Two days into beta phase 3, and now we have this one. It's a fairly good-sized one, though I would have liked to have been able to pack in more spells and such. But we did manage to get one new spell in here, along with a raft of other improvements.
Missions Changes
Rescue NPC missions, for instance, are like night and day from what they were before. You guys complained about various aspects of them, and we've answered with vigor. I think you'll like what you see, but if there are some things that still feel off, feel free to let us know. I, for one, am having way even fun with them now.
Another big shift in missions is to the battlefield missions. In the prior version those weren't working properly in co-op, which was one problem, but there were also a number of smaller glitches with them that made your ally minions just not quite perform as well as one would hope. Battlefield missions have obviously already gone through a good amount of public beta testing, so hopefully this cleans up most of the rest of what was off about them.
Enchants Changes
Our core concept of enchant-items and enchant-effects is unchanged -- it was working really well, and players really liked how it was working from what we could tell. However, the method of aquiring said enchant-items, and the general progression of how you'd find more powerful items of those sorts, left an enormous amount to be desired. Once again, the results from last version to this one are a night and day difference.
The bottom line with enchants is that they should just "feel right" as you get them. And the percentage indicator of when you will get the next one now never lies. You'll get new enchants at a slightly faster rate than before, but there will also be a lot more of them that are only subtly different -- as in most games with procedural loot. You'll thus have the fun task of sorting out those that best match your playstyle, and discarding the rest.
One note: the enchants in your inventory used to affect the likelihood of what new enchants you would find. That was just plain weird (my idea, sorry), and is gone now. So if you don't like an enchant you've been given, feel free to drop it down a long hole in a dark cave without worrying you'll just be handed that same thing right back. Now that you're getting more options when it comes to enchants, you can really customize yourself to an even better degree -- which is, at core, the whole point.
Also now included is a rarity system. You'll find uncommons and rares for enchants, like in a lot of other games of this nature, and that adds some extra flair. The details of all this are in the release notes, since there was a lot of discussion of these mechanics, but frankly those are details that the average player never needs to know; it won't affect your decision making in how you play the game. It simply is a more specific way of explaining how we made the progression of enchants-gathering "feel better" than in the prior release, and it's an opportunity for the critics of the old system to have some commentary on the new system if they so desire.
Combat And Platforming Difficulty Split
The lava escape missions were a really divisive mission that we added lately. And actually, so were some of the falling damage bits. Is this game a platformer, or not? How much skill at platforming is supposed to be required?
In the past, we've always said that this is first and foremost an adventure game, but that hardcore platforming bits would be added in as optional things because to some of us (myself most of all) they are just plain fun. But the falling damage mechanics as of two versions ago, as well as the lava escape missions in general, seemed to violate a few of those rules.
There were players who staunchly defended the mechanics as implemented, or even wanted yet more hardcore versions than what we'd put on offer; but then there were others that were decrying that they hated these mechanics with the fury of a thousand suns.
To me, this sort of divide can only mean one thing: more options are needed. This is a game engine that clearly supports both modes of play, and a lot of gradations in between, and so we might as well let everyone have the experience that they really want, right?
So now instead of having a single "action difficulty" that describes everything, we now have "combat difficulty" and "platforming difficulty." The former controls the strength of enemies and a lot of other things like that. The latter controls things like falling damage and rates of lava rise. So you can now tune your experience to be as brutal or as easy in either of those two spectrums as you like, independently of one another, and thus the factional divide in the playerbase is repaired.
It was an easy repair, see, because our playerbase was so polite and well-reasoned in their discussion of the whole issue in the first place. That's what I love about our forums -- the lack of vindictiveness, name-calling, and over-the-top rhetoric. Long-term forumites know what I'm talking about. This let us get right to the heart of the issue, put in something that will hopefully please everyone who was part of the original argument, and move on with more interesting things. This is why I sincerely love working with our community.
And lastly, of course, there were a few other tweaks and bugfixes, as always. More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the
in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you
launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found
if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
A Valley Without Wind Embarks On Final Beta Phase
Arcen Games is pleased to announce the downloadable PC/Mac title A Valley Without Wind -- our fast-paced, open world sidescroller of nearly limitless proportions -- has entered its final beta phase, with an official launch now in sight. To celebrate, a brand new trailer for the game has been released (best viewed in 1080p), along with 18 new screenshots and updated demos as well.
With the game's community heavily involved in the beta so far, the game has seen an astronomical number of changes and improvements added by our relentless programmers. Thankfully after a whirlwind of patching, the game's dust has settled, and we welcome everyone to take a look around at what the world of Environ has evolved into.
The mechanics have been streamlined, a fully fleshed-out player experience is now in place, and tons of new content has been packed in -- including a variety of new missions, spells, armor enchants, guardian powers, and more. Multiplayer has also come a long way, and players are having a blast running their own beta servers. There are a few multiplayer remaining bugs to iron out prior to 1.0, plus the need for a server browser, but it's already a satisfying experience.
Beyond all that, the game has become much more accessible to new players. A planning menu complete with handy 'supplies', 'things to do', and 'where to find stuff' sections; opt out popup tooltips; and other improvements to usability and clarity result in a newfound flow to the title. Players who are returning after a long absence are heartily encouraged to play through the game's intro mission, given how much has changed. If you'd like to know more before you play, or just have a fetish for external manuals, check out our Learning The Game section on the A Valley Without Wind Wiki.
