Hello again everyone! Apologies for the couple days of lateness for this week's dev blog, this weekend got a bit crazy!
Today we'll be going over our progress on expanding the world of Valeyra to be more than just a play space and breathing some life into it. Players should notice the changes as soon as they enter the Verdant Boughs as they are met with cutscenes, lore, and a population of people who they can learn more about and earn reputation with. The entire zone has been designed with this history in mind and with a lot to find referencing niche lore, the Fae, and the history of Valeyra.
We now have a pretty great suite for developing cutscenes quickly and easily, and we will be putting that to more use with more cutscenes in quests, and other content where they are applicable. Cutscenes help with the progression of story that doesn't require player input, and can be a very effective way to deliver a big moment in a quest or storyline. So far we already have over 10 cutscenes planned for Verdant with more likely to come through the last stages of development.
We're also working on adding a ton of little side content focused solely on lore for players to discover and learn more about Valeyra from. I also want to focus on a full revamp of the Academy starting experience post Verdant by fully fleshing it out as an academy with more utility, a better player experience, a reputation system, cutscenes, quests, and more.
Other than Lore we're still chipping away at mapping and some quest content has been completed. However, this coming week will be a bit of a break from development as our team sorts out some real life work that has piled up and we'll be back at it next week!
Apologies for the short dev blog this week, next week's should be much more juicy as we get back into full steam development and things pick up the pace. Expect to see more rapid updates and teasers as the month comes to a close!