Sidequest

Heyo Oozefesters!

Things have been going pretty wild with the new boss who launched today. The day is just over half over and we're sitting at 44,939 / 75,000 HP (59.9%). I expected a jump in damage, but definitely not like this.

Typically, I do not want to make changes to a boss' health in the middle of a fight because I don't believe that feels good for anyone. However, we've only seen a dozen folks come and take a swing at the boss which means others have missed out so far and although I highly encourage everyone to visit the site multiple times every day, I want to make sure we can get some extra swings in for a couple of days. This also gives everyone more opportunities to get drops that come from bosses, so, I'm increasing the health of The Bone Broker.

As of right now, the boss will die right after the reset on October 10 with the way things are looking. Yeah, we have an entire stats dashboard internally to look at this kind of stuff :)

I would like to add an additional day to this so the boss is gaining an extra 25,000 health, bringing the health total up to 100k.

There will still be a couple of days where people are able to save up their supplies and make sure our trebuchets and militias are firing at full throttle, so going into Boss 3 on the 14th will be comfortable.

I'm also going to implement a set of system-wide private messages to let everyone who has participated during the event that a new boss has spawned when new bosses spawn to make sure people get their attacks in ASAP to join in on the fun. I also was planning on putting out an Oozefest newsletter tomorrow and I would like to make sure people have a chance to see it and attack the boss.

A job well done to everyone for progress though! It's been great to see how everyone has been interacting with Sidequest & Oozefest and it is going to help shape how things work in the future with balancing and new content.

I might be pushing an update out tomorrow that includes some more things to play with. It was a system being held back for November but I kinda want to get some testing in earlier since everyone is being so active and it is clear you're going to be itching to fight with stuff.

The boss health adjustment will arrive at some point before tomorrow's new day.

Please note that these notes are for the past couple of days as well.

Resource Nodes

• While you are signed in and reading the site, you may stumble on a find on the page you are on. There are over 50 kinds, from ore veins, fallen trees, herb patches, and fishing shoals to bandit camps, wolf packs, spider nests, and goblin raiders. Most of them give cloth and leather.

• The find shows as a card at the top of the page with the finder's character, a countdown until it disappears, and a button like Mine it, Chop it, or Fight them.

• Every member who visits that page can collect from it once, until it runs out or the time is up.

• Ore, timber, herb, and fish finds also give skill XP in the matching gathering skill.

• When it is gone, the card says "There was something here" for a few minutes, so you know you just missed one.

• Once you have collected, a small Share button copies the page's link so you can tell others about it.

• Finder's Fee: every time another member collects from a node you found, you earn 2 Gold. No one loses any gold, this is just newly generated from thin air: oOoOoOo spooky.

Materials From Activities

• Completing an activity now drops 2 or 3 of a random raw material, like ore, wood, or herbs, into your bag. This works for your first 5 activities each day.

• A toast tells you what you found, how many of today's 5 you have used, and has a View bag link.

• If your bag is full, the activity still counts but nothing drops.

Gear

• Hovering any piece of gear now compares it with what you have equipped in that slot.

  • Your equipped piece shows right next to it, labelled Equipped, with every stat that would go up in green and down in red.

  • Rings compare against both of your rings.

  • Equip buttons in your bag show the same comparison when you hover them.

• Click an empty or filled slot on your character sheet to see every piece in your bag that fits there, with a quick comparison and an Equip button. On phones it opens from the bottom of the screen.

• Hover a stat on your character sheet to see what it actually does, how your total is made up, and its cap.

• Favourites: star a piece of gear to protect it.

  • A favourited piece cannot be deleted, listed in your shop, traded, or donated to the Militia until you unfavourite it.

  • You can still equip and unequip it as normal.

• Gear Sets: save your class and your whole outfit, and swap between them in one click from your character sheet.

  • Everyone starts with 1 Gear Set. You can buy up to 10 more from the shop for 250 Gold each, and 2 more come from achievements.

  • Give each set a name, like "Boss Day" or "Gathering".

  • If a piece from a set was sold or deleted, the set tells you what is missing.

• New gear achievements:

  • Your first piece of each rarity: Uncommon Taste, Rare Taste, Epic Taste, and Legendary Taste.

  • Every slot at a rarity or better: Uncommonly Dressed, Rarely Outdressed, Epic Ensemble, and Legendary Ensemble.

