Reign of Guilds News

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 #15 (originally released 12/21/18)​

15th Friday is on the air and we continue to talk about development.

Last report was large-scale in the units of letters. This report we will try to make shorter.


The features are typical for NPC with that type of weapon: slow and strong attacks, broad effective range, aggressive way of fighting, fearlessness.

Yes, in AI 2.0 will be provided the way and manner of fighting. No, we won’t promise a lot, a neural network for the independent existence of an A.I. (artificial intelligence). But the A.I. will be usual and typical for MMORPG.

Attack

Taking damage

Death



We will tell about it in detail.

Profile: Minotaur

Habitat: instances and also the nests of the mini bosses in the open world (respawns of the world bosses);

Role: the mini boss;

Height: 3,5-4,5 m;

Constitution: athletic;

Movement speed: high;

Education: incomplete secondary education;

Language: beef;

Character: aggressive, unsociable;

Special attacks: tossing away with stunning by two hits, throwing up (target doesn’t respond to a controller, physic turns into a ragdoll);

Special skills: “ram attack”. Enraging it targets the most remote unit and pushes aside all obstacles on its way. Getting hit by the ram attack almost always causes the death of an unfortunate player.

Now about animations.

Tossing away with a stun:


Throwing up and usual attack:


Breathing and walking:


For the animation of breathing we’ve already made not only an animation of his jaw but also an animation of chest movements.

For walking animation we chose an asynchrony with a spasm of the left hand.


Today we will tell you a little about one more type of the siege weapons - ballista.

In fact, you can use ballistae during castle defence too but only at the high level castles.

Let’s start with the lightest ballista of level 1 (there will be 4 levels of the siege weapons in comparison with the items which have 12 levels).

The skins of basic ballista are shown on the screenshots below. It doesn’t affect the characteristics, of course.



The siege weapons of the 1st level aren’t deliberately worse than the weapons of the higher levels. The main difference is that it is more suitable for mobile attacks, easier to control and requires less resources to create it.

[By the way…]

The siege weapons had an aim not only to add a variability of tactics but also to create an additional resource requirements.

That’s why the requirements for controlling the siege weapons are not relied on the character level. As for the light ballistae, the number of attributes of physical development (precision and agility) will increase the controllability.

The control of a ballista will be implemented through the standard game controller for stationary weapons. The camera will become slow and inert, the sight will be shifted from the centre to the necessary side.

We are interested in your view about it so write it! Especially - if we should increase the controllability depending on the attributes.

***

Ballistae level II (middle weight)

It has more fire power, arrow range, sighting range. But it’s heavier and slower. The recharge is slower, the controlling is harder. The production and arrows are more expensive. Only professional can shoot at the moving targets. But such arrows are more suitable for the destruction of wooden gates at a distance. As for defence, it suits for the destruction of the siege weapons of enemies.



About heavy ballistae (level III) and its strengthened (level IV) versions we will tell later.


The first step of the pre-alpha is close to the release at PTR server.We wanted to share the new items for the man model so much that we added more than 60 items of equipment. We had to actualize a script of import to the characteristic engine from the table forms. Because there are the new parameters and we are ready to solve it.

The most interesting news about around-development:

1. We are at the final stage of creating our new site. To be honest we are satisfied with the platform we made. On this basis we can create a fully interactive portal for the project, implemented thought not only the sites but also through our own launcher;
   
2. We work on the trial bundle with the physical rewards for the limited edition in the run-up to the pre-orders. And also we work on the final edits of the bundles.
   

That’s all for now! Take care and have a nice time.

It’s Friday evening - ROGgoms up!

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 #14 (originally released 12/14/18)​

Past friday is on the air and it presents another 14th weekly report. Now let’s get to the point.

But we should warn that there will be a lot of letters. We will try to tell a little about ways to control a castle/county/kingdom.



Let’s start with dynamic pictures - it’s the animations of NPC (guards).

There will be 4 types of attacks and all with root motions. From one hand it will make them alive but from the other hand it’ll make them more unwieldy.



The guard’s death will work through the animations instead of ragdoll physic as we used it on the characters. There are many reasons for it.

Their deaths look dynamic enough but it denied the fun that one can meet at the ROG characters’ deaths, as strange as that sounds.





