Zyna

It all started out with you publicly complaining about the issue of the lack of tournaments. In that discussion you were already showing a somewhat passive aggressive attitude towards @Ladadoos. A few days later, you approached him via his DMs in a rather aggressive way. He told you that he's not ignoring the issue, but not interested in a personal discussion with you, due to your attitude. Normally we wouldn't mind discussing something like this, as long as there's respect and common courtesy. In fact, I discuss topics like this with @Toggy quite often. It is rare that we decide to ignore someone. So to conclude, it was not the choice of words, but your general attitude you have shown both in public and in private.
He also obviously did not ignore the content of your message, because even before you DMed him we already decided to address these issues. We wanted to make a general project status update, and we wanted to add the positions for the community ambassador and the event organizer role.
We literally put thousands of hours into this project in the last year. Obviously @Toggy is one of the most engaged community members, but you're seriously underestimating how much work goes into this project. A lot of the work we do is generally not suitable for announcements to the public. Especially back in January, we had to spend a huge amount of time on the project just helping out new people with technical support and moderation issues. There was so much moderation work, that pretty much everyone had to help with that.
The platforms Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were in fact not decently managed before release, but also definitely not ignored. In the period from the end of 2018 to early 2020 there were no posts on these platforms. However, starting in August 2020 Ladadoos and I started with helping managing these platforms aswell. Obviously, given our roles in this project, and the fact that we have personal lives, this could not be kept up, especially given that our previously very active server developer Kubik left the team. Looking at the unofficial steam or skype groups for example, they mostly already died down on their own 2-3 years ago. I was able to find barely any posts, even after we announced the release. So these issues did not suddenly start after release.
Also, you really seem somewhat conflicted here. On one hand you say "If the staff do nothing, why should the community?", but on the other one you say "[...] but the future of this game should, UNLIKE the big companies I mentioned, in my opinion be more open and community driven". We believe this project is a community effort, not just a staff effort.
 We post updates when we make progress in development. However, in the last two months there was simply just not a lot of progress. Which is mostly due to the fact, that both Ladadoos and I heavily neglected our studies for the sake of this project in the year before. At the moment, we are the only server and client developers. Expecting constant updates at the pace they were released in the last year is completely unrealistic, especially given the fact that we're unpaid and doing this in our free time. Feel free to read this announcement aswell, we also touch upon the topic of unsustainable progress there.
 
There are so many little things staff could do all the time. Give responses to all posts, ask for clarification on bug reports, remind people to send their logs, offer to help people with technical issues, participate in feature discussions, and the list goes on. The issue here is simply that all of these little things, some of which are in fact not little, together do in fact take a lot of time.
This is just a another example of things, which might seem like they don't take a lot of time, but they in fact do. Who looks at all the replays? Who decides what's the funniest entry? Who hands out all the boosters? Who organizes the challenge? Who manages the challenge? And even then, people do have quality standards, and they don't want to waste their time with half-baked challenges. It's also generally not good for our image if we just try to pump out content with no real thought behind it. Generally we would like to go for quality over quantity, although we're aware that currently there are no challenges or tournaments. Staff members had been working on both a challenge, and a tournament in fact. They simply couldn't find the time to continue with these plans, hence why we're looking for more volunteers. As you can see from @Toggy and others, staff involvement is not a must for challenges or tournaments.
Obviously we care, and we try our best. And the best we can do right now is to get more volunteers on board, who can help us solve the exact issues you're bringing forward. It's disappointing that you imply that staff doesn't "really care" about tournaments, challenges and growing the community after more than 5 years of hard work.
I really think we're doing the best we can in the current situation, and I'm honestly not sure what you expect us to do differently, given the circumstances. @anonyme0273 in this post you only mention all the issues, and how you don't care that we're hiring new staff to attempt to solve them. Given the current circumstances, what do you expect us to do differently now?
You mentioned that Ladadoos and I participate in a lot of topics. We believe though, that there is a difference between particpating, and actively contributing. Here's how we participate in all things you mentioned:
Staff recruitment: yes, we handle that alongside the respective lead roles. Client modification: yes, we handle that completely, we're the only client and server developers at the moment. Community management: I would argue we're not doing the job of a community manager, but feel free to correct me. The most we do in that regard are maybe official statements. Project planning: there are examples of multiple different projects which work independently from Ladadoos and I: There is the Skylords Reborn Descriptions group, managed by @Mynoduesp. They are working on revamping all of the ingame descriptions. Our participation in this so far has been mostly limited to a meeting, where we discussed their proposals. There is a group working on additional rPvE factions. It started with @CrazyCockerell, and since then @Emmaerzeh has been looking over that project. There is the balancing team, which is managed by @ImaginaryNumb3r and will work autonomously. At the moment I'm still training the balancing developers a bit, until they can work on their own. Game design: we just give feedback on proposals (independently worked on by dedicated designers) in regards to technical limitations, and as server and client developers we implement finished proposals. Cloud you clarify what you mean with "pretty much everything else"? I hope it's clear that we have a team of more than 20 people who are putting their time into this project. They handle moderation, balancing, design, map creation, technical support, etc. Obviously we do a lot, which is to be expected as both an admin and developer, but to claim we do everything is absurd. You could even say that there are already multiple "project administrators" in the project who are overlooking a general process:
@ImaginaryNumb3r is the lead in game and faction design. @Emmaerzeh is the lead in map making, and organizing the map making effort. @RadicalX is in charge of the PvP expert group for balancing. In the future @WindHunter could be in charge of a similar process for PvE. It really does not seem like you are aware of the limitations we are facing. Our current biggest limitation in this regard is the lack of active developers.
Currently we have freund17, and Maze, who are working on a (for now internal) web interface/admin tool for Skylords Reborn. They are organizing themselves and the features they work on are currently determined by the moderators, who are in need of a moderation tool. We have Chibiterasu and Razeroc, who are part of the balancing team. There is fiki574. He's not as active as he once was, but he's maintaining our public APIs. He also listens to feedback from the community there. We have Aviat0r, who is also not too active at the moment, who has been working on a new updater tool. There is also empty, who's currently inactive. So unless you want to manage Ladadoos and me, there's unfortunately not a lot developers to manage right now, hence why we are looking for new developers rather than such a position right now. If with "developers" you mean people who are not in staff, you are generally welcome to organize these kinds of special projects without staff involvement. We're generally happy to assist you if we believe you are working on something which can help out the project. For example, Maze made this useful tool before he was added into staff:

We hope that we could answer all your questions. If everything goes well, all of these things will be less of an issue in the future. We plan to add the positions we are currently lacking to the staff team in the upcoming weeks.

