The Isle News

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I focused on finishing the grapple mechanic since it will be used as a basis for other upcoming dinosaurs with their own specific variations. Outside of regular bugs, the Hordetest allowed a more “natural” environment to begin balance testing for grapple. Right now it is getting to a very stable state that we can start expanding upon. The same can be said about Mutations; its main functionalities are in with bug fixes and balance values already tested. The only core mechanics still not available at this time are related to Elders, which is planned to be worked on next.

Spectator mode has received some much needed attention to help administrative users. “Physics Foliage Interaction” is finalized both in core functionality and performance wise. Players can enable the two forms in the in game settings. The system now can be expanded to have more foliage types applied to the system and more should be done in the near future as we investigate foliage destruction.

See you next devblog everyone!


[h2]amarok - Programmer[/h2]
Hey! I’ve been working on a few different things over the last month like bug fixing various issues from Hordetesting and QA reports. I also worked on some server performance issues and setting up some backend tools for our profiling pipeline, which should allow us to keep a closer eye on how things are progressing performance wise.

I finished up the additions to RCON and did some more work on an upcoming engine update. The majority of my month was taken up working on the new AI systems that I briefly went over in the last dev blog, which should make finding AI a lot easier along with some behavior and spawning improvements.


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
Many of you have probably already seen most of my work this month on the hordetest branch. I was focusing on improving the diabloceratops's sparring mechanic, particularly the interactions when two players are locked together or pushing each other. It can be tricky to get things like this working in multiplayer, but I feel like I got it working rather well now.

We had some changes to the ceratosaurus's chuffing mechanic on our internal branch, but we decided to bring them to hordetesting. The ceratosaurus will now receive the defensive buff regardless of whether it vocalizes or not, it will also not vocalize automatically at group members or when it's below subadult growth.

Another change I made was enabling certain diabloceratops and tenontosaurus attacks to knock down fruit from trees and also open coconuts on the ground. Other than these I've been focusing on bug fixes, like I usually do during the horde test phase. I hope you have been enjoying the latest addition to the roster. On a personal note, it wasn’t my favorite at first but I’ve grown quite fond of this animal over our time together.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month my attention has been entirely focused on lots of small incremental changes to push the update to the finish line in terms of audio, with a focus on both Diablo finalization and last additions to Stego’s new power swing. These include but are not limited to:

• Juvenile versions of Stego’s power swing vocals
  
• Added new sounds for Stego preparing its power swing while raising its tail
  
• New horns sound for Diablo when re-engaging into locked stance.
  
• Improvements to arrangement of Diablo sparring vocals when locked
  
• Balance to diablo sparring sounds volume – horns vs vocals
  
• New juvenile Diablo danger call sounds
  
• Improvements to generic Diablo juvenile sounds such as sparring and resting
  
• New adult and juvenile Diablo threaten call sounds
  
• Sounds added to Omni grapple and Diablo Grappled animations
  
• Improved diablo impale sounds – separated pre whoosh and impact sounds to improve timing and play the whoosh sound even if the attack does not hit a target
  
• Minor adjustments to how far horn sounds travel and behavior of sounds at distance
  
• Changed weather sounds to be filtered when indoors instead of silenced
  
• Updated Diablo beg and consume sounds to match new animations
  

With all this out the way I’ve now returned to working on vocal sounds for the Tyrannosaurus, refining its calls, primary and alt attack sounds and working on new sounds for its pain vocalizations. As long as no other necessary changes come up for Diablo then Tyrannosaurus sounds will be my primary focus for the foreseeable future.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
Lately I’ve been working on a mix of things. My more recent task list has been made up of helping bring to life some meta characters and supplementing some surveillance equipment you may have seen alongside some vehicles you most definitely have not. It’s been an interesting project working out what I’ll call ‘vehicular anatomy’ and trying to come up with designs that are familiar enough to look believable while also giving it a unique flare so that it would feel like it came out of the game’s setting. What I like to do is chimera together parts from different vehicles for ideas and play with the basic shapes and then tie all those components together with similar stylings to our architectural designs: such as angular, brutalist, themes and the addition of the bars and rails gave them a nice militant, guarded look for the world they need to function in. You’ll see some of it in Phase Three this week!


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
It’s been a light month for me as I’ve been out of office, but I’ve been making up for the time working on the Diabloceratops and a bit of Tyrannosaurus so we can get to working on it in-game. Diablo is pretty much done animation-wise, but with how complex it’s sparring mechanic is there is always something to improve on to really sell that bit of gameplay.


Just imagine he’s locked horns with another Diablo.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
This month like so many others has been a bit of a blur for me since there’s so much going on. There’s more polish done on mutations, grapple, sparring and diabloceratops that should get into your hands soonish. There will still be tweaks and alterations to the mechanics as time goes on as they need to be fairly flexible so other animals can interact with them in meaningful ways. But overall they’ve been satisfactory barring bugs of course.

The animation department has really been cooking this month. We’ve got some QOL animation smoothing tech being worked on in the background that should help remove some of the jank present in some transitions between animations. That process will be ongoing as there will be audits to all of the animations in the game as a whole for each species so we can pull the overall quality of the game up. We’ve been knocking animations out for the tyrannosaurus, triceratops, maiasaura, pteranodon as well as the now revealed allosaurus. They are all coming along nicely, some being animation complete or nearly complete. The tyrannosaurus has been getting some of its sparring related animations at last as well as polish to its special abilities. The triceratops will be following suit once we do some diabloceratops vs tyrannosaurus testing. For technical reasons, the maiasaura is awaiting the release of diabloceratops before its features are implemented but it is pretty much animation complete barring any issue, so the maiasaura should move fairly swiftly.

