The Isle News

Hey Islanders,

Due to the holiday season we will not be providing a devblog over the new year. However, in the spirit of moving forward with presentable content, we are releasing a new patch that will be delivered straight to evrima as opposed to the standard hordetesting branch. The inclusion of herrerasaurus and dilophosaurus has come early, however there are certain quirks both visually and mechanically for each of them that will be adjusted after the holidays. Continue using the bug report functionality regardless, as we will continue to refine content as much as possible in the coming days before holiday break. I hope you find the new additions to the roster as fun as we do.

Please note; you may need to restart your Steam client if the update is not immediately available to download.

[h3]0.13.18.17[/h3]

Additions
Added dilophosaurus as a playable class
Added herrerasaurus as a playable class
Added the ability to scent when crouched or resting
Added dryosaurus directional attacks
Added new AI world spawner
Added replay focus and hotkeys to adjust playback speed
Added zoom function to replays
Added new hypsilophodon grab animation
Added input release to digging to interrupt it early
Added an additional effect for sting stage for sanctuary bees
Added a warning pulse effect and sound for agitated sanctuary bees
Added "wounded" as a status report and calculation for bite force
Added condition for pounce hit to check front and back of a big target
Added giant wax palms to Gateway
Added a NV brightness curve for all species, separate from range
Added new lunge swimming animations for deinosuchus
Added new water sense effect for deinosuchus
Added deflect animations for omniraptor and troodon when pouncing from the front or behind targets


Enhancements
Carnotaurus now requires a "run up" in order to charge
Ceratosaurus stability is increased when chuffing around corpses
Smoothing adjustments to animal head tracking
Smoothing adjustments to pounce latch translation/rotation and pouncer´s camera
Adjusted boar carry position
Reduced dirt vfx amount when digging
Improved trying to rest from sliding
Adjusted hypsilophodon and stegosaurus footprint sizes
Enabled swallowing while latching
Removed schooling fish from the gallimimus diet
Shortened stegosaurus knockdown duration
Migration zones now display immediately when scenting
Allowed corpses to update locational effects
Improvements to large call attenuations
Disabled chuffing while swimming
Hatchlings are now added to their parents' group regardless of size limit
Updated friends session finder
Made pounce and headbutt to ignore alt attacks
Weather sounds are now filtered when a player's camera is underwater
Increased ceratosaurus scent range
Players can no longer pick things up if they are charging as carnotaurus
Increased pachycephalosaurus bleed resistance
Setup new threshold values for bees attacks and juvenile diet swap
Updated admin panel event to match new input name
Adjusted nutrients prortions for sanctuary mushrooms
Updated deinosuchus underwater vision
Removed initial bleed damage from target when an animal pounces them
Increased pachycephalosaurus intake values when eating or drinking
Nutrient decay rates have been slightly lowered
Adjusted ceratosaurus animation swallow curves
Adjusted gallimimus, hypsilophodon, beipiaosaurus, dryosaurus, pachycephalosaurus, and troodon knockdown times
Restored minimum sprint duration/distance before sliding can activate
Ceratosaurus charged bites now force the player out of crouching
Added a stability multiplier to tenotosaurus when attacking behind itself
Removed impact sound from death screen
Adjusted pachycephalosaurus ram downwards activation angle
Slightly shortened recoil and stagger animations
Organs should now properly reflect food values based on the size of the animal they are taken from
Pachycephalosaurus headbutt can now properly hit swimming targets
Edits to nv underwater values
Updated balance values for pounce (stamina cost/damage)
Updated headbutt balance values (stamina cost/damage)
Updated all bucking stamina damage values
Increased the diet boost values to scent and NV ranges
Fast transitions from sitting to standing no longer cost stamina


