Welcome travellers to update V0.12 - The Long Night! We’ve got day & nights cycles, performance improvements, days survived, housing overhaul and much, much more!
PS. Sorry it was a bit late!
To view the Patch Notes in their original form you can view them over on our website here:
The Black Death: Patch Notes V0.12 - The Long Night
Day / Night Cycle
The sun has set in Mercia… and risen again! The day / night cycle is in. This has been a big feature for us but we’ve finally got it to a place we’re happy with. This feature has a lot of mechanics tied to it, more below.
To view our cool slider that shows Raven's Reach at both day and night visit our blog to see it in action, there's also a time lapse video showing the day and night cycle.
The Black Death: Patch Notes V0.12 - The Long Night
Days Survived
To accompany the day and night cycle we have added a new mechanic we've been calling “Days Survived”. Each day the sun rises players will receive a daily reward of character stats and gold. The longer you survive the better your character will become.
Torches & Campfires
Torches can now be crafted!
Crafting a torch requires 1x stick and 1x kindling which can be looted from stick piles or regular crates and barrels around the world. When you initially spawn you will start with a torch but to craft an additional one once it runs out you will need to unlock the skill, which has a cost of 1 skill point.
Look out for other adventurers carrying torches throughout the lands of Mercia, on closer inspection this may in fact be a Night Bandit!
We’ve added a lightsource to player crafted campfires, they also drastically decrease the likelihood of bandits attacking you during the night (unless you build a campfire in a bandit camp of course…) Campfire crafting is an unlockable skill that costs 1 skill point.
Engine Update & Optimizations
We’ve done a lot of work in these areas and the engine upgrade wasn’t straightforward. So bundling this under one title feels like a bit of a disservice to what’s been done, but these things all fall into one key point for you lot - better performance.
Key points:
• Improved replication, so better net performance under load
• Many rendering optimizations, better frame rate (this is dependant on your hardware and settings).
• Net performance optimizations, again better net performance under load
There’s a LOAD of backend stuff gone into this, so everything should be ticking over much smoother.
Launcher & Dedicated Servers
We have been working behind the scenes on dedicated servers for The Black Death which we know has been a highly requested feature from our Community! When this system has been implemented we will need your help testing them out. Your feedback will be essential as this is quite a big technical change for us.
To enable easy launching of the dedicated servers we created a custom game launcher that also houses a bunch of settings for ease of use.
Player Housing Changes
We have revamped the Player housing system completely. This update has a core feature set for all your medieval needs. We are planning on expanding this system and as we roll out more and more updates.
Houses can be found in the world and must be purchased, once purchased you will be required to spend gold and resources to clean them up and begin adding your own features such as utilities, beds and storage.
Pillaging Areas
As the game's crafting has become more important with the changes to housing and progression we quickly realised we would have to change how players acquire crafting resources and loot.
We’ve began to implement “Pillaging areas” the idea behind these areas are dangerous locations around the map, usually consisting of multiple enemies and plague that yield the best loot.
These will range from single abandoned houses all the way to huge areas like the city of Svalberg in the south and the ruins of Duffus Castle.
These are still a work in progress as loot and enemies will need balancing and area design and art need refining. We also want to create more varieties of areas such as deeper caves.
Lootable Item Changes
There are now new chests that can be found in dangerous and hidden areas around the world. These have great loot and treasures hidden within if you are able to get close enough to loot them.
Here’s a breakdown of the lootables you can now find in the world:
Standard crate - Loot these for basic sticks, stones, kindling and berries, also have a chance to contain random items that can be sold for gold.
Standard barrel - Loot these for basic sticks, stones, kindling and berries, also have a chance to contain random items that can be sold for gold.
Wooden chest - contains some gold and food items, also contain rope for crafting.
Heavy wooden chest - contains a substantial amount of gold and food items.
Heavy iron chest - contains a large amount of gold and several very valuable items that can be sold for large quantities of gold.
New Spawn Locations
We have introduced new spawn points in game! Now when you log in you will be greeted with sun, sea and sand, that’s if you don’t spawn in at night time! Do not fear though, when you spawn in game you will find a cotton swab and a torch in your Inventory to get you started.
Combat System Update
The combat system has been given a rework. Coupled with the performance and optimisations the combat system has a much more fluid and responsive feel. Enemies will now block and parry your attacks.
With an improved physics system swings and hits are more accurate which means better feedback when striking different materials and surfaces.
All of this should mean a better and generally more responsive gameplay experience all round.
New Post Processing Volumes & Graphical Changes
A whole bunch of post processing volumes and materials have been added.
