Dragon: The Game
Playability Improvements [Beta Server]
+Health and Stamina counters for your dragon and NPCs.
+Streaming terrain; fly towards any edge of the map and the game world will load in, as you move the dragon across the landscape.
+Growth points are counting correctly after you eat them.
+Camera Orbit, hold the middle mouse button to rotate the camera.
+Compatability issues with Linux, Mac.
+Flight Mechanics and animations, you can now dive (hold shift) to pull back your dragon's wings for maximum acceleration.
-Changes to tree paging (fewer trees for now, they'll be back soon)
We're working over the weekend to dial in these features. Please let us know how the latest version runs for you.
See you on Monday, with another update!
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To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.*
Dynamic Combat Update 2 [Beta Server]
Villagers are back in and your dragon's roar (R key) now produces a sonic boom effect, knocking creatures into the air and damaging buildings and trees. For now, we've removed the cooldown and stamina costs, so go crazy with it! In the game world this will be an upgradeable, potentially earth shattering, ability.
Hunting cyclopes is now much easier with a well timed roar.
Speaking of hunting, we're moving to the new FEEDING system. Creatures you kill must be eaten, they no longer just drop their food. Use the mouse to bring you dragon's head into contact with your food source and right click. This is still buggy so you may need to try multiple times.GUI prompts coming soon. Bigger prey will require more time and many more bites to fully consume, but that's a good problem to have. Other forms of food (prepared meals from tribute, fruit and branches of trees, schools of fish, etc) will be consumed in the same way.
We've polished the test world's terrain for your enjoyment too, as we continue to work on the lands of the game world.
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To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.*
Dynamic Combat Update 1
New combat code is live! Use your fire breath and mobility to find and kill the 5 cyclops. This is the first of several updates, as we roll out the new combat system.
We've also squashed a bug that stopped trees from burning down, the dragon's animations have also been adjusted.
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To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.*
Beta Server Update: New music, movement animations, physics.
We are testing new movement code on the beta server. Major improvements to ground and flying controls, animations, and physics.
You can now perform aerial maneuvers like the roll and loop. Use the F1 help menu for more information. Please post screen shots of your awesome aerial tricks (and fails)!
You can also crawl and climb on slopes, sufficiently large trees, and some buildings (still buggy).
Head tracking is also being tested. Your dragon will look around in response to your mouse cursor. This is also an excellent way to aim your breath weapon and bite (coming soon). All this, plus new music!
Have fun!
To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.*
Beta Server Update: Destructible Buildings, GUI, New Music (next week)
Destructible, smashable buildings are back in the game, we've also enabled the options menu. Now that the code is live we'll be reintroducing cities and NPCs.
We also have three new incredible tracks from the very talented SJ Tuckerready for next week's update. Stay tuned and have a great weekend!
To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.*
Update to Public Beta Server, Full Update Still In Progress
We're doing our best and work on Dragon is going strong but we're extremely understaffed at the moment. We've had luck with some recent applicants and are looking forward to adding development talent to the team as soon as possible.
New:
Performance improvements
Vast improvements on performance, most of which can't be seen very well because so many things were disabled and removed. But know that as we add the items back we are using a much better system that should drastically reduce the amount of lag and render calls.
New Dragon, New Animation System
The new dragon is a placeholder for the one we will be using for the editable dragon which will be working in to the system soon. The important feature is its "bones" which we are using for the animations and controls.
We have new animations and are now using Mecanim to blend them. We do not have it all refined and snazy looking yet but now that we have them set up with the new dragon, bone, and movement systems we can refine how the dragon looks when it moves.
New Flight Mechanics
We’ve heard a lot of requests for new flight mechanics and controls. Please have a look and let us know how you like the changes. We are still refining it so it will continue to improve.
New Grounding System
You will notice the dragons feet now follow the ground, no matter what it walks over. This will eventually allow dragons to run, walk, climb, jump, and slither in the most realistic of ways.
New Tree System
The new tree system allows us to have a dense, burnable, forest and was difficult to make because of the speed with which the dragon flies. Pulling new terrain and trees in so fast was hard to make work. We think we have a good system for it now but it does cause brief "lag" in the game. Eventually there will be loading screens for these periods of time. Just know the game will seem to hang for a moment and then will resume.
