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You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming!
Hello Champions!
Here we are, after a couple of weeks of hard work and very interesting meetings! We had spent a few time discussing next steps internally and as you already knew, we were at work on an updated roadmap for you. The good news is that it is ready now! We are going to give you an overview of things actually in progress now, going into details with the next updates here on Steam! Meanwhile, a new build will be released tomorrow with some fix and improvements. These days have been relatively quiet and we had the chance to monitor the game running with the upgraded version of the engine and we are happy to say that no issues have been recorded, just a few minor bugs we've fixed at the speed of light in hours, due to a bit of expected regression [i.e. two companions' timelines not working properly and some UI related glitches. Anyway, the transition has been a success and we are still moving on with a bit of cleaning and optimizations, code wise. As you can see, we have set things for the upcoming spring and in the next months, we are going to discuss [and share] plans about the full release, considering that we already delivered almost all the contents originally scheduled for the Early Access and probably doubled the amount of free stuff already released and on its way. No rushes for sure, so we'll take all the time needed to improve the game as we've always wanted since the very beginning. We would like to do things properly on the marketing side, to be ready to have a glorious D1 so we are going to start our world tour in March, attending a bunch of B2C events to let people play the game [and to meet you all IRL when possible!]. More about this in the next weeks with info about countries we are visiting! Back on the roadmap now!
GAMEPLAY ENHANCEMENT #1
First of all, we want to say that we are on numbers night & day while working on new contents. Improving the game is a huge work and we are slowly iterating every single system available, testing things and trying some magic. This patch has to be considered the first of many, just built around numbers. So we've put hands in our CSV and slowly modified values that are the fundations of all the things running. This means that we've touched parameters used for conditions, resistances, base actions etc. Something invisible for the players but we think that it is a good first step to create a better experience in the long term. Following the feed we've received, we have started to change the learning curve having a very simple objective in mind: a slightly easier experience at the very beginning and a harder challenge at the end. Nothing more to add, playing is the best thing to do to understand and of course, we are waiting for a new feed to build on it!
DRAGONHOLD
Four dragons, four battles, easy as it is. Dragons made their return to Plamen and you could help the Talons hunting them. United under one banner, with no king or kingdom to rule them, but all to revere them for their sacrifice and bravery as they face the most dangerous foes of all time. The Talons were formed during the Pantheonic War, when Dragons swarmed Plamen and rained down fire and death upon every mortal on the continent. With their lances aimed up high, the Talons will stop at nothing until all Dragons are nothing but bones. Just a few Talons remain now, leaving in Dragonhold, a massive keep built in a rock carved by the breath of Geis
Shadis...
...and Razen!
CRAFTING REWORK
It is completely bound to gameplay enhancement stuff we are working on, that's why we've put Spring. It is a day by day work, because all systems are directly connected and crafting in particular, is very important because it influences fights very much. We are reworking all the materials, cutting out procs [that were available only on crafted weapons and will be available on unique weapons only] and making changes to make crafted weapons and armors way more consistent with the general lore [it was not like this 100%]. This will make quest rewards way more important and in general, the progression will be smoother for many different reasons. Crafting is even bound to stats and traits and that's why it will take a bit to get its final shape. More on this too in the near future
THE PRINCIPALITY OF EHODRAN
A protectorate of Edherest, a small kingdom in the south which is suffering from The Tempest and from an internal conflict, seeing two of the most important houses fighting for the throne. A new ruthless enemy to fight for the champions of Plamen will be available, with a new mini-campaign we are using as a pilot for future DLC. Different flow, no artifacts to find, large scale battles.
Dragonhold already in place, Ehodran on its way but, hey! A huge island is here too!
MISC
As said previously, the focus right now is on the long term. Balancing stays as the prio but we are using free updates to test features we would like to explore in the future, setting the foundations for bigger DLCs and stand alone campaigns, following the full release. Of course even if it's not mentioned, the work on quests continues, aiming to literally fill every single area with stuff to do, slowly tweaking what is already in place [you could notice new assets here and there, we decided to switch or new NPC populating areas with new animations and dialogues]. World Updates will not stop as well and a new [bigger] map will be avaialable soon, aiming to add new kingdoms in the original map and to be ready to put in new FA and mobs, always looking at massive expansions through the outer world, which is already wrote [and had some pre-prod!]
