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Deadline Announcement + Water and Wood almost here!

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Geti, Jun 2, 2012.

  1. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    This has been a hell of a week!

    The server's went down (twice, but in quick succession), and a compilation bug halted testing for 5 DAYS. Ryan (FliesLikeABrick) has had his work cut out for him there - He'll be posting soon about supporting very old versions of linux.

    Despite all of that, the last few days have been productive.

    First of all, some hard news that's come up in the last few weeks:

    We're on an external deadline for getting the game complete, and the date falls fairly soon (actual disclosure of the date isn't legally possible at this point). As such, we've done some feature pruning and are knuckling down to get the game finished, to a point where we can stop developing it and just maintain, fix bugs where needed.

    What this means for us:

    We've got to clean up the buy page's "future features" list to reflect the changes in plans that we've made over the past few weeks. This is one of those times where we have to do what we wrote in the disclaimer and try to make the game perfect as it stands rather than incorporating features that are too time-costly or different from what we already have.
    We've got to work quickly on getting features actually complete rather than drafted or planned.
    We need to improve the modding and level creation side of things to help players build worlds to adventure in and fight over.
    What this means for you:

    No super-complex months to complete features like Overworld. As grand a plan as that might be, it's simply not going to happen this time around.
    KAG gets completed sooner, in terms of everything on the premium poster.
    Better, more focused modding tools.
    I've written quite a lot in this thread, so if you're interested in the finer details and our personal reasons, have a read. The whole thread is do-able in 30 minutes or so.

    I'll summarise the important part though: Our TODO as it currently stands is this - Making sure at least everything on the premium poster is covered.

    Customisation - may or may not involve custom/user defined heads, will definitely include more built in heads + skin colour customisation.
    More and more useful Siege weapons, some form of ride-able vehicles. (Almost all of these are sprited but not coded).
    Fire + Water (Got water ~80% done, and wood blocks -> a fair bit of fire done)
    Zombies (done, at least for now)
    Game modes + Custom Game-modes (requires scripting work, but that's ok as we want to do that for some of the other areas of development to help speed up our internal work and give more options to modders)
    Items + Item management (This one is gonna require a fair bit of re-work, but shouldn't be that much work if we're smart about how we approach it)
    We understand that some people will be disappointed, but that's the reality of any creative work. Please know that we're not doing this out of lack of passion, far from it. We just need to get the game finished and don't have the time for grand schemes any more.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    On to something more cheery: Water and Wood blocks are almost releasable, Should be out early next week or perhaps this weekend if testing goes 100% according to plan (...it never does).

    This should help spice up the full version a little. Apologies for the large shot, blame BlueLuigi and his massive HD KAG.

    tVGzH.png

    Water: You can swim, drown, skim arrows (and knights), and build bridges over it. Some form of water transport will be coming soon. The water level is saved into the .kag format, which we're working on making a lot more palatable to server owners. It only works on full version servers.

    Wood buildings: These offer a cheaper, weaker alternative to stone blocks, and can be upgraded to stone later on. It's advised to make your non-vital indoor floors out of wood, and keep anything facing the enemy made out of stone. We're not adding Wood to the free game because we believe a balance has already been struck there - but in the full game, especially on water maps in bridge-building, wood is an invaluable resource. As such, trees now give a lot more wood per hit.

    Shield-bashing: it's not nearly as crazy as it used to be, but it certainly helps that you can shove people out of doorways with it and it helps make knight combat less about slashing. The variables for it are currently in gamemode.cfg, and will be moving to per-class configs soon.

    HUD Changes: Hearts are now above your head on hover, as well as immediately after you get hurt. We know this will seem like a shock at first, but it helps clear the screen of clutter. We'll be adding a topbar with vital stats etc as an option for those that want it, but we're moving towards a much cleaner interface (compare order pie menus with the order-lasso). Consider it a Work-In-Progress.

    Gathering materials has also changed - you can now carry one stack of materials beyond what fits into your inventory, and furthermore, material stacks now have a sprite indicative of how many materials they contain. We've considered making them persist indefinitely on the map, but ultimately this opens the possibility for a lot of lag and server burden. We'll implement stockpiles soon to allow you to store materials and other items in a more friendly way.

    The graphics of the map are a little different as well, which should help with visually understanding the terrain immediately. There's a bit more work to do there, but its presentable enough. Graphical mods of the map will need re-arranging because of this.

    Some modding vars: Note that these aren't 100% final, so back up your configs and if you tinker, as always, be ready to re-do your work at a later date.

    What you can build and how much it costs is now in a class config, check out the CTF builder files.

    Full version server owners are urged to try out generator_ctf_lake.cfg as a map once the release is out, potentially with only 30s of build time - the lake coupled with the support requirement means builders need to dive and build pillars for a bridge across, which makes builders a necessary frontline unit and completely rules out early rushing. Personally, I've really enjoyed the testing games we've had there. We've got to work on some counters to turtling over the next week but I'm sure server owners will have a party with the variables in the meantime.
     
    CoD, Wixmef, Noburu and 18 others like this.
  2. Ghozt

    Ghozt Haxor

    Messages:
    1,083
    FIRZT!!!!!!1!!!11!1!!!1

    This game is gonna turn out good, no need to stress. (Nice sprites Geti, the mat piles look great. :thumbs_up:)
    I have nothing to really whine about (Not that I ever have) except that;

    Monsteri, work on your cata skills. :p

    Can't wait for this to be released, just two side topic things.
    Didn't the servers go down three times?
    Also whats wrong with your screenshots Geti, or have you just not been testing?

