Opening Doors in Lost River
Work continues on the upcoming Lost River expanded map DLC. The gameplay is largely the same as in other maps and quests, of course, but there are a few special features, like going inside of buildings. That's been a popular request from players since Lost River Classic released in 2015, and we're finally realizing it in this expanded version. This raises a few complications, the biggest one related to the navgrid and NPC pathfinding. We designed the navgrid for vast outdoor environments, and they simply are not suited for the confines of interior spaces. So I pulled Tommi away from his ongoing work on animal AI for the Saga (see the note below for more on that) so he could design and create a navgrid subsystem for small areas. This week's video shows how this new subsystem works at the Lost Cup Coffee shop in downtown Lost River:
The new Lost River map has about a dozen buildings with interiors to explore -- but be advised that these are not safe refuges from rival wolves, so you'll need to stay on guard even when hanging out indoors. We have a good amount of work left on this DLC but we do expect to release it later this year.
Regarding the Saga: As we began working on the Saga early this year, we realized that our AI system was good but we wanted it to be better. The AI was one of the very first systems we designed and built for WQAE, five years ago now, and Tommi had ideas for doing much more with an improved system. So that became the first phase of Saga development (and it's not very exciting to show off in devblogs) but we got the improved AI system operational earlier this summer so now we can focus on new AI behaviors in the Saga for growing pups and NPC wolves. If you don't know about the WolfQuest Saga, watch this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-X2fL-3oE
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The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!
Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms.
We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.