After a longer than usual 15.6.1 we have shifted gears and returned to a two week patching schedule for the time being. 15.7.1 will go live on Wednesday, July 29th at 10AM EST. We expect a quick turnaround on 15.7.2 and 15.8.1, both slated for launch prior to PAX Prime. You can read the work in progress build notes for 15.7.2 in the build notes forum. Those attending PAX Prime this year will be able to play the game in booth #7017.

The first stage of the Entertainer revamp goes live with this build, in the form of a new Music Minigame. When using an instrument in an rest area it will now begin the Music Minigame, in addition to entering interactive music mode. There is a new synethic instrument type, and you can now see players visibly playing their instruments. The music minigame works on a system of openings, and can fork through different paths of minigames. Different options will grant different types of buffs. This system is designed so that some of the buffs between the various entertainment lines (Music, Tales, and Dancing) interact with one another. Dancing and Tale minigames will be coming in the near future.

We've introduced the games first facial tattoos, which are currently only available on the male model, but will be coming to females and in cosmetic kits soon. Numerous melee and combat animations received a pass in this build. This includes new animations for knockbacks, knockdowns, and pain animations. It also includes completely new animations for basic melee attacks. Female Characters and the Old Man skin textures have been updated to bring them in line with changes to the male skin improvements from the last build. The Character Selection screen has also been improved with three completely new scenes which will be sifted through as you select characters. A new Video Quality drop down was added which allows you to easily flip through common configurations of video settings.

Combat continues to be refined with numerous small changes. Healing received the first of a two sets of changes, with the second half coming in two weeks. This includes improvements to Heals Over Time, and better scaling of heals which has increased healing output all around. The penalty for swapping weapons in combat has been reduced by 33%, changes were made to energy regeneration, and both stances and dual wielding saw multiple improvements. Those who have moved into the further regions of the map will be happy to see that many of those areas have received a mission pass and now include a much wider assortment of available content. Combat skill gains have been increased, and the training point cost on lower tier abilities have been reduced.

Major under the hood changes were introduced to the Nation system in how building structures are handled. It brings them in line with the housing system in how they work. It doesn't introduce any new gameplay features, but is more bandwidth efficient and can split the loading between the upper and lower levels of the cities.

We added support for automated holiday events that center around the in-game calendar system. As many of you know there is a full calendar with seasons in game, but aside from weather shifts and Shrooffles, we haven't done much with it yet. This patch introduced support for holiday buffs, NPCs, and missions. These are just a few of the changes available in this patch. You can find the complete notes following the new teaser video for PAX Prime.

Adversarial Camps

Introduced new spawning rule specs for smaller than usual camps of tier 1.5-2.5 NPCs.
Adjusted the adversarial camp spawn locations in Pebble Perch so that they do not overlap onto roads, include Points of Intrigue, and spawn less mobs.
Added new camp opportunities to Echo Pond.

Animations

New and improved melee animations.
Created new impact animations for the different combat weapon stances.
Added new Knockdown animation.
Updated the Knockback animations.
Corrected latency in the pain impact reactions on players.
Jump distance is now properly impacted by the move rate modifier (will jump further when sprinting)
Updated the combat impact animations for human characters.

Auctions and Work Orders

Added the ability to view pricing information for items, based on sale prices from players to players (i.e. work orders, auctions, and player shops). To view the information, Ctrl+Right click on the item from your inventory or bank. The price information displayed is derived from sales data gathered from the previous 3 weeks for that item. "?"s will be displayed where no pricing information exists.
Added display options to the new item price info card, so you can choose how much, or how little pricing information you'd like to see for an item.

Audio

Added engine sounds to the jets in the Training Facilities.
Added swoosh sounds to most melee swings.
Players will react more often in pain.

