“Forge a Glorious Axe of Glory? Who do you think I am?” - the Armorer in your Camp



While a Glorious Axe of Glory is not a thing in Exiles, the Armorer is, as you’ll see in the 3D Camp that players will use as game navigation, upgrade station and management central. Welcome back to the Exiles Game Dev Update! We are plugging away at the current milestone (the Levels 1-10 experience) and the team has gotten regular builds going again as the big new features and system redesigns have started to come online.

Last update, we focused on Inventory Management, how to navigate the World Map’s iconography, stat changes and an early look and the Dungeon system. This time, it’s the Adventure Log, enemy Abilities, the full terror of the Bear, the new Forge and the long-promised 3D traveling camp. Read on…

A TRUE CAMP

Screenshots in the past have featured an established town as the basis for Camp, where you will manage and develop your Character through his/her adventures. But the idea is a true Camp- something that evolves with you, travels with you and shows you a little bit about what’s going on in the world.

We’re starting with a base for the ground and background to show you where you adventured last in Embermark– in this case, the wild woods of– um– Wildewoods.

As you progress through the early game and earn additional features and tools, the camp will populate with others to help you achieve your goals. And they’ll bring with them their various instruments of usefulness. The Blacksmith will open the Forge, the Merchant Dwarf will open up the cart, etc.

It won’t also be “you” sitting there at the table, ready to dispense counsel, it’ll be someone else– here’s a peek.

THE ADVENTURE LOG

There’s a lot to do in Exiles. And as we’ve moved through the development of PVE and PVP, we uncovered the need to help deliver on the game’s promise of progress-in-1-minute. Thus, we’re working on an Adventure Log, easily accessible from various points in the game that will give you a snapshot of what you might want to do in the game today, what events are going on, how far you are on Daily or Weekly Tasks, and the like.

Along the top nav of the early work-in-progress design here from left to right are Events, Tasks, Dungeons and Quests:

To illustrate the Tasks section, you can see the early design on Dailies, whereby players can earn all sorts of rewards, both mundane and exotic, for various activities within the game. Some are time-based, some stick around…

And no, you won’t have multiple “Visit The Store” tasks. It’s placeholder, people!

SUCH UNSTABLE MAGICKS

So much of our VFX for the MVP milestone are rolling out, that it’s become tradition to show a view as they develop in these updates.

Here’s the buildup and release for the very powerful Unstable Magicks (which will be incorrectly spelled in the game as “Magics”):

From overhead:

Another one we’re nearing completion on is Detect Ritual which is a Buff ability that significantly boosts your resistance to Magic and Mystic onslaughts:

(he has… the power)

THE BEAR

We’ve been sharing the evolution of the Bear enemy at each stage, so we’re excited to show how’s she’s come together at the animation stage.

Plan on seeing us build on top of the vicious base for this one to create beasties of many sorts. And don’t get in between her and the cubs…

Back away, slowly…

ALAS, MY WINGED FIEND

We’ve been showing the Not-A-Bat-Wait-Till-We-Name-It throughout its development, and found it fitting to share his quite satisfying demise– please note the tasty puff of smoke and dust as he hits the ground.

THE FEMALE MAGE



We’ve been sharing the female version of the player character as a Warrior, and this month been working on getting all the existing loot to work on her– here’s a sneak peek of her with relatively modest gear… as a Mage:

What secrets lie in that holstered book, hmmm…?

ENEMY ABILITIES

The growing number of enemies that players will face on the continent of Embermark have a growing number of Abilities to drop on said players. Thus, we’re developing a system of icons to accompany the enemy Ability names to increase quick readability and hopefully add to the player’s ability to start thinking about what to do next on the way to victory.

Each of the categories has several permutations, with colors guiding the initial glance:

Attacks - Warmer colors with the iconography delineating between the type of attack.

Defense: Cooler coloring, with iconography showing how physical, magical or otherwise the defense is.

Buff: Lighter golds and yellows with iconography for stat, accuracy or multi-effect increases.

Debuff: Purple comes into play as enemies try to sabotage the player’s character, with iconography denoting the kind, be it corruption, confusion or other nasty effects.

THE FORGE REDUX

Changes to loot and stats continue to evolve the systems, and those changes have necessitated revisions to the Forge and how one crafts Items Of Usefulness (plus our testing of the interface showed us that we had the opportunity to streamline a bit). Now, everything is recipe-based– even the “Forge Random”s, which you see here:

Choose the type of recipe you need between weapons and gear on the left and then the specific recipe you want, whether a random item of that type or a specific Troll Axe of Whatchamacallit. The baseline will be a Rare Item, but you can enhance the recipe (if you have the right materials) to an Epic. Legendary recipes will be just that– and require unique materials beyond the two mains that now exist– Scrap and Ember.

THE WORLD MAP IN MOTION



The iconography and navigation of the World Map was covered last update, and the implementation of that design proceeds fast and furious, so in anticipation of showing the new overlay system in action, here’s a longer look at zoom and pan across three different Zones (in order: Vanisir, Askala, and Wildewoods).

Given the brief glimpse at my home phone screen at the end, please feel free to judge me.

THE WISP



This impish Ethereal won’t be a mere pushover, and while his later-stage incarnation will destroy you with fiery projectiles and elements of all kinds, the Wisp will be a caster of a different sort (and here he is doing just that with a guide for further FX bordering his floating body):

HOUSES RENAMED AND REMIXED

“Whaaaat?” - You

“Yaaasssss!” - Me



The House System has been a pillar of the Exiles design since the early days of heady idea-generation and plans (remember this & this?). Design on the system and the Lore of Houses has continued to evolve, and with it come a few changes. Of the 6 planned Houses that vie for power and influence and the hearts of player in Embermark, 2 will remain the same, 2 will remain the same with different names, and 2 will change considerably. We’re excited to share some details on that, but we’re working on visuals to illustrate, so let’s hear from those of you who’ve been thinking about this– without knowing which Houses have changed or how, which Houses do you think need an edit (go here to vote and discuss?

For reference, here’s the “before” (with special thanks to Exile Nezuja for posting with original names):

DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER…



We’ll keep sharing details as we head toward testing (go here to sign up for testing and be among The First), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

CONNECT WITH OTHER EXILES

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly crew with plenty of daily/weekly/sometimes-planned shenanigans.

A GLIMPSE INTO WHY…

…Gunslinger is doing what we’re doing and some of what led us to Exiles, as featured yesterday on Tastytrade’s show, Bootstrapping in America.

And my dumb face.

BONUS: DON’T WAKE A…

