Recent News List

We've deployed another minor update to try and improve the recent lag issues surrounding pets. Please help us stress test again when you can and help us determine if the problem persists or not & we appreciate your patience through the challenges. Please let us know if you continue to encounter lag spikes when using pets.

An issue causing Passive Animal Taming gains not to occur at all has been resolved

Please logout and restart the launcher to receive latest updates and avoid issues in game.

• We have added the feature to remember credentials on login.
• We have improved login code to avoid false prompts to download the launcher.
• We have improved some features to implement the music/sounds coming very soon.

Thank you for your patience!

We're still working on identifying the exact cause of the recent lag that occurs sometimes. It's been narrowed down recently to an issue with pets, we've done several optimizations and fixes but there still seems to be a problem. We're working on narrowing it down even further, as it seems to be related to one or more of the following details:

• might be related to Bake Kitsunes specifically
• might be related to commanding pets to Guard and those pets engaging in combat
• might be related to pets being in combat in general, over a period of time
• might be related to healing pets or pets healing themselves

A temporary workaround has been identified where you can stable the pets to reset their AI and the lag seems to go away.

We will continue to investigate and narrow this down if you notice any specific patterns please let us know and thanks very much for your patience.

Another update to our launcher has been released. This one lets you launch additional instances of the game from a right click context menu. Simply right click the SoB Launcher icon in your system tray (down near your clock, sound controls etc) and choose 'Launch' to launch another client.

As always, if you have any issues with the launcher automatically updating, or don't see the new menu after exiting and running it again, you can manually download the new launcher at https://cdn.shardsofbritannia.com/launcher/SoB_Launcher.exe - simply replace the copy in your game folder with the freshly downloaded copy and you're good to go!

We recently introduced a new launcher app that not only serves as a foundation for us to add more features to the game but also acts as an anti-cheat measure. Our team is working hard to fix client bugs and add new features to enhance your gameplay experience.

We want to remind everyone that cheating undermines the integrity of the game and negatively impacts the experience of other players. Therefore, we have a zero-tolerance policy towards cheating, and anyone caught cheating or conspiring to cheat will be removed from our community.

We understand that enforcing these measures takes time and resources away from developing new features and fixing bugs, but it is necessary to maintain the health of our game and community.

We hope all players understand the importance of fair play and integrity in our game. By playing fairly, you contribute to a better gaming experience for all and allow us to focus on improving the game and developing new features.

To ensure a fair and enjoyable gaming experience for all, please familiarize yourself with our rules and privacy policy. You can find our rules at https://shardsofbritannia.com/about/rules, which outlines our expectations for player conduct.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding. We look forward to your participation in the game!

The issue causing passive Animal Taming gains to max out at 0.1 per day has been resolved.

As previously announced, the Taming Updates are now live! PS: Bake Kitsune's combat is re-enabled now as well. :)

Update: Skill loss applied to creatures when they become tamed has been reduced from 30% to 10%, or when affected by the Paralyze spell the loss will be 14% (we have ideas in motion to add more depth to this area in the future as well)

Taming changes overview:

When taming creatures, you will earn 0.5 passive taming points for every skill gain that you get in Animal Taming, up to a maximum of 5 points.

These points can be used by killing monsters with your pets. Chances of earning a gain from killing a being is based on the beings difficulty, the more difficult the beings you kill with your pets, the higher the chance you will gain passively. Your pets need to do damage to beings in order for you to earn a gain.

The Active Gain system is used to limit the number of passive gains you can obtain per day from killing monsters. If you have reached your daily limit, you will receive a message indicating that you have exhausted your daily gains for passive taming.

Each creature contains a maximum pool of available points which can be cumulatively earned as skill gain to the totals shown below:

We've corrected some issues regarding the SoB Launcher:

• fixed an issue logging into some characters or accounts while using the SoB launcher but you still get disconnected after a short time
• fixed an issue with a Cloak icon and tooltip explaining you will be disconnected, becoming stuck at the top of the screen after logging in, in some cases

We're working on tracking some trending issues with the SoB Launcher and will update this post to include any additions or changes:

• Clicking the Back button from Character Selection will go to a blank screen for several seconds until seeing "Login Server Disconnected," after which clicking OKAY will take you back to the login screen
• Sometimes after logging out or closing the game, and then attempting to log in again later, or even on your first time using the SoB Launcher, it may go to a blank screen for several seconds until seeing "Login Server Disconnected," after which clicking OKAY will take you back to the login screen
• Double-clicking the SoB Launcher in the system tray restores the window but the window appears in the background or minimized forcing you to click the taskbar to re-focus the window again
• Launching the game client directly from EXE with the SOB Launcher running may cause issues, make sure to run the executables as administrator if needed

Currently on Test Center for public testing is the Outfitter system for Duels & Faction events, with the following updates.

