Unveiled: Camelot Unchained Newsletter #41 - City State Entertainment View this email in your browser Share Tweet +1 Team Tidings -by Max Porter Hey folks,



Happy holidays! Happy New Year! Happy last-part-of-December and 2017! What a year it’s been, full of adventures and accomplishments on Camelot Unchained™. In today’s newsletter, we’ll talk a bit about the year as a whole, but focus on what got done this past month, up until this point. Please note that this is our last update before our holiday break, and we’ll CU all again in the new year! We’ve got a Dose of Design from Ben below, where he talks about some of the work he’s been doing lately, and the importance of standardizing the way we create things on our end. Scott jumps back in to give us an art update in the Art It Up section, complete with pictures to illustrate the point! Not to be outdone, Dave returns in the Tech Central section with a flavorful and fun knight’s letter to his lord for a fantasy take on the tech progress made this year. It’s the fourth such missive from the world-weavers, so don’t miss that! In addition, we have a State of the Build update by yours truly, with a selection from the month’s Top Tenish updates. As it’s a short month before we head out on our holiday break, there’s no lore piece in this month’s newsletter. However, I’ll CU next month for a new lore update!



We have continued our weekly schedule of streams, showing you everything from impressive creative work by our artists and programmers to our latest updates and news. We have fun with it, but the streams are also very important to us, as we always want to be as informative as possible for our Backers and fans. 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, and our User Stories to check on our progress.



Thanks for reading! It’s been another good time editing and putting together this newsletter for your perusal. Don’t forget to click on the “view this email in your browser” link on the top right to see the whole thing! Curl up and read on for articles, art, news, updates, art team photos, and more, and please enjoy this, the forty-first issue of Unveiled. Hot Topics

The latest topics of discussion on the forums right now include the mobility of mages as opposed to melee classes, recording battles, renaming scenarios, and the size of RvR maps.



Join the discussion on 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 the mobility of mages as opposed to melee classes, recording battles, renaming scenarios, and the size of RvR maps. Thank You Many thanks to the anonymous Backer, who wishes to be known only as “our rich creepy uncle” who occasionally sends us delicious things, for this awesome pizza lunch! It was greatly appreciated and enjoyed, as Jon illustrates! Thanks also to Poxer, who sent us this amazing Christmas card, complete with some little jokes and challenge to all other Backers to send us some “schlocky” cards as well! We would be happy to receive any cards early next year! Thank you to the unknown fan who sent us this funny green ducky! This duck-ness monster is quite intimidating! And finally, a huge thanks to Paladin Brewer and the whole Sword of the Dragon guild, who sent these stunning hand-made goblets to everyone in the studios on both coasts! These are truly epic, and were used immediately for a toast with some Camelot Mead! Look What You Did Thanks to Arrobee for this awesome entry into last month’s fan fiction contest! The theme was “the hero loses,” and here’s Arrobee’s short take on retelling an historical story akin to what we do in CU lore:



A man has hitched his boat to a small dock just outside the city of Oslo. This man is Hallvard Vebjørnsson and he has come to commission wares from Oslo’s renowned marketplace.



Hallvard’s trip through the marketplace is abruptly cut short as a woman, preoccupied with something behind her, slams into Hallvard nearly knocking him over. He instinctively grabs the woman by the shoulders, stopping her ability to flee.



“Stop that thieving thrall!” A command echoes as a man pushes through the crowd toward Hallvard.



“I took nothing, I swear it,” the woman quivers into his shoulder.



Hallvard couldn’t tell if it was the terror in this woman’s voice, or the look in her pursuer’s eyes, but he guided her behind him while slipping into a defensive stance.



“Wrong choice, strang...” The man’s words cut short as a palmed blow hits his jaw dropping him to the ground. Two more men step from the crowd, coming to the man’s aid.



“It’s time to go,” Hallvard says as he grabs the woman’s arm and begins leading her through the city to his boat.



