Update 1.38.0

Everything you send to the server is now encrypted. Until today your password travelled across the network as plain readable text, both when logging in and when entering the world, and anyone sharing your connection could read it. That is gone. This update also makes crowds cheap to draw: a screen packed with eighty players used to cost 30 ms per frame and now costs 4 ms, and walking into a crowd no longer freezes the game for most of a second.

You must update your client to log in. Close the game and the launcher, then reopen the launcher and press PLAY. This update changes how the client and the server talk to each other, so an old client cannot connect at all. On Steam the update is automatic.

New

• The connection between your game and the server is now encrypted with TLS 1.3. Your password, your session and everything else you send are no longer readable by anyone watching the network — on public Wi-Fi, at an internet cafe, or anywhere along the way.
• Your client also verifies that it is really talking to our server, using a key built into the game itself rather than the certificate list your operating system trusts. That means software which inserts itself into connections — including antivirus programs that do this by design — cannot sit in the middle and read your traffic.
• Teleports now show a destination card: point at one and you see where it leads, along with the monsters and items you will find there.
• A Tips panel now offers short in-game advice, and it works inside buildings too.
• Discord now shows "Playing HB Evolution" while you play.

Improved

• Crowded scenes are several times faster. A screen with eighty players went from 30 ms to 4 ms per frame, the silhouette aura alone went from 41 to 165 frames per second, and entering a crowd no longer freezes the client for almost a second.
• The server spends far less time on its heaviest tick. The real cost was the floor sweep rather than the broadcast, which is what had been assumed until it was measured.
• Invisible enemies are now hidden by the server. Until now the server sent their position, name and appearance to everyone nearby and left it to each client to not draw them, which meant a modified client could reveal them. The Necklace of Beholder is unaffected: it shows enemy health and buffs, which is what it always did.
• The warrior dash is now authorised by the server, so it can no longer be granted by modifying the client.
• The Feedback window no longer lets pasted text spill over the panel, and the description box has a scrollbar.

Fixed

• Claiming a Dark weapon now shows you the weapon you received.
• A Dark weapon no longer appears cropped in its info card.
• In shops, the Level line and the red warning no longer draw on top of the buttons.
• The City Hall Officer no longer offers quests. It never had any to give, and the menu suggested otherwise.
• A rare client crash when connections closed at the wrong moment has been fixed.