The first month of 2014 is in the books, and it was one of our more exciting months. Our Kickstarter campaign came to a close after generating a better than expected $176,525. In the process we knocked down ten stretch goals which will brought mounts into the game and in the future will result in Adversarial Camps, Points of Intrigue, Cooperative Structure Placement, Traveling Shops, Unique Renaming of Items and PvP Gladiator Tournaments in both player and NPC cities. We're excited about all of these features, and can't wait to see them in game. An eleventh stretch goal, a customizable XML User Interface is likely also to become a reality through the Early Adopter store on the web site.

We expended a lot of time and energy on this campaign in January, but we didn't let it slow us down much development wise. With the next round of testing less than two months away we continue to work hard to eliminate bugs and add content. Along with those improvements we put a larger focus than normal on animations in January, introduced Dual Wielding, focused on Rogue types, and made life easier on melee combatants with the addition of a /stick command. The world also continues to fill out with many new areas receiving content. See the World section for more details.

Our focus next month will be on beefing up our server hardware and getting the game ready for larger testing in late March.. We'll have the opportunity to speak about that in more depth in next months progress report. For now let's take a look at this month's build notes.

Animations

· Various animation improvements aimed to improve fighting on the move.
· Adjusted the downward/upward body targeting a bit more and clamped both.
· Added forward/backward/left/right animations for crouch when in combat.
· Your weapon is temporarily removed from your hand when you toss a grenade now.
· Added three new idle animations for human characters or NPCs.
· Adjusted the vertical angle so when firing downward it will look a bit more proper, before it was aiming a bit higher visually and looked odd.
· Vertical adjustment on the body when in combat is now properly aligned from the firing point of the weapon making the different weapons a bit more uniform in angle.
· Adjusted the vertical adjustment on handgun drawn idle to make it look a bit better.

Combat

· You can now use the /stick command to stick to mobs in melee range. This allows melee classes to stick close to fleeing mobs or players.
· You may now dual wield handguns and some melee weapons. When dual wielding weapons you will eat through endurance or energy more quickly, and pay a penalty to your range (handguns) or damage (melee), as well. The overall DPS is higher in optimum situations, however.
· The Sniper/Zoom effect has been improved and should be easier to use.
· Introduced new faction specific Manned Cannons for protected areas.
· Floating damage text is now enabled, rather than disabled by default.
· Corpse Extraction and Looting will now take you out of combat mode.

Engagements

· Updated the Bomber flight paths in the Ranger Station 56 engagement so they can better avoid the trees.
· Improved the special FX in the Ranger Station 56 Bomb Run engagement.
· Increased the number of NPCs which need to be killed to complete the Ranger station 56 invasion engagement, and added a new Mech Boss as part of an additional wave at the end.
· Spaced out the defenders in the OWON Training Grounds engagements so they are less likely to interfere with your line of sight.
· The Shed will now catch fire if the Lesoo successfully flash bomb it.
· Added ramps to the engagement in the OWON Training Grounds. When the invaders rush in from the sides they will now use the ramps rather than jumping down.
· You no longer have a chance at any engagement rewards unless you contributed something of significance.
· Improved the Terrorist portion of the Bombs in the City Engagement. The Bomb Squad and terrorists now rush to their cue points rather than simply spawning there.

Graphics

· Weapon Trails support additional customization, allowing some effects to utilize multiple weapon trails with different appearances.
· Added hundreds of new particle textures.
· Implemented new godray and buffing effects.
· Added new graphics to loading screens.
· Many weapon abilities have received upgraded visuals.
· Added a new building set for uses in Loch Aza, and Koleyna specifically. This inclues new light posts, fishing racks, piers, and huts.
· Created a new flashbang vortex effect.
· Added new water effects, one for when underwater and another for water surface effects.
· Added a new model for harvestable trees.
· Added around 100 new models for the environment, plants, and props.
· Added models for four new NPC species.
· Model and texture optimization on bunker model.
· The desert building set has seen some major modifications. Buildings which were previously exterior only now have interiors.
· Many new particle and full screen effect types were added.
· Optimized drake poison particles.
· Updated all of the tree harvestable nodes with the new tree model.
· Additional improvements to Burning effects.
· Created new special FX for the bomb defusing devices.
· Model and texture optimization on small and medium sized buildings.

Inquiries

· You can now ask numerous new political questions from FPR members, especially officials.
· Added quite a few new generated responses to the inquiry system.
· Added new profession and item related inquiries.
· Inquiries will now automatically close if an NPC dies, and you will not be able to open up a new one.
· NPCs can now remain seated while talking during Inquiries.

