Unveiled: Camelot Unchained Newsletter #44 - City State Entertainment View this email in your browser Share Tweet +1 Team Tidings -by Max Porter Another month down as we speed toward the opening of Beta 1, planned for July 4th of this year! It’s not long now, folks, we’re getting close. Keep those fuses burning on your fireworks!



This month has been one full of playtests. Multiple times a week, we’ve opened up the servers to IT, Alpha, and/or Beta 1 Backers for fun, frolic, and lots of beatdowns (at least in my case!). It’s part of us keeping our word to our Backers in the run-up to Beta, and has also been extremely useful in terms of collecting data on bugs, required features, and more. Even as I write this, the call is going out for another playtest in just a few minutes! We’re opening up some additional servers to test some specific code pushes on.



This month has also been one full of hard work and lots of progress, despite the last gasps of winter doing its best to stymie us! We had a few reminders of what makes the Vikings a bit ornery at times, no doubt fueling their thirst for conquest. Of course, now we’re into the fun, fun spring allergy season. We won’t let that slow us down either, though--after all, we have a Beta to launch soon!



Backers who are watching closely can see us putting this game together, bit by bit and piece by piece. We fix things as they come up if need be, and play the heck out of our own game to help us make sure it gradually gets more and more fun. We won’t stop until it’s everything we have promised it will be!



We have marched on with our weekly schedule of raw, unedited, and unrehearsed streams, showing you everything from impressive creative work by our artists and programmers to our latest updates and news. The streams are fun for us, but they are also very important, as we always want to be as informative as possible for our Backers and fans, especially as we head into Beta. If you want to catch up on any missed streams, they can always be found on our Twitch and YouTube channels. For a good read of our news, as well as our weekly Top Tenish updates, check out the News section of our website.



Let’s dig into this newsletter for some articles, art, and updates. Don’t forget to click on the “view this email in your browser” link on the top right to see the whole thing! Read on and enjoy this, the forty-fourth issue of Unveiled. Hot Topics

The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include physics on buildings, crafters and alts, as well as our latest development updates!



Backers, come and join the discussion in the Forums on our website to bring your thoughts and ideas to the table! The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include physics on buildings, crafters and alts, as well as our latest development updates!Backers, come and join the discussion Thank You Thank you to Poxer, who sent these hilarious hats (plus juggling balls) for a series of Morning with Max streams! It’s made my morning chat streams even sillier and more fun than they already were! Look What You Did Last month, our Community Manager, Brian, ran a weapon design contest, and this month, we showed off the winners and actually made their designs into assets ready to add into the game, later on! Here’s the winners and the links to check out all that stuff:



First place (Viking Skull Sword by Rehk)

Backer concept art:

Livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/238400343

Finished asset:

Second place (The Hand of Asger by PendraPendragoon)

Backer concept art:

Livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/238748117

Finished asset:



One of the honorable mentions was an amazing hand-forged cleaver, named Butcher's Beak, by Raygar and Binesmen. They actually sent it over to our Fairfax office. Check that out: Dose of Design -by Ben Pielstick Creating The Dragon Circle™

As you may have read in Mark’s “Overview of Beta 1 Features, Systems, and more!” document, one of the key features for us to deliver in order to start our first round of Beta testing is something we’re calling The Dragon Circle™. This concept is probably familiar to many of you who have played in “battlegrounds” or “scenarios” in other games. This is an important feature for Beta because we need to have a set of targeted test cases where we can invite players in for short periods of time to test with specific features, while providing some fun at the same time.



Each Dragon Circle Challenge is designed with a specific purpose in mind. Our very first Challenge was simply to teleport players to an island with a team for each Realm, and give points to each team for killing enemy players, awarding victory to the team that reached the maximum score threshold the fastest. This provides an easy setting with clear goals when we want to run a dedicated combat test to try out animations, confirm that particle effects and sounds are working, and to make sure skills are all providing the buffs, debuffs, damage, and healing they should.



Each Challenge needs a map, so that players have a place to run around and accomplish whatever objectives the Challenge has to offer. These maps are set up in much the same way as the other islands that make up the world of Camelot Unchained®, with a few key exceptions. For example, the Dragon Circle requires small, precisely-designed zones, with careful hand-placement of many assets that focus gameplay on specific objectives. Creating these spaces takes a lot of time, as most of our world editor features are focused on procedural terrain with large-scale edits to create expansive zones for the open world. The maps for Challenges are on a much smaller scale, with a tighter focus on providing more precise conditions than those that will typically be found in such a small space in a large contested island.



