Enshrouded Celebrates Two Years with a Plan for 1.0 in the Autumn

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Enshrouded, my most played title on Steam for 2025, kicked off last year with the Pact of the Flame update and a roadmap of features and a plan to exit early access and deliver the 1.0 version of the game in 2026.

And 2026 is still the plan, but the target has been pushed from spring until autumn as the team delivered a roadmap to track their path to their goal.

Enshrouded 2026 Roadmap

I will say, for openers, that this is roadmap is likely to rank much higher in any roadmap cook off post I do this year than their effort from last year.  It is nice, linear, and detailed without being overcrowded, with decent graphical highlights.

As to the roadmap content, promised for the 0.8 update in the spring are:

  • Adventure Sharing v.1
    • A new feature allowing players to share their world with the community
  • Polishing
    • General Improvements
    • Balancing
    • Bug Fixes

I am not sure what adventure sharing really means, but I am sure we’ll get the full details with the spring update.

Then for autumn and the 1.0 release we can expect the following.

  • Quality of Life
    • Improved new player experience
    • Better quest progression
    • And many more
  • Optimization
    • Smoother game play, especially on lower end systems
    • Faster shader compilation (Yay!)
  • Combat Improvements
    • Greater tactical depth
    • Smarter enemy behavior
    • Better balancing
    • Increased enemy variety
  • New Content
    • New locations and enemies to overcome
  • Adventure Sharing v.2
    • Additional functionality
  • Console Release
    • Controller support was there for a reason

There is no mention on the roadmap as to which consoles, but I suspect that XBox and PS5 are a given, with maybe Switch2 support if Nintendo isn’t too difficult to work with.

Backing all of that up is a Road to Release video dev update.

So that is what Enshrouded has planned for 2026.  There is the usual caveat that the timeline is an estimate, so we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.

And they are not wasting any time getting started on the plan as Patch 13 dropped today, with the change log linked below.

Meanwhile, Monday saw the game hit the two year mark since its early access launch so the team put together an infographic to highlight a bit of what has been going on in Enshrouded.

Enshrouded – Two Year Infographic

Over five million players… which at least implies they have sold over five million copies of the game… is pretty impressive.  By any standard the venture is already a success.

Together we have spent 20,901 years of time collectively playing the game, which given the five million player numbers, meant each of us spent a day and a half on average playing.

I’m actually in for 11.5 days of play time, so I am picking up somebody’s slack.

All in all, things seem to be rolling on pretty well for Enshrouded.

While our group stopped playing last year and are now exploring Guild Wars: Reforged, it does not seem unlikely that we will come back for a return visit when it gets through its launch and we’re looking for something to occupy ourselves.

There should be enough there for one more play through.

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The EverQuest Frostreaver TLP Poll Results – Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

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I mentioned back in December, in a Friday Bullet Points post, that Daybreak had announced not just one, but TWO special rules servers for 2026.

The first of them, named Frostreaver, set to launch in May, was going to have its rules and parameters set by a player poll done in the forums so that interested parties could help Daybreak decide on what people really want.

This was, of course, a transparent reaction to the tepid response to last May’s Fangbreaker TLP server and the popularity of The Heroes Journey pirate server, which appeared to be eating Fangbreaker’s lunch dramatically enough that Daybreak stepped in to sue the people running the emulator in order to get it shut down.

May 2025 – Fangbreak

Now, that whole case is fraught, and I don’t necessarily believe THJ is the sole cause of Daybreak’s financial downturn, a line Ji Ham has pushed during the previous two quarters.

But it seems pretty apparent that THJ will lose due to the whole in-game cash shop thing, which makes the whole thing an obvious for profit enterprise built on the EverQuest IP using EverQuest code and EverQuest art assets.  This seems all the more likely since THJ got the binding arbitration path they were asking for, the only route that favors companies more than the courts.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation seems keen to ignore the whole money earning enterprise aspect of THJ and somehow believes that something being free to download means that you can do whatever you want with it.  This is not at all what “fair use” means, but when you have an agenda you ignore the facts I guess. However, the arbitrator who will actually decide the outcome will not be so generous and will apply the EULA and other agreements and case law to the situation.  It is unlikely to go well for THJ.

