Blade & Sorcery News

Hello, mates! The Baron here with the latest and goodest news about Update 12; after months of grueling bugs squashing, KospY and the Warpfrog team have managed to quash the worst offending bugs to the point that we now believe U12 is finally ready to release!



What a whirlwind! Once again a self inflicted wound from Warpfrog adding features and creep that were not supposed to be included and creating bug hell, lol. ːsteamlaughcryː

A ton of time was also spent troubleshooting a lot of the internal changes that we made, such as the creation of the new Dungeon system - But this was for a good cause because it will allow modders to now bypass copyright restrictions and make their own dungeons by freely using our own tech.

But I digress, let's have a look at what's included in U12:



[h2]Physics-based swimming[/h2]

The simulation expands; physics-based swimming has arrived!

From the moment we added the beach in U10 we were peppered with requests for swimming, and understandably so because it certainly seemed it would fit really well into the physics simulation as a feature. That is the gift/curse of B&S, lol.



There are two methods to swimming - physics based, which is swimming with your arms in a motion like IRL; this will propel you and also rise in the water. Heads up though, you don't have to go hard at this motion for it to be effective.

The other method is for those who are not interested in the physical motion, or maybe have discomfort with that motion; you can simply use the thumbstick to swim around and go up and down.

Or of course you could use a combination of both methods.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is basically the first step in swimming as a feature; we don't have much application for it right now and it is just for simulation fun. We have a couple of small water sections in the Dungeons, but it is always optional. So for now swimming is really just for messing around!

[h2]Breakable Items[/h2]



Every few updates a feature comes along where something gets added to the game and you wonder how we played the game without it. Dismemberment, climbing, death animations, and now breakables. ːpraisesunː This feature is fun as hell.

A lot of world objects will now react to the physics force applied, making them breakable. If you worried that means everything is now gonna explode on gentle impact, don't worry! The objects will only break based on a significant force of physics applied with relation to the object type.

For example, if you swing a sword at a ceramic vase with enough force you may smash right through it in one hit, however slashing a wooden crate may not have enough force to break it.



Smashing it with the power of gravity or over someone's head on the other hand... ːsteamlaughcryː



[h2]In-game mod manager[/h2]



The big boi... It has been a repeated request since day one, so finally here it is - an in-game mod manager for Blade & Sorcery for one click installs.

Modders who upload their mods onto mod.io/g/blade-and-sorcery will have their mods show up for players in the mod manager. However, do take note that if you couldn't care less about the in-headset mod manager for whatever reason, mods can still be installed the old fashioned way by manually dropping mod folders downloaded from nexusmods or mod.io into the streamingassets/mods folder.

We tried our absolute best to include every little user friendly feature we could think of, so for this feature the best thing may be just to break it down by bullet point on what it can do.

Here is a list of its functions:

• You can install and uninstall mods all in-headset (no pc required) for Blade & Sorcery or Nomad
  
• If you use PCVR you will not see Nomad mods, if you play Nomad you will not see PCVR mods
  
• It will only show you mods for the version of the game you are playing - no more downloading out of date mods accidentally
  
• You can toggle mods on and off without uninstalling
  
• It will automatically download any mod prerequisites
  
• If you are subscribed to a mod and the modder updates it, the manager will update it for you to the latest game version
  
• There is a search bar and virtual keyboard
  
• You can filter by tags
  
• There are three main tabs - New (latest mods), Popular (currently trending mods) and Most Downloaded (most popular of all time)
  
• You can install / download multiple mods simultaneously
  
• Your manual mods will appear in the mod manager as local mods, so you could still do manually download/install mods and use the mod manager to manage them
  
• If you input your email and link your B&S mod manager and mod.io accounts you can sync them, so you could subscribe directly to mods on mod.io via web browser and it will be reflected in the game. However, this is not forced on you and you don't have to link accounts at all if you don't want to, and instead could just download mods straight in-headset without a mod.io account. But take note that if you skip linking your email and mod.io account but change your mind at a later point, you would need to contact mod.io.
  

What the mod manager does not do:

• Mods would still need to be updated for the correct version to play them - you still can't play U8 mods in U12 for example
  
• Even though it auto downloads prerequisites, it doesn't list the mod prerequisites before downloading. We can add this in U12.X and the reason it's not a thing now is the UI was not planned for it in time.
  

Hopefully I am not forgetting anything. We tried our best with the mod manager, but this release will be the first time it is going to be tested by the masses so if there are unexpected mod manager bugs, keep calm! Just let us know and we can patch it right away.

