You’ll be able to jump into the world of Ilysia starting TODAY, October 11th at 5PM PST 🎉
Our team has been working hard to address the feedback from our community, and along with hundreds of bug fixes and changes to what you might have seen in our previous testing phases, you’ll also notice some more brand new changes in Early Access:
🔸 We’ve brought back the FreeForge system, and players will be able to adventure through Ilysia while utilizing different skill trees!
Warden | Embrace the power of the hunt, refine your archery skills, and summon powerful beasts to join you on your travels.
Mystic | Dabble in the Arcane, draw your powers, and cast spells that bring enemies down with intricate arcane rituals.
Holy | Call upon magic that mends or fuels those around you, channeling the sacred energies of healing spells to restore and protect.
Martial | Get up close and personal with heavy attacks and strike combos against formidable foes.
🔸 llysia in Early Access will feature 4 playable races in two opposing factions, the first 15 levels of character progression, 4 skill trees, 3 dungeons with different design mechanics, and a sizeable world to explore!
🔸 We're happy to announce servers in the following regions for launch: - US East - US West - Central EU - Australia
What can you expect as we go into Early Access?
First and foremost, during EA, you can expect open communication and weekly Tuesday patch days addressing incoming bugs and feature updates with detailed patch notes. Additionally, we are working on our public roadmap and looking forward to sharing it with you in the coming weeks about larger quarterly updates and future plans!
🔸 Known Issues:
Outside of smaller tweaks, below are some of the known issues we're currently working on:
Quest objective POIs do not clean off the Waydar when you complete them;
Quest NPC Turn in POI markers only show on the Waydar if you're within 200 yards;
If you get stuck and have to use the 'return to graveyard' button while on the starting island you may have to walk back to the keep to resume questing;
Warden pets have sleepy attitudes and don't always do their special skills;
The Oculus Quest 3 has broken player skin textures;
Interacting with world graveyard stones can inadvertently lower your health;
Some mobs will get bored during battle and ignore you, we are meeting them one on one and will be issuing a performance action plan to remedy these behaviors;
Shields behave oddly when equipped in the right hand;
The airship crew has been a bit overzealous waxing the ship. Watch out for some take offs as you may slip off! Should be solved once we get 'em to wipe off the excess wax;
PVP flagging will unflag after two minutes of play;
Some UI text is hard to read on mobile VR;
The power of gravestones currently negatively affects the living. Some townsfolk say they are feeling weak when touching them. Until we can consult our expert necromancer, we recommend leaving gravestone interaction to the dead.
🔸 Your MagePortal account works in conjunction with your platform store accounts to access the world of Ilysia™
Below are some instructions that, while explained in the login scene, we are also putting here in step by step detail to help you linking your accounts to play Ilysia.
1. Launch game 2. Click Oculus/Steam button 3. Enter email/password - If you already have a MagePortal account, use the email/password you use to log into MagePortal - If you do not have a MagePortal account, enter your email/password and an account will be created for you
4. Click "Create Account" 5. When the message comes back that a verification email was sent to you, go to your inbox and follow the instructions in that email 6. Go back to the game and click Oculus/Steam again to finish logging in.
Each time you launch the game after following these steps, clicking Oculus/Steam will log you in without needing to enter an email/password.
Beta 2 is now LIVE!
Hey everyone! Beta 2 is now live! Read up on the full details below!
This testing phase will run: Friday 8/18 - Wednesday 8/23
This is an extension from Beta 1 into Beta 2, focused on community feedback and continual polish of features!
We heard through development feedback on how it would be difficult to balance Freeforge and decided to put structure around it with originally changing to starting classes in Beta 1. We’re actively listening to player feedback and are going back to the old system. It will take a few iterations to bring down the fences but we’re on it! Balance is still something we are greatly focused on. This is the first stage to the changed Freeforge system.
PATCH NOTES | Ilysia Beta 2
Beginning stages of Freeforge have been re-implemented, Items & weapons are no longer bound to a “class”.
Shields have been fixed and now block damage instead of just acting like a very wide, very weak sword. Hold trigger to block. While blocking, each time you are hit, the damage will be reduced and a heat charge will be consumed. Starting shields have 4 heat charges and recover at a rate of 1 heat charge every 10 seconds.
