We’re well into sprint 31, and there is a lot planned. This sprint will focus on: Harvesting improvements, finishing up crafting tier 4 (including new ore resources and resource refining), advanced terrain work, filling out more world spaces, adding two new AI types, some drone refinements, completing player persistence, and more. You can always see specifics about the goals for the current sprint and previous ones on our sprint page.
The team finished work on banking persistence so players can store their most important items to safeguard them in the event of their untimely demise. We’ve also added crafting/recycling persistence so all your hard work building things, or breaking them down, is not in vain.
Speaking of breaking things down, the team is starting work on something that Chris is especially excited about, making trees fall when you chop them for wood. We’re still working out some collision and audio issues, as well as a bug that would cause harvested trees to still remain on the map. However, we should have a complete tree felling experience soon for all you lumberjack enthusiasts. (And that’s OK!)
We’ve also made some great trueSKY improvements recently. This has allowed us to work on the moon and stars and optimize some of our environmental lighting. You can see below how good things are looking during the day or the darkest night.
Lastly, don’t forget that you only have 22 days left to win a XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB in our contest. There are multiple ways to win including joining the Fractured Veil discord server, reserving your player name, or answering a question (just one, this isn’t a survey). The contest ends February 13th. It’s not a bouquet of roses, but a GPU isn’t a bad Valentine’s Day gift.
Still fighting off turkey hangovers, and the colds you always get at group events, we dug back in this week where we left off before the holiday. A lot of material and lighting work was done on the landscape as the team builds out the areas between the game’s main hubs, as well as along the coast. We made a number of day/night improvements and added ruined buildings and neighborhoods to allow players something to explore or set up an ambush between social hubs. We plan on taking another pass to add story elements, unique play features, and specific buildings to explore and loot, once we have theses areas connected.
We reworked the indoor lighting of the Armory, Communication Tower, and the Thorcon Power Plant after it had been disabled due to a truSKY issue. Players shouldn’t need to light an extra torch inside anymore to read their favorite book. Last week we found a huge part of the Thorcon reactor that we had somehow misplaced in a folder somewhere along the way. We’ve made a pass over it to match the rest of the interior, and will hopefully get it installed before the inspectors arrive. Meeting all codes and having the correct paperwork after the fracture is serious business. We’re also taking another pass at the look of the player bank, making it fit better with the game’s aesthetic.
Our hero buildings weren’t the only thing that got a revamp. For a while now we’ve discussed the damage balance issues we’ve had with weapons. The game’s craftable bow and hatchet were among the most powerful weapons for a while, but that’s about to change. We did a full pass on weapon damage and made quite a few changes to more realistically represent the ballistic damage of your typical firearm round. We also adjusted a number of gun stats including firing speed and fixed a melee weapon distance bug. Daggers will no longer have the same reach as spears, and you’ll need to get a little bit closer to a enemy to put your hatchet in their head now.
Speaking of bugs, the team fixed a few already this week. We boosted the interval between loot drops to 30 mins to avoid overlaps in delivery quests. Nobody is a fan of two of aunt Ruth’s jello salads at the Luau, one is more than enough. We fixed an issue with first person animations being used when using a weapon in third person. Also, we corrected a problem with damage highlights showing up on players when they weren’t healable. Medical co-pays are expensive enough, without phantom injuries showing up on characters.
The team made some harvesting adjustments and took a thorough look at the crafting cycle as it currently stands. We’ve made resources much more available and the amount a player can harvest per attempt has been greatly increased for some things. We looked at a few other games to see how they handle resource availability and the speed of their crafting cycle to help figure out that sweet spot, where the best craftable gear is attainable through diligent work, but not too easy. We also want players to be able to create useful gear throughout the crafting process, and not feel like the crafting grind is just a time waster. It’s a tricky balancing act, but we have a game plan in place, and know that we’ll end up making many more passes until we iron out all the bumps.