The pteranodon’s backburner mechanics have been brought back into the light along with some new features that should bring some meaningful changes to it as a playable that we were not able to deliver upon its initial release. The Isle is animation intense due to the amount of life we strive to breathe into the animals. So creatures that occupy multiple habitats (terrestrial, aquatic/amphibious, arboreal, aerial and subterranean) increase animation complexity by a large margin. Which led to creatures like the pteranodon, deinosuchus and dryosaurus releasing without some of the core features we had planned for them. Not lost, not forgotten.

For the creature on everyone's lips, we know the allosaurus was a super popular playable in legacy and we want to make sure its introduction into EVRIMA keeps with that trend. While we’ve only just revealed it publicly, the allosaurus has been worked on in small parts for a long time. Prototyping varying styles of grapples, claw swipes and more. It's important for us to try to incorporate its claws, which are an evolutionary step up, into its playstyle in a way that feels and looks appropriate for the animal as opposed to something too generic. The allosaurus is likely going to maintain its jack of all trades status by being both an ambush predator as well as a large game hunter. Exploding from cover at speed for a short distance to overwhelm smaller prey before being gassed. But foregoing stealth tactics for a more upfront approach when dealing with larger targets. Whittling them down over longer engagements. All of this is subject to change of course since even our best laid plans don’t always work out. More will be revealed as its features start to take shape and solidify. Here are a few of those prototypes.

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I focused on refining the Rex’s crush ability and the new throw it has, which is linked to crush but not exclusive to it. The grapple ability is still receiving some updates, which now is mainly for balance as the grapple values need to align with the entire roster but we have massively different animal weights.

We added a new open corpse ability with new animations, included in the current Hordetest. This ability is triggered by tapping “E” three times near a corpse to access the organs, replacing the previously unreliable method of biting a corpse open.

The skin creator has received some visual improvements, including a “Hide UI” button and some resolution fixes. Chat has also received a minor UI update.

Additionally, we finalized the Mass Migration code, updated Mutations and made improvements to vocals. As always, there were the usual bug fixes and small enhancements to server performance.


[h2]Amarok - Programmer[/h2]
Over the last month, I have been focused on enhancing our backend systems for better scaling and testing to improve our workflows. Our official servers are also now more evenly distributed across each region.

Additionally, I have implemented numerous quality of life improvements to the UI, Rcon, and AI systems. Notably, new Rcon commands have been added, which will be added to ReadMe configs coming during HordeTesting. These commands allow for real-time modification of the server configuration and include the following:

• Whitelist enable/disable
  
• Add/Remove whitelist id’s
  
• Toggling AI on/off
  
• Setting Disallowed AI Classes
  
• Setting the AI density
  
• Toggling global chat on/off
  
• Toggling humans on/off
  

We are currently testing Psittacosaurus AI along with a new ability for all carnivores to dig at burrows. Exciting changes are also on the horizon for how players detect animal AI. While I won't reveal too much just yet, it's been noted that AI can be difficult to find even when abundant; they're simply hard to see or notice. The upcoming changes aim to make detecting them much easier, though catching them will still pose a challenge.

I made a small change to the pre-lobby character display in the server browser to reduce confusion. Now, it displays the character status. This indicates the last known state of your playable character, if unknown it may have died while you were logged off. Safe logging will prevent this uncertainty.

I have also been working on the Hordetesting patch, preparing it along with some hotfixes from our last release. I’ll leave it at that for now and hope you enjoy the new updates, especially the Diabloceratops!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
Much of the month was spent preparing for the hordetest, this includes bug fixes, polishing, double checking everything. Unfortunately sparring didn’t make it into the first release, there’s still some adjustments we want to make.

I also ended up having to rework how some of the movement speeds are set up related to fractures. Previously, they consistently related to the standard speeds, but we wanted to give the gallimimus a new, faster trot, while keeping the existing fractured speeds. This required several background changes, but it should now give us more flexibility in the future.

I also worked on some features that will be coming out a bit later such as the carnotaurus updates.



[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
Things have not been idle at all this month. I’ve finally created some new cool kits, first of which is the scaffolding kit. Featuring a lot of parts and “quick” connections it's quite simple yet can make any part as a construction site for a future building.



Alongside that I’ve simulated the tarps for the kit and textured them semi-modular, meaning we can put various colors and shapes based on desire.

There are new habitation enclosures which will be featured soon in the game that also have part of their kit extended to other areas of the island. They will have several types of entries, including your standard human access points of doors and a large bulkhead that will connect to the GUTS. The shapes and the fence itself has gotten to a steady point and you can already see where some locations will be able to connect into others.




[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
A majority of this month has been focused on our investigation into the audio related Fatal error. I have worked on multiple leads that could have contributed but unfortunately did not result in the fix we were looking for, although this has led to some improvements in memory usage of audio and improvements across some other minor issues. We have two more solutions we will be looking into over the course of the hordetest to narrow down the cause of this crash.

I have also put a lot more time into Tyrannosaurus’ vocal sounds – mostly on its calls and attacks, as well as concepting some classified sounds to establish its vocal palette when not performing the quintessential roars and screams. With the Tyrannosaurus being so iconic as more of its vocal palette is created sounds are likely to be iterated on to make sure its entire set of vocal sounds are cohesive yet diverse and really selling the terrifying characteristic we want it to portray.

