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April 2024: The Crimson Festival, Classline Rework, Terra’s Day and more!
Hey Travelers and Heroes,
Spring is officially here and we’re bringing with it tons of reasons to get outside and play!
In today’s blog update we’ll be covering this month’s events, a brand-new gameplay mode focused on environmental impact (and earnable sprite packs) and more, let’s dive in!
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Crimson Festival
Our full month event this month is the Crimson Festival!
Find and defeat acolytes of Cerus, Aries and Perseus across the world and within dungeons to gain the Essence of their particular leader. These Essences can then be used in the Monumental Guild under the Archcrafting tab to create Summoning Scrolls specific to the Crimson warrior of your choice.
With some of the best adornments in-game, this is a festival you do not want to miss out on!
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Terra’s Day
Terra, a planet from far away, lost centuries ago due to their people’s negligence of the lands. Gi, a traveler from Terra who brings with her a warning – the people of her planet have arrived to our own and their gluttony may lead us to a similar fate.
In this brand new event and game mode, travel across the world to combat this new environmental threat brought forth from those seeking refuge from the Terran calamity. Band together with other players to defeat Great Murk raids, receive Elm Essences and plant Light Elm trees which bear the Gaia Apple fruit for other players to collect across the globe. You can expect earnable sprite packs and loads of fun when this new game mode launches on April 22nd!
We’ll be sharing more details around this event as we get closer to Earth Day! This game mode was developed as our commitment to the 2024 Global Green Game Jam that Northern Forge Studios is participating in. If you’d like to learn more about this initiative visit the Playing4theplanet site!
The Terra storyline will continue throughout the year, and we aim to have our community participate in real world action to protect the environment, but more on that later!
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Classline Reworks
If you haven’t heard, we’re doing a revamp of all classes in the game. The goal of these changes are to provide more class identity from an earlier point in the game. You’ll see passives such as Collateral Damage or Avidity start from the beginning of the game now. You’ll also notice that the Valhallen classline will start much earlier in the game now, allowing the follower fans out there to start their Bestial Bonds earlier.
Some other changes include a sizeable rework to the Deity classline, bringing Apex skills to the game where you will charge up a meter to unleash some deadly damage upon your foes. The early mage classline is also getting Weaved Elemancy, which will allow their power to increase by cycling through different elemental spells in battle, offering more dynamic battles and spell usage. You may have noticed that we have been making larger identity changes to each classline over the last few months. While this update aims to add more identity to The Old Gods classline, we will be prioritizing an identity patch to the mage classline next.
We’ve been testing these changes in open beta for a few weeks now and believe we’re getting close to release, so expect more news on this very soon! As always, we’ll be keeping our eyes on how these changes affect players and will make adjustments as necessary.
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Mini-Events
We’ve got some great mini-events this month, including a double feature of Giant Steps in Orna to celebrate the warmer weather (in Canada at least). The lineup this month is as follows:
- Fool of April: April 1-2
- Giant Steps: April 7-10 (Orna Exclusive)
- Legend of Lyonesse: April 10-14
- Paths of Fomoria: House of Nocturna: April 10-16
- Orn Event: April 18-19
- Earth Week Giant Steps: April 23-26 (Orna Exclusive)
- Terra’s Day: April 22-30
- Sisters of Morrigan: April 25-30
- EXP Event: April 27-30
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Sprite Packs
This month also brings with it some seasonal sprite packs available for purchase. Check out the Crimson Festival Sprite Pack or the Legendary Sprite Pack of the month!
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To the Roadmap and Beyond!
If you didn’t catch it on our Discord announcements, we’ve updated everyone with a Q2 Roadmap. Since things move fast at the studio, we’re trying to create quarterly roadmaps that we can successfully deliver on for you! We’re moving steadily on development of a Territory Control rework called the Conqueror’s Guild. This new guild will allow for more players to engage in Territory Control from an earlier point in the game, while also retaining the highly competitive nature of the top level of territorial competitions.
We’re also working on a lot of quality of life fixes that folks have been asking for. We want to make sure the foundation of the game remains strong (and gets stronger) before building too many brand new systems. We’ve added a lot of features in the past year and want to make them the best they can be before going too far in any direction.
We’re also attempting to make both the worlds of Orna and Hero of Aethric feel more alive with Active Local Events, places where folks can congregate and work together to fight against dynamic events, leaning into the MMO design of the game.
