The Wilds
Leaving Unity and what that means for The WILDS
‘The wilds’ is going to enter a dormant period for an undetermined amount of time
I have been developing with unity for over 10 years. its all ive ever known, I taught myself how to code, animate, and design games as a 1 man team. as of this morning i have cancelled my subscription to unity and will be moving to unreal engine. I’ve poured 5,000+ and 2 1/2 years of my life into the wilds alone, so this is not a decision i make lightly.
The two main issues for me:
1. Decoupling the cost of development from revenue earned makes no sense and I believe has extremely insidious and coercive repurcussions. An install DOES NOT EQUAL money earned.
2. Retroactively imposing this fee on games developed years ago under different terms is unbelievably brazen, dishonest, and i would be shocked if the legality of it wasnt challenged in court.
EITHER WAY its done, my trust in UNITY is burned to the ground.
Thank you to all my supporters and just everyone, the response from the gaming community has been one of understanding and shared rage. thanks for having our backs. I’m sorry to all the players who have been enjoying the game and helping me build it. And goodluck to all the other devs out there, there are
thousands of us all feeling the same, we will survive and we will rebuild with a company that respects us.
I will be immediately starting my move to unreal engine. I taught myself once and i can do it again.
I am and always will be a game developer.
FAQ:
Q: What will happen to The WILDS?
A: Still trying to figure this part out but after hearing from the community I think I'll leave the game available on steam and maybe just put it on discount until I get something workable to show in Unreal.
Q: How long will it take you to rebuild the game in Unreal?
A: Again I honestly don't know. I have only ever used Unity, for 12 years. I have to completely learn a new engine, and a new programming language. I don't think I could give any accurate estimate that wasn't pulled out of thin air.
Q: What will happen to the discord?
A: As of right now I am planning to keep the discord open permanently for those that want to check in on The WILDS and my progress in Unreal, but will have nothing open past tomorrow in terms of discussion. There will be a Q&A section open for the next 24 hours.
Q; Will The WILDS be different once it's rebuilt?
A: Again I don't know, but maybe I look into networking with Unreal and take another stab at multiplayer? Maybe the game runs better? The possibilities are endless and this could all be for the best in the end. (minus the 2 years of my life I just lost)
Visual Audio Wheel enters The WILDS
NEW FEATURES
+ Visual Audio Wheel - Entering into detection mode now also gives your animal a visual display of nearby footsteps, greatly improving your ability to hunt down prey and avoid predators.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
+ ANIMAL SPAWN DISTANCE - Increased the distance from your player at which animal spawn in at, since we can now track from much further we can spawn animals further. (this should also reduce occurances of animals popping in and out)
BUG FIXES
+ EAGLE TAIL FEATHERS - Eagle's tailfeathers were not changing appropriately when changing your primary skin.
KNOWN BUGS
+ BABY MOOSE - The baby moose's eyes are wonky, I need to do some re-touching on the model.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Splashes enter The WILDS
NEW FEATURES
+ SPLASHING - Added some splashy particles to the water that are based on animal size and speed, alo added a bunch of new water sounds, for more realistic experience in water.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
+ HERBIVORE GRASS - More good changes to improve the annoyance of the grass always overriding what herbivores are trying to interact with.
+ FAST FEED - With the doubled up actions on buttons I was able to bring back the fast feed, just put food in your mouth and target a mate to be presented with a Feed option.
+ JUMP/LAND AUDIO - Added custom audio for jumping and landing on all ground types.
+ RAGDOLL CAMERA - Smoothed out the camera when entering / exiting ragdoll.
+ LICK WOUNDS - Added all the animations for 'Lick Wounds'.
+ SLEEPING - All mates now sleep when you do.
+ FRACTURES - Mates can no longer get fractures until I figure out why they were constantly getting them.
BUG FIXES
+ JAGGED FOOTSTEP PATH - Improved the pixelation that sometimes occurs with the ground path effect generation.
+ MICROBABIES - Fixed a goofy bug the community found with switching animals while holding a baby that was making micro babies.
+ BONDING BUG - Once again HOPEFULLY fixed the bonding bug for those experiencing the soulless duplicate animal problem.
KNOWN BUGS
+ BABY MOOSE - The baby moose's eyes are wonky, I need to do some re-touching on the model.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Fractures enter The WILDS
NEW FEATURES
+ FRACTURES - Brand new Status Effect "Fracture". When jumping off high cliffs, if your animal tumbles upon landing there will be a chance of fracturing a bone. Your animals movement speed will be reduced and they'll take self-inflicted damage upon attacking until healed.
+ CAMERA REVAMP 3.0 - Reworked the gameplay camera and targeting camera AGAIN with a focus on keeping the camera more affixed to your animal, less jerky motion and smoother transitions, and improved viewing angles from all directions / in all gameplay states.
+ EYE CONDITION - Added an options for eye "conditions" while Blind is the only current option maybe we can come up with more in the future.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
+ KEYBIND CHANGES *CRITICAL* - The two interactions keys have now been reworked to use a TAP/HOLD system. Each have primary and secondary actions you can access by switching between a quick tap or a longer press.
