This week's cool stuff

I think very deep tunnelling will be reduced, but I dont see that as a bad thing tbh. Islands with larger mountains on them would still facilitate mining, and water can easily be removed from a map for those that want a tunnel-fest.

Re: all the non testers who are angry about the test build not containing goodies for them - too bad, you'll get it when it goes public :) You're lucky you can still get into the test build at all - it'll be locked to the actual testers in a matter of time.

@Zodon: that was more or less an inspiration, actually.

Re: not dynamic water - sadly, we don't really have time to code a fluid sim that's network friendly at the moment. This water is a neat compromise that adds the necessary watery game verbs (swimming, not being able to cross a large body without necessary technology, a place to get water to put out fires) without taking a month of development time - something we really can't spare at the moment.

Re: swimming animations - if I get time. I want to, but currently you can still perform most actions underwater, and I sure as hell don't want to produce another whole set of anims just so your character swims a little more realistically. Might set aside some time next week to do basic swim animations for everyone though.

Water breaks your fall now, gotta retouch the stun mechanics a little so that you don't automatically drown from jumping into water from a height, but we don't want the water to be too safe. Archers wont be able to hit people underwater very effectively and knights will likely have lots of trouble swimming.

We're looking at ways we can allow underwater movement for those that want it, simple things like config vars will be introduced but there will also likely be bubbles that you can breath either upon opening chests or from permanent (destructible) landmarks, to allow exploration of underwater caves. I want that to be a very risky activity but to make it possible and potentially rewarding - i like those kind of stressful situations in games.

@Zuboki: not a bad idea. We'll see. I dont like the idea of range-limited fire because that seems to undermine the point of a potential inferno, but we'll see.

 

Delankski, be less liberal with your likes :P delankski likes this is basically a meme now.

Re: "like terraria water": what, you mean water that desyncs whenever theres not enough bandwidth for the giant tidal wave? We're not pleased with the amount of desync caused by time sensitive things like shieldbashing, let alone a water simulation with pressure and whatnot. It could be done like old minecraft water, but honestly I dont think it adds that much to the game - you can build water towers and flood tunnels and that's all - at the cost of it either being purely server bound and therefore lagging like anything, or clientside and desyncing all over the place.

I'd honestly rather focus on something that benefits the game in a more profound way.

Re: Will there be oil: no, because there wont be a water sim. A boiling oil trap would be cool and all, but again, with splashing there would be desyncs and we can get the same thing mechanic wise with murder holes that archers shoot through above doors.


Re: raging inferno = bad: Pretty sure that's not what I said, I just didn't want one guy to be able to set one off from miles away, potentially inadvertently. I imagine wood forts will have stone firebreaks in them to prevent fire spreading throughout the whole thing.