Release 6

May 22 - 25, 2014


 * Visual Improvements: We really want to improve the quality of our visuals to a point that we feel competitive with modern games. To that end we are allocating time each release for some ongoing work. Here is just a short list of some of the things we are working on for Release 6 in the area of visual improvements:


 * Lighting Fine-Tuning: With the switch to the new lighting model we now have to retune our lighting levels across the board. Tuning and balancing the brightest day and the darkest night takes some time. It is a careful dance to get a strong contrast between well lit areas and dark shadows. We want light sources to mean something in underground areas and at night so they will be dark. This means having a torch and/or light spell handy is a really good thing. We also introduced tone mapping in R4 which is a technique that simulates your eye irising back and forth. This technique also requires careful tuning to get the brightening and lightening just right. Tune it too bright and we obviate the need for any light sources, tune it too dark and you won’t even notice it.
 * We went through about a bazillion different parameters over the last few weeks trying to get to that “just right” spot. Just yesterday, we hit on a combination of bloom with tone mapping that we think is going to get us the closest we have come yet. You can see the initial results in this build of this new combination. I think we are way closer but there is still work to do here.


 * Shaders: Right now we use very simple specular and bump mapping shaders. We are going to investigate some other shader types including Relief and Detail that might create more details in our textures.
 * Research into these new shader types ultimately led to a dead end but in the process we discovered and fixed some issues with how we were doing bump mapping on our terrain.


 * Characters: We have several efforts in progress including getting our skin shader happy with the new lighting, deformation issues with the female arms, polishing movement and combat animations, and fixing wearables sorting issues. After we get those issues sorted we can move on to making hair better but we are waiting for our transition to Unity 5 for that so we can take advantage of some new features there.
 * We made some good progress here and got the skin happy with our new lighting, but we still think we can take it further. We also decided to completely replace the character heads because we felt they were just not attractive enough.


 * Environment Art: For performance optimization we had originally kept the number of triangles in our buildings, walls, dungeons to an absolute minimum. Recent performance analysis suggests we are not bound by this constraint so we are going back through and adding geometry to some assets so that they will look better in lighting. For Release 6 we are focusing on Dungeon and Castle Walls to make them not be such flat planes.


 * Player to Player secure trade: Did you discover something cool you wish to give your friend? Need to share some potions with a party member? Did you craft something amazing you want to sell? Secure trade is the answer and will allow you to make exchanges of goods between you and other players.
 * The amount of work on changing how our item architecture works to secure the data was quite large. We really want this particular feature to be exactly what we say: secure. That meant in the end we couldn’t rush this in just one release cycle, it will take us two. In the meantime though we did create a temporary way for players to give each other things by just dragging the items out of their inventory and on top of the other player.


 * Crafting: We now have specific animations and tools for each crafting table so we will replace the default animation in Release 6 with these specifics. We will also take a pass on alignment and sorting issues related to crafting tables. As a stretch goal we may try to add some more sound and visual effects to crafting and harvesting


 * Combat: Our first pass at abilities in R5 did not include secondary effects like stun, knockback, root, etc., nor did many of them have visual effects. And in some cases they didn’t work at all (I’m looking at you Light spell!). For R6, we will be finishing out those abilities and adjusting the casting animations to work better with equipped weapons. We are also fixing some blending bugs that prevented many of the weapon animations from displaying properly. Once we address all these issues, we can resume work on card combat, deck building and the death system for Release 7 and 8. We are also going to take a pass at better color coding for combat floaties. Finally we will work weapon sheathing and unsheathing functionality so that we can explicitly know if you are ready to talk or kill!


 * Looting: We are making some architectural changes to how we create, store, and transmit data in containers (chests, corpses, player houses, inventory, etc.) that should fix some of the looting exploits, like the one where all players could loot the same corpse equally, and corpses could be looted multiple times just by exiting and reentering a scene. We are also going to work on fixing issues related to targeting a corpse.


 * Emotes: We will be working on some improvements to emotes that include looping emotes (dancing, conversation, etc.) as well as adding audio to them (clapping, laughing, etc.) . We will also make it so when you are chatting we will play the convo emote automatically.


 * Animals: Currently all our animals (bears, wolves, etc.) are purchased assets and the skinning, rigging, and animations for them is not meeting our quality standards, so we are going to reskin and rig them so that we can redo their animations.


 * Dialog: We are going to do an overall sanity pass on all dialogue, making sure it meets our standards on quest accessibility, making NPCs respond to more things, and that as many responses as possible are accessible through the dialogue tree.


 * Navigation: We will continue to iterate on the overworld map with more animations, texture improvements and party member locations when they are inside a scene. We are also going to introduce a standard visual for entrance and exit locations on maps. For now that will take the form of an archway.
 * While we finished some of this work we had started before on the 2D map the bulk of R6 was spent researching tools for creating the 3D overworld style we are returning to that Darkstarr posted about shortly after R5.


 * Player Housing: We have added/updated 4 new player houses (1 Rustic, Updated Lord Founder, Lord Benefactor, and Baron Benefactor). As with R5 we will no longer impose a time limit on ownership. However we may reset ownership at some point over the weekend to allow more folks time to experience housing.

Trivia
Previous to Starr Long's Release 5 reflections, Release 6 had a different plan. The following is no longer current.


 * Combat Decks: You will be free of the confines of the auto-built deck as deck building comes online. You will now be able to build and equip multiple decks to try out different strategies and play styles. To support this flexibility more skills and more AI combat behaviors will come online
 * Player Housing Improvements: Do you desire even more from housing? Your greatest desires will be answered with advanced features that greatly expand the player housing system including waterfront lots, basements, and exterior decorations. We will also introduce player lot access permissions so you can control who can visit your space (everyone, friends, or kindred)
 * Crafting Expansions: Crafting will greatly expand to include Makers’ Marks, Repair, Enhancement, and events during crafting that will affect the outcome. We will also introduce Alchemy and Cooking for the first time which brings not only a whole new set of recipes but also consumables to the game like potions and food (and beer of course). On top of all that player made items will begin appearing in NPC vendor inventories.
 * Non Combat Pets: Fluffy! I missed you so! Summon a non-combat pet to follow you around the world.
 * Waterfront Scenes: More scenes on the main continent will appear including more plot specific maps. For those more aquatically inclined we will introduce Player Islands and the Waterfront Twin City of Ardoris to support waterfront housing.
 * Character Creation Improvements: Do you wish you could style yourself even more? Well wish no longer as we add more options to modify, more content to select, and improvements to the interface.