The codex for warrior skills has been updated with the activation sequences in the descriptions
We've captured the sneaky toka that has been stealing player's underwear. Tighty-whities have been restored to all!
Players backpack has a few extra things to start them on their way.
The many birds and crickets of the world now listen to the codex audio sliders.
The many bands, bards and quartets have been at work and filled the world with music.
Certain angry enemies realized they were being quite selfish with their loot and will now be more generous.
Mobs were tired of running all the way back to their spawn point after chasing players and decided to go on strike. We've renegotiated and mobs will properly chase players again after returning to their spawn point.
The compass now points north again.
Added a build number to the login scene.
Various Quality Of Life Improvements.
MagePortal & Key Activation Your Beta 2 keys are posted to your MagePortal account under "Keys & Items". To redeem, copy and paste your 16 character key into the activation box and hit activate. Following this you will see it transferred to your "Activated Keys" on the same page. You are now ready for when servers go live and downloads are available. When servers do go live, you will be able to navigate to the downloads page that is listed on the right side drop down menu.
For further instructions on how to download and install Ilysia, please follow this guide here: Beta 2 Setup Guide
All players will need to re-download the newest build of Ilysia on MagePortal under the downloads tab!
It is recommended you remove the previous build files from your computer or if on Quest, uninstalling the APK file prior to installing the new one!
Bug Reporting If you are finding any bugs during your adventures in Ilysia, please submit a bug report here: https://wkf.ms/45K335B
HOTFIX 2 | Beta 1
Hey everyone! We've rolled out another hotfix for Beta 1 today!
All players will need to re-download the newest build of Ilysia on MagePortal under the downloads tab!
It is recommended you remove the previous build files from your computer or if on Quest, uninstalling the APK file prior to installing the new one! For help with install, please see: Beta 1 Setup Guide
HOTFIX 2- Beta 1:
- We found out that Bellamy was casting the wrong ritual and was wiping your memories instead. She has been taught the correct spell and should no longer cause you to forget quests you've completed after helping her.
- Tavern Keeper Willus' Quest line fixed. We used Bellamy's memory spell on him to make him forget why he started imprisoning players in the first place. Victims have been released and may continue questing again.
- The high level Mage spell Blink had a decimal point in the wrong place and caused the user to teleport all the way around the world and end up back where they started. Blink has been re-calibrated to be short distance again.
- Broke the link between mage's wands so that your cooldowns would stop showing on someone else's wand.
- Confiscated all of the Amulets of Regeneration that Bal'Ramos was passing out like candy. Enemies should no longer passively regain health while in combat.
- Several quests have been fixed.
- Gliders added. Dispelled the invisibility effect on gliders and added more padding to your shoes to give you a softer landing.
HOTFIX 1 | Beta 1
Beta 1 hotfix is here!
All players will need to re-download the newest build of Ilysia on MagePortal under the downloads tab!
It is recommended you remove the previous build files from your computer or if on Quest, uninstalling the APK file prior to installing the new one! For help with install, please see: Beta 1 Setup Guide
HOTFIX 1 - Beta 1: - Spells are now castable with friends - "Return to Graveyard" button added to Codex->Settings - Quit Button now closes the app rather than returning to login scene - Pets unsummon themselves when their summoner leaves the game or zone - Pets now display their owners name - Mob movement speed increased slightly - Armor "class" restrictions removed (Weapons are still class restricted... for now) - Several performance improvements on the server - Shoulder Slot fixed - Staff Spell Origin fixed - Fixed POI for Honey paw kill quest - Fixed greyclaw titles - Increased loot chest respawn time - Fixed some mobs spawning inside of cave walls - Inventory Items no longer grow infinitely when hovering over them - Fixed tooltips for many items - Buffed Trogre/Bal' ramos - Fixed several mob issues across the world - Fixed Potion sell prices - Fixed several incorrect drop tables - Fixed NPC bubbles that were hindering movement - Frost spell debuff duration increased - Fire Arrow added for Hunter at level 2 - Casting spells that have yet to be trained will now result in a "Fizzle" - Fishing spots should have fish again
Known Issues - Pets sometimes loose their display info (comes back after the pet damages an enemy) - Quest log - Cant abandon quests from Codex - Cooldowns for spells appear on nearby players wands. (only visual, not real cooldowns) - Blink sometimes doesn't teleport the player forward - Backpack may increase in size each time it gets pulled out
Beta 1 goes live TODAY! | Read up on the full details here
Hello everyone!
