!!NOTICE: BARD characters are required to be wiped for this update, a wipe is suggested but not required for other classes.

Well hello then, it's been a while! Now that my real life stuff has cleared up, I've got one heck of a build to release today. So let's cut to the chase! There are a few large changes worth spending a paragraph on:

Purchasing Skills in any order
With this new build, every level you can learn a new skill at your friendly neighborhood skill trainer. These skills can be learned in any order, so pick your favorites first! Skill costs will rise with each skill you buy, so save up some money to get them all!

Rested Experience
Here's a familiar system that is also in many other similar games. When you aren't playing Sealed World, you will accumulate "rested experience". While you have rested experience, any experience gain from killing enemies will be doubled! Gaining exp this way will deplete your rested experience. Rested experience is gained automatically whenever you aren't playing, however you will get twice as much if you log out in a city! Currently there is no visual indicator of this, that will be coming soon.

Bard Changes
This is the reasoning behind the bard character wipe mentioned above. Bard Songs have been changed fairly significantly, they are now party-wide buffs that last for five minutes and stack up to two. To fit with this, Arcane Aura and Battlecry have been removed from the game, replaced with two different (but similar) skills using the same icon. This should result in a bit less micromanagement, but require more planning ahead of time to make maximum use of!

Additionally, there are Four new bard skills all available for purchase. I hope that helps any bard players feel a bit better about having to do the character wipe!

The following changes are also included in this build

• NPCs can now start conversations with the player automatically.
• Blocked off the lowlands until level 4 to prevent people getting lost.
• Improved hair sprites for Raskaar.
• Fixed a bug that was causing drawing/sheathing weapons to behave improperly.
• Damage numbers should now probably not overlap.
• Fixed display issues with the skill tutor window.
• Added special AI to the kobolds in the jungle cavern.
• created navigation meshes for most zones. Some zones have incomplete meshes for now.
• Added visual effects to many skills