Dev Blog #27

06 Sep 2024Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Hello, everyone!

Thank you for joining us for another Day of Dragons Development Blog! We some very exciting news to share with you all. After careful testing, polish, and preparation, we can happily say that we have a release date for Update 1.1..

Update 1.1 Release is set for Thursday, September 19th at 5:00PM Eastern Daylight Time!

Public Open Testing for Update 1.1 begins Wednesday, September 11th. If you'd like to test now, you can join our Closed Test by becoming a Patreon supporter.

A huge thank you to all of our NDA testers, Closed Kickstarter & Patreon testers, and Open Testers who helped us squash some of the most annoying and persistent bugs in the game. This new update will feature a new playable - the Blitz Striker Amphithere, a new class 4 AI - the Swamp Snapper, new map updates and optimizations, a ton of fixes including the "DX12 Error" fix, as well as many new features such as a new eldering method, dynamic weather, interactive foliage and water, and so much more including an anti-cheat to help combat cheaters! We hope to see you all there on the release date to enjoy the new content and bug fixes. In the meantime, here is this month's dev blog for your viewing pleasure!

The Blitz Striker Amphithere is a DLC that includes 5 base emotes plus the Blitz Striker Emote Pack which includes 4 additional Emotes for a total of 9 emotes. The Blitz Striker DLC will retail on Steam for $9.99. Players may pre-purchase the Blitz on our webstore at dayofdragons.com. Purchase is not necessary to play as the Blitz Striker, only to be able to spawn in as the Blitz Striker. Players who do not own the Blitz DLC can still play as the Blitz through player nesting.

5 Year Kickstarter Anniversary

Five years ago, with the encouragement of some friends, our lead developer decided to pitch his idea to the world. Always fascinated with dragons and dragon themed media, he wanted to bring to life a dragon survival game. The original Kickstarter started on September 2nd 2019 with a goal of $12,000 USD and would be used to commission a talented artist to create 3-4 basic original dragon models for the game. The visual effects and sounds were going to be market place assets and they would have entry level animations.

By the end of the Kickstarter campaign on September 30th, 2019 we had raised over $500,000 USD. We never imagined we would reach our goal, let alone surpass it to such an extent. We realized that this wasn't just the dream of our lead developer, but the dream of everyone who came forward to help make our Kickstarter a success. This meant things needed to get... beawesome.

No longer was the plan to commission the artist for basic original dragon models. Instead, we were able to hire our modeler Jia Hao full-time and he is still with our team today. Not only has he created multiple outstanding models for our game, but they also have complex morph targets, allowing for seamless growth, and beautiful textures to allow different skin coloration and patterns.

With $500,000 and a whole community waiting in anticipation, entry level animations would just not do. We were able to find our Senior Animator to bring our dragons to life. With years of experience working on large productions, she was able to add life to our newly sculpted dragon models and continues to be a invaluable part of the team today.

We no longer needed to look to the marketplace for sounds and visual effects. Instead, we were able to bring our extremely talented sound effects and visual effects artists onto the team. And over the years we have found more and more beawesome artists and staff to help bring this dream to life.

Five whole years have passed since our Kickstarter. It's been a wild ride so far. With many up and just as many downs, we have gain a lot of experience working on Day of Dragons, our first game ever. We are excited to share with you the 1.1 Update and continue to create the game of all our dreams. We are deeply grateful to our Kickstarter backers who helped us get going, to our Patreon supporters who keep us on track, to our volunteers and paid community staff who watch over everything, to our development team who has poured their heart and soul into their work, and to everyone one of you lovely gamers who are just along for the ride.

The road has been windy, but it has been...
beawesome.

1.1 New Content and Bug Fixes

Late last month we hosted our 1.1 Dev Livestream on YouTube. If you haven't seen it already, we encourage you to check it out! During the stream, players got their first look at the Blitz Striker, its bile attack, and its special attack. We also hosted an open test session over the holiday weekend. We have gotten a lot of great feedback and are continuing to add the final touches to the update before its release.

One of the big reveals along side of the Blitz Striker in the live stream is the addition of Easy Anti-Cheat. This will aid in the reduction of low skill players from hacking in order to gain an advantage against honest players. Hackers will just have to do what they rest of us do, and get good.

We are happy to report that the infamous "flight glitch" bug has been officially squashed. After looking into the hover takeoff issues for baby Biolumins and Blitz Strikers, we were able to find the source of the original flight glitch. Coming in the 1.1 update, players will no longer be smacked back into the ground as they are trying to take off. It is a joyous day for dragonkind everywhere.

In addition to the flight bug, we are working on squashing more bugs, old and new. We are also putting the final touches on the Swamp Snapper AI. The Swamp Snapper will be our first AI that is a threat to adult dragons and has the ability to swim. It will be a Class 4 creature, the same class as a Shadow Scale, and will be very aggressive. Swamp Snapper will be able to be found near lakes and swamps and will be a challenging fight but offer a hearty meal for any dragon.

Taking a Look at 1.2 And Beyond

After the release of the 1.1 update and any hotfixes that may be required after, we will turn our focus to the next part of the 1.0 Soft Release Schedule; the 1.2 Update. This update, also known as the "Brood Watcher Update" will introduce our first herbivorous dragon along with more content and features.

The Brood Watcher is a large herbivorous dragon with a tank-like play style. It will have no bile attack, have high defense, multiple armor-piercing attacks, and low ground and flight speed. The Watcher is fond of hatchlings of all species and can incubate eggs in its enlarged throat pouch. Eggs incubated by the Watcher are able to have one stat enhanced.

Along with the Brood Watcher will come other exciting content and features. Since this will be a smaller update than the 1.1, we are expecting to be able to release it in less time than it took for us to release 1.1 as we had to do a lot of work to fix all the issues in 1.0. We will discuss the 1.2 update in more detail in our next dev blog after the 1.1 update.

Looking past 1.2 here is some sneak peek treats for future content and updates! We hope you enjoy and we hope to see you all on the 19th for the release of the 1.1 update!

The Mimikor Dragon, a Patreon exclusive cosmetic

Frostfel Sit Animation

Frostfel Hatchling Walk Animation

Icehorn Behemoth Walk Animation

Feathered Zygovo Ragdoll (much ded x.x)

Lightning Elemental Concept Poses

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!