Hello everyone,
Just wanted to give you an update on the plans for the upcoming Alpha 1.9 of Badiya.
Alpha 1.9 is a very big release and brings lots of requested features and improvements across different areas. Many of the systems have been completely rewritten to accommodate that.
* Terrains:
- New Terrain Generation System
- New terrain shading system with tessellation and object blending
- Several Biomes featuring a unique (Look, Loot, Resources, POIs, Animals, Trees, Vegetation, Enemies, Quests) for each with seamless blending between them.
* Rendering:
- New Weather, Time of Day and Cloud System
- New Post Processing System
- New Volumetric Lighting System
- New Contact Shadows System
- New PCSS system (Percentage Closer Soft Shadows) so that shadows get softer the farther they are from the source object
* Performance:
- Massive boost in terrain generation speed
- Vegetation and objects Instancing
- Dynamic Occlusion Culling (Objects behind a wall or a building will not be rendered for better performance)
- Imposter System (Very far objects will be represented as sprites for better performance)
* Narrative System:
- Tutorial Quest that goes through the basic game systems and mechanics.
- Story Mode with a Main Quest (Work started on it but it might not make it to 1.9)
- New side quest types
* Artificial Intelligence:
- You can now kill/hit/run over crowds in camps and cities, the punishment now is that you risk a fire fight with the armed civilians. In future releases the goal is to have a crime and reputation system that will make your actions known in nearby POIs and therefore your treatment by the locals will differ based on your reputation. A crime system will also be added so that lock picking chests and taking horses/camels without paying their owners will be considered a crime that the crowds will react to and will affect your reputation if seen.
- Crowd Jobs System (Crowds will have tasks to do: Beggars, Butchers, Repair/Fixing stuff etc...)
- Enemy AI Encounters Improvement (Enemies get out of POIs, better obstacle avoidance and reactions)
* Fixes:
- Salvage function is coming back and can be performed through a salvage station you build.
- Balanced weather cycle.
- Getting out of danger state after encounter with enemies or animals
- Unique names for towns and civilians so that quest givers have a better quest description for you.
Keep in mind that the previous list is tentative and is subject to change but this is what we are working toward at the moment. There isn't an estimated release date yet but we will keep you posted.
Let us know what you think.
Best Regards,
Ahmad Jadallah
Director of Development
Semaphore