Best regards,
Ladadoos and Zyna ~

Today we are proud to present you some more small additions, which we had to delay for a bit!

General changes
- Added voice lines for Amii Paladins.
- Added voice lines for Banzai Lord.
- Allow players to play lower upgrade levels of cards from the card upgrade window.

Thanks for sending all your reports over the Christmas holidays. We were hard at work and are proud to present you another hotfix patch!

General changes
- Replaced inappropriate Twilight Hag ability icon with a disco ball.
- Added the word "Small" to all small crystals in the map Dwarven Riddle.

General fixes
- Fixed Void Maw description on Dwarven Riddle.
- Fixed some typos in French quest names and descriptions.
- Fixed some typos in French achievement names.
- Improved French descriptions in the Free PvP decks selection window.
- Fixed typo in Empire outcry.
- Changed unique upgrade cards amount in story book to the correct number.

Card changes
- Sandstorm (Shadow): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures and knocks back small and medium units.
- Sandstorm (Frost): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures.
- Deepgorge (both affinities): Added missing translations for upgrade descriptions in French.
- Corsair (both affinities): The status bar tooltip of units affected by Inspirational Call now displays the correct value on upgrade 0.
- Coat of Protection (both affinities): The respective affinity naming is now properly displayed in the status bar tooltip of affected units.
- Bandit Sniper: Corrected small typo in French ability description.
- Bandit Sniper: Added missing translations for status bar descriptions in French and Russian.

Hello everyone, we received a lot of bug reports and suggestions from you in regards to this patch. We were hard at work and are shipping a hotfix patch today! Below you can find the changelist.

General changes
- Added a gold penalty for completing advanced and expert campaign maps faster than 10 minutes.
  This affects disenchants and the base reward of 12 player maps, but not treasure chests.
  Maps completed faster than 5 minutes will only yield 25% of the previously earned gold.
  Maps completed between 5 and 10 minutes use a penalty term of (X - 300) / (300) * 0.75 + 0.25,
  where X is the amount of seconds spent in-game. A full gold rework is currently being worked on, so this is intended as a short-term fix.
- Changed the auction market filter to not display any results if there are no matches to a given filter.
- Changed the inventory filter to show neutral cards, even if all 4 colors are deselected.

General fixes
- Fixed contacts button not aligned properly during in-game matches and replays.
- Adjusted text about free pvp to say every day instead of every week.
- Fixed an issue where slow internet connections would cause errors with Reforging.
- Fixed promos not being announced in the chat.
- Fixed mails not being returned properly after 30 days.
- Fixed progression with achievements which require you to play certain factions. They should now work again.
- Fixed the behaviour of the orb color buttons, they should not include splashes unless specified.
- Fixed the "Rare" filter in the auction market.
- Fixed an issue where some orbs and gold chests on Bad Harvest and Gun of Lyr were not working properly.

Card fixes
Amii Paladins:
    - Adjusted upgrade formatting to be consistent with other squads.
    - Added hyphen in German cardname.

Banzai Lord (Both affinities):
    - Added correct spacing in upgrades.

Banzai Lord (Nature affinity):
    - Removed obsolete sentence from description.

Battleship:
    - Added correct value for splash range on cannons in the description (5m => 10m).

Brannoc (player card):
    - Added flame effect for his sword.

Brannoc (rpve fire boss):
    - Added extra-large-flame effect for his sword.

Coat of Protection (both affinities):
    - Added new effect.
    - Removed "Activate, to" phrasing in description.
    - Renamed German version to "Mandel des Schutzes", to avoid linebreaks on the card.
    - Fixed english cardname on non-english versions of the game.
    - Added translations for untranslated upgrade descriptions.

Coat of Protection (Shadow affinity):
    - Fixed wrong affinity color in description.
    - Fixed wrong spell effect name.

Ice Age (both affinities):
    - Corrected upgrade translations to match the English version.

Aspect of Summer (fire rPvE):
    - Added missing russian class name.

Temple of Fire (fire rPvE):
    - Renamed from "Temple Of Fire" to fix capitalization in name.

That's it for now! We hope you have been enjoying the new content thus far and we are looking forward to your continued bug reports and feedback!

Best regards
Zyna

As Majora pointed out, we do not plan to make the game squeaky clean. Instead, the idea is to remove or rework the gender based mechanics, which includes only Twilight Hag and Girl Power. Considering the direction this discussion is heading in, we decided to lock this post. There is no point in making a poll about this, since the group affected is quite underpresented in the project. For future polls, I suggest using a less misleading wording than "Does Battleforge has a Sexism problem? Should changes be made?". Please discuss any further concerns in private messages with those who are interested in the topic. For reference, here are the old and the new ability icons:

Old


New

MERRY CHRISTMAS to All Skylords Staffs.... you guys are amazing, especially those who started this....
 

