The first full week of sprint 20 saw the web team finish up preliminary work on customizable House features. Players can now go to their House Settings page to: write their House charter, setup application instructions, load a House banner, pick their House colors, Integrate VOIP and streaming services, and assign a background image. We’re nabbed a few minor bugs as they arise, but players should be able to add some unique touches to their Houses now. Jesse is finishing a House callout page, and we discussed adding various email notifications, alerts, and overlay options during the next customization upgrade.
Houses aren’t the only things getting a makeover this week. We’re working on a complete HUD and fullscreen ui update as well. Our goal is to make a less cluttered view of Lahaina, with easy access to systems and equipment that a player needs to use often, or in an emergency. Things are looking great so far.
We talked at length about our in-game drone cameras, and setting up the Veil News Network (VNN) to keep players up-to-date about events in the game. Jared is hooking up our news API so that we’ll have real time data about player locations, kills, and actions in the game. We talked about a few different game tie-ins, real-time announcements, and integrating players and Houses. Our goal is to have a semi-interactive service that keeps track of everything going on in the game, and highlights the most important events, with some fun announcements thrown in. VNN, the news you need, the details you deserve.
The team is working out a few last kinks in the automated item spawning system so players will find more than disappointment in boxes, crates, and hidden spaces around the island. We’re continuing work on improving performance as well, by breaking down the map, replacing a few old structures, and updating the roofs of the programmatically built buildings around Lahaina. We’re working on adding some audio support to a few locations as well. Hopefully, it will be so clear, you won’t know if you’re listening to a nature documentary, or if a family of raccoons took up residence in your walls.
Finally, work continues on the sewer respawn zone. The subterranean safe space will give players who have just experienced a fatal assault a chance to reflect, and not be instantly hacked to pieces or shot while loading. As you can see from the shots below, it’s pretty nice as far as apocalyptic sewers go.
We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.
