Vitare now has a weather simulation with rain, snow, thunderstorms, rainbows and even the aurora, and seasons follow the real calendar to reflect the changes in the real world. There's a brand new skill too, Creativity, with an Artist's Easel where you can paint masterpieces or your very own pictures, pixel by pixel. To top it off we have added new emojis, smoother movement in busy lots and a big batch of fixes and performance improvements, TTS tweaks, and more.
Weather Has Arrived!
Vitare has its own weather simulation and is something everyone experiences together - when a storm rolls over your neighbourhood, everyone will see it! Weather forms over the sea and the hills and drifts across the world with the wind.
The simulation is completely random - based on pre-tuned variables for the time of the year - so it could be pouring down in one area while the sun's out further inland.
You can see the weather forecast for the entire world in the "World View", found at the bottom right of world map. From a lot, you will be able to see the current weather and temperature by the lot name at the top of the screen. Clicking the weather information will show you more information, such as wind direction and speed. You can change between Celsius and Fahrenheit.
With weather, it brings many new things that changes how the game looks, feels, and sounds:
- Rain, snow, fog, wind and thunderstorms, from a drizzle to a full downpour.
- Clouds fill the sky as the weather rolls in and their shadows drift across your lot.
- Raindrops ripple where they land and water drips off the edge of your roof in heavy rain.
- The trees sway more and in different directions as the wind picks up.
- Lightning flashes and the thunder rumbles in after it.
- Sound effects for all different types of weather - rain on the roof when you're indoors, wind, gusts and thunder, plus birdsong at dawn, seagulls by the coast and owls at night.
Build a Snowman!
What else is there to do when it snows? Click any snowy ground on a lot and choose Build a Snowman.
A finished snowman stays for approximately three days, or until the snow melts, and there's room for six at a time on every lot. Fancy a change? Whoever built it, the lot owner and roommates can Knock Down a snowman with a kick, and you can move snowmen around in Shop mode just like furniture.
Thunderstorms and Lightning
During a thunderstorm, lightning can strike a tree on your lot at random! It'll catch fire for a little while and leave a scorch mark that fades away. If it's raining, it will extinguish quicker.
No trees? It'll scorch the ground instead. Don't worry, it's completely harmless - nothing on your lot is damaged permanently. Though, trees may look scorched for a bit!
Rain Waters Your Garden!
Rainy days can be helpful for aspiring gardeners. The rain waters your outdoor plants, even while you're offline! Plants under a roof or in a greenhouse still need watering by hand.
Check a planter's status to see when the rain's been looking after it.
Rainbows and the Aurora
Keep your eyes on the sky! Some rain showers leave a rainbow behind them. On some nights, mostly between November and February, the aurora lights up the sky.
New Achievements
Eight new achievements are waiting for you - can you get them all?
- Snow Day! - Build your very first snowman.
- Snowman Builder - Build 10 snowmen around Vitare.
- Snowman Toppler - Knock down 5 snowmen.
- Dance in the Rain - Dance outside while it's raining.
- Storm Chaser - Be there when lightning strikes.
- Rainbow Spotter - Spot a rainbow over Vitare.
- Aurora Hunter - See the aurora light up the night sky.
- Four Seasons - Play Vitare through all four seasons.
Seasons Are Here!
Not only do we have weather, but we now have Seasons which follow the real calendar and influences the weather around the world, as well as the look & feel.
- Autumn: the trees turn gold, orange and red, and their leaves fall and drift on the wind until the branches are bare. You'll start to notice this as you play from today.
- Winter: bare branches, colder days and a much better chance of snow.
- Spring: blossom first, then fresh new leaves.
- Summer: everything full and green.
The grass changes colour slightly with the seasons too. If you prefer trees to look lush all year around, you can turn off the effects on trees in the settings under "Seasonal Trees".
Creativity: A Brand New Skill!
Creativity is Vitare's fifth skill! You can upskill by playing the piano and painting at the brand new Artist's Easel.
Play the Piano
We've updated the piano and keyboard objects to work with the Creativity skill. The more you play and increase your skill, the better you'll sound!
You'll start out finding the notes, move on to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Frère Jacques and Chopsticks, then Für Elise and Coming Round the Mountain, and by the top levels you'll be playing stunning music for everyone in the room.
