Part one was about clearing out whatever kept getting in your way. Part two picks up where it left off. We dug through your bug reports and forum threads once more and fixed mercenaries, monsters, item sets and a couple dozen little things. Somewhere along the way the world got bigger, too: Umbala and Niflheim are open down south, guilds finally have a home, and there's a hole under Payon that doesn't seem to have a bottom.

Umbala and Niflheim

Head out of Comodo, walk through the Umbala forests, and you'll reach a village built in the trees. Houses perch on the branches, with plank walkways strung between them over the water. You can also get into the forests from the Mao cave.

Umbala: houses in the trees and walkways over the water

Go deeper, down through the roots of Yggdrasil, and you're in Niflheim. City of the dead, permanent dusk. They don't like visitors who are still breathing: if the witch Kirkena catches you wandering, she'll ship you back to Umbala.

Niflheim: crooked houses and gravestones at dusk

That's 13 new maps, each with its own music, minimap and page in the «Map» window. 14 new monsters live there: Dryad, Wootan Fighter, Dullahan, Loli Ruri, Bloody Murderer, Quve, Lude and more, with their own drops and cards. Both towns have a Kafra, shops and guides. Bards, good news: you can finish Pang Voice now. The Ihel chicken wanders around Niflheim and drops an egg roughly one time in three.

Guilds

You've been asking for these for ages. The Guild Master stands by the north Kafra in Prontera, and the Guild Steward waits by the fountain in the middle of town. Bring an Emperium, come up with a name (24 characters max), done. No Emperium? Baphomet, Golden Thief Bug, Angeling, Ghostring and Mimic drop it, and so do Orc Zombies and a few others in the Orc Dungeon.

The Guild Steward by the Prontera fountain; the guild name shows under each member

  • Inviting people: «Invite to guild» in the player menu, or /ginvite Name. Up to 16 members.
  • Guild chat: start your line with $, or switch to the «Guild» channel.
  • Your guild's name shows under your character. Don't want it there? Turn it off in «Interface».
  • Guild storage has 600 slots. Open it at the Steward by the fountain or the Keeper by the north Kafra. Anyone can drop stuff in; only the master and whoever they allow (/gstorage Name on) can take it out. /gstoragelog tells you who put in or took what.

The guild window, ranks, skills and emblems are coming later.

Dungeons for your own party

The party leader opens the dungeon at the entrance and your party gets its own copy of the maps. Nobody else can get in, so nobody's going to snipe your boss. Want to go solo? A party of one works fine.

  • Orc's Memory (levels 30–80; find the Dimensional Gorge shard on the field by the Orc Cave). Sneak past the orcs, light the braziers and learn who the shaman Kargalash used to be. 2-hour cooldown.
  • Sealed Shrine (level 75+, talk to Brother Patrick by the abbey). Break the altar seals, then deal with the Great Demon Baphomet. Bring his doll to Rast Blackhand and he'll make you a Gigantic Magestic Goat. 12-hour cooldown.
  • Endless Tower (level 50+, Captain Janssen in Alberta). A hundred floors. Clear one, the gate to the next opens. MVPs on 25, 50 and 75, Naght Sieger at the top. 7-day cooldown.

The first floor of the Endless Tower; the minimap shows the tower floors

Around 160 new monsters live in these dungeons, with their own drops, cards and skills.

The Depths: a dungeon with no bottom

There's a new guy at the entrance to the Payon Cave, the Depths Warden. Talk to him and he'll let your party (or just you) into a dungeon that doesn't end.

The Depths Warden at the entrance to the Payon Cave

  • Floors come from 20 dungeons we didn't have before: Amatsu, Gonryun, Louyang, Ayothaya, the Ice Cave, Einbech, Magma, the Lab. The further down you get, the nastier the monsters, and the better the exp and loot.
  • Going down: each floor has a condition. Kill enough monsters, pull a lever or beat a boss, and the way down opens. Every 5th floor has a boss; 10, 20 and 30 have an MVP and a reward chest.
  • Walk, don't fly. Teleport, Fly Wing, Butterfly Wing and Warp Portal don't work down there. Hiding, Cloaking and Chase Walk won't help you either, because monsters in the Depths can see you anyway.
  • Die and your run is over. Your party keeps going without you. Milestones you've reached (10, 20, 30…) stay unlocked, so next time you can start from there.

