Hi Folks,
Cole here! Hope you are all enjoying the start of the summer season, apologies for the long weird silence here, we've been working hard on the back to back updates we mentioned back in April but we've also been juggling some challenges in real life that unfortunately took some time away from the game's progress for a bit. We're getting back on track now so the next update should be rolling soon; we just need to run it passed our testers first.

Hopefully when we launch our IndieGoGo campaign shortly we'll gain more exposure for the game, and more funding to keep our developers from losing their homes. It's too late for me sadly, as of June 1, my family and I are without a place to call home as many of you may know (the story seems to be making rounds in the Elder Scrolls modding community), but I'm not going to let that impact my work with Druid. We are struggling, but determined, so we don't want our players to start planning Dreamtime's funeral any time soon; we are devoted to bringing our vision to life, no matter what challenges we face.

We hope you'll stick with us!

Excluding some of the really boring technical notes only we understand, this is a complete changelog for the next update, which will be Build 16. We ended up having to update the engine again to fix a couple engine level oddities but as usual it broke the game in a few places. We've stabilized it but want to run a couple tests before updating the depot here on EA, just to make sure we don't serve up some ugly engine bug! Here's a list of what you can look forward to!

• New side quests, where you can learn more about the lore of Duan Rhod.
• Overhauled User Interface.
• Sky / Lighting improvements.
• Post Processing improvements.
• New creatures now roam the land.
• Your journal now records your actions during quests.
• Opened new “Characters” tab in the journal. This tab records the bio of every character you have met.
• The forest has now crept back into the village.
• The villagers have decided to spruce up the village with more stuff, making it look much more alive, even at night, with lanterns and torches lighting it up.
• You will now be greeted by a Discovery prompt when you find notable locations in the world.
• Explore an entirely new (WIP) dungeon down by the coast. But watch your footing!
• Digging spots have been scattered around the world. Don't forget to bring a shovel!
• Landscape improvements and additions to the entire playable area.
• New locations for you to explore, and old ones have been improved.
• The grass is always greener on the other side they say. Well, now you're on the other side!
• Added more dialogue and cinematic sequences, and the current sequences looks and plays better.
• New and improved animations.
• Automatic detection of keyboard/gamepad.
• Fixed the pop-in/out of objects on the path to the seer's tower.
• The unbelievably huge lodgepole outside the abandoned shrine is now no more.
• Tired of carrying a table on your back? Good news! The training shield has been reduced to a sensible size.
• Lighting has been improved in caves and dungeons.
• The Main Menu and CharGen scene is now brighter.
• Rivers will no longer be invisible while you're underwater.
• The current state of your gameworld will now be properly saved, even for future updates.
• Material and texture fixes and improvements.
• Level Streaming optimizations. There will be less hitching when the game loads in new content.
• NavMesh optimizations. How and where NPCs and creatures walk is now more precise, as well as being less taxing on your CPU.
• LOD optimizations. The LOD of a massive amount of objects have been optimized, both for better performance and greater looks.
• Collision optimizations. Less floating, less sinking into objects, and more performance friendly collision.
• Updated to Unreal Engine 4.16, bringing along great optimization and additional tools for us to use and you to enjoy.
• Loads of bug fixes.

That's it for this progress report, but hope to be posting again soon with update news, keep checking back!