Majora Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Greetings Skylords! A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn! • Skylord Reborn 3rd Anniversary Happy New Year, everyone! We hope 2024 will be a wonderful year for every one of you! December 2023 marked the 3rd Anniversary of Skylords Reborn, and we are happy you are here to celebrate it with us! In case you missed it, we hosted a special Anniversary Stream last Friday, which you can rewatch here. In this Community Update, we would like to take a look back at 2023, and share what 2024 has in store for Skylords Reborn. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started! • Looking back at 2023 Can you believe it's already been a year since we added cosmetics? Here is a quick summary of every patch we released in 2023. January 14th, 2023 Early in 2023, we released our 2nd Anniversary Patch. The patch contained three new cards; Sanctuary, a Tier 4 Nature spell to go along with our ongoing Pure Nature rework, Raven Archwalker, our first Legendary card, and Worldbreaker Gun Promo, the first Promo building in the game. This patch also introduced cosmetics; unlockable ways for Skylords to personalize their banner and avatar border. We also added 32 new achievements, many balance changes, and a ton of Quality of Life features; like a longer Marketplace option, more advanced filtering options including a handy in-game guide, and an import/export deck function. February 27th, 2023 As with most major patches, our follow-up patch was a small one, containing some bugfixes, and the QoL option for players to re-roll the same quest multiple times. The minimum quest reward after re-rolls was changed to 50 BFP. April 8th, 2023 After our successful Halloween Event, we wanted to surprise Skylords with an Easter-themed event. While the map and general idea were received positively, we probably should not have attached a speedrun contest to it. Players expressed playing the map once was fun, but grinding the clunky Egg-push mechanic for the top time turned out to be a bit tedious. Regardless, completing the special map ''The Easter Tree" on any difficulty resulted in the completion of the newly added achievement "Bunny Brawler", which automatically rewarded Skylords with a new Easter-themed banner. We saw that banner equipped a lot around the holidays, so we are happy to see it being received so positively. This patch also contained some bugfixes, and a change to the friend list to display only online friends by default, a much requested change. May 19th - 2023 In May, we released another big content patch, called appropriately called Nature's Awakening. Alongside many Nature-themed changes, the patch also contained one new card: Sleetstorm. The spotlight for this patch, however, was on the addition of the Nature faction to rPvE, joining Fire as the second Skylords-Reborn exclusive addition to the game mode. Hodron spend a lot of time balancing the faction and making it fun to play against, which you can read more about in our interview. The patch also contained many balance changes, mostly focusing on our Pure Nature rework. The patch also included many Quality of Life changes, including a single-player pause feature, key-down vs key-up interaction, the ability to copy text or import a deck from the in-game chat, and gold chests being openable in combat. Lastly, the patch also included our first part of our Gold rework, a few campaign map changes, and a rework of the community map section. This rework allows Skylords to have an easier time finding great community-made maps, by showing more information, and having featured maps for maps that are especially good or unique. We also had an event on two of those great community maps: An Expedition South and Lyrish Uprising. We would once again like to stress that every Skylords Reborn installation comes with a Map Editor, so feel free to add your creations to the list! July 25th - 2023 Sadly, the major content patch came alongside some annoying bugs, the most infamous being the lag in the Forge after playing for a while. The issue should be solved, though we still sometimes receive reports of similar behavior. If this is the case for you, please report it to our team to investigate. We also used this occasion to fix some inconsistencies in card descriptions and enabled playback for outdated replays. However, because replays are playbacks (instead of being a video), if cards were used that have since been changed, it can still result in not accurately reflecting the original gameplay. Regardless, it solved a major headache for our Event Department and Community Events to still be able to access replays if the game had been patched in a way that only effected a few cards that were not present in their replays. October 28th - 2023 For our Halloween patch, we added a new Pumpkin avatar for Skylords to unlock by playing the custom map Spooky Encounters once more during the Halloween season. The patch also contained one new card: the long awaited Soulstone. This card saw the longest development cycle yet, but we are very proud of how it turned out. There was one more thing for Skylords to unlock: we released a special Fire-themed Forge, locked behind an achievement we noticed not many players were participating in due to the old lackluster reward. We are happy to see an increase in the completion rate after adding the special Forge. Lastly, we also released a bunch of balance changes, bugfixes, and a batch of Quality of Life changes, like a higher deck-limit (500), a warning notification for queuing up with a low deck level for ranked (pointing towards the free PvP decks), and some improvements to comparing profiles. The Fire-themed Forge can be unlocked by completing the achievement "Never Thought of Him" December - 2023 -> January 2024 Originally, our plan was to bring out a patch for our 3rd Anniversary in December. Sadly, we had to delay after crucial staff members became sick. Which brings us to... • Looking ahead at 2024 We are kicking off 2024 with our first content patch, and today we are happy to announce the patch date: January 26th - 2024 Our first content patch of 2024 will contain various previously announced features. You can expect to see the new card Lost Manabeast, our overhaul of the rPvE difficulty system, our Lost Souls Rework, balance changes, and quality of life features, like buttons in the Forge to pause, speed up and slowdown. While we are trying to include