Hello everyone!
We have had some pretty serious incidents happen in the office over the last week which means that we are unfortunately working at a reduced capacity. A member of our team has even visited hospital and will need to spend some time to recover for a couple of weeks. We felt it wise to inform you about this so that you are kept in the loop. You are helping to support the game, watching it grow and offering suggestions and we want to be open on some of the challenges that we must face. That being said, we hope that you join us in wishing our member of the team a speedy recovery!
This will mean that this week's update is much smaller than our usual updates, and does not contain any major new features. We have quite a few fixes and some changes but the important detail in today's update is the state of the Helper Bots.
Helper Bots
There have been an alarming number of reports of helper bots becoming a nuisance and causing great distress. We've heard that Helper Bots are getting stuck or even refusing to do a job. This is the exact opposite of helpful!
With the release of Shoppe Keep 2, the helper bots were updated to Mark V. But, as is common with mechanical creations, the Helper Bots appear to have malfunctioned over recent weeks. Thanks to your reported sightings, we have revisited the drawing board and come up with an answer... better artificial intelligence!
However, a side effect of this new artificial intelligence system is that the robots have gained some form of sentience!
Now don't be alarmed! Their sentience and understanding has not surpassed our own. They still don't have a bloody clue why anyone would wear socks with sandals... but this does mean that they do begin to question their purpose... and this can lead to some truly terrible amounts of stress if not addressed.
We've of course seen this documented before within the robotic world and there have been hundreds of articles and papers on the subject of robotic stress disorder. Alas, this is no more evident than the work done by a Dr Sanchez. To avoid nasty copyright issues we've located a dramatic recreation of Dr Sanchez's work in GIF form:
Full credit for this dramatic recreation goes to AlphaPhoenix and the video in its entirety can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MByi1te9L8U
Notice how the Butter Bot almost immediately enters a state of panic, remaining still for some time. No doubt you have seen the Helper Bots display similar symptoms, be it being stuck on pieces of furniture or remaining powered down while at the Helper Bot dock.
For this very reason, we've had to ask the Helper Bots to take a well deserved vacation to manage their stress levels. Those who already have the Helper Bot docks will see a sign informing them that they are on vacation.
But you may be asking exactly which famous robotic holiday park our mechanical mates are going to. Well, the finest one in all of Customerania, of course, 'Botlins!'
We hope, much like our own colleague, that you wish the helper bots a speedy recovery!
Shoppe Keep 2 Discord
There are currently 363 members on the Shoppe Keep Discord sharing thoughts, suggestions, issues and we've even had some fan art! If you want to be a part of it then look no further than clicking this link!
https://discord.gg/9HV3AXM
There are a lovely bunch of people there and they are very welcoming of new members, so why not hop on and chat! I've asked a few of them to send an invitational message to you guys who have not yet joined the Discord Chat.
Now onto some of the major additions included in this update.
New Texture variants for mobs
Spiders, goats and wolfs all now have a couple of added variants for their appearance. Check them out below!
Some objects require you to Hold E to interact with them
It's important that we raise this because some players may feel that interaction is bugged. There are certain objects which now require you to hold the E button in order to interact with them. This is done to prevent players from duplicating items in online multiplayer.
Crafting menu has more useful data
Requested by one of the members of the community, the crafting UI now shows the currently held number of items that you are holding for a particular recipe. So if you want to make bread, you will see just how much milk and wheat you have on you!
Alert when shoppe is closed due to tax
If the shoppe is closed due to outstanding tax, an alert will appear which will let you know that the shoppe has been closed.
Bow damage scales based on charge
The first step towards some improvement to the combat mechanics in Shoppe Keep 2. The Bow will now need to be charged in order to increase damage power. Hanzo mains rejoice.
Increased chest container capacity to 20
Store more items in a single chest!
And below is the full ChangeLog for this update:
ChangeLog Build
- You can no longer walk through the furniture vendors' table
- Teleporting to the shoppe will now teleport you to the entrance
- Increased the distance from the player before NPC/player names vanish
- 'Death caused you to lose' notification fixed
- Birds are not enveloped in fog anymore
- Credits added
- Herb delivery quest display fixed
- Social buttons in main menu moved
- Fresh trash (Thrown by customer/destroyed display) will have a 5 second cooldown before it starts to affect customers
- Bots are on a few weeks' vacation to relieve their stress... they will return.
- Doors can no longer fall off their hinges if you push them for too long
- If a game crashes and corrupts the profile.sk2 file - the game will still let you pass any key phase
- New event added
- Tax panel size increased
- Tax slider displays value locally before releasing it for fine tuning
- You now need to hold E to interact with some objects instead of just clicking them
- Daily quests fixed
- Up/Down arrow can be used and rebinded to increase/decrease price instead of the scrollwheel
- New pathing for customers in town
- Crafting UI shows how many of an item is required by the recipe and how many you currently have on you
- Wood footstep sounds added to wooden towers
- Chest spawn and contact sounds added
- Magelord pants icon fixed
- Crab helmet raised in displays
- If the shoppe is closed because of tax, a notification is shown
- Bow damage scales the longer you charge it
- Items with the type weapon/fixing/cleaning will now correctly go into the weapon/fixing/cleaning hotbar slot
- Localisation fixes in chat window
- Water delivery and herb delivery dailies now request the exact item to be delivered
- Base shoppe appeal is lowered by 20%
- Decorations increase shoppe appeal by 1%
- Each additional item variation increase shoppe appeal by 5%
- Each pile of trash reduces global shoppe appeal by 5%.
- Bird size and their paths changed
- Inn customer performance issue fixed
- Customers no longer follow specific orders when buying items off armor stands
- Increased container capacity to 20
- Container UI warns if you try to place a unique item into it
- Bunch of new localisation strings added
- Shoppe appeal displayed in town management UI
- Bucket worth down to 0, and only 1 allowed in inventory
- Furniture can be grinded up and you receive 25% of its value back
- Shoppe Open/Close signs emit a new sound
- Farm soil fixed, won't emit wood sounds
- Cant Alt place unsalable items
- Chinese language updated
- Japanese language updated
- Spider skin variations added
- Wolf skin variations added
- Goat skin variations added
- Shop appeal cant go over 100%
- Small weapons in shelves and counters now lie down
- Price gun 1 mun bug fixed
- Bunch of item placements and item icons fixed
- Staffs shoot at 100% damage now
- Autoequipping will switch slots properly
As always, if you find any issues, let us know in the forums or contact us at [email protected]!
Thank you for all of your support during the development and stay tuned for further updates!