[h2]New Dungeon Outpost Rooms[/h2]

This... got out of control, lol. What should have ended up being a few side rooms ended up being 14 side rooms and 24 entirely new rooms added to Outpost. ːpraisesunː

While glorious, it also meant an absolute metric ton of bugs for us to fix lol.







The great news is that for those of you who have played Dungeons to death, this should inject a whole breath of new life into Outpost Dungeon with new areas to explore, including a couple of outdoor areas and sewer places.







In addition to the brand new rooms you will also find side rooms. Side rooms are new small areas attached to older rooms, accessible via an interactable door. As mentioned before, the side rooms are just for fun/exploration for now, but in the future they would be related to loot in Crystal Hunt.







[h2]Overhaul of Shield Enemies[/h2]



Continuing on the perma-task of improving AI, a new enemy behavior in U12 is improved shield AI.

Shield enemies now have a chance to shield bash you and push you back, with the AI utilizing the bash behavior more frequently on higher difficulty. You can negate the pushback by bracing with a shield of your own.

Enemies will also use their shields more effectively and have a better block and riposte when they parry, making them a lot more dangerous than they were before.

[h2]Dynamic music system for Dungeons[/h2]

Finally we have some music for Dungeons! This was on the to-do list forever but the hold up was we wanted to implement a system that the music could start and stop with combat instead of just being a track that played right throughout.

Now when you get into combat, a new handmade battle music will play for the duration of the combat. However if this is not your cup of tea, you can of course disable the music on Dungeons as you could any sandbox map.

[h2]Custom-Made Music for each Arena[/h2]

I know, you have that Arena track "Future Gladiator" burned into your brain, don't you. You hear it in your sleep, I know, I know, we all do.

As iconic as that track has been for B&S since the very first beta, the time has come to part ways and we now finally have all new custom music tracks for each sandbox map.

These tracks were written and composed by the awesome Glamdok from the Warpfrog team. ːer_heartː

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Content creators can also rejoice that this brings to an end the era of Youtube placing false copyright flags on their videos. ːer_heartː

[h2]Brand new Menu UI with Mod Settings Support[/h2]



More than just a cosmetic overhaul, for a long time we were wanting to redesign the UX of the options book as it was a bit confusing and there have even been players that never realized that some options had multiple pages lol. So with this, we hope it will be a cleaner experience.

As a bonus, we also included a dedicated mod options page - this would be for mods where the modder has added their own custom options to tweak their scripted mod; well now there is a nice dedicated space for that.

Also, the mod page now shows any errors with the mod, which is great for diagnosing mod related issues.

[h2]New cheat - Free climb[/h2]



Aka Spiderman mode! Here is a nice surprise bonus for you -- Enabling this cheat option will allow the player to climb on any surface regardless of if there is a gripping point there.

Some folks out there were having trouble with the climbing system, so we wanted to add this more relaxed option for anyone who wanted to enjoy climbing but was getting frustrated with the vanilla system. It should also be a pretty cool option for just messing around and exploring new hard to reach places!

[h2]New cheat - Easier dismemberment[/h2]



Another community pain point that tends to come up is some folk find the dismemberment system a bit too hardcore. It was always intended in our vision that vanilla dismemberment be a skill-based system and a rare occurrence, but we are also of the opinion that we shouldn't force our vision of fun on players, so we included this extra bonus option for anyone who wants to make the dismemberment a lot easier.



You might notice that in the dev menu this option is called "dismemberment" which is a bit confusing as we have a separate option in another tab called dismemberment, which enables and disables actual dismemberment. In 12.X we will fix the naming of this cheat option to properly read "easy dismemberment".

[h2]New tools / weapons[/h2]



You will find 6 new weapons to spawn or find in the world, although technically these are tools! Originally we were going to leave them as in-world items that you could find but then we figured why not add them to the book spawner in case a player wants to pick some heads, lol.

---

That's it for Update 12, guys! Any grievous bugs will be dealt with in 12.X patches, after which... the road to 1.0 begins...

Update 12 is the last stop before Crystal Hunt, which unbelievable to say, means the next update should be full release! We are on pins and needles in anticipation for that.

Last note - Modders, there are some really juicy things coming in the SDK for you guys with regards dungeon modding, breakable modding, etc, but unfortunately due to the scramble to finish U12 the Warpfrog devs have not yet had a chance to finish the SDK, so the tools are not quite ready. For that reason we will hold off on getting into the SDK news until it is ready. When it's ready for release I will post the info in another news for you guys as well as on Discord.

