Genre: Fighting, Simulator, Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Renown
Renown - June Developer Update
Greetings and salutations, Mr. Z here with a small update on our progress currently.
We've been super busy behind the scenes preparing the game for launch, so we apologize if things have seemed quiet lately.
The biggest thing to report is that the engine upgrade has been completed and we're now on UE5.5. This version of unreal came with a lot of optimization improvements and stability fixes that we've been needing, as well as some new features we're making use of.
Generally speaking the engine just runs a little faster, but we'll be making use of some new features that will make the character rendering a bit more performant.
Unfortunately combat had to be put on hold to do this upgrade, which is why we haven't been seeing much progress on that front recently. It took a little longer to upgrade the engine than expected but we're back on track now.
In the last demo, we had a lot of complains about performance, and the combat gameplay. These two things are actually intrinsically tied, if the performance is bad, the combat noticeably suffers.
Going forwards to launch these 2 things are the top priority. I'm going to start putting out regular patches with combat tweaks, new animations and possibly new/overhauled combat mechanics.
If you would like to help test the combat mechanics before launch now is the time to jump in and start giving feedback. As soon as we've reached a good level of combat improvements we'll be getting ready for more large scale playtests.
We give our thanks to our backers, both new and old who have helped us get this far. Early access is only just the end of the beginning for us at RDBK, we still have a big journey ahead of us.
Alpha 1.7.5
Alpha 1.7.5
Added Brick textures on Brick external models Added new Window that tells clients why they lost connection Fixed upgrading buildings skipping tiers Fixed Torch particle performance Fixes for optimized buildings not being transmitted
The Base Building Optimization Update
Hi everyone, Mr. Z here.
I've just pushed out a fairly large patch that contains major optimizations to the biggest problems we encountered during the previous demo. The building system has had a major rewrite to enable large player bases to no longer cause so much lag on the server and the client. What this means in layman's terms is that we're quickly approaching the kind of performance targets needed for Early Access release. Tomorrow the servers will be wiping so I highly encourage people to come play this new patch so we can gather good performance data for it and find those final issues causing lag.
Going forwards we'll be working on fixing the most serious exploits, an engine upgrade, an overhaul of the combat system/animations and preparing the last few things for launch. There is even more than that happening behind the scenes so stay tuned for more updates.
Alpha 1.7.4
Alpha 1.7.4
Fixed triangle pieces not snapping properly Fixed Gate collisions Fixed winterhold doors Updated crafting cost of siege weapons
Alpha 1.7.0
Fixed Recipes causing lag on the server Fixed broken collisions on the port model Tickrate is back to 30 Disabled bench inventory Optimized building snapping Fixed issue with loading screen Fixed default settings Reworked building repair Fallen founder cloak is a mail coif skin now New Backer's Sallet Fixed clipping issues with Plaster floors Fixed Mail bevor Remodeled the Gauntlets Bucket Hat added Reworked Building Damage so Rams and Petards are less useful against walls New Optimized Buildings
Post Playtest Update
Mr. Z here with the news! As you may have noticed, our world has been rocked by some pretty big events lately. We concluded a very large playtest a few weeks ago, we've also done a send out of Steam keys so all our backers can play the game before early access, and not to forget we've been hard at work in the background fixing many of the issues found in the playtest and working on additional new content.
One of the new pieces of content in the works is new external walls! We decided to split external walls into two categories. Low Walls and High Walls. Kz has been hard at work making the additional models.
We noticed during tests that the External walls had a lot of issues because the wooden walls would turn into a giant stone wall when upgraded. Now when you place external walls you will have to choose from the beginning whether they'll be Short or Tall and as you upgrade them they'll have the same footprint like how all other building upgrades work.
During our playtest we had 40 thousand people playing in total and we peaked at 1800 co-current users, a quite large number especially considering the playtest wasn't advertised heavily. We launched many additional servers as practice for launch day and many were booted on demand. We also had a series of very high performance servers launched by our Winterust partner. We took a lot of performance metrics on those servers as people were playing and found out that with a few more optimizations we'll be able to hit our cpu budget for launch. We've haven't had so many people playing survival with the servers running so fast and the player counts being so high before, so it was every encouraging to see the performance numbers we achieved during the playtest.
