So, what's this strangely titled Focus Update about? Well, the inhabitants of FRONTIERS have always seemed a bit... static. Not really alive unless you're talking to them. This update is all about making you feel like you're not alone as you explore.
NPCs & Routines
First up is a total revision of how characters move through the world. This has been changing in fits and starts for a while now, but this update is the final word: I've abandoned reciprocal velocity obstacles and am now using rigibodies exclusively. Which means that characters interact with the world in the same way as every other physics object, which means I can finally have them move about without clipping through walls, yay! This not only saves me a lot of headaches, it gives the game a ~5fps boost since I can toss the RVO engine overhead.
Next, I finally settled on a pathfinding method. Oh, the things I've tried. Projection grids, navemeshes, you name it I've tried it. In the end I settled on hand-placed, hand-linked navigation nodes, and I'm placing them only in cities where the obstacles are thick. Outside of cities characters move on paths just like before. (And if they stray from the path for some reason - well, they'll just act like creatures in a low budget game and walk straight into rocks and stuff. Whatever.)
So the next time you enter a city, rather than seeing everyone standing around, you'll see them moving to and fro as they walk from one node to the next. In the future nodes will have flags assigned to them - currently they're all set to 'everbody / all the time' - so that people will execute a proper daily routine.
NPCs moving around inside of structures is possible too, and I've added nodes to a few of the larger buildings - it's just as effective as seeing people walk around in cities. But I still have to manually place movement nodes inside the structures, which takes forever, so I'm setting that step aside until a later update.
Movement / Animations / Little Things
I've swapped out some of the floaty walking and standing animations for something a little more natural. We may not be able to upgrade the resolution of the characters, but at least they can move a little more realistically! They're also not rooted in place any more, so you can bump them out of the way if you don't like where they're standing, and they'll respond with deference or insults depending on your reputation.
Little indicators are now displayed when a characters is speaking, or when they've heard something. This will hopefully make some of the listening mechanics a bit clearer - a fair bit of work has gone into the ability for (say) a bandit to call other bandits within audible range, but that was never clear because there are no audible voices in the game! Now you can see the leader emit a dialog icon and the rest emit an attention icon and better realize what just happened. (In the near future I will be adding toggleable icons to creatures as well so you can grasp the stealth aspects more easily.)
Night Life - Seeking Reward
This has been a LONG time in development. I know a lot of you have been puzzled by what to do at night - just walk around and get infected by darkrot, or what? And I've given some coy answers in the past because I was never sure it would all come together. But at long last, there's something to seek - and there's a reward waiting if you can find it before sun-up. (Unless something else finds it first...)
Hmm...
These elements are badly in need of balancing, but finally finishing them is a huge relief - it's one of those complicated features I've thought about cutting a hundred times, but never could because it's so important to the story in Act III. (Added bonus: that tavern in the Observatory district doesn't seem so out of place any more.)
Horses! Plus Some Bad News
That's right, horses have finally made an appearance. You'll see them here and there. Unfortunately, the horseback riding skill - a long-planned feature you can find being discussed even before the Kickstarter - has been cut. (I think I broke this news a bit ago, but I wanted to make sure nobody mistakenly thought I'd re-introduced it upon seeing a horse in the game.) Sorry everyone, it's not tied to the main plot and it wasn't a stretch goal, so I couldn't justify keeping it in there. Maybe someone will mod it in.
Bugs!
With an update this big I have undoubtedly introduced many new and amazing game breaking bugs. (Someone has already reported that they've had trouble opening doors after the latest patch.) Just keep reporting them and I'll add them to the ever-growing backlog that threatens to swamp the entire proje - I mean, I'll take care of them immediately, of course!
Alright that's all for now. Until next time,
- L
By the way, our lead writer Ryan Span, who wrote FRONTIERS's storyline and dialogue, has just had his latest book published! It's called The Impostor Prince and it's awesome, with an endorsement by NY Times bestselling author Matthew Caine! Give it a look!
Breaking the Cycle - Introducing Alpha Wave
Hi everyone! I just posted a Kickstarter announcement, and since it's related to FRONTIERS' development I figured I'd post it for you as well. I've had to cut some sections for space so if you want to read the complete update CLICK HERE.
