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Thread: Monthly Development Update - Oct 1st 2012

  1. #1

    Funcom employee Monthly Development Update - Oct 1st 2012

    Monthly Development Update - Oct 1st 2012


    Announcements

    Hey guys,

    Everyone on the dev team is hard at work on some combination of New Player Experience / Engine Upgrade / Server merge, so I’m going to be taking over the monthly letters.

    There has been a lot of questions about the creative leadership on AO moving forward. Genele, whom most of you know from the forums, is the creative/design leader on AO and has been doing this job behind the scenes for some time. We had been planning on making the “official” switch at the end of the year, before Fia was originally scheduled to go back to Sweden. Genele's major focus right now is the New Player Experience, and getting it ready for prime-time. You might know her as the developer who has been working for on profession balance, or the "Dark Ruins" developer. But she has also been involved in everything from the seasonal content, to making sure the new instanced cities look awesome for the server merge, to leading the charge on the new market system.

    Also, I want to give acknowledgement to Vhab who will be stepping up to be involved with ARK, the professionals, and forum moderation in general. So, keep in mind the more you troll the less he codes!

    In addition, we're going to be trying something new. I'm going to start releasing more work-in-progress or "tech test" style materials to the community, and see how that goes. If the reaction is favourable from the community and if we have indications this sort of thing is appreciated, we'll do more of this in the future.


    AO on Steam

    We're making preparations to get AO on steam. Image below is a screenshot from AO working in a Steam client.




    The Funcom tech team has done a lot of great work fulfilling the technical obligations on our end. We're currently getting help from our steam contacts to chase down a render bug where the game crashes when you bring up the steam overlay. But, expect to see AO on steam as soon as we can get this ironed out, and obviously depending on the internal schedules of the guys over at Valve who are working with us.


    Engine Upgrade

    Engine Upgrade is progressing along a couple of fronts. Just to summarize a number of posts I've made on the subject, there's a lot of aspects to the upgrade including integrating the actual Dreamworld code and adapting it to AO, upgrading our playfields and assets to use the new Dreamworld features, new animations and character models, and integration of the whole thing into our existing art/tech pipelines and then our build system. You can read up on some of the details here, here, here, and here

    As I said in my Sept 1st update we're working towards some internal milestones, but we're still on track for a public beta early next year. Early next week we christen a new alpha client that is playable from inside the Funcom network, against our internal servers. So in the next update, I'll have some screenshots from that.

    Since we are redoing the character rigging, models, and animations for the new engine (and these have to all work in the existing engine) one of the really neat things we are doing is adding attractor points to the character models. This means we can attach meshes to the characters, so we can have sci-fi body armor, metal plates, spikes, and whatever our artists can dream up Adamse is a big "horror" genre guy, so he's pretty excited to make some shade-themed meshes for the new engine.

    Screenshot is from the existing engine, and the meshes we used are just test meshes to make sure it all works. And with a "little" help from Macrosun, it does!





    New Subscription Deal

    We also have some great new deal running. As many of you are aware, we're releasing some anticipated items for the item shop after 18.5.2, including a breed change and a side change.

    I posted a graphic with a complete breakdown of the offers, and what you get, here

    So if you notice on the deal, we're offering a lot more FC points than usual! For most subscription lengths, it's double or more. This is to give our loyal subscribers the opportunity to pick up these new items in the store.


    New Player Experience

    I mentioned in the announcements that Genele is taking over the New Player Experience. We're aiming to launch it roughly at the same time as the engine upgrade, which goes public beta early next year. The assets in the NPE were made for the new engine, so it will be a good showcase in terms of what we are able to do on the art side to bring the features of Dreamworld to life.


    Server Migration

    There has been a lot of conversation about this on the forums, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much

    Vhab wrote a good technical post about it here. I talked about what will happen with account slots here. Some discussion on vouchers and deleted org leaders here. Also, and we are looking at going away from the blob structure for inventories. I think that's a good summary of where we are at!


