The Black Death
V0.26 Update Status
As stated in our Dev Blog last week "we are going to be aiming to have V0.26 releasing into a Live status onto our Official Servers on Friday 30th March. This is not set in stone as we cannot plan for issues that may arise on the day of the updates release"
Sadly, we have been experiencing some technical issues as we have uncovered some underlying networking issues that we need to resolve before deploying the update and also performing a full character and house wipe on the Live servers.
We know you are all excited to play the new V0.26 update and all it has to offer. We can't wait to see what the community creates with our new building system, seeing Guilds being created across the servers and also siege battles with player made kingdoms and fortresses! We are excited to see some epic structures and Guild Halls being made in Mercia.
The team have been working non stop in the office since Friday to get this update out to you all, and are in the office working hard into the nights this weekend to get V0.26 out to our Liver servers. To confirm, there will also still be a FULL character and house wipe on all our Official Servers.
We apologies for not posting out an update sooner, as we did state in our Dev Blog last week that we would keep you all informed.
As always, Thank you all for your patience and continued support to The Black Death, it truly means so much to us all, and we want to get the new update out as soon as we can.
// The SIG Team
Community Founders Nominations
To submit your nominations please go HERE: http://steamcommunity.com/app/412450/discussions/0/1697168437860641173/
Greetings Players,
As you know, The Black Death has been in development for a while, and we were lucky to have so many talented and motivated players helping us in our work. Our team has been seeking for ways to say thank you to the community, and a couple of months ago we asked you to fill a special form providing your details, which we would then review and choose those who we thought deserved to receive a Gold name in game. However, we quickly realised that it would be unfair for us to fully control this process, and we wanted to give you a chance to endorse those who you think have put a significant contribution to the development of The Black Death.
This is why we decided to keep the best ideas while bringing some innovation to the rewards process. Today we would like to give YOU the opportunity to nominate your fellow players for the prestigious Founders title and a Gold name in game. That’s right, it is now you, the community, who will be choosing the Founders. We are still going to play a part in this, but it will be limited to making the final decisions on the top nominations, and those will be based completely on your feedback.
The Founders title and a Gold name will be given as a reward to those awesome players who have participated in The Black Death community in various ways, including guiding new players, reporting bugs, actively participating in the forums or giving us gameplay suggestions. These players can be easily distinguished from other community members.
These are the rewards that the Founders will get:
- Gold name in game (Steam account specific)
- Gold status on our official Discord
- Entry on the Founders’ list on our website
Here is why someone might be nominated:
- Actively participating in discussions in the forums and Discord, beyond the average player
- Helping new users, writing guides and hosting events
- Reporting bugs in a timely manner, leading to solutions
- Always being polite and constructive, be it in game or on the forums
- Long-term and passionate supporter of The Black Death, spreading the word about the game online and offline
Rules:
- You cannot nominate yourself, but you can nominate multiple players.
- All nominations must have a description for why this particular player is nominated. Nominations without descriptions will not be considered.
- We will be reviewing all nominations, and we will be fairly easy in giving out the rewards, provided that good reasoning for nominations is given by other players.
- We will be using Steam forums to collect nominations.
- You will have two weeks to submit your nominations. We will not accept submissions after that period.
To submit your nominations please go HERE: http://steamcommunity.com/app/412450/discussions/0/1697168437860641173/
Dev Blog #61: Dev Update, V0.26 Update Info, Planned Server Wipes & NA Mega Server Plans
For this weeks Dev Blog we are taking a sneak peek look into our brand new Siege Machines, important details about V0.26 including when to expect the update, our planned server wipes and info on how to download and access the Beta branch.
Dev Update: Siege Machinery Teasers!
We hope you have been enjoying our teasers for our new Building System that is coming in V0.26, more details on when to expect V0.26 are in the next section of this Dev Blog. This week we wanted to show you all what we have also been working on, along side our new Building System, in the form of brand new Siege Machinery, it’s time to get Medieval!
We have three different machines that you will be able to build in The Black Death, these are the Trebuchet, Catapult and Ballista. Each of these feature their own unique animations for firing and reloading as well as having physics too.
These machines will be perfect for assaulting enemy bases and structures that have been built by players from our new Building System. If you see a castle style wall, hacking away at one with your sword just won’t do, one of these machines however would be perfect for the job!
First up we have the Trebuchet. This is it’s firing animation, see how this also has physics on some of it’s elements. Trebuchets were often used to fire objects at and over castle walls. These were much easier to reload than catapults.