All of which leaves us with the question; can Daybreak deliver something that would appeal to the THJ audience? Despite their ire towards Daybreak, they seemed like a group with nostalgia for the game and Norrath in general, but were unwilling to put up with the hardcore “you must suffer for your enjoyment” model that EverQuest has traditionally clung to?

My guess is no, Daybreak won’t be able to deliver, largely because their hardcore mindset won’t let them color outside of a specific set of lines.  So what we got in the poll was a clear indication of what dials they were prepared to turn and how far they were willing to turn them.

Cutting to the chase a few hundred words in, these were the results they posted:

Expansion Unlocks:

  • What expansions will be available when the server opens?
    • Winning vote – Standard + Scars of Velious Launch
  • Should this server ever STOP unlocking expansions?
    • Winning vote – No, the server should continue unlocking expansions until reaching Live
  • How often should expansions unlock after Planes of Power?
    • Winning vote – Standard +: Expansions should unlock every 8 weeks
  • Should Beastlords and Berserkers be available at Launch?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should Gates of Discord unlock faster?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should Legacy of Ykesha unlock with Planes of Power?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should Prophecy of Ro unlock with Depths of Darkhollow?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should Dragons of Norrath unlock with Omens of War?
    • Winning vote – Yes 

Special Rules:

  • Should this server have Truebox?
    • Winning vote – No, clients per computer should be unrestricted
  • Should this server have Open PvP?
    • Winning vote – No
  • Should this server have Encounter Locking?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • How fast should Experience Gain be on this server?
    • Winning vote – Live (Fastest)
  • Should this server have Free Trade?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Level Locking?
    • Winning vote – No
  • Should this server have Disabled Item Level Requirements?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Early Item Focus Effects?
    • Winning vote – Yes 

Bonuses:

  • Should this server have Evolving Bonuses?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Randomized Loot?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Challenge Achievements?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Resource Hunter Bonuses?
    • Winning vote – Yes
  • Should this server have Legacy Characters?
    • Winning vote – Yes 

While there are any number of items on that list I am not sure about, the general theme was to make things progress as quickly as possible, with the highest level of xp earning, the least restrictions, the most bonuses, multi-boxing, no gear restrictions, and kicking off with the latest expansion pack that was on offer.

The audience wants to go faster than three wild women in a Porsche!

My favorite item was the repudiation of PvP, but I am always there for it when the rabid “if you just turned on PvP you would make a bazillion dollars” crowd get shouted down.  The EQ PvP servers were simply a way to quarantine the worst people in the game away from the rest of the audience.

Anyway, the response was not unexpected, and the results make the server seem mildly interesting to me.  But I don’t think it will go far enough because it still maintains the whole structure of pushing people into mandatory grouping.

My gut says that the hardcore nostalgia audience, which has gotten a fresh server catering to it annually for a decade, has been sated at this point.  The remaining, as yet unserved, nostalgia audience wants to be able to do a solo walk through of the old locations, to be able to solo overland mobs in their level range no matter what their class choices was, and not spend hours grinding bandits in West Karana or where ever in order to level up.

This is what I call the “Tour de Norrath” option, where you can wander alone and see the sights, fight the mobs, and get enough of a taste of things to sate your nostalgia without having to invest in all the things that EverQuest has traditionally required of players.  I’d subscribe for that server.

But that is, as I say, my gut talking.  I have no hard evidence, just a sense of the situation no doubt driven by my own desires, and I am not going to be like the PvP trolls and project my own views on the rest of the world and call it a majority opinion.

And I can, based on history, experience, and a bit of intuition, come up with reasons why the Norrath team would reject such an option.  There is a whole host of self imposed restrictions, the whole hardcore heritage and devaluing the achievements of past players if you don’t have to do everything in the snow, uphill both ways like E’ci intended.