  • Every slot at an item level or higher: the Geared Up ladder, from level 10 to level 70.

  • Fully Loaded (every gear slot filled, trinkets included) and Suited Up each give you a Gear Set.

  • Bespoke: wear a piece of gear another member crafted.

• Tinkers are now called Trinkets. They will not be exclusive to engineering. Oh, did we just spoil a new crafting profession coming next month? Oops.

Bosses

• The rest of Oozefest has a new schedule. Every boss gets its own 6 day window: The Bone Broker from October 8 to 13, Mother Spindle from October 14 to 19, Sir Hollowmere from October 20 to 25, and the Oozelord from October 26 to 31.

• A boss that has not arrived yet now correctly shows a live countdown to its arrival, in your own time zone. When it hits zero the Attack button appears on its own, no refresh needed.

• Finished bosses now say how the fight ended ("has fallen" or "got away") and point you to the next one, with its countdown.

• Oozefest Kill rings: when a boss falls, everyone who hit it gets a ring made from that boss.

  • Each ring is Epic, and the Oozelord's is Legendary. They are soulbound, so they cannot be sold or traded.

  • You also get a bundle of materials from the boss.

  • Each kill adds a trophy to the new trophy shelf in your shop. You can show or hide the shelf, and the trophy stays even if you delete the ring.

  • If your bag is full, your ring waits for you.

• The Bone Broker's face no longer flickers on part of its idle animation.

Snacks

• No more wasted snacks. If no boss can be fought right now and a snack's effect would wear off before the next boss shows up, we warn you first. Tap "Eat anyway" if you really mean it, or "Keep it".

  • Candy warns when the next boss is more than a day away, since Sugar Rush lasts 24 hours.

  • Combat feasts, the Battle Stew's bonus swing, and healing warn the same way.

  • Feasts that boost gathering, crafting, or XP never warn, since they work without a boss.

The Settlement

• Candy and cooked meals now feed the settlement's Food bar.

  • Candy you donate goes to Food.

  • There is a new Meals meter: donate any cooked dish, and better dishes and feasts give more Food.

  • All the candy donated before this change has been counted too.

• Militia Strikes now eat Food from the settlement, like trebuchet shots. If there is not enough Food, the strike waits and fires once the Food bar can pay for it.

• Between bosses, the trebuchets are "Preparing for the next battle" and show who is next and when.

  • Each trebuchet finishes loading one full shot, then holds fire. No Food is eaten and no ammo is thrown until a boss arrives.

  • The Firing order counts down to the next boss instead of showing times for shots that cannot fire.

• The season page has a section menu down the side to jump to the boss, the trainers, the settlement (Militia, Resupply, Projects, and Contributors), the season pass, challenges, and more. On phones it is a bar of chips along the top.

• Fixed: the Firing order could go blank after you built, upgraded, or donated.

Marketplace

• Selling has a new home: the Marketplace. Put in Shop in your bag, List in shop after crafting, and Sell items on your shop page all take you there.

• Your bag is shown as a grid with the same categories and search as your inventory. Pick an item to see its market and list it.

• The market shows what it last sold for, the cheapest one listed right now, and the average price over the last 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days, with a sales chart you can switch between 7 and 30 days.

• Quick price buttons: Match lowest, Undercut by 1, and the 7 day average. The price is filled in from the market to start with.

• Before you post, it shows what buyers pay, the total if they all sell, the fee, and what you receive. It also warns you if your price is far under or over the average.

• Sell, Barter, and Free listings all work from here, and your listings are underneath with Take back and Remove.

• Prices are capped at 100,000 per item.

• The Marketplace front page no longer shows your own listings back to you.

• Every tradeable item's page in the Sidequest database now has a Marketplace card with the same price history and a link to find listings.

Crafting

• Recipes that make stackable items have a new Craft All button. It shows how many you can make and crafts them all in one go, no typing.

The Sidequest World

• The world now loads in pieces around you instead of all at once, so it opens faster and is ready for a much bigger world.

• You now see the players around you rather than everyone in the world at once. The counter shows how many people are nearby and how many are in the world.

• There is a minimap in the corner. Click it, press N, or use the new map button to open the world map, and click a gold pin to fast travel there.

• New players no longer pop in at the top-left corner of the map for a moment before walking to where they are.

