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As our teams continue working on on going tasks, it falls to the Art team to provide some nice images for the community. We hope you enjoy them.
This week was heavily focused around the GUI. The functionality implementation is progressing hand in hand with the aesthetics and general feel as we mentioned last week. This is also encouraging us to reconsider some previous design choices and the whole process is very exciting to watch.
The rest of the team is working on ongoing tasks that we have already presented so unfortunately there is not much new to report today. We would like to inform you that there is a Darkfall promotion that will be announced within the next week or so. This promotion will run until the launch of Darkfall 2.0.
We will close this short update with a few renders of the new Stoic design weapons that were kindly provided by our Art department. Keep in mind that these are only 3 weapons out of the 11 that exist in each Style so visual customization will be quite varied. In the renders the weapons are presented in order of rank with Rank 1 being at the left.
Stoic Staves
Stoic Hammers
Stoic Greatswords
This week our team expanded a bit more as a GUI Artist joined the ranks. This means that implementation of the functionality as well as the aesthetics are now progressing in parallel. This will save us time as well as ensure we do not need to go back and forth many times to adjust and address GUI related issues.
More work was done on the territory control feature that we also mentioned last week. This is essentially a tool in our world builder that allows us to connect villages to player holdings. There where some issues with the distribution of villages around the map and there will be a few additions as well as re locations to ensure better coverage for all player holdings.
We have also reached a decision on the clan holding resource nodes and they will remain within clan city walls. This is due to world building issues but also due to the need to create additional mechanics where they to be moved outside. However, their effectiveness will depend on village conquest. For example, a mine in a clan holding that has no villages associated with it, will produce very little or even nothing at all. At the same time the same mine, if all villages associated with the holding are being held by the owning clan, will work at 100%. This is in addition to the resources that villages provide to the clan that owns them.
To ensure however that all resource nodes as well clan holding resource nodes become equally appealing, we are considering a change to the harvested materials. This would also be in line with the community request for rare resources of all types instead of just ore. We will provide more information once this is set to stone.
Another tool that the team worked on is the area risk tool that will allow us to essentially paint danger levels on the map. These will affect harvesting node drops, as we have explained. The tool now supports much finer detail when painting the area risk map. This will help us better define what drops from where and take into consideration factors like small high traffic areas, mod spawns and others.
Finally, our art department is continuing it's work on the new weapon sets and new effects for spells. Also, the first models for our new profession, shield crafting, have been completed.
This week Tasos is in New York for company related business and will be back next week. In the meantime, we have prepared a short development update for you.
While not much to look at yet, the GUI has started taking its basic shape and fundamental functionality is being implemented. We know we have mentioned GUI related tasks a few times before but there are several stages in its implementation.
First there is the framework and the connection between the GUI system and the game engine. This is more or less complete although tweaks and changes do happen.
The next stage is implementing the actual functionality of the GUI. This is the stage we are currently at. Getting this right is essential as it affects how the actual game is played.
Once this is close to completion we can move on to the next stage which is the aesthetics of the GUI.
Another GUI related task that the teams worked on this week is the very necessary but quite mundane work of transferring all chat commands to the new system. Text commands will be used only by administrators and game masters. Our goal is to remove the need for players to use text commands for any reason and instead provide GUI elements that perform these tasks.
Last week we also briefly mentioned different danger levels for areas that will affect the rarity of resources that can be harvested in them. The tool to set the danger level for any area is now in the implementation phase and actually it already works on a basic level. There is more work to be done on this like adjusting loot tables but we already have something tangible on that front.
We now also have a tool that allows us to connect villages to player holdings. This is part of our territory control feature and something we are very excited about. While we will do a proper presentation for this, we have a few more details for you.
Villages will essentially belong to player holdings around them but not just to one holding. There will be an ownership overlap for all villages and clans that own a holding will need to secure the villages that correspond to it if they want to reap the rewards. Clans that do not own a holding or want to profit from a village that is not within their holdings influence can still do so as there is a pillaging mechanic that serves exactly that purpose.
Essentially, a clan holding gives to the clan that owns it potential sovereignty over specific villages. Neighboring holdings will also have potential sovereignty over these villages. There will be a constant struggle between neighbors for control of villages and in turn resources generated by them. Add to this the occasional pillaging clan that will try to profit from poorly defended villages and you can hopefully see why we are so excited about this feature.
As explained before, we want all this to give real meaning to territory control and we are eager to see many epic battles occur around villages.
Some Darkfall 2.0 development news on resource gathering, many thanks to Vangelis for collecting and writing up this information:
In Darkfall 2.0 we look at resource gathering as an activity, a marketing opportunity, a risk versus reward mechanic and most importantly, a driving force behind territory control.
As an activity, harvesting resources in an efficient way, had previously been quite repetitive, without much challenge and a down time activity for the most part.
Marketing wise, trading in resources was quite difficult and there were no opportunities to profit from fluctuating prices and the like.
The risk vs. reward aspect of resource gathering was also somewhat skewed as nodes would share the same loot tables no matter in how dangerous an area they were. As a result there was not much reason to fight over resources and in turn fight over areas in which specific resources where more bountiful than others.
All this is changing and below we will describe all the available methods of obtaining resources as well as the philosophy behind these changes. There are also some things we have discussed internally but we would like your feedback on.
The first and simplest way to gather resources is by picking up the appropriate tool and harvesting a resource node. Nothing much to say here apart from the fact that we are considering making resource nodes have different loot tables depending on how dangerous an area they are in. By that logic, resource nodes closer to an NPC city drop less rare materials than ones that are further away.
The second way to gather resources is harvesting clan holding resource nodes such as mines, groves, farms etc. In this instance, we are considering moving there nodes outside of the holdings and placing them in nearby villages. This serves two purposes. First, it creates an extra PvP hotspot for small to medium groups. Also, the idea is for the node to serve as an indication to what type of resources the village offers.
This brings us to the next way to harvest resources which is capturing a village. Villages will provide resources to the clan that has captured them but not all types of resources. The clan resource node, as we mentioned above, will indicate the type of resources a specific village will provide to its owner. If there is a mine, the owning clan will receive ore and so on. We are also considering the possibility of nodes other than mines providing infused materials so that villages with mines are not the only ones that are sought after. For example, a village with a grove would provide, apart from normal wood, the rare variants as well.
Moving on to resource monoliths which we have already discussed, we would just like to note that the philosophy is to provide players interested in PvP with a viable way of providing their clan or themselves with resources, while doing what they enjoy most in the game. Sea Fortresses also serve the same purpose.
Finally, various monsters carry various types of resources. There are of course very rare resources that can be found only on monsters such as Dragon scales.
It is our belief that this system, along with other driving forces in the game, will create a lot of meaningful and relentless conflicts as well as prompt cooperation, adding a new dimension to gameplay.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you and we apologize for the inconvenience.