Items and Fittings

· Many different types of handguns and melee weapons are now be dual wield.
· Increased Handgun range.
· Introduced a number of new readable books into the game. Each of these will raise an appropriate skill for the first character who reads them.
· Updated the visualizations on several weapons so they rest better in your hands.
· Added new loot tables for different themes of Pick Pocketing.

Miscellaneous Features

· You can now /follow to follow your target with some distance between you.
· Added a new Underworld category for Achievements and converted the Assassination and Thievery achievements to use it.
· The first time a player visits the Rhiamon Cave they will now receive a small but permanent boost to their Intimidation skill.
· Added seven new audio tracks from Clyde Shorey and Matthew Shine.
· Renamed a reasonable number of weapon abilities to better identify what they do.
· Moved the base arrival point in Drake's Pass to a more appropriate location.
· You can now sit in the chairs at Ranger Station 56.
· Talking to a npc that invokes the conversation camera will now properly have your player face toward the npc.
· Adjusted NPC positions in The Shed so they fit the new pub better.
· Added a new Achievement and suffix title: Book Thief. You could receive this title when stealing certain books.
· Added a new Achievement and suffix title: Shoplifter. You could receive this title through repeated shoplifting.
· NPCs in the Clone Cafe now spawn in more random locations.
· Extracting will now take you out of combat mode if you are in so the weapon is sheathed.

Missions

· Added a new generated combat mission template which aids medical staff and has medical rewards: Blood Work.
· Added a new mailed tradeskill mission template: Building Upon Success. This is given by FPR Crafting Representatives after you have completed multiple tradeskill related missions, and is only available to FPR players. It sets you up for future assignments.
· Added a new combat oriented generated mission template: Indentured Service. This template is available for character types of all factions, assuming the area supports the necessary NPCs and mobs.
· Introduced a new mission in FPR territory which requires some hacking skill and a good reputation with the Players club.
· Many new generated mission templates are now available for use by FPR players.

NPCs

· Six new Representatives of the FPR Advisors have made their appearance in Freedomtown. These NPCs will be involved in many of the missions and storylines moving forward. These NPCs move around quite a bit as they go about their rounds.
· Introduced 7 new NPC Professions.
· Added vertical tracking and partial horizontal tracking to mechs.
· Wounded NPCs for One Time Missions should now be sitting on the ground rather than standing scared.
· Adjusted the spawn locations and pathing of numerous NPCs in the OWON Training Facility.
· Added new NPC controlled mech bosses.
· Lesoo now support the use of more weapon types.
· NPCs at Ranger Station 56 should now be more evenly distributed and new spawn locations have been added.
· Guide Bots, Maintenance Bots, Medical Bots, and Nacoots all received new Creature Portraits.
· Added new NPCs and furniture to City Hall in Freedomtown.
· Renowned author Jutz Klanger has begun frequented the Mayflower Pub most nights.
· There is now a greater variety on the damage types done by ranged NPCs.
· Added a new snow themed NPC outfit.
· Added additional background and location information for NPCs in Freedomtown.

Pets

· Tamed Pets should now age more appropriately, and a bit more quickly on the high end.
· Lurker pets should now be normal sized. They were previously scaled too high.
· Pets will now be dismissed if you teleport while they are active.

Skills and Abilities

· Added a new system which allows abilities to override which defensive skill is in defensive calculations against it, and thus which skill is gained on success.
· Flash grenades now have a new status effect which causes severe vision impairment for a short period of time.
· You can now obtain Achievements by picking the pockets of certain NPCs or stealing certain items.
· Self teleportation abilities can now be interrupted and have a 30 minute recharge time.
· The following Diplomacy based special abilities are now only effective on humans players or NPCs: Verbal Assault, Verbal Lashing, and "You Don't Want To Do This!".
· Adjusted the description of the Repair Robot ability to better describe what it does. This ability repairs long-term damage rather than temporary damage.

Trade Skills

· Adjusted the skill gains for recipes. Due to a few changes it was much harder than intended. It should go quicker now.
· You can now purchase training manuals for harvesting skills from many of the same vendors who sell tools.
· Tweeked the recipe mastery progression. It now should progress as a better pace for recipes that don't have the full range of skill points allocated.
· Restructured how harvested resources respawn internally to male it easier for us to add them into future areas.
· Added random Mineral Ore resources to Bog's Edge, Outside Freedomtown, Claw Canyon, the Boglands, The Pipeworks, Scar's Wall, and Drake's Pass, the Northern Range, Southeast of Freedomtown, and the Lurker Bog. These require a harvester to extract.
· Added Copper to Bog's Edge.
· Evaporite can now be properly harvested for Borax rather than Calibrite.
· Fixed Many Refined Bars, most did not have a branch/filter on them.