Bug fixes
Fixed mud not going away if wallowing after a rain event fired
Fixed headbutt slide and animation failing to restart
Fixed pteranodon animation blending when using vocals while flying
Fixed ceratosaurus charged bite tap animation
Fixed wallow adding mud even if raining
Fixed dryosaurus/carnotaurus charge indicator showing for hatchlings
Fixed morphs for animals with a subadult stage
Fixed wrong math on removing source food when removing a chunk
Fixed players occasionally losing their saved skins
Fixed grazing message having priority over eating a specific plant
Fixed bullfrog not being properly listed for omnivores diets
Fixed deinosuchus and ceratosaurus occasionally receiving vomit debuffs
Fixed gore chunks not having correct nutrient proportions from its source
Fixed troodon jump attack sound not crossfading by age
Fixed collision for physics assets against old cliff rocks
Fixed some foliage and rock collisions being inaccurate
Fixed beipiaosaurus upwards swimming animation not playing correctly
Fixed weather sometimes not replicating
Fixed beipiaosaurus vertical swim speed being incorrect
Fixed vomit animation making meat chunks clip through the neck and face
Fixed profile creating sound playing on start up
Fixed pachycephalosaurus juvenile generic call sound clicking
Fixed pteranodon not taking off at low stamina properly
Fixed carnotaurus not sliding after turning from charge
Fixed issue with eating value always being 50
Fixed boar montages
Fixed replay cooldown starting from the start of recording instead of its end
Fixed directional attack being spammable
Fixed wrong values on skin setup for AI spawn
Fixed organs not becoming rotten sometimes
Fixed pieces being interactable after destroy was called on server
Fixed schooling fish scale issue on spawn
Fixed trace attack hitting overlaps
Fixed dryosaurus/carnotaurus cooldown indicator color while the ability is active
Fixed organs weight values sometimes being too heavy
Fixed dryosaurus not biting while holding ALT
Fixed slowdown when landing
Fixed sinking too deep into mud when jumping in
Fixed deinosuchus nose bubbles showing above water
Fixed crouch jittering when stood in water
Fixed some species using diving animation for mud pools
Fixed locked damage not being added on some normal attacks
Fixed skin preview background not having light sometimes
Fixed sickness status on UI disappearing when relogging
Fixed meat chunks occasionally not despawning if eaten fully from swallowing or on the floor
Fixed pachycephalosaurus ram head damage multiplier
Fixed issue of swallow animation on simulated proxies
Fixed drag SFX sometimes playing louder than intended
Fixed certain hints not showing up
Fixed scent bar not being full when inside migration zone
Fixed flung animation repeating
Fixed carnotaurus slide animation after charging
Fixed sanctuary mushrooms being added to adult diet list
Fixed collision of gore pieces during swallow
Fixed swallowing state not applying once swallow animation starts
Fixed "can't swallow" hints not showing up in some circunstances
Fixed organs occasionally becoming stuck to the player's mouth
Fixed AI dinos not updating locational effects
Fixed bees not damaging adult dryosaurus
Fixed bullfrog and deer giving wrong diet nutrients
Fixed issues with drink distance checks
Fixed subadult to adult growth times for dinosaurs without a subadult stage
Fixed dryosaurus juvenile and hypsilophodon grazing/eating sounds not playing
Fixed bleed clogging sometimes not working when wallowing
Fixed vocals ducking venom ambience
Fixed goat, boar and deer sliding animations when sprinting
Fixed juvenile omnivores not getting nutrients from anything besides sanctuary mushroom sources
Fixed fall damage not being calculated when quicklogging
Fixed lunge sprint boost after leaving water to land during lunge
Fixed crouched scent animations clipping through floor
Fixed pawn being destroyed if quick logout after going to Spec mode at least once
Fixed scent blocking other abilities if it was activated when scenting is not possible
Fixed gore been somewhat intertactable after fully eaten
Fixed headtracking jitter
Fixed organs that were thrashed to be thrashed again using original corpse
Fixed pounce camera disalignment
Fixed some debuff values taking too long to disappear
Fixed animal AI not spawning blood pool effects
Fixed corpse flies not despawning
Fixed headtracking facing forward when looking back
Fixed wallow hint showing on blood pools for herbivores
Fixed beipiaosaurus bouncing on water surfaces when out of stamina
Fixed deinosuchus sprint footstep sounds not playing sometimes
Fixed hypsilophodon slide footsteps not spawning
Fixed pteranodon being able to skim above ground
Fixed a latency issue causing the pounce start animation to repeat

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
It’s been another busy month spent working hard to release Gateway, which included several adjustments because some of the new mechanics weren't ready in time, so they had to be removed.

The remaining efforts were focused on moving forward with some new additions to the game, but also to have the first post-Gateway patch released as soon as possible. However, some work in progress systems are:.

• Tyrannosaurus crush ability. It would be a mix of Pounce and Lunge, having different behaviors depending on the size of the target.
  
• Burrowing. The mechanic has been updated with proxy meshes for testing and adjustment, some design decisions are to be made, but the mechanic should be finalized as soon as we set the final choices.
  
• Mutations. Mainly the mechanic is done, but not all designed mutations were added, we can do that overtime so we have better balance applied to them. In that regard, we are allowing Server Owners to customize the values of each mutation, also enable/disable them all or just a few, all through server configs.
  
• Pounce has received some updates to the new Grapple system (disabled for release), also some balance changes and an important change: Pouncing the front or the back of a big target won't connect (latch) anymore.Instead the Pouncer will perform a claw attack doing small damage. In order to latch on the target it needs to be attacked on the sides. This change applies to Troodon as well. Latching from the front was initially implemented to assist players having a difficult time landing successful pounces but we feel is not needed.
  
• Balance Updates. In general more balance changes were made to several abilities and mechanics.
  
• Several bugs were fixed including the ones reported by stress testers, not only QA.
  

Thanks everyone!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
I started the month setting up the new migration and sanctuary scent icons. On the topic of scenting, it is now possible to do it when crouching or resting as well. I also did some experimentation on human weapons, but that’s something that will be worked on properly a bit later on.

The diabloceratops also received some improvements to be more reliable and convenient to use. It has a sidestep action when sparring to quickly get around each other which was previously done by tapping a direction key, but we moved it to the spacebar to be more user friendly. I was also able to make the movement faster when locked together so pushing each other worked much better, it was quite challenging in a networked environment. The camera is also locked to the front now, it helps make it more focused on the interaction. I also started working on a new action, running into the side of another diabloceratops lets you push them around a bit differently. That one is still work in progress though.

I also made further progress on the herrerasaurus. The branch snapping system is being improved with more trees being supported and the movement working better in general. The jumping indicator also shows when you would break your legs from jumping now. Fracturing your legs is something you would really want to avoid, so it should be quite useful.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
Humans. Yes. Humans. This month has been on humans and the extension of their presence on the island. Soon you’ll find the new aquatic fences when they are finished up, which will be the start of shaping up aquatic gameplay..

