Hello Draconians!
It has been a while but we finally had the time to post another dev blog. Wooo!
If you are here for the delicious delicacies from the dev kitchen and don't care for the patch notes, just scroll past them. We are sure they won't mind...
Added: 3 New upgradable stash types. The old stashes are no longer craftable. Max level stash slots and health are the same as before. Old stash types won't be affected by this.
Added: New decay admin command /setdecayrate (Value is in irl seconds; “0” disables decay)
Added: Skip tutorial button to pop-up UI
Added: New crafting item: Tidara which is required for one of the new stashes
Added: Take all button / feature for all actors with external storage
Added: Experimental replication graph to support bigger character net culling distance
Updated: Unreal Engine to 5.4 *yay*
Updated: Seashell halves no longer drop from sand piles
Updated: Slightly increased drop rate of vertebraes and uncommon seashells
Updated: AI now only registers threats if it gets attacked by a player
Updated: Escape menu now pauses the game in single-player
Updated: Increased group friction
Updated: Increased braking deceleration
Updated: All de-spawn timers now use settings from gameplay data to make adjustments easier
Updated: Increased and randomized de-spawn timers of AI, dropped items, dead characters and consumables
Updated: Construction actor gather code
Fixed: Some Wyvern weight/clipping issues
Fixed: Inventory item order resetting
Fixed: Max health mismatch caused by the "missing upgrade bug"
Fixed: Missing gamepad support on certain overlays like inventory/in-game menu (Cursor = left stick; LMB = A Button, RMB = B)
Fixed: Keyboard + mouse being misidentified as gamepad when hovering over some UI elements
Fixed: Totem's claim area ignoring other claimed areas
Possible Fix: For chat UI getting stuck when whisper selection is active
Possible Fix: For UI sometimes getting out of focus and player cant click on anything when game is launched
Temporarily Removed: Vertex offset from dynamic weather which caused some heavy ghosting effects on the landscape due to an engine bug
So what is cooking?
Quests, Events & Rewards
Right now, players can get daily quests which are random every day and usually involve collecting resources scattered across the map. So far they only offer additional experience points.
In the future we want to add story quests which not only reward players with more EXP but also various cosmetics and other items.
The idea is not to just hand out any random skin or accessory but to choose a reward that fits the theme of the task as well.
So if you plan to get a lava skin in the future, we recommend to check out quests that start at the volcanic biome or are being started by characters that are of the fire element by default.
Below are a few skin examples that can be unlocked later on.
Of course there are no rewards without quests. So we have been working on more questlines which will be added one after another, once the required system has been added. Additionally we have also worked out some world events that can happen randomly or require the player to finish a few tasks before they get activated. These events can be repeated and will drop randomized loot every time. How much the player participates in them will affect the amount of loot they will receive and of what rarity level the rewards are.
Lindworm
Our favorite nope rope is receiving more animations at the moment and we are not even showing you the craziest animations yet (that worm got some wild tricks up his scaly sleeves!)
European Dragon
Our first and oldest character has been remodeled and our animators have moved on to doing its weights and animations so we can replace the old character model as soon as possible.
It still needs a lot of weight changes to work properly but it is pretty exciting to see the Euro in some rough poses.
Additional Animations
As you might have noticed the Ka'sai and Wyvern came with more and new animations which our older characters don't have.
These animations include emotes, more movement options and combat animations and are currently being worked on in-between the other animation tasks. So Griffin, Euro, Lindy and the others will be able to do cool things in the future as well.
Dragon Turtle
We like turtles! Which is why the new dragon turtle model is almost done.
We do not recommend petting it though. You might lose a limb or two.
Eastern Dragon
The new Eastern Dragon models are done and are now waiting to be turned into delicious ramen noodles textured.
New Stashes
This patch will introduce our new stashes. Instead of crafting the different stages directly, you will be able to choose one of several stash types based on Altuis' different biomes. You can then upgrade these stashes with materials to increase their health and item slots.
The ones that are being added now are just the beginning as we have more planned for the future.
Nesting, NPCs, Permissions
A lot of planning has been done.
We have been working on a detailed up-to-date documentation (taking into account latest UE 5.4.x features) about the functionality of the nesting mechanic, how nests, hatchlings and followers can be interacted with and what permissions, affecting each one of them, can be granted to other players/clans.
The new permission system will also change the functionality of player and clan structures which will make the permission setup way easier in the future.
Implementing this will take several weeks so we ask for patience (and a lot of coffee).
Other Things
We are always playing around with new ideas on the side.
As a result we created some effects for our characters that will only appear when they use specific abilities, e.g. a throat glow when they use a fire or shadow breath
Another idea is the addition of a death totem. Instead of dropping your loot on the ground whenever you hit the wall a bit too hard during flight, it would spawn a totem which contains all the dropped loot and has a little glow to it for easier visibility.
When these things will be added is still open since we want to focus on our main tasks first but they are sitting on the dev bench waiting for us to notice them.
Speaking of main tasks. You can now also see what is currently being worked on on our Trello board: https://trello.com/b/oWDzi6Pp/draconia-bug-report
That's it for now.
We probably forgot to mention a few things because it has been a while since we have posted a dev blog and a lot has happened in the meanwhile but if we did, we will mention them another time.
If you want to see more frequent news on upcoming game updates make sure to join us on Discord!
Want to report a bug or want to know what other things we have on our to-do list visit our Trello Board!