Windward
Windward Monthly Wrap-up
It's amazing to think that Windward has only been on Steam for just shy of two months, and yet in that time so much has been added! Just take the last five weeks for example, in no particular order: achievements, custom world map creation, new ships (including a very unique one that few people will ever obtain!), ship customization, new items, new skills, reputation system, late-game co-op content, and even the ability to change your faction, including to that of the vicious pirates -- just to name a few!
Some changes were proposed by the community -- people just like you making posts on the forums. The last patch in particular added a way to group skills into shared cooldown timers (all moddable of course) -- and this was a community suggestion! Want to make your own voice heard? Join in!
Speaking of community contributions, did you know that there is a full German translation available, done by your fellow captain MMantz? You can find it here. You are welcome to do add own too, if you like.
As usual, with nearly daily updates it doesn't make sense to release frequent patch notes here on Steam, but you can always get real-time updates by visiting the shared Google Doc, found here, although be warned -- there are now 14 pages of patch notes.
In two months.
Craziness!
Windward News - 11/21/14
We have decided to move the updates to a bi-weekly format, and so this one includes last week's changes as well. The last 2 weeks have certainly been busy! Achievements are now in, as well as multi-stage quests, a new special equipment slot, and the spymaster specialist. Aren has continued to make tweaks and improvements to controller support and overall gameplay, and has made some very exciting additions to the game. Pro tips have been added to guide players and help you learn the ropes. You can even pause now in singleplayer when you press escape, which we know will be a welcome feature for all you busy folk. There have also been adjustments to loot dropping, a new pennant for reaching Admiral, and plenty more updates, fixes, and changes! Feast your eyes on the notes below:
_CHANGE LOG_
2014-11-21 - Now Live
* Ships need to now be damaged by players in order to drop loot. It’s no longer based on proximity to players.
* Reaching the Admiral rank with any faction will now unlock a new pennant on your ship.
* Added a new achievement for reaching the Admiral rank with any faction.
2014-11-19
* Ships that sink far away from players will no longer drop loot.
* Player ship’s stats are no longer saved. They come from the config now.
* Ganker achievement is no longer awarded for killing yourself.
* Menagerie and Bigger is Better achievements are no longer awarded to new characters.
* You can now right-click on items to share their stats in chat.
* You can now rearrange all icons on your skill bar via drag & drop.
2014-11-18 - Now Live
* “Ganker” achievement should now be unlockable.
* “Unstoppable” achievement should now be unlockable.
* “Unequip” right-click option should now let you unequip flags at sea.
* Fixed an issue that would sometimes allow players to edit existing world maps.
* Added some extra code (read: hacks) to prevent Unity’s physics going all crazy after collisions in multiplayer. Player ships should now spontaneously combust much less frequently.
* AI ships should now get stuck slightly less frequently.
* AI ships that explode due to being stuck will no longer drop loot.
2014-11-17 - Now Live
* Guard Tower achievement should now be unlockable.
* Raised the drop rate of all items.
* Raised the drop rate of customization items.
* Added progress indicators to some achievements that needed them.
* Added icons for all achievements.
* Added a new achievement: ship customization.
* Added a new achievement: combat repairs.
* Fixed a pair of null ref errors that crept into the previous update.
* Added a subtle Bloom effect to 100% graphics quality.
* Towns will now sell wood, stone and black powder (existing towns must grow first).
* Floating loot revealed by the Spyglass should now have proper icons.
* Lantern is no longer a cargo slot item (will affect future drops, not existing items).
* Specialists should now properly go up to Legendary (orange) quality.
* Changing graphics quality should no longer mess up the minimap.
* World creation stage should once again show initial faction information.
2014-11-16
* Added a summary screen that will show inflicted / repaired damage, kills, deaths, etc when pirates get driven out and when a PvP match ends.
* Added 27 Steam achievements. Only Windows currently supports the Steam integration (and thus achievements). OSX and Linux integration will come later. In addition, the achievements are currently missing graphics. This too will be rectified in a future update.
2014-11-14
* AI ships will now be synchronized by the channel’s host as well, matching where AI logic happens. This should reduce ships jumping in MP.
* The game should no longer freeze the first time you generate a new world.
* Added an option to turn off the new camera panning.
* Raised the town name character limit from 12 to 20 characters.
2014-11-13
* The game will now pause in single player while the menu is open.
