Hey guys,
Well, I’ve just made it in time, I did say I would release an update this year and here we are. A lot of work has gone into the rebuilt version of Dead Monarchy however at this point the beta build is still rough and bare-bones but it is playable. A lot of the work is internal and not easily seen. The most important thing is the groundwork is done, this is a glimpse into the future, in 2022 I'll be focusing heavily on creating new content. Let’s go over a few things:
Opting In:
- Right click Dead Monarchy.
- Select “Properties”.
- Select “Betas” on the left menu.
- Select “rebuild” from the drop down list.
- The old DM used to load everything into memory at once, which resulted in a very long initial load up, after upgrading to a newer version of Unity I used asset bundles, so now most things are loaded as needed. The trade off now is that there is a small load up time when initially viewing things like character models in the inventory, but it is a once off per session. Overall, it is a big improvement, the old method had a 4gb limit which meant I had to heavily compress all my textures if I wanted to fit in all the armour and weapon sets, that is no longer an issue now.
- There is now a day/night cycle and dynamic shadows, the lighting system has been vastly improved, the old DM didn’t even have nights. I will be expanding upon this in the future, for now it is just visual but the groundwork has been laid.
- New music tracks, there are completely new tracks that stick to more period appropriate instruments, music also changes depending on the time of day, overall it is a vast improvement and makes the world feel a lot more alive and cohesive.
- Overhauled animations, each weapon type now has unique attack and idle animations, there are 5 tiers of weapons with unique models, the old DM only had 1 set of weapon models. Whilst ranged combat isn’t in yet, there are now polearm weapons that allow you to attack over a tile and from behind an ally.
- A whole plethora of new armour sets, appropriate for a region that on the surface looks like 13th century medieval Europe, not historically accurate but leaning towards “realism”. I wanted to really double down and just focus on one region first. Some armour sets now are not all completely covered, the system has been improved to account for things like exposed hands or a sleeveless top. In the past, every armor set had to be completely covered as that was the only solution when other skin tones were brought into the picture.
- New and reworked abilities as there will now be a lot more weapon types, but the future weapon types will be introduced with the new regions, so I had to spread things out like deciding to put axe type weapons up north, so you won’t see them in the Midlands (starting area). Abilities are still WIP and general perks haven’t been implemented yet so you won’t see the full picture yet.
- A livelier city, with villagers gathering at markets or in taverns, despite only having 1 city for now it is a lot more condensed and packed and will only improve in the future. It includes new activities such as the Arena.
- Arena, 3 types of fights, exhibition (against outlaws, bandits, raiders), medallion (against sellswords) and championship (against nobles - the future will include arena champions). Championship fights require medallions which you obtain by completing medallion fights. Exhibition fights scale up and down depending on the combat party size you enter with, medallions can also be used to acquire equipment from the arena.
- Contracts, for now there are just raid contracts but I will be creating more contract types in the future, completing contracts will impact the state of the governing city in the region.
All in all, content is still pretty light in the beta build, but the groundwork has been laid out and I can now finally concentrate on creating new content rather than just rebuilding and improving what I had already done. The beta build branch is the first glimpse into the future of Dead Monarchy rather than just me talking about it.
Dead Monarchy will be seeing substantial growth in 2022, here is the content forecast. As always things are subject to change, it’s hard to make concrete promises when you can’t work full-time however I do feel quite confident that I can hit most of these this year. The first thing I will be working on is getting the general perks in which will lead to updating the abilities and then creating the Battle AI for the enemies.
I would like to thank everyone for their support, patience and understanding, it truly means a lot to me! Currently the beta build has no guides, so I have created a new thread with some initial information and I will continue to fill it out over time. As always, I am also active on the forums, so feel free to ask any questions there.
Cheers,
Kevin.