All cinematics have been re-encoded to reduce disk size and improve playback quality.
Bootstrap logo will now scale to fit instead of stretching.
Fixed
<*> Fixed a bug that could lead the game to misbehave when unequipping the main-hand via the Equipment tab.<*> Fixed a bug that could lead the game to misbehave when certain armors had their headgear visibility toggled.
Fixed non interactable Jindelle Hertmaul in Kin’il’Nar tavern.
Added “Mark all as seen” in Codex tab to quickly read all unseen codex entries. <*> Added “Auto-Lock Style” option in General settings to change how the behaves following the current locked target death.
Changed
Changed icon of Heavy Round Shield to full size.
Changed quest reward for The Goblin King.
Changed The Western Wall quest pawns spawn location in order to ensure lore consistency.
Removed headgear toggle from settings since available in CharacterUI.
Reworked quest filtering in Quest Log to offer an improved UX
Due to a change in how quests are serialized, bounties from previous saves will be discarded upon save load. Bounty quests taken after upgrading the save will work normally.
Fixed
<*> Fixed the automatic lock-on switch after a kill selecting only visible enemies focused on the player; now any enemy fighting is eligible.
Fixed typos for Khoran’s companion name.
Fixed typo in description for Pious Warrior achievement.
Fixed unread notification/icon when no new entries are readable in the Codex page.
Fixed quest The Mountain Horns world map marker to indicate day time in Bardushel.
Fixed typo in Sholunarr location codex.
Fixed quest item White Wedding Dress Fabric being purchasable multiple times.
Fixed Contable Burren codex entries unlock.
Fixed Ritual of Ukar-Rakagul quest dialogue and markers.
Fix Bogtok Codex entry.
Fixed For the Love of Cider quest.
Fix Gholuk stable master dialogue.
Fixed multiple dialogues where the narrator styling wasn’t being applied.
Fixed trails for Mace of the Dead.
Fixed missing description for Badbog (orcish tax collector). <*> Fixed value misformatting edge case in stats recap view when a gem is applied twice on the same weapon.
Fixed champions' codex entry unlocking only after a companion was recruited.
Fixed enemy champions getting stuck in the southern world map region; now they will correctly move in/out of the area by traveling between Goldport and Windscar.
Fixed missing Architect and Counselor barks.
Fixed companions occasionally spamming barks when near goblin hole in Temple of Virtues.
Fixed edge case where bringing an enemy to exactly 0 HP would make the game misbehave.
We've been a bit late but here we are, once again. As you've just read, we finally completed the upgrade process of Unity [and of all our development tools], and this is a great news for us. We were still using an old version of the engine [2019], but it was time to move on considering what's coming-up next with the game. We'll be now able to work faster and the upgrade was scheduled since a long time, so we decided to move right now because it was the right moment! The upgrade was necessary to restart the works on the console version but even to set-up things properly considering the future localization of the game.
We were supposed to not release a new build for a while to check regression and issues due to the upgrade itself and it took some time. We can say that the big risk was to be forced to wipe saves [which is pretty normal in a standard Early Access progress] but our aim since D1 was to keep progresses safe at all costs and once again, we are happy to say that no wipe is happening. We've spent a few time with testing and we can say that the build is stable enough to be released. Of course minor bugs could happen but we'll fix at the speed of light as usual, in case. The only issue that players will have to face is that bounty quests will be erased on Monday so if you have bouny quests in progress, try to finish these quests before the next update or you are going to lost your progresses [which means that you'll have to visit city boards again and takes quests again restarting the hunt from the beginning].
Not a big issue of course but we thought it was worth informing you about this considering the week-end! Of course thw update will feature a new bunch of fixes and improvements as well, following your feed and suggestions on Discord! New details about upcoming free updates will be shared next Friday, we are almost done with dragons and yes, we are adding some new areas here and there, quests and stuff as usual. More info to come!
It's hard to believe, but it's already been 6 years since we started our journey! We're grateful for all of your support and loyalty, and to show our appreciation, we're offering a special Anniversary Sale here on Steam!
6 years, 16 games to discover, including Alaloth - Champions of The Four Kingdoms and many other, including small gems like The 7th Circle - Endless Nightmare or The Wardrobe - Even Better Edition!