As Majora pointed out, we do not plan to make the game squeaky clean. Instead, the idea is to remove or rework the gender based mechanics, which includes only Twilight Hag and Girl Power. Considering the direction this discussion is heading in, we decided to lock this post. There is no point in making a poll about this, since the group affected is quite underpresented in the project. For future polls, I suggest using a less misleading wording than "Does Battleforge has a Sexism problem? Should changes be made?". Please discuss any further concerns in private messages with those who are interested in the topic. For reference, here are the old and the new ability icons:

Old


New

It doesn't matter. You are focusing way too much on the things in the statement that you dislike than what should put you at ease.
Nothing is changing in that respect except for the male/female mechanic, which includes only Twilight Hag and Girl Power.

Hey guys,
We hoped the reason for the change would be obvious and not require an explanation.
Short explanation: There is no reason for a stripper pole to be included in a game like this.
Longer explanation: BattleForge already isn't very female friendly. The RTS genre is less popular among females in general but this game also uses the ''females armor has to be hot, not practical'' trope heavily. Quotes like ''my face is up here'' and ''I can feel you looking'' from Amazon also shows the old devs were aware and lean into this ''boys-club-vibe''. Cards like Twilight Hag and Girl Power are not helping in the image that the game is inclusive for all genders. Why is Twilight Hag on a stripper pole?.. She is a witch, she could easily have had a general description that she bewitches her enemies.
The cards in question feel like mockery towards females, which is a clunky joke at best, and just rude at worst. BattleForge is an old game, and these cards would definitely not see the light of day in 2022, but even in its time frame it was already questionable. Over time, we have also received multiple comments about Twilight Hag and Girl Power, through for example our survey last summer. We feel those comments and complaints are legit, and want to take them seriously.
So does this mean we are suddenly going to remove all references and things that might be considered offending? Of course not. But we do feel removing the worst offenders is worth it. Changing Girl Power is a lot trickier, but we plan to tackle it at some time in the future, for the reasons mentioned above.
We figured changing the icon from Twilight Hag was an easy change that should not ran into any issues or discussions. 

Changes:
- Added a new "Community Manager" role. This position is now open.
- Renamed the former "Community Manager" role to "Project Coordinator" and updated requirements. This position is currently unavailable.
 

Thanks for sending all your reports over the Christmas holidays. We were hard at work and are proud to present you another hotfix patch!

General changes
- Replaced inappropriate Twilight Hag ability icon with a disco ball.
- Added the word "Small" to all small crystals in the map Dwarven Riddle.

General fixes
- Fixed Void Maw description on Dwarven Riddle.
- Fixed some typos in French quest names and descriptions.
- Fixed some typos in French achievement names.
- Improved French descriptions in the Free PvP decks selection window.
- Fixed typo in Empire outcry.
- Changed unique upgrade cards amount in story book to the correct number.

Card changes
- Sandstorm (Shadow): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures and knocks back small and medium units.
- Sandstorm (Frost): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures.
- Deepgorge (both affinities): Added missing translations for upgrade descriptions in French.
- Corsair (both affinities): The status bar tooltip of units affected by Inspirational Call now displays the correct value on upgrade 0.
- Coat of Protection (both affinities): The respective affinity naming is now properly displayed in the status bar tooltip of affected units.
- Bandit Sniper: Corrected small typo in French ability description.
- Bandit Sniper: Added missing translations for status bar descriptions in French and Russian.

Thanks for sending all your reports over the Christmas holidays. We were hard at work and are proud to present you another hotfix patch!

General changes
- Replaced inappropriate Twilight Hag ability icon with a disco ball.
- Added the word "Small" to all small crystals in the map Dwarven Riddle.

General fixes
- Fixed Void Maw description on Dwarven Riddle.
- Fixed some typos in French quest names and descriptions.
- Fixed some typos in French achievement names.
- Improved French descriptions in the Free PvP decks selection window.
- Fixed typo in Empire outcry.
- Changed unique upgrade cards amount in story book to the correct number.

Card changes
- Sandstorm (Shadow): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures and knocks back small and medium units.
- Sandstorm (Frost): The description now mentions that the storm only deals half of its damage against structures.
- Deepgorge (both affinities): Added missing translations for upgrade descriptions in French.
- Corsair (both affinities): The status bar tooltip of units affected by Inspirational Call now displays the correct value on upgrade 0.
- Coat of Protection (both affinities): The respective affinity naming is now properly displayed in the status bar tooltip of affected units.
- Bandit Sniper: Corrected small typo in French ability description.
- Bandit Sniper: Added missing translations for status bar descriptions in French and Russian.

Changes:
- Added a new "Community Manager" role. This position is now open.
- Renamed the former "Community Manager" role to "Project Coordinator" and updated requirements. This position is currently unavailable.
 

Changes:
- Added a new "Community Manager" role. This position is now open.
- Renamed the former "Community Manager" role to "Project Coordinator" and updated requirements. This position is currently unavailable.
 

Changes:
- Added a new "Community Manager" role. This position is now open.
- Renamed the former "Community Manager" role to "Project Coordinator" and updated requirements. This position is currently unavailable.
 

-----------------------------DOWNLOAD-----------------------------
In order to play Skylords Reborn, you will need to create a forum account here. 
This is the same account you will use to login to the game. 

You will also need to download 2 parts:
1. The client.
This is the game itself, you will need it for the installation process.
You can download the client from Google Drive using the button below. If the link does not work, use Mediafire or Mega.nz. 



2. The installer.
This application installs Skylords Reborn on your computer. For the installation process you will also need the client from step 1.
You can download the installer from Google Drive using the button below. If the link does not work, use Mediafire or Mega.nz.




Installing the game
After downloading both files, start the installation process by running the installer from step 2 and follow the steps shown. Once you have installed the game you can start it by either running the "Skylords Reborn" shortcut from your Desktop, or the "SkylordsRebornUpdater.exe" from the folder where you installed BattleForge.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
F.A.Q.
For general project questions please head over here.