There's still so much to come for AVWW, both prior to 1.0 and after! Our head designer Chris Park states his vision for the game going forward on his devblog:
"Our plan is to take the AI War route, and release tons of free DLC as well to do at least a couple of paid expansions. Hopefully in 2-3 years, we're still developing both AI War and AVWW -- that is the ideal scenario for me personally.”
About A Valley Without Wind
The full beta version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC and Mac for pre-order at a substantial discount from the game's official launch price. Customers gain instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases through 1.0 and beyond. The game can be purchased and downloaded directly through the developer as well as on GamersGate, Impulse, and MacGamesStore. A demo is also available, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only some tier restrictions.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is constantly in development. It continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in late March. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. To get more involved with how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects, or to find populated multiplayer servers, be sure to stop by our forums.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
With the game's community heavily involved in the beta so far, the game has seen an astronomical number of changes and improvements added by our relentless programmers. Thankfully after a whirlwind of patching, the game's dust has settled, and we welcome everyone to take a look around at what the world of Environ has evolved into.
The mechanics have been streamlined, a fully fleshed-out player experience is now in place, and tons of new content has been packed in -- including a variety of new missions, spells, armor enchants, guardian powers, and more. Multiplayer has also come a long way, and players are having a blast running their own beta servers. There are a few multiplayer remaining bugs to iron out prior to 1.0, plus the need for a server browser, but it's already a satisfying experience.
Beyond all that, the game has become much more accessible to new players. A planning menu complete with handy 'supplies', 'things to do', and 'where to find stuff' sections; opt out popup tooltips; and other improvements to usability and clarity result in a newfound flow to the title. Players who are returning after a long absence are heartily encouraged to play through the game's intro mission, given how much has changed. If you'd like to know more before you play, or just have a fetish for external manuals, check out our Learning The Game section on the A Valley Without Wind Wiki.
There's still so much to come for AVWW, both prior to 1.0 and after! Our head designer Chris Park states his vision for the game going forward on his devblog:
"Our plan is to take the AI War route, and release tons of free DLC as well to do at least a couple of paid expansions. Hopefully in 2-3 years, we're still developing both AI War and AVWW -- that is the ideal scenario for me personally.”
About A Valley Without Wind
The full beta version of A Valley Without Wind is available now on PC and Mac for pre-order at a substantial discount from the game's official launch price. Customers gain instant access to the latest available build and all subsequent releases through 1.0 and beyond. The game can be purchased and downloaded directly through the developer as well as on GamersGate, Impulse, and MacGamesStore. A demo is also available, and grants full access to the game/multiplayer with the only some tier restrictions.
AVWW is currently in beta and as such is constantly in development. It continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday as it progresses toward official launch in late March. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. To get more involved with how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects, or to find populated multiplayer servers, be sure to stop by our forums.
About Arcen Games
Arcen Games entered the PC indie scene in 2009 with their cult classic AI War: Fleet Command, which was named the 40th best-reviewed PC game of the year by MetaCritic. Their second year was a busy one, seeing the release of The Zenith Remnant, the first full expansion for AI War; Tidalis, an innovative block-based puzzle with casual appeal and hardcore depth; and Children of Neinzul, a micro-expansion for AI War with all profits benefiting the Child's Play charity, of which Arcen is a platinum sponsor.
AI War's third and largest expansion Light of the Spire marked Arcen's first release of 2011, and now the company has shifted its focus and excitement to the development of A Valley Without Wind. Originally a one-man shop, Arcen Games has grown to have half a dozen part-time or fulltime contributors to its various titles. For all the latest news, media coverage, and some of our other musings, follow us on our developer and individual game pages on Facebook or on Twitter: @ArcenGames.
AVWW Beta 0.900 "Smooth As Butter " (Patch Only, So Far) Released!
At last we come to it. This one is the very last release of beta phase 2, and marks the start of beta phase 3 for the game. This version includes only some bugfixes and balance tweaks, as well as a change that really will help performance during battles quite a bit (stopping stuttering from background loading that was supposed to be pre-cached).
To reiterate from the last release's post, here's what our focus is going to shift toward for the next 3ish weeks until we hit 1.0 for the game:
- Enchant containers working better.
- Add hand-crafted touches into procedural exteriors and undergrounds.
- Walking monster interactions with cliffs to be better.
- Integration of mysteries-to-be-solved into the game (replacing what were memory crystals once).
- Multiplayer server listing and admin controls.
- More enchant-items and enchant-effects.
- More spells.
- More enemies, bosses, and environmental threats.
- More guardian powers, including ones for NPC skill level 4 and 5.
- More mission activities.
- A few more traps and other supplies to find in stash rooms.
More to come soon, including updated installers and more. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
To reiterate from the last release's post, here's what our focus is going to shift toward for the next 3ish weeks until we hit 1.0 for the game:
- Enchant containers working better.
- Add hand-crafted touches into procedural exteriors and undergrounds.
- Walking monster interactions with cliffs to be better.
- Integration of mysteries-to-be-solved into the game (replacing what were memory crystals once).
- Multiplayer server listing and admin controls.
- More enchant-items and enchant-effects.
- More spells.
- More enemies, bosses, and environmental threats.
- More guardian powers, including ones for NPC skill level 4 and 5.
- More mission activities.
- A few more traps and other supplies to find in stash rooms.
