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| − | ==Where We Are Now?==
| + | {{:Feb_18_2026_Devblog}} |
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| − | heRO has come a long way. We are one of the oldest remaining English servers and have an unbelievable amount of custom content. Sometimes it's worth looking back at our accomplishments to see how far we've gone while keeping the core feeling of the pre-renewal mechanics:<br>
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| − | * Continued the tradition of the 18th year with no wipes, restarts or major data losses
| + | ==Old Dev Blog Posts== |
| − | * Out of ~2700 monsters or monster entries in the game, over 90% are modified in some way compared to a vanilla server
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| − | * 3/5 of all naturally spawned monsters have completely customized stats, abilities and item drops, or they are unique monsters to heRO
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| − | * Over 1000 custom items and cards are available in heRO
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| − | * Over 500 obtainable costumes (degree of cuteness varies)
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| − | * Our custom regions and areas result in over 40 custom maps available
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| − | * Introduced many custom artwork from GMs and player contributions alike, creating new NPCs unique to our server
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| − | * With our class reworks, more than half the skills in the game have been modified with number touchups, or they are heavily rebalanced
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| − | * Explored many unique ways for PvM combat that's never seen in other servers
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| − | * In terms of patches alone, heRO has reached over 600 releases and updates in our history
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| − | <br>
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| − | Recent years introduced a much heavier emphasis on quality of life improvement, such as the hero's journey, solo brewing room, BBS for async trading, continued reduction of time-gated gears, quick interface NPCs, and increased account-wide accessibility features. We expand on overlooked builds to breathe life into classes/skills that are forgotten by the original game.<br>
| + | [[Feb_12_2026_Devblog|Feb 12 2026]]<br> |
| − | | + | [[Jan_18_2026_Devblog|Jan 18 2026]]<br> |
| − | However, our unique position and history also bring many problems unique to heRO that are never felt by many newer, more exciting-looking servers. We have reached a critical point where it is too difficult to go further.
| + | [[Jan_11_2026_Devblog|Jan 11 2026]]<br> |
| − | | + | [[Dec_18_2025_Devblog|Dec 18 2025]]<br> |
| − | * We have hit our hard limit on the number of monsters available in the game. To create any new monster entries, heRO GMs have no choice but to overwrite some unused/rarely used official mobs to make space. For reference, we are up to mob ID 3992. The last ID allowed is 3999.
| + | [[Dec_12_2025_Devblog|Dec 12 2025]]<br> |
| − | * We have already run out on the number of NPC sprites available- we had to overwrite official NPCs already to fit Faeheim
| + | [[Aug_12_2025_Devblog|Aug 12 2025]]<br> |
| − | * We have so many custom monsters and items that we've broken the default custom databases provided by the Hercules emulator engine a few years ago: we had to abandon the "db2" systems and overtake the databases reserved for official- because we've crossed the 50% boundary where we have more customs than officials
| + | [[May_24_2025_Devblog|May 24 2024]]<br> |
| − | * Our map server is exhausted: GM Ciar and our T&D mapmaker have to purposely downgrade maps and monster sprites to make them compatible with our 18-year-old server (Lutia Mines, Abyss 4, Mora fields, Bifrost are all examples of downgraded maps)
| + | [[Nov_2_2024_Devblog|Nov 2 2024]]<br> |
| − | * We've pretty much done as many unique twists and item combinations possible allowed within what we have- even though we have the creativity to make more interesting things that will challenge the theorycrafters, our tools don't allow these ideas to come to fruition
| + | [[Oct_24_2024_Devblog|Oct 24 2024]]<br> |
| − | * heRO has so many custom resources that heRO requires the "GRF" file to be split into two to be functional- but this means every release or patches potentially have twice the amount of work involved
| + | [[Apr_27_2024_Devblog|Apr 27 2024]]<br> |
| − | * We have hit the limitations placed on playable characters of the Hercules simulator engine, even though we have expanded them many times already (such as our beloved Kafra inventory size, the number of autobonus triggers available, or the number of kill-quest registered for a player)
| + | [[Apr_6_2024_Devblog|Apr 6 2024]]<br> |
| − | * Every change we make in 2024 has to be compatible with a character created under the codes and rules permitted in 2006 (e.g. This is why Sign Quest seemingly breaks for every returning old player)
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| − | Therefore, it is time for the heRO GM and T&D team to take a break from making changes or creating new content that is visible to players and handle these extremely pressing issues behind the curtains. We need to focus our efforts to address technical limitations to give ourselves some breathing space for the future.<br><br>
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| − | '''It's time for a client and patcher upgrade.'''<br>
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| − | | + | |
| − | ==What Does That Mean?==
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| − | We will make one final critical bugfix release with the current client and patcher in April to address the following critical issues: Super Novice Link requires the wrong skill pre-requisite and some item description errors that must be fixed. This will be released at the end of the Easter/St Patrick's Day quest. After this release, we'll enter a "code freeze" where we stop changing the server to prepare for the client and patcher upgrade. Any reported issues during this time will not be addressed under the current client. The fixes to reported issues will be carried out for the new client release version instead.<br>
