Hello mates, The Baron here with the latest news from Blade & Sorcery, and to give you a little preview at what is coming down the pipeline. The team is fully in U11 mode, and we have been expanding quite significantly which means Warpfrog is a beehive of activity right now with everyone working on lots of different systems and features simultaneously. So here is a glance at some of the wide variety of cross-department things that are in development at the moment -- [h3]STEALTH[/h3] Here is a classic B&S example of one of those type things that wasn't even supposed to be a thing - We were surprised and pleased to see how many U10 players were gravitating towards stealth type playstyles even though we had warned the stealth in-game was pretty rudimentary. Well, for these folks we have added some nice new features and AI improvements for you! Big stealth improvements for AI mean they now become alert when being touched, if a weapon or object is thrown or dangled around in front of them with telekinesis, if they find a dead body, or spot light from a torch. [img]https://media0.giphy.com/media/CTz7fnP6ygtnYlQ093/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611fc0c8d9dfdf6f7985c0ad300eed290b2b6b418a6&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] Sight is now based on light level and crouching, so a player crouching in the dark is much harder to spot than one standing in the light, and similarly bodies hidden in the dark will be less visible to an AI. There is also now a small grace period between the AI seeing you to become alert. This means you will get less AI insta-spotting you from across the map and beelining towards you with murderous intent. As well as vision related improvements, sound was also improved regarding stealth; the AI will now react to noises beyond just footsteps. [img]https://media2.giphy.com/media/ExMja6RpswO4if2GmW/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611d6d2588f5bab1b5ea8fecb3951d9ef78d45aac11&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] And of course, this means they will also become alert if they hear an ally yelling. But to counter this, here is something fun: [img]https://media1.giphy.com/media/Fl0jMzcrbcChHZYOnd/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611e607a4284e5b1f1a6354b85e2ad5c28c3987a985&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] You can now muffle enemies for a proper stealth kill! Muffling enemies will silence them from alerting any of his friends. Although if you wanna go straight for the kill, the system has also been improved so that head stabs yells are more sedated while neck stabs/throat cut are completely silent. So no more guy shouting AGGHHHHH when stealth killed. [h3]MAGIC[/h3] There is a ton of work being done in magic but unfortunately not a huge amount to preview as everything is heavily WIP, so things are missing VFX, etc. Our last spell is still a way off ("Soul" - unlikely to arrive until U12), but in the meantime we are padding out all the missing mechanics of the current fire, lightning and gravity spells. This would be to flesh out the current spells more like Gravity, which has multiple functions, merge effects, staff effects, etc; we are adding similar functions for the other spells so you can use staff effects, and so on. I think you are all gonna be surprised when you see just how much extra utility is being added to the current spells. This should make full mage builds a lot more viable and interesting to play. Although there is a ton of progress on this it is all very heavily WIP so I reckon this work on magic deserves its own featured news; hold tight and in the future when I can gather some clips I will do a Magic-specific news and go into more detail. But I can't leave you empty handed, so here is a little sneak peek at a fun new function for Gravity: [img]https://media4.giphy.com/media/slxvsOa1yHiBVC9qEr/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611a7741908153caa3359e3e8af132b98bd7a00fccd&rid=giphy.gif&ct=gGravity launching and hovering will be there, same for staff fireballs (although the slam won't be visible still)[/img] [h3]APPAREL SYSTEM[/h3] Work has begun on the new system for wearing clothing; this will be an important aspect of Crystal Hunt mode and the introduction of a shop where players can purchase and equip things. Like everything else "non-gamey" in the B&S design philosophy, we are wanting to avoid any kind of UI for the shop and shopping experience. As such, items will be "on the rack" for purchase rather than a simple menu item, so you can take things from the counter and see how they are before you buy. [img]https://media0.giphy.com/media/ovRMA256XtzbXKs2Cc/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611c96736569732f0a8f38265aa4772794aeba15a76&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] The wearing of armour is very simple; simply place it on your body. [img]https://media2.giphy.com/media/Rkx0PHfllaMVLBrwSI/giphy.gif?cid=790b761188860a6555a11b7c18fda8e8488302ed63c104f6&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] Since the armours are segmented, this means the player can mix and match different armour pieces to make the perfect set. Perhaps you like the leather gauntlets but the metal breastplate for example. [h3]CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION[/h3] Another one of those things that has been on the todo list forever. We have been lacking character customization options for the longest time, ever since we redid the character system in U9. While it is unlikely that the scope of character customization from U7 will ever return due to technical reasons (making troll characters with big long arms and messed up faces, etc), we wanted to at least have a selection of player faces and skin tones to represent different ethnicities. Our modeler is currently working on these new player faces, and here is one he completed just recently: [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33834682/5d869c8d9fc06f6a8e6935a74823ef34cb04e127.jpg[/img] A