Renown
Alpha 1.1.5
Added Pole to Research tree
Lowered costs of components
Fixed Audio issue with Furnaces
Fixed Home page
Fixed a duping bug
Fixed an issue with stagger
Fixed anim blending on legs
Fixed Merchants being naked
Tweaked the Loading screen
Added a new Quit prompt
Updated animations
Added the Encyclopedia, which contains a Survival tutorial in it
Fixed Petard research
Fixed Crossbow draining stamina when loaded
1.0.9.8
Fixed issues with animal networking
Fixed Banners in Raidmode not working correctly
Crafting refresh time should be faster now
Fixed siege ladders not placing on enemy banner zones
Fixed an issue with particle effects
Fixed an issue where loot buildings would stop networking correctly
Fixed being able to invite players to a party outside of Survival mode
Added Player name clone handling
Added a warning for when upgrading fails
Fixed a lot of technical debt
Fixed bandages and throwing weapons switching to a new weapon without an animation sometimes
1.0.9.7
Fixed being able to place 2 banners in the same spot
Fixed being able to pickup petards that were lit
Fixed a server performance issue with characters
Added Projectile sticking to surface support
Added a delay before a partially drawn bow can be fired
Fixed an animation issue with crouching
Fixed an issue where water movement speed would persist forever
Doubled boulder damage from catapults
Run speed is reset to minimum speed when lunging ends now
Fixed sign posts not working
Fixed hoarding not being placeable
Fixed repair costs for some furniture items
Fixed Stair collision issues with Triangle stairs
Fixed Roof collision issues
Added a message for repair cost for items that were consumed by repair
Stamina drain from drawing bows now increases over time
Added climbable ladders to Winterhold Castle's gates
1.0.9.6
Fixed the bug reporter not working
Fixed chase mechanic not working properly
Fixed attack Lunge not working
Fixed banners not being able to be upgraded
Fixed being able to aim the crossbow without stamina
Fixed the deathscreen appearing sometimes when it shouldn't
Weapons no longer take damage when kicking
Increased the amount of animals in the map
Fixed weapon rack repair costs
1.0.9.5
Added Resource gain multiplier to server configs
Fixed Hand Rams not working
Fixed issues with placing buildings inside banner zones
Improved AI memory
Fixed Map Camera not working
Fixed networked movement on Animals
Fixed animals not despawning when harvested fully
Increased falling damage min distance
Fixed banners not being moveable
Fixed coffin chest pickup
Fixed footstep detection
Fixed custom names not working for furniture
Fixed Camera issue when server is doing final save
Added Primitive Quiver recipe (Fiber)
Fixed issue with Death screen showing up randomly
Added a Loot sack
Castle gates can no longer be opened by players
Reduced saving system messages verbosity
Fiber is more commonly found now
Fixed issue with Resource spawn areas being too big
Fixed issue with banners not calculating maintenance properly
Fixed an issue with armor durability
Fixed Icons rendering incorrectly when rotated
Fixed crafting tooltip being too transparent
Fixed External Inventory window looking different
Fixed Fuel time not being shown correctly
Fixed inventory menus not being closed when moving too far away
Improved anim blending for fists and movement
1.0.9.4
Fixed bows not working in Loadouts
Fixed an issue where depleted nodes would spawn in for clients
Fixed crafting menu crash
Fixed Player name not Saving
Fixed Pain volumes in castle enabling too soon after the event starts to end
Fixed issues with Keylocks
1.0.9.3
Crash fixes
Added more building Icons
Fixed issue with Inviting to parties being visible all the time
Fixed animal spawners not working
Fixed broken window mesh in castle
Fixed Brick hall model
Fixed bleeds not persisting
Fixed castle doors not being damageable
Fixed issues with FOV
Added a game icon
Fixed Equipped bandages not attaching to player model properly
Removed spatializing from own footsteps
Reduced crate hp to 60
Fixed multiple issues with placing roof pieces
Fixed AI ignoring players who were attacking them with projectiles
Fixed an issue with the jump landing animation
1.0.9.2
Fixed AI roaming logic
Fixed weapon not equipping in TDM automatically
Fixed issues with Encyclopedia
Movement networking optimization
Added Key lock recipe to defaults
Opening Inventory closes build menu now
Can add mallets and gold to the banner now
Fixed shaft and pole recipes
Fixed poles not being craftable
Added Max stack count indicator for some items
Added Ranged zoom sensitivity slider
Fixed crossbow not working
Added notification for firing bows without the correct quiver
Fixed castle event not ending
Fixed kick tracers
Added peasant vest icon
Fixed chat box staying up forever
Added better admin teleport support
Fixed issues with arrows
Fixed javelins and throwing axes throwing incorrectly
1.0.9.1
Added Icon for Manganese
Added new Icons for Roof buildings
Added Floor Hatch Icon
Fixed issues with resource node networking
Added Icon for Peasant Vest
