Reign of Guilds News

The second anniversary weekly report of Reign of Guilds.

[typing this text, the author can’t believe that 140 days have passed since the publication of the first weekly report]


But we work here, so we leave the sentiments and personal feelings aside.



Let’s start with the "got mad"!

Our commission that checks the level design looked at the castle barracks and the chairman said: “that would be ok, if not beds…”. And he was right.

We needed the beds for the barracks. However an army order (i.e. perfectly made beds weren’t good enough for us because it looked boring as if we used 1 bed for the whole game). And also the guards are the mercenaries instead of the regular army. That’s how we got this beds, presented below.

The structure is modular as in the many other moments of ROG. It lets to create many variants in place - here to hang a bag, here to put a blanket more messy or to hide the cards under a pillow.

By the way, the players were distracted while a Jack clubs was trumped by a Queen.







We will continue with the pictures and then we’ll go to the statistics.

As we have already told, Dmitry is responsible for the optimization now. He not only doubled the FPS but also as a creative person in agreement with the scribbler Mikhail tries to improve the picture, using cutting edge technologies.

The shots below represents the implementation of TrueSky technology with the ocean and DFAO UE4 function.

The main advantage - three-dimensional sky, water with the progressive physics that perfectly interact with the natural light. And we are satisfied with it because the original atmosphere is reaching a new level. And it has amazing optimization "out of the box" and that’s why the falling of fps won’t be higher than 6% in comparison with the previous build "light+water".

This technology is convenient because "box" settings are so perfect that it saves a few dozens or even hundreds of man-hours. There is no need to set the light parameters by hands.





Let’s talk a little about the optimization of the complex stuff for the landscape.

In an age of 2.5D stuff we can tell that the main choice is between the parallax and tessellation where the first method gives real 2.5D, but it costs more expensive.

If these were a few square meters of a wall we will certainly choose the parallax but when it came to kilometers we had to choose [spoiler: actually we didn’t because parallax didn’t leave us the choice]

Comparison of the output:

M_Pom GPU ~28 ms


M_Tess GPU ~8 ms


Visual comparison

Parallax


Tessellation


For the landscape the only variant is undoubtedly tessellation. It almost doesn’t lose visually. Sometimes it wins, especially with the chaotic-rough surfaces but it almost doesn’t fit the even road (where every stone has right angles).



On PTR we added everything that was planned:

1. corrections of character animations;
   
2. turning on and setting apex clothes for the armour or clothes;
   
3. corrections of weapons materials;
   
4. 137 2D icons for the new weapons and armour.
   

And also new things:

1. golems and wolves are replaced by stickmans - it looks funny in the game;
   
2. the dragons flies in the sky (sometimes it glitches but still);
   
3. vendors and DVB are returned;
   
4. the range of critical errors were fixed, sometimes with the crutches but it’s better than server crashes of functional blocks.
   

Plans for the next week:

1. adding the world in the project, and later - on the PTR;
   
2. finishing the modular system.
   

That’s all.

It’s Friday evening - ROGgoms up, friends!

Your sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team

If you see Friday on the calendar, it means that ROG is on the air with the reports!

Neither more nor less, it’s already 19th report.

It was was technical week, as planned - we corrected more than created something new. Only in the end of the week we understood that it’s not only appropriate but essential to show the corrections. It improves the project as well as the new content. So wait for it for the next time.

That’s for now: models of expensive robes, dungeon drafts (mine), UI choice for the hotbar 2.0.



Pictures below provides examples of the most visually expensive robes to date. It will be included in the pre-order packs.

To use it (as well as the other "skins") you will need to have a game robe of the suitable element. After this the specially trained NPC can change the look of the item.

If you give an item with names skin to the other character - the item will turn to the original look.






While we're busy with the structuring of the new world files to implement in the overall project, and as a result on the PTR, our designers have to work with dungeons. That’s why we decided to check what we will get at once. It’s very simple build from what’s on hand.

With such builds we check the general feel of the level and also the influence of the game design on the game process through the prism of the visualization.

Due to the fact that all effects are turned off, the light sources are reduced and there are no one VFX (mist, dust etc.), it can be said that it’s the minimal settings with 2k textures.






And the most interesting - our programmers create the joint element "Control 2.0 + Combat system 2.0".

