I've posted a Kickstarter update going over the last few years of development and my plans moving forward.

[h3]CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE[/h3]
A new build - the final build - has been pushed to Steam. The game has exited early access. It's not perfect - not even close to what we'd hoped for - but it's done. Janky, ugly, compromised, buggy, missing tons of promised features... and done. You can install it, launch it and play it from start to finish. I've done so dozens of times. (And never will again, knock on wood.)

[h3]Thank You Everyone[/h3]
Not everyone here was a backer, but many of you put serious time into playing the alpha and into reporting bugs on the forum. Thank you again for all your help.

Strap yourselves in - this is going to be a long update! We've got almost 6 months of development to cover, and I think you're going to be surprised by how much has changed in that time.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

Strap yourselves in - this is going to be a long update! We've got almost 6 months of development to cover, and I think you're going to be surprised by how much has changed in that time.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

Thinking of buying this game? Here's why you may want to wait:
FRONTIERS is in the middle of an overhaul (which I'm calling v1.7) that addresses many of the bugs and performance issues that exist in the current version.

Everything is changing - the visuals, the interface, the inventory system, the save game system, etc. Most of these changes were driven by player feedback so a big thanks to anyone who took the time to play & post.

So what's the problem?
So far so good - unfortunately this overhauled version won't be in a releasable state for a while yet, and there's an uncomfortable disconnect growing between the game that's available for download and the game that's actually being developed. Right now the impression you'll get from the screenshots, forum discussions and bug reports won't quite match the finished product.

So if you're thinking of buying, DON'T. I encourage you to WAIT until 1.7 is released.

Just to be clear, the game isn't morphing into a Candy Crush clone or something - the core experience will be consistent. But in the past my mantra has been 'read the forums before buying!' so I want to err on the side of caution in this situation.

Bug Reporting
To anyone who already owns the game - hold off on posting new bug reports. The reports you've made for previous versions have been invaluable, but the systems that produced most of them have been replaced. Conserve your energy!

Humble Bundlers
To anyone who got this game in a bundle - this announcement is obviously coming on the heels of your purchase, which is slightly awkward. For what it's worth the changes in the visuals & gameplay didn't emerge until fairly recently - hopfeully you'll all love them. Fingers crossed!

Forum Housecleaning
I've moved a lot of the outdated bug reports into a forum called Archived Bug Reports (Pre v1.7) which you can view here. I've also moved some other topics like the Official Favorites Thread since they could be considered selling points.

There's still potential for confusion with this setup but this seemed cleaner and more transparent than just deleting stuff.

Alright I think that's everything. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

Cheers,
- L

Thinking of buying this game? Here's why you may want to wait:
FRONTIERS is in the middle of an overhaul (which I'm calling v1.7) that addresses many of the bugs and performance issues that exist in the current version.

Everything is changing - the visuals, the interface, the inventory system, the save game system, etc. Most of these changes were driven by player feedback so a big thanks to anyone who took the time to play & post.

So what's the problem?
So far so good - unfortunately this overhauled version won't be in a releasable state for a while yet, and there's an uncomfortable disconnect growing between the game that's available for download and the game that's actually being developed. Right now the impression you'll get from the screenshots, forum discussions and bug reports won't quite match the finished product.

So if you're thinking of buying, DON'T. I encourage you to WAIT until 1.7 is released.

Just to be clear, the game isn't morphing into a Candy Crush clone or something - the core experience will be consistent. But in the past my mantra has been 'read the forums before buying!' so I want to err on the side of caution in this situation.

Bug Reporting
To anyone who already owns the game - hold off on posting new bug reports. The reports you've made for previous versions have been invaluable, but the systems that produced most of them have been replaced. Conserve your energy!

Humble Bundlers
To anyone who got this game in a bundle - this announcement is obviously coming on the heels of your purchase, which is slightly awkward. For what it's worth the changes in the visuals & gameplay didn't emerge until fairly recently - hopfeully you'll all love them. Fingers crossed!

Forum Housecleaning
I've moved a lot of the outdated bug reports into a forum called Archived Bug Reports (Pre v1.7) which you can view here. I've also moved some other topics like the Official Favorites Thread since they could be considered selling points.

There's still potential for confusion with this setup but this seemed cleaner and more transparent than just deleting stuff.

Alright I think that's everything. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

Cheers,
- L

Howdy, everyone - if any of you have been wondering where the heck I've been for the past 6-8 weeks, this update will tell you.

Spoiler: I had a kid!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

So yeah. Thanks for all the messages asking if I was dead. I promise I'm alive and well. I'm just covered in spit-up.

There's undoubtedly a growing backlog of forum posts that need attention - I'm not quite brave enough to take a bite out of those tonight, but you can expect to see some replies this weekend.

Cheers,
- L

Howdy, everyone - if any of you have been wondering where the heck I've been for the past 6-8 weeks, this update will tell you.

Spoiler: I had a kid!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

So yeah. Thanks for all the messages asking if I was dead. I promise I'm alive and well. I'm just covered in spit-up.

There's undoubtedly a growing backlog of forum posts that need attention - I'm not quite brave enough to take a bite out of those tonight, but you can expect to see some replies this weekend.

Cheers,
- L

Welcome to FRONTIERS! It's a great honor to be part of the latest bundle and we're very pleased to have your support. Be sure to check out the forums if you have any questions or want to know more about the state of the game / development plans / etc.

Enjoy the game, and we'll see you in the Uncharted!

Welcome to FRONTIERS! It's a great honor to be part of the latest bundle and we're very pleased to have your support. Be sure to check out the forums if you have any questions or want to know more about the state of the game / development plans / etc.

Enjoy the game, and we'll see you in the Uncharted!

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since the last update, but today I've got a big one for you - a HUGE Kickstarter update going over the state of the game, the company, the dev streams, and more. Check it out:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since the last update, but today I've got a big one for you - a HUGE Kickstarter update going over the state of the game, the company, the dev streams, and more. Check it out:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE

Hello everyone! First off - the YouTube copyright issue has been resolved. No more automated claims should be happening. Whew!

Did you know I've been doing regular dev streams of my progress on FRONTIERS recently? By now most Kickstarter backers are aware of this, but I still get lots of emails from Steam players asking how the game is going. Now you can see for yourself: Click here for the AAD Productions dev stream playlist.

(I've been linking those videos to my Steam profile so they should also show up under 'videos' in the community section, though you may need to browse a bit to find them.)

Live Streams

Those are all archives, of course - if you want to see me developing LIVE you can subscribe to my channel here: Click here for AAD Productions on Twitch

I announce streams a few minutes ahead of time here. I'm trying to stream once or twice a week, though it will vary depending on my schedule (crazy right now due to upcoming VR releases) and what part of the game I'm working on.

What About Spoilers?

Fear not - I try to stay away from spoilery material while streaming. (Right now I'm doing stuff related to the Behemoth mission.) The downside is you won't see me working on Act III stuff, but as we all know there's still plenty to work on in the first two acts.

Hope to see you all at the next stream! Feel free to bring your bug reports. :D

Cheers,
- L

Hello everyone! First off - the YouTube copyright issue has been resolved. No more automated claims should be happening. Whew!

