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Version 0.1.2219: Server Travel, Map Improvements, and the Return of the Drone

Aloha Thrivers!

We’ve made many gameplay improvements with the help of the first two waves of Kickstarter backers and testers.

We’ve finished Veil travel! With the system in place, players will eventually be able to travel to other servers and alternate versions of Maui soon. It opens the door for us to create different biomes to explore, like deserts or even frigid versions of Lahaina, as well as other customized worlds down the road.

There are significant improvements to the map, making it more useful for players with the urge to explore and anyone looking for their body or bed. We’ve added an autorun button, completely reworked how jumping works, and revamped the “knocked down” state, so players on the brink of death get one last chance to be revived.

There have been many UI improvements, including all new key bindings making crafting and turning in quests easier. Talents have brand new icons, and we’ve added tooltips to vendors and the party screen.

Playing Fractured Veil has never been more player-friendly, and everyone’s favorite eye-in-the-sky is back patrolling Maui for anything that catches its lens. After some time in the shop, the Drone is back patrolling the skies of Lahaina!

Here’s a look at everything we’ve added to the game.

Veil Travel

We implemented our Veil travel system, so players will be able to use the technology that destroyed civilization soon. It will eventually allow players to travel to different servers to explore other versions of Maui with different biomes, creatures, buildings, or virtually anything else you can imagine. This is a huge step forward for getting the next wave of Kickstarter backers in the game.

Map Update

Recently, the map got a lot of love: It looks better, and we updated the radar and compass features. We added a bed filter that can be toggled on or off, perfect for every weary thriver looking for a place to lay their head, and made improvements to make it easier to use.

UI Update

There have been a ton of UI improvements to make gameplay easier. We want our players fighting to survive the deadly wilds, not wrestling with a screen.

Double-clicking an item in the crafting menu will now queue it up for being crafted. There are new keybindings for auto-run “=” and turning in quests “K.” We made sure that the item wheel and Hotbar now show the correct keybindings, and you can unbind keys by right-clicking on them.

We added new icons to all the talent trees that help explain what each Talent does. Choosing abilities from Builder, Survivor, Hunter, or Support roles has never been easier. We also fixed bugs that were keeping skills from leveling up properly.

Gameplay Improvements

We adjusted how the “bleeding” condition works. If you are already bleeding when you get hit with a piercing or slashing attack, your bleed rate will increase depending on your current blood stat. So watch out for a group of Butchers! To help balance things out, bandages now restore 750 to your blood stat.

We improved how jumping works, including new jumping animations and adjustments to landing speeds. Players also can no longer break their legs from falling in safe zones. Limping animations were fixed, and players’ death messages should correspond to their actual cause of death.

We changed what happens to players when they are also on the brink of death. Players on that familiar red-tinted screen now have a better chance of getting back up. If you receive a fatal hit that does not deal more than 25% of your total health, you will enter the “knocked-down” state. Entering this state gives a small bonus to health and a 30-second window to be revived. Just enough time if you’re traveling with someone quick with a medkit.

Misc Improvements

  • Adjusted the totem spear’s reload animation
  • Improve Banyan tree procedural foliage positioning angle
  • Setup vendors and teammate icons with updated data for tooltips
  • RPG Quest Tasks no longer automatically turn themselves in when they are complete
  • Added subtle lighting to the Thorcon Bank to help it stand out
  • Disabled crouching/proning while wearing a leg splint