    (Sorry for all the alert edits Geti)
     
    inactive_account likes this.
  3. 12anger

    12anger Ballista Bolt Thrower

    Messages:
    70
    are there any plans for weather? like rain snow? shit like dat? :D
     
    AdrianC and The_Khan like this.
  4. I don't really mind that the OverWorld idea has been chucked in the bin, as long as they can get those bug fixes in, I will be happy.
     
  5. thebonesauce

    thebonesauce All life begins and ends with Nu Staff Alumni
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]
    2. The Ivory Tower of Grammar-Nazis

    Messages:
    2,554
    Looks fucking rad.

    AND SUPPORTS NEEDING FOR BRIDGING?!

    [​IMG]
     
  6. delankski

    delankski Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    435
    Epic Win :D i wonder what are those ride-able vehicles :rollseyes:
     
  7. Marsisded

    Marsisded Shipwright

    Messages:
    2
    Wow, upset. Just Genuinely upset. I believed in you guys.
     
  8. Ghozt

    Ghozt Haxor

    Messages:
    1,083
    They were chucking ideas around, the idea (if you are in-fact referring to Overworld) was never set in stone, based on the idea it would of been a major task, and maybe somebody might mod it in, people just have spare time like that. You couldn't have asked for better devs, these guys get involved and help with the community, read through the next newest dev post and you might understand just that little bit better.
     
  9. Marsisded

    Marsisded Shipwright

    Messages:
    2
    I'm fully aware of this, none the less, I am very disappointed. I'm sure much of the community shares my sentiment.
     
  10. Ghozt

    Ghozt Haxor

    Messages:
    1,083
    Lot's do lot's don't.

    I was looking forward to Overworld, and like Cheese said, it doesn't really bother him.
    The Devs just wanted a different styled game.
    Lot's of people are sad, but hey, somethings just can't be done, and if you could please, please read through the 'what we are working on thread'
    Geti posted a lot on this topic and why it isn't going to happen.
     
  11. Riletyface

    Riletyface Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    280
    Also, a project the size of the Overworld would have taken months. Nobody wants to wait for that, unless it was put into segments and slowly released. I recently played the test version, and I was greatly amazed at all the new things, but of course I have some complaints -

    - Water: Why do I not come up and take a breath when I am swimming??? I mean, maybe the characters can't swim, but who is stupid enough to not come up for a breath once in a while...:huh?: It is as if there is a shield preventing the character from 'breathing'
    - Shield bashing is basically shit, teleporting through each other and randomly getting killed by getting walked into when someone has their shield up.
    And the idea of rising water is great (I played long enough to realise that), wooden blocks act as the old stone now - I love this!
    Anyway if the test version is not that up to date. :p Then the complaints were a slight waste of time.

    edit: Also the colour of back dirt is unusual :eek:
     
  12. delankski

    delankski Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    435
    Yep they should add the take a breath to increase the bubble/air meter :)
    Tried the Test build 410 and building bridge is way too hard ,you're gonna put supports while you're losing air in water.
    I think the test build is up to date :)

    I wish when wood blocks fall to water it can be used as a raft floating
    And a Wind system that causes arrows to change direction (more challenging) , to blow the raft / float to the other side.
    That's all
     
  13. laurentiu

    laurentiu Ballista Bolt Thrower

    Messages:
    340
    Fuck you! I am too excited.
     
  14. ockpii

    ockpii Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    185
    Something I'd love to see - instead of the whole map looking like a lakeside place (with the water going through all of the horizontally extension of the map) I think it would be much better if it worked like on other platformers, it only existing in pools of water. That would also make it easier to mine without diving, as this current setup seems to imply.

    Also, I think you guys could keep both versions of the HUD available in the settings, like "New" and "Retro", or something of the sort.
     
  15. Chaoticredux

    Chaoticredux Shopkeep Stealer

    Messages:
    84
    Not going to lie.......disappointed. Man indie devs have a reoccurring problem of getting hopes up and never delivering. cough.....terraria....now kag :(
     
  16. I would stop complaining, because these devs are not making a huge amount of money from this game, it is their decision on what they make and how they do it they never promised the OverWorld, it was just an awesome idea that they decided to share with us.

    If they wanted to they could abondon the game right now, not much we can do about it.
     
  17. delankski

    delankski Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    435
    Guys this is just like Facebook, You get timeline Poof you're angry with the new features and bla bla.. after few days you're getting comfortable with it :)
    Just think positive , everything is fine.
    and btw some features may be released surprisingly
    AND Don'T EVER , EVER LOSE HOPE :P
     
    Wolftrait, Wixmef, Noburu and 4 others like this.
  18. Miauw62

    Miauw62 Shipwright

    Messages:
    416
    THISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHIS

    Water rules out tent-to-tent tunnels, supports needed rules out skybridging.

    i'm going to have helluva fun time....

    EDIT:
    Btw, didnt they mention doing a overworld-y thing as main base for their next game?
    If so, armagedron mud (or whatever its called) may be a neat inspiration :P
     
    FliesLikeABrick and FlameHaze3 like this.
  19. thebonesauce

    thebonesauce All life begins and ends with Nu Staff Alumni
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]
    2. The Ivory Tower of Grammar-Nazis

    Messages:
    2,554
    I love how you all complain. You got a game for $10-12 that was EASILY worth that much 6 months ago. Now you're bitching that you're not getting a $25+ game for $10.

    That disclaimer was there from the beginning. FROM THE BEGINNING. You should never get your hopes up. Ever.
     
  20. Fate

    Fate Studying seashells

    Messages:
    593
    Tad disappointed about the exclusion of overworld, but I have realised now that it was a little far fetched to begin with. I like the additions of wood building and water. I will be excited to see any further additions.

    Also, does this announcement mean now that the suggestions in the respective subsections no longer accept new feature suggestions? Only ideas that streamline the UI/Gameplay tweaks and the like?
     
    Ghozt likes this.