We made a few audio improvements to compliment all of our recent map work this week. A number of weapons now have improved clicks, twangs, and booms. We’ve added some new character sounds such as crisper footfalls, and rustling while moving through the foliage. We have placeholder voices for NPCs and our monsters as well, although they need a bit of work yet. The trophy hunter’s battle cries sound like they’re trying to decide if attacking is worth the effort, and the NPC voices are reminiscent of something you’d hear listening to an audiobook on the way to work, but we plan on upgrading both soon.
Crafting improvements continue, with a number of ui upgrades. We made a number of drag and drop improvements, and squashed a bug that was offsetting where an item ended up in your inventory. Double clicking an item now brings up its detail page so all of its info is easily accessible. We added time estimates so you know how long your new weapon or part is going to take to build, and made a number of navigation enhancements too.
We’re still working on debugging our live Veil News Network (VNN) drone feed. However, you can still watch a previously recorded stream on the front page until it’s back in the air. We’re working on drone documentation as well, and hope to have the live camera making its rounds across the island again soon.
The latest “refurbish machine” concept drawings were presented in various configurations, states of disrepair, and colors. Designed to allow players to change colors and fix torn clothing and armor, the machine should be ready to go in the near future. We talked briefly about other types of finishing, polishing, and engraving we might include down the road.
Our monsters not only got new voices this week, they got two new types as well. We have individuals with ranged attacks to deal with snipers, and players trying to kite melee fighters into a killzone. We also have individuals who can feed on downed party members, and grow considerably tougher. This makes it important for players to stay together, and keep everyone healed up. We watched a short demo movie of both new types in action, and talked a bit about future iterations.
Jesse made a number of layout improvements to help players navigate across the webpage, and we worked on trails between points of interest in the game. We’re using an automated trail building system to integrate the already existing Lahaina roads, with the network of paths we need to keep players moving around the map. We’re aging and breaking the roads as we move section by section, populating the map.
With all the road work being done, the team continues to add buildings, and structures to explore. We fixed the bugs we ran into last week with the Thorcon Power Plant and it’s back in place. Here you can see it in the midday sun.
The Lahaina Armory found a spot on the map too. We still need to add some weathering and some ground cover, but the wooden building will be open to the public soon, offering a good selection of weapons and ammo. Below you can see the front of the building.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back with more updates later.
