Solace Crafting News

This patch updates the Steamworks wrapper which is what the game uses to communicate with Steam. The previous version I was using seemed to have a problem where it required dedicated servers to be connected to Steam when they're supposed to be able to logon anonymously to add themselves to the global server list. This coupled with the fact that Steam randomly closes on both of my Linux headless servers every 1-2 days made the servers often disappear from the server list even though they were still running. The California #2 Beta server is now up and running this patch without being connected to Steam, so mission successful.

I've also fixed a number of small reported bugs, and am continuing to look into a number of other recently reported bugs.


The updated Steamworks wrapped does not support 32-bit operating systems. According to Steam 0.6% of Steam users are still on Windows 7 32-bit, though that number is rapidly declining with Microsoft now having dropped support for Windows 7, and only 0.18% of Steam users are running Windows 10 32-bit. It's not a "nice" thing to do if it does end up affecting anyone, and I sincerely hope it doesn't, but I need to drop support for 32-bit Windows. This will also speed up patching and some things for me, but ultimately it's something that everyone should have upgraded to by now, and if you haven't, according to Microsoft, upgrading to 64-bit does not require purchasing a new license.

v 0.6.2.6 2020.01.15
- Updated Steamworks wrapper
- Fruit trees watered up to the "Mature" stage will now regrow their fruit with or without being watered
- Fixed a bug causing solace storage to multiply when loading worlds more than once per session
- Now automatically reducing solace storage slots to the maximum total allowed if they've gone above it
- Fixed a bug preventing deleting worlds and characters on Linux
- Fixed monsters less than equal to a players level always giving 1 exp

v 0.6.2.7 2020.01.16
- Max "Cave Resource Density" value changed from 0.8 to 0.5

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

I visited a big outsourcing company in Tokyo last week, looking to get a quote on these buildings pieces. Unfortunately they came back with an entirely ridiculous price for me, but honestly that makes sense. When big companies like Sony and Nintendo want something timely and done right, I could understand that asking for a ridiculous amount of money, even for small tasks, could become a normal thing.

Serendipitously, the first of two modelers that I contacted last year messaged me in the middle of last week. We both were poor at communicating with one another last year and ultimately I got frustrated and hadn't replied to his last message at the start of December. So I am partly to blame for our "falling out" and I'd like to openly apologize for saying he flaked out on me.



The 27 new building pieces are the pieces that he did for me last year and they still need a bit of work, but I'm going to go ahead and add them in now to let beta players try them out, and see what other shapes we need most. A lot of the textures don't align properly, and some of the models do not quite line up properly, but for the most part there are only small cosmetic issues that he is working to fix up. Now that I've added them into the game, I can replace/update the models very easily.

On a side note, I got pretty burnt out last week as the recent influx of players has created a lot of new discussions, private messages, e-mails, and so on. I've added some more channels to the Solace Crafting Discord to try and help keep better track of bug reports. I have also built a private Trello board to help me organize and prioritize the many and always changing things on my todo list(s), as pen and paper have not been enough lately, much as I enjoy them.

I'm still behind on messages, which I used to read pretty much every day, so my apologies if there are unanswered bug reports and the like on the Steam forums. I will do my best to get through them all in the morning.

v 0.6.2.5 2020.01.14
- Added 27 new wooden building pieces
- Relaxed building obstruction box checks from 2.9m cubed to 2.6m cubed
- Fixed Frog's Tongue not spawning
- Fixed some building pieces not going translucent when aiming where to build them

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

I visited a big game content outsourcing company in Tokyo yesterday, and requested a quote for 29 new buildings pieces. Trying to expand outward a bit in these ways has slowed down recent patching a bit, but will pay off in the long run. I'm also looking to spend some time polishing and improving some things that have been kind of rushed in over the past six months as mentioned recently, as opposed to rushing into the next thing. There has been an increasing demand for further the multi-lingual support as the system is currently not plugged into everything, I hope to spend time on that next week.