There is also the open question of what a server that was easier to level on that the live servers… you’ll note that was as far as they were willing to go on the xp front… would do to the mix.  The argument will always be that you can do all that on live, the xp curve is easy for the first 50 levels or whatever, and you can have a mercenary.

True, and I have done that… but it also isn’t the same thing.  If nothing else, the broken economy on the live servers and the travel shortcut that is the Plane of Knowledge makes the whole thing less interesting that a fresh start server where you might have to walk from Qeynos to Freeport.

In my asking for easy mode and difficulty at the same time I am only highlighting that the “what should it be?” question isn’t easily answered.

Anyway, we shall see how this plays out in May.

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Is It Midnight Yet? The WoW Midnight Pre-Expansion Patch Goes Live

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Up front:  The WoW Midnight pre-expansion patch has dropped.  After all an all day maintenance it is up and available.

World of Warcraft Midnight

I feel like I just did a little blurb about a WoW expansion pre-patch.

Oh wait, that’s right.

That was the WoW Classic Anniversary Edition Burning Crusade Expansion Pre-Patch that went live last week.

As previously noted, any of my past statements about Blizz caring about timing and not stomping on one release over another… all now proven false.  Remember when people used to claim that Blizz announced their expansion launches to crush minor competitors they probably didn’t even care about?  Well, if you believed that what does this say about the state of WoW Classic then?

Okay, I am going to have to let go of that.  I know.  I am not even playing WoW right now.  But I still want to mark the milestones, and a retail WoW expansion is a once every two years kind of event, so a bit of a big deal.

From the Blizz announcement, this is the short short summary of what has landed.

  • New Demon Hunter Specialization—Devourer
  • New Race and Class Combination: Void Elf Demon Hunters
  • Class Combat Design Updates
  • Stat and Item Squish
  • User Interface Updates
  • Transmogrification Updates
  • Player vs. Player (PvP) Training Grounds
  • Housing and Endeavors
  • Pre-expansion event
  • The Winds of Mysterious Fortune Returns

What that all means… well, you’ll have to go to the link below to get at the details that Blizz is sharing.  I have not been paying close attention, but a couple of those items are bland headlines on top of controversial changes.

For example, we get some sort of user interface update with every expansion, and there is always an addon apocalypse of sort… but not like what is coming with Midnight, where Blizz has decided to blow up the addon meta and take over some aspects of that in the main UI.

There is also a pre-expansion trailer.

And an accompanying, much longer, pre-expansion survival guide.

All of this is leading up to the WoW Midnight launch on March 2, 2026, which will give everybody a good few weeks to come to grips with the changes and Blizz to fix things that they may have not gotten quite right.

And, of course, Blizz would very much like you to buy the expansion now please, and maybe throw in for a six month subscription.  Those Microsoft exec bonuses don’t pay for themselves.

Anyway, the game is off and running towards another launch day.

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LAWN Asked to Leave the Imperium

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Yesterday it was announced that the alliance Get Off My Lawn, more commonly known by its alliance ticker or LAWN, had been asked to leave the Imperium.

LAWN DOTLAN Stats – Jan 19, 2026

Imperium leader Asher Elias pinged the following out to the coalition regarding the separation.

Today we are announcing that Lawn has been asked to leave the Imperium. They have been allies with us for 14 years so we did not take this decision lightly, but in recent times it has become clear that there are cultural differences between Lawn and the Imperium. We have no ill will to them and wish them all the best. They will have two weeks to leave Imperium space, any supers they are building will be given rights to leave freely so that no member is hurt.