This is the reloading animation for the Trebuchet, it may seem slow to wind, but there is a lot of power behind that swing.
Secondly we have the Catapult. This one has a much faster firing speed and animation. Catapults would often fire things such as large rocks, pots of fire, arrows and more at castle walls.
This is the reloading animation for the Catapult. This is faster than the Trebuchet, but does not pack as much power behind its throw, as such it can be reloaded quicker for a faster attack.
Lastly, we have the Ballista. This has a much faster fire rate than the Trebuchet and Catapult! You would not want to walk in front of one of these when it was active! These are great for a constant barrage in an attack.
V0.26 Update Information & Planned Full Server Wipes
When will V0.26 be making it’s way to the Live servers?
We are going to be aiming to have V0.26 releasing into a Live status onto our Official Servers on Friday 30th March. This is not set in stone as we cannot plan for issues that may arise on the day of the updates release.
If this date changes we will be sure to post announcements around our Steam forums and social platforms to ensure that everyone is up to date with the status of the release of V0.26.
Why are the wipes happening?
Due to the updates and fixes for our V0.26 update we will have to perform server wipes for all of our official servers (including the EU Mega Server). These wipes are necessary for the new updates and fixes to take effect and in particular the new Building System.
Our new Building System is a complete overhaul and rework of our previous Player Housing system, and as such player and housing data will be completely different as the systems have change drastically.
This also ensures that we can have a clean slate with less errors, issues and bugs from the outset of our new V0.26 update.
What is being wiped, and which servers are affected?
The wipe will clear ALL character saves and ALL Housing Saves on ALL official servers. This includes all unlocked recipes, un-spent skill points, held items, Gold, any owned Houses including Storage Chests and also Player owned Kingdoms.
This will essentially “reset” all our Servers back to a clean slate, and also helps to ensure a minimal amount of errors, issues and bugs.
If you have played on a Community hosted server (which would be any Server that is NOT in our Official SIG Server List) these MAY need updating by the server owner, although this could be done automatically if they are paying for the Server, they will need to check with their hosts!)
You can see the full list of our Official Servers over here on our Steam forums: SIG Official Server List
Announcing The Introduction Of A North American Mega Server
When we announced our Europe Mega Server originally we were met with an overall good response from the community in their wishes to have one setup for The Black Death.
Since then we have been taking your suggestions, feedback and requests onboard for another Mega Server. We have been discussing this internally in the office and as a team we have decided to announce that we will be opening a North America Mega Server in the near future.
We are in contact with a server provider in getting this setup, when the server is official up and running we will have a formal announcement on our news platforms.
How To Download Our Beta Branch & Send Bug Reports
As always, if you do find any bugs or issues when playing on our Beta Test Server please fill in a Bug Report over on our Google Bug Form , every bug counts! When submitting bugs make sure to always select the Beta option in the drop down when playing on the Beta branch that looks like this “Version V0.26 (Beta)”.
To download our Beta branch follow these steps:
- Make sure The Black Death is closed and not running.
- Go to your Steam Client and navigate to your Steam Games Library.
- Right click on “The Black Death” and select “Properties”.
- Navigate to the far right tab that reads “Betas” and select it.
- Using the drop down menu, select “Beta – Beta test branch” and select Close.
- In a few moments Steam should start to download the Beta branch of The Black Death.
- To switch back to The Black Death “Live” build. Simply follow steps 1 through 5 and then select “None – Opt out of all beta programs”
To ensure that The Black Death is kept up-to-date before other games, select the “Updates” tab. Then click on the drop down menu and select “High Priority – Always auto-update this game before others”.
Take a look at the image below. If the title is missing the [beta] you have the “Live” branch installed.
Beta Playthrough Survey
There is now a Google Form that will appear in your web browser once The black Death has been closed after playing. This form will only load in your browser if you have been playing on the Beta branch.
If you have been playing on our Beta branch, when you have finished your play session and have closed The Black Death, a Google Form should open in your default web browser. This is designed to help us gather feedback from your play session on the Beta, and to help us get a clear impression of your thoughts after playing. We greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance for your submissions.
If for some reason the Google Form does not load in your web browser, or if you accidentally close it, here is a link to the form.
The Black Death Beta Playthrough Form
That’s all for now, thanks for reading and we will see you next time!
// The SIG Team
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To keep in the loop, follow The Black Death on our social and news sites!
