While traveling through the Otherland network you encounter many zones and locations that are unique. Some are strange, some may seem weird, but they all are something to remember. We want to have a closer look at some of these areas of the game and shine a bit of light on them.
Let's start with a zone that most probably all of you remember: Soul Spirit Well.
This area is one of the three ports in 8Squared that the NeoGrail has been using to transport souls from the simulation to somewhere deeper within the network. It is also the first one you encounter while traveling through the 8Squared simulation.
Bursting with energy it has become a beacon that attracts all sorts of creatures from wights to shaders. This made the entire area deadly and too dangerous without a gun or sword by your side.
What makes the Soul Spirit Well unique from all other ports is that it's being guarded from misuse by a small group of programs that took it upon themselves to protect the simulation.
While building this area our designers tried to approach the concept of a network port in a way that would fit in the medieval setting of 8Squared. Many attempts and concepts led us to the idea of an endless well. Something that wouldn't be strange in a fantasy setting while keeping the idea of something deep, open, dangerous and endless.
Just like the Soul Spirit Well the area known as "The Dumps" had a port that led outside of the simulation. The only difference between those two is that The Dumps' port wasn't protected by anyone and quickly became a beacon for everything you would want to avoid.
Everything that the port attracted after being unlocked quickly turned into a feast for shaders. Eating all they want and evolving without any challenge they started changing the terrain around them to what you see right now.
When we first thought about The Dumps we wanted it to not be a desolate waste where no one would willingly enter, but something in a quick path to that future. Our initial concepts showed a small village caught in a bad place between shaders and their food. However, we wanted something more unique and thus we pushed time forward to what we feel is the outcome of that situation: destruction and death. If you head to The Dumps right now you will see what remains of that village and its inhabitants.
Near the Oyster House zone in the 8Squared there is a small bridge that collapsed many years ago and due to the everlasting war was never rebuilt. This bridge led to a long-forgotten cavern that many dared to enter and never return. There are rumours that the cave was home to a group of bloodthirsty pirates and all their treasures just wait there now to be claimed.
When creating 8Squared we very early decided that we need to have a few zones that will require effort to enter, but are not part of the main "gameplay flow". We called them "hidden" and left them for you, the players, to discover and explore on your own.
Multiple of these zones have already been discovered and you now know that they are accessible only after discovering a hidden quest or interacting with a not-so-obvious object somewhere in the world. The cave near the Oyster House is one of those zones and to enter it you need to rebuild the bridge.
So, what do you think about the zones? Any of these sparked your interest or do you have other favorites?
CRAFTING
Hello everyone!
Not so long ago we posted a series of posts about how crafting works on our Facebook page. We recognize that not everyone follows us on that platform and thus we present you with the same crafting guide here.
SCHEMATICS
To craft any item in Otherland, you will first need to find a schematic. Schematics can be gained through various activities (challenges, area quests, dungeons, etc.) or they can be bought from vendors.
Once you have a schematic you can use it to add it to your schematics list. Once added it will be available forever and can be used as many times as you want.
SOMA FORGE
To really start crafting you need to visit a SOMA Forge. These can be found in Lambda Mall and many other locations across all simulations. Interacting with the SOMA Forge NPC or the station itself will open the crafting window.
CRAFTING
In this part we will focus only on the "Crafting" tab. Every crafting process is started by selecting a schematic from the list on the left side of the window. Once selected the main crafting window will change, showing you the icon and quality of the item being crafted. Keep in mind that the quality of an item is defined by the quality of the schematic you found.
Next you will need to select if you want to craft a normal item or just a disguise. A disguise is an item that has no stats and will override your current equipped item with its looks while the stats of your equipped item remain. To craft a disguise, simply tick the "Disguise" option and place a disguise token from the in-game shop.
If you however want to craft an item that will boost your power, you will first need to specify what level should the item require. This will define the SOMA you will need to spend as well as how high the stats of the item will go.
