The next patch is almost out! Had a couple bugs when we complied tonight and I want to tighten up the GUI but ran out of time this evening.
We'll let you know tomorrow or Wednesday when the update is live. Thanks everyone!
--
We're opening up the overworld map so you may again roam free! You'll be able to roam our map, entering and leaving zones as you please by flying to the edge of the map or above the cloud line.
We hope this will make for better performing, more detailed encounters/adventures we've been calling "zones".
Set in an open world with random events and sandbox play, we can deploy a lot more dragon-y content faster this way. This design also lends itself to better "domain" and strategy play as you claim your lands and find yourself tied up in the politics of dragons and men.
5/18 Check In
Hey guys - still here, just checking in, sorry for late post and delayed patch. We are still working, and odds are good we'll put something out this weekend. Bigger post will be on the way.
-L
5/10 Update: Patching soon (tm)
Hey guys,
We're still plugging along.
It sounds like Grant is going to have a first look (read: patch) for the overworld ready next week. We'll still have to see what all is going to make it into it.
Please temper your expectations - this has been put together as a representation of where we are headed, and still has plenty of placeholders, etc. It is on a small map of one area. The good news is, once we start moving along on this path, finish up some bug fixing and system reviews, we'll be on our way to putting some muscle and fat (so to speak) on the game.
I've been a bit inattentive, and I apologize - I am having some personal issues (excuses, I know) that have been pretty distracting over the last few weeks. It is going to be an intermittent problem for the forseeable future but you will for sure continue to hear from me at least weekly.
Thanks guys, more info as I get it.
-L
5/3 Update: A Quiet Week
Hey crew,
Sorry for no post on Monday/Tuesday. I have been very busy personally.
This will be a short update - this is one of those weeks where we are plugging along on a few things and looking for a few more to tackle.
The overworld patch is coming along. We have a small dummy map in place and a few zones (currently marked with a dragon logo icon) that you can go into/out of. We are still a ways out from releasing it for you guys to look at. Quite a bit of things we still need/want to include, as well as a thorough round of bug fixing.
I am still working on a large scale map, but that isn't going to hold up the first look at the overworld.
Wish I had more news - I have said a few times there is slow goings yet ahead, and this is a slow stretch as we find time to work wherever we can.
Take care, and I'll post back if there is anything new an interesting to report.
-L
4/25 Update: Moving along, pixels are my master now
Hey crew.
Another small update for you guys, let's dive in.
First - there should be a small patch rolled out consisting of a couple of control tweaks and improvements. Moving "backwards" while flying should give more of a "flapping in place" hovering effect, and should no longer flip you around the other direction. I haven't had an opportunity to playtest it, honestly, but I am excited to see what Grant put together as that is one of the things I really wanted to see (so you can do that *flap* *flap* *fire* pose)
Another complaint we've looked at is the POV of the camera; it has felt too low to me, so we have lifted it a bit above your shoulder so you can see what and where you are biting. This is a first step towards making combat a little more visible and intuitive. We have some other improvements in mind, but this was an easy one to tweak.
I think there are a few other quiet goodies in there as well, but I will have to check our documentation to see. (Sorry, I know that's amateur-hour of me - Grant and I both had busy weekends so we didn't communicate much.)
In any case, load up and kick around a bit; if you have control comments now is definitely the time to make them heard. We'll keep trying to tidy up as we go along.
In other news, the overworld map patch is officially underway. Grant has the infrastructure in place to make it work; now we are working on some assets to make it look good. We'll be starting with a relatively "small" area this time around, with 2-3 zones accessible. When that goes out and we like it, we will be able to start expanding things pretty quickly, and adding map UI functionality, and so on.
That said - after the first overworld patch, odds are good we will do a few more upgrade passes; things like the experience system and UI are in need of attention. When we get a little closer to rolling this one out, I'll yet you know what's next on the docket.
As far as schedule, it mostly depends on how much polish we want to put on before we roll it out, but I would expect the overworld map to be working and pleasing in four weeks or less. I will keep you posted as we progress, even if it's going to take longer, but that is my hope.
