[UPDATE] 1.093

Posted 4 hours ago

Update 1.093

The biggest client update Aeternitas has seen so far is live. This one is all about the world itself: shadows, light, wind and weather, plus a lot of fixes you have been reporting over the past weeks. Everything new is optional and can be tuned or turned off in the Aeternitas Options, so weaker PCs are not left behind.

New:

Shadows & light

Characters and monsters now have custom shadows that cover the whole model, including big monsters and bosses whose shadows used to be clipped
See-through objects like bamboo and armored players now cast correct shadows
Added Max Shadows (up to 64 instead of 10), Shadow Distance (Short to Max) and Shadow Resolution settings in Aeternitas Options. The new shadows also give a big FPS boost, but keep in mind that increasing "Max Shadows" is FPS hungry at the same time
Added Sun Rays: light shafts from the sun that shine through the sky even when the sun is outside your view, blocked by hills and mountains, with a strength slider in Aeternitas Options
Added Moon Rays: at night, the moon casts softer, bluish rays that get stronger as the moon gets fuller

Old shadows vs. new shadows:

Wind & weather

Added dynamic wind: grass, bushes and tree leaves/crowns now sway gently. Gusts follow the game clock, so every player sees the same wind
Added wind sounds: a wind bed that gets louder as the wind picks up, a howling layer during strong wind and single gusts you can hear, all following the Environment volume slider
Added dynamic mist & sand whirls: low, rolling mist over grassland, swamps and water, and swirling sand in the desert. The mist thickens and thins over time and sandstorms come and go, the same for every player
Added heat haze: the air shimmers over distant sand on hot days
Added dust devils: small sand tornados wander through the desert, more often the stronger the wind blows, the same for every player
Added desert sand detail: sand now glitters in the sunlight and drifts across the ground with the wind

Vegetation

Added real grass blades: grassy ground now grows actual 3D grass instead of only the flat ground texture, with a Grass Blades toggle and a distance slider in Aeternitas Options
Added falling leaves: trees now shed leaves in the colour of their own foliage, drifting away with the wind, with a toggle in Aeternitas Options
Non-generic grass, bushes, flowers and reeds now bend when players and monsters walk through them, just like the ground grass

Performance & interface

Added Object Detail and Water Reflection Detail sliders in Aeternitas Options: objects are now drawn in a smarter order and tiny far-away objects and water reflection details can be reduced. In crowded places this can significantly boost your FPS
Added a Frame Rate Limit slider in Aeternitas Options
Added Always Show Item Names and an Item Name Range slider in Aeternitas Options, so dropped item names can be shown permanently without holding Z, up to a range you choose

NPC interaction

NPCs can now show extra dialogue lines in their talk menu. Options you can't use right now are still shown and tell you why when you click them, and you get a notice when a dialogue gives you an item or gold
Added NPC greetings: NPCs call out to you when you walk up to them and they have something for you, like a dialogue line or a riddle. Everyone nearby sees it. Can be turned off with NPC Greetings in Aeternitas Options
Added a daily riddle: talk to the lottery NPC once a day and solve a riddle for 3x Global Chatting. A wrong answer counts as your try for that day

Changes:

Nights are now darker
The Graphics tab in Aeternitas Options is now split into World, Effects and Display sub-tabs, and the window is smaller
The General tab in Aeternitas Options is now grouped into Notifications, Interface, NPCs, Party and Actions sections instead of one long "Others" list
Grass now has the correct size, uses the original game's lighting and fades in more smoothly
Background Sight Range levels 1 to 6 now increase evenly: every level raises view distance, object count and fog together instead of barely changing between some levels
Snow and bright stone ground no longer glare pure white in direct sunlight, also no more permanent snowfall in Karakoram
Clicking to move while casting now cancels what you queued, so you can run away immediately. A skill chain stops after the hit that is already playing instead of finishing the whole chain. (This is on trial. Whether we keep it depends on your feedback)
Tightened the NPC talk range. Talking to an NPC now means standing in front of it: clicking an NPC from further away walks your character up to it before the menu opens, instead of opening it from a distance
Party quests now count your progress like any other quest, and there is no more teleporting after a party quest has been finished

Fixes:

Fixed being able to hover and click monsters and characters hidden behind hills or mountains
Fixed other players' damage-over-time ticks showing your weapon effects and far-away damage numbers (as it occurred on Warlock DOTs)
Fixed frostbite/dull on a wolf doubling your wolf's ride speed
Fixed the wolf getting set to Lv. 1 when its owner died while mounting it
Fixed background music being too loud when the game starts, until you moved the volume slider
Fixed thunder during rain still being audible with sound effects muted, and thunder now follows your effect volume slider. This is not simply removing the thunder sound as on other servers, but an actual fix
Fixed chat emojis staying on screen when hiding the interface with F12
Fixed a faint square around notice and quest messages with Anti-Aliasing enabled
Fixed long NPC dialogues being cut off with "Increase NPC Talk Font Size" disabled, so you couldn't scroll down to accept a quest. The same cut-off is fixed in the journal and the title manager
Fixed a crash when a killed monster dropped an item
Fixed character pictures turning black with Anti-Aliasing enabled
Fixed several crashes when crossing region borders
Fixed objects like houses, walls and rocks sometimes appearing in the wrong place at Background Sight Range Level 6. Please report it if you still see this
Fixed NPC voices: NPCs now play a voice clip when you talk to them, also while their dialogue is open. Can be turned off with NPC Voices in Aeternitas Options
Fixed the ping number getting stuck

Thanks to everyone who's testing & providing feedback, this is helping me A LOT!

If you run into any issue with the new effects, please let me know which setting causes it. Every one of them can be turned off in the Aeternitas Options in the meantime.