As we work toward creating these zones, tools programmers are helping to improve the world editor. Later on in the open world, we can take what we’ve developed for the Dragon Circle, and apply it around Stormwatch towers, Places of Power, and other focused-gameplay spaces. At the same time, we will also improve the procedural system to automatically generate more interesting types of areas, based on those we create by hand.



Dragon Circle Challenges also need special features to create their objectives. For example, kill tracking is something we will eventually use for progression, but using it to generate a score value helps us get part of the way there. In a similar vein, as we move on to our next Challenge, which is focused around capturing flags and objective locations, a lot more features have to be built. These features must be built in such a way that we will be able to eventually combine them in lots of unique ways to build out open world features for things, such as capturing building plots in siege battles or establishing Veil stabilizers.



This Challenge, and future ones, will also help us improve the state of our AI. You may be familiar with the many “bot tests” we have run, which rely on actual remote clients connecting to our game servers in order to fully load test the game as if we were using real players. At the same time, we are also developing true Non-Player Characters with behaviors that let them navigate the world and engage in activities like combat and crafting very similarly to players, but without being run from a remote client. These NPCs will eventually fill the role of city guards and crafter assistants, various animals and other open-world creatures, and even monsters in The Depths, so it is very important to start building out the features for them at this stage in development.



While Beta 1 testing will not start with many Dragon Circle Challenges, eventually there will be several more. We need to test different aspects of the game, from large to small scale, in different biomes and settings, with a wide range of possible objectives. As new features are tested and refined in Challenges, they will form the basis of parts of the open-world game, adding to the available systems and content present on our contested islands. When Camelot Unchained reaches release, Challenges won’t be needed for testing new features in on our live servers, but will still find their way into the game via the new player experience. We’ll use a mix of objectives and NPCs to help introduce players to some of the basic mechanics of the game before sending them off into open-world RvR.



As you can see, we’ve got a lot of plans for Dragon Circle Challenges, which will be contributing many features to the overall experience of Camelot Unchained. As we continue to progress through later phases of testing, we hope that you’ll join us to provide your feedback, and get a little bit of a preview of some of the features that will eventually appear in the final game. If you’re a Backer and there are any Challenges you’re especially excited about, be sure to let us know on our forums. Developer Quote “Yes, we do try very, very hard to keep all of our Backers up to date on everything that is happening in the studio, whether on the personal or business side. It’s not easy, but I believe we owe it to our Backers for their support and OMG, their patience, right?” - Mark Jacobs State Of The Build -by Max Porter It’s been a busy month! In this section, I take a look at some of the technical and artistic accomplishments and challenges overcome in the past month, by pulling out some of the highlights of our Top Tenish lists. Think of this section as currently a “highlights of the highlights,” if you will! Hopefully, this will give you some idea of where we’re at and how the build has progressed.



Lots of Testing! (3/9/2018) Weekend Testing – Yep! We kicked off the first week of the month with two scenario tests, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, each for three hours. Back then, we told you: The build will be the same one that you folks have seen today, but now it will be open at times that work for the vast majority of our Backers’ different time zones. Look for an email from us later today to confirm the test times, but as of now, we are looking at the 12PM-3PM Eastern Time block on both Saturday and Sunday. So, if you haven’t been able to get into our weekday tests, now’s your chance to see what a 100x100x100 battle looks like! And please, if you haven’t been in one of our tests yet, read the document that will accompany the invitation. Especially the parts about the known issues, purpose of the test, and hardware requirements.

We kicked off the first week of the month with two scenario tests, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, each for three hours. Back then, we told you: The build will be the same one that you folks have seen today, but now it will be open at times that work for the vast majority of our Backers’ different time zones. Look for an email from us later today to confirm the test times, but as of now, we are looking at the 12PM-3PM Eastern Time block on both Saturday and Sunday. So, if you haven’t been able to get into our weekday tests, now’s your chance to see what a 100x100x100 battle looks like! And please, if you haven’t been in one of our tests yet, read the document that will accompany the invitation. Especially the parts about the known issues, purpose of the test, and hardware requirements. (3/9/2018: Testing: We’ve had four days of testing this week, allowing us to find and fix several issues with the help of our Backers. And we get to have fun while doing it in the 100x100x100 deathmatch scenario. We’ve also begun limited testing of our next scenario’s mechanics and map, as well as performance testing of our servers running on GCP (Google Cloud Platform).