Beyond that, we’re aiming to integrate more directly with your Apple Health dashboards to bring you more data, goals and accuracy with the Traveler’s Guild. We hope this gives users a better experience with the Traveler’s Guild and also gains us some traction on the iOS platform!
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That’s it for our monthly update. We hope you’re enjoying the transition into spring and also hope you enjoy the upcoming content and changes to both games! See you next time (or in Discord!)
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Thronemakers: March 2024 Event Overview
Hey folks! I know some of you prefer to read rather than watch the event videos, so here’s the transcript for the video!
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Intro
Hey Travelers and Heroes,
We’re excited to introduce you to Thronemakers – our newest event that blends the inventive challenges experienced in Beastfelled along with some great rewards that provides your character some brand new skills. This event is packed with content, so let’s cover some of what you can expect to experience this month in both Hero of Aethric and Orna.
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Thronemakers
Meet the Aaru Storyteller, who will be your guide this month as you explore the origin story of the great kingdoms. Chronologically, this historical tale takes place just after the great dragons you experienced in Wyrmhunt created the world you live and fight in today. You’ll first encounter the Aaru Storyteller at Tier 4, so be sure to reach level 75 before seeking out this questline.
Throughout the month, you will face unique challenges such as completing a battle using a brand new Thronemakers spell, collecting potions and learning their origins and codex the new event raids that can be found both in Kingdoms or summoned to the World.
Facing off against these raids will reward players with gear that provides your followers additional skills, much like the gear in last month’s Beastfelled event. If you’re an early Tier 10 Realmshifter seeking Bloodshift – we’ve got you covered.
By completing all of the challenges and hearing a historical tale, your end of questline reward will be the Tail of a Sphinx, an item that will provide you with additional luck as well as an increased chance of Ornates dropping!
For late-game players who crave a challenge, the Great Sphinx is the Super Raid of the month. This Super Raid drops gear that provides YOU with spells and abilities, rather than your follower. This gear even marks the debut of some brand new, and quite powerful spells.
In order to face off against this formidable foe, you’ll have to first defeat the Arisen variants of the 3 new Thronemaker raids: Sekhmet, Ptah and Neith who will each drop a unique Old Seal of the Great Kingdoms.
You’ll have to make a choice with these seals though: will you craft a Scroll of Dynasty to summon the Great Sphinx – or will you visit the Monumental Guild and roll on an event specific gear piece called the Eastern Regalia – a weapon that will remove your follower in order to provide you with boosted power! Choose wisely!
In addition to all of this, you can also expect both new Followers and a Summon to chase this month.
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Mini & Booster Events
On top of a jam packed event debut, we’ve also got some mini events for you to grab some new gear or receive some boosts across our games.
For Mini-Events this month Balor Invades returns from March 10th to the 15th.
We’ve also got the Mischievous Clurichauns arriving to cause mayhem in dungeons between March 20th to 25th.
In addition to mini-events, we’ve also got a lineup of booster events starting with a Spelunking event offering reduced dungeon cooldowns from March 2nd to 3rd, An Orna exclusive event: Giant Steps returns to boost your steps taken and manifest those Monster Aspects faster between March 3rd and march 7th. A lucky event boosts your item acquisition from March 17th to 18th and we’re ending off the month with an Orns event from the 23rd to the 24th.
Sprite Packs
Thronemakers also brings a few sprite packs to the fold. This month, you can get the Thronemakers Pack, which includes some Aaru-themed sprites. We’ve also got a Legendary Sprite Pack this month that has both a Thronemakers themed snake charmer sprite as well as an animated Nagganeen sprite – watch out for the flies.
Later this month, we’ll be launching an Animated Follower Sprite Pack that will reskin one of the obtainable followers from Thronemakers.
Outro
And that concludes our deep-dive on the Thronemakers event. This month, we set out to focus on community feedback from various events in the past and put together one of our richest and most content dense events to date. We really hope you enjoy Thronemakers as it launches on March 1st. See you next month!
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Happy Lantern Festival
Hey Travelers and Heroes!
Today marks the 15th day of the Lunar New Year and we wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a happy Lantern Festival celebration! As celebrations come to a close, we wish that the Year of the Dragon brings with it warmth, love, laughter and all the Ornates you could wish for!
What’s coming next month?
