A few critical bugs regarding Houses popped up over the weekend, so the teams started by squashing them and a few other lingering problems. Charters, and members should now show up on the House page, and a bug that made banners move oddly was addressed. Having just about finished the first tier of customization, Jesse showed off some mockups including a theme gallery which would automatically choose complementary colors and make sure that the chosen colors and text work together. We talked about the next step of an image uploader for custom banners or crests and the pitfalls of allowing people to add images. We want to make sure things stay on the decent side, so Chris and I volunteered to scan images for the naughty and abhorrent. I’m sure everything will be fine as long as we have some emergency eye bleach within reach at all times.
We did some more work in regard to inventory and crafting as well. For all you bayonet fans, weapon attachments are done, and we’re finishing up drag and drop for them. We have the same drag and drop system inside the inventory now as well, to make moving all your sweet loot around easier. We found a few bugs that need work yet, but for the most part we’re just adding a little polish before it’s done.
We added a little shine to our ecommerce system too. The web team made all the forms and fields look consistent, and upgraded the address book so you should be able to autofill your billing and shipping address after you’ve made your first purchase. However, we still need to switch out the old logo for the new, in several places on the page.
Work continues on the new map, and integrating the building and item spawning system. The shots below show how easy it is to create a neighborhood on the fly now.
The new HUD is coming along nicely and should be ready soon. We’re adding armor in the next few days, and are nearing completion on the compass so players will never get lost. We’re still have to add a few images and alerts, but the design is coming along nicely. We’re adding support for the new storm drain respawn area so players won’t have to stay down there and create a new society. We’re not interested in making Sewer Sims.
The team continues to work on the talent system. We have most of the 12 new talents in, but need to build out new systems for a few yet. The remaining animations for things like swimming and crossbows, should be done by the end of the week too. Finally, we have a lot of playtesting to do to work out the kinks. Some of us have started already by running around and shooting each other with bows and arrows, because if you can’t shoot your friend in the head with multiple arrow at 10 yards while playing a game, what’s the point in playing. As San says, “The compound bows are fun as f@#k!”