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| − | On the GM team, we have GM-Flutrane joining our team as a much-needed expert to assist us. GM-Abathur has also returned to the team to lend their aid. Admittedly, GM-Ciar and I (GM-Ayu) are unfortunately heavily occupied with real life due to a series of misfortunes since the latter half of 2023. We'll need help from these other GMs to maintain the pace of releases and to be less of a bottleneck for heRO. We also have our wonderful T&D player volunteers such as Ange, Rankin, Namreg, Kadar, Wys, JoeJoe, PonPon, Cattre and Peeka to help us in a broad range of areas- network administration help, artistic contributions (sprite art, card art, patcher art, loading screens, map-making), balance/stat calculations, project management and spot testing. This is a herculean effort that was already started back in February in the background. Only now are we close enough to the end where it's suitable for GMs to announce this project.<br>
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| − | We aim to have the first stage of the new client available by May or June at the latest. Unfortunately, this means that there will be a bit of a slow time ahead of heRO. According to our current schedule, we expect that the Summer celebration in July will be the first true "new content" where there are new activities to do. After the small summer celebration, then we aim to have new PvM content available using technologies made newly available to us via the update. When the new client arrives, all players will have to re-download heRO from scratch due to the massive changes involved with the client. Admittedly, this is quite a nuisance to download 5 GB+ of files again, but it will be very worth it.
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| − | ==What's in the Update?==
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| − | Note: all pictures are still screenshots of work in progress or in development. They may change for the final release.<br>
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| − | ===Address currently "unfixable" bugs and issues===
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| − | * Knights and Crusaders can learn skills on a Peco Peco
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| − | * Bizarre palette failure whenever another player gets on a mount within your point of view
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| − | * Remove all ID-related limitations for monsters, NPC sprites, and item sprites
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| − | * Fix an issue with a new download of heRO complains about an invalid path
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| − | * Improved in-game quest list- so that it's usable. The quest translation may not be available on release, but the technology to fix and rewrite it for English is here now.
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| − | [[File:new_quest_window.png]] | + | |
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| − | * Fix map-related issues where previously it's unfixable, and our only option was to downgrade maps or remove the appearance of certain effects or objects to bypass the errors
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| − | * Return of different weapon/shield sprites for different equipment (example: Violet Fear)
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| − | [[File:Violet fear sprite.png]] | + | |
| − | <br> | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | ===New Quality of Life===
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| − | * Break the limit with 5000 storage slots available in personal storage and guild storage
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| − | * Dedicated costume tab so costumes do not clog up the "armor" tab
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| − | [[File:inventory_expansion.png]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Equipment loadout: prepare 2 sets of equipment, and with one single button, all equipment will swap from "loadout A" to "loadout B"
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| − | [[File:Equip swap.gif]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Expanded character slots: 15 characters per account instead of 12
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| − | * The gender of your character does not have to be fixed for an account: you can have a mix of male and female characters in the same account
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| − | [[File:Mixed gender.png]]
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| − | | + | |
| − | * Skill bar loadout: prepare 2 sets of 4 rows of skills, and with one single button, what you have put on skill bars will swap from "skill bars 1" to "skill bars 2", allowing battlemode players to utilize more than 4 bars at once easily
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| − | * Allow etc. items to be placed in the skill bar so you can see the quantity of a particular item without opening your inventory (see the "Shoot" etc item in video as a way to count your Pet Food for your Cute Pet)
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| − | [[File:skill_bar_swap.gif]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Favorite items have their tab in your inventory, not only in Kafra
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| − | * Ingame recommended quest list: have less reliance on the heRO wiki to suggest notable things to do in heRO
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| − | [[File:Quest suggestion.png]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Gunslinger mounts will no longer be a brand peco peco. Gunslinger will get a motorcycle mount!