Lastly, we spent a little time on one of the most important parts of the environment and player survival, our animals. There are many things players have to battle or overcome in the game. In addition to the mutants, and blood thirsty players who just want to get as many kills as possible before their lunch break ends, the environment and animals play a huge role. Wolves and bears are a physical danger to players, while other animals can provide much needed food or leather, and some exist simply to make the landscape look and feel as authentic as possible. We have more about our animals on this imgur post with a few short clips of them in action. Below you’ll find a screenshot of a pack of wolves taking down a deer that is worthy of hanging in any bunkhouse or lodge, a shot of a bear making its morning rounds, looking for a player foolish enough to sleep in the open, and a few other shots of animals in the game.
The team is busy decorating the interior of the Thorcon Power Plant this week to get it ready for players, and the holidays. We looked over some concept art again, and picked out the bits we liked for the game’s social hub. We talked about the proper set decoration to give the interior the feel of something rebuilt after a global catastrophe, but still with some Hawaiian flair. We discussed how many or few inhabitants players would find inside, and what sorts of things would be available for purchase.
We looked at some work being done to the exterior too. We’re weathering the structure to show the wear and tear that over 60 years of neglect would take on the power plant. We discussed adding aircraft warning lights to the highest parts, and the other tall structures that survived the fracture in Lahaina. The team fixed the last of the stuck doors inside and out as well.
There’s a zipline from the Communication Tower heading towards the Thorcon now. It doesn’t deliver you to the plants doorstep, but it takes you a good distance, and you can’t miss the giant building looming just ahead of you when you get to the end. The team is busy building out those areas between as well. We’re adding farms to explore and gather resources, mysterious houses standing by themselves with an abundance of junk to root around in for crafting materials, and many other good places to check out, get attacked, or set up your own ambush if you’ve decided it’s easier to take what you want instead of sifting through rubble.
We continued our AI improvements to make the horrors of the jungle less mindless. We fixed a bug that would see some of the game’s mutants get stuck on terrain. We also smoothed out some of their charge or retreat paths so they can get to players more quickly, or cover if things aren’t going their way. We also discovered that a bug crashing the staging server was due to the newest harvesting system we implemented. We’re fixing that now so the world doesn’t stop every time you chop down a tree.
The web team is busy finishing up the front page facelift, fixing bugs, and doing some marketing work. Jesse is making some minor adjustments to our announcements/call to action templates and finished a contest slide just in time for our first one. We’re giving away a brand new XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB. The contest lasts for the next 30 days. You can enter by joining our discord server, creating a player name, following us on twitter, and a whole lot more.
While some of us were working on giving stuff away, others were talking about nerfing a few weapons. Currently the hatchet and the handmade bow are the most powerful weapons in the game. Much to the chagrin of all of our primitive weapon enthusiasts, that’s going to change. We thought it made more sense if a 150 grain bullet traveling at 2,700 ft/s did a little more ballistic damage than something a player whittled out of wood, even if it was tipped with a shark tooth. We’re looking at weapon damage across the board, as well as NPC and animal health values to avoid near omnipotent raccoons, and players killing each other over devastatingly big sticks.
Lastly, we’ve worked through a number of our trueSKY issues and improved our lighting in the game. It’s never looked better. As you can see from these shots below, the daytime sky and clouds look fantastic, and the trail is hard to miss at night now that we have torches lighting your way.
Nearing the end of the week and the current sprint, the team is focused on fixing as many bugs as possible, and adding some last minute polish to already existing systems. We uncovered a number of bugs and pain points while running around the wilds of Lahaina that have been resolved.
We fixed a bug with the bow playing whizzing sounds at incorrect distances and angles. The bow no longer will get stuck in the fatigued state, which was making shooting arrows difficult to say the least. We found that sometimes our aiming down site (ADS) transition animations were unreasonably slow after sprinting. Chances are you’re going to need to aim as quickly as you can after running away from the things lurking in the jungle’s dark places. We discovered that some of our harvesting and impact sounds were overlapping and cancelling each other out. This made it theoretically possible that a player wouldn’t hear a fight if they were harvesting wood. Lastly, we fixed a bug that would cause a party leader to get stuck when putting together a team, which was less than ideal for group play.