I also designed new vocal sounds for Stegosaurus’ power swing mechanic, including a threatening roar display that plays on entering the stance initially, the roar includes slightly higher groans and raspier roars, emphasizing the strain put into vocalizing this threatening sound. This differentiates it from the warning of the threaten call, that this is a promise for its opponent it will not end well for them if they come near.

In addition there are vocal sounds for the stationary swing, moving ‘power’ swing and a short vocal sound that plays on exiting the stance. These cues help not only to give weight and might to the attack but help audibly telegraph this creature’s actions during this mechanic, and display its most aggressive demeanor.

A new sound for the whip of its tail has been added, replacing the half-hearted sound that existed previously. During the moving attack this sound is lower in pitch and has more low frequencies to convey the mass being put into this heavy attack whereas the stationary swing has a snappier whip-like quality to it.

Finally, I also worked on some smaller additions and bug fixes, adding sounds to the new open body animations and tweaking Diablo’s audio and fixing any bugs for the horde test.



[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Been working on this sparring stuff, a whole lot of new animations to fill in sparring actions and of course revisions to make the existing animations really pop now that we’re able to get in the game and really start knocking heads together. Like, “What if I ran up behind you and shoved you off a cliff?” kind of stuff. We know some of you are going to be doing that stuff, don’t pretend we don’t know. You know who you are.

On top of that, Maia has a new suite of locomotion animations, both for bipedal and quadrupedal movement, I’m sure there’s a few veteran Islanders out there who remember a certain large Hadrosaur who had a similar ability to toggle between locomotion styles.

But with those out of the way, I’ve been working on the Tyrannosaur animations again. I mean, what DOES happen when you bite a Ceratopsian in the face anyway?




[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
With the first pass of the mutations entering hordetesting, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you all to leave as much feedback as possible on the system. Which aspects of it do you like and which do you dislike? Now is the best time to get your thoughts down for us, as I’ll be frequenting the feedback channels in Discord throughout the course of this hordetest.

That all being said, we are still far from finished with this system. We have plans to introduce additional mutations, including some that weren’t quite ready for this pass that are almost complete. On top of this, there are plans to introduce species-specific mutations – one of my favorite ideas so far is an enhanced Hypsilophodon spit attack that causes different effects to happen to your target based on the type of food you had eaten recently.

Nesting will also be taking full advantage of the Mutations System - your offspring will take on your mutations in some capacity and there will be selectable mutations that benefit parenting. The finer details of this requires further discussion before I can give any more details on that.

On another note, I hope you guys are enjoying the Diabloceratops as much as I have been! There are some adjustments still yet to be made to get it feeling even better but it sure is good to have another species in your hands. As Ariel stated, sparring still has a bit of work to go as it is a complex system that will also involve other species that can interact with it. Here’s another strange issue that started happening with it in QA testing:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Thankfully, this is fixed already, so we’re yet another step closer to introducing its special ability before releasing the update to the evrima branch.

Finally, I have seen a few people asking where the Psittacosaurus AI is. Unfortunately, this little guy has been causing even further issues for us in QA, resulting in crashes when it is approached. It was decided that it would be taken out for the first release to hordetest but is still very much planned to be in the final release of this update.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
The rest of the team has primarily covered the broad strokes of what we’ve been up to this month. There’s going to be new stuff showing up seemingly randomly almost everywhere. From new locations to animations, polishing of movements, mechanic adjustments, nightvision changes etc. There are openbody animations in hordetesting that replace the temp bites that were previously used as a bandaid for the feature and the gallimimus and stegosaurus have new content as well as the addition of diabloceratops. Content subject to change as always.

Grapple hasn’t quite made it into the hordetest just yet but I think it will be on its way soon. When it gets into your hands, gather an omniraptor pack and start punching up. The feature aims to ensure size and strength alone do not make an animal impervious to a persistent and coordinated pack effort. Stegosaurus and diabloceratops are formidable opponents but will have reason to fear barks in the distance. Bring it down!

The maiasaura is coming along nicely and is almost animation complete pending some fixes and adjustments. It should enter the roster rather smoothly comparative to others of the past. The entire animation team has gained most of the knowledge they need from myself and Bryan to be able to tackle anything I throw at them which allows us to have a laser focus on specific species. We were juggling about 5 animals at once to make sure everyone could get some hands-on experience with different body types, style of animation, characterization etc and by golly I think they’ve got it! Once we’re done with the tyrannosaurus and triceratops sparring, the animation team will really break into our stride. We’ve already been cooking up some stuff I think you’ll enjoy. Buuuuut I can’t share yet. Typical right?

That’s pretty much it this month. The first iteration of sparring should also be on its way pending some adjustments before and after reaching you but until then, hop onto the hordetest and toss some feedback our way. Be kind even when you’re killing and eating each other.

Hey Islanders,

Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent hordetest, we're now pushing our latest build to the Evrima Public Branch! As mentioned in an earlier Discord announcement, for this patch, we'll be experimenting with a new server variant based on feedback gathered from our recent Hordetest. These servers will support higher playercounts of 150 without AI, and are based in both NA and EU regions. Initially there will only be two servers of this extra type available, but we will spin up additional servers of this variant as necessary and will remain available for as long as player interest dictates.

