This one starts our response to the winner of our first "Aim the nerfbat (AI-side)" poll. The landslide winner was the AI Eye. Curiously, the main call was not so much for the eye to be made less strong but to be made less monotonous and frustrating. As one player put it: fighting the first one is fun, and the second one, but by number five... not so much. So we've started adding new kinds of Eyes (and renamed the original to something less alliteratively alienating). More to come on that soon, but we wanted to get the other pending changes out sooner than the rest of the eye work could be completed. Speaking of the other stuff:
So, there was this little innocent change in 5.050. The one where I fixed the longstanding bug where a unit's repair-speed-multiplier was increasing the amount it repaired per time-unit, but didn't increase the cost proportionately to maintain the same cost/hp ratio. It was kind of necessary for balance as "activating" (repairing) a golem with an MkIII engie instead a MkI engie was pretty intensely different in a non-intuitive way since construction multipliers (used for assisting space docks, etc) increased both speed and resource consumption to maintain the same cost ratio.
So, innocent change, right? Not so much. Since MkI Engineers had a repair multiplier of 6 all of a sudden basically everyone was paying at least 6 times as much as they were used to for their repairs. This was particularly brutal with golems. Anyway, a lot of changes have been made to bring repair back to a less "dude, where did my economy go?" situation. Please let us know if it still feels off. But also bear in mind that econ has been a lot stronger in recent months due to changes to harvesters, energy, etc.
There are also several changes to clean up some backporting-related leftovers. Most notably, Chris took the whole sprite object pooling thing back out but did a much better job than I did when I attempted it. The result is a pretty startling graphical performance gain in some tests. How much it helps in your specific case... well, we'll see. But the memory-related crashes when the sprite-pool being too big and the performance problems when the sprite pool being too small shold be gone now. If you see any more crashes or other potentially-backporting-related problems, please let us know so we can deal with them. The sooner Chris can move on from that side of things, the more cool stuff will result ;)
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.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
AI War Beta 5.050 "Botnet Escape" Released!
This one responds to most of the remaining feedback from the last round of polls. Specifically:
The Zenith/Spire starships got their long awaited promotion into two new separate lines of starship. The Player Home Forcefield Generator got grav and tachyon coverage (and two semi-related issues with home defense were addressed). The Spire Stealth Battleship was made a little easier to catch (mainly this helps handle AI-controlled ones), and Spire Shield Guard Posts won't take so long to kill. And there was one other...
Ah, yes, the Botnet Golem. Long believed to be the most overpowered unit in the game, things weren't looking good for the Botnet. But thanks to some players reminding us how much fun that overpowered golem is, a (hopefully) better solution was reached: the botnet has retained all its power but is now its own minor faction. It functions basically as before but now we can balance it separately from the rest of the golems.
There's also a few other changes and fixes (golems/spirecraft exos are now more aggressive in general, notably), so look at the notes if you're curious :)
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.
The Zenith/Spire starships got their long awaited promotion into two new separate lines of starship. The Player Home Forcefield Generator got grav and tachyon coverage (and two semi-related issues with home defense were addressed). The Spire Stealth Battleship was made a little easier to catch (mainly this helps handle AI-controlled ones), and Spire Shield Guard Posts won't take so long to kill. And there was one other...
Ah, yes, the Botnet Golem. Long believed to be the most overpowered unit in the game, things weren't looking good for the Botnet. But thanks to some players reminding us how much fun that overpowered golem is, a (hopefully) better solution was reached: the botnet has retained all its power but is now its own minor faction. It functions basically as before but now we can balance it separately from the rest of the golems.
There's also a few other changes and fixes (golems/spirecraft exos are now more aggressive in general, notably), so look at the notes if you're curious :)
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.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
AI War Beta 5.047-5.049 "Archived Memory" Released!
This one is mostly a quick release to get a fix to some recent memory/performance problems out along with an advanced setting slider to help players directly experiencing those problems see if the sprite-pooling (or lack thereof) really is the cause.
Also a significant rework to the Spire Archive, which won the most recent "Worst Unit" poll. We'll be dealing with the other winners from that poll and the two nerf polls soon too, but we wanted to get that sprite pooling thing out sooner than later so we can get feedback and see what else needs to be done on that side of things. There's a couple miscellaneous changes in there too, and if you like Zenith Electric Bombers you'll like that they're now immune to instakill (Ion Cannons = Now Sad).
Update: 5.048 just removes an optimization in 5.047 that was causing something very like a memory leak. Sorry about the goof there.
Update: 5.049 fixes a problem with the new Spire Archive seeding logic where it was trying to put them on invalid planets (rather, planets that would be valid later but weren't at that point in the process). This would cause starting a game to fail when it happened, so wanted to get the fix out now.
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.
Also a significant rework to the Spire Archive, which won the most recent "Worst Unit" poll. We'll be dealing with the other winners from that poll and the two nerf polls soon too, but we wanted to get that sprite pooling thing out sooner than later so we can get feedback and see what else needs to be done on that side of things. There's a couple miscellaneous changes in there too, and if you like Zenith Electric Bombers you'll like that they're now immune to instakill (Ion Cannons = Now Sad).
Update: 5.048 just removes an optimization in 5.047 that was causing something very like a memory leak. Sorry about the goof there.
Update: 5.049 fixes a problem with the new Spire Archive seeding logic where it was trying to put them on invalid planets (rather, planets that would be valid later but weren't at that point in the process). This would cause starting a game to fail when it happened, so wanted to get the fix out now.
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.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
AI War Beta 5.046 "The AI Is Not Amused" Released!
This one deals with the resurgence of a most bothersome bug (for those not following the link, it's a joke about people beating 10/10). On higher difficulties the AI will now be harder to "put to sleep" with AIP reduction. The AI will now be more clever with the schizo-wave modifier and still send homogenous waves some of the time because they're sometimes more effective (particularly pure-bomber and pure-frigate, depending on circumstances). Reinforcements have been buffed a bit as experience since the big reinforcement-system overhaul has shown what I expected: too few reinforcements now that it's actually paying for everything. A few other things.
Oh, yea: Core Guard Posts. Those are going to hurt more now. They're still pretty quick to kill if you have a lot of firepower (indeed, the core spire shield guard post had its health cut nearly in half, and almost all of the others don't even have 10% of that), but they will take a much more serious bite out of your attacking force in the process. One of the main ideas behind the Core Guard Posts to begin with was to have a kind of "multi-stage boss battle" at the end of the game. Well, now it will be harder to gun them all down in one go ;)
The combination of the above will probably render 10/10 basically impossible to actually win in the absence of a lot of player cheese. But I thought that after the last time I buffed 10/10, so I'm figuring someone will prove me wrong :) If, on the other hand, I've made things too excruciating, please do let us know. Balance is an ongoing process :)
There's also the much-requested slider for controlling the intensity of the new nebula/planet/etc backgrounds, and a memory optimization that may significantly help people running insanely big scenarios squeeze in under the memory ceiling for longer.
