Part 1 of 3, the rest is in the replies below.

Hustix Sundering is our story-driven RPG on one hand-built island: gather, craft, fight your way through a world that was torn apart, and find out why. It is still in development and not open yet. This post lists everything that has been built so far. From here on every update gets its own short post, so you can follow along.

Numbers (health, prices, levels) are still being tuned. If something feels off, tell us on the forum.

The short version

• 6 skills: Mining, Combat, Farming, Foraging, Fishing and Dungeon, each with levels, stats and its own gear.
• A guided road from the hub to the end of the map, with a 31-quest line, a boss-bar arrow and a compass that always show where to go next.
• Gear that grows: every skill has tiers of tools and armor. You gather, compact, craft the first piece, level up, and craft the next tier from the piece before it.
• 4 combat zones: Graveyard, Spider Pens, the Dunes and the Nether Wastes, each made for a specific armor set.
• The Sunken Citadel: our first dungeon. 4 floors, a queue for 2-7 players, bosses, drop-only armor sets and sword abilities.
• Fishing in two halves: the Fishery at the hub (levels 0-30) and the Frost Pier at the ice (levels 30-50), with sea creatures, rods and armor.
• A full economy: purse, bank, merchants, Bazaar, Auction House and player trading.
• Your own island (Homestead), a story told by dozens of NPCs, and a cosmetics-only store.

The road through the world

A new player should never wonder where to go. The world is walked in this order, and the quests follow it:

Quests and the tracker

• 31 quests, one after the other, worth about 1,400 Sundering XP plus coins. Every stop starts with a quest that simply asks you to find the place.
• Quest tracker: a boss bar with an arrow, the goal and the distance in blocks, and your compass points to it. Turn it off with /quests tracker.
• Open your quests with /quests (pages with arrows), or from the Sundering Menu.
• Quest types: open the menu, buy, sell, mine, kill, deposit, harvest, chop, /home, reach a skill level, talk to an NPC, enter a zone, catch fish and craft an item.
• New in 0.26: every skill's first set of gear is part of the line, so you learn gather, compact, craft, level up, upgrade on the way. The Squire's Set comes right after the Graveyard, the Webslayer's Set is made at the Spider Pens before you enter the Dunes, and the Warlord's Set before the dungeon.

Skills and levels

Six skills, each with up to 50 levels (the Dungeon skill has 30). Every level gives a small permanent bonus (Mining Fortune, Farming Fortune, Foraging Fortune, Fishing Speed, Crit Chance, Health ...).

• Skill XP is quick at the start and a long road towards level 50. Fishing and Dungeon have XP tables of their own.
• Sundering Level is your overall level. One level is only 50 XP and there is no level cap, so the number climbs fast at the start. Your level changes the colour and tier of your chat and tab prefix.
• XP sources today: every skill level you gain, quests, discovering new zones and warps. More are planned (see the end of this post).
• Level-up messages show what you unlocked (stat bonuses, recipes) with a title and a sound.
• Gear needs its level to be used, not only to be crafted, so a high-tier item handed to a low-level player does nothing until they catch up.

Gathering skills

Mining

• Nodes turn to bedrock and respawn after a few seconds as a weighted random block of the zone (stone or ore). Drops go straight into your inventory.
• Mining Speed, Mining Fortune and Breaking Power decide how fast you break, how much you get and what you can break.
• Two ore tables: the basic mine (coal, iron, gold) and the deep mine (copper, redstone, lapis, diamond, emerald).
• The Sandmines: sand, mined with a shovel (Refined, Gilded and Crystal shovels).
• The Sunken Mine: the old mine under Dunehaven, with the rare Ashen Vein. Its Ashen Ore is always exactly one per node, never multiplied by Fortune, so it stays rare.

Farming

• On a farm a fully grown crop is harvested with one click, gives Farming Fortune drops and XP, and grows back in seconds. Wheat, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, nether wart, melon and pumpkin.
• The same crops can be harvested on your Homestead.
• Gear: Farmer's Hoe line and the Farmer's Set.

Foraging

• Outside protected areas every tree can be chopped: logs and leaves give drops and XP and grow back piece by piece.
• Buildings made of logs are safe: only real trees (logs with a crown of leaves) can be chopped.
• Gear: Lumberjack's Axe line and the Lumberjack's Set.

Fishing (new)

Fishing is the fifth skill and comes in two halves:

The Fishery (hub, levels 0-30)

• A river with small fish first. As you level, the small fish disappear and better ones appear: Minnow, River Perch, Mud Carp, Silver Trout, Brook Pike, Amber Eel, Sunfin Bass and the rare Gilded Sturgeon, plus junk and the occasional sunken coin purse.
• Sea creatures can take your hook: Reed Lurker, Silt Stalker, Drowned Warden and the Marsh Tyrant. Killing one gives Fishing XP, not Combat XP, and they drop Murky Scales and Tidal Pearls.
• Gear: the free Starter Rod, then Angler's (level 5), Tidecaller's (12) and Deepcurrent (20) rods and sets. The Angler's Set needs no level: it is your starter set.