Achievements

• There is a new Sidequest achievement category. Shopkeeper, Suited Up, and the shop sales achievements moved there from Oozefest.

• Members who opened their shop before the Shopkeeper achievement existed now have it, dated to the day they opened it.

He has been slain! The evil Pumpkin is no more - though lore says once cut down he comes back rounder so who really knows?

So with one boss down, now we have some downtime until the next boss arrives. A preview is up for The Bone Broker which means we can start to stockpile supplies to make quick work of him. Get your boots polished, settlement supplies restocked, and let's get him before he makes it to town.

Navigation

• There is a new Database tab in the Sidequest navigation bar.

Item Database

• Every item in Sidequest now has its own page in the new Sidequest database.

  • Browse by category: ore, wood, foragables, fish, bars, planks, cloth, leather, weapons, armor, accessories, food, cooking ingredients, candy, consumables, recipe scrolls, materials, and more. Each category shows how many items are in it.

  • Category lists can be searched, filtered by rarity, slot, and class, and sorted by name, rarity, level, or sell price.

  • Item pages show the item's tooltip, quick facts, and how to get it: which recipes make it and which trainer teaches them, where it is gathered or fished, which bosses drop it and how often, which shops sell it, and which season pass levels and skill rewards give it.

  • Item pages also show what the item is used in, which recipes a scroll teaches, and the set it belongs to.

  • Gear pages show the range each stat can roll, so you know what a great roll looks like before you craft.

  • Candy pages show the Sugar Rush each candy gives.

Item Tooltips

• Items now have one proper tooltip everywhere they show up: your bag, your character's paper doll, member profiles, the database, recipe lists, and the boss page.

  • Hover an item to see its tooltip.

  • Click an item in your bag to pin its tooltip open with the actions for it.

  • Tooltips list which classes can equip a piece of gear. Your own class shows in green.

  • Candy tooltips show their Sugar Rush effect: how much bonus damage, for how many attacks, and how long it lasts.

• On phones, tapping an item opens it in a drawer from the bottom of the screen instead of a small floating card. It has big buttons for every action, a View in database link, and closes with a swipe down, a tap outside, or your phone's back button.

Inventory

• Your bag has been redesigned to feel like a bag in an MMO.

  • One grid of item icons with rarity-coloured borders and stack counts. Empty slots show as empty squares so you can see how full your bag is at a glance now.

  • Click or tap any item to see what you can do with it: Equip, Eat, Sell to Vendor, Put in Shop, or Delete.

  • Selling or deleting part of a stack lets you pick how many right inside the tooltip, with the payout shown as you go. Deleting always asks you to confirm first.

  • Sugar Rush candy can be eaten straight from your bag.

  • Your bag updates in place after every action, no page reload.

• Filter your bag with category chips like Fish, Ore, Bars, Food, Weapons, and Candy. Pick more than one to see them together, or All to clear them.

• Search your bag as you type. It matches item names and also rarity, type, slot, and class, so "rare" shows your Rare items (and "common" does not pull in Uncommon ones).

• Your filters and search stay in the page link, so a reload or a shared link keeps them.

Characters

• Your Sidequest character now shows at the top of the About tab on your member profile: your paper doll with equipped gear, your sprite, level, health, stats, set bonuses, and trained skills. Visitors can hover your gear to see its tooltips.

• Items on the paper doll on your character page now use the new item tooltips.

The Settlement

• Its supplies, ammo, Militia, and trebuchets carry over into every future event, and the whole community builds it up together.

• The season page has been revamped.

  • The settlement's status sits at the top, with Militia and Resupply side by side below it and Projects underneath.

  • Meters, stockpiles, the firing order, Top Contributors, Fresh Deliveries, and Pass Leaders all update live while you watch.

  • The Gather Anywhere block has been removed from the season page.

Militia

• Donate spare gear to the Militia from the season page.

  • Weapons fill the Weapons meter, and every other piece of gear fills the Equipment meter.

  • Each piece pays you 2 of the season's event currency per tier (Ectoplasm during Oozefest), so higher tier gear pays more.

  • Gear you have equipped, soulbound gear, and gear listed in your shop cannot be donated.

• Every full meter levels up the Militia and sends a Militia Strike at the current boss. If no boss is up, the strike waits and lands as soon as the next one appears. Strikes hit harder as the Militia levels up.