* Added a grappling hook that will automatically pull in nearby loot onto your ship.
* The camera will now pan around a little with the mouse / right thumbstick, letting you look around.
* Added a spyglass that is able to identify floating loot items and increases sight range.
* Added a spymaster specialist that gives you sight from all structures, regardless of faction.
* It should no longer be possible to enter towns from too far away by clicking on them.
2014-11-11
* Quest items will now be lost when your ship sinks.
* You can no longer give quest items to other players.
* Added even more checks to make sure that player saves don’t run into a situation where one overwrites another.
* Added an option to turn off specular highlights on water for video streaming and video recording, since it greatly improves overall quality when video compression is used.
* Couple of minor bug fixes.
See the update thread for the full notes!
http://steamcommunity.com/app/326410/discussions/0/624075566819709478/
Windward Weekly Update - 11/8/14
**2014-11-06 - Now Live**
* When playing multiplayer, AI will now be controlled by the player with the lowest ping.
* Changed how damage gets applied. There can now be 3 settings: host (lowest ping player), source (whoever is causing the damage), and target (whoever is being damaged -- this was the previous default setting). I’ll be trying them out to see which one works best.
* Added some extra code to ensure that player characters get saved.
* Explosive ammunition now ignores the first 5 defense. Corrosive is still better with 15.
**2014-11-05**
* Mortar explosions should now affect buildings, and will do more damage.
* You can now remove the faction that started in the bottom left corner when editing your world.
* Swapped out the hand-written Pristina font with another one that supports Cyrillic characters.
* Added a difficulty slider to world creation.
* Added a slider that controls combat damage scaling to world creation.
* Mortar explosions are no longer affected by Defense.
* Added a Language selection drop-down list to the first screen.
* Made Defiance a lot more potent. It now raises hull by up to 300%.
**2014-11-04**
* Added a new item: mortar. Rare drop in higher challenge areas it’s the improved version of explosive ammo coating that also grants a new AoE skill.
* Fixed an issue with the “zone ID -1” when creating new worlds.
* Turns out Siege Towers had the same stats as regular guard towers. Ahem. Oops?
* Scaled damage down at higher challenge levels gradually. The effect will now be that at lower challenge levels, combat is as fast as in the previous update, but at higher challenge levels the damage scales down, giving you more time to react and adjust your tactics. This felt necessary because damage is already naturally higher at higher challenge levels.
**2014-11-03**
* Starting regions can no longer be contested/captured.
* You can now draw your own world maps.
* Fixed the game not loading the modded localization file on start and the language drop-down list not working properly.
* A random seed will now be picked at start when creating a new world.
**2014-11-01**
* Improved store itemization. You can now find higher quality items in higher challenge regions in large towns.
* Made Defense much more common in pre-Ch9 regions. Hull, crew and specialist can now all have some basic Defense.
* Maximum price towns will pay for goods is now based on challenge level as well.
* Price of ships is now affected by diplomacy.
* Diplomacy is now less effective than it was before, since it’s pretty easy to get it to a high value. It’s now shaped like a curve, with it being less and less effective the higher it gets.
* The value of all trade goods has been reduced by 50% to balance the profit margins.
* Hire ship gold value is now affected by both Diplomacy and reputation standings.
* Quest rewards are now affected by both reputation and diplomacy.
* Expanded the rumors page to also include demands into consideration.
* Diplomacy now correctly affects reputation gain, like the tooltip mentions.
* Pirate captains were using ch13 stats in challenge regions 7 and up. Ouch!
* Quest rewards are no longer affected by town size.
* Paint and dye generator should now create richer, more vibrant colors more frequently.
* Fixed Inferno’s hull damage. It’s much more potent now.
Windward Weekly Update - 10/31/14
https://docs.google.com/document/d/134aQGWrGfiwQFpcmsk0IxLsfS8WcB9rrXez2XNJVnB8/edit
**CHANGE LOG**
**2014-10-31 - Now Live**
* You can no longer give flags to other players.
* You can no longer do business in towns where your reputation is too low.
* Added a new Rumors page to towns showing the player’s reputation standing as well as any rumors available in the region related to trade. As the player’s reputation increases, the number of rumors will grow and their content will become more detailed.
* Fixed a bug introduced in the last revision where you’d appear in a town after sailing to a new region instead of appearing on the edge of the map like before.