Within the upgrade of the combat system and controlling there will be also the upgrade of the hotbar and as a result the upgrade of the all hotswaps of weapons.

Picture below provides the examples of the two items at the one cell:

• Cells "6-7" - basic variants where the division the cell into 2 icons occurs through the simplest way - in our view - it’s an outdated division model;
  
• Cell "8" - it looks very modern and lively, but there is a problem: an icon of a powder in the right hand takes 80% of the cell area. It leads to the covering of the shield. However it looks pretty with the set of shield+sword;
  
• Cell "9" - the logic is a bit wrong because the active item in the right hand should be at the forefront;
  
• Two-tiered "0": a top icon of a sword at the forefront takes only ¼ of the area. In our view it’s a bit small. A lower icon of a powder takes 70% of a cell height. It’s not too small and doesn’t cover the shield entirely.
  

We incline to “0” from the bottom tier.



Now turning to the new hotbar, we need to discuss it too - write your comments.

We’ve tried (yep, live) few variants and have found the next model:

• To put an item on the hotbar you need to drag it with the LMB, to delete two-tiered cell you need to delete the right hand item first;
  
• RMB on the hotbar cell turns one-handed mode into two-handed (if it’s provided) or swaps the duals (2*1-handed weapon) in this cell;
  
• If you drag a 2H weapon on the hotbar - it takes the whole cell and there could be no combinations;
  
• If you drag an item for the left hand to the empty cell - it will take the whole cell and hotswap for this cell will change the protective item for the left hand and won’t touch right hand;
  
• If you drag a 1H weapon for the right hand to the empty cell, it will take the whole cell (default) with its icon in the 2H mode (if possible), if it isn’t possible the icon will take 70% of the cell height in the 1H mode;
  
• If an 1H item is in the 1H mode, its equip won’t change the protective item in the left hand;
  
• If you drag an item for the left hand to the cell where is an 1H item for the right hand and vice versa - it will make a combination of these items in one cell;
  
• Hotswap will take 1 sec to change a weapon, equip/unequip separately - 500 ms.
  

It’s ready and wait for its deploy on the PTR:

1. corrections of the character animations;
   
2. turning on and settings of the fabric physics for the armour and clothes items;;
   
3. corrections of the weapons materials;
   
4. 137 2D icons for the new weapons.
   

At the moment we’ve successfully adapted and structured 28 of 32 gb of the world files to implement in the project. The victory is just around the corner.

About the new site - we work on the hardest page:there are almost 50 notes with the pics and gifs. We can surely say that you have never seen such a detailed report about the pre-order content.

That’s all for now. Take care and follow the news and ROG in particular.

It’s Friday evening - ROGgoms up, friends!

Yours sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team

18th weekly report salutes you!

We will tell a little bit about siege weapons (to continue the report №15), show the castle evolution (to compare with the devblog №5), some animations that will be included in the pre-order bundles and in conclusion there will be a new rubric - “What’s going on the PTR”.

Let's go!



We should say that ROG doesn’t pretend to the historical accuracy. We can afford little inaccuracies as to name the all similar weapons with arrows - ballistae and small level weapons with low level correlation - catapults. Moreover, the distance, physic, damage, the amount of resources to build, weight - these parameters are pure fiction in condition of a balance search.

As was mentioned in the report №15, there will be 4 tiers (levels) of the siege weapons. Also, ballista and tower start with the level 1, but catapult, as a sort of the siege weapons, starts with the level 2.

That happens because the tiers of the siege weapons are connected with the castle tiers. The usage of a catapult against wooden castles is a controversial issue.

The main aim of catapults and trebuchets is to destroy castle buildings during the economic war and the need of reducing the grades before the siege.

Undoubtedly, the shell hit will dispose the human resources but in our view it’s too expensive.

That’s how the catapult looks like:


That’s how its skins look like. It doesn’t affect the characteristics.


The third tier turns a catapult into its older brother - trebuchet.

It is heavy, fixed, long-ranged but very vulnerable to the fire because of the immobility.


[By the way, ...]

Now let’s talk about our thoughts after the discussion of the 10th report .

The point is this: what exactly is the result of the craft of the siege weapons? And how it can be delivered to the destination place?