Time for a big announcement. Before you get excited: No, the game isn't finished. That's actually what I want to talk about.
You all know that the original pre-Kickstarter release date was January 2014 (LOL). Once we hit all the stretch goals this was immediately pushed to Q2 2014, but it became clear that was a farce and I decided that Early Access plus a 'when it's done' approach was the best way to move forward. I've been plugging away ever since & stretch goals have been getting implemented one by one. But here's the thing: development is still taking TOO DAMN LONG.
Why? Because I'm still the ONLY PROGRAMMER WORKING ON IT. I'm stuck in a cycle of slow development, which I've conveniently illustrated for you:
The main problem is the sheer size of the project. There was a time early on when any helpful programmer with a dash of Unity experience could say, 'Why don't I hop onto the project and fix some bits & bobs until it's tickety-boo? Tally ho!' There was at least a chance of that person accomplishing something in a few days or weeks (despite being inexplicably British) but those days are long gone. Nowadays help requires nothing less than a full-time commitment for at least two months, not to mention advanced Unity know-how. That all adds up to $$$, which means - well, you saw the graphic.
After months of being stuck in this loop I started thinking: This is nutbar. I need to do something different and break the cycle. But what? I have moral problems with the two most obvious solutions - there's no way I'm running another Kickstarter because that would just be gross, and I can't justify aggressively advertising FRONTIERS yet because it's simply not finished.
I briefly looked into taking on a few VFX jobs for some quick cash, but one glance at that shell-blasted no man's land of an industry had me backing away slowly - believe it or not, the hours and the pay has gotten even worse since I left.
ALL WAS LOST. But as I was polishing my seppuku blade I had an idea. A good idea.
Who says I have to do this myself? Right now I'm sitting on a mountain of game assets, half of which are unused / not used to their fullest potential. My rolodex is stuffed to bursting with programmers, artists & writers. Why not assemble a team and let them develop some tiny ultra-low-budget, super-inventive games while I continue to focus on FRONTIERS? Tiny games which require little to no time from ME, but which also won't require endless months of time from THEM? Games which (if even modestly successful) could help FRONTIERS break free of this cycle of slow development?
I've illustrated this brilliant concept with perfect objectivity:
Wow! I mean really, is there even a choice here? QUICKLY all the way, please!
The next questions are obvious: Who's going to make these games? (Cause I'm a little busy, remember) Who's going to want these games? And what will these games be like?
Who wants tiny little games, anyway?
Mobile users, that's who! And guess what? There is NO WAY IN HELL I'm getting into mobile games, because that market is tougher than boot leather. I have mad respect for anyone with the courage to try, but I just don't have the stomach to watch six months of work sink to the bottom of a 1000 page queue and yield pennies on the dollar.
Thankfully there's an alternative - an emerging medium that's hungry for tiny little games, one which I'm deeply excited about.
Virtual Reality is turning out to be a weird new medium. It's not what most people expect it to be, which is 2D video games plus immersion - my implementation of Oculus support in FRONTIERS was a lesson on that score. No, it's something entirely new. Trying the tech demos for the VIVE prototype is what really convinced me of this. There's a massive design space out there waiting to be explored, and each new idea will have to be implemented simply & on a small scale. Perfect for our purposes - and the best part is there's absolutely no risk of these games failing! Just kidding it's risky as hell. But it can't possibly be worse than mobile, and even failures have a decent chance of breaking new ground.
The upsides of diving into a new medium are self-evident. The downsides are numerous, and the biggest downside of all - namely that the number of people playing VR games is currently tiny and will stay that way for a while - is obviously at odds with the goal to support FRONTIERS. So for a while it would be wise to choose ideas that are playable without VR until those numbers can support exclusivity. Other downsides include the strict requirements for simple controls and near-perfect performance / optimization, but this has a silver lining: simple controls means simple gameplay, and that plus good performance makes VR games contenders for post-conversion to mobile devices. (So I guess in the long run I may end up dipping my toe into mobile games after all...)
Who's going to make them?