After selecting the item level we suggest you specify what stats you are interested in. Select the primary stat, the secondary one (different than the primary) and choose between a offensive or defensive item (defensive items focus on stats that boost your survivability while offensive ones focus on damage and healing power).
Once all of this is done you can now choose how much SOMA you wish to spend on the item. The more you spend the more powerful the item will become. Keep in mind that the SOMA you will need depends on the level you selected. The final SOMA requirement is shown right below the bar.
There is one thing you need to remember when spending SOMA: the bar you are manipulating right now has a highlighted area. We call this the "Critical zone". Spending so much SOMA will make it possible to have a critical success on crafting, which boosts the item power greatly, but it also makes it possible to fail crafting the item, which in turn results in losing all the SOMA invested while not gaining anything in return. The critical and fail chance values are shown at the bottom of the window.
One thing to consider before crafting is using boosters. These can be bought from the "Get Lucked Up" shop in Lambda Mall and they will make it easier to get more powerful items.
Finally, when all of this is done, you can click the "Create" button and within seconds your new item will appear in your inventory.
RECODING
Recoding allows you to redefine the stats of any crafted item. After opening the tab simply place the item inside, throw in any number of Recode tokens (that you buy from the in-game shop) and select the stats you would wish to have on the item.
Remember that each change (primary, secondary and tertiary) requires a separate token.
DECODING
Decoding allows you to place any crafted items you no longer need and dissolve them back into SOMA.
The SOMA you get back is based on the items level and rarity, but you will always get less SOMA than was required to create the item.
MODDING
When crafting an item, you might have noticed that some of the items have a blue, red and/or yellow bar under their names. These bars are mod sockets.
If you have an item with sockets you will first want to go to the "Lots of Slots" vendor in Lambda Mall and see what crystals you can place in these sockets.
When you have the crystal you like, open the Modding section of the SOMA Forge, place the item in there and place a crystal in the socket. Doing so will increase the stats of the item.
Keep in mind that once you place a crystal into an item, it can only be removed using a Crystal Removal (from the in-game shop). Placing a new crystal in a socket before removing the old one will override the crystal already there, meaning the old crystal will be destroyed.
SOMA
There is a total of eight types of SOMA each represented by a different color: Black, Green, Blue, Cyan, Violet, Orange, Yellow and Red. Each SOMA type is used for crafting items of a higher item level (with Black SOMA being the lowest).
SOMA can be gathered in two ways: as drop from enemies or from SOMA Seeds.
When it comes to killing enemies, the SOMA you gather from them is going to be the color required to craft items on their level (for example a level 30 enemy will drop mostly Blue SOMA, but also a bit of Green and Black SOMA). However, you need to keep in mind a few modifiers to that rule:
Enemies of "minion" difficulty will always drop SOMA of a lower level than they are.
Enemies harder than "elite" will drop SOMA of a higher level.
Enemies of "boss" difficulty will have a chance to drop twice as much SOMA.
SOMA SEEDS
SOMA Seeds, as the name implies, is an item that can be used to grow SOMA. To have it grow you will first need to gain access to a U|Space room called the "SOMA Lab". While adventuring through Otherland you already got your first lab so that shouldn't be an issue for anyone.
After entering the SOMA Lab you will notice a set of consoles that are waiting for you to place SOMA Seeds inside. These seeds can be found in our in-game shop.
Once planted SOMA Seeds will slowly grow. The time it takes for it to fully bloom and give you SOMA depends on the type (color) of SOMA you select.
We didn't intend to make the SOMA Lab a main way to gain SOMA, but a passive way of earning it while offline or adventuring in different places. If you want to earn some SOMA while on vacation or enjoying different activities the SOMA Lab is the thing for you.
That's it, crafting in Otherland in a nutshell. We hope this article will prove useful to those players who still have questions about crafting items in the game and how to obtain SOMA.