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.
Oh, yea: Core Guard Posts. Those are going to hurt more now. They're still pretty quick to kill if you have a lot of firepower (indeed, the core spire shield guard post had its health cut nearly in half, and almost all of the others don't even have 10% of that), but they will take a much more serious bite out of your attacking force in the process. One of the main ideas behind the Core Guard Posts to begin with was to have a kind of "multi-stage boss battle" at the end of the game. Well, now it will be harder to gun them all down in one go ;)
The combination of the above will probably render 10/10 basically impossible to actually win in the absence of a lot of player cheese. But I thought that after the last time I buffed 10/10, so I'm figuring someone will prove me wrong :) If, on the other hand, I've made things too excruciating, please do let us know. Balance is an ongoing process :)
There's also the much-requested slider for controlling the intensity of the new nebula/planet/etc backgrounds, and a memory optimization that may significantly help people running insanely big scenarios squeeze in under the memory ceiling for longer.
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.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
AI War Beta 5.045 "It's Full Of Something Other Than Stars!" Released!
This one is a major upgrade to the game's visual fidelity (one of the big pieces of free content in 6.0 that's for everyone, not just those getting the Ancient Shadows expansion). There's also another hotfix to try to deal with the performance problems some people have been seeing since 5.042.
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.
AVWW Post-Release 1.201-1.203 "Entropic Leap" Released!
This one is our first post-1.2 beta update and it's largely responding to bug reports and feature suggestions from the past several days. Many thanks for the feedback!
But Chris also added a new monster (the Entropic Esper) and two new spells (Leaping Death and Flower X). The game should probably drop a lot of anvils on you if you rely too heavily on flower-power, but I'm not sure that was implemented.
Update: 1.202 is out now as well, and it fixes a fairly critical bug in 1.201 where interior generation would just kind of call it a day halfway through and not seed unimportant things like some doors, secret mission entrances, npcs into rescue-npc missions, etc.
Update: 1.203 hotfix is out too, and it fixes a bug that can cause doors/vents/holes to not seed in destroyed rooms in some cases.
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.
But Chris also added a new monster (the Entropic Esper) and two new spells (Leaping Death and Flower X). The game should probably drop a lot of anvils on you if you rely too heavily on flower-power, but I'm not sure that was implemented.
Update: 1.202 is out now as well, and it fixes a fairly critical bug in 1.201 where interior generation would just kind of call it a day halfway through and not seed unimportant things like some doors, secret mission entrances, npcs into rescue-npc missions, etc.
Update: 1.203 hotfix is out too, and it fixes a bug that can cause doors/vents/holes to not seed in destroyed rooms in some cases.
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.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
AI War Beta 5.043-5.044 "A Dubious Honor" Released!
This one answers the results of our sixth "Worst Unit" poll. Our "winners" were the Zenith Reserves, the Decloaker, the Captive Human Settlement, and the Spire Armor Rotter. Everyone give them a hand! Hmm, they don't seem amused. But at least they'll enjoy the buffs!
We've also dealt with a couple longstanding player annoyances in this version:
Special Forces guard posts are no longer autotargeted so you don't have to worry about your ships (or minor faction friends) shooting them up and causing the +1 AIP per SF post. Another change was necessary to prevent that from being cheesed (to drain off AI reinforcements), but that's done too.
Now when the AI buys new stuff from the Zenith Trader, the resulting structures will not generate AIP when killed. So the AI can still replace warp gates and plant black hole machines and such with the trader, but it won't cost you AIP to take those trader-bought ones out. To compensate, there's a new item in the trader's AI-only shop. It's fairly nasty, but I'm sure the players will be the better judge of that.
And there's a few other fixes and balance changes in there.
Update: the 5.044 hotfix is out now, with a change that we hope will help with the performance problems people have been seeing in 5.042+. If it doesn't we'll need to do something more drastic.
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.
We've also dealt with a couple longstanding player annoyances in this version:
Special Forces guard posts are no longer autotargeted so you don't have to worry about your ships (or minor faction friends) shooting them up and causing the +1 AIP per SF post. Another change was necessary to prevent that from being cheesed (to drain off AI reinforcements), but that's done too.
Now when the AI buys new stuff from the Zenith Trader, the resulting structures will not generate AIP when killed. So the AI can still replace warp gates and plant black hole machines and such with the trader, but it won't cost you AIP to take those trader-bought ones out. To compensate, there's a new item in the trader's AI-only shop. It's fairly nasty, but I'm sure the players will be the better judge of that.
And there's a few other fixes and balance changes in there.
Update: the 5.044 hotfix is out now, with a change that we hope will help with the performance problems people have been seeing in 5.042+. If it doesn't we'll need to do something more drastic.
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.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
AI War Beta 5.042 "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain" Released!
This one contains a lot of engine improvements backported from AVWW. Rendering is now more efficient, and in theory a lot of the textbox issues should be dealt with now.
There's also a bunch of little fixes to recent stuff like the energy rework, drones, and the line-place context menu. And some balance changes to carriers and turrets that should make defense a little more pleasant from the human perspective.
But (and here's the reason for the release name) the majority of the work that's gone into this release isn't even in the notes or visible in the game, because it went into the framework for the major feature of the upcoming expansion. Still not ready to talk about it, but it's coming along well.
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.
There's also a bunch of little fixes to recent stuff like the energy rework, drones, and the line-place context menu. And some balance changes to carriers and turrets that should make defense a little more pleasant from the human perspective.
But (and here's the reason for the release name) the majority of the work that's gone into this release isn't even in the notes or visible in the game, because it went into the framework for the major feature of the upcoming expansion. Still not ready to talk about it, but it's coming along well.
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.
Friday, July 13, 2012
AVWW 1.2 and AI War Expansion 4 News as Steam Summer Sale Rages
Here's the breakdown:
- A Valley Without Wind 40% off
- AI War, the Alien Bundle, and all currently available expansions 66% off
- Tidalis 66% off
- Gratuitous Tank Battles by Positech Games 50% off
- Splice by Cipher Prime Studios 50% off
- Frozen Synapse by Mode 7 Games 60% off
- AudioSurf by Invisible Handlebar 75% off
- World of Goo by 2D Boy 75% off
- Dejobaan Games Complete Pack 75% off (individual games 50% off)
- And a whole lot more!
