Welcome to Beta Town

Posted by Boomland Jenkinson April 1, 2025in Shard News

Shard progress has been moving forward. Our Beta testers are playing every day, helping us refine systems and fix bugs. We’ve enjoyed watching players build Beta Town, starting from a single Villa and growing into a small compound surrounding the bank of Yew. While many live in Yew, others have chosen isolation, settling in the swamp, the northern forest, or on far away islands.

A screenshot from Ultima Online showing a group of houses around a stone structure

Introducing the Strongbat

For those who have been with us awhile, you know that the Mongbat has a special role on Tides of Power. Seriously, one of our Discord admins, Batsby, is a Mongbat!

Introducing the newest members of the mongbat family: the strongbats!

We’ve filled in the difficult gap between “mongbat” and “imp” with a creature known as a Strongbat. These creatures are about as difficult as a grizzly bear and tamable.

Watch out as you roam the wilds of Britannia, because Strongbats can live anywhere, having adapted to the harshest climates.

Tides of Power Beta Map Updates

When we reach Open Beta, we will release another map update. Below are a list of some of the changes we’ve made.

Bug Fixes: We resolved numerous map bugs reported in Discord by players.
Britain: The East Bank floorplan has been updated to be a bank, instead of a house.
Deceit: The entrance of Deceit can be reached by ship and shoreline.
Mt Samlethe: Moved the Chaos market camp down to the mouth of the Samlethe Mountain.
New Magincia: Theming of shops and homes.
Nujelm Sanctuary: Shoreline fixes.
Skara Brae: The former stablemaster home have been updated to include stables.
Skara Brae: The bank has been upgraded with a new stone vault room.
Skara Brae: Banquet Hall has been complete.
Trinsic: A new mage shop has opened near the west bank of Trinsic.
Trinsic: The west jungle has a second bridge, completing it’s moongate accessibility project.
Trinsic: Theming of shops, parks, and homes across the city.
Wilderness: We’ve added additional Farms, homesteads, and other abandoned structure across the map. These establishments offer forges, looms, spinning wheels, pickpocket dips, training dummies, and more.
Yew: A blacksmith shop has been established to help arm it’s citizens in these difficult times.

In-game Spawn Updates

Overworld spawn: We’ve refined the density and variety of global spawns on the main land and islands.
Ocean spawn: You’ll find certain areas are intentionally dangerous while other areas are a bit more sparse.
Stables in Britain, Trinsic, & New Magincia now have animals in their pens. Skara stables will be spawned after the next map update.
Hythloth Volcano: Additional spawn has been added to the path leading up from the docks to the volcano.

Patch Notes Beta 2 (Patches B07 – B09)

Crafting & Skill Revisions

Blacksmithing, carpentry, tinkering, and tailoring skill gain rates have been decreased.
Poisoning and tactics skill gain rates have been increased slightly.
Tactics will gain even if your displayed skill is over 100 (e.g. from an accurate weapon.)
Forensic Evaluation’s range is now 8.
Tinkers can no longer create distillery add-ons or bolas.
Tailors can no longer craft masks.
Musicianship skill gain will be easier to GM.
Poisoning skill has a 10 second cooldown instead of 1.
Grandmaster Scribes will create runebooks with 50 max charges, instead of 10.
Potion barrels and their required parts will display correctly in the crafting gump.
Detect Hidden will no longer gain skill inside a house a player is friended to, co-owns, or owns.

Shopkeep & Bestiary Changes

Healers and Healer Guildmasters will train the correct skills now.
Bowyers will buy wooden shields and staff weapons.
NPC Tailors have more buying power.
Healers will no longer train ALL the skills.
Bankers will now let you withdraw up to 15,000 gold.
Escortable NPCs will no longer request to Trinsic as a destination.
Vendors will now take charges into consideration when purchasing magical items.
Tinkers, carpenters, and other axe-buyers will buy axes.
Armourers will purchase additional armor items.
Skirts and tambourines in the buying menu will display their correct graphic.
Swimming creatures (sea serpents, water elementals, etc) will not flee.
Ethereal Tortoise difficulty has been increased.
Barlgura demon difficulty increased.
Demilich difficulty increased.
Balrons and frenzied ostards will be faster.
Giant Serpents will inflict less severe poison.
Summoned Orcish Lords will no longer rummage through corpses.
The campion has been renamed to cambion.
Nightmares will no longer anger on tame.
Inferior Gargoyle corpses will no longer be carvable into human body parts.
Blade Spirits will destroy objects when walking over them.
Creatures using the dragonbreath ability will no longer expend mana.
A paralyzed animal will refuse to continue being tamed.

Loot Table Updates

Terathan Warriors will see a (slight) improvement in magic loot quality.
Troglodyte, Ogre Lord, and Stone Trolls will drop magic mace fighting weapons.
Orc War Chief will always drop a magic axe weapon.
Barlgura will always drop a polearm or two-handed mace fighting weapon.
Strongbats and their variants will drop more gold.
Ophidian warriors, knights, enforcers, and knight-errants will drop fencing items.
Minotaurs will now give hides and meat upon carve.
Updates to SOS Treasure Map chest quality level.
Ghoul’s Touch weapons (paralyze) will now drop among magic items.
Dull copper elementals will drop more ore.
Instruments will now drop with additional magical properties.
- Durability (Tough/Sturdy/Reinforced): Durable instruments will have additional uses.
- Tuning (Well Tuned, Finely Tuned, Masterfully Tuned): Tuned instruments will increase your barding range.
- Efficacy (Will Bending, Mind Control, Subjugation): Effective instruments will increase your skill change successes (ala GM or slayer weapons) for all mobs.

Misc Changes & Bug Fixes

Using help stuck will force close resurrection gumps.
Damage numbers / DPS will no longer display above combatants’ heads.
The pet management gump will now display newest stabled to oldest.
Boat decay increased to 14.
Halberds will now weigh 10 stones.
Runebook reuse timer is now 3 seconds.
The crafting gump will more clearly show the material type and whether or not the item will use the material’s color.
(Regular) strength potion duration and bonus. It now gives +20 strength for 2 minutes instead of +10 strength for 5 minutes.
Dropping a stack on a container will now auto-fill stacks of the same type and drop the remainder in the container.
Players will no longer be able to resurrect at a 2 tile distance with bandages.
All harvest types will drop at the player’s feet if pack is full.
Players can now cast gate travel when aggressed upon (including after taming).
Tillermen will consider anyone holding a boat key as their boss.
Runebooks can be accessed by anyone within 1 tile when locked down.
New homes will no longer have linked doors.
New house keys will no longer be newbied.
Using detect hidden in a home a player is friended to, co-owns, or owns will no longer reveal trapped chests outside of the home.
Bulk order deed books will no longer be blessed.
Fixed bonding timer bug. Bonding will be available at most 1 week after taming. Doing activities with your pet will increase the bonding speed.
Fixed naming conventions when marking in East Guard and Rat’s Hollow.
CoOwning a toon to a home no longer gives all the characters on that account friend status.
Players will be able to drag items through dungeon entrances/exits.
Items will no longer “bounce back” if carried too far away. Instead, they will drop into the player’s pack or, if too full, at their feet.
Items in boats will no longer decay (again, for real?)
A bug with generating stat change magic items is fixed. Cursed items will now appear properly.
The warning gump given when demolishing a house will now be accurate.
The warning provided when demolishing a house will be accurate.

Join the Tides of Power Discord

You’ve made it this far, congratulations! If you are not a member of the Tides of Power community, join us on Discord. You’ll be the first to know when Open Beta begins, allowing you to lock in your accounts and join the adventure!