• Militia donations count towards Top Contributors and show up in Fresh Deliveries.

Resupply

• The settlement now keeps Food and Supplies, shown as bars on the season page.

• War effort donations fill them: ore and wood go to Supplies, and food and fish go to Food. Nothing changes about how you donate.

• Supplies build and upgrade trebuchets, and Food feeds their crews.

Trebuchets

• The settlement has four trebuchet slots under Projects. Any member can build one or upgrade it with the settlement's Supplies.

• Trebuchets fire at the current boss on their own.

  • Each one loads siege balls from the settlement's stockpiles, one at a time, then fires once it is full, eating some Food for the shot.

  • Every trebuchet card shows its Loading bar, then a "Fires in" countdown while it reloads, its next two shots, and a status line that tells you why it is waiting (out of ammo, hungry crew, or no boss to shoot at).

  • Higher level trebuchets hit harder.

• Each trebuchet has an Ammo setting any member can change: Auto, a specific element (Fire, Frost, or Ooze), or plain Siege Balls only.

  • Auto uses elemental balls when there is a full shot of them that no other trebuchet has claimed, and plain Siege Balls otherwise.

  • Set two trebuchets to the same element and they share those balls, so their shots can land together.

• A new Firing Order list shows the next shots the trebuchets will take and roughly when.

Siege Balls

• The Blacksmith has new recipes for siege balls.

  • Siege Ball: made from Copper, Bronze, or Iron Bars. Better bars make more balls.

  • Fire Ball: Siege Balls and an Embershroom.

  • Frost Ball: Siege Balls and Frostfibre.

  • Ooze Ball: Siege Balls and an Ooze Core.

• Donate siege balls from the Militia column on the season page. Each type has its own stockpile. Plain Siege Balls pay a little Gold, and every ball counts towards Top Contributors.

• Elemental balls put an effect on the boss when they hit:

  • Fire Ball: Scorched. The boss takes more fire damage and burns for a while.

  • Frost Ball: Brittle. Member attacks hit harder.

  • Ooze Ball: Corroded. Trebuchet shots hit harder.

• Active effects show as chips under the boss's health bar.

Bosses

• The Militia and the trebuchets can take a boss down to 5% of its health. The last 5% is always up to us, the finest warriors of the land, to finish off.

• Militia Strikes, trebuchet shots, and burns show up in the combat log and as live hits on the homepage, along with a thank you to the members who donated the most of what was fired.

• There is a new Eat button beside Attack on the boss page. It lists the food in your bag so you can heal up, get Well Fed, or eat a Battle Stew for a bonus attack without leaving the fight. Your health, buffs, and attacks left update straight away.

• The Sugar Rush candy row on the boss page now shows each candy as an icon. Hover for its name and the Sugar Rush it gives, and click to eat it.

• The combat log shows how long ago each hit landed. Hover the time to see the exact time.

Sidequest World

• Bosses now appear in the Sidequest World while they are up. They spawn in with an effect when their fight begins and play a death effect when they fall, live, without a reload.

  • Please note that this is coming later in the day, the tech has just rolled out for it to happen but there are several things that need to be finalized for this to truly be live.

• Every hit on a boss, from anyone on the site, floats over it as battle text with the attacker's name, with bigger text for crits and the killing blow. A health bar over the boss drops as the hits land.

  • Please note that this is coming later in the day, the tech has just rolled out for it to happen but there are several things that need to be finalized for this to truly be live.

• Stand at a live boss and press F (or the Fight button) to open the action menu.

  • Attack swings at the boss, exactly like the boss page.

  • Use Consumable lets you eat food in the middle of the fight.

  • The menu works with the keyboard, mouse, or touch.

• Press C for your Character window and B for your Inventory window without leaving the world. Both work just like the full pages, including the item tooltips and every bag action.

• New buttons in the bottom right of the world for Fight, Character, Inventory, and Maximize.

• Press M (or the Maximize button) to make the world fill your browser window, with a side panel you can show or hide. On phones and tablets it goes fullscreen. Your choice is remembered next time.

• Typing in the site search on the world page works again. Keys like W used to be swallowed by the game.

