Greetings Vikings. We are starting off this year with a YUUUUGE patch that we are so very excited to share. We wish you a year filled with good fortune and hope that Valhalla will help maintain your enjoyment throughout the year. In our first patch of the year, we are thrilled to present you with two major announcements: Flinndor and Heimdall.

Flinndor is the Vera that has been (un)intentionally teased numerous times, as they will do whatever it takes to capture the attention of others. Until now, we have made efforts to prevent it from gaining public attention, but now we can finally release the butterfly and allow it to proudly spread its wings.

The introduction of Heimdall lowers Valhalla’s barrier of entry to both new and veteran users considerably and prepares us to raid together with massive amounts of fellow Vikings. We will be actively monitoring its performance and characteristics in the coming period.

Releasing the Butterflies

Strong wings give Flindorrs an unrivaled elegance, speedy movements, and ability to kick up winds. While always wanting to be the center of attention they can also be surprisingly useful more often than not. Besides utilizing their combat prowess, people have received significant assistance in farming and various other activities from precious Flindorrs.

Flindorr Combat Abilities

• Poisonous Pollen: Target 3 connected tiles and apply a poison to any enemy stepping in the affected tiles.
• Kaleidoscope: Release a butterfly vortex that comes back to Flindorr the next turn and damages enemies in its way.
• Graceful Gale: Wind up and release a burst of wind in a long line damaging and exhausting vera in the way.
• Snap: Flindorr flicks its wings and teleports to a chosen tile in 2-tile range.

We are still teaching Flindorr how to perform multiple animations. Currently, the second animations for Win, Lose, Intro, and Taunt will scare Flindorr and cause it to freeze.

Heimdall: connecting the worlds and chains.

This patch we are introducing you to “Heimdall.” Its main purpose is to connect us Vikings to Valhalla, from wherever we are to wherever it is. It does so by creating and maintaining a wallet address for you, which you will use to explore Valhalla. The account address is displayed below the game window (along with your username and strongest Vera).

Heimdall is also one of the many steps we’re taking to go multi platform. As Valhalla becomes bigger and better, we want to provide more and more Vikings access to its wonderful lands and seas. With the new system, we are removing a direct reliance on wallet providers like Metamask and WalletConnect.

For now, this means that using different systems will result in different addresses managed by Heimdall. As such, you will temporarily be unable to play with the same account on different browsers and devices. Very soon, we will be expanding on Heimdall by allowing Vikings to connect their own wallet addresses to Heimdall and to sync their data across different browsers and devices.

One important feature Heimdall enables is massively increasing immersive gameplay. The system manages your Valhalla transactions, and as such you will no longer be required to sign transactions to submit. Vikings will no longer have to accept or decline transactions manually, as Heimdall will handle all of this for you. A sneak peek into the near future of Heimdall: we aim to let Vikings toggle Heimdall on and off, allowing Vikings to tell Heimdall, “Back off, I’m the captain now!” to gain control again, and vice versa to let Heimdall take control again.

Shinier tokens

We have updated all tokens and token related systems across the board, from Runic dust to Runix to items to amulets to Veras to many more. Previously, many tokens were split across wallet, soulbound tokens (i.e. tokens that cannot be transferred) inside the wallet, inventory systems, and in-game treasuries (like the shop).

With this patch we’re grouping all of this into two locations: tokens are either inside Valhalla, or outside Valhalla. This means we’re nesting (or staking, if you will) tokens very deeply and integrating them very tightly in Valhalla while keeping the flexibility we’re used to in the cryptocurrency space with the highest security levels we can throw at it.

A major token change is the switch of soulbound NFTs like the clan badge and Runix pouch from being bound to a wallet address to being bound to a Viking NFT instead. This brings Valhalla more in line with traditional games where items are bound to the character that acquired them, and brings us more in line with the vision of the greater cryptocurrency ecosystem on this type of tokens.

We will release guides in the near future on how to import, export, and transfer tokens from your Heimdall account to your Metamask, WalletConnect or other account.

Get ready to display your NFTs

Get ready for a visual delight! We know Vikings don’t just love battling and raiding, but also to show off what’s theirs! With the new NFT representation system, your Vera collection comes to life in an interactive display. Show off its strong points, and also how much time you spent finding just the right rune pattern for it!

