VALHALL: Harbinger News

This is a part of Indiegogo update which we are posting here for our Steam community to make sure you don't miss it. You can read full update in the updates section.

Сheck Beta development progress

We hope you liked our ideas in regards to our method of community interaction.

As you may have already noticed, many of your ideas have already been accepted into the ideas incubator.

What is more:



VIEW VIDEO

Recently, we began to receive several questions about the separation of servers into 2 types (FPP & TPP), depending on the type of camera perspectives available.

Being a team of diehard gamers, just like you, we are well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both types of perspectives. Being well aware of the undeniable unfair advantages of a third person camera (namely the ability to look around obstacles, corners, buildings, and so on), we have come up with a unique feature to make sure all your battlefield encounters are fair and the result is determined by skill, not camera angles.

As you can see in this video, a player with a third-person view has no opportunity to peek around both the corner of the building and the door frame.



In addition, We have received numerous questions and proposals concerning the implementation of the Steam Workshop.



The world of the Scandinavian myth is huge, incredibly rich, and overall extremely diverse. Therefore, we are happy to accept only the highest quality workshop submissions for their implementation as in-game items. The implementation of this function will significantly broaden the breadth of content in the world of VALHALL for the entire community.

However, we ask all future participants of this program to take into account that we aim to bring the mythology of VALHALL to life, not in a fantasy or cartoonic style, but in the most realistic graphics that are able to convey the severity of the Viking world.

We are well aware of how hard it is to understand our plans for VALHALL at times. Especially considering the bigger picture is still very much confidential, but as more and more information becomes public, and more of our development process is understood, we hope it becomes clear that we work for quality, not quantity. Although there's still going to be heaps of content!

* * *

The important thing is to understand is that the atmosphere of our Battle Royale map is so colorful because of the lore surrounding it. It is a place of eternal battle where great warriors have fun and then feast.

Everything we are preparing for you in the near future is very different. Please remember these words when you see what we are talking about. Our team aims to establish the true atmosphere of viking warfare:

Brutal, powerful, deep in its essence.



We would like to remind you how method of interaction works:

- To vote for features already present on the board, you can take a survey using this link:

https://realtimeboard.com/app/board/o9J_kyAnuMk=/

- To take part in our one-click instant voting (as well as participate in numerous other community discussions, events and fun) take a look at our discord server:

discord.gg/z5pwABS

- Switching to # voting-channel

- If you have a suggestion thats just bubbling away inside of you, something that you think would make a great addition to the game, feel free to leave it in the #suggestions channel on discord! Your friends and peers will be able to vote on and discuss all the suggestions, planned features, and other aspects of the game. However, the only the most interesting, unique, ad popular ideas will be placed into our ideas incubator process. This is exclusively available to suggestions made on the Google forms and the #suggestions channel of the discord, due to these tools having already proven their effectiveness and ease of use.

- The next stage is a more detailed assessment from both the community and from our own interpretations, on the ideas that have already been selected and placed into the idea incubator. Selected ideas are placed on our interactive community board, with their subsequent implementation to follow in development.

- As the development of each idea progresses, its status will move along and appear on the roadmap.



Quick Votes:​

We hope you liked our latest method of quickly resolving certain choices that have to be made in the process of VALHALL's development. Last week we gave our discord community the opportunity to vote on a weapon design, which will later be implemented in the game.



For those who did not take part: from time to time we plan to make posts on a particular topic that allow for an easy to use multiple choice voting system on a specific design or any other questions or decisions that need to be made. The opportunity to vote in these polls only lasts for a short period of time, and is exclusive to our discord members in the #quick-voting channel. Social networks do not have such functionality and therefore this event will be held only in Discord

From time to time we plan to place posts on the subject of a consolidated choice of a particular design of the future weapon or any other question which has to be quickly defined in the voting channel of our Discord.



According to the latest community poll, the design of a future bow was chosen (the first option), which we will add with one of the patches during the Beta testing stage.





Of course we are aware that this fashion is merely the product of myth.

What is seemingly a silly issue for someone however, is exactly the sort of thing we listen to, and don't worry we aren't taking our focus away from getting the beta out as quickly as possible, but we want your thoughts!

Do horns belong on helmets?

#quick-voting channel

https://discord.gg/ugJjpcp

Let us know your thoughts, so we can settle this great debate and experience an atmosphere that we will all love.