Please note; Our regular 100 slot AI enabled servers will still be available alongside the experimental ones.


Additionally, here's an example Game.ini for server owners to utilize the latest server functionality.

[/Script/TheIsle.TIGameStateBase]
AdminsSteamIDs="Admin steam ID here"
AdminsSteamIDs="Admin steam ID here"
WhitelistIDs="White list steam ID here" - needs to be enabled in the GameSession below, keep this empty if whitelist is disabled
WhitelistIDs="White list steam ID here"
AllowedClasses=Dryosaurus - List of all enabled classes - can also be managed in Admin Panel in real time
AllowedClasses=Hypsilophodon
AllowedClasses=Pachycephalosaurus
AllowedClasses=Stegosaurus
AllowedClasses=Tenontosaurus
AllowedClasses=Carnotaurus
AllowedClasses=Ceratosaurus
AllowedClasses=Deinosuchus
AllowedClasses=Omniraptor
AllowedClasses=Pteranodon
AllowedClasses=Troodon
AllowedClasses=Beipiaosaurus
AllowedClasses=Gallimimus
AllowedClasses=Dilophosaurus
AllowedClasses=Herrerasaurus

[/Script/TheIsle.TIGameSession]
ServerName="Server name here"
MaxPlayerCount=100
bQueueEnabled=true
bServerPassword=false
ServerPassword="password here"
bRconEnabled=true
RconPassword="password here"
bServerDynamicWeather=true
ServerDayLengthMinutes=45 - Set in minutes
ServerNightLengthMinutes=20 - Set in minutes
bServerWhitelist=false - Add whitelist steam ids in GameStateBase section above
bEnableGlobalChat=false
bSpawnAI=true
AISpawnInterval=40 - Set in seconds (how frequente it checks to Spawn new AIs)
DisallowedAIClasses=Compsognathus - Add the names of each AI class that should be disabled, one line for each
DisallowedAIClasses=Pterodactylus
bEnableMigration=true
MaxMigrationTime=5400 - Set in seconds - how frequent migration zones change
GrowthMultiplier=1 - Universal multiplier for growth, putting this number too high will stop it to work (stay below ~40)


[/Script/Engine.GameSession]
MaxPlayers=100

0.14.28.61

Additions:
- Added DLSS (NVidia) and FSR (AMD)
- Added Skin Creator to the Main Menu
- Added Previous and Next buttons for generated skins
- Re-enabled aerial directional attacks for troodon and omniraptor
- Added Global Chat as a server option (Disabled by default)
- Added Growth Multiplier as a server option
- Added customization for disabling specific AI to server options
- Added AI Density as a server option
- Added new /unstuck chat command (has a 90 minute cooldown, can´t be used near other players)
- Damage now cancels eat/drink
- New breath sounds for small animals
- Setup separate medium and small crouch footstep sounds
- Re-enabled interactive foliage since UE5 update (Enable/Disable available in settings)
- Re-enabled low option for shadows
- Added juvenile AI
- Added new opacity check for smaller animals to see around themselves in grass
- Added Ceratosaurus Manual Vomit
- Added new Dryo primary attack sound
- Added Pattern C to some species (more to come)


Enhancements:
- Updated basic attack cooldowns
- Adjusted some spawn zone sizes and added a couple more zones for Deinosuchus/Beipiaosaurus
- Prevented rain drops from being visible underwater when breaking the surface of watersources
- Updated bucking cost math to take into account juvenile pouncers
- Map updates and fixes
- Improved corpse physics visual and performance
- Improved weather lighting during certain weather conditions
- Reduced chance for certain weather conditions
- Dilophosaurus hallucinations can now be used against AI
- Troodon idle camera has been raised
- Various VFX improvements
- Deinosuchus lunge ability can now drag bigger targets if they are swimming
- AI behavior improvements
- Increased camera lock angle (total 90º) for when eating/drinking
- Moved Deinosuchus spawners to water only
- Scavenger AI no longer appear instantly when a corpse is created
- Updated carnivore diets
- Improvements to spectator mode
- Several sounds/music volume improvements
- Bees now play the pulse audio for large and small targets
- Made schooling fish smaller when caught by beipi
- Herbivores/omnivores can now scent while moving
- Players can now scent when carrying objects
- Adjustments to pounce to avoid various issues with slopes and camera pitch angle
- Allow Pounce to work when attacking back of target
- Adjustments to Fall damage
- Made thrashing a corpse easier to trigger
- Made "Perfect Diet" UI status to only showing up if Tier 6
- Various improvements to when eye shine shows on an animal
- Imported new pachy trot animations
- Increased pachy trot speed
- Increased herrerasaurus drop attack hit size
- Pounce adjustment to avoid latency issues when a nearby target is already hit
- Adjusted mouse sensitivty min/max to better range
- Allow juveniles to also see diets listed for migration zone
- Increased omniraptor and troodon leg health
- Held food will now be dropped during the pachycephalosaurus ram instead of blocking the ability
- Reduced volume of open sound in profile menu
- Underwater NV should now function more consistently
- Adjustments to AI spawn rate
- Disabled Humans
- Adjusted the trot and sprint steps non spatialised radius for small dinosaurs
- Adjusted ceratosaurus manual vomit to deplete only 20% of hunger/thirst and nutrients
- Removed seeing unnecessary hints when underwater
- Gave Herrera underwater Night Vision
- Reduced stormy weather volume
- Rendering updates for performance
- Chat performance improvements
- Grazing hint will now only display when hunger is below 20%


