Swords 'n Magic and Stuff News

Hey guys. Found a few odd bugs in the latest update, so this patch addresses most of them.

Fixed:

• NPC's stuck in the floor in Ramshackle and Sleepy Haven
  
• Maxoph's spell does damage now
  
• Player hitbox vs ranged attacks fixed
  
• Various job board typos
  
• Goblin job board jobs fixed
  
• Empowered Frostshard nerfed back to where it's supposed to be
  
• Crits no longer do insane damage. Formula fixed.
  
• Back hits now do additional damage and even more additional damage with daggers
  

Hey! It's Friday!

Instead of a Development Digest today, we're doing an update! We've been super busy the last two weeks getting this finalized. This update has so many requested features and updates and new quests and adventures.

We'll focus on any bugs that come in after this update and then we're focused on the rest of the combat overhaul, magic overhaul, weapons skill and abilities, and of course, Windless Woods.

Here's the patch notes for you all:

New:

• Bug Report link in game - https://bugs.swordsnmagic.com/
  
• Job boards: daily procedural quests
  
• Mannequin furniture item to display your favorite hat, mask, and outfit
  
• Miscellaneous Furniture items
  
• Quests and NPC’s
  
• Mysterious puzzle on Azura
  
• Trinkets
  
• Shield skill
  
• Shields deal damage back with a successful parry
  
• Weapon skill tracking now auto tracks based on what you have equipped
  
• HUD showing weapons and your ammo if bow or slingshot are equipped
  
• Crafting windows now show experience preview before crafting an item
  
• Tutorial card for the radial hotbar (when you pick up a bandage for the first time)
  
• When dead, if you don’t travel to an anchor shrine in time, you’ll spawn at one with reduced health
  
• New shield
  
• Admin Panel for the host of the server
  
• Kick feature to remove players from your server
  
• In-game chat message when someone joins or leaves your multiplayer server; if you are hosting the game, you’ll see their in-game player name and their Steam name
  

Improved:

• Sorting options in the crafting table menus
  
• In-game maps in color
  
• Easier to pick up items, hold the interact key to pick up all items around you
  
• Hotbar with radial menu and expandable pockets (Use "R" to access)
  
• Winter is over, spring is in the air
  
• Auto detect your computer specs to give you the best performance when you first launch the game for the first time; this should also drastically improve performance in the character creation screen
  
• Stone Golem has more range to get to you when being attacked
  
• Azura guards now help you fight enemies if they see them
  
• Greenskull Peak is no longer deserted
  
• Foliage is now affected by the video settings to help performance
  
• Chat window allows scrolling
  
• Loading zones in Sleepy Haven for performance
  

Fixed:

• Hitting your head while swimming no longer makes you fall to your death
  
• Invisible rugs around the world
  
• Rayna patched up her outfit
  
• When buying something through dialog, it no longer says “+- X gold”
  
• Sleepy Haven innkeeper now takes your money when you stay the night
  
• Camera improvements while at the Sweet Sardine
  
• Saddles now have no value and can be obtained for free from stablemasters if you need one
  
• Can no longer see into the void when at the dungeon door on Azura
  
• Blacksmithing and Carpentry station furniture items collisions
  
• Gamepad buttons are now displayed instead of text
  
• Changing a keybind now reflects properly on tutorial tips
  
• Trees no longer go through the Barracks in Sleepy Haven
  
• Trouble at Moonberry quest no longer autocompletes
  
• At medium-low settings, the Sleepy Haven river no longer looks like milk
  
• Bows no longer apply arrow damage when no arrows are equipped
  
• When players leave a multiplayer world, their location on the map also disappears
  
• The top of Greenskull Peak now triggers the quest advance instead of under it
  
• The elusive tree behind Harper has been swapped out with a regular tree
  
• If you are in a multiplayer server and the host closes the server, kicking you to the main menu, you no longer have to restart to view the lobby and host/join other worlds
  
• Anchor shrine beams adjusted
  

Hey all! A bit late, but for a good reason!

We've done last week's development digest as a YouTube Video!

It's premiering right now, so come check it out!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I'll see you this Friday for a regular update!

Hey all!

I'm a day late - sorry about that. Let's dig into what the team has been up to this week!

First off, here's the updated roadmap:


While we adjust to Joe leaving, we've reprioritized what we need to do and how best to go about it. We're looking at getting an update out within the next few weeks with some quality of life things, job boards, and some other fun things. I'd say the most important part of the update is getting rid of the snow. It's just too much (am I right or am I right?).