Cheers, everyone! Full changelog below -



[h3]Features[/h3]
- Physics-based swimming (with Tutorial)
- Added water drag area on some items
- Added Breakable items
- Overhaul of Shield enemies
- Dynamic music system for Dungeons
- Custom-made music tracks for each arena
- Brand new Menu with Mod Settings Support
- New dungeon outpost rooms, including underwater sections and new interactive elements
- In-game mod manager (based on mod.io)
- New moddable area system (used for dungeon generation)
- Armour modding support
- Trap doors
- Added a shortcut for the player log in the F5 menu
- Added text for what is being loaded during Game Loaded
- Added keyboard system which modders can use
- Added AMD FSR 1.0 upscaling (PC)
- New cheat - Free climb, enable to climb on any surface
- New cheat - Easier dismemberment
- Spell wheel now supports more than 10 spells without overlapping
- Mod manifests now have icon support

[h3]Enhancement / Changes[/h3]
- Updated to Unity 2021.3.17f
- Added side rooms and doors in some dungeon outpost rooms
- Updated models for a lot of props (crates, barrels etc)
- Dungeon areas with Ocean no longer instantly kill player when you fall in to them, added climbable areas to return to the area.
- Added ocean to Chapel river.
- Updated some arenas with updated models for minor props (like flags)
- Adjusted what props spawn in Arenas
- Tweaked dungeon outpost layout and misc changes about some rooms
- Shield enemies in general should be more competent, and will opt for a more turtling and riposte fighting style than their non-shield counterparts.
- New player menu
- Improve text quality on all the UI (updated texts to TextMeshPro)
- The rock used for tutorial's wall jump section will break after some time, allowing for a quick and easy climb instead.
- Adjusted colliders of arrows to have better piercing.
- Some props in Arenas and Dungeon now spawn via a loot table.
- Removed Exterior Doorways (the one which only was in 2 rooms).
- Improved memory usage by unloading despawned weapons and armour
- Improved memory usage by optimizing shader loading (expect a 2-3GB memory reduction without mods)
- Improved level loading times
- Added EventTime fields to Creature events in the EventManager
- Added new options: Screenshot Resolution, Render Quality (PC) , and Upscale Filter (PC)
- Added new sandbox options: Breakables, and Free Climb
- Colour gamut is now fixed on Nomad - No more red tinge
- 'Head' is no longer an option when creating a new character
- Added screenshot message
- Pressing grip will now cancel a spell charging (doing a fist to punch should be easier)
- Screenshot file name now contain level name and dungeon room name if any
- ColliderGroupData now allows you to filter which spells can imbue a collider group

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed underwater effect not working with spectator camera
- Fixed underwater caustics being too bright and staying on screen
- Fixed Ruins terrain having no physics collider
- Fixed several localization and language bugs
- Removed "Reload JSON" from the Menu.
- Removed unused props used on the exterior of Market
- Fixed very rare issue where Dungeon runs would end early and not have an "End" room.
- Dungeon rooms with Sunlight cannot spawn next to eachother, to prevent light darkening on room enter
- Dungeon rooms with Ocean cannot spawn next to eachother, to prevent Ocean leaking in to other rooms
- Fixed Wooden pierceables not making sound when stabbing with
- Improve brain pooling performance
- Fixed Rugged Trousers and Worn Sandals missing reveal/blood
- Fixed wrong reveal normal mapping on Mercenary Armour
- Fixed wrong reveal normal mapping on the Claymore
- Fixed refresh rate not updating correctly when changed while in-game
- Fixed memory leak with reveal
- Fixed physics bodies falling asleep too quickly when pushed slowly
- Fixed spell wheel locking in place when opening then crouching or jumping
- Fixed memory allocations from creature navigation every frame.
- Fixed an issue where NPCs would stretch when sliced on specific parts
- Fixed memory leak with the mirror in home
- Fixed rare issue where imbue emission would not light up
- Fixed issue where the player menu randomly switched the opened sub-menu from the user clicking on another button
- Fixed light color of Fireball Impact being a wrong tint.
- Fixed NPCs not defending themselves from one of the easter egg weapons
- Workaround for the "grab bug" issue where sometimes pressing grab will cause you to jump to the last thing you had grabbed.

[h3]SDK (Coming soon) [/h3]
- Added Breakable script
- Added Tooltips for a lot of components
- Added "Spawnpoint" to each item. This now adjusts the location/rotation of the object when spawned.
- Reworked ItemSpawner
- Removed ContainerSpawner (merged in to ItemSpawner)
- Armor modding support
- Dungeon/Area modding support
- New "ReflectionSorcery" component for Fake views.
- Added new Physics Material "Ceramic".

Hello mates! The Baron here with a little bit of news to fill you guys in on what the heck is keeping U12 from dropping. Well...