The Black Death on Twitter
The Black Death on Facebook
The Black Death on Steam
The Black Death Official Discord
The Black Death Steam Community Hub
The Black Death on Green Man Gaming
Dev Blog #60: Dev Update, Beta Patch Notes, Beta Branch Info & Community Extras
For this weeks Dev Blog we are taking another look into our new Building System with some more tasty information for you all along with some juicy new images of examples of what you will be able to build. We also have a new Beta, with info on how to download and access the Beta branch and some Community extras at the end.
Dev Update: New Building System
The New building system has had another revision to improve it's gameplay loop. "buildable land" will be in certain parts of the world and will be easily accessed, you are free to build anything on this land until it has been "claimed" by a player. Their land claim will block any other player within a radius being able to build there, the land claim and it's blocking radius also handles permissions so players can add their friends to the list and let them use their doors and build on their land.
This new revision allows players to use the system quickly and also have longer games of attrition against others or even cooperative build extremely large villages, town and castles since we will be only implementing much larger areas throughout the world that you can build on.
Beta Patch Notes
Updated:
- In char create made per profession attribute increase gold colour so they stand out more
- Pressing quickslot 0 will now cancel a building placement
- Added time building time remaining under cross hair when crafting
- Added a pop-up to tell players when they are on buildable ground
- Added a pop-up to tell players when the object they are trying to build requires buildable ground
- Made profession increase on attributes in the inventory easier to read
- Updated version number
Fixed:
- Fix added to bug that caused players to occasionally be unable to interact with anything in their inventory after levelling up
- Fixed bug where objects could get profession prefix if you hover from a person the directly to an object
- Fixed bug which stopped attributes profession increase for mason to not show
- Fixed selecting Mason profession in character create filling in at the top with “Militia”
- Fixed misc spelling mistakes
- Fixed bug with beds to do with the new building which meant players couldn't spawn
- Fixed a bug that allowed houses to be built on top of houses
- Fixed collisions to stop preventing walls being built next to walls
- Fixed collisions to allow building utilities inside houses
- Fixed collisions to allow cosmetics items to be placed inside houses
- Fixed collisions for doors so they can be placed in door frames and gatehouses
- Fixed Gatehouse meshes to allow for doors to be built inside
- Fixed Pivots so rotations of some objects are lined up correctly
- Fixed workbench so it can now be placed from the hotbar
- Fixed so houses now save the correct position after building
How To Download Our Beta Branch & Send Bug Reports
As always, if you do find any bugs or issues when playing on our Beta Test Server please fill in a Bug Report over on our Google Bug Form , every bug counts! When submitting bugs make sure to always select the Beta option in the drop down when playing on the Beta branch that looks like this “Version V0.26 (Beta)”.
To download our Beta branch follow these steps:
- Make sure The Black Death is closed and not running.
- Go to your Steam Client and navigate to your Steam Games Library.
- Right click on "The Black Death" and select "Properties".
- Navigate to the far right tab that reads "Betas" and select it.
- Using the drop down menu, select "Beta - Beta test branch" and select Close.
- In a few moments Steam should start to download the Beta branch of The Black Death.
- To switch back to The Black Death "Live" build. Simply navigate to "Properties", "Betas" and then select "None - Opt out of all beta programs"
To ensure that The Black Death is kept up-to-date before other games, select the "Updates" tab. Then click on the drop down menu and select "High Priority - Always auto-update this game before others".
Take a look at the image below and match it to The Black Death in your Steam Games Library If the title is missing the [beta] you have the "Live" branch installed.
Beta Playthrough Survey
There is now a Google Form that will appear in your web browser once The black Death has been closed after playing. This form will only load in your browser if you have been playing on the Beta branch.
If you have been playing on our Beta branch, when you have finished your play session and have closed The Black Death, a Google Form should open in your default web browser. This is designed to help us gather feedback from your play session on the Beta, and to help us get a clear impression of your thoughts after playing. We greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance for your submissions.
If for some reason the Google Form does not load in your web browser, or if you accidentally close it, here is a link to the form.
The Black Death Beta Playthrough Form
Community Extras
Request A Feature Form Reminder
Our Request A Feature form is our new streamlined way of receiving community suggestions and feedback on our current systems and features in game. The data from our Trello Board has been saved and added to the sheet that is linked to our new form.
If you would like to submit a request for a feature or a suggestion for a current feature in The Black Death, please fill out the embedded Google Form over on our website here Dev Blog #60: Dev Update, Beta Patch Notes, Beta Branch Info & Community Extras
If you cannot see the form over on our Dev Blog, you can use the link below.
