It's all about more road events in the latest update for This Merchant Life! 40 more road events are added in total, 10 for each of the 4 distinct regions in the game.
Content
- 40 New regional road events. 10 each for Forest, Heartlands, Mountain and Desert regions.
Fixes
- Fix for issues with the cart part selection screen which were leading to some crashes when the game attempted to autosave
- Minor fixes to animation frames for later levels of horses
- Minor fix to battle banners animations so it syncs with the cart
- Minor fix to cart shade animations so it syncs with the cart
- Fixed fighters hired during road events having 0 Deploy Time cost
Roadmap to This Merchant Life release
Well met, Merchant fans! I wanted to run through how things stand with the game, and the plans to take it through to leaving early access and into full release.
The current aim is to release the game late winter/early spring 2019. The cart parts update in version 0.6 was the last major new mechanic I wanted to get into the game before then, although there will certainly be additional, more minor mechanics added in future.
The key areas of focus from here are going to be:
Story mode
More content (specifically more events)
Combat system improvements
Full tutorial and ingame hints
Minor systems additions and tweaks
General polish & UI improvements
Balancing
Bug fixing
Story mode will be one of three modes available, along with Sandbox (the current mode) and Payback (an update of the previous game mode where you had to meet increasing payments each month).
Many of the new road events will only take place in specific regions of the map, to add more variety as you travel in different parts of the kingdom. They will hopefully bring more art as well!
Combat changes will be fairly extensive and include the ability to retreat, move fighters once deployed and do additional damage per turn.
The tutorials and hints will offer more of a starring role to your horses...
If you have any feedback or thoughts on the game as it stands or would like to make any suggestions, please feel free to do so in comments or in the Steam forums! Also, if you're enjoying the game and it's progress in early access, please consider giving it a review on Steam, it would be much appreciated!
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween from This Merchant Life, we hope that all of your trades are scarily good and wish you many frightful returns!
Version 0.6
It's a big update for This Merchant Life! Most excitingly, Cart Parts are now available - unique, difficult to acquire components that you can fit into slots on your cart, offering powerful bonuses.
This update also adds a cart condition system and fills out the locations available in each town - all 17 settlements now have their full compliment of 4 locations each!
Please note: Past saves will not work correctly with this version.
Systems
- Cart part system. Cart parts are unique items that can be fitted to your cart, with a variety of benefits and drawbacks in some cases. There are currently 21 different cart parts available to collect in the game, with a limited number of slots to fit them to on your cart. There are 10 parts available from factions, 8 from friends, 3 from the cart shop in Lancer. An additional 7 from specific events to be added in the next update!
- Added a cart condition and repair system. Cart condition drops during travel (more quickly on worse roads), at certain condition thresholds it will negatively affect cart stats. You can repair the cart to full condition in settlements with a cart workshop, at a gold and time cost (which is increased for each additional upgrade on your cart).
- Added a rumour system, used in the Friendly Tavern location type. Rumours cause a normally unavailable resource type in a random settlement to become available for a limited time, at a reduced price.
- Traveling during the night now affects your cart stats on the road - speed and security are reduced, conceal is increased
- Added location type: Trainer. For a cost, each trainer will allow you to increase or reduce a specific trait by one. Trainers are uncovered through specific choices in explore events.
- Added location type: Mercenary organisation. Provide you an additional fighter for hire within these towns once unlocked, generally of reliably higher quality than fighters found in the tavern. There are currently two of these organisations, both based in the Mountains region, unlocked through events (one a road event, the other a town explore event) which are now hooked up.
- Added location type: Election. Currently just a framework for eventual quests related to the upcoming election for Mayor of Randos.
- Added location type: Friendly Tavern. A small number of taverns dotted throghout Peregrine are ideal for overhearing helpful rumours. Pay for drinks and there's a 50/50 chance you'll learn something helpful!
- Road security now affects the rate that fighter morale drops - the lower road safety, the more quickly that morale will decrease for fighters.
Balance
- Reworked fighter morale drop. Base drop level changed from 0.75 to 4, loyalty score now added to 4 before diving base drop level by it. Basically, morale dropoff for fighters is higher across the board, but the degree of reduction between loyalty levels is decreased quite a lot, so that loyalty 4 is a little more than half the morale drop off of loyalty 1, whereas before it was roughly a quarter.
