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Cartography Work and Making Waves

The team continues to push forward with our map improvements. We’ve stripped everything out, and started from the beginning, using higher resolution open source topography data, to make a higher fidelity copy of the Lahaina area. All the roads and some of the landmarks have been imported, and the art team is busy transforming them into their post-apocalyptic versions.

As the week comes to an end, our foliage pass advances with more native plants replacing some of our older undergrowth. This should not only increase performance, but add to the realistic look we’re shooting for. We discussed a few possibilities in regards to the borders of the play area, and whether or not we want some sort of physical barrier: lava, rock slide, poisonous fog, or something else to let players know they’ve reached the end of the world.

In addition to plants, valleys, hills, and roads, we’ve placed the communication tower on the map, and are using its position as a common starting point to help sync with the website game map we are working on. While we’ve finished a good deal of detail work, and a materials pass to boost performance on the tower, some of our other unique structures still need some finish work. The art team is focusing on the Thorcon Power Plant, and the Municipal Veil Station currently, adding a little polish to both, and incorporating some audio work specific to each building. We continue refining designs for the Armory, providing Lahaina’s survivors with everything they need to shoot, slice, and smash under one roof, and crafting machines/benches so you can fix broken gear, or affix additions to your favorite implement of destruction.

Speaking of crafting, we are making some ui improvements, and talked through various stacking, and drag and drop options to help players who are carrying around a small stores worth of raw materials, and parts. Jesse is working on some image improvements, adding some animations, and doing an overall styling pass to make sure things are consistent, and working smoothly.

We’ve been doing a lot of AI work too. The birds and animals are all acting appropriately, and are no longer flying into rocks, rolling over for belly rubs, or charging into the sea at the first sign of humans. Our monsters are making good progress as well. They veer out of the way of weapons fire now during a charge, and we’re working on having them make coordinated wave attacks. We’re not expecting impeccable battle choreography right away, but having them spread out while on the move, and not queue up at a door or window when they’ve found a player inside a building, will be a good start.

We made some progress on our third loot drop scenario, in which a player must deliver an object from one location to another while being stalked and attacked. If successful, they not only get to experience the pride of a job well done, but a pile of loot as well. The team discussed adding a mechanic that would make the amount of loot in a container be a reflection of its size, avoiding having 20 pounds of stuff jammed into a 10 pound bag, or a shipping crate empty of anything but a toothbrush.

The team has made good progress on the water this week. Being on an island, the ocean is just as much a piece of the scenery as the jungle, and the sky. We’re making shader changes to the ocean, and tweaking a few things to make it look as good as the rest of the island. As with the map borders on land, we discussed what we’d use to keep players from going too far out to sea. We want the water to be an important part of the game eventually, but we’re not looking to let someone set a new record for swimming the Auau Channel, all the way to Lanai. That’s a different game, and the whales use that stretch of water to breed and give birth anyway, so you should probably stay out of it. Below you can see a shot of just how nice the rolling waves look from the perspective of a swimmer.
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I’ll be back next week with the latest news and updates