Afternoon Update – Friday, July 10th, 2015

 

Folks,

Happy Friday all! Today’s update will be a relatively short one because we are going to have a major update next week. However, having said that, there are still lots of things to talk about today. First up, swag! Okay, we’ve been promising t-shirts and other swag (or we can use the cool kids word, merch) since the onset of the Kickstarter. Well, after a couple of aborted attempts, we are almost ready to go. For those of you who are interested in such things, and based on our results (available in our Forums) a lot of you are, please take the survey we sent all of our Backers this week. You should have it in your email and/or spam folder and if you don’t, please let us know. We’re thrilled with the results of the survey so far but getting more feedback from you folks is always helpful. As to when, we should be ready to launch the store and announce our partner before the end of next month. Of course, the profits from these items are funneled back into the company to be used exclusively for developing this game.

Second, the 72 hours of Alpha testing went exceptionally well. As I mentioned in the survey email, we are looking really good technically. We didn’t have a single server crash during the entire test. And, while we’re certainly not ready to say “Mission accomplished” yet, it wasn’t until we hit 1700 Backers and Bots (and as always, our Bots are PC clients, not NPCs) in our small zone that we started seeing rubber-banding on connections that had been previously rubber-banding free. Even when we exceed that number, the engine performed well as long as you weren’t looking at the furball in the main castle, which might have been a wee bit crowded. 🙂  As Andrew said when we were discussing this, “we haven’t even begun to optimize” so we’re feeling really good about our engine’s tech at this point.

Third, it’s Friday and that means it’s time for an update on our User Stories. In terms of overall progress, we nailed 27 completes on 18 existing cards and added 2 cards and 10 completes on those cards. In terms of individual cards.

Existing Cards:

As a Backer, I’d like to play in a procedurally-created environment. – Second Pass.
Terrain Types: Define format in DB, save and load in editor. – Complete
Terrain Types: Define binary format, provide builders. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to be able to damage, and ultimately destroy structures in the world.
Engineering: Determine how we will damage structures. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to have abilities associated with stances.
Behavior editor to define animations associated with a stance. – Complete

As both a Backer and developer I’d like to have more dev commands to facilitate testing, and general interactions with the player community. – Moar!
Admins visually discernable with new icon overhead. – Complete
Admin state now toggleable in game. – Complete

As a Backer I’d like to see general improvements in C.U.B.E.’s interface and functionality.
Implement C.U.B.E. page on CU website. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the sun, moons, and stars in the sky, with sky color changes based on time of day and position of those celestial bodies. – First Pass
Create the editor for all sky parameters. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated female human model.
Import and test model parts. – Complete

As a developer, I’d like a way to be able to edit gameplay variables on the server, live.
Create corresponding editor. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the world begin to be propped out with generic fantasy items. – Set #3.
Generic wood tables, chairs, benches, cupboards, oh my! – Complete
Stacks of books – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the world begin to be propped out with generic fantasy items. – Set #4.
Cauldrons – Complete
Wood external stairs with scaffolding – 1 and 2 story – Complete
Axe and stump – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to be able to create, save, and load blueprints in C.U.B.E.
U.I. art assets. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see improvements in the animation system to facilitate gameplay.
Create an animation viewer in the editor. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the sky transition from a sunny day to an overcast and rainy day.
Sky becomes overcast, lighting changes, sky bowl color changes, and rain particles are generated – first pass. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the world of Camelot Unchained continue to develop through its lore.
Frost Giants Becoming – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to be able to equip and use different types of melee weapon combinations. – First Pass Animations (Part 1)
First Pass Animation: Right hand weapon with left hand dagger. – Complete
First Pass Animation: Right hand dagger. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to be able to equip and use different types of melee weapon combinations. – First Pass Animations (Part 2)
First Pass Animation: Left hand dagger with spear.
First Pass Animation: Left hand dagger with one hand weapon.
First Pass Animation: Polearm weapon, two hands.

As a Backer, I’d like to be able to wear armor that protects against different damage types.
Damage types can be set in ability editor. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to know about smaller changes that don’t have their own user story.
Abilities can be hasted or slowed. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see improvements and added functionality to the CSE store.
Additional features to transaction history tool – First Pass. – Complete
New cards with completes:

As a Backer, I’d like to see character, item, and ability stats have real meaning in the game – First pass design.
Design player character stats. – Complete
Design player character stat progression. – Complete
Design list of equipment locations/slots. – Complete
Design combat model – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see improvements to ability VFX to make visual distinction of abilities easier.
Initiate Tears and Primal water dart and ball effects use different vfx. – Complete
New Liquid Flame dart, ball, cone, wave. – Complete
New Primal Stone dart, ball, cone, wave. – Complete
Improved look of Primal Fire wall. – Complete
Initiate Tears, Primal Stone and Liquid flame new casting vfx. – Complete
Primal Stone and Primal Earth dart and ball effects use different vfx – Complete

Fourth, as per my opening paragraph, we are going to have a major update about Beta and other critical stuff, such as hiring, next week. For those have followed our updates, whether here or on our Forums, you know that the game is moving along nicely but our hiring wasn’t moving along as quickly as we would have liked, and needed, it to move along. Now, having said that, we do have a lot to talk about. Expect that this update will be done via a Live Stream as all critical updates should be, good, bad or somewhere in between. 🙂

Fifth, we posted a couple of videos on Vine today that show what happens when a very, very OP firewall spell is placed on a very weak player built wall in Camelot Unchained – here https://vine.co/v/evKp6UW6Tt3 and here https://vine.co/v/evABWObiuZL. Again, this is not how it will be in the game (too fast, too easy, etc.) but it shows the tech that is now in place for damaging, destroying and removing blocks, creating rubble and structure stability.

That is it for today. It’s been another good few weeks at the studio since our last update as our Vine and other updates have shown.

Have a great weekend all!

-Mark