Day of Dragons News

On July 21st, Beawesome Games released the much anticipated Day of Dragons Genesis Beta Update.

Since that day, long time backers and Dragon fans have been flooding in to our game and Discord in the past two weeks as excitement (and popularity) grows for our very successful Kickstarter-funded open-world Dragon Survival Game, Day of Dragons.

Players are loving our physics-based flight system, our in-depth genetics and nesting mechanic, our user-friendly clan system, and our skin-crafting as well as our first playable Dragon, the Shadow Scale.

We appreciate all the positive reviews and support from our fans! It has been a wonderful and very exciting week for us as we keep hitting new highs each day in concurrent players with new servers and clans and players coming to Day of Dragons on a daily basis.

We look forward to introducing to you all our next playable Dragon, the Flame Stalker (currently being animated) in the coming weeks and months ahead.

For those new to Day of Dragons, welcome to Jrakhon - the world of Dragons. And for returning players from the Alpha, welcome back! We re-arranged the furniture ːsteamhappyː

Day of Dragons has come a long ways, and we have a long ways yet to go, but thank you for being a part of our journey! This is DoD, and we have DRAGONS!


[h2]Day of Dragons Genesis Beta Release Notes[/h2]

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

Creatures

• Shadow Scale (Starter Dragon)
  -Special Ability Cloak (Q)
  
• Acid Spitter (DLC)
  -Special Ability Decaying Bite (Q)
  
• Thornbacked Crawler (AI)
  -Poisonous effect when consumed
  

General mechanics

• Physics-based Flight v1.0
  -Crash and Fall Damage
  -Hatchlings can now glide if dropped from high heights
  
• Swimming v1.0
  -Swim Bladder buoyancy control (Acid Spitter only)
  
• Night Vision v1.0
  -Unique Night Vision for Shadow Scale
  -Unique Night Vision for Acid Spitter
  
• Mutations and Genetics
  
• Hatchling Carry and Struggle v1.0
  
• Nesting v1.0
  -Skin Crafting v1.0
  -Prompt for when ground is not flat enough for nest placement
  -Nest Waypoint
  -Ability to build a nest
  -Nests can now be destroyed with pierce/blunt damage if unprotected. Nests are unprotected if the sire or dam are more than 50 meters away. Only the sire or dam must be within 50 meters to protect the nest, not both
  -Courtship Emote (5)
  -Nest Panel v1.0
  -Custom Nest Models for Acid Spitter and Shadow Scale
  
• Campus and Waypoint Marker
  
• Dynamic Growth system including Hatchling, Juvenile, Adult, and Alpha growth stages
  
• Death Camera
  -Death SFX
  
• Ragdoll Corpse physics and carrying
  -Corpses now spawn a blood pool decal where they died
  
• 1st Person Camera
  
• Persistent Clans
  
• Alpha Growth system and unlocking mechanic
  
• Custom AI system
  
• Added Animation IK/FK
  
• Melanistic skin is unlockable for non-Kickstarters. Good luck!
  

UI and HUD

• Character Panel (I)
  -Growth Bar at bottom of screen
  -New Stat system
  
• Social Panel (O)
  -New Group/Clan invite system through Social Panel
  -Ability to go Offline to avoid appearing on Social Panel player list
  
• Admin Panel
  -Admin panel auto-refreshes every 5 seconds
  -Admins can now mute/unmute players to restrict their ability to use global chat
  -Admins can now replenish players hunger/thirst/sickness
  -Admins can now grow players to juvenile or adult
  -Admins can now reset AI and clear corpses
  -Admins can now slay, port to, or summon players
  -Opening Admin Panel puts Admin in "Super" mode
  
• Character Select Menu with full DLC support
  -Players can have 1 character per species per server
  -Skin selection
  -Can now select Kickstarter and Patreon Skins
  -Can now select Shimmer skin effect for exclusive skins (KS2019 skins)
  
