DEV DIARY #1

Its a new start to the year and with it comes (youll never guess what) new stuff! One of which is our dev diaries. These arent patch notes or major updates, but just a means to talk a little about the current state of the game, how things are going and really just pulling back the mystery curtain on indie game development. If you don't like reading long paragraphs - TL;DR is at the bottom of this post!

A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON

AEGIS Kingdoms originally started out life as Battle Clashers, which was an events platform we were developing for multiplayer battles. This was the precursor to community clashes, and meant as a fun event for the community to get involved with. We even went as far as to re-build a new arena and game each time we did this which later evolved into the AEGIS Kingdoms platform that we now have. From there, AEGIS Kingdoms was known as a TMORPG which stood for TINY multiplayer online roleplaying game, with the emphasis on a small community, small game world. We made various prototypes and explored various ways in which we could achieve this. Currently we only have 2 videos on AEGIS Kingdoms, both a little out of date, calling this game such a title (a TMORPG). However weve simply moved away from terms like MMORPGs or alternative variations on a theme. Instead the focus is on crafting a shared, online world. We prefer this distinction as primarily as that is exactly what it is: a shared space for you to enjoy solo, or with others. Its not a particularly big game, nor are the features revolutionary however it is a community focused game where your character can enjoy living. We think thats pretty fun!

CURRENT STATE OF THE GAME

Over the last year weve been experimenting with the multiplayer framework that we use, building iterations on it, stress testing, and gradually building a game atop it. Weve since hosted a variety of community clashes in different settings which have allowed us to track various points of data and gather player feedback from our Alpha Knights (alpha testers). At present, AEGIS Kingdoms is in the combat testing stage, which means our current focus on tests is on creating fun combat gameplay. We had initially planned on going straight to PvE after the combat tests, however we havent been completely happy with this. In our latest Community Clash quite a few vulnerabilities and issues were highlighted which most of our time has been spent on fixing. The most prominent has been the higher-ping users who have been falling through the ground. Nothing kills immersion and fun quicker than plummeting to your death on repeat. So thats been a priority and were still testing the fixes. As such, weve got more tests that Alpha Knights can participate in coming in 2023. However rather than leave out PvE entirely, weve incorporated it into the current tests. Whilst not exclusively, Alpha Knights now focus on fighting both mobs and each other. Additionally, due to how the content in the game is broken up (a la factions), it provides us with quite clear cut means to test in segments. As such, we can test a host of features at once that revolve around a specific topic.

The Relic Hunters:

• - Dungeon delving (and the generic shenanigans that come with that)
• - Boss battles (and the fun that comes with that)
• - Rare items / unique items / high value items / quest reward items
• - Rare drops / drop rates
• - Dungeon balancing / mob damages / mob placement / generic dungeon design
• - Puzzle solving / environment challenges / misleading environment design
• - the list goes on!

The Adventurers Guild:

• - Parkour challenges
• - Destination / location achievements
• - New quest types (exploration themed)
• - Cartography
• - Main quest related adventures
• - and more!

The Mercenary Legion:

• - The various ways to fight and kills things.
• - Boss fights / defending / assassinations / hunting etc
• - World bosses / slaying
• - and more!

The Engineers Society:

• - New quest types (discovery, assembling etc)
• - Crafting expansion
• - Placement and procurement content
• - Fetch content (sampling)
• - and more!

The Settlers Union:

• - Crafting focus
• - Crafting quests
• - Housing
• - Resource harvesting
• - Farming
• - Agriculture content
• - and much more!

At the moment, were still focusing on The Relic Hunters content. We find this is the best way to build the game so that we can tick off each segment of content, moving onto the next. It also means once each major milestone is completed, theres no reason to stop us from allowing permanent early access (servers online all the time), for example. We have also been focusing on the environment generation to ensure its the best mix of quality and optimisation. At the moment our tests have been mixed but we think weve found a good balance. When we move into continuous early access, well have a small environment ready for you to enjoy, so rather than spoil the surprise, we will leave you to wonder until the time is right. With regards to the actual state of the game its taking longer than was first anticipated for the game to be developed. Our approach is slow and methodical to ensure that the content of AEGIS Kingdoms is at a place we are happy with. However a large contributor to the slow development time is also funding which at present we are doing off our own backs via freelance work. As mentioned in an earlier post, this means that a lot of time is taken up. We have got some plans to mitigate this, but that will be explained in the 2023 roadmap post.

FUTURE FOCUS

Well be collating more data in the form of 2 new community clashes this year planned for 2023. Well be improving on the Dungeon Clash from last time for Clash V, as well as a new theme for Clash VI. Well be bringing out more information later regarding the clashes, after our 2023 roadmap post. Clash V will host a lot of fixes and feedback from the last clash, so should be very familiar. Whilst there will be some environment changes, the overall layout, look and feel should be pretty much what is was last time, but better. Some unnecessary stuff will be removed and fixes should make the overall experience much more fun. Of course this is still an early access test so bare that in mind in regards to your excitement and expectations.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Finally all AEGIS games share a common universe. They are all connected somehow and as such we love to jam pack our games with connections, easter eggs and lots of fun stuff. We try not to take ourselves too seriously, likewise we hope that spills over into AEGIS Kingdoms. As with all our tests, games and demos theyre all for bettering our own skills and overall game quality so that we can continue to bring out fun and engaging content. Whilst it has been a long ride to get to this point, we are happy with the progress and look forward to conquering more challenges in the future. If you enjoyed this type of post, let us know in Discord!

IMPORTANT LINKS

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/smvhW9t WEBSITE: https://aegisgamestudios.co.uk

TL;DR

- We are doing Dev Diaries! - Current state of the game is focusing on Relic Hunter content. - 2 Community Clashes are being organised. - Join the Discord for more information about becoming an Alpha Knight (Tester)! - Visit our website for upcoming announcements!

[ 2023-01-17 10:42:50 CET ] [ Original post ]