KissenKitten - Producer
For this month, the Hypsilophodon and the Carnotaurus took center stage. The QA team has been hard at work helping us nail down the best way to deliver on the hypsi’s spit mechanic. We’ve tried it a few different ways and have a clear heading of how we want it to be applied to the other inhabitants of the island. Which can be more difficult to nail down than you may expect. In addition to that, the carno has come charging into EVRIMA. I know by now most of you have seen some of its new animations here and there. The carno’s special ability charge has been the priority for the latter portion of the month and per playtests, is feeling pretty good so far. We’ll be doing more rounds of testing and iterating on that per usual and anxiously await getting it into your hands.
Aside from the new additions to the island, you’ll also notice some other roadmap changes. One of the biggest decisions was to pull AI from individual updates. As you may know, we wanted EVRIMA's inhabitants to be smaller in stature (comparatively). With larger, apex animals being AI. However, with all the trouble complex AI has been giving us, we had to make some tough choices. Our original intent with AI was to allow server owners with low playercounts to still be able to have an immersive experience whether they had the player numbers on their side or not. In addition to having some large threats roaming around that you may not be able to get the best of. But unfortunately, AI needs more time in the oven. We considered our options and ultimately decided to let you all have the stegosaurus as a playable due to it already being completely animated for it’s AI introduction. Which would allow us to get you the update much sooner and also get another playable in your hands. The other options would have been to significantly delay the update while we pulled AI up to standard or to significantly delay the update while we replaced the stego with a different playable that would have needed to be animated from scratch. Both only served to cause delays. So we instead opted to get you all another playable and keep the update schedule on track. In addition, we’ve made a bunch of new changes to the roadmap with some valuable input from QA that we feel will help streamline production a little bit more while also steadily providing new playables in a scope that keeps each update feeling unique and adding new mechanics at each interval that corresponds with a playable that can utilize those new features.
Artistically, the concept team has rounded out the bulk of the legacy concept changes and will be shifting into work that supports a major addition to the game. Elders. I know the burning question on everyone’s minds has been, “which creatures will have an elder variant” and I can confirm that all of the playables will have an elder. Considering our massive roster though, you will not see a singular elder update as that would be a staggering amount of models to produce all at once and we doubt you’d want to wait that long to get your elder on. So, the elders, as we complete them, will appear on the roadmap alongside whichever update corresponds to its completion. Working on elders will be an ongoing part of production until each creature has one. So there will not be an elder specific update. We will simply be dropping them as they’re ready. Naturally though, they will be elders that correspond to the current playables in EVRIMA.
Outside of that, there are some new additions to the team and more to come over the coming months. Our team is expanding and with that growth, we will be able to do a little bit more, a little bit faster and a little bit better with each fresh set of hands, eyes and minds. Stay safe and be kind.
Filipe - Lead Programmer
It’s been a busy month for the entire team as we are working hard on new dinosaurs and new mechanics. Not only the mechanics for those dinosaurs, but also the generic ones. I reworked some logic of the swimming system to be more reliable and efficient, our diligent QA team has begun testing it and have found several bugs, but it already feels better. Also worked on getting the Piece of Meat system working. This system is another part of the drag system, which allows removing pieces from a corpse that is too big to be picked up or dragged. This also includes water to help against “water denial”. A detail is that if you drop the meat in water it will be gone. Still on the pickup subject, we are adding a impale system to the game, it is part of the Gore as well that a Stego for example, can impale a “carriable” creature after killing it with his tail spikes. Below is a video to demonstrate it:
Some UI designs are being discussed internally, but for now I'm doing some small changes and updates based on player feedback. Some of those changes involve the HUD and Chat, for example, it is important to know when you are under effects of buffs, debuffs, diseases, etc. Pounce will be much easier to connect to the target in the future, besides improvement to the jump I'm also working on a way to pounce when you are very close to the target, without the need to “jump”, you are close enough to “grab” the target and climb it. But, for now, I'm working on making it more reliable and fixing various bugs.
Another thing I made was a request from server owners, to add a Server Log system, which gives information like: when a player connects or logout, which faction was it playing, when a player dies from what circumstances, admins commands being used, etc. This also can be used to easily track “cheaters” on the server.
Anyway, performance is still a “WIP” for both client and server, sometimes those performance enhancements can take some time, but just be sure we didn't forget. Stay safe everyone. See you!
dmIV - Programmer
Developing games for multiplayer is painful. A particularly annoying part is synchronizing movement across clients because you are only allowed to use a very minimal amount of data. In the past I added some magic to make better use of it but looking at all the upcoming mechanics there was a need to further decrease our limitations. I refactored one more part of the movement replication logic that now gives us more freedom when dealing with different movement modes. As a side effect at one point we had AI dinosaurs running around at ridiculously high speeds but they are back to normal now.