User Interface

· Ability icons will now shade red when your target is out of range of that ability.
· You may now disable combat number floating text without disabling other floating text messages.
· Chat bubbles will now remain on the screen longer for those who are not speed-readers. The length that they will stay on screen varies by the length of the message.
· The chat window should no longer fade out when you were typing a message and then drag an icon from another window. This was causing hyperlinking issues.
· You can now press the 'M' key (by default) to toggle the full map.
· Adjusted the location of Action Mark selection icons such as the Sitting icon.
· Item and ability hyperlinking into chat is once again functional.
· Added Chat Settings to the main option menu.
· The Player Finder will now properly capitalize each player's name in the list.
· If you are missing a harvestable tool you will get a fly message as well as a chat message.
· You can now close any open hints by pressing the Escape key.
· The green check mark that appears momentarily when you complete a mission goal is now better aligned to the window.
· Adjusted the conversation cameras so the npc is positioned more toward the center of the screen so the dialog won't interfere with the rest of the UI for the most part.
· You are not taken out of combat when interacting with NPCs via the conversation camera.
· Chat bubbles now now be removed when a npc or pc is removed from your awareness.
· Neutral NPCs can now be tab targeted as they can be attacked.
· Removed some fields out of Video Options that were not working any longer or not used.
· All video setting/options should now save and properly load back up after restart.
· You may now use the escape key to close the Player Finder Window or exit the Key Bindings window.
· Added a fade in and out effect to both the Key Binding and Player Finder windows.
· Floating tooltips should now properly close when you use escape to close a window while mousing over the trigger GUI.
· The status bar panels will now cut off names that are too long and append them with a "...", similar to what has been done in mission windows.
· Player titles will no longer appear in the target status bars. This is to prevent players from trying to hide their identity with long prefix titles.
· Fixed an issue where dropdown-lists wouldn't dissapear when closing a window using "Esc".

Vehicles and Mounts

· Added a new Rocharus mount. This was a stretch goal of the new Kickstarter and is our first mountable animal.
· You should no longer be able to roll while in a vehicle or mount. Some vehicles were allowing this previously.
· Stealthed players de-stealth now when mounting.

World

· Added a new area called "The Wailing Chasm". This is the most famous landmark of this region and features a rock bridg that is over a kilometer long and running over a huge chasm.
· Introduced a new area in the Wailing Chasm: Jardinia. This area includes wetlands and a rocky region. It along the western border of Wailing Chasm and Drake's Pass.
· Introduced a new area in Loch Aza: The Aza Dunes. This area is west-northwest of Koleyna. It hosts the entrance to the Rhiamon Cave, a tier 6 Lesoo dungeon.
· Introduced a new Lesoo dungeon in the Loch Aza area, which is being called the Rhiamon Cave. This is a tier 6 dungeon. It features resources and traps, in addition to it's Lesoo inhabitants.
· Introduced a new are to Wailing Chasm for FPR players. It is known as Banshee's Hollow and features the village of Sudet.
· You can now access Banshee's Hollow from the entrance of Wailing Chasm by traveling South.
· The wold continues to take shape with the following additions: Lower Pontoc, Southern Pontoc, Viminal Valley, Northern Viminal Valley, Western Viminal Valley, Eastern Viminal Valley, Hudson's Pass, Timbertol Pond, Doma Pass, Jardinia, Jardnia Hills, Arid Grove and the Neverwood.
· The roads in the Northern Range are dangerous by design, but are now a little less dangerous than was previously the case.
· Made the exits to Freedomtown a little safer. Mobs should spawn further from the roads. This included changes to three areas.
· The winter season now has a more dramatic effect on frigid areas.
· Added props and lights to the Technology Center in Freedomtown.
· Smoothered a flattened plateau in Bog's Edge.
· Added many props to Freedomtown.
· Filled the general store in Freedomtown with props.
· Added many props to the pub in Freedomtown.
· Much work was done to Wailing Scar and other borders between Freedomtown and Wailing Chasm.
· Added a Manned Cannon to Ranger Station 56.
· Added two new bunkers to Ranger Station 56.
· Added a Crafting Station, Skill Imprinting Station and Bank Terminal to Ranger Station 56.
· Added more props and lights to Ranger Station 56.
· Added a new cave system in Loch Aza.
· Updated the bunkers in The OWON training grounds with props and lights.
· Added more props and lights to Clone Cafe in the OWON Training Facility.
· Moved FPR's cloning point in The Shed so that it won't be vulnerable to Lesoo Flash Bombs if the area is invaded.
· Added OWON and Rogue specific spawn points near The Shed.
· Optimizations were made to the OWON Training Facilities.
· Added a number of new Bank Terminals and Skill Imprinting Stations to the Freedomtown area.
· Added lights to the Freedomtown Medical Center.
· Removed a few duplicated NPCs in OWON Training Facilities. Also fixed a slight position issue causing some npcs to spawn on top of each other in the Clone Cafe.
· Added new lights to Freedomtown.
· Added snow to more parts of Kaavo.
· Thick-furred Rhinocs and Mubark have begun appearing near Kaavo Hold.
· Kaavo Hold now has its own weather scripts.
· Fixed an area in Loch Aza which had become disconnected from the rest of the region.