More to come soon, including updated installers and more. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.586 "Sheer Cliffs" Released!
This one is the second and final release of today, and it might be the final release for beta phase 2. All of the features and fixes that we had wanted to get in place before moving into beta phase 3 are now in place and ready to go... but the catch is that some of these have not been tested as extensively as we would like, just yet.
In the interest of not handing a build with a bunch of regressions in it to the press and a wider audience of players, we're going to give this one another 12 hours or so in the hands of our core playerbase before we do a press push. I still haven't had time to build the installers and finish getting the website updates from Josh and Erik propagated anyhow, and it's late and I'm exhausted, so pushing this out a few more hours works for me.
But this is basically beta phase 3, aside from any bugs you might find! Assuming this release turns out to be as clean as we hope, here's what our focus is going to shift toward for the next 3ish weeks until we hit 1.0 for the game:
- Enchant containers working better.
- Add hand-crafted touches into procedural exteriors and undergrounds.
- Walking monster interactions with cliffs to be better.
- Integration of mysteries-to-be-solved into the game (replacing what were memory crystals once).
- Multiplayer server listing and admin controls.
- More enchant-items and enchant-effects.
- More spells.
- More enemies, bosses, and environmental threats.
- More guardian powers, including ones for NPC skill level 4 and 5.
- More mission activities.
- A few more traps and other supplies to find in stash rooms.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
In the interest of not handing a build with a bunch of regressions in it to the press and a wider audience of players, we're going to give this one another 12 hours or so in the hands of our core playerbase before we do a press push. I still haven't had time to build the installers and finish getting the website updates from Josh and Erik propagated anyhow, and it's late and I'm exhausted, so pushing this out a few more hours works for me.
But this is basically beta phase 3, aside from any bugs you might find! Assuming this release turns out to be as clean as we hope, here's what our focus is going to shift toward for the next 3ish weeks until we hit 1.0 for the game:
- Enchant containers working better.
- Add hand-crafted touches into procedural exteriors and undergrounds.
- Walking monster interactions with cliffs to be better.
- Integration of mysteries-to-be-solved into the game (replacing what were memory crystals once).
- Multiplayer server listing and admin controls.
- More enchant-items and enchant-effects.
- More spells.
- More enemies, bosses, and environmental threats.
- More guardian powers, including ones for NPC skill level 4 and 5.
- More mission activities.
- A few more traps and other supplies to find in stash rooms.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
AVWW Beta 0.585 "Go With The Flow" Released!
This one is a relatively small release, but it fixes a few bugs and it greatly eases the game flow for when new players encounter the world map for the first time (after the intro mission). There are still a few last things we are working on in terms of both that early game flow and things that the planning menu tells you, but other than that -- barring any more bugs people find -- we're headed for beta phase 3 tonight!
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
AVWW Beta 0.584 "Supply Train Map " Released!
This one has a lot fewer bugfixes than the last few days, which is a great sign that we're really nearing beta phase 3 -- in fact, we hope for the next release, to come out tomorrow, to be the last release from beta phase 2.
This release is mostly focused on polish, clarity, and the planning menu. The minimap has gotten a minor visual upgrade, there are some tweaks to the intro mission, and there are a number of opt-out messages that pop up to explain new game mechanics as those mechanics arrive. More of that sort of thing coming tomorrow; my wife got a lot of those written, and I just haven't had time to actually code them into the game today.
The planning menu itself is also really coming along, although there's still more to do in terms of having it make good recommendations about things to do given your current situation. But 98% or more of the encyclopedia-type content is now in place, and the same is true of the "where to find stuff" section. The "things to do" section currently only has recommendations about
A hugely important addition to the planning menu has been the cataloging of "supplies" like suits, acid gills, wood platforms, and the like. This lets you know the best place to find these sorts of things (some of which, like the acid gills, is just a very low-chance luck of the draw, which isn't much help). But for things like transmogrify-into-bat scrolls, and transfer glyph scrolls, there are places that you can reliably go to get a bunch of those, and I bet most people didn't figure that out (I'd forgotten about it, myself, and I coded it in).
Tomorrow we aim to get a last bit of polish and bugfixing in, to get the last bits of the planning menu and the opt-out popups in, and then it's going to be time to do new installer builds and a major press push starting tomorrow night. Then we're into beta phase 3, and the focus shifts to more enemies, more spells, more missions, and so on -- multiplayer server browser, too! And of course more polish and fixes, but honestly at this point it seems like we're done the lion's share of that in advance (though that's a neverending job).
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
This release is mostly focused on polish, clarity, and the planning menu. The minimap has gotten a minor visual upgrade, there are some tweaks to the intro mission, and there are a number of opt-out messages that pop up to explain new game mechanics as those mechanics arrive. More of that sort of thing coming tomorrow; my wife got a lot of those written, and I just haven't had time to actually code them into the game today.
The planning menu itself is also really coming along, although there's still more to do in terms of having it make good recommendations about things to do given your current situation. But 98% or more of the encyclopedia-type content is now in place, and the same is true of the "where to find stuff" section. The "things to do" section currently only has recommendations about
A hugely important addition to the planning menu has been the cataloging of "supplies" like suits, acid gills, wood platforms, and the like. This lets you know the best place to find these sorts of things (some of which, like the acid gills, is just a very low-chance luck of the draw, which isn't much help). But for things like transmogrify-into-bat scrolls, and transfer glyph scrolls, there are places that you can reliably go to get a bunch of those, and I bet most people didn't figure that out (I'd forgotten about it, myself, and I coded it in).