• I have issues with installing/starting the game.
You are running into issues when installing or starting the game? We compiled a list of common technical issues people might face here. If none of that works, create a Technical Support Topic here (or find the solution in someone else's topic!). In your topic, please say what exactly doesn't work, and what you have tried so far. Please refrain from contacting staff members directly for your issues, and wait for a response to your support topic.
• Is this game also supported on Linux and MacOS?
We do not officially support both Linux and macOS yet. We will also not be able to add support for macOS in the future, as Apple has ended support for 32-bit applications (like BattleForge) since macOS Catalina. For Linux, we do plan to add better support in the future. Despite the lack of official support, some fans were already able to get the game running with Linux. You can find some tutorials from people who were able to get it running on our forums .
Please note that the installer will not function, and you will have to manually extract the client and the updater files to the same directory. If you want to give it a shot, please download the client above, and also download the updater by using the button below. 

Updater
The updater can be used to install the game manually, if the installer above does not work. This is usually required, if you want to play the game on Linux or MacOS. Please note that you still need to download the game client.


 
Alternative Updater Script
For our Linux users who wish to install and update the game manually, we're grateful to one of our community members, @mx2, who has kindly provided an alternative updater in the form of a bash script. To launch the game, you will need to add the "-online" argument, for example "wine Battleforge.exe -online".


 
• Recommended System Requirements
• CPU: Core i3 7400T / Ryzen 3 1200 (X86 compatible)
• RAM: at least 6GB
• OS: Windows 10 or higher.
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / ATI Radeon HD 7770 (Direct X 11 compatible)
• Disk Space: At least 14GB of free space.

• Checksum-Information
1. Client
2. Installer
3. Updater (Linux only)
 

Hello everyone, we received a lot of bug reports and suggestions from you in regards to this patch. We were hard at work and are shipping a hotfix patch today! Below you can find the changelist.

General changes
- Added a gold penalty for completing advanced and expert campaign maps faster than 10 minutes.
  This affects disenchants and the base reward of 12 player maps, but not treasure chests.
  Maps completed faster than 5 minutes will only yield 25% of the previously earned gold.
  Maps completed between 5 and 10 minutes use a penalty term of (X - 300) / (300) * 0.75 + 0.25,
  where X is the amount of seconds spent in-game. A full gold rework is currently being worked on, so this is intended as a short-term fix.
- Changed the auction market filter to not display any results if there are no matches to a given filter.
- Changed the inventory filter to show neutral cards, even if all 4 colors are deselected.

General fixes
- Fixed contacts button not aligned properly during in-game matches and replays.
- Adjusted text about free pvp to say every day instead of every week.
- Fixed an issue where slow internet connections would cause errors with Reforging.
- Fixed promos not being announced in the chat.
- Fixed mails not being returned properly after 30 days.
- Fixed progression with achievements which require you to play certain factions. They should now work again.
- Fixed the behaviour of the orb color buttons, they should not include splashes unless specified.
- Fixed the "Rare" filter in the auction market.
- Fixed an issue where some orbs and gold chests on Bad Harvest and Gun of Lyr were not working properly.

Card fixes
Amii Paladins:
    - Adjusted upgrade formatting to be consistent with other squads.
    - Added hyphen in German cardname.

Banzai Lord (Both affinities):
    - Added correct spacing in upgrades.

Banzai Lord (Nature affinity):
    - Removed obsolete sentence from description.

Battleship:
    - Added correct value for splash range on cannons in the description (5m => 10m).

Brannoc (player card):
    - Added flame effect for his sword.

Brannoc (rpve fire boss):
    - Added extra-large-flame effect for his sword.

Coat of Protection (both affinities):
    - Added new effect.
    - Removed "Activate, to" phrasing in description.
    - Renamed German version to "Mandel des Schutzes", to avoid linebreaks on the card.
    - Fixed english cardname on non-english versions of the game.
    - Added translations for untranslated upgrade descriptions.

Coat of Protection (Shadow affinity):
    - Fixed wrong affinity color in description.
    - Fixed wrong spell effect name.

Ice Age (both affinities):
    - Corrected upgrade translations to match the English version.

Aspect of Summer (fire rPvE):
    - Added missing russian class name.

Temple of Fire (fire rPvE):
    - Renamed from "Temple Of Fire" to fix capitalization in name.

That's it for now! We hope you have been enjoying the new content thus far and we are looking forward to your continued bug reports and feedback!

Best regards
Zyna

It should be fixed since #400031, a more detailed change list should appear on the Wiki in the upcoming weeks.

Hello everyone, we received a lot of bug reports and suggestions from you in regards to this patch. We were hard at work and are shipping a hotfix patch today! Below you can find the changelist.

General changes
- Added a gold penalty for completing advanced and expert campaign maps faster than 10 minutes.
  This affects disenchants and the base reward of 12 player maps, but not treasure chests.
  Maps completed faster than 5 minutes will only yield 25% of the previously earned gold.
  Maps completed between 5 and 10 minutes use a penalty term of (X - 300) / (300) * 0.75 + 0.25,
  where X is the amount of seconds spent in-game. A full gold rework is currently being worked on, so this is intended as a short-term fix.
- Changed the auction market filter to not display any results if there are no matches to a given filter.
- Changed the inventory filter to show neutral cards, even if all 4 colors are deselected.

General fixes
- Fixed contacts button not aligned properly during in-game matches and replays.
- Adjusted text about free pvp to say every day instead of every week.
- Fixed an issue where slow internet connections would cause errors with Reforging.
- Fixed promos not being announced in the chat.
- Fixed mails not being returned properly after 30 days.
- Fixed progression with achievements which require you to play certain factions. They should now work again.
- Fixed the behaviour of the orb color buttons, they should not include splashes unless specified.
- Fixed the "Rare" filter in the auction market.
- Fixed an issue where some orbs and gold chests on Bad Harvest and Gun of Lyr were not working properly.

Card fixes
Amii Paladins:
    - Adjusted upgrade formatting to be consistent with other squads.
    - Added hyphen in German cardname.

Banzai Lord (Both affinities):
    - Added correct spacing in upgrades.

Banzai Lord (Nature affinity):
    - Removed obsolete sentence from description.

Battleship:
    - Added correct value for splash range on cannons in the description (5m => 10m).

Brannoc (player card):
    - Added flame effect for his sword.

Brannoc (rpve fire boss):
    - Added extra-large-flame effect for his sword.

Coat of Protection (both affinities):
    - Added new effect.
    - Removed "Activate, to" phrasing in description.
    - Renamed German version to "Mandel des Schutzes", to avoid linebreaks on the card.
    - Fixed english cardname on non-english versions of the game.
    - Added translations for untranslated upgrade descriptions.

Coat of Protection (Shadow affinity):
    - Fixed wrong affinity color in description.
    - Fixed wrong spell effect name.

Ice Age (both affinities):
    - Corrected upgrade translations to match the English version.

Aspect of Summer (fire rPvE):
    - Added missing russian class name.

Temple of Fire (fire rPvE):
    - Renamed from "Temple Of Fire" to fix capitalization in name.

That's it for now! We hope you have been enjoying the new content thus far and we are looking forward to your continued bug reports and feedback!

Best regards
Zyna

Hello everyone, we received a lot of bug reports and suggestions from you in regards to this patch. We were hard at work and are shipping a hotfix patch today! Below you can find the changelist.

General changes
- Added a gold penalty for completing advanced and expert campaign maps faster than 10 minutes.
  This affects disenchants and the base reward of 12 player maps, but not treasure chests.
  Maps completed faster than 5 minutes will only yield 25% of the previously earned gold.
  Maps completed between 5 and 10 minutes use a penalty term of (X - 300) / (300) * 0.75 + 0.25,
  where X is the amount of seconds spent in-game. A full gold rework is currently being worked on, so this is intended as a short-term fix.
- Changed the auction market filter to not display any results if there are no matches to a given filter.
- Changed the inventory filter to show neutral cards, even if all 4 colors are deselected.

General fixes
- Fixed contacts button not aligned properly during in-game matches and replays.
- Adjusted text about free pvp to say every day instead of every week.
- Fixed an issue where slow internet connections would cause errors with Reforging.
- Fixed promos not being announced in the chat.
- Fixed mails not being returned properly after 30 days.
- Fixed progression with achievements which require you to play certain factions. They should now work again.
- Fixed the behaviour of the orb color buttons, they should not include splashes unless specified.
- Fixed the "Rare" filter in the auction market.
- Fixed an issue where some orbs and gold chests on Bad Harvest and Gun of Lyr were not working properly.

Card fixes
Amii Paladins:
    - Adjusted upgrade formatting to be consistent with other squads.
    - Added hyphen in German cardname.

Banzai Lord (Both affinities):
    - Added correct spacing in upgrades.

Banzai Lord (Nature affinity):
    - Removed obsolete sentence from description.

Battleship:
    - Added correct value for splash range on cannons in the description (5m => 10m).

Brannoc (player card):
    - Added flame effect for his sword.

Brannoc (rpve fire boss):
    - Added extra-large-flame effect for his sword.

Coat of Protection (both affinities):
    - Added new effect.
    - Removed "Activate, to" phrasing in description.
    - Renamed German version to "Mandel des Schutzes", to avoid linebreaks on the card.
    - Fixed english cardname on non-english versions of the game.
    - Added translations for untranslated upgrade descriptions.

Coat of Protection (Shadow affinity):
    - Fixed wrong affinity color in description.
    - Fixed wrong spell effect name.

Ice Age (both affinities):
    - Corrected upgrade translations to match the English version.

Aspect of Summer (fire rPvE):
    - Added missing russian class name.

Temple of Fire (fire rPvE):
    - Renamed from "Temple Of Fire" to fix capitalization in name.

That's it for now! We hope you have been enjoying the new content thus far and we are looking forward to your continued bug reports and feedback!

Best regards
Zyna

Hello everyone, we received a lot of bug reports and suggestions from you in regards to this patch. We were hard at work and are shipping a hotfix patch today! Below you can find the changelist.

General changes
- Added a gold penalty for completing advanced and expert campaign maps faster than 10 minutes.
  This affects disenchants and the base reward of 12 player maps, but not treasure chests.
  Maps completed faster than 5 minutes will only yield 25% of the previously earned gold.
  Maps completed between 5 and 10 minutes use a penalty term of (X - 300) / (300) * 0.75 + 0.25,
  where X is the amount of seconds spent in-game. A full gold rework is currently being worked on, so this is intended as a short-term fix.
- Changed the auction market filter to not display any results if there are no matches to a given filter.
- Changed the inventory filter to show neutral cards, even if all 4 colors are deselected.

General fixes
- Fixed contacts button not aligned properly during in-game matches and replays.
- Adjusted text about free pvp to say every day instead of every week.
- Fixed an issue where slow internet connections would cause errors with Reforging.
- Fixed promos not being announced in the chat.
- Fixed mails not being returned properly after 30 days.
- Fixed progression with achievements which require you to play certain factions. They should now work again.
- Fixed the behaviour of the orb color buttons, they should not include splashes unless specified.
- Fixed the "Rare" filter in the auction market.
- Fixed an issue where some orbs and gold chests on Bad Harvest and Gun of Lyr were not working properly.

Card fixes
Amii Paladins:
    - Adjusted upgrade formatting to be consistent with other squads.
    - Added hyphen in German cardname.

Banzai Lord (Both affinities):
    - Added correct spacing in upgrades.

Banzai Lord (Nature affinity):
    - Removed obsolete sentence from description.

Battleship:
    - Added correct value for splash range on cannons in the description (5m => 10m).

Brannoc (player card):
    - Added flame effect for his sword.

