It's been a little time since our last update, but for a good reason!
We've been very busy with ShadeCores, improving it, planning for the future and so on.

And we're happy to tell you how we decided to balance the game, and describe a little how it will balance as well!

This is how we've balanced the game!

Paladins:

• Increased bow price to 500 gp.
• Increased crossbow price to 2,000 gp.
• Increase arrow price to 3 gp/each.
• Removed bolts from stores.
• Keeping spears at 25 atk (originally 30 atk).

This will force paladins to use spears a little longer making the earlier levels even trickier.
After that it will make paladins stay with bow for a longer period of time.
Paladins will also on a bigger scale make their own ammunition to profit better.
The removal of bolts from store will make arrows the primary weapon for paladins there they will only use bolts when they prefer damage over profit.
Making paladins more likely to create bolts when mana-sitting.

Normally, smart paladins would make Hmms and sell, and buy arrows and bolts from store and get at least 50% extra ammo in arrows, or 2-3 times as many bolts than if they spent same mana on their ammo spells.
These changes, remove paladins from flushing the game with "free supplies" because buying ammo at store was always cheaper and more efficient than making ammo themselves when runes are much more valuable per mana spent.
Additionally it make it more attractive for paladins to create ammo to sell as players will on larger scale buy ammo from players rather than from NPCs.

Mages:

• No vocation limit aspect needed, the slow pace, anti-cheat and scarce supplies in general together with "knight" based modifications will slow mages down enough.

Knights and melee based balances:

• Removed fire sword from dragons.

Fire sword is after all a powerful melee weapon, that shouldn't be too easy to get a hold of.

Removed the following items as buyable from NPCs:

• Barbarian Axe
• Clerical Mace
• Two Handed Sword
• Battle Axe
• Morning Star
• Battle Hammer
• Soldier Helmet
• Steel Helmet
• Chain Armor
• Brass Armor
• Scale Armor
• Plate Armor
• Chain Legs
• Brass Legs
• Steel Shield
• Viking Shield
• Dwarven Shield

This will make it additionally harder to get a "quick start", and it will also stimulate an open market for lower-level items.

Additionally, monster loot of the following items have been reduced by 50%.

• All weapons starting from 30 atk.
• All helmets starting from 7 arm.
• All Armors starting from 10 arm.
• All Legs starting from 7 arm.
• All Boots starting from 2 arm (including boots of haste and bunny slippers).
• All Shields starting from 26 def.

This will make looting "good equipment" extra rewarding.
Looting something should feel rewarding, even if it's just a plate armor!

The following quests have been made harder to complete by added and/or modified monsters:

• The Queen of Banshees Quest.
• Medusa Shield Quest.
• Orc Fortress Quest.
• Naginata Quest.

The following quests have been modified with mystery, additionally some of them have modified monsters.

• The Annihilator Quest (mystery only, quest itself remain classic).
• Bright Sword Quest.
• Fire Axe Quest.
• Behemoth Quest (additionally made into lvl 80 due to the high rewards).
• Vampire Shield Quest.
• Crusader Helmet Quest.
• Noble Armor Quest.
• Black Knight Villa Quest.
• Deeper Fibula Quest.
• Demon Helmet Quest.

This will cause the game to:

• Make it harder for knights and paladins to speed-game the early levels.
• Make mages not able to "power-level" the first levels in their life.
• Slowing down the general pace of early levels.
• Make equipment flowing more naturally as "good equipment" is scarce.
• Cause good equipment to be a true mid-game items rather than early-game through rushing.
• Cause end-game content to remain absence for much longer.

Generally speaking, these changes will make the game much more healthy.
It will slow the pace and make people open their eyes for "noob quests" and items and make plans on more equipment rather than rushing for C-Set the first few days.
Good items which is supposed to be closer to "end-game" rather than "early game" will remain in their own stage rather than inflate the game in the early stages.
Even after good equipment becomes available, it will be a slow pace before majority can get their hands on good equipment.