We have some good news! We are ready to get this Beta rollin and by that I mean, TODAY! Read up on the details below!
Beta 1 will run: Today 8/12 - Wednesday 8/16
Downloads page on MagePortal and the Ilysia servers will go live at: 5pm EDT
Following this testing phase, Beta 2 will be going live: Friday 8/18 - Wednesday 8/23
We heard our community and wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to participate given the short notice. We sincerely appreciate your patience these past few weeks as our team worked to resolve a last minute bug that hindered our Beta 1 launch prior. Towards this we are extending both Beta 1 and Beta 2 by a couple of days, and additionally, players that purchased a Beta 1 Bundle will also have access to Beta 2!
This Beta 1 has a focus on stress testing the network on a large scale.
We anticipate users encountering instances of disconnections when logging with new characters during the tutorial phase. Our team is aware of this issue and ask that players encountering any disconnects to wait momentarily and try reconnecting by pressing the “Enter World” button at main menu. Users might see “Map server not available” and “Disconnected from server” when connecting during this large scale stress test. Again, please wait for a few minutes and try reconnecting if this happens.
MagePortal & Key Activation
Your Beta 1 keys are posted to your MagePortal account under "Keys & Items". To redeem, copy and paste your 16 character key into the activation box and hit activate. Following this you will see it transferred to your "Activated Keys" on the same page. You are now ready for when servers go live and downloads are available. When servers do go live, you will be able to navigate to the downloads page that is listed on the right side drop down menu.
For further instructions on how to download and install Ilysia, please follow this guide here: Beta 1 Setup
Feel free to join us on Discord for more information and regular updates through this testing phase! Discord
Dev Update | Team 21 Studio Prepares For Beta 1!
Greetings everyone, the time is finally here! Read up on when our Beta 1 will be going live, and what you can expect in this upcoming testing phase!
MagePortal
We have good news! We managed to upgrade what we needed to without requiring you to recreate your accounts. However, users will still need to make new passwords for your existing accounts to comply with our new security requirements and encryption. Outside of this, the back end issues for MagePortal have been resolved, and we are now ready to dive into Beta 1!
Beta 1 will begin on July 28th, 2023
This testing phase will run between the dates of 07/28 - 07/30, followed shortly by Beta 2!
Characters will not carry over from Alpha 2, so you will need to create a new character at start.
Beta keys have been previously delivered to Pre-Kickstarter and Kickstarter backers as well as those who bought access after the end of our alpha 2 stage.. Those that do not have a key still have a chance to score one through our Discord, socials, and partnered streamers. If you’re not in our Discord yet, get in there!
Beta 1 will have bugs.
As this is still a beta and the debut of the first fully server-authoritative MMORPG back-end for VR, there will be different bugs than in Alpha 2, but bugs nonetheless! We will continue to address them as they come up!
You'll also notice the foundations of things that were not present in Alpha 2 and are more central to what you'd expect from an MMORPG: a party system, instanced dungeons, improved combat AI, and more concise class development and skills. Additionally, more classes will be added in future updates!
Thank you!
The extra time we've taken to address issues and refine gameplay has allowed us to create something we believe you will truly enjoy. Thank you to our community for your patience and support, and we look forward to seeing you in our Beta 1!
Spring is here! Development Update
Hello Ilysians! We wanted to take this moment to thank you for your patience with the release of our dev blogs. Especially this one! We know how exciting and important it is for you, our community, to see our development and progress. Since our Alpha 2 testing phase, we’ve gone through many changes to Ilysia and also our studio! Bringing on board several new faces to the team, all of which have an extensive background in game development, environment design, character design, and narrative work. Over the past few months, we’ve been sharing a few snippets and write-ups about our graphical changes, dynamic weather systems, updates to our melee combat, and improved mob AI. We realize the time between our testing phases has been a bit longer than anticipated. Still, our goal is, has been, and always will be, creating a game and a world that looks and feels immersive, fun, challenging, social, and most importantly, secure.