Fixes:
- Organs should now despawn
- Constant fog should no longer exist
- Fixed an issue where issuing a manual ban would kick the last player who joined
- Juvenile deinosuchus can now grab schooling fish
- Fixes to corpse interactions near water
- Fixed nutrient slots not filling for juveniles during certain conditions
- Fixed deinosuchus corpse thrash not working in water
- Fixed issue that caused players to sometimes spawn in a tree or rock
- Fixed AI corpses despawning too soon
- Fixed impact animations sometimes not playing for all clients
- Fixed ceratosaurus threaten call sometimes getting cutoff.
- Fixed walk/crouch footstep audio sometimes playing footstep trot audio
- Fixed charge damage not being reset
- Setting weather with the admin panel will no longer cause undesired abrupt weather changes
- Fixed juvenile dilophosaurus grab montage repeating
- Fixed water splash sometimes not triggering
- Fixed lunge shake slide
- Fixed random footstep in Hypsi slide
- Fixed audio issues with deinosuchus juvenile lunge body impact
- Fix to Physics Door replication when a new player appears
- Fixed effects on rabbit burrows
- Removed holes in the ceiba tree
- Fixed pteranodon snapping towards walls when holding RMB while jumping
- Fixed beipiaosaurus underwater directional attack animation
- Fixed camera rotation with UI open
- Ptera no longer uses stamina when aerial diving
- Fixed stamina consumption at certain water depths
- Fixed pteranodon running takeoff not working
- Fixed courting when flying/falling/jumping
- Fixed boars sometimes ignoring targets they can detect
- Fixed AI sometimes spawning under map
- Fixed pounce recovery causing some animal AI to begin sliding
- Fixes to chicken sound attenuation
- Fixed deinosuchus lunge sound attenuation
- Fixed collision with the watchtower mesh
- Fixed turtle making noise when killed by pounce then dragged
- Fixed recoil animation not playing when lunged if too close
- Fixed herrerasaurus fall damage
- Fixed deinosuchus rotation while thrashing a corpse
- Fixed pteranodon animation going from crash recovery to crash landed
- Fixed effects not requiring a game restart when changed
- Fixed F6 toggling gameplay settings
- Fixed incorrect attentuation for various animal idles
- Fixed scalability settings not properly setting
- Fixed a check with interactable objects so players no longer have move away and reposition to update
- Fix to some audio sounding off centre
- Fixed fish dying due to lack of oxygen
- Fixed bones not giving nutrients to ceratosaurus
- Fixed diet screen UI not showing herrerasaurus and dilophosaurus
- Fixed an issue when dragging organs
- Fixed getting stuck in hatch animation
- Fixed an issue with skeleton physics
- Fix to organs disappearing and appearing again after swallow
- Fixed fast moving clouds
- Fixed AI dying from dehydration or starvation
- Fixed moving scent animations
- Fixed hatchling pachycephalosaurus attract vocal using incorrect sounds
- Fixed being unable to scent while carrying something
- Fixed gore sometimes becoming stuck to the character's face after interaction
- Fixed underwater night vision post process not respecting the river water line
- Fixed Goat AI pinned/swimming/idle animations
- Fixed dilophosaurus crouch animation
- Fixed Tenontosaurus 180 directional attack vocal playing twice
- Fixed deinosuchus underwater vision range not properly scaling with growth
- Fixed lunged players not losing oxygen properly
- Fixed server crash caused by courting
- Fixed an issue causing the Day/Night Cycle to speed up
- Fixed herrerasaurus fall damage scale (reduced)
- Fixed some AI movement issues
- Fixed hypsi blind not cleaning off automatically

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hello everyone. This month I don't have much to say that you guys don't know already. For the most part, it was a busy Hordetesting month. If you have been following you know we released a lot of bug fixes and quality of life changes. We also managed to stress test the server and noticed some performance caused by the nuances of some AI’s logic and the navmesh. The good news is that when testing only player capabilities, we managed to reach 140/150 slots with a stable server, no hitches and no rubberbanding, which is great even without AI. It means we are doing it right and all the changes and improvements being implemented so far are giving us results and we can continue working more on that front.

Besides all that, work continued as normal with several tests and experimentations on the burrowing side. I know I mentioned this before, but this stage of deciding what to do and how to burrow is important. There are pros and cons in all systems that we tried, but we need to be sure what is going to be done in regards to scalability of the system, how fun it is, replication and of course, performance on both client and server.

There has also been lots of progress on the Tyrannosaurus, especially the crush ability and all the possible situations it can trigger. Hopefully that will be finished soon so I can move to the next mechanics designed for it.

Migrations. The current method known as “Species Migration” calls all players of a species to a specific zone and will be reduced in frequency. There will be a rare “Mass Migration” event which is similar to species migration, but this affects an entire server. There are also individual “Patrols” which more commonly affect individual players and their groups to keep players moving around organically. This should allow for better interactions, more time for exploration, and server configurations. This will have server config tweaking (or you can turn the whole system off).

Work continues as normal. Stay safe!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
This month I kept working on diablo, which mostly involved bug fixes and some background changes to make the sparring interactions more stable across clients. I also added a slightly different version of the primary attack that is triggered when standing in place, looking downwards and pressing LMB.

