DEV

Getting Groups Together

As the week comes to an end, the web team worked on making our ecommerce system better, and adding a few new features. Jared built a cron job to address an order processing bug that could leave some orders in limbo. Everything seems to be working now, and orders are being fulfilled through the store as they should. Jesse focused on cleaning up the packages page and highlighting the differences between them. He showed off designs for a table style view of game packages so players can quickly see what each offers, as well as a new and previously viewed products feature.

This was the first full week of sprint 21 and one of the things we’re working on is building a team play system. As the proverb goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Although it’s not strictly required, we want to do everything we can to encourage players to group up and cooperate to survive the dangers of post-fracture Lahaina. We’re working on: a team making feature, map markers so you can keep track of team members, a VoIP system, and a way for you to revive other players if you happen to let them get mauled by a shrig while you make your escape.

We’re also expanding our crafting system. The team is adding cloth and twine harvesting, rock harvesting, and have a smelting system on the horizon. We’re adding recipes for a number of basic craftable items too. Chris found an interesting bug when he was out cutting down trees for a little firewood. In addition to filling his pack with wood, the entire sky filled up with logs. We have talked about a number of strange worlds that might have been born from the fracturing of reality, but we never considered the possibility of Woodworld before. We talked about it for a while, but the only thing we could agree on is that there would be no trimarans under any circumstance. Ultimately, we decided to just fix the bug, but not before grabbing the screenshot below.
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Of course we continued work on our near real-time game news service, the Veil News Network (VNN), as well. Jesse worked on some lingering layout and icon overlapping issues, while Jared continued working on ways to randomize the language used in the newsticker. Making language sound unique in an automated system is not easy, but we’re working on it, and continue to look into different solutions.

While the art team adds the finishing touches and animations to the underground respawn area, we looked ahead at a few different areas and places of interest. The game will soon have new weapon parts to modify your favorite gun, a mine to explore, and an old oil tanker. We looked at a number of intriguing concept drawings of downtown areas and buildings. Below is a look at what one of our luxury hotels might look like 60 years after civilization collapses.
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We’ll be back next week with the latest updates and images.