Did you know I've been doing regular dev streams of my progress on FRONTIERS recently? By now most Kickstarter backers are aware of this, but I still get lots of emails from Steam players asking how the game is going. Now you can see for yourself: Click here for the AAD Productions dev stream playlist.

(I've been linking those videos to my Steam profile so they should also show up under 'videos' in the community section, though you may need to browse a bit to find them.)

Live Streams

Those are all archives, of course - if you want to see me developing LIVE you can subscribe to my channel here: Click here for AAD Productions on Twitch

I announce streams a few minutes ahead of time here. I'm trying to stream once or twice a week, though it will vary depending on my schedule (crazy right now due to upcoming VR releases) and what part of the game I'm working on.

What About Spoilers?

Fear not - I try to stay away from spoilery material while streaming. (Right now I'm doing stuff related to the Behemoth mission.) The downside is you won't see me working on Act III stuff, but as we all know there's still plenty to work on in the first two acts.

Hope to see you all at the next stream! Feel free to bring your bug reports. :D

Cheers,
- L

Hello, everyone - brief bit of news for anyone who has streamed FRONTIERS gameplay or is planning to stream it in the future.

I recently got two copyright claims from YouTube for the use of FRONTIERS music in one of my official game development streams. Yes, you read that right. I - the developer - was penalized for playing music from my own game on my own gamedev channel. WTF?

If YOU have been penalized I want you to know I had no idea this protection was in place - I didn't ask for it, I don't want it and I'm honestly baffled as to where / how in the hell I opted into being 'protected' like this. (It must have been some mighty fine print because I hate copyright bullsh*t.) But in any case I'm going to find a way to opt the hell out and get every outstanding claim revoked.

Many apologies, especially to anyone who wrote to me personally for permission to monetize your YouTube videos. I'm fixing it asap.

- L

Hello, everyone - brief bit of news for anyone who has streamed FRONTIERS gameplay or is planning to stream it in the future.

I recently got two copyright claims from YouTube for the use of FRONTIERS music in one of my official game development streams. Yes, you read that right. I - the developer - was penalized for playing music from my own game on my own gamedev channel. WTF?

If YOU have been penalized I want you to know I had no idea this protection was in place - I didn't ask for it, I don't want it and I'm honestly baffled as to where / how in the hell I opted into being 'protected' like this. (It must have been some mighty fine print because I hate copyright bullsh*t.) But in any case I'm going to find a way to opt the hell out and get every outstanding claim revoked.

Many apologies, especially to anyone who wrote to me personally for permission to monetize your YouTube videos. I'm fixing it asap.

- L

Hey all - here's a Kickstarter update I posted recently where I go over the state of the game and what the future holds. It starts out on a down note, but picks up by the end. Make sure to watch all five videos! (You've got nothing better to do, right?)
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL UPDATE

And here are the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkOuhmSqr0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE3TTG-LCDM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7NfwpCPBE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XAJco5z7Us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WHY7JlTqjg

Hey all - here's a Kickstarter update I posted recently where I go over the state of the game and what the future holds. It starts out on a down note, but picks up by the end. Make sure to watch all five videos! (You've got nothing better to do, right?)
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL UPDATE

And here are the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkOuhmSqr0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE3TTG-LCDM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7NfwpCPBE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XAJco5z7Us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WHY7JlTqjg

Thanks for your patience during PAX, I'm back and hitting the bugs again. Here's a recent Kickstarter update for you:

It's been a while since an update! There's a reason for that - I'm finally working on Act III. At this point about 50% of my development time is going towards finishing the final parts of the game and that means we're in major spoiler territory.

I find the issue of spoilers fascinating. Through years of lurking on Game of Thrones boards I've concluded that there's no happy medium - you either stay completely unspoiled, or you just give in and say screw it, I won't even try to avoid them. This is especially true if you're hearing something weeks / months / years before you see the final work, because our brains are storytelling machines - if stories were skeletons then brains could reconstruct all 206 bones from a pinky toe and a chipped tooth. Often all you need is the premise and the general tone of a story to guess the end game.

There's also no point in the here's a tiny bit of info that won't spoil anything approach, because even though we're great at reconstructing stories, we stink at consciously spotting the connections between bits of information in a story we already know. Someone might relay a throwaway joke from season 2 of a show you're watching - oh don't worry, they assure you, it's a scene that contributes nothing to the overall plot so it won't spoil anything - but of course they don't realize they've just spoiled the fact that the character telling the joke doesn't die in season 1. If that was supposed to be a source of tension in season 1... oops.

So these days if I don't want to know about a movie or a game, I don't read / watch / listen to anything related to it. And if you want to stay unspoiled for FRONTIERS, I recommend you don't read the rest of this update, because you'll have little trouble figuring out what's coming.

Spoilers Begin Now!

Before our Serious Business concluded, the GRT wasn't a 'T' - the story just called for a gigantic ruined thing, not a tower. (okay, technically still a 'GRT' but whatever.)

But once the idea of a tower was introduced - one that could be seen from anywhere in the game world - the ending of the game changed subtly. Reaching the tower became a primary goal. Not just reaching the Uncharted, not just finding Daniel, but exploring the tower itself. Ryan integrated this into the Act III dialog and game endings. I integrated it into the design & size of the tower. The result is a structure that utterly dominates the landscape around it.


The GRT in its native habitat

Creating the tower has been technically challenging. The structure system in FRONTIERS isn't designed to support interiors this large, so I've had to use a number of one-off cheats. First - it's not just one structure but dozens. Each floor is spawned and saved separately. Second - those floors are connected in a way that allows me to un-load lower / higher floors as you move through it, keeping those evil memory errors at bay. Third - for the large outer pieces of the tower I'm using a unity prefab instead of the FRONTIERS structure system so I can optimize it further.


One floor of the tower. It's hot in there.


Yes there will be climbing

Some fun custom shaders have been created for the exterior. On top of a simple illuminated glowing inner core that pulsates with energy is a distortion shader with custom fog settings. The global fog used through the rest of the game made the top of the tower look a bit odd - it was never meant to be used on objects this tall - so this shader applies a gradient from dark to light that matches the color of the ground fog. Overlaid on that is a detail shader that breaks up the surface a bit and adds some detail up close. (The poly count on the tower itself is very low.) Finally there's a detail shader for use on opaque elements meant for climbing. I may not be able to give the tower surface AAA treatment, but I can at least give it enough detail for the eye to determine scale while climbing it.


Inner glow


Outer distortion / fog shader


Final detail overlay


Opaque pipe material

The tower also has some unusual technology that you won't find in Kantvarld - at least not very often. Remember the bizarre device in Albert's loft? You'll finally get to see some of those in action. I've also had fun programming all the varied uses of the Obex Spheres, which were introduced in an inert form in the prologue. These things get a workout in Act III.


A copy of Albert's machine


New forms of Luminite - what are they for? WHO CAN SAY?

Actually navigating the tower is going to be difficult. No structure this size comes without some kind of security system. And when you find out who's in charge of that security system - well, you can probably guess at this point, but I think that's enough spoilers for one update.

