ageofaincrad

Patreon Devlog #10 - May 2022

Published: May 26th 2022, 5:18:10 pm

Hello Patrons!

Welcome to another update! This one comes a bit later than usual!

April was a big month with dozens of game improvements, we finished updating our code framework, updated servers, and visuals yet again. We’re also back in the grind to work on re-implementing base systems and improving the game on all possible levels.

We’re planning a Patreon game test in the next 2 months again if all goes according to plan.
Read on to find out more!

This month’s winner for the Patron picture is:

Tails!

We’ll send you a message soon on Discord! We want to know what you’d like to have drawn. If you have no ideas, that is also fine, we got time and there’s no rush.

Reminder: Patrons can skip their turn or push it off for a different month if they like as well - we can push you down the ladder whenever you’d like and someone else can take your place for that month.

We still have a few winners who skipped their turns, so please do let us know if you want to jump back into the queue and we’ll get right away to work on your picture.

New Team Members:

We have expanded our team yet again!

We finished training up our new level designer. His obsession with nature, architecture, and landscapes will come in handy to create amazing environments for you all to explore.

We’ve also recruited a new quest writer, who will bring a fresh breath of life into our NPCs. We can’t wait to have his creative juices flowing into the game script.

As we did last month - we’re still on the lookout for additional 3D artists and animators especially, be it for weapons, structures, or mobs. If you know someone who might be interested in helping out, please let us know!

Wimbourne Updates:

As we mentioned a while ago, we are still working on our primary city for Artuax. We got the map layout for level designers finalized, while simultaneously crafting assets for the location. Sadly due to a hardware fault of our 3D artist, work on the city has been on hold for a while, but he’s back in action now and we expect the massive city to be ready for some exploration in the next two months. Below are a few snippets of new structures.

Framework Migration:

We finished migrating our existing framework to the new release.  

We also ironed out all the issues we had post-migration, so we can happily say that it’s done. The new framework version comes with many quality of life improvements and optimizations both on the game client and server, meaning more performance, which is always great to have. At the same time, a lot of errors like broken crafting recipes and disappearing items from the inventory got also fixed.

The update also sets the groundwork for what will later become smarter AI for the mobs and a new UI system.

Dungeon Showcase (Player POV):

We got the dungeons working and implemented, so we figured it was time to show the fruit of our labor from a player's point of view. Take a look below at the feeling of our first dungeon, the Wolf Den.

Rift Valley & Level Design Improvements:

We’re starting work on the next location between Silirad and Wimbourne, the primary city of Artuax. Said location is called Rift Valley. It’ll be home to a few creatures we showed you in the last update and it’ll be a mandatory pass-through in order to get to Wimbourne itself.

Soon we’ll showcase the actual assets and mapping layout for it. Apart from that, we also have now our level designers working on improving the map layouts and making the world look a lot more creative than in the past. We got new rocks and cliffs still being worked on, but generally, this is the mood you can expect in the game going forward:

The Elk (in-game):

As we showed you last month, we had a finalized concept of the elk. We ended up sticking with the name for him so far - it fits quite well and there were no better suggestions :)

Now that it’s in-game, we figured we’ll give you a sample of it.

We’ll have it finished by the next update with its eyes nicely closed and will show a full combat video with it (in form of animation clips).

Lighting & FX:

We have, yet again, improved underwater FX. Expect underwater zones to look like in the screenshot below, but with more vegetation which we’ll spawn soon.

Additionally, we are implementing various light shafts in windows connected to the sun for a nice god-ray-like effect. Take a look.

As a small additional update, spawn zones have new animations involved with syncing to the revival point, as well as fireflies flying around them for an additional bit of mysticism.

Endword:

As every month, thank you for reading. We are planning on polishing up existing content and adding some new things in the coming two months specifically. Afterward, we’re making another test for all Patrons to take part in.

We hope the improved performance, questing, and visuals will be a pleasure for you to experience. If all goes well (as it usually does), we’ll also prepare the rift puzzle and improve dungeons compared to last time. We’re slowly in our pre-KS phase and believe at our current pace, Kickstarter this year is a very strong possibility.

See you next month!