Dustgrave: A Sandbox RPG News

Good day, adventurers! We've been spending this month working on version 0.5, Dustgrave's first real update!

With this update, we will bring several improvements to what's in the game and add features to make the world feel alive!

[h2]Improved and expanded political simulation[/h2]
Factions are now much more active! They will send parties to occupy or raid enemy settlements, move supplies across the map, and patrol key areas.

To keep you players better informed about world events, we have added new notifications and improved existing UIs. These notifications will help you stay on top of what's happening around you.



We've also added more detailed settlement information. Now, you can easily check which traders are available, see if there are quests to take, and stay informed about major events happening in the area.



[h2]Respec[/h2]
We fully implemented a Respec feature, allowing you to change specializations for your main character and companions. This gives you more freedom to customize your party, experiment with unique builds, and adapt to different challenges.

For now, respeccing can only be done by talking to Innkeepers. It will cost a moderate amount of money, but there are no limits to how many times a character can change their specialization.

[h2]Additional Content and Features[/h2]

We've added new sub-quests, new ways to solve existing quests, and a ton of NPC barks. NPCs will now comment on world events, ongoing or completed quests, and generally react more dynamically to what's happening in the world.

We've also introduced several Quality of Life improvements! For example:

• Talk and interact with parties on the map without loading into a separate level.
  
• Trade with wandering traders who now move across the map, making it possible to barter with while exploring.
  
• Wait inside levels to let time pass—perfect for avoiding awkward moments like barging into people's bedrooms!
  
• Highlight all visible containers and interactable objects with a dedicated key.
  
• Get new notifications to better understand the impact of your actions.
  

[h2]Release date[/h2]
When will this update be ready? It's just a matter of days! We're about to start testing and polishing. Since we've made some structural changes, including further reducing loading times, we want to take our time to ensure everything runs smoothly and nothing is broken.

Thank you for your support!

Happy new year, dear adventurers!
Today we released a new update for Dustgrave, fixing several issues reported in the last days. Thank you for the many reports you sent, they helped us a lot when tracking those bugs!

We also started working on new features that we plan to deliver before the end of the month. In particular, we are adding new events to the world's simulation to make the continent feel more alive, with a map filled with NPC parties and a clear UI to keep track of what's happening around the world!
We are also working on adding new dynamic quests and some Quality-Of-Life features, following all the feedback we gathered since the release.

Don't worry, we will keep you updated! We will soon be able to share some screenshots to show you how these new features will look like!

Changelog 0.4.09

• Critical: Fixed an issue with quests not spawning. This was patches with an hotfix as soon as we found the cause, but it's part of this changelog to ensure everyone is informed.
  
• Fixed some issues with hair compenetrating with heads.
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Hands" weapon not appearing when unequipping certain items.
  
• Added new tags in dialogues to better identify traders.
  
• Fixed an issue with items disappearing in some istances, after dismissing companions.
  
• Fixed some low-resolution icons.
  
• Fixed an issue with ruined walls not occupying space, allowing people to just walk through ancient concrete.
  
• Fixed an issue with a kidnapping quest not updating properly.
  
• Fixed an issue with some quests not progressing as intended when entering the target's location.
  
• Fixed an issue with map containers not despawning properly when entering a settlement, leading to potential instability.
  
• Fixed the stats of some passive skills to be better balanced and have a better progression.
  
• Fixed an issue with quests not refreshing properly in certain settlements.
  
• Fixed an issue of corrupt data happening when two new games are started in a row.
  
• Fixed a few issues which could cause savegames not to load, and the fixes are save-compatible to ensure existing games can be picked up again.
  
• Fixed a rare issue which prevented some Find Item quests to progress as intended.
  
• The Quests' timer will no longer disappear on some rare instances.
  

We just uploaded a new patch, bringing several fixes to the bugs reported in the last few days!