Polygon -- 'A Valley Without Wind' update comes with new city building system
Quarter to Three -- More winds of revolution blow through Valley Without Wind
Indie Game Magazine -- ‘A Valley Without Wind’ Art-Auditions Bear Fruit. Also, Updates
Indie Game Magazine -- Arcen Games Tease A Fourth ‘AI War: Fleet Command’ Expansion
Space Game Junkie -- New AI War Expansion Announced: Ancient Shadows
Airborne Gamer -- 6 Fantasy Action Try Before You Buy Games
Achievement Acquired -- A Valley Without Wind Demo
Let's Play A Valley Without Wind CO-OP (Russian)
A Valley Without Wind | Episode 1
Kyventures in... A Valley Without Wind, Part 2
Indie Spotlight - A valley without wind
Demonaci Plays A Valley Without Wind Ep 1
Zapaříme CZ - Let's play - A Valley Without Wind - Demo (Czech)
Tidalis gameplay
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
AI War Betas 5.036-5.041 Released!
Catching up on some recent updates to AI War. Sorry about not mentioning them on the blog before, I (Keith) am new to actually pushing these updates out myself :)
In chronological order:
5.036 had several important enhancements to AI viciousness toretaliate for celebrate a recent 10/10 victory, and also added a bunch of brand-new "drone" ships that are exclusive to the neinzul enclave starship but require turret research to unlock. There were also some important changes to scaling in multi-HW games, and some general bugfixes and balances
5.037 was basically bugfixes and balance. Some for stuff added in the previous version, some more longstanding.
5.038 answered some very longstanding player-convenience requests. Namely, it made human fortresses, forcefields, and command stations all drop remains and thus be automatically rebuildable if you had Remains Rebuilders on duty (with a new rule to prevent exploitation of the command station rebuilding, but removing some older less-intuitive rules). More bugfixes, too.
5.039 was just bugfixes and a quick change to make Remains Rebuilders work outside supply so the 5.038 changes would work as intended, since no major exploits seemed obvious.
5.040 followed up on a lot of feedback we've received on the energy model over the past couple years. The new model isn't perfect, but it does involve a lot less micro and feedback is very positive thus far. More balance and a bugfix, too.
5.041 is just one feature I was in the middle of and wanted to get out there before shifting into higher gear on the ongoing expansion work, but if you've ever used (or wanted to use) mines in a serious capacity you'll be happy about it: the ability to place a straight line of many units of the same type (optionally packing them as tightly as the game would allow, particularly nice for mines).
Enjoy!
These are standard updates 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.
In chronological order:
5.036 had several important enhancements to AI viciousness to
5.037 was basically bugfixes and balance. Some for stuff added in the previous version, some more longstanding.
5.038 answered some very longstanding player-convenience requests. Namely, it made human fortresses, forcefields, and command stations all drop remains and thus be automatically rebuildable if you had Remains Rebuilders on duty (with a new rule to prevent exploitation of the command station rebuilding, but removing some older less-intuitive rules). More bugfixes, too.
5.039 was just bugfixes and a quick change to make Remains Rebuilders work outside supply so the 5.038 changes would work as intended, since no major exploits seemed obvious.
5.040 followed up on a lot of feedback we've received on the energy model over the past couple years. The new model isn't perfect, but it does involve a lot less micro and feedback is very positive thus far. More balance and a bugfix, too.
5.041 is just one feature I was in the middle of and wanted to get out there before shifting into higher gear on the ongoing expansion work, but if you've ever used (or wanted to use) mines in a serious capacity you'll be happy about it: the ability to place a straight line of many units of the same type (optionally packing them as tightly as the game would allow, particularly nice for mines).
Enjoy!
These are standard updates 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.
AI War: Ancient Shadows Teaser / Q&A
To stave off the inevitable questions, and because we're not that cruel:
Is This The Fourth Expansion Pack For AI War: Fleet Command?
Yes.
When Will The Expansion Be Coming Out?
In all likelihood, October.
"Soon." In the past with our AI War expansions, we set the game up for pre-order as soon as we were adding the first ships into the game. This time we've taken a different approach, and there will be substantially more content available from day 1 of the beta (which all preorder customers get access to).
What Will The Full Price Be?
$4.99 USD, the same as our other full expansions are currently priced.
But The Other Expansions Started Out At A Higher Price
Yes, originally The Zenith Remnant and Light of the Spire were $9.99. Ancient Shadows will have a bit less content than those two expansions due to starting at the lower price point. However, we feel that the content represented here is exciting enough to make this expansion more than hold its own if you're trying to choose between this expansion and one of the others.
What Is The Focus Of The Expansion?
Every expansion up until now was focused on a single alien race (zenith, neinzul, and then spire). When we released the "Alien Bundle" last year, we also mentioned that that marked the end of the alien-themed expansions. Thematically, this expansion returns to all three alien races plus the humans themselves.
Will There Also Be Updates For The Base Game?
A few. It's more along the lines of what changed between AI War 2.0 and The Zenith Remnant (3.0), but still good stuff. The game has been slowly refined since Light of the Spire came out in early 2011, and our opinion is that it's not in need of another major overhaul like we saw with 2.0 or 4.0.
Will This Impact Development Of A Valley Without Wind?
It hasn't so far. ;) We're going to be exerting a more concerted effort to go ahead and get this thing finished once we open it up for preorders, so that will in fact pull Keith away from AVWW for about half his working hours for the next month or two of development. Chris's focus will remain almost solely on AVWW during this time period, although he'll be supporting Keith with art and some other related things for AI War 6.0 and Ancient Shadows.
What's The Feature List?
We'll have more information on this sort of thing for you later! Right now we're playing this a bit close to the vest (uncharacteristically for us, I know).
Anything Else You Can Share?
Well, here's a graphical preview of some of the ships!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
A Valley Without Wind 1.2 Brings New Level Progression, Citybuilding and Crafting Systems
Arcen Games announces the official release of A Valley Without Wind 1.2, now available as a free update for owners of the game. While the changes were vast going from 1.0 to 1.1, what's been added and improved upon between 1.1 and 1.2 is less about breadth and more about depth. A full reflection has been put together for those looking for the complete inner-workings, but here's the short and sweet of it:
A citybuilding model designed for citybuilding fans has been newly integrated from top to bottom into the game. Everything now takes place on the world map and NPC importance has been upgraded significantly with dispatch missions, gifts, and unique attributes based on time period. A new citybuilding strategy guide is available now for your perusal of this major addition.