We continue to work on the castle. Let’s be honest, it’s our first castle where we practice in the field of:

• gamedesign;
  
• design of the space for our game elements (as teleport, tablet, etc.).
  

We will surely tell in detail about donjon and its mechanism but later in the next reports. And now only pretty pictures of our artists!





To finish our easy-to-perceive part of the report, let’s look at the new pads. There are different tiers of bulky shoulder pads for the true warriors with an endurance and not for the some fragile damagers!







Let’s get to the most interesting! A window to control the castles/county/kingdom (who are able to do it!).

In short, it looks like a book with the bookmarks. This book is alike the book on the castle tablet.

Horizontal bookmarks:

1. castle;
   
2. county (icon isn’t finished);
   
3. kingdom (icon isn’t finished).
   

They scrolls the left pages where is the information about controlled object.

Vertical:

1. maintenance (upgrade);
   
2. taxes;
   
3. economy;
   
4. requirements for the maintenance and upgrade.
   

These pages on the right side are the sections of controlling.

It’s some kind of a book (inside the team we call it a ledger, as a joke). Such system allows to use a principle of a small table 3x4. It’s an ergonomic decision that excludes unnecessary points.



[By the way, …]

(Attention! There will be a shorter text about mechanics below. Originally it has about 90 pages so there can be some gaps. Ask your questions in comments if you want to know about some mechanics in detail. We will make a note or report about it.) - author’s note.

Let’s review a castle and its parts starting with the left page.



All posts in a guild higher than neophyte have an access to this page.

• 4 cells for the crystals;
  

Crystal is a magic artefact which is mined by the different ways (depending on the level of crystal). It’s a part of a castle (it suits only for the definite castle) and can be put into the castle tablet. After it the members of the guild, owner of the castle, can use the crystal to get some bonuses for character parameters. The crystal can be installed only once. Also it has an expiry date. After “burning” it in the tablet you can install a new one in N days. N days is the period of cooling of a cell (after the crystal burnt). Crystals of different levels can suit the same castle. The higher level of a crystal - the larger the bonus but lower its stamina. And cooling period will be longer. The most forced crystal can be comparable with the coolest one or medium crystal of the next level. 4 cells are for the physical and magic attack, physical and magic defence.

• The following is the basic information about castle parameters and short battle statistics. In our view, further comments are unnecessary.
  
• Then there is an information about castle parameters and we want to stop here (all parameters can be measured by real time, it was done on purpose to avoid a constant division by 12):
  

Forts capture time - every castle has 2 forts at a distance about 100-150 m. It’s relatively small guard fort, established not so much to prevent the first attack but rather to optimize the net (we will tell about that method in the separate report). At the start of every phase of “hollow a castle” (the capturing of a castle is possible) the forts are in perfect condition. Before the capturing of these forts the assault of a castle is impossible. After the primary seizing the forts turn into the capture points (you need to capture it anyway). And you don’t need to capture it once again during this phase. Any other guild need to own these forts during this period except the guild - castle owner. If the guild-owner capture the forts the counter stops.

Point capture speed (per character) - the point capture goes through the presence of one guild (and its allies) in particular range around the point.

By default an every player (here and throughout the text one player = one character) gives 1% to the speed of capturing. . The maximum value (counting all players at the point) is 10% per second. To capture you need to “remove” 100% of point ownership be previous guild and then to “raise” your 100%. After this the point will be captured by your guild. The presence of enemy player will block the capture.

The point will belong the guild that has more players at the point at the moment of capture. If capture points belong to ally guilds, the owner will be the guild that has more points.

There are 5 points of capture:

1. fort №1;
   
2. fort №2;
   
3. parade ground (at the castle yard);
   
4. barracks;
   
5. donjon.
   

It is possible that later there will be more capture points in the high level castles.

Passive decapture speed - it’s a new parameter (Prototype didn’t have this one). It’s characterized by resistance of the point to capture. It means that captured point left by the members of the guild-owner (or their allies) will slowly turn back to the guild owning the castle. By default the speed is 0,5%.

Simple arithmetic: this example shows the value of one player at the point - 0,8% per second, passive throwback - 2.5%. To capture the point you need at least 4 players and to hold this point these players should stay here.