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| − | [[File:Motorcycle.png]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Opens new possibility of more status icons available in the client to notify you of any issues
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| − | * Expanded hairstyle and palette options for character customization at Styla
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| − | * Patching heRO should no longer require a long time to "unpack" files
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| − | * Not a quality of life for players, but for GMs: much-needed ease in development and modernizing development tools
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| − | <br> | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | ===Brand New Features===
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| − | | + | |
| − | These are potential new features for heRO- not everything will be made available immediately with a new client/patcher, but we will have the option for the following:
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| − | * Class Costumes: A much-requested feature—dress up as the 3rd and 4th classes in appearance while remaining true to the pre-renewal system, which allows you to only go up to trans 2-1 and 2-2 classes. (Note: you will not be able to disguise as 1-1 classes due to mechanical impact/balance reasons)
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| − | [[File:class_disguise.gif]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Pet Costumes: disguise your current pet to look like something else while retaining its actual abilities (such as looting)
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| − | [[File:Petdisguise2.gif]] | + | |
| − | | + | |
| − | * Skin tone for your character for more personal customization. 3 new skin tones will be available.
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| − | [[File:Skin_tone.png]]
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| − | | + | |
| − | * Achievement system: obtain rewards based on meeting certain requirements or doing specific actions at any time. This is unlikely to be released initially, but it is likely to be implemented in the later half of the year.
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| − | [[File:achievements.png]]
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| − | | + | |
| − | * Titles earned from achievement for display to show off your progress
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| − | * Rearrange party display via drag and drop- no longer do you have to invite members to a party in a curated order so that your Prof and HP do not go insane
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| − | * More garment costume and "weather" costume options available
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| − | * "Trans" version of extended classes: While it's debatable whether we should do it or not, we currently don't even have the option due to sprite ID limitations. A new client at least opens that option for us, so it's even plausible to think about it.
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| − | * Rodex mail system: this is another hotly debated feature on whether it should be enabled. On one hand, people like the feature for easy offline trading, but players are also wary of the mail system due to security concerns. The new client opened up the option for us to consider whether we should implement this or stick with banker/BBS to fulfill the role of offline trading.
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| − | * Opens up the crafting list so that we have room for more arrow crafting and get the option for an item creation revamp for Blacksmiths and Alchemists
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Latest revision as of 16:08, 18 February 2026
Afternoon everyone,
This is a special GM Devblog going over the release of War of Emperium: Second Edition, or SE for short.
What is WoE:SE?
SE is Gravity’s second version of War of Emperium, featuring new systems like Barricades, Guardian Stones, and reworked single map Castles with no warps. It also includes a new Guild Headquarters area, with NPCs that are normally in different locations but now in one easy to access map. Due to the size of the Castles, they also introduced Link Flags, or LFs, to maneuver around the map easily. We have also made the decision to allow Halters in, based on gameplay from Rental War of Emperium.
We plan to update the Guild Headquarters to add more QOL features and the ability to warp to it straight from Warper Boy in the future.
Guardians were also adjusted to be stronger and much more of a threat, encouraging defenders to keep both of their Guardian Stones alive. Attackers should be more cautious about moving around the castle alone now, as Guardians can kill you or Defenders can spawn from a LF and end your misdeeds. We’ve also included a minimap with the LF locations to make it easier for Defenders to know what LF goes where and for Attackers to know which area is more dangerous than others.
Barricade/Guardian Stone Mechanic Change
During Beta, players were able to see our progress at making the construction of Barricades and Guardian Stones easier. We were using a system called “progressbar” to remove the menu-based system entirely and give a visual cue to attackers and defenders when the defenses were being built, as well as making it simpler to do so. Unfortunately, this system is flawed at the core of Hercules and rAthena, and we’re still working to fix it. WoE:SE will launch with the older menu-based system, and we will have the answers to build them in the WoE:SE Wiki page whenever we get around to making it. For now, you can see the Barricade answers in the Rental WoE Barricade section.
We do plan to add the newer progressbar based system in the future once we resolve the core issue.
WoE:SE Chests
We’re adding brand new WoE:SE chests, which will have a chance to obtain the new SE God Item parts to craft our 2 new God Items (Please note that Asprika is customized on heRO and does not reflect official stats. For more information, consult the DB):
Asprika
Brynhild
For a full list of requirements for the new God Items, click here.
How do the new SE Chests work?
In WoE:FE, we had 40 different Treasure Chests, each with their own unique Mob ID. You can see these still on the DB here.
For WoE:SE, we are changing to a 10 Treasure Chest system, and have simplified how it works. Which chest is chosen at midnight is fully randomized, and the amount is still based on your Eco (Eco/5+4), for a maximum of 24 at 100 Eco. What does each chest have?
The chests have the following 10 possible drops:
While the chances are lower than FE chests, please note that EVERY SE chest has an opportunity to get God Item Parts. Not all older FE chests have God Item Parts included, so those chests are basically a "wasted" chest slot and they feel bad to open. Now, you'll always have a chance to progress your FE and SE God Item creation on every chest. The drop rates are specifically adjusted such that the chance to get any of the new God item ingredients for Asprika and Brynhildr are the same as getting any God item ingredients in WoE:FE, adjusted for the change in number of possible chests in WoE:SE.
