This week we've split our attention and while most of the team focused on some more substantial changes I began to make optimizations to Crea as well as fix some issues. While there is still much to do on this front it was a great start and I believe the game should already run 20-30% better now. Check out the new profiler by pressing F6. I'm really happy with it and want to give a shoot out to @eigenbom (Moonman developer) for helping out by sharing his code.
Thanks to the automatic crash reporter I added in last week we managed to track down a crash that was accounting for over half of the total number of crashes. Anyone who has an integrated gpu has ran into it at least once. Huge victory!
As I said, the rest of the team was preoccupied with larger changes that you will see some of this next week. Here are two quick previews of what we're working on.
Talents are a huge draw for a lot of players and it is personally my favorite feature in Crea; however, leveling up skills has always felt like black magic. You never really know what you're getting out of it and just hope it is something good. No more! Skill tooltips will soon show exactly what each level does for you and you'll even get to see what future levels will yield. It's time to get excited about getting that next skill level.
Dungeons! Yes, you heard me right. Dungeons! This is a substantial feature so it will take longer than another week to get the initial version out but it will be well worth the wait. I will forgo details on how dungeons will work but I will say that they'll add a great deal of replayability - both solo and multiplayer. Watch for next week's update for more details.
Speaking of next week, I will be continuing my focus on optimizing Crea and resolving issues. If you can't play the game because it is crashing or too laggy then what is the point of new features and content, right? Please be sure to report any issues you run into no matter how small it is or if you think someone else has reported it.
Weekly Update #10 Changelog
Features
- Added in automatic save backup as well as support to recover those files
- New in-game profiler to assist in tracking down performance issues and optimizing Crea
- Greatly optimized lighting (not done yet though)
Changes
- Higher level monsters (relative to character) now have higher drop rates and similarly lower level monsters will have lower drop rates
- Boss and Paragon levels will now match the player's level at the least
- Lessened rate of torch embers
Bug Fixes
- Resolved common crash on integrated gpus that occurred after generating a world
- Resolved water and lava rendering on OSX
- Resolved issue with lighting not running until after the player closed the tutorial window
- Resolved issue with skill form names not updating in Talent UI when channeling