As we near the end of the week, the web team continues their push to create our real-time, in-game news system the Veil News Network (VNN). We hope to make VNN an interactive tool for players to keep track of important events and happenings regarding their friends, Houses, and the world they’re playing in. Jesse demoed a first run at an active newsticker design, and it’s looking good. Jared is building filters so players will be able to see only news regarding Houses or Players, and we discussed other filtering options. I’m not sure we’ll get as specific as having a setting for animal only news, to keep you updated on all the latest raccoon gossip, but we’ll break it down with some useful granularity.
We discussed a few bugs that we found already, and we’ll be spending the next few days in squashing mode. We’re working on icons specific to certain types of stories passing through such as alerts, weather warnings, and breaking announcements. We decided we’d have a permanent “weather desk” section with the current weather conditions somewhere alongside the newsticker. Jesse is working on the design and layout now, and Jared is working on creating an rss feed for your convenience.
With so many components coming together, we had a discussion about the direction we’re going, possible future uses, and potential problems with the VNN service. We talked about the issue of keeping the news specific to different game worlds, how often the news should refresh, and creating a realistic news cycle in the game. The team went over some different options for classifying stories, and adding visual cues to certain types of stories on the front page.
In non-news related news, Jesse is doing another pass on the Manimal can design after the proofs came back a little distorted from the distributor. He’s also still working on finalizing a kula coin design (our premium currency). You’ll see both on the merch page soon.
The art team is focusing much of their time on adding a number of needed animations. We’re adding them for a number of harvesting tools, including the pickaxe so you’ll finally be able to live out your favorite murderous miner fantasy. The Nuuskin booths in the respawn area, and spawning itself will get some animation love, and so will shooting in a prone position. Right now when a character goes prone to steady their shot, they end up lifting the front part of their body off the ground, taking on what we’re calling the “Cobra Pose” when the bullets go flying. While it’s enough to make even the most die-hard back muscle enthusiast jealous, it looks a little weird, and seems hard on the hip flexors, so we’re going to fix it.
Finally, we’re adding some touches to the sewer respawn area. We plan on including a few more Hawaiian touches to brighten the room, and make your brief stay more comfortable. In addition, we thought the room in general could use a bit more grunge, and we dirtied the water, to make the experience a bit more authentic. The stream passing through the room is now the questionable grey we had always intended as you can see below.