Resource/Durability Consumption:

• Resources are no longer consumed in duels, including potions (now includes faction pillars), but players will still need to carry resources in order to use them
• Durability is no longer consumed in duels

Outfitter:

• Players can invoke the /outfitter command at any time to open the Outfitter menu, where you can manage the Outfitter system
• Enabling the Outfitter system will attempt to use the selected custom skills & stats temporarily during Duels & Faction Events, for a small fee

What to test:

• Test consuming/using resources both IN and OUT of duels & events. Ensure resources still consume when they should, and not during the events. Also, ensure you don't get free empty bottles in return for using potions.
• Test the Outfitter system for BOTH duels & faction events, please!!! (see notes above)
• Test trying to use custom skills & stats in ways other than intended. For example, crafting & harvesting should ignore custom skills & stats, and you should be prevented from doing anything that you could benefit from while your skills are transformed.
• Test durability loss during duels & faction events

How to test:

• Connect via test.uo4.life:5002
• A Faction Event Test Stone has been placed at Britain Bank. Double click when ready to start the Vraal's Mausoleum faction pillar event, which can be triggered once every 20m

If you need anything to help test, encounter an issue, or have a question please reach out to #🐛test-duel-faction-outfitter

The server is coming online now. A few points to note:

If you had the client and launcher open already, please close the client (the launcher will auto-close when you do) and start again from the launcher. A small update will download and you'll be good to go.

For anyone wanting to multibox, please refer to https://shardsofbritannia.com/play for details. We are working to improve the method to launch multiple client instances and will advise further when that's done.

Thank you all for your patience once again.

During our next maintenance window (9am UTC), we will be introducing our new launcher that we posted about recently. For instructions on how to use it, please refer to https://shardsofbritannia.com/play - those instructions will be updated to include the new launcher approximately 5 minutes prior to the restart.

Please note - the server will be offline for up to 3 hours during this maintenance window in order to implement the changes required. It may come online sooner than this, please watch #news for any updates

This launcher is the start of a longer project that will enable us to expand on our current level of client access, add new features, distribute custom sound and music, and also lets us more easily and flexibly troubleshoot issues as they happen.

Please note, as previously mentioned, our launcher is NOT compatible with Steam-based accounts (i.e. accounts that you are currently logging into using Steam). Options for Steam players will be in the new /play page when it is updated.

If you have any issues with the new launcher, ideally log a ticket in #support in Discord, or send us an email at [email protected]

If you are an Animal Tamer and have Bake Kitsune's please stable them immediately. Combat for these pets is now prevented temporarily, but they will still be able to follow you. Sorry for the inconvenience, we will return them to normal behavior ASAP.

If you're reading this, the news bot is back online. Yay.

We are working diligently to address the recent lag issues which causes stuttering and freezes in-game from time to time. We hope to have the issues improved very soon and appreciate your patience through the rough patches!

This is a reminder of our House Vacation Hold policy. If you or someone you know is unable to attend the game for an extended period and you own a house, please contact us. We will be happy to consider your request to put the house(s) on Vacation Hold to prevent decay over a longer time frame.

Out of growing interest from the public for the team to do a Q&A or AMA, or a live discussion, we've setup this forum to organize questions and answers: https://qa.shardsofbritannia.com

Communicating there will be more manageable since everyone can engage in their own time. Given the volunteer nature of the team, plus the fact that our community is entirely global, there is no need to worry about schedules with this format.

Please write your questions about the project there and the team will try to answer when we have time. Read more: https://qa.shardsofbritannia.com/d/2-questions-answers-guidelines

There appears to be an unexpected outage with the Legends of Aria login server, preventing players from logging into the game currently. We've alerted Citadel Studios and hope the issue is resolved quickly, thanks for your patience!

We've fixed an issue preventing skill gains when practicing combat with Training Dummies (if you still have issues, log out and back in to receive the update)

Part of the lag source has been identified and resolved, and a hotfix has been deployed. Please log out and back in to receive the updates. We will continue to monitor for lag and work on any remaining issues that should occur. Thanks again for your patience through the rough patches!