Okay maybe just one more:


Holy crap I'm rich!

We're long overdue for another video update so expect a video where I talk about making an active volcano! (oops spoilers!)

Cheers,
- L

Thanks for your patience during PAX, I'm back and hitting the bugs again. Here's a recent Kickstarter update for you:

It's been a while since an update! There's a reason for that - I'm finally working on Act III. At this point about 50% of my development time is going towards finishing the final parts of the game and that means we're in major spoiler territory.

I find the issue of spoilers fascinating. Through years of lurking on Game of Thrones boards I've concluded that there's no happy medium - you either stay completely unspoiled, or you just give in and say screw it, I won't even try to avoid them. This is especially true if you're hearing something weeks / months / years before you see the final work, because our brains are storytelling machines - if stories were skeletons then brains could reconstruct all 206 bones from a pinky toe and a chipped tooth. Often all you need is the premise and the general tone of a story to guess the end game.

There's also no point in the here's a tiny bit of info that won't spoil anything approach, because even though we're great at reconstructing stories, we stink at consciously spotting the connections between bits of information in a story we already know. Someone might relay a throwaway joke from season 2 of a show you're watching - oh don't worry, they assure you, it's a scene that contributes nothing to the overall plot so it won't spoil anything - but of course they don't realize they've just spoiled the fact that the character telling the joke doesn't die in season 1. If that was supposed to be a source of tension in season 1... oops.

So these days if I don't want to know about a movie or a game, I don't read / watch / listen to anything related to it. And if you want to stay unspoiled for FRONTIERS, I recommend you don't read the rest of this update, because you'll have little trouble figuring out what's coming.

Spoilers Begin Now!

Before our Serious Business concluded, the GRT wasn't a 'T' - the story just called for a gigantic ruined thing, not a tower. (okay, technically still a 'GRT' but whatever.)

But once the idea of a tower was introduced - one that could be seen from anywhere in the game world - the ending of the game changed subtly. Reaching the tower became a primary goal. Not just reaching the Uncharted, not just finding Daniel, but exploring the tower itself. Ryan integrated this into the Act III dialog and game endings. I integrated it into the design & size of the tower. The result is a structure that utterly dominates the landscape around it.


The GRT in its native habitat

Creating the tower has been technically challenging. The structure system in FRONTIERS isn't designed to support interiors this large, so I've had to use a number of one-off cheats. First - it's not just one structure but dozens. Each floor is spawned and saved separately. Second - those floors are connected in a way that allows me to un-load lower / higher floors as you move through it, keeping those evil memory errors at bay. Third - for the large outer pieces of the tower I'm using a unity prefab instead of the FRONTIERS structure system so I can optimize it further.


One floor of the tower. It's hot in there.


Yes there will be climbing

Some fun custom shaders have been created for the exterior. On top of a simple illuminated glowing inner core that pulsates with energy is a distortion shader with custom fog settings. The global fog used through the rest of the game made the top of the tower look a bit odd - it was never meant to be used on objects this tall - so this shader applies a gradient from dark to light that matches the color of the ground fog. Overlaid on that is a detail shader that breaks up the surface a bit and adds some detail up close. (The poly count on the tower itself is very low.) Finally there's a detail shader for use on opaque elements meant for climbing. I may not be able to give the tower surface AAA treatment, but I can at least give it enough detail for the eye to determine scale while climbing it.


Inner glow


Outer distortion / fog shader


Final detail overlay


Opaque pipe material

The tower also has some unusual technology that you won't find in Kantvarld - at least not very often. Remember the bizarre device in Albert's loft? You'll finally get to see some of those in action. I've also had fun programming all the varied uses of the Obex Spheres, which were introduced in an inert form in the prologue. These things get a workout in Act III.


A copy of Albert's machine


New forms of Luminite - what are they for? WHO CAN SAY?

Actually navigating the tower is going to be difficult. No structure this size comes without some kind of security system. And when you find out who's in charge of that security system - well, you can probably guess at this point, but I think that's enough spoilers for one update.

Okay maybe just one more:


Holy crap I'm rich!

We're long overdue for another video update so expect a video where I talk about making an active volcano! (oops spoilers!)

Cheers,
- L

The Lonely Explorer

So, what's this strangely titled Focus Update about? Well, the inhabitants of FRONTIERS have always seemed a bit... static. Not really alive unless you're talking to them. This update is all about making you feel like you're not alone as you explore.

NPCs & Routines

First up is a total revision of how characters move through the world. This has been changing in fits and starts for a while now, but this update is the final word: I've abandoned reciprocal velocity obstacles and am now using rigibodies exclusively. Which means that characters interact with the world in the same way as every other physics object, which means I can finally have them move about without clipping through walls, yay! This not only saves me a lot of headaches, it gives the game a ~5fps boost since I can toss the RVO engine overhead.

Next, I finally settled on a pathfinding method. Oh, the things I've tried. Projection grids, navemeshes, you name it I've tried it. In the end I settled on hand-placed, hand-linked navigation nodes, and I'm placing them only in cities where the obstacles are thick. Outside of cities characters move on paths just like before. (And if they stray from the path for some reason - well, they'll just act like creatures in a low budget game and walk straight into rocks and stuff. Whatever.)



So the next time you enter a city, rather than seeing everyone standing around, you'll see them moving to and fro as they walk from one node to the next. In the future nodes will have flags assigned to them - currently they're all set to 'everbody / all the time' - so that people will execute a proper daily routine.

NPCs moving around inside of structures is possible too, and I've added nodes to a few of the larger buildings - it's just as effective as seeing people walk around in cities. But I still have to manually place movement nodes inside the structures, which takes forever, so I'm setting that step aside until a later update.

Movement / Animations / Little Things

I've swapped out some of the floaty walking and standing animations for something a little more natural. We may not be able to upgrade the resolution of the characters, but at least they can move a little more realistically! They're also not rooted in place any more, so you can bump them out of the way if you don't like where they're standing, and they'll respond with deference or insults depending on your reputation.



Little indicators are now displayed when a characters is speaking, or when they've heard something. This will hopefully make some of the listening mechanics a bit clearer - a fair bit of work has gone into the ability for (say) a bandit to call other bandits within audible range, but that was never clear because there are no audible voices in the game! Now you can see the leader emit a dialog icon and the rest emit an attention icon and better realize what just happened. (In the near future I will be adding toggleable icons to creatures as well so you can grasp the stealth aspects more easily.)

Night Life - Seeking Reward

This has been a LONG time in development. I know a lot of you have been puzzled by what to do at night - just walk around and get infected by darkrot, or what? And I've given some coy answers in the past because I was never sure it would all come together. But at long last, there's something to seek - and there's a reward waiting if you can find it before sun-up. (Unless something else finds it first...)


Hmm...

These elements are badly in need of balancing, but finally finishing them is a huge relief - it's one of those complicated features I've thought about cutting a hundred times, but never could because it's so important to the story in Act III. (Added bonus: that tavern in the Observatory district doesn't seem so out of place any more.)

