To get the week started, the team added some animation improvements. Players shooting at an enemy on a sloped surface, such as a staircase, look significantly better now. They take a more natural stance, and move with the target, instead of the jerky right angle motions they had before. We made some improvements to spear and harvesting tool animations as well, making stabbing, chopping, and pounding look a lot better.
We fixed a few collision issues with some shack doors that was preventing the doors from closing properly. They not only look better now, but players will actually be able to get a moment of peace inside a shack if they’re running from trouble. We made some drone improvements too. We discussed how long a drone’s circuit around the island is, and bounced around the idea of making them recharge after a certain period of time. This would give players a chance to engage in shenanigans without it being broadcast, while the all-seeing eyes in the sky are getting juiced up. We added some temporary audio to them as well, until we decide exactly what we want them to sound like while they patrol the island.
The web team remains focused on the navigation upgrade, and the front page facelift. We’re adding some new animations, and Jesse is working on wireframes for a new story section down the road. In addition, we’re finishing up work on a call to action/contest section, and hope to have it all buttoned up by the end of the week.
We’ve mostly fixed our tueSky issues. It’s not crashing anymore, which is good for everyone who likes playing in a world with a sky, but we’re still running into issues with some cloud rendering. The team dug deeper into our crafting system and implemented new resource requirements for crafting recipes, and added resource recycling for items. Soon players will be able to craft more things than ever before, and toss them in the recycler if they so choose for the resources.
Since last week’s update, one of the things we’ve focused on is ranged weapons. We’ve added a bunch of new weapon sounds to make the crack of a rifle, and the thrum of a bow string sound more realistic. We’ve made mutants use ammo when they shoot firearms, and stop to reload when they’re empty. Previously the terrors of the jungle where running around with unlimited ammo. We’ve also put in rules to make them stop shooting a player when the player dies. Up until now, some of the mutants would occasionally lock on a target, and keep shooting or clawing them into oblivion, disregarding anything else around them.
We discovered and fixed a pretty funny bug with Trophy Collectors and thrown weapons too. It turns out that the collectors could throw something an excessively long distance if their enemy was running away when a throw was started. We’re talking crazy long here. If a player took off on a zipline to get away from a Trophy Collector on top of the Communication Tower, while the mutant started to throw something, that thrown object could travel all the way to the end of the line, hundreds of yards. The same turned out to be true if we were using the debug movement speed, running around the map. We’re adding a max distance to their thrown items now, so a Trophy Collector on top of a tower with a telescope doesn’t take over Lahaina.
We continue our work adding structures around the Communication Tower, and the Thorcon Power Plant. We’re making a pass over everything to make it more stylized and focus on building out set pieces with a common theme around the map. This work extends inside our unique buildings. Last week we showed off some of the work inside the Thorcon reactor room. Since then, we’ve been busy with a few other areas inside. Below you can see what we’ve done with the control room and the locker room.