Normally in Tibia, experienced players rush in such manner that they're "jumping" content.
By the first day they've normally already skipped 30% of all equipment.
By the first week they've normally jumped 90% of the content.
And by the second week, they only have a very few things left to upgrade themselves, and from that point they live in a loop of actions there nothing changes until they got enough money or power to take the final item.

But in ShadeCores, even the most experienced player, will to some extent be forced to step down the game, and go through the content in a slower pace, exploring areas and quests they normally ignore, live the game as it's supposed to be lived.

You'll enjoy a slower, balanced game much more than you'd think!
Just because the pace is slow, doesn't mean the entire game is slow, it's actually a state of mind if a game is slow or not.
Like stated elsewhere, if your goal is to get lvl 150 and hunt dragon lords on daily basis then the game will be horrible..
But if you can adapt your mindset, throw out the idea that you should be able to profit from demons shortly.. you'll find you might like the game much better.

In a slow game like ShadeCores are being designed to be, doesn't mean "slow" as in you'll be forever stuck on same mission for days.
No.. it actually means that you'll experience more aspects of the game than you'd do in a "high pace game".
If you.. get out of the bubble there you must get certain lvl as fast as possible, and just level up as you explore the game you're going to have a great time!

According to statistics, only 5% of the players complete quests such as Spike Sword Quest in mainland.
It's a fairly simple quest.. yet almost nobody does it.. and question as of why is simple.
Because Tibia today is designed as a high-pace game, and spike sword is nothing, not even worth the time.

In ShadeCores, spike sword will be very valuable for anyone wishing to be a sword fighter.
It will be the high level weapon for the lower levels.

When did you last make a "noob quest" for the sake of the items in it? and not because you were "nearby anyway"?
The goal in ShadeCores is so that you will and want to explore the forgotten content!

Rediscover tibia in ShadeCores!
In addition to the modified quests listed above, we've also made various changes on many other quests.
The quests that's been modified with mystery of various degrees are:

• Desert Quest.
• Paradox Tower Quest.
• Circle Room Quest.
• Crystal Wand Quest.
• Griffin Shield Quest.
• Sam's Old Backpack Quest.
• Thais Lighthouse Quest.
• Scale Armor Quest.
• Battle Axe Quest.

These quests could be different in any way imaginable.
Some are easily solved, while others are trickier.
Rest assured, the lore for the quests have been adjusted as well, so it's possible to discover their secrets by exploring the game.
Every quest modified, every mystery created, and every clue as to how, has been blocked during Testing-Phases!
Nobody but the actual owner of ShadeCores knows how they work.
No matter if the mystery is small, or large, the entire connected area is blocked so nobody can assume how big mystery is by researching the extent of the blockade!

A fair discovery for all!
Due to the restrictions for mysteries in Testing-Phase, nobody knows how any of the modified quest work, not even testers!
When ShadeCores is officially launched, everyone is on same fair plane, knowing absolutely nothing!

This is your time, to feel nostalgic on a whole new level.
You're back in old tibia.. and this time.. you have no experience how to solve many of the quests, and there's no way to search for solutions either.
It's almost.. as if you're back to the younger you, playing the game you love, unaware what you can do and find!

Final Words
We're moving forward in an incredible pace with the game, and it becomes better and better for every day.
Even if we happen not to share any news for a few days, you can rest assured that ShadeCores is being worked on every day until it's ready for release!

Stay tuned for follow up news!
We're in a near future going to announce a stream there we'll make a short stream with questions and answers, and little revealing how the game looks like!
The stream is to make you able to ask questions that's unclear, voice concerns about something or whatever you like that's within the topic of ShadeCores.

Until then, stay sharp, stay hyped.. we're on our way!

To ensure that ShadeCores become as perfect as possible, a lot has to be considered and corrected.

