Afternoon everyone!
While we wait on the patch, I wanted to take this opportunity to fill everyone in on a couple of rather large pieces of what is to come.
Update:
As previously announced, this was going to be a multi-month patch so the animator and coder could deal with the in game animations and the corrections that were needed to the characters and skeleton.
I won't go into a lot of detail here as the animator will be providing an update in our post-patch news release on what was done and where he and the programmer are going from there. I can say, animations have gone from approximately 460 to well over 900 and there has been a lot of corrective coding work done. These additions are build outs of the primary animations that were in game previously or replacement animations that improve mobility. All of this work was needed to allow for later addition of the much requested game animations like ladder climb, etc. Expect to see the remaining Trello animation deliverables completed over the coming months after this patch.
Since we knew animations would take us offline for a few months, we took the opportunity to also upgrade our game's engine version to 4.15.1. This upgrade to the newest engine provides many improvements with the major ones below:
- Much optimization for rendering which improves the game experience (we have been working on adding these optimizations to the game--a very tedious task)
- Improved photo-realistic graphic capability
- Auto-generation of LODs for assets to improve rendering
- New rendering features to allow for highly realistic surface reflections
- Grass and foliage scalability
- The framework needed to allow for the coding of functionality to add SLI (dual graphic cards) to the game for players
- The framework needed to begin coding in protections for game code. This will be something we will work on improving over multiple months.
- Much improved frameworks for video, sound and animation tools
The patch will also include many bug fixes and some new content but outside of what was already announced on Twitter and what is in this update, we are saving the rest to be a surprise for everyone.
Workshop Map Changes and DLC:
With the engine upgrade, we also need to provide new tools to our community map makers so they can migrate to the new engine and take advantage of its numerous improvements within their maps. At the same time, we have decided to eliminate the issues players experience with disconnects and missing packages because they are required to subscribe to the maps to download them. We are resolving these issues by moving to a curated Workshop and integrating the maps into game DLC at the same time as we release the patch.
What this means for mappers is a new process will come into effect for custom maps. Starting on patch day:
- Maps will no longer be public on the Workshop, they will be submitted for review by staff and if accepted, they will be added to a free DLC pack that will automatically be provided to all game owners.
- The onus will be on the map makers to ensure their content is playable and complete prior to submission for review.
- DLC patches will tie into the same timeline as game patches so having broken maps and access to next day fixes will no longer be an option.
When we move to the PS4 platform, it is our intent to present a case to Sony to allow for this free community custom map DLC to be available on their console as well. There are no guarantees they will accept BUT having the content as a free product available in game versus what it currently is--only on Steam-- puts us in a good place should we get permission.
Volunteers Needed - Workshop Mappers:
Any current map maker who would like the jump on converting their map to 4.15.1 should let me know here in this thread or send me a PM. We have a draft guide and the Editor available for you to test. Your help in reviewing both and providing feedback would be much appreciated!
Patch Date?
We still have a couple of outstanding pieces to complete to our satisfaction before sending the build to the dev testers. Setting a hard date is impossible as each change needs to be tested internally then tweaked and until it actually gets to the testers and they do their initial sweep, we cannot predict a finish date. All I can say is we are close now. Keep an eye out for the dev testing server going live over the next week as that will tell you, almost there!