Brannoc (rpve fire boss):
    - Added extra-large-flame effect for his sword.

Coat of Protection (both affinities):
    - Added new effect.
    - Removed "Activate, to" phrasing in description.
    - Renamed German version to "Mandel des Schutzes", to avoid linebreaks on the card.
    - Fixed english cardname on non-english versions of the game.
    - Added translations for untranslated upgrade descriptions.

Coat of Protection (Shadow affinity):
    - Fixed wrong affinity color in description.
    - Fixed wrong spell effect name.

Ice Age (both affinities):
    - Corrected upgrade translations to match the English version.

Aspect of Summer (fire rPvE):
    - Added missing russian class name.

Temple of Fire (fire rPvE):
    - Renamed from "Temple Of Fire" to fix capitalization in name.

That's it for now! We hope you have been enjoying the new content thus far and we are looking forward to your continued bug reports and feedback!

Best regards
Zyna

Greetings Skylords,
Over the years we have released quite a bit of reading materials and it can be hard to keep track. Below you can find them all!

• Community Updates 

Every month we provide an update to the community sharing information about what we are working on, and what you can expect in the future. Community Updates release on the 1st of each month.
• Community Updates overview
 
• Skylords Reborn Design Philosophy 

In our design philosophy, we explore and explain how Skylords Reborn handles development and changes compared to the original BattleForge. 
SkylordsRebornDesignPhilosophy.pdf
 
• Skylords Reborn Design Rarities

What makes a card common, uncommon, rare or ultrarare? By analyzing the original BattleForge, we have set up a framework which we use to determine what rarity our new cards should have. 
SkylordsRebornDesign_Rarities.pdf
 
• Deep Dive: Frost
In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction, as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. This is the Deep Dive for the Frost faction. 
DeepDive_PureFrost.pdf
 
• Deep Dive: Nature

In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction, as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. This is the Deep Dive for the Nature faction. 
Nature_Deep_Dive.pdf
 
• Deep Dive: Bandits

In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction, as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. This is the Deep Dive for the Bandit faction. 
DeepDive_Bandits.pdf
 
• Deep Dive: Towers

In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction, as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. In this Deep Dive, we explore the various towers of Skylords Reborn. 
DeepDive_Towers.pdf


• Deep Dive: Stonekin

In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction, as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. This is the Deep Dive for the Stonekin faction. 

Stonekin_Deep_Dive.pdf
 
• Behind the Scenes: Advanced Filtering

In our Behind the Scenes, we give you a detailed look at a specific topic. In this Behind the Scenes, we explain the changes made to filtering, and how they came to be. 
BehindTheScenes_AdvancedFiltering.pdf
 
• Behind the Scenes: Minefield

In our Behind the Scenes, we give you a detailed look at a specific topic. In this Behind the Scenes, we dive into the progress of balancing a new card; in this case, Bandit Minefield. 
BehindTheScenes_Minefield.pdf
 
• PvP Guide

This PvP guide is a helpful tool for both veteran and new players alike, containing information about decks and match-ups for each of the free PvP decks you can find in the game. 
• BattleForge PvP Guide - By Hirooo & RadicalX
 
• Map Editor

Every download of Skylords Reborn comes with the Map Editor, allowing Skylords to create their own maps and creative ideas. Split into several parts, this tutorial will guide you on how to work with the BattleForge Map Editor. 
• Official Map Editor Guide - By R4bitf00t
 
• Yearly recaps

During our anniversary streams, we take a look back at all the changes we implemented during the past year, reflecting on both our past accomplishments and plans for the future. 
• 2021 - 1st Anniversary
• 2022 - 2nd Anniversary
• 2023 - 3rd Anniversary
 
• Interviews: Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their relationship with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. 
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.
• Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer - Watch now.
• Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer - Watch now.
• Episode 6: Ultralord, Video Editor - Watch now.
• Episode 7: Zyna & Ladadoos, Admins - Watch now.
• Episode 8: Maze, Web Developer - Watch now.
• Episode 9: Windhunter, Lead Designer - Watch now.
• Episode 10: Emmaerzeh & Hodron, Map Departement - Watch now.
 
• Social Media Channels

The main communication channel for Skylords Reborn is Discord. While there are various discord channels for specific topics, here are the two main channels:
• Skylords Reborn
The main Skylords Reborn Discord. If you need any help, or have any general questions about the project, ask here!
• Skylords Reborn Balance Changes
The Skylords Reborn Discord for discussing balancing changes. All card and map balancing changes can be discussed here. 
• Facebook
We also post our monthly Community Updates on Facebook.
• YouTube
We share various video's and trailers on our YouTube channel. Be sure to follow us and like our video's to increase the reach of Skylords Reborn!
• Twitch
We use our Twitch channel for Official Events Streams and our Anniversary Stream. 
• Wiki
The Skylords Reborn Wiki (not to be confused with the old BattleForge one) contains a lot of up-to-date information about the game. 

@Kapo Has this issue been resolved, or does it still happen for you?

Greetings Skyfolk!
This update contains our fourth balance patch for the game, brand new cards, and many other changes, enjoy!
Check out our recent community update for more information.


Feedback to these changes can be given on the balancing discord. When you give feedback make sure to properly support your reasoning by including replays or video footage.
Where are balance changes discussed?
For now we have a Discord server dedicated for this. An invite link to the server: https://discord.gg/NvSUwpf

How can I join the test server?
To join the test server you simply need to launch LauncherTest.exe located in your BattleForge installation folder. It is important you run the updater first, so you download the latest test server files. In the future we plan to make it easier to join the test server.

Changes
A detailed list of all changes can be found on the wiki. However, since the patch notes are quite long, we prepared a summary document for you! You can find it attached to this post. 
Patch_400031_-_December_18_2021.pdf

Greetings Skylords!
Happy Anniversary! Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the Skylords Reborn project. We hope you had a lot of fun reliving your BattleForge memories and are excited to give you a look into the future. 