At the moment we incline towards the next model:

1. An armourer follows blueprint and creates a siege weapon. It requires resources (there are the warehouses near the city to lighten the transportation of wood and metal; it could be rented by a guild and the window of the warehouse would open in the craft workshop of the city); It was done for the simple reason - the weight of the resources complicates the transportation to the open world to develop the caravan system, but the weight of resources inside the peaceful area is a burden, adding the useless and stupid work without fun.
   
2. It can be disassembled into elements and instruction. There are 3 types of elements - small, medium, big (1st tier ballista, for example, consists of the 6 small details, 4 medium and 3 big). Elements are universal and fit to the assembling of the other ballistae of the same type. Elements could simply be moved to the warehouse where you can take it for the siege;
   
3. The siege weapons are assembled on the ground by an armourer too. The assembling speed depends on the type and tier of the siege weapon and also the craft level of the armourer. We won’t complicate it too much but if you want to assemble a trebuchet with an armourer of 1st level having awful tool you should start beforehand. ;) We consider possibility of assembling by a blacksmith but with the penalty.
   
4. After the siege you can disassemble the weapons (or during the siege)) - but you can’t disassemble it perfectly. The more damage the weapon got the less intact elements would leave.
   
5. But why do we need the intact elements if we don’t have an instruction anymore? That’s right, an instruction burns during assembling but you can make a copy with the NPC - librarian for talers. So it would be better if the copies would be made in advance.
   
6. 
   

So why elements instead of resources at the place of assembling?

We can’t mix two different mechanics with the same items - we limit ourselves in the balance. An example:

• we choose the weight of the raw materials and resources and balance it to find the optimal decision between boredom and caravan system;
  
• we choose the number of resources for the craft of the siege weapons and balance it;
  
• we choose the weight and the number of elements and its wear after the disassembling and balance it, regardless of the first two moments.
  

Otherwise, we get the statistics that nobody uses the siege weapons because its transportation to the siege place is absolutely boring and it isn’t worth to spend and hour. In that case we reduce the number or weight of element. Then 3-4 robust lads will easily teleport everything for the catapult. But if we assemble it at the place we need to reduce the number of resources (it’s economics) or reduce the weight (caravan system).

***



A bit of models of expensive or unique weapons (next time we will show the rest and even the legendary two-handed ROG sword that we’d prepared for the intro).




A little more social animations that we prepared for preorder packs.

a) Black knight

Here he tricked a bit:


Here he appealed to the crowd for the support:


b) Banneret

Idle applause:


And a bit scorned greeting with sarcasm:


c) Raubritter

Farcical bow:


It’s perhaps his most emotional victory gesture:




It took a long time to create the castles - we were choosing materials, models and also we were planning the building in terms of game design (the number of floors, entries, nooks and so on).

You can compare the result of our work with the devblog №5.





In conclusion we will tell you about PTR (it’s our test server where also ROG Club can test different builds):

And again, that the build of 02/01/2019 is very difficult and there are many errors and disputes (it happens when we have huge amount of different results of teamwork).

Work on bugs in descending order (in importance and correction difficulty):

• 4 causes of server crash;
  
• GODMOD effect, when the hits don’t damage the characters;
  
• impossibility enter the game for the character again;
  
• disappearing of a character model;
  
• wrong mapping of the setting window, that leads to impossibility to use it;
  
• artefacts on some graphic cards and drivers in fullscreen;
  
• artefacts during animations with two-handed items (left hand was apart from a weapon);
  
• distortion of a character shadow in first-person mode;
  
• errors with chat work;
  
• the third person camera 2.0 (prohibiting the hits);
  

What we plan for the nearest future:

• [Animations] animation correction (including too straight backs during non-combat movements, distortion and sticking of first-person animations);
  
• [Models] engaging the physic of fabrics (it is removed from all new items and it causes the mixing of textures);
  
• [Models] error correction in the new weapons (almost all of them has the colour distortion);
  
• [2D] adding icons for the items (which are the screens for 3D model);
  
• [Code] error correction in the modular system and engaging all elements;
  
• [Code] correction of the non-fitment of the new equip system for weapons with the new modular system and as a result the recovering of a seamless transition;
  
• and the most important - preparing to add the world.
  

We draw the attention that the day of moving to a new site is closer and closer.

