Aloha, Thrivers!
As we head into the holidays and closeout 2021 we can’t help but reflect on the evolution of Fractured Veil this past year. We’re blown away by everything we’ve accomplished alongside our community and excited about the future of the game going into 2022!
Speaking of the holidays, since everyone on our team is in a festive mood, we put together a little present for our awesome community…
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
A great big sunny Hawaiian holiday thanks go out to the awesome members of our community who helped out with filming!
Fluffy, Shadowflame, LazurusRising, KerryAnneKay, TSStechAngel, ClockBlockerX, Azshire the Great, Spitfire, CoyoteLoven, and TheRadRichard - we literally could not have done it without you guys. Mahalo!
We’re so grateful for our fantastic community, who continue to share all of their ideas, suggestions and bugs with us. We know our updates have slowed down a bit, but that hasn’t stopped folks from traveling to Maui to contribute and help make our game the best it can be.
Also, a big thank you to
AnarchyHD for doing the narration for “Twas the Night Before Veilmas”. When we were imagining who we wanted to read our take on the classic, he was at the top of the list! Be sure to check out his channel for all the ways he catches cheaters XD
And of course, a special thanks goes out to our very own “eyes in the sky” aka Albert…aka the FRV Drone for taking time out of its busy schedule of 24/7 live streaming in order to be the principal camera operator for our holiday video.
[h2]Kickstarter Campaign[/h2]
One of the most challenging and rewarding experiences this year was the
Kickstarter campaign, which was not only fully funded but also unlocked a stretch goal for the community.
Again, a
MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone who backed the game!
Community-driven development has been our guiding principle since we started making this game 5 years ago. With Waves 2-4 happening in 2022, we know it's going to be even more important for us to stay humble and trust our community to lead us towards the game we all want to play.
The Kickstarter was a rollercoaster for us, and we were blown away by the support of our backers. We’re aiming for waves 2-4 to start early next year to open the doors for even more feedback and sharing of ideas.
[h2]Updates & Improvements[/h2]
On top of the Kickstarter, we have been hard at work adding a ton of new features to Fractured Veil:
Thorcon Updates - It was a big year for the Thorcon as we moved one step closer to our final vision of this place being a living breathing town inside and outside of the hulk of this giant power station.
Vendors - Merchants and specialty shops can be found across the map.
MASSIVE Foliage Update - We completely redid our foliage system from the ground up, improving performance and deepening the harvesting experience. We added in over 90 different plants in the world that can be harvested for fiber and eventually other crafting materials. We are also one step closer to our final vision for tree harvesting as they now break apart in reaction to your axe hits, they fall down with physics and will very soon be harvestable while on the ground for different materials.
Crafting and Research Benches - The user experience and UI has been completely overhauled and all benches have 3 tiers.
Zones - The world is now broken up into 4 zone types, which we are keeping simple for now by assigning them a number of 1 through 4, with an extra special Zone 0 for the safe starting area.
- Zone 1 is the single largest zone occupying roughly 40% of the map. This zone has normal strength enemies and a regular dispersion of resources.
- Zone 1 is also, more importantly, a PVE only zone. This means that players cannot damage other players or their structures, nor can non-sieging AI damage player structures
- Zone 2-4 are open PVP zones, meaning anything goes here. Enemy damage, speed, and health get buffed with each zone type from zone 2 onwards.
New Mutants - Boars, Veil Hounds, Kashas, & Green Snatchers added
Random Posters Spawning in Houses - The system allowing us to add in all of the submitted images randomly around the world in our houses is complete.
New Axes - We have doubled the number of axes used for harvested wood as we move towards a much deeper harvesting/crafting experience. Expect the same treatment on all of the other tools
New Weapons - Totem spear gun, Post-apocalyptic rifle are 2 new weapons that pack a big punch
Flare Gun - Not only is it invaluable for shining a light into the darkness but it also attracts the attention of nearby mutants and is a great tool for lighting things or people on fire.
Coconut Craftables - We are one step closer to an entire line of coconut based products with the introduction of canteens and grenades.
Tiered Totems and Offline Shields - Totems can now be upgraded expanding their inventory and unlocking better and better offline shields for raid protection
Construction improvements - We are so proud of our construction system and this year it got even better. We have more than doubled the number of pieces available with over 16 new roof pieces, windows in our round walls, and 1/3 round walls. The roof system is a huge update which even surprised us at just how much depth it adds to the building experience, as well as opening the door to bases degrading over time due to weather if not properly protected by a good roof.
Siege Improvements - Our siege system will always be improving but this year we made hundreds of fixes and updates to the AI pathing, the way they prioritize actions, performance and preventing them from getting stuck in walls. By popular demand, we have also added the ability for you the player to initiate your own siege to really put your defenses to the test.