Request A Feature For The Black Death
New Steam Forum Sticky - Helpful Links
We have a new Steam forum sticky post with all of our social links, community, news, features, technical help links and more. This is a good one to have in your bookmarks if you want a quick and easy place to have all our sites handy. Be sure to share this with your fellow adventurers!
Social, Community, News, Technical Help & Official Guide Links!
New Player Written Book
We have received a new player written book, a big thank you to Lapin_r for sending this in to us, it's a great read for sure and we can't wait to get this in game for you all to find and have a read yourselves. It is a guide book about the Plague and is also written in character based on the time period of The Black Death itself. Keep an eye out for this one in a future update!
That’s all for now, thanks for reading and we will see you next time!
// The SIG Team
Community Showcase: Issue #6
Our Showcase featured image this week is from Steam user EK.i ¦ Aleysiia !
Every other Friday we will be taking a look at what you, the Community have been getting up to in the world of Mercia. Grab your favourite hot drink and pull up a chair next to the fire and join us for Issue 6 of our Showcase.
Steam Community Gallery
Here’s a selection of 7 screenshots picked from our Steam Community hub!
Credit goes to:
1. Daemon
2. UK Mikeyboy
3. Corndoggss Gaming
4. SVK_Ronin
5. Caffeine
6. Murky
7. Zillah
Content Creators Corner
In this issues Content Creators Corner we feature Mr.Feudal, Orion71 & The MMO Grinder!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUkR2A5QRRo
Mr.Feudal - The Black Death Gameplay | Four friends try to find a cure!
"Welcome to the Black Death, a game where the plague has gripped 14th century Europe and it's up to Revi, Jack, Charles and myself to find a cure... Whoever trusted us to find a cure is gonna be sorry because we can't even find our own goddamn way!"
Mr.Feudal on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUG6TrnW4g
The Black Death (ORION71) - The black death game play clips i put together
Orion71 on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IRYTE9oHMw
MMO Grinder Sidequest: The Black Death (Early Access Impressions)
"Brought to you by the magic of poor hygiene and Yersinia pestis, the Black Death is also a new survival multiplayer game in early access published by Green Man Gaming. In a preview episode written and edited by Dreskar (so go ahead and flip out over 720p until he gets a new monitor) he takes a look at a game where you survive through one of the darkest times in human history! (Graphic gore warning, unless you're into that sort of thing)"
The MMO Grinder on YouTube
New Community Roleplaying Server! - Valenor RP
Community member Microsoft Word/Uncle Rosko is the owner of a server known as Valenor RP and is looking to recruit new members into the ranks! This one welcomes new players to the world of Mercia and also those who enjoy RP, please be respectful to community servers who have their own rules and terms.
"Hello everyone, I'm the owner of a server called Valenor RP. We are currently opening our server to the public but will lock it to whitelisted individuals when our forums and ruleset is laid out, we would love to have you join us and would love to see the diverse roleplay people bring together. Our server currently holds up to 15 players however, if we get bigger I will absolutely upgrade the server slot maximum much higher.
We look forward to seeing you in Mercia, long live Mercia.
We have a minimalistic discord right now and a teamspeak
Discord: https://discord.gg/kyEFbT9
Teamspeak: PRIVATE ATM
WEBSITE/FORUMS: WIP
- Uncle Rosko"
Original Steam Forum Post - New Roleplaying Server - Open Beta
New Player Story - The Death Riddled Story of Randal Bennett
Randal Bennett worked as an apprentice doctor under the supervision of a wealthy physician. Fleeing his native country due to a wildfire of violence and rioting incurred by the madness of the flagellant movement, Randal found himself soon enough in the anarchic land of Mercia, whose woes were no more nor less than the surrounding countries.
As Randal Bennett witnessed the cities become cesspools of death and madness he hurried to writing his former mentor, asking for a generous loan to quote "Give me a roof and some work, far far away from the stricken towns and villages where I may keep myself at a safe distance from the pox." Adding to his letter a few pages of research from his journal, the painstakingly detailed notes ending with "...And I think its the rats. Stay away from the rats. Stay safe and god bless."
Running his own plot of land outside of Raven's Reach has been profitable, the educated doctor able to employ workers and sell goods from the safety of the countryside. In a letter to his mentor, he states "While the black death itself hasn't corrupted my body, I have dealt with many a brigand on these roads. The roads are unsafe here, murderers and thieves have lined the fences with skulls of their victims. Rumors of cannibalism in the wilderness. Keep guards at hand but don't trust them either. Wolves have more loyalty."