Hallvard unhitching the boat takes note of the wind; he will have to row. As they gain distance from the dock, an arrow sails past Hallvard’s head and slams into the mast in front of him. Quickly turning his head to the shore, just as two more arrows barely miss him. He can see the three pursuers on the shore nocking arrows for another volley. Hallvard’s eyes widen when he hears a gurgling gasp from the front of the boat. The two arrows that missed him had found purchase in his passenger. Hallvard stands to give her aid, but an arrow from the next volley strikes him. Hallvard tumbles off the boat, his body lifeless in the water. A tragic tale indeed. For our next newsletter contest, it’s time to take out your pens, brushes, cameras, or computer mice once again. That’s right, it’s a fan art contest! This time, let’s take inspiration from the season, as we often do. Draw, paint, dress up and photograph, or otherwise create an image for a holiday themed on a particular Realm from Camelot Unchained. It could be a celebration of the founding of the Realm, surviving a Breaking of the World, or anything thematic that you come up with. Post your creations in the thread you’ll see popping up in the Fan Art section of the Forums, and we’ll post some in the next newsletter. I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Dose of Design -by Ben Pielstick Standardizing for Scalability

Over the course of game development, massive amounts of content are generated in order to create all the experiences players will have while playing the game. Making sure there will be enough content in a game is a constant challenge for developers. There are many things that can be done to help overcome this challenge; one that might not immediately be the most obvious is what I will call content standardization.



During the prototype stage of development, the most important goal is to figure out what should go into the game, and how it should be put together. This means we must figure out the right aesthetics, performance, and general ‘fun’ factor each feature should have, which isn’t always easy. During this exploratory process, it is important to iterate quickly, without investing a lot of effort into each version of something that may not turn out to be part of the final game. This is where you might hear the phrase ‘fail quickly’. This means it is better to get something working and testable early on, and discover whether it is going to work out or not, sooner rather than later, in order to waste as little time as possible.



Putting things together this quickly also tends to be messy. After all, we don’t need everything to be perfect for a prototype. The extra time it would take to piece everything together in an orderly and understandable way might go to waste. For Camelot Unchained, skill parts are a good example of this. Since we first started implementing skill parts via XML, we’ve gone through a lot of syntax changes, and added many new features over time. Therefore, our earliest skill parts were handled very differently from the ones we created more recently. We also haven’t taken extra time to keep things consistent over time within each skill part. As skill parts have been updated and modified, they have had nodes implemented in different ways, and we’ve often taken bits and pieces from older skill parts to make new ones.



Once the prototype stage of development is finished, things move on to the production stage. This is when things built in the prototype stage are used as guidelines to produce a lot more content along the same lines. Unfortunately, since the prototype stage is so messy, it can be hard to read and prone to bugs. Thus, there tends to have to be some work put into this transition. This involves taking the content created during the prototype stage and standardizing it in such a way that it can be used as a set of templates to base a far greater amount of content on. When it comes to skill parts, this means taking the most recent syntax, and the most up-to-date XML nodes, and retroactively applying them back through all the skills we’ve already made, sharing as much between each skill part as possible. Once their formats all look more or less the same and follow a set of standards, it will be much easier to base future skill parts on them, and to maintain those skill parts in the future.



This transition process is the reason there isn’t a huge number of skill parts or classes in the game as of today. Prototypes need to be just big enough to get an idea across, and to show all the key points of a feature. It isn’t until the production stage that a huge amount of content starts to be added, because during the transition, everything created during the prototype stage has to get reworked: these things have to go from the messy first pass into a set standards that will become the basis upon which all other content is built.



As we continue work on the skill system for Camelot Unchained, skill parts are undergoing a lot of revision. They’re still getting new features to support all the visual and sound effects they’re intended to have, as well as animations, UI icons, and tooltips. Importantly, they’re also getting a standard template to which they must conform. This will ensure skill part XML files are easy to read, and that they share a lot of their data, making them easy to add to while leaving as few places for bugs to exist as possible.