Along with these celebrations we also wanted to share with you the name reveal for next month’s brand new event: Thronemakers. This event will have you exploring the origins of the great Kingdoms throughout a questline that will have you exploring new spells and facing off against unique challenges.
We think this will prove as a refinement to some of the new elements that came along with this month’s Beastfelled event. Excited for you to get your hands on Thronemakers when it debuts next week!
Lunar New Year – Dragon Town Sprites
As the Year of the Dragon kicks off, we launched a new type of in-game cosmetic that brought new building sprites to your Origin Town. We’ve had a few questions on how this works so here’s a quick guide on how to choose individual skins for your buildings.
When initially purchasing the pack, the Lunar New Year sprites will override your entire Origin Town. From there, you can:
- Click on building you’d like to change sprites on
- Click the “Options” tab
- Under “Building Theme” dropdown, choose which skin you would like to use. This allows for more individualized customization of your Origin Town.
We’ve loved to see the beautiful designs you’ve made with this Sprite Pack as well as the Lunar New Year decor items available. Heads up – this new Origin Town sprite pack will remain in the Runeshop beyond this month!
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Patch Notes: Orna: the GPS RPG Patch 3.9/Hero of Aethric Patch 1.4
Hey Travelers and Heroes!Rollout has commenced for both Orna: the GPS RPG Patch 3.9 and Hero of Aethric Patch 1.4!
These updates bring with them a slew of new game features including Deep Dungeons, Monuments and more! Let’s dive into the patch notes!
New Feature: Monuments
Monuments are a new, single-player dungeon type that you can find throughout the world in Orna: the GPS RPG and within the T5 area of Meropis in Hero of Aethric.
There are 4 different types of Monuments, each themed after one of the Fallen Gods – Ithra, Thor, Demeter and Vulcan. If the Monument serves the Fallen God that represents your faction, entry will be free! Otherwise, it will cost 1 Gaunlet (now called Skeleton) key to enter.
You will navigate through these dungeons in the same manner as Towers, but with a larger diversity of mobs to face off against. There is a much larger chance that these battles will include event mobs, so Monuments stand as a great place to focus on your event quest completion.
When it comes to our events, we’re looking to lean further into our mantra of “Play Your Way”. For those who enjoy world farming type events, that is still a completely valid way to play and reach your goals, however, Monuments will offer up another activity that may be better suited for different types of players.
Monuments reward players in unique ways as well. As you travel through these dungeons, you’ll be collecting Proofs of Monument, which can be spent in the Monumental Guild Hall on materials, consumables and even Event Followers! As an End of Dungeon reward, you’ll receive 1 of 4 buffs as you exit that will last you for 2 hours.
As part of the Monumental Guild Hall, you will also now receive Proofs from defeating World Raid Bosses. These Proofs of Felling can be spent on higher end materials in the Guild Shop. In addition to this, event Summoning Scrolls will now be crafted at the Monumental Guild Hall, replacing the previous method of doing so at the Herbalist.
New Feature: Deep Dungeons
Also releasing this patch are Deep Dungeons. A multiplayer-enabled explorable dungeon type that will be replacing Goblin Fortresses and Mystic Caves.
In this new casual activity type, you will battle and mine your way through procedurally-generated dungeons. Each floor will contain a goal to accomplish to dive deeper into the depths of the dungeon (how’s that for alliteration).
This content type is perfect for those who are newer on their journeys, as it will offer up some good experience and end of dungeon rewards for those who partake.
For additional rewards there is also a Spelunking Guild, which will provide materials, Sprite Packs and more for the best miners out there.
We’re excited for you to get your hands on this one!
New Passive Guild: Seers’ Guild
In our goal of offer players additional rewards for playing their way, we have added a Guild that focuses on Memory Hunts. The Seers’ Guild can be found within the Oracle Temple and will offer up materials, consumable and Sprite Packs in exchange for Proofs of Remembrance – you know the drill!
Miscellaneous Changes
- You can now exit towers by using a button on the top left of your screen. The Tower will be re-enterable for a set duration so be sure to check how long you have left in the Resume Overlay.
- Towers will now include event hordes. These will be linked to the current ongoing events allowing for more opportunities to farm event currency (and more diversity to your climbs!)
- Towers and Monuments will now spawn in a more evenly distributed manner, meaning you will find less clusters of these activities and overall find more of them as you move around.
