Aloha Thrivers!
Last week we let our Wave 2 backers in and took another big step forward to getting all of our Kickstarter supporters into the game. We’ve always taken pride in being a community-driven game and having Wave 2 exploring Maui has been a huge help.
Thanks to all the new eyes we’ve fixed a bunch of bugs and updated some systems, including our construction UI, with the feedback of our testers. We even made a few improvements under the hood to solidify our backend and open up a lot of opportunities for the game.
Here’s a look at everything we fixed and improved since last week.
Epic Online Services and Easy Anti-Cheat Integration
Integrating EOS not only allows us to use EAC, improving security, but it also opens up a lot of opportunities for the game. Being able to manage players, including banning bad actors and cheaters, will be a huge help in making the game more enjoyable for everyone.
This integration also gives us a solid backend to expand our player base, sets up the ability for us to deploy on multiple platforms, gives us a bunch of new data tools to use, and is also the first step to bringing VOIP back into the game.
Siege Improvements
We made a number of siege improvements in our last update and the mutant wrangling continues. Testing your defenses and your friend’s aim with waves of bloodthirsty mutants can be a lot of fun when everything works the way it’s supposed to.
We fixed a bug that was causing the mutants to not spawn properly during an attack and one that would spawn the terrors of the jungle on top of water bodies. These fixes along with our previous work should make the siege system work seamlessly now.
Lighting and Environmental Upgrades
To be honest when it comes to upgrading lighting, making the sky as beautiful as we can, and improving the lushness and vibrance of the jungle, we will always be making updates as the game grows and we shoot for the perfect environment.
This time around we made some improvements to the fog balancing it out and making it blend in better with the surroundings giving players a little cover at long distances. We also made some changes to the brightness of the sky making it more beautiful than ever and allowing enough light at night so players can move around but still hide in the shadows if they need to.
The jungle, particularly the flowers and different colors in the trees, got a little attention. We improved the bloom and contrast of the plant life making a run through the jungle as immersive as we can.
New Construction Menu
We also took a big step in upgrading our construction menu. Base building is a huge part of the game and the old menu wasn’t everything it could be.
In addition to looking better, the new menu has more categories with tips about using the selected option and allows players access to everything quickly and easily.
A huge thanks to our community for helping make this design come to life. They voted on the look and feel while we put it together and it was a huge help finishing up this first pass. We’ll be counting on your feedback as we make more refinements.
What’s New In Lahaina
Here’s a look at all the other improvements and fixes we made with the help of our OG testers and Wave 2.
Construction Improvements
- Construction mesh updates for wood and stone
- Added support for placing walls against the sides of roof pieces
- Fixed placing and recycling totems not freeing up totem placement for players in zone 1
- Fixed triangle foundation rotations not working on all sides of a square foundation
Vendor Improvements
- Added slider support to the vendor UI
- Added the ability to buy more than one nonstackable item at a time from vendors
Game Updates
- The upgrade menu will no longer show up if no upgrades are present
- Fixed sleeping bodies being given a frying pan
- Fixed instanced crafting machine overflow items getting stuck inside the container mesh
- Fixed swapping energy from a container to the player not working when their bank is empty
- Fixed UI widgets for corpses and containers showing extra circular progress bars
- Fixed recycling and crafting tasks making items inaccessible if killed during progress
- Fixed weapons with extended clips losing ammo on login
- Fixed collision on the Thorcon bridge (no more sinking into the concrete or falling into the river)
Community
Engine upgrades can be notoriously difficult, upgrading multiple versions even more so. Our Project Director Ryan recently sat down to talk about what went into our engine upgrade, why we decided that the time was right, and the future of the game. Check out part one of the Q&A here.
