Solace Crafting News

I made it back home from my annual visit to the US after another 23 hours of transit just in time for bed! This morning I had 1018 new e-mails, that I took care of, and I still have a lot of private messages and things to go through. All-in-all I probably won't be able to get anything serious done for a day or two, but wanted to at least get out a message that I'm back and I didn't disappear as people slowly start to assume the longer you are gone =]

I also wanted to remind everyone that I will be closing the short survey that has been live throughout August via this link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HVRZBLP

I will leave it up for another 24 hours then take it down and gather the data into a spreadsheet to share with everyone.

Thank you again to everyone that has joined us this past month, and I will have more to report again soon!

Hello fellow gamers!
I'm so appreciative for all the friendly messages people are sending me in Discord and on YouTube, etc. It seems that the majority of gamers are well aware of the fact that games don't get made overnight, and really we all just want to play fun games. I've been very anxious about bringing my game out into the open from day one, so it's very invigorating to see all of the positive reactions.

As I stated recently, I don't actually get to see any of the revenue that is coming in right now until the end of September, and from there it will take a bit to onboard some assistance, but it's looking very probable that I will be able to safely go down that route! Next month will be interesting as the current visibility boost going on on Steam will wear off and sales will revert back to normal organic visibility. If September sales are enough to cover my basic needs I can likely consider the bulk of earnings from August as fuel to improve the game to the next stage.

In other news, I am leaving in 30 minutes to get on a train towards Narita Airport to visit my family in Seattle. I do this every August, and was lucky enough to get support from my family to help pay for tickets this year, because I was broke! Because of this I have held off from patching anything in this past weekend, as change is always dangerous and I am not going to be able to make any corrections while I'm not at home. I hope the recent multiplayer improvements have smoothed some of the larger problems out, but am aware there is still a lot to be done.

I've got about 25 hours of travel ahead of me, and notebooks to plan out the next few months with. I will likely not be able to keep up with all the e-mails, messages, and chat that is going on right now while I am gone, but will be back shortly and ready to program!

Best wishes to everyone in the ongoing heat!

The most recent patch also went down silently through discord discussions and brought in the following changes:
v 1.0.0.6 2022.08.12
- Added [/help admin] to the console for listing admin commands
- Added /kick, /kickall, and /reloadworld admin commands
- Added console command report backs to admins issuing commands to the server
- Added the command line argument: -uselocalfolder to change all file and folder access to the application folder
- Defeating monsters, monoliths, and animals will now give light and experience to all players within 50m
- Further improved world generation speeds on dedicated servers
- Added a method to check the current status of world generation on a dedicated server

Join us in Discord!

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

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Small patch here with some little things that are ready to patch in. Primarily I wanted to fix a problem with the Linux dedicated server files, which isn't going to affect most people, so sorry for the small patch here.

I do plan to have another patch later today (later today for me is the middle of the night for most people, still mid-morning atm) with more multiplayer server speed upgrades as that seems to still be a problem for people playing on servers with more than 4-5 people. Was trying to focus on multi-lingual stuff, but I'm sure this is annoying for people that are running into it.

I'm also going to be adding in some "devops" to try and gather better data on if the official server (7 people on it right now) is indeed getting it's terrain generation queue backed up.

v 1.0.0.5 2022.08.11
- Fixed some spelling errors
- Fixed the two newest shields facing backwards
- Fixed the offhand weapon positioning being rotated improperly
- Fixed the brutal sword being rotated improperly
- Fixed a number of hair types not responding to color changes
- Fixed the world terrain preview being too dark
- Fixed stuns slowing down damage over time spells

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

Join us in Discord!

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

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

This patch pushes 1.0.0.3 and 1.0.0.4 to the default "live" branch, as well as 0.4 to the beta branch.

1.0.0.3 brings in improvements to server world generation speeds, so hopefully we will see a drop in what people are labeling as "desync" where again when you run around on a multiplayer server with several other people and monsters seems to not spawn or resources don't seem to interact properly.

I've also fixed a number of more annoying multiplayer bugs that people were running into. More to come tomorrow o/

v 1.0.0.4 2022.08.09
- Fixed skill points spent not always updating properly in multiplayer
- Fixed some multiplayer achievement errors
- Fixed familiar not spawning nor firing in multiplayer
- Fixed chain lightning lingering for multiplayer clients
- Fixed backstab criticals multiplying way too much

v 1.0.0.3 2022.08.08
- Improved multi-player dedicated server world generation speeds
- Enabled password protection for servers
- Upgraded quest system to work in multiplayer

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

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.

Join us in Discord! Follow development live on Twitch!

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

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

I'm totally swamped trying to keep up with e-mails, discord chat, and Steam posts. Sorry again for anyone that hasn't yet gotten an answer to anything. I'm trying to prioritize some of the bigger problems that are going on before I tackle the small stuff.

One major problem I've seen a few people run into so far is a lack of enemies in multiplayer. This is caused by the server not keeping up with the connected players. If, for example, there are 6 players all running in different areas of the world, the server has to be constantly generating all of those areas in order for the player to be able to engage with anything as everything is server authorative. There is still a lot of room for improvement on this front, but I've tweaked a few server specific methods that should speed things up.

The starter quests/tutorials not working in multiplayer has also been a problem for families and friends that start their very first character in multiplayer. This patch upgrades the system to work properly in multiplayer.

As there are some bigger than small changes in this patch I will push it to beta for a bit of testing before I push it to the default live branch, but expect to push it over tomorrow assuming there aren't any serious problems.

v 1.0.0.3 2022.08.08
- Improved multi-player dedicated server world generation speeds
- Enabled password protection for servers
- Upgraded quest system to work in multiplayer

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.

Join us in Discord!

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

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker