Cross of Auria
This Week in Revan (May 28)
But onto some fun news! We here at the hardytier household are welcoming Player 4 into the mix next Wednesday! This pretty much sums up why development has slowed down for the time being. Ideally this will pick up after birth.
Since I don't have any new patch notes for you, I'll give you an update on the short to mid-term goals. Keep in mind that this does not detail the when of the releases. What I can say up front is the Orc War and An'ura Recon events will be in game and completely concluded before Scarlet Fire or any other "content" DLC are made.
Short-Mid Term Goals [Build #??, Release Date: ?? ??, 2020]
New:
- Kenmono cat creature NPCs find their way to Revan.
- Two more quests will be added to The Phoenix Ash.
- Bookcases in various homes across Revan will now contain helpful information about the game.
- The exit tiles of the Auria entrance zone will trigger the next step in the Orc War quest line. During the Orc War scenario, it will not be possible to return to the majority of previous zones in their current condition. A "passage of time" mechanic is currently in development to be a clear line as to when sidequests at hunter lodges can be completed.
- A new race of friend and enemy has found their way to Revan.
Fixes:
- Quest Log dialogue and plugin commands will be completely removed from the game.
- Bugs will continue to be fixed upon their detection and rolled out immediately to Windows users. Mac users will have to wait for the next moderate update to receive these fixes. (This is because as far as I know, there are no active Mac players. If you are an active Mac player and need a fix for something, please reach out to me immediately as a comment to this post or on facebook @ facebook.com/CrossOfAuria )
Changes:
- Gazer battlegroups will appear on the field.
- Wolf battlegroups will appear as wolves on the field.
- Misc. Lvell structures with save blocking will be detailed with the save restriction removed.
An’ura Recon:
- The Delivery Boy has a message for Ruby.
DLC: Scarlet Fire:
- Details for Scarlet Fire DLC are being figured out. The "An'ura Recon" scenario is meant to serve as a taste for what to expect from Scarlet Fire and future DLC. (This is why An'ura Recon content is notated separately in patch notes)
- Upon release of Scarlet Fire, the base game will be updated to contain additions to both versions of The Pit in Agartha. However, the Scarlet version of the Colosseum will be for DLC owners only.
DLC: Other
- Founder packs are in the process of being created. These packs will serve as minor item boosts such as Flasks and Item Enchantments. Additionally, a single skill per character is being considered. This skill, while useful, will not be game-breaking or required by the main story for completion.
- Scarlet Fire is currently in the planning stage. DLC of this nature will contain roughly 3 hours of story content and potentially new party members. Scarlet Fire in particular will contain one new party member. SF will add a new dungeon on the field and a changeable Colosseum variant in Agartha.
- A Frost Forest, Frostbrood, and Hell's Gate DLC are also in pre-planning stages. Each of these would also add a dungeon and a Colosseum variant. Their play time will be similar to SF when it releases.
Alpha Ruins:
- New field spawn enemies will be on the prowl in Alpha Ruins.
- A commotion can be heard coming from beneath the Black Forest (level 8+).
Obscurite:
- A commotion can be heard coming from Obscurite, the Dusk Kingdom (level 8+).
- Other uses for the inner city section are in the planning stages. Some of it is already detailed and in game but not yet accessible.
3.2.3.1 [Emergency Fixes]
Additionally, an audio load issue was discovered and resolved just before meeting Miles & Riley in Scarlet Cavern.
3.2.3.1 [Build #75.1, Release Date: May 20, 2020]
Steam Store:
- On May 19th, the description and title in the Steam Store were changed.
File Size:
- Many new assets were added to the game data resulting in slightly larger file size.
-- The “x. Credits” file included with the game files has been updated to reflect the use of new assets.
Fixes:
- Fixed an audio load issue in Scarlet Cavern.
- Fixed an issue where the game could become locked in Den An’ura if the party did not have both Toxic Cores.
Changes:
- It is now possible to leave Den An’ura without the completed poison item.
- Miles will tell Ruby if she does not have all the components to complete the poison item when trying to exit the Heart zone in Den An’ura.
3.2.3 - Changes from Friday's Stream
In addition to the progression of the quest, I found it necessary to dramatically scale back the level of the enemies in the Encampment. Based on my most recent test, a new player could get to the end of the current main campaign at level 8. Sidequests from the Rabbit's Foot and Agartha would push a player to 20, but I won't rely on that for these side stories.
