Lost Isle News

Playtesting has been going strong over the last few weeks as we've held open access weekends, available to our group of playtesters who have signed up through Discord, and our plans moving forward are to keep the train running at full steam!

Each week our team continues making progress on all fronts - resource and loot balance, adding new features, bug fixing, optimizations, and more - and we're excited for players to experience all of the pieces coming together. We also now have our eyes set on a new frontier: player count limit testing.

[h3]Player Count Limit Testing[/h3]

Our ultimate goal on launch is to be able to support up to 200 concurrent players per server, and we're breaking that down into a few smaller milestones over the coming months. A few weeks ago during a playtest we had 20+ players concurrently in a server, and server stability was completely unaffected (This is a big achievement. Hooray!). Now we want to start pushing the limits and we need your help!

On Saturday, March 29, our goal is to have 100 players in a server playing Lost Isle simultaneously over the span of a few hours. This will give us extremely valuable data on the state of optimizations. If you're interested in participating in this specific playtest, or any future playtests, all you need to do is follow the simple signup steps below, show up that day (exact time TBA) and play the game. Lots of fun with melee and magic filled PVP guaranteed!

[h3]Signup Instructions[/h3]

1. Join our Discord community
   
2. Navigate to the "playtest-sign-up" channel in the General Hub. Review the requirements, fill out the fields, and submit this form for admin review
   
3. When approved, you'll receive a message with instructions to navigate to the "playtest-embargo-agreement" form. Review the terms, complete and submit for admin review
   
4. After your embargo agreement form has been reviewed and approved, you will automatically be given the role of "Playtester" and have access to the "playtesters" chat channel which will serve as the hub for all playtesting participation
   

Everyone who is approved as a playtester will receive an access code to the latest Steam build that will be available to download on the day of testing.

[h3]Bi-Weekly Weekend Access[/h3]

In addition to the more organized player count milestone playtests, we're also giving less formal access to our playtester group on weekends on a bi-weekly basis. On the Friday of each of these weekends the access code will be shared with all playtesters, who are welcome to come and go and play as long a they like up until servers are shut down on Sunday nights. Join our playtester group to stay in the loop for these dates.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the Discord and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for your willingness to participate in playtesting - this is an extremely important part of the process of making our game the very best it can be.

We look forward to surviving together with you, and against you, in Lost Isle very soon!


-The Lost Isle Team

[h2]What's New?[/h2]
Now that our foundation is more stable - multiplayer, server performance, and other core game mechanics at scale - the door has cracked open just enough for us to start implementing more of the fantasy side of our medieval-fantasy open-world survival craft game.

As a quick Lost Isle lore refresher, beneath the surface of the island lies the prison-tomb of the fallen god, Mauroth. Over thousands of years he has plotted his escape and return to power, biding his time and growing in strength. Enter: Mauroth's Meteors.



[h3]Mauroth's Meteors[/h3]

One thing Mauroth desperately needs but cannot source on earth is a cosmic energy-infused metal called Elementium. He uses what power he does have to continuously call down meteors fully comprised of the stuff. What he doesn't know, however, is that these meteors are not only a boon to himself, but to whoever gets there first.

Before discussing the benefits of meteors, you should be warned that they deal fatal damage to players who are caught in the blast zone. So while it's very fun to watch as they descend and explode, make sure you're on your toes and prepared to take a few last minute evasive maneuvers.

When a meteor makes landfall it does two very important things for players: it leaves behind a crater shaped ring of Elementium nodes for mining, and it converts all of the trees within the impact radius into Smoldering Trees. These are the sources of Elementium Ore and Smolderbark Wood - two of the rarest resources on the island, and required for top tier weapon and armor crafting.


On a fresh server start, you may not pay much attention to these because you aren't ready to use the resources for crafting yet, but keep in mind that they don't stick around forever. After some time, the nodes will disappear under the surface, and the trees will go back to normal. And since survival is all about taking advantage of opportunities, it might be best to gather whatever you can, whenever you can.

Rest assured that if you miss your chance to harvest the bounty of a meteor, Mauroth will always call down another.

[h3]Map Size and Player Count[/h3]
Last week we shrunk the size of the map down significantly ahead of our demo playtest to ensure everything ran smoothly on a smaller scale. The current map is about 70% smaller than our full size map. We're happy to report that performance on a single server over several hours, with 60+ unique players and 20+ concurrent players, was flawless!

Our plan over the next weeks and months is to continue scaling both player count and map size, with the goal of supporting 150+ players concurrently on our full size map. We are of course working on many other things like balancing resource availability and crafting recipes, while continuing to add features to the world and improving client performance. And now with demo playtesting access every weekend, we hope to work closely with playtesters to get feedback and make adjustments weekly.