Once this process is complete and the results can be tested, it will be time to start expanding on both the functionality of skills in terms of mechanical depth, and the number of skill parts available to each class. In time, this will also lead to the implementation of additional classes, many of which have their initial concept on the CU website. We hope you’ve found a class you’re excited about, and look forward to bringing them to you as development of Camelot Unchained continues on. Developer Quote “We’ll never go FTP with Camelot Unchained as long as I’m in charge. I believe promises should be kept, and I made this promise to our KS Backers and thus, I’ll keep it.” - Mark Jacobs Artitup -by Scott Trolan As we close out 2017, we end with a very productive month from the Art Team. The puzzle pieces of game development are assembling nicely between art and engineering, allowing the team to rapidly test, iterate, and better support gameplay. We are continuing to see the fruits of our labors as we hook up and iterate on more VFX, audio events, and animations for player abilities. These continued additions really help take Camelot Unchained from a great engine to the beginnings of a great game, as we get ready for combat testing in Beta 1. As you may have heard in our recent Friday Wrap-Up Streams, we’ve been using the recently-created scenario system to test different gameplay types. These incorporate smaller sections of our total needs to start Beta 1, and make testing more fun for our Backers.



Over this past month, Brad--our gameplay and tools engineer--provided some great new tools to the animation team. Artists and engineers can now view animations within the CU editor without needing to be logged into the game. This undoubtedly allows us to speed up our ability to double-check our data entry, and to isolate animation and audio events. Previously, without this tool, testing would be done in-game, which required the user to create new abilities to see the animations associated with how the player built that ability. This also increased the chance of error as the number of dependencies grew. While auditing animation, player input such as upper body blending or overriding directional locomotion animation would interfere, and in some cases lead us to an incorrect conclusion. A shout-out and much appreciation to Brad for delivering on this!







Speaking of shouts, Sandra has started the groundwork to develop new shout animations for each weapon stance. She successfully worked out the timing for a shout with a polearm equipped, and that timing will be applied to the remaining two-handed weapon sets. Afterward, we will create an appropriate shout that will best suit any of the single right- and left-handed weapon combinations.



Also this month, Sandra has taken the lead to replace existing weapon deflect animations with a faster reaction time and stronger readability. Previously, our rough deflects looked too much like a character flinching. Now the new deflect animations convey much more character intent, and present a fortified posture to ward off strikes from opposing players.







We plan to implement focus items to the game at the start of the new year. In preparation, I have begun work on focus spellcasting animations. While the character is equipped with a focus in its left hand, the right hand centers the focus’ energy and expels them through various casts. Some of that work was live streamed HERE. It was a lot of fun to mix it up this month, going from weapon combat to focus casting. Next month’s work will involve modifying these new cast animations to function and read as casts with a weapon equipped in the right hand. I’m looking forward to testing the versatility of these animations so they unmistakably read as a casts and not as wild weapon swings.







As focus spellcasting is underway, Jon has been sculpting and preparing a subsection of the various foci required for the game. He has made two very unique ornamented books for each Realm. They have been created in a modular fashion to support crafting and customization. Each book will support swappable textures for the book spine, pages, and ornament. It is our hope to visit these on a second pass and animate the books to open and shut as they coincide with the new cast animations. These will join the previously sculpted foci, once they are hooked up as items by Ben.



Aside from creating foci, Jon has spent a majority of his time this month creating NPC generic clothing for each Realm. Work on this can be seen in a previous live stream HERE. Next month, we will begin rigging these clothing sets and implement them into the game, looking ahead at a future milestone.







After Michelle handed off her NPC concepts for Jon to model, she moved onto concepting armor variations to our existing armor geometry. These variations included alterations to color, material, and embossed Realm-specific designs. This process will inform how we create armor and items in future, allowing for more variation in items and crafting with far less effort!







In preparation to launch SNS (Saturday Night Sieges) for our Backers, Michelle has been collaborating with James to create UI styling and splash screens for the early scenario system within the Camelot Unchained game patcher. Work on this has been handed off to JB and AJ for hook-up, and will be online and accessible to Backers soon. You can see these concepts HERE and HERE.







As SNS evolves, a new scenario map is being made available for testing. Dionne has revisited the Place of Power (PoP) and begun to work with Tyler on the surrounding wastelands. This will be the center point of the next scenario map, which will test some new work from the engineering team. This month, newly added assets for this map include dead and dying grasses as well as dead trees and fallen branches. Currently, Dionne and Tyler are working within the Camelot Unchained terrain builder to rough out the new map. This will most definitely be something to look forward to in the new year!