Optimization has been a huge focus before and since the playtest. We've done a lot of work on optimizing the physics of the game. The cost of simulating the world had become a lot more expensive on the server when we expanded the size of the map and added more complex POIs to the map. One very major optimization I've been working on lately is a system that essentially works as an LOD for large bases, as we were getting a lot of lag on the server and client when groups of players would roam around the map and come close to very large player bases. Although the game servers were running relatively fast, there were some really bad lag spikes that made the experience very unstable. I've been carefully identifying and fixing the cause of each lag spike so we can achieve true stability, as any amount of server instability can make the combat extremely volatile.
A large part of the work we're doing lately is in preparation for another Open Stress Test. While we can't yet say when this next Open Stress Test is scheduled, we are working diligently to get it ready as soon as possible, that being said, our goal is to reach a more much stable build than before. The last test, while fairly unstable, gave us a lot of crucial data that we needed to help us fix many issues. You can expect for our next playtest some significant optimizations to be done, additional new content and the combat system to get some much needed love.
We did a large key send out to all backers recently that had a fair few hiccups. We're still working on resolving the issues with the backend and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. As a thank you, for our communities awesome patience, Kz has created a new helmet skin for all our backers. We present the "Sorry Sallet" Helm which will be given to all backers as an extra cosmetic.
If you still have not gotten your keys, please check our the support services on our discord: https://discord.gg/Tr2DxFh We've got a channel called "steam-key-faq" with tips for how to get a quick resend.
As always, we cannot thank our backers enough for helping us get this far. Renown would not have been possible without you and we hope to see everyone playing the game on early access launch.
The Open Demo Playtest and a short developer update!
Hello everyone! ⚔️
We’re thrilled to announce the long-awaited news you’ve all been patiently waiting for, along with a short developer update discussing some of the changes!
The Open Demo Playtest will be going live this Friday, March 21, 2025 4:00 PM PST 🎉
RDBK Studios - BisectHosting
We are excited to announce our partnership with BisectHosting!
BH has been an integral part of the development process for many years now, providing us with servers for everyone to play on and as such we will be working with them on Renowns launch to bring servers online across the entire world so everyone can experience Renown with great ping!
We have always been heavily in support of community run servers, allowing our players to alter the game to their liking and their communities. If you are interested in setting up a server of your own when Renown launches we have added a #Server-Hosting Channel with links to their website.
We also had a great interview with their team which you can check out here Huge thanks to BH for everything they have done for us and continue to do!
We have also had a great roadmap graphic whipped up that outlines some of the planned features and content updates as Renown hits early access (Stage 0) . We hope to have some of stage 0’s tasks ticked off before EA release.
Alpha 1.5.5
Material fixes Fixed an issue where the inventory wouldn't close Added gameplay settings debug back into the menu Sallet material fix Fixed placement of small external walls Buffed tool damage Increased cost of bricks Crafting sorts by highest tier first Fixed being able to demolish merchants and loot Reduced backwards movement slightly Fixed animal collisions Algara map improvements Added more NPC camps Bow and fist animation fixes Crafting menu uses R to open now Added crafting skin preset support to crafting menu Chat bubble never shows for yourself now Added buy and sell sounds for vendors Disabled support pieces Fixed ladder detectection Research menu fixes Fixed map markers not working Added Map cameras to all the maps Removed Polearms from loot tables You can toggle chat messages off from players now Added the ability to send direct messages /dm ID or name Added the ability for admins to remotely dm players Admins can global mute players now Changed player markers for party members to a blue marker Sleepers in the Winterhold castle should be killed correctly now Added map icons Added more props to some of the POIs Tutorial bug fixes Fixed up Encyclopedia Upgrading buildings now checks if a player will be overlapping (no more getting stuck in external walls) One hander animation fixes Fixed issues with maintenance costs Fixed issue with Fist combos
Alpha 1.5.2
Alpha 1.5.2