Get 60% off on all of our games starting today. Celebrate this milestone with us and take advantage of this limited-time offer. Thanks for being a part of our family. Here's to many more years of gaming together!
#SteamAnniversary #CustomerLove #6YearsStrong
Our plans for the next coming months!
Hello Champions!
The latest from the team today, after a crazy week of meetings, chats, docs and cool people met! First of all, we are happy to confirm that we have succesfully updated Unity to the latest stable version, as already said in the latest post here on Steam. It has been painful but we had to do it and it was the right moment to move on. We had a bit of regression here and there, it is a standard in this case, and for this reason you are not going to get a new build for the next week. We are sorry for this but we are testing everything properly to be able to release a new bug-free update [as usual], avoiding weird problems caused from the switch. The new version of Unity will make our work simpler and faster and it was necessary for the future console version. So the tech guys have been crazy busy with this and we took some time to think about the other stuff in progress [balancing, new features, quests and so on]. The work on dragons goes on, we are not still happy but we have some time for this. At this stage, we are basically drafting the new roadmap that will be built around the next free updates that will be used as foundations for bigger things to come. We are splitting systems and contents and we are going to work on different modules to build on for the future.
The map is going to be expanded as well, we are adding new territories making it bigger. New territories will be available out of The Four Kingdoms and the most important thing is that we are going to test a complete different game flow through this, to be able to add other campaigns in the future. These campaigns will not be connected to the main quest and will be stand alone, allowing us to add more variety in terms of combat, quests and so on. New traits and INT will be added as well, playing a bit with numbers right now to see if our idea work! These weeks have been important for other reasons as well. We can say we are seeding for the future and we are even focusing on all the important aspects of the work to approach the 1.0 at its best. You all know that we've basically had to squeeze months of PR work in a couple of weeks to release EA and we are not going to do the same for the full release. This means taking care of many different aspects of the development that are not actually directly connected with development itself! We are at work on a shop for whoever would like to support our job, buying cool physical handmande physical goodies as well as [very] limited editions of the game! Retail has always been in our radars [collecting stuff is a must for a RPG lover] and many interesting biz opps are in place for this too.
Handcrafted goodies while waiting for a proper Limited Edition? Why not!
We are celebrating our 6th anniversary as a studio next week and we are going to start many community-related events so keep an eye on our board here and on our Discord server that stays as our main point of contact with the player base. And you know what? We are booking many different events all around the world for the next months, so you'll probably going to meet us both in US and Europe from March on! Details [and dates] to be shared soon but it will be great to meet you all around, finally in the B2C area, to chat about our adventures in the world of Plamen.
Planning things wisely is always the key to make a great game!
Hello Champions!
Just a quick update on things going on, after a couple of weeks of intense work and a bunch of meetings to set-up things for months to come! First of all, we've released a new build today with some fixes and improvements: third patch since the beginning of 2023, 35 since EA launched [6 per month!] and 3 Major Updates released! And you know what? It feels so natural for us and being recognized as a super active dev team, always answering our players, make us happy! We had the chance to work on a first draft of the new roadmap to be shared but as you know [data at hand], we have always delivered what we've promised and this is not going to change. So before moving on with announcements, we decided to work on some tech-related stuff that will be pivotal for us in the long term. First of all, we are updating Unity to a new stable version [running on Unity 2019 now]. Updating the engine is always a pain but the new version will allow us to work in a smarter way, with new tools and some quality of life improvements on dev side. Moreover, the update is necessary for the console version of the game, which is going to happen at some point [more info to come, no need to say that the focus stays on main SKU at the moment]. At the same time, we are playing a bit with in-engine crowd management to be able to work on large scale battles and on a few new features we are thinking about since a while. Even this new features will be detailed later on, as soon as we'll have a full picture of what will be doable and how. Other things worth to mention below!
DRAGONS
Not so much to say about this! Fantasy without dragons? No way. We have finally started to iterate these combats and we want to make them epic! We've put in place something in the last days and we finally have a full flow for the first one, Shadis. No VFX yet but the lady here already rocks [and yes, if you are smart enough, you've noticed she's a wyvern and not a dragon...but this is a different story you are going to know more about when playing]. Four dragon bosses on the way, a new season is going to start in Plamen. Still have to decide if we are going to make them available through special quests or with a new world phase but we'll sort this out asap.
