Pets Are Finally Here

Pets are finally here. The companion we have been building and testing for a fortnight opens to every player today -- earned, not bought, through a questline that starts in Twin City. Alongside it, a world with a great many more monsters in it.

A pet of your own

Sunfer, the animal keeper in Twin City (408,388), has had something raiding her feed store. From level 10 you can help her find out what -- and by level 20, if you see it through, the culprit walks into your sack and follows you home.

A pet cannot fight and cannot be hurt. What it does is save you steps: it walks with you and picks up what falls near you -- silver from the start, then Meteors, DragonBalls, stones and gems, good gear and potions as it grows. It leaves the purses at your feet alone (those are yours to walk over) and goes for the ones you would have to walk to. Feed it -- one meal is an hour of work, it holds three -- and let it work, and it grows: quicker on its feet, longer in reach. The free stray is slower to raise than a bought coat, never weaker.

Type /pet anywhere for its window; /pet out, /pet home and /pet feed work mid-fight. The full story, the questline step by step and every number is in the pet guide.

A fuller world

The hunting maps were thin between the packs. Ape Mountain, the further Ape canyon, Phoenix Castle, Mystic Castle, all four Labyrinth floors and the Adventure Zone are now far denser -- thousands more monsters, placed only where nothing stood, in packs shaped like each map's own.

Bird Island gains team spots: places laid out for a party that sits while one member hunts around it, with the ground under the party kept clear and the packs respawning in waves -- everything missing comes back at once, on a timer, instead of a random trickle. The Adventure Zone remains the main endgame ground; its arrival cell is quieter now and the blocks around it fuller.

Weapon skills, fixed

A weapon skill that procs on your blow -- Phoenix, Rage, Snow, SpeedGun and the rest -- now always lands on the monster your blow struck, even when that blow killed it. Before, a one-hit kill left the skill nothing to hit, so at the endgame it never fired, never showed and never trained. Each proc also keeps its own shape: SpeedGun sweeps a line through the target, Rage and Snow cleave around it, Phoenix strikes once.

Guild war

The castle gates now take weapon and spell damage, not only siege bombs. A bomb is still the fast way through; a determined guild can now also cut its way in.

Smaller things

• The in-game clock, the launcher's Vulkan renderer (1.6.x) and its FPS cap shipped earlier this week; if the game will not start on an older card, pick DirectX in the launcher.
• Sunfer stands at (408,388) in Twin City, west of the arrival square.