Return of the Drone

The Drone is back by popular demand and a lot of hard work from the team! Lahaina’s eye-in-the-sky is patrolling the island 24/7 again and will soon begin live streaming everything that catches its attention.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed the barter skill tracking the number of things bought instead of the amount of rai spent
  • Fixed stamina drain modifiers not working
  • Fixed attachment loading for player-spawned containers
  • Fixed construction upgrade and repair skills not applying properly
  • Fixed AI health and thrown weapon damages not being set to their desired values
  • Fixed the recycling skill being inverted
  • Fixed the player limping animation no longer playing
  • Fixed scrap pick icon
  • Fixed auto-run not working if the client wasn’t the active window
  • Fixed reconnecting players not receiving replication of their previously existing dead body if it was in a safe zone
  • Fixed death messages not being displayed in the editor
  • Fixed the drowning death message not being displayed correctly
  • Fixed the AI’s ranged projectiles not causing the correct death message to be displayed
  • Fixed the HUD not always displaying the correct item count of acquired resources
  • Fixed double-clicking a craftable item on the crafting bench not placing the item in the bench’s inventory
  • Fixed items not being able to be picked up in certain locations if they were dropped from a container’s inventory
  • Fixed escape and backspace not functioning in the map UI
  • Fixed the stamina efficiency stat getting truncated and ignored at higher levels
  • Fixed the bleed status effect not being displayed on the UI
  • Fixed a bug where players could directly interact with the invisible containers that were spawned by the smelter and other instanced storage items
  • Fixed spamming the jump key occasionally causing the player to stop sprinting even if they continued to hold their sprint key bind
  • Fixed the Scrap Pick sticking into objects with its handle when thrown
  • Fixed the Scrap Pick not being visible in the air after being thrown
  • Fixed players not being able to make a totem in a PvE zone after recycling an old one
  • Fixed elevators not working
  • Fixed the bed filter not showing up on the filter UI
  • Fixed spawned containers respawning at server startup
  • Fixed the hud’s knockdown timer not relating to the player’s remaining lifespan
  • Fixed players temporarily disappearing while playing the knockdown animation
  • Fixed being able to turn in incomplete quests
  • Fixed the crouching functionality, checking if the player was able to prone
  • Fixed rebinding keys not causing the player’s item slots to update their keybind text
  • Fixed encumbered players moving faster than expected
  • Fixed veil machine taking all the money and rai in the slot
  • Fixed being able to veil travel while crafting is in progress
  • Fixed foliage not being fully replicated after leaving and returning to an area
  • Fixed pressing “Y” while knocked down not causing the player to be placed into the respawn screen
  • Fixed knocked down players not taking damage from other players

 

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Join Us At the Steam Survival Fest!

Aloha Thrivers!

We couldn’t be more excited to announce that we will be part of Steam’s upcoming Survival Fest!  We’ll be spending a week celebrating the struggle to survive, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. The festival runs August 1-8, so make some room on your calendar.

Learn more about our deadly paradise, beat the odds and the elements, and join us for a week of celebrating the spirit of survival. 

Take a look at a few of the special streams we have planned.

8/1 – StandardDamage will host a “Survivor to Thriver” stream with tips on how to survive Maui after the apocalypse. 

8/2 – We’ll have fun running the Lahaina Warrior Challenge with Allfunngamez

8/3 – 1cePrime will be battling it out in our special PVP area. 

8/4 – We’ll be protecting our base from a siege with one of the best defenders around, SajonArco

8/5 – OmniKevfka will help us test our survival skills.  

8/7 – StandardDamage is back with his amazing building crew to show off their skills with some incredible bases.

Make sure you join our Discord, so you don’t miss any of the fun!

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Version 0.1.2147: Talents, Siege Updates, and Renovations

Aloha Thrivers!

We’ve made some huge changes to the game with the help of our first 2 waves of Kickstarter backers and testers.

FRV’s starting area, the Thorcon Power Plant, got a huge facelift and content update. The main room is filled with vendors buying and selling everything a player needs to survive, and the respawn area is almost unrecognizable compared to just a few weeks ago.

We’ve added a fresh coat of grime to the sewer dungeon, made big improvements to the siege system, and updated the mutant’s movements, and battle tactics to make them more dangerous. However, The most exciting new feature for this update is probably the introduction of the talent system.

Designed from the ground up with the direct input of the community, the first iteration in the game right now allows players to explore four categories of specialization for their characters. This is a huge step forward allowing you to tailor your gameplay into what role you like best or explore other options you normally wouldn’t.

Here’s a look at everything we’ve added to the game.

Thorcon Power Plant Update

Every part of the game’s starting area has had a major facelift.

What was a fairly empty respawn room is now filled with everything a freshly restored player needs to start surviving.

The locker room next door has changed quite a bit from our early concepts.

It’s now almost as vibrant as the jungle outside.

The work we’ve done in the main room however is probably the most striking.

This huge open space is now a multi-level area filled with vendors, shops, shrines, and places for players to group up. Here’s a before and after video that highlights the huge changes inside and the starting area’s incredible transformation.

Sewer Dungeon Renovation

The Thorcon wasn’t the only renovation we took on, the sewer dungeon got a lot of love recently and some expansions.

We take a lot of pride in making our jungles lush and vibrant and wanted to put the same effort into making one of our favorite dungeons a foreboding place to explore.

In addition to the twisting wet corridors, we’ve added defensible positions for players who need some cover from the mutants lurking around inside.

We’re still working on building out some of the lowest levels, but there are already plenty of places for players to explore, loot, and fight.

Talent System

All of these renovations make a huge visual difference but our new talent system has a huge impact on gameplay.

We built the talent system hand-in-hand with our amazing community. We asked for ideas about builds and ways they’d like to specialize their characters while keeping in mind that we wanted to avoid anything that would give an unfair advantage in PVP.

Here’s what we came up with after listening to your input. Right now we have 4 basic roles you can explore: Builder, Hunter, Stealth, and Support. We still have some UI and balancing to do but this is another huge step in allowing players to customize their characters and work better in groups.

Siege and Totem Improvements

Building a base that is big enough to attract a horde of angry mutants (or starting a siege yourself) is a lot of fun, and we’ve made a ton of improvements to the siege system.

We updated how totems work for singular and combined bases ensuring that endless waves don’t appear for larger complexes and made sure a siege ends once all of the base’s totems are reduced to 20% or less health. The siege manager now keeps proper track of contributing players and we fixed bugs that would cause massive server lag when a siege was started manually.

We added animals and beasts to the cast of characters that can show up to tear down everything you’ve built, made improvements to AI pathing so the horrors of the jungle don’t get stuck, and made sure the siege manager prioritizes ranged AI if a base is hard to reach.

More Content, Improvements, and Features

We’ve been hard at work making a huge number of performance improvements and fixing a bunch of persistence issues that popped up with all the work we’ve been doing, particularly inside the now bustling Thorcon Power Plant. We’ve even reduced the game’s build size by over half. There’s a ton of new content in the game and we want to make sure it is running as smoothly as possible by the time we bring in Wave 3 of our Kickstarter backers. Here’s a look at everything else we finished or fixed since the last update.

VOIP Improvements

  • The VOIP system now keeps a weak pointer to the active world to reduce redundant looping when mapping players to their VOIP Talker
  • Increased the VOIP attenuation distance
  • The “VOICE Enabled” option in the settings menu is now functional. This currently defaults to off
  • Increased the VOIP sample rate
  • Fixed the VOIP system failing to apply its voice settings during initialization
  • Fixed the spatialized VOIP Talker failing to initialize correctly
  • Fixed a bug where respawning could cause the VOIP Talker to get stuck on the previous pawn
  • Fixed a bug where VOIP Talkers were muffled when speaking

AI Updates

  • Improved the tracing functionality of the poison clouds to more reliably hit nearby players
  • Adjusted the AI threat values to have AI more reliably attack players that are attempting to interrupt their sieging
  • Disabled trophy collector damage to sleeping players
  • Fixed Ranged AI occasionally getting stuck in place when pathing towards a forcibly added enemy
  • Fixed Ranged AI throwing their projectiles at the ground if their current enemy had never been in their line of sight
  • Fixed ranged and melee AI not properly attacking movement blocking actors such as players during a siege
  • Fixed a bug where the Trophy Collector’s poison cloud could occasionally get stuck inside walls and other objects
  • Fixed AI getting stuck on certain construction actors
  • Fixed AI not attacking placed crafting machines that were set to block movement
  • Fixed players not taking damage from AI
  • Fixed crash when killing AI
  • Fixed a bug where AI would fail to deal damage to actors when the actor was blocking their line of sight but not their movement

Gameplay Content, Improvements, and Fixes

  • Updated the coconut grenade model and increased the damage
  • Thrown weapon improvements
  • Added hints to the exploration menu
  • Stamina will last 2.5 times longer while sprinting and regen starts at 3.5 seconds instead of 5
  • Fixed an issue with sleeping players not using the proper animations
  • Added buff stat information to the talent screen
  • Added bonus fall damage height of 200m per level to the parkour talent
  • Altered the construction integrity checks to more easily allow placing walls on overhangs
  • Set third walls to be allowed to be placed anywhere, regardless of the integrity
  • Updated code for traits, attributes, wounds, and broken bones
  • Fixed Big Bob’s rock projectile not being visible to clients
  • Item recycle amounts have been updated to take item durability into consideration
  • Added tech level adjustments to crafting various weapon and tool types
  • Players can no longer shoot or aim down sights while sprinting
  • Fixed logging out while dead making the player unable to spawn properly on next login
  • Fixed containers spawning floating off the ground
  • Added Autorun, Pressing “Q” will toggle auto-running
  • Plants are now harvestable by pressing the use key rather than holding it

Community

As usual, we’ve fixed a mountain of bugs with the help of our amazing testers since our last update. The team has squashed over 150 in a couple of months getting things ready for Wave 3.  Join our discord server and check out the patch-notes channel for a complete list of fixes.

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Starting Area Facelift and Dungeon Renovation Preview

Aloha, Thrivers!

We let Wave 2 into FRV back in April and they have been a huge help testing the game and working with us as we build out all the new features we have in store for Wave 3. We have a lot planned for the next round of our Kickstarter backers like talents, server travel, base decorations, and renovations to dungeons and our starting area, the Thorcon Power Plant.

With our next big update coming soon we thought we’d give you a sneak peek at the facelift we’re giving the game’s social hub, the sewer dungeon, and some options for personalizing your base. We can’t wait to open the doors to the Thorcon and let you all inside.

Thorcon Power Plant Update

The difference inside the game’s starting area and social hub is night and day.

There are more vendors and shops where players can buy and sell loot inside the main room and plenty of areas to explore throughout the entire building.

Sewer Facelift

One of the best and filthiest places to explore in FRV is the sewers. With all the work we’ve put into beautifying the starting area, we thought we’d add a fresh coat of slime to the sewers too. We’ve tweaked the lighting and materials to make the place glisten in all the wrong places and finished a couple more areas inside for players to discover and loot.

Base Decorations

Base decorations were one of the stretch goals unlocked in our Kickstarter campaign and one of the most requested features from players. We’re working on lots of things to customize your builds like lighting, planters, stoves, furniture, and other decorations. Here’s a look at a fantastic bed we recently designed that has everything a sleepy thriver needs to survive a restless night.

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Version 0.1.2029: New Construction UI, Environment Updates and EOS Integration

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.

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Version 0.1.2008 Patch [Major] – New Construction Pieces, Tools, and Wave 2

Aloha Thrivers!

Alpha Keys for Wave 2 backers of our Kickstarter campaign will be sent out Monday and we couldn’t be more excited! We know this wave took a little longer than expected but we’re overjoyed to finally open the game up to the next round of players. We’ll be hosting play sessions next week to get their initial impressions, gather feedback, and answer any questions they might have. Keep an eye on our Discord for specific times and dates.

Wave 1 backers were a great help testing the game and we can’t wait to show off the latest updates to Wave 2. This is one more giant leap toward getting all of our backers in the game including wave 4 (hopefully by the end of the summer). This will be the biggest wave yet and with their help, we plan on having the servers ready for even more players struggling to survive and exploring our version of Maui soon.

The persistence bugs may have delayed Wave 2 a bit but our testers were a huge help in finding all the issues slowing things down. We stayed busy adding new features and content for the newest group to enjoy as well. Here’s a look at the new stuff we’ve added and the biggest list of player-reported bug fixes we’ve ever had.

New Construction Pieces

We added some new roofs and rounded construction pieces in the last update but we’ve added even more recently, including all the materials that you can upgrade your base with.

For everyone who likes a more traditional look to their base, upgrading to wood might be right for you.

If you are more concerned about security or just want a more castle-like look try upgrading your base to stone.

Finally, if you got the time and resources nothing keeps the mutants out like upgrading your base to metal.

No matter what materials you decide to build your base out of, the new rounded pieces and roofs will open up a lot of creative designs options for everyone.

Underwater Improvements

In addition to the lighting and DOF improvements, we added recently, lots of you told us that we needed some sort of air indicator while you were swimming underwater. So we added this O2 meter to show exactly how close you are to passing out and drowning sounds to help reinforce the message when it’s time for you to come up for air.

New Harvesting Equipment

We added some great new tools to help survivors gather the resources they need to build bases and craft weapons and gear.

The scrap pick may look a little unwieldy but it makes banging on rocks a pleasure.

Next, we added a rusty hatchet.

The gear head ax is great for bigger trees and just looks cool.

Lastly, we’re showing off the felling ax, a great tool for clearing land and adding to the woodpile in a hurry.

Backend Updates

We’ve updated the persistence backend. The recent engine upgrade offered us a lot of new systems and features to make FRV better but it also opened up a lot of persistence issues. After a lot of hard work from the team, we finally have a brand new persistence and backend service layer that is reliable, making sure your hard-earned loot and gear stay yours. This is our second major step toward having multi-server travel in the game.

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Version 0.1.1923 Patch [Major] – 4.27 Engine Upgrade and Content Update

Aloha, Thrivers!

The Kickstarter campaign was an amazing experience for us and we can’t thank our backers enough! Your support allows us to speed up development time and take on a number of big projects that we’ve been eager to build all at once.

Since the campaign ended we’ve been mostly heads-down working on our first major update of 2022 and it’s a big one! We’re hitting the ground running with an engine upgrade, a complete overhaul of the landscape and foliage, weather and world updates, and tons of backend improvements that increase performance and lay the groundwork for players to travel between servers.

We’re really excited to share everything we’ve been building over the past month and welcoming wave 2 of our Kickstarter backers to the game very soon. We take a lot of pride in being a community-driven game and are thankful beyond words for your help and ideas. We couldn’t do it without you and look forward to making Fractured Veil even better with your continued support.

Here’s a look at everything we’ve done since the last update.

UE 4.27 Upgrade

Fractured Veil has been running on Unreal 4.22.3 for the past three years so this upgrade is huge!
Running 4.27 opens up all the improvements and features of five engine updates. Along with integrating Epic Online Services and Easy Anti Cheat to ensure that everyone is playing on an even field, these engine improvements will make the play experience even better.

We’ve just begun unlocking the huge optimization benefits and new systems that will allow giant leaps forward to our sky, weather, water, terrain, foliage, and VFX. Along with the performance benefits, players will notice the world and terrain improvements right away while we continue to optimize and integrate the new features 4.27 offers us.

Foliage Refactor

The foliage improvements are probably the most immediately noticeable update to the game. Trees are fully interactable with the wind, look more realistic, and are more performant. We’ve added foliage that can be harvested for resources (just fiber for now), and we are working on changing up the density of the jungle.

Following the roads and trails may be the quickest way to move across the map but they don’t offer much cover and open players up to ambushes with long clear shooting lanes. We want the jungle to be an option for those willing to take a little longer and encounter an occasional natural danger without running a gauntlet of opportunistic players.

Level Streaming and Management System

We’ve created a level management system that gives us much quicker iteration times when it comes to world-building and streaming. This allows us to split up maps, group them together, manage LODs, and add custom streaming rules for different sub-levels and dungeons.

Basically, this gives us the ability to create custom worlds for players to travel to and unique dungeons to explore much more quickly than before. Many of you have told us how much you enjoy exploring and this system allows us to create forgotten and foreboding places for players to explore and loot in half the time.

Construction Improvements

Forget laying another floor over your head to enclose your base, we’ve added roofs to the construction system. Players will find flat, triangular, and round roof pieces in their build menus now. Not only does this open up a whole new level of creativity to your builds but it allows new options when it comes to the wear and tear the weather can do to a base if you haven’t added a proper roof.

We’ve also added better construction piece snapping to make building faster and easier. In addition, placing construction pieces (just foundations for now) will destroy any foliage that overlaps it. This should put an end to plants and trees poking up through your base and open up some areas that were harder to build on.

New Weapons

Players will find a couple of new ways to fight off the hungry hordes. The first is a totem speargun. What it lacks in speed it more than makes up for in damage.

The second is a DIY post-apocalyptic rifle. It may not be the most beautiful firearm available but it definitely packs a punch.

World Improvements

Lighting Update

We’ve made some big improvements to the environmental lighting making a day, or night, of survival in Lahaina look a lot more realistic.

We also adjusted the light level of nights and the brightness of the moonlight to make it a little easier to operate under the cover of darkness.

Landscape Update

We’ve made some improvements to the depth of field system and like the foliage, we’ve reworked the landscape materials, puddles, and grass types to make the world look more realistic and improve performance.

Water Update

We’ve removed the old water system and taken advantage of the improvements available to us with the engine upgrade. This has improved the swimming mechanic, increased performance and along with the depth of field and lighting updates makes for a beautiful dive underwater.

Sky and Weather

It’s not just the land and sea that got an overhaul. We made some big improvements to the sky as well.

We’ve made the sky that famous Hawaiian blue, improved clouds and rain, and implemented new heavy fog perfect for covering escapes or hiding to ambush other players.

Altogether these improvements should increase performance, make the game run more smoothly, and provide a much more immersive experience.

