Good afternoon Wizards!
It’s been an exciting year for everyone here at Blue Isle Studios! Since Citadel’s Early Access launch back in July we’ve spent the last 5 months working tirelessly to create new content, crush bugs and tweak gameplay balance. This game has been a passion project for many of us here on the team, and to watch it continue to flourish during its ongoing development has been truly rewarding.
Most of what we’ve worked on has been directly driven by the community’s continued feedback, which has been extremely valuable in the continued effort to refine and expand the game’s core experience. Every day, you share your thoughts and opinions on the forums, on social media and even take the time to vote for your most desired features on our Trello board. To that, we wish to extend a sincere thank you for your continued support!
As we near the year’s end, we’d like to take a moment to reflect upon all the progress we’ve made with Citadel’s development so far. This post will only be focused on listing some of this year’s milestones, but fear not; While today’s post is about celebrating what has already come, we still have a lot of great stuff currently in the works for next year.
(Stay tuned for more posts later this week on the big things we have in store for you guys in 2018!)
Endgame Boss Dungeons
Our biggest addition for 2017 came in the form of Boss Dungeons: A massive new endgame addition designed to encourage teamplay and seriously challenge the most powerful wizards and witches of Ignus. Each dungeon pits a coordinated party of high-level mages against an intense gauntlet of the game’s strongest monsters, eventually culminating in a battle with an epic boss. Each dungeon rewards adventurers with a ton of rare resources, weapons, armors, and a series of brand-new unique boss loot.
Complete list:
- Blood Soul Citadel
- Phoenix Soul Citadel
- Dragon Heart Citadel
New Weapons, Armors & Trinkets
One of our early goals for Early Access was to expand the number of equipable items available for players to loot and craft. To that end, we’ve added over 40 new weapons, armors and trinkets to the game since July! Highlights include three full sets of Iron armor, new craftable high level wands, staves, melee weapons and gauntlets, and an entire selection of new top-quality weapons and armors exclusive to boss dungeons.
Complete list:
- Wand of Thorns
- Staff of Sacrifice
- Blade of Simeon’s Soul
- Bear Claw Gauntlet
- Iron Armor (Full Set)
- Tempered Iron Armor (Full Set)
- Dark Iron Armor (Full Set)
- Unique Boss Armors (3 Full Sets)
- Unique Boss Weapons (3 Total)
- Boss Dungeon Armor Variants (12 Total)
- Boss Dungeon Weapon Variants (12 Total)
New Enemies
We’ve also done our best to maintain a steady supply of new enemies entering Citadel’s bestiary. Since launch we’ve added a slew of new monsters including fiery Phoenixes, devastating Infernal Dragons, ghastly Abominations, heavenly Divine Unicorns and three gargantuan Dungeon Bosses! As with all creatures, these new enemies can become allies via pacification (with the exception of bosses), and many of them can be mounted! We want to continue this tradition into 2018, so stay tuned for more info on future creature additions.
Complete list:
- Divine Unicorn
- Phoenix
- Abomination
- Infernal Dragon
- Skeleton Warriors (Basic, Flaming and Armored)
- Wild Boar
- Dracul
- Evren (Dragon Boss)
- Helios & Corona (Phoenix Bosses)
- Orcus (Demon Boss)
New Structure Pieces/Functionality
Building is a massive part of the game, and one many of our fans point to as their favorite component of Citadel. We heard this loud and clear after launch, and started to work immediately on adding some new content to the already robust system. From new aesthetic options – like furniture, decorative items and Marble pieces – to entirely new functionalities – like material swapping, upgradeable towers and false/trap doors – we’ve done our best to empower you, the community, in your quest to express your creativity. Stay tuned for more structure improvements in the future!
Complete list:
- Marble Construction Set
- Furniture Pieces (Chairs, Tables, etc)
- Decorative pieces (Paintings, Torches, Statues, etc)
- Trap/Hidden Doors (Trap Floor Panels, False Bookshelf Doors)
- Traps (Spikes & Acid Pits)
- Upgradeable Defensive and Offensive Attack Towers
- Structure Material Swapping System
Optimization and Quality of Life Improvements
Though our designers and artists spend a lot of time creating new gameplay content, our programmers spend the bulk of their time focused on refining the games foundation and improving the game’s performance and improving bugs. We can’t list all the bugs we’ve fixed since launch here, but anyone who’s been following our patch notes know that we’ve been on top of correcting the worst bugs that come up.
We’ve also been working extra hard at improving the overall user experience. Many menus and systems have been receiving a consistent polishing to ensure that things look nice and work smoothly.
Here’s but a select list of some of the highlights from this year:
- Corpse Marker
- Throne Health Indicator
- Auto Run/Default Run
- Keybinding Options Improvements
- Server Improvements
- Client Optimization
- Chat System Improvements
- Tame Menu Overhaul
- Server Browser Overhaul
- Settings Menu Overhaul
- Custom Game Menu Overhaul
- Map Overhaul