• New Loading Screens and Icon
  
• New / commands including including /help to list all commands
  
• Status Effect icons for Hunger, Thirst, Poison, Bleed, Super, and Decay
  
• New HUD Graphic
  

Survival & Combat Systems

• Stamina exhaustion mechanic (when stamina is fully drained, it takes a while before starting to regenerate)
  
• Bile exhaustion mechanic (when bile is fully drained, it takes a while before starting to regenerate)
  
• Resting Mechanics (sit/lay/sleep)
  
• Health now receives a regen boost when really low
  
• Sickness Mechanic
  
• Added ability to drink from any water source (hatchlings can drink from puddles)
  
• Hints for interactions (talk, eat, drink)
  
• Many new damage types (Piercing, Blunt, Plasma, Acid, Fire)
  
• Decay/bleed stacking, both stack up to 3 times
  
• Added armor and bile regeneration
  
• Added targeting camera (aiming ranged attacks)
  
• Wound, Bleed, and Decay VFXs
  

Setting and Server Configs

• New Game options
  
• New Video options
  
• New Audio options
  
• New Input options
  
• Simple Profanity Filter
  
• Full Partial Gamepad Controller support + keybinds
  
• Many new server config options
  
• Admin command and player kill logging
  
• Streamer mode to hide location and mute in-game music
  
• Spectator mode
  

Environment

• Forgotten Forest Biome v1.0
  -Interactive foliage dependent on creature size
  -Nharogk, Jrakhon's moon
  -Map theme music now plays when spawning in map for the first time
  -Footstep SFX for various surfaces
  -Edible Fauna
  

[h3]Changed[/h3]

• Removed playerholder dragons, AI, and maps
  
• Keybinds changed
  
• Improved Safelogging system (to safe log, you must sleep for 60s, exiting sleep should cancel timer, check timer on your ESC menu)
  
• Redesigned Chat system (All, Global, Local, Group, Clan)
  
• Removed many slash commands as new Character panel makes them obsolete
  
• Optimized chat data to decrease packet size
  
• Chats now use a queue system to prevent chat lag
  
• Redesigned starvation and dehydration mechanics
  
• Revamped Bite Combat
  
• Redesigned Projectile/Bile Combat
  
• Steam Master Server List should now show player counts
  
• Game now runs a hardware benchmark on first startup and adjusts video settings accordingly (please delete your Save/Settings/Graphics.sav file)
  -Can now run benchmark from Video panel
  -Benchmarks no longer run at startup
  
• Game now load Medium settings as default
  
• Shadows can no longer be disabled to prevent gaining an advantage over other players
  
• Low foliage setting no longer disables foliage, just reduces it further
  
• Unlimited frame cap removed (capped at 60 FPS) and replaced with 4 settings, Auto, 30FPS, 45FPS, 60FPS.
  
• Save setting save names changed to remove any issues when updated to version 1.0 from version 0.8
  
• Refactored & optimized server/network code
  
• Refactored game code
  
• Server tick rate & replication frequency increased to attempt to reduce movement jitters
  
• Client>Server network optimizations & smoothing improvement
  
• Network optimizations
  
• Netcode optimizations
  
• Updated FMOD to version 2.01.09 increasing SFX performance
  
• All creatures have been balanced with the new systems
  
• Group size is limited to 10 players
  

[h2]Closed Beta to Open Beta Patch Notes[/h2]

ADDED

• Players on PvE servers can now type /pvp to flag themselves for combat allowing dueling or death. Flagged players have red glowing eyes. Flagging can only be toggled if safelog is available. To safelog, go to sleep (Hold Shift+R). To unflag, type /pvp again when safelog is available.
  
• Added new exotic skin crafting recipes for both Shadow Scale and Acid Spitter
  
• Added missing controller icons to keybinds menu
  
• Added more landmarks and water locations to the map
  
• Added more AI spawn locations
  
• Added more mushroom spawn locations
  
• Added more player spawns
  

CHANGED

• Shadow Scale Dragon is now available to all players as a starter character
  
• Deprecated Day of Dragons Alpha (goodbye cruel world) Players switching versions must delete their save game folder and app data saves folder (2 directories).
  
