Introduction
Greetings, friends!
Today, as planned, one of the main events of the year has happened — Project Genom has been updated on Steam! It has become possible thanks to all of you, the players, who overcame the difficulties of development together with our team, tested, offered ideas, and helped financially. We are endlessly grateful to everyone who believes in us and continues to lead the project into a bright future together with our team. You supported us at the stage of ideas, you jumped from the rocks and bought tons of ammunition on Torque, you twisted your fingers playing on our own engine, moved with us to Unreal 4 and survived several reincarnations of the game on it. You supported us on Greenlight, which already does not even exist, you became the founders, Avalonians, Gold, Bronze, you broke the game countless times and saw all the bugs in its world. You are the main value of Project Genom! Thank you!
A Discount
Due to the update of Project Genom on Steam, we are meeting one of the most frequent requests — a 50% discount on the game and all the additional sets!
We strongly recommend that you think about the feasibility of purchasing the project now at its Alpha stage. By purchasing the game now, you support the development of Project Genom. At the same time, you get an unfinished product and will face possible wipes, bugs and the absence of many planned mechanics. If you want to enjoy the full-fledged game, please wait for later versions, the Beta one or the Release.
Update
Before proceeding to our weekly report, we would like to note the most significant changes that have occurred in the updated project. If you did not follow our Weekly Newsletter, then you will be interested to know that:
Project Genom has been changed almost completely. It does not have any old lines of code left, which means that there are no old bugs in it, but you can stumble upon new ones.
The previous version of the game’s world which had an area of 10 square kilometers, increased to 100 square kilometers and was completely redesigned: hundreds of plant species, complex materials, unique biomes, ruined Gunar cities, bases and outposts, human settlements, the changing of the time of day and many small pleasant trifles. The world has yet to be livened up and improved, but filling the beautiful world with life is much more pleasant than a small and stunted one.
A lot of work was done to improve the game character: new models were created, anatomy and materials were improved. In turn, this required to redesign all the armor, the range of which has also expanded.
The character controller was completely redesigned. The male and female player characters got their unique animations for all actions. We've also introduced a basic customization in the game, allowing you to change the race, face, hairstyle, beard, scars and tattoos.
The AI of all the characters, enemies and bosses was completely redesigned. Mobs received new models, materials, animations, skills and brains. In addition, the species diversity of enemies was expanded, differing not only in appearance but also in abilities.
The changes have not bypassed non-player characters too. Many NPCs have been redesigned: we added new characters, updated the animations, behavior and the characters' movement system. We've added an adequate dialogue system.
The interface was seriously redesigned. The HUD was completely redesigned. A handy 3D map was added.
The Main Storyline and Side Quests were seriously revised. New Quests were added.
Future Plans
The development of the project will now go in a more customary manner for all the players — the game will be constantly updated. The PTS servers are now closed, testing will take place in a separate branch. The frequent updates on that branch will be constantly moved to the main version of the game.
First of all, our nearest future plans include:
Debugging of various bugs, seen at the testing stages. Do not forget that if you find a bug, the best thing you can do with it is to report it to the bugtracker. At the moment, the most critical one is the bug with the stability of the game on AMD processors. About 5% of players on AMD processors encounter problems with using the movement system, which we plan to fix first.
Expansion of the Main Storyline and Side Quests, which include the development of game locations. In addition, we plan to introduce Quests shortly without a reward limit — the more you accomplish in a Quest, the higher the total value of the reward. We've scheduled the introduction of Daily and Weekly Quests, as well as adding global events that will be performed by the entire community on the server.
Adding resource collection and crafting.
Introduction of Group and Syndicate mechanics in the game.
Expand the player's capabilities by adding sniper rifles and shotguns, as well as passive and active skills.
Our further future plans include exoskeletons, manipulators, mechs, covers, transport, mounts and pets, devices, clan and personal property, and also close combat.
Software
This week, the main job was to update the main version of the game on Steam. We did the the final testings and bug fixes, as well as dozens of long and painful creations of game builds.
We fixed and added the initial balance of quests, weapons, armor, mobs, as well as the acquirement of experience and skill points. We added the nodes of Assault Rifles Mastery to the character leveling.
Added new sounds.
Fixed various flaws in the interface, bugs with navigation, and bugs with the death of the game character.
World
We continue working on optimization of the large instance "Raider's Scientific Encampment".
Enemies
We continue on creating animations for the Slider Larvae mob.
Conclusion
Project Genom has been updated! This remarkable event has become the most important one for us this year. We are glad that we were able to overcome all difficulties of development together with you and bring the project to the next stage of development. We hope that the development will not be delayed by unexpected problems and we will quickly reach the stage of the first Beta testing.
From this day, Project Genom becomes available on the main servers, but it also remains on the additional test branch, where different tests will be conducted before uploading the game to the main servers. To access the test branch of the game transferred from the PTS version, you need to have an activated copy of the game on Steam, where you need to enter the privatetestserver code in the Beta-Access box. You can find the detailed instructions on the activation in the weekly report №60
https://steamcommunity.com/games/pgenom/announcements/detail/3226142592947297397
And, once again, we want to remind everyone who considers purchasing the game that it’s still in its Alpha stage, and we do not recommend buying it if you expect a full-fledged finished project. By purchasing the game now, you support the development and have an opportunity to see its early stages. If you want to enjoy a full game experience with the maximum number of game mechanics and no critical errors, we advise you to wait until the project enters the beta testing phase or even later.