In addition to fixing all those bugs, we tweaked a few things and made some improvements to make game play more enjoyable. The team smoothed out the homemade bow pull back and undraw animation sequences as well as improved some un-nocking animations. We added proper attenuation to a number of weapon sounds. The team updated building meshes with proper inversions, collision and simplifications to improve performance and address the multiple stuck door issues we’ve had. Doors are now swinging freely from the little rundown shacks on the beach, to the gigantic social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant. We also added more rocks throughout the game to help bump up the number of available resources for players to harvest.
The web team is busy finishing up their sprint work too. The new navigation on the front page is done and we’re nabbing any bugs as they appear. Jesse is completing work on front page callout/announcement slide templates, that we can use for future contests, events, and game messages. We’re working on a number of messaging initiatives to help clearly explain how our Houses work, as well as the referral system. We also discussed where we could use some tooltips, and incorporating a general site search feature on the front page.
With our trueSKY issues (mostly) fixed, and having a sky above Maui again, we looked at our day/night cycle, and briefly discussed the pros and cons of adjusting the length of our days. The art team is busy working on the art for the new banking system which will allow players a private and secure extension of their inventory to stash away goodies, crafting components, and any junk they can’t part with but is too heavy to carry. We talked a little more about all the neat places we could put these banks since we don’t need to include a drive up window. The team made some improvements to our AI by adding a fleeing module that will allow NPCs to flee to a location that offers cover if they’re being peppered by the slings and arrows of outrageous players.
We looked at a number of concept drawings of the game’s social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant. The art team put together a number of possible options for the reactor room and other places inside complete with: living quarters, stands offering food, water, and gear for the right price, and differing amounts of people seeking shelter, and shady characters. Their work was not limited to the interior of the massive building however. One of their goals this sprint was to fill out the areas surrounding the plant with interesting places to loot and explore. Below is one of these places, an abandoned farm with the remnants of an irrigation pipe running through it, a barn that is still standing for shelter, and numerous chickens for those quick enough to scoop one up.
That’s all for now. Check back the beginning of next week for the latest updates.
With sprint 28 wrapping up in a few days, everyone is finishing up goals and hunting down any remaining bugs. Terry continues working through trueSky issues, cooks, and crashes. We’ve worked through many of our recent weather and lighting problems and are focusing on making the water look perfect. We’ve fixed our fog and disappearing sky issues, and future Lahaina is looking great.
The team has made a number of lighting improvements, and have good looking lanterns and torches lighting the dark and dangerous places in the game. We’ve added a number of animations to make players and NPCs alike look more realistic when they shoot, climb, crouch, and run. We improved a bunch of 1st and 3rd person shooting animations in particular. Now when a player draws back their bowstring and holds it for a period of time, they will actually shake slightly.
We’ve made similar improvements to weapon audio and appearance. Our firearms have never sounded better, and melee weapons thud, thunk, and crunch in the game more realistically. We’ve improved our ranged AI using all weapons but bows as well. Now, players can count on select horrors of the jungle shooting back when fired upon.
With all the lead soon to be flying around Maui, we started working on a cover system for our NPCs. Currently some of them will stand in the middle of a firefight like tears in the rain. Beyond just taking cover behind an object, (which we’re teaching them too), we want our NPC’s to move when bullets are flying, find tactically beneficial places to be, and avoid running in straight lines. They’re not likely to pass voight-kampff yet, but maybe later…
We’ve expanded our crafting system with lots of new recipes. Players can now make virtually any bit of gear in the game if they have the necessary resources. Even the volatile element 127, the fuel that allowed Veil travel and powers the Thorcon Power Plant, is incorporated into our crafting system now. Players brave or foolish enough to experiment by adding a little 127 in the mix while they’re building something like ammo, might get a pleasant surprise in the near future, or blow up. You never know with these kind of things.
The drones patrolling the island and broadcasting what is happening around Lahaina, are avoiding trees and not traveling through the Earth anymore. We plan on adding a lot more improvements like audio detection next sprint. We finished up some ui improvements as well, with new tooltips, widgets, and translucent menus that make it easier to manipulate your inventory without getting ganked by something coming out of the jungle.