The Louyang tomb is one of the floors of the Depths

The Warden keeps track of who got deepest. You can also check with /deep, or on the website under «Rankings» → «The Depths», weekly and all-time.

Mercenaries learned to fight

Every one of the 30 guild mercenaries has its own skills, yet until now they'd only ever auto-attack. That's fixed. They'll now use Bash and Bowling Bash, Double Strafe and Arrow Shower, Pierce and Spiral Pierce, archer traps, and Provoke and Decrease AGI on whatever you're fighting. On you they'll cast Regain and Tender to clear ailments, Magnificat when you're low on SP, and the lancer has Sacrifice to soak up hits for you. You'll see the skill name pop up over the mercenary.

We took them out into the field and adjusted things based on what you told us:

  • They mix skills and attacks. No more mercenary blowing all its SP on casts and then standing around.
  • Swordsmen get in close for Bash and Weapon Crash. They used to swing from two cells away.
  • Provoke only when needed. A mercenary provokes to pull a monster off you, not to collect extra ones.
  • Misses don't aggro. If a mercenary, homunculus or Alchemist plant misses, the monster doesn't switch to it. Same rule as for players.

Combat

  • Monsters stay on the tank. A ranged hit no longer drags a monster away from whoever's in melee with it, and two archers on opposite sides can't spin it around anymore (bug report #55).
  • Arrow Shower knocks back the monster in the target cell as well, 2 cells away from the archer (#54).
  • Ankle Snare actually holds. Pasana, Minorous, Anubis and friends no longer teleport out the moment you shoot them. Same for monsters stuck in Close Confine, frozen, stoned, stunned or asleep.
  • Amon Ra only teleports when it can't find a path to the archer.
  • Resurrection on undead now works like Turn Undead: it either banishes them or hits them with holy damage.
  • Bosses hide smarter. Golden Thief Bug, Smokie, Phreeoni and Sting heal up while hidden. All 117 monster skills from the original work now.

Item sets work

The Undershirt description says wearing it with Pantie gives AGI +5 and FLEE +10. Turns out that bonus never actually applied. Now it does, and so do all 156 sets from the original, items and cards alike. Complete a set, get the bonus (bug report #61).

See what dropped

Open an Old Blue Box, Old Violet Box, Old Card Album, a gift box, a branch or a pouch, and the chat now tells you what came out. You also get a banner with the item's icon and name at the top of the screen for three seconds, like in the original. It pops up when you pick up, buy or steal something, or get an MVP reward.

The «Received: Gift Box» banner after an Old Blue Box

«World» and «Trade» remember the past

«World», «Trade» and rare-drop announcements are now kept on the server for 7 days. Log into the game or the app and you'll see the last 100 messages, including whatever was said while you were offline. Want to scroll further back? Hit «▲ Earlier» at the top of the tab. People on your block list stay hidden in the history too.

Small things you asked for

  • The camera remembers its rotation, tilt and zoom (#56).
  • Enter on character select logs you in with the selected character (#57). Typo in your password? The cursor jumps right back to the password field.
  • There's an «Exit to OS» button in the Esc menu now, like in the original.
  • «Miss» shows up over whoever missed, not over the target.
  • Right-clicking an item in storage or your cart opens its description instead of grabbing it (#60). To take it, double-click or drag it out.
  • Snap without the cursor jumping around: there's a new «Pull the cursor to the target» checkbox under Settings → «Game».
  • Poring grabs the whole pile, not just one item (#48).
  • Your homunculus shows up next to you right after a Fly Wing (#51), and a failed Pharmacy brew now shows a broken flask (#52).

The ZeRO app

  • Works on 32-bit phones (0.502). Cheaper Android phones, a lot of them Samsung Galaxy A, used to say «App not installed».
  • No more freezing after sleep (0.501). While the app reconnects you get a Poring splash instead of the login screen.
  • No double notifications. If something already reached you as a push, it won't beep again when you open the app.
  • Minimizing the app doesn't spam your friends. Come back within five minutes and they won't see you «left» and «joined».
  • General chat history (0.500): recent «World» and «Trade» messages are there as soon as you open it.

The client updates itself when you launch it. Thanks to everyone sending in bug reports. The numbers in brackets are yours.

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