The Frost Pier (at the ice, levels 30-50)

• Black, cold water with bigger fish: Frost Smelt, Ice Cod, Glacier Char, Rime Salmon, Frostfin Tuna, Polar Marlin and the legendary Aurora Koi.
• Bigger sea creatures: Frostbitten Drowned, Rime Stalker, Glacier Warden and the rare boss Pier Leviathan.
• Gear: Glacier (30) and Leviathan's (42) rods and sets.

How it feels: Fishing Speed shortens the wait for a bite, Sea Creature Chance makes creatures more likely. "RARE CATCH" is only announced when a catch is really rare for your level. Fishing is a long, relaxed grind: the first rod and set take a few hours of fishing, the top tier is a real project.

Gear and crafting

• Recipe interface (/recipes, or the Recipes button): click to craft, from anywhere. Ingredients are taken from your inventory, so recipes with hundreds of items work without a grid. A button opens the normal 3x3 workbench too.
• Compacting: 80 raw items become one Compacted item (wheat, iron, logs, fish ...). Compacted items are worth exactly 80 times the raw price, so compacting never creates coins out of nothing.
• Upgrade chains: higher tiers are crafted from the piece before them plus new materials. Skill level unlocks each recipe.
• Set bonuses: wearing 2 or 4 pieces of a set gives extra stats.
• Rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. Item texts update themselves when a balance change happens.

The Starter kit (sword, pickaxe, shovel, fishing rod and four armor pieces) is free at the Forger in the hub.

Changelog, part 2 of 3

Combat

Vanilla mob spawning is switched off. Every fight zone spawns custom mobs with their own health, damage, defense, XP, coins and drops. Zones only spawn while a player is inside, and every kill gives Combat XP, coins and drops straight into your inventory.

• The zones form a ladder: each one is a step above the last. A balance model checks the whole ladder, so a zone cannot silently become too easy or too hard.
• The first hour was rebalanced so a fresh player with the free Starter kit can fight the Graveyard's mobs (the Wraith Reaper is a hard but doable fight).
• The Nether is not a real dimension. Nether and End portals are switched off. The Wastes are a zone on the main island, and the End will get a custom island one day.
• Dying sends you to the hub with your items kept. Without a Supporter Cookie you lose part of your purse in normal fight zones; coins in the bank are always safe. Nothing is lost in bosses, dungeons, arenas or on your Homestead.
• Your health and defense are shown in a permanent action bar line.

The Sunken Citadel (our first dungeon)

A desert citadel that sank into the sand. Four floors, each harder than the last:

• Queue at an NPC (2-7 players, floor 4 only starts with 7). Nobody gets in without a queue, "a mystical force" holds them back. A run starts when the party is full, or early with a check mark from 2 players.
• Party scaling: more players mean more monsters and a tougher boss. Each player has 3 lives.
• Mobs sleep until you get close, a boss appears once enough of the floor is cleared, with telegraphed ground slams and summons.
• Loot is a reveal animation right after the boss. The armor sets are drop-only: Scavenger's (floor 1), Tombguard's (2), Scarabweave (3) and Pharaoh's (4), so every floor gives you the gear for the next one. Elite monsters can drop the four swords.
• The Dungeon skill is earned by finishing floors. Its levels open the floors (levels 0 / 3 / 5 / 8) and the dungeon gear. The entrance asks for Combat level 8.
• Abilities: the four swords have a right-click ability with a cooldown (Sand Step dash, Tomb Cleave shockwave, Venom Lance beam, Solar Blessing damage buff), and the four sets have passive abilities (Scavenger's Instinct, Sarcophagus, Hive Ward, Sun's Verdict). Chat messages tell you when an ability starts, ends and when its cooldown is over.
• Balanced by a model that reads the real item files: floors 1 and 2 are doable with the Nether's Warlord's Set, floor 4 needs the armor of floor 3 and a full party.
• The dungeon is built of several areas, so winding corridors work.

Economy

• Purse & Bank: coins in your purse, a bank with upgrade tiers (needs Sundering level and coins), deposit, withdraw and custom amounts (2.5k works).
• Merchants buy what you find at fixed prices:
  • the general merchant in the hub buys everything,
  • six specialists buy only their own kind at exactly the same prices: Farmer's Market, Lumber Yard, Miner's Depot, Fishmonger, Trophy Trader and Relic Dealer.
• The Forger sells the Starter kit for free.
• Bazaar: stackable goods with buy orders, sell offers and instant buy/sell. Prices are limited between the merchant price and a ceiling, a small tax burns coins. /bz from anywhere with a Supporter Cookie.
• Auction House: unique items, Buy It Now, categories, sorting and search, a small fee and tax. /ah from anywhere with a Supporter Cookie. Sold items and coins are claimed safely, nothing is lost when you are offline.
• Trading: /trade <player>, or Shift + right click a player to send a request and to accept one. Both sides see the offers, both confirm, a short countdown, coins can be added. Bound and non-tradable items are blocked.