There's obviously no way I could be project lead on another game regardless of how tiny it is - the point of this whole endeavor is to support FRONTIERS, not bleed it dry by stretching my time even thinner. So I need a project runner who can supervise the day-to-day of development and help me to limit my own contribution to the bare essentials.
Enter Ryan Span. You all remember Ryan. Of all the people who've worked on FRONTIERS, Ryan has devoted the most time to it apart from myself - not only did he write the whole story and all the game's dialog, he's also been patching up dialog in response to playtesting for over a year now, and that's on top of writing his latest novel. In short, Ryan is a busy bee, so it's no surprise that he jumped at the chance to develop these games - and with his focus on storytelling he's the perfect antidote to the tendency for VR games to be little more than glorified tech demos.
Introducing Alpha Wave's first three games
Alpha Wave is AAD Productions' new VR department, and they will be be producing three games to start with. If those go well, they'll continue to make more - if they don't, we'll write the whole thing off as a fun failed experiment and find some other way to support FRONTIERS.
How far along is this first set of games?
Euclidean is getting close to finished (85+%), Ariadnes' Maze is in early development and The Everton Experiment is in the prototype phase. (No release dates yet.)
On Euclidean the team consists of Ryan (writer / design lead), Nathan Jensen (programmer) and Curtis Rochelle (artist / level designer). For my part I'm contributing some tools, some know-how and a lifetime of HP Lovecraft enthusiasm. Want to see some screenshots? Yeah you do:
(Note: I had to cut the update down for space - CLICK HERE for the rest.)
And now back to FRONTIERS:
Lots is going on - expect another KS update sometime this month - I'm working on a new Focus Update called You Are Not Alone, and it's going to be a fun one. Here's a teaser screenshot:
Until then,
- L
Performance, Soundtrack, Linux, Upcoming Stuff
Hey everyone - here's a somewhat dry (but informative!) update to tide you over while I work on the next Focus Update. Recent goings-on of note:
Performance
There's still a lot of optimization to do, but the past few weeks have seen solid FPS gains on most systems. People are also reporting even fewer of the dreaded out of memory errors that cause crashes during transitions. Which is great! I'm 100% for faster frame rates and fewer crashes. (Controversial opinion, I know.)
Now that we've finally seen some actual improvement I'm setting optimization aside for a bit to work on long-neglected gameplay issues - quest killing bugs, dialog issues, etc. So if you've been patiently waiting for me to get around to those for weeks & weeks A) you're a saint and B) your time is coming soon.
Soundrack Release
Steve Barnes has released the excellent FRONTIERS soundtrack, which you can check out here. He has also written a bit about his experience composing the soundtrack in my latest Kickstarter update - you can check out what he has to say here. Did you know that Steve got in touch with the composer of the original Daggerfall soundtrack? Steve's just full of surprises.
Official Linux Support
I'll be quietly launching an official Linux version this weekend. There are still kinks to work out with the @#$&! mouse among other things, and I'll make that clear in the storefront text, but I think it's long past time to open the gates and invite more people to try it on a wider range of Linux systems.
You Are Not Alone
I've gathered a lot of good feedback on both Hunting & Trapping and Bartering, so I'm prepping a new Focus Update called You Are Not Alone. When that launches I'll post another update letting you know what it's all about - it's going to be a fun one. (Note: if you still have feedback on earlier focus updates don't hesitate to post it. I'm still only halfway through implementing Barter changes so it'll be a while before I close the door on that system.)
This Update Has Concluded
That's all for now - if you have any questions or want updates on something specific, post in the comments and I'll try to respond. (Bonus points for not yelling if I forgot something major.) Otherwise I'll see you when the new Focus Update drops.
Cheers,
- L
Focus Update: Bartering
Hello, everyone! Time for another Focus Update. Previous Focus Update: Trapping & Fishing
Getting the DK2 support to behave is my immediate focus, but gameplay-wise I've decided to work on Bartering for the next week or two. It was a close call between that & Plants, which will lkely be next.
As always I'll continue to fix major bugs & improve overall performance, but otherwise my time will be spent whipping Bartering into shape. What does that cover? The Barter skill itself, the prices of items, how skill / reputation affects prices, the bartering interface, the currency interface - all that good stuff. Should keep me pretty busy. So if you find yourself wondering what I'm working on at the moment, well, now you know! (Hint: it's Bartering.)
