Welcome one and all to our weekly Dev Blog!
Up this week is The Black Gate (formerly Fort Doom), the long overdue rats, UI updates, AI work and server stability news. Of course, the BETA WAR battle report and WINNERS !
Don’t forget V0.15 is coming this Friday!
The Black Gate
Fort Doom finally has a name, The Black Gate!
The concepts have been completed, showing a striking silhouette and exterior layout. You should be able to see this monolith from a great distance!
Details and layout in the engine are coming along nicely. Players will have to make their way through a cave, a beach-side village, up a cliff path, through a small settlement and into the castle itself. On your way, you’ll encounter new NPCs, narrow bridges that require careful navigation and plenty of loot.
" The black gate is going to be a “gold mine” for gold, pun intended. We are starting to introduce more procedural ore nodes such as gold to the world making them less obvious to find but to counter this we wanted to have a place full of danger that can offer the player a more guaranteed place to find these materials. The design and look of the black gate is to reflect this, a place of once booming industry full of much-needed materials that has fallen into the clutches of the strongest bandit groups. It’s up to you now to take it from them". – Cam
The first section of this area will be available to play in V0.15, we will open up later areas in future updates. Which will give us more time to balance and polish.
Rats!
RATS! Those adorable little heralds of death have finally arrived in The Black Death. It’s something we’ve been planning on for a long, long time. Check out the video below to see them in action.
"I felt it was time to introduce rats since they we’re considered one of the main sources of the plague, it also helps with telegraphing areas that are infected to players. We obviously had to be careful with performance so we opted for a particle system to provide their logic using a simple static mesh instead of a skeletal, this allows for hundreds rather than killing performance for just a few!" – Cam
UI Changes
More polish for the UI! Focusing on inventory, Loot and Shops. The focus has been to generally making everything look nicer and being easier to navigate and distinguish between various elements. Comparisons below:
Inventory
Loot
Shopkeeper
AI Work
Currently, the AI all react the same and only have variations in health and damage. We wanted to change this up so each enemy NPC you came into contact with would have certain abilities that differentiate it from others in the game.
This is an example of a more difficult enemy, slower to approach you, as if cautious, you will have to decide whether to run at him to try and get a cheap shot, wait for him to get to you or just make a hasty retreat. This NPC also parries more frequently meaning you will have to really consider when to swing and how to manage your stamina. Whilst in close proximity with you he will move quickly and attacks at every opportunity so expect to have to use block and your own agility to out manoeuvre him. This sort of AI would be used for a an NPC like a champion bandit.
This AI on the other had is the opposite and is “worse” than the current in game AI. He charges in quickly, meaning players may get caught of guard but has far less tactical ability than the previous example. During combat, he is slow to move and turn meaning flanking and landing side shots is easy. He attacks and parries less often so his overall damage output is far lower and shots from the front land more often. This would be perfect for an early game hostile beggar NPC for example.
Combining these with health and damage modifiers we will be able to create a diverse range of enemy NPCs for all levels of players, exciting stuff indeed!
Server Stability & New Official Server
Work on server stability is still ongoing. We’ve collected a lot of data from the BETA WAR event letting us dig a bit deeper into what’s going on.
For those who are interested in this sort of thing we’re specifically looking at our server’s CPU and memory usage and changes we can make to lower those numbers. As always with optimisation this is not a straightforward job, there are lots of small changes across nearly all of our server-side systems.
We’ve had our highest amount of daily active players and concurrent players since launch this past month which has also highlighted areas that need our attention. We’ll be making advancements in most updates in the foreseeable future, server performance should be constantly improving.
This is a top priority for us at the moment.
SIG MegaServer
To help us with the above work we opened a Mega server this week. The EU based mega server is a dedicated Black Death server with a higher spec than our other official servers. We also have more control with this particular server that allows us to, yes you guessed it, collect that data! So please jump on and have a go and let us know any odd server related issues you run across!
BETA WARS Battle Report
A big thank you to everyone who attended the Beta Wars event on Sunday 25th June over on our Beta Test server, we hope you all had a great time!
There were three different teams; Art’eamon’s Militia (The Templars), Kap’s Raiders and the SIG Knights. Recruitment for the event started last week and Kap’s Raiders seemed to be the favourite against the righteous Templars!
A lot of preparations were done before the event by Art’eamon, Kap and SIG_Pete! They were forging weapons and armour throughout the week, sharing storage and gathering up materials and ingredients to ensure there were enough supplies for both sides, you could say there was an Industry at work! With the furnace, anvils, workbench, and tannery being used it felt like a true workshop! Once preparations were finished everything was kept safe and locked up with the help of Iron Doors to keep out those annoying Outlaws. In total around 30 swords, 30 armour sets, tons of food, water and bandages were crafted and stashed for the Beta Wars event.
