Greetings, medievalists!
Sooo… remember gates? While working on them, we were reminded once again of the stability issues they can cause. You know how raiders tend to target doors during their attacks? Destroying those doors can sometimes create holes in your structures, especially on the upper floors, which can compromise their stability. It’s an unfortunate situation, but one that’s likely to happen. Now, imagine applying that same logic to gates. You can probably see how their destruction could lead to chain reactions, collapsing buildings and multi-storey fortresses.
That’s why we’re tweaking door and gate mechanics a bit. When their health falls below 20%, they’ll enter a broken state. Broken doors and gates will have a different, semi-open appearance and will allow everyone to pass through them. That’s right—you won’t be able to close or lock these gates and doors until they’re repaired to at least 80% health. Until then, be wary of enemies and animals. But don’t worry, it’s not all grim—we’ll be increasing the health of doors. Gates, however, will still be more durable because, well… those things can be huge.
In another episode of “hey, your feedback is pretty cool”, we’ve decided to introduce another variant for the gate - Ornate gate. The Ornate gate (and ornate tall gate) is a bit more resource demanding, but dang it does it look slick. This is for all you posh enjoyers. And as a bonus, we added shape variants for all doors, gates and tall gates, because, well, why not? Unfortunately, portcullises don’t have these variants because it looks a bit silly.
Now, regarding the upcoming update: the good news is that it’s coming to the experimental branch before September ends. The bad news is that we're still trying to point the right date, so you can experience as few bugs as possible. Sure, that's what the experimental branch is for, but we don't take you for granted. Once it goes live there, it will stay on the experimental branch for a couple of weeks before being pushed live on the main/default branch. Want to help us find those experimental bugs? Be sure to join the experimental branch and post your impressions on the experimental subforum.
While you’re getting ready for the new update, let us know how the new door and gate logic sounds to you. It should be interesting, right? Share your thoughts in the replies, and until the experimental branch goes live…
Stay medieval!