As well to further the future human interaction and gameplay loop, I’ve designed our new keycards. This card is WIP and it might go through some changes.



Earlier this month, I also finished our new door kit, which consists of a wide array of door types, which represent proper indoor and outdoor doors, so you can distinguish them easier, just by their look and bulkiness.



Besides that I’ve been busy with small additions to our human environment which will be revealed as we populate more places with human stuff, so stay tuned for that!

That is it for me this month, see you next month!


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
This month (outside of some icon edits) I've been working on designing two types of cloning tanks, one for large to medium specimens, the other for small and some splash art to showcase them. Full on large scale painted illustrations are intensive enough on their own, but these also needed to be layered in a way that different creatures could be easily swapped in and out from the tank without it looking like it was simply dropped on top of the canvas and where the lighting layers would still ‘play nice’ with any newer additions to the painting.

Not just a fun piece to look at but both will be getting their own design sheets as well so they can be turned into a 3d asset for the labs.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Just capping off the last of the monkey gator animations this month before I move on to the next beastie. But in other news, Maiasaura got a nice rig update and we’ll be able to spin up the big cow for some work pretty soon. Always liked working with Hadrosaurs, they’re pretty satisfying to work with so I’m looking forward to that.




[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month the majority of my focus was on sounds for Dilophosaurus’ venom mechanic.
After concepting a few ideas for both the ambience and the sound to go with a hallucination dissolve visual effect, I compounded what worked into a singular design for both sounds. With the sounds designed, a large portion of the work was how the ambience was to be implemented. The ambience is split up into layers which are either introduced or removed as the victim progresses through stages of envenomation, becoming more claustrophobic as it reaches stage 3. The existing natural ambience is effected to compliment this feeling, with some ambience sounds still audible at stage 1 and slowly being removed until none of the original ambience remains at the final stage. Audio effects were set up, blending existing sounds such as the original ambience as well as vocals that occur while envenomated into the new venom ambience, helping along the spooky atmosphere created. To cap it off a sound which plays a random selection from an array of Dilo’s vocals, mostly choosing from its shorter gurgles, hisses and coos as well as its distinct venom laugh, to replace the ambient one shots. These are processed with slightly different effects to sell the ethereal nature, blend with the final soundscape, and confuse its victim in turn ramping up the tension.

After finishing the venom ambience I moved on to Herrera vocals, where I have the majority of its pain reaction and attack sounds done as well as a few other supplementary vocals. Designing as much of its sound palette as possible will be carried forward into December as my sole priority.

Aside from my main two tasks this month I also managed to work on a few smaller improvements and additions. I did another design pass on Diablos threaten call, improving all the vocal layers as well as adding in an impactful snap of its beaks. Sounds were added to Dryosaurus’ new directional attacks; however its vocal sound is likely a placeholder until a bespoke sound can be designed. The pulsing bees sound I made a few months ago have also been added in, initiating when dangers to animals that have taken sanctuary are near. Finally I also made use of the system that changes footstep sounds based on terrain to also do the same for body impacts, this not only applies to body falls from knockdowns but also landing from jumps or falls as well. And of course plenty of bug fixes to go along with all this too.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
This month QA have been hard at work continuing to test Diabloceratops, Dilophosaurus, and Herrerasaurus. The latter two are nearing completion. All we need to do is a bit of balance testing, add a few assets and fix any lingering major issues, then they’ll be prepped for release.

One of the more interesting bugs that has occurred is the dilophosaurus’ head growing to a massive size when dragging a corpse. Here’s what that looked like…



Herrerasaurus seemed to be very keen on throwing itself head first into the mud pits until recently as well…
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Diabloceratops definitely needs to work on its cardio…
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Hmm, mostly been bug fixing, polishing some outdated concepts/content and a ton of reviews. Stegosaurus mechanics got approved so that’s nice. Grapple has a framework. I think we touched on it before but the TLDR is size doesn’t mean everything.

We’re glad to see how you all are taking to migrations and sanctuaries as a whole. Which largely has been accomplishing their intended goals. Expect to see more sanctuaries as we planned way more than what we released with. The concentrated sanctuaries as a test have yielded valuable information. Naturally, the features we release will require edits and review as we continue fleshing out the experiences we want players to have. There have been some changes to stamina that you’ll hopefully be seeing soon. But don’t get too excited. While the stamina regen is indeed heaving hitting, as was intended and although we will be making adjustments to it, stamina is going to remain an important resource in The Isle that needs to be managed well. Sprinting everywhere is not what we want. These changes have slowed things a bit and we are pleased with that aspect but still need to work on finding the sweet spot.

The herrerasaurus and dilophosaurus are shaping up nicely for their eventual release. Just needing some polish in a few places to get them fully tested and play ready. The herrera may get a few placeholder sounds if it ends up running too long production wise. So glad for big features to be less common all at once.

For myself I have enjoyed being able to work on ironing out some animation inconsistencies that have been long standing to help improve the smoothness and feel of the characters. I’ve been working on some ground based locomotion for the pteranodon in preparation for some changes it’s likely going to undergo playstyle and overall thematic wise. Pteranodons were supposed to be dogfighting and stealing from each other originally. Among other things.

