Blight Client 403.47.0 Istaria Community Manager March 8, 2021
	Features: Added a “Use” option to the Pet window. Overhead quest icons on NPCs will now display based on priority, and use a new icon based on their classification. The color of the overhead icon now indicates the type of quests being offered. Add slider to advanced options to set the default NPC Chat font size. Some items have a simple skill requirement to craft (i.e. 300 min, 300 max) meaning the efficiency bar isn’t helpful, in those situations the efficiency bar will show you how close you are to the required skill instead of either being empty or full. Fixes: Fixed being unable to trade currency from the Wallet tab of the trade window if the inventory mode is set to List. Fixed situations where holding the ENTER or RETURN keys would auto-close any popups the moment they appeared. Fixed /quit command not working. Fixed quest icon taking longer to display, and remaining visible longer than intended. Fixed several issues with character creation: Fixed the music in character creation not functioning correctly (i.e. not the racial music for the selected race). Fixed strange buzzing sound with effects, such as the birds and steam. Fixed the loading screen disappearing too early before character creation was actually done loading. Fixed the character rotating too fast when using the rotation buttons if the client was experiencing high FPS. Fixed being able to unselect your currently selected race, this is cosmetic issue but is still confusing. Fixed an issue where inactive abilities would appear to load and be active when they really weren’t. Fixed excessive spam when receiving the newly active abilities that are given for some schools. Fixed the terrain textures for some areas being wrong (i.e. Sslanis had lost it’s jungle texture). Fixed shadows rendering too big or too small for some types of monsters (golems, Pratt’s Pond spiders etc). Double click Inventory window -list view column header closes window Fix crash issue with idle NPC Fix issue with shopping list forgetting techniques. Move messages without lookup into debug channel Correct problem with NPC Quest link text formatting Fix crash with Character Window when Ability is NULL

Blight Delta 312 Sarsilas February 19, 2021
	Fixed typos in ‘Where Is My Sister?’, ‘Fall of Tazoon: Refugees’, and the crystal ‘Ada Fruthak’s Memento’. Trainers: Heldrur, Aminah, Hameth, and Jahaim now have correct inventory and no longer ask for Lore Tokens for currency. Many crafting trainers formulas have been cleaned up and sync’d to what they should be selling. Formulatron has been cleaned up and will no longer give formulas that can be purchased in game. A scholar’s desk can now be found in Onyndriss’ building in Delgarath Soul Shock is a mez and was incorrectly classified as a stun. Updated some dialogue in quest “Grant Smyth's Fate” (when you choose to turn Grant in) Granite Construction Blocks on L/S Dryad Memorial Trees, L/M/S Dwarven Memorial Headstones, L/M/S Elven Memorial Headstones, L/M Human Memorial Headstones, and L/M/S Saris Memorial Headstones now use Masonry instead of Essence Structuring A small number of Crimson Ravagers have been spotted amongst the Crimson Shredders Removed the duplicate Dryart attunement quest from Boltai. Blight Crabs will spawn a bit more widely (but less densely) on the beaches near the Pirate’s Inlet Avatar of Pain has a larger patrol region. Fixed the Statue Mold’s resource and skill requirements. Bond-Keeper’s Shielded is now more forgiving for incoming damage types Emotion “Peaceful” will now only reduce damage by 10% Emotion “Enraged” will now only increase damage by 10% Cleric, Mage, Warrior and Scout schools now gain 50 additional health at level 1. Read More...

Developer's Desk 2021 Sarsilas February 15, 2021
	2021, A new year, a new Developer’s Desk! Some of you might remember what these are, but for those unfamiliar: with these posts we hope to peel back the curtains to give you, our community, a better look at all the things that have gone on, are going on, and will be going on for Istaria in the coming period. This past year has been hectic for reasons we all know too well.  I imagine you as much as I have heard enough about the reality of our world on the news, so all we will say is that we hope all of you are healthy and in a good place going forward, and that this coming year is an improvement to all. With 2020 we focused around continuing the main storyline quests in the game. This was in the form of The Ruin of Tazoon and The Cult of Nazderon updates. These brought ruin to the symbol of the Empire and introduced a previously unknown invading force - and to top it all off, the return of a maddened mage-king! But it did not bring just ruin and destruction, for beauty did bloom in many corners of Istaria and a whole set of islands rose from the tumultuous seas north of Drakul. On the more technical side there have also been many improvements, our tech-wizards applied their magic on many fields improving overall game stability, as well as implementing many new features like antialiasing support. However, this is all what has occurred this past year, now for the real meat and potatoes of this Developer’s Desk: What to expect in the coming year. Read More...

The Three Shadows Sarsilas February 6, 2021
	Some of you may have noticed some shadowy figures we've posted across our social media the past few months. Soon the light will shine on their scales. For now, we are simply hosting all three teaser images in one community post to keep everything together and to be sure no one has been left out of seeing them. Read More...

Chaos Restart Istaria Community Manager January 26, 2021
	We're doing a quick restart of Chaos to fix the problem with some missing NPC's.  It should be back online around 4:00 PM PST.

Blight Delta 312 Istaria Community Manager January 26, 2021
	Wow - lots in this update and we're not finished yet. There was so much that we decided to do an intermediate delta to get some things onto Blight for testing. Check out the forums for more info!

Blight Client 403.15.0 Istaria Community Manager January 15, 2021
	Features: The game’s loading code has been rewritten which will greatly improve loading performance, allowing the game to load faster on the loading screen and stream assets ingame faster, as well as improving game stability. The “Breath remaining” bar when underwater now always automatically centers and appears on top of other windows to prevent losing it. The casting / ability usage bar will move itself back on screen if you accidentally moved it off and make sure it appears on top of other windows. NPC Chat windows will make sure they are on-screen if they were accidentally moved off when greeting an NPC. Additional optimisation has increased the client’s FPS. The trade window now has a tab for your wallet, showing your currencies and their source similar to your wallet. Both your wallet and the trade window can now show your currencies as a grid view, if you prefer to organise your tokens visually. The map’s direction indicator is now higher quality and consistent in the default, sapphire, garnet, and emerald themes. Lava and ice already used this higher-quality icon. Bee sounds from beehives are now quieter and have smaller radius Add Use Option when you right click the Pet Window. Fixes: Fixed an issue where the game could freeze while loading into a new area after a teleport. Fixed an issue where assets would seemingly fail to load at random (such as textures appearing perpetually grey). Improved performance of how plot permissions are applied The ‘Hide Passives’ button is now inline with the search bar in the character window ability tab. Item icons will now downscale to fit instead of being cut off in the wallet window. Correct pet icon so that it does not truncate in pet window. Read More...

Happy Holidays and Merry Gnomekindle! Sarsilas December 25, 2020
	We here at Virtrium wish you all a wonderful holiday season and give the best wishes for the new year!     Read More...

And We're Back Istaria Community Manager December 18, 2020
	In the spirit of 2020 we had an outage overnight.  Everything should be online and working properly now but please let us know if you're experiencing any issues.

Double Experience Periods Sarsilas December 1, 2020
	As you may have noticed, the post-rollback 2XP event had ended  today, Tuesday, December 1st, during maintenance. However, our holiday 2XP period is scheduled to last as normal for two weeks during December! The tentative dates are as follows: December 15th, 2020 through December 29th, 2020 We have split these events for two reasons. Returning players who come for the holidays will not feel slighted by a sudden adjustment in the holiday double experience period.  Extending the current period two more weeks is exceptionally long and out of the scope of our event period - sorry!