Added new crossbow reload anim Fixed gambeson weighing Server session fixes New Greataxe out of combat animations AI can update teams Updated lighting on all maps Fixed issues with Party markers Tutorial only shows up in survival mode now Fixed issues with dropped item replication Fixed external wall placement Added Party leader support Improved Party UI Fist running animation fix Added new longsword bash anim Updated Main Menu Fixed skin colors being bugged Added Global smelting multiplier Added Gathering multipliers for Raid mode Fixed Chase mechanic Fixed banner not being detected in raid mode unless it was loaded from a save Raid mode players always spawn with clothes now Fixed doors not autoclosing in Raid mode during sieges Scoreboard has a team color indicator Updated animal roaming behavior Added a Gathering phase barrier to RRaid-Small_p Added better attenuation to all animals Max ping shows in server details now Fixed issues with Inventory changes not registering for UI events Increased crafting cost of arrows Fixed Camera perspective not working Fixed Bench inventory size Removed armor template menu Bandit Raid Loadout tweaked Fixed issues with locks in Raid mode Fixed up Last Team Standing not working Reduced movement acceleration Added Item Blacklists for Starting Loadouts in Arcade gamemodes Added a setting for auto placing locks if they are in your inventory New Crafting Menu Lowered Banner Render range Fixed Building menu not updating resource count Fixed Hauberk Weighing Polished up Emote animations Fixed Melee system not working for NPCs Polished up Peaceful mode animation Added Loot Balloons Bear overhaul Parties now work in all gamemodes Ally markers disappear on death now Muted players can't invite you to a party now Fixed Scoreboard menu archor not working New Scoreboard UI There is an notification when you drop an item on the ground now Added Building limit to Banners Petards can now misfire Petards can no longer be stacked in the same spot quickly Projectiles affect buildings properly with ownership checks Added a Windows Icon to the game Better server reboot handling when EOS fails Fixed Settings UI scaling on different resolutions Updated Drop Equipped Weapon Input Updated Emote Menu Animals can be parried now Trees now respawn and are persistent when they are chopped down Added server RCON support Fixed issues with weapon swapping Fixed not being able to spawn in Survival Updated Credits menu Algara Isle graphical touchups New Animation system for Combat Fixed Inventory UI scaling issues Archery Aiming total rework Optimized Items on the ground and projectiles Fixed Crafting multiplier not working on queued stacks of crafts
Happy New Year from the Renown team - An Update from Mr.Z
Mr. Z here, today we’ll be going over some quick updates on where we’ve been lately.
As stated before we’re all coming back from the new year's vacations so work has been slow as of late. Now we’re mostly back in gear and the updates have begun again with Patch 1.4.8 having been released a few days ago.
During the break I opted to get some work done on Raid mode and get it up to par, I’ve always enjoyed playing it and wanted to make some much needed improvements to it. Now we have a map that has 4 teams. Progression is substantially faster with good loot scattered around the center of the map.
You can leave gold coins in your team’s banner and buy loadouts from the banner directly. There's a few other new features, but all in all, Raid mode has never been more fast paced to play so we’re restarting our weekly Raid mode playtests in each region. Raid mode is a really fun way to experience the gameplay loop quickly so I encourage people to join our playtests on the weekend.
Another thing we’ve been up to lately is replacing all the animations in the game with new motion captured animations. It's been a slow process but the difference in quality speaks for itself. Lots of locomotion animations have been implemented already.
Soon, the swing animations for the combat will be getting revamped. Anyone who thought of holding off on practicing the combat system should get ready to get practice soon as the final animations get implemented over the coming months.
Ultimately, our goal with Renown is to reach a stable EA release in June this year. One of the best ways we’ve been able to improve the game’s stability is by holding large public demos of the game and getting as many people playing as possible.
To that end our highest priority goal currently is preparing the game for an open beta. The main things holding us back are some server performance issues that make playing the game with a very high player count extremely unstable. Specifically, we have some issues with the building system that require a rewrite, also we need to upgrade the engine to UE5.5 for some needed optimizations.
We’ll be keeping people posted on when the open beta is coming, so make sure to subscribe to our announcements channel in our official discord and our steam page. It's likely we’ll do stress tests as well to see how the new optimizations hold up, so if you’re a backer stay tuned for those as well.
On behalf of RDBK I wish everyone a happy new year and hope to see you all playing the game later this year on launch day.
