Crowns, jewelry and crossbows come to Morterra

In August 2020 we added jewelry and crowns to Morterra. Each kind of gem necklace gave its own perk, and a crown gave all of them at once.

The August 13, 2020 update added jewelry, crowns and crossbows to Morterra. Gems are a very rare drop, and players craft them into jewelry on an alchemy table. Each type of necklace has its own perk, and a crown has the perks of all of them.

Jewelry and crowns

Gold necklaces stop your levels from decaying, so you don't get hungry or thirsty.
Ruby necklaces make food add to your health, and health regenerates faster.
Diamond necklaces stop weapons, tools and armor from decaying when you use them.
Emerald necklaces give you a second roll on the mining drop table when you get an aluminum or iron drop, which doubles the rare drop rate.
Crowns can be crafted and combine the perks of all the jewelry.

We planned to give crowns more meaning later, with ideas such as showing the wearer on the map, taxes, and a highscore for time spent wearing one. The map icon and the highscore arrived in March 2021. In December 2022 we limited crowns to one gem perk at a time.

Combat

Crossbows, a new ranged weapon
Stronger bows
A small nerf to raiding with pickaxes
A much better attack radius for weapons
Weapon strength now matches the damage dealt to an opponent with no armor
Player hit boxes are fixed
Hit markers float independently of player models
The screen flashes red when you get hurt. Directional hit indicators were planned for later.
The death screen shows who killed you

Other changes

A fix for the camera rotation bug. If the camera still lagged, turning off hover text in settings helped.
A mouse sensitivity setting
Flags take 7 days to start decaying
Flint and steel, an item that lights more than one fire
A public dev server where players can test PvP and future updates, with chests of loot spawned around the map

The first crown

We offered a prize to the first player to craft and wear a crown. If they sent a screenshot to the Discord as proof, their account would be listed first on a Hall of Fame page we planned to build, a page of accolades we would choose. Longer term, we planned to run the game in seasons, with one player or clan added as the winner of each.