The deinosuchus has also needed some love. The swimming is not nearly as smooth as I find acceptable so I’ve also been able to touch on some of that. It has been a long time coming for me to personally have time to devote to those kinds of additions/changes so I am just glad to be entering into more of a polishing era for once rather than plowing through a stack of animation sets across the roster. So expect to see some things altered, smoothed out or replaced entirely.

The maiasaura has had some establishing poses made and the animation team is about to begin chipping away at it. I enjoy working with hadrosaurs the most as they are usually by far the easiest to work with and you can’t have a game with dinosaurs and not have a hadrosaur. They really are painless. Hopefully not famous last words because we would like to preserve the biped/quad swap and that may end up being a lot of work. So we’ll see.

The diabloceratops is still in testing. We really want to hit the nail on the head with its mechanics and all the animations it takes to make it pop. Upside being as soon as we do finalize that animation list and the functionality, the triceratops will already have its path laid out. We’re trying to hit multiple ceratopsian birds with one stone.

As a general PSA please keep in mind, room needs to be made to have something to work/build towards. Some baselines are going to feel rough because they are but may have ways of mitigating them through proper gameplay. Building a digital ecosystem is challenging and it takes time to fully see the impacts of sweeping systems. That’s pretty much the month as a whole. I’ll see what I can do as far as getting replay polished up for the next update but don’t hold your breath on that cause we do have a fair amount of bugs to tackle and loose ends to tie up before break. We don’t want to leave you hanging for the holidays if possible. Anyway, that’s all for now. Toodles!

Hey Islanders,

We are now deploying Gateway to the EVRIMA branch. As outlined in our latest DevBlog, our current live version (Spiro, 0.11.59.04) will be moved to its own branch for a limited time. This move is designed to accommodate players who do not want to partake in active development but wish to continue playing the game on the previous stable version. Once Gateway's gameplay loop is assessed internally as stable and within the intended vision, we will drop support for 0.11.59.04 and return to a unified EVRIMA branch. All Official Servers are also transferring over to Gateway.

As always, you may need to restart your Steam client if the update is not immediately available to download.



Server Owners that utilize Gateway will have to make adjustments to their configuration files. Below, you'll find an example illustrating the required format for your Game.ini. Please note; You also have to use the appropriate depot when hosting for a specific map.

spiro0.11.59.04 - Server branch for Spiro
evrima - Server branch for Gateway

[/Script/TheIsle.TIGameSession]
ServerName=Official Evrima - EU 5
MaxPlayerCount=100
MapName=Gateway
bServerFallDamage=true
ServerDayLengthMinutes=45
ServerNightLengthMinutes=25
bServerDynamicWeather=true
bAllowReplay=false
bQueueEnabled=true
bServerPassword=false
ServerPassword=xxxxxxxxxx
bRconEnabled=true
RconPassword=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
bSpawnPlants=true
bServerWhitelist=false

[/Script/Engine.GameSession]
MaxPlayers=100


0.12.51.02

Additions
- Added new map (Gateway)
- Added new mechanic: Migrations
- Added new mechanic: Sanctuaries
- Added new AI: Sanctuary Bees
- Added weather
- Added new environmental material effects to dinosaurs
- Added new UI icons
- Added sanctuary (red) mushroom
- Added AI herds
- Added new edible plants: Jackfruit, Banana, Brazil Nuts, Dulse
- Added pushable gates/doors
- Added config option to toggle AI
- Setup new stamina regen during resting
- Setup damage outputs being modified by a player's health
- Added beipi nest animation
- Added new ram impact foley sound
- Added input release to digging so players can interrupt the ending animation
- Added required restarts to certain graphical options that failed to update without them


Balance Changes
- Slightly lowered carnotaurus attack rotations
- Increased some alt attack trace sizes
- Updated cerato bacteria gain values
- Set stego plates and hypsi eyebrows to not block penetration checks
- Enabled dryo evade when sprinting
- Adjusted charge and headbutt interactions
- Added the weight of all pouncers as a check to be able to sprint when being pounced
- Returned stamina cost for alt bites to all animals, besides deino
- Reduced damage output if a player is out of stamina
- Using direction attacks to substitute movement when bleeding now results in proportional drain to the animal's blood pool
- Adjusted stegosaurus growth times
- Adjusted deinosuchus growth times
- Added 20s cooldown to carnotaurus charge
- Globally reduced stamina costs for attempting to pounce and successful pounce states (latched, pinned)
- Removed initial bleed damage on pounce
- Updated all animals buck stamina damages
- Reduced stamina cost for headbutt and tenonto attacks
- Increased all hatchling/juvenile nightvision ranges
- Removed stamina regen boost from diets
- Adjusted nutrient slot fills so overeating is no longer required
- Adjusted cerato scent ranges
- Reduced stamina cost for bucking off latched players
- Reduced pterodactylus damage
- Increased pachy bleed resists
- Added stenciling effects to deinosuchus's underwater nightvision


