What's next for Cross of Auria?
In the June 2, 2019 progress update, I announced that I would be working on version 3.0 of the game and that it would be the final update. Here we are working up to a year later and I still haven't put it down. There's a few reasons for this. First and foremost, the story I wanted to tell, even the greatly abridged chapter 1 only version isn't yet complete (thank all of you for sticking with this super early access situation). Secondly, I wasn't quite sure yet how I wanted to proceed. I have so many notebooks full of ideas and files on my computer outlining Cross of Auria's episodic release along with Honor At Sea (which focuses on some of the other heroes in Revan just before the scourge). But I kept thinking to myself - is this the way I want to move forward?
Well, the short answer is... no. As much as I would love to turn what we have here into some epic 1000 hour monster of a game, the technological limitations are too great. Plugins keep breaking and I keep having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to various systems because of their integration with now outdated or completely broken parts of the engine and plugin system. For a quick example, at some point last year we began running into an issue where the Quest Log text would completely disappear after the first save of the game. I have no idea when this began specifically and it wasn't caught until months later because it only affected the client side of the game and I do most tests on the engine side. Then we had a seemingly unimportant issue come up - the turn order display which shows you based on the attacks you've chosen who will go first.... well, that one just stopped showing altogether for reasons unknown and even reverting both the game and the engine to the working version didn't seem to correct the issue. It might have seemed small and meaningless, but it completely ruined my ability to focus on magic and abilities having individual speed values the way I wanted them to (think Quick Attack, Sucker Punch, etc from Pokemon) which would've made combat much more exciting. If you happened to be playing the game at that time, you may have noticed a difficulty spike in both the Flame Titan and the Frostbrood Titan. These were unintended consequences of the turn order display break. The difference between knowing when Flame Cutter is coming next turn or not is massive, don't you think? As such, both fights had to basically be crippled to be complete-able given the limited information that was now shown to the players.
All unintended nonsense in the past, let's have a look at today. I'm basically at one of the same crossroads I was at when I initially wanted to move away from further development of CoA. The limitations of the engine put me in something of a rough spot - I can either continue to develop for something only a handful of people will ever see, or start to put in motion something on a more modern engine that might be able to gain traction even though the release time would be significantly longer. I'm looking at the latter as the way to go, but there's still some things in CoA that need to be wrapped up before I can look at it and say "ok, this is done." Let's talk a little bit about those things.
#1 - Complete the chapter 1 story. (Not to be confused with the episode 1 story, which is what is currently available).
#2 - Completely restructure the Items, Weapons, Armor, Skills so they fall in a more intuitive order when viewed in game. Specifically, I hate how the second wave of potions ended up so far down the list away from the first wave. You'd normally expect your pots to all be in one place, right? That's what I'd like to give for anyone tuning into the game later and for those of you still on it.
#3 - Add more variety to the combat. This isn't as much of a difficult issue, as some of these changes will go live in the next update. Specifically, more types of attacks are being added to the existing enemies with a focus on Silence (prevents Magic) and Disable (prevents Abilities) - both of which will act as interrupts of they hit a character before the magic or ability is used. Also, and probably most importantly, moving of the Mend removal fight to before the Flame Titan as opposed to in Agartha. The reason for this is pretty much that it's too easy to just have Alex spam mend the entire time and get away without item usage in combat, or even strategic heal usage.
#4 - Release the prototype Battle Tower event in Agartha. If you've been on the game at the beginning and then again now, you may have noticed the bridge heading east in Agartha. This is where the Battle Tower will be, which was originally thought up as a standalone game. In it's CoA iteration, the idea will be to fight waves of bosses and handicaps to make it to the top of the tower and claim the prize. The Battle Tower standalone idea is significantly different from this straight up Ruby's party smash, but features the same enemy types.
#5 - Finish the Quest Log removal and new Quest Missive integration. This will absolutely happen before development on CoA-E1 is concluded, even if nothing else on the list makes the cut.
Okay, so... that's my version of where we're at in the near future for CoA-E1. But what about Cross of Auria as a story or franchise or whatever it's going to be? The shortest version of what I'm thinking that I can say is - I'd love to see CoA come to live as an action RPG. Think Kingdom Hearts with significantly less cutscenes. I know enough about Unity and C# (having gotten a degree in using it and all) to build a prototype on my own and then crowdsource to build a complete product, but this will be an absolutely monumental undertaking for me and may take several years to release if it ever does come to fruition. This version of CoA ideally would not release episodically, but would release as a whole for Ruby's story. Jack, Katya, and Kara's stories would all then also be able to come to life in similar fashion.
It's going to be a long road ahead, but this is definitely something I want to start doing, and there's no better time than right now. I sincerely want to thank all of you who have picked up Cross of Auria - Episode 1 and given it a try. I have so many more ideas that never made it into the game, but that's what happens when you're a one man team. I only have so many hands!
Alright, I know that was all super wordy, but I wanted to at least put it out there. The short version takeaway from this for all of you should be this:
- The next update will feature Silence and Disable as extra enemy statuses to be used against the players.
- The next several updates will continue the removal of the Quest Log dialogue ("questName has been added to the Quest Log!" and such) and replacement with the key item Missives.
In the event I continue on CoA-E1 after that, the following are high on the docket:
- The restructuring of the Items, Weapons, Armor, and Skills, which would result in a complete item wipe-out for current players including all held and equipped gear.