+ CINEMATIC CAMERA - The re-targeting in cinematic mode is now instant providing snappier changes in angle.
+ EYE CUSTOMIZATION - Reworked the eye customization menu a little to make it clearer when you're editing eyes together or seperately, camera will now focus on the L or R eye depending on which you're editing.
+ MOOSE - Sped up the mooses walking and trotting.
BUG FIXES
+ NPC FALL GLITCH - Fixed Mates and NPCs getting stuck in a weird fall loop.
+ VARIOUS BUGS - Several random small bugs fixed
+ INVISIBLE TERRAIN - Fixed a bug where parts of the world floor wouldn't render
KNOWN BUGS
+ BABY MOOSE - The baby moose's eyes are wonky, I need to do some re-touching on the model.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Jump Revamp enters The WILDS
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
+ JUMP REVAMP - Completely changed the jump code and improved animations to feel more fluid.
+ FALL DISTANCE - Increased the distance required for a fall to cause your animal to Tumble.
+ SNEAK SPEED - Increased the speed of sneaking SIGNIFICANTLY on most animals. (mostly predators)
+ JUMP STAMINA PENALTY - There is now a small penalty on your stamina for jumping.
+ COUGAR SPRINT - Improved visuals of cougar sprinting.
BUG FIXES
+ STEALTH LEVELING - Stealth ability is now leveling properly.
KNOWN BUGS
+ BABY MOOSE - The baby moose's eyes are wonky, I need to do some re-touching on the model.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Eye Customizations enter The WILDS
NEW FEATURES
+ ADVANCED EYE CUSTOMIZATIONS - Personalize your animals eyes with ultra-detailed customization tools. Choose from different iris styles, change eye color, pupil size, iris size, and overall brightness fo unique looks.
+ HETEROCHROMIA - Animals can now have two different colored eyes.
+ REALISTIC EYE MOVEMENT - Animals will now appear more alive than ever with detailed eye movements based on their current focus and even do micro-movements for maximum lifelike behavior.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
+ SPAWNED ANIMALS - Spawned animals will no have unique eye colors.
+ MATE CUSTOMIZATIONS - Mates will no stand still while you're in the customizations part of the menu.
BUG FIXES
+ MISSING AMBIENCE - Backing out to main menu and re-entering a game would cause sound to be temporarily missing.
KNOWN BUGS
+ BABY MOOSE - The baby moose's eyes are wonky, I need to do some re-touching on the model.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Ranks enter The WILDS
NEW FEATURES
+ RANKS - You can now give your pack members various ranks to set the Hierarchy of the pack. These are mostly superficial for now but I hope to tie them into the AI later to determine eating order etc.
+ DEBUG - In the Main Menu -> Settings you'll see a new button in the bottom right called Debug. Clicking it will directly open the locations of the save files as well as a debug file to help with sending me Bug Reports.
+ CUSTOMIZATIONS - Added two new sliders for modifying your animals color. Play with saturation / brightness to give your animals more unique looks.
+ QUESTS - New possible quest will have you hunt down and defeat a random animal in the forest.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES:
+ OPTIMIZATION - Improved the save/load code to HIGHLY limit the hiccups in the game when breeding, changing mates, and bonding.
+ BREEDING - The game will now focus on newly bred babies and immediately prompt you to customize them.
+ STATUS EFFECTS AND VITALS - Status effects and vitals are now being properly shown on all mate lists.
BUG FIXES
+ EXPLODING RATS - We all came to love the exploding rats when they were grabbed, but the time has come, they are fixed now.
+ DUPLICATE QUESTS - Fixed an issue with quests duplicating themselves
+ TARGETING STUCK - Unified two system of the game to simplify code on my end and fix a bug with the targeting panel getting stuck for the player.
+ STAMINA REGEN - Mates were constantly running out of stamina, that has been fixed by giving them a grace period for it to recover.
KNOWN BUGS
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Bug Fixes enter The WILDS
GAMEPLAY CHANGES:
+ ACTION WHEELS - Improved the usability of both new action wheels making it easier to select with the mouse, control via scroll wheel, and selection with a basic click.
+ NIGHTTIME VISIBILITY - Increased the brightness of the moon to add more visibility to nighttime gameplay.
+ TARGET CHANGING - When Targeted, you can now only swap to similar type targets. (ex: If targeting an NPC animal, you can only swap to other NPC animals)
+ DRAGGING SPEED - Sped up most animal drag speeds by 50%.
+ MATE LIST - When you click a mate from the mate list it not automatically swaps to their targeted information panel.
+ MATE BEHAVIOR - Mates will now report directly to you when you attempt to inspect them, this avoids you having to chase them around.
+ CAMERA MOVEMENT - Made the camera "snappier" and a little faster. Previously it felt like the camera "moved in sand" and responded kinda sluggishly.
