Hello Everyone,
This is a small build that fixes minor UI, sound, and gameplay bugs. They are mainly to improve gameplay.
Fixed an issue where fire would start on spawn
Some players reported that when placing a fire, the flames would turn on when placed, even if there's no wood in it. Extinguishing the fire, then turning it on again solved it. This has been fixed and behaves as expected.
Fixed an issue with draggy sound, caused by aSync
To bring down RAM requirements for the game, music playing in-game streamed from the hard drive when needed, and no longer via RAM. This is okay when you have an SSD or a not-so-busy traditional hard drive, but some players experienced what I didn't want, stretchy sound.. Loading music from RAM brings RAM usage up again, so I managed to load only sounds that will be needed soon, versus loading all music when you load your world up.
More cloth will now spawn around the map
When a new world is created, cloth bushes are spawned in groves, where they are predominantly, just like all the wolves. You will now find more random spawning cloth around the map as well with the current quantity within groves preserved. Many players seem to avoid groves (the group of trees that looks like a forest), then I receive complaints that there's no cloth, no food, no animals, barely any water on the map - when all of this can be found in the grove..
Wolves
I decided against adding more wolves because players can already add more wolves through the server settings page. This defaults to 20 random lone wolves spawned across the 2 square kilometer map, with between 6 and 8 living in a pack in each grove. So, finding wolves in wide-open spaces is rare, they live in packs inside the grove predominantly. If one chased you until outside the grove and gave up, he'll even walk back to join his pack again.
Guys, I must level with you, Today I'm actually someone who's on his 4th consecutive day of sick leave. I haven't been a stranger to sick leave in the last couple of months either, I'm actually not all that healthy. I'm at my 3rd job since the first lockdown in March last year (which was like a month after Eras launch and did its part to slow down development), these days it seems there are more days where the power would be off at night than on, thanks to our broken national electricity company (not to mention the 2 expensive RAM sticks I've lost myself due to power surges when the lights come back on). I have a wife and toddler to provide for as well - it seems crises and compounded stress is around every corner, which is making bankrolling a multiplayer survival game all the more difficult. Whilst I have lots of ideas and plans for Era, sometimes you're blocked from actually getting things implemented for reasons that are beyond your control. I can go on and on about all the challenges indies face when trying to make games.
I mention this so you can expect slow development when you decide to buy Era of Survival. There is one person filling all the roles of game development. It takes a lot of time and resources to get anything implemented in this game, and as is obvious, the scope of work is very big. Just ask the guy from Subsistence (a similar game that is almost 5 years old and also solo developed, don't know if that includes making the assets too)
I'm going to continue working on Devlog 18 now, I hope to finalize a new enemy, a survival guide, bring new sounds, as well as fix more bugs. Phase 2 of development will begin by Devlog 20, where you will be able to establish your own colony, with your own AI followers that you can give jobs to (like chop wood, fetch water, defend the base - to name a few). Until then, thank you for your interest in Era :)
Cheers,
Jean