- Build already released on May 15th. I had every intention to make another update before this post, but I was sidetracked creating a rewards system and harvesting new assets.
The Rewards System
- Full details in the #coa_rewards channel of my discord. Invite link here: https://discord.gg/JcxZmeG
- Channel points accumulated from watching me on Twitch will now be used to make your own additions to the game! The details are still being worked out, but the highlights of this system are:
-- X points to create an NPC, the dialogue of which you may control if you want. Creation of an NPC or enemy involves hopping in a private discord call with me to make it in the engine generator.
-- X points to create an enemy, the backstory (of the days leading up to this character encountering the party) of which you may write given the existing lore of the world. You must also create at least 3 notable battle attacks for this character.
-- 100,000 points to create pretty much whatever you want, be it a small zone, a non-canon event, a playable character, etc.
Please keep in mind this will be one of the only times I mention this reward system here on Steam forums, as it has more to do with Twitch than it does with communicating with the players. If you're interested in participating, please join the Discord and coordinate there.
-- Points are obtained and exchanged on my personal twitch, @ twitch.tv/hardytier
Note: If you know how to make pixel art and want to inject an NPC into the game without using the generator, this does not cost points. You will need to provide a 3x4 sprite sheet of 48x48 px images, a name for the character, what they've been doing up until the party meets them, and an idea for what you want them to do moving forward. More specific detail to be discussed in discord. Keep in mind, this offer is only valid for non combat NPCs and for static enemy battlers only.
3.2.3 [Build #75, Release Date: May 15, 2020]
MAC:
- This build will serve as the most recent for MAC users.
Fixes:
- It is now possible to create Fire Flasks and Poison Flasks.
- Fixed an audio load issue inside the Encampment.
Changes:
- Minor terrain pass-ability changes in The Black Forest.
- Alchemy tables now display required item counts on command in addition to after each success and failure.
- Dagger Rush (Miles) reworked:
-- Now has the same animation as Blitz.
-- TP cost reduced to 40 from 60.
-- Now has a 2-turn warmup and 1-turn cooldown.
-- Can now critically hit.
-- Now has a 6% chance to cause a bleed, up from 3% (per slash).
-- Damage formula remains the same (gains +1 to minimum damage every 2 times its used, effect is permanent.)
- An’ura enemies no longer show the cast animation on most attacks.
An’ura Recon:
- An expert in An’ura texts has arrived at the Grand Library. She would be interested in the “An’ura Documents” right away!
- Existing enemies in the Encampment have been scaled to level 7-8, down from 20-21
- Background data added for ????.
Recurring Dev Livestreams
As of right now, there's no set schedule for exactly what time I'll be live (or times, in the event I have to take a break for family reasons). However, VODs stay live on the twitch channel for 14 days and will later be added to the CoA YouTube channel for those of you who missed out.
What goes on during the dev stream?
- This is where most of the next content update will be prepared which takes place in more than just the game engine. You'll get a look at some of my back end mechanical designs which are held in various text and excel documents in addition to how I place and test things in the engine itself.
Questions, Suggestions & Bug Reports
- These streams will be an excellent place to ask questions you have about the game such as functionality and mechanics or even about the lore of the characters and planet they inhabit. This will also be the absolute best place to alert me about a bug, as I will be able to take care of it immediately.
What I can't show...
- Sadly, there's part of the process that is covered by NDA with Steam, so I can not show anything having to do with the upload and distribution process. However, all things that go into making and exporting the game itself can be shown.
Where to catch the show
- I'm live every day doing the streaming thing, but part of every Friday from now into the foreseeable future will be reserved for CoA development.
https://www.twitch.tv/hardytier is my personal twitch where the live streams will take place.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGxc2-7sJbZ9L3Lpgak43XA is the CoA YouTube channel where VODs of the development streams will end up after they have concluded.
-- Please note that due to the affiliate agreement with Twitch, these VODs will not make their way to YouTube until after 24 hours past the time in which they ended.
The Reward
- I'm in the process of preparing a reward for 100k channel points involving CoA, the finer details of which are TBA. What I can tell right now is: it will have to do with an entire new character, piece of gear, or zone added to the game based on YOUR description.... within reason. Things of a profane or otherwise too meme-y nature will be rejected and your points refunded to try again.