(Exclusive items will still have horns, we just want to clarify this issue for the most common helmets available in game).

All Early backers get + 1 new Weapons Chest.



https://goo.gl/forms/lBTEJCHm6PfTLi903

We ask all other owners of squad packages who missed the previous update to use this link to select their reward.


Thank you once more for keeping your fingers crossed for VALHALL!

Skål!

Blackrose Arts

This is a part of Indiegogo update which we are posting here for our Steam community to make sure you don't miss it. You can read full update in the updates section.

Сheck Beta development progress

As we promised in the previous update, and based upon the requests we have received from many of you, we have prepared a video of how Odin's Helmet is transformed from a concept art to one of the game's rarest items.

VIEW VIDEO



Like with all of our custom assets, we take a lot of time giving each piece of armor, weapons, and the environment the fine detail and level of respect it deserves.



Let us know in the comments if you would like to see such creation videos of other significant in game items.



It's about time we transitioned to a more enjoyable and effective approach in the manner in which we interact with you.

We hope this space not only provides us all with a lot of fun as a place to foster new relationships, but also allows us to shape the future of the VALHALL franchise effectively together.

With the previous update we announced the first stage of our community interaction process - The community development board.

Now we are launching the second phase of this tool, which incorporates the ability to vote for the features which you would like to see developed with the single press of a button. Through this process, we hope to offer our shared vision of certain ideas and see your reactions to it.

At this stage our new official Discord server will play a key role in this process.

Join us

We are aware of the existence of several fan-made servers, some of which we recognized, but due to a number of reasons we have decided to make a single official server.

Our team of moderators and community manager have put together a well polished and engaging space for our continued interaction.



We sincerely hope that you like it!

In the process of evaluating new features, interacting with the development process and presenting your ideas, we have established a channel where your feedback and input will directly affect the interactive board discussions.

It should be noted that at the moment, due to the fact that all our resources are directed to the development of the game, we are forced to use third-party software to implement an interactive whiteboard. We don't see this as an issue for the time being, however, we hope to develop our own tool for this process on our website later.

With regards to the Discord server, verification of this server as official by the administration of Discord (which gives official servers the little tick in their name) will be carried out immediately after the start of Beta testing - this is due to Discord's rules, as the game needs to have been released before the server can be verified. We're just as eager as you are.

On the new official server you will find both moderators, who many of you are already familiar with, as well as some members of the development team.

We ask you to keep in mind that we try to answer all the questions we receive on various social networking platforms as soon as possible, but at the same time each and every member of our team has a certain set of duties, the fulfillment of which affects both the quality and development time.

Therefore, we ask you to understand that there will be cases where one of our developers is online in the Discord, but does not have the opportunity to give an answer to a question or to take part in conversation. Please be respectful of this, we work long hours to develop the game which you are patiently awaiting. If you need anything please contact one of our moderators.



We have received some concerns regarding the amount of players.

You can read how we plan to overcome this issue with the matchmaking during the Beta in the Christmas update.

Furthermore, in order to make the transition to 24/7 servers smoother we plan to implement a new mode as a "warm-up" of sorts. There will be updates regarding this process during the Beta period.

Cheer on your Viking Squad

Good news for owners of the Viking Squads and Armored Viking Squads perks. We have had a few questions regarding additional Early backers gifts for these players. As such, we are pleased to announce that we have decided to equate the number of rewards to the number of your Beta keys.

If you are the owner of the Viking Squad or Armored Viking Squad bundles, then you will receive the number of extra keys/chests (x3 / x5) in your emails, depending on the choice you made. In case you wish to change your preference, please refill the the form and select the option you would like in the newly added section.

Form

We cannot stress this enough, the game will need a good online presence and a healthy number of players for our launch into Early Access, and bringing along as many of your friends as possible is a great way we can all ensure that we can all get the most out of VALHALL.

There still is another cool gift prepared for Early backers, it will be announced during the tests.


The good news however, is that as of this update VALHALL has been added to the wishlist of more than 21,500 Steam users.

This undoubtedly indicates a potential jump in the number of players who will join the battle eventually. Of course, we understand that not all of these players who added the game to their wishlist will play it on the very first day after Early Access release, and therefore we take this into account in our player projections.

Furthermore, during the past week, the number of players who added VALHALL to their wishlist has increased by 392% compared to the week before. Members of the press, bloggers, streamers, and content creators are increasingly contacting us to hear about VALHALL.

