The team kicked the week off focusing on group play, specifically healing other party members. We ran into a few bugs right away. While we finally have medkits in the game, we discovered that their medical efficacy was the same as a kiss on a boo-boo (or less, really). We’re tracking down the issue, and hope to have it straightened out soon. Until then, you’ll just have to keep telling your teammates to “rub a little dirt on it,” when they’re injured.
We found that bandages where only healing one injury at a time, even if multiple injuries were on the same body part. For example: If a player had multiple bleeding arrow wounds in their arm, a bandage would only stop one wound from bleeding. We’re fixing that, so a bandage will address all injuries on a specific part of the body once applied.
We’re testing our loot drops to work out any remaining bugs, and make sure players have plenty to do once they’re done rampaging through the jungle for the day. The team has almost all the kinks worked out of the item delivery scenario, and had fun playing a version of apocalyptic rugby, tossing a small totem around while trying to get to the objective point. During this time, we discovered that you could stick your head through a tree to see what was on the other side. We’re big fans of hiding behind things, particularly trees, so we’re working on a fix.
We added a pinging alert on player minimaps, letting them know that some grabbable gear has been dropped in the world, and its general location. Looting time based on the size of a container is almost done, so a big box will take longer to pick through than a small bag. Now, someone who runs through your camp won’t be able to grab everything your group worked hard for, before you get a chance to show them the error of their ways.
Crafting improvements continue, with some new ui elements, and dialogue boxes added to help streamline the process of building items, and answer basic questions like “I don’t arrive till late…how long will it go?” A lot of work has been completed on our monster AI. The horrors of the jungle now have senses to better see and hear players, as well as teeth and battle tactics to better eat them with. We just need to finish up by adding things like minimum fleeing distances, periodic damage checks, and group attack spacing, to make the creatures smarter and more dangerous.
We ran into a few problems moving everyone over to Git, but Terry and crew have the issues in hand, and we’re almost done with the transition. The new map is being pushed to production and the art team is busy filling it in. We’re starting on the Southern coast, and are working our way up, adding buildings and unique areas to the old network of roads, and foliage base already included in the map. We talked about changing a few of the geographical features of Lahaina to better highlight how the fracture changed not just society, but the Earth itself. The team discussed a few different possibilities, and we looked at some concept art of some exclusive post fracture cliff dwellings. Below you can see one the rare clearings in the jungle before it gets filled in with a structure of some sort.
We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.