I also made some progress on the stego’s power swing ability. One of the hurdles I ran into was the tail swing, for example making contact with another dinosaur’s tail before hitting its body. This would result in dealing damage based on only the tail hit, which of course had to be fixed. I looked at a few different approaches, but in the end found one that gives the result you’d expect and can be applied to other attacks as well. The carno’s charge had some similar issues in the past, but now I was able to apply the new system to improve it. Some other abilities might benefit as well, but it’s generally not as noticeable on most of them. All in all the ability is coming along nicely, just needs some finishing touches, testing and balancing and it should be good to go.

I’ve also been hard at work fixing various bugs, both for the upcoming update and smaller ones that will make their way on the live branch later so they have time to be tested to make sure they don’t break something else. One more change I’ve managed is setting up the moving scent for the herbivores. Their animations had to be set up and we took this opportunity to also change the animation system a little to prevent some of the odd head bobbing they were doing. That’s really it for this month, I hope all of you are enjoying the game while we’re wrapping this update up.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month was adjusting some performance issues on older props. These are mostly quality of life improvements and carefully curated changes to the props and in a few rare cases, a recreation. There is also the addition of three new pieces to the environment, some of which will begin referencing some of the more obscure props that have been made primarily for lore.

First was the weapons locker built around the weapons you can find on the island. It’s a simple half-modular system that has been a blast to make. Unfortunately, no guns can be found in them yet.



The new buoy will soon be dotting along the bays and other areas of the island, solar powered but most definitely not transmitting anything. In fact, forget they were there at all.



Many of Apollo’s machines run on fuel. These gas pumps can be found in all refueling areas. Make sure that you have your keycard or the system won’t work.



That is it for now, see you next month!


[h2]Frederic - 2D/3D Artist[/h2]
Long time no see. I hope you’ve been enjoying the skin system because we’ve been cooking up some more that you’ll all be able to have fun with soon. We’ve been working for a while now on making tertiary skins to add to our playable roster, trying to make new and exciting patterns for you to bedazzle and show off to your groupmates, enemies, and other island inhabitants. And by we, I mean not just Tapwing and I, but we also recently brought back some previous talent to help with all these skins: The vastly talented artist, Marty.

We hope you enjoy the sneak peek to some of the tertiary patterns below:



Bonus:
“It's great to be back painting new patterns for people to enjoy in game. It was a lot of fun back then and it's just as much fun now to see others put their own spin on them with the color system.” – Marty


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
This month QA’s focus has once again been on bug testing the QoL patch, making use of all of the community bug reports that have been sent in so far. Thank you very much to those of you who have been providing those and feedback on our horde testing branch!

That being said, when we have been testing the new content for our upcoming Diabloceratops update, we have been running into some very strange issues. You may have remembered from my last post about the stretching Psittacosaurus - well, please give a warm welcome to the stretching deer!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Seriously though, it seems that AI has moved on from flying and stretching is the new thing… because the boar did it too.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We found that it’s possible to cling to a rabbit until it enters a burrow. We also found out that it is a mistake:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Beipiaosaurus has developed quite a rash since the last update. Zombie dinosaurs are not a thing.



And Diabloceratops was throwing people around with its mind for a while there:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thankfully, I can confirm that all of the aforementioned issues were fixed and since then we’ve made some really great progress towards this update. Diabloceratops’ sparring mechanic is still undergoing some fairly large work including animation and stat refinements. Once that is complete then we’ll be able to get it into your hands.

I wanted to take the rest of this blog to cover some of the larger gameplay concerns that haven’t been addressed for a little while and to quickly go over some other information.

• We are aware that a large majority of Gateway is still under-utilized by players and looking at solutions for this. Filipe’s section covers the expansion of the migration system which should help in that regard, but it should also be noted that some of these areas have been internally dedicated as being more human-focused and purposely left untouched for now.
  
• Comparatively, some areas in Gateway still remain to be hotspots (I’m looking at you East Plains) that will have further adjustments made to deal with their issues.
  
• Mutations are mostly done now and their balance has been adjusted. These will need to be tested in a larger scale environment to get a better idea of how they will play out – I expect this to be introduced in the horde test after the upcoming public patch.
  
• Eating has always been finicky in Evrima due to ragdolls not replicating to each client correctly. There have been some internal discussions on how this can be improved. One idea that we’re considering is allowing more leniency on the area a corpse can be interacted with and even making the player’s character automatically walk over to where the server believes the corpse to be, and begin eating it. With something like this, gone are the days of having to wiggle until you find the sweet spot that lets you eat from a corpse.
  
• Much like how we will be introducing the global growth modifier for server owners, we are currently discussing the possibility of adding other modifiers (such as adjusting health/stamina/nutrient etc) regen rates to further customize your experiences.
  
• Mega/mix packing is something that still unfortunately affects most servers that do not impose rules. We have been discussing a solution internally that can’t quite yet be discussed but should be known is being looked into thoroughly.
  
• There are various minor improvements to existing systems in the works. A fair number of players had difficulties thrashing corpses, so tweaks are in the works for things like that. (Tapping E three times to open the corpse, for example.)
  