Why have technical updates taken so long? The main reason is, that Ilysia has been updated from Client-Authoritative architecture to a Server-Authoritative Server architecture. While we will keep the details under wraps, this required a complete and total rebuild of the entire back end of Ilysia. This monumental series of tasks has taken a significant amount of effort and time, but it was a necessary change for a better, more secure MMO experience for our players. Along with this, several things on the front end needed to be re-written to leverage the new system and client server relationship. To put this into perspective, less than 1% of the code base from Alpha exists as it did last year. For all intents and purposes, the entire game has been re-written.
Additionally, as some of you might already know from previous posts, we’ve put in a lot of work updating our graphics. You’ll notice a significant difference between the zones and style from Alpha 2 to our upcoming Beta 1, along with graphical updates to our NPCs, player characters, and creatures.
We really can’t wait to share the new Ilysia with you, so with all of that technical speak about our road to get here out of the way, we'd like for everyone to tune in to our watch party, Today! Monday March 13th @ 2PM EST on YouTube to check out an important announcement!
What can you expect from our team in the coming months?
As we mentioned earlier, we want to keep everyone in the loop and updated on development as much as possible. You can expect to see more updates from our team. These will be posted out to our community on Discord and our socials as their own posts and more regularly instead of the monthly or bi-monthly blogs that we have been doing in the past.
Thank you for giving this a read and for your continued support! If you haven't already, feel free to join our community on Discord! Its another great place to follow along with development and also chat with other community members about Ilysia, VR, and tons of other things!
Winter has arrived, and we are excited to share with you what our team has been up to during the months of November and December. From more environmental effects, PCVR & Quest comparisons, combat and AI changes, and some community shenanigans!
Things Are Looking Frosty!
In our previous Dev Blog, we shared the rain effects you’ll see when adventuring through Ilysia. Today, we look at the snow you’ll also experience when exploring our colder zones. Snow will slowly fall from the sky and, over time, will accumulate on the ground and trees.
PCVR & Meta Quest 2 - Comparison
Mobile VR is an important platform, and we are taking care to get as much as possible out of the Quest while keeping it as analogous to PCVR as possible. We are striving to really push that envelope and are enjoying the challenges and results we are seeing!
The video below is a short walk through in one of the first instanced caves that players will come across on the new Faction starting quest line.
New & Improved Interactions
⚔️ Melee Combat We have improved our melee combat to be more responsive and accurate to the swing. Players can use their swords to swipe, chop, stab or lunge during combat. We have also implemented advanced shield combat allowing players to block incoming attacks and use the shield to bash their enemies.
🧠 AI We have improved our AI to be more performative and responsive. In addition, we have created new types of AI for different types of mobs. Mobs will react to the player more appropriately and assist or work with each other in combat, giving players a greater challenge!
🧩Dungeon Puzzles We have added mechanics to create more interesting experiences during dungeons or encounters. Such as locked doors that require locating keys, levers, or solving a puzzle to open. Some puzzles may even require multiple players to participate in operating the mechanisms.
Out With The Old, In With The New!
We’ve updated our logo for Ilysia and to celebrate, we’ve put together a few wallpapers for you to use!
Community Spotlight
Recently, our community met up in Discord for a game night and played some Gartic Phone! To no one's surprise, the mysterious can of beans returned and somehow became… sentient?!
Beans are a long-running joke in the community and even made their way into our Alpha 2 as an easter egg. Only the bravest of adventurers could take on the challenge of finding their hidden location.
If you’d like to join in for a game night with us, jump into Discord and grab the Events role so you can get notified for our next event! Check out our community-made bean art below!
"Bean Man" by Kitteh#5965
"Bean Man" by Cxntrxl#1000
"Bean Man" by Kitteh#5965
Ilysia Fanart by nymph#7178
Happy Holidays!
We hope you enjoyed reading our monthly blog! Don't forget to wishlist us here on Steam!
From everyone here at Team 21 Studio, we want to wish you a happy holiday and hope you enjoy your time with family and loved ones. We are so grateful for everyone’s support through our development of Ilysia and we can’t wait to share even more with you in the coming weeks.