While there are technically no new spells this time around, the feel of the game is that it has erupted with new ones. That's thanks to spells now carrying various, randomly-assigned modifiers to make every spell crafted or discovered unique from the next -- even if it's the same type. On top of that, the crafting system has been heavily reworked in general to reward exploration and take the pressure off of having to play missions to advance the game.
The main progression system for the game has been shifted as well. Out with tiers, and in with a reworked levels system. By doing so, AVWW trades in the "New Game+" feel for a more natural progression as players advance from one continent to the next. No more two steps back to take three steps forward, as it now feels like a more a more traditional RPG progression.
Of course it just wouldn't be a true update from us without a bunch of other good stuff too. A brand new mystery, more music, a hundred new rooms, new unlockables, the addition of an incinerator, peaceful retirement for player characters, ghost copies of items, and more highlight what's packed in A Valley Without Wind 1.2. As always, practically all of these features were brought about in collaboration with the game's amazing player community (who've contributed in countless ways since the game was mere weeks into development). In short:
We realized we didn't like the citybuilding system, so we made a new one.
We realized we didn't like the crafting system, so we made a new one.
We realized we didn't like the level progression, so we made a new one.
The reaction among the player base has thus far been enormously positive; the focus and flow of the game is a lot more fun now.
The complete breakdown for the aforementioned trio, along with everything else we weren't able to mention here that makes up 1.2, can be fully devoured on the post-launch series 2 release notes section of AVWW's wiki.
A new guide on upgrading to A Valley Without Wind 1.2 from 1.0 or 1.1 has been created as well for those returning players or press looking to quickly translate their prior knowledge into the latest official version of the game.
About A Valley Without Wind
A 2D sidescroller without a linear path. An action game with tactical combat and citybuilding. An adventure game that lets you free-roam a vast, procedurally-generated world. A Valley Without Wind defies genre stereotypes. Unlike other procedurally-generated games, you also get a logical progression in difficulty, plus helpful tips and checklists to guide your travels (should you need them).
Choose for yourself how to prepare to face the vastly stronger Overlord. Complete a variety of missions to earn arcane rewards, and/or roam the wilds to uncover secret missions and stashes of magical loot. Customize your characters with unique combinations of enchants and spells that change how you move, jump, and fight. Or rescue people and bring them back to your settlement so that they can then be sent on dispatch missions; you don't have to carry the burden of your fledgling civilization alone!
You choose how to play, and the world adapts around you.
The full version is available now on PC and Mac. A substantial demo is also available, granting full access to the game/multiplayer with only some level restrictions. Even though AVWW has launched, it continues to grow with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Google+, Reddit, and Twitter. To be a part of how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects join the ongoing discussion taking place within our forums.
Members of the media: review keys, press kit materials including video footage, and interviews are available upon request.
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, with the rest of the company's focus being devoted to their most massive project yet: A Valley Without Wind, which released in 2012. 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, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, or on Twitter: @ArcenGames; as well as Arcen lead Chris Park's Games By Design blog.
A citybuilding model designed for citybuilding fans has been newly integrated from top to bottom into the game. Everything now takes place on the world map and NPC importance has been upgraded significantly with dispatch missions, gifts, and unique attributes based on time period. A new citybuilding strategy guide is available now for your perusal of this major addition.
While there are technically no new spells this time around, the feel of the game is that it has erupted with new ones. That's thanks to spells now carrying various, randomly-assigned modifiers to make every spell crafted or discovered unique from the next -- even if it's the same type. On top of that, the crafting system has been heavily reworked in general to reward exploration and take the pressure off of having to play missions to advance the game.
The main progression system for the game has been shifted as well. Out with tiers, and in with a reworked levels system. By doing so, AVWW trades in the "New Game+" feel for a more natural progression as players advance from one continent to the next. No more two steps back to take three steps forward, as it now feels like a more a more traditional RPG progression.
Of course it just wouldn't be a true update from us without a bunch of other good stuff too. A brand new mystery, more music, a hundred new rooms, new unlockables, the addition of an incinerator, peaceful retirement for player characters, ghost copies of items, and more highlight what's packed in A Valley Without Wind 1.2. As always, practically all of these features were brought about in collaboration with the game's amazing player community (who've contributed in countless ways since the game was mere weeks into development). In short:
We realized we didn't like the citybuilding system, so we made a new one.
We realized we didn't like the crafting system, so we made a new one.
We realized we didn't like the level progression, so we made a new one.
The reaction among the player base has thus far been enormously positive; the focus and flow of the game is a lot more fun now.
The complete breakdown for the aforementioned trio, along with everything else we weren't able to mention here that makes up 1.2, can be fully devoured on the post-launch series 2 release notes section of AVWW's wiki.
A new guide on upgrading to A Valley Without Wind 1.2 from 1.0 or 1.1 has been created as well for those returning players or press looking to quickly translate their prior knowledge into the latest official version of the game.
About A Valley Without Wind
A 2D sidescroller without a linear path. An action game with tactical combat and citybuilding. An adventure game that lets you free-roam a vast, procedurally-generated world. A Valley Without Wind defies genre stereotypes. Unlike other procedurally-generated games, you also get a logical progression in difficulty, plus helpful tips and checklists to guide your travels (should you need them).
Choose for yourself how to prepare to face the vastly stronger Overlord. Complete a variety of missions to earn arcane rewards, and/or roam the wilds to uncover secret missions and stashes of magical loot. Customize your characters with unique combinations of enchants and spells that change how you move, jump, and fight. Or rescue people and bring them back to your settlement so that they can then be sent on dispatch missions; you don't have to carry the burden of your fledgling civilization alone!
You choose how to play, and the world adapts around you.
The full version is available now on PC and Mac. A substantial demo is also available, granting full access to the game/multiplayer with only some level restrictions. Even though AVWW has launched, it continues to grow with new content and improvements added nearly every weekday. Follow the game and its updates/discussions on Facebook, Google+, Reddit, and Twitter. To be a part of how AVWW evolves in any and/or all of its aspects join the ongoing discussion taking place within our forums.
Members of the media: review keys, press kit materials including video footage, and interviews are available upon request.
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, with the rest of the company's focus being devoted to their most massive project yet: A Valley Without Wind, which released in 2012. 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, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, or on Twitter: @ArcenGames; as well as Arcen lead Chris Park's Games By Design blog.
AVWW 1.2 Official Released In Patch Form!
This one is the culmination of our second series of post-release updates for the game. It's currently available to all players through the in-game updater. It will become available via installers and the Steam auto-updater and so forth later today, and we'll have full details on what's new at that time.
