We’re testing new code on the public beta server, unfortunately it’s still not ready for primetime.
We're doing our best and work on Dragon is going strong but we're extremely understaffed at the moment. We've had luck with some recent applicants and are looking forward to adding development talent to the team as soon as possible.
New:
Performance improvements
Vast improvements on performance, most of which can't be seen very well because so many things were disabled and removed. But know that as we add the items back we are using a much better system that should drastically reduce the amount of lag and render calls.
New Dragon, New Animation System
The new dragon is a placeholder for the one we will be using for the editable dragon which will be working in to the system soon. The important feature is its "bones" which we are using for the animations and controls.
We have new animations and are now using Mecanim to blend them. We do not have it all refined and snazy looking yet but now that we have them set up with the new dragon, bone, and movement systems we can refine how the dragon looks when it moves.
New Flight Mechanics
We’ve heard a lot of requests for new flight mechanics and controls. Please have a look and let us know how you like the changes. We are still refining it so it will continue to improve.
New Grounding System
You will notice the dragons feet now follow the ground, no matter what it walks over. This will eventually allow dragons to run, walk, climb, jump, and slither in the most realistic of ways.
New Tree System
The new tree system allows us to have a dense, burnable, forest and was difficult to make because of the speed with which the dragon flies. Pulling new terrain and trees in so fast was hard to make work. We think we have a good system for it now but it does cause brief "lag" in the game. Eventually there will be loading screens for these periods of time. Just know the game will seem to hang for a moment and then will resume.
Old:
A lot of the old stuff (NPCs, Buildings, etc) are being updated for the new system, each has to be looked at, dismantled and then added back in so it works better and faster. We will be working them back in as fast as we can.
Bugged:
The camera and dragon can be jittery on occasion.
Sometimes mouse sensitivity is too high or low for some computers which causes the dragon to move way too erratically.
When loading the trees up close they are a slightly different shade.
The game hangs for up to 30 seconds when loading a new chunk of landscape with trees.
Fire breath can bug out and shoot in strange directions or at varying rates.
Next:
Better tail dynamics (no more jitter)
Better Controls as we continue to refine them
An option to turn on and off mouse sensitivity as well as some other options for quality and improving framerate
New Camera System - return of zoom and rotate so you can view your dragon
Better Animations
Fix Color change when swapping trees
Buildings will return and be breakable as well as burnable
Loading screens to make it obvious when the game is loading and is not frozen.
New terrain that looks much better
Shadows: The dragon casts a pretty wicked shadow, but for performance reasons it is disabled until we implement the option to turn it on and off.
Soonish:
NPCs will be back and using a new movement and animation system as well. They should be a lot more fun to fight.
New Melee - the dragon will reach toward the target when fighting.
Moddability - This has been thought of with back end features as we remake the system. A lot of it is set up already. Some items, like trees are very easy and we may have them moddable as soon as next patch. Other things like NPCs are proving difficult to make as modifiable, but at the very least we will have textures that can be edited and applied to all models very soon.
Breath weapon and roar physics.