The Alpha 2.5 update is live. You can read the patch notes in the launcher window. Also, if you get a bug where your launcher appears to hang (as if it crashed) - read the instructions in the launcher window (the red text). This is a known issue that will be fixed, but it's not a crash.
Read the patch notes, some good stuff in there. I did get the patcher bug but it restarted fine.
BTW, here they are....
User Interface
Maps in dungeons are now accessible again with a fog of war effect - you'll only be able to see areas on the map that you've already visited. The maps will reset every time you do the dungeon.
Multiple shortcut bars are now available. Click on the button on the shortcut bar to "undock" new shortcut bars - repeat for however many bars you want.
Added another button to the shortcut bars which toggles them between a horizontal and vertical orientation.
Lots of swimming changes - we think we're just about done now:
The jump key (space bar) now moves you up, no matter what direction you're facing.
The camera now stays on the same side of the water as your avatar - if you're underwater, the camera's underwater.
The underwater camera can now pitch to a full 180 degrees.
You now swim faster than you used to when moving up or down.
/r can now be used as a shortcut to for /reply
The banking window will now close automatically if you walk away from the banker.
Gameplay
By popular demand, characters will once again grow darker while sneaking. The darker you are, the harder you are to detect.
Made a number of changes to ranged combat to make it less "uber-broken":
Reduced general rate of fire for missile weapons.
Added a penalty to hit while attacking with ranged weapons while moving.
Reduced the movement rate while attacking with ranged weapons while moving.
If you're holding a shield and you attack while holding down the block key, you will now perform a shield bash.
Increased the swimming breath meter by five seconds (ten for Warforged).
When you get to the bottom of a ladder, you'll now automatically get off of it.
Increased the damage caused by lava considerably. It seemed kind of weird that you would often drown in it before it burned you to death.
Whirling blade traps now have an easier time hitting things.
Fixed a bug where resurrection location would reset on logout.
You now have to actively use city gates and teleport pads in order to zone to a different area of Stormreach.
Fixed a bug where the search skill triggered a "noise" event which would alert nearby monsters.
Content
You will now receive XP for optional objectives as you complete them.
Added a Dungeon Scorecard (working title) that can be accessed from the dungeon panel. This screen gives you real-time statistics on the number of objectives completed, creatures killed, chests you've found, traps you've disabled, etc.
Added more optional objectives to the Harbor and Marketplace dungeons.
We'll do the rest of the dungeons in a future update.
Reworked the initial set of Harbor quests (Miller's Crossing, Gambler's Den, etc.)
No more randomly exploding barrels! We're still committed to traps in general, but we want them to be more intentional and intelligently-designed.
Newbies can't fall off the newbie ship anymore - whether it was your fault or ours, we can all agree that drowning 10 seconds after character creation wasn't good for anybody.
Added new animations and movement to many NPCs in the city wards and tavern.
The Aurum has been successful in their campaign to legalize gambling in Stormreach. Don't lose your shirt!
Changed the music in the Harbor and in taverns.
Retouched the Graveyard (Delera) adventure area.
Changed the official name of the harbor from "Stormreach Harbor" to "Harbor" to address text cutoff issues.
The barbarian trainer in House Jorasco will no longer move each time someone talks to him.
Made numerous dungeon tweaks to address floating objects, visible seams, places where you could get stuck, etc.
Made numerous text changes to various NPCs and quests.
Characters
Emotes have been expanded and cleaned up. Type /emotelist for a list of available emotes.
Sorcerers now cast their spells faster.
Significantly increased the effectiveness of the Lay on Hands ability.
Clerics now have an extra spell slot per spell level which is auto-populated with the appropriate healing spell. This is our implementation of spontaneous healing.
Feats now have much better descriptions.
Increased the frequency of certain armor appearances and colors in order to increase character diversity.
Fixed a bug where several racial feats were not actually applying their bonuses as described in-game.
As per D&D rules, classes other than rogues and bards can now purchase cross-class ranks in the Use Magic Device skill.
Spells
Lots of general spell effects polish.
If you destroy a monster via disintegration, incineration, or cold-shatter, it will have no chance of leaving any collectables behind.
Scorching ray now shoots multiple rays at higher levels, as per the Player's Handbook.
Slowed down ray spells and increased the speed of freezing spells.
Mind fog now affect creatures in its radius.
Holy smite is now working correctly.
Items
Reworked the treasure system to greatly increase your chance of getting "good" drops from chests.
The quality of treasure drops in a dungeon will now degrade the more times you do it, similar to XP awards. Unlike XP rewards, degraded treasure drop quality will restore itself after a while.
Increased the overall amount of gold drops based on player feedback.
Added NPC pawnbrokers to numerous city areas and taverns. These pawnbrokers will pay more than regular vendors for your excess magical items, and will sell back a selection of items that have been sold to them.
Timer for collecting items reduced from five seconds to two seconds.
Renamed several collectable objects.
Items and objects that are used in the world now generally have an animation attached.
Vendors will now buy back arrows, bolts, and thrown weapons.
Bartenders will no longer repair items.
Crossbows now work correctly and look normal.
Thrown weapons now work correctly.
Reduced the price of thieves' tools.
Reduced the price of magic arrows.
Shaagh's Helm is now appropriately assigned to the head slot.
The light pick no longer counts as a light weapon, as per the Player's Handbook.
Crates will no longer show up as "Invisible Stalker" when inspected. They're just crates. Really.
Monsters
It should now be harder to avoid monster attacks entirely by strafing around them.
Monsters move faster now in general.
Made more improvements to monster pathing.
Monsters who spawn near you (from a sarcophagus, etc.) should now be ready to attack as soon as they appear.
Fixed visual blips on monster spawns.
Fixed a bug where the damage caused by dwarven and female NPCs was too low.
Fixed a problem where large and huge sized rust monsters had problems hitting things.
Known Issues
Logging out while in an adventuring party - especially if some or all of the party is in a dungeon - can result in your character being unable to log in. While this problem usually resolves itself within a couple of hours, we strongly recommend that you disband your party before logging out.
If you quit the game while you are a ghost, you will die again when you log back into the game.
Your other party members do not currently show up on the mini-map or full map in dungeons.
You can get stuck in a jumping animation by jumping on top of a monster.
Rest shrines are not removing the secondary damage ticker from poison affects when used.
As a general reminder, if you are stuck you can always use /suicide as a last resort to die and return to your bind point.
You can tumble while climbing a ladder.
If you are a non-spellcasters and you multiclass into a spellcasting class, you will not see the number of spell points listed on your spell point bar.
Character generation screens do not scale correctly to 800x600 resolution.
Xilren