Development blog #4
Notice: We respect the desire of the Steam community to get familiar with the new projects within Steam, so we decided to publish regularly (every 2 days) previously released reports on our Steam page, until we catch up with the current ones. By the way, you can read all the reports on our website.[reignofguilds.com]
Reign of Guilds roadmap[reignofguilds.com] - combines all development reports at one place.
And here's our Development blog #4 (originally released 07/13/18)
Dear friends!
It’s time to share our progress in the Reign of Guilds development with you in development blog. Today we have prepared extremely interesting, as we believe, information.
You know that transition from the prototype stage to the early alpha goes through a huge layer of work and it’s extremely hard to visualize and absolutely uninteresting to players. But we decided to tell you what exactly we had been doing.
1.1. Landscape
The world of Reign of Guilds is out there, like the truth of Mulder and Scully!
When 4 continents were created in WorldMachine, we’ve immediately faced several game design problem.
ROG and mountains
It all started with mountains – their slopes were totally flat and as a result, materials of these mountains laid low, evoking despair even to game designers. We changed the relief of all mountains – now there is no flatness but snow and grass on the ridges.
ROG and hills
In terms of realism hills add credibility to the world. In terms of FP game convenience, a long play session would have been difficult because of the hills, that is why we’ve added plains.
ROG and rivers
Banks of big rivers were too steep and not beautiful enough to us as well, so we had to make new riverbeds. Now river banks are flat, rivers are calm, so Game-designer’s inner demon of perfectionism is satisfied.
ROG and landscape materials
Along with topography adjustments, we were selecting and optimizing 15 landscape materials for 4 climatic zones (winter, autumn, summer and hot summer). These materials, called layers, are layered to each other, that allows creating huge variety of combinations (for example, we put snow on dirt and suddenly we get ... dirty snow).
1.2 Flora
Do you remember us preparing a bunch of biomes? So, we have taken their introduction in the game world seriously. The SpeedTree program has taken over the eighth version, becoming a really essential assistant to game developers all over the world. Plants generated by the eighth version have not only become several times better in terms of quality and optimization, but the functionality has became wider and more convenient as well.
Now, it allows creating realistic plants at the previous optimization level and sometimes even improving it. We could not miss such a gift from above. Therefore, we rolled up our sleeves and started selecting biomes 2.0. We adjusted loads, seasonality, wind behavior, and as a result we have got something that is much superior to the prototype in the picture quality.
In the end, we selected 12 types of forests of different variations (summer, winter, autumn, spring, coniferous and deciduous and large-leaved ones).
Forests were distributed around the world with the procedural flora application functionality. What is it? UE4 allows creating a kind of aerosol paint containers, but with a variety of trees, stumps, snags, stones instead of paint. In other words, everything that a developer and community wants to see in their forest. Settings of these “containers” allow creating absolutely unique and diverse territories.
Creating spawners is not the fastest and easiest process. But it is the only optimal way to fill such a huge world. This means that we manually put all trees in the locations that are points of interest.
1.3 Daerkunn County - Harbour Settlement
At the moment, the work on the first county is finished by 50%. Daerkunn County is territories in the southeast of the Eastern continent. On its outskirts, there is a Harbour settlement of municipal importance. Harbour is a port settlement and stands out with NPC merchants who will forward goods to other Counties on ships and thereby embody the idea of intercontinental trade, that was actively discussed on our forum.
2.1 Walls, wall materials and other castle components
Most events in the ROG world will take place around castles, there will be about 30 of them on each continent. Considering such a scale, we could not simply built a castle after a castle – there must be a structure to unify and simplify this process as much as possible, while preserving the diversity and uniqueness of each object.
As a result, we prepared foundations for creating castles of different levels: in counties of the initial level, these are wooden structures that will be surrounded with a wooden paling. Accordingly, the design was based on various types of paling with different methods of joining logs, platforms and stairs.
The use of these elements allows unifying each castle, everything now depends only on the level designer’s imagination.
*an abandoned fort on the outskirts of the world
With the increase in the castle level, the foundation materials will also change. For castles made of stone, we have prepared several wall foundations (flat ones, as well as with internal passages).
These elements will come to life by applying certain brickwork on them. Brickwork is a complex structure material that allows creating plenty of variations. It looks something like this:
The main task is creating a visually three-dimensional material, so that a wall does not look flat.
