News from the Beta
Heya! I'm part of the beta testing team and we've recently been given permission to start talking about a few things in public. Now, there's a lot of new content in the game itself that we're not supposed to talk too much about, but I figured I might take this opportunity to - somewhat informally - discuss some of the more technical changes to the game, and give a brief overview of the three new classes currently in the beta test.
Workshop Support
Kristoffer mentioned this in the modding wishlist thread already, but I thought I'd take a moment to mention this somewhere more visible. You will be able to upload and download mods from the Steam Workshop. I don't think this works with maps at the moment, but that shouldn't be too difficult.
Public Multiplayer Lobby
There will no longer be any need for port forwarding or to rely on third-party tools like Hamachi or Discord bots to host your games. Illwinter now has a server of their own. When you hop into the Lobby from the "Network" menu, you'll be greeted with a list of active games (which may or may not be password protected) and given the option of starting your own.
Map Modding with Planes
When designing maps, you can edit other planes, not just Elysium itself. And you can, of course, place portals and create connections between them.
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I won't spoil y'all too much on the new classes, but y'all probably won't get too hurt if I give you a brief overview of what they are, right?
Kobold King
The Kobold King is, in principle, the reincarnation of the Draconian from Conquest of Elysium 2, though with a lot of changes. The Kobold King has access to frail but incredibly numerous kobolds of five different subtypes, four of which can be made to spawn from greater mines (i.e. not coal mines) for a one-time cost in gold and iron. The Kobold King uses elemental gems for various rituals, including summoning dragons to protect your mines. As the game progresses, the Kobold King's armies will progress from swarms of fragile and weak troops, to huge swarms of fragile but hard-hitting troops and mages.
Scourge Lord
The Scourge Lord makes use of a new resource called "Life Force", which is generated through constructing Pillars of Power in various locations on Elysium. The power these Pillars generate is determined by how rich in life the area around it is - and as time passes, the Pillar will destroy that life. Partly inspired by the Dark Sun setting of D&D fame, a successful Scourge Lord will slowly turn the entire world into a barren desert in his pursuit of power. The main use of Life Force is summoning a variety of monsters themed around decay, though there's a few other uses for it. Even in combat, the Scourge Lord's defilement magic requires life force to be used - in the absence of nearby plant life, allied soldiers provide an equally ample supply of it.
Cloud Lord
The Cloud Lord can be seen as an air-themed counterpart to the earth-themed Pale Ones. Like how the Pale Ones now start in Agartha, the Cloud Lord starts in the sky. The Cloud Lord shares a lot of its magic with the Warlock, but is much more focused on the element of Air and on Storm Magic, and have access to a slightly altered list of summons. The Cloud Lord's recruitable troops can all fly, and many of them have magic weapons. While the Cloud Lord's magic mainly uses sapphires, other types of gems can be used for a small number of more specialized rituals, and also to recruit certain elite troops.
