It's been over 4 years since we planned the infamous GUI update. If all goes well, next week the game will get the last big GUI update for 1.0. While the state of the GUI is not close to our crazy plans we recently had for the GUI, it's above what we initially planned 4 years ago. The update you will see next week includes: A visual update to over 100 game GUIs New high resolution icons for all game items (visible both in GUI and in the world) New GUI sounds for most interactions
Playtesting kovarex We have been playtesting a few days this week. There were some things we had to fix on the fly, but we still were able to play quite a lot, so I would say that it went surprisingly well. We have been able to get 3 multiplayer bases into a late game stage.
The release (kovarex) So we finally released the 0.17 experimental this week. (patch notes) Hooray :) Fun fact: The release script failed to post the release announcement on Steam and Reddit and we were wondering why. The reason is that the patch notes were so big, that it exceeded the maximum post size (40k characters). If this isn't the indication that we should split our releases into smaller chunks, than nothing is :). Code wise, it is clearly the biggest release, and the amount of bugs we have to go through correlates with it. In other words, there are tons of bugs of all variety. We want to fix everything eventually, but it will take time, so we had to prioritize this week to aim for the most generally playable version before the first weekend after release. That means mainly unloadable saves, unavoidable crashes, game failing on startup, and the most frequently occurring problems. Our automatic bug reporting system is helping us a lot with the last one. It is uncommon, but sometimes the automatically uploaded crash report doesn't have enough information for us to be able to fix the bug right away, but the number of times we see a crash happening is still extremely useful for prioritizing. When we see a crash on the forum, we can cross reference it to our automatic reports, and if is one of our 'top-hits', we know to investigate it right away. The most prominent crash related to loading specific kind of save happened with pipe ghosts happened more than 200 times. It was fixed (obviously), but lets wait and see what our top hit of 0.17.4 will be after the weekend. Overall this means, that bugs that are not critical, require design discussions or are not that simple to fix are not being dealt with right now. Also, we got quite a surprising cake gift today. It is extremely delicious and we are extremely thankful for it :).
Let me show you around. That's our lab table and this is our work-stool. And over there is our interplanetary space-platform! And here's where we keep assorted lengths of wire. Whoa! A real live space-platform! We designed it ourselves. Let us show you some of the different lengths of wire we used.
The boring phase of bug-fixing is still going, slowly but surely. Stable should be released next week, but with some people on vacation (Ben, Jitka, kovarex, Klonan, Sanqui) and with the release of WoW Classic, it might get slowed down a bit. (By the way, some of us will be playing on Pyrewood Village, Alliance, so if you want to have the chance of meeting Twinsen, kovarex or dominik while leveling, you can join that server). So since there's not much happening, this week we decided to explore some unpopular or controversial opinions about the game from within the team. In Wube we don't have a very strict management structure, everyone is free to have ideas and opinions about almost all aspects of the game. This means that with almost every change we argue and discuss a lot before making a final decision. Sometimes we argue about everything, from the smallest GUI change, to how a major feature should work. This is probably not a bad thing since this means changes are usually well thought out and unpopular ideas or changes don't make it to the game very often. Some people feel quite strongly about their opinions or sometimes the team is very divided on what should we do. Today we'll share some of those opinions and controversies. Keep in mind that these are simply opinions and none of them will actually make it into the game, we are simply sharing them to have an interesting discussion.
Hello there, I know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting some solid information on the new planets, if so this blog is for you. Get comfy because it's a long one. As you already know, there are 4 new planets in the expansion. We will take an in-depth look at each planet's terrain, challenges, processes, technologies, and new gear, but not all at once. In some cases the planet content will be split into multiple parts. To kick things off I'll cover the terrain and natural aspects of the planet that is closest to being finished. I'll need to be in games master mode for this:
Hello, Today we are going to talk a little bit about a big feature in the expansion, Quality!
1.1 is getting close kovarex I have been tracking the amount of tasks and forum bugs required to finish 1.1 since the 1.0 release. This allowed me to get quantifiable feedback whether we are actually keeping the timeframe of the 1.1 release reasonable, or digging too deep and expanding the scope too much. If we extrapolate the graph, the 1.1 experimental should be ready next week.