Be safe out there, and stay warm! ☃️
- Team 21 Studio, Inc
Graphics Overhaul, Dynamic Weather, Character Redesigns & Steam Makeover!
Greetings, adventurer!
As October comes to a close and with some of you gearing up for some Halloween festivities today, we’d like to share with you what we’ve been up to this past month!
It's time to start talking about Beta. With your biggest question, where are the Beta updates?
Our team has been hard at work the past 6 months rewriting our graphical pipeline and network backend to provide a more rewarding gameplay experience while also creating a secure user experience for years to come. We are ready to start sharing with you the new content that you'll see in our Beta 1, starting with today's blog.
Keep an eye out for our upcoming blogs as it will be entirely focused around Beta content.
It All Starts With A Concept
We’ve mentioned in a previous blog that some of our more notable creatures were being reworked. Our Toka’s being just one of many that you’ll discover during your time spent in Ilysia. These changes begin with some simple concept art where we explore their overall design and color variations that would fit well in various locations within the world. With the addition of our Igara, which we showcased in a previous blog, these revised Toka now take on a new underling role.
A Fresh New Look
For those that had the opportunity to play through our previous Alpha, you might remember some NPCs, such as Lora (Pictured below). Our art team since then has been retexturing the faces of these characters to breathe life into their design!
You’ll also find that we’ve shifted gears to a more hand-painted art style. Focusing on adding more detail to characters and creatures throughout Ilysia. Creatures like the boar (Pictured below) have been updated with this new style.
Breathing Life Into The World Of Ilysia
And speaking about the changes of our graphical pipeline, we are extremely excited to show you a first look at our PCVR changes that you'll see in our Beta 1.
This video highlights the technological advancements we've made in the last several months. This is a comparison walkthrough in the town of Weskellet between our previous graphics in Alpha 2 and our current build of Beta 1. With some extra surprises such as real time dynamic weather that responds to the different seasons.
Steam Overhaul
B-B-B-BONUS ROUND! We’ve cleaned up our Steam Page! We went ahead and added a breakdown of key features, new screenshots, and updated our trailer. If you find yourself on our Steam forums, we’ve also added an in-depth FAQ to help answer some of those burning questions asked by our community!
Check out our key features of Ilysia below:
In-Depth Character Customization. Choose from a selection of races and customize your character to detail!
FreeForge Class System. Choose from a myriad of classes and customize it to your own playstyle through specialized skill-trees!
Rewarding Exploration. Explore a world with a variety of different regions and find hidden caves, lost treasure and world bosses!
Weather System. Experience a variety of weather types that change depending on the season, as you scout each distinct biome!
Climbing & Gliding. Dangle from cliff edges and jump from ledge to ledge, or use your glider to traverse wide chasms as you travel the world of Ilysia! Climb trees, rocks, vines, ropes and buildings.
Swimming. Dive into deep lagoons and swim underwater to find treasure, hidden caves and aquatic enemies!
Titans & Guardians. Encounter gigantic creatures you can climb to find moving dungeons, exploration zones or even fight them!
Dungeons & Raids. Party up, or not if you’re brave enough, and fight your way through countless dungeons, taking on a myriad of enemies and bosses!
Combat. Swing a sword at your foes, strike them from afar with a bow or burn them to ashes with powerful magic!
Opt-in PvP. Fight other adventurers anywhere in the world who have also enabled PvP!
Rideable Mounts. Collect and ride a plethora of terrestrial and flying mounts to traverse the lands at higher speed!
Player Housing. Decorate, customize and invite friends to your own personal living space.
Caravan System. Customize and travel the world of Ilysia with your own personal caravan.
Crafting & Professions. Open your own business! Be a blacksmith, fisherman, traveling merchant, innkeeper or run your own tavern! Gather and craft items for other adventurers or give them a place to rest after a long journey.
Pets & Pet Battles. Capture and tame small creatures and have them fight alongside you or partake in pet battles with other adventurers!
Fast Travel. Take an airship or set sail on a boat to safely navigate in-between towns.
Thank You For Reading!
We hope you enjoyed reading our monthly blog! Don't forget to wishlist us here on Steam as we are so excited to share more juicy content in the upcoming months!
Playstation Universe Interview
A week ago we had an interview with Playstation Universe. Give the article a read if you wouldn't mind.