* Pirates will no longer randomly spawn on the edges of the map unless the region is fully under player control.
* Reduced respawn rate for pirates in low to mid challenge regions.
* Being close to a pirate town now invalidates its ability to spawn ships for the next 5 seconds.
* AI will now properly respect well-defended towns and will not try to siege them. This includes avoiding towns with high-ranked players near them.
* AI will no longer be aware of towns that are being captured if there is no active sight on them.
* AI will now again properly fear and avoid high-ranked players.
* AI will no longer gang up on enemies from across the map in regions below ch9.
* You can now right-click hire ships to follow you as an alternative to earning combat reputation. Hired help is more reliable than combat-gained followers.
* Doubled all damage. It makes the combat faster and more fun.
* First captured (or last remaining town) now creates 3 ships instead of just 2.
* Each town now increases pirate respawn cooldown by 25%. This means AI will spawn less frequently the more towns they have, and when they do they will be more spread out.
* Buildings that have been discovered by players (lighthouses, guard towers) will now mark all ships passing by as discovered as well, which will make them share their sight.
* All towns in challenge regions 3 and higher will now sell guard tower and lighthouse building kits.
* Reputation is now affected by the challenge level reward multiplier, going up with each challenge level.
* Reputation wasn’t awarded on kills properly. Fixed.
* Ships are now bright dots on the map. Buildings and towns are dark (reverse of how it used to be).
* Inferno is now 250% stronger than it used to be.
**2014-10-30**
* Changed how world-related data gets stored. As a side effect, you will be able to choose a new faction when re-entering your previous worlds. Don’t worry, everything is still there.
* Talent points were not affecting buff strength properly, as it turns out.
* Players no longer drop generated floating items on death unless their kill count is 4+.
* Crit above 100% now raises damage.
* You can no longer challenge regions where you can’t capture anything.
* I thought ch13 loot wasn’t in yet. I was wrong, but it had wrong stats. Fixed.
* Added a reputation system to the game. Your questing, trading and pirate-fighting is now tracked.
* Sinking pirates raises reputation with the region’s dominant faction.
* Completing quests and trading resources raises reputation with the town’s faction.
* Sinking ships belonging to the faction or capturing their towns lowers the reputation standing with that faction.
* Added faction flags to the game that let you permanently switch your faction. Obtained by raising your reputation with other factions.
* Reputation now affects the prices of ships sold in towns.
* Most quests now have a reputation requirement before you can obtain them.
* Delivery type quests can now choose non-hostile towns belonging to other factions.
**2014-10-29**
* Pirate towns no longer have production. Just demands.
* Writ of Service quests (capture a pirate, defend, raid, etc) will now fail the quest if you take them to another region.
* Added Challenge Level 13. Beware. No, really: Beware!
* You can now find a tool that lets you build siege towers in challenge 13 areas.
* Black Flag no longer functions in regions above challenge level 8.
* Corrosive ammo coating now debuffs 15 defense instead of 10.
* Fixed an issue with not being able to capture some things.
* Boosted base stats on the Corvette to make it more inline with what I had in mind.
* Fixed an issue with respawning in places you shouldn’t have been.
**2014-10-27**
* Black Flag will now drop from ch9+ areas (or ch7+ captains), rather than from any pirate ship.
* Slash (/) should now activate chat and remain there.
* In order to capture buildings and towns in regions, your faction must now own a neighbouring region first.
* Players can no longer respawn just in any region. They must own at least one town in a neighbouring region first. Dying in a far-away region will fast-travel the player to the closest region with a town belonging to their faction.
* If a player dies, and his faction no longer has any towns left, the player will now permanently switch his faction to that of the Pirates.
* Ally ships created from having stars will no longer follow you into new regions unless you can actually respawn in this region.
* Players belonging to the Pirate faction, whether permanently or with a Black Flag equipped can no longer use the Fast Travel map.
* Building placement for towns was not getting validated properly when players revisited the region. This should now be fixed.
* Pirate-controlled towns no longer give out quests.
* You can no longer switch ships if your cargo hold’s items won’t fit.
* Deflect now buffs Hull by 20%, 40% and 60%, respectively (instead of Defense)
* AI will now use Inferno earlier than poison cloud (they swapped places).
* AI has been taught to use Deflect.
* AI has been taught to beware of AoEs.
* Buffs no longer cause the skill bar to refresh.