In a hidden piece of the letter, folded inconspicuously backwards reads:
"I hope that you understand, but my faith in the church has waned. God has forsaken us, or, more horrendously: perhaps he never was with us. No loving God would watch his children burn like this. I will continue to do my duty in the good fight against pox and plunderers.
Day 22
" Since I first came to Mercia. Things were much worse economically than I expected. Many farmers are dead, burned in piles of bodies four or five high. The conditions in the city get filthier every day. I cannot go among the townsfolk without the herbs inside the plague mask. Everyone is suffering and I must keep my head high. A peddlar of opium supplied me with the knowledge of the Poppy's natural environs as well as a sample of the medicine. I have found this to be sufficient in alleviating suffering patients.
I have made a deal with some of the hidden bandits in the area to smuggle the product into the cities. Lord knows the suffering need it."
Day 24
"A servant of mine, sick with the pox was sent away back to the city. In the process I have contract a cold but I do not think I have the plague. I've decided to rest until my condition improves."
Day 26
"The presence of human waste and incredibly unclean standard of living seems to be an attractor to the rodents that are no doubt responsible for the pox. I will try to submit my findings to the authorities of the Church and the royalty but by the look of things nobody is working together on this terrible miasma.
I do believe that the plague -does- spread through the effect of miasma, the spiritually toxic vapour which is present but invisible around the sick. That is why the herbs in the mask drive away its influence. My survival is a testament to this theory of understanding the Black Death's spread."
If you would like to send us your Black Death stories you can find all the information over on our sticky post on the Steam Forums here:
Stories Of Mercia: Write A Story For A Book In The Black Death!
Dev Blog Reminders
Just as a reminder, If you would like to see what we are working on our Dev Blogs are the best place to go! Our most recent Dev Blog #59 gives a focus on the Community and Dev Blog #58 shows off a teaser on our new Building System!.
Our latest Dev Blogs can be found at the links below:
Dev Blog #59: PCGamesN Interview, Official Steam Guides, Request A Feature Form, & Wiki Revival
Dev Blog #58: Updated Profession System, New Attributes System & New Building System Teasers
If you would like to send us your videos, screenshots, fan art, blogs and other creations just drop us an email at Emily@small-impact.com and you could be featured in our Showcase.
That’s all for this week, we look forward to your submissions and we will see you in Mercia!
// The SIG Team
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To keep in the loop, follow The Black Death on our social and news sites!
The Black Death on Twitter
The Black Death on Facebook
The Black Death on Steam
The Black Death Official Discord
The Black Death Steam Community Hub
The Black Death on Green Man Gaming
Dev Blog #59: PCGamesN Interview, Official Steam Guides, Request A Feature Form, & Wiki Revival
We had some bad snow over the weekend, but it appears to have all melted here now, Spring will be on it's way soon!
This week we will be taking a look at our Interview with PCGamesN, our new Steam Quick Start Guide and Advanced Guide, a reminder on our Request A Feature Form and more!
For this weeks Dev Blog we wanted to have a focus on our Community and what we have been working on for you all outside of the game as well as in game. We wanted to streamline our communications with the Community and work together in making The Black Death better every day.
We have been reading through all of your requests together as a team and we have been working on a lot of things that you have requested. We are also planning on doing more of these in the future for our updates too.
PCGamesN Developer Interview
It may be a little bit on the late side, but we wanted to share with you our Interview we did with PCGamesN on how we simulate the Plague using the Unreal Engine 4 to create The Black Death. Click on the link below the image to read on!
Making it in Unreal: how The Black Death's developers simulate the plague
Official Steam Guides for The Black Death
[SIG] Dmitri and [SIG] Emily have been busy working on an Official Guide for The Black Death. This started out as the Beginner's Guide but there was so much information and images we decided to split this into two separate guides. These are both now known as the Quick Start Guide and Advanced Guide. The links below under the Steam hub screenshots will take you directly to our new guides.
Please note that these guides will be further developed and updated as new additions and changes are made to The Black Death. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact one of our Community Managers at dmitri.masinski@small-impact.com and Emily@small-impact.com.