The Trainers

• The five profession trainers now have their own member accounts with a pink NPC badge: Brannoc Emberbeard, Sylvaine Moonweft, Arachney, Mei Lingbao, and Hollis Timberjaw.

• Trainers sometimes slime you with Ooze while you craft in their workshop during Oozefest. You still get the Ectoplasm for being hit.

• Each trainer runs a shop that restocks every day with goods from their profession. Trainer prices sit above what members charge, so the player market is always the better deal.

• Every 6 hours during an event, one of the trainers hands out a free gift of materials from their workshop, sometimes with Gold. Every member can claim each gift once within 24 hours.

• Each trainer has their own thread in the Sidequest realm where they post their gifts and news.

• The trainers announce boss milestones, boss kills, settlement levels, Militia levels, and new trebuchets in the Sidequest channel on our Discord.

Bug Fixes

• Gear you cancelled from your shop can be listed again, and gear you bought can be resold. Both used to fail.

• Gear bought from another member's shop can be deleted or donated again. It used to show an error.

• The Rarity and Sort dropdowns in the database have their text centered properly.

• Item tooltips now work inside pop-up windows, including the Militia donation pickers and Put in Shop.

This is my workbench. When the mill turns out more than it can use, I leave it here. Help yourself, friend.

Sit, sit! This is my kitchen table. Whenever I cook too much, and I always do, the extra goes here for you.

This is where I hang the spoils. When the hunt goes well, your share lands here. Do not keep me waiting.

Welcome to my corner of The Loom. Whatever the shuttle spares, I leave here for you. Do visit often.

Pull up a stool by the anvil. When the forge has a good day, the spare goes here. Check back, and mind the sparks.

Mei Lingbao has a gift for you (expired)

This gift has expired. Mei Lingbao handed out 2x Honeycomb, 4x Wild Grain, 10 Gold to 6 members. Keep an eye out for the next one.

Characters

• Pick a class (Warrior, Mage, or Archer) and create your character.

• The character page has twelve equipment slots, a stats panel, and your spare gear.

• Your character has health. Bosses hit back when you attack them, health recovers over time, and food heals you.

• On the Sidequest page, the old Look card is now Character and takes you to your gear. Your wardrobe is one click away from there.

• The skills panel on the Sidequest page now shows every skill you have with a progress bar, and each one links to its workshop or gathering page.

Workshops

• Introducing Workshops!

  • Recipes are listed down the left, grouped by tier. Click one to see everything about it on the right.

  • Search recipes and materials instantly, or filter to what you can craft right now or what you have materials for.

  • Materials show their icons and how many you have against how many you need.

  • Tiers you collapse stay collapsed the next time you visit.

  • Recipes you have not learned yet show greyed out, so you can see what is coming. Each tier also tells you how many recipe scrolls are still out there to find.

• Each recipe's color tells you how much skill XP it pays at your level.

  • Orange pays full XP

  • Yellow pays two thirds

  • Green pays a third

  • Grey pays nothing

• Workshops now sit under Sidequest in the sidebar.

• Each workshop card on the Workshops page shows its profession and your level.

Profession Trainers

• Every workshop has a trainer who teaches recipes.

  • The Forge: Brannoc Emberbeard, a dwarf blacksmith.

  • The Loom: Sylvaine Moonweft, an elven mage tailor.

  • The Tannery: Arachney, an orc hunter.

  • The Kitchen: Mei Lingbao, a panda chef.

  • The Sawmill: Hollis Timberjaw, a lumberjack.

• Trainers sell recipes for Gold. The first tiers are free, and the most expensive recipes currently cost 7 Gold.

• Recipe scrolls you find teach you new things for free, and you can sell scrolls you do not need in your shop.

• Expect special recipes in the future for holiday-themed items.

Woodworking

• New profession! The Sawmill turns two logs into a plank. Pine, oak, and maple planks can all be made from level one. We'll get more wood types in the future!

• The camp's Barricade now takes planks instead of raw logs, and each plank is worth twice what a log was.

Cooking

• Cook food!

• Dishes heal you or give you a Well Fed buff when you eat them.

• I want to point out a very important dish: Battle Stew. Eating one gives you a bonus boss attack for the day.

Gear & Crafting

• Hundreds of new pieces of gear across eight tiers, with sets that give bonuses at 2, 4, and 5 pieces worn.

• Named gear leans its rolled stats towards what its name promises.