previously announced cards like Tectonic Shift and Bedrock, technical issues are plaguing their developments, so we can't make the promise they will be included yet. 2024 While we are not able to provide a concrete roadmap for 2024, we are able to share some general information about what we have planned for the new year. We have spent a lot of 2023 working on map-content, and we are very excited to share what we have been working on! The following content can be expected further along in 2024: New Campaign Maps 2024 will see the release of some brand-new campaign maps! There are currently four maps in development, three 2-player maps, and one 1-player map. The first two maps you can expect will be Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle, which are part of our new Key of Ashia story campaign, filling in some of the questions the original campaign failed to answer. In Unexpected Visitors, you will face the Lost Souls to protect the last Amii tribe, while Into the Jungle tasks you with finding a new safe haven for them. We did a short live-play of Into the Jungle during our stream. Unexpected Visitors will be the first new campaign map of Skylords Reborn. New Cards You can expect more new cards, including three for the Amii faction: Amii Golem, Amii Simulacrum and Amii Skydancer, bringing long-awaited higher tier units to the faction. We will reveal more about these new cards in the upcoming Community Updates. Besides new Amii cards, we also have a couple of other new cards in various stages of development. More voice-acting Alongside voicing our new campaign-maps, we are also working on providing voices for both new and old cards alike. A teaser of the Amii Golem was already heard in the Amii-teaser above, but we also have talented people working on Burning Spears and other cards that patched without voice-lines. To navigate the players through the new campaign, we have also worked on a Frost Skylord named Gaeron, artwork made by our artist Tweeto. Gaeron was an Imperial Captain defending a Lyrish town. He is shortly mentioned in the original lore book in the game, and we thought he would be a fitting candidate to expand upon. We have found a great voice-actor to voice him during our search back in June. Balance changes We are always tweaking cards and looking for opportunities to make underplayed but cards with potential viable, and 2024 will be no different. Be sure to join our balance discord if you want to join the discussion and/or provide suggestions! A lot of the changes in SR are community suggestions, after all! More Map Content 2024 will continue our vision of focusing on returning content. We are especially excited about Map Modifiers, special conditions that can be activated on campaign maps to provide new and exciting challenges. Modifiers that increase the defense of enemies, or cause them to explode once defeated, are simple examples that can already impact maps drastically. We plan to bundle these with a highlighted Map of the Day campaign map, resulting in additional rewards for Skylords facing the challenge. Example screenshot of Map Modifiers. Work in progress. With new campaign maps, expanding on rPvE and Map Modifiers freshening up the original Campaign Maps, 2024 should be a good year for replayable content! • Events Kicking off 2024 we also have a new event to enjoy! • NEW - Amii Training Camp While we eagerly wait for new Amii cards, let's find out if you fully master the excising ones! Play rPvE with only Amii Paladins and Amii Phantoms on Tier 2 and see how fast you can get! More information. • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information. In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events! • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. • Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 10 episodes to watch: • 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. • New: Episode 8: Maze, Web Developer - Watch now. In this episode, Maze and Kapo talk about the moderation tool, different APIs, and of course in great detail about Maze' wonderful website, the Skylords Marketplace Journal (www.smj.cards) • New: Episode 9: Windhunter, Lead Designer - Watch now. In this episode, Windhunter and Kapo talk all about design, the priorities of picking what to change next, the state of the economy and loads of submitted questions from Fire-Frost to Deepdives, and what's upcoming in the next months and years. • New: Episode 10: Emmaerzeh & Hodron - Watch now. This episode is all about the art of map-making, in all variations from campaign, rPvE and PvP-maps; with a highlight on how (community) mapmaking is done. • Contribute Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions! We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn! More information. Please consider applying for this position; we would love to gather both new and old players alike in 2024 to check out our new campaign maps. We are also looking for someone who can help us with our newsletter. Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • In Conclusion That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it. As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support. The code will reward you with a General booster: LOOK-BACK-YEAR-2023 The code is valid until February 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. Archive • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide) • Overview Community Updates • Community Update December 2023 Emmaerzeh, Metagross31, Volin and 10 others like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majora Posted January 1 Author Share Posted January 1 (edited) In addition to the community update, I'd also like to take this time to share some of my personal thoughts as we transition into year 4 of Skylords Reborn. 