little side note to this is we are working on official lore right now, and have someone designated for this. We are hoping to plot out all the fictitious cultures and lands of the B&S universe, as well as faction stuff. You might have heard me before say that B&S will never have a story mode, but instead would likely lean towards some "low level" lore; the kind that a player pieces together from the environment rather than a narrator VO that just spoonfeeds you. In this universe the player character is not "the one", where the world revolves around the player like so many other game tropes. But I digress! [h3]INVENTORY SYSTEM[/h3] Nothing to preview for this unfortunately, but an inventory system is being worked on in anticipation of the shop and Crystal Hunt mode. It's still in the early stages, but the idea is a player could pick up clutter-type items (not weapons) and store it for later, with the application here being for collecting Dungeon loot. Of course knowing the B&S community, the ability to collect clutter is surely going to lead to a surge of game clips featuring all sorts of prop shenanigans. [h3]DUNGEON STUFF[/h3] Dungeons will continue to grow all the way to 1.0, so it should be no surprise to hear it is still being worked on. The team continue to work on adding rooms to the Dungeon (by 1.0 we are hoping for at least twice as many rooms as current), while another section of the Warpfrog team are working to squeeze the best graphical fidelity possible out of PCVR - There are some crazy exciting visual improvements being made, but I don't think it will be ready for U11 so this will be definitely a news for later. In the meantime, here is something fun coming: [img]https://media0.giphy.com/media/g7hYHNYnClvmQHmYpN/giphy.gif?cid=790b761154f01f9de01cf9724a0182bcd442c1853e8d26bb&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] Doors! Such a small addition but with big ramifications for how Dungeon rooms can be designed. Our doors will of course have full physics simulation with fine hitboxes. This should enable all sorts of interesting stuff, like kicking in doors, smashing them open, wedging them open with knives and so forth. [h3]VFX[/h3] As mentioned earlier, we are constantly pushing PCVR to be the most visually stunning it can be. Our VFX team member is working on some new spell effects that include smoke and trails. [img]https://media4.giphy.com/media/dS6Xpk3H7GPLIdZnX8/giphy.gif?cid=790b761119090fb263beeffe58d74654eea9cb06eb056fc7&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] [img]https://media2.giphy.com/media/Pm04jNJFLavK81Np1Z/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611df96bf37e51f753bc5ea23c0973e44de2257d3f5&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] [h3]ANIMATION OVERHAUL[/h3] Work on the Animation Overhaul has finally begun! I know this is one of the top hype changes coming for many people, so I'm really delighted it is now underway. However, this is a huge undertaking and there is a lot to do so I am unsure exactly how much / little of the AO will be included in U11. It will depend on how well the development goes. The goal of AO is to make the AI more responsive in defending itself through parrying, while relying less on dodge-jumping backwards. Enemy attack animations will be improved by replacing derpier attack animations with video captured combat animations that are being custom made. And finally, some of the sillier behaviours would be ironed out, such as not having AI thrust with an axe, etc. Here is some very early-WIP tests for the AI doing a better job at blocking attacks. (ignore the red bar over the enemies heads btw; it is an invisible mechanic for the player related to the AI alertness) Do take note that this is literally only the beginning, so these are just glitchy and unpolished internal tests! [img]https://media1.giphy.com/media/mbaSnlRdU2aDO4cjcN/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611061c99a5a27ebdb8c7e2534fe338a41671a8ae74&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g gif[/img] And another example of the enemy trying to block and riposte. (glitches and wonkiness present, as expected) [img]https://media4.giphy.com/media/WnJhoooOaNW9zAYxgZ/giphy.gif?cid=790b76112c4bc79160eb1927630e3d5b0ba7b5003ebd237c&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g[/img] So as I say, very WIP and glitchy but a promising start to a better system. A stretch goal for AO (as in we will see!, no promises) is that we could have custom animation pools for different weapon sets. So for example a rapier AI would have a fencing stance and only use rapier specific animations, whereas a sword and shield guy would have his own set of animations, a dagger guy another set, etc. The feasibility of this will greatly just depend on time and progress! [h3]PERFORMANCE[/h3] If you have been following the B&S development over some time you will know this is a perma-task! However I did want to reassure PCVR players that although we are always pushing the graphics and effects, any extra overhead is countered by performance gains. New progress has been made on improving performance for collisions, effects and audio, as well as map optimizations to reduce any strain from increasing the graphics and effects. ___________________________ That's it for now, folks! This was just a broad look at everything going on, but as these different components become more refined I can start to do more in-depth looks at each individual one. 2022 should be an exciting one for B&S! Don't forget you can follow the roadmap for PCVR [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/629730/discussions/4/1743355067106410776/]here[/url]. And because I absolutely know Nomad players are going to ask - U11 release for Nomad would follow PCVR after it is sure the release was free of any game-breaking bugs. So the best guesstimate you can get for Nomad is to look at the PCVR roadmap and add a few weeks to the PC estimated release dates. Cheers!