The Black Death: Quick Start Guide
This Quick Start Guide is designed to help you make your first steps in the dangerous lands of Mercia. Every section here represents a step that you should take, starting from spawning at the Freeman's Port and ending at building your first house. This guide should easily occupy you for at least a couple of in-game days. Enjoy!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1322197745
The Black Death Advanced Guide
This tutorial is designed to guide you through the basics of the game, occupying you from the moment you spawn into the starting area of Freeman's Port, to learning how to survive, building your first house all the way up to pillage areas and more!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1307687286
Request A Feature For The Black Death
Welcome to our new Request A Feature Form for The Black Death. Here you can send your suggestions in to the team and we will review them along with your feedback on our current in game features. This form directly links to a Google Sheet when a new submission is sent to us. Please note, we have not closed our TBD Trello Board this is still viewable but no further comments or submissions can be made. Thank you to everyone who sent in a submission to our Trello Board, all of the information has now been moved to the Google Sheet linked to the new Google Form.
We wanted to create a more streamlined way that the community can send in requests and suggestions to our current features. Much like our Bug Form, which is also linked to a Google Sheet, this will allow us to keep track of requests better than a board system.
Also, we have gathered every Suggestion from our Trello Board, Forums, Discord, Emails, and some older Google Docs and Sheets we had and have and added them to the Request A Feature Form to ensure that everyone's suggestions are kept in one place.
If you would like to request a feature for The Black Death or suggest an improvement for an existing feature please fill out the form at the link below.
Request A Feature For The Black Death
If you head on over to our Website version of this Dev Blog you will see an embedded Google Form of the link above.
The Black Death Wiki Project Revival
We have mentioned it before, but now that we have got our Official Steam guides up and running, one of our main focuses will be on reviving our Wiki.
If you would like to have a look at one of our older posts on the Wiki check it out over here on Steam. The Black Death Wiki - Mercia Needs You!
We have already started to port our Wiki pages over from the older Gamepedia website to our new Fandom Website . All of the images that are on the Gamepedia Wiki have been saved one by one in a folder to preserve them for archiving previous updates, icons and models in game. These may be added as trivia sections to the respective Wiki pages in the future.
Our mission now is to pour information into these pages as well as high quality screenshots and images to revitalise the Wiki into a go-to place alongside our Official Steam Guides. We feel these two will accompany each other nicely for hubs the Community can refer to.
Community Showcase Issue #6 Details
Our Community Showcase makes a return with Issue #6 this Friday. Our Cover Art for Issue #6 is from Steam user EK.i ¦ Aleysiia
Our Showcase features for Issue #6 includes:
- Steam screenshot gallery picks
- Content creators corner
- A new Player story
- New RP Community Server
That’s all for now, thanks for reading and see you next time!
// The SIG Team
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To keep in the loop, follow The Black Death on our social and news sites!
The Black Death on Twitter
The Black Death on Facebook
The Black Death on Steam
The Black Death Official Discord
The Black Death Steam Community Hub
The Black Death on Green Man Gaming
Update V 0.25 - Attributes
We have a new update for you that provides players the ability to level up very crucial attributes that can progress you further in the world! These statistics allow you have more health, deal more damage and get cheaper prices in the shop!
Here are the patch notes in full:
New:
- Attribute system allowing the players to level up stats such as heath, strength, stamina, agility, hunger, thirst, crafting, merchantry, daggerman, swordsman, heavy swordsman and bowman. These bonuses are lost upon death
- Character create now enables you to pick a profession and get a bonus attributes that match that profession including additional learnt recipes
- Inventory rework to make it easier to find what you are looking (filters all on one screen instead of inside tabs) Also including the attribute system
- When leveling up a profession a UI pop-up displays the recipes you’ve learnt
- Placing system for campfires and traps that can be used from the hotbar that provides an in world placing actor allowing you to fine control where it is deployed and it’s rotation. Left click to place, right click to cancel and mouse wheel to rotate.
Updated:
<*>Crafting UI adjusted so you can view other recipes and ingredients whilst crafting
<*>Loot all keybinded to “T” and is fully functional
<*>Inventory now shows current equipped Armour value
<*>Foraging water is now one click, instead of needing to go through the context wheel
<*>Food recipes such as bread, mushroom soup, berry jam, bone meal and porridge now have a chance of a rare larger version that can be crafted
<*>Pumpkin resource now is procedurally spawned throughout the map
<*>Server browser now has population numbers back in
<*>Food/Plant resources now can be picked multiple times and have a chance of providing the seed version
<*>Fishing system has been adjusted so you can cast your fishing rod and wait which results gaining fish over time, if you move it will cancel the fishing activity.
