Here's our progress this month:
Dialogue & AI Programming is at 99%, but the actual content is at 5%.
Stealth Programming is at 90%, but stealth content is at 5%.
Beast Programming is at 80%, while content, again, is at about 5%.
Weather System Programming is almost finished at 95%, but with 0% content.
Pathfinding is at 95% completion.
In a little more detail, here is a list of features we've managed to finish so far, all ready to be released with the next update once the pathfinding is stable enough:
- Creatures are now mostly coded in. Introducing the Beak Thing, a blind carnivorous giraffe/bird creature.
- Added stealth!
- 64-bit version available. 32-bit version will continue, but will get occasional crashes.
- New dialog/AI hybrid system that takes into account situation details and remembers what you've done in the past.
- Thugs and bandits can now harass and rob you rather than always attacking on sight. Thugs in town can insult you, then go outside the gates and jump you when you leave town. NPCs can follow and chase you while they talk or threaten you, and know the difference if you are running away.
- Changes to relation system, fighting someone in the middle of nowhere has very little effect on faction relations. Individuals can be perceived as temporary enemies or allies.
- A new terrain engine was necessary for the 64bit build. It looks worse than the old one because we've run out of texture units, but only until we upgrade to DX11, then it should look better again.
- NPC AI now has a schedule. They go to bed at night. Shopkeepers shoo you out of their shop at closing time and lock up for the night.
- Buildings can now have multiple floors
- Characters are less disadvantaged by being outnumbered, your lvl 50 warrior can now take out a group of starving bandits without getting mobbed.
- Basically they will miss more often as he moves around and dodges.
- More details added to the GUI, including visible calculations for character stats and penalties.
- Multi-threaded resource loading for smooth creation of models and textures. Shorter loading hiccups when moving around the map.
Pathfinding is coming along slow but steady. At least the longer Sam takes to finish it, the more content that we can add in before it's release :)