Our goal is to make a long lasting and functional game that doesn't run a course of being broken after a few years.
In ShadeCores, you're not meant to get unlimited supplies, hunting dragons, dragon lords, demons or other demonic critters, we don't fancy the rushed pace much of Tibia has become along with the community.
It's not healthy for neither the game nor the players, rushing rushing, screen filled with effects and texts in such manner that you get dizzy and headache trying to keep up.
And many can agree, the rushing could be fun.. for a little while.. but then you get bored.. once your screen is spammed down with effects, how much more intense can it become?.. not much.. in best scenario you'd end up hunting a new form of creature with new colors of outfit and effects, you'd trade a red flashing screen for a blue, and soon enough you'd get bored anyway.

No.. in ShadeCores we value a slow pace, we value a game there a "high level" isn't level 300.. 200 or not even 100.
We want to see a game there a level 50 is considered high level.. the game there a level 100 is epic level while that bastard who manage to pull of level 150 is legendary.
We want the game, there majority of the players you face, ranges between level 15 and 40, players who spend time in cities talking, making supplies, planning and preparing their epic hunt for the weekend, hoping to loot something good or just hoping to have a good time.
A game there you find players playing chess in the cellars of Thais.

It's time for a game that jolt our memories of old tibia, in the age there the main focus wasn't making new exp-records on daily basis, but a game of friendship and hardship, a game there happiness, anger and sorrow once more can take place.

To ensure the game becomes the slow paced utopia

• Supplies must be scarce.
• Money must be hard earned.
• Experience must be slowly earned.
• Monsters must be ruthless.

To ensure scarce supplies

• A slow regen.
• You cannot login more than one character per time.
• You cannot use any cheats or all your progress will be thrown into a dustbin.

 

Additionally, we've made that you can only use beds with maximum 2 characters on your account,
to prevent "bed mages" from making too much supplies.

To ensure money remains hard earned

• Low loot drop.
• No NPCs that purchases "high value" items.
• Houses that adapt their rent depending on city-popularity and become increasingly expensive if almost all houses are taken.

To ensure slowly earned experience

• There's no party experience (exp-share), which force teams to be more creative, while making it harder to "boost" friends.
• Slower spawn (CipSoft's accurate spawn time + spawn modification based on player numbers).
• No "OT hunting places" there many monsters exist in a small place with fast respawn.

We've also removed Ankrahmun and Port Hope, to make it increasingly hard to find good "power-game" dungeons.
This is how ShadeCores map looks like at this very moment.

To ensure ruthless monsters

• CipSoft's based exhaustion, making monsters able to combo you in a way they can't in OT's.
• Monsters being able to hurt you even if you're stair-jumping them. (in OT's monsters become semi-retarded when being stair-jumped).

Additionally, we've corrected the following spells to have accurate magic level, price and mana cost:
(previously they weren't accurate)

• Challenge
• Conjure Food
• Convince creature rune
• Destroy field rune
• Heavy magic missile rune
• Invisibility
• Light magic missile rune
• Magic shield
• Poison storm

Worth to note, the spell "heal friend" (exura sio) has been reduced to costing 60 mana instead of 70, to give druids a little additional candy to attract more to use druids for their slightly better economical situation.


We're getting really riled up with ShadeCores progress, and it's going to be awesome seeing it fly!
We hope you're as impatient and hyped as we are for the final release!

A world map that is affected by players and their actions is a receipt for a more alive world map!
affections that last past the server-saves!

ShadeCores are now running with a map-saving system that allow the map to save certain edits done by players.
The edits can almost be anything from items added to certain places, to open doors, wall torches that's lit or not, items hiding in boxes, book cases or even unexpected containers invisible to the naked eye.
  You could be placing an item on the map right before a server-save.


To find it still being there when you login after the server-save!


Now for the technical stuffs
In CipSoft's there's similar systems, however they're somewhat handicapped, with certain places that doesn't reset until updates which back in the day meant that some areas could get trashed and stay trashed for up to half a year before being cleaned up.

In ShadeCores we designed the system little differently, to make it more alive and more compliant with updates/changes and staying fluid with how the game and players act out.

