Valkyries Fall

Let's get this party started!

01 May 2020

Today marks the day we officially come out of alpha. All progress during this testing phase has been reset at the request of the majority of the players, giving an even playing field for everyone.

I used this reset to do some drastic work to the underlying foundations of the game. This includes database restructuring and work to the services and API's that the game relies upon. These works were done to ultimately make the website even more secure, to speed up your actions and to optimize playability. It was also fundamental groundwork for some UI changes that will be done in the future that will make playing even faster and overall a more pleasant experience.

I won't go into detail of the changes made as they don't affect you directly, or change the gameplay in any way. I'll tell you that there were no less than 1,760 changes made to the underlying framework, the administration area and to the inner workings of the codebase.

Some notable changes:

• Roughly 25% increase in load speed (at least in development tests)
• Memory cache and database cache have been changed. They are also now easier for me to access in order to rebuild in potential cases where it can get out of sync (hopefully changing them mitigates the need for this at all)
• Intermal profiling tool that allows me to debug things easier in live and hopefully be able to replicate any issues if i can't replicate them in development environment.
• Error logging is now output as json rather than raw text, and is now viewable to me in a nicer format. This allows me to see and act upon errors easier.
• Audit logging and tracing improvements. This means I can detect those cheating a lot easiere than before. It will also allow me to track any issues people may end up reporting to me.

There's so many things that have been changed, updated, improved or modified. Gameplay itself should remain unaffected. But if you notice anything, do let me know!

For the first week back at it, there will be a 20% discount on diamonds.

Finally, welcome to Valkyries Fall. It's a new day for us all. Thank you to everyone who was here for testing during the alpha stage. I wanted to give you all a little something for having helped out. I thought about it for a long time as i didn't also want to give you an unfair advantage to those that come to the game afterwards. I've given you all 20 additional Auto Attacks, so that you can gain some experience in an idle manner while not playing/doing other stuff. Help you get back towards your former glory and beyond!

Attack optimisation

05 April 2020

The attack scripts have been refactored today in an attempt to find the issue with beasts slowing down as they get weaker.

Both monsters and beast fighting should be quicker now. But beasts do continue to take longer to load than  regular monster fighting. This is because of the additional code involved. Updating of the beasts remaining HP is what causes it to take longer than monsters. As monsters don't have anything to be updated in the database.

So, while things should be quicker all round, beasts are still a little lsower than monsters. If you still get significant issues with it, please let me know.

Other Stats

03 April 2020

I have created the much requested other stats tab! If you can think of any other stats that you'd like to see there please let me know!

Rebirth

31 March 2020

Today we announce the release of the first part of the rebirth system!

Those of you at the maximum level will now be able to become reborn. You'll start again at level 1, gain some rebirth points (perk system yet to be done) and be able to continue levelling. You'll notice a drop in your damage, but once you start levelling, youll notice it climbing up quicker and will soon be doing even more damage than ever before! an initial dip, but will become stronger over all!

Want to know how to reborn? check the location in which Odin is at. Those of you who have done the plane quest line should already know where that is :)

In order to make the rebirth system work, functionality for special locations was also made. Valhalla is currently the only one, but this leads to scalablility to create more in the future easily!

Some redundant code from former updates was also removed.

The game will now also disables buttons when doing more actions in the game. so you shouldn't be able to quick-fire buy items in market etc which has caused issues in the past.

Upgrades And Updates

13 March 2020

Our database has been upgraded and no longer using the express version of MSSQL. This means we're no longer limited on concurrent transits and has built in mitigation for the collisions we've occasionally experienced on beasts.

In even more great news, those of you who have completed the new questline and acquired Sleipnirs horn are now actually able to call upon sleipnir to TELEPORT themselves to any location on any plane.

Maintenance, fixes and security patches

11 March 2020

Latest windows security patches applied to server.

Added a toggle back to login screen when on forgot password.

Added in prevention to buy quest items from diamond shop, that you haready have as part of a combined quest.

Added IP restrictions to administrative areas after a failed brute force attempt.

Minor Fixes

05 March 2020

Made it so diamond spawned beasts only spawn on the plane you're currently on, to prevent them from being somewhere you cant access yet. (normal spawns are sitll anywhere)

Fixed an issue where on rare occasions it would error when you tried to sign in.

Made minor optimizations in several areas.

I've managed to make the beast attacking considerably quicker, but it's still not great. There's no code reason as to why this is any different to attacksing normal monsters. Grasping at every angle and possibility to make it even better still.

The remaining 4 realms!

04 March 2020

Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim and Vanaheim are now in game!

Alfheim requires the Orb of light, Svartalfheim requires the Orb of Darkness. The others require both.

These items are available from the diamond store.

There is a quest line to go with this. I'm not spoon feeding you, there's subtle hints with the wording in this, so pay attention. That includes the name of the quests. 6 quests, starting at 25,25 Midgard.

The final quest item in this line will give a special ability, but is yet to be completed.

Refresh your page to get the new styles etc with the update. If you have a sticky cache on your browser, you may want to poke it a few more times!

Functionality changes whilst making this:

• made it possible to require certain items to get through plane entrances.
• Fixed up styling on the quest page
• Fixed an issue when quests required multiple items for completion.

Other changes made:

• increased maximum username length to 20 characters
• added hotkeys for [enter] and "/" to focus the chat bar.
• Monthly resets conflicted with daily ones, so now monthly ones are delayed by 5 minutes to prevent this issue.
• Spelling correction on Homepage.
• Chat will get archived daily to make it quicker and easier to navigate for me. Old chat is still retained for legal reasons.
• Unkilled beasts will diappear after 7 days.

Upcoming Event

25 February 2020

Hey! Big birthday coming up for me soon, and I'm going to hold an event and sale with you guys to celebrate!

7th - 9th March will have a double event all weekend.

At the same time, I'll offer Diamond purchases at a discounted rate so you can stock up!

Remember that any purchases made will be replaced once out of alpha!

Also take note that getting as far as you can cumulatively as a community will all go towards making the go-live event at the end of the alpha even better! This doesn't mean you can just fly on the coat-tails of the highest player here. It all contributes and an average of everyones, level, skills and other stats will all count towards an event. This isn't necesarily just an exp/gold event. If I'm able, I have something much more awesome in mind. ;)

Security changes and other updates

25 February 2020

There were a total of 411 changes made in this update. None of which will affect your playing. This is a mixture of security changes, admin tools and optimizations to make everything run a little smoother.

Notable Security Fixes:

• Made it not possible to put the website into an iframe.
• Added prevention of MIME type sniffing.
• Added HSTS to prevent cookie hijacking.
• Added X-XXS protection header to prevent certain types of attacks.