teams Archives - Page 2 of 2

Hunting Bugs and Bouncing Clubs

We made a lot of progress on team ui, and a team page over the weekend. Jesse showed off some wireframes, and we talked over some potential user flow issues regarding playing with a group. We discussed numerous filtering options for finding Friends and House members who are playing the game, and quick ways to invite them to your group. We talked briefly about some of the mechanics involved with trading, and worked through some potential issues.

We’re finishing up some team related mechanics this week too. Soon, you will be able to heal team members, and others with healing items. You could splint your own leg previously, but we’re expanding the healing gear, and allowing players to extend medical help to others. We discussed some future goals for our crafting system, and the possibility of making specialty rounds down the road.

Progress on our second loot drop scenario continues. Players can now claim a building, and if they can keep control of it for a set period of time, a loot area filled with gear and survival equipment will open to the them. We discussed our ingame money, Rai, a few loot distribution goals, and the overall game economy. A few weeks ago we added the ability for a player to throw a melee weapon in combat. This week we added some animations to make it look better, and physics rules so weapons can now bounce around after you hurl them. There are very few things cooler than throwing a shark-toothed axe at someone, but bouncing one off of a pillar before sinking it into an opponents head is one of them.

The web team continued their work on a game map for the web page. We’re still having some trouble lining up key landmarks with the ingame map, but we’re making progress. We’re busy squashing bugs as they appear, and making some performance improvements to the page. We’ve optimized images across the site, and fixed some icon rendering issues.

It wasn’t just the web team bug hunting over the weekend either. We addressed a loading screen issue, and fixed a bug that was crashing staging. The HUD got a lot of improvements and tweaks as we close in on a final look and ui design. The Settings ui received a lot of attention and updates too. Changing your game preferences should be quick and easy now, even if your trying to play at work.

Finally, we’ve added audio support to a number of areas, but have a few more to go before every area sounds as unique as it looks. We added a few quality of life improvements to the game as well. A fire does more than just look pretty now. A player standing near one will warm up faster than normal, and it will even dry off your clothes much faster than usual. Our spawn area expansion and facelift is nearing completion. We could still use a few decorations to draw the eye away from the wet brick and mildew, but the spawn area is almost ready for newly restored players.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.

May 15, 2018

Drone Improvements and Getting Parties Started

The end of the week marks the beginning of sprint 23, and the team is busy going down the list of new goals. San added a QR code to the Veil News Network (VNN) live stream. It shows the coordinates of the camera and time, so we can compile a searchable index of drone footage. This allows us to pull scenes from specific areas and times so we can put together videos like, “Today’s Bloodiest Kills On Baby Beach.”

Jesse showed off some mockups of the upcoming Live Feeds page. He’s working on a few layout issues, but progress is good on both Player and House streaming pages. Jesse added some neat wallpaper and background image options too. We’ve made some ui improvements, and are working on an improved drone HUD as well.

Jared fixed a number of bugs, including one that was serving broken images with invite emails. He added a feature that allows you to send a brief message with invites, and friend requests too. We’ve made significant progress on a House theme gallery, and it’s almost ready for production. It will allow House leaders to quickly choose various banner styles, and set a color scheme that looks great automatically.

We made good progress on a Party section for group play. Players can: filter a list of players for friends and House members, search for groups, or create a new party. We’ve added some party controls including kicking a member from a group, and appointing a new leader. Now your group doesn’t have to break-up when your leader’s boss catches them playing the game during work hours. We plan on adding a minimap on the page so you can see party member locations, and are working on some party ui improvements.

The web team continues work on a game map for the web page. We’ve created a height map of the play area in Western Maui, but ran into some trouble lining everything up with the ingame map. We talked through some possible solutions, and discussed some overlay options that would be useful for players on the website.

We added some new weapon animations. Spears will now travel beautifully through the air at their intended targets, instead of teleporting, and we fixed the aiming issues on our M1A for all you fans of iron sights. We talked over some SCM issues, and have a new plan for going forward with less headaches.

The art team is working on filling in the map with new structures, and areas to explore, section by section. We looked at a number of new concept drawings, and discussed the best use for already existing structures like bridges and overpasses. Finally, work on the new respawn area is marching forward. Most of the main structure is built now, so much of the work going forward will focus on styling, and “the Hawaii-fication” of the underground sanctuary. Below are a few of the latest shots.

We’ll be back next week with more updates and pictures.