In the meantime, if you haven't seen them yet, we also put up two new strategy guides:
A Strategy Guide For Citybuilding In A Valley Without Wind 1.2
A Guide To Upgrading To A Valley Without Wind 1.2 From 1.0 Or 1.1
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 meantime, if you haven't seen them yet, we also put up two new strategy guides:
A Strategy Guide For Citybuilding In A Valley Without Wind 1.2
A Guide To Upgrading To A Valley Without Wind 1.2 From 1.0 Or 1.1
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, July 9, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.116 "Another Balance Pass" Released!
This one is our fifth release candidate for 1.2, meaning that if there's nothing majorly wrong with it then this will be the 1.2 official version on tomorrow morning and we'll then continue working on 1.3 instead. We'd planned on doing the 1.2 official today if there weren't any major issues, but there were some balance issues that came up yesterday that we decided to devote today to.
If you haven't seen them yet, we also put up two new strategy guides:
A Strategy Guide For Citybuilding In A Valley Without Wind 1.2
A Guide To Upgrading To A Valley Without Wind 1.2 From 1.0 Or 1.1
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.
If you haven't seen them yet, we also put up two new strategy guides:
A Strategy Guide For Citybuilding In A Valley Without Wind 1.2
A Guide To Upgrading To A Valley Without Wind 1.2 From 1.0 Or 1.1
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, July 7, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.115 "The Story Of Jinsiek And John" Released!
This one is our fourth release candidate for 1.2, meaning that if there's nothing majorly wrong with it then this will be the 1.2 official version on Monday and we'll then continue working on 1.3 instead.
There actually aren't any bugfixes in this one, but a last bit of content that we've been meaning to get integrated into the game for weeks: a new mystery! This one is long, too: 41 clues, whereas the other two mysteries in the game are each 10 and 18 clues, respectively.
Like the other two, this one is written by my wife Marisa, and I think this is the strongest of the lot by far (and the others were pretty darn cool). It goes into more of the story of what happened to the earliest glyphbearers of the first continent's settlement (before you came along), and also explores the nature of the monsters of the world, among other things.
It's... definitely very dark. But given that it's a given that all the characters are dead (since you inherited the glyph from them, it's not possible for any of them to be alive; aside from the fact that in the intro mission you saw the graves of most of them), I suppose that's to be expected. Not all of the mysteries will be this dark, but I think this one is particularly poignant.
By the way, in the last version I forgot to mention in my blog post just how much has changed in terms of the in-game help and documentation thanks to the tireless efforts of Josh. A lot of tooltips and help popups and stuff in the Tips & Advice section were woefully out of date given recent mechanics changes, and he's gone through it all and gotten it up to scratch. So that was new as of 1.114.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. 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 actually aren't any bugfixes in this one, but a last bit of content that we've been meaning to get integrated into the game for weeks: a new mystery! This one is long, too: 41 clues, whereas the other two mysteries in the game are each 10 and 18 clues, respectively.
Like the other two, this one is written by my wife Marisa, and I think this is the strongest of the lot by far (and the others were pretty darn cool). It goes into more of the story of what happened to the earliest glyphbearers of the first continent's settlement (before you came along), and also explores the nature of the monsters of the world, among other things.
It's... definitely very dark. But given that it's a given that all the characters are dead (since you inherited the glyph from them, it's not possible for any of them to be alive; aside from the fact that in the intro mission you saw the graves of most of them), I suppose that's to be expected. Not all of the mysteries will be this dark, but I think this one is particularly poignant.
By the way, in the last version I forgot to mention in my blog post just how much has changed in terms of the in-game help and documentation thanks to the tireless efforts of Josh. A lot of tooltips and help popups and stuff in the Tips & Advice section were woefully out of date given recent mechanics changes, and he's gone through it all and gotten it up to scratch. So that was new as of 1.114.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. 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 Post-Release 1.114 "Nobody Lives On That Blue Submarine, Actually " Released!
This one is our third release candidate for 1.2, meaning that if there's nothing majorly wrong with it then this will be the 1.2 official version on Monday and we'll then continue working on 1.3 instead.
However, aside from a few bugfixes in this version, we actually added two new buildings for you to explore -- both floating underwater buildings for the ocean. This was something deemed critical for balance so that you could actually find stashes in the ocean tiles, and thus get your hands on sea essence and the like.
And of course there's a laundry list of other fixes here, some substantial and some not.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. 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.
However, aside from a few bugfixes in this version, we actually added two new buildings for you to explore -- both floating underwater buildings for the ocean. This was something deemed critical for balance so that you could actually find stashes in the ocean tiles, and thus get your hands on sea essence and the like.
And of course there's a laundry list of other fixes here, some substantial and some not.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. 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, July 6, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.112-1.113 "Collect Yer Incineration Bonus" Released!
This one is actually our first release candidate for 1.2, meaning that if there's nothing majorly wrong with it then this will be the 1.2 official version on Monday and we'll then continue working on 1.3 instead.
However, insane people that we are, we actually added three substantial new features in this version anyhow.
The Incinerator!
People have wanted this for as long as I can remember; and with the new levels-based spells this is more important than ever. Inventory clutter can really become a problem if you play for very long, and you don't want to just litter the ground with all your now-useless spells.
A lot of people then tend to hoard, although my favorite tales are of people using the interiors of warp gates for trash dumps since at least those are out of sight. And others were doing things like dumping them in mission instances, so that they would truly disappear when the mission instance disappeared. Clever!
But the incinerator actually makes it rewarding to get rid of old stuff. You get a token 100 consciousness shards for each spellgem that you discard, regardless of level; although stuff that is of a higher rarity gives you more shards. This way, not only does your inventory stay clean, but you also get another little boost in shards.
Citybuilding: Placement Matters!
One common theme that started coming up a lot last night and this morning was that players wanted more strategy to where to place their buildings on the world map. If all potential positions are equally valuable aside from the fact that the citybuilding structures prevent missions from spawning on their tiles, then there's not much depth there.
Such a simple idea to give each building type a bonus based on certain region types -- thanks to several players for suggesting that! It really does add a surprising amount to even my personal enjoyment of building on the world map.
Citybuilding: Unique NPC Attributes By Time Period
This one was the brainchild of BenMiff, a player who has created probably close to half of the room templates in the game at this point (he keeps giving us batches of 100 at a time, goodness).
The idea with this one is that if the NPCs vary by time period (such as robots not needing food, or ice age characters getting a bonus from profession buildings, etc), then there's incentives to rescue specific kinds of NPCs depending on what your personal goals are.
That's really neat to me, and fits with what we were already doing on the player-character side: now we've just applied that to the NPC side, too. Of course the NPCs already had some inherent dispatch-related qualities based on their temperament, profession, and so forth; but those things varied regardless of where you picked up the NPC, so there was never an incentive to explore certain regions for specific kinds of NPCs. Now there is, and that again adds a surprising amount for me personally.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.113 is now out to fix an issue with two of the time-period-specific bonuses.