We’ve had four days of testing this week, allowing us to find and fix several issues with the help of our Backers. And we get to have fun while doing it in the 100x100x100 deathmatch scenario. We’ve also begun limited testing of our next scenario’s mechanics and map, as well as performance testing of our servers running on GCP (Google Cloud Platform). (3/16/2018) Testing: We’ve continued testing on Wyrmling this week, trying to track down a proxy crash that caused players to be unable to log back in (also known as “ghosting”) until the server was restarted. We believe we’ve found and fixed this issue, so we’ve moved on today to begin testing the building system, now that Matt has committed his input update.

We’ve continued testing on Wyrmling this week, trying to track down a proxy crash that caused players to be unable to log back in (also known as “ghosting”) until the server was restarted. We believe we’ve found and fixed this issue, so we’ve moved on today to begin testing the building system, now that Matt has committed his input update. (3/23/2018) Testing: We continued testing the building interface this week, and also tested moving C.U.B.E. files between Fledgling and Hatchery. This was in preparation for allowing players to build on Hatchery again. We also continued testing on the new point capture scenario map, allowing us to find and fix a couple of issues.

We continued testing the building interface this week, and also tested moving C.U.B.E. files between Fledgling and Hatchery. This was in preparation for allowing players to build on Hatchery again. We also continued testing on the new point capture scenario map, allowing us to find and fix a couple of issues. (3/30/2018) Testing: This week, Tim spent time streamlining our process to bring up new shards. We created Nuada and Hawking this week, and both were immediately used in this week’s testing, which was overseen by Brian. These extra shards will allow us more flexibility in testing as we move closer to the start of Beta 1. Building and Crafting Development: (3/9/2018) Tech – Item Health Scripting and Container Support: Christina has added fairly robust support for item health/durability. We will then be able to do things like decrease this value when weapons or items are used for a skill, or make armor lose health when attacked, or make items such as torches lose health when equipped. Additionally, she’s added in support for container “drawer” support. This allows containers to have sub containers, each with their own requirements.

Christina has added fairly robust support for item health/durability. We will then be able to do things like decrease this value when weapons or items are used for a skill, or make armor lose health when attacked, or make items such as torches lose health when equipped. Additionally, she’s added in support for container “drawer” support. This allows containers to have sub containers, each with their own requirements. (3/16/2018) WIP – Design – Crafting: Work continues on building out the design/tech for the Beta 1 launch. While this will be a subset of the crafting system for the LIVE game, we expect to get a lot of data from players during Beta 1. Just to emphasize an important point: we don’t want to make crafting a grindy, boring mess, either in Beta 1 or in the LIVE game.

Work continues on building out the design/tech for the Beta 1 launch. While this will be a subset of the crafting system for the LIVE game, we expect to get a lot of data from players during Beta 1. Just to emphasize an important point: we don’t want to make crafting a grindy, boring mess, either in Beta 1 or in the LIVE game. (3/16/2018) WIP – Tech/Design – Building Placed Objects: We’ve begun work on the ability for players to place objects from within the building system. This includes an initial design pass from Ben and preliminary work from Christina. Our first pass is intentionally simple, allowing us to classify items that can be placed in the buildings, as well as make doors into working, placeable items. We can’t promise that Rob won’t activate his code to make doors drown.

We’ve begun work on the ability for players to place objects from within the building system. This includes an initial design pass from Ben and preliminary work from Christina. Our first pass is intentionally simple, allowing us to classify items that can be placed in the buildings, as well as make doors into working, placeable items. We can’t promise that Rob won’t activate his code to make doors drown. (3/23/2018) WIP – Tech – Resource Harvesting: Christina has been working on resource nodes as we lead up to our work on crafting. Information about resource nodes can be queried through the API server, and right-click on resource nodes brings up a dev UI with the details about the node, such as its name, how full it is, what is in it, and how much you’ll get.

Christina has been working on resource nodes as we lead up to our work on crafting. Information about resource nodes can be queried through the API server, and right-click on resource nodes brings up a dev UI with the details about the node, such as its name, how full it is, what is in it, and how much you’ll get. (3/30/2018) WIP - Design - Gathering: Mark has been hard at work on gathering, both for use within the game and for the team (recruiting) as well! This morning he was heads down in his "gathering calculator" working on the details of materials gain, item degradation, and exactly how long it should take to level a basic gathering skill to soft cap.