New dinosaurs are always fun to work with and I especially like the annoying little critters like the Hypsilophodon. First I worked on its spit ability that went through a few different iterations. At the time of writing we’re testing both a trace and a projectile based solution that blinds you if it hits you in the head. We are considering different things to see what works best for gameplay and balance.
Another interesting mechanic is a chargeable jump. Holding the space bar for an extended time allows you to jump higher to reach better spots or lose your pursuers. It consumes a significant portion of your stamina but that amount regenerates quickly after landing. This was added to prevent using it too frequently without making the Hypsi lose too much stamina. Charging the jump is visualized by the tail sticking up in the air, using an animation that I posed myself. No one is particularly amused by it, but I’m proud of my artistic addition to the game.
I also worked on the Carnotaurus charge ability and the knockdown mechanic. I’m mentioning those separately because the knockdown itself is reusable as well. You will see it on the Tenonto’s secondary attack and potentially new dinos’ abilities as well. The charge is still missing some of the functionality, but here’s a preview for what to expect:
Additionally I worked on the basics of the stego’s tail attack. I had to make some changes to our existing directional attack ability logic to support some of its unique characteristics, but most of it is using the framework that was already in place.
Other than the exciting stuff I also made some in-engine image generators that we can use to create silhouette images for the UI using the actual meshes and animations.
amar0k - Programmer
Hey! So some of you may have caught the recent streams where i have been working on UI elements and adding some additional functionality to the server browser such as Queueing to join a full server. Although this is not quite needed just yet … in the future it will be important. Along with that i have added the ability for server owners to add a discord link so potential players can join the discord first to learn the rules etc.
I have also added some additional information that is shown to you when you click a server in the browser. Such as Server uptime (This will be converted to the Day number when Day/Night cycle is added along with the Time Of Day) and your character stats on the server if you have 1. Example below.
You can also filter by favourites and your history, I have also added sorting buttons at the top of the browser so you can sort servers Alphabetically by Name, Count of Players or Ping.
I have also been working on adding more functionality to grouping such as the ability to Kick/Promote members and added an online indicator (Green face)
Obviously the UI is not final and will be changed.
I have also been working on a Player Ban system which is mostly complete now this allows server admins to manage bans entirely from outside the game but also in-game.
Another thing that I added is an API for server information that will be useful when modding is implemented. Details on this will be revealed at a later date.
I am also beginning to focus on AI again. I will be looking into improving AI for Utah, Tenoto and Dryo over the next few weeks. The main focus for me will be movement during combat and fleeing along with everyone's favourite AI fish.
Finally I have been working on fixing legacy and removing exploits that have been publicized lately. Currently we are waiting for a 3rd party to get back to us and it's just a matter of hurry up and wait before we can push any updates.
Gabriel - VisualTech48 - 3D Environmental artist
This months been a bit crazy with the *REDACTED* especially with the a lot of variants to the modular kit, which needed more refinement and a lot more models to support the new *REDACTED* which features a lot of cool and modular inclined shapes, huge constructions like the mentioned garage, a large helipad, and the glorious *REDACTED* HQ of a sorts.
Far from that, the whole progress so far all is going according to plan, alongside a few small models (props), and a few big ones (dressings), which will be semi animated, for the *REDACTED* to interact with, and possible use in the near future.
This alongside the new Trim Mesh Decals, and a lot of new implemented textures which will be soon used in more detail, and the whole new fencing kit, which you’ve might've seen in its previous glory have been updated to be fully and properly implemented in the game, alongside a lot of variants from new, to damaged, will slowly and hopefully be bringing new life into the *REDACTED* life, and game overall.
Of course I’m not leaving you with nothing so here are a few images of the currents month work:
Jacob Baardse - 3D artist
Continuing to work on the series of redesigns and touch ups, we decided to upgrade the old Giganotosaurus, a dinosaur that certainly needs to look good. Compared to recent works, there isn’t a ton of juicy workflow stuff to go over here so this wasn’t nearly as technically involved as the Theri. It’s a pretty straightforward sculpt and retopology, but who doesn’t like a big toothy carnivore?
Hopefully the new design lives up to the prestige, but I’ll let the renders speak for themselves!
Closing Remarks
That wraps it up for this DevBlog folks! It's certainly been a busy month and we look forward to seeing you all next time. Be sure to check out the additions to the Public Roadmap using the Trello link below!
Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/G5tsb4XI/public-roadmap