- Hero of Aethric has had a big performance update, moving around the world should be more fluid!
- Fallen God sprites updated.
- Thanks to community feedback, Replica Titan followers have been overhauled.
- Bestial Bond 1 can now be found as an Amity trait offering up non-Valhallen classes access to these follower modifiers.
- In Hero of Aethric, NPCs will now have a fixed location within a tier appropriate town, no longer will you have to search far and wide to turn in a certain quest!
- Your Inventory will now contain a Currency tab which will keep track of the various Proofs you obtain throughout your adventures.
- AI Improvements
- Changed the display of Followers in shops, allowing for easier access to their codex page.
- Balance adjustments:
- Spells the have lowered PvP damage now reduce the damage before defense is applied (opposed to after)
- The change ensures that defense values are correctly applied to the reduced power
- [PvP] Reduced the damage of Fey Cataclysm, Fey Fulmination, Fey Glacier, Fey Inferno
New Event: Winter Wild Hunt
Building off of our 10 Days of Raids event, we’re launching a new December event called the Winter Wild Hunt. This event will celebrate the amazing year we’ve had for events in the Ornaverse by offering up 3 day waves of past events.
The waves are as follows:
Wave 1: The Legends of Lyonesse (December 1-3)
Wave 2: The Crimson Festival (December 4-6)
Wave 3: The Return of Kerberos (December 7-9)
Wave 4: Of Giants and Titans (December 10-12)
Wave 5: Ragnarok (December 13-15)
Wave 6: The Mischievous Clurichauns (December 16-18)
Wave 7: WyrmHunt (December 19-21)
Wave 8: Finesse (December 22-24)
Wave 9: Sisters of Morrigan (December 25-27)
Wave 10: The Fool (December 28-30)
For the duration of the event, the Monumental Guild Hall will have a craftable Festive Scroll which will target raids from the current wave of the Wild Hunt.
For a full list of other events happening in December, be sure to check out playorna.com!
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That’s it for our patch notes. We’ve been working hard on these features and are happy to finally get them into your hands. As always, we’ll be hanging around the Discord (and Reddit, Twitter, Facebook etc.) to hear your feedback on all that’s coming to our titles this month!
To anyone celebrating any holidays this month, we hope you have some great time spent with family and friends. Happy Winter Wild Hunt!
- You can now exit towers by using a button on the top left of your screen. The Tower will be re-enterable for a set duration so be sure to check how long you have left in the Resume Overlay.
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November 2023 Monthly Update – Of Giants and Titans, Monument and more!
Hey Traveler’s and Heroes!
This month at Northern Forge Studios we’re working hard to bring new core features to the game. In this content update we’ll be walking you through the events you’ll experience this month, talking about a new Guild making its way to the game and covering some of the bigger features we’re trying to get into your hands as soon as possible.
It’s a giant-sized (see what I did there) blog – so let’s dive in!
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Of Giants and Titans
In this month’s main event, Of Giants and Titans, you can claim fallen celestial power for yourself!
The event questline will have you farming monsters for Stardrops and Moondrops, consumables that will summon either a boss or a raid. The weapons dropped from these fights are primarily focused on two-handed abilities, offering up various stance abilities that will change the way you battle. By finishing the questline you will be rewarded with one of many potential Olympian Followers.
We’ve made some minor additions to the events this year. Event bosses and raids now have new Adornments added tot their loot pools.
Finally, questlines are now instanced, which means you’ll be able to repeat event questlines even if you’ve completed it before.
Mini Events
For mini-events this month, we’re bringing back the Crimson Festival between November 20th to November 30th. You’ll also get to experience the resprited Sisters of Morrigan when they return on November 25th to the 30th.
Pictured above is our full list of events for the month! ^^
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Seers Guild
The Seers Guild aims to provide additional rewards for players who partake in Memory Hunting. You’ll gain Proofs by completed Shattered Memory Hunts that can be spent on materials, unique sprites, followers and more!
We’re aiming to get this Guild released in November if all goes smoothly with the beta!
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Legendary Sprite Pack
We’re bringing another Legendary Sprite Pack to the game this month. We’re really happy with how these turned out and appreciate those who used these new packs as a means to support our studio. By keeping our new product type as cosmetic only, we’re able to continue development our games free of ads, pay-to-play and pay-to-win monetization tactics.