This patch fixes a number of problems that were brought in with resource respawning. I've also setup a second dedicated Linux server specifically for the beta branch. On the beta server resource respawning is currently set to 1 day for testing.

v 0.6.2.4 2020.01.08
- Fixed harvested (dead) resources and respawned resource counters not always syncing properly from server to client

v 0.6.2.3 2020.01.08
- Fixed a problem brought on by headless server hosts no longer being tracked by world generation managers

v 0.6.2.2 2020.01.06
- Terraforming is no longer blocked by buildings
- Fruit tree interaction now defaults to harvest fruit instead of chop for wood
- Steel tools now do +5 damage
- Fixed headless servers starting a new world not finishing loading properly
- Fixed a problem with 0.6.2.0 attempting to recycle terrains causing problems

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

One of the biggest problems with public multiplayer servers prior to this patch was the fact that resources are incapable of respawning. This meant that the starting area was stripped clean pretty fast, and anyone new trying to join had an increasingly difficult time finding resources to start out with. This patch adds a "respawn" feature for all resources, which will now attempt to respawn 7 days after they have been harvested. This is true for herbs, trees, ore, etc. I also implemented a system where they remember how many times they are respawning so each respawn re-rolls the rarity check to determine the rarity of normal resources. Thus a common ore might respawn as a legendary ore, or vice versa. The default is set to 7 days, and is also so in single player, though this can be adjusted via the console or world settings when creating a new world. Note that respawning only happens when a terrain is "regenerated" so it cannot happen if you stand and stare at the same spot for 7 days. If you leave and come back, a check will be made against the current time, and the time the resource was harvested. A resource will fail to respawn if there are any buildings placed within a 10 meter radius.

I also fixed a couple of annoying issues, one where certain recipes were not showing up as "known recipes," mostly armor pieces that even new characters should know. This was only happening when returning to the main menu from a game, then re-entering.
Resource data in multiplayer was also capable of exceeding the packet limit for a single transfer causing heavily harvested terrains to not update properly. This would cause resources to remain on a client even though they weren't on the server to actually be harvested.
Hopefully these two problems are now fixed for good.

As setting up resource respawning had some slightly "deeper" changes, I've started back up the Tokyo server for testing. Beta players can log into the Tokyo server, which is somewhat of a weaker system than the California server, while players on the default branch can continue to log in to the California server, until beta patches have been confirmed to not cause any major problems. I tried to copy the California server to another instance and go from there, which would be a stronger, albeit slightly more expensive, Linux instance, but just copying it didn't work out. I'll probably setup a new one from scratch tomorrow in any case if all goes well.

FYI, there is a bug that I spotted right away with the new beta patch. If a dedicated server attempts to create a brand new world, by defining a not yet created world in the servercfg.dat file or is simply starting up on a machine for the first time, it will not properly initialize. This is because dedicated servers will no longer force the first 4 terrains to remain active with the presence of an invisible admin "player," as the terrains need to be able to turn off and on with leaving and joining players to make resource respawning possible. I will fix that up tomorrow in any case.

v 0.6.2.0 2020.01.03
- Resources will now attempt to respawn 7 days after being harvested
- Added "Resource respawn rate" harvesting to world settings (/resourcerespawnrate in the console)
- Added reporting of current world settings when typed into the console
- Increased death marker timer from 1 hour to 4 hours
- Reduced the cost of solace power upgrades
- Reduced max near terrain draw distance to 1024
- Fixed void and tabula rasa potions calculating as 1 level lower than actual level
- Fixed a number of equipment scaling issues
- Fixed ladders throwing a harmless error
- Fixed server IP not printing to the in-game console when hosting
- Fixed multiplayer client day and time not updating immediately post initial connection
- Fixed the possibility of multiplayer terrain harvesting data exceeding the network limits
- Fixed the possibility of structure data exceeding the network limits
- Fixed cases of "known by default" recipes becoming unknown

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

As the New Year approaches we often take time to reflect on the year that has passed, and set goals for the year to come. Setting and refining goals for Solace Crafting however is something I do every week. Instead I am preparing to enter a new phase of development for 2020. I want to share what I mean by that, and make clear the roadmap I'm following towards version 1.0.

Sales
Financially I had some pretty hard times this year. In March it was looking like I would have to take on a part time job to help cover bills. In May it was made clear to me, thanks to a fellow developer, that I wasn't using one of the more obscure features of Steam that plays heavily into recommending similar games to subscribers. After improving that, and coupled with a short sale, I was able to get back to making enough per month to stay full-time. November then saw the best sales in a month since the initial release in January 2018, and that record has since been entirely demolished by the ongoing Steam Winter Sale.

The influx of sales these past two weeks has seen a large enough number of new players, to the point that I have fallen behind on answering questions directly and I can't stress enough how thankful I am for everyone in our community that takes time to help out beginners with questions and concerns. It's a weird mix of stress, with so many things I want to do and that need my attention, but also joy, that I can not only keep working on my passion full-time, but take development into the long anticipated next phase.

Outsourcing
In September I made a post on our Patreon about setting up goals to start outsourcing contracts for original content. I contacted a freelance 3D artist for new building pieces, and an audio team that had been following us since early access release. Pixel Noise, the audio team, has been great to work with. They are very active, kind, and understanding. The 3D artist I contacted unfortunately went months over our original contracted timeframe, and once again has not contacted me in over a month. I gave up on him and contacted a second artist, who was likewise very eager to work with me, and now likewise has not contacted me in over a month. I think though, those experiences are to be taken as lessons.

