The Black Death News

Good Day Mercians

We have paused the storefront/purchasing of the black death, this is due to recent server instability over the past weekend and the on-going homestead save issues combined, made it the right thing to do.

We have also hit delays on the development of our new update "Rebellion", sales of the game have been low over the past 3 years, this was something we were expecting but makes it hard to deliver this new patch at a timely manner.

However don't fret! The game will continue to be playable in your library, servers will remain up and work on the new update will continue (slowly but surely).We still have a burning desire to finish the game and as soon as the new update is ready and stable we will continue the sales of the black death and reactivate the storefront.

We have no release date for the new patch but we thank everyone for playing and the massive patience demonstrated.

See you in Mercia

Happy new year Mercians!

We wanted to post an announcement (yep another one!) on the progress of the rebellion update. Work is still going ahead and we are making strides on the major content required for the patch. One internal milestone we hit was completing the brand new (safe/starter zone) kingdom, we were unhappy with using current assets and wanted to give the city a fresh lick of paint. We have created a new layout and added an additional 20 houses bringing the total to 55 purchasable dwellings.

Vast range of unique buildings to live in have been added such as these apartments overlooking the town square

Most buildings come with private gardens, such as these peasant hovels in the slum district

However if you are after a life in agriculture then plenty of farmland is available outside the city walls

Once you have the coin, you can move into the royal quarter and live in the large manor houses

but fear not, if you are all out of gold there will be plenty of rooms at the inn

A new locomotion system has also been added, since the third person system has been fully re-worked, we thought it would be best to improve the overall presentation of player and A.I. movement. Here is some GIFs of the player running around the new kingdom:

Now entering the kingdom's entrance and the new "safe zone" so the player is free to trade and socialize

Here's the player approaching the market square, full of purchasable market stalls to start your very own business

The treasury is located in the royal quarter, where you can deposit your biggest valuables


A more dynamic day and night cycle has also been re-worked



The new "tiredness" mechanic has also been added, this requires the player to use various furniture to recover lost maximum stamina at different rates.

The new craftable royal bed will recover your stamina in no time!

The coffer system is now reaching completion which features 4 types that reflect the value of it's items inside. So make sure to make it back to the treasury alive if you find the ultra rare royal coffer.


That's all Mercians, if you are curious to what else is coming in this mammoth update please help yourselves to the previous announcements regarding this patch. Thanks to everyone playing and the patience shown waiting for this new content and much needed bug fixes.

Hopefully we can demonstrate more soon.

Take care.

Good Day Mercians

We once again apologize for the persistent delays on the current update for the black death "Rebellion" we understand this is the main cause for players to believe that we have abandoned the project, which is completely understandable, however we wanted to note we are still developing the game but if we did decided to stop development we would have the professional courtesy of announcing it but no need to worry, we have full intentions to build up to a full release (out of early access) before even considering ceasing development.

So why is it taking so long?

Fair question, the answer has 3 main points:

• First point was upgrading the engine (twice) required some mechanics to be re-built from scratch which resulted in the live build being more stable than our current one. So unfortunately this can be very time consuming to make sure the game is stable again on our side.
  
  
• Second point is we've had a "higher than average" refund rate (around 20%) the entire early access period, no matter the content or fixes. We have acknowledged that this has climbed a little in recent months (due to server activity/player count, which is understandable) but we have discovered this is due to the game's systems at a base level and it's initial impression, so we are fleshing out the game almost to the point it will feel like a fresh experience but being careful to keep the themes and mechanics people are so fond of. (However, no need to worry we will make sure the current version is backed up and available through steam launcher separately including servers so you can still play the previous version when the new update is released)
  
  
• Third point, which is the most impactful, is the past 2.5 years we've had to acquire part time work to pay for the game's development and server charges. We were prepared to do this since it's our upmost priority to complete the game no matter the cost but this directly affects the amount of time can be spent on developing the game. This was manageable but has become more demanding in the past year but we are actively trying to dedicate more time to the black death so we can get this update out to you.
  

