have been placed at existing locations. [/list] This item allows you to detect magically hidden objects in the game world. There are several ways to obtain a detector: [list] [*] Through the Mages Guild quest. [*] Bought from the Trader for Magic Supplies in Immerfurt. [*] Found at a few locations in the world. [spoiler]In the chest inside the Church Ruins, and in the chest at the larger Cultist Camp[/spoiler] [i](Unless you already looted these locations, then you'll have to fall back to the other 2 options.)[/i] [/list] [h3]UI & QoL Improvements[/h3] [list] [*] The path indicator now shows your remaining movement points for this turn. [*] Added a "locked" toggle to player/skill bar that prevents skills from being accidently dragged outside the slot. [i](This has been reported as a potential issue from Steam Deck players)[/i] [*] An audio option has been added to disable the combat music. [*] The feedback form won't pop up on exit anymore, but is now available through a dedicated button in the main menu. [/list] [h3]Achievements[/h3] 8 new achievements have been added: [list] [*] Wanderer [*] Explorer [*] Discoverer [*] Become an Adventurer [*] Become a Mage [*] Magic Detective [*] With a little help [*] And so it ends [/list] [h3]Other Improvements & Fixes[/h3] [list] [*] Adjusted item mods on random loot so it's more likely to find level 16 items now. [i](This may also affect your existing loot, but only in a way that a former lvl 14 item is now lvl 16.)[/i] [*] Fixed a missing perk description for "Trained Runner". [*] Fixed a bug where object highlighting remained active after pressing Alt+Tab. [*] Fixed a bug in item upgrade and modification views when view gets closed in-between animations. [*] Prevented an issue caused by clicking quick slot items faster than intended. [*] Updated several localizations. [/list]