Enhancements
- Engine version update
- UI updates
- Landscape shader updates
- Foliage shader updates
- Improvements to pounce animation visuals
- Disabled walking off ledges when standing on foliage
- Vocals and environment sounds improvements
- Updated omniraptor movement animations
- Improved corpse trashing trigger
- Setup day and night lengths to be modified using ini file
- Improvements to pachy ram hit detection
- Vocal calls take several uses before they start to fall in power
- Disabled resting in knee deep water
- Set skin variation to be saved and also exportable/importable
- Improvements to river, lakes and mud pool collisions
- Avoid hit animation when pinned
- Added cooldown colors to charge indicator
- Adjusted crab carry location
- Adjusted sea turtle pounce locations
- Adjusted boar carry position
- Made herbivores and omnivores adjust animation based on its location in relation to the player mesh
- Improvements to fracture animations
- Fixed rotten food not properly giving nutrients
- Updated night vision
- Added brightness curve for night vision
- Reflective eyes added to night vision
- Updates and fixes to fruit math regarding weight
- Fireflies now disappear properly during the day
- Made migration zones show up immediately during scent without having to hold the input
- Reduced intensity of galli feed vocal sound
- Adjusted hypsi footprints size
- Adjusted stego footprints size
- Adjusted organs giving little food/nutrients
- Avoid system spawning plants on big slopes
- Avoid trees being scented, rather than their fruit
- Made debuff nutrients such as cannibal/mushrooms decrease as fast as hunger.
- Block any kind of pickup during charge
- Changed admin panel input name from "Players" to "AdminPanel"
- Increased rate at which pachycephalosaurus eats and drinks


Fixes
- Pounce is no longer interrupted by directional attacks
- Fixed graze still being able to activate while sprinting
- Fixed Ptero using carry and drag anim froms Ptera, causing stretching
- Fixed tenonto default skin
- Fixed some foliage collision
- Fixed galli's environmental alert sounds playing outside of the jungle
- Fixed galli mobilize vocal not having an animation
- Fix to certain diets affecting bleed and health decay
- Fixed not being able to drop a turtle after carrying it
- Fixed deer carry offset
- Vocal sounds will now be heard in replays
- Underwater post process now displays correctly with replays
- Fixed gore scaling in a players mouth if they grew
- Fixed certain blood decay math
- Fix the grab high animation being canceled by certain features
- Fixed galli kick uncrouching when holding something
- Hypsi is now properly set to protein instead of lipids for troodon and ptera
- Fixed tiny footsteps inaudible in deep mud
- Fixed attacks not canceling buck
- Fixed getting interaction hints when latched
- Fix to small deino lunge causing target to be forced out of resting
- Fixed players being able to swallow debris
- Interaction hints do not activate when a player is latched onto a pounce target
- Fixes to blood vfx
- Fixed sliding not working properly
- Fixed ptera not using stamina for takeoffs
- Fixed meat chunks not giving nutrients if a juvenile carnivore swallows them
- Fixed stego 90 degree alt attack resulting in movement lock
- Fixed beipiaosaurus, pachycephalosaurus, and stegosaurus knockdown configuration.
- Fixed swallowed corpses scaling with the player
- Fix to vomit trace
- Fixed input lock if swallowing while vomit sickness is active
- Corpses can no longer be swallowed repeatedly
- Fixed grazing while moving not locking camera
- Fixed crouching deceleration
- Fixed camera lock while grazing causing player to move in circles
- Fixed ptera animation issue when landing
- Fixed not being able to activate hypsi spit while running
- Fixed rotten food not properly giving nutrients
- Fixed ptera vocal blending when flying
- Fixed morphs for dinos with subadult stage
- Fixed troodon jump attack sound not crossfading by age
- Fixed weather desyncs
- Fixed replay cooldown starting from start of recording
- Fixed river spline collision mismatch between server/client
- Fixed certain exploits that allowed spamming of directional attacks
- Fixed organ interaction and rot rate values
- Fixed issue with schooling fish scale increases
- Fixed organ weights being too heavy
- Fixed flung animations getting stuck in a loop
- Fixed carno slide animation after charging
- Fixed water splash VFX scale on tiny creatures
- Fixed boars not attacking

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]

This month I have been working mostly on getting Gateway sent to the public while also doing more work on upcoming mechanics.

Most of time was spent working on several different approaches for migration, different design or technical needs to make the system more robust. Several options are going to be made accessible for community servers, so they can customize migration to their liking. Stress Tests have been great to not only find faults in the procedural system, but also balance it better after patching any holes in design.

During this time some bug fixes and improvements were done for weather as well. It should fully replicate properly and the changes in weather should no longer be immediate.

With the introduction of Gateway and the stamina system, we had a lot of balance adjustments to make. There is a global reduction in stamina consumption across all animals and a lot of per-species adjustments that were made in order to keep certain species viable. We still have more to do, but for now those balance changes alleviate most of the concerns till the next robust release.

For the main branch of production I continued working on mutations. It is nearly feature complete and we can keep adding more and more mutations over time, both up until and after the release of the mechanic. Also finished up working on dilophosaurus venom. It has a few other things necessary for release, we are ready to begin testing on it.

Besides all that. I have been working on the “Pounced-to-Pinned” transition that we call Grappled. The internal testing and animations testing have gone really well, so this would bring an entirely new aspect to pounce type mechanics, giving new options for strategic combat.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
And lastly, the usual balance changes and bug fixes. See you next time!


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]

I worked on various different things this month, starting with my personal favorite, the herrerasaurus. With the aimed jump system players are encouraged to jump more than other species, so for now we removed stamina cost from small hops, although we will have to test carefully to see the best balance settings. The dinosaur had many of its values tweaked over time to get the best results to make sure climbing feels and looks great across all kinds of surfaces, but I finally found a solid solution to a certain jittering issue that’s been bugging me. I also enabled swallowing while latched on to a wall, which could come in handy.