I am now in the process of contacting outsourcing companies, not freelancers, whose profession as a corporate entity is to do just that, create original content for paying game developers. Outsourcing is intended to help get the ball rolling even faster, as we are in sore need of more building pieces, better facility models, animations, and code. The next goal beyond outsourcing is of course the acquisition of actual full-time staff, though a term-based paid "partnership" with an experienced studio is not out of the question either. The more common alternative is to seek a publisher, who you then pay a percentage of earnings, and generally have to do as you're told to some degree. I set out to create and operate Big Kitty Games as an independent entity from day one, to ensure that Solace Crafting and any other titles I may be fortunate enough to work on in the future remain 100% under my guidance, and are never pushed into marketing scams, or quite frankly poor design.

Optimization
Mentioning "poor design" might seem in "poor taste" to some, as Solace Crafting is not a highly optimized AAA game, with a fine-tuned interface and wonderful user experience. When I speak about design, I mean more to mention "game design," as opposed to layout or graphics. Not everyone knows that I started out with no formal training, no funding, no experience. I've always only wanted to make a better model for a crafting RPG, and with the distance based leveling and variable based crafting I believe I have opened up new avenues in our genre that will hopefully flower into even greater things from here on. I have grown tremendously as a programmer over these past two years, but that doesn't mean all of the code that I wrote in 2017 or 2018 has magically leveled up along with me. There is still a lot that can be done both to speed up world generation and frame rate, as well as increase the quality of visuals, animation, audio, and more. This too plays heavily into the subject of outsourcing, as developing a game of this scale is simply not something anyone should be doing on their own.

I am looking to set aside a week or two in January or February to work on speeding world generation up, as the current system is getting slower with each new monster, animal, and resource I add.

Things not on the roadmap
With the recent upgrades to support multiplayer, there have been a number of small, mostly cosmetic bugs that have crept in. I always have a feverish urge to move on to the next step on the roadmap, and have already started working on fishing, but it is important that I polish up what's already in-game, and to some degree I've neglected that truth a bit too much recently. Currently we have buildings that don't actually do anything, menus that don't actually offer anything, and resources that can't yet be used. I'd like to push fishing and cooking back a bit further and ensure I get more crafting recipes, building pieces, enchants, and some other things in first. The roadmap below outlines the greater "features" that things like recipes and quests are built on top of, but without an abundance of items, recipe, and places to find them, the drives to travel and explore are lost.

Some more general things that I want to get in:
- Many more building pieces
- Colorable buildings
- Customizable lights (color/distance/brightness)
- Steam Workshop support
- Mod support (recipes, items, textures, 3D models, pre-made buildings, etc.)
- Emotes
- Partying
- Custom map labels
- World map (large scale map)
- Resource "sensing" skills
- More everything: enchants, resources, biomes, monsters, animals, equipment, potions, etc.
- Multi-lingual support (wip)

Roadmap
This is the current roadmap to version 1.0, but do understand that 1.0 is not "the end". The real goal of releasing a bug-free, polished, and content-rich 1.0 is to hopefully make enough money to have a small team of full-time staff continue to create content, as the procedural nature of the game was designed to support, for years to come.

Version 0.6
- Crafting material system (iron -> steel) (90% working)
- Temperature zones & underwear (90% working)
- Fishing
- Cooking & nutrition
- Farming improvements & breeding

Version 0.7
- NPC villages & trading
- Villagers (recruitable NPCs with skills)
- Quests
- Solace upgrades & research
- Solace defense improvements
- Obelisks

Version 0.8
- Combat rework
- Monster skills
- Skill system rework
- Job and class skill trees

Version 0.9
- Optimizations

All in all we've got a great start to the "tools" required to let players enjoy an endless and limitless game. I really believe the greatest power in modern gaming is the players. Supporting the creativity of gamers around the world, and giving them the ability to add custom content, whether it's an epic quest chain or an interdimensional dungeon, is what really makes a community grow and last. That's why the biome system, that's why everything procedural, that's why unlimited levels. When all of our systems are in and working, we can work as a community to create quests, rewards, and encounters across countless locations and levels, be they difficult, easy, relaxed, or intense.

I hope the New Year finds you and your loved ones in good health and good spirits!
I'm very much looking forward to 2020 and can't thank everyone enough for joining me in early access!

Kyle Postlewait
aka Malkere
Big Kitty Games