ETA: here is a taste - I am working this through Campaign Cartographer 3+, which I have some experience in, using the Herman Wielink (sp) palette. In the future, we can consider hiring an artist to do an overhaul, but for the time being this hit the right balance between looking good, and within my abilities.
4/18 Update: Two Dee, or not Two Dee
Hey guys (puns!)
I want to point out really quick before I forget - if you are posting comments in response to news posts, that is cool, we appreciate hearing from you, etc. - however it is not the best place to get a response, as it doesn't send me a notification when a new comment is posted there. I get notifications for forum posts, which I review regularly. So, if you want the best chance for a quick response, post in the forums please!
I was out of town last weekend, so I didn't get much face time at RWS, but I did drop in for a few hours on Sunday when I got back. Grant and I talked a bit about what our next steps are going to be, and he showed me what he has been working on.
We have the infrastructure in place for a zone-in, zone-out approach to the game. We considered dropping it in a patch on Monday, but I'll be honest - it kind of looks like hell at the moment, because we are just throwing some assets together to test the code, and there are still some bugs to squash.
Since this is a new conceptual approach we are testing out, there are still a few questions we need to answer internally. The biggest one right now is how best to display the map. We have a few approaches in mind - I will list what we have considered and what we are looking at.
The current prototype uses a smaller-scaled version of existing map assets - the idea was for it to feel a bit like a "travel" mode where you can still fly around etc. This wold look and feel pretty cool; but it presents some challenges as well. The first is we want a soft and hard fog of war on the map; this is hard for us to simulate. We also run into the draw distance/map scale problem; which basically amounts to there not being a big enough difference between the two scales of map.
The other way to tackle it, and what we are looking into now, is a hand drawn 2D map, similar to what you might see in an RPG. This comes with a lot of advantages: we can show the fog of war really easily; it lends itself more to the "realm management" UI a player would want to interact with (for instance, to see which villages you control, and what they are sending you.) The downside is that it is less hands-on than a 3D overworld would be. And, of course, someone has to draw it.
It is looking like 2D approach would: a) ultimately "look" better, b) be more fun, and c) be much easier to implement with regards to the eventual realm management UI. At this point, we are not fully committed to either approach, but our judgement is saying a 2D map is going to be our best bet, so is what we're going to test first.
For the next "big" patch, our goal is going to be a small explore-able 2D map with two or three area nodes, fog of war working, and make it all look look pretty good. Rather than hold off and wait for an entire map to be made, we are going to just make a small one for now and if it looks like it's the way we want to go, we will put some effort (and possibly precious dollar bills) into a better one with a distinct art style some time in the future.
We are looking to push something like this out in the next few weeks, with some luck. If it is going to take longer, I'll let you know where we are at. When I get a look at the sample map, I'll see if I can post a sample.
In the meantime, we are going to try to get a small patch out on Monday with a bug fix/QoL improvement or two. We have a meeting on Wednesday where we'll discuss what we can get out this week.
All for now.
-Laersk
4/11 Update: Some patch notes, next priorities
Hey guys.
There should be a new patch rolled out to the main branch. As I have said before, this patch was mostly to get the game running better. The map you load into is a sample of the size you can expect when you "zone in" to an area on the overworld map, which we should have up and running in a few patches.
Let me know in forum if you are having performance issues on this new size.
Oh, we also changed "S" to move your dragon backwards, rather than flip them around. A few more controls improvements will likely be coming next.
Short term - our next goal is to take a pass with some polish (or let's be real, some high grit sandpaper) and tidy up a big list of issues that are already in the game. We are also going to look at the movement controller and see if we can smooth it out a bit. As we break ground on this I'll give you a bit more detail.
I didn't post it yesterday - look for a forum thread today with our big list of fixes and upgrades for the current build.
-Laersk
4/10 Update: Map Size "Update", Overworld System, Performance, and a big list of QOL improvments
Hey guys, let's jump right in.
First and foremost - the game runs poorly for most of you (it does for me.) The very first thing we wanted to get done was get it running for as many users as possible. We spent some time over the weekend looking at it.