COMBAT, CRAFTING, TRAITS AND MORE
The next big thing. Along with this, new crafting, traits and stuff will come. By now, the huge work to be done is on weapons and armors [and that's why everything is deeply connected and changing numbers is a pain]. We are working to change crafting, to make unique weapons and loots way more meaningful than now. We are probably going to completely remove procs from crafted weapons, leaving sockets only and we are probably going to change blueprints as well, to give some fancyness to the process. it will be still possible to craft amazing weapons and armors but the best stuff will be available through quests as intended. Before EA, we had many [spicy] discussions about this and it's time now to move on with the plan originally scheduled, changing things we are not still completely happy with. Crafting materials will be iterated, keeping constistency in mind [so no materials giving back HP because this could be considered magic and will be something related to magic weapons only. Just a sample]. These changes will affect crafting too, with the idea of adding special traits to get access to professions. So if you want to repair your equipment, you are going to use the workbench as usual, but blacksmith's trait have to be unlocked. Same for cooking or alchemy [in the work]. Thinking about adding INT stat as well to give extra value to these traits and to start a long term process that couold bring to a few more professions for the Way of Nature and the Way of Gods....
THE NORTH SEA EMPIRE
As we've said recently, the Winter Update has been a massive update. We can say that considering what we've announced for the EA, we've already delivered all the contents put in our original roadmap and we've even added a lot of contents that were not even planned in the original schedule. Of course we are going to move on with dragons, Arena Mode and the things mentioned above, adding new quests, items, NPC and stuff as usual, but we have to slow down a bit and think about what's coming next. We have to carefully evaluate all the options, always considering a few things on the way, not directly connected with the development itself [biz related stuff]. The game has been built in a very modular way, allowing us to add stuff on solid foundations [that we have] and we've started thinking about DLCs, no need to hide this. The prio is finding the perfect balance in the next months but at the same time we have to think big and be prepared with fresh contents to update the game world with new adventures. So, work on The North Sea Empire started with some pre-prod stuff. No details yet, just brainstorming to create a new campaign in a new area of the world, with new systems in place. Nothing set in stone but we can say that the NSE is vikings-inspired [with some twists]. Once again, it is just an unofficial chat with you all to give an overview of what's actually in progress here!
The twist...
SPELLCASTERS
In terms of balancing and consistency, putting in pure magic users could be a problem but a lot of people is asking so we are thinking about the option. Magic is way unique in Plamen and the whole lore of the game has been built with this in mind. The idea is keeping focus on melee combat while keeping full freedom in terms of customization, with the chance to create a mage-like build. What we are testing right now is a [super cool] system allowing everyone to play any kind of hybrid class and we want to keep this. So we are thinking about a system directly connected to the equipment, keeping consistency at the same time, willing to make everyone happy. Way of Essence is about connecting and manipulating the force of nature for example, so wearing anything different from a robe could be a problem. So, no more tanks for Way of Nature users? No way, you can continue wearing your huge armor but casting spells will be risky [90% of failure? Cooldowns x4?]. Same for the Way of Gods: channeling the energy of the All-Father needs to avoid super heavy armors but clerics, necromancers and templars can still wear lighter armors with just a few penalties. That's more or less what we are testing [on paper yet]. We are going to update you about these iterations.
G-CLUB
Last but not least, we are happy to announce the opening of the G-Club! We are celebrating our 6th anniversary as a company in a while, and we are going to celebrate properly. A lot of people is asking about a way to support us [through donations mostly] and we are humbled by this. We've always thought that would have been great to give something back to these guys and we've spent some time thinking about a formula to reward people willing to support our work and the development of Alaloth. We are cooking something special for Spring than, and all of this is going to happen on our Discord channel. The more you spent time with us, doing stuff, the more you'll be rewarded. Daily activities will grant G-Tokens to everyone [for free] and these tokens could be spent to claim games from our shop, special goodies and other cool stuff. Monthly giveaways, contests and much more on the way! To get started, simply join us on our Discord and start introduce yourself to others. G-Club rules will be shared as soon as we will have details about a few other activities in the work. Can't wait to say more about this!
P.S. Hope to have used the proverb the right way. We are not slow for sure, but we like to plan things the proper way, you know.
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