Moreover, the passive throwback corrects the speed of capture. To capture an usual castle you needed 11 players at one point for the max speed (10% per second) and only one player to hold the positions. And this example shows that now you need 16 players to capture and 4 players to hold.

Gates recovery - it’s the time that you need to repair the gates after its destruction. The harder and stronger the gates - the more time you need to reconstruct it. We remain that almost all castle gates consist of 2 main parts:

1. wooden sash;
   
2. metal grid.
   

There are only wooden gates by default. If you install metal grid or strengthening wooden gates the time of repairing will be longer. That’s why every castle owner can find a golden mean.

Gates durability doesn’t require any comments. The only thing is that the numbers are notional. HP of the gates will be about tens of thousands. Also the gates will have an invulnerability to particular types of melee weapons (usual arrows and some kind of magic). In addition we consider the usage of elemental combination to destroy the gates. The wooden gates can be affected by fire but the water reduces the damage. And metal affected by fire and water (tempering) will become fragile for the hard crush weapons. The battering rams are in question (anyway the rams will appear only closer to release).

Guardsmen and captain respawn rate - it relates to guards - defenders of a castle. Every group of soldiers has its own commander. The resurrection of soldiers after death goes faster but they aren’t respawn if the commander is dead. At the high level castles the guards - mages can be commanders. They are able to summon mobs to the rescue.

With the guardsmen level, probably no questions.

Supplies assortment and supply capacity - it affects the NPC - trader in a castle and the amount and quality of tokens and equipment that respawn in the arsenal. The so-called castle items (“castle staff”) at the start will be the usual items (with different parameters of quality). Later we consider the establishment of unique parameters for these items. No, it won’t give a disastrous advantage but will differ. Only members of guild-owner can use the castle items. If you give such item to the other players it will disappear. Within extended UI of the guild there will be a tab to control the items - which character and when did he take a particular item and where is the item.

Oh, finally we finished with the left page. Still have an interest? Let’s get to the right side.



This page will be seen only to the members of guild that have the post - seneschal and higher.

Castle condition - it’s shown by 10 slots for the small shields. It shows the condition of a castle in an exaggerated and broad sense. Yes, the castle is fraying and requiring reconstruction. The main damage connected to the sieges.

The castle condition affects the amount of available upgrades. To keep the castle in good condition you need different resources - building materials, fabrics, low-quality weapons, provisions, and thalers for the paying the salaries for the guards etc. So it’s almost the same resources and items that are needed for players.

On this page we can check the connection between the condition and available upgrades. If you fully improved your castle you need to keep this perfect condition. A terrible state will block or destroy upgrades.

If the condition becomes 0/10 the castle will be empty and guards will leave. The capture of such “Flying Dutchman” will be as easy as possible. But before building on this castle for your guild you will need to repair it to 1/10.

Now let’s get to more difficult mechanics - it’s a superstructure to the castle condition.

Economic war at the castles

At first sight it looks ridiculously. But let’s shed some light on this name. The sieges mainly affects the condition - actions of siege weapons (catapults and trebuchets) and constant destroying of the gates. The castle is vulnerable to the siege weapons only at the moment of “hollow castle” phase.

And then the attacking side realizes that the castle is fully upgraded and has dozens of defenders and chose the tactics of destroying - to use catapults and methodically destroy the assets of the guild-owner. It’s clear that they need to defend the catapults because enemy guild won’t disregard it. We want to remain that the siege weapons of such power cost a lot of thallers. And there is a chance to invest in weapons, lose the siege and thallers without damaging the guild - castle owner.

Moving on, there’s still a little information left.

Upgrades

It almost doesn’t require any comments. It correlates with the castle parameters described earlier.

A little coloured diamond - is a chosen position to improve.

After the choice at the “Requirements” page the list and the number of resources and goods will appear to upgrade it. Confirmed the choice you will see the sticker remaining of required resources. When upgrade is finished a little diamond will get a diamond frame and a castle owner - smile.

If upgrade is inactive because of the worsening of castle condition there will be only diamond-frame and an owner will get only sadness and longing.

The “Requirements” page is open for the all posts higher that neophyte but:

only seneschal and higher posts have the right to cancel and finish the upgrades;
only storekeeper and higher can take the resources after the cancellation of the upgrade.
Well, we hope at least someone’s read it.

