Welcome to the first update in 2024! I am honored to introduce Academy Halls as PvE world level. With 25x larger than Sludge Madness but in same setting.
Academy Halls marks the inaugural world level and there will likely be several more planned. Here you explore an abandoned university where monsters abound freely between floors.
Each spawn generates monsters for as long as it remains uncaptured, increasing in frequency upon capture and increasing further as its health decreases with each successive kill. At 15% rest, flux summons defenders that protect each spawn; their presence prevents their health from decreasing further until you kill them to capture that particular one.
At present, fighting in Academy Halls does not offer much in return. Although you will gain experience and possibly some loot for engaging monsters and the boss in fights there - which might suffice for now - this should change in short order: Monsters should drop essences while Bosses could drop random items as rewards for you to fight!
Midterm development plans involve academy halls. I intend to add minibosses for each building wing. Furthermore, there will be more NPC variety.
There are known issues
Since implementing new features into the server code, some things are no longer working as they should.
Academy Halls' Infight state is currently global; either all players are fighting each other, or all are infight. That is unacceptable and I need to implement that on an individual player basis.
Monsters seem to be gathering at wall edges without explanation; I don't understand their presence there but the effect looks unpleasant and needs fixing as soon as possible.
Energy gains are assigned to the killer; this could potentially cause problems if someone steals your kill on a monster and gets it instead. Although unlikely, I believe reworking infight-state for players could remedy it.