Same as CipSoft's, we too have "no-save zones", zones that always refresh the map upon a server-save.
In cities within city walls or limits.
However, we have a system that refresh each tile if nothing have modified it for 3 days, meaning that forgotten stuff will be refreshed automatically and the game will "auto-clean" itself over time.
This allow us to use as little "no-save zones" as possible, making sure that big parts of the map can save items and stay "alive" without being reset on daily basis.
This system is also designed to grant us ability to launch updates and map edits, without the need of refreshing the whole map, but the game will itself detect if there's been an update, and if it's necessary to refresh the area or not. (maybe the tiles in question was deleted, or maybe the area have become a lake suddenly).

in CipSoft's, large parts of the world is covered in "no-save zones", including almost entire Rookgaard island.
In ShadeCores, thanks to the 3-days timeout to refresh if no interactions have happened, we don't need much more than having cities covered with no-save zones, with exception of a few areas that may need a daily reset due to the nature of the area, like some quests or places that's not meant to stay open/closed for days.

We might need to adjust zones
When ShadeCores is released, we will keep eyes on the trashing and judge if we might need to add a few extra places with "no-save zone".
Only the real game later can tell us if some areas might have too much traffic and collecting trash that never reach a timeout for refresh.


ShadeCores progress
ShadeCores is getting more and more ready for each day that passes.
We've come further than ever before, with advanced systems, impressive optimizations and authentic feelings.
It's just a question of time, before the decision of when ShadeCores is to be released will being made.

Normally you'd think a small item of the game would never make headlines in the news section, however in this case we believe it's relevant to the development of ShadeCores to share with the community about this little item as it may have a bigger impact than some might realize.

Many have, are or will be curious about traps.
How will they work, will you be able to use them to get an advantage in hunting, will you be able to use them with doors to kill afk players, will you be able.. will you.. will it?

And our short answer is: whatever you could do in 7.4 with traps, you will be able to do in ShadeCores!
However, some of you might not know how traps worked, and many of you might not know exactly how it works but rather assume from experience of OTs.

So lets explain how traps worked in 7.4!

Traps does a static amount of damage. 30 to be exact, it's always 30.
However, traps cause a physical damage that listen to the creatures armor.
It means that the damage can and will be reduced by any armor the creature may have.

As seen here, a weak Troll takes a lot more damage than a strong Hero.
And if the damaged creature would happen to have an armor boosting item equipped, it would done even less damage!


You cannot move open traps, they will close instantly if moved!
That means you can't just open them in your inventory and throw in front of your target!


You cannot put items on the trap either, it will close at the slightest breeze!


Traps cannot hurt players!
As of Tibia's update 7.2, traps could no longer inflict damage towards players!

Now you know how traps should work, and how they will work in ShadeCores.

Stay tuned for more progress related news!

ShadeCores is quickly becoming more advanced and more authentic for each day that passes!
And we can't possible be more proud of our project that shows such high signs of potential!

In the past few days we've had many good upgrades, but we're going to keep it short as not to bore you.
Many of these upgrades are meant to make ShadeCores more authentic with oldschool cipsoft, and it's been really good!

We remade our exhaustion system to work exactly the way it did in tibia of this age
Believe it or not, OT's have it completely wrong, OTs uses 1 or 2 kind of exhaustions depending on which version they're meant to reflect (healing + attacking spells).
However, in CipSoft's, there were 3 different exhaustions in the old days, 4 if you include "using item on.." exhaustion which was 1 second.
These exhaustions where for instant and rune spells, and weapon.
Together, in a tangled web, they could trigger eachother, making you unable to do certain things in certain pace, while doing "odd things" instantly.
For example, you could use healing runes and instantly after use any instant attack spell, you could use an UH and then throw an UE, no problems..

We've remade the move-item exhaustion to be the very same as CipSoft's
In most OT's you can move hundreds of items every second, basically limitless, that's not how it was in CipSoft's!