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.
However, insane people that we are, we actually added three substantial new features in this version anyhow.
The Incinerator!
People have wanted this for as long as I can remember; and with the new levels-based spells this is more important than ever. Inventory clutter can really become a problem if you play for very long, and you don't want to just litter the ground with all your now-useless spells.
A lot of people then tend to hoard, although my favorite tales are of people using the interiors of warp gates for trash dumps since at least those are out of sight. And others were doing things like dumping them in mission instances, so that they would truly disappear when the mission instance disappeared. Clever!
But the incinerator actually makes it rewarding to get rid of old stuff. You get a token 100 consciousness shards for each spellgem that you discard, regardless of level; although stuff that is of a higher rarity gives you more shards. This way, not only does your inventory stay clean, but you also get another little boost in shards.
Citybuilding: Placement Matters!
One common theme that started coming up a lot last night and this morning was that players wanted more strategy to where to place their buildings on the world map. If all potential positions are equally valuable aside from the fact that the citybuilding structures prevent missions from spawning on their tiles, then there's not much depth there.
Such a simple idea to give each building type a bonus based on certain region types -- thanks to several players for suggesting that! It really does add a surprising amount to even my personal enjoyment of building on the world map.
Citybuilding: Unique NPC Attributes By Time Period
This one was the brainchild of BenMiff, a player who has created probably close to half of the room templates in the game at this point (he keeps giving us batches of 100 at a time, goodness).
The idea with this one is that if the NPCs vary by time period (such as robots not needing food, or ice age characters getting a bonus from profession buildings, etc), then there's incentives to rescue specific kinds of NPCs depending on what your personal goals are.
That's really neat to me, and fits with what we were already doing on the player-character side: now we've just applied that to the NPC side, too. Of course the NPCs already had some inherent dispatch-related qualities based on their temperament, profession, and so forth; but those things varied regardless of where you picked up the NPC, so there was never an incentive to explore certain regions for specific kinds of NPCs. Now there is, and that again adds a surprising amount for me personally.
For now we're in major-bugfix/balance-only mode until Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and then we'll be fully committing to work on 1.3, which will be the next evolution of the game. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.113 is now out to fix an issue with two of the time-period-specific bonuses.
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, July 5, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.110-1.111 "Dispatch Missions For NPCs" Released!
This one completes the last of our features for the official 1.2 release, and it's yet another big one.
Dispatch Missions And Gifts To NPCs
I'm going to try to do a brief, quick, simple rundown here.
All those profession books and "mood gifts" you've been collecting for the last couple of versions? You can now give those to NPCs via their detailed stats page. Profession books make them better at their profession, while mood gifts improve their mood.
Likewise, building profession structures on the world map makes everybody who has a given profession more skilled at said profession.
The green jade guardian stone is now back, and by talking to it you can bring up a new "Dispatch Mission" interface. You can send any NPC from your settlement out to either bring you back a specific arcane ingredient (one copy for every player in multiplayer), attack ice pirates, or attack the overlord.
On these dispatch missions, there are two chances: the chance of death, and the chance of success. Chance of death is entirely based on their mood. Chance of success is based on their profession skill. Each profession gets inherent skill check bonuses to certain types of missions.
Which brings me to the overlord: he/she now has a much higher level depending on what your citybuilding level is. So you'll need to whittle down that level by actually attacking him/her via your NPCs, unless your citybuilding level is very low. The more lieutenants are left alive, the more difficult it is to attack the overlord successfully in this manner.
That's pretty much the basics, and enough to work with if you want to just start playing with it. Definitely let us know how it feels balance-wise.
Other Fun Stuff Related To NPCs
- NPCs that have a high skill level get pretty homesick when you take them from one continent to the next, so you can't just bring your heavy hitters with you from one continent to the next every time.
- However, a low-skill NPC from one continent can be brought somewhere else and then will switch continent allegiances as soon as you give them at least one profession book.
- NPCs don't like to feel like they are carrying the load alone. If their skill is way higher than the average on the continent, they'll gripe about that after each mission and their mood will fall further than normal. Same thing if a single NPC is being sent on a lot more missions than average for the continent.
- On the flip side, if an NPC is a lot lower-skilled than the rest of the settlement, but they still manage to complete a mission anyhow, their mood will actually rise after the mission is complete (normally mood falls after every mission at least some).
- The new dispatch and mood and skill systems are really flexible and powerful. We intend to do more with it after 1.2, but this is already an exciting baseline feature set, I think.
The Release Plan For 1.2 Remains The Same
Our plan for having 1.2 polished and "final" is still tomorrow (Friday, the 6th). We had planned a feature freeze Tuesday, but... yeah. Even though I worked all through the 4th, I was still completely behind today. The underlying simulation of all those NPCs, plus the interface work, turned out to be more complex than anticipated.
We don't plan on releasing 1.2 until Monday the 9th. That gives players a weekend with the final release candidate, and we'll only make any changes to 1.2 after that point if something critical is found. After that, starting on Monday we'll be plunging right into work on 1.3.
Between 1.0 and 1.1 there was an entire 40 day span, so this might seem a bit sudden, but 1.1 was not only deep changes but also wide (touching almost every part of the game). The changes in 1.2 are deep, but much narrower -- just touching things like tiers (now levels) and citybuilding, etc. Most of the infrastructure and balance hasn't had to change, and we're also not dealing with a bunch of pre-1.0 bugs that only got discovered once there was a wider audience this time, either.
Anyhow, the triumvirate of major new 1.2 features -- linear levels instead of tiers; procedural spells; new citybuilding -- are substantial enough that we don't want to get into a cycle where it takes another few months for those changes to find their way into the hands of players not using the latest beta. It really feels like we're hitting a tipping point for the fun factor of the game with these changes, so I guess we're understandably eager to get them out to as many people as possible as soon as possible.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.111 is a maintenance patch with various fixes in it. Given that it's going to be one of several for today, it didn't seem worth its own blog post. But it does fix the very serious "double damage from spells" bug that was really skewing balance for the last week or so, which is a big part of why I wanted to get this out post-haste.
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.
Dispatch Missions And Gifts To NPCs
I'm going to try to do a brief, quick, simple rundown here.
All those profession books and "mood gifts" you've been collecting for the last couple of versions? You can now give those to NPCs via their detailed stats page. Profession books make them better at their profession, while mood gifts improve their mood.
Likewise, building profession structures on the world map makes everybody who has a given profession more skilled at said profession.