That’s all and take care at this cold days!

It’s Friday evening - ROGgons up, friends!

Yours sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team

First report in the new year and at the same time the report №17 is on the air!

Happy holidays to all and let’s talk again about the ROG development.

And this time, we will show a bit of the new content and tell about the first step of pre-Alpha on PTR.

So, let’s start!




Called a player but underestimated him


A player came closer and started to fight


Killed

The weapon will be dropped after death.

[By the way, ...]

If there is time to approach a target guards will make an aimed shot. It’s almost impossible to dodge such shot. Only bounce at the perfect moment can help. Also, aimed shot has a possibility of headshot that leads to the critical damage on the target.

In the case of armoured target the guard will prefer targeted shooting at the legs to immobilize an aim. The armour is valuated at the equipped items, so for warriors would be better to put a robe over a cuirass)

In the case of still target the guard will shoot offhand.

***



Boots

With boots it seems pretty easy - just look.





Bear

It’s more difficult, because we continue drafting to justify our Prototype wolves.

At one of the last times we showed a wolf with Nvidia Hairworks, that was greedy enough. Now we show a bear with polygonal fur.

Such fur will take 30% of GPU of the one character without hairs and 20% of one character with usual hairs, 15% of hippie character. It’s fine in general.

A bear is still in process because we need to smooth the dies with the fur. We do it by hand and the process is boring enough.

In common we are satisfied with the bear. It looks aggressive. Jaws will be animated. of course.





In conclusion we want to tell that on the 2nd of January of this year we added the first step of pre-Alpha on PTR at the cost of incredible devotion of our programmers.

We were ready to find many errors but its number after building astonished us.

One of the main problems is the lack of UDN - access to the direct communication of the engine developers.

After test build we had to remove a part of innovations or partly restrict its functional and also to write drivers to restrict an old functional that led to the breakage of innovations.

Nevertheless, we added to PTR server:

1. New character model (man);
   
2. Modular system of equip 2.0 (part of functional removed);
   
3. More than 400 new animations (to replace the old ones and add the new poses);
   
4. 17 UI elements;
   
5. 89 new models of armour and weapons (visual settings of weapon are broken, as for the armour/clothes - ApexCloth);
   
6. New effects of first-person camera including the changing of the height depending on the character pose;
   
7. New dodge system.
   

At the end of this day we fixed 17 critical bugs (we will add it with the new patch). We also found the causes of 14 more bugs and we work on it. And there are few bugs which causes still aren’t clear for us.

As soon as we launch the patch we will announce full update.

Soon the new topic will appear on the forum. It will be preliminary step before moving to the new site. Preparation will concern all who have forum accounts. We will announce this topic few times to make sure that everyone know about it.

The report as short as this workweek.

It’s Friday evening - ROGgoms up, friends!

Yours sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team

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.
Reign of Guilds roadmap - combines all development reports at one place.
And here's our Weekly report #16 (originally released 12/30/18)​

Weekly report №16 - New Year report.

We postponed it until the very last minute because we wanted to release it with the first step of pre-alpha, alas.

This report will be dedicated to pre-order content. But we won’t tell you about the pre-order except the descriptions of the characters that we’ve created for the bundles.

We chose 3 character:

1. Black knight - it’s a duellist-individualist. Something cold and dark.
   
2. Banneret - it’s a social person, the head of a group or a little guild.
   
3. Raubritter (robber knight) - it’s a leader of a collective that doesn’t hide his origin and even boasts of it.
   

There will be 4 animations in every pack. But we will show only 2 from every pack to reduce the weight of the news page.

Black knight. His social animations will be more appropriate for the duels. It addresses to the rival or the crowd of spectators.

That’s how the taunt will look like:



That’s how the fake death will look like. You can use it to react to a threat:



By the way, later we will show our animator Vlad as an actor for the mockup. It makes animations not only more realistic in this case but also quicken our work. It takes a long time to create such animation by hand.

Now let’s go to the banneret. He’s a social person.

Celebration of a victory (or any other good news):



Facepalm, of course. Without this animation it’s hard to imagine the relations with a collective, and especially with the friends, isn’t it?



Raubritter. The head of a collective. He should be able to raise the soldiers from a trench.