We are being crushed by the amount of U12 bugs right now and every time we crunch down on one bug two more take its place. Unfortunately they are also the kind of bugs that make playing impossible / unfun, so sadly we can't just release and have people play while we fix them in a patch; things like Dungeon rooms being invisible, door portals being glitchy, performance issues, etc.

The most crippling issues are mostly stemming from three things -

As mentioned in the Road to U12 news, we remade the whole Dungeon technology to improve the dungeon generation and give the possibility to expand the system with new features later. It also allowed us to eliminate 3rd part copyright issues that were preventing modders from being allowed mod Dungeons. By remaking it ourselves, it meant we can just give modders the permission to do what they like since we then own it.

The whole undertaking was crazy, but things were looking really good at the end of last year. However, now that we are making builds we are only just discovering lots of things that broke and need fixing and it's the annoying sort of stuff that you don't discover until you spent a full day making a test build. We are slogging through these fixes now.



The other thing is Unity itself, which the game is built on. Unity brings its own whole host of issues, and when Unity updates it can introduce all sorts of new problems that take a lot of time to workaround, as is the current case.

But some good news here is that as we work on it we are taking a lot of time to improve performance issues. U12 is coming with a big improvement on memory usage, so that should feel really nice. You will hopefully see much better loading times too.

Finally, we added a silly amount of new dungeon rooms to U12 lol.



It was only supposed to be a small bonus for the update and then things got carried away as they always do with us. (image from u/Enchanter1101 ːer_heartː)

The good news here is that the new rooms look awesome and it should inject a bunch of fresh new life into Outpost while everyone is waiting on Crystal Hunt.





But the bad news is new rooms mean new bugs or other environmental issues to be found, diagnosed and fixed. To give you an example, one day a perfectly square chunk of the ocean went missing in one outdoor room. ːgoblinː Just.. gone, see ya later without rhyme or reason. This is the kind of things we are fixing in rooms.



So that's where we are folks, and why we are suddenly and surprisingly being blocked from a release when we seemed so close before... IT'S ANNOYING! ːeagleangryː



The guys at Warpfrog are really working hard on releasing though, so rest assured we will get there. KospY has aged about ten years in the past 3 months lol, so believe me that we are all eager to finish this and have the whole team move fully onto 1.0 update (rest assured we still have some of the team working on 1.0 right now).

But it's not all doom and gloom for U12! The stuff that is working is working really well, most notably breakables.



This is one of those feature additions that you are gonna find it hard to remember B&S before it because it lends itself so well to the game.





Breaking things is caused by force, so don't worry about tapping into things and finding them break really flimsily. It works really well and logically with the physics simulation. Gravity mage runs are super-duper fun to smash furniture.





Elsewhere, doors to siderooms are working well in Dungeons, although its sad still that we have no Crystal Hunt loot implemented yet (coming in 1.0). For now it will just be for fun and exploration.

By the way, I'm not sure it was ever mentioned there are trapdoors. ːpraisesunː



While the bulk of the team are working on fixing the torrent of U12 bugs, the rest of the team are polishing other things. One example is the UI...

It had long been on the cards to update the old book menu for UX purposes (many players didn't even realize the book menu had multiple options pages.. ːKScaredː) and make room for new options. In the last news we had posted a preview of the new UI, thinking "I sure hope players will enjoy this new clean redesign..."

We were legit surprised by reactions to the new look and the book nostalgia some of your guys had haha. But some folks pointed out something interesting - the clean look was a bit "too sci-fi" and didn't really fit with the aesthetic of B&S, which is something the old book did well. This was a really great point! We were focused on making a nice and clean menu with a good UX, but it's a great example for us of "missing the forest for the trees".

Well we heard you! We did a bit of switcharooing and were able to get the best of both words by adding a nice clean UI that allows for all the new options menus, while still retaining the classic B&S feel. Hope you guys like this one!



That's it for now, guys! I simply cannot wait for the day when I can drop the news that says "U12 is now available.

One last little nugget of news for Nomad players because I know Nomad players read these Steam news; some hope for you regarding the long awaiting scripted modding --

Some tests are being done on making complex mods run in-game and there has been some victories! Here is an example of the Mystic Hands mod by the legendary modder Lyneca being run in Nomad:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

There are still bugs, still work to be done and I still don't have a release date, but this is great news as it is a proof of concept for the madness that is making advanced mods work on the Quest 2. This is a great milestone!

Hello mates, Baron here with the latest news! KospY and the team at Warpfrog have been working away on U12 with the goal to try and wrap the update for release. The majority focus has been on trying to finalize the in-game mod manager functionality, fixing issues with the new homemade Dungeon tech, and bugfixing.

