Though this patch does add a number of new animals and items, I'm moving away from adding "more" to improving what is. The biggest changes in this patch reflect that with improved performance, user experience, visuals, and more.
Please note that this patch updates biome math and will require a world update. A world update will attempt to reposition all player placed objects back onto ground level. This is an imperfect system, but the alternative is starting a new world. You can of course always bring characters from other worlds into any new worlds.
I have been working hard on Solace Crafting for over 3 years now, and I've learned a great deal in that time. One of the biggest lessons continues to be the fact that I chose almost all of the most difficult "genres" of a game that a developer can aim for. 3D, procedural, infinite, multi-player, RPG. I chose all of these because that's what makes games fun for me, and because I wanted to make something better. It's been a difficult journey, but Solace Crafting has a solid core, and now that core needs to be polished.
As a first time solo developer, there are a lot of things that crop up requiring your attention that you don't initially plan for. Managerial skills seem unnecessary, I mean, it's just me, right? But actually time management and project management have proven to be two of the most critical skills towards sustained and meaningful productivity. If I get sick, everything stops. If a task I spend a week on turns out to be a waste of time, it's my fault. The stress of full responsibility can be very real, but I'm still here and Solace Crafting is looking better than ever.
I'm in the process of writing up a list of what I think needs to be polished and finalized for a version 1.0 release, taking us out of early access, but I want to give everyone a chance to voice their opinion as to not necessarily what "more" the game needs, but again, what needs to be better. The animations and the interface are definitely in need of work, but there are a lot of little things that can end up having a big impact. The addition of solace names to the map for example, wasn't difficult, it just had to brought up and prioritized.
I don't have a survey or form setup yet to let everyone provide both structured and open feedback, but I do want to setup something similar to the surveys I've run in the past with more of a focus on a "what bothers you the most" kind of a questionnaire.
All-in-all, the community has been invaluable throughout development thus far, and remains my one true boss. Without my supporters on Patreon, and new players buying copies, I would quickly be out of work. I was never good at asking for support, but it does makes a huge difference. If you're doing well and can pitch in to the Patreon fund I would very much appreciate it.
So thank you to everyone that has ever taken the time read one of my posts, and thank you to everyone that has participated in early access! The goal for 2021 is to leave early access, but that is by no means the end of the road.
The weather has warmed up here in Japan. I, as of today, no longer have any bandages (I had a small surgery for those that didn't know). And I hope to get back into streaming development in the morning, after I get a new video up on Patreon.
As this patch is going straight to live, there may be a new bug or two, on top of a couple of small things I am aware of and working on. Just let me know, and I will fix them up!
The condensed patch notes are as follows:
v 0.7.2.5 -> 0.7.5.0
- Updated map tile and icon drawing and management methods
- Added other players to the map when in multi-player
- Added player and solace names to the map on mouseover
- Replaced circular "forced" biome system with a noise based system
- Added an "archipelago" setting to world creation
- Updated world setting restrictions and added more descriptions
- Updated MP nametags to reposition themselves based on the height of the player
- Improved multi-threading of distant terrain generation
- Improved a variety of shaders used by different objects
- Improved batching of building pieces
- Improved monster turning, stopping, tracking, and acceleration
- Darkened lighting in goblin dungeons
- Randomized color of torches in goblin dungeons
- Monsters killed will no longer block movement/skill target checks
- Improved character creation camera positioning/movement
- Improved biome spawn calculation checks
- Improved player and NPC model generation speed
- Ocean objects can now spawn anywhere underwater regardless of biome
- Added pike, salmon, octopi, sharks
- Added ink, fish scales, raw fish, cooked fish
- Updated the core weather system to a completely random yet highly controlled system
- Added fog and sky colors to the biome/weather management system
- Added coral and rocks to the ocean floors
- Added a per biome lighting and weather management system
- Added anti-aliasing, motion blur, post-exposure, saturation, and bloom settings
- Enlarged and upgraded the in-game settings interface
- Updated the grass biome with more clutter and replaced the speed trees
The latest patch notes from beta are as follows:
v 0.7.5.0 2021.05.10
- Reduced cave environment brightness
- Increased goblin dungeon environment brightness
- Removed respawn capabilities from basic resources in swamp/cave/floating islands
- Fixed monster/animal animations breaking due to limiting network specific proximity checks in single player
- Fixed town buildings and planters not properly saving their updated position after a world update
- Fixed a bug where custom recipes with no ingredients could cause the crafting UI to break
- Fixed the chat UI not scrolling down all the way with a new message
- Fixed chat messages going off too far to the right
- Fixed vertical dungeons throwing an error in MP
- Fixed monsters not spawning in caves in MP
- Fixed small encounters not showing on the map in MP
- Fixed saving after traveling to far in a larger dungeon being able to cause you to reload in empty space
- Fixed a couple of "failed to spawn" errors in MP goblin dungeons
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
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