Lastly, thank you to those who read my post last month and applied for a position on the QA team. Applications have now been read and those that were successful have been reached out to. If you were not successful this time, please do not hesitate to apply again in the future.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Gonna be short and sweet. Thank you to everyone that helped us during hordetesting! I think most of the team has covered the bulk of what we’ve been up to. For myself, while hordetesting has been underway, I’ve been bringing in some new talent. The animation team has grown yet again to more than half a dozen strong now. Which is going to assist greatly in pumping out more playables. Since we all know that’s what everyone really wants. Can’t say I blame you at this point. There are also going to be some map additions added in here and there that you should be looking out for. One area in particular is known to be a breeding ground for a select species. Overall this month has just been a lot of bug fixes and testing. Nothing too exciting by our standards. Mutations, migration expansion, tertiary skins, sound traps, expanded AI creatures, diabloceratops, tyrannosaurus, triceratops, maiasaura, pteranodon, gallimimus, stegosaurus, omniraptor, humans and more are in unequal parts being worked on to provide you with an ever richer experience in the game. I’m very curious to see what server owners do with the expanded controls though. Lets see which of you out there can create the best ecosystems. That’s all for now. Hopefully we’ll do a bit of show and tell soon. No promises though. Be good to each other!

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I've been pretty busy working on several different tasks, discussing changes and what comes next. A lot has been done with internal core code in order to improve server performance and use less data. I don't expect this to suddenly allow for more slots, but it's more like a “drop by drop we may fill a glass” type of thing. Meanwhile I also worked on several quality of life changes and improvements, some of which I will list at the end of my post.

As expected, more work was done on Mutations, with more being implemented and the new design that unified the “lifecycle” and “lifestyle” mutations with the introduction of “unlocking” new mutations depending on what the player does during their life. Once unlocked that mutation can be chosen through the various stages of life.

Rex's ability received more attention and new animations for each stage of life, now it is just a matter of making sure all animations work on all stages with the respective balance values.

I know some of you want news on Dryo´s burrow, but I can't share many details about that right now. We want to expand the design, but for that we need to make sure it will work without causing major problems, such as development delays or server performance issues. So this is being slowly tested as low priority in the background.

I also worked on updating the Weather System with several improvements and bug fixes. Fixed the Physics foliage system that has been broken since we upgraded to Unreal Engine 5, now it works with options in settings to disable it if desired. Pounce improvements and fixes. Dilo Hallucinations AI improvements. Carry/Drag logic and improved the Physics Doors and much more. The list of bugs fixed for the next patch is going to be huge.


List of some QoL things done with even more to come:

• Allow diets to refill closer to full
  
• Serialization of SpecMode data, so it is lighter and doesn't cause server performance issues.
  
• Reduced by half volume and distance for crouched footsteps and fixed a footstep issue causing crouch/walk to sound much louder.
  
• Allow both Herbis and Carnis to be able to scent if walk/trotting
  
• Adjusted eating/drink camera lock angle (from total 40 degrees to 90 degrees, centered)
  
• Anti-Cheat improvements.
  
• Working on an unstuck command for players
  
• Allow pounce from behind
  
• Allow pounce on high pitch angles (slopes)
  
• Add Previous and Next buttons for the "random" skin feature.
  
• Lunge bigger targets if both are swimming (such as adult Stego)
  
• Cancel Carry if using HeadButt while carrying something in your mouth
  
• Give Server owners options to enable/disable mutations - We also added option to enable/disable each mutation as needed and their effect values
  
• Give Server owners options to enable/disable specific AIs
  
• Give Server owners option to enable/disable random Weather
  
• Give Server owners option to increase/decrease general growth rate
  

For now that is all I can talk about. See you!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
This month I’ve been focusing most of my attention on the Diablosaurus, implementing some of its missing or unfinished abilities, fixing bugs and polishing its mechanics and animations. I also made some changes based on our internal testing, like putting them into the locked together sparring position with basically any attack if they hit each other from the front, so players can activate it without having to meet specific conditions. Diablos also have the ability to push each other if they perform a running attack from the side, this was now expanded upon so that players can chain this into a flip attack or the pushed Diablo can also defend itself now. I also added a new attack which can be activated when looking to the side or behind you in sparring mode. This works similarly to directional attacks, hitting in the direction of the camera and quickly turning the character that way.

I made good progress on sparring as well. The previous setup had some issues if both players were trying to move, so I came up with a solution that improves their movement by taking into account the input of both players. In a networked environment this can be difficult, but I was able to make it work while using very little additional data. I also set up some new animations to make the mechanic more visually interesting and also set up the stamina system. So for example if both players are trying to push each other with equal force they will stay in place, but play animations that show them struggling and their stamina will also drop gradually.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

Time to revisit another dino that missed out on getting a sketch sheet. Stegosaurus!

The goal with this one was to showcase some of the new animations that’s being worked on for stegosaurus, hence the ‘dragged down and ripped up’/‘pounced to pinned’ scene and the tail up attack stance that’ll make that tail swing feel extra mean.

The other scenes are more atmospheric than anything, the slow n steady travel or just sunning when you have some calm in your life.

Stego’s life is a slower paced one with high tension moments when tenacious hunters find your group.
Also, something that I didn't initially plan while editing the nature sketches rough draft but was a happy accident I then leaned into is, if you put the scenes in the right order, you get a little stego story.
Besides the nature sketches, I've been reworking the ‘cloning tank’ promotional art that was painted some time back. The tanks themselves got some proper 3D models made with design improvements and it was my job to then integrate those models into the poster art and give them a good paint-over to blend them into the original painting.

It’s an improvement from the first draft for sure. Now all it needs is something in the tank.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month my main focus has been creating new designs for Tyrannosaurus calls. This had proved a challenge in relation to respecting both the ‘legacy’ of the sounds created for this creature (across all Dino media) and finding my own take, whilst also reaching a contemporary level of quality and realism for this animal.