3 years and 43 Community Updates in the books! Working on this yearly recap sure was a trip down memory lane with many "Did we really release that this year?". With so many moving parts and various things in development, things can start to blur a bit. Due to the nature of map making, this felt like a year in which we did a ton of work behind the scenes, but couldn't show off our hard work yet. I'm excited we can now finally start to reveal what the team has been working on. I hope our monthly community updates still managed to show we are hard at work, and had enough to reveal for players to feel engaged with the project. In hindsight, there were some things that we probably announced too early, (for example the Lost Soul Rework) but with so many variables in our project (our team now has 50 volunteers!) that is bound to happen now and then. I am extremely proud of the work our team put out this year, and I can't wait for players to get their hands on our new campaign maps. Speaking of the team, we had a bunch of lovely people joining as volunteers! I am super grateful that 3 years in, we still have so many people with dedication and love for the project that they are willing to spend their free time on it. The following Skylords joined in 2023: CrazyCockerell and Titan as Tech-artists Piskr as Client Developer Pierakor as Tool Developer Lucas Ansei as Web Developer Ultralord as Video Editor Volin as Map Tester Coordinator Damo and Hrdina Impéria as Map Designers Kayrie as Map Artist. Discoheart and Noah.K as Audio Editor Vultagx and Linkz as Global Moderator ElementG is currently in his trial period for Tech-artist But it would be unfair to not also give a shout-out to the members who left the team during 2023: Katchau (developer) left the team Nukie left the event department Watermelon Lord, Nukie, Pfirsichkralle and Dallarian left the Moderator department Thank you all for your work for the project! Besides the team, I would like to give a personal shout out to Kapo and Dreamlord. You know Kapo from his CCC and Masters of the Forge series, but he does not get nearly enough credit for how much he does for the project and has always been a reliable friend, whether it be proofreading my documents, or getting a Rayman statue imported from another country. Dreamlord has been our favorite Banzaiii Lorrrd and I have been consistently impressed by not only his quality voice acting but his professionalism and willingness to help out, sometimes on short notice. Besides doing voice-overs for our trailers, you can also expect to hear him in our loading screen narrations for the new maps in 2024. I have high hopes for his voice-acting career, and I hope 2024 will be the breakthrough year for him! 2023 was a year full of highs and lows. My girlfriend and I got our own apartment and a lovely cat named Lyra. At the same time I saw friends struggling with depression, break-ups, war and death of loved ones. The world can be a rough place, so please take care of yourself and each other. What was your highlight for 2023? And what are you most excited about for 2024? Would love to hear it in the comments! Thank you so much for being a part of this lovely community. Edited January 2 by Kapo Metagross31, n3tax, Volin and 6 others like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrdina_Imperia Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Thanks for all the hard work🥳 Let's hope for even better year! Majora likes this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fundus Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Any idea when Battlegrounds lvl 9.5 will get released? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutchy Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 8 hours ago, Majora said: January 26th - 2024 Our first content patch of 2024 will contain various previously announced features. You can expect to see the new card Lost Manabeast, our overhaul of the rPvE difficulty system, our Lost Souls Rework, balance changes, and quality of life features, like buttons in the Forge to pause, speed up and slowdown. While we are trying to include previously announced cards like Tectonic Shift and Bedrock, technical issues are plaguing their developments, so we can't make the promise they will be included yet. @Fundus Read this part again 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venomlord Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Awesome job on the Gaeron artwok. He looks like he was always there, he really looks so cool, cant wait to see him ingame. Maybe even new neutral card in the very far future? 😁 Crazy what you can put off! Metagross31 likes this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatcherOfSky Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Very excited to see all the new stuff that's coming! Metagross31 likes this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapo Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 On 1/1/2024 at 11:05 AM, Majora said: ... and a lovely cat named Lyra. I officially protest that you mention this and give the people no picture of the cat. Volin and Dallarian like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majora Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 2 minutes ago, Kapo said: I officially protest that you mention this and give the people no picture of the cat. Understandable, let me right that wrong: SunWu, Dallarian, Volin and 2 others like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LichterLoh Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Units for the Amii look epic! Thanks for your lovely work and time Metagross31, Dallarian and Majora like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleicher6 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Thank you all for keeping this alive and also updating it regulary. cant wait for the new campaign maps, that what i mosted whised for. n3tax, Hrdina_Imperia, Metagross31 and 1 other like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XLNT Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Fantastic job and update Kapo! Have you thought about an all female deck expert challenge? To 2024! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hands Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Signed in just to say.. the cat is cute 🙂 Also, thanks SR team, you guys are awesome! Volin and Majora like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majora Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 24 minutes ago, Hands said: Signed in just to say.. the cat is cute 🙂 Also, thanks SR team, you guys are awesome! Haha the best sign-in! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little_Ducky Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 On 1/30/2024 at 5:17 PM, XLNT said: Fantastic job and update Kapo! Have you thought about an all female deck expert challenge? To 2024! An all female deck is actually pretty strong as you have bloodhorn, necrofury and winter witch. We've done a challenge like this before it's actually pretty fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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