Dear friends!
We'll make a brief summary, the difficulties we've encountered, the negative feedback we've received, the plans that we have for the near future, and Patch #1.
(Spoiler)
“...for us, this is not a reason to give up, because this game has had a challenging path to Early Access, offering no strokes of luck, and the issue with traffic and audience is solvable, albeit gradually…”
1 | Patch #1
- fixing and finilization of Russian localization (part 1);
- chat division by language filters (managed by the player themselves);
- the AU (Australia) subregion (servers) has been added to the NA region for Tutorial and Rivulet Island locations (details in section 5);
- fixed the error of returning to the Tutorial with a character level wipe;
- “F” key (item highlighting):
- highlighting is now a toggled function;
- while active, hovering the crosshair over a player will highlight their name;
- a number of changes in game’s dynamics:
- satiety:
- restoring energy consumes 4 times less satiety;
- reconsidered the bonuses and maluses of satiery on values from 1 to 100;
- decreased starvation penalties by 30%;
- satiery bar visibility is toggled on by default;
- energy:
- sprint generally consumes 2 times less energy, but character’s carried load has a 30% larger effect on energy consumption while sprinting;
- energy restores 2 times fater in all possible states;
- weapon and magic:
- melee weapon cooldown decreased by 5-15%;
- magic and crossbow missiles fly 5-15% faster;
- carry load:
- basic carry weight increased to 80;
- Endurance gives 3 times more carry weight;
- these are the first changes, the purpose of which is to increase the dynamics of the game and reduce the routine associated with character maintenance. We will closely monitor feedback;
- other changes:
- red dots on AI nameplates have been recalculated:
- mob is 3 levels or more weaker - the nameplate is dull;
- from -2 to 0 - active nameplate;
- mob is stronger by 1 level - 1 dot;
- and so on, 1 dot per level up to 10;
- Menada: the duration of pursuit has been reduced by 3 times, now you can run away from her by sprinting;
- The respawn rate of mobs on the Island has been significantly increased;
2 | Negative Impressions
- Russian localization
- we find all your complaints about the localization for the Russian language, native to our team and foreign to the game, absolutely justified;
- when we'll be implemented:
- 2 following patches;
- Chat division
- the chat will be divided by languages and every user will be able to set their tabs and filters manually;
- when we'll be implemented:
- Patch #1;
- Fixes and balance overhauls of a number of mechanics:
- teleporting system on Rivulet Island and its bosses;
- rebalance and reconsideration of various mechanics to increase game’s dynamics;
- etc.
- when we'll be implemented:
- Patches #1, 2, etc.;
3 | Steam Rating & Visible Online
We sincerely regret that the most loyal audience, who purchased pre-order bundles at full price, took part in all playtests, and played hundreds of hours between them, turned out to be completely isolated from the ability to influence the game's rating because they bought it not on Steam, but through the international service xsolla.
This situation undoubtedly affected the quality of the game's launch, when out of 33 reviews in the first hours after launch, 21 of them were ignored.
Particular attention should be paid to the fact that we were not allowed to change the official early access release date on the Steam platform, which led to all the views and traffic of the platform being scheduled for the initially set dates.
Considering the lack of advertizing budget, we obtained a completely flat traffic schedule, which affects the online presence.
But for us, this is not a reason to give up, because this game has had a challenging path to early access, offering no strokes of luck, and the issue with traffic and audience is solvable, albeit gradually.
4 | Technical Part
We'd like to talk about 2 main points:
- server optimization that we've completed after PT#7 allowed us to improve the performance of each server machine at our disposal and we've also paid attention to the specification of the physical servers to develop their full potential;
- it's worth saying that the experience that the team gained will allow us to proceed further with the chosen optimization path;
- server frame rate only dropped 10% even though for the sake of testing we temporarily increased the server capacity of the island by 1.5;
- there's still a rare and yet unfixed error that leads to server crashes that is related to physics calculation. We are going to fix it in the nearest patches;
5 | Regions & Servers
- NA will get additional physical servers with all the specifications to increase the performance of one separate server;
- NA region will become NA/A (A stands for Australia);
- Australian subregion will have separate servers for the Tavern and Rivulet Island, but Dwarrhan will still be held by North American servers;
- The next step is Chinese localization and the launch of a separate game world on unofficial servers for Asia;
Yes, it's no mistake. Even despite a "quiet" start, we are going to extend our regions to make it more comfortable for users to roll in the game, because we see the interest of the audience and the architecture allows us to do so.
At the same time, it isn't our goal to make a bunch of empty Dwarrhans, we are even still considering the following paradigm:
- East Continent - Europe and Russia;
- West Continent - North America;
But we are going to make it a separate announcement to gather your comments and feedback on this concept.
6 | To Sum Up
In conclusion, it is worth noting that no matter how "quiet" the early access start may be, it still provides a more favorable environment for finishing ROG.
We’d like to stress the fact that in the following day we’ll intensify out interaction with the community. We’ll also prepare and publish an up-to-date FAQ, and begin the preparation of the roadmap.
Therefore, with renewed energy and capabilities, we will start organizing and completing the planned tasks.