Fixed missing floors in one of the houses
Barrel HP lowered to 40
Fixed map buildings taking damage when they were disabled from recieving damage
Fixed UI crafting menu crash
Fixed NPC inventories being bugged
Added admin spawning of animals
Revamped Main Castle and dungeon
Fixed up throwing weapons
Fixed placement of roofs
Fixed input bug with Throwing weapons
Fixed issues with animals not roaming
1.0.9.0
Fixed Knight Baron Loadout
Fixed Kick with Fists not costing stamina
Added Icons for resource harvesting on the Crosshair
Added ability to Invite to Party by Interacting with other players
Fixed Painting furniture Icons
Fixed Loadouts with Quiver not granting ammo
Closing the Inventory menu clears search filters
Fixed issues with the context menu
Sleepers inside castle now die when the gates close
Saves now show date of next wipe
Fixed issues with UV maps on some building models
Disabled External walls until further notice
Reduced Banner build size slightly
Disabled Melee Lunge until further notice
Increased Max item Stack size on most items
Tweaked FPS display, added FPS display toggle setting
Lowered the cost of building maintenance considerably
Closed off some of the underground areas that aren't ready yet
Added Wipe time on the Server browser details
Many CPU optimizations, weaker CPUs should see a big improvement
Fixed issues with equipping weapons on the character
Fixed some issues with Geese npcs
Players can't select weapons while the inventory is open now
Reworked some character initialization code
Fixed up performance issues with the lighting on the survival map
Fixed issues with Catapult shots not exploding properly
Fixed Catapult shot not doing damage sometimes
Crafting and Gear menus can be toggled by pressing 1 and 2
Updated the Look of Gold nodes
Fixed issues with player pitch
Fixed Hand Axe weapon not working correctly
Cook times in furnaces have been adjusted
Adjusted some early game research costs
Fixed Item Name visibility problems
Updated stairs model to visually block under them
Disabled belts until further notice
Fixed Hand Rams not working properly
Added Barrel lid shield
Added a Coffin shaped Chest
Fixed issues with placing Petards
Fixed some player input issues
Items on the ground now combine into a bag if theres too many nearby
Fixed an issue with respawn time being reset
Fixed issues with Running not working properly sometimes
Fixed issues with furnaces not saving correctly
Fixed being able to attack while placing furniture
Fixed an issue with Fuel checks on furnaces
Added a Ping limit to servers
Fixed issue with character LODs breaking customization
Bow aiming system has been completely revamped
Added better projectile collision
Improved shooting anim blending
Fixed debug models from AI system showing up ingame
You can now hold attack to resource harvest
Fixed an issue that would cause infinite ammo for bows
Fixed some camera logic on the character
Fixed items equipping to different slots inconsistently
Improved warning messages for placing buildings
Keylock recipe now requires stone instead of iron ore
Primitive Tools can be repair without a workbench now
Increased gather rates on all tools
Fixed UI scaling on the Death Screen
Fixed Archery Target placing wrong building model
Fixed issues with Resource mining from Nodes
Fixed Patrolling NPCs staring off in the wrong direction
Fixed NPC archers not working properly
Fixed Siege ladder not having correct HP when picked up
Wall torches and other placeable light sources are now on by default when placed
Added more warning messages for picking up buildings
Added new Hats; Byzantine Peasant hat, Rus hat, Mongol
Added new Pavise Shield model
Added new peasant Vest (Chestplate slot)
Changed Dirt rendering on armors to be more visible
Removed Mallet damage bonus to buildings
Fixed some issues with Holding item warnings
Fixed some clipping issues with the Jupon
Projectile Deflections reduce less damage when holding a ranged weapon
Fixed issues with Portcullis rendering
Added an opening sound to crates
Pavise Shield can be deployed on the ground as a static defense
Fixed Ladders being useable from behind
Added new Gates to the Main castle
Fixed issues with floating barrels in some areas of the map
Updated the weapon throwing aiming system to work like the new bow system
Fixed a crash related to the crafting menu
Fixed Crafting recipes ordering logic
Fixed Scrollbar scaling on the crafting menu
Mineable stones on the map have more resources now
Fixed some resource nodes not being mineable
Fixed a clipping issue with the Windmill POI
Fixed overhead Map camera not working properly
Early game weapons are easier to craft
Removed Torches from Peasant NPCs
Fixed First person Run not working properly
Revamped the Save System
Fixed Sleepers being invisible
Fixed Weapon slots on external inventories being highlighted
Fixed issue with lock placement
New Milestone Reached
Mr. Z
Welcome Renowners, we have some great news for everyone today. After several weeks of private testing we’ve finally reached a good level of stability and optimization to return to regular weekly playtests.