Also of monumental note, Dionne completed work on a “Large Arthurian Boat” (she has yet to give it a seaworthy name). If you spot this vessel on a map, take a moment to notice Dionne’s attention to detail in her model and textures.







Mike continues to brew up amazing particle effects and weapon trails using the newly updated particle VFX editor. Even though they look great, Mike still considers them placeholders, mainly to support testing. We’ll get into more Realm and class-specific variations in Beta. He has also worked in tandem with our audio engineer dB to test Ability VFX and audio output from their respective editors and databases. New tagging systems have been brought online, which allow for the pairing of VFX, audio, and animation to occur within the game. It's been quite a collaborative process between the two of them to test these results and make sure everything is working as expected.







Outside of testing, dB has been busy creating new foley for impacts, shouts, and combat ambience. Audio in CU has really added to the gameplay experience of late. He has been doing a fantastic job in creating a world that is audibly alive and not muddled and oversaturated with sound and score. He has been utilizing blending modes and filters to balance and prioritize audio between environment and combat, depending on gameplay factors such as distance, direction, and density.



As I said, the puzzle pieces are coming together for this game, and it really is an exciting time for all of us in the studio. We’re looking forward to next month--or next year--as we continue to add and test the initial pass of the assets for the Beta testing stage. We hope to make 2018 a great year for all of our Backers, and wish you all a Happy Holiday and Happy New Year! Tech Central -by David Hancock Fourth Letter from the World-Weavers

As a special treat, we have Dave’s latest high fantasy take on a Tech Central article, written as a knight’s letter to his liege, where our engineers are world-weavers.



To our most humble king,



The nights have grown long, signaling once more that a year has come and passed, as fleeting as the wind and yet as immutable as our loyalty. As in years past, and since the start of our grand quest, it has come time to once again enumerate the trials and tribulations that our order has undertaken since our last letter. Hopefully this missive shall be a light in these dark days, lest the darkness outside invade our hearts.



The work of our order is always in motion, in flux. The weaves that make up the foundations of our world are ever-changing, and the art of wrangling those threads into a coherent pattern to achieve our grand quest has been proceeding at a rapid pace toward our goal. We have made a number of adjustments to the core threads of our weave, allowing for faster and better concurrent distribution of tasking across the pattern. It was allowed for us to improve on a number of our existing weaves without much effort beyond the initial work.



This coincided with updates to our weaves for the distribution and creation of what laymen would consider magical conjurings in their visual field, dazzling effects meant to spark the imagination, and embed wonderment in those who witness it. As part of this initiative, we also pushed for more uniqueness in the armies who will fight upon our battlefields. Thus, a menagerie of colorful warriors was set to storm across the hills of creation, seeking out their bloody intent.



To further that end, the weaves driving the simulation of all that we see were vastly improved upon in the last year. Refinement began to stride toward the needs of those warriors who do battle, bringing their attacks back to life and giving them purpose. By warping the very existence around those who wished to seek battle, they are transported to a place of war, to fight for their glory amongst others who would steal that glory for themselves. These fights are played out over set conditions, and are watched over closely by the weavers, who take great interest in the interactions of their weaves with that of those who seek to use them.



As part of the effort to bring that war to life, siege engines were introduced into the battles, allowing for greater levels of destruction, higher levels of ferocity, and more chances for a warrior to claim the lives of his enemies. Additionally, the weaves driving how all things in creation move has been vastly improved, allowing for greater flexibility and a smoother look to our woven world.



While these topics highlight a number of our successes this year, there are many more victories that would take far too long to enumerate, so I shall leave you with these. Rest in the knowledge that our grand quest is progressing, and the world we have been weaving for so many moons has started to come together into a truly wondrous place.



