Update 26: We’re thankful for…

Written By Shawn Lord

We’re thankful for another productive month, the fact that it’s still sunny in game, and for all of you continuing to keep tabs on our progress.

November is a wrap, and we’ve got one month left until 2023.

A major goal for December is to get a small group of friends and family in to play with us to work the kinks out of our playtest pipeline.

The hope is to quickly get to the point where we can then invite folks from the broader community in to test things with us while we continue to work on our “proof of concept” in 2023.

This is in keeping with our approach of always gathering feedback from the community as we go, and being open with our development process.

This test is not to be assumed to mean that we’re close to Alpha, nearing completion, or getting ready to go live in some capacity.

With that stated - fingers crossed all goes well this month - and maybe we’ll get to test some stuff together in the not-to-distant future.


Character Art & Concepts

  • Implemented a new hair option for Human Male

  • Worked on Human Female hair styles

  • Created a first pass skin base texture (ongoing discussion)

  • Texture style exploration and iteration (for all visible slots)

  • Visible item tooling (dressing room) concepting and discussion

  • Human animation (and animation system) iteration

  • Crocodile Animations started

 

Environment Art

  • Created new Tent models

  • Created a new Torch model and material

  • Roughed out Archaeologist campsite outside Wyrmsbane

  • Added more Tent variety to Travelers Camp

  • Finished roughout of Night Market area

  • Cleaned up, optimized, and finalized the look of the Night Market Entrance Arch

  • Created new materials and textures for the Night Market Arch

  • Converted old Elementalist Temple geo into a new Temple of Relle, replacing the older rough geo

  • Created materials for Steel Talons heraldry banners

  • Finished roughing out The Garrison layout to support future population/content pass

  • Started to Prop out The Garrison

  • Modelled first pass of The Main Gate to Night Harbor

  • Modelled first pass of the Garrison's Gate and Portcullis

  • Modelled first pass of Standard Doors and Doorframes for Night Harbor

  • Created and animated all of the above listed doors and gates

  • Modelled Trebuchets for the Garrison

  • Modelled and Textured Wayshrine object based on Luna and Goblin's concepts

  • Various Material, Collison, and Nav fixes across multiple zones

  • Modelled Ship for Garrison, and created a Sails Material

  • Made progress grey-boxing the Harbor District in Night Harbor

  • Prop placement for various camps in Shaded Dunes

 

Game Design/QA

  • Added Mining Nodes to Night Harbor

  • Wyrmsbane Tomb Population changes and additions

  • Bone Construct encounter abilities

  • Wyrmsbane Itemization changes and additions

  • Shaded Dunes mob ability changes and additions

  • Created many new abilities

  • Fixed various Abilities

  • Rebalanced various abilities

  • Created additional NPC Ability Loadout Sets

  • Added Smelting Recipe

  • Added Blacksmithing Recipes

  • Completed Druid faction writeup (Circle of Scarce Rains)

  • Implemented and integrated Druid faction into existing faction system

  • Populated Druid Guild Hall

  • Added initial Druid, Necromancer, Shadow Knight, and Inquisitor quests

  • Implemented 'Wayshrine' mechanics

  • Completed a design proposal for the crafting system

  • Completed Shaman/Beastmaster faction writeup (Seekers of the Lost Eye)

  • Added more Zone Mud Action descriptions of various locations within Night Harbor, Shaded Dunes, and Tomb of the Last Wyrmsbane

  • Zone population and camp changes for Shaded Dunes

  • Documented a large chunk of our design tooling as part of onboarding Luna

  • Identified design tool issues and feature requests as part of documenting them

 

Tech

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where negative stat values on items could cause multiple stats to not show up in the inspection window

  • Made applicable mobs rotate correctly when walking on sloped terrain

  • Added a new general culling group manager for distance-based performance optimizations

  • Fixed camera pop when right click mouse looking out of left click pan camera

  • Fix female human models crashing model loading

  • Fix error in git repo causing meta files to be discarded causing massive asset failures

  • Fixes for charmed mobs

  • Fix errors on login

  • Fix cleanup of buff volumes when they are destroyed or when exiting one volume and entering another

  • Fix monk FD sit animation stuck bug

  • Fix for NPCs struggling to attack you if you circle strafe them!