Horses! Plus Some Bad News

That's right, horses have finally made an appearance. You'll see them here and there. Unfortunately, the horseback riding skill - a long-planned feature you can find being discussed even before the Kickstarter - has been cut. (I think I broke this news a bit ago, but I wanted to make sure nobody mistakenly thought I'd re-introduced it upon seeing a horse in the game.) Sorry everyone, it's not tied to the main plot and it wasn't a stretch goal, so I couldn't justify keeping it in there. Maybe someone will mod it in.

Bugs!

With an update this big I have undoubtedly introduced many new and amazing game breaking bugs. (Someone has already reported that they've had trouble opening doors after the latest patch.) Just keep reporting them and I'll add them to the ever-growing backlog that threatens to swamp the entire proje - I mean, I'll take care of them immediately, of course!

Alright that's all for now. Until next time,
- L

By the way, our lead writer Ryan Span, who wrote FRONTIERS's storyline and dialogue, has just had his latest book published! It's called The Impostor Prince and it's awesome, with an endorsement by NY Times bestselling author Matthew Caine! Give it a look!

The Lonely Explorer

So, what's this strangely titled Focus Update about? Well, the inhabitants of FRONTIERS have always seemed a bit... static. Not really alive unless you're talking to them. This update is all about making you feel like you're not alone as you explore.

NPCs & Routines

First up is a total revision of how characters move through the world. This has been changing in fits and starts for a while now, but this update is the final word: I've abandoned reciprocal velocity obstacles and am now using rigibodies exclusively. Which means that characters interact with the world in the same way as every other physics object, which means I can finally have them move about without clipping through walls, yay! This not only saves me a lot of headaches, it gives the game a ~5fps boost since I can toss the RVO engine overhead.

Next, I finally settled on a pathfinding method. Oh, the things I've tried. Projection grids, navemeshes, you name it I've tried it. In the end I settled on hand-placed, hand-linked navigation nodes, and I'm placing them only in cities where the obstacles are thick. Outside of cities characters move on paths just like before. (And if they stray from the path for some reason - well, they'll just act like creatures in a low budget game and walk straight into rocks and stuff. Whatever.)



So the next time you enter a city, rather than seeing everyone standing around, you'll see them moving to and fro as they walk from one node to the next. In the future nodes will have flags assigned to them - currently they're all set to 'everbody / all the time' - so that people will execute a proper daily routine.

NPCs moving around inside of structures is possible too, and I've added nodes to a few of the larger buildings - it's just as effective as seeing people walk around in cities. But I still have to manually place movement nodes inside the structures, which takes forever, so I'm setting that step aside until a later update.

Movement / Animations / Little Things

I've swapped out some of the floaty walking and standing animations for something a little more natural. We may not be able to upgrade the resolution of the characters, but at least they can move a little more realistically! They're also not rooted in place any more, so you can bump them out of the way if you don't like where they're standing, and they'll respond with deference or insults depending on your reputation.



Little indicators are now displayed when a characters is speaking, or when they've heard something. This will hopefully make some of the listening mechanics a bit clearer - a fair bit of work has gone into the ability for (say) a bandit to call other bandits within audible range, but that was never clear because there are no audible voices in the game! Now you can see the leader emit a dialog icon and the rest emit an attention icon and better realize what just happened. (In the near future I will be adding toggleable icons to creatures as well so you can grasp the stealth aspects more easily.)

Night Life - Seeking Reward

This has been a LONG time in development. I know a lot of you have been puzzled by what to do at night - just walk around and get infected by darkrot, or what? And I've given some coy answers in the past because I was never sure it would all come together. But at long last, there's something to seek - and there's a reward waiting if you can find it before sun-up. (Unless something else finds it first...)


Hmm...

These elements are badly in need of balancing, but finally finishing them is a huge relief - it's one of those complicated features I've thought about cutting a hundred times, but never could because it's so important to the story in Act III. (Added bonus: that tavern in the Observatory district doesn't seem so out of place any more.)

Horses! Plus Some Bad News

That's right, horses have finally made an appearance. You'll see them here and there. Unfortunately, the horseback riding skill - a long-planned feature you can find being discussed even before the Kickstarter - has been cut. (I think I broke this news a bit ago, but I wanted to make sure nobody mistakenly thought I'd re-introduced it upon seeing a horse in the game.) Sorry everyone, it's not tied to the main plot and it wasn't a stretch goal, so I couldn't justify keeping it in there. Maybe someone will mod it in.

Bugs!

With an update this big I have undoubtedly introduced many new and amazing game breaking bugs. (Someone has already reported that they've had trouble opening doors after the latest patch.) Just keep reporting them and I'll add them to the ever-growing backlog that threatens to swamp the entire proje - I mean, I'll take care of them immediately, of course!

Alright that's all for now. Until next time,
- L

By the way, our lead writer Ryan Span, who wrote FRONTIERS's storyline and dialogue, has just had his latest book published! It's called The Impostor Prince and it's awesome, with an endorsement by NY Times bestselling author Matthew Caine! Give it a look!

Hi everyone! I just posted a Kickstarter announcement, and since it's related to FRONTIERS' development I figured I'd post it for you as well. I've had to cut some sections for space so if you want to read the complete update CLICK HERE.

Time for a big announcement. Before you get excited: No, the game isn't finished. That's actually what I want to talk about.

You all know that the original pre-Kickstarter release date was January 2014 (LOL). Once we hit all the stretch goals this was immediately pushed to Q2 2014, but it became clear that was a farce and I decided that Early Access plus a 'when it's done' approach was the best way to move forward. I've been plugging away ever since & stretch goals have been getting implemented one by one. But here's the thing: development is still taking TOO DAMN LONG.

Why? Because I'm still the ONLY PROGRAMMER WORKING ON IT. I'm stuck in a cycle of slow development, which I've conveniently illustrated for you:



The main problem is the sheer size of the project. There was a time early on when any helpful programmer with a dash of Unity experience could say, 'Why don't I hop onto the project and fix some bits & bobs until it's tickety-boo? Tally ho!' There was at least a chance of that person accomplishing something in a few days or weeks (despite being inexplicably British) but those days are long gone. Nowadays help requires nothing less than a full-time commitment for at least two months, not to mention advanced Unity know-how. That all adds up to $$$, which means - well, you saw the graphic.

After months of being stuck in this loop I started thinking: This is nutbar. I need to do something different and break the cycle. But what? I have moral problems with the two most obvious solutions - there's no way I'm running another Kickstarter because that would just be gross, and I can't justify aggressively advertising FRONTIERS yet because it's simply not finished.

I briefly looked into taking on a few VFX jobs for some quick cash, but one glance at that shell-blasted no man's land of an industry had me backing away slowly - believe it or not, the hours and the pay has gotten even worse since I left.

ALL WAS LOST. But as I was polishing my seppuku blade I had an idea. A good idea.

Who says I have to do this myself? Right now I'm sitting on a mountain of game assets, half of which are unused / not used to their fullest potential. My rolodex is stuffed to bursting with programmers, artists & writers. Why not assemble a team and let them develop some tiny ultra-low-budget, super-inventive games while I continue to focus on FRONTIERS? Tiny games which require little to no time from ME, but which also won't require endless months of time from THEM? Games which (if even modestly successful) could help FRONTIERS break free of this cycle of slow development?