We’re finishing up performance work that has resulted in huge building improvements, much to the delight of our GPUs. Our procedural building system is now constructing beautiful and performant buildings like never before. Our work building out the areas surrounding the Thorcon continues and we’re finishing a first pass at its interior. We plan on adding a lot more to the inside of the power plant next sprint, reflecting that it will be the social hub for players.
We’ve completed the nuts and bolts of a player bank system and just need to finish the art, and decide where players will be able to access the extension of their personal inventory. We discussed a few possible looks, and talked at some length about how many or few drop-off locations should be available to the encumbered.
Finally, the web team is finishing the work on the new site navigation, in addition to call out and contest slides. We’re focusing on improving user flow and various marketing initiatives too. We’re working on a number of promo videos and GIFs, as well as sharing some more of our early concept sketches, as we spread the word about Fractured Veil. Below you can see one of the teaser videos we made with one of our Trophy Collectors welcoming you to Lahaina.
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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.
As the week gets started the web team continues the front page facelift, and navigation update. Jesse has completed images for all of our social networks, and is working on a few custom overlays for streamers, as well as layouts for upcoming contests and announcements. We’re combining site navigation all in one place to streamline things, and help users find what they’re looking for more quickly. A number of minor improvements like new modal windows, and an easier to find download button are in the works too. Jared is still working on getting the drone footage to display properly, and it should be streaming live footage of the wilds of post-fracture Lahaina soon. In the meantime, you can always watch on our YouTube page.
The tech team is putting out the last of the fires caused by the UE 4.20.2 upgrade, but we’ve worked through almost all of the problems the update caused. Terry has worked out the issues with trueSKY. Beautiful clouds, oceans, and sky are right around the corner. We fixed a number of other lingering bugs, including tracking down an issue that was causing certain types of loot to spontaneously disappear from your bag. Nobody likes disappearing bullets, no matter how easy they were to find.
We’re making a number AI improvements focusing in particular with firearms and our Trophy Collectors. We’re adding some situational awareness to our plague-ridden body part collectors. We found their actions, (especially in groups,) to still be more chaotic than we’d like. The team is focusing on adding some cunning, and improving their battle tactics. In addition, we’re teaching some of our NPCs, like the cannibals, to shoot first and eat players later. They’re learning things like: laying down suppressing fire, herding players into groups for melee combatants, and not switching their machine guns to full auto until they’re close enough to not worry about accuracy. Lahaina is about to get a lot more dangerous.
The first iteration of a player bank is nearing completion. Soon, players will have access to a self-contained inventory to stash away the things weighing down your pack, or that you can’t quite bear to drop on the ground. Our drone cameras are getting some love this week too. In addition to upgrading them with the newest geographical info to keep them from gliding through the ground, we’re putting in a lot of work teaching them what to film. We’re improving their audio detection, so that they will recognize things like a fight, stop, and film the action. We’re also teaching them when to move on, so they don’t get stuck on someone determined to chop down enough trees to start their own lumber company.
We’ve made some “quality of life” improvements to help make the game more fun to play, and even have a new starting tool/weapon in the works for players to use when they spawn in. We discussed making sure that crafted items had more “health” than items found in the rubble, and ways we can encourage players to experiment with alternative ingredients when hard at work at the crafting table. We’re not encouraging people to try to make glass rifles, but we want to reward those who think outside the box. We’ve made some improvements to the bow and compound bow to make them look and sound more realistic as well.
Finally, we took to Imgur this week to talk a bit about the progression of buildings in the game, and the importance of seeking shelter. The Great Fracture not only wiped out most of civilization, it also had a lasting effect on global weather patterns. Maui was no stranger to the occasional severe storm or hurricane, but after the accident, the weather became much more unpredictable. Finding decent shelter is just as important as gathering food and water. We looked at some early concept art and talked about the progress we’ve made. As you can see from this shot below, having a cold drink on top of the Communication Tower, is a much different experience than collecting rainwater in one of the ramshackle huts along the beach.