We've remade the move/use system to work as it did in CipSoft's
we're talking about being almost unable to move items while walking etc.
Many OT's got this a bit wrong though, and some people remember it a bit wrong, especially when it comes to move + melee.
At first, walking blocked the ability to move an item for a small period of time based on your speed, if timed correctly, you could move items without stopping at all, however it's hard to properly time it and most of us just accepted the fact it was easier to let go of the arrow keys for a second and then move the item.
But the biggest myth there is about walking/using/moving, is "walking prevent bolts from shooting", no, it doesn't.
Walking has a very small effect on melee and distance, at a high rate your attacks aren't affected at all, and with bad luck your attacks could be delayed a second at most which is relatively rare.
We've studied the CipSoft files and systems carefully, to make sure ShadeCores will have the most accurate, and while doing so we found many things that people are mistaken on, but we shouldn't judge, it's been 20 years since any official oldschool tibia was available!

We've remade the line-of-sight system
which means if you can throw stuff to a certain place.
Basically every OT in the world has this wrong, in CipSoft's you're much more limited as to where you can throw things, and where spells can reach around walls and so on.

We've remade the druids poison storm
almost every OT either has ticking poison damage from around 50 counting down until 0, while others have an instant damage followed by poison or some other mixtures.
While in reality, damage of the poison storm is decided by level and magic level, from the first tick of damage, it decreases with a few % until it reaches 0, and thanks to the % based reduce between ticks, it doesn't matter if you're level 50, or 500, the poison storm will last about as long anyway, just a few seconds extra for much higher levels, while the total damage is of course much higher even though the amount of ticks seems to be the same.

But now to our coolest feature we've managed to "clone" from CipSoft..
We've made an accurate loot & inventory system for monsters, working identically with how it worked in CipSoft's!
Normally in OT's, loot of monsters are static and decided when the monster is killed.
It's also set in their monster files which should drop a bag, and which items will be in the bag.

However in ShadeCores, same as in CipSoft's.. the loot of monsters are decided when the monster spawns!
And bags.. the monsters doesn't have any bag-prefix.. the game decide itself what items could and what items should be dropped in bags.
This means that some items you will always find in a bag, while other items you could find both in and outside the bag.

But to the really cool part, our monsters are designed to carry their loot in the game, and that loot can affect the monster!
Same as in CipSoft's, you could face creatures that's "enchanted" by the inventory they're carrying.

I'm sure many of you have played in OT's and thought that often the defense of creatures seems low!
That's caused by the fact that in OT's the monsters doesn't carry their loot, and neither does it affect them, so none of them will have any extra abilities out of it.


Here we see how it looks when a rat is carrying a life crystal, which gives a small glow.
Note the rat next to it, which carries nothing, and doesn't have any light at all.

Here we see how it works between 2 rats, when one of them are carrying boots of haste!
You can see how easily the BOH-Rat outrun the one without!

Here we see 3 minotaurs to test blocking ability.
The one to the north is fully naked.
The one to the south has a chain armor equipped.
While the one in the middle has demon helmet, magic plate armor, golden legs, golden boots and platinum amulet in its inventory, making this minotaur extremely good at blocking the physical damages of an explosion rune.
You can see how the naked takes the most damage, while the one with chain armor takes little less damage and then of course the pure defense-taur blocks almost half the damage!

  After killing the "defende-taur", this is how it looked in his corpse


That monsters carry their loot in their inventory, while those items could affect the monster, is what caused many of the things you never really paid attention to in the old days.
That you sometimes met monsters that was extra slow to kill, at most part you didn't pay attention to it, in other cases you could think "omg I'm only doing bad hits now.. bad luck..." while in fact the monster was about to drop equipment that made it stronger, and you saw it in the loot but never though that those items were affecting the monster.

Of course, the videos above is not an example of what those creatures could carry, the items was just added to the spawned test-creatures to test the systems and to collect awesome videos with!


ShadeCores will continue becoming more and more impressive!
We will continue our awesome work on ShadeCores, and we hope you're enjoying following our progress and that you're eager to one day being able to play the released version!