Your Homestead

Your own floating island in a private world (/home). Build, farm and relax in peace.

• Invite friends with /home trust, lock it, set your spawn.
• Visit others with /visit <player> (locked plots need trust).
• Farming works on the island too.
• Land is never lost.

The story: "The Sundering"

Hustix was once a thriving island chain. A magical catastrophe, the Sundering, tore it apart and let the dead and monsters take root. You arrive as a Settler, because word is that the island can be reclaimed.

• Dozens of storyteller NPCs across the map tell the tale in short dialogues, and every zone has its own reason for looking the way it does:
  • the Graveyard's Warden knows what happened to his village,
  • the Spider Pens were once a place where the village kept spiders for their silk,
  • two villages stand in the Dunes: the ruined Dunehaven and the rebuilt one,
  • a chief miner regrets digging too deep in the Sunken Mine,
  • the farm, the Fishery and the Frost Pier have people with stories of their own.
• The story grows with every update. Some mysteries are deliberately left open.
• Talking to certain NPCs is part of the quest line.

Exploring

• Zone discovery: the first time you enter a zone you get Sundering XP, and every zone greets you with a title. The same goes for warps.
• Warps: discovered by walking near them. Travelling with /warp is a Supporter Cookie perk.
• Protection: the world is protected. Only what belongs to the game (crops, ores, trees) can be broken, buttons and levers work. No griefing.

Supporters and cosmetics

• Supporter Cookie: a time-limited item with convenience perks only: /ah, /bz, /bank, /merchant, /craft, /storage and /warp from anywhere, teleports without waiting, flying on your own Homestead, and no purse loss on death. It gives no stat, XP, coin or drop boost, nothing works in arenas or boss fights, and it can be traded like any other item.
• Cosmetics in the HUSTIX STORE: kill effects, trails, auras, join effects, level-up effects and titles, with a rotating shop on a weekly plan. Purely cosmetic, nothing gives an advantage.
• /storage: extra storage pages (Cookie perk; without a Cookie you can still take your items out).

Quality of life

• The Sundering Menu item sits in your last hotbar slot and cannot be lost. It opens Profile, Skills, Level, Recipes, Quests, Bank, Auction House, Bazaar, Warps, Storage, Cosmetics, Settings and Homestead.
• Skills and level pages show progress to the next level.
• Chat and tab prefix follow your Sundering Level.
• Items dropped by you can only be picked up by you.
• Item texts refresh themselves after balance changes.
• Your health and defense are always visible.

Changelog, part 3 of 3

Recent changes in detail (0.19 to 0.26)

0.26.0

• Cave Crawlers spawn far more often in the Spider Pens (about every second spawn, up from every sixth).
• New quest type: crafting. Every skill now has a first-set quest, and the combat sets are crafted in full: the Squire's Set right after the Graveyard, the Webslayer's Set at the Spider Pens before the Dunes, and the Warlord's Set in the Nether Wastes. The quest line is now 31 quests.
• Sets that are already in your inventory count as crafted, nobody has to craft twice.

0.25.0 Six specialist merchants with the same prices as the general merchant.
0.24.1 A Sundering level now needs 50 XP instead of 100 (thresholds like bank tiers and prefixes were doubled so they mean the same as before). No level cap.
0.24.0 Staff can rename zones with /region rename.
0.23.x The Frost Pier (Fishing 30-50), sea creatures much more frequent and giving Fishing XP, "RARE CATCH" fixed, the Angler's Set needs no level, Shift + right click trading.
0.22.0 Fishing and the Fishery at the hub, three new quests.
0.21.0 The Spider Pens join the quest line, the quest tracker (arrow and compass).
0.20.x The quest line follows the world, the Elder tells newcomers where to go, five storytellers on the farm, the quest menu got pages.
0.19.x Abilities for the dungeon gear, first-hour balance, the combat zones as a ladder, lower levels overall to leave room for more dungeons.

Version history

What is next

These are plans, not promises, and the order can change:

• The Nether act: an outpost with survivors, and the way to the next dungeon.
• A mini boss in the big cave next to the hub.
• More XP sources: dungeon clears, bosses, daily quests and collection goals.
• More of the story: the mushroom forest city and the castle at the far end of the map.
• Later: companions (pets), a PvP arena, a custom End.

Found a bug? Post it in the bug tracker on the website. Thank you for following the development, and see you in the next post.