We don’t expect any drama on the way out but you know how individuals can give a group a bad name so if you see any person mouthing off in local or online just be the bigger person and ignore them. We wish all of them well on their next adventures in Eve Online.
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍
~~~ This was a broadcast from asher_elias to all at 2026-01-19 23:41:41.543079 EVE ~~~

The departure seems… well, if is hard to say “amicable” when you’ve been asked to go, but at least it is not overtly hostile.

As noted in the post, LAWN has been around since the founding of The Imperium back in April 2014 (timeline here) and was one of the alliances that did not leave the coalition after our defeat in the Casino War.

The Imperium in the North – Jan 15, 2016

Stuck out at the far eastern end of the coalition in Vale of the Silent, LAWN stayed with us even when Circle of Two, closer to the core of the coalition, betrayed us because they felt their territory wasn’t being defended.  Nobody’s territory ended up being defensible and the entirety of the Imperium fell back to the Quafe Warehouse station in Saranen

During one of the attempts to push back into our old space LAWN succeeded in taking a constellation in Cloud Ring.

LAWN’s 300 took this

But no return was going to happen.

When we admitted defeat and began the retreat south LAWN went with us and ended up holding a constellation in Delve once we were established there.

That constellation, like all of Imperium space outside of the O-EIMK constellation, fell to the PAPI onslaught.  LAWN stuck with the Imperium again and was with us when PAPI retreated and we drove Legacy Coalition, the instigators of the war, out of their space.

They joined in on the move to the east and ended up in holding the R-CL2W constellation when the coalition finished its second move and setup its front line against PanFam in Insmother.

LAWN’s space within Insmother

And, of course, they were there for the downfall of PanFam.  I think.  They’re a small group, so their participation tends to get subsumed into the mix.

Always a smaller alliance in the coalition, they had putting up recruiting posts on r/evejobs looking to expand their membership over the last year or so.  How successful that has been I am not sure, but they did not end up getting any of the corps fleeing Pandemic Horde.

Where they will head after leaving the Imperium remains to be seen.

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Reflecting on the Downfall of Pandemic Horde

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Remember, remember the fifth of November,
When Horde packed their bags and fled in surrender.
The skies burned bright with Goonswarm’s might,
As citadels cracked in the dead of night

-The Goonpowder plot opening

I have been watching the last bit of life leave the corpse that was once Pandemic Horde, the core alliance in what was the PanFam coalition, wondering how to sum this up.  I checked on DOTLAN the other day to see that the whole alliance down to 26 corporations and with a combined total of 219 members.

Pandemic Horde Status – Jan 13, 2026

Most of those are probably place holder alts, there to anchor the last bits of organizational framework together.  The core corporations have already fled to new homes or, in the case of Pandemic Horde Inc, the most spy infested corporation likely in the history of New Eden, kicked to the curb and left to wither and die on its own.

So the collapse is all but complete.  The last few bits of sovereignty the alliance holds will be gone soon enough.  I suspect that nobody is paying the sov bills… but who knows.  Maybe they are.  Maybe somebody left auto-pay on and money in the right account.  The whole things has been that sort of shambles.

So I am left still trying to digest what even happened.  I mean, this is where things stood just about three months ago.

Top 10 Sov Holding Alliances by Member – Oct 11, 2025

Pandemic Horde had more than 48K pilots on its rolls, held sovereignty in 414 systems, and was part of a coalition with alliances that had stood by them for years.  They and their coalition ruled the Drone regions, a segment of null sec noted for having few ways in and no NPC space within which an attacker could stage.  It is a place with a reputation of being both hard to get into and hard to get out of.

Then, after a couple years of taunting the Imperium, dismissing us as afraid to attack, and branding themselves as “The Horde that Wins,” the Imperium pushed up to their southern border and, hearing rumors that we were going to invade, threw in the towel and tried to run away from both us and its allies.  I still have trouble getting my head around that.

Part of my problem is that I don’t have the perspective of having been involved with that level of fail cascade, with that level of leadership betrayal.

It isn’t that I haven’t been on the losing side of things before.  I was there during the Casino War when the Imperium lost all of its space, when several alliances abandoned the coalition and one outright betrayed us for the promise of a free pass.