I've illustrated this brilliant concept with perfect objectivity:



Wow! I mean really, is there even a choice here? QUICKLY all the way, please!

The next questions are obvious: Who's going to make these games? (Cause I'm a little busy, remember) Who's going to want these games? And what will these games be like?

Who wants tiny little games, anyway?
Mobile users, that's who! And guess what? There is NO WAY IN HELL I'm getting into mobile games, because that market is tougher than boot leather. I have mad respect for anyone with the courage to try, but I just don't have the stomach to watch six months of work sink to the bottom of a 1000 page queue and yield pennies on the dollar.

Thankfully there's an alternative - an emerging medium that's hungry for tiny little games, one which I'm deeply excited about.



Virtual Reality is turning out to be a weird new medium. It's not what most people expect it to be, which is 2D video games plus immersion - my implementation of Oculus support in FRONTIERS was a lesson on that score. No, it's something entirely new. Trying the tech demos for the VIVE prototype is what really convinced me of this. There's a massive design space out there waiting to be explored, and each new idea will have to be implemented simply & on a small scale. Perfect for our purposes - and the best part is there's absolutely no risk of these games failing! Just kidding it's risky as hell. But it can't possibly be worse than mobile, and even failures have a decent chance of breaking new ground.

The upsides of diving into a new medium are self-evident. The downsides are numerous, and the biggest downside of all - namely that the number of people playing VR games is currently tiny and will stay that way for a while - is obviously at odds with the goal to support FRONTIERS. So for a while it would be wise to choose ideas that are playable without VR until those numbers can support exclusivity. Other downsides include the strict requirements for simple controls and near-perfect performance / optimization, but this has a silver lining: simple controls means simple gameplay, and that plus good performance makes VR games contenders for post-conversion to mobile devices. (So I guess in the long run I may end up dipping my toe into mobile games after all...)

Who's going to make them?
There's obviously no way I could be project lead on another game regardless of how tiny it is - the point of this whole endeavor is to support FRONTIERS, not bleed it dry by stretching my time even thinner. So I need a project runner who can supervise the day-to-day of development and help me to limit my own contribution to the bare essentials.

Enter Ryan Span. You all remember Ryan. Of all the people who've worked on FRONTIERS, Ryan has devoted the most time to it apart from myself - not only did he write the whole story and all the game's dialog, he's also been patching up dialog in response to playtesting for over a year now, and that's on top of writing his latest novel. In short, Ryan is a busy bee, so it's no surprise that he jumped at the chance to develop these games - and with his focus on storytelling he's the perfect antidote to the tendency for VR games to be little more than glorified tech demos.

Introducing Alpha Wave's first three games

Alpha Wave is AAD Productions' new VR department, and they will be be producing three games to start with. If those go well, they'll continue to make more - if they don't, we'll write the whole thing off as a fun failed experiment and find some other way to support FRONTIERS.




How far along is this first set of games?
Euclidean is getting close to finished (85+%), Ariadnes' Maze is in early development and The Everton Experiment is in the prototype phase. (No release dates yet.)

On Euclidean the team consists of Ryan (writer / design lead), Nathan Jensen (programmer) and Curtis Rochelle (artist / level designer). For my part I'm contributing some tools, some know-how and a lifetime of HP Lovecraft enthusiasm. Want to see some screenshots? Yeah you do:


(Note: I had to cut the update down for space - CLICK HERE for the rest.)

And now back to FRONTIERS:
Lots is going on - expect another KS update sometime this month - I'm working on a new Focus Update called You Are Not Alone, and it's going to be a fun one. Here's a teaser screenshot:


Until then,
- L

Hey everyone - here's a somewhat dry (but informative!) update to tide you over while I work on the next Focus Update. Recent goings-on of note:

Performance
There's still a lot of optimization to do, but the past few weeks have seen solid FPS gains on most systems. People are also reporting even fewer of the dreaded out of memory errors that cause crashes during transitions. Which is great! I'm 100% for faster frame rates and fewer crashes. (Controversial opinion, I know.)

Now that we've finally seen some actual improvement I'm setting optimization aside for a bit to work on long-neglected gameplay issues - quest killing bugs, dialog issues, etc. So if you've been patiently waiting for me to get around to those for weeks & weeks A) you're a saint and B) your time is coming soon.

Soundrack Release
Steve Barnes has released the excellent FRONTIERS soundtrack, which you can check out here. He has also written a bit about his experience composing the soundtrack in my latest Kickstarter update - you can check out what he has to say here. Did you know that Steve got in touch with the composer of the original Daggerfall soundtrack? Steve's just full of surprises.

Official Linux Support
I'll be quietly launching an official Linux version this weekend. There are still kinks to work out with the @#$&! mouse among other things, and I'll make that clear in the storefront text, but I think it's long past time to open the gates and invite more people to try it on a wider range of Linux systems.

You Are Not Alone
I've gathered a lot of good feedback on both Hunting & Trapping and Bartering, so I'm prepping a new Focus Update called You Are Not Alone. When that launches I'll post another update letting you know what it's all about - it's going to be a fun one. (Note: if you still have feedback on earlier focus updates don't hesitate to post it. I'm still only halfway through implementing Barter changes so it'll be a while before I close the door on that system.)

This Update Has Concluded
That's all for now - if you have any questions or want updates on something specific, post in the comments and I'll try to respond. (Bonus points for not yelling if I forgot something major.) Otherwise I'll see you when the new Focus Update drops.

Cheers,
- L

Hello, everyone! Time for another Focus Update. Previous Focus Update: Trapping & Fishing

Getting the DK2 support to behave is my immediate focus, but gameplay-wise I've decided to work on Bartering for the next week or two. It was a close call between that & Plants, which will lkely be next.

As always I'll continue to fix major bugs & improve overall performance, but otherwise my time will be spent whipping Bartering into shape. What does that cover? The Barter skill itself, the prices of items, how skill / reputation affects prices, the bartering interface, the currency interface - all that good stuff. Should keep me pretty busy. So if you find yourself wondering what I'm working on at the moment, well, now you know! (Hint: it's Bartering.)

Got suggestions / requests / questions about Bartering? Post 'em here.

PS: Bartering doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

Fire up your DKs because it's about to get VR up in here:
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO PLAYING FRONTIERS WITH THE RIFT

Wait, what? VR Support?
Yes you heard right. Now I know what you're thinking. How do I know what you're thinking? Because you've told me, in chats & emails & in person, and you weren't shy about it. Heck even my in-laws have said the same thing:

Why would you implement VR support when there's SO MUCH ELSE that needs attention, and when there are so few people who'll get to actually use it? Do you even prioritize, bro?

• Official OSX Support That's right - you can now play FRONTIERS on OSX. There are still platform-specific issues to iron out but at this point they're minor enough to handle alongside the PC version. (Official Linux support isn't far behind.)
  