Got suggestions / requests / questions about Bartering? Post 'em here.
PS: Bartering doesn't sound like a real word anymore.
Yes you heard right. Now I know what you're thinking. How do I know what you're thinking? Because you've told me, in chats & emails & in person, and you weren't shy about it. Heck even my in-laws have said the same thing:
Why would you implement VR support when there's SO MUCH ELSE that needs attention, and when there are so few people who'll get to actually use it? Do you even prioritize, bro?
Good question, bro. If I didn't know better I too would think I'd lost my marbles. But it's a pretty simple situation. First off, Oculus support was part of the Controller Support stretch goal in the Kickstarter, so it was going to happen eventually. Other features may come and go, but stretch goal features are written in stone.
As for why now and not later - implementing the VR interface goes hand-in-hand with completing controller support, and I knew that if I put off the VR part I'd have to crack open the controller system later, probably long after I'd forgotten how it worked. So I said screw it, I'll just do it all right now and never look back. Now that it's over I can say with confidence that I made the right call. The VR interface would have taken 10x the effort to implement had I procrastinated.
Lastly, a side bonus is that VR support gets noticed, even by people who can't necessarily make use of it. So we'll probably see a little publicity bump. Not the main reason I did it, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't on my mind.
Anyway, hopefully that answer soothes your irritation at having to wait over a month for a new version after getting used to the daily builds. (Yes, we're going back to daily builds now.)
So tell us, is the game any good in VR?
Absolutely! ...and eeeeh, maybe not.
Absolutely because there are moments where it all comes together - usually deep in some forest at twilight with butterflies dancing around my head, or underground mining Luminite from a cave wall while my lantern keeps Darkrot at bay. In those moments it's delicious.
Maybe not because text. Text, text, text. Oh, the text. 90% of the work I did in the interface was about making the text easier to focus on & read. But no fancy trick can change the fact that you're dealing with an RPG interface with a lot of tabs and buttons and so, so much text. I can't say what VR games of the future will look like, but I do know they won't have an interface like this. It's just too much damned text.
Still, the text doesn't stop it from being playable. I played through the first act using the DK1 (roughly 5 hours) without feeling any discomfort, and while I skipped reading books unless I absolutely had to, I'm proud to say that conversations are nicely readable, especially when using a substitute font. (Which I strongly recommend.)
Other news
Official OSX Support
That's right - you can now play FRONTIERS on OSX. There are still platform-specific issues to iron out but at this point they're minor enough to handle alongside the PC version. (Official Linux support isn't far behind.)
Full Controller Support
Prior to this update the store advertised partial controller support, but now that you can navigate the interface 100% without the aid of a mouse or keyboard (or virtual mouse) I'm bumping that up to full controller support.
When's the next Focus Update?
Right away! The idea was to focus on something new roughly every 2 weeks but VR complications totally derailed that plan. Now that I'm back on track I'll announce the next focus real asap, probably tomorrow.
'Real' Bug Reporting
Pretty soon we'll be moving away from forum-based bug reporting and start doing 'real' bug reporting, with priorities and archiving and other fancy things. After looking over our (many, many) options I've decided to go with Trello. It's a good compromise between power & simplicty. I'll post an announcement once the new board is set up & populated.
Alright that's all for this update! I'll be on the road tonight, but I look forward to returning to an avalanche of VR-related bug reports tomorrow afternoon. Until the new bug board is ready VR-specific reports can go here.
Cheers,
- L
Focus Update: Trapping & Fishing
Hello, everyone - time for another update! A new build is on its way, look for it soon. (Changelog)
New Approach - Focus Updates
FRONTIERS is a big game - I've cut a lot of features since the Kickstarter, but it's still really big. And until we can grow the team some more most features can only be worked on one-at-a-time, so I get a lot of messages asking 'Hey, are you working on this or that or the other thing?'
Those questions gave me an idea. I can't work in parallel so why not embrace linearity? Starting today I'll announce which feature I intend to focus on. I'll still work on major bugs & performance along the way of course, but overall that feature will get most of my attention until it's finished. And you can help me finish it faster by focusing on it along with me.