• New fog volumes
• New freezing fog volumes
• New ground fog volumes
• New overcast volume
• New rock/stone wall material
• New water and sea material
• Worldspace ambient occlusion
Character Progression Changes
We have re worked the Profession unlocking tiers.
Crafting & Inventory Combined Menu
We have integrated Crafting into the Player's Inventory system. From feedback we received and playing ourselves we noticed how often we were flipping between the Inventory and Crafting window.
We have combined the two into one easy to use UI. Materials and resources are now automatically placed in recipes when clicking on them. There are also tabbed categories for different recipes such as weapons, tools, food and housing too!
Item Quality Changes
Items now have different coloured tiers that represent their quality when consumed and used in crafting. These are: Awful, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Exotic and Legendary.
New Skill Trees
We have reworked the skill trees to allow players more choice. It is now possible to learn skills in any order you choose. We understand every Player has their own playstyle and we wanted to accommodate this.
Gold Re-Balance
Gold has been re-balanced to reflect the change in resources and items found in the world based on their value. Weapons and armour will now cost more from Blacksmith vendors and will be highly sought after for their value and stats.
We felt this was needed as in these dark times gold should be scarce and valuable as a currency. Do you choose to eat a nasty bread roll to survive or sell it for a high price towards other goods?
Foraging Piles
We have added new foraging piles that can be found scattered around Mercia, these are in the form of rock piles and stick piles.
Other Changes
• New main menu look
• New HUD map
• New Ravens Reach notice board map
• 10+ music tracks added to the game
• More signposts in the world
• More named areas
• Invert mouse option added
New & Updated Areas:
• Crutchley Hill Forest
• Crutchley Hill update
• Raven's Reach entrance & road polish
• Raven's Reach forest added
• Path to Wetrock from Raven's Reach polish and forest
• WetRock update
• WetRock pine forest
• Queen's Crossing forest added
• Lathe battlefield added
• Lathe battlefield Camp added
• Lathe battlefield Forest added
• Logger’s Respite updated
• Logger’s Respite forest added
• Freeman’s Port River updated
• Crutchley Hill Forest added
• Farleigh Town Forest added
• Burnt village added near Monastery
• Monastery forest added
• Dunstead forest finished
• Beach Meadows added
• New roads to aketown from Queen's Crossing
• Svalberg added to Frostfall, infected snowy town with high grade loot
• Laketown now abandoned and plague ridden
• The gate to Raven's Reach Crypt added
Bugs Fixed
We squashed a staggering 261 bugs! A big thank you to everyone who gave us bugs through our Google Bug Submission Form, by email, on the Steam Forums and Discord too. It really means a lot to us, thank you for each and every report!
**Here are the Patch Notes for the Hotfix that went out in the early hours of the 4th April 2017**
- Fixed Server crash On GetActorForwardVector() with null pawn
- Fixed Server crash with AI failing check on EQS_DEBUGGER
- Fixed client crash on Logging in
- Fixed Bought House Doors disappearing
- Fixed Door Health problem
- Fixed Houses not saving Owner sometimes
- Fixed Skills reassigning problem
- Fixed Beta character transfers
- Fixed Locks disappearing and not saving
- Move to release gamespark
- Fixed Pickups not deleting after time period
- Fixed Duplicate vendor items on AddActiveItem
- Fixed Loading Steam DRM issue
- Fixed Crafting an oven housing kit will give you a tannery
- Fixed Crafting a storage chest housing kit will not yield the chest
- Fixed infection look visual removal when you bring down infection, with potions
- Fixed Crafting a bed housing kit will not yield the items
- Fixed Chest and bed unlockable are green while not having the kit to place them
- Fixed Oven kit is missing an icon in the crafting menu
- Fixed Churner housing kit is under tools rather than housing
- Fixed some resolution issues on Inventory
- Fixes to Skill tree
- Fixed server browser disappearing
- Fixed heavy torch attack
- Balancing Tool weight
- Fixed Starter town now has safe volume
- Fixed metal plate pickup
For a full list of the Fixed Bugs for our V0.12 - The Long Night update that went out to our Live servers on Saturday 1st April 2017 head on over to our full Patch Notes on our website. There are too many for the character limit here on Steam!
The Black Death - Patch Notes: V0.12 - The Long Night
Community Thanks
Once again we give our warmest thanks to everyone in on Community. Thank you for your continued support and trust. Thank you to everyone who sent us bug reports through our form, by email and on Discord. Thank you all for being on this grand journey with us, it means a lot. We hope you all enjoy playing V0.12 The Long Night!
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The future is bright
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…See you in Mercia!
// The SIG Team