DD #70 A Moment of Nostalgia
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
It has been a long time since the beginning of this world as the third iteration of the NEOLITHIC project. Quite a few contents and systems of the game have been there for more than a year by now.
Back then, there was no prefix system, no OIG data, and no good item drop list system. But, now, a lot of things have been added to the game. It's time to make upgrades to some of our old contents and systems.
The first part of this week's focus is to make a few old bosses more rewardable to those who seek to hunt them. Their unique boss drop loots have been upgraded to a more modern version that can have prefixes and use a new data structure. For example, the hat of Sheriff Harry can now have prefixes and it will always drop after you defeat the Boss. This is the first Boss enemy of the game to make his debut in February 2021. Since then, he has served us loyally, as a relatively easy Boss character that demonstrates we can have many different ways to defeat. (Yes, you can even ask your friends to defeat him for you and acquire a key story item from him.) Meanwhile, the tainted business suit from the shade-infected mayor also got an upgrade with the new shade corruption mechanism. He is a totally optional boss, roaming in his office. He plays a key role in the story while not everyone finds him as an investigator will need to be able to see shade to reveal his existence. His suit may now go all the way up to the blue quality with different combinations of prefixes, some results may be quite powerful.
The second part of this upgrade is about location. The Worker's Dormitory first added to the game on May 1st, 2021, is an optional area located in the Unfinished Building. It does not feel have too much difference compared to the other part of the building. This is about to change. The schedule is beyond just one week's upgrade as art assets production will be required to make more content in this area. But, during this week's updates, we already have some elite enemies added to this location. The Senior Crazed Workers, having better attributions to normal crazed workers, has been added. They use almost the same loot table as other workers. However, the numeric attributions of those loots and weights have been adjusted to provide overall better results. What's next? Maybe we will have other variations, such as Experienced Crazed Workers, and Junior Crazed Workers. Well, the whole building is a mock of some modern-day company structures.
The third part of this upgrade is about the system. As the engine is old while our journey is long, we need a very robust and optimized system. Ironically, back in 2004 when the online storage was expensive, I did everything I can to limit the game's size, sacrificing some performance. Now, I am going to reverse quite a lot of those old technical designs. Even more so, I am now in favor of performance even at the cost of space. Maybe, even after all the performance optimization, this old engine still may have a lower than average result. But, at least I shall try. With more hash tables added to the drop list system, it can kill a for-loop and improve the performance there with a worse time complexity improved from O(N^2) to O(N). With more graphics caches stored in memory, we no longer need to draw detailed description windows every time when switching from one item to another. That's the optimization part while we shall other make the system more robust. The system will now automatically detect any data conflicts in localization, drop list, crafting, and OIG data. I consider it a feature for mods to do all those crazy data overwrite. However, it may become quite hard to debug later. Thus, those debug logs may come in handy when any bad things happen. We know where to hunt bugs. The system may even try to correct errors all by itself.
That's not everything yet. When we look back at history, there was something we shall always remember. The tragic Melamine Milk Event that happened in China back in 2008 shall never be forgotten. It's something personal. Thus, related content has been added.
Meanwhile, we also expanded our butterfly network to cover more areas while the main story continues into the Church Hall.
That basically shall cover everything.
But, when I go over all those old stuff. I can't stop thinking about the past. What makes this feeling even stronger is the re-release of the Taikou Risshiden V DX version on Steam by Koei this week. (Ironically, it's regionally locked in East Asia only.) It was an old game released in 2004 just like our game. The re-release has improved graphics and the content. It has a high level of freedom among any JRPG. It even influenced some old versions of NEOLITHIC, mainly in SAPC++. But, many people seem uncomfortable with the control and how to play the game nowadays. What a pity. I still enjoy the game 100%, it was something I play a lot back then. I didn't think twice to buy the game at the price where Japanese companies always overpriced. And, I have no regret to do so. Memory is priceless. I guess we are having the same problem in NEOLITHIC as well now. Players that have been playing NEOLITHIC for more than 16 years are still playing it while it feels like we may never get any significant new players anymore. Well, so be it. It has been good riddance all those years.
And, it will continue just like this. As once I made a promise to a girl. I promised, from that day on, our world will stay alive, stay updating, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. It shall never change, to the end. I promise.
Fun fact, today is May 20th, and the date sounds like "I love you" in Chinese.
Thus, it's basically another Valentine's Day in China.
Something never changes all those years, doesn't it?
Today's changelog:
##########Content###############
New area: The Church Hall. (Only a small part is accessible right now)
The area is considered a part of the Secret Tunnel. Thus, the butterflies follow the same rule as the rest part of the Secret Tunnel.
[Sins of the Father]Story continues. (Variable from 425 to 430)
[Sins of the Father]Added something optional in the church hall. (Depending on if Alicia is in the group and how you react to a certain document, the story is a bit different.)