The next time you launch FRONTIERS you'll see a little popup window that tells you which feature I'm working on. You'll also be given a cheat code - eg, if I'm working on the bow & arrow, the code will give you a bow & some arrows. Some of you will play normally, some of you will use the code, but either way I'll get a whole lot more reports on that one feature than I might otherwise - and you'll know at a glance what I'm working on at the moment.
We'll see how it goes!
Oculus Support / Controller Update
I'm nearly ready to throw the switch on Oculus support - finishing up proper controller support is the next-to-last step.
In the latest build I've finally added direction-based controller interface navigation - but be warned! It's far from perfect. In fact it might not be perfect for a while, because this has turned out to be trickier than I expected. (Big surprise.) It's a simple question: 'what button should I navigate to if I hit up/down/left/right?' The answer is obvious if you eyeball it, but that obvious answer is frickin difficult to recreate with code. It's kind of a fascinating problem.
Anything grid-based is easy, of course. Here's a test of the inventory screen with colored button weights visible (green is best and red is worst):
But once you start getting into weirder layouts, things don't always behave as you expect.
My earlier methods might select a button across the screen because its axis-alignment was perfect. Later methods might select a button that was totally mis-aligned because it was so close. My current method is better, but I've yet to find one that's juuuuust right.
I'm thinking some interfaces will use special cases (like a pre-determined 'tab order'), and I'll continue to improve the generic sort method to use a smarter combo of distance and orientation. If anyone cares to poke at the code, this is where navigation is done. (WidgetSearch.CompareTo is the sort function.)
Critters are implemented. Bugs, butterflies, frogs and other simple/tiny creatures now appear randomly all around you. (If you weren't a Kickstarter backer you probably weren't expecting this, but butterflies and bugs have been a promised feature since forever.) Butterflies aren't seeking out goodies yet, but they will soon.
I love these little guys. The lightbugs are my favorite, they sound like wind chimes.
Performance - Another Black Eye
Performance remains an issue, but it's a battle I'm winning 1/10th of a millisecond at a time.
I'm also pleased to say that the folks at the Eden Star project have generously offered to help by poking around in the project & looking for ways to optimize things. (Eden Star is Unreal-based but their team is familiar with Unity as well.) Their expertise is most welcome and I hope it will help to improve everybody's framerates. I'm sending them the project soon - cross your fingers!
But there's one performance issue I can't fix: UNITY.
Even now I'm hestiant to throw their name around. It always sounds like an excuse. 'It's not me, it's the engine!' As if that matters - even if there IS a problem with the engine I'm still on the hook because I'm the one that picked it. And generally speaking I don't like to dogpile on anyone. I know how hard development is. Unity's to-do list would probably make me pass blood. Their overall competence can't be denied. Unity - within its niche - is a solid engine. Have I qualified this enough yet?
I hope so, because lately this has gotten kind of personal.
There's one bug in particular that's really killing performance. You might remember a long, sometimes close-to-hostile (on my part) conversation with a Unity dev in the comments of a previous update. Well, at the end of that conversation I felt hopeful. I'd convinced them to re-activate this previously-closed bug report, and they had convinced me to submit an additional bug report with assurances that I'd see some kind of response within two weeks (despite the original report being on the books for 6 months). I felt really good at the end of that conversation. And for what it's worth, I still believe that the dev I was speaking to was 100% sincere in their desire to help.
Well, it's been a month... and nothing. No response. Not even on the original bug report. There have been more complaints by developers, though! Let's take a peek (none of these people are me, for the record):
JAN 30, 2015 13:21
Noticed this went from 'Fixed' back to 'Active'. Any update on whether we will see a fix before 5.0. Bug is still appearing in 4.6.2.
Also, is anyone else noticing their RenderTexture Switches going up when this bug occurs?
FEB 01, 2015 19:51
It is totally killing our game performance. Should be fixed ASAP otherwise engine is being broken for any Open World production.
FEB 02, 2015 14:09
Currently using 5.0.0.b18 and still experiencing this issue. This is a total performance killer on our open world game.
