Howdy, gamers!

Hope you've all been well since the last progress report. Today I'd like to tell you guys about some of the new stuff you can expect to see in the next update: v1.4.

I had previously said that v1.4 would release sometime in mid-November. However, the amount of new content in v1.4 has actually doubled, if not more, than the original plans for it. So with all of the new content, along with assignments I have to do for college and looking for universities, I have to push the release of v1.4 to sometime in December. Hopefully before Christmas, but unfortunately I can't promise that. I hope you all can understand!

Alright, now let's get started with some Story Mode changes.

Story Mode:

I've been really happy with the reception of Chapter 1, so thank you all for giving it a try and telling me your thoughts! However, I'd still like to polish up the experience even more, so that's what v1.4 will do. Here's some of the new additions:

There is now a map of the overworld you can view! You can toggle it by pressing the [M] key. It'll allow you to view the layout of the world, and see what soul pieces you have already collected. The map will change based on the area you're in, so if you go to the Mountain for example, the map will switch to the layout of the mountain, like so:

Next, there are now two game modes to choose from when starting a new save file: "Regular Mode" and "Assist Mode"! Regular Mode is what the game already is, where you need to explore the environment to locate objectives. But the new "Assist Mode" is different because it'll reveal the locations of objectives (soul pieces) right away on the map. This mode is designed for players who are more interested in the story and aren't as interested in exploring. You will still need to collect puzzle pieces, but locating soul pieces is super easy in this mode.

Next, shops have received an upgrade! I've combined the new shop system with the Undertale shop system, meaning you can now speak to shopkeepers! Some players felt that the game lost a bit of its charm without this ability, so I've took that feedback to heart and added it in! I hope those that wanted it are happy!

Those are three of the new major changes to Story Mode. Here's a list of some of the other changes that have been made:

• Some of the soul piece levels have been redesigned to be easier/less tedious.

• You can now press [X] to skip cutscene text.

• A new Instruction screen has been added to the start of the game, as some players were confused about the controls.

• A speech bubble will now appear over NPCs who have something new to say.

• Improved the ending scene.

• Some joke features have been removed to stop it from clashing with the more serious tone of the game. Splat2d and Rickstercraft are no longer available in Story Mode, and the Jukebox in Grillby's has also been moved to Multiplayer instead.

• Decreased the encounter rate in tall grass.

• Added new secret shortcuts.

• Updated some dialogue in the genocide route.

That's all I have to share about Story Mode for now, so let's move on to the meat of v1.4: the new Multiplayer content!

Multiplayer:

When I first planned v1.4, I knew it was going to be mainly about adding new stuff to Multiplayer. However, what I didn't plan for it was how much was going to be added. Ideas kept bouncing around on the Discord server and in my own head, and before I knew it, the changelog for Multiplayer was already over 30 entries long, with a lot more still waiting to be added. There is no way I can share everything that's changing in v1.4 in this devlog or we'd be here for a while, so I'll just share the major additions. Here we go:

First, NEW VESSELS. And I mean a LOT of new vessels. Currently in v1.3.3, there are 24 vessels available. In v1.4, there are now 45. To organize them all, they're divided into vessel categories:

There's a lot of vessels to choose from, so I hope you enjoy them!

Next, you might have noticed in the screenshot above that I'm in the Ruins. This is because DF Online now has a brand new overworld! In the current v1.3.3, only Hometown and the "Void Hub" are accessible areas. The original plan was that I'd add the new overworlds from upcoming Story Mode chapters as they get released, but I've decided against that.

Instead, you'll be able to access unique versions of the Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, and Hotland! I've changed up their layouts, added new rooms, and even some new minibosses sprinkled in, as I didn't want to just do a copy-paste job of putting the Undertale overworld into DF Online.

v1.4 will have the Ruins, Snowdin, and Hometown accessible, while Waterfall and Hotland will be added sometime after Chapter 2 of Story Mode releases. Here are some screenshots:

Next, this is a massive new feature that I announced on my Discord sometime in October, and I am very excited to share it with you guys: UNDERNET!

UNDERNET was something in Undertale's story that monsters of the underground used to post stuff and stay in contact with their friends. Most notably, Alphys used it to post stuff while you were in Hotland.

I wanted to bring something like that into DF Online, as I'm always looking for new ways to add a greater sense of community to the game, and what better way to do that than with a social media system?

In DF's UNDERNET, you will be able to edit your own unique profile, and view the profiles of other players! Profiles will look something like this:

You'll be able to "like" the profiles of other users, which will put them on your "Like List" so that you can quickly view their profile. You can also send friend requests through UNDERNET.

