Longvinter
network update frequency update
Friday Devlog #7
First of all, we would like to thank those of you who bought the game. You guys have enabled us to continue on working this little game of ours and make it into the game we always wanted to make. We promise to keep you updated on every little thing we do on Discord. You can DM us directly or chat with us and our community members on the various channels we have, like #-suggestions and #-bugs-and-issues.
Here are some of the fixes we made on launch day:
- fixed vendor catalog getting messed up (caused by the vendor price fluctuation)
- added placeholder water for DirectX11 players
- fixed a crafting dupe
- fixed boat travel consistently causing players to lose their camera or fall into the void
- stepping into the void should teleport the player back to Sgt. Lake automatically
- removed the old options menu and replaced it with the advanced options menu
- added a warning modal box before launching the server's community website URL from a sign object
- fixed not being able to sell items to James recycling on ultra-widescreen monitors
- fixed James' recycling dupe
- fixed crafting bug where you could not craft wood planks
- lowered actor network relevancy distances to try to alleviate the lag
- mezereon bushes grew cloudberries, not anymore
- fixed multiple spots on the map where the player could get stuck
- increased the hint text size
- fixed light posts flickering on dusk and dawn
- removed a couple of unfinished vendor locations
- fixed spots on the level where players got stuck easily
- fixed Poppy flower grow time
- fixed cooking book recipe requirements
One thing that really rubbed players the wrong way, and rightfully so, is the lag on official servers, and more specifically high population official servers. This is the biggest problem we wanted to solve with Early Access. We've started working on it already and what we've found is that we have a lot of actors, mostly "A_Item" actors that include flowers and bushes, that do not need to be replicated most of the time. So that's one thing, and I'm sure we'll find more actors like that next week!
After we fix the lag on the servers we'll move on to content updates! Here's what we have planned:
- PVE servers: Players can only kill each other only at points of interest in the north!
- More interior placeables
- More exterior placeables
- Expanded farming. More plants and every plant has a specific purpose and growing preference
- More variation in character looks
- New points of interest: Docks, North airport
- Compendium Guilds: Locked areas accessible only if you've completed the compendium list for that area
All in all, this was a successful launch and we're trying to make sure the first weekend goes smoothly!
Again, thank you for supporting the development, we'll keep you updated!
Teo & Nilsson
Sound reset hot-fix
Water shader fix and fast travel error checking
- Ending up in the void should teleport you out
- Added temporary DirectX11 water for players that have white water or no water at all. enabled from the options menu
- Mezereon bushes no longer despawn after 5 seconds
- Fixed tent overlapping with picking privileges.
- Fixed crafting duplication exploit
- Applied a fix for compendium and PVP achievements
James vendor hot-fix
- fixed crafting bug where you could not craft wood planks
- lowered actor-network relevancy distances to try to levitate the lag
- mezeron bushes grew cloudberries, not anymore
- fixed spots on the map where the player could get stuck
- increased the hint text size
- fixed vendor catalogue
Small hotfix for vendor UI's
- Recycler should now be interactable in those cases where clicking would just close the window
Friday Devlog #6 + Launch Trailer
Hey future Longvinter player, our playtesters, community members,
This is the last Devlog before the Early Access launch on February 24, 2022, and in addition to the launch trailer, I'd like to write down some thoughts and let you all know what's going on.
Myself and Nilsson are excited and happy that we've got to the point that we can finally release the game next week. I have to say there has only been a handful of occasions in my life where I've felt as nervous as I feel right now.
I know there will be bugs, some even game-breaking. There will be problems with the servers, and some features may feel empty right now, at least for some players. I know this, and I wish it wasn't going to be like that. This is my dream game after all, but releasing NOW is the only way for us to keep developing the game, for a couple of reasons.
We're a team of two. We've both worked full-time on this game, have been for a year, and will continue for as long as there are players playing (fingers crossed there will be). This means that we've been working for 0$/hour for a year. We have rent to pay, servers that need to be up 24/7, and quite frankly, I'd like to have somewhat of a normal life for a change. I don't know about Nilsson, but I can sense that he'd like that too :D
Then there is the fact that we're making a multiplayer game, a multiplayer game with possibly +50 players on a server at one time. We can't test the game features with just the two of us. We need a community of players to stress test the servers to find out where the limits are. We can't just blindly add features and hope that they work on live servers. This is why Early Access exists.