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Hero of Aethric Joystick
We’ve updated the control options in Hero of Aethric to include a joystick. After a few iterations of non-tap-to-move controls, we’re pretty pleased to answer the community demand for a joystick. We’re pretty pleased with how this turned out but are eager to hear feedback on this new control scheme.
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Monument
Monument is a new feature that aims to provide a supplemental way to engage with our events. This is not going to replace events as you know then, but rather offer an optional manner to complete them. We’re still hammered down some final design decisions on this feature, so keep in mind some of this is subject to change.
Monument is a building that will appear in the world (GPS) for Orna: the GPS RPG and can be found within the game world of Hero of Aethric. Different enemy types will appear within Monument depending on when you enter. This will offer up players a new way to complete questlines and gain event materials.
Monument also brings with it a new Guild that will be completely event focused. The Guild shop will contain some exciting things in exchange for proofs. Be sure to stay tuned as we release more information on Monument later this month!
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Conqueror’s Guild
The Conqueror’s Guild will see the territory control system reworked in Orna: the GPS RPG. As one of the hallmark features of our GPS title, we set about developing this feature with a few things in mind:
- Respect the investment players have made in the current territory system
- Keep the upper level of competitive integrity at the higher levels of control
- Allow players to interact with the system before T10 in highly competitive areas
With the new system, you’ll be building a group of fighters that will battle it out for territory on your behalf. You’ll need to arm these fighters with your own gear and spells to capture or defend territories.
Each territory will have various Tiers available to capture and your rosters will have to equip a wide variety of gear from all stages of the game in order to find success. We’re hoping this system reinvigorates excitement for current players and is more approachable for newer players. Rewards will also be adjusted to offer more than the current system, including a Proof currency to spend at the Guild Shop.
We’ll be talking about this feature a lot more throughout the month of November, so stay tuned!
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Deep Dungeon Update
We’d like to thank the community for the rigorous testing and bug reports that came from the Deep Dungeon beta test. We identified a few areas that needed improvement before we could launch this feature into the game and have been working hard to get this ready for you, thank you for your patience.
We believe this is in a place to release this feature back into the beta for a final test before we launch with a hopeful release period of this month!
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That’s it for this month’s content update. Here at the studio, we’re really focussed on bringing some new and game-defining features to our games with both Monument and Conquerer’s Guild deep in development. We’re aiming to have an updated roadmap for our titles and can hopefully share more on that soon!
Thanks for being the greatest community in gaming (ok, maybe we’re biased but we believe it!)
– The Northern Forge team
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Patch Notes – Hero of Aethric 1.2 – New Adventures
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Hey Heroes!
Purrly here with the rundown on Hero of Aethric Patch 1.2: New Adventures.
This patch sees the launch of the Adventurer’s Guild, giving players the ability to craft their own quests for other players to complete. In addition to this, there’s also new difficulty levels available with the Circle of Anguish. Not only that, there are loads of changes to the game in this patch so we’ll be breaking down each new feature/change down below.
To many happy Adventures!
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Adventurer’s Guild
The Adventurer’s Guild was built in the honour of the questing beast herself, Glatisant. This new Guild enables players to create generated quests for other Adventurer’s to complete. In doing so, both the Quest taker and Quest maker will be rewarded with Proofs that can be spent on a variety of rewards including Sprite Packs, exclusive Followers and more!
To get started on your adventures visit Adventurer Genevieve in Svarga, who will explain to you how to interact with the Guild! We can’t wait to see how this feature evolves in the future.
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Circle of Anguish
The Circle of Anguish allows players to increase the difficulty of their game world. When leveling up the Guild, you will increase the difficulty of all PvE content.
You can earn Proofs of Anguish by defeating bosses and raids of your current Tier. The chance of obtaining a Proof increases along with the Anguish level, so find the balance of what your gear can handle and the highest amount of Proof drops.
Earn enough Proofs of Anguish and you’ll be able to purchase a special Summoning Scroll containing one of our toughest raids yet!
To join this Guild you’ll need to visit a new mysterious island just south of Balor.
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Towers of Olympia Movement Overhaul
Since the release of Towers, we’ve heard your feedback that they simply take too long to complete. While we want to retain the challenge of this end-game content, we looked for ways to reduce the overall time spent per Tower.