Recruitment was under way on our Steam forums, with Art’eamon and Kap organising sign-ups and talking tactics with their teams ready for the event. Sunday evening dawned upon Mercia, the time was 5:45pm (BST/UTC time) and our teams started to arrive at the bridge in Queen’s Province ready for battle. The SIG Knight’s, Kap and Art’eamon started to hand out weapons and armour to their teams for the pre-battle prep. Taunts and emotes were thrown around between both sides in an attempt to scare their opposition. Weapons were even drawn and were pointed towards enemy players.
Both teams were geared up and it was decided that the Raider’s would camp at the top of the bridge for the night, whilst The Templar’s would camp at the fort in Drumdin Hill just over the hill. Tactics and strategies were discussed late into the night as bandits were roaming. Full of food and water and dawn nearing, The Templars decided to set up their formation in the fort at Drumdin Hill ready for the attack from Kap’s Raider’s at Sunrise. The Raider’s outnumbered The Templar’s and as such were feeling very confident that they would be victorious over The Templar’s at sunrise. The Raider’s kept watch over their camp site as there were Night Bandit’s roaming the paths close by. The Raider’s stocked up on a few more meals and some water from the Merchant’s at Queen’s Crossing before sunrise, they needed to be well fed for the battle ahead, all the excitement had gotten the Raider’s hungry for a feast.
A new day dawned and the sun shone across the land of Mercia, the Raider’s were ready to head out from their camp and make their way over the hill to the Fort at Drumdin Hill. The Templar’s were ready for the Raider’s and held their positions in the fort. Little did The Raider’s know that the Templar’s had Archers in their ranks, this would surely catch them off guard! The Raider’s gathered their thoughts for a moment and made their way up to the fort at Drumdin Hill, with the SIG Knights following behind them. The path to Drumdin Hill was quick as The Raider’s charged up the hill to face The Templar’s with their full force. The battle between The Templars and The Raider’s at Drumdin Hill Fort did not last long, despite being outnumbered vastly by The Raider’s, the Templar’s took down the Raider’s inside the fort, with some even fleeing from the battle. These Raider’s did not make it out of the fort as the Templar archers took them down with accuracy. The Templar’s were victorious that morn as the sun swept across the hills and valleys of Mercia, the sound of victory for The Templars could be heard through the land.
The leader of the Raider’s, Kapitein Kansloos, called for a final fight, this was a last man standing and took place between The Devil’s Eyes and Laketown. The Templar’s and Raider’s stripped allegiances to their sides and gathered for the final battle of the Beta War. The road to the last battle site was long, some warriors took food and drink for the journey, others were fuelled by blood thirst from the first battle. Dusk was creeping over the landscape of Mercia and visibility was low, other than the light emanating from a few nearby Night Bandit torches. The Queen’s Guard did not operate this place; there were no rules here and few dared to venture out into these parts, especially at nightfall.
The final battle of The Beta Wars was all out carnage. Swords, arrows, maces, and shields seemed like a blur on the battlefield. The grass and cotton that grew there was stained with the blood of warriors, corpses were strewn across the fields, many lives were lost this day. There could only by one who was victorious this day and claim the honour of the Beta Wars. This warrior was Kez, their tenacity, skill and tactics were unmatched as they almost danced around the battlefield, swinging their two-handed sword as though it was air. Kez had trained for this day all his life.
*The last page is lost…*
*** End of the Account of The Great Beta Wars Of Mercia ***
The Victors
Beta war Clan Battle : The Militia (Lead by Art’aemon and the Templars) – 100,000 gold
The Militia were victorious in the first battle, despite being greatly outnumbered by The Raiders.
Free for all : Kez – 10,000 gold
The Winner of the Free For All Battle in the Second Round was Kez from The Templars! Kez and SIG_Pete were left on the battlefield, standing tall over the corpses of their rivals
Award for Diplomacy : Bosco – 5,000 gold
Bosco forgo the battle to provide the supplies to each team as they prepared for battle, a noble indeed!
Deadeye; ranged combat award : HouserVT – 5,000 gold
With his bow at his side, Houser rained death down on his opponents.
The (almost) lucky escape : Cookies Need Love – 5,000 gold
The Militia onslaught to the fort was quick and bloody, but Cookies killed and evaded the attackers until the bitter end!
Victors, please post your character and server in the “Prize Claims” thread on the steam forums and we will arrange your winnings as quickly as possible.
To view the full Gallery from The Beta Wars head on over to our Official Website to our Dev Blog #30 here:
Dev Blog #30: The Black Gate, Rats, UI Changes, AI, Beta War Battle Report & Server Stability
Cookies and Bosco were kind enough to record the event, check out their creations below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIUixX-yReA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0tF-FA4ufA
For more content from Cookies Need Love catch him on Twitch:
Cookies Need Love On Twitch
The Black Death Wiki
We’re also still working away with the help of the community to update the Black Death wiki page. Please come and help us fill up this repository of information!
The Black Death Wiki (Powered by Fandom)
…See you in Mercia!
// The SIG Team