This doesn't mean the combat, weapon skills, abilities, and magic system is being pushed off. It's still very much being worked on. Just that without Joe, it'll take more time to complete. So instead of just waiting until that was done, we wanted to get an update out sooner with the things that have been done. Louis is still chipping away at the backend programming for all the new systems.

One of the most requested quality of life features is sorting in the crafting menus!


Another quality of life update is also in the crafting menus. You can now see on your experience bar how much each recipe will give you if you craft it. No more guess work!

The last big big piece of news for the update is a necromancers cave on Azura. It's actually been there this whole time, it just didn't have the mechanics needed to open up. If you caught the stream on Twitch, you'll know where this cave is. If not, you'll find out when we update!

Last update for this week: we've recently taken on a volunteer. Mike has been part of our community for about a year. He's a fellow Unreal Engine dev working on his own project. He's offered to volunteer some of his time for the next month or so to help us with whatever he can. He's already been a big help with quite a few tasks that we've had to push to the side. If you are in our Discord, you've probably seen him answering questions in our #game-dev-chat channel and you'll see him in our weekly meetings as well. We're thankful for the help!

That's all for now as we work on getting you all a QoL update! See you next week!

[h3]We’ve got a lot of news this week.[/h3] First and foremost, we’re sad to announce that Joe, our AI programmer and animator, has accepted a position with another team and will be stepping away from Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff. Joe joined the team in August of 2020 and has helped bring the world to life through his character and creature animations, boss battles, companion system and dynamic NPC schedules among many other important and impressive contributions. He also stepped into a general programming role as Louis joined the team and really helped out all around. We’re excited to see what he does with his next adventure, but sad to see him leave. At this time we aren’t looking to replace him, but may reevaluate at a later time.

What does this mean for the huge combat update we’ve been working towards? A large part of the combat update is backend work that Louis is working away on. He’s been balancing his focus between the backend programming and various other front-facing tasks like the hotbar rework (which also takes a lot of backend programming) and new job boards with repeatable, procedural quests. However, the other main part of the update included plenty of new animations for combos and abilities. With the changes to the team, we may need to adjust our plans a bit and will let you know weekly what’s happening through these development digests. We had previously said that the combat update would take a while and that’s still true, but we don’t have a good timeframe as of yet.



As we learned of Joe’s departure, we’ve shifted some priorities a bit. Wendy was working on level design for the next zone, Bone Reach. She took a tiny break from that this week to work on a Hero’s Crypt in Windless Woods. Michael (AKA Kindred) has been working on brand new map art, prepping the main questline for the Windless Woods and dipping into the AI system a bit to see what he can break make.



Speaking of new maps, this is our second huge announcement: we have a new world map! Adjusted development roadmap coming soon.



All of the zones from before are still present aside from Dragonlands, but a lot of new zones have been introduced. When the first map was made, there wasn’t really a detailed plan with what to do with the whole area, nor any idea of the time it would take to fill it out. Michael has been working on re-scoping the world map for a better story, progression, and transition between zones. This will make it easier to get more zones out faster as well. For example, Iris Lake was originally somewhere around 6-8 times bigger than Farmlands. The Farmlands took somewhere around six months to complete (it also included crafting, farming, cooking, etc. which took time). If we wanted to release Iris Lake as it was before, it would take over two years to get the one zone out! With this new layout, we can easily break up the workload.


Of the released areas, you’ll notice that the Farmlands zone has been broken into two zones. The Sleeping Glade is where Sleepy Haven and its surroundings are located (notice the river that shows the divide). Sleepy Haven used to be located in the Windless Woods, but we realized that it was super confusing having West Windless Woods, East Windless Woods, and Windless Woods (where Sleepy Haven is). The Graveyard was previously in East Windless Woods but is now located in a portion of Black Rook Vale. These are essentially just naming and lore changes!


Windless Woods is getting its first content pass. NPCs are being added, quests and dialog are in progress, mini dungeons are being built. It’s starting to come together! Ironwind Pass is about 60% done with level design. Bone Reach is about 30% done with level design. Once Windless Woods is done with content, level design in Ironwind Pass and Bone Reach should be just about finished and ready for content. This will allow Wendy to keep moving forward in future zones.


We’ve got a Youtube video in the works where we’ll describe the new zone layout in depth, including what the feel of them will be, how they’ll play into the story, and all the juicy details. I’ll be sharing details with our Patreon supporters before the video goes out. For now, I’d like to hear your guesses! Which of the new zones are you most intrigued by? See you all in the comments!