Tomorrow we aim to get a last bit of polish and bugfixing in, to get the last bits of the planning menu and the opt-out popups in, and then it's going to be time to do new installer builds and a major press push starting tomorrow night. Then we're into beta phase 3, and the focus shifts to more enemies, more spells, more missions, and so on -- multiplayer server browser, too! And of course more polish and fixes, but honestly at this point it seems like we're done the lion's share of that in advance (though that's a neverending job).
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Monday, February 27, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.583 "The Elusive Lumbermancer" Released!
This one is another one focused on usability and clarity. It also fixes a number of bugs, improves the graphics of a few areas, adds a sixth difficulty level, and adds the ability to start on the second continent for expert players.
Professions And Guardian Power Shortages Resolved
One of the big changes in this version is to make the first four settlement structures automatically appear in your first settlement of the game -- that gives you a little bit less to worry about when you're new to the game, or when you're just trying to get your budding civilization off the ground even if you know what you're doing. Settlements beyond the first still start as empty, so we haven't really simplified the game, we've just made a more natural complexity/difficulty progression -- always a good goal.
As part of this shift, we've also made the ability to find NPCs of key professions a lot less random -- some players were having to search for ages and ages for lumbermancers, for instance, because the random number generator was being too unkind to them. We've thus changed things around to keep that aspect of gameplay more streamlined as well, when it comes to NPCs rescued via secret missions (as opposed to guardian powers).
All in all? A lot of even advanced players who were having trouble getting to the point of being able to use guardian powers should now be able to enjoy them (and thus the game) on a new level. And by the time they hit their next continent, they'll be amply prepared for filling up that empty settlement from the start.
More Planning Menu Work, But More To Come
The planning menu is quickly becoming the go-to source for pretty much all of the longer-term direction in the game. It now has been organized into four major categories: status of your continent, things you should do, where to find stuff you want, and an encyclopedia.
Moving a lot of the more detailed (and useful, but overwhelming) references into the encyclopedia really is the best of both worlds. It means that the information is still there in the game when you need it, but most people don't feel inclined to read encyclopedias cover to cover when they first see them; it's generally understood that those are as-needed references by nature, but helps to keep players from getting overwhelmed by that level of detail.
In terms of the Things To Do and Where To Find Stuff sections, those are still just budding and only have a little bit of information in them. My personal largest focus tomorrow is going to be on getting those fleshed out more, and my wife is helping out a lot with making sure that all of the macro game mechanics are being properly explained by well-timed popups when they are introduced.
It's been quite a challenge to figure out the post-intro-mission tutorial-type teaching of the player, but I think what we're settling on is really good: it retains player freedom while at the same time providing guidance, which is what some longtime players of AI War (RCIX comes to mind) always seemed to want more of.
We considered doing something more linear with the missions and such at the start of the game, but ultimately discarded that idea because it makes the player wait too long to "get to the good part," while at the same time sending the wrong message about the amount of freedom in this game (aka, that you have immense amounts of freedom).
Letting players retain that freedom, while giving them very well defined goals that would prevent them from simply wandering around aimlessly, has thus become our focus. My wife and I have been working on building that up based on the framework that Josh has put together over the last week or so, and I think that's coming along well.
Hopefully the bulk of that will be finished tomorrow, so that we can hit our goal of entering beta phase 3 on Tuesday. But if not, we're only a day or two off either way. And meanwhile, Erik and his buddy Kevin have come up with what I can conclusively say is our strongest trailer yet for any of our games. It's really cool, and we'll be unveiling that alongside beta phase 3.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Professions And Guardian Power Shortages Resolved
One of the big changes in this version is to make the first four settlement structures automatically appear in your first settlement of the game -- that gives you a little bit less to worry about when you're new to the game, or when you're just trying to get your budding civilization off the ground even if you know what you're doing. Settlements beyond the first still start as empty, so we haven't really simplified the game, we've just made a more natural complexity/difficulty progression -- always a good goal.
As part of this shift, we've also made the ability to find NPCs of key professions a lot less random -- some players were having to search for ages and ages for lumbermancers, for instance, because the random number generator was being too unkind to them. We've thus changed things around to keep that aspect of gameplay more streamlined as well, when it comes to NPCs rescued via secret missions (as opposed to guardian powers).
All in all? A lot of even advanced players who were having trouble getting to the point of being able to use guardian powers should now be able to enjoy them (and thus the game) on a new level. And by the time they hit their next continent, they'll be amply prepared for filling up that empty settlement from the start.
More Planning Menu Work, But More To Come
The planning menu is quickly becoming the go-to source for pretty much all of the longer-term direction in the game. It now has been organized into four major categories: status of your continent, things you should do, where to find stuff you want, and an encyclopedia.
Moving a lot of the more detailed (and useful, but overwhelming) references into the encyclopedia really is the best of both worlds. It means that the information is still there in the game when you need it, but most people don't feel inclined to read encyclopedias cover to cover when they first see them; it's generally understood that those are as-needed references by nature, but helps to keep players from getting overwhelmed by that level of detail.
In terms of the Things To Do and Where To Find Stuff sections, those are still just budding and only have a little bit of information in them. My personal largest focus tomorrow is going to be on getting those fleshed out more, and my wife is helping out a lot with making sure that all of the macro game mechanics are being properly explained by well-timed popups when they are introduced.
