The week started off with more discussion about cameras. We talked at some length about how we’d handle cameras in multiple worlds, and the faraway goal of having hundreds of robot cameras, rendering images of multiple worlds at the same time. The team revisited the idea of having a live streaming camera of the game world on the website. We talked about various things we could add to the live stream, including a news ticker-like feature with game announcements and/or story headlines. This led us to a conversation about incorporating more character data in the website, and what things would be useful or interesting for players to see on the web.
We continued to make improvements to our online store and shopping cart. We’ve decided to switch brands of t-shirts to one we hope is more comfortable. In addition to wanting to offer you the most pleasant shirt wearing experience we can, lots of us are wearing these sample shirts every day too, so we want all of us to be comfortable. With the new brand comes picking new colors and styles. Jesse even made a few tweaks to the logo to make it stand out better.
PayPal and game wallet integration continues (see the FAQ for more information about our Tributes, Affiliates, & Invitation System). We talked about a few different return scenarios including one that added the new word “re-kulaing fee” to the official Fractured Veil Development Lexicon. Jesse continued working on the box art and company logo. We looked at a number of other possible products, and we’ll have a Manimal poster available in the store soon for fans of extreme refreshment.
Terry continues his shader work and we talked at length about supporting a Vulkan Linux client. We did a bunch of ui cleanup and a lot of work on drag-n-drop in the inventory. Currently, we’ve got the dragging part nailed, the dropping part….not so much right now. We’ll have weapon attachments soon, and we continued work on the quick bar. However, we ran into a problem with how the bar and inventory work together. The bar takes into account weight but not size. This leads to some edge cases that have to be addressed, or a player will be forced to play an unwanted item stacking mini-game. We’re interested in killing mutants and building bases with your friends, not playing Tetris with ammunition, splint materials, and bottled water.
We ran into our most ironic bug to date, when we discovered that our water effects were leaking memory like a sieve. We hope to have the leak plugged soon. The automated building system took another step forward over the weekend. The loot spawning system is now integrated so that buildings not only come populated with the appropriate props, but they come with loot now as well. There is still some debugging and optimization work to be done, but we can now create multiple buildings, complete with furnishings and treasure, on the fly. This development sparked a discussion about expanding the system to other types of structures. Right now, we’re focusing on homes, but it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to make it work for larger industrial buildings as well, like factories. This would give us the ability to have similar large buildings, even specific ones, like a SSHAM factory, that would be slightly different in different worlds.
Lastly, we’re wrapping up the minor work needed in the communication tower. As you can see below, it’s almost ready for exploring, inside and out. Jesse is finishing up ui work for the elevator control panel, and we’re adding the tower sounds this week. “Sounds of the Tower”
may not become the hottest album of the year, but we think it will add another great feature to what has become one of our largest, and most detailed buildings.
We’ll be back with more sights and sounds later this week.