We want to iterate that the community/players that have purchased the game, refund or not, are integral to the game's progress and we will be the first people to admit that the slowed development is caused by us and not our community, if we built the game to be more desirable earlier we wouldn't have these issues. So thank you for bearing with us, that being said, let's discuss/reveal new content being built:



The Kingdom

A new capital city has been built from the ground up where all players will spawn/start their life within the black death, this area will contain new mechanics for beginners and veterans alike to enjoy and progress. This area will be the only "safe-zone" throughout the game and act has a home base for all players.



The Treasury

The capital city will contain a treasury/bank, this is private storage that allows players to store any item/gold they wish, however to prevent impact of building storage chests later on within the game, each player's bank allotment is limited.



Rentable Property

Houses that are pre-built within the new capital city will be available via a rent system allowing the player to deposit gold and access the building's buildable area, so players can freely place anvils in rented workshops, crops in rented farmland or storage chests in their very own city home. Missing rent results in loss of the property so make sure to keep up with payments. We've had similar systems in the past but now feel we are capable of providing a more fleshed out experience.



Siege/Raids

The raidable/siege locations (which were available at the ferryman) are now placed around Mercia, as you can see above the northern siege is placed on the east side of the map within the snowy mountains of Frostfall. The new Celtic siege is now in Skenfirth, the arena is near freeman's port and the crusade is deep south beyond the wall at Duffus.



The Coffer

More dangerous areas around Mercia will now spawn various coffers (common, rare and legendary) which are small chests containing valuable loot, however these will require to be opened/unlocked at the treasury. This is to provide thrilling risk and reward gameplay and to challenge some of the most experienced players, since they have to survive obtaining the coffer and the return journey to the capital. Dozens of new items and recipes are being created for this mechanic including:


The War Axe


The Iron Hat


The Combat Scythe


The Iron Sallet


The Royal Messer


The Reinforced Tower Shield


The War Pick


The Royal Tower Shield.

and many more... so make sure to get that coffer back alive.

The King/Queen System 2.0

We are improving the current system to require players to "capture and hold" the crown in raven's reach to become the new leader of Mercia, this will provide the throne and it's royal coffers (within the new kingdom). However dying results in the crown being "reset" allowing others to attempt being King/Queen of Mercia. Hopefully resulting in a more dynamic player vs player experience.

We hope you are looking forward to these changes as much as we are but we felt it's necessary to take our time introducing new core mechanics to the game to provide longevity and meaning to the player and keep players playing.

If you wish to see other content coming in this update please feel free to read previous "rebellion" update news in the community page.

We currently do not have a release date yet but as previously mentioned this will be uploaded to our beta branch before releasing and will be announced publicly so everyone can try it early.

Thanks for reading!

Good day Mercians!

We hope everyone is well in these turbulent times and wanted to let you know that we are still in full operation on our end still adding final touches to the rebellion update.

In the meantime we wanted to show some more groundbreaking changes we are making to the black death as we are starting to reach completion on the rebellion update. If you wish to know more about the update please refer to previous posts in the news section. Anyways lets get to it:



We have re-built the item and inventory system to work around cell sizes, giving a more realistic approach to storage! The bag system has also been re-built to provided additional storage cells. (Don't worry you can rotate items with your inventory to your hearts content to maximise your space management.)



This new system covers all containers throughout the world, even dead bodies. We are also placing every item within the game into containers and spawn locations throughout Mercia, including the new feature recipe items.



All recipe items can be looted but can only be learnt (permanently) using recipe study benches which can be found around populated landmarks and will be buildable at a later date. We are adding over 300 recipe items to the game, the largest content addition to date.

Anyways we hope you are as excited for the update as we are and we are extremely grateful for you patience. We will post another announcement as soon as a playable beta is live.

See you in Mercia!

The S.I.G. Team

Good day Mercians!

We are aware that the original date set for the rebellion update has not been met, we apologize for the delay and the frustration this has caused.

We were trying our best to get this update complete for a soon as possible but have internally become unhappy over it's contents. So we are now adding more drastic changes since this is the biggest update ever, we wanted to make it truly special.

We hope you can understand this but we are hopeful that the update will be coming in weeks rather than months.

As soon as a playable beta is live we will post an announcement!

See you in Mercia

The S.I.G, Team.