Wow, it's been a long time coming, but we're finally here! This is by far the largest update we've ever done, with major rewrites to the entire game engine to support the new features and nearly tacking a whole extra game onto the game, but we made it!
I'm going to talk more about the process that brought us to this point and the development plan ahead, but first let's do the changelog, along with some screenshots taken by our intrepid testers!
Major new stuff in this build:
- [h3]Dungeons![/h3] Did I really need to say that Dungeons are a part of the Dungeons Update? Of course I did!
Dungeons are customisable instanced maps that branch off from the main world map. You build the entrance to them like a building on the main map, but then you can go inside and lay out and decorate the interior!
For each dungeon, you can select how many instances you want to run, and parties of players will assemble to explore them. Do bear in mind that these dungeon instances do have a daily upkeep cost whether or not they're active, and each instance will be demanding bandwidth from your network connection, so try not to run more of them than you really need!
In order to access dungeon placement, you'd normally need to research and unlock both "Parties" and then "Dungeons", but in this build, we're also giving you "Dungeons" as a bonus technology whenever you unlock "Parties", so that you can see the new game systems immediately. (The bonus "dungeons" technology is temporary; it'll likely require a separate unlock in future versions of the game)
- [h3]Dungeon customisation![/h3] This build contains eight different dungeon themes, each of which can themselves be edited and recolored, with new scenery items, doors, paintable floors, and more!
- [h3]Design boss fights![/h3] Design giant dungeon bosses, complete with multi-phase boss fights! Each phase can be customised separately, with their own attack patterns, health bar, and visual effects.
- [h3]Four new character models![/h3] New character models specifically designed for use as bosses have been added in this build, but of course you can use them for anything you like; regular monsters, NPCs, even playable characters, and they're all compatible with all our other character models so can be mix&matched at will!
- [h3]Custom dungeon monster type storage![/h3] Each of your dungeons now gets two additional monster type slots and one boss monster slot, which you can use to make custom monsters that can only be placed inside that dungeon. (Dungeons can also contain any monsters from your game's main map). Right now each dungeon is limited to just these three custom character slots, but we have plans to expand how many custom slots you can have inside dungeons; that'll be coming in a near-future update!
- [h3]Hate unlocking things? Access dungeons from the very start of the game![/h3] The "Role-Playing" MMORPG type now starts with the "Parties" technology already unlocked from the start, which means that in this build they also have "Dungeons" unlocked! So if you want to jump straight into laying out dungeons in a fresh MMO, that's the MMO type to choose during New Game creation!
[h2]Combat changes in this build:[/h2]
It's not only dungeons in this update! We also have some major changes to combat!
- [h3]Area effect combat abilities![/h3] This build adds support for making combat abilities affect a large area; very useful for when you just want your boss monster to wipe a whole party all at once!
- [h3]Full monster aggro system![/h3] Monster aggro is now modeled much more accurately, including non-combatants gaining aggro due to healing or buffing players who are directly fighting the monster.
- [h3]Taunt mechanics![/h3] Players can now be given "taunt" abilities to pull and hold monster aggro, to make true tanks.
- [h3]Status effects now stack![/h3] When someone is affected by multiple Damage over Time effects from different sources, they now stack with each other, instead of replacing each other.
- [h3]Party roles![/h3]When in parties, players can now select 'roles' they want to play on the team. A player who has healing skills may choose to take the "healer" role, in which they'll tend to hang back and focus on healing their party members, or a player who has at least one taunt may choose to take the "tank" role, focusing on trying to keep the monsters focused on them!
Note that each party may only have one healer and only one tank because I still have the emotional scars from all-healer and all-tank parties I've been a part of in various MMOs and I want to spare you from ever having to experience that pain. - [h3]Parties take rests![/h3] Individual players were already doing this when adventuring solo, but parties now also take time to heal up after a fight, instead of immediately charging off to fight more monsters. This should result in substantially fewer silly party wipes! Additionally, players (both solo and in parties) now consider damage-over-time effects while resting, and will continue to rest and heal themselves up until the damage-over-time effects expire.
[h2]Regular new stuff in this build:[/h2]
- [h4]New UI![/h4] Much of the game's UI has been spruced up and updated, including moving the game's various "reports" into a new menu system, and starting to break up individual design pages into separate windows instead of mashing them all together into giant monolithic windows. This also includes a new way of showing what object is selected, which is both much clearer (IMHO) and also is going to open up some exciting new possibilities for future updates!
- [h4]Building activation[/h4] Buildings now have a different appearance when they've not yet been activated. You can now activate buildings manually if you wish (instead of waiting for one of your developers to do it), and buildings automatically get switched into 'maintenance' mode when a developer is fixing bugs on them. Your subscribers cannot interact with buildings which are deactivated.
- There's a new visual effect for when a healing ability is used on a player, to make it more obvious when somebody's been healed!
- Designed character types can now be destroyed. Got a player class that's only being played by jerks? Destroy it, and everybody using it will be unsubscribed all at once!
....and a whole bunch of other bug fixes and improvements!
[h2]The road ahead[/h2]
So let's talk about where we're at now, and where we're going next!
First, I want to thank everyone for their immense patience with how long this update has taken to come out; it's by far the biggest update we've ever done and required rebuilding most of the game's architecture to allow it to happen. I'm
super proud of what we've pulled together, though; its so much more than I ever expected my little home-grown game engine to be able to cope with!
I don't expect us to have anything even remotely as big and challenging as this single update again before we reach full release; it should be relatively smooth sailing from here on out!
The next thing on my plate (after any hotfixes for bugs folks find over the next few days) is going to be updating our development roadmap, and then we'll be charging straight onward into our next Creativity Spike, where we focus on editor quality of life features, and new map customisation features.
Some of my big focuses in the creativity spike are going to be things like multi-select and new types of things to be placed on the map. We'll have more details on all of this over the coming days!
Once again, huge huge thanks to everyone who has stuck with us for this gargantuan update, and sent us feedback, support, and bug reports throughout, whether via the game's built-in feedback and bug reporting features, or on our
Discord server. We absolutely could not have done this without so many fantastic people supporting us. :)
-T