Dungeon Updates - A lot of effort went into the level design of our dungeons with the greyboxing phase well underway. We are in the process of meshing-out and lighting these dungeons so expect 3-4 new underground areas to explore in 2022.
Character Customization - This was a HUGE system to get in as it blows the doors wide open for self-expression as well as roleplay, but more importantly we don't
ALL Look the same! We implemented a world-class character customizer with more options than you can shake a stick at. It did require a massive rework of our animation system as well as many of our clothing and hair meshes, but the word on the street is that it was totally worth it.
Animation and Movement System - Our movement and animation system still has a looonnnggg way to go but it got a little better this year with transition states and momentum added to give some weight to your movement.
Offline Player Body Persistence - This one is a real game-changer as it was one of the final steps needed to deliver a true online survival experience. Players will no longer disappear when logged off, the character will go to sleep after a short while and remain vulnerable until they log back on again. Meaning you better have a safe spot to log off or else you might log back in to discover that someone has taken all of your SSHAM and dressed you up like Big Bob.
New Areas - A lot of work was done to the beaches and industrial areas, rivers were added throughout the map as well.
UI Updates - Wow, talk about a facelift! It's hard to overstate how huge this was as the UI permeates every corner of the player's experience. For the past 4-5 years our UI has been purposefully simple and as dull as possible as that makes it super easy to change as we add new features. However, now that we are in a much more stable place it was time to sit down and completely redo not only the visual design but also the UX of the entire game. So not only do things look different but how you interact with most menus has also been improved. The end result is a super easy to use, intuitive UI that finally exudes that Aloha Spirit you find everywhere else in the game.
Destructible loot and Corpse Pinatas - To liven up the looting experience we now have loot boxes that need to be bashed and all of our hanging bodies can now be popped if you fill them with enough arrows or bullets, raining down loot that you may want to clean before using.
Construction Destruction - When destroyed, construction pieces no longer just disappear, but will break apart and bounce around on the ground before fading away.
Dismemberment System - Headshots are now roughly 7593% more satisfying as you watch mutant heads pop with a gush and spurt of blood, showering anything or anyone nearby. Likewise, if the killing blow happens to land on a leg or an arm they will also pop off with a torrent of red.
Audio updates - We have the first draft of our audio concept video, which will guide our engineers for the next big audio pass. You can watch that below.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
In Summary - It's been a HUGE year, absolutely crazy to think of everything that has changed in 12 short months and we couldn't have done this without the support from our awesome community. How awesome you ask? Here is a tally of all community-driven changes:
- 1,312 Bug Fixes (493 submitted by testers)
- 116 implemented user suggestions
[h2]What’s on the Horizon?[/h2]
Veil travel - Adding one of the most ambitious features in our plans. Veil travel opens up the door to multi-server travel, allowing players to not only explore the island of Maui but a multi-verse of Maui's, each with their own unique treasures and dangers as well as different biomes to discover. This is also the key to allowing 100's of thousands of players to be online playing together at the same time.
Balancing PvX - Balanced PvX is a goal that we are probably taking more seriously than any other which is why we've held dozens of roundtables with 100's and 100's of players from our community as well as some of the largest clans. We aren't so arrogant to think that we have all of the answers for a problem that has plagued MMO's since the dawn of time but by engaging the combined wisdom of 1000's of players we have a lot of confidence that we can crack this nut without imposing arbitrary limitations on player choice.
Unreal 4.27 upgrade - For the past 2-3 years Fractured Veil has been running on Unreal 4.22.3, meaning that this upgrade brings with it all of the improvements and new toys of FIVE engine updates. Not only does this unlock enormous potential for optimization but we have some brand new systems that will translate a massive improvement to our weather, sky, ocean, terrain, rivers, VFX and foliage.
500 players per world - We still chase this mythical beast, one which very few games can claim. The Veil travel system and the engine upgrades are a big part of achieving these kinds of player counts, with our last stress test coming in around 200. Stay tuned for 2022's stress test as we load the server up with 100's of players to see where we need to optimize and improve to get it up to 500.
Quests - Our quest system was completed in 2021 and in 2022 we will be putting the time into writing out and designing quest lines. We have already had some great suggestions from our community and it won't be long before our first full length community created quest lands in the game!
Talents - One of the most requested features has been a full-blown RPG player progression system with Skills, Talents and Traits to buff players as well as granting them special abilities. We are happy to say that the underlying system work is done for this as well as the UI design and with any luck this system will be turned on sometime in the spring or early summer.
For more information, be sure to check out this "So the Kickstarter is Over, Now What?" update video below.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It’s been a crazy, awesome, year, and we’re looking forward to coming back from the holiday break to get cracking alongside our community in the new year.
From everyone at Paddle Creek Games, we’d like to wish you all and your loved ones a happy holiday season!
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]