- Weight to reduce speed by 1 reduced from 10 to 8
- Fruit no longer available to buy in Artemis
- Wool no longer available to buy in Woodforde
- Iron no longer available to buy in Oxtown
- Reduced demand of Gems in Archon from High Demand to Some Demand (2 > 1.3) to prevent it's trade score being too high
- Healing at an apothecary now takes 2 hours rather than being instant
- Number of previously unique explore events (8,9,13,16,20,52) changed to be recurring, to introduce trainers and locations even if the right option for this isn't chosen first time.
- Later Hitch in Time explore events (21,40) now unlocked by initial one (20)
Content
- 7 new settlement specific explore events which include unlocks for various trainers and taverns.
- 8 new friend events which unlock various cart parts
- Added two additional levels of structure upgrade, increasing max structure upgrade level from 7 to 9
- Explore event (54) unlocking election location in Randos now available.
- Explore event (15) unlocking Allbright location in Jarl now available.
UI
- Adjusted how Show Next Upgrade looks on the cart screen and changed it to default from on to off
- Various adjustments and small additions to the cart screen
- Updated mouseover for cart stats
- Added Always Fast Travel on/off option
Fixes
- Fixed issue where settings for market weren't loading correctly and were defaulting to standard values instead
- Fixed alignment issue with market forces icons for rare and exotic resource types on the market screen
- Fixed interactions that had a time cost affecting the world time but not the timers for market events and rumours
- Fixed issue with courage requirement which prevented players progressing Ceridwen's friendship level past 3
Version 0.53
This update is the first step in allowing players to interact with the most powerful factions in Peregrine, with faction missions now available. Many factions can only be found at hidden locations, which can be unlocked through earning intel!
Systems
- Intel system implemented more fully. You have a chance to earn Intel every time you explore a town, and you can also purchase it from one location in the kingdom and gain it from certain events. Earning enough intel for a specific hidden location will uncover it, allowing you to visit.
- Faction missions available at faction specific locations - give standard rewards and also faction reputation upon completion
- Explore event flag system added, which means that under certain circumstances you will have specific explore events happen when you meet the criteria, used in plotting and follow on events.
- Combat missions no longer give reputation as a reward
- Updates to Search mission types. Searching in each location now also takes time (4 hours)
- Added location type: Hidden. Allows you to take missions for a specific faction based here or unlock mechanics only accessible from this location.
- Added location type: Faction. Allows you to take missions for a specific faction based here.
- Added location type: Town House. Found in each of the major cities, a town house is a very expensive investment but earns you 25 reputation in that city.
- Added location type: Broker. The broker allows you to purchase intel for hidden locations around Peregrine, helping you to uncover and unlock them.
- Added location type: Cart Company. Allows you to purchase special parts for your cart. Note that this system isn't currently in place, so you can only buy the parts right now, not actually fit them to your cart.
Balance
- Guild tab unlock moved from lvl 3 to lvl 4
- Charters tab unlock moved from lvl 4 to lvl 5
- Increased level cap from 24 to 30. Readjusted level curve to ME style system.
- Adjusted thesholds for faction standings
- Small tweaks to available mission types at each rep level
- Changed explore events to be available every time you reach towns rather than 50% of the time, going to see how this pans out, might change it back
Content
- Eight additional combat mission setups, for faction combat missions
- Added 8 new enemy types for the purpose of faction combat missions - these are just recolours of existing enemies, but with different stats
- A new explore event that can occur if you received a mysterious note in your travels, something about Bryce and mirrors...
UI
- Added mouse scroll to map screen
- Added labels to town locations
- Can now change game speed between normal and fast forward when travelling by pressing the play/fast forward icon in the travel details bar
- Guild bonus now continues to be shown on reputation sidebar mouse over after being built
- Guild house mouse over in reputation sidebar now lists all the resources you have stored there
- Moved cart location transition effect infront of the cart and reduced the speed of the effect (2 > 0.75)
Fixes
- Fixed main goal cost variations based on difficulty level not being carried across saves
- Fixed losing coins being displayed as positive on events results screen
- Fixed issue where last market forces in the list weren't loading properly, resulting in minus numbers being displayed in the market forces counters upon loading a game
- Fixed the guild screen going to storage mode if you were there last, allowing players to store things in guild houses they hadn't built yet!