• Day of Dragons now supports Vulkan. To switch RHI, type -dx12 or -vulkan in the Steam launch parameter. -dx12 is recommended for Windows 10 users having issues running the game.
  
• Updated various SFX
  
• Nights are now darker
  
• Admin /unstuck ability now fixes even more common player bugs
  
• Hatchling struggle ability is now 100% guaranteed to escape on PvE servers with an increased chance to escape on PvP servers
  
• Tweaked mushroom spawning & spawn rates
  
• Rebalanced ASD and SSD armor and damage stats
  
• All chat channel now shows different colors for different channel chats to help distinguish the channels better
  
• Accepting a nest invite of the same species now reduces your corpses food value to 1 to prevent corpse feeding from egg invites
  
• Reduced Stamina drain on Acid Spitter
  
• Increased Acid Spitter & Shadow Scale swim speeds
  
• Improved flight takeoff syncing
  

FIXED

• Improved player collision detection at high speeds to prevent flying through terrain
  
• Fixed missing physics on some water ponds on Forgotten Forest
  
• Fixed up some AI spawners using old method that caused a server infinite loop lockup
  
• Trees no longer look extra sharp
  
• Players should now correctly spawn randomly around the map (fixed bug causing players to spawn in only a few spawn points)
  
• Fixed multiple floating grass areas on Forgotten Forest
  
• Fixed bug where wounds would appear on a dragon after server restart even if they were not damaged
  
• Fixed bug where players who pick up a bug as it is despawning can no longer pick up bugs anymore or fly.
  
• Fixed an issue with admin corpse tags showing for corpses that have already despawned
  
• Fixed several audio bugs
  

[h3]VERSION 1.J.E.1[/h3]
Server Hotfix

FIXED SERVER-SIDE

• Eggs can no longer be slain by admins
  
• Fixed issue where character progress could be lost on respawning, server restarts, or by logging out a fresh spawn before auto save
  

FIXED CLIENT-SIDE

• UI buttons for egg invites no longer overlaps themselves
  

[h3]VERSION 1.J.E.0[/h3]
Client/Server Patch

Due to an increase in server crashes since the last patch, a new patch was needed to fix the server crashes. We apologize for any inconvenience but want to get the servers stable as our player base is growing

CHANGED

• Slightly increased Acid Spitter bite damage
  
• Slightly increased Acid Spitter pierce resist
  
• Slightly decreased Acid Spitter blunt resist
  
• Mutation Mastery is now properly Orange when selected
  
• Removed test models from map
  

FIXED

• Fixed rare save-related server crash
  
• Fixed common null-pointer server crash
  

[h3]VERSION 1.J.D.0[/h3]
Client/Server Patch

ADDED

• Added river ambience SFX at the mouth and foot of the river
  
• 1 new skin crafting recipe for Shadow Scale
  
• 1 new skin crafting recipe for Acid Spitter
  
• Temporary tooltips for mutations (custom tooltip coming in next update)
  

CHANGED

• Mixing different bloodline quality now averages the difference between the two bloodlines instead of picking one or the other. Breeding identical bloodlines still upgrade the egg's bloodline.
  
• Alpha class now has an A beside the Class number (4->4A, 5->5A)
  
• Improved hit detection of projectiles
  
• Tweaked 4 call sound fx on Shadow Scales
  
• Server kill logs now records species and growth of player character killed
  
• Nesting males can no longer be invited to become an egg. Males must wait until all of their nests are destroyed.
  
• Females with at least 2 points in Breeding can now select the gender of the egg when sending the egg invite.
  
• Changed the method in which players can obtain genetics with better than A- grade, the former method proved to be too difficult to obtain
  

COMBAT BALANCE

• Adult hunger drain increased slightly (could literally go for days without eating as an adult) Elder remains unchanged
  
• Increased turn speed of Shadow Scale
  
• Increased Bite damage of Shadow Scale
  
• Decreased Pierce Resistance of Acid Spitter
  
• Increased Blunt Resistance of Acid Spitter
  

FIXED

• Eating and drinking sounds no longer echo long distances
  
• Server Filters Hide Private option now correctly hides private servers instead of showing only private servers
  
• Fixed an exploit allowing infinite max flight speed
  
• Joining a full server should now properly kick players that have not fully loaded in and not keep them on an infinite loading screen
  
• Fixed a server crash
  

Hello!

