Version 1.7.0 - The Goblin Warlock walks Middleland, and Dark weapons that turn with you

Something new is out there. The Goblin Warlock is walking Middleland, and we are not going to spoil it for you - go and meet the beast yourself. Beyond that, the Dark Knight set is finished and finally behaves like a real weapon in your hands, upgrading now makes gear tougher instead of only stronger, weapons wear down half as fast, and your rebirths finally count toward level requirements.

This update changes how the client and the server talk to each other, so you have to update before you can log in. The launcher does it for you.

New

• A new monster now prowls the world: the Goblin Warlock, out in Middleland. It sees you long before you see it, and you will know when it does. That is all you are getting.
• Two more Dark Knight weapons are ready to claim, free, at the City Hall - one per character: the Dark Knight Falchion and the Dark Knight Battle Axe. That completes the set of eight.
• Upgrading a weapon or armour now raises its maximum Endurance as well, so a +N item takes considerably longer to wear out. Every upgraded item you already own was adjusted in the same pass, so nothing shows up damaged or gets charged for a repair it does not need.
• Your rebirths now count toward level requirements. A level 49 (+1) character can equip an item that asks for level 50 and take a quest that asks for it - the same rule that already applied to maps and to the City Hall teleport list.
• The Enchant Bag gained "Downgrade one": drop a fragment or shard back to the previous level and get back exactly what it cost to raise it.
• Zemstones of Sacrifice and Rebirth can now be sold at the shops. A partly used one is worth less, so spend the charges before you sell.

Changed

• Weapons now lose half as much Endurance per hit. Armour and shields are unchanged.
• The Dark Knight Sabre is now a Fencing weapon: it hits a little softer and swings a little slower. The Dark Knight Rapier is faster and asks for less Strength to swing at full speed.
• Enchanting costs more at the low levels and stays the same from the middle of the ladder up. Combined with Downgrade one, an early mistake is no longer permanent.
• Weapons with high Poison Damage now hit noticeably harder. Nothing was made weaker - every weapon does at least what it did before.
• Earth Shock Wave deals less damage, and Blizzard deals more. Ice has no way to speed up its casting, so Blizzard was doing less over time than the spells it competes with.
• Monster populations were retuned across several maps, including IceBound, Dungeon Level 3 and Middleland. The whole random population system moved out of the code and into per-map data, so a map can be adjusted without touching another.
• Shadows now fall from both feet instead of a single toe, and read a touch darker.
• Light weapons show their percentage right in the tooltip, and the Strength requirement they display is the final one, with the discount already applied.
• Item tooltips show an item's real maximum Endurance, including everything its prefix and its upgrade level add.
• Which items go to your Item Drops list is decided by their value again, so a rare roll on a cheap stat no longer sends a worthless item to the window.
• The Elvine to Middleland teleport at the City Hall drops you at a new spot.
• The Windows key and its shortcuts work normally again while playing.

Fixed

• Dark weapons turn with you. The blade flips as you face east or west instead of keeping its edge on the same side, it thins out and shrinks as you face north and grows as you face south, and your hand is visible gripping the hilt on the equipment screen. The Dark Knight Flamberge no longer looks like an ordinary Flamberge.
• The extra Endurance from an upgrade no longer disappears when you log back in, and the Armor Sex Changer no longer permanently destroys part of an upgraded item's Endurance.
• The finishing blow keeps its colour: a kill by crush stays red and a kill by poison stays turquoise, instead of turning yellow at the last hit. Killing with a long sword finally plays the proper blade sound.
• Several monsters that were meant to roam Druncnian City and Battle Field never actually showed up. They do now - those maps were losing a large share of their population to a silent failure.
• Tower of Hell 2 is no longer overrun by ice monsters that never belonged there. The tower now fills up with its own inhabitants: demons, liches and dark elves.
• You can go back to the main menu from the Command Hall submenus, and the battlefield teleport list finally loads.
• Switching language now switches the NPC voices too, without restarting. Portuguese and French voices were there all along - they only loaded if you started the game already in that language.
• The arena preparation cage no longer fights back if you hit it.