With this in mind, we have completely reworked the movement system from the tap-to-move system to quick teleportation. From our beta testing, we saw this reducing time spent in Towers by over 50%.
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Kingdom Wars
Kingdom Monarchs will now have the option to enroll their Kingdom into Wars. This is a PvP system that matches players from your Kingdom against another. Be sure to utilize the new benching feature if you have inactive players to avoid any losses.
Will your Kingdom dominate the leaderboards?
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New Control Options
In addition to the regular touch controls to navigate through the lands of Aethric. Patch 1.2 has also added D-Pad support. When first booting up the game after updating, you’ll be prompted to make a selection between which control mode suits you best. Note, you can change between the two at any time in the Options menu.
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Quick Follower Swap
This new feature allows you to swap Followers out from within a Tower of Olympia. Look out for the NPC Asmund in your Tower climbs and he will assist you in swapping Followers.
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Chat System Revamp
The chat system has undergone an overhaul! When opening the chat you’ll notice the ability to overlay your chat on top of your gameplay as well as a brand-new user interface.
This overhaul is laying the foundation for a more feature-rich chat experience we have planned for the future, so stay tuned!
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That’s it for today’s patch notes. We can’t wait to see Adventurer’s start to populate the lands of Aethric! Best of luck in Kingdom Wars and may your Kingdom reign supreme!
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Patch Notes – Orna: the GPS RPG 3.6: Adventure, Unleashed
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G’day Travelers,
Lace up your shoes and get ready for new adventures as Orna: the GPS RPG Patch 3.6 is officially rolling out to all devices!
In this patch, you’ll gain access to two new Guilds – a new system aiming to offer up rewards to players in whatever activity they enjoy the most within our game! Not only that, we’re making huge changes to Towers of Olympia to speed up clear times along with many more changes!
We hope you enjoy these additional ways to get rewarded for playing your way and can’t wait to bring more Guilds to the game in the near-future. For now, happy Travelling and enjoy the Anguish!
Please note that as always, patch rollouts happen in waves throughout the week, so not all players will gain access to the patch at the same time. If you don’t have it yet, stay patient as it will be coming soon!
Here’s a rundown of the changes you’ll find in Patch 3.6: Adventure, Unleashed!
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Traveler’s Guild
As a GPS-enabled game, we knew we wanted to bring step-tracking to Orna for quite some time now. We’re really excited that it’s finally coming in this patch!
The Traveler’s Guild is perfect for those who enjoy exploring the real world while playing our game. This new feature will reward players for moving, incentivizing exploration and healthy video-gaming.
You’ll receive rewards just for moving around and meeting step objectives, but also gain access to a new combat system known as Guild Trials. For more information on this checkout our latest video on the Traveler’s Guild here.
By default, you’ll see the Traveler’s Guild step counting at the bottom right of your gameplay screen. To access Guild Trials and the Guild Shop you must construct the Traveler’s Guild hall in your Origin Town.
At launch, this system will use your phone’s built-in pedometer to track step data. You will need to login at least once daily to make sure Orna captures step data.
We intend on eventually building support for Google and Apple’s health apps so that data can be pulled directly from those. Stay tuned as we’ll update you when we’re closer to launch of this feature.
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Circle of Anguish (Guild)
The Circle of Anguish allows players to increase the difficulty of their game world. When leveling up the Guild, you will increase the difficulty of all PVE content when not in party play.
You can earn Proofs of Anguish by defeating bosses and raids of your current Tier. The chance of obtaining a Proof increases along with the Anguish level so find the balance of what your gear can handle and the highest amount of Proof drops.
Earn enough Proofs of Anguish and you’ll be able to purchase a special summoning scroll containing one of our toughest raids yet!
To join this Guild you’ll need to construct the Circle of Anguish in your Origin Town.
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Towers of Olympia Movement Overhaul
Since the release of Towers, we’ve heard your feedback that they simply take too long to complete while you’re on the move. While we want to retain the challenge of this end-game content, we looked for ways to reduce the overall time spent per Tower.
With this in mind, we have completely reworked the movement system from the tap-to-move system to a quick teleportation. From our beta testing, we saw this reducing time spent in Towers by over 50%.
Coupled with the launch of the Traveler’s Guild, we’re hoping these changes make it so you can better enjoy Towers of Olympia as your explore your surroundings! Happy climbing!