Patch 5.6.71
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 15:00 (CET) and should be back up in 2 hours.
Edit: both servers are now online!
Event:
The easter event has been disabled. It will return next year!
Zones:
A strange collision cube in the bank area of Lambda Mall that was stretching beyond the bank itself was removed.
Multiple bars received several small updates (overall look).
Some of the bars got their music back.
Bug World Jungle got a minor rework to improve overall performance.
Quests:
Exiting the tutorial now happens when you approach the portal. You no longer need to interact with it as multiple players reported issues with the portal’s collision in certain circumstances.
Several quest objectives in Bug World Jungle were rephrased to be more clear.
Other:
Several portals in 8Squared no longer lead to all zones in Otherland. They are now consistent with all other world portals.
Patch 5.6.69
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 15:30 (CEST/UTC+2) and should be back up in an hour.
Edit: Both servers are now online!
This patch introduces Otherland's Easter event.
Easter event:
A section of Lambda Mall is now covered with Easter decorations and quest givers
Five Easter themed quests have been added to Lambda Mall
A new Easter pet is obtainable through the Easter quests
Chocolate Eggs (consumable) are obtainable through the daily quests (Increase movement speed by 25% for 30 min)
Chocolate Chickens (consumable) are obtainable through the daily quests (Charge heavy and special attacks of current weapon)
We hope you enjoy this small Easter celebration!
Patch 5.6.68
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 15:00 (UTC+1) and should be back up in an hour.
Edit: Both servers are now online.
This is mostly a performance oriented patch with lots of assets from 8Squared that have been further optimized for performance in some areas of the simulation. It is one in a series of upcoming performance related patches in our effort to further improve performance, especially on lower spec machines and notebooks.
Patch 5.6.67
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 14:00 (UTC+1) and should be back up in an hour.
EDIT: Both servers are now online!
This patch focuses on updating our framework further as well as fixing the majority of issues blocking the "Play" button from functioning.
Patch 5.6.65 Hotfix #1 - UPDATE ISSUES
Hello everyone,
We have just identified a small issue with the Steam client not updating the Otherland clients with the last hotfix.
That issue has been resolved and you should be getting updates in a few minutes. Please make sure you update before logging back in to Otherland.
This hotfix also fixed a small issue we had with the voucher items arriving as an empty mail, this will be fixed with this patch.
Hotfix #1 (Patch 5.6.65)
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new hotfix. The servers should go down at 14:00 (UTC+1) and should be back up in less than an hour.
Edit: Both servers are online!
This hotfix removes the issue of not being able to leave the tutorial area.
Patch 5.6.65
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 15:00 (UTC+1 / CET) and should be back up in 2 hours.
Edit: Servers are now online!
This patch does not bring any visible updates to the game and focuses on the framework behind Otherland. In the long run this will allow us to provide better and faster updates in the future.
Patch 5.6.64
Hello everyone!
We will be bringing both EU and US servers down today to apply a new patch. The servers should go down at 16:00 (UTC+1 / CET) and should be back up in 2 hours.
Edit: Servers are up!
Map:
The in-game map will now always remember what areas have been uncovered by a character. Those areas will be revealed even after traveling to other worlds and/or relogging.
Zones:
Several missing collisions have been added to the new Bad Sector and Lambda Mall maps.
The floating trees near the Auction House (in Lambda Mall) should now display correctly.
The starting zone (The Destruction) has been optimized and will load faster now.
Quests:
”The bad and the hacked” – number of hackers to kill has been increased to 5. Renie will no longer attract attention.
”Spy on spy” – the dialog between the spy and Rozzie has been fixed.
”Metal gift” – the chest should now spawn correctly
Multiple arena quests – the scripting of the bosses has been improved.
Other:
The U|Space beacon item now correctly spawn a visual effect.
Byte spiders now play their correct animations.
The God Host no longer gets knocked back when hit and plays his correct animations.
SOMA colors in multiple quests have been corrected.