With the greatest respect to our king, on behalf of the lord protector of my order,

Sir David, member of the Knights of the World Weavers State Of The Build -by Max Porter A great year, and a great, albeit short, month to close it out. Despite its brevity, this month saw a lot of progress in some key areas of the development of Camelot Unchained. In this State of the Build, I’m going to grab some of the highlights from our Top Tenish updates this month, which should provide a pretty good high-level overview of where we are at and what got worked on, from a technical side.



ECT Updates: (12/8/2017) Tech – Entity Component Templates: Entity Component Templates (or ECT for short) is a system we’re building to allow our designers to build templates for entities out of components. A component could be something simple like “Inventory”, “Skills”, or “Spawn Point”, or it could be something more complex like “NPCSpawner”. This system will allow someone like Ben to create things like a plot that spawns guards when captured, or a spawn point that has guards and a murderous kill field to reduce spawn camping. We’ll begin testing this work in the next scenario.

Entity Component Templates (or ECT for short) is a system we’re building to allow our designers to build templates for entities out of components. A component could be something simple like “Inventory”, “Skills”, or “Spawn Point”, or it could be something more complex like “NPCSpawner”. This system will allow someone like Ben to create things like a plot that spawns guards when captured, or a spawn point that has guards and a murderous kill field to reduce spawn camping. We’ll begin testing this work in the next scenario. (12/15/2017) WIP – Entity Component Templates: As mentioned in last week’s Top Tenish, the work to implement these has involved Andrew, Bull, and Caleb this week. Caleb has been working on playing with the new editor functionality, and setting up spawn points to use the new ECT system. Andrew has been providing design guidance, as well as helping Bull streamline some of the editor functionality. Bull has been working on making the editor even more useful, with the goal of allowing other programmers to rapidly change the format of the components that define entities, and have the editor work with the changed format without intervention. This work will support more gameplay mechanics, and make them easier and faster to create and iterate upon; first for scenarios, then for the larger scope of the game.

As mentioned in last week’s Top Tenish, the work to implement these has involved Andrew, Bull, and Caleb this week. Caleb has been working on playing with the new editor functionality, and setting up spawn points to use the new ECT system. Andrew has been providing design guidance, as well as helping Bull streamline some of the editor functionality. Bull has been working on making the editor even more useful, with the goal of allowing other programmers to rapidly change the format of the components that define entities, and have the editor work with the changed format without intervention. This work will support more gameplay mechanics, and make them easier and faster to create and iterate upon; first for scenarios, then for the larger scope of the game. (12/22/2017) WIP - Scenario and ECTs: Caleb and Bull have been working ona new way to author gameplay content. Our editor will have the capability to describe detailed gameplay concepts right in our world editor. Iteration speed on our scenarios will really start to pick up after this milestone. Developing Scenarios: (12/8/2017) WIP – Design – Dragonfang: Speaking of which, Ben was tasked with creating a rough design of the next scenario map. He knocked it out of the park! This scenario will re-incorporate the first Place of Power model, which was included in our Beta 1 list. You can get more info from today’s livestream.

Speaking of which, Ben was tasked with creating a rough design of the next scenario map. He knocked it out of the park! This scenario will re-incorporate the first Place of Power model, which was included in our Beta 1 list. You can get more info from today’s livestream. (12/8/2017) Tech – Scenario Automation: Caleb added more functionality to the scenarios, now allowing players to queue up to a certain threshold that triggers the start of a scenario. Players are added in, and NPCs can be automatically added to balance teams. If new players join, they replace existing NPCs.

Caleb added more functionality to the scenarios, now allowing players to queue up to a certain threshold that triggers the start of a scenario. Players are added in, and NPCs can be automatically added to balance teams. If new players join, they replace existing NPCs. (12/15/2017) Permissions Update: Christina has been quietly working on our permissions tech to make it easier to use in multiple gameplay systems, currently affecting items and plots. We’ll also be able to support more types of permissions, such as granting permission to your Realm to build on your plot, but not dismantle it. Plots can now be granted permission settings based on scenarios as well, something specifically needed for the next scenario. She’s also working on remote plot functions, such as the ability to release a plot without being near it, and adding more flexibility to control the number of plots a player can own. Some of these changes are waiting on UI updates to allow players to make use of them.