May 10, 2018

Playing Well With Others

This week marks the end of sprint 22, and the team is busy adding finishing touches and hunting down bugs. We talked over issues with the live VNN feed and discussed what features we’d like to add next. We’re building out a “Live Feed” area in the Media section, and Jesse showed off some wireframes for different feeds and options. We worked on user flow for both House and player streams, and worked on a few different stream overlays as well.

We made a few more ui improvements to the HUD, and the Settings section. We fixed a few minor icon issues in the inventory screen, and we discussed the possibility of allowing players to access their inventory on the web page. The team discussed what that would entail, and to what degree a player would be able to do things with their items while not in the game. We also made a first pass at our ingame currency, rai, and talked about different ways players could find/earn rai in the game. Game economies are a tricky thing to get right. We talked about the flow of resources, and how that interplays with money. The last thing we want to create is an artificial shark tooth bubble on the island, and have the whole market collapse.

We made a bunch of animation improvements too. A bug that would keep a player trapped in a calf and shoulder burning ladder-limbo has been fixed, so players should be able to climb up and down with ease. We added numerous other player and weapon movements, and are fixing long-standing issues with how iron sights work. We’re adding an audio cue when an item breaks, so you don’t charge into combat with a broken machete, or a gun with a heat-warped barrel.

The art team continues work on the newly improved respawning area. As you can see from the shots below, players now have a bit more room to run around when coming back from the dead.

Jared did a bit of maintenance and is hunting down a few bugs in the shopping cart. We added improvements to a House theme editor, and did a bit of ui work to player and House cards. We started work on a “Party” section on the Community page for group play. The team talked about easy ways a player could let his friends know that they were available to play, and simple ways to invite others into a group.

Numerous performance and material improvements continue with really good progress, as well as AI improvements to animals and creatures alike. We want to make sure the horrors of the jungle act in horrific ways. Lastly, all the lighting and environmental work we’ve done is really paying off, as you can see in this shot of a dock, and the crystal clear water below.

That’s all for now. We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.

May 8, 2018

Arts and Crafts and Loot

The Veil News Network (VNN) live drone cam is up and running on the front page, giving you a view of what’s happening in real time in the game. We fixed some of the roller coaster like rotations, and it now avoids hitting the terrain to a greater degree. We discussed ways to expand camera drone coverage, and improving the feed, including: adding some more realistic information, temperature indicators, FOV adjustments, and other items. With that said, it looks good, and the fact that it isn’t prerecorded, but an actual look at what’s happening in the game, as it happens, is great.

Terry has been working through some merge and build issues this week, while the team has been focusing on crafting and recycling in the game. All items in the game now deteriorate with use, and provide different amounts of raw materials when recycled depending on their condition. Player’s machetes will now dull, armor will get worse every time you’re shot or stabbed, and guns get a little worse with every round run through them. We talked briefly about the inclusion of a possible repair system down the road, and how it might work.

Speaking of crafting, Chris has turned his house into the official Fractured Veil Arts and Crafts HQ with the addition of a 3D laser. He’s been cutting, engraving, and etching his way to mastering his new machine with some pretty good results as you can see below. We talked about some future projects, discussed how terrible burning acrylic smells, and Chris showed off his jury rigged exhaust system.

The web team has been doing some refactoring and testing this week. Jared is finishing up some final work with our email and notification system, and Jesse has been focusing on some ui improvements. We talked about some new House features we’d like to add down the road. We’ve been working on adding a few more Hawaiian style touches to various logos and assets. Jesse demoed what some of those would look like, as well as a few future layout plans.

Our group system is fully operational and got some ui love this week. Group members can now see how far away they are from each other, their respective health status, can respawn on a group members name, and can revive a member who has taken too much damage to be useful in combat. Our AI work continues to make sure the creatures in the jungle are dangerous enough, and we’ve tweaked a few animations to weapons and player movements.

Finally, the art team worked on some audio issues that popped up this week, various HUD and settings updates, and other performance related issues across the game map. We finished our first loot drop system to keep people moving around the island, and creating a reason to fight other than just a general urge to murder others. Our day and night cycle and lighting work continued as well. Here are a couple of shots at the beginning and the end of the day, to show how good it is looking currently.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates.

April 25, 2018

Taking a Flying Tour of What’s Left of Lahaina

We started off the week by getting the team system up and running. Players now have the ability to make groups with their friends, or anyone else who’s up for running around the ruins of future Lahaina, looting and shooting indiscriminately. There are map markers indicating how well everyone is staying in formation for tactical strikes, or to point out who’s chasing deer instead of concentrating on the objective. You can also now spawn on a team member’s name so it’s easier, and faster to keep the band together. There is still some minor ui work to do, but for all intents and purposes, the first pass at our group play system is ready.

