Howdy, Sandrock builders,
We interviewed the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) named Jinyang ("Magician" to us). During our conversation, he discussed the optimization goals that we're trying to achieve in the next few months. Here is the full video for your viewing pleasure, or check out our summary to find out the key answers.
Question: How can we optimize Sandrock's performance? The loading time is exceptionally long now when you load the game or maybe go in or out of the door. What can we do about that? Do you have any plans?
Answer: A lot of players feel the most important question is about the loading time. The developer team read every single comment and found that the loading time is one the top feedback from our players. So the loading time optimizations are a key, and a constant focus area has to do in the next (major update) release.
Our goal is to keep almost 3s when you go into an indoor area or go into your house and then when you come out. So you're not waiting for that ugly loading bar.
Furthermore, in most cases, we want to achieve it's you don't even know this is loading, and It's instantaneous, which means zero-second loading! So that's what we want to move toward at the end. We want to make players very happy.
Questions: Can you tell us more about other optimization goals in the future?
Answer: Absolutely. We're also looking at how to improve the frame rate. We noticed a lot of our CPU resources were spent on our lovingly crafted AI behaviors for the NPCs. We want to ensure those interactions are great and perfect, but unfortunately, they're spending too much of our CPU cycles. Everybody notices there are a lot of events happening. There are dancing events, festivals, and so many things, and all the NPCs react correctly to those things.
That's one area we're focusing on while maintaining all those great interactions with the NPCs, but then, at the same time, the control of the NPCs uses fewer resources on the CPU. As a result, we estimate a 30% to 50% increase in frame rate for the next release (major update). As of right now, we're aiming to achieve that in the next major update, which would probably be two or three months from now.
The CTO and the team have clear goals and are confident. Our ultimate goal is to make players very happy, and that's what we intend to achieve. The 'Magician' mentioned at the end that we would appreciate comments, no matter what you think of the content or video.
The optimization requires reallocating some resources and ensuring goals, so the major update scheduled for early August may be delayed a bit. We hope to share the Dev team's progress with everyone and appreciate this opportunity to connect with all of you!
Thank you so much for watching and reading this interview.
See you next time.
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