Combat

You now receive a damage bonus on multi-attack abilities (such as triple attacks) when dual wielding. Previously you were only receiving this bonus when using normal single attacks.
Adjusted the new target selection code which is used after an NPC kills their current target. It now does a better job of not breaking off your current targets in these situations.
The delay for switching equipment during combat has been reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
Heals over time now grant a +33% bonus to the amount healed for each additional stack.
Heals Over Time are now affected by Healing Amount buffs or fittings.
Healing will now add aggro to any npc your target is engaged with.
Doubled the aggro gained from healing health of other targets and lowered it for healing yourself.
Achievement progress and Training Points for boss kills are now distributed among anyone who participated in the kill rather than only on the primary players involved.
Being damaged by an energy weapon now only has a chance to halt your energy regeneration.
Defensive Stance is no longer a CTRL+Click option in Action Mode for Unarmed (or any other) line.
A good number of adjustments were made to combat animation timing to ensure they are better synched.
The Auto-Find target option now properly switches targets if your current target is dead.
When using the Auto Face target option, you will now turn to face even if the target is behind you.

Dens

Made tweaks to how dens act if they reach the final wave and there are no mobs required. This affected a good number of dens in the world, and under the old system they would stop spawning mobs until the den area cleared. They will now instead terminate at that point, allowing them to later reset back at stage 1.
The Bandits in the Training Facilities have increased in numbers, their waves should spawn faster if large groups of players are after them, and their reset times are lower (this is in addition to fixes made to these types of dens so that they reset after all waves are spawned)

Engagements

Renamed two of the Elkar Woods engagements.

GM

GM Broadcasts are now send to the new "System" chat channel.

Graphics

Added 5 facial tattoos with customizable color to the male model.
When players are in a music minigame or playing interactive music they can now be visually seen playing the instrument.
Added new sandbag barricade models.
Improved handgun firing FX.
Added a new water deposit harvesting model.
Added 12 new ability icons.
Introduced a number of new particle effects for Entertainers.
The female and old man skin textures have been updated.
Updated and optimized tent textures.
Upgraded the male shorts mesh. Male no longer wears "short" shorts when no pants are present.

Items and Fittings

Introduced new Synthetic Instruments. While these instruments do not yet have sounds in Interactive Music they can participate in the Music Minigame and have sounds through there. These are the toughest of the current instruments to play, followed by Guitars, and then Drums.
Double clicking on an instrument will now initiate a Music Minigame, in addition to toggling music mode.
Added new Reinforcement fittings which will fit into shields and increase their chance to block.
Added knowledge to the 6 common Lesoo items; Crude Lesoo Knife, Crude Lesoo Axe, Crude Lesoo Maul, Lesoo Pot, Lesoo Drying Rack, Lesoo Quern Stones.
Handblades and Pole Axes are now visible when sheathed.
Adjustments were made to the loot ratios of most NPC species to reduce the chance of nothing being extracted.
You can now purchase drums from Street Vendors.
Tents are now sold in General Stores, as well as from the previous Street Vendors.
Cabinets 2-6 and Lockers 1-15 are now set to function as storage units.
Reduced the vendor price of diamonds.
Large Metal Base is now also a 'Bunk Frame' component. It's icon has also been updated.
Reduced the price of various items as part of economy balancing.

Minigames

Introduced a new Music Minigame. This minigame will be initiated any time you activate any instrument. It allows players to modify from an everchanging set of musical abilities and grants a new set of buffs. Not all buffs are available from the initial abilities, some require stacks from other entertainment lines.
Diplomacy minigames can now have required achievements for specific branches.
Minigames can now reward achievements on failure, as well as on success.
Boosted the diminishing returns cut off of Diplomacy minigames from 66% to 75%. This means that if you are well above the checked skill range you will be successful more often.
Minigames now support not overriding your hotkeys. This is taken advantage of in the new music minigame.
Minigame abilities now respect global activation timers.
Minigames now support being mutable to allow them to extend to new types without closing. This is used in the new entertainer based minigames.
Improved internal minigame testing tools.
You can now gain skill even if you fail when using the Diplomacy minigame. You gain skill more slowly when you fail, but it is now possible.
The fishing minigame will now work in Echo Pond.
Amended Plush Room Auditions mini-game so that the correct mood is generated when succeeding at the final stage of the audition.