Many parts of the game had a lot of prototype code that had to be overhauled. Now every gameplay mechanic has had an optimization pass to work well in the context of a big multiplayer open world survival game. This is a big milestone for us as it is the first big completed step towards releasing the upcoming survival map.
Optimization for client side and server side performance has been the main focus, but also lots of other things were improved as well, as you can see below. If you were having performance issues with the game before, you should find significantly improved performance in this patch.
What’s new:
New pieces of furniture
New early game items
Added Ping limits
Deployable Pavise
Building system improvements
Added Floor hatch
Ranged combat overhaul
Added new keys for opening locked doors at POIs
Winterhold Castle Revamp
Many AI improvements
Many bug fixes and QoL improvements
Substantial optimizations for client and server
Automated Wipes
Maintenance system
Loot system rebalancing
Crafting rebalancing
We’ll be planning to do an official Stress test in the coming weeks, so we can prepare Renown for a public demo some time soon. We’ll need as many testers as possible to fill up the servers so stay attentive for an upcoming announcement of that.
End of Year update!
As always, we’d like to say a huge thank you to our amazing community. We know we’ve been a bit quiet on the updates front lately. Hopefully this dev blog will help explain why.
So, the best place to start would be to show not tell. Thanks to Jesse-Delta for his great work on the showcase.
Please see as follows for a showcase of our recent progress;
Over the last few months, the three main areas of development have primarily been:
-The swap from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5
-The total animation overhaul
-Creation of the new 4x4km map with new biomes.
One of the reasons we’ve been a bit short on news, is we didn’t want to be one of those teams screaming about how Unreal Engine 5 will solve all of our problems. While a great tool, nothing in game design is ever that easy.
In our case we did a lot of estimating what could be useful from the new systems which are available to us now.
Then it was a matter of when to do the swap over, our logic is it's better to do it now when we are in alpha instead of later as it would be more time consuming and riskier.
I’ve asked if Mr. Z could prepare a more skilled explanation of the physical effects from the swap over.
There have been various new developments since the last time we spoke. Many systems changes and optimizations have been made to allow for a giant open world map, mocap work is full swing, and UE5’s new features are being fully utilized now.
As some may have noticed, a new survival map was briefly tested to iron out all the issues of scaling up to larger map sizes. I may have jumped the gun a bit with the map as I ended up making it 8x8 kilometers. It’s good to test a bigger than expected map as our final survival map is around 4x4 km so this gives us quite a bit of breathing room. Lots of systems had to be changed for this to work, including the ingame map menu, the way resources are populated in the world, additional systems for placing points of interest in the map, and on a more boring note plenty of code had to be optimized or rewritten for this to work. It was quite a time consuming ordeal but I’m glad we’ve taken care of all the large obstacles for the final survival map to be technically feasible.
Alongside this work, we have also gone into full production with the new mocap animations for the characters. We’ve been quite busy with retargeting all the motion capture animation data to our character and getting them into the game itself. Lots of work had to be done on the animation controller to support a wider array of animations. Where it stands right now is we’re part way through implementing the Longsword animations, so hopefully it won’t be too long until we can have at least one animation set using fully motion captured animations. Motion capture is a very lengthy process but we’re confident with this type of workflow now and we’re very excited to get these animations finished and in our backer’s hands.
The switch to Unreal 5 has been fully completed, meaning we’re using all the new systems we’ve intended to utilize and the legacy systems have been fully removed. What are these systems you may ask? For starters we’ve fully switched over to Chaos Physics, which is the new physics engine for Unreal 5 that allows for a higher degree of complexity in destruction physics. We’re also now fully using World Partition, which is a new feature that allows us to build substantially larger game levels while still maintaining good performance. Another important feature we’re using is Lumen, which is a next generation lighting engine for the game. It has done wonders for the look of the game, especially with how much better the armors look in real lighting now. Finally, we’re also using Nanite, which is another next generation feature, what it does in effect is it makes LODs (Level of Detail) models obsolete, by removing the jarring transition of models to lower detail ones that’s plagued 3d video games since the first days.
2024 will be a very productive year for us going forward, we’re making very rapid progress on the game, but it is a big game to make especially for only a handful of developers working on it. As we’ve seen time and time again there’s no use in rushing out an unfinished game just to get it in people’s hands quickly. So we’ll give a proper release date when we’re confident we can actually deliver a game we’re proud of.
We’ll have more regular updates coming in the near future as we move past the transition to UE5 including more words from Mr. Z
I’ve also asked if KZ could prepare a short note for you folks explaining in detail his side of stuff a bit more. It should be noted while a team effort, what you’ve seen in the above showcase is largely the result of KZs hard work.