FEB 13, 2015 05:43
Seems like this is still an issue... Really? 4ms for this on my terrain, this is completely unacceptable.
*SIGH* Like a battered housewife I dared to hope that maybe this time Unity had changed and maybe this time Unity was really truly sorry - and now I'm sitting here with another black eye cursing myself for being so naive. Why do you do this to me Unity? WHY DO YOU HURT ME?
Anyway.
I'm not saying I'm entitled to a fix. I've said this before - Unity doesn't owe me a fix. Maybe they have different priorities and they never intend to fix their terrain system. Fine. I may not like it but that's my problem and I'll deal. But they do owe me an answer. And the only way I've ever gotten this beast to roll over is by being a thorn in its side, so that's just what I'll be until I get one. [end rant]
On A More Positive Note
Okay, deep breath. Generally things are going great. Slow as always, but great. If the focus updates work the way I hope it won't be long before the third act is ready to start testing. That's going to be fun.
Until then,
- L
Balance Update Nummer Två
First off: Is it dead, you ask? Is the Big Bad Bug dead? I'm pretty sure it is... but I'm waiting for its corpse to stop twitching before I make it official. So until then here's balance update #2:
A lot of you have been playing this game for 2, 5, 10, or even 50+ (!) hours. The prologue can be a fun bit of orientation the 1st, 2nd, maybe even 3rd time... but for grizzled veterans it must feel like that un-skippable skyrim cart intro (aka the 'on second thought maybe I don't want to start a new game after all' sequence).
But never fear! I've revamped the New Game dialog to let you skip the bits you've memorized by heart. And you can customize your game along the way!
Startup Skills & Spawn Locations
You can now choose which skills you start the game with. Some people have asked for the chance to start with NO skills (madness!) and others have asked for twice or more the starting number. Well here's your chance to experiment.
While you're at it, change your spawn location!** Try spawning in the middle of nowhere, or (if you still want to focus on the story) spawn in the University and skip the Prologue. You can also choose which startup gear & clothing you'll get. (There are only a few categories at the moment, though if you're feeling adventurous you could create more with a text editor.)
Difficulty Setting Customization
This is where you can get really experimental. Difficulty settings work by modifying global varibles. The default value for (say) run speed might be 1.0, but you could create a Slow And Tedious difficulty setting which sets that to 0.1 for some reason. Or you can modify the Hard difficulty setting to include permadeath, or to double all damage. Only a subset of globals are available to play with right now (a complete list is in Globals.ini) but requests are welcome. I'm curious to see what people come up with.
Character Customization
This isn't as big a deal since character customization has no impact on gameplay. But it can be nice to quickly set up your appearance without going through the prologue. (And if you choose to set it up here, the prologue letter will remember your choices and not prompt you for input.)
World Settings & Mods
At the moment World Settings just lets you customize day cycle length, but in the future it will work like difficulty settings & modify global variables. And Mods is blank for now. It will eventually be a convenience tool that lets you add / remove / choose which mods to use in your new game. (You can mod stuff manually until this is ready, of course.)
I hope this stuff gives you an idea of the level of customization & tweaking that I want to enable. And while we're talking about customization:
Color Blindness Mode / Dyslexia Font
If anyone out there is color blind, I could use your your help creating a color-blind color scheme. There's a color editor in the Options menu where settings like GenericHighValue (currently green) and GenericLowValue (currently red) etc can be altered and saved. So if anyone out there wants to take a stab at this I'd be grateful for the input. Once we have a good scheme I'll make it toggle-able in the options. Also, the long-promised dyslexia font isn't far behind. (You can change the default font to a blockier font already but it's a little flakey.)
Alright, that's it for now. Keep posting your bugs to the forums, I read every report even if I can't always respond! Cheers,
- L
**This is actually a devious scheme to encourage everyone to find bugs in different parts of the world. It turns out that most of you don't travel far from the University for the first 3-5 hours, which I didn't expect!