Then, this wall is simply stretched out and the world gets diversified with vertex painting (see the description below).
2.2 Towers
We have done a compelling work on creating castle towers, which have a strategic function during the castle sieges. Towers with gates are not only checkpoints, they also help in the castle defense. Towers must be convenient to shoot from and offer a good view of the castle surroundings. As with walls, a variety of towers will be achieved by applying different types of brickwork and vertex painting on them.
2.3. Vertex painting
We are working hard not only on the diversity of the surrounding flora and fauna, but also emphasizing the history of individual settlements, breathing life into a variety of buildings. We modify them, as if these buildings had been exposed by time and the climate of the Reign of Guilds world.
For this, a vertex painting tool is used, followed by procedural generation of layering different materials. Thus, objects that will be in the northernmost latitudes will be covered with permafrost, those in humid areas - with moss and mold.
2.4 Gates
Gates in games are often just gates, in some games they close and open, in others not, sometimes they look beautiful and sometimes - really beautiful. In our game world, even gates have their concept, as their hinges include a good portion of the castle capturing mechanics. There will be a separate article devoted to the gate concept. In the meantime, we will show you how it will look and a variety of gate types in the ROG world:
And these are grates, that will be an additional fortification of the gate, obtained at the castle grading.
Such a diversity of composite elements will allow us to create plenty of different gate coolness variations for castles, high and low. Our game modelers have created a gate in the form of a constructor (with separate loops, door bolts, lattices, fortifications, decorative elements, etc.) and these elements will start merging into a single mechanism looked after by our game designers. Visual effects are definitely a good thing for magic, but the most important thing is, still, a code. We have saturated the game with all the magic, which effects we showed you in the previous journals.
3.1 The earth magic
Stone arrow powder
This magic mechanics is similar to the fiery arrow powder, the difference is in the speed of flight, distance, targeted area and stability. So that’s how it is! While it seemed like just taking a stone and throwing it.
Rockfall powder
Another gift from above is an AOE rain of boulders. In this case, the amount of gross damage is calculated separately for each character. That is, 2 characters with the same amour will be damaged differently under the same rockfall. Someone will be more lucky, someone less. Unlike the fire puddle that you already know about, the rockfall powder has a higher duration and damage frequency.
Reign of Guilds roadmap[reignofguilds.com] - combines all development reports at one place.
And here's our Development blog #4 (originally released 07/13/18)
Dear friends!
It’s time to share our progress in the Reign of Guilds development with you in development blog. Today we have prepared extremely interesting, as we believe, information.
You know that transition from the prototype stage to the early alpha goes through a huge layer of work and it’s extremely hard to visualize and absolutely uninteresting to players. But we decided to tell you what exactly we had been doing.
1. Open world
1.1. Landscape
The world of Reign of Guilds is out there, like the truth of Mulder and Scully!
When 4 continents were created in WorldMachine, we’ve immediately faced several game design problem.
ROG and mountains
It all started with mountains – their slopes were totally flat and as a result, materials of these mountains laid low, evoking despair even to game designers. We changed the relief of all mountains – now there is no flatness but snow and grass on the ridges.
ROG and hills
In terms of realism hills add credibility to the world. In terms of FP game convenience, a long play session would have been difficult because of the hills, that is why we’ve added plains.
ROG and rivers
Banks of big rivers were too steep and not beautiful enough to us as well, so we had to make new riverbeds. Now river banks are flat, rivers are calm, so Game-designer’s inner demon of perfectionism is satisfied.
ROG and landscape materials
Along with topography adjustments, we were selecting and optimizing 15 landscape materials for 4 climatic zones (winter, autumn, summer and hot summer). These materials, called layers, are layered to each other, that allows creating huge variety of combinations (for example, we put snow on dirt and suddenly we get ... dirty snow).
1.2 Flora
Do you remember us preparing a bunch of biomes? So, we have taken their introduction in the game world seriously. The SpeedTree program has taken over the eighth version, becoming a really essential assistant to game developers all over the world. Plants generated by the eighth version have not only become several times better in terms of quality and optimization, but the functionality has became wider and more convenient as well.
Now, it allows creating realistic plants at the previous optimization level and sometimes even improving it. We could not miss such a gift from above. Therefore, we rolled up our sleeves and started selecting biomes 2.0. We adjusted loads, seasonality, wind behavior, and as a result we have got something that is much superior to the prototype in the picture quality.