The last few months have seen significant progress on the art front. A lot of work has been done to establish a strong foundation for the new year. Essentially, much time has been dedicated to developing the new map. This endeavor has presented substantial challenges, considering it's no longer a small map; it's a world. Nevertheless, we are making good progress.
We began by designing how we wanted to shape the world itself and envisioned all the interactions across the map that we would like to see or open up possibilities for. Our approach prioritized function before form. From the ground up, we designed additional biomes to give the world a more rounded feel.
A big challenge was to design the transitions between biomes, but a lot of thought was put in, and tests were conducted, and I think we got there on the feeling of traveling seamlessly through the biomes while still feeling inline.
We have expanded from one biome to nine, including Meadows, Forests, Swamp, Snowy Fields, Snowy Mountains, Steppes, Arid, Canyons, the Desert, Beaches, and rivers to break it all up. Safe towns have been developed for some of the major biomes, and while these are still being fleshed out, they are mostly completed.
Specifically, there is a big castle with a town and port included in the Meadows biome, a Norse Village in the mountains, a Steppes village, and finally, a Desert Town. Lastly, a lot of thought and work have been put into the placement of Points of Interest to keep players entertained with plenty to explore and fight over.
Fortunately, the new biomes have accommodated this effort and will introduce biome-specific Points of Interest, adding more intrigue to different parts of the world.
Hopefully we’ll have some more of KZ’s work to show off for you soon!
Alongside all the topics Mr. Z has discussed, one main goal for the new year is to get organized weekly wipes going again as soon as possible. We’ve had to put regular testing on hold for the UE 5 swap.
This means we can start to rebuild the weekly population on servers across the major regions of our backers.
We’d like to thank everyone again for their patience with the lack of activities and low pop over the last little while. It’s an area we’ve keenly aware of and hope to address quick smart.
We’ll also hopefully have some more flashy news for you folks in the new year as we start to see the results of our recent work.
Again, folks from our entire team, thank you so much for your amazing support this year. The last 3 months (and this entire year honestly) have been tough but your enthusiasm and kindness are one of the main things keeping us going. We hope to have some good results to make you proud soon!
Thanks again and till next time
Ashur
1.0.21
Fixed an issue with the center castle vanishing
Fixed a message flood bug with placing furniture
Fixed presets showing up research menu
Fixed freelook Axis
Added a Dungeon key to unlock some loot rooms
1.0.20
Fixed an issue with Research not working
Fixed the nav mesh on the training map
Improved door open mechanics
Added Harvesting efficiency to item descriptions
Fixed issue with plant fibers not disappearing when harvested
Fixed resource node collisions
Added missing house back to survival map
Fixed issues with arrows
Enabled some optimizations
Fixed animals despawning when players are nearby
Fixed some issues with item stacking logic
Added automatic weekly wipes
Fixed an issue with crafting stealing player input
Fixed some issues with placing lamp posts and torches
Catapults now have persistent durability when picked up
Door opening mechanics improved
Fixed a bug where placing furniture would bug out inputs
Fixed up the crosshair not working properly
New Archery aiming overhaul (WIP)
1.0.11
Fixed not being able to crouch with the minimap open
Fixed healing well not working
Tweaked healthbar UI
Button in the corner of the chatbox is clickable now
Added support for more complex looping behavior on Emotes
Fixed issues with the training map not working
Fixed silver ore not being mineable
Fixed resource collection effects
Added new furniture items
Fixed issues with stairs support
Fixed up lunge movement
Fixed up decelleration from turning quickly
Dropped items despawn faster if they're broken
Dropped broken items can be interacted with to destroy them sooner
Fixed issues with the Navmesh on Small_p
Added effect on nodes partially mined out
Doubled amount of resources on nodes
Added a building anim
Fixed building not making a sound effect
Added Furniture to research menu
1.0.9.4
Fixed issues with item stacking
Fixed issues with crafted items not showing up in the menu
Fixed a bug with the Loadout system menu
Fixed a bug with creating map markers
Optimized animal movement
Fixed dropped item physics
Fixed not being able to sprint with a crossbow loaded
Fixed a crash with the inventory
Fixed issues preventing proper resource harvesting
Reworked Bed system to work properly on a large scale map
Fixed connection timeout being too long
Fixed issues with resource spawning
Fixed player marker being hidden by other markers
Improved movement networking
Grass under buildings now hides properly
Changed FOV limits
Fixed issues with FOV
Added Floor Hatch Doors
Reworked ladder climbing
Fixed an issue where running would get canceled by crouch
Fixed a bug with a character material
Fixed movement speed boost from attacking applying incorrectly