As the week gets started the web team continues the front page facelift, and navigation update. Jesse has completed images for all of our social networks, and is working on a few custom overlays for streamers, as well as layouts for upcoming contests and announcements. We’re combining site navigation all in one place to streamline things, and help users find what they’re looking for more quickly. A number of minor improvements like new modal windows, and an easier to find download button are in the works too. Jared is still working on getting the drone footage to display properly, and it should be streaming live footage of the wilds of post-fracture Lahaina soon. In the meantime, you can always watch on our YouTube page.
The tech team is putting out the last of the fires caused by the UE 4.20.2 upgrade, but we’ve worked through almost all of the problems the update caused. Terry has worked out the issues with trueSKY. Beautiful clouds, oceans, and sky are right around the corner. We fixed a number of other lingering bugs, including tracking down an issue that was causing certain types of loot to spontaneously disappear from your bag. Nobody likes disappearing bullets, no matter how easy they were to find.
We’re making a number AI improvements focusing in particular with firearms and our Trophy Collectors. We’re adding some situational awareness to our plague-ridden body part collectors. We found their actions, (especially in groups,) to still be more chaotic than we’d like. The team is focusing on adding some cunning, and improving their battle tactics. In addition, we’re teaching some of our NPCs, like the cannibals, to shoot first and eat players later. They’re learning things like: laying down suppressing fire, herding players into groups for melee combatants, and not switching their machine guns to full auto until they’re close enough to not worry about accuracy. Lahaina is about to get a lot more dangerous.
The first iteration of a player bank is nearing completion. Soon, players will have access to a self-contained inventory to stash away the things weighing down your pack, or that you can’t quite bear to drop on the ground. Our drone cameras are getting some love this week too. In addition to upgrading them with the newest geographical info to keep them from gliding through the ground, we’re putting in a lot of work teaching them what to film. We’re improving their audio detection, so that they will recognize things like a fight, stop, and film the action. We’re also teaching them when to move on, so they don’t get stuck on someone determined to chop down enough trees to start their own lumber company.
We’ve made some “quality of life” improvements to help make the game more fun to play, and even have a new starting tool/weapon in the works for players to use when they spawn in. We discussed making sure that crafted items had more “health” than items found in the rubble, and ways we can encourage players to experiment with alternative ingredients when hard at work at the crafting table. We’re not encouraging people to try to make glass rifles, but we want to reward those who think outside the box. We’ve made some improvements to the bow and compound bow to make them look and sound more realistic as well.
Finally, we took to Imgur this week to talk a bit about the progression of buildings in the game, and the importance of seeking shelter. The Great Fracture not only wiped out most of civilization, it also had a lasting effect on global weather patterns. Maui was no stranger to the occasional severe storm or hurricane, but after the accident, the weather became much more unpredictable. Finding decent shelter is just as important as gathering food and water. We looked at some early concept art and talked about the progress we’ve made. As you can see from this shot below, having a cold drink on top of the Communication Tower, is a much different experience than collecting rainwater in one of the ramshackle huts along the beach.