• Anniversary Stream
In case you missed it, we hosted a special anniversary stream yesterday. We celebrated the past, present en future of Skylords Reborn, with news, card reveals, give-aways and more! 
Sadly, something went wrong with the playback of yesterdays stream that we are not sure we can fix. Since we recorded it live with the 3 of us, and 2 audio tracks are broken, it does not make much sense for the viewer anymore. We are sorry for those who missed the stream and now can't watch it.

If we cannot fix the video, we plan to do a retake for youtube, adjusting it to be some kind of looking back at 2021, that people can watch to see everything that has been added to Skylords Reborn since release. 
 
• Patch Reveal + Toggy Stream
Our biggest surprise from the Anniversary Stream: our Anniversary Patch releases today!
See the brand new cards and features in action during a special celebration stream hosted by Toggy tonight!
There will also be a quiz where you can win the new cards, so be sure to check it out!
The Stream is happening at twitch.tv/dastoggy 
We are very grateful for Toggy's support over the years and have officially rewarded him with Skylords of Honor today. Well deserved, and to many more years!
 
• New Cards
This patch will release five brand new cards into the game! We are excited that you will finally get your hands on the cards we have been working on for the past months. The following cards will be added to the game:
 
Coat of Protection
Coat of Protection is a new incentive to play Pure Frost. This tier 4 spell can be seen as the frost equivalent of Regrowth, helping the faction with some lategame support. Check out the full card-reveal here.

 
Bandit Minefield
Bandit Minefield is a new tier 2 Spell for Fire/Shadow that should greatly help the faction in PvP. It is a rare and does not have an affinity. Check out the full card-reveal, including the design process, here.

 
Banzai Lord
Banzai Lord is a powerful new tier 4 unit that can be splashed into, requiring only one shadow and one fire orb. He collects the corpses of fallen foes and allies to summon his darling birds. The card appears in two affinities, one with destructive birds, one with healing birds. You can find more information in the Bandit Deep Dive. 

 
Bandit Sniper
Bandit Sniper is a new, ranged M counter for the Bandits-faction. It is an uncommon that does not have an affinity. It's ability Focus Shot allows the Bandit Sniper to live up to its name, dealing devastating damage to enemies at long range. 


Amii Paladin
The shroud surrounding the Amii-faction is slowly lifted. Amii Paladins is our first look at the Amii-faction, after the never followed on tease from Amii Phantom back in the day. It's special ability ''Reflective Armor'' allows the unit to reflect 100% of incoming damage back into enemies, making them a challenging foe to fight. 
Amii Paladins has the new Amii Passive Ability "Elusive". Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 10%. This ability will be added to all current and future Amii units. 


Amii Phantom
While not a new card, Amii Phantom has received a brand new look! Both her artwork and ingame look have been adjusted to fit with the vision of the Amii-Faction. Elusive has also been added, and we plan to change her voicelines (she currently has those from Nightguard) to complete her makeover. 


A word on Wasteland Terror
Some of you might be wondering why Wasteland Terror (previously Wasteland Wing) is not included in this patch, even though he was revealed in an earlier communtiy update. Sadly, we were not able to make the anniversary deadline and could not include him in this patch. Rest assured that he we will be implemented in a future patch, though we are not able to tell when just yet. Until then, may you enjoy the clear blue skies while you still can..
 
• Voice Actors Update
Now for some disappointing news. With the help of some talented voice actors, we have created some great voicelines to go along with our new (and some old) cards. Sadly, we ran into technical issues. For some reason, the game keeps crashing inconsistently while playing the new voicelines.  Because this did not happen during our initial testing, we could not pinpoint the issue on time to solve it for this patch. Sadly we have to ship the new cards without their matching voicelines. We are really disappointed about this, and we hope to be able to find the solution soon and patch in the new voicelines in all their glory. For this we would love to get your help. 
Beside the new cards, we will also be adding voicelines for Dryad, Mountain Rowdy and Amii Phantom in the future. There are also already plans for other cards that are currently without voicelines, like Bandit Lancer or Warlock. 
We would like to give you a sneak peak of what we have been working on and give you a proper first impression of two new cards.

Here is what you can expect from the sinister Banzai Lord:
And here is what you will hear leading the Amii Paladins into battle:
We would love to have the help of the community fixing the issues we ran into implementing these voicelines. If you have any understanding of coding and/or sound, please head over here and join us in solving this issue. 


• Balance Changes
Alongside new cards and features, we will also release some balance changes this patch. 

Following the Bandits Deep Dive, there are a couple of changes in this patch, including Amok, Commando's, Windhunter, Sandstorm and Corsair. Further PvE-focussed balance changes will be implemented for Frost, with adjustments to Ice Age, Battleship, Maelstrom, Northern Keep, Retreating Circle and fan-favorite: Juice Tank. 

There are also some changes to popular cards like Sunderer, Dryad, Master Archers and Stormsinger, in combination with the new cards you can expect a fresh meta for PvP as well. 

You can check out all the details and explanations for the changes in the patch notes. 
Patch_400031_-_December_18_2021.pdf
• Free PvP Decks Updated
We expect new cards like Bandit Minefield to shake up the PvP scene and find it important that everyone who wants to play PvP can do so without grinding for cards or upgrades first. We have upgraded our free PvP decks to include the new cards, alongside adjustments to most decks to adapt to the meta changes that have happened since the introduction of the free PvP decks. Please note: to update the decks, we had to reset all the current decks. Sorry about the inconvenience. 
Here is a quick recap on where you can find the PvP decks: 

- Select the sword on the top right of the menu to select your 2 free PvP decks.
- Free PvP decks are fully upgraded decks, that can only be used in PvP. 
- You can select two new decks every day*, if you want to switch things up.
- You can freely swap around cards in those decks with cards in your collection to customize the decks to your liking. You can do this by clicking the tab in your inventory on the top left and changing General to Free PvP and vice-versa.
*We have reduced the timer to change your two Free PvP decks from 7 days to 24 hours.
 