And to play his favourite balalaika at a dinner party (by the way, now we choose the main soundtrack and it will be with guitar).



[By the way, ...]

Social animations will work like this:

• There will be a window with the list of social animations, available for this character;
  
• From this window the animations could be moved to the social-hotbar;
  
• After pushing the hotbar button (by default - Y) the cells of main hotbar will change to the social hotbar. After it you can start the playing of the social animation, using the chosen for the main hotbar buttons.
  
• To play the social animations with a weapon, you should have this weapon in your inventory (or balalaika))
  

***



Yep, yep! That’s it! This is the real wing of feathers. The wing of a black raven for the cloak of the black knight. For the black knight there’s no need to boast of his wealth. That’s why he chose the simplest fabric for his cloak. The moderate length doesn’t hide the battle pads and doesn’t restrict movements.



Banneret gets the velvet cloak and the cape of the wolf skin on the shoulders. But the pads will be hidden.



And the raubritter, on the contrary, gets the most massive and expensive cloak and the cape of the fox, that would be enough for the half of fur coat for his wife.



Coats of arms for the flags and the cloaks of guilds

Coats of arms on the cloaks and flags are very important elements for the individualization of the guild.

That’s how the basic coats of arms will look like. All guilds higher than level 3 can use it.



That’s how the exclusive coats of arms of a banneret will look like.



This is the exclusive coats of arms of a raubritter.



[By the way, ...]

There will be 10 guild levels. The possibilities of guild depend on its level:

• The highest possible number of guild members;
  
• The list and the number of available ranks to appoint;
  
• The maximum of the unions;
  
• The highest level of the castle that guild owns;
  
• The sum of all castle levels that guild can own;
  
• The number of the count titles, that a senior can get;
  
• And possibility of a senior to get the royal title.
  

The guild level depends on the share capital. If the capital reduces because of the wrong financial decisions the guild will get the game month to make contributions. Otherwise, the guild level will be lowered with all its consequences.

Reached level 10 the guild can add its own coat of arms (after approving it by the administration).

We didn’t add this opportunity in pre-order because we consider that such strong symbol of individualization as personal coat of arms should be got only in game.

***



That’s how first level siege weapons will look like.

And its skins. If you read our reports from the start, you have already seen the towers and ballistae, but not the catapults. The trebuchet is ready too but it isn’t included in pre-order because it’s the siege weapon of the second level. And its skins can be got only in game.

We’ve told about the siege weapons in the previous report.









From the project manager Verzhbitskiy Vatslav

Another year is coming to an end. This year was fundamental and decisive year for ROG. The team gradually grew and now we are full studio. Although we plan at least 6 new team members.

We can’t tell that this year haven’t brought bad news and events. Especially there were many of them in the last quarter. However, we still here and it means that we more or less solved our problems.

The launch of new site we postponed to the 2019 (after holidays at once). Together with the new site we will launch pre-orders.

The first step of pre-Alpha: we finished to add new items on Tuesday. After it during the construction of a test build we got 2 difficult bugs that can break the main mechanics. Solving this bugs our programmers stopped today, the 30th of December. We didn’t solve the problem. What hinder the building of the project without bugs - we will recognize it in new year.

To speak in general about 2018 for ROG - we have done impressive work. There almost wasn’t any staff turnover. We build the production process. The speed of the development increases from month to month.

In 2019 we still have a long way. We plan to finish the creation and addition of the content for the Early Access in the third quarter of 2019 (on the Beta-2 stage). All 4th quarter we will leave for the editing of bugs and optimization. That’s why the Early Access will duplicate the Beta-2 on the available content. The only thing that can make us postpone the date of the Early Access from 4th quarter of 2019 to 1st quarter of 2020 - it’s that the end of the year is the worst time to release the game on the platforms.

We will consult on this issue with the publishers and the platforms.

On behalf of the team I say thanks to all people who follow the creation of our project, take part in discussions, help with the testing and support us with likes. Your support is very important for us.

And, taking the opportunity, I thank our team for the work done, for the efforts made and energy that they put to our project every day and sometimes on weekends.

Happy New Year to all of you and see you next year!

P.S. The report №17 will be published on 11.01.2019.

At the festive table when the chimes is striking - ROGgoms up, friends!

Yours sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team