Exploration Update

Overview

The Exploration Update was officially released on June 9th, 2018 after being announced the year prior. Many different aspects of the server were either replaced, modified, or removed entirely with the update. Professions and Talents were introduced to the server, while The Wilderness and the levelling system were modified.

Major Gameplay Updates

Professions

Three different professions were introduced with the Exploration Update, with each one allowing players to make beneficial items. The cooking profession, similar to its current incarnation, let players create food that gave them buffs. These buffs included elemental buffs, which affected spells of specific elemental types, along with Vanilla Minecraft buffs. Food was also able to be eaten to increase a player’s saturation, as depleting hunger would not be removed until the Revelius Update in 2020. The herbology profession allowed players to actually grow their own plants from seeds found from nodes in the Wilderness. The potions profession let players brew potions that could increase their health, power, and properties of their spells.

In order to choose a profession, players needed to speak to the Professions Recruiter NPC in the Great Hall. The NPC allowed players to start and teleport to the three profession introductory quests. Players were encouraged to do all three introduction quests and they were able to level all of the professions to level 5. To level the profession farther than level 5, players would need to “dedicate” themselves to one of them. Herbology was the only profession that players could level to the max of 35 without being dedicated to it. 

Players were able to increase the level of their chosen profession by creating items using cauldrons, ovens, or flower pots, depending on the profession. To create a profession item, players would use either uncooked items, unbrewed items, or seeds. They would then need to wait until the item was done to collect their rewards. Once collecting the item, players received both general and profession experience, along with the item itself. Additionally, players received exclusive rewards once they mastered their profession. These rewards included a symbol in their prefix, hats, and emotes.

Levelling

Previously, reaching a new year depended on which spells the players learned through traded AC with the Spells Master NPC. After the update, players received XP that would level them up and after every ten levels, they would reach a new year. Additionally, the update raised the maximum level a player could reach to 80.

There were multiple ways that players could gain XP. Players could attend classes to trade Academic Credits, fight mobs, participate in professions, vote, complete Daily Activities, do dungeons, and complete quests in order to get XP.

With each new level a player reached, they would learn a new spell and receive three Stat Points. Stat Points were able to be spent on health, magic, and power and reach up to level 100.

Talents

With the Exploration update, players were able to use the first incarnation of the Talents system.

Players received one talent point at levels 3, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80. These points could be put into three different categories: Medicinal Magic, Defensive Arts, and Curses, Hexes, and Jinxes.

The School of Medicinal Magic put primary focus on healing and recovery stats of spells. It made it easier and more useful for players to heal themselves and their teammates during combat. The School of Defensive Arts improved players’ defense, focusing on defensive and crowd control stats. The School of Curses, Hexes, and Jinxes improved damage done by spells along with various stats that dealt with offensive combat.

Each of the three branches unlocked an exclusive spell that players could only receive after putting four talent points into the tree. Medicinal Magic unlocked Tranquilium, Defensive Arts unlocked Integumentum, and Curses, Hexes, and Jinxes unlocked Mortufora.

With the Revelius Update, Talents would be removed. However, a poll on the PotterworldMC Discord revealed that the majority of players wished to revert back to the Talents system. Talents were officially brought back with the 1.5.0 Gameplay Update in May of 2022, with some modifications to fit the post-Revelius server.

The Wilderness

Though already implemented on the server, the Wilderness got an overhaul with the Exploration Update. Resource nodes were added throughout the Wilderness and directly tied into professions, as they provided players with needed ingredients and seeds. Mobs in the Wilderness were also affected, with some locations changing and a codex of all mob locations and drops being added.

Five towns were also added to the Wilderness: Oakport, Black Water, Domaeli, Winterfell, and Arkadia. Each town had different recommended levels that would affect the nearby mobs. Every town had a library that allowed access to the Wilderness Codex. All of the towns also included a Newseller NPC, a Marketplace, Collector Wizard, Warpkey Sellers, and a respawn point.

The method of getting to the Wilderness also changed. After the Exploration Update, players could take the boat at the Boathouse to get to the Wilderness.

Minor Updates

There were many minor updates introduced with the Exploration Update. /me was added and allowed players to view a variety of GUIs to help them on the server. Included in the menu were a Professions GUI, Daily Activities, a GUI that could summon pets, a GUI to pick hats and wands, a way to change your prefix and player tag, a way to go to housing, a GUI revolving around the Exploration Update, and a FAQ menu that answered commonly asked questions.

The test system also was discontinued with the release of the Exploration Update. Due to the change in the levelling system, tests were no longer required to level up and therefore had no purpose.