Changelog

• Critical: Fixed a blocking issue when dismissing certain companions
  
• Critical: Fixed an issue with certain quests spawning half-broken and blocking the load of some levels. Now they will disappear and stop causing issues. A general fix is being tested, to ensure better quest spawning and stability. The current fix we made is save compatible and will let you keep playing with your savegame after downloading the patch.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing some quests to work when the Shenguan culture and its civilians were involved.
  
• Unique Actions are now usable again, sadly one of the fixes we made for improving loading times prevented them to be shown.
  
• Fixed a few data leaks which slightly affected performances and savegames size after playing a lot of hours.
  
• Fixed an issue with missing rewards preventing to finish quests.
  
• Fixed the visual bug on broken items and their tooltip.
  
• Allies and enemies in the final phase of some Major Quests now have proper dialogue triggers.
  
• Fixed an issue with duplicated containers that could create bugs in some quests.
  
• Fixed a rare issue with prisoners not spawning properly for certain quests, preventing quest completion.
  
• Added more controls on items disposal, to prevent anything from disappearing from the player's or NPCs' inventories.
  
• Reduced startup loading time.
  
• Added a Mono build on a dedicated branch. We are testing if it can help with the crashes some people are experiencing. If it proves to be a reliable solution, we will add it in the standard branch and allow people to choose which version they want to use when booting the game.
  

KNOWN ISSUES The game may start in windowed mode the first time you boot it. We removed the Exclusive Fullscreen settings since it has worse performances, but after setting a fullscreen mode again the settings will be updated.

Have fun!

We did it! We drastically reduced loading times thanks to several changes made to Dustgrave's code! Our testing resulted in loading times (from savegames) reduced by 60% - 75% depending on the configuration. Levels and map loading times have been slightly improved, but nothing major.
In the next months, we will work on all levels to make them lighter and improve their loading times too!

Changelog

• Critical: Reduced savegames and new games loading times by 60% - 75%.
  
• Critical: Fixed an issue with kidnapping and missing people quests, which would result in the quests not progressing properly.
  
• Improved query performances to reduce stuttering while travelling on the map or when Quests update their status.
  
• Camera will stop resetting after closing a UI.
  
• Fixed an issue with resolutions not being applied correctly, resulting in horizontal black bars.
  
• Fixed some minor issues in various levels, like floating rocks or compenetrating trees.
  
• Fixed an issue with quests not completing properly and giving a reward.
  

Just don't mind the version number shown in game, someone forgot again to update it!

Time for a new update! This one solves several issues, including a critical issue creating infinite loadings.

We are still working on improving loading times for savegames and we are now testing the results of what we did in the last days. On all our PCs, we had a drastic reduction of loading times, in some cases going down by 60%, and we are now ensuring nothing strange is happening after the change.

We plan to test some more tomorrow, and then finally release a patch with all the improvements! The changes we did also reduce stuttering on the map or right after taking/finishing quests, which is always nice to have.

Here is the changelog for today's patch!

• Critical: Fixed an issue which could cause issues with broken quests and prevent some settlements to be loaded.
  
• Fixed a blocking issue caused by starting two new games in a row.
  
• Fixed a rare blocking issue with NPC-triggered dialogues.
  
• Fixed an issue seeing quests related to missing caravans or supplies spawning when the Infested are the enemy.
  
• Fixed a few missing or wrong strings.
  
• Fixed an issue with a female armor having a wrong head spawn point.
  
• Fixed an issue with a missing tracker on Major quests.
  
• Fixed some minor UI-related issues like buttons not behaving consistently in certain screens.
  
• Slightly improved performances on the world map and removed a possible cause of crashes when loading it.
  
• Updated a few UI pieces that still had the old UI color scheme and assets.
  
• Fixed some issues in Baitay with a roof which didn't turn off and a missing height stencyl.
  
• Fixed an issue with the trading panel not allowing to move item into the trading area.
  
• Fixed an issue creating errors when trying to switch weapon sets.