The green jade guardian stone is now back, and by talking to it you can bring up a new "Dispatch Mission" interface. You can send any NPC from your settlement out to either bring you back a specific arcane ingredient (one copy for every player in multiplayer), attack ice pirates, or attack the overlord.
On these dispatch missions, there are two chances: the chance of death, and the chance of success. Chance of death is entirely based on their mood. Chance of success is based on their profession skill. Each profession gets inherent skill check bonuses to certain types of missions.
Which brings me to the overlord: he/she now has a much higher level depending on what your citybuilding level is. So you'll need to whittle down that level by actually attacking him/her via your NPCs, unless your citybuilding level is very low. The more lieutenants are left alive, the more difficult it is to attack the overlord successfully in this manner.
That's pretty much the basics, and enough to work with if you want to just start playing with it. Definitely let us know how it feels balance-wise.
Other Fun Stuff Related To NPCs
- NPCs that have a high skill level get pretty homesick when you take them from one continent to the next, so you can't just bring your heavy hitters with you from one continent to the next every time.
- However, a low-skill NPC from one continent can be brought somewhere else and then will switch continent allegiances as soon as you give them at least one profession book.
- NPCs don't like to feel like they are carrying the load alone. If their skill is way higher than the average on the continent, they'll gripe about that after each mission and their mood will fall further than normal. Same thing if a single NPC is being sent on a lot more missions than average for the continent.
- On the flip side, if an NPC is a lot lower-skilled than the rest of the settlement, but they still manage to complete a mission anyhow, their mood will actually rise after the mission is complete (normally mood falls after every mission at least some).
- The new dispatch and mood and skill systems are really flexible and powerful. We intend to do more with it after 1.2, but this is already an exciting baseline feature set, I think.
The Release Plan For 1.2 Remains The Same
Our plan for having 1.2 polished and "final" is still tomorrow (Friday, the 6th). We had planned a feature freeze Tuesday, but... yeah. Even though I worked all through the 4th, I was still completely behind today. The underlying simulation of all those NPCs, plus the interface work, turned out to be more complex than anticipated.
We don't plan on releasing 1.2 until Monday the 9th. That gives players a weekend with the final release candidate, and we'll only make any changes to 1.2 after that point if something critical is found. After that, starting on Monday we'll be plunging right into work on 1.3.
Between 1.0 and 1.1 there was an entire 40 day span, so this might seem a bit sudden, but 1.1 was not only deep changes but also wide (touching almost every part of the game). The changes in 1.2 are deep, but much narrower -- just touching things like tiers (now levels) and citybuilding, etc. Most of the infrastructure and balance hasn't had to change, and we're also not dealing with a bunch of pre-1.0 bugs that only got discovered once there was a wider audience this time, either.
Anyhow, the triumvirate of major new 1.2 features -- linear levels instead of tiers; procedural spells; new citybuilding -- are substantial enough that we don't want to get into a cycle where it takes another few months for those changes to find their way into the hands of players not using the latest beta. It really feels like we're hitting a tipping point for the fun factor of the game with these changes, so I guess we're understandably eager to get them out to as many people as possible as soon as possible.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
UPDATE: 1.111 is a maintenance patch with various fixes in it. Given that it's going to be one of several for today, it didn't seem worth its own blog post. But it does fix the very serious "double damage from spells" bug that was really skewing balance for the last week or so, which is a big part of why I wanted to get this out post-haste.
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, July 3, 2012
AVWW Post-Release 1.109 "Of A Moody Temperament" Released!
This one is yet another biggie. We're certainly having a goodly streak of those.
Procedurally Random Spells Get A Lot More Varied
As of last night, it was 48 distinct possible modifiers of 18 unique kinds, according to Keith. Then he went and added a few more today, so I'm not sure what we're up to. But it's a heck of a lot more than our last release for the modifiers, so spells should be feeling more varied and interesting (and balanced, come to that) than ever.
Also as part of this, spellgems of higher rarity now also automatically upgrade themselves for a few levels. So that legendary spellgem you craft is good for a lot longer now than it used to be, which is way more fun.
Enchants Rework
This was one of those things that we'd wanted to do back in 1.1, but had to push to 1.2 for time reasons. There are certainly plenty of things like that in 1.2 that are being pushed to 1.3, as an aside.
Anyway, the idea now is that you no longer get better enchants as a reward for collecting a lot of that kind of enchant. That led to farming and other various problems that players pointed out to us. Instead you now get higher-level enchants as your world level goes up, which is a lot more consistent with other games of this general nature.
Oh yeah, and Seeker enchants (those that remain) now work the way that everybody always supposed they were intended to. Rather than just increasing your chances somewhat, using a Seeker enchant now gives you 100% odds of getting an enchant for a given body slot.
Peaceful Retirement
Previously, if you wanted to choose another character via the character select screen, somebody was going to have to die. Yikes. It's long been requested that we have a way of doing that which doesn't involve the death of favored prior characters.
Enter the Glyph Retirement Scroll, which you can find in stashes very occasionally. These will let you basically leave your current character in town and get a new character of your choosing. Best of all, that character will take up a profession like any other NPC. In other words, this provides a new way of getting NPCs aside from completing missions.
And, like any other NPC, of course you can use a Glyph Transfer Scroll to get back to that old character and bring them out of later retirement if you want.
Lots More Work On The Citybuilding System
I had hoped to have this done today, but I suppose we all know how that goes. I'll be working tomorrow morning hoping to get it closer to finished.
There are some cool features that I'd planned for 1.2 (like the ability to see world map buildings from the side view in their respective regions; and the ability to have multi-character dispatch missions) that are simply going to have to wait for 1.3. But that's okay, there was more planned for 1.3 with the citybuilding anyhow, and that will fit in nicely there.
As of this version, NPCs still have no point, but they now have temperaments, moods, require food, get homesick, and a host of other things. Basically all of the simulation subsystem is in there now for their general existence, except for starvation when food consumption get critically high compared to food production.
What Remains With The New Citybuilding System For 1.2?
At this point you're able to collect profession books and gifts for NPCs, and the underlying stats are all in place to be affected by both of the above. However, the interface for actually giving NPCs these kinds of gifts is not yet in place, so that's one thing I have to finish.
Also as mentioned, that whole "starving when food supply/demand is way out of whack" thing still has to be done. Along with retroactively adding farms to older worlds so that your existing NPCs don't starve.
Then the last big thing remaining is the Dispatch system interface itself. That relies heavily on all the underlying simulation logic that has already been completed for the NPCs (an NPC in a poor mood won't even go on a dispatch mission, or will have worse changes of success/survival; same with profession skill).