It's been quite a challenge to figure out the post-intro-mission tutorial-type teaching of the player, but I think what we're settling on is really good: it retains player freedom while at the same time providing guidance, which is what some longtime players of AI War (RCIX comes to mind) always seemed to want more of.
We considered doing something more linear with the missions and such at the start of the game, but ultimately discarded that idea because it makes the player wait too long to "get to the good part," while at the same time sending the wrong message about the amount of freedom in this game (aka, that you have immense amounts of freedom).
Letting players retain that freedom, while giving them very well defined goals that would prevent them from simply wandering around aimlessly, has thus become our focus. My wife and I have been working on building that up based on the framework that Josh has put together over the last week or so, and I think that's coming along well.
Hopefully the bulk of that will be finished tomorrow, so that we can hit our goal of entering beta phase 3 on Tuesday. But if not, we're only a day or two off either way. And meanwhile, Erik and his buddy Kevin have come up with what I can conclusively say is our strongest trailer yet for any of our games. It's really cool, and we'll be unveiling that alongside beta phase 3.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.582 "Still Paddling The Old Knew " Released!
This one fixes a variety of bugs and regressions, and in general focuses on polish.
Ocean Travel
However, it also introduces a new guardian power -- create buoy -- and new ocean travel mechanics in general. You no longer get sucked into ocean tiles, but you also can't go into "turbulent" waters. And you now travel the oceans in a canoe, rather than mysteriously walking on water on the world map. Except for deep oceans, of course, which are still traveled by ship.
The world map mechanics for the oceans are now working very well and are probably final for 1.0 -- the kludgy aspects of them have been ironed out, and they now pose barriers that you can overcome via strategically-placed lines of buoys.
The actual ocean exploration itself has had a couple of improvements, but is still very glitchy in a lot of areas. Haven't had time to get to those just yet.
Crafting Screens
The crafting screens no longer have those giant tooltips that are always in your way, and instead require you to click the item in question to see that information. That does add a small extra step, but there's another major benefit: you can now hover over material costs and get the material tooltips right in this popup window, rather than having to back out to the planning window. This sort of cross-referencing is something some of our older crafting screens had, and something that players have been very vocal about wanting.
Terminology Shift For Crafting Materials
Move over "commodities and rare commodities." There are now three categories: building materials, common ingredients, and arcane ingredients. Hopefully this breakdown will be a lot more clear to folks in general, and it also sounds cooler. Thanks to a lot of folks for weighing in on the names of these.
To my recollection, Keith and I never could figure out a good name for "commodities," but felt that was the best of what we'd been tossing around, and then it just kind of stayed ever since. And then I completely forgot about even wanting to change it, and got quite used to the name. But it was definitely due for a change!
Some Tutorial-Type Popups Added
The first time you enter a windstorm region, or whenever your continent tier increases, it pops up some messages now to make sure that you know what's going on. It explains the mechanics a bit, and even talks about things like monster migrations -- concepts that are otherwise not documented anywhere inside the game itself.
For the ones like windstorms, there's a "don't bug me about this again" checkbox. For ones like the continent tier increase, it doesn't provide an opt-out simply because it is otherwise easy for you to miss that the tier has increased even if you know what the increase means.
These popups help with isolated "what the heck is this new thing" moments, but they still don't address the "okay, I'm done with the intro mission, now what?" and "how the heck do I use guardian powers?" issues. We've got plans for those also, but they are more complex, and are something I'll be working on this weekend.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Ocean Travel
However, it also introduces a new guardian power -- create buoy -- and new ocean travel mechanics in general. You no longer get sucked into ocean tiles, but you also can't go into "turbulent" waters. And you now travel the oceans in a canoe, rather than mysteriously walking on water on the world map. Except for deep oceans, of course, which are still traveled by ship.
The world map mechanics for the oceans are now working very well and are probably final for 1.0 -- the kludgy aspects of them have been ironed out, and they now pose barriers that you can overcome via strategically-placed lines of buoys.
The actual ocean exploration itself has had a couple of improvements, but is still very glitchy in a lot of areas. Haven't had time to get to those just yet.
Crafting Screens
The crafting screens no longer have those giant tooltips that are always in your way, and instead require you to click the item in question to see that information. That does add a small extra step, but there's another major benefit: you can now hover over material costs and get the material tooltips right in this popup window, rather than having to back out to the planning window. This sort of cross-referencing is something some of our older crafting screens had, and something that players have been very vocal about wanting.
Terminology Shift For Crafting Materials
Move over "commodities and rare commodities." There are now three categories: building materials, common ingredients, and arcane ingredients. Hopefully this breakdown will be a lot more clear to folks in general, and it also sounds cooler. Thanks to a lot of folks for weighing in on the names of these.
To my recollection, Keith and I never could figure out a good name for "commodities," but felt that was the best of what we'd been tossing around, and then it just kind of stayed ever since. And then I completely forgot about even wanting to change it, and got quite used to the name. But it was definitely due for a change!
Some Tutorial-Type Popups Added
The first time you enter a windstorm region, or whenever your continent tier increases, it pops up some messages now to make sure that you know what's going on. It explains the mechanics a bit, and even talks about things like monster migrations -- concepts that are otherwise not documented anywhere inside the game itself.
