Nevergrind Online News

A mere day before launching Nevergrind Online on Steam, I was planning to do a regular release. I figured that the game was in pretty good shape. The core systems were in place. And I knew that the multiplayer netcode was working great. Deep inside the command center at Neverworks Games, we were in a heated discussion about whether it should be an Early Access release or not. Initially, I was not convinced, but Trench laid out the case for Early Access, and I began to see the strategic value therein.

Just hours before its planned release, I was dealing with some last-minute bugs, which started to stress me out a little bit. And then I started thinking about the long-term plans that I already have for the game. I want to add talent trees, make the level cap 99, add nightmare and hell difficulties, exceptional and elite item tiers, and crafting systems. So why not make that the ultimate 1.0 release—the completed game!? And as much as I would like to pretend that this game is bug-free, that is only a meme. This game is far too complicated to be bug-free! It's online multiplayer with real-time combat! Dozens of complex systems all integrated together! Surely there are bugs waiting to be found, but I would like its full release to be as bug free as possible.

That's the beauty of Early Access! It helps small developers like Neverworks Games roll out a complex game along with the inherent understanding that we are still building toward Valhalla. One of my commanding general suggested that this game probably could have been in Early Access six months ago, and maybe he was right.

So far it seems to have been the right decision. We attempted to release on 6/9 @ 4:20, as the meme Gods demanded, but when I tried to start the release, I discovered that Steamworks was down! 😒 I couldn't believe it! Surely this was a sign that Activision and/or Amazon were attempting to thwart my claims to RPG market share. This unseemly outage delayed the release by 25 minutes. We resigned ourselves to release at approximately 4:45 p.m. EST.

Despite the chaotic conditions adding stress to an already stressful situation, we managed to have a successful first day! Back in the Neverworks command center, I boldly prognosticated that we would sell 150 copies. I tried to stay conservative with my estimate. I know that Steam is full of amazing games and our marketing budget is tight. As of right now, we have sold many more than that in the first nine hours! I saw as many as 66 concurrent players on at once, an all-time record for any game that we've ever produced! And we achieved one of our key goals to have at least 10 steam reviews as quickly as possible. At this time, we have 15 reviews and they're all positive! We are incredibly grateful for that!



That said, we are aware of some freezing issues and we are looking to resolve it as quickly as possible! See in you Vandamor!

As briefly mentioned on the store page, and in a thread in the discussions section, Nevergrind Online (NGO) appears to be the world's first multiplayer blobber. Blobber is a comical, but apt, name for a specific niche of RPGs. Some prominent examples of a blobber are Wizardry, Might & Magic, and Legend of Grimrock. I think that Giant Bomb defined blobbers best:

Blobber is a slang term that is used loosely to refer to first-person party-based RPGs in which the player controlled party is not represented as a distinct visual entity in the game world. As such, the game must stay in first-person view at all times within the game world (so that the camera can never be pointed at the party). Functionally, this means that the player's party always stays together and moves and acts as a single unit. No member of the party can be separated spatially from the rest, so, for instance, one party member cannot be commanded to walk down a hallway while the rest of the party waits behind. Thus, the party only has physical presence within the game world in the forms of walking around (i.e. having legs), swinging weapons or casting spells (i.e. having arms), and staying glued together as a solitary mass (i.e. being a blob). This artifice came to be called "a blob with arms and legs" and games that used it were in turn called "blobbers".

Most blobbers have been single-player games where the player controls the actions of one hero or an entire party of heroes. NGO is special because it's the first game that attempts to apply this format to an online multiplayer experience with real-time combat. So how does it work? Simple! The party leader is in charge of navigating the dungeon. Followers can use chat to suggest which way to go. Once combat begins, everyone can use their skills in real-time and everyone can see the heals, buffs, fireballs, and swords flying during combat!



NGO's original gameplay format has the benefit of guaranteeing that everyone is always in the same position, assuring that everyone is sharing the same experience. Nobody is ever out of position. You're never waiting on your friend who is always afk. When the leader returns to town, everyone else does, too! It's much easier to keep everyone on the same page! I believe that this format, which originally emerged out of technical limitations, also has many inherent social benefits that help make NGO exceptionally good at keeping parties' gaming experience unified, which is very important in a multiplayer game. In many beloved multiplayer RPGs, players are often out of position, working on different tasks, waiting for each other, or trying to find each other. NGO's format keeps players on the same page to the greatest extent possible by simplifying the positional aspect of the game!

So what are you waiting for?! Get a group of friends, install NGO, and restore order to the kingdom! These dragons aren't going to slay themselves!

The final release date for Nevergrind Online has been set to June 9th, 2022! I will click Steam's shiny Release button as soon as I get home from work at 4:20 p.m. EST! So it's on 6/9 @ 4:20. Yeah, really. Hey, you won't forget when it released and that's all that matters! 🙃

I'll be monitoring the game's servers closely upon release to ensure that all players have a great lag-free experience dungeon crawling with their friends! I am incredibly hyped to release the game to the public after five years of development on this game! It has been a long journey and there were times when I was not sure that Nevergrind Online would actually cross the finish line. I will be popping open a bottle of champagne to celebrate its release! 🍾🥂

One final HUGE thank you to the alpha and beta testers which have been incredibly dedicated and helpful over the last ten months. The progress is all documented in the patch notes in the actual game, so be sure to check out those patch notes to see all of the amazing progress that was made throughout the testing phase.

Check out these metrics from our test phase:

• 467 testers participated in the beta.
  
• 387 days or 9,295 hours of total playtime!
  
• 1,844 characters were created.
  
• 192,250 items were looted.
  
• 83 guilds were created.
  
• 229 friends were added.
  
• 17,160,684,980 (that's b-b-b-billion) was earned!
  

Until then check out and share the official trailer which showcases the the dungeon crawling and combat portion of the game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfnRz0wwcSE

Since I started development back in 2017, a lot has changed since I originally created the mob animations. Each monster used a fixed number of frames. I settled on 105 frames to cover all of the attacks, hit, special, and death animations needed for Nevergrind Online. At the time, I felt that I had to really limit the number of frames due to memory-related concerns. In the process of capturing the 2D frames, I had to leave out many of the frames used in the game. This is particularly noticeable on larger monsters that make fast lateral movements.

After several iterations to improve compression and performance, I realized that I could easily improve the animations and drop the 105-frame limitation. Instead I could just capture the entire animation without dropping a single frame! I knew it would be a fair amount of work, but it was certainly worth it!

Check out the video below which shows the difference between early iterations and the modern version!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We are ironing out minor small bugs and preparing our servers for release in June! We don't have a hard date yet, but it will be released in June for certain. The 10th, 17th, or 24th are the most likely dates. I am going to work on updating the store page's screenshots and record a trailer for release since there have been so many changes since I last updated them! This is a unique type of dungeon crawl "blobber", so the trailer will try to do a good job explaining what makes Nevergrind Online special and very different from other dungeon crawlers out there.

Before the game is ready for release, I knew that I had to remaster the animations! In the course of development, I have discovered numerous techniques that help optimize the performance of the animations. Those optimizations have enabled us to use much more fluid animation, more frames per model, and a more flexible animation model.

Check out the video below for a sneak peak at how fluid animation will look in the final release!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]