The latest version of Korax' Heritage: Scattered Evil, the FPS-RPG hybrid in the world of Hexen, is now available for download on SourceForge and ModDB. So what is the mod all about? One strong feature of Scattered Evil is how it approaches the mixture: acknowledging there is no “perfect balance” because each gamer is different, it allows the player to mix the two elements within every single game between the pre-defined limits. A player who is very good in first person shooters can concentrate on that element of the game, set most RPG features to automatic (e.g. skill distribution when leveling up) or discard them altogether (e.g. skipping on doing sidequests and exploring dungeons), and breeze through the game more with his motoric skills than any collected items – while it is easier to defeat a uber-heresiarch at level 50 with highest quality magic weaponry that takes 10% of his life in a single shot, it is also possible to defeat this boss at level 10 with a tier one regular weapon that needs 500 successful hits to finish him off. On the other hand, the player can choose to explore every dungeon to the last cell, find and finish every small quest and reach the highest possible level and acquire the best possible equipment before attempting to face the final foe. So what's new in version 1.8? Read more for details!

New feature: The Mansion

• Purchase a luxurious mansion in a prime urban location that comes with a staff of servants
• Unless playing with RPG complexity turned Off, you receive a property sorely in need of improvements, allowing you to unleash your inner decorator
• Travel the breadth of the province to buy, steal or otherwise acquire various pieces of furniture and artwork

New feature: Map Scrolls

• Press a key and up pops the map of the region or city you are currently in (provided you have that region or city map in your possession), automatically showing your current position on the map
• If you don’t have a map of the current region or city, the newly added province map is displayed instead, showing your current position in the world (there is also a switch in Gameplay Options to always show the province map)
• Configurable option whether map scrolls should show annotations
• The collection of maps in the Journal is newly called the Atlas and it now always contains at least one map at game start (the province map)
• Configurable option whether maps in the Atlas should show the current player location
• Most Coach Stations now sell maps of the region or city they are located in
• Added souvenir stalls at city entrances, selling city maps

New dungeons and monsters

• Three new dungeon maps: Gonos Fortress, Isle of Ancient Kings, Tomb of Ancient Kings
• Updated questlines for class leaders in Thystes Fortress and Thystes Cathedral, now once again requiring the player to travel to a dungeon
• New monster type: Afrit Dominator (see the Bestiary for details)
• AI and attribute tweaks for several existing monsters

Interface improvements

• New unified look for the Main, Game and Option menus and their submenus
• Pressing J while the Journal is open will now close the Journal, no matter what subpage is open

Miscellanous additions

• New and updated 3D models including climbable rope, animated rotisserie chicken and the Crown of Ancient Kings
• Status Marks are now available (you can turn them on in the Gameplay Options menu). They show up both in the player HUD and over monster’s heads for things like Berserking, Poisoned, Terror, Mana Burn etc.
• Berserker now has a new non-fighter-specific icon, since both the player and some monsters use the same ability
• Added a new artifact status icon for torches
• New system for tracking hidden mini quests, allowing a rapid expansion of small tasks that reward EXP (targeted at Old School RPG complexity)

Bugfixes

• Monsters now use the correct sound when poisoned
• Artifact status icons are now positioned and animated correctly
• Fixed the issue of pressing J while the Journal was open spawning a second Journal instance in the background
• Fixed the issue of some of the sailboat routes transporting the player to the wrong destination