Archmage Rises News

Rivals is a small update adding the ability to fight specific named mages in the game. These mages specialize in one of the schools and present a unique challenge to the player.

• We play tested the game and found some problems. This led to a revised design session and programming changes. All good things to find before it comes out!
  
• We’re continuing play test this week and will see how it feels. Then we will announce it and initially release it on the Beta branch.
  

[h2]Exploration[/h2]

Exploration is our next major update to the game, greatly enhancing the overworld and out of combat experience.

• We’ve been discussing “purpose” in our design sessions and feel we may need to increase the scope of this update to include closing the game loop and providing the player with real clear purpose. Exploring the map in a better way may be great, but without a “why” it will eventually fall flat.
  
• Programming just finished on Elite named monsters and the quest type to go after them.
  
• Dynamic Quests is the game world (and NPCs) creating their own quests. Programming kicks off tomorrow to take the prototype made late last year and put it into the game.
  
• UI work continues, here is a mock up of how the store/vendor interaction could be:
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Notice the player character portrait in the bottom left of the HUD.

[h2]Other Studio News[/h2]

I’m happy to report the hire of a very much needed position: Quality Assurance. We’ve been trying to make due with artists, musicians, writers, and blabber-mouths like me testing. Sometimes we let bad bugs slip through. 😢 With the game getting bigger, it is an increasingly difficult task which will only get harder. Alex starts May 1. We can’t wait!

[h2]FIXED:[/h2]

• Fixed some bugs around debuffs not being remove via the Purge spell
  
• Fixed some schedules that were placing some NPCs in the Streets or at a well
  
• Fixed a bug where you could click objects behind an intercessional animation layer
  
• Fixed SFX when sleeping in a Common Room
  
• Fixed a bug causing skills stats to be added twice during skill checks
  

[h2]FIXED:[/h2]

• Fixed a bug with ambushing that eventually caused the game to have errors or the appearance of hanging when trying to save your game
  
• Fixed a white square status effect caused when ambushing patrols
  

Shorter week here in Canada/Ontario as we celebrated “Family Day” yesterday. Our American team members are happy to get an unexpected bonus holiday mid Feb. 😝

[h2]Save File Hotfix[/h2]

The top priority this week is a save file error caused when you try to save a game sometime after ambushing a patrol. Hotfix is coming out soon as we can prove it is resolved.

[h2]Mage Rivals[/h2]

This is a mini-update with some new functionality while we work on the bigger planned update. It is being worked on by James, Zach, Tyler, and Nolan.

• Programming is complete on hunting down and fighting rival mages. Theoretically you can fight any mage, but right now the feature is only for rival mages.
  
• Programming is mostly done on NPC reactions.
  
• We’re about to go into internal playtesting and see how it feels before we set a date.
  

[h2]Update #3 Exploration[/h2]

• ‘W’ recently posted some concerns about the NEW combat system. I believe most of their concerns will be addressed in the Exploration update:
  
  
  • We are caught in this weird limbo between combat can’t be too easy (becoming meaningless) and not too hard (early players can’t get anywhere). The real solution here is to properly scale the monster encounters between easy, medium, and hard based on where you are and progress in the world. This is what we are working on right now for exploration, to have the combat encounters feel better for your current stage.
    
  • Power damage scaling as you progress in the magic schools. This isn’t in right now as it breaks the game and trivializes combat.
    
  • Improve the spell unlocking process
    
• Programming finished on adding a new quest type: Unique Item. This allows us to make Excalibur or a jeweled crown, place it in the world, and have a quest to go find it.
  
• Programming continues on Elite named monsters and the ability to tie them to quests.
  
• Once Zach wraps up the NPC reactions for Rivals, he and Nolan are rolling onto implementing the Dynamic Quest system we prototyped late last year.
  

[h2]Thursday Patch[/h2]

These are the main issues we're investigating right now for this week's patch:

• Dispel / Purge not properly dispelling some status effects
  
• Inn services sometimes not accessible (this may have been resolved in last week's patch, but we're investigating it some more)
  
• Blank status effect in combat (we think this is related to ambushing)
  

[h2]FIXED:[/h2]

• Fixed issues with entering wells and houses breaking the game
  
• Fixed a bug where changing levels on a dungeon resulted in a black screen
  
• Fixed a few quest bugs where some quests mention goblins but show skeletons in the quest log and vice versa
  
• Fixed a bug where ambushing a patrol did not give you bonus AP to the starting round. Now it does.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could stack books on top of each other in your inventory, resulting in some issues. Now books are considered unique and do not stack on each other.
  
• Fixed a bug where overburdened was not being removed when it should
  
• Sleeping in your tower should now remove the Overexertion status as it should
  
• Fixed a bug where applying 10 stacks of Chilled does not cause the Frozen effect
  
• Fixed charge spells so that they properly apply the appropriate amount of bonus elemental damage to weapon attacks
  
• Fixed a bug with inns having identity issues and changing the name of the inn after you enter it
  
• Fixed ship travel. Now travelling by ship takes a lot less time
  
• Fixed some bugs that caused some dialogue windows to be empty preventing players from leaving those locations
  
• Fixed a bug preventing magic being used to disarm/disable traps (like chilling touch, dispel, mage hand, etc)
  
• Fixed a bug preventing Dispel / Purge from properly dispelling buffs and debuffs in combat.
  

[h2]IMPROVED[/h2]

• Added magic books back in as rewards for some quests
  
• Improved / added some various additional sounds
  
• Re-balanced some monsters based on community feedback