***



In conclusion we tell only that the moving to new hardware wasn’t shoothly. The old site on the new configuration of web-server works badly (it doesn’t relate to the forum). And in general the fragility of WordPress shows its true colours. In connection with it we expedite the moving to the new site, even if it would be emptier.

We should boast about our new IP on the site - - 84.54.4.4 )

So all that’s left is to wait for the full registration of NS servers and we can rest easy.

Perhaps, there are enough letters in this report, so:

It’s Saturday 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 #13 (originally released 12/07/18)​

Right on schedule, report №13 is on the air!

Hello everyone and right to the point.



The point is that these animations of NPC-guards (they are the guardians of a castle, city patrols, cops and punishers).

Battle animations of the guards look a bit like our character animations, but only from a distance. The main difference is the lack of timing limits in the animations of NPC. That’s why they are not only more ‘realistic’ but also more liberated.

The good news that the social animations don’t have any timings and we are going to go crazy.

Some examples.

This is guards fighting stance:


Here how he walks around:


Well, here he salutes important guests:


[By the way, ...]

The guards in ROG will be represented by humans instead of fantasy creatures. The main reason is the usage of the same controller of movement for the guards and characters. To avoid the moments when a guard can’t catch up a target because it climbed the stairs or came to a doorway.

There will be three types of guards with battle specification:

1. warrior with a two-handed sword;
   
2. warrior with one-handed sword and shield;
   
3. crossbowman.
   

They can get the nicknames: ‘berserk’, ‘infantry’, and ‘crossbowman’.

Every type can get one or another character. The model of fighting depends on the character. Berserk will often be an aggressor, infantry - neutral, crossbowman - sneaky, as always)

However, it will be funny to meet an aggressive crossbowman that gets angry, throws his crossbow, take his short sword and goes into a battle))

As for the types of the guards and its role in society - we’ll leave it for the next time.

The following question: what do you think if there will be no human mobs? I.e. we don’t want to fill the world with human mobs and leave them as the mercenary for players (hired to guard a city or castle etc.)

***



This time we will tell about one more way to optimize. We use it while preparing the world to pre-alpha.

The merge of a few 3D objects to the one global (geometry).

This way in its professional form was presented by EpicGames after acquisition Simplygon company. In addition to it this addition presenter UE4 for the players and built-in function of automatic creation of LOD’s. We’ve already mentioned that earlier these licenses cost a lot of money. And only a few studios could afford it.

Both this products on fact save a lot of time of programmers and 3D modellers (they shouldn’t create few LOD’s for every model).

Now about Merge. The main advantages:

1. simplification of geometry on the junctions of merging objects;
   
2. reduction of drawcall tasks that’s connected with GPU and CPU;
   
3. automatic creation and setting of LOD’s for the merging objects;
   
4. perfectly suitable for the optimization of small objects that get into the frame entirely.
   

Examples of usage.



Look at the more complicated example, where this function should be used wisely according to the project feature.

Merge Off. The sheer cliff is covered with the separate 3D objects of 3 types. Meshes are repeated but every of it creates the task for drawcall. BUT! We get a few triangle because the remoted meshes use their last LOD (zero about 13k, last about 0,6 triangles).



Merge On (primitive way).

Now we take and merge into one mesh the whole sheer cliff (it’s more than 100 m). The amount of tasks is lower but we lost such function as LOD and now the whole cliff is LOD_0. Because we are located next to one of its edges. It leads to catastrophic increase of triangles (almost twice). Even GTX1066 has the result with FPS.



Merge On (normal way)

So, the problem is that for the extended objects Merge does a disservice. We have an easy answer - to merge not into one huge mesh but cut it vertically into the 6-10 parts. We do it to make LOD’s work.

So, what do we get: amount of drawcalls is lower, of triangles is higher, but more FPS.

‘Why are you happy about 5% of FPS?!’ - a reader unwittingly asked.

The answer is simple:

1. a frame is overloaded by stones from below and it still exists as separate meshes, effect can be stronger in the clear scene;
   
2. last mesh isn’t configured entirely, because we still can compact the distance for LOD’s;
   
3. everyone will be able to configure the distance; someone will turn off LOD_0; someone will make the client to display higher LOD’s. The main thing is to minimize the drawcalls.
   