<*>Stick piles can now be picked multiple times and have a chance of providing kindling
<*>Rock piles can now be picked multiple times
you can toggle official and non official servers in the server browser list
<*>Bandits should now have a combat idle when close to an enemy
Fixed:
- G and H item shortcuts still in which is causing some bugs/loop holes
- Fishing rod not playing fishing animation
- Helmet meshes remaining after being unequipped
Balancing:
- Running speed with all weapons increased and now has finer balancing between weapon types.
- Running speed with all tools has been increased and now has finer balancing between tool types
- Price modifiers for shops has been re-balanced for the merchantry attribute
- Crafting times re-balanced for the crafting attribute
- Increased the chance of gold ore spawning throughout the world
- Raw foods such as fish and meat last 50% longer before rotting
Known Problems:
- The agility attribute is currently not affecting run speed
WARNING We have decided to temporarily make some servers offline that we’re particularly unstable in an attempt to see if the more stable servers can handle the population instead and to prevent any players joining these servers and losing data, unfortunately this will cause characters saves and houses built on them to be unavailable however please do not hesitate to contact us if you we’re only able to play on these servers and we will bring them back online again. These are the servers affected:
- BD-Amsterdam-02
- BD-London-04
- BD-London-02
- BD-Frankfurt-02
- BD-Los-Angeles-02
- BD-Moscow-01
Thanks for playing everyone! See you in Mercia.
The S.I.G. Team
Dev Blog #58: Updated Profession System, New Attributes System & New Building System Teasers
We hope you are all keeping warm, we’ve had snow everyday this week and the kettle has not stopped boiling here in the office!
We have details on our updated profession system, our new attributes system and a sneak peek teaser of our new building system!
Updated Profession System
So we decided to add some of the elements of the previous profession system back into the game to make you feel more like you have a starting profession but at the same time not locking off the rest of the games content and to tackle issues with transitioning your profession. Now you can pick a profession that provides extra attributes that are themed around your choice and gain a few recipes (skill level) in that said profession at the start. For example if you choose doctor at the beginning you will have more health, have access to crafting cotton swabs from the start and have the doctor’s title.
Attributes System
We have now introduced a new feature to allow players to spend skill points on a range of stats such as health, carry weight, run speed, weapon damage and even bartering. These are lost upon death, however this may change in the future depending on it’s effect.
Each attribute type has 10 levels, here is a rough breakdown of what type it is and what it does:
Health
Increase your max health from 60 to 120 over 10 levels with in average increase of 3 per level.
Stamina
Increase your max stamina from 100 to 160 over 10 levels with an average increase of 3 per level
Crafting
Decrease the crafting time to create items in any recipe, you can decrease crafting time up to 16 seconds at the maximum level of 10. This attribute also includes increasing the chance of a rare versions of the items such as royal swords and armour.
Merchantry
Decrease the cost of items at any trader of up to 40% at the max level of 10.
Agility
Increase your sprint speed by 20% over 10 levels with an average increase of a 1% per level.
Strength
Increase your punching damage by 100% and carry weight by 60 over 10 levels. Your carry weight increases by 3 per level this works on top of any additional weight from bags you have equipped.
Swordsman
Increase your attack with swords with up to a 15 damage bonus over 10 levels
Bowman
Increase your attack with bows with up to a 10 damage bonus over 10 levels
Heavy Swordsman
Increase your attack with two handed swords with up to a 15 damage bonus over 10 levels
Daggerman
Increase your attack with daggers & knifes with up to a 15 damage bonus over 10 levels
Hunger
Increase your max hunger with up to 60% with an average of 3% per level.
Thirst
Increase your max thirst with up to 60% with an average of 3% per level.
New Building System Teasers (Sneak Peek Preview)
To see our GIFs below click on the links or check out the full version of this Dev Blog over on our website!
Here are a couple of teasers of our new building system! Soon you will able to place fences, walls, utilities and more. Placeables will appear as a white glow before they are spawned into the world. You will also be able to rotate these before placing them. Want to place some farmland and build a fence around it? Now you can!
Placing Wood Walls - Teaser #1
Bigger structures such as towers, higher quality spiked fences and more will be placeable for creating some great fortifications. Building up your own castle will now be a reality with our new building tools. These placeable structures will also snap together when you are building to ensure that there are no seams or gaps.
Placing Spiked Walls & Towers - Teaser #2
This system still has a lot of work, but we wanted to show off what we are working on behind the scenes. When this new system is in we cannot wait to see what the community creates with these tools!
That’s all for now, thanks for reading and see you next time!