The Artist's Easel
We think everyone is going to love this object as we know it has been heavily requested! With the new easel, there's plenty to do as your creativity skill increases:
- Choose your canvas: You can work from a small canvas to a wide canvas at the top of the creativity skill. Painting takes anything from 2-10 minutes depending on the size selected.
- Watch your painting appear on the canvas as you paint it
- Every painting is a classic masterpiece - the higher your Creativity, the more you can paint!
- When a painting is complete, you can Sell it for V$ or Add to Inventory to hang it on your wall, gift it or trade it.
Paint Your Own!
From Creativity level 3, you can choose Paint Custom at the easel to paint your very own picture, pixel by pixel! This will allow you to create your own custom pictures that everyone can see!
- Tools to help you select different colours and create a pixel art masterpiece.
- Unlock more colours as you skill up - you can even mix your own colours at level 18!
- Name your print and save designs, so you can paint it again and again!
- Your paintings can be placed in your room, gifted or traded. The original artist will always be visible, whoever ends up owning it.
As custom paintings are custom content, they must not contain anything which violates our rules and T&Cs. If you spot one that breaks the rules, you can click it and choose Report. When a few players have reported the same painting it's covered up for everyone until our staff have taken a look and paintings that break the rules are removed.
Creativity Unlocks Objects and Emotes
As your Creativity grows, you'll unlock new things to buy in the Shop:
- Magical Keys Piano (Creativity 5)
- Karaoke King Mic Stand (8)
- Sewing Machine (10)
- Wooden Ring Sculpture (12)
- Copper Geometric Sculpture (14)
- Cloud Nine Sculpture (16)
- Neon Frame Sculpture (18)
- Framed Gold Record (20)
If you already own any of these, they're still yours! You'll also unlock seven new emotes: Polite Clap (2), Bow (5), Curtsy (8), Heart Hands (11), Hand on Heart (14), Melodramatic Faint (17) and Dust Off Shoulder (20). They'll appear in your Emotes as soon as you've earned them.
There are four new Creativity achievements to earn along the way too!
Keeping Your Skills Sharp
We have made some amendments to how our Skill Rust system works. If you haven't used a skill for a while, they can get rusty and will slowly decay. Using skill objects or actively doing things related to a skill, such as painting or cooking, keeps skills maintained.
As of today, money objects alone will no longer keep a skill maintained. If a skill slips a level, you'll get a notification, and once you start using it again, lost levels come back three times faster.
You will be notified if a skill drops a level and you can reach back to that previous level quicker, since you were there previously as you brush up on your knwowledge.
Check Your Personas Mood
Hover over or tap your motives on the bar at the bottom of your screen to see your personas mood! You'll see how the persona is feeling overall - from Miserable all the way up to Platinum - how each of your motives is doing, and which one is bringing your mood down with a tip on how to fix it.
Hundreds of New Emoji!
We heard you! We've gone from 60 emoji to 300+! Find them all in the new emoji picker in lot chat and in your messages. You can type or paste emoji straight from your keyboard too.
Smoother Movement in Busy Lots
We have improved networking to ensure that other players now walk around much more smoothly, especially in busy lots - no more jittering when lots of people are on the move at once.
TTS Tweaks
Text to Speech quality has been increased; the trade-off is that there may be a slightly longer pause before text is read out. Please let us know your thoughts!
Other Changes and Bug Fixes
- Gather and Plant have a brand new gathering animation.
- Pictures, mirrors, wall lamps and everything else on your walls now sit flush against the wall.
- Wall mounted objects can no longer be turned, so they always face out from the wall.
- Undo (Ctrl+Z) now only works while you're in Build mode, and never while you're typing in chat.
- Shadows are much sharper and no longer look blocky, especially up close and in the Persona Creator.
- Vitare should run cooler and quieter on most computers
- Fixed short freezes when some sounds started playing.
- Fixed the orange / grey band showing below the sky on the horizon.
- Fixed new flooring next to walls on upper floors going back to the old floor when you laid it.
- Fixed Ctrl+Z sometimes selling back objects you'd bought earlier, after you'd already left Build mode.
- Fixed objects behind lowered walls sometimes not being clickable on lots with more than one floor.
- Fixed your Persona sometimes being unable to reach areas of a lot, such as upper storeys, you'd just furnished until the lot was reloaded.
- Fixed some lots loading without their walls, floors or roof.
- Fixed the Getting Started guide getting stuck on the crafting step.
Thank you for all of your feedback, it really does shape Vitare. See you in game, whatever the weather!