Sadly we are experiencing a lot of technical issues and bugs that are preventing release. These are not your little type of "Oh how quaint" physics bugs that could be ironed out in a beta, but more "Hmm, today every Dungeon room transition is broken" type bugs which are complete blockers for release.

For that reason I have the sad duty to announce we will not be able to release U12 this month and it will be likely early 2023. I won't try to guess any exact time as it would be better to just know that we are working with intent to release literally as soon as possible, as soon as we can get these technical issues fixed.

So with that, I thought in the meantime I could do a little preview of some U12 stuff and generally show how it's going, bugs and issues aside.

[h3]Breakables[/h3]

It was a nice surprise for us to see how much interest was generated over breakables in the last news. The funny thing was it was only like one line in the news, but since it seemed to get peoples attention here is a bit more on it!

Big thanks to Drags for recoding all the previews in today's news. ːsteamdanceː



Originally, only a handful of props were breakable, but in response to the player interest we hugely expanded what kind of props are breakable. It now includes a lot more objects like benches, wooden tables, crates, etc and in fact we went a bit mad and it is now 24 breakable props in game, lol. We hope it will make for some pretty interesting and dynamic fights!

Wrestling fans can rejoice at being able to spike people through tables now.



One of the questions that was popping up was if the broken parts of the breakable could be used as weapons. For things like blunt objects, you could always use any object as a blunt object to attack so nothing new there, but for things like ceramic shards the answer was originally no because you would have to add damage handlers to the individual shards.

However since that did seem like a really cool idea and something the player was interested in, we did go ahead and add damage handlers to things like broken pots, so now you can stab away.



While doing the damagers on breakable props there was also a few other goodies stuffed in, such as the addition of 6 new tools to find in the world that have damagers added so they can be used like weapons too. For example, a pickaxe.



[h3]Mod Manager[/h3]

Now let's get into the Mod Manager. The big change for modders and mod-enthusiasts is that whereas up to now we had always used trusty old nexus for hosting mods, these in-headset mods will be hosted on mod.io. Mods that are uploaded here will appear in the headset and can be subscribed and unsubscribed via the in-headset menu.

Modders, if you want to have your mods show up in-headset I recommend you start uploading your mods now so that they are ready to roll before U12 launches.

Here is how it will look in-headset!



There are some nice filters in the manager that you can use for browsing mods, including searching mods by game version. ːpraisesunː So provided the metadata is correct by the uploader, you could now search something by filter such as "U12" + "Spells" to only display spell mods for U12.

But rest assured, if you are not too interested in this in-headset mod manager you can still download and install mods manually the good old fashioned way with any mods downloaded from the websites nexusmods.com or mod.io.

[h3]New Rooms[/h3]

In the last news I mentioned the whole new Dalgarian Dungeon that is planned for 1.0, so a bit of a ways away still, but I did mention that U12 would be adding a bunch of new siderooms that will be expanding old Dungeon rooms.

These were just little extensions added onto current rooms that will eventually be useful for loot purposes, but for now they are just for fun and exploration and to add doors into Dungeons so you can throw enemy through.

Door handles are for losers!



But anyway, in the last news we may have downplayed the whole "we are adding more rooms" just a teeny bit... ːwftogrinː

We have added about 14 siderooms into the game, but we also didn't even mention that there is also about 24 entirely new dungeon rooms being added, lol. For context, the current U11 Outpost Dungeon has something like 50 rooms total, so that's quite a few rooms to freshen up Outpost. ːsteamdanceː



It will be a mix of transitional rooms, standard rooms, and then one will be an "arena-type" room, The Watermill, and by arena-type I mean those rooms that spawn mini-waves like the Chapel or Library but are not the final wave rooms like Watchtower.



Hopefully this will make Outpost Dungeon a bit fresh for anyone who has played it to death, as there will be a lot of new rooms to experience.

[h3]New UI[/h3]

By the way, here is a little peek at some of the new UI changes coming that give it a nice clean look - you might spot there is a Mods tab where modders can add their own mod options.



Well that's it for now folks! This is likely the last news of the year, so from all of us here at Warpfrog a big thank you and much love to all the fans and well-wishers who support us and have followed along with the development of this game. We love you guys and wish you all a wonderful rest of your year. Here is to a great 2023! ːer_heartː

Hello mates! Baron here with the latest B&S news on the roadmap, our next update, and some info on the path to full release.

U11... what an update, eh? ːeaglegagː Our "little update" ballooned into the biggest I think we have ever done, so naturally it nuked our roadmap timeline. But KospY and the team have now been able to go over the damage and adjust accordingly and overall its not so bad, especially when you see what we have been secretly working on.