We are pleased with the level of exposure the game has received recently, however, we are more eager to see how much attention the game will receive at the start of the Beta period.

You are an awesome community, guys!

Many thanks for your ongoing support,

Blackrose Arts

This is a part of Indiegogo update which we are posting here for our Steam community to make sure you don't miss it. You can read full update in the updates section and check Beta development status.

With great pleasure we present to you the first and main part of the interactive tool mentioned in the before last Indiegogo update.

This will allow us to communicate with you in more detail and most importantly, to jointly determine the direction in which VALHALL will develop.



Why is this board interactive? - Your opinion will be taken into account and the board will be modified according to your suggestions.

As already mentioned, this is only the first part. As part of the next Indiegogo update, we will add communication functionality, which will also allow for a one-click assessment to a particular idea and to make detailed suggestions that will be visible not only to us but to other members of the community

It's not a space for empty words and unanswered pleas. This space will have a meaningful and significant effect on the development of the game. Board is dynamic and will be updating, give it some time, and we hope to see it flourish with your input.

We ask you to save your ideas and share with us using the second tool part in the next update.

All of this will help us to develop a game which is truly a work of art.

It is time for us to showcase the helmet of Odin, which we have not presented thus far.

This piece of armor, exactly like the other pieces of armor and weapons, is crafted and created with maximum detail and passion.



In one of the following updates, we will post a video of how this concept art turns into the 3D model that you see directly in the game.

As well the corresponding perks which are available from Early Access.




In addition, we have repeatedly noted that we are an indie team, which first of all means that we are highly independent and flexible.

We know that you can appreciate how some development companies are pressured and influenced by their sources of funding, especially when these sources of income have little to do with the project's development.

This means that in our case there are very few limiting factors to make the game come together in the way in which we have envisaged it.

It also means that we are directly dependent on our community for support, both financially and emotionally, therefore, the rate at which we are able to continue developing the game is heavily dependent upon community involvement. The greater the extent of the support, the sooner you will be able to see new things on the development board and eventually, in game.


Best regards,

Blackrose Arts

Our Facebook and Twitter

This is a part of Indiegogo update which we are posting here for our Steam community to make sure you don't miss it. You can read full update in the updates section Indiegogo Campaign

Initially, we were going to launch the Beta using a separate game client, however, we have decided to launch the Beta on Steam so it is more accessible for you all.

You will not need to load any other clients with the release and go through additional verification this way.

To access the Beta you will need a Steam key only. It can be activated in the corresponding Steam window.

When launching the game this time, you may be presented with an information window, so please don't let download estimate times confuse you. With the release Steam will update VALHALL in your library and download all the game files.

We are sending out new keys 1 time every day. If you are Beta Tester and don't receive your key then please let us know directly through the Indiegogo page and we will help you.




Also, we would like to remind you that bonuses for the vikings who backed VALHALL before the Beta Test launch are



Please find a link to the form in the previous updates if you are Early backer make a choice to be eligible to receive your reward if you haven’t already done so.

At this stage we are sending Steam Beta keys only. Early backers additional keys will be sent with Steam Early Access keys at the end of the Beta.

Here are some images to show you the level of detail in these products.







In addition, we want to express our deepest gratitudes to everyone who took part in our polls. Your suggestions have helped us improve and develop the game in a direction which we are proud to work.

Special thanks to the following warriors who proposed the most interesting, useful and cool ideas, some of which have already been taken into consideration and are in development.

pn***ro, li***nkakan_92, am***88g, ab***aboy, de***opmentfabian, mi***flash20, tr***10.nguyen, le***rojlopez41, jo***ornonville, amongst others.

These are the names of the emails used to respond to the polls, and as such sections have been omitted.


We would also like to note that the previously published schedule for servers working during the Beta testing period is only initial. As the number of testers increases, an amount of playable days will increase, as well as times.

Our goal is to transfer servers to 24/7 mode as early as possible, but it’s equally important for us to ensure you get comfortable matchmaking during the Beta stage, so you can experience our game in its entirety.

The restrictions on times, while they may cause some irritation due to time zones, etc, we hope will consolidate our playerbase to provide more full, and enjoyable matches. As our active playerbase increases, so will server availability.


Best wishes!

Blackrose Arts

Our Facebook and Twitter