+ SOLO SPAWNED ANIMALS - Added an addition 30% base spawn rate across the board for animals, this will hopefully improve ease of locating a mate.
+ GRAB ACTION - The grab action will now only be displayed when close to a grabbable target.
+ COUGAR HEALTH - Beefed up the cougars health by 20%,
BUG FIXES
+ RESPAWNING MATES - Fixed the bug that was causing mates to not respawn in the correct location.
+ PATHFINDING FIX - Forest had a small cut-through tunnel that AI controlled animals were getting stuck in.
+ HOVERING TEXT - Smoothed out the jitter in some of the hovering text.
+ BONDING BUG - HOPEFULLY fixed the bonding bug, I was never able to replicate it exactly but I forced an error around the same general area of the code and re-organized/optimized it.
+ POSE CHANGE - Something was causing changing poses with Scroll Wheel to skip sitting and go straight to lying, this has been fixed.
+ NAMING ANIMAL - Pressing 'X' was toggling the animal list making it impossible to use that letter in naming.
KNOWN BUGS
+ RATS - Body breaks apart when grabbed.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Command Wheel enters The WILDS
NEW FEATURES:
+ COMMAND WHEEL - Use the new command wheel to order your packmates around and change their behavior. Make them sit / stand / lay down / stay close to you and more giving far more control over the pack.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES:
+ SWIMMING REVAMP - Changed the way swimming works, sped up all animals swim speed and increased inertia effect when entering water.
+ FOV OPTIONS - Added even more options for increasing FOV.
+ SKILL BASED EVENT SFX - New sounds for the skill-based event and now the timer will show first and then a small delay before starting giving the player more time to prepare.
+ FISH EVENT - Land animals will now need to be targeting a fish to initiate the skill-based event.
+ UI HIDE TRANSITION - Cut the transition time in half for hiding/displaying the UI.
BUG FIXES
+ EAGLE - Eagle walking would stop after a few steps.
+ SKILL BASED EVENT - Fish Skill Event was delayed in showing the skill event.
+ LICK WOUNDS - The new Mate Interaction wheel was interfering with the ability to lick the wounds of injured mates.
+ RAT TAIL - No more wierd long rat tails.
+ PACK EATING FREEZE - Many animals all eating the same food should no longer be causing the game to crash.
+ TELEPORTING ANIMALS - Fixed the bug that was causing animals to teleport all over the place.
+ SWIRVEY MOVEMENT - Animals were kinda turning back and forth while running instead of moving straight, it greatly improved if not fixed all together.
+ HOME MATES - Mates set to stay at home were still spawning with the pack on restart, this is fixed and mates will properly stay at your den.
+ SITTING ROTATIONS - When transitioning out of standing / sitting your animal would rotate unnaturally, thats been fixed.
+ FLYING MATES - Flying mates now properly follow you in the air.
KNOWN BUGS
+ RATS - Body breaks apart when grabbed.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.
Interaction Wheel enters The WILDS
NEW FEATURES:
+ MATE INTERACTION WHEEL - When targeting your family members you'll see a new option for "Interact", this will call your mate to you and reveal several interactions. *Work-in-progress most interactions don't work yet*
+ DEVELOPER NOTE - Apologies the Interaction Wheel is mostly useless for now, one of the critical bugs listed below was severe enough I had to get an update ready before the wheel was done.
GAMEPLAY CHANGES:
+ COMPASS REWORK - Small reworks on the compass making icons more visible and the compass in-general cleaner and more visible.
+ COMPASS DISTANCE - Icons focused in the center of the compass will now reveal their remaining distance.
+ FLIGHT - Auto-landing is now disabled while Targeting, tap the Descend button when on the ground to force landing.
+ DETECTION MODE - All animals can now move while in detection mode, running will exit the mode though.
+ FOV INCREASE - Slightly increased the default FOV for all cameras.
+ NEW OPTION - 'Breeding Restrictions' will let you remove biological breeding restrictions for your animals.
+ NEW OPTION - 'Camera FOV' in the Settings menu lets you increase/decrease the default Field-Of-View for the Camera.
+ TARGETING - Smoothed out the transition between the normal camera and the targeting camera to make it less jarring.
+ SKILL CHECK - Added a small delay after audio cue but before the skill check initiates to give players better reaction time.
+ MOVEMENT - Stopping is now more gradual depending on your speed, full sprint will take a few steps to fully stop the animal.
+ CARRYING MOVEMENT - Increased max speed while carrying object in your mouth.
+ NEW ATLAS ENTRIES - Added Atlas Entries for Vitals and Abilities to explain both their purpose, effects, and how to level them.
BUG FIXES
+ CRITICAL FIX - On death some animals were respawning glitched with a repetitive animation.
+ AI FIX - Respawned animals were retaining their previous travel paths making them try and cross the entire world.
KNOWN BUGS
+ RATS - Body breaks apart when grabbed.
+ CINEMATICS - Lake and River water flashes white on start/end of cinematics.