For the ones like windstorms, there's a "don't bug me about this again" checkbox. For ones like the continent tier increase, it doesn't provide an opt-out simply because it is otherwise easy for you to miss that the tier has increased even if you know what the increase means.
These popups help with isolated "what the heck is this new thing" moments, but they still don't address the "okay, I'm done with the intro mission, now what?" and "how the heck do I use guardian powers?" issues. We've got plans for those also, but they are more complex, and are something I'll be working on this weekend.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Friday, February 24, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.581 "Oh, Carp!" Released!
This one is primarily a bugfix/balance/polish release, but there's some really good stuff in there in that regard. Among them are some fixes to some unfortunate regressions in the past version (which were due to the scope of the changes of that version).
Also as a part of this version are three new enemy types (carp, blue whales, and black whales), all of which are specific to the oceans and ocean shallows. You'll now no longer see any other forms of monsters in the oceans at the moment, although we'll be adding more ocean life in the future. These guys will make you wish for the amoebas, though, if you can believe it.
Some of the boss fights in the oceans and ocean shallows may actually be un-winnably hard now, I'm not sure. That's something we'll have to tweak some, in particular for the ocean shallows. There are still a number of definitely-broken things about these two region types, such as the surface boss chunks and even how you move between surface chunks, and how secret missions (fail to) spawn in the ocean tiles, etc. Those are things on our very-short-term hit list to deal with.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Also as a part of this version are three new enemy types (carp, blue whales, and black whales), all of which are specific to the oceans and ocean shallows. You'll now no longer see any other forms of monsters in the oceans at the moment, although we'll be adding more ocean life in the future. These guys will make you wish for the amoebas, though, if you can believe it.
Some of the boss fights in the oceans and ocean shallows may actually be un-winnably hard now, I'm not sure. That's something we'll have to tweak some, in particular for the ocean shallows. There are still a number of definitely-broken things about these two region types, such as the surface boss chunks and even how you move between surface chunks, and how secret missions (fail to) spawn in the ocean tiles, etc. Those are things on our very-short-term hit list to deal with.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
AI War Beta 5.027, "SuperTerminal Overload," Released!
This one has a variety of balance tweaks, the most substantial of which is to prevent certain kinds of exploits with super-terminals. Warbird and Beam starships also got a heck of a lot more awesome, and mapgen is no longer quite so unkind with where it is able to put Dyson Sphere planets.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.580 "Volcanic Gangs" Released!
This one is another big one -- three days in the making, it ought to be! Despite the fact that I lost about half of Monday to my motherboard frying. But that's another story.
There are an unusually high number of random tweaks and fixes and balance improvements in this one -- too many to remotely begin to list, really. That's going to be one of the main foci for the next half week or so, as we polish the game up for beta phase 3 (which is going to be about more content and yet more polish).
One big group of changes in this version is interface clarity and usability. There's a lot of specific improvements noted in the release notes, but this is just the first batch of this kind of improvements. Over the next couple of days, we'll be doing even more of that.
There are also a few places where mechanics themselves were streamlined, and advanced functionality was put into enchants (great for advanced players) instead of being a baseline feature that new players would have to grapple with, etc.
New Stuff For Co-Op
There's a new Healing Touch spell that you can use to transfer some of your life energy to an ally, which is helpful in rescue NPC missions as well as in co-op.
There's also a major improvement to co-op in the form of individual spell unlocks per player. So if you want fire stuff and I want earth stuff, we can now specialize without both having to unlock both.
And of course there's a few multiplayer bugfixes, as per typical for recently.
Jumping And Movement Changes
There's a whole bunch of changes relating to the mechanics of jumping and moving around. Powersliding as a base ability is out, for instance (too easy to shoot yourself in the metaphorical foot with that), but there's now an enchant that gives that ability for those players who want it.
The "inherent double jump" that you could previously get by walking off a cliff without jumping, and then "air jumping" after that, is also now gone. That was really handy, and a lot of advanced players made use of it (myself included), but it was a bit counter-intuitive and made certain things too easy.
But as a counter-balance to that change, we added new enchants for not only true double-jump, but also triple-jump abilities. And these can still be used in concert with the ride the lightning spell, meaning that you can effectively get a quadruple jump if that's how you want to customize your character.
Then there's a whole bunch of changes to how the world map movement works (now it's smooth), and how heatsuits function (they're a lot more restricted in terms of what enchant effects they allow you to use, which was always the idea because they're our way of preserving hardcore platforming segments in lava areas).
Underwater Exploration Improvements
There are a few key improvements here, but lots more is coming soon. It's better at the moment, but still not at all what we ultimately want it to be for 1.0 or even for beta phase 3.
Like with the jumping and movement changes, I'm trying to go ahead and get these changes done now so that any bugs that crop up related to them have time to be fixed before we hit beta phase 3 early next week. Last thing we want to be doing is core mechanics changes right before putting the game in front of a wider audience of press and players!
Two New Mission Types
These new mission types are really different in nature. One is basically a mosh pit of bosses that normally you don't see combined together; that's interesting enough on its own, and makes some nice variety instead of boss towers.
The other one is our first hardcore platforming challenge, a lava escape sequence. Lava is rising shockingly fast, and you've got to get to the top and hit the switch before it catches you and fries you. And if it catches you at all, you're pretty much dead right there.