Additions and Improvements

  • New bard cast system

  • Fully integrated languages when talking between players

  • Fully integrated languages when talking to NPCs

  • Made NPCs use a primary language when communicating

  • Upgrades to the build pipeline and CI/CD pipeline in preparation for letting people in

  • Implemented PatchKit

  • Handled null messages which were crashing client

  • Graphics optimization for higher FPS

  • New click volume system for better selection

  • New tab targeting system

  • Death Shroud System

  • Now loading closest entity models first

  • Made rain size smaller

  • Autogrant abilities with skills

  • Ability Books are now physical things and must be equipped to memorize spells

  • Support for wide zone lines

  • Disabled character select race button if there are no allowed classes for that race

  • Now Automatically selects a race/class when character select screen loads

Editor & Design Support

  • Design Tool: Zone panel autoincrement IDs (optional)

  • Design Tool: Zone panel fixes

  • Added Quest commands

    • %die:1%

    • %spawn:<spawnGroupHID>%

    • %spawn:<spawnGroupHID>:<x>:<y>:<z>:<facing>%

  • Quest response %aggro:true% and %aggro:false%

  • No despawn flag for conditional spawns

  • Added database Animation "mining" which corresponds to Client Animation Trigger Parameter "TS.Mining"

  • Added %level:<Minimum Level>% and %maxlevel:<Maximum Level>% quest prompts that limit level of quest

  • Changed MUD object prompts to be "any" instead of "all"

  • Merged MUD actions with quest system and add tons of features to both

  • Changed faction spawn command

  • Npc Flag No Experience

  • Ability Effect "npc" (Create Npc) now has (relative to caster)

  • Ability Effect "tgr" Trigger

  • Fix quest handins where multiple of the same item are required. Add ability to tag quests to only respond once. Add %returnitems:true%

  • Increased AbilityListHID to 64

  • Added helper utility for loading/unloading multiple scenes within the Editor

  • Added helper utility for enabling/disabling multiple gameobjects within a parent gameobject

  • New MnMedit (data editor) - Can now use MnM Edit with Live DB/Server

  • New MnMedit (data editor) - Query Items from DB

  • New MnMedit (data editor) - DB Logs search and filtering

  • New MnMedit (data editor) - Server log search

Art Support

  • Rearranged item model data and prefabs

  • Implemented loading shoulders

  • Implemented hair in 3 sections, allowing gear to hide hair at a granular level

  • Fixed for Unity Skinned Mesh bounds misalignment issue

  • Fixed female human ears

  • Fixed loading root attachments where bone counts do not match

  • Asymmetrical shoulders support

  • Revamp zone loading, unloading, ZoneList, and subscene loader

  • Worked with Urkenstaff to set up looping mining animation and rudimentary combat idle animation

  • Refactored Entity Animations into their own class for organization

  • Setup deadzones to ignore velocity impulses from recurring entity snapping to gameworld floor

  • Fix characters frozen "gliding"

In Closing

Thanks for checking out the update, and for your continued support and participation in our Discord, livestreams, and VODs. We appreciate all of the comments and discussion.

Simon and Aimee are both now listed on the Team page. Go check it out! They’ve hit the ground running, and we’re happy to have them onboard.

Congrats to Keith, for Mandrake Farms hitting 500 subscribers on YouTube. It was a passion project of his from prior to joining the team. It features condensed MnM videos centered on a specific topic or topics we cover during a livesteam.

That’s it for November!

Take care and we’ll see you soon!

Shawn Lord
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Update 27: Ending the Year Strong
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Update 25: Two Updates in One