San and the web team continued their work on drone cameras and the Veil News Network (VNN) page. We have a live camera drone tour of the island up and running on our YouTube page. There’s still a few kinks to work out, like not passing through an occasional rock or tree, but it’s a great way to see the game world, and a terrific start to our goal of a network of cameras catching the play action live. We talked about adding an adjustable field of view to the camera drones, and various overlay options to change the experience as well.

Jesse and Jared continue working on the VNN page itself. We talked about different future video options for viewers including the possibility of time lapse feature, to allow players to see anything they happened to miss during a busy Lahaina day. We’re fixing bugs as they appear, (we recently had an issue with weather from different worlds not displaying), and making a number of improvements to the page itself. We talked some more about possible feeds and different VNN channels. If you have an idea for a channel you’d like to see, let us know in the forums.

We’re adding audio support to a number of buildings and locations, as well as running through the map, and making a list of the places that don’t sound quite as good as the should. AI work continues too. The animal AI is mostly wrapped up, and we should have semi-intelligent NPCs/creatures in the near future. There’s a few new animations in the works as well. We’re focusing on a few last weapon animations to make them look more realistic, and some player movements too. This week we’re focusing in particular on ladder animations, focusing on player’s hand placement and head tilt while climbing. In addition we’ve completed the first tier of a loot dropping system, that is designed to let players know when a new shiny piece of gear is available in a certain area. It’s up to them to find it, and claim it before it gets scooped up by someone else.

Terry spent some time working through some auto-merge issues, and our neverending map and performance improvements continued as usual. We talked at length about the latest improvements to our programmatic building system, and discussed a number of custom buildings we could design and put together using the system. The detail and lighting work inside our big buildings continues, with the focus for now on the Communications Tower. As you can see in the picture below, the elevator in the tower got some attention this week and is looking good. We can’t however vouch for its safety, so ride at your own risk. Also, we are not certain if the wolf noises at the bottom and top are gone, but we’ve become attached to them…

As always, we’ll have another update later this week

April 17, 2018

Testing Teams and Gear

This week marks the end of the old sprint, and the beginning of 22. The teams are busy finishing up some last minute work, fixing bugs, and setting goals. We’re adding a bit of polish to the group play system, but it’s ready to test. Players can make teams, use team VOIP, see members on the map, and revive teammates who ducked when they should have dodged. We plan on spending the next sprint squashing bugs, addressing problems as they arise, and running around, shooting the hell out of each other until we’ve worked out all the kinks. We don’t want to leave the creatures of the forest out of all the gratuitous violence though. We’ll be doing some AI work, to add another element of danger to groups venturing out into Lahaina.

We’re working on the loot economy/distribution system too. We’re making sure that the loot not only flows, but it flows in an appropriate way across the entire map. The goal is to avoid creating an area that gets too crowded because we’ve inadvertently created a looters paradise. We’re also making some improvements to our crafting and recycling system. We’re adding deterioration to items, and the recycling mechanic. Players will no longer have machetes that can hack through a thousand trees without suffering from some wear and tear, or becoming dull. We’re also making sure a brand new item provides more raw resources when recycled, than a piece of worn out junk.

The team is adding some audio support, and working on weapon and player movement animations to make characters look more natural, and add a level of authenticity to weapons. We’re also making a material upgrade to help performance, and make the props you’ll find around Lahaina look more realistic. The before and after shots below are a good example of how things are improving.

Of course our Veil News Network (VNN) work continues. The web team is working on video stream improvements currently, as well as stinger and bumper videos to fill in coverage gaps and transitions. Jesse is hard at work putting together a VNN lead-in video and working on a few overlap bugs.

Terry was busy digging into some merge issues we ran into, and we’re working on some streaming, destreaming, and performance improvements. Improving map and large building performance is a never ending task, and we’re focusing on three large buildings this sprint in particular: the Thorcon Power Plant, the Veil Station, and the lighting inside the Communication Tower. We’ll be doing some HUD updates and working on graphics on the settings menu as well. The team is adding animations to the respawn area and building out our cave system, in addition to few other spots of interest on the map. We’re also finishing up the texture, weather, and lighting work for the wild places around Lahaina. As you can see below it has really improved the quality of our beaches, but we still don’t recommend taking time to make a sand castle without a weapon handy.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates and pictures.