Christina has been quietly working on our permissions tech to make it easier to use in multiple gameplay systems, currently affecting items and plots. We’ll also be able to support more types of permissions, such as granting permission to your Realm to build on your plot, but not dismantle it. Plots can now be granted permission settings based on scenarios as well, something specifically needed for the next scenario. She’s also working on remote plot functions, such as the ability to release a plot without being near it, and adding more flexibility to control the number of plots a player can own. Some of these changes are waiting on UI updates to allow players to make use of them. (12/15/2017) Tech – Scenarios and Combat Readability: Matt has been fairly busy this week, helping out with several items: Daytime and ammo generation settings have been added to scenario definitions. Tab-targeted projectile prediction improvements. Projectiles, such as arrows, go towards your target immediately, vs. curving mid-trajectory. Client-side bindings for new ability buttons. More info passed to the UI allows us to give more visual feedback for your abilities.

Matt has been fairly busy this week, helping out with several items: (12/22/2017) WIP - Tech - Floating Combat Text: Dave completed a first pass of the system this week, hooking up some basic damage and healing flyouts. The purpose of this system is to improve combat readability so players can not only tell better what is happening, but also help us test more efficiently. Ie: we can use this system to throw more info at players to help debug issues. Animation Tech Updates: (12/1/20170 WIP – Tech – Animation: Brad completed a first pass on hooking animations up to the scorpion siege engine. Characters no longer “dance” in place; now they move side-to-side when aiming and perform an animation when firing. We’re going to leave the more complex IK (Inverse Kinematics – arms sync with scorpion) tech for later. For now, we’ll improve the movement and timings, plus add a “load” animation. Additionally, Brad continues to improve readability of the animations system for faster development and debugging.

Brad completed a first pass on hooking animations up to the scorpion siege engine. Characters no longer “dance” in place; now they move side-to-side when aiming and perform an animation when firing. We’re going to leave the more complex IK (Inverse Kinematics – arms sync with scorpion) tech for later. For now, we’ll improve the movement and timings, plus add a “load” animation. Additionally, Brad continues to improve readability of the animations system for faster development and debugging. (12/8/2017) WIP – Tech – Animation Viewer in the Editor: Brad created a first-pass animation viewer in the editor. As he said this morning, “This is as much for me as for the animators!” This allows us to work offline, with more available info to debug animations. This first iteration also has a timeline scrubber, which really helps us see how animations behave in-game, as opposed to the programs they are authored in. NPC Tech updates: (12/1/2017) WIP – Tech – Embedded WebAPI server: After completing healer NPCs and support for different NPC weapons, armor, and genders, Colin is working on embedding the WebAPI server for local builds. This will make it easier for devs to spin up local servers faster, improving productivity.

After completing healer NPCs and support for different NPC weapons, armor, and genders, Colin is working on embedding the WebAPI server for local builds. This will make it easier for devs to spin up local servers faster, improving productivity. (12/8/2017) WIP – Tech – NPCs: Colin is adding more functionality to NPCs so they will spawn, move to an area, and defend it, returning if pulled too far from their defense point. These changes will be the beginning of simple mechanics for guards, and may get incorporated into the next scenario.

Colin is adding more functionality to NPCs so they will spawn, move to an area, and defend it, returning if pulled too far from their defense point. These changes will be the beginning of simple mechanics for guards, and may get incorporated into the next scenario. (12/15/2017) Tech NPCs: Currently in review from Colin: NPCs can spawn, move to an area, and defend it, returning if pulled too far from their defense point. We plan to use this work in the next scenario, discussed in last week’s livestream, HERE. As always, this covers just a few of the many accomplishments of the month. Thanks for reading! Onward! Bonus Images! -by Max Porter The Backer known as jjamesx2 created these magnificent edifices in C.U.B.E., and then took some special screen shots of them at my request. There are still more in the forum thread where these came from, so perhaps we’ll be showing more of jjamesx2’s creations soon! Thank you so much as always for reading through our newsletter to the end. It’s been a great year, and a very fun time putting together these forty-one issues of Unveiled. Until next time, happy holidays, and I wish you a great year. Max out!