We use a framework to manage our character abilities and attributes. While it works great for the most part, there was some room for improvement in terms of data usage. So I ended up replacing some of their built in solutions with our own ones that don’t send any more data than necessary. The biggest improvement is where characters deal damage to each other, which is arguably the situation where you’d want to have the least amount of lag when playing. The changes will need to be tested properly, so they didn’t make their way to the Gateway test branch, but it’s something to look forward to.

The team also did some internal testing for the diabloceratops. There are several adjustments to be made there, so I got back into focusing on that dinosaur. You can now move while blocking and you also have increased protection against attacks that can knock down or stagger players.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]

The first half of this month my time was focused on creating all sounds for Dilophosaurus during its juvenile stage, pitching up the sounds used already for the adult stage, making fine adjustments and replacing layers that did not achieve the right feel for this creature when pitched up. I also worked on the sound effects to prototype for Diablo sparring, I ended up creating 3 elements that will be used in combination to create the sounds of these creatures’ locking horns. Firstly, a loud and hard impact with the additional connection of the horns is used for the initial locking as they begin to spar as well as the ram attack during a sparring bout. Then a collection of lighter knocks and scraping sounds of the horns have been created to use as they come into contact as they push and struggle against each other. These sounds will be used modularly for all Ceratopsians sparring, however what I have only covers the size category of an Adult Diabloceratops and these sounds need to be scaled for multiple size categories in preparation for when I come to work on the juvenile Diabloceratops and in addition the Triceratops.

The second half of this month I was focused on making adjustments and improvements in preparation for Gateway’s release, including ambience improvements, reducing the range at which vocal calls can be heard slightly and focusing on a final quality pass on Pterodactylus’ sounds.

I am also currently working on a number of sound concepts for Dilo’s venom mechanic, an ambience to homogenize with the visuals, heighten the tension and sonically isolate the envenomated player from the soundscape of the island. Additionally, a sound is needed for the hallucinations disappearing so some designs are in the works to really sell the undulating and morphing quality of this effect. More on this next month.

Finally, I have been working on herrerasaurus’s attack vocal sounds. With its calls having been created a while ago; I had established the identity of this creature as it is introduced to Evrima, taking the bellowing personality it’s known for and adding some character and individuality to it. With this in mind to help steer the design process I have created sounds for both its bite and attack which stay relatable to the established identity but scaling back on the weight behind these sounds to conform with the creatures’ size and allow its calls to be grand and pronounced by comparison.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]

This month is gun month. It has been a really long month but a month in which I will bring you more news about humans and their weapons.

We’ve designed all of the weapons to have interchangeable attachments, as we have standardized our rail, so this of course will apply to all future weapons as well. This means that any guns designed can have interchangeable attachments. It may fictionalize a lot of real-life counterparts but it mitigates the odds of never finding the appropriate weapon attachment, which in many looting games can feel like a chore.

This month we have a fully finished .357 revolver. It has been quite an interesting weapon to design and create. We’ve made special attachments to it such as the grip. With the exception of the name, it is otherwise finished.

*Keep in mind that all of our weapons are still subject to minor changes.


Besides that, I’ve been working on modular kits for the map as well, creating various additions such as stairs, and working to get the building shaders overhauled with our shader artist, Ikarop.

Lastly, an image of our shotgun for fun:



See you next month folks.


[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]

Besides some First Person Prototype videos, I've continued to focus on our Apollo Engineering software video format. Since we will create content and lore videos with this format more often in the future, it is important to try out some concepts and especially to define guidelines. As well as the familiar login screen and boot menu I also created concepts for a global archive, a chip tracking system, a trail cam and monitoring camera system.

You can see the first video in which we were able to combine the presentation of a new species and The Isle Lore here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Additionally, planning for the most important and biggest video project so far has started, the Steam Page Trailer. It's still a bit early, but this trailer is meant to showcase all of the work that’s been put into the game since the EVRIMA branch as it moves to the default Isle experience. There’s so much content to work with and it requires a lengthy planning phase. I am incredibly excited about this project.

Since the content from the LIVING ROADMAP will be released separately, many have asked how we will now manage the update release trailers for it. We will not create release trailers for every piece of content that is released, but we will do so when enough content has been gathered. Gateway will not get an unnecessary release trailer, but will be presented in a later trailer with other content.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]

Hope you all have been enjoying the public Gateway testing. October has been a whirlwind for the team but a good one. Lots and lots of testing teamwide in preparation for the official release of Gateway to the public. As has been mentioned before and I will reiterate now, since we have laid a large swath of the foundational features/mechanics necessary, we are moving away from large scale releases and going to be entering more iterative releases. Which will have the added benefit of getting more frequent content to the public as well as getting more feedback and testing for development.

This month has been centered around getting Gateway in a decently playable state so survival is possible as well as integrating the Migration System. Which is intended to get players moving around the map a bit more frequently and should help create encounters with other players that feel more natural and spread out rather than constant and concentrated. The Migration System should also provide a fair amount of customization for server owners so they can tailor it to the preferred environmental desires. The next thing coming along soon will be Sanctuaries. Which are creches of sorts. Sanctuaries provide juvenile players greater survivability against starvation due to map size and a reprieve from larger animals as well as providing moments for exploration. But be very aware that while sanctuaries are aimed at increasing the survival rate of juvenile players and being fun to explore, they are not without their own dangers and are not going to make you invulnerable or keep you off the menu. Your time within a sanctuary is also limited. Overstay and death may not be far behind. Enter and exit cautiously.