The lava escape breaks a lot of our usual rules for the game (no deaths from twitch mistakes, etc), but that's actually the point of the few missions we'll have along these lines -- we've promised these kinds of optional hardcore platforming challenges from the start, we think they're fun, and you don't lose anything if you don't play them. More details in the release notes if you want more on the rationale there.
More to come soon, mostly in the form of polish, bugfixes, and clarity enhancements for the next couple of days in particular. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
There are an unusually high number of random tweaks and fixes and balance improvements in this one -- too many to remotely begin to list, really. That's going to be one of the main foci for the next half week or so, as we polish the game up for beta phase 3 (which is going to be about more content and yet more polish).
One big group of changes in this version is interface clarity and usability. There's a lot of specific improvements noted in the release notes, but this is just the first batch of this kind of improvements. Over the next couple of days, we'll be doing even more of that.
There are also a few places where mechanics themselves were streamlined, and advanced functionality was put into enchants (great for advanced players) instead of being a baseline feature that new players would have to grapple with, etc.
New Stuff For Co-Op
There's a new Healing Touch spell that you can use to transfer some of your life energy to an ally, which is helpful in rescue NPC missions as well as in co-op.
There's also a major improvement to co-op in the form of individual spell unlocks per player. So if you want fire stuff and I want earth stuff, we can now specialize without both having to unlock both.
And of course there's a few multiplayer bugfixes, as per typical for recently.
Jumping And Movement Changes
There's a whole bunch of changes relating to the mechanics of jumping and moving around. Powersliding as a base ability is out, for instance (too easy to shoot yourself in the metaphorical foot with that), but there's now an enchant that gives that ability for those players who want it.
The "inherent double jump" that you could previously get by walking off a cliff without jumping, and then "air jumping" after that, is also now gone. That was really handy, and a lot of advanced players made use of it (myself included), but it was a bit counter-intuitive and made certain things too easy.
But as a counter-balance to that change, we added new enchants for not only true double-jump, but also triple-jump abilities. And these can still be used in concert with the ride the lightning spell, meaning that you can effectively get a quadruple jump if that's how you want to customize your character.
Then there's a whole bunch of changes to how the world map movement works (now it's smooth), and how heatsuits function (they're a lot more restricted in terms of what enchant effects they allow you to use, which was always the idea because they're our way of preserving hardcore platforming segments in lava areas).
Underwater Exploration Improvements
There are a few key improvements here, but lots more is coming soon. It's better at the moment, but still not at all what we ultimately want it to be for 1.0 or even for beta phase 3.
Like with the jumping and movement changes, I'm trying to go ahead and get these changes done now so that any bugs that crop up related to them have time to be fixed before we hit beta phase 3 early next week. Last thing we want to be doing is core mechanics changes right before putting the game in front of a wider audience of press and players!
Two New Mission Types
These new mission types are really different in nature. One is basically a mosh pit of bosses that normally you don't see combined together; that's interesting enough on its own, and makes some nice variety instead of boss towers.
The other one is our first hardcore platforming challenge, a lava escape sequence. Lava is rising shockingly fast, and you've got to get to the top and hit the switch before it catches you and fries you. And if it catches you at all, you're pretty much dead right there.
The lava escape breaks a lot of our usual rules for the game (no deaths from twitch mistakes, etc), but that's actually the point of the few missions we'll have along these lines -- we've promised these kinds of optional hardcore platforming challenges from the start, we think they're fun, and you don't lose anything if you don't play them. More details in the release notes if you want more on the rationale there.
More to come soon, mostly in the form of polish, bugfixes, and clarity enhancements for the next couple of days in particular. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Daily Deal: AI War Products 66% Off On Steam
Following yesterday's price reductions, a well-timed Daily Deal has appeared on Steam for AI War and the Alien Bundle. Both are 66% off their recently lowered price, so if you're looking for some deep space strategy on the very cheap make sure you make your move before tomorrow at 10 AM PST.
The discounts are as follows:
The discounts are as follows:
- AI War: Alien Bundle -- $5.77
- AI War: Fleet Command (Base Game) -- $3.39
New Low Prices For AI War & Tidalis
Our releases have been significantly reduced in price on Steam, including the (currently) all-inclusive AI War Alien Bundle! From here forward you'll find our products at the following prices:
- AI War Alien Bundle -- $16.99
- AI War Base Game -- $9.99
- AI War: The Zenith Remnant -- $4.99
- AI War: Children of Neinzul -- $1.99
- AI War: Light of the Spire -- $4.99
- Tidalis -- $4.99
Note: We'll be adjusting our prices on our own store and all other channels that carry our titles, but it may take up to a week to get them all worked out. Thanks in advance for your patience!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.579 "Secret Daring Rescues" Released!
This one is The Release that a lot of players have been waiting for. Where to even begin with this one...
Secret Missions
You can read about these in even greater depth in the release notes, but the general idea is that as you explore around the world you find missions that you can do if you wish. They come with a lesser reward than the world map missions, but they also don't raise Civilization Progress (CP) which is useful in its own right.
And if the random number generator on the world map isn't being kind to you... well, this is another way to circumvent that.
NPC Rescue Missions
Rather than just getting NPCs as a random reward from world map missions, you now have to actually go in and rescue NPCs from dangerous situations and escort them to safety. These turned out to be really fun, at least in our opinion.
NPC rescue missions are found as secret missions underground or in buildings, or you can use the Seek Survivors guardian power to spawn a whole bunch of rescue missions on the world map. But otherwise there's no way to get NPCs on the world map missions -- this being a great example of the game requiring both freeform exploration and world map missions in order to really succeed.
