In just a few short months, Ghostlore will be entering full release. This will be the last major update before then, and we have A LOT to talk about. Stay a while and listen.
NEW POST-GAME: THE INSTITUTE OF PARANORMAL STUDIES
The Institute of Paranormal Studies is a futuristic location that serves as a new post-game hub where the player can undertake missions.
At the institute, the player is presented with a random selection missions. Each mission has map modifiers which are also random, such as the amount of monsters/champions/elites that spawn, level of monsters, chance to find items, the size of the map, and so on.
In addition, Nadir will officially tell you to investigate Hell Gate Island. But in order to enter the Hell Gate, you now require a currency known as Hell Notes, which can only be found in Mission Maps. Once you are in Hell Gate Island, keep a lookout for rare items known as Map Data, which allow you to add further modifiers to your mission maps and change the odds more to your favour. The deeper you go into Hell Gate Island, the more slots for Map Data you unlock.
HELLFORGE
Besides Map Data, Hell Ingots are another rare drop that could be found only on Hell Gate Island. Hell Ingots are used as currency in the Hellforge, which allows you to reroll affixes on your items.
WEAPON AWAKENING
Remember the young girl you rescued from the Abandoned Old Hospital? She is the Psychic, and she provides the service of awakening spirits which lay dormant in items such as weapons, shields, hats, scarves and amulets (but not glyphs).
Awakened Items have an additional line of text and an objective to kill ‘X’ of a certain type of elite monster. After the objective is completed, the item will be granted an additional affix on top of existing affixes.
THE ORANG BUNIAN
Based on actual Southeast Asian folklore, the Orang Bunian are nature spirits that you can meet in your travels. Interacting with the Orang Bunian usually provides a temporary buff.
However, on a very rare occasion, interacting with an Orang Bunian will open a portal to a hidden realm.
The Orang Bunian’s realm is a small, peaceful area with a large number of Treasure Chests. An Orang Bunian NPC crafter will bless an item of your choice.
Blessed items, like Awakened items, provide an additional affix.
SHRINE OF SPIRITS
The Shrine of Spirits is a new asynchronous online multiplayer mechanic where a 'snapshot' of another player's current character (also known as their 'Ghost Data') can be temporarily summoned into the your own game as an ally NPC.
Whenever you summon another player's Ghost Data to assist you, your own Ghost Data is uploaded for other players to summon. Much like the Shrine of Balance, the power of the assist you get is dependent on the how effective your own assists has been for players who have used the Shrine of Spirits.
Other changes
This update also brings about a whole host of minor improvements, far too many to list but here are some of them:
- Balancing of skills and skill modifiers
- Various improvements to pathing and map visibility
- Increased monster density in some of the more empty areas
- Simple glyphs can now roll alternative stats
IN THE NEAR FUTURE
We plan to launch the full version of Ghostlore on the first week of May 2023.
For now, our priorities are:
- Tightening of controls, especially for alternate control schemes besides the default Point-and-Click, such as Gamepad and WASD.
- Balancing
- Localization and UI fixes
There are also some planned features we would like to add post release, but for now, there shouldn't be any more new systems added to the game, or major changes to existing systems.
Although we might be able to squeeze in some stuff that doesn't change the core of the game too much, like additional monsters ;)
TO ALL OUR EARLY ACCESS PLAYERS
I would like to say a big thank you for all our Early Access players for creating such a wonderful community. A lot of the changes we have made such as the Skills Overhaul and this recent update was not something that was initially planned, but us doing our best to give our players the things they most want to see in a game like Ghostlore.
But alas, the time is nigh. From now till May, we must focus heavily on bug-fixing and polish. To this end, we would be very very grateful if players could reach out to us if they encounter the following issues, starting with the most important:
- Problems with key rebinding on any control scheme
- Problems with getting stuck on the map especially at the edges or around corners
- Problems with skills not working as they should
- Oddities in the UI such as glitched-out descriptions, text overlapping or coming out of the text box
As usual, we're readily available on Discord, but as it is really really important to us that these issues are resolved, we will be starting several threads on the discussion board for people to post any problems they have encountered in the areas we have highlighted:
Problems with controller and button remapping? Report it here
Problems with default controls and keybinding? Report it here
Problems with WASD and keybinding? Report it here
We are committed to solving these issues and making Ghostlore the best it can be, so players are encouraged to use these available resources to get your voice heard. The more problems reported, the more we can fix, and the better the game will be. Thank you.