We’ve added an "Explore" tab on the website where you can view representations of Vera you own. This is just the beginning, as we’ll be expanding the details Vikings can see about their Veras, and next to that we’ll be adding all sorts of filters and displays for all our token types soon!

The redeployment: a faster and newer network

With Optimism Goerli being deprecated, it was very much time for a redeployment to a network that can offer more long term support for Valhallas needs.

Unfortunately, this does mean that all progress will be reset. But we promise its for the better good. After numerous brainstorming sessions, discussions, and tests, we have decided to switch from the Optimism Goerli test network to the opBnB test network. Not only will it resolve some known bugs, such as errors appearing when attempting transactions, but it will mainly prepare Valhalla for the future.

Rest assured that all progress made during the Optimism Goerli Testnet Network is recorded and noted down. This progress will also be taken into consideration when releasing the rewards.

One caveat of the redeployment is the loss of the money emote for users that previously earned this emote. Rest assured that we will soon be adding a way for you to link your previous wallet to the Heimdall system to get the emote back!

Introducing the Valhalla faucet system

Along with the redeployment and the change of network, we have added an automatic token faucet to Valhalla. Together with Heimdall, this means that Vikings can fully immerse themselves into Valhalla without any need of network selection or gathering test tokens.

We automatically check the wallet addresses that are created via Heimdall. When those accounts’ token balance are insufficient, the faucet system will automatically provide additional tokens. This will ensure that Vikings will always have enough test tokens and will be free to play Valhalla uninterruptedly.

More numbers, more stats, better Veras

We wanted to give you Vikings a heads up, as you may notice that the stats of your Vera look a bit different this update. This is because we are preparing for a major update of combat inside Valhalla.

As some of you may already know, a Vera used to have the following stats:

• Attack
• Defense
• Health

In this patch, these three stats have been divided into six instead:

• Strength
• Dexterity
• Vitality
• Intellect
• Wisdom
• Charisma

The combat system cannot access the new Vera stats yet, as its update is still underway. Until the combat update is ready for release, we will still be using the old stats, however they are now calculated as follows:

• Attack = Strength + Intellect
• Defense = Dexterity + Wisdom
• Health = Vitality + Charisma

Additionally, another major system has been deployed: the stat allocation system. Every time you level up, your Vera gains valuable stat points that you can allocate to one of the six stats. This gives Vikings more control over the growth paths of their Veras, and really nudge them towards their favored playstyle. Allocating the stats is currently still locked until the new combat update, but Vikings are advised to remember it, as it means training Veras from lower levels could be very beneficial!

New infrastructure

In this patch, we have updated and optimized the application and network infrastructure of Valhalla. These improvements make things smoother and less tedious, which is something we are pleased to have accomplished. It also gives us confidence in a promising future to add and update features.

Website changes

With the arrival of Flinndor in Valhalla, we have decided that it is time for every species to have their own spots in "Veras". We are updating everyone's picture using the photos taken at the latest photo shoot to ensure consistency.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused combats to freeze with the action panel not reappearing.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Vikings to constantly look at the map for directions.
• Fixed an issue with quests not completing immediately.
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Skip Turn" action to not be considered a valid move, which made it confusing to complete the daily quest "Close Enemies".
• Fixed an issue where the value of items in the shop was being displayed incorrectly.
• Fixed the hole in the Party Boat to prevent it from sinking.
• Fixed the UI of the new Vera Encounter notification being too small.
• Fixed issues with the open world colliders.
• Fixed an issue with the Emote Wheel resetting after refreshing Valhalla.
• Fixed a bug that caused Valhalla to freeze when opening the Mailbox.
• Fixed a bug that caused Valhalla to freeze when opening the Clan Menu.
• Fixed a bug that caused players not being able to change their keybinds.
• Fixed a bug where players would trigger Vera encounters anywhere.
• Fixed a bug that caused players not being able to manage their Veras in Daycare.
• Fixed an issue with the “Battle” button directing to the wrong page.
• Fixed an issue with the player camera swerving left and right uncontrollably.
• Updated the clan challenges description for more clarity.
• Updated the spawn location names to reflect the surrounding landmarks.

That's all for today! As usual, while we've done our best to catch all the bugs, it's possible that a few might have slipped through. We have faith in our Vikings to help us identify and report any issues they come across. Don't hesitate to communicate with us about any problems or bugs you encounter through our community's Discord: https://discord.gg/NJXccsQSfg

Until next time!

The Valhalla Team