Archmage Rises News

Hey! It's another Friday, and another patch day! Let's dive in to what's changed:

[h2]FIXED:[/h2]
Kaylo7 reported an issue with books that being read passively while physically in a mount's inventory not being able to be removed from the inventory afterwards. We've fixed this along with several related issues stemming from this.
Books will now be removed from passive reading list if it is moved to an inventory that isn't the player's or a mount they have with them. They will also be removed if in a mount's inventory then gets placed on display in a tower.
Docks are now open 24/7. No more worrying about landing on an island only to discover that the docks have permanently closed and out of business. As much as being stranded on an island might also be fun... :P

[h2]IMPROVED:[/h2]
Now when talking with an NPC about a quest that has a time limit, you'll be able to see what the time limit is before accepting/declining the quest.
Running out of time to complete a time-limited quest? No worries, now you can ask for an extension to give yourself more time to complete the quest!
Icons for dungeons are now removed from the map when you complete the dungeon
Updated lair/dungeon completion/destroy logic to check not just whether all patrols were cleared but also if all rooms have been explored, otherwise the dungeon is still considered active
Added a tooltip on the map view when hovering over partially explored dungeons to get more details on dungeon exploration progress
Existing save files with destroyed dungeons will now have their completed lair location icons removed.

[h2]Update #2b: Combat[/h2]
It’s not quite ready to ship yet.. 😂

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

What you are seeing above is a NEW combat scene with all new GameObjects recreating basically what we have already: showing an enemy, casting a spell, etc.

There is entirely new damage calculations happening under the hood. Something Michel thought would take about a day and now has invested three. Why? Because it matters how and the order it is done. If you cast a spell doing 100 damage, and it crits for +50% damage, but the target has 75% resistance, is the +50% = +50 damage or +12.5 damage?

The combatrons that make this all work are separate little pieces of data to make this all clear to you through onscreen UI and the combat log.

I’m expecting we have our first data-driven spell working tomorrow or at least this week. Once that happens things will go faster.

This new data driven (as opposed to code driven) makes it possible to do mod support for spells. Am I saying we’re going to support mods? No. I’m saying we are not doing anything that precludes mods, if we want to go that way in the future.

Combat is James, Mark, Tyler, Michel, Josh, Jonathan, and Rubi. Rubi is back from her honeymoon and ready to start making VFX for your spells.


[h2]Update #3: Exploration[/h2]
Had a great internal meeting with Design Lead Mark and Narrative Lead Nolan about the new way players will go about exploring and interacting with the map. The new fatigue system is way better than the current stamina system. Based on Kaylo7 and other’s feedback about big resource harvesting we are looking to have the player find an abandoned (and monster filled) mine, clear it out, and setup a foreman and workers to harvest the goods for you. No more living the fantasy of being a solitary mage running around with a pickaxe.*

It’s gonna be amazing, I’m super excited about it and think we are solving core problems that need solvin’.

(* Apparently no one actually has this fantasy)


[h2]Dynamic Quests: A Story Engine[/h2]


Work continues on the dynamic quest system. We’ve argued through many points of what it is and isn’t and now the time is to stop talking and just make something terrible.

Yes, you read that right. The next step is to make a completely awful quest/story generator that is embarrassingly horrible. So that we can test and see what is so very horribly wrong and fix or redesign it. That’s how iterative creation goes.

I hope this test can be completed this week. Maybe i’ll even share the completely awful generation.

Thomas and Nolan are focused on this.

[h2]Priority Fixes[/h2]

• Taliensin recommended we remove completed dungeons from the map. We will, and add a tooltip to let you know what is remaining (rooms, # of monsters) if you got to the end but missed some stuff.
  
• Allow the player to get extensions on quest time limits. This requires a persuasion check to negotiate more time to do your job!
  
• When buying items that require a skill prereq (like weapons or armor) we will show the player skill next to it
  
• We’re going to make the Innkeeper be able to provide a list of everyone in town who has an available quest, this will make it easier to see who to visit
  
• Dock Travel sometimes causes a crash, or gets stuck, or is closed. It’s been dragging on for a long time and it’s time to finally make it work nice nice.
  

Zach and Thomas are heading up this effort.

Patch is coming out Thursday.

Happy to report the following fixes this week!

• NPCs answer questions based on "domain knowledge". So if you ask them a question and they don't know, they tell you who has the domain knowledge. A helpful player reported the NPC would tell you the expert's name, but not the town they were in! Now they do so you no longer have to go looking for Joan Coppard in EVERY SINGLE TOWN. ːsteamfacepalmː
  
• Loot drops in the final room of a dungeon were too RNG. One poor adventurer only got 6gp! :crying_yeti: We've bumped them up to make them feel much more significant. This is excellent feedback and relatively easy to fix. Early Access helps us see where the RNG needs 'help'. :happystar2022:
  
• A VFX will now play when casting Light or Arcane Insight
  
• We added a button to the quest log for abandoning a quest. This is intended only for situations where a quest breaks and you'd like to restart it. This is much easier than using console commands, though console commands makes you feel more like a Hacker! :poeIIshifty:
  
• Princess Katherine (which my staff assumed was my wife but I assured them definitely was not! I cannot get her to play the game!) reported a problem with the weaponsmith hammer duke quest turn in options. These have been better clarified. Thanks!
  

