This week the game saw great improvements that will definitely be felt by the player when they get their hands on the game in about 2 weeks! I added new garden placeables and Nilsson polished the placing system and gunplay.
This week Longvinter was officially reviewed by Valve and approved for release, so if everything goes as planned, we are 100% releasing on the 24th!
For those that gave us feedback on how much they enjoyed the in-game music, we got a treat for you: we'll be releasing the first official soundtrack to Longvinter alongside the base game on the 24th with a -20% launch discount! It has a track called 'Aerosol' that is not in the game but it has a similar, more uptempo feel, and a remix of the main menu track called 'Temporary Home (remix)'!
-Teo
Allotment Garden Placeables
Teo
This is still WIP, there are a few placeables missing, like village lights and trimmed bushes and such, but here's an early look at what you could create with the placeables I managed to add this week:
Day
Night
Allotment garden placeables so far:
- Garden tiles (1 & 2)
- Makeshift bench
- Garden Firepit
- Garden Fences (6 different colors)
- Slab Planter Box 1x3
In the future, flowers will be used in coloring, but also is dishes and beverages
James' Recycling Model
Teo
The old general store is no more, James' took over and there will soon be reverse vending machines all around the island!
Server Admin Tools
Teo
I started work on the Admin Panel, which will allow server admins and moderators to ban and kick players from their servers. Quite an important feature I'd say. I hope to get the UI done next week and in the future, I'd also like to add more tools than just kick and ban, like teleport-to, reset MK, and remote admin call via chat command.
More Ways To Interact
Nilsson
Certain actions were still only available with clicking the object. I reworked the SPACE action bar to act just like the regular left mouse click does. Now if could interact with something with a mouse, now you can also do it with the SPACE BAR.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you stack containers you still need to click on which specific container you want to access. Now only the bottom one is opened.
New Gate With Progression Requirements
Nilsson
I made a new gate that we can use to limit player access to certain parts of the map. Gate can have certain compendium requirements or it might require a certain item in your inventory to open.
Here is a preview of the UI. Still needs a model.
Reworked AI Spawner
Nilsson
Previously birds would exist on the map and all the information about them would be sent to everyone regardless of their location. This worked well for small maps but as we want to increase the number of AI entities on the map we needed to have more control over where they would spawn. I now added a new AI spawner that takes care of spawning the AI to a player that walks nearby and despawns them when there is nobody around anymore.
Improvements To Placing
Nilsson
I added much-needed feedback to the item placing system. Previously it either allowed you or did not allow you to place an item. Now it shows a specific reason why the item cannot be placed here. Also, new colors for different picking up conditions are now more clear with new colors that show when placing the item. Take a look below.
Improvements To Shooting
Nilsson
Players with the bad network were unable to shoot their weapon at the fire rate that the gun is given. This had the benefit for every shot was exactly the same on every client but made players with bad connections unable to shoot very accurately. I made changes to the shooting where a client machine cannot see the server-side bullet but only the impact that it makes. This allows players to have more fluent feelings while using guns.
Other changes
- Fishing now requires 3 action button (E) presses. Previously required 4
- Hats cannot be equipped without the required compendium unlock
- Added a cliff ramp which allows players to access cliffs
- Added building blocked zones to POIs
- Added input quickstart to the loading screen and to the 'How to Play?' window