Also, I don't feel like it is a wise move to work on a game for 3 years to then find out if it works or not. It's not wise in a business sense, in a time management sense, it's not wise be it anything you build yourself and haven't done before, in any sense, and if you're an indie dev doing that, chances are that you're screwed and you could have spent that time creating something of actual value to someone other than yourself.
So this left us with a choice between two options: 1. We quit working on the game, go work for someone else until we have enough money again; or option 2. We release now.
There was a third option: working with a publisher, but that's kinda the same as option 1, only we wouldn't stop making the game. We got a decent amount of offers, but none of them ever went anywhere. Some of the people we talked with were nice and kind, and at least for me, gave a boost in motivation when I needed it, but most of them felt off in some way. Maybe it was prejudice on my part, but I never felt like a publisher could do anything for us, not for the price they were asking for at least, and some of them just ruined any chance of future collaboration with their lack of proper communication.
One could argue that maybe we bit off a little more than we could chew, and to that, I'd say: if you don't like the way we chew, leave the room and return once we are done eating.
If you fear that you might not get your money's worth, please, do not buy the game yet. Read the recent reviews once in a while and ask for an opinion from someone you trust, someone that has played the game.
If you see potential, and you want to participate in the development of the game, to direct us in the right direction, to tell us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong, and you have the means to support us, then we would be forever grateful that you allowed us to make the game we always wanted to make, and we will do everything in our power to make you a game that will provide you with hours of joyful experiences.
I hope to see you in-game next week,
-Teo
Friday Devlog #5
This week Longvinter was officially reviewed by Valve and approved for release, so if everything goes as planned, we are 100% releasing on the 24th!
For those that gave us feedback on how much they enjoyed the in-game music, we got a treat for you: we'll be releasing the first official soundtrack to Longvinter alongside the base game on the 24th with a -20% launch discount! It has a track called 'Aerosol' that is not in the game but it has a similar, more uptempo feel, and a remix of the main menu track called 'Temporary Home (remix)'!
-Teo
Allotment Garden Placeables
Teo
This is still WIP, there are a few placeables missing, like village lights and trimmed bushes and such, but here's an early look at what you could create with the placeables I managed to add this week:
Day
Night
Allotment garden placeables so far:
- Garden tiles (1 & 2)
- Makeshift bench
- Garden Firepit
- Garden Fences (6 different colors)
- Slab Planter Box 1x3
In the future, flowers will be used in coloring, but also is dishes and beverages
James' Recycling Model
Teo
The old general store is no more, James' took over and there will soon be reverse vending machines all around the island!
Server Admin Tools
Teo
I started work on the Admin Panel, which will allow server admins and moderators to ban and kick players from their servers. Quite an important feature I'd say. I hope to get the UI done next week and in the future, I'd also like to add more tools than just kick and ban, like teleport-to, reset MK, and remote admin call via chat command.
More Ways To Interact
Nilsson
Certain actions were still only available with clicking the object. I reworked the SPACE action bar to act just like the regular left mouse click does. Now if could interact with something with a mouse, now you can also do it with the SPACE BAR.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you stack containers you still need to click on which specific container you want to access. Now only the bottom one is opened.
New Gate With Progression Requirements
Nilsson
I made a new gate that we can use to limit player access to certain parts of the map. Gate can have certain compendium requirements or it might require a certain item in your inventory to open.
Here is a preview of the UI. Still needs a model.
Reworked AI Spawner
Nilsson
Previously birds would exist on the map and all the information about them would be sent to everyone regardless of their location. This worked well for small maps but as we want to increase the number of AI entities on the map we needed to have more control over where they would spawn. I now added a new AI spawner that takes care of spawning the AI to a player that walks nearby and despawns them when there is nobody around anymore.
Improvements To Placing
Nilsson
I added much-needed feedback to the item placing system. Previously it either allowed you or did not allow you to place an item. Now it shows a specific reason why the item cannot be placed here. Also, new colors for different picking up conditions are now more clear with new colors that show when placing the item. Take a look below.
Improvements To Shooting
Nilsson
Players with the bad network were unable to shoot their weapon at the fire rate that the gun is given. This had the benefit for every shot was exactly the same on every client but made players with bad connections unable to shoot very accurately. I made changes to the shooting where a client machine cannot see the server-side bullet but only the impact that it makes. This allows players to have more fluent feelings while using guns.
