We were asked enough that I (Christian) finally broke down and spent like 3 days implementing a full race selection to the game.
Now, instead of having to be an elf, you get to choose between Wood-Elf, Desert-Elf, Human, Ork, or Dwarf, each with its own corresponding bonus:
Wood-elves get a +1 to Perception and resist poison and disease. Go be Legolas!
Desert-elves get a bonus to Magicka, for extra spellcasting power!
Humans get a bonus skill point, because we're boring but practical!
Orks get a +1 to Strength, and resist being Staggered! And allow you to play as a big muscle mommy!
Dwarves resist magic! It's gotta be something about the beards, right?
Mechanically all the different races should work just fine. Going forward, new content will be created with all the different possibilities in mind, and some old content will be rewritten to react more strongly to the player's race choice as well.
See below the image for a changelog including a few other minor tweaks.
And, if you haven't yet, go follow our campaign on Kickstarter, which will be launching soon!
Now, here's what's new in 0.0.35!
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Content:
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>This is a big'un -- you now select a race during character creation! Instead of choosing between only wood-elf or desert-elf, you can now also choose to be a human, ork, or dwarf. Wood-elves give a +1 to Perception and resist poison and disease. Desert-elves get a substantial bonus to Magicka. Humans get a bonus skill point. Orks get a +1 to Strength and resist being staggered. Dwarves get a bonus to HP, and resist magic. Going forward, there will also be more NPC and world reactions to your choice of race.
>There's a new NPC with an associated sidequest on Level 5 of the Winter Sanctuary. This is a fairly lucrative one, but it has a lot of steps. Go see what Elthorn the monster-hunter has in store for you!
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U/X
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>The animation rate has been slightly increased. This makes combats move a little quicker. The change isn't drastic but it should be noticeable.
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Tuning:
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>Pickaxes are now less likely to break in general. Each point of Strength and Dexterity reduces the break chance by about 2%.
>Repair kits now restore slightly more of an item's condition.
>Added a new Jewelry Repair Kit item to repair rings and necklaces.
>Increased starting money on Normal Mode, so you can fully kit yourself out. The amount of money on Hard Mode remains the same.
>Grimoires now require ranks in Arcana to use. This was always intended and just an oversight. Novice Grimoires only require 1 point, so if you only want one for those utility spells, just give it that one point and focus your skill points elsewhere.
>The portal puzzle on Level 5 of the Winter Sanctuary can now be solved with a few items in addition to spells. You'll have to figure out which items and how to get them on your own, but all four are now obtainable in the demo.
>Oozes are no longer resistant to slashing damage.
>You are now less likely to be interrupted when resting (base chance changed from 50% to 25%).
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Bugfixes:
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>Fixed a bug introduced in the last update where Attributes could not go above 10, even with the use of potions or spells.
>Fixed an issue where climbing the vines in the hidden cave in Level 5 of the Winter Sanctuary would lower your movement speed.
>Tinctures of Intellect now properly boost Intelligence instead of Charisma.
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Known Issues:
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>Some trapped chests might behave oddly if you try to use Thievery on them, fail the Thievery check, but have a high enough Dexterity to avoid the trap anyways. The items in the chest may end up vanishing. If you're worried about this happening, just eat the damage from the trap until we can get this fixed. Sorry!
>There may be some NPCs who still think the player is an elf regardless of their race selection. We will continue to revise these as we find them.