Mark has been hard at work on gathering, both for use within the game and for the team (recruiting) as well! This morning he was heads down in his "gathering calculator" working on the details of materials gain, item degradation, and exactly how long it should take to level a basic gathering skill to soft cap. (3/30/2018) Tech - Resource Node integration with ECTs: Courtesy of Christina, and mentioned in last week’s stream, resource nodes can now be spawned though the ECT system, which means Design has more control over where resource nodes are placed, how they are configured, and have the ability to use them in scenarios. Also, resource nodes are displayed on the mini map for now, primarily for testing. Miscellaneous: (3/9/2018) Design – Dragon Fang Scenario and VFX/SFX/Animation Debugging: Ben has been busy this week, primarily on two fronts. He’s working with Caleb to test and debug the next scenario map, which uses a capture point, and soon a capture-the-flag mechanic. Additionally, he’s working with Rob to help debug VFX/SFX/Animations issues to improve combat.

Ben has been busy this week, primarily on two fronts. He’s working with Caleb to test and debug the next scenario map, which uses a capture point, and soon a capture-the-flag mechanic. Additionally, he’s working with Rob to help debug VFX/SFX/Animations issues to improve combat. (3/16/2018) WIP – Tech – Terrain Collision Improvements: Matt has been working to improve the way we generate terrain collision, on both the client and the server. The goal here is to fix several long-standing bugs that will improve building on terrain, as well as general player movement and combat. In addition to this, Matt has begun work on a visual debugger to show terrain collision, which will speed up fixes to problems like these in the future.

Matt has been working to improve the way we generate terrain collision, on both the client and the server. The goal here is to fix several long-standing bugs that will improve building on terrain, as well as general player movement and combat. In addition to this, Matt has begun work on a visual debugger to show terrain collision, which will speed up fixes to problems like these in the future. (3/23/2018) Tech - NPC behavior: Speaking of the point capture scenario, Colin has been improving the NPCs behaviors. They will now attack enemies on their way to their assigned destination. Clearly much more useful! He’s also updating them to use both weapons, if dual wielding.

Speaking of the point capture scenario, Colin has been improving the NPCs behaviors. They will now attack enemies on their way to their assigned destination. Clearly much more useful! He’s also updating them to use both weapons, if dual wielding. (3/23/2018) Tech – Editor Improvements: Bull made several quality-of-life improvements to the editor this week, including an improved layout and better selection and deselection of hand-placed assets.

Bull made several quality-of-life improvements to the editor this week, including an improved layout and better selection and deselection of hand-placed assets. (3/23/2018) WIP – Tech – Network Messaging: Colin and Caleb have been working on integrating the “Post Office,” which is a networked messaging layer, allowing us to greatly expand the flexibility of our entity scripting. Data from the editor can cause entities to listen and respond to events using specified parameters. This is currently in review and ready for testing. Art Accomplishments: (3/9/18) WIP - Art - New Ability Animations: Following up on Ben’s new designs, Scott, Sandra, and Joe have been working on new animations, one for each class. We’re using these new skills to make more dynamic animations, VFX, and SFX. We’re also making new, class specific idles to give each class more character. This work will inform quality changes we want to make to existing animations to improve the look and feel of combat.

Following up on Ben’s new designs, Scott, Sandra, and Joe have been working on new animations, one for each class. We’re using these new skills to make more dynamic animations, VFX, and SFX. We’re also making new, class specific idles to give each class more character. This work will inform quality changes we want to make to existing animations to improve the look and feel of combat. (3/30/2018) WIP - Art - New Ability Animations and Class Idles: Joe completed a new Stonehealer unique idle as well as the new Crushing Annihilation ability animation. Scott finished the Empath unique idle, and is working through a second pass of the Agonizing Remembrance animation to wrap up early next week. Sandra is working through a second pass of the Forest Stalker’s Overgrowth Shot to add more “pizzazz,” after some good input from Ben.

Joe completed a new Stonehealer unique idle as well as the new Crushing Annihilation ability animation. Scott finished the Empath unique idle, and is working through a second pass of the Agonizing Remembrance animation to wrap up early next week. Sandra is working through a second pass of the Forest Stalker’s Overgrowth Shot to add more “pizzazz,” after some good input from Ben. (3/30/2018) WIP - Art - Scenario 2 Environment Assets: Work continued apace this week on the many assets needed in this map. Tyler finished the first pass of the center terrain mods and tertiary assets. This also included finishing a set of new ferns and rocks from Dionne. Speaking of which, Dionne finished a first pass of new ruin assets which replace much of the placeholder grey box assets in the zone. Much of this work is meant to support not only this zone, but additional environment variations on the main islands. Bonus Images! -by Max Porter Sorry, can’t let you go without showing some of the latest and greatest C.U.B.E. creations! This mansion, complete with foyer and ballroom, were created by CyrusPyralis as part of an ongoing project: Thanks as always for reading through our monthly newsletter! It was once again a blast to put this together for your perusal, and I hope you have enjoyed. Until next time, folks!



- Max out.