    Oh, which reminds me:

    If you are in an org whose leader is a deleted character, you should contact Customer Service to get this resolved before the server migration! And make sure there is an actual leader so we have someone to give a voucher!

    You can contact CS by creating a ticket on the web, use live chat to talk to a representative live, or petition in game.

    The artists and designers have spent a lot of time improving the instanced cities, so basically the goal with the vouchers is give orgs a choice as to what kind of city they now want, what size should it be, and how they want it to generally look. This is why we didn't just go ahead and do something automatically. There are a lot of meaningful choices, and it's only fair to give players the opportunity to have a do-over when it comes to building their city.


    Next Patch, 18.5.2

    18.5.2 is scheduled to be released this week. There's a lot of good stuff in there, and if you want to get a sneak peak you can look at the test live patch notes

    One of the highlights is that it contains all the seasonal content for the rest of the year. This is because our patch and testing cycle for the foreseeable future will be focused on the engine, NPE and server merge. Doesn't mean we can't do other things, but it means those other things won't be driving the "when should we patch" question. For example, the next patch will likely be just server merge staging code. Not having to interrupt our work to do seasonal patches means we can be entirely focused on our current priorities


    In Closing

    Some exciting times ahead! I'm going to start doing letters the first Monday of each month, which will be a wrap-up of the previous month with an eye towards the future. So the next one will be November 5th. Many of us on the dev team are very active on the forums, so instead of repeating information if it's covered elsewhere in a post, I'll just link to it. That way, you can read an update and get mostly new information.


    Cheers,
    Ilaliya
    Last edited by Ilaliya; Oct 1st, 2012 at 18:38:08.

  2. #2
    first


    EDIT:
    i noticed you have neither confirmed nor denied the coming of the more... controversial items you were planning on releasing into the itemshop later this week. comments?

  3. #3

    Funcom employee

    not first!

  4. #4
    3rd again..
    SOON™coming back...
    Neosh 220/20 Shade | Neokirurg 220/21 Doc crit setup | Neoc 216/18 Crat
    Shades are really invisible (from FC point of view)
    Patterns/symbs SALE ----- Refined imps SALE

  5. #5
    Reserved for future whining.

    Edit: Actually it was fairly positive given the circumstances. :P
    Last edited by Scottik; Oct 1st, 2012 at 19:42:35.

  6. #6
    Page
    220 crat ~Frocratarox~
    130 doc ~Mrfunny~
    150 engi ~Miniwheats~
    220 Shade ~Tsume~
    60 NT ~Nomorenano~
    220 fixer ~Barlock~
    Spirit Guide You

  7. #7

    Funcom employee

    not last....

  8. #8
    what is this multi-media rich wizardry?!
    Last edited by nubbs; Oct 1st, 2012 at 18:47:46. Reason: spelling
    Tir Muffin Co-op : Free muffin lovin' for all teh clanners

  9. #9

    Funcom employee

    Awesome update Ilaliya!
    Former Game Director of Anarchy Online.

  10. #10
    Somewhere in the middle...

    Looks like it will be awesome... proper body armour and stuffs!

    I take it the system stuff is just ticking along for now?
    "Do not try and catch the hamster... that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth... There is no hamster, only a deadbeat rollerat..."

    [Social] Means: I don't think we removed any bosses because of bad pathing...there wouldnt be any left if we did :P

    AO Character Skill Emulator and Character Parser and AO Implant Layout Helper

  11. #11
    Looks good
    R.I.P Mafia1337. You were to young to be knocking on Heavens door.

    Zolic
    Infizicator
    WillItSmash

  12. #12
    Awesome update.

    Congrats Vhab! *hugs* I'm sure someone with your experience can handle that task rather well.
    ::: My Tools & Stuff :::
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  13. #13
    Oh 'ello there!
    One profession to RoO them all, one profession to proc stun them, one profession to calm them all and in the darkness Exp perk them!

    Crataiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution - 3rd AI 30 'Crat on RK 1 Setup
    Calms 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution
    Medicaiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution Setup
    Newen 220/30/70 President - The Galactic Milieu
    Mettagirl 220/20/** General - Primal Evolution
    Krataiken 150/18/40 General - Primal Evolution Setup

  14. #14

    Funcom employee

    Quote Originally Posted by Ilaliya View Post
    Also, I want to give acknowledgement to Vhab who will be stepping up to be involved with ARK, the professionals, and forum moderation in general. So, keep in mind the more you troll the less he codes!
    Kintaii left some very big shoes to fill.
    I'll be doing my best to fill the void.

    Bear with me while I get my bearings first

    Quote Originally Posted by Demoder View Post
    Awesome update.

    Congrats Vhab! *hugs* I'm sure someone with your experience can handle that task rather well.
    mmmm free hugs
    Thank you.
    My posts are my own and do not reflect the views of my current nor former employers/clients

    Remco "Vhab" van Oosterhout
    Former Anarchy Online Game Programmer


    Live Chat Support | E-mail Support | Forum Rules | AODevs | Vha.Chat

  15. #15
    This is by far the nicest monthly letter I've ever read. Ao on steam means new blood to the servers!
    Breed change item means my agent is going atrox
    Side change means the fellows i used to kill people with today will become the targets of tomorrow
    Also like the movement improvements you guy are working on.
    One thing i'd like to ask and have never seen, regarding the new engine. Some screenshots from what's being done to the shadowlands? AO is not just RK ;-S
    Contra
    Urynt
    Malraux
    Fontane
    Critbull
    Cleanex
    Fontane2

  16. #16
    wow
    Shade lover (trox all the way :P)

  17. #17
    Nice monthly letter, giving a little hope after the gloomy times stacked over years of waiting ... still, i appreciate the honesty and the precision of the ETA of each part of the to-do list.

    The STEAM compatibility is, for sure, a great direction to promote & bring new blood in AO. Server fusion/migration is another very good investment for the future.

    Various explanations given on Engine show it's going the good way (still too slow, but anyways). And the concept of separating Creation and Communication roles is a reasonnable choice.

    So, let's hope 2013 will be the year of kept promises. Until there, we're around to help you test.

    PS : why you read my wall of text ? go back to work
    Bitnykk/Bittorrent - young RL of AP & old emissary of CODE

  18. #18
    Posting!

    Are you still going to bring some updates on GMI and such? AO on steam, now now now... So are you going to sell any stuff there? And can I buy that stuff directly? ;D


    Oh and steam-cloud for stuff like backpack names possible? Also will the update process use the traditional patch-tool or Steams?
    Last edited by Ekarona; Oct 1st, 2012 at 19:45:44.
    Ekarona 220/30 Female Solitus Engineer, long term member of Northern Star and proper "poor" gimp.
    Ekaslave 220/low Female Solitus Trader, FLAT(TM) pricing TS, almost all can do!
    Ekaros almost there/almost there too Male Solitus Martial-Artist.
    Ekadv gimp/gimp Female Opifex Adventurer

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Vhab View Post
    Kintaii left some very big shoes to fill.
    I'll be doing my best to fill the void.

    Bear with me while I get my bearings first



    mmmm free hugs
    Thank you.
    Just /mute the entire forum, then you can find time to work

    220s "Wakizaka", "Sneakygank", "Wakimango", "Wakisolja", "Tardersauce", "Bushwaki", "Midgetgank", "Bugfixxx", "Ramsbottom", "Paskadoc"
    200s Chrisd, Malema, Delbaeth
    TL5s Youfail, Bugfixx, Riothamus, Johndee

    Proud President of Haven | TL5 PvP


  20. #20
    So really sounds like no freebie breed change will be given as has been indicated it would in the past.
    Gaveup 220/30/80 Smg

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