Miscellaneous

Players will now receive new buffs when a holiday or festival is going on. Only the faction celebrating the event will receive these bonuses.
Created a new Character Selection screen. It now moves between different settings from the world when you switch characters.
Moving now automatically cancels interactive music mode and any animations or instrument animations/graphics that were playing.
Introduced four new combat oriented achievements. These are obtained when you defeat Mini-boss, Boss, Raid Boss or Ultra Raid Boss mobs. There is a tracker for each type which will reward players with an Achievement and title based on that type of mob after you defeat a good number of them.
NPC names will now change to Corpse of ___ after they are killed.
Added a new tip which explains Music Mode and how to use the Music Minigame. It activates the first time you double click on an instrument.

Missions

Players will no longer receive quest offers emails from NPCs hostile to them.
About 110 of the existing quests should now also generate in the new hubs that have been populated recently (Banshee Hollow, Ingall's Terminal, Virsey Point, Bondsteel, Souza Springs, Nawala Wilds, Aoss Gardens); depending skills and other prereqs, about 40-60 of them should be available to each player. They will also be added, in the future, to new hubs as they are fully populated (Day Break Acres, Rinji, Faolan Hollows, Serenity, etc)
Not interested in Intoxicating Thorns or Paralyzing Thorns as a thrown weapon? Feel free to exchange them with Eddie Schooling at the Frozen Ale in Kaavo Hold as part of a new collection mission.
"Happy Founding Festival" is a new mission from the Education Bot near the Memorial Pool in Plymouth that is available during the Founding Festival in the month of Aristotle. This can lead to two optional mission to "Honor the Builders" or "Honor the Defenders".
New mission "Happy Treaty Festival" is available in Sept Falls during the month of DaVinci for the Sept Falls Treaty Festival. Talk to the Information bot outside the Treaty Building to find out more about the festival.
Robert Rodd's "Neducation Bot" is to be found outside the City Hall in Freedomtown during the month of Aldrin for the Freedom Festival. Talk to Ned to find out more about the festival.
If you talk to the Education Bot in Plymouth during the Founding Festival you will get a chance to "Honor the Builders" of Plymouth.
If you talk to the Education Bot in Plymouth during the Founding Festival you will get a chance to "Honor the Defenders" of Plymouth.
During the Plymouth Founding Festival, Robert Rodd's "Neducation Bot" will be outside the City Hall. He is preparing a pageant to "Honor the Council" of Plymouth but from the view point of the FPR. This project isn't complete yet.
You can no longer abandon "A Second Assignment" at Training Facilities, and also need to complete "Abrupt Awakening" to be able to get it.

Nations

Significant changes were made to how nation structures load into the client. It is a bit more bandwidth friendly and supports breaking up loading of top level and basement levels now. This is a major structural change so please report any new or unexpected issues.

NPCs

NPCs can now spawn specific to certain Holidays. These are tied to the in-game calendar system and not real world dates, so you will see them appearing every few weeks.
Created NPCs to support Festival based missions: Plymouth: Education Bot, Council Aide Paige Barajas, Council Aide Gerarde Duval, Sept Falls: Information Bot, Freedomtown: Neducation Bot.
Increased threat gain a bit for damage based threat and inched up the default threat base for first detected target up slightly as well.
Added new set of Political Professions for NPCs. "Council Aide", "District Clerk", "REC Representative", "Community Protection Officer", "Engineering Officer", "Science Officer", "Human Resources Officer".
Improved NPC distribution near Echo Pond.
Adjusted Achillea spawn locations in the Westwoods.
Researcher Phillips is now a loyal member of the FPR.
Bounty Hunter Eddie Schooling has begun to show his face at the pub in Kaavo Hold.
Players can no longer kill Lola Layetta, Thomas Trelawny, Asana Uscheld, Buck Townsend, Sally Memolo, Sidiki Nwosu and Lillie J. Smith at Sept Falls.
Jill Miller at Freedomtown can no longer be attacked by FPR players.
Players can no longer kill the Wounded Woman used in One Time Missions.