The web team started off the week with a bunch of refactoring to help clean things up a bit before continuing work on the achievement system. We have the first iteration, with a handful of achievements almost ready to deploy. Jesse is still working on badges and layouts for the final product, and we looked at some wireframe options. In addition to the the new achievements, the web team is giving the front page a facelift.
Jesse is combining the tabbed navigation into one, separated by headers, on the left-hand side of the page. We’re getting rid of the slides, and adjusting the layout of the front page to make room for callouts, contests, and special game announcements. We’ve updated the download tab and talked about different FRV overlays we could make for people streaming the game. Jesse is designing cover art for us to use on all the major social networks, and we’re giving the story page an update as well.
Almost all of our audio is switched over to Wwise, with only a few ambient noises and sound effects needing an upgrade. Terry and crew continue to work on our weather and water issues. We’ve made some good progress on ocean improvements, but we’re still totally trying to make that perfect gnarly wave dude. Our trueSky updates are still a work in progress, and we’ve had some crashing issues on staging that we’re digging into, but the team is hopeful to have Hawaiian blue skies and a variety of clouds overhead very soon.
We’ve made some improvements to the craftable bow in the game, and listened to a few options for the string being pulled before settling on the perfect twang. We’ve updated the spear throwing and thrusting animations to make things just the right amount of stabby. With all the talk about improved throwing animations, we got a bit side-tracked discussing how fun it is to throw things at Jared in the game, the axe and pickaxe in particular. Jesse shared some fond memories of throwing things at Jared, and seeing how far away he could get while still accurately dropping an axe on his head. We got back on track with news of the addition of a few more shark-toothed (leiomano) items for players to pick up, and hack away with.
We’re making a number of improvements to the existing AI in game, focusing specifically on the next tier of ranged AI. Right now players will run into a few Trophy Hunters who throw things, but with Big Bob and the cannibals being included in the map, we’re working on teaching them to shoot. If everything goes as planned, well have some gun toting NPCs running around and shooting up the place by this weekend.
We’re making some ui improvements, adjusting the opacity of menus and updating the tooltip widget inside the inventory screen. The team has circled back to drone improvements, and are focusing on our pathing issues first. We’re updating the eye-in-the-sky with the new map geometry so the camera will hopefully stop its subterranean explorations. We’re adding some art to fuel cans, health kits, and various items to make them less generic and more Hawaiian, as well as building out the areas around the Thorcon Power Plant.
Lastly, as we build out these areas, improving building performance remains a high priority. To aid in that, we’ve started a large decal library to use on virtually any structure. We have a wide variety of stains, cracks, gouges, rust, and moss that can be added to: wood, brick, metal, plaster, and concrete. Below you can see one of our programmatically generated buildings with and without a number of these decals.
This week kicked off the beginning of sprint 28. The team was busy finishing up final goals from the last sprint, and fixing any lingering bugs. The main focus of 28 will be: completing our UE 4.20.2 update, updating crafting, and tightening up the game’s resource loop. We also plan to: build out the areas surrounding the Thorcon Power Plant, improve the camera drone, build a Bank system, incorporate more of the fictional game companies, and make some AI improvements.
Terry and crew are close to finishing our move to UE 4.20.2 and are addressing bugs as they appear. Last sprint, we identified a number of issues with how buildings were being constructed by our procedural building system that were creating some performance issues. The team addressed most of them, but will finish fixing the rest this sprint. We’re working on collision and audio detection features for the game drone to keep it from phasing through objects, and ensure it catches any action going on in an area.
The team has worked out the issues we were having with the disappearing sky, and Lahaina has clouds, a sun, and plenty of blue above once again. However, we couldn’t help but take another couple screenshots showing how bleak everything looked for those couple days when Chicken Little’s fears turned out to be correct.
The web team continues to work on the achievement system. We’ve compiled a list of achievements with their accompanying rewards, and Jesse is busy designing badges for each. We’re finishing up work on the ingame friends system, so you can more easily find friends you want to run through the jungle with, and blocking tools to keep people off your radar and your message stream.
After some time shooting and stabbing each other, and everything else that moves, we’ve decided to make some adjustments to damage and health values. We found a few weapons to be lacking in stopping power, and a few creatures a little too tough for our liking. Finding that right mix of the joy of wanton slaughter, with a sense of accomplishment by bringing down a tough opponent is tricky, but we’re getting close.