Hello, It is time. STOMPY TIME! If you don't want spoilers on enemies and want to discover them naturally then you might want to skip this one. Let's continue the story from FFF-413. A trumpeting scream quietens all the small animals. You hear the breaking of waves followed by stomping: earth-shaking steps that are getting louder and louder. Looking in the direction of the sound, you see a cliff rising to a tall hill. The fungus at the top shakes a little with each stomp, but the source is somewhere further behind the hill. You ready your weapons, but the sound stops getting louder and instead moves to the right, then gradually fades into the distance. Whatever it was, it was big. After climbing the hill to investigate, you see a valley on the other side. Some large translucent green eggs float on a raft of slimy foam in a pool of shallow water. You get closer. The eggs are soft like jelly, the portion above water sagging under their own weight. In the centre is a dark blurry mass of... tangled limbs and eyes. This video has sound. Also available on YouTube in 4k. Suddenly the egg erupts and a clawed limb swipes at your face. A strange creature wriggles around in the water trying to claw at you, and through the splashing you make out 5 limbs like a starfish. A bulging head-like structure has many eyes on one side and a sponge-like material on the other. On the sides of its head are crests of transparent blisters that are inflating with air to form something like a paddle or wing. It drags itself around like some sort of ravenous tentacled baby. With the occasional lurching movement it launches itself at you, trying to grapple you with its limbs and bite you with its underside. The claws glance off your energy shield with minimal damage. Your personal laser defence springs into action and in a flash of light the newborn is cut to shreds. The laser then switches targets to the egg raft. A few moments later all the eggs burst into a horrifying swarm of angry thrashing creatures. The sea of flailing limbs and odd movement makes it difficult to target individuals. You bravely retreat back to the cliff and equip the flamethrower to protect yourself with a wall of fire. The undaunted wriggling creatures run straight into the fire and die soon after. Another trumpeting scream pierces the sky but this time it doesn't sound distant at all. A slender towering creature stares straight at you with its large bulging eyes. It strafes sideways circling you, gracefully stepping over cliffs and tree-like fungi with its 5 thin legs. It launches something from its head, a projectile high into the air and arcing toward you. You start retreating, but 4 wings spring from the sides of the projectile and it steers towards you like a homing missile. The flying creature rams into you, grappling you with its clawed limbs and slowing your movement. You throw it down to the ground and it becomes indistinguishable from the Wriggler you dispatched earlier. Your laser defences make short work of it, but without warning, you're struck by another projectile creature from the other side. Another Strafer has arrived and is also bombarding you. Both Strafers are staying out of range of your automated laser. You dash towards one of the Strafers with your submachine gun in hand, but as you do the Strafer to your front retreats and the other advances. They seem intent on keeping you at range, constantly circling while flinging homing projectiles. No matter, you have another weapon up your sleeve. You dash forwards again, this time with a rocket launcher in hand. A rocket snakes its way through the air and blasts its way into the first Strafer. The creature shrieks and attempts to retreat, but another rocket is already on its way. The second rocket strikes unerringly and a moment later, the Strafer is blown apart leaving a cloud of pieces to rain down on the swamp below. Stomp stomp stomp. The stomping has returned. A colossal spiked shell rises into view from behind a hill. It strides effortlessly over a cliff with its 5 huge armour-plated legs. This creature is clearly related to the others, but it is far heavier with a wide stance and thick legs. The central body or head region is like a shielding shell with small eyes peering through narrow holes. You fire some rockets at the Stomper and they do some damage, but nowhere near enough to take it down. You have very few rockets left and they won't be enough to kill the Stomper so it's better to save them for the other Strafer (which is difficult to catch otherwise). The Stomper charges towards you. Even with your exoskeleton equipment the Stomper can outrun you. You stand your ground with the submachine gun but you can't dodge effectively while you fire. As it gets close the tremors stress your shield, and thrown debris from its stomps pummel the shields further. The creature lands a foot directly on you and your shields falter. That hurt. This isn't working. You start moving again, not to outrun it but to outmanoeuvre it. It may be faster than you in a straight line, but it can't change directions as quickly. The other Strafer is still alive and flinging new enemies at you from a distance. By switching between dodging movement and bursts of SMG fire, you're able to evade most of the Stomper's damage and keep the number of Wrigglers low enough to not get overwhelmed. You wait for an opening when you're not being stomped on, swarmed, and the Strafer is in view. Away go the last 2 rockets and... success. The last Strafer falls dead. Now it's just you and the Stomper. A duel to the death. While continuing to dodge its feet, you make your way to a larger area of land to make your last stand. No more rockets. Gun ammo is low. Time for the flamethrower to shine. As you circle each other, you douse the arena in flames. The dance continues in flames until one of you falls. More fire, more spinning, more fire! The world becomes a hazy blur of flames, smoke, and death.
