To wrap up the week, we’re making some minor adjustments to the Veil News Network (VNN) drone camera. Showing off major structures, and points of interest in real time inside the game, the VNN live stream is a great way to see what’s left of Lahaina, and what’s happening around the game world. Our first pass on the drone HUD is complete, and is looking good. We talked a bit about future view options with things like infrared or low light, and adding different bits of information to the HUD as the drone makes its rounds flying above the island.
We talked about a few new items that we could add to the merchandise selection down the road, a number of different Manimal products in particular. This led to a discussion about the current state of crafting in the game. We talked over ways players could learn new recipes, and the possibility of rewarding those who like to experiment on the crafting bench. In a related topic, we’re adding more recycling options to items in the game. Currently, when you’re done drinking a beverage, you can recycle the can for a small amount of metal. We plan on increasing that list this week, so players will be able to reuse a number of objects for basic materials. However, we still have no plans to allow players to recycle troublesome House members for their meat. We’re not monsters.
Our spawn area is getting some attention. We’re adding the finishing touches, and discussed leaving a few more survival items lying around, to give players a reasonable chance of making it on the surface. We’re adding some audio support to the area, as well as other spots across the map. Soon players will be able to enjoy the sound of buoys softly clanging in the waves, while being chased down the beach.
We looked at some concept art of the entrance of our cave area, and talked about what and who we’d like to add to the upcoming spelunking spot. We continue to make progress on AI work. We’d like to give the unfortunate creatures twisted by the fracture, a fair shot at taking down players with sound tactics and battle strategies, instead of charging in straight lines to their doom. We’re expanding the mutant loot lists as well, so you never know what things you’ll find on them other than really old lint, shiny bits of plastic, and strips of chewed meat.
We continued our work on Team play too. We’re wrapping up any lingering bugs with our loot drop scenarios, (currently we’re having some AI troubles. The waves of enemies who are supposed to test the defenses of players in one scenario, tend to walk around like they are at a meet and greet, instead of charging the gates and breaking down doors.) and we’re finishing up the Team ui soon. We ran into a couple stamina related bugs that we should have fixed soon. Right now, a player’s stamina doesn’t regen properly if they are crouched or prone.
Lastly, we’re doing a complete materials review across the game. We’re stripping out all the remaining placeholder foliage for performance issues, and making sure it is replaced with the correct plants. We continue our lighting and weather improvements too. We’re adjusting the ozone to allow the blue skies to be a bit more blue, and make the stars shine a bit brighter at night. Below you can see just how good the morning sun looks in the game.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back later with more updates and screenshots.
