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!

[ 2015-06-22 16:18:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

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!

[ 2015-06-22 16:18:41 CET ] [ Original post ]