• Full Controller Support Prior to this update the store advertised partial controller support, but now that you can navigate the interface 100% without the aid of a mouse or keyboard (or virtual mouse) I'm bumping that up to full controller support.
  
• When's the next Focus Update? Right away! The idea was to focus on something new roughly every 2 weeks but VR complications totally derailed that plan. Now that I'm back on track I'll announce the next focus real asap, probably tomorrow.
  
• 'Real' Bug Reporting Pretty soon we'll be moving away from forum-based bug reporting and start doing 'real' bug reporting, with priorities and archiving and other fancy things. After looking over our (many, many) options I've decided to go with Trello. It's a good compromise between power & simplicty. I'll post an announcement once the new board is set up & populated.
  

Hello, everyone - time for another update! A new build is on its way, look for it soon. (Changelog)

New Approach - Focus Updates

FRONTIERS is a big game - I've cut a lot of features since the Kickstarter, but it's still really big. And until we can grow the team some more most features can only be worked on one-at-a-time, so I get a lot of messages asking 'Hey, are you working on this or that or the other thing?'

Those questions gave me an idea. I can't work in parallel so why not embrace linearity? Starting today I'll announce which feature I intend to focus on. I'll still work on major bugs & performance along the way of course, but overall that feature will get most of my attention until it's finished. And you can help me finish it faster by focusing on it along with me.

The next time you launch FRONTIERS you'll see a little popup window that tells you which feature I'm working on. You'll also be given a cheat code - eg, if I'm working on the bow & arrow, the code will give you a bow & some arrows. Some of you will play normally, some of you will use the code, but either way I'll get a whole lot more reports on that one feature than I might otherwise - and you'll know at a glance what I'm working on at the moment.

We'll see how it goes!

Oculus Support / Controller Update

I'm nearly ready to throw the switch on Oculus support - finishing up proper controller support is the next-to-last step.

In the latest build I've finally added direction-based controller interface navigation - but be warned! It's far from perfect. In fact it might not be perfect for a while, because this has turned out to be trickier than I expected. (Big surprise.) It's a simple question: 'what button should I navigate to if I hit up/down/left/right?' The answer is obvious if you eyeball it, but that obvious answer is frickin difficult to recreate with code. It's kind of a fascinating problem.

Anything grid-based is easy, of course. Here's a test of the inventory screen with colored button weights visible (green is best and red is worst):

But once you start getting into weirder layouts, things don't always behave as you expect.

My earlier methods might select a button across the screen because its axis-alignment was perfect. Later methods might select a button that was totally mis-aligned because it was so close. My current method is better, but I've yet to find one that's juuuuust right.

I'm thinking some interfaces will use special cases (like a pre-determined 'tab order'), and I'll continue to improve the generic sort method to use a smarter combo of distance and orientation. If anyone cares to poke at the code, this is where navigation is done. (WidgetSearch.CompareTo is the sort function.)

Fast Travel - Almost Done

Video if you haven't seen it. It's been improved slightly since this was recorded.

Critters - Finally!

Critters are implemented. Bugs, butterflies, frogs and other simple/tiny creatures now appear randomly all around you. (If you weren't a Kickstarter backer you probably weren't expecting this, but butterflies and bugs have been a promised feature since forever.) Butterflies aren't seeking out goodies yet, but they will soon.

I love these little guys. The lightbugs are my favorite, they sound like wind chimes.

Performance - Another Black Eye

Performance remains an issue, but it's a battle I'm winning 1/10th of a millisecond at a time.

I'm also pleased to say that the folks at the Eden Star project have generously offered to help by poking around in the project & looking for ways to optimize things. (Eden Star is Unreal-based but their team is familiar with Unity as well.) Their expertise is most welcome and I hope it will help to improve everybody's framerates. I'm sending them the project soon - cross your fingers!

But there's one performance issue I can't fix: UNITY.

Even now I'm hestiant to throw their name around. It always sounds like an excuse. 'It's not me, it's the engine!' As if that matters - even if there IS a problem with the engine I'm still on the hook because I'm the one that picked it. And generally speaking I don't like to dogpile on anyone. I know how hard development is. Unity's to-do list would probably make me pass blood. Their overall competence can't be denied. Unity - within its niche - is a solid engine. Have I qualified this enough yet?

I hope so, because lately this has gotten kind of personal.

There's one bug in particular that's really killing performance. You might remember a long, sometimes close-to-hostile (on my part) conversation with a Unity dev in the comments of a previous update. Well, at the end of that conversation I felt hopeful. I'd convinced them to re-activate this previously-closed bug report, and they had convinced me to submit an additional bug report with assurances that I'd see some kind of response within two weeks (despite the original report being on the books for 6 months). I felt really good at the end of that conversation. And for what it's worth, I still believe that the dev I was speaking to was 100% sincere in their desire to help.

Well, it's been a month... and nothing. No response. Not even on the original bug report. There have been more complaints by developers, though! Let's take a peek (none of these people are me, for the record):

JAN 30, 2015 13:21
Noticed this went from 'Fixed' back to 'Active'. Any update on whether we will see a fix before 5.0. Bug is still appearing in 4.6.2.
Also, is anyone else noticing their RenderTexture Switches going up when this bug occurs?

FEB 01, 2015 19:51
It is totally killing our game performance. Should be fixed ASAP otherwise engine is being broken for any Open World production.

FEB 02, 2015 14:09
Currently using 5.0.0.b18 and still experiencing this issue. This is a total performance killer on our open world game.

FEB 13, 2015 05:43
Seems like this is still an issue... Really? 4ms for this on my terrain, this is completely unacceptable.

First off: Is it dead, you ask? Is the Big Bad Bug dead? I'm pretty sure it is... but I'm waiting for its corpse to stop twitching before I make it official. So until then here's balance update #2:

A lot of you have been playing this game for 2, 5, 10, or even 50+ (!) hours. The prologue can be a fun bit of orientation the 1st, 2nd, maybe even 3rd time... but for grizzled veterans it must feel like that un-skippable skyrim cart intro (aka the 'on second thought maybe I don't want to start a new game after all' sequence).

But never fear! I've revamped the New Game dialog to let you skip the bits you've memorized by heart. And you can customize your game along the way!

Startup Skills & Spawn Locations

You can now choose which skills you start the game with. Some people have asked for the chance to start with NO skills (madness!) and others have asked for twice or more the starting number. Well here's your chance to experiment.

While you're at it, change your spawn location!** Try spawning in the middle of nowhere, or (if you still want to focus on the story) spawn in the University and skip the Prologue. You can also choose which startup gear & clothing you'll get. (There are only a few categories at the moment, though if you're feeling adventurous you could create more with a text editor.)

Difficulty Setting Customization

This is where you can get really experimental. Difficulty settings work by modifying global varibles. The default value for (say) run speed might be 1.0, but you could create a Slow And Tedious difficulty setting which sets that to 0.1 for some reason. Or you can modify the Hard difficulty setting to include permadeath, or to double all damage. Only a subset of globals are available to play with right now (a complete list is in Globals.ini) but requests are welcome. I'm curious to see what people come up with.