I know Crystal Hunt still seems like a shimmering oasis on the horizon, so the first part of the roadmap shift is we decided rather than wait a long time for the next update we will be aiming to release a "small" update aimed for December. This will be U12. What is not 100% certain is whether this will all be ready in time as a complete Update 12, or maybe a bit more like U11 where the bulk of the update will drop and then there may be some smaller content patches later.

So without further ado, here are some little teasers to whet your beaks on what the Warpfrog team have been working on for the upcoming update!

[h3]Physics-based Swimming[/h3]

I think you guys all secretly knew this was coming... ːwftogrinː When we added the ocean in U11, the natural player response was then to ask for swimming, haha. We agreed it was a cool idea but we didn't want to add a swimming system that was just moving around with a D-Pad.



Like everything else in B&S, we are aiming for an immersive experience, so the work we wanted to do on it was to make it possible to swim using the motion controllers in an actual swimming motion; it worked surprising well out of the box! Likewise we also wanted to spend the time adding new swimming animations so that your legs don't look too derpy like you are moving around like superman underwater, as well as add some VFX, etc.



You can also see that with this physics based system, objects like the oar will have drag and propulsion depending on the direction of the stroke. In fact any item in the game can now have a new component (meaning it could be utilized by clever modders too!), defining a "drag area"; this areas will be able to cause drag underwater and also propel you in the opposite direction as is the case in reality.



All of these small attentions to detail are quite simply because this is the B&S design philosophy, and we are always looking to push physics innovation and make the most realistic VR simulation we can.

There is not currently any critical gameplay mechanic attached to swimming and it is just for fun, however we do have some new dungeon rooms that will have water to swim in and explore. ːsteamdanceː

[h3]Breakables[/h3]

Here is a little something you probably weren't expecting.



Admit it, since the dawn of B&S you have wanted to break that chair prop over someone's head. Now you can! Or unleash your inner Link and smash a bunch of pots. We just thought this would be a fun addition and might lead to some more dynamic fights.

[h3]New dynamic music system[/h3]

Something we have been working on for a while now; Dungeons will have a new dynamic music system where music will trigger contextually in and out of combat. This should make the Dungeon experience more dynamic and interesting for those who find it a bit to quiet.

Along with this, we should have all new custom-made music tracks for each arena. (currently we are missing just one track iirc) We have long wanted to break away from store bought tracks to make a more comprehensive soundtrack.
The music being custom-made is also good news for youtubers as I'm sure you guys know that there are some unscrupulous companies out there (who shall remain nameless!) who love to spam videos unwarranted with copyright claims. ːsteamdeadpanː

[h3]More Animation Overhaul progress[/h3]

As mentioned many times before, work on AO never ends and will continue all the way up to 1.0 and then probably even beyond.

In the next update, you can expect to see more combat animations, more tweaks, and some new AI behavior such as the AI now shield bashing you.



Shield enemies in general should be more competent, and will opt for a more turtling and riposte fighting style than their non-shield counterparts.

[h3]New outpost rooms, including underwater sections[/h3]

This is another one of those things that will keep being padded out to 1.0; new Outpost Dungeon rooms.

In this case though these rooms are actually side rooms, or you could say expansions to current rooms. We were able to add doors into the dungeons, so now there are these little side rooms to explore, as well as the possibility to smash enemies into the doors. ːwftolaughː We are also currently working on the AI for enemies to navigate through these doors.



Ultimately the point of these side rooms is that in Crystal Hunt they will contain loot, so in that sense they are going to eventually be an optional loot-gaining venture, but for now they are purely just for exploration.



As mentioned in the Swimming section, there will also be some underwater sections and in the future we are hoping to add even more, and maybe even more complex underwater areas. But again, they are purely for fun and exploration for now.



[h2]MODDING[/h2]

Now for some very juicy news that we have been keeping secret for a while... ːsteamsunnyː Since around U11 we have been adding a bunch of goodies for modders to expand the modding scene even more.

Before I forget, a request from the Warpfrog devs to modders: U11.4 will likely be the very last patch for U11 and this will be your last chance to report any issues with modding components and get them fixed before U12. Please touch base with one of the Warpfrog team on the discord.

[h3]In-game mod manager[/h3]

Ye of little faith! ːpraisesunː Heheh, I told you guys Warpfrog would look into it and all this time we were doing just that. We had some technical complications and hurdles that we had to iron out, but the team are feeling more confident now to the point we can now talk about it.

Although we are working as fast as we can and progress is going well, as of yet I cannot guarantee this will be timed for U12. Please just expect it to arrive eventually, without tying yourself in a knot about the exact release date.