[h3]Other Notes[/h3]

• Our Demo is now live every weekend! If you're interested in participating as a Demo playtester make sure you join our Discord! (link below)
  
• With consistent Demo access now available, we're looking to collaborate with content creators of all types and sizes. If that's you, join our Discord and send us a message!
  

[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]

Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!

[h2]What's New?[/h2]
The first month of a new year has come to its end (what), and we've made colossal strides towards Lost Isle being ready for early access later this year. The map is bigger than ever, with significantly higher vegetation and landmark density. Best of all, even with a bigger, more dense map, performance is also better than ever with higher frame rates and server reliability.

Before looking at server performance improvements and what that means for the state of the game... a few experiences from earlier today.

[h3]The Duality of Game Dev[/h3]

We pushed a freshly updated build to Steam for a few rounds of internal QA. I spent some time observing various wildlife AI, hoping to uncover the trigger for their locomotion sometimes not working properly. I encountered probably 10 different wolves. Some worked perfectly and others had issues. I documented my observations and was about to exit the game, when out of nowhere a lupine abomination howled in the distanced and challenged me to mortal combat.



If you're wondering what's in the player's hand at the beginning, those are top-tier bandages that heal and stop bleeding. Despite its appearance, it can actually kill and be killed. It caught me so off guard that I almost died before I could think to spawn in (hacks) a stack of bandages and spam use them while I ran laughing to safety.

Here's another in-game POV shot from today. I am horseback, sidehilling towards an ever-burning tree in the distance. I intend to chop it down with a freshly crafted axe, and to then use the energy-infused lumber to make a magic staff capable of shooting fireballs at the pesky skeletons guarding some fat loot chests. And all of this on a fantasy jungle island under a beautifully clear starlit night sky.


The lighting at night needs some adjustment - it's a bit too dark. The rider's hands aren't setup yet to grasp the reins properly, and the horse's head should probably be higher in the player's FOV. That tree will have different open-world spawn rules than it does now, and it's somehow missing the cool-looking spark particles that played in its branches a few weeks ago.

Our punch lists of bug fixes and polish look different these days. Instead of line items reading "server crashed when attempting to spawn a mushroom", now they more often read something like "1 out of roughly every 10 wolves requires an exorcism" or "where'd the tree sparks go?".

We still have a lot of ground to cover before our early access launch, but that today I was able ride a horse to a magic tree on a fantasy island, cut it down to craft a staff and shoot a fireball - all without the server crashing ;) - means that we're really getting somewhere.

[h3]Server Memory Optimizations[/h3]
Since the beginning, our goal for Lost Isle has been to allow for up to 200 players to experience the island together in a single server. We're big fans of Rust and other games like it, and we envisioned a game like that, but with our own unique spin on it. Making a compelling open-world multiplayer game capable of supporting that many players comes with a steep range of mountains to climb, and as of last week, we're happy to announce that we've successfully summited one of those peaks!

Without getting into the minutiae, here are the key details:

• Our server memory limit is about 12GB, meaning we experience crashes if server memory exceeds that number.
  
• When scaling our map up to the goal size (large enough to accommodate up to 200 players), our server memory would climb to nearly 13GB after loading everything in like vegetation, AI, landmarks, loot, etc. and this was before accounting for any significant number of players. Not good.
  
• Our programmers made a plan with the goal of bringing it down to 8GB and went to work. After a few dedicated weeks, they were able to not only meet the requirement but reduce server memory by an additional 50%, bringing the baseline down to around 4GB. Heroes.
  

So what does this mean?

• We can reliably build with a large map that can comfortably support up to 200 players
  
• With the additional memory optimizations, we can also push the limits for quality
  
• Higher vegetation density with increased LOD and culling distances for smoother transitions and less popping
  
• More major and minor monuments and landmarks across the map
  
• More wildlife, enemy and NPC AI units
  
• More player-built structures
  

The list goes on and on, but basically this just means that not only will we be able to build our map bigger, but also much better! Who knew server memory optimizations could be so exciting?

[h3]Other Notes[/h3]

• Playtesting will resume again very soon! If you're interested in participating as a playtester make sure you join our Discord! (link below)
  
• With playtesting coming up soon we're looking to collaborate with content creators of all types and sizes. If that's you, join our Discord and send us a message!
  

[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]

Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!

[h2]What's New?[/h2]
Our team's current development sprint has been nicknamed "wax on, wax off" - an appropriate name considering our sole focus right now is polishing game systems. QA, bug fix, polish, repeat. We're making steady progress on that front and things are feeling better than ever. The most recent systems to receive this treatment have been research and crafting.

[h3]Research and Crafting[/h3]
Players start server wipes with completely fresh research trees. There are some items in each category that require no research before crafting, like very basic clothing, tools, and a few other necessities for early survival, but everything else requires unlocking through research.



The "primitive" section is the first tier within each research tree, and items within this category can be unlocked right from the start without having to build a crafting station first. For this, and any other items beyond these, you'll need a resource called Motes. Motes are the essence of creation and can therefore be acquired by simply playing the game in almost any form; woodcutting, mining, harvesting plants and wildlife, and even from killing unfriendly players.

Items within tiers 1-3 of each category will require you to be nearby an appropriately upgraded, corresponding crafting station before you can unlock them. The workbench, anvil, spinning wheel, and reliquary all start at level 1 and can be upgraded to levels 2 and 3 with additional resources.

Research is one of only a few forms of persisting progress in Lost Isle, meaning you won't lose progress in your research tree if/when you die. The only occasions when research trees will be reset are when you join a new server, or when your current server is force wiped (force wipes are always predetermined and publicly scheduled so the timing will never be a surprise).

Once you've unlocked something in research, you can swap over to the crafting tab to make it. If it's a survival or primitive tier item, the item will be displayed with the resource cost only. If the item's background is green that means you have the required resources and you can right click to add it to your crafting queue.



The more advanced items from tiers 1-3 will additionally require that you're in close proximity to an appropriately upgraded, corresponding crafting station before you're able to craft it. If an item does require a crafting station, it will have a tag on the right side that displays which station is required. Once an item has been added to the crafting queue you're free to walk away from the station and it will be automatically added to your inventory when it's complete.

One last thing. In case you were wondering why you get motes from killing unfriendly players, that's because you lose half of your motes when you die... My advice would be to always spend your motes! Remember that progress in your research tree persists through death, so hoarding motes will only benefit the player who kills you and loots your corpse.

[h3]Other Notes[/h3]

• Beta playtesting kicks off in December! If you're interested in participating as a playtester make sure you join our Discord! (link below)
  
• With Beta coming up soon we're looking to collaborate with content creators of all types and sizes. If that's you, join our Discord and send us a message!
  

[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]

Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!

[h2]What's New?[/h2]
The Lost Isle team has been working diligently on systems testing, bug fixing, and lots of polish ahead of our official beta testing period which begins soon. We're very happy about the progress made this month and excited about the direction each individual piece is headed as it all comes together as one awesome whole. Here's a look into some of the cool things we've been cooking up with combat:

[h3]Builders and Spenders[/h3]
In previous posts we've gone over our Focus system, which essentially rewards players for consistently hitting their target with a weapon. Each consecutive basic attack will build up Focus that you'll be able to spend to activate a powerful special attack.

While rarer weapons of each class will have a unique ability, even common, lower-level weapons (including the humble Kitchen Skillet) will have a special attack called Keen Strike that simply deals 2x base damage. While hitting things with kitchenware is undoubtedly a good time, below are a few examples of magic staff special abilities.


Light Staff Special: Solar Beam. Call down a pillar of blinding light that deals heavy damage per second.


Nature Staff Special: Cyclone. Summon a violent vortex that pulls enemies towards the center and deals medium damage per second.

Side note... If for some reason you're feeling bad for the skeletons used in testing, notice that the skeleton's leg pops at the end of the cyclone indicating that it really loved the experience. Anyways...

An interesting note about these two specifically is that they are ground target, but during the channel duration you're actually able to slowly move them by pointing your reticle in the desired direction and the effect will follow. Very fun to use, if I do say so myself.

[h3]New Tooltip Design[/h3]
We've also made some major changes to our item tooltip design. The goal here was to really simplify how much is displayed and how it's displayed, so that players can easily digest the stats and effects of an item at a quick glance.



An important part of Lost Isle's game loop is running monuments - high risk high reward areas where the very best loot can be found. You're often doing these as quickly as possible to get in and get out with what you came for, so the quicker you're able to open a chest and decide whether you need an item badly enough to make room in your inventory or replace what you have equipped the better!

[h3]Other Notes[/h3]

• Beta playtesting kicks off in December! If you're interested in participating as a playtester make sure you join our Discord! (link below)
  
• With Beta coming up soon we're looking to collaborate with content creators of all types and sizes. If that's you, join our Discord and send us a message!
  

[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]

Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!