Few 3D models from absolutely different areas: here’s alchemical oven, and walls decor and even the entry into the Atlants’ cave.





We haven’t shown a new UI, so the next frame is a tablet to control not only a castle but also a county and a kingdom. It’s large-scale enough and the next report will be dedicated to it almost entirely.

As for the around-development:

1. We’ve forgotten to tell that the new rules and the privacy policy are ready and will be extended to the site and the forum of the project. That's why we ask all new members to accept it.
   
2. Server hardware is still to gather. After it we will move the game BD, site+forum, SMTP;
   
3. New site is making up;
   
4. We are going to launch the presales and we will tell about its importance and why we do it before the open Alpha in the separate report [Vatslav Verzhbitskiy].
   

That’s all, take care and have a nice weekend!

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 #12 (originally released 11/30/18)​

Another Friday is on the air. Unvarnished, just №12.

Hello everyone and get to the point.



No, the reading of the mantra book in ROG, moreover in a private setting, won’t add an intelligence to you. But the book will definitely make you stronger. You can keep the healing mantra, mana regeneration mantra, the good and the bad spells.

[By the way,]

You can’t use the spells without inscription in the mantra book. Writing the inscription is not always successful. Parameters that affect the success of the writing will remain a secret, as before.

After successful inscription of a mantra, the other similar mantra will always be written successfully.

The number of the same mantra in the book reduces the time of reading the spell (reload/preload).

An optimal number of the similar mantra is 4* (the level of mantra). It reduces RL/PL on 50%.

The mantra would be spent if you used it too much.

***

Here’s a part of first-person animations with the book.


Equip


Idle


Unequip



Scapulars

We went quite a standard way for us: we make the basics and use it to create a huge number of variations. The same way with the scapulars. We create one pad then compile both scapulars. There are three types:

1. Symmetric;
   
2. Asymmetric (one shoulder lighter, second harder, one protective, second for attack);
   
3. One-sided.
   

Let’s imagine a situation - there is a pile of firewood. Every log is a separate 3D object (Static Mesh). In the pile there are 100 logs, for example. As you know, it is not very good.

There are 2 ways to optimize:

1. Merge (merging) of these objects into the one common object (geometry) - until recently, only giant studios could afford such a thing, because it costs too much;
   
2. Creating, configuring and using of the “instance” function will allow to “draw” with the objects. It automatically changes its scale, angle, turning and the most important - compiles it into the special groups. They are easier for CPU+GPU.
   

Today we will tell about the second way. Its main advantages are:

1. It doesn’t create a new additional object. It affects the size of the client positively;
   
2. It saves LODs for every separate object;
   
3. Objects hidden from view stop being rendered;
   
4. Attentive configuring of this function reduces the designer’s time of mapping these objects.
   

We will tell about the first way in the next reports.

1. The tests of a productivity on the one section of location, replacing all Static Mesh-borders on the instances.

Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes Off ~ 16.6 ms, 3200+ DrawCalls



Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes On ~ 15.8 ms, 2900+ DrawCalls



2. Another example of using procedurally generated content by instances instead of handwork with Static Meshes. Test on the gulf with lotuses in one of the locations. The dramatic difference in 20 FPS.

Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes Off ~ 31.3 ms, 19k+ DrawCalls (!!!), about 2 thousands of copies of Static Meshes.



Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes On ~ 19.8 ms, 6,8k+ DrawCalls, 5 Blueprints, about 2 thousands of instances.



3. Another example of using procedurally generated content in one location - model of SM_achillea on the patches.

Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes Off ~ 26.8 ms, 8,7k DrawCalls, 1680 copies of SM_achillea model



Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes On ~ 20.7 ms, 5,5k+ DrawCalls, 6 Blueprints, 2508 instances of SM_achillea model





As always, a little about around-development:

1. To continue the around-development №2 we need to tell that the story with the own network of IPs turns into the own NS-servers. It becomes serious enough. We’ve already rented our first server hardware. It will be responsible for the site+forum, game database for Europe and the CIS, post servers, NS-servers etc. In addition to backup it provides reliability - not only raid1, but, closer to the early access, it would be a mirror to the reserve server.
   
2. We listened to the views about Steam pictures and soon we would renew the №1 variant.
   

That’s all for now, take care and have a nice weekend!