Bug Fixes

· Stitched a terrain seam on the Scar's Wall/Drake's Pass border.
· Fixed an issue where the horizontal tracking was tracking the wrong location causing things to look wrong.
· Fixed an issue equipping a weapon/armor and it not getting updated properly on the client.
· Smoothed a trail in Claw Canyon which had too steep an incline to climb up.
· Fixed an issue with the Manuever AI where it would get locked in the state.
· Repaired some terrain seams in Drake's Pass.
· NPCs will no longer attempt to crouch while moving. They won't attempt to crouch while moving and will go out of crouch mode if they are crouched and start to move.
· Moved some rocks which were overlapping on the Mid-Freedomtown and Northern Range border. This could cause players to fall through terrain when they walked on them.
· Fixed a few more issues with combat mode and looting/extraction. You should properly go out of combat mode now.
· Fixed an issue caused by zooming out in third person mode.
· Zooming out of sniper mode should no longer cause field of view issues.
· Fixed a typo in the description for the Dialed In skill (Automatic Weapons).
· Fixed an issue which was causing weapon range calculations to be incorrect on the client.
· Fixed an issue that was causing dance moves to fail sometimes.
· Removed a screen that was floating in the back room in the Hole on the Hill. This was a remnant from the old animated crafting monitors that were removed when we switched its model.
· The Rare Coins collection now refers to Henryk Walczak by his proper name.
· Repaired an issue with the Rifles tutorial where if you spoke to the NPC without the credits or chit to train, it would complete the mission instead of abandoning it, causing you to be unable to complete it later.
· Fixed an issue with the character jittering when really close to a target
· Stitched a large terrain seam in the Boglands.
· Fixed another issue with weapon visualizations.
· Corrected a bug that was causing NPCs to not play their Arrival FX due to latency in some situations.
· You will no longer grunt like a woman when extracting a corpse.
· Fixed an issue that was preventing Manned Cannons from doing damage.
· Repaired a markup related damage message bug that was related to damage over time abilities.
· Fixed a bug that was preventing you from right click looting humans or robots when in action mode.
· Fixed an issue where if a NPC damaged itself the NPC would add itself to the aggro list and cause all sorts of hell.
· Fixed an issue with maintenance bots repair animation. It wasn't always playing correctly.
· Corrected an improperly formed sentence when Conceited NPCs responded to questions about themselves.
· Corrected some issues with certain types of NPCs not being able to detect players unless they were much closer than intended.
· Fixed a bug which was preventing the tents and containers that were supposed to be spawned from the Those Numbskulls! series of engagements from ever spawning.
· Fixed some floating trees in Elkar Wood and Judair Gulch.
· Fixed the alternate arrival paths for apartment mission instances.
· Updated the paths in the raid events at The Shed so that it fits the new design of the Shed.
· Adjusted Cayo Layutta's spawn location so that he doesn't have some space between him and the wall he was supposed to be leaning on.
· Previous track arrow is now cleared when selecting a new target to track.
· Opening a book multiple times will no longer create multiple windows.
· Fixed some NPCs who were standing on top of the new stools in the Freedomtown pub.
· Corrected an issue where the achievement gained for mastering Tailoring was incorrectly named Master Robotics Engineer.
· Multiple menu items which include Loot should no longer pop up a menu and just go straight into looting.
· Corrected some floating buildings in Wailing Chasm.
· Fixed an issue where closing the Player Finder or Key Binding windows would not properly restore Action Mode.
· Fixed the issue with weapons sometimes now showing up on players/npcs.
· Resources should no longer spawn on tree limbs in Plymouth Pond.
· Fixed an issue that was causing some of the NPCs at the Clone Cafe to not spawn all the time.
· Kino Ranford in the OWON Training Facility should no longer sit in mid-air.
· Fixed a bunch of floating trees outside of Freedomtown, in the Sapless Mesa and Judair Gulch.
· Removed some mounted weapons from the old style mechs on the Sim Assault Mechs.
· Fixed an issue where mission names could still be too long to fit properly in the journal or mission helper due to adding extra length with the "..." when it cut off the name.
· Fixed an issue that was causing shadows to sometimes not appear while in Cinematic mode.
· Fixed an issue that was causing some of the mobs despawned in the Bombs in the City series of engagements in Plymouth City to not respawn after the engagement ended.
· Lil Gil should no longer take odd routes around Plymouth City.