There are 2 new items in these new SE chests as well. Heroic Gear Boxes are a new box that rewards better gear than original FE chests. We've reworked heroic boxes to have slightly less crap, including having weapons and headgear. Contents of these chests will be viewable on the heRO DB when updated with the WoE:SE launch. We hope this makes it easier for guild leads to potentially share it with your Guild members and hopefully more interesting than fixed gears like before.
Finally, FE God Item Parts no longer explicitly drop by themselves. They are now all located in our brand new FE God Item Box. When you obtain one of these boxes, simply open it, and you will receive a random FE God Item Part (used for Sleipnir, Megingjard, Brisingamen, and Mjolnir). All parts are equally weighted within this box. As this is a new system, the GM team will be closely watching this each week to make sure it aligns with our statistical goals.
As a final note, Rental War of Emperium will continue to use the OLD WoE:FE chest system. They will not reward SE chests.
What happens to the current Castle and Economy?
Seeing as this is an entirely new version of War of Emperium, with new defensive and attacking options, new maps, reworked FE chests, new SE chests, new god items, etc, we’ve made the decision to completely reset the War of Emperium scene. Economy and Defense will start at 0, and Guilds will need to work their way back up via the usual investment opportunities. For players unaware, the number of chests spawned is based off the amount of Economy a Castle has. The more Eco, the more chests. Note that chests are randomly spawned. Defense investment will affect the HP of the Emperium.
The current Castle, Payon 3, will be moved to Rachel 3, which has been the castle used in the recent WoE:SE Beta. The Castle will be temporarily placed under control of the heRO GM Guild. Once WoE:SE starts for the first time, Barricades and Guardian Stones will automatically spawn, and the supervising GM will enable the Guardian Defense. GMs will not do anything else to defend the castle initially beyond what the SE castle does autonomously. Attacking Guilds will fight to be the first to claim the Castle and hold it. Subsequent WoE’s will work just like it does in FE, where the Guild that holds it will have to be online and in position to defend it. The GM Guild will only hold it for the initial launch of SE.
Union of Tribe
Since treasure chests no longer drop Union of Tribe or other "WoE FE Chest Exclusives" (such as Gaia Sword, Jeweled Sword, Hat of the Sun God, etc), these items are located to new home. Union of Tribe is now available in some guild dungeon mobs that lacked its unique drops. Furthermore, Union of Tribe will also show up at relatively high chances in OBB and OPB. The WoE gear exclusives, regardless if they are "useful" or not, will be available in the Heroic Gear Boxes as well. No items are "lost" to the void of time. Everything is accessible in a new manner within this update.
Old Blue Box and Old Purple Box update
Since we were already creating lots of "box" items and updating it for WoE:SE, OBB and OPB will also get an indirect update. These boxes have not been updated for over a decade and most players do not think much of them anymore. Whenever they drop or are given out, both versions are regarded as "trash". These boxes will also be revitalized to drop more relevant items. OBB still has chances at "junk", but at least said junk item will always be a etc item that is used for healer quest, hatter quests, forging, brewing and so on. Both OBB and OPB will reward useful consumables, or even a chance to get one of the Heroic Gear Chests that are the same as in WoE:SE chests, replacing the fixed list of "old" gears available in OBB and OPB. OPB will have a significantly higher chances to land on a Heroic Gear Box than OBB.
Moving Forward
We hope the launch of War of Emperium: Second Edition helps revitalize heRO’s WoE scene, and players enjoy it, and new Guilds arrive to participate as well. We’ve already heard rumblings of older Guilds potentially returning, and we hope this exciting moment proves fruitful. The GM team thanks all players for participating in the Beta event, and extends a huge thank you to our Test and Development team who dealt with our constant fixes, reboots of the test server, constant calls for checks, and smacking their faces on the wall with us when progressbar refused to cooperate. Pandelina has been placed in Prontera with a thank you gift for all players in the server.
The GM team will now continue our work on the next instance. I leave you with this message I found scratched on my desk, next to a weird orcish voucher that everyone else got from Pandelina. Hmm...
The Wit.. D.... bind fallen….riors back into the …. refusing them res…..merging them…. souls linger, stretched thi……..a punishment.
...c Hero should collapse when slai...rises again, even more powe.......the souls inside it pulling the body back together....
Old Dev Blog Posts
Feb 12 2026
Jan 18 2026
Jan 11 2026
Dec 18 2025
Dec 12 2025
Aug 12 2025
May 24 2024
Nov 2 2024
Oct 24 2024
Apr 27 2024
Apr 6 2024