• Updated PvP Starter Guides
On top of changes to the standard free PvP decks, RadicalX and Hirooo got together to update their starter guide for PvP. Want to get into PvP but not sure where to start? In this guide you will find everything you need: deck descriptions, tips and tricks for every match-up, an overview of the pro's and con's of your deck and how beginner friendly the deck is to play!
The guide ended up being longer than your average thesis, but we made sure to provide it with a clear layout so you can easily find your favorite deck and browse through the information you need. 
You can find the updated starter guide here, and be sure to join the Tutor and Apprentice discord that is specifically designed to help new players get started. Feel free to ask all your questions there. 
 
• New Fire rPvE Preset
It is now possible to face the Fire faction in all its blazing glory in rPvE! You can expect a fresh new challenge for rPvE, including new bosses to fight against. While we did a lot of testing, we would love to hear your feedback on the balance of this new enemy.
Please let us know your feedback on the forum or discord!

 
• Reforging
One of our biggest and most requested new features this patch is Reforging. The idea behind this new system is to give players a use for their spare cards without listing them on the Auction House. Players have no use for 40+ copies of the same common, and listing them for 3BFP on the AH has proven to be quite tedious and often unsuccessful. Additionally, the rise of expensive ultra rare cards is becoming a problem. We hope to tackle these issues with this new feature.
Here is how it works; players can reforge four cards from their collection to create one brand new card, destroying the four cards in the process. The card that is created will depend on different factors such as the rarity and color of the input cards. Players can also increase their odds by selecting cards that have something in common, for example four buildings. Using higher rarity cards will also increase the odds of an ultra rare dropping. Should the odds of reforging into an ultra rare card ever exceed 100%, players will get some spare Forge Shards. These Shards can then be used to get a mini-booster. It is not possible to use or get a promo card when reforging.
 

 
We expect this feature to have a large impact on the economy as a whole. Being able to exchange rares and cheap ultra rares for the chance of getting one of the more expensive ultra rares should bring their prices down. At the same time, this feature should increase the price of cheap ultra rares, since they are now valuable resources for reforging. While some of you might be worried that destroying four ultra rare cards to create one random one will further decrease the supply; please note that reforging multiple ultra rares is designed to be inefficient, thus discouraging the use of more than one ultra rare at a time, since the odds of getting an ultra rare does not improve over using a combination of rares and ultra rares. After the dust has settled, we expect this will bring a better balance to prices within a rarity. Because of the big shake-up this will have on the economy, we have closed the Auction House between the announcement of this system and the release of it.
 

 
• Legacy Avatars
We have added additional features regarding the player avatar you can select. It is now possible to buy the avatar that was previously only selectable with the creation of a new account for 15.000 gold. Additionally, once you have bought one of those avatars, they will be added to your collection, allowing you to swap freely!
In the future we are also planning to add additional avatars that can be collected through special events or achievements. 


• Advanced Filtering
Our developer Kubik has been working on improving the filtering of search results, both for the inventory and the auction house. Some of you showed interest in this progress, so we put together a document explaining how the current filtering works, why it's far from perfect, and how it will be changed. It's a bit more technical than the other documents we have shared with the community so far, but we hope you will enjoy this look behind the scenes! 
Advanced filtering.pdf

 
• Booster Discounts + Santa 
As a special treat for our one year anniversary, all boosters in the game will be 100BFP cheaper between 18-12-2021 and 18-01-2022. 
Additionally, every player will receive the Santa Claus card after playing a game. Happy Holidays Skylords!

• Team Changes / Open Positions
It has been a wild ride getting Skylords Reborn to the state it is now. We still have more new cards and exciting game modes in development, but need help getting them to you sooner. If you love the project, please consider helping us out, we would love to have you on our team. 
Below are three roles highlighted, but you can find more information, desired traits and all our open positions here. If you are unsure if you qualify, please reach out and have a talk! At the same time, we are sad to announce Carofex has left the team as a balance developer. We want to thank him for his contributions and wish him well! 
Open Position - Map Tester
As a map tester you get early access to new maps and gamemodes and are responsible to playtest them and provide feedback to the other map developers about possible issues or improvements. This includes check how balanced the map is, how fun it is to play, if there are any exploits, if areas on the map need to be prettified etc. Map developers/designers/artists should be able to rely on you to make sure maps that are released or changed are done so properly. More information.
Open Position - Client Developer
As a game client developer you are responsible to maintain and develop the game client. This mostly includes add new pre-game features (content outside of matches, so no game mechanics) through .pak files used by the game. You will be responsible to create and design in-game interfaces for new features, add networking support for new features that require it, solve bugs etc. using LUA, XML and little bit of Rust. BattleForge uses LUA and XML in their .pak files which are loaded by the client. Communication with the server happens through a proxy written in Rust. More information.
Open Position - Game Server Developer
As a game server developer you are responsible to maintain and develop the game servers. This includes add new features, track and fix bugs, optimize code, roll out new server updates, improve server monitoring etc. The servers are written in C++17, use boost asio for networking, MySQL as database, Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring etc. More information.


• In Conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
Remember; as a special treat for our one year anniversary, all boosters in the game will be 100BFP cheaper between 18-12-2021 and 18-01-2022. 
We also have a scratch code for you, which will reward you with a general booster: SKYL-ORDS-REBO-RN1Y
The code is valid until January 8th 2022, which is when our next community update will release.

We hope you will join us in the celebrations playing this new patch, and we would love to hear your feedback on how you experienced the past year of Skylords Reborn! Please let us know below.  
Happy holidays!

Archive
Community Update #13
Community Update #14
Community Update #15