- Fixed minor issue where a few backpack types wouldn't properly display only on the player profile screen
Version 0.52
This update contains a wealth of new cosmetic character customisation options! Some of the new options are permanently unlocked through acquiring traits during any of your playthroughs, others are available from the start.
There are also two new mission types; Challenge, where the stats of your cart will be negative affected until the mission is complete, and Search, where you'll need to find which of three potential destinations is the correct one before returning to complete to mission.
Systems
- Game now saves the state of Market Events
- Added a new mission type: Challenge missions - these work in the same way as Escort missions, requiring you to a visit a specific town, but they also detriment your cart's primary stats while they are active.
- Added a new mission type: Search missions. You are given three locations, one of which contains the item you are looking for. Once you find the item by searching in each settlement until you get the correct one, return it to the original location for a reward.
- Unlock status for trade traits and max faction reputation are now stored separately from any specific save file, if you ever unlock a trade trait or max out any faction rep in any playthrough then it will permanently unlock one or a number of customisation items specific to that trait/faction.
Content
- Added 73 new character customisation element
UI
- New art for highlighting settlements on the map screen that are mission destinations and tweaks to UI layout for this
- Adjustments to messages for completing missions of varying types
General
- Adjustments to game compile
Notes
Some bugfixes and promised feature work has been shifted back to the next update which will hopefully land soon.
Version 0.51
This version is primarily about improving missions and smoothing the difficulty spikes that they used to cause early in the game. There is also a new mission type (Collection) and missions now have expiry times.
Systems
- Missions offered by settlements now depend on the player's reputation in that town. At lower reputation, they offer easier missions with lower rewards. As reputation increases, the missions become more difficult and the potential rewards increase.
- Missions now have an expiry time - if you don't complete them before it elapses then the mission is failed!
- Added a new mission type - Collection - Head to another settlement, collect something and then return it back to the starting settlement
- Added a mission danger/difficulty indication to the mission screen and mission sidebar, indicating how much your target rating will increase for escort and collection missions and how difficult a combat mission will be for your current security
Balance
- Tweaks to target rating calculations (missions count bit more towards the total now)
UI
- Added caravan background image for when caravan is in settlements (one for each region type) plus transition effect for moving between settlements and the open road.
- Added mouseovers to mission screen icons
- Updated how missions are displayed for settlements on the map
- New UI art - toggle for combat screen, tailor icon, couple scenario icons, additional mission type icons
General
- Completed missions cleaned out more fully
Fixes
- Fixed the issue with Hero stats resetting properly this time!
- Hopefully fixed issue with some fighters and heroes ending up with massively inflated morale after a battle
New cart upgrades on the way!
One of the upcoming features currently being worked on is a new set of cart upgrades. These upgrades work differently to the existing set; rather than being a linear set of improvements, these parts will need to be discovered and then slotted onto the cart, allowing you to customise your trading vessel in various ways.
Have around 15 planned at the moment and I'd love to hear ideas for any others you'd like to see, comment here or in the discussion forums if you have any thoughts on must have cart upgrades!
Version 0.502
Some more bugfixing!
Fixes
- Fixed issue where Builder bonus of building cost reduction was only applied to first of two resource costs
- Fixed doubling up of music tracks when saving and going back to the main menu
- Fixed title screen reverting to 1920 x 1080 when saving from map or booting the game up, and issue where current resolution would be incorrectly displayed in options menus
- Fixed issue where hero levels would revert to level 1 if they amassed enough XP after reaching maximum level
- Fixed a crash caused by having certain heroes, where game was looking at their fighter ID rather than their deployment location ID
- Corrected issue where fighter deployment time was being assigned twice, so potentially not matching what was displayed on the tavern screen when they were hired
General
- Changed Vertex Buffer Mode from Compatible to Fast
- Added a GMSettings text file in the game's folder to allow adjustsments to Vertext Buffer Mode and Alternate V-Sync method, for compatability issues
- Forced game to launch windowed if the screen resolution is above 1920 x 1080
- Adjustments to resolution and fullscreen option buttons to confirm both are set right when either type is pressed
Version 0.501
Bugfixing...
Fixes
- Fixed issue where reputation would be reset in a settlement after completing certain explore events in a manner that should have earned reputation
- Fixed issue where number of missions slots wouldn't load correctly
- Fixed crash if saving while the missions sidebar was open