Old:
A lot of the old stuff (NPCs, Buildings, etc) are being updated for the new system, each has to be looked at, dismantled and then added back in so it works better and faster. We will be working them back in as fast as we can.
Bugged:
The camera and dragon can be jittery on occasion.
Sometimes mouse sensitivity is too high or low for some computers which causes the dragon to move way too erratically.
When loading the trees up close they are a slightly different shade.
The game hangs for up to 30 seconds when loading a new chunk of landscape with trees.
Fire breath can bug out and shoot in strange directions or at varying rates.
Next:
Better tail dynamics (no more jitter)
Better Controls as we continue to refine them
An option to turn on and off mouse sensitivity as well as some other options for quality and improving framerate
New Camera System - return of zoom and rotate so you can view your dragon
Better Animations
Fix Color change when swapping trees
Buildings will return and be breakable as well as burnable
Loading screens to make it obvious when the game is loading and is not frozen.
New terrain that looks much better
Shadows: The dragon casts a pretty wicked shadow, but for performance reasons it is disabled until we implement the option to turn it on and off.
Soonish:
NPCs will be back and using a new movement and animation system as well. They should be a lot more fun to fight.
New Melee - the dragon will reach toward the target when fighting.
Moddability - This has been thought of with back end features as we remake the system. A lot of it is set up already. Some items, like trees are very easy and we may have them moddable as soon as next patch. Other things like NPCs are proving difficult to make as modifiable, but at the very least we will have textures that can be edited and applied to all models very soon.
Breath weapon and roar physics.
More Trees and NPCs Coming Soon
This update continues work on the LOD and object management systems.
We can now place thick forests and detailed cities far away from the player and smoothly load and transition their objects and inhabitants as the player moves about. This is a key step toward realizing Dragon's fully open world design.
We are also testing mechanics for managing your dragon's anatomy and improving its abilities. More details soon.
Last month's release included new object pooling code and a new LOD system. The game is running better than ever, with even higher tree, rock, and bush density, more NPCs, and an extended camera draw distance.
By the end of March, we will merge the default and beta versions into a single, master build worthy of being in any dragon's lair,
Dragon 0.78A Beta Update #3
New:
Added towns, buildings, and NPCs back to the map. Currently, they are spawning randomly and from a small selection. This is temporary for testing and so you have something to play with as we test the code.
Removed more things causing frame rate issues.
Known Issues:
When moving around objects will seem to flicker for a moment. This is the lod system switching to different models and code which is what allows us to have so many objects in the world. We are working to improve the system and the flicker will go away as we refine the settings.
NPCS are sometimes spawning under the ground, inside buildings, not activating, and generally being annoying. The obvious solution is to eat them.
When flying quickly and a nearby town comes into range there is a brief lag spike while the buildings spawn the NPC's.
Some GUI elements have been temporarily disabled.
Upcoming:
The focus next week is to bring back all the Buildings, Trees and NPCs we had before under the new code, as well as improve the LOD system and NPC spawning.
Dragon 0.78A Beta Update #2
We know progress is slow but our little team has no choice but to do our best and take development one day at a time. Fortunately, because of the tremendous support from all of you we’ll be able to expand the team and hire additional, much needed, development talent in March. We will begin the process of reviewing resumes and reaching out to applicants later this month.
Until the newest code is running well the current "December 4th" version will remain the "default" build as it has the most content and polish, although this is quickly changing. In the meantime the team is working on our terrain streaming code and the dragon creation and customization systems. We will post the updated development road map when we are more confident of the timeline.
Recently, we've been posting announcements in combination with our updates every 2 – 4 weeks. However, a lot of players have said that you’d like to hear from us more often, even if an update isn't ready. The team is happy to oblige, we will post announcements weekly to keep you informed of the latest development success or obstacle.
To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.
Dragon 0.78A Beta Update
Until the newest code is running well we're going to keep the current "December 4th" version live as it has the most content and polish. The team will continue testing upcoming features and content for you in the beta server.
To opt into the beta right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then select "public_ea1" under the "Betas" tab. *Warning: Switching to the beta server may delete your saved dragons.