No More New Programmer :(
I'm sorry to announce that Dustin has left the team. It wasn't anything major, he just had time constraints put on him by prior commitments and he didn't want to hold up the flow. I've been there before so I can appreciate his quick decision. Best of luck Dustin, sorry to see you go so soon!*
This turn of events really sucks but it's not the first time the project has lost someone to prior commitments mere moments after they joined. Remember our first lead writer Adi having to bail before the Kickstarter? That was pretty rough too. Of course the silver lining was that it led to Ryan joining the team, and he's responsible for some of the best parts of the game, so you never know how these things will turn out.
Latest Build and the Big Bad Bug
You probably noticed that I've been holding off on builds - that's because there was a possibility that we'd see a fix for the disappearing buildings bug in today's upload. Unfortunately that didn't end up happening, BUT there's a bunch of other stuff coming your way:
You can use your mousewheel to add coins while bartering
Creatures now defend their pack when one is attacked
Conversation GUI overhaul
Moddable ground & grass textures
More mouse, controller & graphics options
Improved performance in characters & creatures
(lots more in the changelog)
Despite this progress I think we can all agree that as long as the Big Bad Bug is vanishing buildings we'll never be able to really enjoy new features. It's always there, waiting to kill your game and ruin the fun.
So I think my next step is obvious:
I HAVE TO KILL THE BIG BAD BUG
Things are going to go quiet for a few days while I attack this bug once and for all. I'm not going to answer emails or chats, I'm not going to answer my phone, I won't even answer the door. (Suck it, FedEx!) It's just me and the BBB, tête-à-tête, mano a código, and only one of us is getting out alive. Yes this sounds a little over-dramatic. But whatever, let's roll with it - throw on some epic battle music and let's all pray to Crom for the strength to conquer this motherfucker. Gar!
I'll post another announcement once the beast is dead. Wish me luck...
*(He may end up working on other AAD Productions jobs in the future. In the meantime feel free to continue blaming him for bugs, he won't mind.)
New Programmer!
Hello, everyone. Outstanding news - we have a new programmer on the bug squad! His name is Dustin Sims and he's going to help me whip this game into shape.
So in the coming weeks if you see a bug get fixed: that's all me. If you see a bug not getting fixed, blame Dustin. Thanks Dustin!
Seriously, though - it's a relief to have him on board. His first order of business is sorting out those pesky disappearing buildings. Wish him luck!
Control Update Number Ichi
What's that? Quests are breaking? Refining doesn't work? Well you're in luck - now you can experience those and many more bugs with a wide array of game controllers! Here are the controllers that are officially supported:
Xbox 360 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and OUYA
Xbox One controller on Windows
Playstation 3 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
Playstation 4 controller on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android
Playstation Vita PSM
Apple MFi controller on iOS 7 and above
OUYA controller on OUYA, Windows and Linux
Amazon Fire Game controller and remote on Amazon Fire TV
Logitech F310 on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
Logitech F710 on Windows and Mac
Logitech Dual Action on Windows and Mac
Logitech RumblePad 2 on Mac
Moga Pro on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
Mad Catz FPS Pro on Mac
Speedlink Strike on Windows and Mac
Samsung GP20 on Android
Executioner X on Window and Mac
SteelSeries Free on Windows, Mac, Linux and OUYA
Playstation 2 controller on Windows (with adapter)
Other controllers may work but I can't guarantee it. Also know that I'm limited in what controllers I can physically test with so even the officially supported controllers may have a few quirks.
Key Rebinding
I've also finished key rebinding so all you lefties out there can finally remap things. (A big thanks to Unity for making this incredibly simple feature take many, many, many more hours than it should have. Seriously Unity it's 2015 you need to support runtime input rebinding out of the box.)
Known Issues:
In-Game Prompts These still show default bindings, and they only show keyboard and mouse controls. That will change in the next control update.
'Sticky' Controls I've noticed that movement / axis controls will sometimes 'stick' until I press a button control. I have no idea what could be causing this. Does Unity have some kind of hidden upper limit to the number of axis I can query in the same frame? (If they do you can bet it'll be totally undocumented...) I'll be investigating.
Mouse look on Linux is still problematic I'm working on a hack for this well known Unity bug. (Yes I'm calling out Unity for the third time in one update. Their input manager really stinks.)