3.2.2 - Stream Update
If you missed the streams and want to check them out, they will be available for 14 days at:
Stream 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615040132
Stream 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615132997
Almost this entire update was created during these two streams, so feel free to have a look at the development process that goes into making CoA!
Without further nonsense, the 3.2.2 notes:
3.2.2 [Build #74, Release Date: May 08, 2020]
New:
- Vendor Stock updated for the Item Shop in Auria/Visitor District.
- A new 75 Point set is now available from The Phoenix Ash in Lvell.
- The pylon at the Research Shack in Auria has awoken!
- New field spawn enemies are on the prowl in Alpha Ruins.
Fixes:
- Fixed a missing image error in Agartha. To remove the error, save outside of the main Agartha zone, then reload the file and go back in. This fix also repairs the ability to go into the Pit building.
- Fixed several audio loading errors in Agartha.
Changes:
- Congealed Frost now have a chance to drop from various Frost Forest enemies.
- Frostbrood Tokens now have a chance to drop from Frostbrood enemies.
- Schematic: Mech Shield now has a chance to drop from Mechs in Hell’s Gate. The tooltip for this item has been changed.
- Schematic: Snow Shield now has a chance to drop from Ice elementals in Frost Forest. The tooltip for this item has been changed.
- Ice Shards now have a chance to drop from Ice enemies in Frostbrood zones.
- Field spawn units in Alpha Ruins now trigger battle on contact. Some enemies now chase Ruby upon entry to the zone.
- Congealed Fire now has a chance to drop from elementals in Scarlet Cavern.
- All enemy events in the Colosseum now trigger battle on contact.
File Size:
- Added test data for Scarlet Fire / Pit integration.
A few hours of development on Twitch
In about two minutes from the posting of this, I will be going live @ www.twitch.tv/hardytier with a few hours of development on Cross of Auria. If you want to see how things or done, catch a sneak peak at the Orc War stuff, or ask some questions - feel free to stop by!
Hope to see some of you there!
Windows Fix
Somehow in the last update, the game files were excluded from the build. Due to this fix, the update will be larger than usual (~600MB). However, the total file size for the game remains the same since the last update deleted these 600MB worth of files.
Sorry for the inconvenience! If there are any more issues, please keep in mind that Discord is the best way to reach out! Invite link: https://discord.gg/5zhdNsd. I do see the comments and posts here on the Steam community website, but sometimes they do not give me notifications, which goes to them being unnoticed for longer than usual.
Get out there and slay some bad guys!
Mac Update | CoA is Back!
Earlier this week, we talked a little bit about functionality for MAC (see thread here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/764180/announcements/detail/2211773821814366841). Today, I'm going to follow up on that with some hopeful information.
It seems that it is possible for me to continue to make exports for mac in a different way than I do for Windows. However, it is greatly time consuming as I originally predicted. For that reason, the store page for CoAE1 has had Mac support unlisted for the time being. That being said, Mac players will still receive periodic updates, but not on the same time-frame as Windows users. Usually whenever an issue comes up, I jump to patch it right away - this won't be the case for issues on Mac. Instead, I'll be looking at monthly or even story based checkpoints for Mac only. Where Windows might see 3.3, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, and 3.4, Mac users may only see 3.3 and 3.4.
Some quick notes:
- The current MAC build is 3.2.1.2, which is an extension of the 3.2.1 build (notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/764180/announcements/detail/2211773821813899258) but with the added bonus of the ninja patch which is available to all.
3.2.1.2 [Build #72, Release Date: April 29, 2020]
Fixes:
- Fixed an issue with the Innkeeper causing errors after the Room Key was obtained.
- If you're having trouble launching the game on Mac, right click Cross of Auria from the steam library -> Manage -> Browse Local Files -> open "x.Cross of Auria" folder -> open the Game application.
-- If there are any issues with launching the game on Mac as of this update, please reach out to me ASAP. I'll see what I can do, but on the whole, Mac development isn't well supported by the RMMV engine.
- One final thing for Mac users - the download size should be significantly decreased. My depots were setup improperly which called for Mac users to download the windows only "www" folder, which is basically all the contents of the .app package an entire second time. However, due to the change in encryption, the initial download size may be somewhere in the 500MB if you are updating from more than three or so patches ago.