Behind The Scenes

New Server Setup/Backend Changes

We have refactored our backend service and database layers, optimizing and decentralizing things and building a global deferred updater. Put simply this will allow for more players to be in-game playing at the same time, getting us closer to our goal of 500 players per world.

We’ve found and fixed over 260 bugs so far with all the new updates. As usual, our amazing testers have helped us track down some of the biggest and we couldn’t be more grateful. Your feedback is very important to us so keep it coming! If you’re interested in helping out, head over to our discord and let us know! Here’s a list of the fixed bugs that our players found.

  • Gaming News Hub – Minimap does not show the player position sometimes
  • Jester429 – 127 detector showing at feet when equipped
  • MJMPlays – Recycled materials can’t be used to craft
  • Logoes/Kitski – Continuous sieges
  • ClockBlockerX – Flipping an offset doorway wall via middle mouse button does not permit you to walk through it, even though it shows an opening.
  • MostlyEvil – Wall not connected to totem after replacing
  • 1ceprime – After server crash, was unable to reload SKAR. Had ammo in inventory, would play reload anim, but wouldn’t reload the ammo
  • MJMPlays – Can’t repair base
  • ClockBlockerX – Cannot walk up a section of stairs. Can remove stairs, and walk through, but cannot walk upstairs when I replace the item.
  • Ferdinandus – Rain coming through the bridge
  • AUSelite86 – Rain showing up on floors inside buildings
  • liliumsouldem, TSStechAngel – Fixed DOF settings not staying as selected
  • Logoes – Fixed weapon reload animations
  • ClockBlockerX – Shotgun shows holo sight even after it has been removed, does not show old reticle even after removing it.
  • Jerel Phoenix – Mutants moving through barb wire
  • KerryAnneKay – Disappearing campfires and smelters
  • ClockBlockerX – You can walk through glass in the Thorcon
  • Colt – Unable to access totem
  • DRWCFR – Totem won’t recycle
  • LazurusRising – Ability to drink soda on pickup does not work
  • Cr4zy4ce – The craft bench does not properly show required craft items to craft an object.
  • Kitski – Invisible door in base that can’t be interacted with
  • ClockBlockerX – Random door appeared in my build after patch attached halfway up a solid wall.
  • blazemonger – Chest disappears after character deletion
  • KerryAnneKay – My foundation was upgraded to full health when I logged out last night. When I logged in they were back to default installation values.
  • wisty-beth/blazemonger – Logged out inside house, logged in outside. Missing shirt, axe, rye, antibiotics, ssham, and totem is empty. Totem is still basic and has not been upgraded
  • MJMPlays/Kyttaen/Logoes – Totems and upkeep not working correctly
  • Logoes – Can’t complete crafting bench purchase at vendor
  • Najo – Arrows disappearing after logout
  • MJMPlays – Missing items from inventory and bank
  • LazurusRising – Loaded in to an encumbered character with nothing in inventory
  • Turt Renolds – Clothes changing design after logout

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December Update

Aloha Thrivers! 

If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to the past month, we’ve covered a lot of it here: plans for the rest of the year.

We focused so much on getting everything ready for the Kickstarter this summer that our team didn’t take any downtime. We’re all going to take some much-needed rest during the holidays but before then, we’re hard at work installing new software to the backend of the game which we think you’ll be happy about. 

Up until now, our alpha testing group has been relatively small, so we didn’t really have a reason to think about how to combat cheaters in-game. But with more waves on the horizon and new testers joining us soon, it was time to take action. It’s also important to us because we know it will make the experience of playing the game better all around.

Joining other games like Apex Legends, 7D2D, Fortnite, and Dead By Daylight, our update next year will include anti-cheat tools to help prevent some of the root causes of cheating which means fewer hacking attempts and a healthier community overall.

The way Easy Anti-Cheat explains it, “The traditional mass–penalization approach does not deliver long–term sustainable results and only divides communities.” This means that there isn’t as much of a risk for privacy invasion as well. They take player privacy very seriously and developed software that helps us in our quest to do the same.

It also offers us a support team to make sure we can find and solve any issues that arise once we get testers playing in the new version of Unreal.

It’s the first step on a long road of updates, but we wanted to share that it’s the first one we took as it’s crucial for the development of the game, but more importantly, the community!

We’ll be posting again in a few weeks with a look back over this wild ride of a year!

 

DEV

Our Plans For The Rest of the Year

Aloha Thrivers!

First and foremost we want to thank our great community once again for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal and unlocking a stretch goal. We couldn’t have done it without you and we can’t wait to show you how your support will directly impact the development of the game.