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Quick Follower Swap
This new feature allows you to swap your Follower out in content that historically has not allowed you to. This includes during Wayvessel play, Other Realms and in Towers of Olympia.
Look for the NPC Asmund and he will assist you in swapping your Followers (unless you’re a Summoner, of course).
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Chat System Revamp
You’ll notice a newly designed chat system. These changes include the ability to overlay chat on top of your gameplay and even lets you chat with your friends while fishing!
This new system is laying the foundation for a more feature-rich chat experience we have planned for the future, so stay tuned!
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Kingdom Pacifist Mode
For those Kingdoms who just want to Gauntlet and chill, we now have a toggle that will remove the ability to launch Kingdom Wars.
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That’s it for today’s patch notes. We can’t wait for everyone to get walking and look forward to the stories of your future adventures!
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July Event Overview – Nothren Legends: Ragnarök
To all Travelers and Heroes,
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Ragnarök is upon us and we need your help to push back the incoming threat from the South.
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In July’s full month event, we’re modernizing the traditional Nothren Legends event by adding new raids for each classline and offering the chance to specifically summon a new raid that drops some of the best gear in the game.
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Nothren Legends: Ragnarök
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Like the classic Nothren Legends event, Ragnarök will have you encounter Hel and Surtr across a few tiers in Kingdom Raids. However, this time more enemies have joined the battle in the form of World Raid bosses. Expect to face off against the twins Menja and Fenja, a fierce mage and a terrifying summoner as well as Gerd, a menacing beast master.
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That’s not it for new raids though, as we are introducing Jormungandr, the World Serpent to the game in the form of a new World Raid boss. Jormungandr will drop all of the gear that the other Nothren Legends possess, making it ideal to tackle for multi-classers.
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Both the Kingdom Raids and World Raids will drop a unique rune this month. If you collect enough of each rune, you can visit the Herbalist to craft a special summoning scroll that will bring forth the Fey Jormungandr, a fearsome foe that drops some of our best gear to date.
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Let Ragnarök commence!
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Mini-Events and more!
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For our mini-events this month we are bringing back Balor Invades from July 7th-15th and Return of Kerberos from the 10th-20th.
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In addition to the mini-events we will also have:
- Orn Event (July 2nd-3rd)
- Questing Event (July 12th-13th)
- EXP Event (13th-14th)
- Spelunking Event (27th-28th)
- Other Realms (date TBD)
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Sprite Pack: Ragnarök
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With the new event we’re also launching a new sprite pack. Check it out in the Rune Shop!
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Update on Patch 3.6/1.2
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We’re currently operating an exciting beta for Orna: the GPS RPG patch 3.6, which brings exciting features such as the Traveler’s Guild, Circle of Anguish, a chat system rework and much, much more! We’re hoping to make the week of July 4th as our launch for patch 3.6 and Aethric patch 1.2 will follow shortly thereafter. Since this patch is jam-packed with content, we’re going to be taking our time to ensure a smooth launch, thanks for your patience on this one.
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That’s it for the event roundup, we hope you enjoy our fresh new take on the Nothren Legends event and we’re excited about the approaching release of our latest patch. As always, we welcome all feedback and suggestions on our Discord channels!
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Adventure, Unleashed: Introducing The Traveler’s Guild to Orna: The GPS RPG
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Hey Travelers,
Today we’re excited to show off the Traveler’s Guild and provide an overview of the new feature coming to Orna: the GPS RPG very soon.
The Traveler’s Guild is going to bring step tracking functionality to the game, offering fantastic rewards and engaging gameplay to those who venture out and explore their real world environment.
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Guildification, Engage!
Currently being tested in our Open Beta, this highly-anticipated feature is part of our new Guild system that aims to offer players rewards for playing the parts of the game that they enjoy most, regardless of their Tier.
Each Guild offers its own reward system and as more Guilds release, you can engage with as many, or as little of them as you see fit, while receiving rewards that can help you in all other forms of content.
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Unlocking The World
One of the core principles behind Orna: the GPS RPG is the integration of real-world exploration with the gameplay mechanics. The Traveler’s Guild magnifies this aspect by incentivizing players to venture beyond their usual paths, discover new locations, and unlock unique experiences. With the Traveler’s Guild, every street corner, park or landmark becomes a potential source of adventure!
