Dev Blog #21

03 Dec 2022Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Hello, everyone!

We hope you are having an awesome start to the holiday season! For those who missed it, we hosted a livestream on YouTube last week. We went over some new content and answered some of your questions as well. Check it out of you haven't!

In November, we have continued our progress to create the adult animation sets for the next three dragons to be added to the game. With only a handful of each adult set left, we will likely be finishing the adult sets in December and moving onto the juvenile and hatchling sets. The younger age animation sets will take less time as most of the work is tweaking current animations to fit the juvenile and hatchling models.

We have also been working on other aspects of the game needed for the 1.0 update. Continue reading below to find out what our team has created this month, but first...

A Word From the Lead Developer

Greetings all,

We just wrapped up a Thanksgiving livestream where we showed off some of the stuff we've been working on as we get everything ready for our game's 1.0 release. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it, it has a lot of good information and sneak peaks of what's coming.

We also got to take a few days off and enjoy Thanksgiving with our families. Indeed we are very thankful for all of you, especially those of you who have been with us since the beginning. Speaking of which, December 4th marks our 3rd anniversary since DoD came to Early Access in its early Alpha state. Fast forward to December 2020 and the early closed beta version released featuring the Acid Spitter. Fast forward again to July 2021 and we saw the release of our Beta version with the Shadow Scale. Fast forward once more to April of this year when we released our third dragon, the Flame Stalker. I know many of you are looking forward to our next release of 1.0 coming in 2023 which will feature not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 5 new playable creatures including the Biolumer, Inferno Ravager, Blitz Striker, Magma Elemental, and the playable Swamp Snapper AI. It's a lot of new content coming in one massive update that will change our game forever.

Release is a special time, we have one chance to get it right, and we're going to get it right! We plan to release patches to our Test server and allow our Testers and Patreons to comb through the content and find bugs which we'll fix, then when we have a stable build, we're going to put that build up on a public test branch that players can download and play on their own private servers. Once all the content is in and the bugs are worked out and game is polished for release, we will push the build to release and the current Beta will be moved to a Legacy branch on Steam. Why? Because release will be using the next gen version of Unreal Engine (UE5) which requires more compute and graphic power and memory to run. Don't worry though, we plan to put some of the new content in Legacy as well, just don't expect a new map for Legacy as it will eventually be deprecated once we don't see anyone using it.

We don't know when in 2023 that 1.0 will release, the only answer I can provide is, "When everything is ready." It's a lot of work, but we've already begun testing 1.0 on our Test Server. UE5 is beautiful. The adult anim sets for the new playables should be finished by the end of January, then we'll make the necessary modifications for the youth sets which should take 1-2 weeks per set. Then it is test test test, polish, balance, test, polish, release.

We will be hosting a Holiday/Anniversay livestream later this month on our Test Server featuring some of our favorite content creators and will be giving away some Plushies, Collector's Soundtrack CD's, and game keys. It should be bioluminawesome! You won't want to miss it! Livestream Date TBA

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2023 will be awesome!

This is DoD, and we have DRAGONS.

- Jon Slabaugh (Lead Dev)

And now onto the blog...

Mega Map Update

A hatchling cave system

We are continuing to flush out the landmarks and height map in the upcoming Mega Map. Our focus is on the lower right side of the map, which will be polished and added to the testing server first while the next section is being worked on.

The square objects you see in the screenshots are placeholders for environmental assets. Some of these assets will be custom created by our Environmental Artist, Brigade.

Check out the thumbnails below to see some screenshots of different views of landmarks begin created.

Animations

Biolumer Dragon Mating Display Animation

As stated above, we are almost done with the adult animation sets for the three dragons coming in the 1.0 update, with the Inferno Ravager trailing a bit behind. We are expecting to finish the adult animations in December and will then begin working on the juvenile and hatchling sets.

Check out some of the animations our team has created for each of the three dragons below.

Biolumer Animations Lay Down, Flap, Glide, and Hover

Inferno Ravager Glide, Sit, Stalk, and Hover

Blitz Striker Bile Attack, Sniff, Sit, and Flap

VFX

Acid Spitter Bioluminescence

Our VFX artist, Flicker, as been working on the bioluminescence for our dragons. As most of you know, when a Biolumer Dragon uses its bile attack on another dragon, the chemicals in the Biolumer's spit will react with the dragon's scale chemistry and reveal its hidden bioluminescence. This effect will be temporary and does not harm the targeted dragon. However, dragons in PVP servers may want to wash off this effect as soon as possible, as it will make it an easy target for enemy clans.

A dragon's natural bioluminescence may also become visible in certain locations in the new map, including in the underground cave systems of the Shimmering Caverns.

Check out some of the bio spit effects we have created so far!

Shadow Scale Bioluminescence

Inferno Ravager Bioluminescence

Flame Stalker Bioluminescence

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Q&A livestream has not yet scheduled. Stay tuned and watch for updates to find out when the next one will be!

From the Community

Each blog post, we pick some of our favorite screenshots and artwork posted by the community to showcase here. Want a chance for your submission to be showcased on our next blog? Post it in the appropriate channels on our discord!