• JBreezy reported a problem removing a Book from a tower room display slot: it was going to the tower inventory instead of the player inventory. It now goes to the player inventory.
  
• TrojanKaisar and Watuhboy reported issues with loading a New Game. This ended up being an inability to spawn the tower quest throwing an error and wrecking everything. We downgraded the error so it will no longer block, and updated the quest tech so that save should be able to have the tower quest now
  
• Monster Tamer Bloba reports being stuck in dungeon after a fight. This is a tough one due to race conditions, we made a temporary bandaid for it that we hope will quash the error. More investigation necessary.
  

This week is shorter because of the Canadian holiday of Thanksgiving (Monday Oct 9). Canadian Thanksgiving differs from the American by:

• being about 6 weeks earlier
  
• has no retail connotations of any kind
  
• always falls on a Monday.
  

Otherwise, we eat too much turkey and wear pilgrim hats. Oh, maybe that last one is just my family! 😛



[h2]Oh Combat Rewrite! Where Art Thou?[/h2]
Combat rewrite is the #1 priority right now, with Jessi, Michel, Jonathan, Josh, Mark, James, Tyler all working on it.

Last week I wrote these prescient words: Don’t know how long this will take, we’re guessing this week will reveal a lot of how well it works.

Well it did. And we got a lot of problems to solve. 😟



The system isn’t as far along as I thought. As soon as we were about to set James loose on making some spells suddenly all the unfinished bits became painfully obvious. This is game dev. Actually, this is any creative process. The good news is we are solving the issues, plodding forward, and we should have magic missile working this week.

Our approach is to tackle three different spells from three different schools to stress test the system.

• Arcane: Magic Missile - “Can we deal any damage to anything?”
  
• Storm: Shock - “Can we applying stacking buffs which then trigger an effect (stun)?”
  
• Fire: Fireball - “Can we apply damage to more than one target?”
  

Sadly, Combat will not be coming in October.

[h2]Update 3: Exploration Will Include Dynamic Quests[/h2]
I write this knowing it will make Hybernian and Kaylo7 happy. 😊

In 2014 I was already working on Archmage Rises and I saw this inspiring talk by Bioshock creator Kev Levine about ‘Narrative Legos’.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We’re in the Inception phase of our next major update on the game and we’ve concluded that now is the time to start implementing the dynamic quest system. It was originally scheduled in the roadmap for Update #5 Prosperity but we’re going to pull it forward.

Michel and I have been discussing how to solve these ‘narrative legos’ for years, and we have some good ideas, but it wasn’t until the kickoff meeting last week with Mark (Lead Design) and Nolan (Narrative) that it really clicked: I finally have the right team to solve this! Coming at it in a multi-disciplinary approach helps minimize risk and maximize the chance it will actually work.

We’re continuing to work on this so we’re ready when the majority of the team is done with Combat.

[h2]Priority Fixes[/h2]

• TrojanKaisar reports a new game failing to load and the game his tower was in also fails to load. Others have reported similar issues. We’re very concerned about this and looking into the issue right now.
  
• Dock Travel sometimes causes a crash
  
• Dungeon final room loot is sometimes really pathetic. Like 6g.
  
• Problem removing a book from Tower display
  

Zach and Thomas are heading up this effort.

Patch is coming out Thursday.

We're mostly all focused on combat right now, but I carved off a programmer to help fix and improve the game this week. Here is what we accomplished.

• Donkornleone suggested dungeon lairs show the race of the inhabitants on the tooltips. A darn fine suggestion! We added it.
  
• We had a "realism" where an NPC has a quest available, but sometimes it shows and sometimes it doesn't. This just annoyed people and caused them to spam talking to the person over and over to get it to display. Now, once they have a quest, it ALWAYS displays it.
  
• Monster Tamer Bloba asked: How do you get art for your mage tower? Well he was really onto something because the answer was: you couldn't. Through a series of unfortunate coincidences it wasn't possible to get them in towns or in dungeon loot. We're adding it back in and pretending to call it a new feature (don't tell anyone)! You can now get Art objects (Paintings & sculptures) in dungeon loot OR commissioning them from an artist workshop.
  

Here is how you can commission at an Artist Workshop:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• Laiken reported a branch with no dialog options in the Mabren Tower quest. Fixed bad duplicated variable checks.
  
• Pig Boy reported never ending combat. We fixed it, you can finally get out of combat!
  
• Also fixed quest related problems we saw in Pig Boys save file.
  
• Fixed an issue when removing items from the cart when trading which was preventing negotiation from working
  
• Fixed trading negotiation counters not resetting on sleep
  
• Fixed Quest Log to show other quests even if one of them is messed up
  
• Fixed three save file loading issues
  
• Fixed a soft lock when saving when nauseous
  

Next week Monday (Oct 9) is Thanksgiving here in Canada. It'll be a shorter week.

We're really thankful for all of you playing and following the game.

This time last year, we had dozens playing the game and were making plans for Next Fest. Now we have many thousands of players. We appreciate all of you and the positive reviews!