April 10, 2018

Working on the Weather and Group Play

The web team continued their work on creating the Veil News Network (VNN) this week. Designed to keep players updated with the latest ingame news, and important events, the news service is making good progress. We’re giving VNN its own section on the website, and are working on some animated scenes and embedding 3d assets to join the live video feed and newsticker. The team talked about different layout options, and ways to highlight the new section. This got us talking about using this template for various ingame companies in the future, giving them their own section on the front page. Jesse refined some of the layouts on the merch page and worked on resizing some logos too.

The art team continued work on creating a new spawn area. We’re keeping the underground/abandoned sewer motif, but are turning our one room studio into a spacious 3 room apartment, complete with a little hang-out area perfect for talking about your day, and sharing the location of clean water. It’s sure to be the envy of anyone being brought back to life after the fracture. They are working on a few concepts for other areas and buildings mentioned in the game stories as well. The armory is next on the list, and we should have some shots to share soon. Chris chose this moment to talk about the history of Titan I missile silo control domes, which one of the underground spaces resembled.

We continued our work on a group play system. The first pass on ui work is done, and we have team map markers in place, as well as VOIP. We want to encourage group play as much as we can, and are just about ready to start testing the system we’ve built. If all goes as planned, next week we will be happily running through Lahaina in small groups, avoiding the dangerous animals, and horrors of the jungle, while hunting each other down. We discussed including some sort of contested resources scenario, or a situation where teams have to hold the communications tower for a period of time. To be honest, it’s probably going to look more like a bloodbath than a tactical group effort to obtain a goal at first, but we need to test out every part of the team experience, even killing a whole bunch of people.

We did some more AI work, and San ran an experiment to see how much performance was impacted with multiple AI’s running around. The art team are making a materials change that looks much better, and saves on the GPU as well. With our TruSky issues worked out for now, there is some gorgeous weather in the game currently. However, as Grant would say they, “left the curtain on the sausage” until the end, when they showed off the latest lighting work in conjunction with a working weather system. You can see below how gorgeous our weather and day/night lighting work is in the game right now.

April 5, 2018

Lights, Cameras, and Filming the Action

This is the last full week of sprint 21, and much of the team’s work is focused on rooting out bugs, and adding some finishing touches to what we’ve been working on. One of the biggest goals this sprint was to get a team system up and running for group play. All of the backend work is done, and we’re just working on the ui now. Voip and team member map markers are ready to go. We’ve added the ability to teleport to a character using their name, and an ability to revive a downed team member so nobody has to be left behind when your situation turns dire.

We’ve added a few new recipes to the crafting list and some new gun parts. Just about everything you can find is craftable now. We fixed some of the harvesting bugs involving large trees and rocks holding onto their wood and minerals, and revised the weights of some harvestable items. Players no longer have to worry about breaking their backs if they’re carrying more than three feet of twine.

The web team continued working on the Veil News Network (VNN) news feed, videos, and live streams. We ran into a bug that was freezing the live stream in some cases, and Jared is digging into it. Jesse continues working on the video layout and frame. We continued our discussions about where to display the video feed, and expanding an area on the website for VNN news. The team is putting together some cinemagraphs to fill in spots between videos, and some stingers to play between stories to make the service seem more real. “You won’t believe what common, everyday object is killing players along Front Street!”

To shoot the news you need, San has been busy working on robot camera drone automation, and hopes to have the command plumbing done in a few days. In the near future, we’ll have some rough camera controls to set position, queue up splines, set paths, adjust views, and other useful commands. It won’t be long before the VNN drones are capturing all the latest action live in Lahaina.

Terry finished the trueSky rebuild so many of our strange weather issues will hopefully be resolved. He did a lot of server maintenance, and is fixing some automerge issues too. Our animal AI is fixed, so all of mother nature’s creatures should act naturally now. We’ve had some issues with animals charging straight into the sea when they detect movement, and some of the predators rolling over like they’re asking for a belly rub before trying to maul you. We’re working on making the monsters smarter currently too.

Lastly, we’re adding a bunch of audio support across all areas of the map, finishing up some performance improvements, and working on some lighting upgrades. As you can see from the shots below, things are looking great morning, noon, and night.

We’ll be back later in the week with more screenshots and updates.