As I mentioned last week - at least some portion of the performance problem (probably/hopefully a lot of it) has been the sheer size of the map. We tested builds with incrementally smaller maps to evaluate this, and as suspected the game runs much smoother with a slimmed down map. (I'll add - the proposed size of the zone feels plenty large, and still takes ~1 minute to fly straight across.)
In testing, I noticed there still seems to be some "grit" (for lack of a better term) while moving that persisted no matter how large or small the map is. Initially this seemed like the last tiny bits of hardware chop, but the camera was reporting 60+fps and remained smooth throughout. Our hypothesis is there is still something in the dragon animation or player controller that is acting a little odd, and it was never really noticed until now - we'll be looking at that soon. (TM)
Overall - the above observation aside, I can report that the game is running smoothly again on the smaller map.
The next big step will be implementing the infrastructure for the overworld map; this is all new so it may take a little trial and error, but once it's worked out it should help us (eventually) create content faster. We started breaking ground on this already, but it won't be ready to patch in until it is fleshed out and working properly-ish; so this will take some time yet.
As far as the specific map - for now, we have used the "original" map and just disabled most of it; in the future we will be able to make new made-to-order maps for specific areas.
In addition to these major things, we have a pretty long list running that includes some tidying up and quality of life improvements; some remaining controls and camera tweaks, etc. I will post this list over in the forums, feel free to toss any requests on it that match the flavor (i.e. not looking for feature requests, just stuff that needs to feel/look/handle better.) We'll prioritize the low hanging fruit first.
At this moment in time, the next patch will probably just be the smaller map. I'm sorry it is not more exciting than that, but hopefully some of you that haven't been able to play will be able to get in and fly around smoothly for a change.
Later this week, I will status the overworld map implementation and our list of QOL fixes, and start to talk about plans for the next patch as the picture materializes.
-Laersk
4/7 Update: Good News, Bad News, Changes, and Short Term Goal
Hey Guys,
So, as you can tell - we've got some good news and some bad news.
Good news - I'm here. You'll be in contact with the dev team. I'm not going anywhere.
Neutral news - ownership/responsibility of the game is transferring from Red Level Games to Red Wyrm Studios. As I mentioned before, this should be pretty transparent, you won't notice much of a difference, but I wanted to mention that here first, because it'll be updated on the store page sometime next week.
Bad news - patch won't be out for a week or two or three yet, unless like...everything that can go right goes right.
Good news - big picture - we are taking actions to get the game back on course and start making steady progress again.
Bad news - we are removing/changing some features from the game. I know this is upsetting. And I appreciate that when you say you are going to include something in your game as a developer, that is an implicit promise. So I do apologize, but we have decided it's what's best for the game. At the risk of taking away someone's "favorite thing," this was necessary to get the game back on course. This isn't a hard and fast list yet (I guess nothing is final until we start patching again) but you can expect the following:
- removing "open world," but don't panic - more on that in a minute
- removing multiplayer - we are going to focus on making it an enriching one-player RPG experience, and there is frankly enough on the plate.
- we'll be upping the minimum system requirements a bit. This shouldn't be a massive shift - but in the interest of honesty/transparency, I'm letting you know.
- Linux support is a long ways (TM) off. I know we have some users on Linux who this is not going to sit well with. I'm sorry, but if I'm committing to honesty with you all, it can't be good news all the time. The fact of the matter is there are bigger fires to put out right now.
That's all off the top of my head - there might be something I've missed, if it comes up in the comments I'll address it.
Moving on.
I said I would expand on the "Open World" change.
As you might have noticed - the current version of Dragon doesn't run well. At all. On like, anything. Let me explain a little bit about that situation.
You may have not realized it (I hadn't), but Dragon's world map is actually massive. It doesn't run well enough to really practically go out and explore it so you'll have to take my word on it. But it is quite large. To put this in context:
Skyrim: ~16 square miles
Fallout 4: ~4 square miles
Dayz: ~86 square miles
Dragon: ...~400 square miles.
*estimates from some google searches
And I know what you are thinking - "lol you guys are NOT making Skyrim." I know. We aren't. But the technical challenge we are facing right now is one of scale, and it is a much differently sized-scale than the comparable "open world" games you are familiar with. I'll add - for a veteran team, this might not be as big of a problem; but for us, it has been a gordian knot.