The idea is that players will be able to access a mod manager from the main menu and activate or deactivate mods one-click, all from within the headset. No more manual mod installs, although it's worth noting that you will still be able to manually install mods if you like.

Needless to say, this is most likely going to be a dream for Nomad players who will no longer have to fiddle around with apps or link cables and PCs, but PCVR players will benefit majorly too.
As well as being one-click installs, there should also be some cool and convenient filters to sort the mods, but the best of all being able to filter mods by version so that you can very quickly see what mods are updated to the latest game version and what mods are out of date.

Then within the game, there is also going to be a mod options section in the book, for reasons such as if a modder has options to tweak in their mod; players could then access these options via a nice, clean dedicated mod page in the options book.

I will keep you guys posted on progress of the in-game mod manager and let you know if there is any date that is looking likely for release. Remember, we *hate* giving release ballparks only because some players take it as gospel and then are disappointed when that ballpark is missed and this adds unhappiness and pressure for our devs working on it. For this reason it's much more appealing for us to withhold any dates until we are more sure, but just because there is no release dates doesn't mean a lot of progress is not being made!

[h3]New moddable dungeon system[/h3]

Mapmaking has been a thing in B&S forever, but when it comes to Dungeons there was always some complication for mapmakers because we were using a 3rd party asset that meant it was not legally possible for us to distribute the full tools needed for modders to make randomly generated dungeons. While mappers could still make big arena maps, it nonetheless sucked that they couldn't do their own version of Dungeons.

Some of you guys who are regulars in the community might have seen me talking about it before, mentioning that the only way around this would be to literally remake the Dungeons system ourselves so that we would have full ownership, and then we could give permission to modders because we own it. But of course as I mentioned, it would be absolute madness to undertake this.... well... ːwftogrinː

A love letter to our modmakers and mod community, we did just this. Now we can give modders our full permission to go nuts.

The idea is that just like our Dungeon rooms, modders will be able to make their own rooms as if they were small maps, and assort them into their own randomly generated Dungeons so that it will operate like our Outpost Dungeons.
Just like all mapmaking, this would be a ton of work of course, but one nice thing to remember is Dungeon rooms would be a lot smaller to make than the usual large arena maps, so I have confidence some modders are going do some amazing stuff with this. It is also more possible that since the rooms are smaller we could see more collaborative efforts between modders; if a group of mapmaking modders pool together and make some smaller rooms, those rooms could be pooled together towards making a new custom dungeon. So no one modder would necessarily have to carry the whole workload.

In theory, a talented modder or modders could even make their own themed Dungeon biome. We will try our best to get documentation to modders to help them.

[h3]Armour modding support[/h3]

Another modder restriction unshackled - Modders will have the ability to now make custom armours and clothes without any restrictions or 3rd party frameworks, fully native to our SDK. Again we will try our best to get documentation to modders on how the system works.

[h3]A word on scripting for Nomad players[/h3]

Nomad players read these Steam news too, and only because I know I will get asked for news: Still same as always, scripted modding for Nomad is being worked on, progress is being made, but I can't give any release date because it is too unpredictable. Currently it is working and our guy is testing mods with it, but there are still nasty bugs popping up with some mods (all mods are different) and we want to fix that first to prevent a disastrous release.

I know you guys are eager, and some of you guys are impatient, but please remember that this is unprecedented modding support for the Quest and our guy is breaking his back on it already. Being upset or angry for a release date doesn't make anyone move faster than they are capable of and only serves to discourage.



Thanks for your patience!

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[h2]So, what about beyond U12?[/h2]

U12 will be the last stop before 1.0 release, and the 1.0 is going to be gargantuan since it will have all the Crystal Hunt mode rolled into it with features and content that we haven't even revealed.
Rest assured by the way, that game development is not linear where 20 people all hammer the same nail. It is more like a beehive, with many people working on all sorts of different things simultaneously. Work on Crystal Hunt has been underway even as early as U11 as part of the team are focused on it, but we just don't like to spoil things too early.

However just to give you guys a sampler, I managed to twist KospY's arm into allowing me to show you this teaser so you can see just how massive the stuff we are secretly working on is:

[h3]Enter the Dalgarians[/h3]



"The ancient Dalgarian Ruins have opened. The nations and factions of Byeth scramble to claim the treasures within; the great Crystal Hunt has begun!"

Surprise! A whole new biome is coming, completely free as part of Crystal Hunt mode, with all new architecture, design, assets, mechanics, lore, etc. It will look distinctly different from the Outpost Dungeon, and aimed to be comparable in size, although you will see that the scale is so much more huge.