Other changes
- Fishing now requires 3 action button (E) presses. Previously required 4
- Hats cannot be equipped without the required compendium unlock
- Added a cliff ramp which allows players to access cliffs
- Added building blocked zones to POIs
- Added input quickstart to the loading screen and to the 'How to Play?' window
Friday Devlog #4
Out of the feedback, we compiled a list of features that we would like to try to include before we launch on Early Access:
- All left-click actions can be done with spacebar
- Access to cliff platforms
- Early- to Mid-game balance, gameplay progression
- Bird spawn rework for more performance and future NPC's
- More intuitive and informative placeable placing UX/UI
- Shooting logic rework that makes weapon shooting much more responsive feeling for users with a bad connection
- Shareable code lock gates
- A simple hint UI to guide new players
- Linux servers
- New types of equipment: Ammo pouch. Heat packs and weapons crafting
- More consumables such as energy drinks and more cooking options
- More upgrade paths after you have upgraded your tent into a cabin
- New Container models
- PVP Arena
- Allotment Garden Placeable Set
Most of the feedback was well written and constructive, which is really valuable, so thank you a lot for that!
- Nilsson
Loot Spawn rework
Nilsson
The loot system needed a rework for a long time and I wanted to do this before we start the next playtest!
Previously the loot table required manually adding all the available items to different chests. But after the item count has risen to nearly 90 unique items. I wanted to automate the loot table to update based on the item data list we have in-game. Each item has a rarity and category tag that now affects directly what loot spawns where.
Loot spawns now spawn divided into 4 categories
- Common Loot (yellow chest)
- Rare Loot (aqua chest)
- Epic Loot (red chest)
- Weapon Loot (green chest)
Flowers
Teo
I spent a good amount of time to make sure I have a solid foundation for flowers which would allow me to quickly add all kinds of flowers in different shapes and colors in the future.
In this field, you can spot the first 3 flowers added to Logvinter Island:
- Yellow: Kingcup
- White: Windflower
- Blue: Hepatica
In the future, flowers will be used in coloring, but also is dishes and beverages
Advanced Options
Teo
Added a long overdue 'Advanced Options' menu for players who want to fiddle with their settings. It's still barebones, but we'll add more options where they are needed as we go forward!
Other changes
- Cannot pick up around another players house.
- You can now pick up player placed items by right-clicking the item
- More music
- New settings menu with advanced settings.
Bug fixes
Special thanks to these users for reporting bugs in discord:
Búho Galactico
Jasmin
EPIC_bendy
88sebkem
- Fixed a replication issue. Wood that was required to update a tent to house was not shown correctly after server restart.
- Players can no longer enter tents that they down own.
- Removed other blocking items from the map.
- Fixed item and money duplication bugs.
- Tried to apply a fix to not being able to pick up bird items. Not 100% this worked.
- Fixed cooking multiple fishes with random items inside the fireplace made other items disappear when collecting crafting results.
- Changed the Seeds: Wheat to only require 3 Wheat. And Flour to require 4.
- Let the player know that the receipt is for cooking / Crafting if a player is using the wrong item bench
- Removed a tree above the water.
- Fixed a bug where you could only drop ammo if you had a full 100 hundred left.
- Fixed a bug where you could not access the third container, you can now safely put 3 containers on top of each other for extra storage!
- Disabled Hat selling to James General Store.
- Vendors that bought everything also had the option to show what other people had sold to the vendor, this was not clearly indicated so added a second button next to the buy button.
- Added one empty " " space to vendor buy text.
- Bullets hurting the shooter with high ping should now ignore the shooter and continue.
- Bugged items should no longer appear in player inventory.
- Bugged items should no longer appear in loot containers.
- Hangar roof in the shout east should now disappear when entering inside.
- Fixed a bug where an item could not be cooked if the cooking time was 0
- Fixed a bug related to item receipt length and item data struct.
- The fireplace can now be used for cooking
- Low shadow settings no longer turn the water white
Pre-Early Access Giveaway & Playtest!
Playtest date: February 4th to 6th.
We're giving away 20 Steam Keys on our Discord Server!
Want to have a chance in participating in the playtest next weekend? Enter to a giveaway where we are giving away 20 keys for new players who don't own the game yet. Keys also give access to the full version when it's released on February 24
How to Participate
Join our Discord Server, where the keys are randomly distributed between community members. This server is later used in playtest as well so don't be afraid to hang around and come say hello to me and Teo.
To enter the giveaway use the command !raffle join "longvinter_giveaway" on the server's bot commands channel
Join Longvinter Discord to enter the giveaway
Best regards,
Nilsson (Sven)