Pets

Missions which ask you to tame a pet will now only take Baby pets from your inventory, rather than taking the first pet from inventory.

Player vs. Player

Reduced the hit points of turrets in the Fort Pharynx PvP engagements.

Points of Intrigue

Added new Lurker based Points of Intrigue. These can either spawn underwater or near water. They can spawn tough lurker bosses, up to raid bosses. Clearing them out results in a useful buff for anyone from your faction who visits the shrine afterwards.

Resources

Modified calculations for harvest and species skill increases to work better with new harvest node data. Odds of a skill increase improve when extracting higher grade resources, and when extracting in a higher level region. The odds decrease as your skill improves.
Aquaios Nodes now provide Mineral Sands.
Water deposits are now using new models and no longer the generic rock.
Hematite will no longer be obtained in game, it has been removed from Pyrohemalite. Existing stocks should be used in Plate Metal creation or vendor trashed.
Added generated Plant and Lumber resources to Nido Cuervo.
Diseased Brain Tissue should drop less often from Elkar.

Skills and Abilities

Reduced the cost of purchasing abilities with Training Points, particularly on lower skill requirement skills to make it easier for players to fill out their characters if they wish to do so in this manner.
Reduced the minimum skill gain duration timer. This should result in faster skill gains for some skills (combat oriented in particular), while others are unaffected.
Increased skill gain rate when dual wielding.
Toggled abilities such as stances will no longer cancel stealth.
Improved species knowledge increase logic to behave similarly to normal skill increases, applying both bonuses (e.g. group benefits) and reductions (e.g. afk/bot checks).
Heals now properly take into account the effect of fittings or buffs on your maximum hit points. The result is that heals should now be more effective than was previously the case.
Added numerous new Entertainer buffs through the new Music Minigame.
Many Entertainer abilities had their buffs and/or names changed in preparation for the incoming Entertainer revamp.
Reduced the effectiveness of the Spooked Caution entertainer buff to adjust for recent stealth changes. It can now stack up to ten times, however.
The Heroic Tales buff had its initial effectiveness reduced, but can now stack up to ten times.
The Reassured buff (Entertainment) now has a lower initial increase, but stacks up to ten times.
In High Spirit (Entertainment) now gives a slightly smaller (12% vs. 15%) initial recovery boost, but can stack four additional times to compensate for it.
Added the Tale of Mirth and Tale of Tragedy as well as Tragic, Comedic, and Dramatic Expositions. These stories will be available to Entertainers after the revamp is complete.
Minigame abilities now supports buffs requiring a specific other buff, or stack of buffs in order to apply.

Trade Skills

Added a recipe to Metalworking, Bunk Fabrication. This recipe produces many varieties of single, double, and triple bunks.
The existing Mineral Acidification Chemistry recipe has been altered to no longer need Hematite. Instead, the Iron Oxide products will require the mineral Pyrite.
Cloth Chair Padding Creation in Tailoring has been renamed Cloth Padding and Mattresses. This recipe now also has Mattresses (blueprints and crafting item) in addition to it's existing results.
Changed Sand to have it's own component type and altered appropriate recipes to fit
The item Double Barrel Assembly can now be crafted in the recipe Turret Frame Construction. This item allows the crafting of a personal plasma turret.
Recipe: Building Materials: Concrete - Removed Additive from recipe

User Interface

Added a new Quality Drop-down to the Video Options. It has 7 steps from Ultra Low to Ultra High. Auto Configure now steps through each of these settings to find the best one, or you can simply toggle through them till you find one that works for you. Changing most of the settings in the list will toggle the option to Custom.
The survey window now has a splitter between the Harvestable Region and Harvester Resource result sections, so you can resize them vertically.
Adjusted the window size of the nag window so it was at least 400 pixels so the title fit properly and moved the button so it was more centered at different sizes.
Changed the Deaths Channel to the System channel as it was not be used and we needed a channel for important system related info message.