Put Up That Wind Shelter Yourself!
Same with the NPCs just having been rewards for random missions on the world map in the past, that really wasn't very satisfying. It was just a placeholder!
Now the only way to put up a wind shelter is via a guardian power that spawns one of these new kinds of missions, so in order to push back the wind the guardian powers are something you need to cultivate. And where you place the wind shelters has some strategy to it, since you get to choose and since there are so many fewer of them you can put down.
The mission itself is also really fun, and also much faster to complete than the other missions. It's more or less a gauntlet you have to run through some interesting outside chunks.
Stealthy Assassinations
The third new mission type has you sneaking through either a cave or a building, looking for a hidden miniboss that is unusually weakened (just takes a few shots to kill). However, there are very few lights, and even your own light sources provide only weak illumination. And to make matters worse, the guard enemies that roam around are really powerful and will do enormous damage to you!
But on the bright side, the guards are practically blind until you damage them. So stealth is the order of the day, as you explore to find where that boss is so that you can put an end to him...
New Spell: Healing TouchTransfer a bit of your health to another character (player or NPC). Very handy for co-op and for the NPC rescue missions. Going along with this, the health drops from enemies now work much better in both contexts, too (pursuing better targets, rather than just whoever is closest).
Beta Phase 3 Approaches
This release marks the last of the really major game-wide new mechanics that we're adding prior to 1.0 (that new mechanic being secret missions). From here on out it's polish, lots more missions and enemies and spells and such, and then smaller features that impact only a part of the game.
For instance, we still need to get the mysteries-to-solve in place, but that's not something that has a wider effect on the balance and flow of the game. It is, in effect, just an optional subsystem that adds variety and interest.
This is a really an exciting time period, because that means we can really start cranking out the missions and things like that. If you like these, we have lots more cool ones in store in just the next couple of days alone!
More to come soon, more along the line of missions next time. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Secret Missions
You can read about these in even greater depth in the release notes, but the general idea is that as you explore around the world you find missions that you can do if you wish. They come with a lesser reward than the world map missions, but they also don't raise Civilization Progress (CP) which is useful in its own right.
And if the random number generator on the world map isn't being kind to you... well, this is another way to circumvent that.
NPC Rescue Missions
Rather than just getting NPCs as a random reward from world map missions, you now have to actually go in and rescue NPCs from dangerous situations and escort them to safety. These turned out to be really fun, at least in our opinion.
NPC rescue missions are found as secret missions underground or in buildings, or you can use the Seek Survivors guardian power to spawn a whole bunch of rescue missions on the world map. But otherwise there's no way to get NPCs on the world map missions -- this being a great example of the game requiring both freeform exploration and world map missions in order to really succeed.
Put Up That Wind Shelter Yourself!
Same with the NPCs just having been rewards for random missions on the world map in the past, that really wasn't very satisfying. It was just a placeholder!
Now the only way to put up a wind shelter is via a guardian power that spawns one of these new kinds of missions, so in order to push back the wind the guardian powers are something you need to cultivate. And where you place the wind shelters has some strategy to it, since you get to choose and since there are so many fewer of them you can put down.
The mission itself is also really fun, and also much faster to complete than the other missions. It's more or less a gauntlet you have to run through some interesting outside chunks.
Stealthy Assassinations
The third new mission type has you sneaking through either a cave or a building, looking for a hidden miniboss that is unusually weakened (just takes a few shots to kill). However, there are very few lights, and even your own light sources provide only weak illumination. And to make matters worse, the guard enemies that roam around are really powerful and will do enormous damage to you!
But on the bright side, the guards are practically blind until you damage them. So stealth is the order of the day, as you explore to find where that boss is so that you can put an end to him...
New Spell: Healing TouchTransfer a bit of your health to another character (player or NPC). Very handy for co-op and for the NPC rescue missions. Going along with this, the health drops from enemies now work much better in both contexts, too (pursuing better targets, rather than just whoever is closest).
Beta Phase 3 Approaches
This release marks the last of the really major game-wide new mechanics that we're adding prior to 1.0 (that new mechanic being secret missions). From here on out it's polish, lots more missions and enemies and spells and such, and then smaller features that impact only a part of the game.
For instance, we still need to get the mysteries-to-solve in place, but that's not something that has a wider effect on the balance and flow of the game. It is, in effect, just an optional subsystem that adds variety and interest.
This is a really an exciting time period, because that means we can really start cranking out the missions and things like that. If you like these, we have lots more cool ones in store in just the next couple of days alone!
More to come soon, more along the line of missions next time. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
AVWW Beta 0.578 "Battlefield Glow" Released!
This one is mostly just a maintenance release with a bunch of polish and bugfixes. However, as part of that we've also decreased initial load times, decreased RAM usage, and changed how the glows work when characters and enemies are casting spells.
Also, battlefield missions have gotten a substantial upgrade in that they are now wider, include enemy towers that you have to work through in order to be able to damage the enemy base, and have a more randomized component in the form of the elements of said towers.
More to come soon, more along the line of missions next time. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
Also, battlefield missions have gotten a substantial upgrade in that they are now wider, include enemy towers that you have to work through in order to be able to damage the enemy base, and have a more randomized component in the form of the elements of said towers.
More to come soon, more along the line of missions next time. Enjoy!
This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.
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