- Severely reducing the amount of item drops per battle. Currently, it's way too easy to get gold and stay alive. I need to light a fire under your butts!
On that note, I'm off to work on adding Silence and Disable. Get ready for it out there in Revan, and all of you have a splendid rest of your week.
//hardytier
Well, the short answer is... no. As much as I would love to turn what we have here into some epic 1000 hour monster of a game, the technological limitations are too great. Plugins keep breaking and I keep having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to various systems because of their integration with now outdated or completely broken parts of the engine and plugin system. For a quick example, at some point last year we began running into an issue where the Quest Log text would completely disappear after the first save of the game. I have no idea when this began specifically and it wasn't caught until months later because it only affected the client side of the game and I do most tests on the engine side. Then we had a seemingly unimportant issue come up - the turn order display which shows you based on the attacks you've chosen who will go first.... well, that one just stopped showing altogether for reasons unknown and even reverting both the game and the engine to the working version didn't seem to correct the issue. It might have seemed small and meaningless, but it completely ruined my ability to focus on magic and abilities having individual speed values the way I wanted them to (think Quick Attack, Sucker Punch, etc from Pokemon) which would've made combat much more exciting. If you happened to be playing the game at that time, you may have noticed a difficulty spike in both the Flame Titan and the Frostbrood Titan. These were unintended consequences of the turn order display break. The difference between knowing when Flame Cutter is coming next turn or not is massive, don't you think? As such, both fights had to basically be crippled to be complete-able given the limited information that was now shown to the players.
All unintended nonsense in the past, let's have a look at today. I'm basically at one of the same crossroads I was at when I initially wanted to move away from further development of CoA. The limitations of the engine put me in something of a rough spot - I can either continue to develop for something only a handful of people will ever see, or start to put in motion something on a more modern engine that might be able to gain traction even though the release time would be significantly longer. I'm looking at the latter as the way to go, but there's still some things in CoA that need to be wrapped up before I can look at it and say "ok, this is done." Let's talk a little bit about those things.
#1 - Complete the chapter 1 story. (Not to be confused with the episode 1 story, which is what is currently available).
#2 - Completely restructure the Items, Weapons, Armor, Skills so they fall in a more intuitive order when viewed in game. Specifically, I hate how the second wave of potions ended up so far down the list away from the first wave. You'd normally expect your pots to all be in one place, right? That's what I'd like to give for anyone tuning into the game later and for those of you still on it.
#3 - Add more variety to the combat. This isn't as much of a difficult issue, as some of these changes will go live in the next update. Specifically, more types of attacks are being added to the existing enemies with a focus on Silence (prevents Magic) and Disable (prevents Abilities) - both of which will act as interrupts of they hit a character before the magic or ability is used. Also, and probably most importantly, moving of the Mend removal fight to before the Flame Titan as opposed to in Agartha. The reason for this is pretty much that it's too easy to just have Alex spam mend the entire time and get away without item usage in combat, or even strategic heal usage.
#4 - Release the prototype Battle Tower event in Agartha. If you've been on the game at the beginning and then again now, you may have noticed the bridge heading east in Agartha. This is where the Battle Tower will be, which was originally thought up as a standalone game. In it's CoA iteration, the idea will be to fight waves of bosses and handicaps to make it to the top of the tower and claim the prize. The Battle Tower standalone idea is significantly different from this straight up Ruby's party smash, but features the same enemy types.
#5 - Finish the Quest Log removal and new Quest Missive integration. This will absolutely happen before development on CoA-E1 is concluded, even if nothing else on the list makes the cut.
Okay, so... that's my version of where we're at in the near future for CoA-E1. But what about Cross of Auria as a story or franchise or whatever it's going to be? The shortest version of what I'm thinking that I can say is - I'd love to see CoA come to live as an action RPG. Think Kingdom Hearts with significantly less cutscenes. I know enough about Unity and C# (having gotten a degree in using it and all) to build a prototype on my own and then crowdsource to build a complete product, but this will be an absolutely monumental undertaking for me and may take several years to release if it ever does come to fruition. This version of CoA ideally would not release episodically, but would release as a whole for Ruby's story. Jack, Katya, and Kara's stories would all then also be able to come to life in similar fashion.
It's going to be a long road ahead, but this is definitely something I want to start doing, and there's no better time than right now. I sincerely want to thank all of you who have picked up Cross of Auria - Episode 1 and given it a try. I have so many more ideas that never made it into the game, but that's what happens when you're a one man team. I only have so many hands!
Alright, I know that was all super wordy, but I wanted to at least put it out there. The short version takeaway from this for all of you should be this:
- The next update will feature Silence and Disable as extra enemy statuses to be used against the players.
- The next several updates will continue the removal of the Quest Log dialogue ("questName has been added to the Quest Log!" and such) and replacement with the key item Missives.
In the event I continue on CoA-E1 after that, the following are high on the docket:
- The restructuring of the Items, Weapons, Armor, and Skills, which would result in a complete item wipe-out for current players including all held and equipped gear.
- Severely reducing the amount of item drops per battle. Currently, it's way too easy to get gold and stay alive. I need to light a fire under your butts!
On that note, I'm off to work on adding Silence and Disable. Get ready for it out there in Revan, and all of you have a splendid rest of your week.
//hardytier