World

Added some detail to Pebble's Perch and Rogue's Rest. This includes trees, rocks and grass.
Props and lights added for the new Rinji City in Rinji Plateau.
Added additional plant and rock details to Mistden.
Added a bank to the S&B Supply Post.
Adjusted the OWON and FPR safe spots in the Lurker Bog to move them out of harm's way and in an easier to see location. The Rogue spot has remained the same.
Removed collision from the smaller plants in the Training Facilities.
Tree and foliage work in the Training Facilities.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue with Auctions, where some auctions got stuck at 0 minutes left, and some had their winning bids distributed more than once.
Removed a stack related exploit.
Corrected an issue with Pending Card rewards which have expired causing errors on startup.
Fixed an issue with pets adding aggro to players and setting the aggro of the pet to the player making it pretty much impossible to tank with them.
Dual Mineral Reduction and Tri-Mineral Reduction have had their minimum quality requirements reduced to Simple. These recipes are once again useable.
Collecting Artifacts mission will no longer be available for incorrect factions.
Fixed a mouse pointer glitch which occurred when you activated Action Mode Combat from the Interface options.
Removed a case where players could revive and be stuck in a swimming animation.
Added a /help fixcloning command. You can use this is to get your cloning points up to date in the event that they are not. This was added primarily to fix some issues in the initial server transfers, but could be useful in some cases in the future if anything ever gets out of synch.
Fixed an issue with inventory full checks and items in overflow.
Fixed an issue which was preventing weapons from being swapped between primary and secondary slots of the character sheet.
Added Venom Component Type to Paralyzing Thorn. (This should allow use in Venomous Injection Device)
Fixed an issue which was preventing players who were neutral to an NPCs faction from attacking that NPC in contested territory. This was disallowing Rogue Nations from participating in the Shattered Heights engagements or killing neutral faction NPCs if they so desired.
Cleaner Bots will no longer attack players in Kaavo Hold.
Cone Based special abilities now display the range in Meters rather than Units.
Corrected an issue where energy weapon users were unable to regenerate energy against ranged users, but able to regenerate fine against melee.
Repaired an error which in one of the jet paths in the Training Facilities which had it clip a tree.
Stackable buffs were erroneously giving an extra 33% bonus due to giving a bonus for the first stack. This has been resolved.
Training Facilities: the Crafting MentorBot's teaching budget has been slashed, and the Bot no longer gives rewards for completing the Crafting & Harvesting tutorial.
Fixed several path waypoints, trigger and trees buried or bad located at Camp Kjell.
Solved the case of disappearing trees in Blair Ridge.
Resolved an issue which could allow missions to mistake vehicles or pets as mission targets in rare cases.
Changed the hostility group for Manned Cannons at Elkar Woods so they can not be used to attack other players.
Fixed a waypoint that was inside a rock and some others floating above ground in The Pipeworks.
Fixed some issues with terrain and trees near where Obstinada, Claw Canyon, and the Southern Chasm.
Fixed the prerequisites for a couple of quests in the "Robotic Mentor" chain; they should now generate properly.
Fixed a typo in the mission "Cut Back the Weeds".
Grounded a few floating plants in Fool's Sanctuary
It no longer tells you that you can not tame someone elses pet if you try to tame your own pet.
Unburied some waypoints and objects from Samples to the Convoy engagement near the Aemar Hydro Plant.
Fixed a bug which caused some rifle types to stow on female characters heads rather than their backs.
Fixed the prerequisites for one of quests in the "Defense Mentor" chain; it should now generate properly.
Camp Kjell engagement and fire minigame is now working again.
Corrected some issues with the kill tracking in the Fort Pharynx PvP engagements.
Fixed some trees in the tutorial that erroneously were allowing navmesh to build through them.
Fixed an issue with client side props not being stowed properly when a player logs out.
Fixed some issues with Lola Layetta having duplicate babbles and inquiry responses.
All the quests in the "Protection Technique" mission chain had their prerequisites set wrong; fixed, they should all genereate properly.