Character Customization

This isn't as big a deal since character customization has no impact on gameplay. But it can be nice to quickly set up your appearance without going through the prologue. (And if you choose to set it up here, the prologue letter will remember your choices and not prompt you for input.)

World Settings & Mods
At the moment World Settings just lets you customize day cycle length, but in the future it will work like difficulty settings & modify global variables. And Mods is blank for now. It will eventually be a convenience tool that lets you add / remove / choose which mods to use in your new game. (You can mod stuff manually until this is ready, of course.)

I hope this stuff gives you an idea of the level of customization & tweaking that I want to enable. And while we're talking about customization:

Color Blindness Mode / Dyslexia Font

If anyone out there is color blind, I could use your your help creating a color-blind color scheme. There's a color editor in the Options menu where settings like GenericHighValue (currently green) and GenericLowValue (currently red) etc can be altered and saved. So if anyone out there wants to take a stab at this I'd be grateful for the input. Once we have a good scheme I'll make it toggle-able in the options. Also, the long-promised dyslexia font isn't far behind. (You can change the default font to a blockier font already but it's a little flakey.)

Alright, that's it for now. Keep posting your bugs to the forums, I read every report even if I can't always respond! Cheers,
- L


**This is actually a devious scheme to encourage everyone to find bugs in different parts of the world. It turns out that most of you don't travel far from the University for the first 3-5 hours, which I didn't expect!

I'm sorry to announce that Dustin has left the team. It wasn't anything major, he just had time constraints put on him by prior commitments and he didn't want to hold up the flow. I've been there before so I can appreciate his quick decision. Best of luck Dustin, sorry to see you go so soon!*

This turn of events really sucks but it's not the first time the project has lost someone to prior commitments mere moments after they joined. Remember our first lead writer Adi having to bail before the Kickstarter? That was pretty rough too. Of course the silver lining was that it led to Ryan joining the team, and he's responsible for some of the best parts of the game, so you never know how these things will turn out.

Latest Build and the Big Bad Bug

You probably noticed that I've been holding off on builds - that's because there was a possibility that we'd see a fix for the disappearing buildings bug in today's upload. Unfortunately that didn't end up happening, BUT there's a bunch of other stuff coming your way:

• You can use your mousewheel to add coins while bartering
  
• Creatures now defend their pack when one is attacked
  
• Conversation GUI overhaul
  
• Moddable ground & grass textures
  
• More mouse, controller & graphics options
  
• Improved performance in characters & creatures
  
• (lots more in the changelog)
  

Hello, everyone. Outstanding news - we have a new programmer on the bug squad! His name is Dustin Sims and he's going to help me whip this game into shape.

So in the coming weeks if you see a bug get fixed: that's all me. If you see a bug not getting fixed, blame Dustin. Thanks Dustin!

Seriously, though - it's a relief to have him on board. His first order of business is sorting out those pesky disappearing buildings. Wish him luck!

What's that? Quests are breaking? Refining doesn't work? Well you're in luck - now you can experience those and many more bugs with a wide array of game controllers! Here are the controllers that are officially supported:

• Xbox 360 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and OUYA
  
• Xbox One controller on Windows
  
• Playstation 3 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
  
• Playstation 4 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android
  
• Playstation Vita PSM
  
• Apple MFi controller on iOS 7 and above
  
• OUYA controller on OUYA, Windows and Linux
  
• Amazon Fire Game controller and remote on Amazon Fire TV
  
• Logitech F310 on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
  
• Logitech F710 on Windows and Mac
  
• Logitech Dual Action on Windows and Mac
  
• Logitech RumblePad 2 on Mac
  
• Moga Pro on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
  
• Mad Catz FPS Pro on Mac
  
• Speedlink Strike on Windows and Mac
  
• Samsung GP20 on Android
  
• Executioner X on Window and Mac
  
• SteelSeries Free on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
  
• Playstation 2 controller on Windows (with adapter)
  

• In-Game Prompts
  
  These still show default bindings, and they only show keyboard and mouse controls. That will change in the next control update.
  
• 'Sticky' Controls
  I've noticed that movement / axis controls will sometimes 'stick' until I press a button control. I have no idea what could be causing this. Does Unity have some kind of hidden upper limit to the number of axis I can query in the same frame? (If they do you can bet it'll be totally undocumented...) I'll be investigating.
  
• Mouse look on Linux is still problematic
  I'm working on a hack for this well known Unity bug. (Yes I'm calling out Unity for the third time in one update. Their input manager really stinks.)
  
• Interface Control - Virtual Mouse Only
  When playing with a controller you'll have to use a virtual mouse to navigate the interface. This isn't so bad with some screens, but with others it's really tedious, and in a few cases it makes screens almost unusable. Navigation with directional pads is coming, but I'm not sure when.
  

[EDIT: this was originally a set of replies in the comments:]
I've gotten confirmation that Tak! is a Unity Dev so I'll take this chance to point out some stuff that Unity does wrong. Maybe they'll take it seriously. Don't take this personally Tak!, I know you're just doing your job. (Also, disclaimer:These are mostly my feelings about how they deal with other people, not me, so don't mistake it for a vendetta.)

So.

First off, it's great that Unity has an input manager redesign coming. But this info is useless to me. I can see that it's 'Planned' but there's no info about when it will actually be released. I wouldn't be surprised it if was released this Saturday; I also wouldn't be surprised if it was released in 2019.

This a big problem with Unity - lack of communication. I never know what's going on with you guys. I mean, just look at the posts accompanying the link you sent:
[quote]
"Wow this suggestion was first posted in 2009,.... its now 2014. Five years. Any reason why this hasn't been done?"

"Any Freaking reason why 'after 5 years' this is still on Planned?"

"I know people with over 15 years experience in the industry refusing to work in Unity because of lack of this basic feature."

"It's ridiculous that this is still an issue. I had to code a huge overcomplicated input wrapper to make up for this lack of basic functionality."

"I'm honestly shocked and a little disgusted that this has gone on so long without being addressed. How is this still not implemented?"

railboy: Good news!
An input manager redesign is coming

When your wife warns you that you'll be spending the better part of Christmas in a house with four sick family members, you take some precautions. You wash your hands. You avoid doorknobs. You pray to the gaming gods for protecton so this crucial phase of your game's development doesn't get interrupted by a bad head cold.

I thought my prayers had been answered when I escaped apparently uninfected by the holiday cheer, but really, the moment I stepped into that house it was too late. It was always too late.

So. Until this blows over you won't see me in the forums & you won't see any daily updates. Sorry. Blame the holidays. I know I do.

Hello, everyone! I've been watching your lets plays, reading your bug reports, listening to your suggestions and reading your personal mail - erm, I mean: here's a collection of balance-related tweaks made in response to your feedback:

NOTE: Many of these changes may not show up for you until you start a new game.

• Food & Water - Even the hardcore survivalists agreed these were punishing. So at normal difficulty you can now survive while drinking only once every three days & eating only once every week. Many new water sources have been placed in the game to make finding water easier, and you can now drink from lakes. The Civilization bonus you get from following paths and staying in populated areas is more potent so eating / drinking isn't a concern until you're in the Wild. (Note: In the future you'll be able to reverse these changes using custom difficulty settings.)
  