Another new addition that will be added along with UNDERNET is a brand new currency called "Undercoins"! With Undercoins, you can buy new backgrounds for your profile, along with some other really cool stuff, which I'll talk about more in a little bit. You can earn Undercoins by battling enemies. After every battle, you have a random chance of earning a handful of Undercoins, like so:

You can also purchase Undercoins for 10G each straight from UNDERNET, but that's up to you!

Here are the profile backgrounds you can buy with Undercoins as of v1.4 (more might get added in the future):

Another new addition coming with UNDERNET is a local message board system! If you only want to communicate with people in the same room as you, you can press [Y] to open up the local chat! Whatever you send in here will only be viewable by people in the same room, and not sent in the global chat. While anyone is able to use this, it's also useful for roleplayers who don't want to use the global chat.

The local chat will look like this:

You can also choose to have message pop-ups enabled, so that new messages sent in the local chat will be displayed on your screen, even when the local chat is closed:

Now, back to talking about Undercoins. What else can they be spent on besides profile backgrounds? Well, that's where DARKNERNET comes in!

DARKNERNET is the equivalent of the "deep web" in DF Online. This is where you can spend your Undercoins on some of the more "unconventional" things.

You can purchase boss respawns, so that bosses you've already killed can be refightable once more. You can buy these as many times as you want.

You can also purchase new exclusive vessels! These vessels aren't from Undertale, which is why they need to be bought from DARKNERNET, as they're being "smuggled in", one could say. These are the only vessels in the game that need to be bought.

And lastly, you can buy "EXPx2", which when purchased will permanently double your EXP gain when you kill enemies. Neat, right? So if you want any of this stuff, earning Undercoins would be a good idea!

Moving on from that, trophies have now been added into the game! You'll automatically earn them by completing various tasks. They'll appear on the menu screen like this:

There are 14 trophies to collect in v1.4, and more will be added in future updates!

Next, Free-For-All mode has been updated so that there is now a map cycle! Instead of having all 3 maps accessible at once, there is now only 1 map playable at a time, so that the mode doesn't feel too big when you're trying to look for other players. The map will change every two hours. You can tell which map is available by looking at the FFA menu:

You might also have noticed the new Leaderboard option. There is indeed a leaderboard for FFA now, so that earning POWER has more of a meaning. I've also added a new LOVE (LV) leaderboard in the regular game so that you can compete to have the highest LV! You can access it from your progress menu:

Alright, so I've talked about a lot of new stuff.

But there's one more major addition that I want to announce for v1.4. People have been asking for this one for a while:

I can confirm that PvP is coming to v1.4.

In v1.4, there will be 6 vessels compatible with PvP. These are: Frisk, Chara, Sans, Papyrus, Alphys, and Mettaton. More vessels compatible with PvP will be added in future updates. I hope you look forward to it! I'll talk more about it closer to v1.4's release.

Finally, to finish this devlog off, here's some other features that are being added to Multiplayer:

• Added a bunch of new weapons and armor!

• Added the ability to skip text in-battle.

• Re-added the ability to flee from battles.

• Expanded the secret areas in the Master Quest worlds.

• Added a "connection lost" message so that you'll now be notified if the game disconnects.

• Added the ability to enter the school in Multiplayer.

• Added new enemies to encounter, including rare gold variants of existing enemies.

• Added a new "Hall of Fame".

• Added a prompt when pressing R so that you can't accidentally respawn.

And with that, all of the Multiplayer news is out of the way! I hope you're looking forward to v1.4!

Geez, this was really long, huh? There's a lot of new stuff coming to DF, so I hope you'll stick around for it! After v1.4, I'll probably do a v1.4.1 that adds 4 more vessels to PvP, but once that's done, I will begin work on Chapter 2. Once I start, there will be no new updates to the game for a while. I hope all of the new content in v1.4 will be enough until then!

Now, before I go, there's one last thing I want to say.

With the release of v1.4 and all of the new content it adds, I feel comfortable with finally retiring DF Classic. The only reason I kept it around was because PvP wasn't in the new game yet, but now that it will be, I think it's finally time to lay DF Classic to rest.

November 28th is the 3rd anniversary of DF Classic's release. There will be one last party running all day on that date, so feel free to stop by.

DF Classic will officially close on the day that v1.4 releases. I will confirm the date when v1.4 is close to release. It's been amazing to see that goofy demo grow, and it's all thanks to you guys. Thank you so much for playing.

Anyway, that's all from me. I've been working on this progress report for nearly 2 hours. I hope you enjoyed it! Until next time, stay determined!