I have had to evacuate my stuff from one side of New Eden to the other, my Archon making the jump out of several locations in Tribute and Pure Blind just hours before they became the front line in a war.  But even when leadership was squabbling amongst themselves and some were leaking things to r/eve because they were pissed about one thing or another, they somehow managed to keep things together to shepherd line members out of the war zone and along the trail of tears to Delve where we had to conquer a region with whatever we had managed to haul with us down to Sakht.

There is a certain amount of the stubborn to the point of pigheadedness of Goons refusing to give up in all of that.  It is a point of pride that we will go to greater lengths and endure more hardship to win.

But I think it is primarily a matter of how leadership of the Imperium and the GSF alliance is organized and run.

For most of its run Pandemic Horde looked superficially like a mirror image of Goonswarm Federation.  It was The Mittani and Gobbins, two autocrats at the head of large alliances that were the anchors of even larger coalitions.

Except that Mittens often admitted he didn’t want to do all the things, so the organization was run by delegation through a coalition of directors and sub groups, many who had quite a bit of autonomy.  Enough autonomy that when Mittens was pushed to step down the alliance and the coalition kept on running.  A new leader was found and most things continued as before.

There was some drama.  People were leaking things when they didn’t like something Asher did.  But they were doing that under Mittens as well.  There proved to me at least some level of abstraction between the leader and the organization such that there could be a transition of leadership. [Also, as somebody reminded me, after Karttoon figures heavily in Goon leadership lore.  So all the power in one hand has already worked out poorly.]

I don’t have any first hand knowledge about Gobbins and Pandemic Horde.  But the vibe I get from the discourse on r/eve is that he held all the levers of power and there was some separation between him and his policies and the structures within the alliance that kept things running.

And once things fell apart, it all started to sound like some 2007 WoW raiding guild drama.  There was the leader who wouldn’t delegate enough who ended up getting burnt out and wanting to take a break, but who also couldn’t bring themselves to relinquish leadership until it was far too late.  Been there, done that, have the stories.

That, however, if just an outsider view. I don’t know what really happened and cannot give even a line member perspective.

What I can do, however, is piece together all of the posts I have done involving our interaction with Pandemic Horde that became the chain of events that led to this outcome.

After some time spent regrouping and recovering from World War Bee we finally turned east.

The Southeast Agreement had collapsed and the area was largely dominated by PanFam, their allies, and groups they bullied into making them blue so PanFam could use their structures.

We spent the summer of 2024 clearing PanFam and WinterCo out of Catch and Tenerifis and then, when that was complete and our foes expected us to get bored and go back to Delve, it was announced that GSF was moving to UALX-3 in Tenerifis.  Surprise!

From Delve to the east… all that eastern yellow space was taken

This was followed up in May of 2025 with a declared invasion of Insmother, which was again met with token resistance, the space being declared flood plains by Gobbins who once again announced that he expected them be retaken when we got bored and went home.

Once again, we pulled up stakes and moved forward, with the whole of the Imperium this time shifting, leaving behind Delve and Querious, while GSF moved forward into Insmother to setup shop in C-J6MT, just a jump bridge and a gate from PanFam space.

Imperium move plans

By the middle of July the south of null sec was mostly reconfigured.

South Null – July 15, 2025

There were still move ops and changes in who owned what and a lot of infrastructure to be laid down, but for the most part we were left alone to do it.  There were some battles up front and the occasional token resistance, but for the most part pulled back to their side of the regional gates.

Which isn’t to say the frontier was peaceful or anything.  Both sides venture through to shoot things up, pick fights, gank ratters, and all the usual low intensity conflict activities that are normal when there isn’t an active invasion in progress.  We were not buddies with PanFam, but there was no real war.  Asher declared the “War of the Ruses” over back in August.  And even PanFam seemed to be settle into a long term equilibrium, pulling its main staging point back from the front line in Etherium Reach to a location in Perrigren Falls, the better to cover its back field and be a little more insulated from Imperium cross board raiding.

