Major Update | Added Open World Test Level!
Minor Updates
1. Bug Fixes
-Fixed the bug causing double failure quips to play after failing a quest. It was too annoying for me to leave unaddressed until the guild quest rework!
Open World Notes
Test map can be accessed via the preference settings page in the player ui. It is mostly empty except for a couple test assets. This patch is just to confirm the performance specs on Steam meet test specs in Editor testing. If it does meet specs, I'll start modeling or sourcing foliage assets and content to fill the world. If it doesn't meet specs, I'll find a solution and retest.
Note that there are new game textures, and I have added both player character mesh to the level to test subsurface shaders so the initial load may lag while new shaders are compiled, but otherwise it should be fast and smooth.
Expect minor delays, I'll probably be moving between now and next patch, but will continue dev work nonstop.
*****
I was going to make a map as large as Breath Of The Wild but opted to make a smaller map for several reasons. The goal is to make a fun open world game map. I felt that in this case bigger wasn't better. When you traverse a massive map in most mmos players afk walk. I don't want to force players to walk miles between points of interest in VR. That would be bad design. It's also important to maintain buttery smooth frame rates. Large maps aren't free, and I can make better levels with more content packed into smaller areas. Lastly, it would suck for me to make an 80km2 map and need to scrap it for a smaller map.
I prototyped several massive maps from 1km2 to 100km2. I felt that 36km2 was a good balance for my current level plan with 5 towns and 6 biomes. For reference it's a little smaller than Skyrim's map which is still massive and may need to be pulled back further.
Teaser: I can look to make an expansion with an even bigger map in the future, but I'll probably need some good in game mounts before making a bigger map.
Rip the test grass. It was beautiful in PC testing, but VR didn't appreciate the added 10 million triangle count.