Linux
- To anyone who owns the game for linux, the "Game" file has always been made available. I don't have a way to test this on my own, but the engine suggests that all the files are included within the package. As you may know, official support was discontinued many months ago due to my inability to test or understand it. With any luck, I'll be able to change that when the game enters post production.
Other
- On the whole, there hasn't been any other development yet this week. I'm focusing a lot on my projects for youtube for right now. That being said, I usually get most of my work done for CoA on Saturday mornings. When I do get back to it, I'll be continuing mostly on the new Orc War campaign, so there may not be another update again until next weekend.
- Due to the frustration of trying to fix issues for Mac users this morning, the x. Patch Notes file has been left in disarray, but this gives you a chance to see what I have planned in a more detailed look if you want to see it. As always, these things can change.
- I need to make a MAC version of the demo first and foremost this weekend, so this will take up some of my scheduled development time. When I made it, I was unaware of the current issues. At least I know how to work around it.
Thanks for stopping by, and as always - report those bugs! Please keep in mind that Discord (invite link: https://discord.gg/j4pZKuv) is the best way to report bugs. I don't always get notifications here on the steam forums and even when I look manually, some comments get buried for no reason until months later when they suddenly appear at the top. Strangely enough, this has been the case with several negative reviews for the game as well as a few bug reports.
Facebook is a solid secondary way of reaching out (@ www.facebook.com/crossofauria), but occasionally I'll get notifications saying I have messages, but the messages won't be there. This was the case over the last few days, so if it was you that reported something on fb, I'm terribly sorry but FB won't let me see it.
And finally, Twitter should be the last case scenario in reporting bugs, as I generally never log into CoA's twitter. BUT, you can reach out to me directly @hardytier on twitter, which is one I actively log into all the time. (But seriously, if we can start using Discord for bug reporting, that would actually be the best for me personally >.>)
Anyway, that's it for this huge wall of text, thanks for stopping by, and I hope everyone enjoys their week!
//hardytier
Mac Support
Mac support is suspended indefinitely.
I'll level with you all here for a minute - we were lucky to be able to release the game for Mac and Linux for as long as it was out there. A few months ago, the Linux builds became unpredictable, and now, I'm finally seeing that the Mac one has joined it. I'm not using a traditional engine in the creation of CoA like Unity or Unreal where I can code around and dig in and see what's going on. RMMV is an... all in one good luck to those who use it kind of endeavor. I work to create the game and updates on a windows desktop from which i export both a Windows build and a Mac build. For a long time, the mac build work. I can't say for sure when it stopped working since there were no reports, but I can confirm that as of today the project doesn't open at all. This -might- be because of when my version of RMMV stealthily updated from 1.5.1 to 1.6. Since I don't know when that was, I don't know how much of the project I would have to recreate from scratch in order to reincorporate Mac going forward.
The short version of this: At some point in time, both the Linux and Mac exports from the engine broke. Windows support will continue for the time being with the schedule discussed a few weeks ago, but Mac and Linux will no longer receive updated builds. I'm very sorry about this. If my understanding of Steam is correct, your key is still good to download the game on any windows machine or any virtual Windows OS with Steam on it.
I'm very sorry about this issue. If you have any suggestions, feel free to reach out.
//hardytier
Edit: 3:19PM APR 27
1. When the game is in its "completed" phase, I'll make all attempts I know how to in order to also port the game to both Mac and Mobile. Since these methods are very time consuming, they aren't worth attempting until production on the project comes to a close.
3.2.1 - Encryption, Smaller File Size
So, crossing fingers.
3.2.1 [Build #72, Release Date: April 27, 2020]
Changes:
Warning - This update will cause larger than usual download sizes. However, the grand total file size will be reduced.
- Renamed all in-use sound files.
- Removed unused sound files from game folder.
- Deployed game folder with encryption as per asset use requirement.
Note: If any areas of the game give an error immediately upon entering, then a sound file issue has been detected. Please report it immediately @ www.facebook.com/CrossOfAuria or as a comment to this patch note. A picture of the error with the background helps greatly.
Edit: 2:18PM APR 27
-- Errors may occur saying a “.m4a” or “.ogg” can not be found. These can be cleared by going to any zone which triggers new music to play, saving, exiting the application completely, then reloading. If this error persists, please report it ASAP – as that file will need to be re-added to the game files.