* Haste is now Hasty Repairs: regenerates up to 30% hull and 60% sails over 10 seconds, has a 60 second cooldown and is only usable below 70% health.
* AI has been taught to use Hasty Repairs.
* Damage from ramming other ships is now capped at 50%.
* Ramming into a dead ship no longer does any damage.
* Only ch11 and ch12 items will have the orange color now (ch 9 and 10 are purple).
* AI has been taught to account for velocity, so all of their abilities will be much better aimed.
* Added a new more powerful guard tower (Siege Tower). Watch out for it in higher challenge areas (will not show up in previously visited regions).
* Improved the look of the lighthouse and guard tower by adding the missing AO and normal maps.
* The ability to capture things wasn’t being validated properly. It should now be fixed.
* Added a message that shows up on the player’s screen when they enter a region that can’t be captured by their faction.
For the full notes, check the discussion link here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/326410/discussions/0/620695877245814837/
Windward Weekly Update
https://docs.google.com/document/d/134aQGWrGfiwQFpcmsk0IxLsfS8WcB9rrXez2XNJVnB8/edit
Some of the highlights this week include a new ship, the Corvette, ambience enhancements such as birds and fish, environmental effects, etc., new quests, ship customization, dyes, etc. Aren has created a video to show you some of the changes in our first two weeks on Steam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZQQMXxyYBc
For those more inclined to read than watch, here are all of Aren's notes through today:
**CHANGE LOG**
**In Development**
* Fix for the issue where players could duplicate themselves in multiplayer.
**2014-10-24 - Now live**
* Added birds to the game, further improving ambiance (50%+ graphics).
* Added snow to the arctic climate (75%+ graphics).
* Ineligible quests (such as capture X when it has already been captured) will not show up anymore.
* Added a minimum placement distance to all structures.
* Towns will no longer request structures if they are already present.
* Added a new quest for towns with excess resources that let you buy them with a 15% discount.
* You can now sell back trade cargo to the town that you bought it from, just in case you can’t find somewhere else to sell it (remember: hover over towns on the map to see what they need)
**2014-10-23**
* Fixed an issue where structures could spawn inside a town.
* Added /team chat.
* Added visible quantities to town tooltips on the map, and they will be visible for all non-hostile towns now, not just those of your faction.
* Town tooltips on the map also show how close the town is to growing in size.
* Dead ships should no longer count for the team balancing logic.
* Fix for some minor messages that were showing up in MP.
* Towns belonging to other factions will now auto-repair your ship, same as your own faction’s towns.
* Chat will now automatically fill in /global or /team for you when you start typing based on the last used value.
* Players no longer respawn on top of other ships in some situations.
* The number of ships should now gradually go down after players leave.
* Reworked how loot is picked up to resolve a minor MP issue.
* Added marine life (75%+ graphics).
**2014-10-22**
* You should no longer be able to pick up the same loot multiple times in MP.
* Another attempt to get rid of RFC #1 messages in MP, seeing as last change didn’t quite do it…
* It should no longer be possible for two ships to spawn in the same town on top of each other in MP.
* It should no longer be possible to flip over ships in MP, or make them go underwater (for real this time!) (Note: you can still tip them over, just not upside-down anymore)
* Found the code that was causing ship explosions to insta-kill nearby ships and removed it.
**2014-10-21**
* Higher challenge areas should now spawn more difficult ships.
* XP for capturing objectives should now be adjusted by the challenge level properly.
* With the new legendary loot being priced at absurdly high values, max item price when sold to towns is now 5000 rather than unlimited.
* Fix for the harmless RFC #1 message that was occasionally showing up in MP.
* Improve Structure talent will now also buff defense and no longer has an expiration.
* Newly placed buildings will now auto-build themselves.
* Buildings now cost more to create and repair in higher challenge areas.
* Turns out damage applied to sails wasn’t done quite right. Fixed now.
* Added a Chain Shot ability. Players start with it, same as Volley. Boosted by the same talent as Volley.
* Added corrosive and explosive ammunition coating (goes into the previously unused item slot). Corrosive bypasses some defense and explosive does extra damage to buildings.
* AI will now react to captured towns in a much more hostile manner in higher challenge level areas.
* AI’s initiative range will now increase with challenge level.
* All quest experience will now scale properly with the challenge level.
* Ships are now worth a bit less experience to balance out the extra XP from quests.