Faction Town Stones & Faction Base Stones have been reset to try to resolve issues with capturing towns. Please let us know if you still experience issues with this

We're aware of ongoing lag issues, particularly in the Britain region. Please bear with us while we work through identifying the root cause and hopefully finding a fix ASAP. At this time, leaving the affected region and returning ~15 minutes later should result in a better experience in most cases.

Thank you for your patience.

• Creatures inside the Britain sewers now drop loot

• Three new faction mounts have been added to the faction shop (one for each faction).

• All MOBs in Deceit now have a chance to drop rare loot.

We have some exciting changes planned for Shards of Britannia, and as a first step, we will soon be 'launching' our own customised game launcher. More details on that will follow when it is time (When It's Done!).

Due to this change, Steam accounts will no longer work. If you are still using Steam to log into any of your accounts, then please read the following:

1. You need to be able to log into your account from the standard (non-Steam) client. If you can do this already, you can stop reading!
2. If you're not sure, log in to Shards of Britannia using Steam and type /accountid - it should show you an ID in the format "xx-xxxx"
3. Download the non-Steam client. We have a direct link available at https://shardsofbritannia.com/play - follow those instructions to get up and running
4. Try logging in using your account ID (the ID you found in step #2 above) and your password.
5. If none of this works, you will need to contact Citadel Studios to properly migrate your account. More details are available in our news article here: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/legends-of-aria-steam-de-listing

Please help spread the word about this pending change with your guilds and other friends that play. We don't want anyone to be left behind on the Steam client! These are exciting times for us and this new launcher and associated technologies will open up many possibilities. Onwards and upwards!

Recent fixes and changes:

• Combat performance improvements, possible relief from combat-related lag
• Fixed an issue with being able to report a murder from a blue player that defended themselves against a criminal player, but the criminal player turned blue and died; defenders should no longer be counted as a murderer when criminals die after defensive combat
• Reduced spammy "Fingers Slipping" while bandaging
• Prevented Loading Cloak feature for dead players, they are already cloaked and don't need protection when crossing regions
• Fixed issue with pets seeming to teleport around following the Stablemaster or their owners when in the Cove/Minoc region
• Resolved issue with players dying and some of the equipment becoming stuck on the corpse preventing looting all of the items
• Added blank key to Tinker vendors
• Fixed issue with gold being consumed in fractional amounts when paying Pet Stable fees, also fixes an issue with stacking/working with piles of gold
• Fixed issue with being able to use an invisibility potion at the same time as casting a spell causing the player to be able to move around while invisible briefly
• Fixed issue with Animate Horse corpses not decaying properly
• Fixed a couple of AI issues causing some mobs like Sentinels and Boss mobs to sometimes freeze up and stop responding
• Added Guild Members List UI, similar to Friends List, use /guild to open it when away from the guild stone
• Fixed issue with some house decorations not being able to be decorated properly
• Fixed issue with some house decorations not being able to be placed: Santa's Workshop model, Snowy Holiday Tree
• Fixed issue with some older house decoration deeds or bags not working when trying to place them
• Fixed issue with Pet Hunger not being displayed consistently everywhere
• Changed the Stove craftable to be Iron-only due to the item not inheriting color nicely from materials

This is a reminder that Santa will officially be going on vacation starting on Feb 1st, 2023. Make sure to wrap up any pending trades or purchases, as Santa will be at his beach house until next season!

All of the awards have been delivered to winners & participants of the Winter House Decoration Contest of 2022. Thanks again to everyone for participating! We can't wait to see what you come up with next time. Until then, happy decorating!

The vote is in for the Winter House Decoration Contest!

Firstly, we loved ALL of your creations! You all have some fantastic scenes and designs and it was a blast to look through all the houses and decorations. Thanks for sharing your time with us and participating. Now let's get down to business.

The staff and the public have voted and here are the winners:

• Taria: Staff Choice (holiday)
• Spacestripe: Staff Choice (general)
• Goldfinger: People's Choice (holiday)
• Zarnack: People's Choice (general)

Participants get:

• special house sign with engraving

And winners get their choice of ONE of the following:

• Customized Reindeer Antlers, three special colors to pick from (wearable deer mask with engraving)
• Customized Santa Chair (candy cane chair furniture deed with engraving)
• choice of 1 item from Santa vendor, not customized

Winners: The staff will open a private thread with you in Discord to arrange the award of your choice

Participants: The staff will lock down your custom sign at your house soon!