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Getting Started
To join the Guild, you can click on the step icon that has replaced the Control/Explore UI element on the bottom right of your screen. This will prompt you to grant permissions for us to access step data from your mobile device and enable this new feature.
On this menu, you’ll notice daily walking objectives of 3000, 6000, and 10,000 steps, with a weekly objective of 40,000 steps. By completing these, you’ll receive a new currency known as Proofs of Distance that can be spent on various items such as Summoning Scrolls, Kingdom Orns and Sprite Packs. We’re happy to say that steps will be tracked when the game is running in the background, so you’ll be rewarded even when you’re not actively playing.
To further incentivize travel, we’ve added a feature called Traveler’s Intuition. You will see a glowing halo around certain items or enemies, these are rewarded based on distance traveled and can help you farm various materials or quest monsters.
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Guild Trials
The most exciting reward for exploring are Monster Manifests. You will receive Monster Aspects that can be manifested through additional walking goals. Once manifested, these will provide a random manifest of a monster you’ve previously codexed.
You can then join Guild Trials, a new PVE content type that has you utilize 3 Monster Manifests to face off in a challenging gauntlet. You’ll earn Proofs of Trials depending on how far you make it in this challenge, these can be spent in the Guild Shop.
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Get exploring
The Traveler’s Guild introduces an exciting new chapter in the world of Orna: The GPS RPG. It intertwines the real world with an immersive gameplay experience, enticing players to explore their surroundings, earn valuable currency, and unlock exclusive rewards. The addition of Guild Trials further enhances the excitement, offering strategic combat encounters that test players’ skills and provide new experiences.
So gather you wits, get some good stretches in and get outside when the Traveler’s Guild launches sometime in the next few weeks. If you’re eager to get started, join us in the ongoing Open Beta and provide us feedback in our Discord channel.
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Open Beta Release: Traveler’s, Adventurer’s and Circle of Anguish
Hey Travelers and Heroes,
We hope you’ve been enjoying this past month of the Ornaverse, which included the introduction of a few new event types, The Return of the Mimics and some changes to improve quality of life to the game!
As introduced in our monthly overview video – we’re aiming to get the Traveler’s Guild, Circle of Anguish and Adventurer’s Guild to our titles as soon as possible.
We’d love to get these features in your hands as soon as possible and value your feedback. Saying this, we’re happy to announce that the open beta of Orna: The GPS RPG v3.6 and Hero of Aethric v1.2 will be launching today!
To try these new features out right now you can install the beta by clicking the following links. Please select the game and version that you’d like to install:
Hero of Aethric (iOS) – This version is still awaiting approval from Apple, we will update the blog as soon as it is available
Hero of Aethric (Android)
Orna: The GPS RPG (iOS)
Orna: The GPS RPG (Android)Please note that updates to the games will be releasing throughout the day. Stay tuned to our Discord for an update when they all release!
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Features Coming to the Open Beta
Orna: The GPS RPG v3.6
• New Guild: The Traveler’s Guild
• New Guild: The Circle of Anguish
• Towers of Olympia: New movement system involving instant movement, no more tap-to-move, and smaller floor sizes
• Quick Follower Swap: available in Wayvessels, Other Realms and Towers of Olympia
• New Chat System – chat can overlay over gameplay, more features to come
• Kingdom Pacifist Mode – You can now disable Kingdom Wars for your Kingdom.
Hero of Aethric v1.2
• New Guild: The Adventurer’s Guild
• New Guild: The Circle of Anguish
• New General Movement controls, including a directional pad in addition to tap to move
• Towers of Olympia: New movement system involving instant movement, no more tap-to-move, and smaller floor sizes
• New Chat System – chat can overlay over gameplay, more features to come
• Kingdom Wars – Test your Kingdom’s mettle against other Kingdoms to dominate the leaderboards in this new PvP offering
• Kingdom Pacifist Mode – You can now disable Kingdom Wars for your Kingdom
.We hope you enjoy trying out all of the new features coming to Orna: The GPS RPG and Hero of Aethric. We’re excited for you to get to experience the Guild system for the first time and look forward to your feedback and suggestions. We cannot wait to hear about the adventures you go on with the Travelers Guild, the quests you build with the Adventurer’s Guild and the… anguish you experience with the Anguish Guild!
We will be releasing a lot of information about the new Guild system on the blog throughout the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
Happy testing!
