Evening Update – Friday, November 6th, 2015

Folks,

Time for another Friday update! While this one isn’t as chock-full of great news as usual, there’s still a lot of stuff to talk about. First, let’s start with a fun subject: swag, merch, and stuff! We’ve been saying, it seems since forever, that we were going to start answering the calls for swag “soon.” Well, soon is almost here, as I’m happy to say that our store is in the final shakedown/testing stage with our IT Backers. We’ve been listening to the feedback we’ve been getting and working with our partner to add new tech, convenience features (which actually save you money, not “convenience features” that you pay extra for), and other improvements to the store. We’re waiting on one more final piece of tech from them, and once that is in place, we will open the store. Right now, I expect it will be on Tuesday, but, as always, time will tell. I’d like to say a big “thank you” to our IT folks who have been helping us out, and to our partner, who has been patiently listening to all of our feedback and making changes accordingly.

Secondly, we are all set for another round of Friday Night Fights! We’re in the midst of tracking down three major problems (one of which we believe we have fixed), but none of the problems affect the game’s stability or overall performance. We believe that the biggest problem is due to our changeover to 64 bit and VS 2015, so we weren’t surprised when something hiccupped. OTOH, it has consumed a little more time this week than we would have liked, so the User Story update isn’t quite as large as we had hoped it would be. Then again, it’s still a very good one, and the changeover we made needed to happen. And, as usual with us, we’d rather do these things sooner, rather than later.

Thirdly, as to the User Stories update, here we are: 23 Existing Cards with 60 completes and 1 New Card with 4 completes.

Existing Cards:

As a Backer I’d like to see general improvements in C.U.B.E.’s interface and functionality.

Add a delete button for blueprints. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to play in a procedurally-created environment. – Part Three.

Optimize mod loading and unloading during Realm ownership transitions. – (Memory Allocation Refactor) – Complete

Better handling of player position when terrain is updated. – Players don’t fall through the world. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have the tools and knowledge necessary to create terrain Biomes that change with Realm territory control.

Add “has collision flag” to assets in editor for easier verification in client. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated female human model.

Create UI elements for character creation. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated male Frost Giant model.

Audit current melee armor set to fit male Frost Giant for testing. – Complete

Model and rig low poly model. – Complete

Import and test model parts. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the new female Luchorpán model.

Rebuild female Luchorpán model to adhere to new pipeline. New vert count, body part topology, UV layout. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated male golem model.

Model and rig low poly model. – Complete

Import and test model parts. – Complete

Audit current melee armor set to fit male Golem for testing. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated female Fir Bog model.

Model high poly sculpt. – Complete

Create textures. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the male Silverhand model.

Concept pass 2 – Complete

Concept pass 3 – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the female Silverhand model.

Concept pass 2 – Complete

Concept pass 3 – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the world begin to be propped out with generic fantasy items. – Set #4.

Viking stone markers x3. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to know about smaller changes that don’t have their own user story.

Improve channeling: Caster can go into a channeling recovery loop, vs. being able to immediately start next cast. – Complete

As a Backer, I want to be able to own a plot of land and build within it. – First Pass

Display plot boundaries when placing blocks. – Complete

Create generic “unowned” cornerstone and 3 “owned” cornerstones, one for each Realm. – Complete

Cornerstones and plot markers define plot borders. – Complete

Cornerstones swap to show ownership info. – Complete

Make blocks Realm-sensitive and destructable by enemy Realms. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see graphical and networking performance improvements, when building and destroying structures.

Greatly improve building LOD algorithm to better maintain surface acuity while reducing poly count even more. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to experience positionally-based audio and music within the world of Camelot Unchained.

Register required Wwise plug-ins used by dB. – Complete

First pass audio concept: Combat middle value music track v1. – Complete

Create additional ornamental sounds for combat music – second pass. – Complete

Set up automated volume leveler in Wwise for music. – Complete

Set up player proximity parameter for music and sfx queues. – Complete

Set up “outnumbered” parameter. Determines number of friendly and enemy players around user’s character. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to know about all the smaller enhancements the MOD Squad makes to Camelot Unchained.