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 #11 (originally released 11/23/18)​

Friday is on the air and we open the next ten reports.

Hello everyone and cut to the chase!



Light pants

This week we worked on the diversity of light pants. Modellers still have the freedom to design it.





New modular system of armour and clothes is already in the works. But we forgot about one more detail, perhaps, the most important detail - underwear that would hide a nakedness when pants fell after death)

If this model was a separate model we wouldn’t have any difficulties. But we needed to make this skin (read as texture) look worthy. In this, the borders of underwear are very strict and come from the modular system.

That’s how it will look like. Yes, we wanted to make it older and more ragged on purpose.





The quality issue of realistic mobs is significant. 2016-18 years have been marked by bears and wolves with the fur showed by the giants of industry. But technologies are still far from optimization. The realistic fur in the game about witch hunter brought to its knees many game systems.

We are working towards the studying of new technologies that are still to develop.

It’s time to introduce the work with NVIDIA Hairworks in ROG.

We are not sure that we will fall within the optimization of MMORPG genre but we will try. But either way, we will leave this “feature” in addition to ultra settings of graphic.



[By the way]

As usual the fur and hairs are created through addition to the character image the polygonal lines and invisible textures. It’s simple but very labour-intensive method. Fur and hairs look static and visually boring. Creating dynamic fur and hairs one can add hundreds of hairs each of which will respond to the movements of a character and external factors realistically.

This dynamic hairs provide more saturated colour gradient and also interact with the light and shadows more natural then it was earlier. Common and local lightning passes through every layer. Even the deepest layers get the natural shading that improves the image quality significantly.

***





In the last report we mentioned that we got a new member of ROG team responsible only for optimization. His name is Dmitry. For the first week extensive work has been done. One report isn’t enough to tell about it so we will dedicate to it a separate report. Now we will tell only about a small part of the work done.

[By the way]

Optimization of our level design project we can divide into the main sections:

1. Optimization of the main settings of the project;
   
2. Optimization of the landscape material;
   
3. Optimization of every mesh (3D models with textures) separately: its LOD’s, the rules of displaying of materials, simplification of materials at a distance, the rules and quality of casting the shadows depending on the same distance;
   
   • flora (especially trees of SoeedTree);
     
   • buildings and elements of building constructor;
     
   • little details (log, lamp post, signboard, anvil etc.);
     
4. An integration of identical meshes by certain rules in one big mesh or instance-group (fences, piles of stones or logs, etc.);
   
5. Light and shadows in the open world, light and shadows in the instances;
   
6. Rules and parameters of loading of world objects are located in particular area around a character but belong to the other level (i.e. the other submap). We remind that the continent consist of 64 parts (“submaps”), and each of them covers 6.25 sq km. A part of them is located underwater.
   

On the one hand, it’s basic set of methods to optimize the project. But every project is unique, there are no two similar projects. The difference between first-person and the third person, the difference in altitude on the continent etc.

We started with detail adjusting the tool for optimization. It makes an engine avoid the processing of objects (i. e. it doesn’t show the objects but reserve it) less than particular size. It bases on the distance from this object to the camera. The main thing is to pursue a middle ground, it will help to avoid the discomfort of houses, appeared in front of you, and it won’t “smother” with FPS. Even first attempt within this parameter produced some results.

We will show an example of a village.

Before the setting:

Cull Distance Volume Off, ~35ms, 10k+ DrawCalls



After setting:

Cull Distance Volume On, ~20ms, 4k+ DrawCalls



P.S. The above FPS is the FPS of the project, not of the integrated build. It’s always significantly lower.

***



In conclusion we will traditionally talk about around-development:

1. The best news for us is that the technical work on the site has almost done. On the next week we will start working on the design of the new site with our designer Tatyana.
   
2. There is good news for the future streamers: Reign of Guilds appeared on Twitch. It will help the streamers and us to promote the game in the nearest future. It’s empty now, but you can already subscribe.
   
3. Also we have finished the site of the studio Atlant Games.
   
4. The new site, private IP network, servers etc will be talked in greater detail in the next report dedicated to “Around-development”.
   

That’s all for now, take care and have a nice weekend!

Join to the voting and discuss the report on our Forum.

It’s Friday’s evening - ROGgoms up!

Yours sincerely,
Reign of Guilds Team