We’re beginning to build out the second tier of our crafting system, with more complex items and a bunch of new recipes. To support this, we’re making some changes to the game’s resource loop. We’re spreading more resources around the map for players to harvest, rocks in particular. In addition, we’re adding a few new resources like charcoal and sulfur. Our goal is that in addition to weapons, armor, and gear, players will soon be able to craft their own ammo, to help supplement the cartridges you can find spread out across the map and hidden in loot caches.
With all the new resources you can gather and new stuff you can craft, there’s going to be a lot of full backpacks and encumbered players running around; so we’re building a banking system for items. Players will be able to place their charcoal collections or anything else messy or heavy in a “Bank” to be saved for later use, and give their backs a break.
Lastly, Jesse and the art team have finished branding work for a number of ingame companies. SSHAM– Lahaina’s favorite canned meat product, Manimal– the most intense solution to an extreme thirst, and Alohagistics– the shipping company that promises your package will “get there eventually,” are just a few of the companies with products players will be able to find around the map now.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back later with the latest updates and screenshots.
The team has made a number of inventory improvements this week. We have a completely new ui on your inventory screen. Things have been streamlined and rearranged to make better use of space, and make it easier for players to quickly change gear and grab items. Information about each item is easier to pull up, we have new selectors for the inventory and quick bar, and everything is semi-transparent. You now have a chance of seeing a creature charging at you, if you stopped somewhere to organize your hat or knife collection.
The art team put together an extensive decal library to quickly age and mark up buildings, especially ones made with our procedural building system. We have decals for wood, concrete, stone, and metal, covering a wide variety of things like: scratches, dents, mold, moss, rust, water streaking, and even dulled colors. This should allow us to add the right amount, and specific type of weathering, to any building and save some artist time in the process.
We took a look at a few refinements done to our newest batch of mutants. We talked about what models and items we need for the areas we’re building out around the Thorcon Power Plant to make them complete. We dug deep into our old model and art folders to start an unused asset inventory. We found quite a few things that were put on the back burner for one reason or another, and planned out where these items could be used in game. The team made a list of what models were ready to go and which still needed a little work before being game ready.
The web team remains focused on putting together promo and game videos. We’ve been hard at work cutting up and editing existing videos for GIFs, and spent a fair amount of time coming up with captions. We discussed a number of possible videos in the future: highlighting important aspects of the game, differentiators that highlight the beautiful danger of post fracture Lahaina, and things that are just funny to watch.
In addition to putting together blooper reels and getting glamour shots of some of our most horrific mutants, the web team is working on the upcoming achievement system. Jared is setting up the backends and compiling a list of web specific achievements ahead of ingame ones. Jesse has been working on layouts and the ui, as well as designing reward badges for each achievement.
We’ve fixed a number of bugs discovered while running around shooting things that moved in the jungle, and each other. Medkits will now heal virtually any status effect that your player gets, including poison, but you’ll still need to make a fire to get yourself warm and dry if you’ve been standing in the rain, or went swimming. Ammo boxes will have ammo inside them, as one would expect of an ammo box. You will no longer find that some crafting recipes are empty, leaving you to wonder what items were supposed to be there. Double click looting should work soon as well, so you can quickly strip everything of even remote value from a corpse or bag. This should be very useful if like me, you’re a loot hoarder, and only begrudgingly drop items once you can barely walk from the crushing weight of the junkyard on your back.
Our march toward UE 4.20.2 hit a bit of a snag last week when the staging build suddenly found itself without any sky. There’s no doubt that it makes the game look much more ominous, and might be a good storyline for an alternative world down the line. However, one of Chris’ mantras is always that we make things look more Hawaiian. While a skyless dark world is scary, we didn’t really see a Hawaiian connection. In fact, none of us could remember ever seeing a picture of Hawaii with the sky a dark formless void. It’s usually pretty sunny. We’re working on bringing the blue back currently, but here’s a shot of “Dark Lahaina”.
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