Fixed the female characters back pedal animation, her shoulders no longer stretch when walking backward.
Fixed an issue with npcs called to assist not properly going out of the state.
Corrected a problem which was preventing respawns in some cases due to a bug in the taming system not removing the tamed creature properly from the spawn list.
Stitched a terrain seam behind the Clone Cafe in the Training Facilities.
Dug out some of the artifacts needed by The Pipeworks engagements.
Corrected problems with the "Collecting Artifacts" mission which is part of the Pipeworks engagement chain.
First Quest, Defeat NPCs, Defeat Mongen, Escort Example Missions will no longer be erroneously granted to players. Instead a banner of Job offer expired will popup and quest accept cancelled.
Fixed a terrain peak in Golem's Grove.
Fixed an issue with the new aggro changes where they would aggro non combat flagged targets.
Fixed a bug which was causing some armor types to have higher incoming heals than others.
Fixed a bug which allowed players to receive missions from a "Replace Me" NPC. This was an NPC who was removed and the generation flag was not properly removed from them.
Fixed an issue with action mode and neutral players.
Grounded a floating rock formation in Neverwood.
Fixed an issue where npcs in assist mode if failed pathing to their origin got stuck in the state.
Unburied some prop boxes used on the Those Numbskulls! Engagement.
Oasis Watch Towers: Yeoman Hodge has decided to stop hiding in the walls.
Fixed some trees which were located in Pebble Perch but attached to Rogue's Rest. This could cause players to bounce back and forth when colliding with them.
Landed, rotated and relocated some Barrels and Barriers belonging to Heightened Lesoo Activity engagement along the Falls Trail.
Grounded a few floating trees in Outside Freedomtown.
Fixed an issue in Southeast of Freedomtown where props where not in the correct area causing a player to get stuck on an object.
Fixed the issue where long hair on the female characters would stretched improperly causing it to look distorted.
Corrected a bug which was preventing weekly or monthly specific events from processing properly.
Unburied, rotated and relocated several fences used for the Hokfig Mating Season engagement in the Aemar Hydro Plant.
Fixed a bug which was preventing you from following other players.
Corrected some issues with the Okolat den near Echo Pond.
Medical scanners can now gain skill properly when dual wield.
Removed an incorrect PvP is Enabled message in the new tutorial.
Need Gift: Baby Setlang mission will no longer show a greyed dialog response option.
Stitched a small seam in the Training Facilities.
Fixed a Fire extinguisher which was mysteriously floating in Camp Kjell.
Slightly reduced the amount of Training Points you receive from Raid Bosses. This is made up for by the fact that the entire raid now receives these points.
The SI Spending window will now properly roll out skill categories which you have enough points to improve.
Nurse Davis has re-pledged her loyalty to OWON.
Repaired an issue which would sometimes cause NPCs to not respawn until the Colonel had been killed in Fort Pharynx.
Fixed an issue which was preventing mines from respawning in the tutorial.
Adjusted the code for housing (and now nations) to fix player/npc placement to hopefully fix issues with placement when first logging in.
Repaired a problem with the buy back timers which was causing items to remain longer than intended if you stayed in the same area.
Raised a few generated plant spawners in Nido Cuervo which were slightly underneath the terrain.
Minor grammar fixes to error messages, related to housing storage units.
Fixed an issue which was preventing Bandits from respawning in the tutorials.
Fixed a typo in the radio message received if the Arrvors in Brenning engagement fails.
Reduced the difficulty of the FPR Guards in the Retrieving the Wreckage PvP engagement.
Only one version of Ludmilla Adamchuk will appear at a time in Fort Bondsteel.
The guards in the Fort Pharynx PvP engagements will now despawn when another faction conquers the fort.
Corrected an issue which was spawning more areas than needed to be spawned in some cases and causing server lag when it happened.
Change collision properties for some small bushes in Claw Cannyon to prevent players from getting stuck on them.
Removed an obsolete model "Body Armor" neon sign from Freedomtown.
Fixed an issue which could cause vehicle shop windows to not open properly.
Reworded the congratulations message in the Mercenaries in Elkar Woods engagement.