// The SIG Team
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V0.24 - Onslaught Hotfix #2
We have released an update to tackle some of the issues involving not being able to spend XP points and a crash that would happen when hitting someone in the head.
New:
- you can now craft three qualities of claymore; rusty, normal and royal
- Official servers are now coloured gold in the server list
Updated:
- Updated movement speed while punching to be slightly slower
- Updated the emote menu so it is consistent with the interaction menu and paper look
- Updated character create to give you a randomised appearance when you first enter the menu
- Updated and polished numerous areas across the land of Mercia
- Each tier of stick club is now visually different
Fix:
- Fix for a bug that could stop you spending skill points
- Fix for server crash that could happen if you hit someone in the head in combat
- Fix for a item duplication bug to do with lootables
- Fix to stop knockout timer resetting if you are already knocked out
- Fixed a bug that stopped the click to wriggle free mechanic from working when you are being carried
- Fixed A.I. left handed punches not doing damage
- Fixed missing wooden planks along path to the “Black Gate”, so you can now enter again
- Fix to bug that means that infected peasants and friendly hunters will now spawn
- Fix added to stop animals spawning human gore pieces
- Fix added to merchants so that they no longer just walk away when being attacked
- Fixed bug causing rats to go invisible when hit and to not ragdoll properly when killed
- Fixed crouching while picking up items causing you to freeze in place for animation duration
- Fixed bug where boar and wolf bite volume had collision and could block player swings from doing damage
- Fixed invalid bodies log error error on bandit ai
- Fixed numerous environmental art bugs
Optimise:
- Optimised UI
See you in Mercia
The S.I.G Team
v0.24 Onslaught Hotfix #1
We have a hotfix addressing some of the issues occured in the latest update such as resources not providing XP, tweaking to the game's combat mechanics and multiple crash and loading screen issues.
New
- Added new smaller UI around the crosshair to show you weapon abilities/cooldown timers
Fixes
- Fix added for loading screen staying up bug
- Fixed a crash on closing the game down
- Fixed a crash that could occur when weapon swinging
- Fixed a crash that could occur when attacking doors/barricades
- Fix added to remove a weapons from your quickslot UI when it breaks
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes make A.I. do 500% damage when the player was wearing armour.
- Fix added to stop character rotation lerping back to North anims when running NW direction
- Fix added so that after being on low health and healing up the player does not remain bloody anymore
- Fixed bug where if you used the context wheel to enter inventory when you close it you will have your view locked
- Removed usable actions from context wheel when knocked out as this was from the old system and could cause bugs
- Fix to Kite shield recipe, it show now craft the correct shield instead of the round shield
- Fixed a bug that meant if you died while infected and respawned you would continue to have the infected sound alteration stuck on
- Fixed bug with rat not playing correct animations, causing errors
- Fix added for rat physics bug that was causing errors (“LogPhysics: Warning: FConstraintInstance::GetRefFrame : Contained scale”)
- Fixed rat sound in main menu
- Fix added to main menu music so that it now loops correctly
- Numerous environmental art bug fixes
Updated
- Removed warning sound and error UI popup for when you are “Already swinginging” or “Action Notready”
- Updated and increased the frequency of the new ai speech
- Updated procedural resources to provide xp rewards
- There is now 3 different tiers of Iron sword to craft, rusty, standard and royal
- For now removed combat stamina as was conflicting with weapon cooldown mechanic
- Improved the physics of the cape attached to the royal chest plate
- Updated the in-game settings keys page UI. Now shows the correct and uptodate keys info (quick slots and attacks etc)
- Crafting time is now increased the larger the quantity of that item you craft
- Updated Stashing/looting and buy/sell to be one left click of the desired item now
- Updated/adjusted volumes and concurrency values for eat, drink, and heal sounds so the sounds cant stack if e.g. you eat 3 apples quickly
- Updated adjusted the timings at which throw weapons are released from the player
- Updated and polished numerous areas across the land of Mercia
- Loot items now become visible from further away so that they don't appear to pop in as much
Balancing
- Adjusted ai numbers/damage
- Increased the loot drop rate of animals
- Reduced the amount of bandits around player’s houses
- All equipment has had a 20% increase in armour value
- Adjusted resources percent chance and spawn rates
- Adjusted Xp amounts
- Bleeding and poison damage has been reduced
Optimising
<*>Optimised rat rig
<*>Optimised UI
<*>Optimised skeletal meshes
Thanks for playing the new update and reporting some of these issues.
See you in Mercia
The S.I.G. Team