• Found gear: realm-themed loot can rarely drop while you browse the site.

• Every ore and bar has new art.

• Crafting professions level about 25% slower than the gathering professions so don't expect it to be quite as easy.

Hey everyone, welcome to Sidequest!

What is SidequesT?

When we launched a new design earlier this year, one of the things we mentioned was "RPG". Since then, we've been slowly introducing new mechanics to the website to solidifying this experience and today that goes one step further: it has a name.

Sidequest is a permanent fixture here on Out on Games; The game within our community. Last month you saw the re-introduction of community events here through Reelfest, our first season in the new system. This introduced Fishing as a skill and added an Inventory to the website where you could collect fish and a Marketplace where you could trade items with other members of the community.

The goal with Sidequest is to create an even better community experience on the website. Together we are going to go on quests, some by using the website itself and others by performing sidequest-specific tasks, build towards a grand village, and take on boss battles, all in the comfort of our browsers.

Boss battles on the website was something that was planned with our first-ever Snowpocalypse event and we just didn't have the technology at the time to make it happen. Now we do.

Skills

Sidequest currently has four different skills, and they are all for gathering materials:

• Fishing (enabled again and now with 70 different species of fish!

• Foraging

• Woodcutting

• Mining

You can see the levels of your skills on the Sidequest Dashboard (which is linked on the sidebar) and although they don't do much, they will be more fleshed out in the future with various perks at each level.

We've also introduced a new chance that allows you to sometimes gather more often when you're browsing the website so it's not always a static cooldown. Neat!

Next month, we will see the introduction of crafting skills, which are going to be instrumental in getting us to the next big feature we can expect for Oozefest...

Boss Battles

Starting next month, Sidequest will be adding in our very first number of boss battles. with a Halloween theme. Together we will fight against evil trying to ruin our celebrations. Will we be able to take on strong enemies together?

We'll have to wait to find out! In the meantime though, you should probably go and...

Build a Character

The cornerstone of any RPG is being and making a character, so welcome to the Sidequest Character Creator.

There are a handful of options to customize your character including your feet, lets, chest, hands, and head. There are also accessories, though they are quite limited for now. This character will represent you throughout the community and level up alongside your participation which will include...

Journaling Your Experience

The Journal is a revised interface to the Tacklebox that we introduced during Reelfest. This is where all the materials, and creatures, that we encounter are documented. It's a mini collection to complete and it will, hopefully, give you all the information you need to help chase down the completion.

The Town Square

It wouldn't be much of a game without an actual game inside of the website, now would it? We have a new page under Sidequest called "World" which begins with a Town Square... well part of one anyway.

As we level up our settlement, new features will unlock inside of the area and the map will begin to open up more with new events. At least we've found a small place to call home so far!

The goal with the world is to try and keep most of our interactive elements inside of it, though you will see bosses that can take over pages and REDACTED plus sometimes REDACTED.

Oh right, we can't talk about that quite yet.

Understandably, loading up Sidequest's World may be a bit of an annoyance at times, so we're going to try and find the right balance between on-site and in-game elements. It's possible some things may take place on both, with the on-site element being a fast way to getting to the in-game one, but it's also possible that we might make it that people must discover something in-game to make it show up for everyone out of game. This is a part where feedback is going to dictate the direction of it all.

The Sidequest REalm

Everything relating to Sidequest will have its updates posted within the Sidequest Realm and the expectation that this "forum" is where we discuss things. If people want to try and plan an expedition together or if you want to find someone to trade some items with because you really need a certain type of material to finish your new piece of gear, or you're looking for someone to make a craft for you, this is the place to go.

Sidequest is always going to be a work-in-progress and the hope with it is to turn it into a major part of our community here on Out of Games.

Sidequest is a game at the core, it just expresses itself on an unusual medium, a website. In a way, we're a bit like a Neopets or some of the other browser-based games of the past, though the goal is to be a more modern version of those.

Next month, Oozefest will make a return for the first time in a while and yes, we will see the usual Trick or Treating on everyone's profiles, but it will be a bit more than just that. There's only two weeks to go until we get there, so until then, enjoy poking around at our construction site and be sure to contribute materials to our Breaking Ground effort =)

I can't wait to share more with everyone as we push out more updates to Sidequest and we finish the more interactive elements of it.