• Temperature - This system has been overhauled. Temperatures are milder in general and more consistent with climates. Structure interiors are always comfortably warm and cave temperatures are now suitable for shelter. Clothing can no longer cause you to overheat.
  
• Clothing - Shirts, pants, boots & gloves have been added to the game, and more varieties are incoming. You'll start the game with a basic set of clothing and you can craft more.
  
• Crafting - You no longer need to select blueprints before crafting. Several items have been reworked to be less expensive to craft (like the Canteen). You now start the game knowing how to refine metal and I've placed forges in the University area for public use. Charcoal is dropped by nearly all burnable items.
  
• Money - It's a lot more scarce. Purses contain considerably less money than before. Luminite no longer respawns indefinitely. Your cash is automatically converted to base currency when buying things.
  
• Animals - You're far more likely to find leather on dead animals. Many creatures are easier to kill in general. You can shear sheep for wool, pluck chickens for feathers and milk cows.
  
• Reputation - Damaging another person's goods will cause reputation loss. The rep system will play a bigger role now that money is more scarce.
  
• Paths - Several more arterial paths have been laid down in the South. More are coming.
  

• The post-prologue crash is still happening for some of you. I'm still seeing more success cases with every build, and your reports have helped me pinpoint the exact cause, so thank you for that. I'll keep at it.
  
• Darkness Issue - The game is unplayably dark on a handful of machines. I'm frankly mystified by this one. I've made no real progress in figuring out the root cause. Hopefully the new brightness settings will help in the meantime.
  
• Disappearing buildings - the cause is known so now it's a matter of fixing the problem without causing more bugs in the process. I'm still seeking / interviewing programmers who can focus solely on this issue while I handle everything else. (Feel free to email me at frontiers.game@gmail.com if you're interested.)
  
• That one bug you really hoped I'd fix in the next update because it's way more important than balancing hunger, and besides how hard can it be to fix anyway? Yeah, that one's still in there. But seriously: don't assume that time spent on balance means bug [x] is getting forgotten or ignored. I know it sounds weird but that's not really how it works. A lot of these bugs have to get fixed a little bit at a time so the fixing doesn't break everything else. It's a living nightmare long and difficult process. (Just kidding it's not so bad.)
  

I've been mulling over this one for a while. Another couple of bug reports convinced me to bring it up.

Saving inside of structures is dicey and often ruins save games. The safest place to save is on top of solid empty terrain. It will get better in time, but it's going to be a while before we iron out the kinks.

One way to prevent ruined save games is to limit saving to campsites. Campsites can only be created on solid empty terrain, and they can't be created inside, so if you had to be in a campsite to save, boom problem solved. (The requirement for a nearby water source would be turned off.)

In the future when saving inside of structures becomes more stable this can become a global setting like 'SaveOnlyInCampsites,' which can then be toggled using difficulty settings.

Pros: This would 'fix' the save game problem. Wouldn't take long to implement.

Cons: Losing the ability to save anywhere might cause some rage due to general instability. People are already clamoring for a quicksave options so I can't imagine they would love this.

Thoughts? This is a rare case where I don't feel strongly one way or the other, so be free with your opinions.

[edit: Alright, I've seen enough strong negative reactions here and in chats to say this would probably ruin more good times than it would create. So I'm going to skip it and just focus my energy on the root of the problem. Thanks for the feedback, everyone.]

Hello, everyone - Lars here with a friendly developer PSA.

A lot of folks have told me: I'm buying this game for my kid/friend/spouse for Christmas, they love exploration games! And I say the same thing every time: DON'T!*

The only people who will love it are players who seek it out for themselves, because it's NOT FINISHED. Your kid/friend/spouse will just be annoyed with you. I'm proud of this game, and with everyone's help I believe it's going to be great - but it's not great yet, so in the meantime get your kid/friend/spouse Dragon Age or The Binding of Isaac or something, trust me.

The December release date unavoidably puts Christmas gift in people's minds. That's why I'm only releasing a trickle of press copies till after the new year. People are prone to impulse buy right now, and you don't want people impulse buying an Early Access game, especially not for others.

On the other hand, there is one situation where it's an appropriate gift: for yourself! If you love exploration and don't mind bugs, by all means treat yourself. (Just make sure to stop by the forums first so you know what to expect.)

Cheers,
- L


*(After I say 'thank you' of course. What am I a savage?)

Hello, beta players! It's been a week of squashing bugs and reading posts. Here are a couple of things I've learned from watching everyone play. From roughly MOST to least important:

• Inventory bugs are the worst bugs. The inventory bugs really seem to spoil everyone's day. Nobody likes it when their stuff disappears. So I'm putting a lot of work into those. You're not seeing many big updates, but case by case that stuff is getting fixed. The trickiest part is getting older save games to behave - I'm sort of embracing the challenge of making that work instead of just saying 'start a new game,' because I want to preserve save-game integrity after we launch on Early Access.
  
  
• Crashes after the Prologue are far too frequent. The move from the Prologue to the Unviersity is very resource heavy and as a result even mid-range machines are experiencing crashes. My changes to the character textures should help a bit, but I need to do more.
  
  
• Players need more information about basic gameplay. And I don't mean hand-holding, just information. The Prologue is tiny, self contained and very short. Once that's over I get the sense that people are overwhelmed by what they don't know. The game is simple once you know the basics (I think?), so I'm going to write a little guide book similar to the interface guide book. That will be what you find when you wake up in class - it will give you some bullet points on how to play. (I really want to implement some tutorial missions as 'classes' in the University, which is something Hannah has suggested. But that's probably too ambitious.)
  
  
• Saving and loading. It's getting better. But players should never spawn inside an empty building, it kills the fun dead.
  
  
• Resources aren't obvious enough. For instance, wild animals are way too good at staying hidden. They're actually all around you - dozens of them, seriously - but nobody ever sees the frickin' things. I'm going to make them dumber because they're intended to be a resource, and you can't gather what you can't see. Same goes for mine-able rocks, trees and so on.
  
  
• The main survival elements seem 'fair' to most people, but the weather system is confusing. I haven't heard any complaints about how quickly you get hungry or tired or thirsty, so it seems as though these elements are fairly well balanced. The exception is temperature which (on top of being buggy) seems to just confuse everyone. I need to work on that.
  
  
• People don't seem to mind buggy updates as long as they're frequent. I could be misreading this one, but I've broken the game several times with my 2-3 builds per day goal, and people haven't complained. So I'm going to keep doing that. (Now's your chance to stop me if you were just biting your tongue earlier.)

Hello, everyone! First off thank you all for the amazing bug reporting you've done so far. In just three days we've found and fixed (and found) dozens of bugs - your descriptions & logs are helping me squash them one by one.



Today I'm taking a break from the customary 'fix / push build / test / fix / push build / test' rapid-fire approach & and focusing on the single task reducing memory footprint. A lot of beta players are reporting crashes on transitions between areas and their logs point to texture memory as a culprit. This is an art-focused task so you won't see me in the forums much till it's done.

Keep doing what you're doing every report helps! Cheers
- L