In the end, we selected 12 types of forests of different variations (summer, winter, autumn, spring, coniferous and deciduous and large-leaved ones).
Forests were distributed around the world with the procedural flora application functionality. What is it? UE4 allows creating a kind of aerosol paint containers, but with a variety of trees, stumps, snags, stones instead of paint. In other words, everything that a developer and community wants to see in their forest. Settings of these “containers” allow creating absolutely unique and diverse territories.
Creating spawners is not the fastest and easiest process. But it is the only optimal way to fill such a huge world. This means that we manually put all trees in the locations that are points of interest.
1.3 Daerkunn County - Harbour Settlement
At the moment, the work on the first county is finished by 50%. Daerkunn County is territories in the southeast of the Eastern continent. On its outskirts, there is a Harbour settlement of municipal importance. Harbour is a port settlement and stands out with NPC merchants who will forward goods to other Counties on ships and thereby embody the idea of intercontinental trade, that was actively discussed on our forum.
2. Castles
2.1 Walls, wall materials and other castle components
Most events in the ROG world will take place around castles, there will be about 30 of them on each continent. Considering such a scale, we could not simply built a castle after a castle – there must be a structure to unify and simplify this process as much as possible, while preserving the diversity and uniqueness of each object.
As a result, we prepared foundations for creating castles of different levels: in counties of the initial level, these are wooden structures that will be surrounded with a wooden paling. Accordingly, the design was based on various types of paling with different methods of joining logs, platforms and stairs.
The use of these elements allows unifying each castle, everything now depends only on the level designer’s imagination.
*an abandoned fort on the outskirts of the world
With the increase in the castle level, the foundation materials will also change. For castles made of stone, we have prepared several wall foundations (flat ones, as well as with internal passages).
These elements will come to life by applying certain brickwork on them. Brickwork is a complex structure material that allows creating plenty of variations. It looks something like this:
The main task is creating a visually three-dimensional material, so that a wall does not look flat.
Then, this wall is simply stretched out and the world gets diversified with vertex painting (see the description below).
2.2 Towers
We have done a compelling work on creating castle towers, which have a strategic function during the castle sieges. Towers with gates are not only checkpoints, they also help in the castle defense. Towers must be convenient to shoot from and offer a good view of the castle surroundings. As with walls, a variety of towers will be achieved by applying different types of brickwork and vertex painting on them.
2.3. Vertex painting
We are working hard not only on the diversity of the surrounding flora and fauna, but also emphasizing the history of individual settlements, breathing life into a variety of buildings. We modify them, as if these buildings had been exposed by time and the climate of the Reign of Guilds world.
For this, a vertex painting tool is used, followed by procedural generation of layering different materials. Thus, objects that will be in the northernmost latitudes will be covered with permafrost, those in humid areas - with moss and mold.
2.4 Gates
Gates in games are often just gates, in some games they close and open, in others not, sometimes they look beautiful and sometimes - really beautiful. In our game world, even gates have their concept, as their hinges include a good portion of the castle capturing mechanics. There will be a separate article devoted to the gate concept. In the meantime, we will show you how it will look and a variety of gate types in the ROG world:
And these are grates, that will be an additional fortification of the gate, obtained at the castle grading.
Such a diversity of composite elements will allow us to create plenty of different gate coolness variations for castles, high and low. Our game modelers have created a gate in the form of a constructor (with separate loops, door bolts, lattices, fortifications, decorative elements, etc.) and these elements will start merging into a single mechanism looked after by our game designers. Visual effects are definitely a good thing for magic, but the most important thing is, still, a code. We have saturated the game with all the magic, which effects we showed you in the previous journals.
3. Magic
3.1 The earth magic
Stone arrow powder
This magic mechanics is similar to the fiery arrow powder, the difference is in the speed of flight, distance, targeted area and stability. So that’s how it is! While it seemed like just taking a stone and throwing it.
Rockfall powder
Another gift from above is an AOE rain of boulders. In this case, the amount of gross damage is calculated separately for each character. That is, 2 characters with the same amour will be damaged differently under the same rockfall. Someone will be more lucky, someone less. Unlike the fire puddle that you already know about, the rockfall powder has a higher duration and damage frequency.