The playables have been undergoing a lot of changes and iteration as we establish the basis of what climbing, sparring, hallucinations etc will look/play like from a foundational perspective. Some of the features you’ll see show up for a specific species may show up in small or large parts for other species as well. Sparring is a good example of that as that system will be shared among most if not all ceratopsians. With the visuals and some interactions varying based on species. The diabloceratops has been feeling pretty good lately even with a lot of its intended functionality missing. I’m personally pretty excited to get it into your hands. The same ideology applies to climbing. While the herrerasaurus may specialize in that action, other creatures may incorporate part of that system into their own gameplay as well. Like the hypsilophodon for instance.

All of the above brings me to Grappling. Grappling, which was previously Pounce to Pinned internally, is a feature that allows pouncers and grapplers more combat effectiveness against even the largest targets. An example of a pouncer would be the omniraptor while a tyrannosaurus or allosaurus for instance would be more of a grappler. Much like can be witnessed in nature today, large animals can be brought down onto their haunches as they become weakened or overpowered. Eventually resulting in them being pinned to the ground. Spelling doom for most. This makes pouncing and grappling carnivores a threat to creatures that may individually be well outside of their size ranges. This feature is being worked on in preparation for even the largest animals on our roster to be brought down if a pack is skilled and coordinated enough to whittle them down. Size does not mean everything. The Isle is never truly safe for any creature. Exercise caution against dangerous game. It still won’t be an easy task.

The triceratops is well on its way towards animation completion, we’re also making some quality of life changes to some animations here and there as well as preliminary implementation of long dormant features like jump attacks. The pterodactylus is also getting some new interactions (and slight nerfs lol). The next playable you’ll be seeing is going to be the maiasaura which I’m personally excited to work on as you can’t have a game with dinosaurs without a hadrosaur. That’s all for now. Happy Halloween!




[h2]Director’s Commentary – [/h2]

Hello Islanders,

Upgrading to UE5 while also pushing forward new content has proven quite arduous but we are (relatively speaking) at the finish line for porting that content over. The embargo on Gateway was lifted, so I hope those of you that have had an opportunity to play have found our work enjoyable. The testing will remain up as we finish up the smaller details that are necessary to fully move the map and content to a public release.

As it has been impressed upon by myself, we are trying to move content out faster. The Gateway build will be patched to the EVRIMA branch once the last of any unforeseen technical issues are addressed. This is a relatively large drop of content and it goes without saying that almost always something goes wrong, so in preparation, the current active build of EVRIMA (0.11.59.04) will be moved to a temporary branch for those of you who do not wish to partake in the active development of content and simply want to play the game. Once Gateway's gameplay loop is assessed internally as stable and within the intended vision, we will drop support for 0.11.59.04 and return to a singular EVRIMA branch. There's no time like borrowed time.

I'm sure many of you have already seen previews of the sparring system that is being introduced alongside the diabloceratops. This mechanic is being created to span across as many of the ceratopsians as possible, including cross-species sparring so long as the two animals are within an estimated 20% weight differential. However, this system is also going to be functional for the tyrannosaurus and a few other projected theropods. Not only will they be able to lock up and fight with a ceratopsian, but they will be able to lock up and fight with one another.

Gen 1's have gone through many changes since we've begun concepting playstyles and intent. I'm happy to say their first playable archetype has been fully through the concept phase and can be moved into production. Attached below are some of the pieces used to dictate the design direction, including two different head customization types we intend to support. We went through many body types, head styles, and skin features to capture a creature that is very clearly non-human, but retains customization features indicative of a standard humanoid character. In the future, we hope to provide a myriad of head and body choices for a player to make this incidental abomination of science feel like their own.



Other than that, I've been working on refining the direction of the game's lore items and presentation nestled somewhere between analog horror and traditional text-based storytelling. It's been very enjoyable to work alongside Seiza, Tapwing, and Fred as both in-game documentation and videos are templated. It has not escaped my notice that a large chunk of the community is ravenous for story-telling and have created some incredibly fun theories and fan videos inside the game, so I will be providing some of the resources that were created for use in-house, including the guide-sheets we use for upcoming "in-universe" videos and the templates for dinosaur glance sheets and species specific character sheets. They should arrive within the week in the Phase Three channel and I hope they find some use with the loremasters among you.

- Don

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I worked on several fronts, while also working on improving the Spectator Mode for the public Evrima branch of the game. We also fixed a few small problems server side, and introduced the new Vomit Sickness.

Like last month, I’ve cut my work into topics for easier consumption:

• Implemented more mutations and fixed a lot of related bugs. The mutations are made in a way that server owners can enable/disable all mutations, or enable specific ones and more: They can customize the specific values of the individual mutations, allowing a wider range of customization for community servers.
  
• New resting curves were implemented, still under work in progress balance wise, but now the longer you keep resting, the faster it restores stamina, health and blood.
  
• Other balance changes were added, such as stamina affecting damage output, and the addition of “Wounds” (not visual), which lower your health as well as certain stats, such as health regen, stamina regen, damage and more.
  
• The Dilophosaurus Hallucination System is mostly finalized, we are just adding some extra effects and balance adjustments.
  