This was the first time we’ve done anything like this, bringing our game to a whole new audience and revealing our plans for the big features on the horizon like Veil travel, quests, and how we plan to balance PvEvP.

We were sharing a lot of updates during the campaign but with the holidays coming up, the end of the campaign, and the work we need to do on the backend to support all of our new players, we’re going to be heads down for a while. Here’s a video we made about the future moving forward and in case you missed it, here’s an update on the sounds in our game.

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We really want to make sure that everything in the game is working well so that we can speed up the process of getting our backers in the game as quickly as possible. The sooner we can do this, the sooner we can get your feedback and the better the game will become.

Most of our efforts for the next few months will be spent upgrading the Unreal engine and doing the necessary server work to accommodate upwards of 2000 players, including server travel.

We are actually right in the middle of updating to Unreal 4.27, which not only gives us a noticeable performance boost but it also upgrades our interactive foliage system, new water dynamics, and a lot of other visual improvements, as well as squashing some of those pesky persistence bugs.

Lastly, we’ll be implementing our new security and anti-cheat systems as this is one of the biggest fears we’ve heard from our community during our Kickstarter Campaign.

We’re also building a shop on the website for everyone who missed the Kickstarter or wants to use PayPal. It’s not quite open yet but soon you’ll be able to help support the game by securing an Early Access key and getting invited into the Alpha / Beta tests.

Next, we’ll be making the furniture and decorations unlocked in our stretch goal. We’re really looking forward to showing you the exciting new furnishing and decor options sure to make your base the envy of your neighbors and the mutants.

However, most of our efforts for the next few months will be upgrading the engine, server work, and making sure the game is on a solid foundation. The 4.27 engine update will also solve a lot of persistence issues and give us a performance boost. We want to make sure the game runs smoothly and you don’t have to worry about losing your stuff.

We should be finalizing everything with Kickstarter in the next few weeks (it’s taken us longer than we thought so thanks for being so patient), and then sending out surveys to all the backers.

We have a lot of work ahead but don’t worry, we’re going to do everything we can to open our doors to waves as soon as humanly possible. We’ll still be posting updates on our Discord and sharing progress shots all over social media, but mostly we’ll be keeping our heads down getting the work done to make Fractured Veil everything we know it can be. Mahalo!

DEV

Version 0.1.1682 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements

Aloha Thrivers!

Mahalo to our community for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal! The love and support you’ve shown us over the past weeks has been overwhelming and we couldn’t be more thankful. We wanted to make sure to squeeze in a few more fixes and improvements before the Kickstarter ended. Read below to see everything we’ve included in the days since our last update.

Updates and Improvements
  • Added vendor stalls and vendors to Thorcon area and updating lighting
  • Adding Locker room doors and contents to open lockers
  • Lighting update for thorcon areas
  • Added stone spiral stairs
  • Finished repair/refurbish bench UI and functionality
  • Disabled totems from unified chest looting
  • Removed shadow casting lights from some streetlights and point lights near the Thorcon

Fixes
  • Fixed bug where the ‘Registering Team’ screen was stuck when creating a team
  • Fixed some slider widgets becoming resized when moused over
  • Fixed AI causing an infinite loop crash when pushing other AI
  • Fixed a bug where items were unable to detect if they could be equipped in safe zones
  • Fixed recycling a stack of items not blocking interactions and allowing for duplicating items
  • Fixed collision not working for merged meshes inside the Thorcon
  • Fixed misaligned rivers in 3×4
  • Fixed the player inventory losing slots when swapping items
  • Fixed unequipping a clothing item into an overflow slot making that item forever invisible
  • Fixed repair count not being tracked for items inside repair benches
  • Fixed sleeping bags not persisting
Watch Fractured Veil Gameplay Footage

We had some fun exploring the island with tashnarr
Survived with darkosto and OnlyBentley
And looked at even more amazing builds with StandardDamage

Don’t forget to check out these videos from
BigfryTV talking about survival
running around the island with eNtaK
And some laughs with Anarchy HD.

Community Spotlight

From day one we’ve been driven by the community and your feedback is vital to our development so keep it coming! If you’re interested in helping out, head over to our discord and let us know! We love hearing your ideas and talking about what’s coming up next for the game.

Calling All Streamers!

If you’re a Content Creator and want to stream Fractured Veil, say Aloha!