We spent money trying to fix the problem and it didn't go away. That sucked.
So we're going to try a different approach - and that involves doing away with the massive single-world map. Our new strategy is to instead incorporate an overworld map with area nodes.
The overworld map will be a zoomed-out look at the world and your dragon; the hope is we can still capture the sense of scale we are going for - you'll still be represented as a dragon on the map, after all - but we can do away with the very complicated matter of streaming in a map four times the size of DayZ's.
As you fly over forests, caves, cities and various points of dragon-interest, you will be able to "fly down to them," which will load in a single static map of the area. Depending on the place, this might just be a big forest to do some quick hunting in, or it might be a fortress to capture. These will be smaller "action arenas" where you can do your fighting and eating. As you exit (either through the sky or the edges of the map, naturally) you will load back to the overworld map.
There are a lot more details involved in this change - but that is the idea. It sucks to change course, but it should allow us to up the pace (or at least, allow us to tackle the next headache.)
Short Term:
The very first thing to do is get the game in a state where it is running smoothly. To do this, we are going to dispense with the massive world map entirely and for now, load you into what will be one of the "arena sized" maps mentioned above.
From there - we are going to go over all the areas that are in need of attention but have been neglected and/or are still weird - UI, action, controls, and camera.
The goal for next patch is going to be to deliver the first bit of this. At the minimum, it will be: a small map that runs smooth. Thrilling, I know - but I'd prefer to under-promise and over-deliver for a change.
I'll post on Monday 4/10 and let you know how this plan is shaping up - I'll have an opportunity to check on development this Saturday 4/8.
That's all for now guys.
-Laersk
4/6 Update from Laersk, and the Dragon Team
Hey guys. We have some things to discuss, so here goes.
TL;DR: The game is not abandoned, progress will continue to be challenging, and you'll be hearing from us. Thanks for your patience.
This is clear to anyone that has been paying attention, but I will reiterate, because this is the first step towards taking responsibility: we have not made the progress on Dragon we would have liked to by this point in time, and development has been inconsistent.
The original vision for Dragon was, even by AAA standards, vast and complex, and implementing it has been difficult, all the way down to basic foundation of the game. In addition to this, Dragon was launched with a fledgling development team on a tight budget, and if we're being honest, we suffered from a streak of hubris on the outset.
You have undoubtedly heard this before by now - an Early Access team coming out to say, "Well, we tried our best, but our project was hard and we're sorry." In addition - we have let our forums grow cold and have updated inconsistently. At times it has been difficult to address you guys. Mea Culpa.
I know there are those of you who are accusing Dragon of taking your money and running. I understand your discontent - but I can emphatically say this is not the case. One thing that is certain - there are no plans to permanently cease development of Dragon. There is a fun game in here somewhere that we love dearly, and we have learned a lot about how to best suss it out.
Right now, there is still some uncertainty and slow going ahead of us - and at the moment, that cannot be helped. It's just the reality of this business. We are very short on guarantees for you, but one that I will make is this - we will never leave you in the dark again. For those of you rolling your eyes - that's fair. Wait and see, and I will do what I can.
Ultimately, I am writing you to say: I acknowledge that we have lost your trust. Allow us to earn it back, if we can.
In the short term:
1. Right now we are protecting the remaining funds we have set aside for this project, because we were not getting value out of spending them - and we won't be spending them until we know we will get a substantial return. There is still a skeleton crew at the helm who is working for free - this will continue for some time.
2. We are transitioning leadership of the project away from RLG, which is assuming the role of publisher, to Red Wyrm Studios, the team that formally owns the game. It will be mostly transparent to you, but it is a step we are taking to right the ship.
3. We are acting upon a renewed commitment to be responsive to the community on this page, on the forums, and on social media (in that order of priority.)
4. Potentially in the next patch or two, we are looking to roll back the game to a smoother, more stable, and hopefully more fun design. There may be a few interesting changes to discuss soon, but that is fodder for another post.
-Laersk, DtG Community Manager
ETA: I'll be cleaning up the forums as well...excuse the mess.