New perf HUD UI design. – Complete

As a Backer, I would like to have information about the classes of Camelot Unchained.

Silhouette reveal concept art pass – trio #5 – Complete

As a server Developer, I would like the user proxies to dynamically scale.

When a user proxy is full, stop connecting players to it. – Complete

When all user proxies are med-high load, start spinning up another user proxy. – Complete

As a Backer I’d like a patcher to not only update my game, but also give me the most important news and updates, get support, chat with the community and look awesome while doing it!

Design new patcher layout: Secondary interface elements. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to reward our Backers for their continuing support of Camelot Unchained.

Discuss with Backers. – Complete

Create first pass Backer Rewards. – Complete

Concept account layout in store view. – Complete

As a Backer and Developer, I’d like some temporary vfx for testing new combat mechanics and tech.

VFX: Attack armor penetration success. – Complete

VFX: Attack armor penetration failure. – Complete

VFX: Attack blocked/deflected. – Complete

VFX: Generic defensive buff applied. – Complete

VFX: Generic defensive debuff applied. – Complete

VFX: Generic offensive buff persist. – Complete

VFX: Generic defensive buff persist. – Complete

VFX: Generic defensive debuff persist. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to improve some of our fundamental tech to improve client performance.

Update server to 64bit. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see the world begin to be propped out with generic fantasy items. – Set #6.

Viking 2-wheeled wagon v1 – Complete

Viking 2-wheeled wagon v1.5 – Weathered materials. – Complete

Viking 2-wheeled wagon v2 – Complete

Viking 2-wheeled wagon v1 – loaded. – Complete

Viking small metal working station on wood stump. – Complete

Viking small metal working station on wood stump. – alt version. – Complete

Viking cooking pot. – Complete

Viking generic bench, new and old. – Complete

Viking bench, new. – Complete

Viking generic chairs. – Complete

Small dragon-on-pillar statue. – Complete

New Cards:

As a Backer, I’d like to play in a procedurally-created environment. – Part Four.

Merge server/client physics entities. – Complete

Concurrent terrain collision loading – pass 3 – Complete

Improve collision loading for spawned models. – Complete

Optimize placeable collision generation by ignoring assets without collision. – Complete

As you can see, there were quite a few really nice wins for us, but it is a little lighter than we would have liked. OTOH, pulling off the Band-Aids and doing the conversion was the right thing to do.

Fourth, we revealed the latest class trio for our game: the Mages! While these folks might not sound as interesting (or BSC) as some of our other class reveals, they are quite important to our game in terms of the many roles that they can fulfill. And, while they might not be as thematically strong in terms of the legends in the real world, our take on Druids is quite different. However, as always, if these folks don’t work out, we can retool them. One of the important things to keep in mind about this trio is that we’ve been testing the tech for the A.I.R. system using what is essentially two of the three Mage classes. Getting these folks into the Beta will be relatively easy once it’s their turn. But, as always, let us know what you think on our Forums!

For more information, head over here – http://camelotunchained.com/v2/class-reveal-magic/.

In other news, we’ve been working on the Backer Rewards system for our game. As a reminder, Backer Rewards (or loyalty rewards, veteran rewards, etc.) is our way of thanking the folks who helped, and will continue to help, make Camelot Unchained™ a reality. These rewards can’t be bought for cash, can’t be traded, etc., but are simply our way of giving our players lots of choices of stuff to choose for their character, C.U.B.E. home, and so much more. Now, we are hoping to make the choices difficult for you, since that is part of the fun, and of course, none of these items is designed to give any advantage in the game. Our Backers (and future players), will earn Backer Reward Points for every month that they are supporters of this game. They will then be able to turn in those points for items. And again, neither Backer Reward Points, nor these items, can be bought for cash, and each Backer earns the same amount of points every month, no matter what tier that they have purchased. Here’s our initial pass at a mock-up for the Backer Rewards page.

For today’s extra-special piece of concept art, more on the Silverhands! First up, some of the female Silverhands.

Now for some of the men.

That’s it for now.

Enjoy your weekend!

-Mark