April 3, 2018

News Streams and the Roads Most Traveled

With the Veil News Network (VNN) newsticker working across the front page, the team is focusing on getting a live video system working for specific news events. We have a fixed camera live stream on our YouTube page with some terrific, (for some definition of terrific), Hawaiian elevator music for accompaniment. Jesse needs to rework the overlay to give access to the video controls, and make it responsive for people with smaller screens and mobile, but the view can be quite beautiful when the sun is rising.

We plan on recording a few videos of certain areas to highlight places to explore, and cover any holes in our live coverage. We talked about ways we could adjust and present the service to make it look and feel like a real news organization. The team discussed in depth how it currently has more of a public access/small local channel vibe to it, than a super-polished large news network feel. We’re going to make some slight changes in size, and placement on the front page in the coming weeks, but are pretty excited about how things are looking so far.

We continue to work on a system for team play, and Jesse showed off the latest stage of the team ui. Right now, it has an indicator when someone is talking, map markers that show the relative position of team members, basic information of cohorts, (for people not in your party only your name appears), and a noise indicator on the minimap. We want to be careful to not show too much information about other players crawling through the underbrush, or waiting to snipe a target however. So, we talked about ways to let more social players find new friends, and let the creepers creep.

We completed a big pass on crafting and resources this week. Virtually everything in the game is craftable now. We’re still having some trouble with very large trees and rocks giving up resources, but we hope to have it worked out soon. We also adjusted the weight of resources, as everything was way too heavy before. Now players can feel free to make enough twine to put together a shirt without becoming overburdened and an easy lunch for the wolves.

We are finishing up our shopping cart improvements this week as well. Every game package is colored coded, and has images of everything included now. We plan on having a table style view for comparing them ready for production soon.

Lastly, the art team showed off the latest concept drawings of the spawn area, and other parts of the map. We plan on expanding the spawn area from just one room to three, and we looked at the first iteration of an explorable mine area. One of the benefits of using an actual map of Lahaina is that much of the map layout work is done already. We discussed which areas, such as farmland, we need to alter for the game and which we can use as a template. We plan on leaving a few main roads for travel from one place to another, and converting some of the ones off the beaten path into dirt trails through the jungle. You can see below what the fracture, and 60 years of neglect has done to some of the residential roads in Lahaina.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back later with more updates.

March 29, 2018

Team Building and Bots

This week the web team turned their attention to the next step in our Veil News Network (VNN) service, live streaming the news. We’ll be focusing on “Travel and Leisure” stories at first since there aren’t a lot of people running around shooting, hunting, and looting yet. We talked about having a few “previously recorded” videos of noteworthy areas to support the live streams, and different ways to integrate videos for Houses and players. San will be revisiting the work he did on the drones and camera bots to get automation working smoothly. The video must flow!

Getting team play up and running is one of the biggest goals for this sprint. Jesse is working on some layouts and an overall ui for teams. For now we want to keep it simple, with information about player states, distance away, whether or not they’re transmitting VOIP, and other basic stats. We have a “knocked down” player state almost complete. Previously, when players lost too many shock points the screen would just go black, which isn’t a lot of fun. Now you’ll be able to crawl around screaming in agony until someone helps you, or drag yourself someplace safe to hide until the horrors of the forest move away. The goal is to have a simple ad-hoc team system in place next week.

We had a long discussion about player anonymity, and specifically in regard to groups. The team went over many possibilities on how players might identify other players around them that wouldn’t lead to knowing their exact location. After all, having your player name pop-up on the minimap while you’re trying to snipe others from an opposing House isn’t exactly ideal. We discussed using distance for getting different levels of player info: far away, you know players exist in a general area, medium, you know what House they belong to if any, up-close, you can see their player name….We also discussed how you could interact socially with unknown players when you are in a group.

The web team has a table style view of game packages just about finished. Jesse is adding the last of the merchandise icons and images, and the final layout bugs are being squashed. Soon you’ll have a quick and easy way to see what each game package includes, a brief description of each item, and a way to compare them all.

Lastly, we’re just about done with our initial crafting work. Players can harvest rock, wood, metal, and twine. Cloth can be made from twine, basic armor is craftable to protect your soft parts, and players can build a bow. There are so many craftable items now, that we’re adding a quick filter to help players find things faster. We’re making sure that there are plenty of things to harvest throughout the map, to keep players moving around. As you can see from the shots below, the beach has plenty of resources for players to take advantage of, as well as some beautiful scenery.

We’ll be back with more later in the week.

March 27, 2018

Tag: teams