• Several members of the team worked together this month to reduce memory usage of the new map (Gateway), especially server side. We managed to reduce its memory consumption by about 50%.
  
• A heap of Migration tweaks and bug fixes.
  
• Locational effects improvements and bug fixes.
  
• Setting up final assets and systems for the new playables.
  
• Several bug fixes in all areas and QOLs.
  

With the Stress Test now live we can finally gather the data we need to balance and adjust the map accordingly, so we can release it asap. See you next month!


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
This month I’ve been focusing on polishing the upcoming playables and fixing related issues. The herrerasaurus climbing is becoming more and more reliable, I found some networking related jittering that I also managed to smooth out. I also set up the special resting animations that are used when positioning yourself on thin branches. The animal was also given a new diving animation, we expect players to spend a lot of time up in the trees and jumping down into water can be a good way to dampen your fall, assuming you don’t jump into the jaws of a deinosuchus.

I also gave the diabloceratops some love, it now takes reduced damage to its head and can use its block ability to reduce it even further. I extended the dryosaurus’s dodge charge indicator to support a more generic functionality, it is now also used to indicate how many sparring abilities you can activate and also show their cooldown.

Finally I made some developments to the growth system. Our aim for the current apexes is to have a relatively faster growth in the beginning, and then significantly slow it down as you get older. There were a couple things that had to be adjusted, but it’s all set up now and hopefully it will lead to a rewarding experience.




[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I’ve been working on designing vocal sounds for both Dilophosaurus’ and Diabloceratops’ unique abilities.

I have made a handful of sounds, alongside Dilo’s menacing laugh that I made previously, for its venom mechanic. Initially I created a unique Threaten call for envenomation that can be heard before a hallucination initiates its attack, a layered shrill shriek, with a hissing rumble and a throaty roar. Additionally, there are some more comparably subdued but intimidating sounds, including some variations to its laugh gurgles and growls, and a couple of unique hisses, one layered with a trilling shriek.

For Diablo I’ve created a suite of grunts, groans and exertions for use when locked into a sparring match, emphasizing the struggle of strength between them. In addition, there are some more bespoke sounds used while sparring for ramming, being rammed, flipping, being flipped and trampling.

I’ve also started working on the foley needed for sparring, so far I’ve created a hard knock of horns clashing as they collide from a ram attack. Additional contact sounds need to be made for when horns interlock or come into contact outside of the ram attack during the sparring bout.

More sounds may be required as these mechanics are iterated on and progress to the final result, but with the majority of the work near completion for these two animal’s sounds I’m looking forward to moving on to Herrerasaurus very soon!


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
It’s been a marathon of T.rex animations for me over the last week, it’s got a full locomotion suite done, all 114 animations just for walking, trotting, running and all the wounded variations for them across all the life stages the Rex goes though, which is more than usual because Tyrannosaurus is a very weird beast that just had to be different from all the other Tyrannosaurids.



Aside from that, we’ve got the look for Herrerasaurus’ climbing squared away and with Rex out off my plate I can focus on getting its climbing suite done as well. Sure Herrera isn’t exactly built for climbing, but then that’s just part of the challenge for getting it to look believable. Chances are you’ll have other things to worry about when you look over the edge and see one skittering up at you anyway.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Gateway stress testing is again underway along with the corresponding changes we make based on feedback. The new playables are being put through their paces so they’ll be ready for their debut in stress testing at a later time. The dilophosaurus is getting some accompanying effects that you’ve likely seen the placeholders for on stream that will make its venom something you’re going to want to avoid. The herrerasaurus is getting some animation smoothing and swapping out of any problematic proxies. The diabloceratops sparring is going to be aggressively tested since we need to make sure the flow of battle feels right no matter what you’re facing. As they will be in direct opposition to other ceratopsians as well as certain large carnivores that specialize in hunting horned prey. The tyrannosaurus and triceratops are slowly lumbering their way into the spotlight and doing so in imposing fashion. Both need to be super solid as they’ll be some of the most formidable animals in the game and we really want to nail their gameplay and aesthetics so you feel properly powerful overall and not just a higher damage model swap. Fingers crossed! We’ve also been working with mutations and rounding out the gameplay loop for the dinosaurs as a whole. Hope you’re ready to be a feeble or ferocious grandparent.

This month has also included some quality of life changes across the board. Some you’ll notice sooner than others. But the keen-eyed may have spotted some of them on stream. Some examples include changes to certain species animations and changes to their fluidity of movement. The goal being to remove some of the jank the characters have had for a while now. Also changes to nightvision, weather, sound and more. The outlying creatures are also being pulled in line with the rest of the roster. Like the dryosaurus, hypsilophodon, deinosuchus, stegosaurus etc so they’ll have the same level of completion intent as the rest of the roster. Like directional attacks and over time, their other mechanics. There were several other features for some of the playables that had to be cut for expedience sake that we can now begin devoting time to. Yes, we’ve been working on burrowing. We’ve made promising strides in that direction and I’m pretty excited about it. There’s also some R&D in relation to pounce and how we plan to expand on that feature so pouncers feel more deadly even to larger, more powerful animals. Shouldn’t be too hard for those of you familiar with large predators and their large prey to guess what that is but more on that after testing proves successful. Humans have also been getting a lot of love this month from the design and animation teams and are shaping up to be something we feel will be an enjoyable and pants pooping experience. That’s all for now.