I’ve been experimenting with various sources and approaches to the sound and have landed on a good base for the elements that make up the body of its sounds in terms of its growls, roars and bellows etc. - i.e the foundation. I’m now working on finding the right sound for the high end, the element that makes up the quintessential T Rex roar that we all recognize, without resorting to the path most traveled.

Aside from the Rex I also created a new sound for Dryo’s basic attack, previously it was using the same sound as the pain, and with my attention very rarely being put towards Dryo had gone untouched. The new sound now better represents the closed mouth motion of its peck like basic attack.

I have also edited and implemented new sounds for the baby variants of boar, goat and deer, including calls to locate them, and pain, death and pinned screams/vocals.

The rest of the past month has been spent on investigating issues related to audio stuttering from voice limits being reached and other general audio bug fixes to come with the impending patch. One that I think many will be glad to hear and has plagued me for months (perhaps years!) is finally finding a fix to a bug related to medium sized Dinosaur footsteps being unreliably inaudible as the listener (being heard as walk instead of sprint by other players).

[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
My focus in the last few weeks has been on two video projects.

A trailcam project showing an upcoming species in its natural behavior, the Diabloceratops.

This project also includes one of my most complex scenes so far in terms of filming effort. Most people who read my blog entries know that I record 95% of the scenes in the UE sequencer. There I move the actors, add the animations (or animate small parts myself with control rigs) and adjust the camera settings.

In this project you will see a scene that is very dynamic and works with many spar animations of the Diablo. It should represent both the hectic process that we know from the in-game experiences, but still look natural. I hope we have achieved the goal in this project!

The second project is currently in the filming phase, it is a cinematic trailer about all the new content that has been added since the last trailer. As mentioned in the last blog entry, we wanted to gather enough content to create a bigger trailer and now it's time! The trailer introduces the map Gateway, the new species and explains the mechanics roughly as usual. This will be the first cinematic project on Gateway and you will notice that. I'm still early in the filming phase, but I'd like to give you a little insight into what I mean by that:






[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
QA’s full focus for March has been exclusively on bug testing new additions. While the next patch will be focused only on the QoL changes Filipe mentioned in his post and bug fixes, a lot of other features are being tested behind the scenes. Given that I do not have much to discuss regarding these just yet, I thought I’d take this moment to share some of the funnier bugs that QA have run into this month.
Amarok has been working on introducing the Psittacosaurus to Evrima in the form of AI. Much like how it could in Legacy, this animal is capable of burrowing underground to escape from predators. This has, of course, introduced lots of wacky interactions that could not have been expected. For example, pinning a Psittacosaurus as it begins to dig underground results in a burrow that never stops growing and (I guess) would end up swallowing the entire server and world as we know it:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Psittacosaurus AI has also unintentionally gained the ability to stretch like a Fantastic Four member. We will be working on compressing them back into their correct proportions:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Omniraptors have been feeling threatened as of late by all of the larger species being introduced to the island. In an attempt to prepare against the looming apex threat, they have learned how to blow themselves up like pufferfish:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That’s all from me for now! I’m expecting that next time I’ll have more to discuss about upcoming features. I would also like to take this time to mention that I’m looking for additional QA testers. If you are interested in bug testing or you would like to learn more about joining, please do not hesitate to contact me on Discord via direct message. Thanks for reading!


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
The team has been steady cooking up some QOL content and bug fixes interspersed with the daily do.

The psittacosaurus will be making a return at last. Siren singing you towards a taco lunch with their iconic vocals. They should be a bit more dynamic than they were before. Catch them before they dig away and watch out cause they may bite. There’s also additional AI that will slowly be skittering into the game including but not limited to rats, crabs (better ones), snails, clams, insects and more. They will be found in various places around the island opening up more opportunities to find food, get nutrients, unlock mutations and more. The island should start feeling more and more alive as time goes on and juvies are gonna have more on their level to interact with so that stage of life doesn’t have to feel so rushed, out of necessity.

There are QOL animation adjustments/updates to omniraptor, gallimimus, stegosaurus etc. Also more work was done for diabloceratops’ sparring. Keep in mind diabloceratops sparring is going to set the foundations for ALL sparring creatures in the game so we’re really being careful with how we set it up, so in the future (mods?) Other animals outfitted with the right animation sets can be slotted in and will function as intended.

The tyrannosaurus and triceratops are still waiting on sparring finalization, which shouldn’t be too far off. The goal is to have dynamic combat interaction between the rex and its classic adversary, triceratops. We’re trying our best to leave tail riding behind for all parties. So if you’re victorious against an equally powerful creature, it will be because you played better and not because you’re smaller and have a better turn radius. While the feature is a large undertaking we don’t generally shy away from a challenge so if we nail it, it’s going to blow your cap back. Diablo testing has been promising so I’m actually starting to get excited for you guys to try it and I never get excited. So that’s saying something.

The good mother lizard (Maiasaura) is also in full swing now that its features have been approved. I’ll provide some examples fresh off the presses.











The pteranodon will also be getting some QOL adjustments as we work our way through the current set. There are also some new skins in the works as well as some new models and redesigns for upcoming animals. The map has also been getting more adjustments to make it feel more lived in and provide more places to discover and explore.

Another month down. Hug your loved ones. Catch ya next time!