The image above is a WIP room only and not entirely finished or polished. If you look closely you may see some little white mannequins - this is just a Unity asset to give you a sense of how massive and epic this architecture is. It will look awesome in VR.

Big fat reminder: this is not for U12 and we just wanted to give you guys a sneak peak of the end-game. We have a policy at Warpfrog of underpromise and overdeliver, because ultimately we don't want to disappoint the players by over-hyping you guys and then letting you down, so we generally temper ourselves in what we show so that when the update does release you are more likely to be pleasantly surprised.

But if you are not a long-term follower of our studio then you may not have known this is our style, and it may not be apparent just how much we are working on. We are always expanding the game and if you bought the game in 2018 for $20, our hope is that you feel like it was value for your investment in us and that you enjoy following along the active development and expansion of the game, which is a huge part of B&S' identity. We are not racing to any finish line!

So I will leave it there with this little teaser; Dalgarian Dungeons is still too far off and we wanna avoid spoilers too early.

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That's it for this news, guys! There is so much more secret development stuff about Crystal Hunt I am bursting to share, but the wisest thing is to wait until we are more solidly in the run up to 1.0 release, and for now we will focus on U12. Underpromise and overdeliver!

Cheers!

Hello, mates! KospY and the Warpfrog team are now ready to launch update 11.3, which contains the long awaited new player origins. ːpraisesunː It has long been a request for more variety in the choice of player skin tones and faces, as some players felt a disconnect in VR when they look down and see hands of a skin tone that does not match their own.

With 11.3, players can now choose from a variety of origin ethnicities, and choose from a wide range of skin tones and hair colours, with secondary colours available too.

At the moment we have limited hairs (mostly Madene style), beards and player faces to choose from, so this will be a constant WIP for our modeler, adding face/hair content any time they get a chance.



We had wanted to add these background options and skin tones for ages, but we also wanted to add something a bit nuanced by putting in the work to create lore for the B&S, so in that sense this is also our first pass at bringing lore to the world of Blade & Sorcery.



To give some context to the player origins, here is the world map for our B&S fantasy world of Byeth.



Our game mostly takes place in the Kingdom of Eraden (the location of Outpost Dungeons), so anyone who is not Eradian would be a traveler or adventurer in these lands. Eraden is a lush land of rolling green hills and farmlands, while some of our arena maps (Arena, Canyon) are located across the sea in the desert Kingdoms of the Khar-Tib; an existential crisis looms for the Eradian Kingdom as the splintered warlords of Khar-Tib have begun uniting under one banner... but we won't get into this too much right now. ːwftogrinː

We have a lot of good lore content written already for each nation - their histories, motivations and agendas, but for now we are withholding it until closer to Crystal Hunt, because it will all make more sense tied into that. So for now this map is just to give you some flavour for player origins.
As we have always hammered, B&S will not have any kind of narrative storyline for the player, but we are striving to make a rich lore for our world in Crystal Hunt mode, which could be revealed passively to the player in-game.
Our dream would be to make our world dense IP, with room for many stories and adventures, creating a coherent universe that makes sense for the player; we are really aiming to push that immersive, anti-gamey vibe that a player in VR feels immersed in another world, and not just a video game.

This now largely wraps Update 11. There is some possibility that we could push an 11.4 patch at some point which may be just some content for U11, but we will see.
In the meantime, our plan is to drop the long awaited "Road to U12" news sometime soon, which will go over the significant damage U11's delays did to the roadmap, and to inform you guys of our reworked plan of attack to get to 1.0 and Crystal Hunt; we know you guys have been waiting a long time for this, so thank you for your patience! We should have some juicy things to share in the "Road to U12" news.

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[h2]Update 0.11.3[/h2]



- Added new character origin ethnicities (only for player)
- Reworked the character customization UI
- Added more colors and new haircuts for character customization
- Added the home local map, to fast travel toward the world map



- Update handle icon and add interactive scrollbars to the item and wave spawner books
- Wearables have changed internally in regard to edit mode, some mods using this may break



- Fixed Post-Processing Profiles not being applied when changed on the options menu, with non-English languages selected
- Fixed a few localization issues
- Fixed culling issues in a few dungeon rooms
- Fixed collision issues with some walls in dungeons
- Fixed mirror highlighter that may stay enabled when it should not
- Fixed some door gap between dungeon room
- Fixed some audio sources not being affected by the options volume audio sliders
- Fixed options audio sliders numeric value not showing the correct value after dragging the slider
- Fixed Pointer not swapping when changing side in menu book
- Fixed armour still being editable when disabling edit mode on the mirror