It's been quite a while since our last blog and so much has happened! We hope you are all enjoying the Open Beta and a HUGE thank you for all the kind words and feedback from this past few weeks. We are continuing to work hard and make the best dragon survival game there is! This blog is going to be a bit shorter than our normal ones since a lot of the new content was released with the update. We have also scheduled our next Q&A Livestream with the date and time at the end of this blog.

First, here is a word from the Head Hamster himself...

[h2]Words from the Lead Developer[/h2]

We did it! Just like we said we would. Our Open Beta is out and people are playing it. Sure, there's a few bugs that need fixed and there's some tweaking and polish that needs done, but the Open Beta is out and people are enjoying it. We're very happy with how well the Beta launch went and we want to thank Nodecraft for having everything ready on time for our new servers. I also want to thank our devs for working hard to get the open beta out in just 21 months. Our hard work shows.

But this is only the beginning of what's to come for Day of Dragons. We still have a lot of work to do.

The Open Beta introduces our new Physics-based flight system, our first starter dragon the Shadow Scale, AI, a huge 16km map, and many other cool things such as Elder Progression, Skin Crafting, Genetics, Nesting, Clans, and more. Some of the things we're looking to add soon include the scent system where players will be able to sniff out AI, water, and bleeding dragons. Speaking of dragons, we're working on the animation set for the Flame Stalker and finishing the animations for the Magma Elemental, Both of those will be going into the game as soon as they're ready along with a new biome, the Lava Lands, and portals.

It's all coming together, one piece at a time, and we're thankful to have your support for the best Dragon Survival Game in the world - Day of Dragons.

- Jonathan Slabaugh
Lead Developer of Day of Dragons



Now onto the blog!

[h2]Flame Stalker Animations[/h2]

Flame Stalker Walk

Karly has moved her attention to the Flame Stalker now that the Shadow Scale is fully animated.

The Flame Stalker will be the largest dragon yet to enter the game and will change the game play dynamics completely with his Heat Sense. Flame Stalkers are the main predator of Shadow Scales and will be able to see their heat signature even when cloaked.

Flame Stalker Trot

Flame Stalker Run



[h2]Damage VFX[/h2]

The Damage effect, which you can see in game for the Acid Spitter, Shadow Scale, and Thornbacked Crawler, is finished for all Genesis creatures. Each effect tells a story and resembles an attack from another dragon. For example, that Shadow Scale's damage effect is designed after a fight with a Flame Stalker.

Inferno Ravager Damage Effect

Flame Stalker Damage Effect

Magma Elemental Damage Effect

Bulbous Spined Scrab Damage Effect




[h2]Dev Q&A Livestream[/h2]


Our next Q&A livestream has been scheduled!

[h3]Join us Saturday, July 31st at 3:00 PM EST on our Youtube Channel.[/h3]

We will be answering questions while we hang out on the Official Server 3-US PvE. See you then!


[h2]From the Community[/h2]


Each blog post, we pick some of our favorite screenshots and artwork posted by the community to showcase here. Want a chance for your submission to be showcased on our next blog? Post it in the appropriate channels on our discord!

[h3]Some of our favorite recent screenshots...[/h3]

by sungift14#4605

by KatThePure#9138

by Lorikeet Lord#4388



[h3]Some of our favorite artwork from the community...[/h3]

by k̷̉̊i̴͋͑n̶̿̚d̵̏͝a̷͌̾ő̵̀d̴͂̚d̷̈́͝#9052

by SunnyD#9023

by Siilinki#6897


Thank you all again. We are overwhelmed with the kind words and love from the community these past few weeks. Working on this game has been a dream come true to us developers and we will work hard every day to bring that dream to life!

~The Day of Dragons Development Team



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