All in all, very much not a state of war by any measure in null sec.  WinterCo and The Initiative, they wereat war, brawling over Fortizars in Fade, attempting to take things from the other side, but in the southeast there was just the usual friction of that comes with being next door to hostile space neighbors.

So it raised an eyebrow when we got pings about what Gobbins is telling PanFam.  Asher sent out a copy of a war update, sent just before the collapse.

War update November 2nd 2025

We are now coming up to 5 months of war updates. 🎉

Last week hostiles took advantage of the fact we were busy with move ops to make walls of timers. We had a particularly busy night with multiple Fortizars coming out, one overlapping with a Tatara in structure. All were saved. On our Easters border, most action occurred in Outer Passage. Hostiles had managed to capture several allied planets/skyhooks but we took them back this week. Most EUtz action continues to be focused on this region, while later timezones tend to see activity in Geminate and ER.

Move ops
Move ops are still running for stragglers. It has now been two weekends since we announced our new staging in R-AG and most are relocated, but please help the people that still need it by offering SMB, Cynos etc. Only move in trusted move fleets!

Pankrab stronk
Shoutout to the pankrab team, several attempts made by the bads this week but none where they saw an opening for dreadbombs. Great uptime too.

Infrastructure
We are getting a lot of requests for adding structures at the new staging. We are still catching up based on priorities. Do report to @woodiusmiles any systems without any place to tether though as that is a big oversight on our part that we wish to fix asap.

CSM voting
We are halfway with 1 week left to vote on the CSM. Great turn out so far!! Remember to vote with all your omega accounts and to ensure the page gives you the confirmation that your vote has been registered. Our ballot if you missed it:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ <internal link, but I have their ballot here>

Five months of war?  Or, five months of war updates I suppose… but what war?  There hadn’t been anything like a war for ages.

Then things became clear.  The claims of a pending Imperium invasion (which turned out to be true according to Asher), pulling back their staging, pulling down their oldest keepstar… all while Gobbins and the rest of the Pandemic Horde leadership had been planning the run away yet again.  Their supers and assets were said to be away and safe in the midst of all of this.

Then came the public announcement.  Allies were stunned, line members were left in the lurch, and the Imperium surged forward to camp their staging Keepstar and the collapse was in full swing.

Below is the timeline, put together a timeline of my blog posts about the run up to the PH evacuation.  The Equinox expansion seemed to set the final context, but two summers of pushing against them, taking their space… after Gobbins and others in PAPI said during World War Bee that defenders had all the advantages in order to explain the survival of the Imperium…

That covers my observations from the launch of the Equinox expansion, which changed how null sec had to organize itself, though to the shut down of Pandemic Horde.  That isn’t all that went on, but it is what feels related to the tale.

Now of course, there is the small matter of “what next?”

WinterCo and The Initiative are still at war, both having been bolstered by groups fleeing the PanFam debacle.

If you go and look at the Pandemic Horde pages over at DOTLAN and go to the Corporations tab, you can sort by “Alliance Now” and see who ended up where after the fall.

Fraternity, the leader of WinterCo, is starting to suggest that null sec is now arrayed 3 to 1 against them because they started a war with The Initiative and then PanFam imploded, leaving the Imperium unopposed on their southern flank, so now any time Init and the Imperium are shooting them at the same time they start trying to compare it to the domination of null sec by one entity on Serenity, the Chinese mainland server.

Personally, I am not impressed by that line of reasoning… having lived through a couple of wars that pitted most of null sec against the Imperium.  If the PAPI line about defenders having all the advantages was true, then they should have no problems.

But that is the nature of null sec politics and the accompanying propaganda.  How the three current power blocs evolve remains to be seen.

Then there are the Drone regions and the groups trying to stake a claim there.

The Drone Regions – Jan 17, 2026

I’ll be watching that on the new sov visualization tool that popped up.  I suspect that there will be fewer groups there by the end of the year.  But we shall see.

I don’t have much in the way of conclusions.  Just observations and some speculation. (Also, I’ve started this post about five times now, so I am keen to finally push publish.)  But there are rarely any simple answers when it comes to player politics New Eden.

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