* Reinforced sails talent is now 3 times more effective, but has 3 points instead of 2.
* AI will now go after all visible targets in mid to high challenge areas, no matter how far they are.
* Friendly AI units weren’t as powerful as they should have been compared to pirates.
* Fixed an issue where player stats were not sync’d properly initially in MP, leading to discrepancies with player movement and very noticeable jitter.
**2014-10-20**
* Added customization items to the game. You can now find items that let you dye your sails, paint your hull, and change the symbol you see on the sails.
* Pirates should no longer try to capture anything in the starting areas.
* Increased the starting movement speed a little.
* Reduced the explosion force from smaller ships.
* Quest-spawned pirates should no longer attempt to capture anything.
* Everyone will now gain experience from trading. Exchange will gain more.
* Larger towns will now take longer to capture.
* Towns will now show how many quests they need completed in order to grow.
**2014-10-19**
* AI ships should no longer explode randomly. Only when they actually get stuck.
* Pirates in heroic areas (challenge 9-12) now have defense, making Poison Cloud’s debuff very useful to have there.
* Changed item quality colors, adding one more (for heroic gear). Don’t panic if your purples become blues. Stats didn’t change.
* Added player ship customization support: sail color, hull color, symbol, pennant texture.
* Note: I added support for this, not in-game UI yet. Meaning you can mod it now. The actual in-game items (dyes etc) will come in the next update.
* Modded content is now loaded from My Documents/Windward instead of steamapps/Windward.
* Added a new ship -- Corvette. High-end light vessel.
* Rebalanced trading somewhat. Challenge level now affects prices, but the excess production/stronger need discounts are now 5% per extra point rather than 10%. Diplomacy is still just as effective, which makes it more important for traders.
* Factions no longer have faction-restricted ships, but rather get a 30% discount for their favored ships.
**2014-10-18
**
* Fixed the lockout zone issue. Whew! Multiplayer should now work fine even outside LAN.
* Reduced repair costs down to 8% of what it was in 10-17.
* You can now get auto-repaired in neutral towns.
* Dedicated server will now load worlds from the same place as the game and you can use the “-world WorldName” parameter to choose which one it will load.
* Build town skill should no longer lead you to invalid locations.
* Added stat information (hover).
For earlier notes, please see the Google Doc linked above!
Windward News - 10/15/14
We are so excited to be here on Steam, and the last week has certainly been eventful for Aren in getting the game released here! We've already gotten so much great feedback from the community, which is incredibly helpful in making the game even better. Please keep it coming, we really appreciate it! In addition to landing here on Early Access, I have joined Aren as the new Community Manager for Windward. It's certainly an honor, and I hope to build our budding community into a fun and welcoming place. While I am still getting my sea legs under me, as it were, I'm already learning so much about the game, and looking forward to seeing what the future holds for us!
I've hit the ground running, getting us a presence on Twitter now, and working on bringing people to all of our social channels. If you haven't already, you can find us at:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PlayWindward
and on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Windward/364318780313588
We'll keeping up there with news, and community events. Concerning game updates, we want to be sure everyone knows where to find the patch/version notes as the game progresses. Aren is working solo on this, and builds very frequently, so to avoid bogging him down with massive amounts of patch note posts, we've shared his Google Docs page, featuring his to do list and version notes. You can find that here:
Patch Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/134aQGWrGfiwQFpcmsk0IxLsfS8WcB9rrXez2XNJVnB8/edit
As you can see there, a great deal of work on the game has already been done, and with the great feedback and support of the community, it will continue to be shaped to its full potential. Today's update brings late to end game content to Windward, so be sure to check the link above for the notes on that! We'll be awaiting plenty of feedback for those who venture that far.
One very commonly asked question for a new arrival on Early Access, is always “How far along is the game?” To answer this I want to provide a quote from Aren, in reply to a thread on Steam. These are his estimates as to where Windward currently stands:
Mechanics and gameplay: 100%
Skills and abilities: 75%
Quests: Ongoing, I'll keep adding them. There are 13 types right now.
Ships: Also ongoing. There are 9 right now, I'll keep adding new ones from time to time, including a special one that is going to surprise everyone.
Itemization: 75%
Steam integration (achievements etc): 0%
The sails are unfurled and it's going to be an exciting trip to 1.0! We're happy to have everyone along for the ride, so thanks for reading and be on the lookout for our next newsletter soon!