Interface Control - Virtual Mouse Only When playing with a controller you'll have to use a virtual mouse to navigate the interface. This isn't so bad with some screens, but with others it's really tedious, and in a few cases it makes screens almost unusable. Navigation with directional pads is coming, but I'm not sure when.
As annoying as these issues are, I'm going to have to set set them aside for now and work on some long-neglected quest & gameplay bugs. Until next time,
- L
PS - Thanks for all the well wishes about being sick, I'm 90% recovered and feeling much better.
[EDIT: this was originally a set of replies in the comments:]
I've gotten confirmation that Tak! is a Unity Dev so I'll take this chance to point out some stuff that Unity does wrong. Maybe they'll take it seriously. Don't take this personally Tak!, I know you're just doing your job. (Also, disclaimer:These are mostly my feelings about how they deal with other people, not me, so don't mistake it for a vendetta.)
So.
First off, it's great that Unity has an input manager redesign coming. But this info is useless to me. I can see that it's 'Planned' but there's no info about when it will actually be released. I wouldn't be surprised it if was released this Saturday; I also wouldn't be surprised if it was released in 2019.
This a big problem with Unity - lack of communication. I never know what's going on with you guys. I mean, just look at the posts accompanying the link you sent:
"Wow this suggestion was first posted in 2009,.... its now 2014. Five years. Any reason why this hasn't been done?"
"Any Freaking reason why 'after 5 years' this is still on Planned?"
"I know people with over 15 years experience in the industry refusing to work in Unity because of lack of this basic feature."
"It's ridiculous that this is still an issue. I had to code a huge overcomplicated input wrapper to make up for this lack of basic functionality."
"I'm honestly shocked and a little disgusted that this has gone on so long without being addressed. How is this still not implemented?"
And that's not a unique case either. Yes everyone is entitled and angry on the internet, but even in that context Unity really gets people riled up.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying 'be perfect' or 'fix everything immediately.' I'm the lead dev on what has to be the buggiest game in Early Access right now - I get it, this stuff takes time. But when you've got this many unanswered questions out there and such a long track record of not answering them, this kind of post infuriates me:
railboy: Good news!
An input manager redesign is coming
Let me explain why this post makes me irrationally angry with an overly elaborate metaphor.
Imagine you're lying in a ditch with a broken leg. You've called for an ambulance 100 times using Unity Co's ambulance pickup service. Each time you try you get an automated response saying 'Your ambulance will be there shortly!' But after hours and hours you get fed up and decide to take matters into your own hands. You craft a brace and drag yourself to the nearest gas station and call your wife so she can just drive you to the goddamn hospital.
Imagine you're sitting there with your crudely braced broken leg, wrapped in an army blanket and sipping a coffee, waiting for your wife, making small talk with the station clerk. And you say to the clerk, 'Man, Unity really dropped the ball with this hospital pickup service. They've been saying they plan to improve this pickup service for years but so far nothing, I don't know why I even bother to use them.'
And out of NOWHERE a Unity Co rep pops out from behind the doughnut counter and says 'Good News! Unity is planning on upgrading our hospital pickup service! If there's anything else I can help you with just let me know!' And they promptly vanish out the back door without another word.
Can you imagine how furious that would make you feel?
Can you imagine how goddamn furious that would make you feel? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FURIOUS ANGRY MAD YOU WOULD FEEL IN THAT MOMENT.
On the whole Unity comes across disinterested, aloof & falsely cheerful when dealing with the public.
This has to be some kind of policy-driven behavior. I just find it hard to imagine so many people adopting the same ultra-formal tone by accident. Do the people we interact with feel powerless to act or help? I've heard this can make people seem uncaring in bureaucratic situations, because they don't want to feel someone else's distress unless they have the power to change it. I understand a bit of formality is needed of course, but this doesn't stop Unreal developers from exposing a bit of humanity, so what's stopping Unity? Honestly it worries me; it feels like a brightly colored bandage covering up a rotten wound.
TL;DR: Planned features do not interest me and I'm not going to chuck a bug report into the black hole that is Unity's bug tracking system. Please just tell me what's going on and treat me like a human bean and I'll be happy.
Thanks for reading and I hope you'll take this in the fed-up-but-still-ultimately-on-your-side spirit intended.
