Stendhal 1.45: Branching Out
Stendhal is a fun friendly multiplayer online adventure game. We just released Stendhal 1.45, which adds a ton of content and several improvements to the client.
New items, creatures and NPCs
New creatures such as strong golden orcs or cute tadpoles have been added. There are some new items like rope which are very versatile.
Other items, however, have a very dedicated purpose such as the Ashen Holy Water. This item might play an important role in Elias Breland's new and exciting quest to rescue his grandson Niall.
Also, many food and drink items have been improved to heal at a faster rate.
Often neglected but still important: decoration and accessories. Kirla is famous for being able to create pictures from your memories. She will have a booth at the Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks next year. Due to popular demand, she has decided to offer copies of her memory-pictures to take home.
Gwen, however, is more practical: She offers various accessories to improve your outfit.
Prospering Commerce
Several steps have been taken by the citizens to stimulate commerce.
Most notable are increased bag sizes (after completing a new quest) and additional bank storage in Kirdneh and Magic City.
Merchants have realized that they could complete more trades if travelers were aware of their offers. So they worked together to put up this information on the Website. Producer NPC are easily spottable by an icon in-game.
Trying to profit from the growing economy, the Gardner's association has put labeling on their bags of seeds and prepared more fertile ground all over the world.
New achievements
Stendhal has a very diverse world, in which you can do many activities other than just fighting monsters. We added some new achievements to reward exploring. Most notable:
- Fairgoer: Bring Bobby 5 balloons
- Floral Fondness: Help restock Nalwor flower shop
- Traveling Peddler: Make significant money in sales to NPCs
- Fruit Salad: Harvest fruit that grow in Faiumoni
- Mother Nature's Helper: Sow flower seeds and bulbs
- Challenge Accepted: Complete 5 rounds of deathmatch without help
- Deathmatch Convoy: Aid other players in 100 rounds of deathmatch
Combat Changes
Stendhal has a huge variety of weapons and armor, but there was one game-design problem: If you get a very strong weapon early in your journey, all other weapons will become meaningless. Therefore we introduced minimum levels for weapons and armor.
On a positive note, the magic block on the Deathmatch Arena was lifted: You can now summon creatures to assist you.
The rules of combat have been slightly tweaked as well: Damage has been decreased in order to allow the hit chance to be increased to make battles more exciting. On that note, the heal rate of some food and drink items has been increased as well.
Furthermore ATK XP will be rewarded even if another player took all the hits, encouraging team play
A Whole Lot of Graphics
We have come a long way in creating a unique visual style. And the work is ever improving. Our character, item, and tileset image assets are more detailed in comparison to early releases.
Web-Client
The web-client saw significant improvements and we are proud to announce: The web-client is now the recommended way to play Stendhal. In the above screenshot, you can see it in action.
Most notable new features are:
- a trade dialog for a secure way to exchange goods between players
- a group panel next to the friends panel
- a travel log window which shows your quest progress and production orders
- weather-support to enjoy the rain and snow
- dialog for common chat phrases and emojis
- status indicators displayed in stats panel
And what's more, Stendhal can now be played on mobile devices using touch screens without a mouse. An optional on-screen d-pad or joystick helps with movement and items can be "held & dropped" as an alternative to "drag & drop".
Website
Last but not least: Not all improvements are in-game. Looking up items on the website to buy, sell, or trade is now easier. NPC pages include information on the items they deal in. Likewise, item pages list any related NPC merchants.
This was a rather long winded announcement. So let us conclude with:
Have fun!
PS: If you like, join us in the Development Chat or follow us on Mastodon or X.