Then of course there's yet more simulation logic for the dispatches themselves, and that's something that is partly done under the hood and yet doesn't have any interface available at all so far. Keeping this to single-NPC dispatches for now (and leaving the multi-NPC dispatches for 1.3) should hopefully keep it simple enough that I can finish off that interface and simulation tomorrow.
The Release Plan For 1.2
Our plan for having 1.2 polished and "final" is still this Friday the 6th. We had planned a feature freeze today, but instead that's going to slide into tomorrow some with the last of the citybuilding stuff. We don't plan on releasing 1.2 until Monday the 9th, however. That gives players a weekend with the final release candidate, and we'll only make any changes to 1.2 after that point if something critical is found. After that, starting on Monday we'll be plunging right into work on 1.3.
Between 1.0 and 1.1 there was an entire 40 day span, so this might seem a bit sudden, but 1.1 was not only deep changes but also wide (touching almost every part of the game). The changes in 1.2 are deep, but much narrower -- just touching things like tiers (now levels) and citybuilding, etc. Most of the infrastructure and balance hasn't had to change, and we're also not dealing with a bunch of pre-1.0 bugs that only got discovered once there was a wider audience this time, either.
Anyhow, the triumvirate of major new 1.2 features -- linear levels instead of tiers; procedural spells; new citybuilding -- are substantial enough that we don't want to get into a cycle where it takes another few months for those changes to find their way into the hands of players not using the latest beta. It really feels like we're hitting a tipping point for the fun factor of the game with these changes, so I guess we're understandably eager to get them out to as many people as possible as soon as possible.
And to that end, that's why if there's something that is hampering your fun factor with the new system, please do try to let us know what we might do to be able to help you. I mentioned the coming dispatch missions for specific materials in particular because I think that will solve one current issue, for example.
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.
Procedurally Random Spells Get A Lot More Varied
As of last night, it was 48 distinct possible modifiers of 18 unique kinds, according to Keith. Then he went and added a few more today, so I'm not sure what we're up to. But it's a heck of a lot more than our last release for the modifiers, so spells should be feeling more varied and interesting (and balanced, come to that) than ever.
Also as part of this, spellgems of higher rarity now also automatically upgrade themselves for a few levels. So that legendary spellgem you craft is good for a lot longer now than it used to be, which is way more fun.
Enchants Rework
This was one of those things that we'd wanted to do back in 1.1, but had to push to 1.2 for time reasons. There are certainly plenty of things like that in 1.2 that are being pushed to 1.3, as an aside.
Anyway, the idea now is that you no longer get better enchants as a reward for collecting a lot of that kind of enchant. That led to farming and other various problems that players pointed out to us. Instead you now get higher-level enchants as your world level goes up, which is a lot more consistent with other games of this general nature.
Oh yeah, and Seeker enchants (those that remain) now work the way that everybody always supposed they were intended to. Rather than just increasing your chances somewhat, using a Seeker enchant now gives you 100% odds of getting an enchant for a given body slot.
Peaceful Retirement
Previously, if you wanted to choose another character via the character select screen, somebody was going to have to die. Yikes. It's long been requested that we have a way of doing that which doesn't involve the death of favored prior characters.
Enter the Glyph Retirement Scroll, which you can find in stashes very occasionally. These will let you basically leave your current character in town and get a new character of your choosing. Best of all, that character will take up a profession like any other NPC. In other words, this provides a new way of getting NPCs aside from completing missions.
And, like any other NPC, of course you can use a Glyph Transfer Scroll to get back to that old character and bring them out of later retirement if you want.
Lots More Work On The Citybuilding System
I had hoped to have this done today, but I suppose we all know how that goes. I'll be working tomorrow morning hoping to get it closer to finished.
There are some cool features that I'd planned for 1.2 (like the ability to see world map buildings from the side view in their respective regions; and the ability to have multi-character dispatch missions) that are simply going to have to wait for 1.3. But that's okay, there was more planned for 1.3 with the citybuilding anyhow, and that will fit in nicely there.
As of this version, NPCs still have no point, but they now have temperaments, moods, require food, get homesick, and a host of other things. Basically all of the simulation subsystem is in there now for their general existence, except for starvation when food consumption get critically high compared to food production.
What Remains With The New Citybuilding System For 1.2?
At this point you're able to collect profession books and gifts for NPCs, and the underlying stats are all in place to be affected by both of the above. However, the interface for actually giving NPCs these kinds of gifts is not yet in place, so that's one thing I have to finish.
Also as mentioned, that whole "starving when food supply/demand is way out of whack" thing still has to be done. Along with retroactively adding farms to older worlds so that your existing NPCs don't starve.
Then the last big thing remaining is the Dispatch system interface itself. That relies heavily on all the underlying simulation logic that has already been completed for the NPCs (an NPC in a poor mood won't even go on a dispatch mission, or will have worse changes of success/survival; same with profession skill).
Then of course there's yet more simulation logic for the dispatches themselves, and that's something that is partly done under the hood and yet doesn't have any interface available at all so far. Keeping this to single-NPC dispatches for now (and leaving the multi-NPC dispatches for 1.3) should hopefully keep it simple enough that I can finish off that interface and simulation tomorrow.
The Release Plan For 1.2
Our plan for having 1.2 polished and "final" is still this Friday the 6th. We had planned a feature freeze today, but instead that's going to slide into tomorrow some with the last of the citybuilding stuff. We don't plan on releasing 1.2 until Monday the 9th, however. That gives players a weekend with the final release candidate, and we'll only make any changes to 1.2 after that point if something critical is found. After that, starting on Monday we'll be plunging right into work on 1.3.
Between 1.0 and 1.1 there was an entire 40 day span, so this might seem a bit sudden, but 1.1 was not only deep changes but also wide (touching almost every part of the game). The changes in 1.2 are deep, but much narrower -- just touching things like tiers (now levels) and citybuilding, etc. Most of the infrastructure and balance hasn't had to change, and we're also not dealing with a bunch of pre-1.0 bugs that only got discovered once there was a wider audience this time, either.
Anyhow, the triumvirate of major new 1.2 features -- linear levels instead of tiers; procedural spells; new citybuilding -- are substantial enough that we don't want to get into a cycle where it takes another few months for those changes to find their way into the hands of players not using the latest beta. It really feels like we're hitting a tipping point for the fun factor of the game with these changes, so I guess we're understandably eager to get them out to as many people as possible as soon as possible.
And to that end, that's why if there's something that is hampering your fun factor with the new system, please do try to let us know what we might do to be able to help you. I mentioned the coming dispatch missions for specific materials in particular because I think that will solve one current issue, for example.
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.