Now that the annual team meeting is wrapped up, it's time to recap.
Around half the team was assembled this year, which is about the same as every year; it varies who comes on an annual basis, depending on who can get off work, individual finances, and the like.
All said and done, we logged over 70 hours during our first five days at the lake house, with the last two days (Saturday and Sunday) mostly spent enjoying some downtime and much-needed R&R, which included a Lord of the Rings Extended Edition marathon over three nights, some D&D fun, and taking the pontoon out on Rainy Lake to do some exploring. Also John's epic stuffed French toast.
As with every annual meeting, the bulk of our time was spent focused on the year ahead, and laying out the road map for the following year's development. So let's jump right in!
Release 11
While we originally said we were going to have R11 out in mid-October and then have 11.2 up for December roughly six weeks later, we've decided to just skip the mini-update and move straight into a larger release for R11. Which means we've pushed the dates back for that to the holiday season. Similar to last year, we'll have the servers up for around a week during the Christmas/New Years holiday season.
Disclaimer: everything talked about from here on out in regards to features and mechanics = things that are in their iterative stages. That means they are not finalized, nor are they representative of a final product.
When we talk about features that we plan on having in a build, it is not a guarantee that those features will actually be in the build by the time it comes around, as bugs are bugs and things can and do get pulled if we find something game-breaking prior to the build going live.
These issues are typically found via our Friends and Family + Dev Tavern test sessions that take place two weeks prior to any release going live. If you are Patron level or higher, you have automatic access to the F&F test sessions.
Before we go any further, here's a note from Bobby on the date change for R11:
In the months since R10 we have spent a great deal of time restructuring our server architecture to make things more modular and resilient to failure. Up until now all of the database read/writes were routed through the social server. This was necessary because Unity's .NET runtimes were a bit antiquated and did not support the C# database driver. This left us with two choices: A) route all DB traffic through a centralized server that could talk to the DB, or B) use a much older version of the database so that we could use an older C# database driver (which posed additional problems).
The latest version of Unity finally ships with an updated .NET runtime opening up a whole slew of possibilities. One of the more exciting ones that we have focused on allows the zone servers to directly communicate with the database. This may not sound like a big deal but let me reassure you that it is. Previously, if our social server went down for any reason game state could not be saved including character inventories etc. Now the zone servers are completely independent from any other server and the only point of failure is the database itself.
The bulk of my time has been spent reworking back-end data structures to better fit this model and make things more efficient. Along the way I encountered a few neck pains working with our 2+ year old inventory code; the next thing you know I have fallen down the refactor rabbit hole! The game is in a playable state but we feel that it is too unpolished for a release. We plan on spending the rest of October tidying up all of the loose ends from this refactor and then spend November working on additional content so that you're not running around looking at the same old stuff. We hope that by doing these things you will get a far more enjoyable experience out of the next test at the cost of having to wait a tad bit longer. Thanks for listening and we hope to see you in R11!
Let's talk about what's planned for R11.
First up: we now have a patcher! That one's been a long time in coming, and we've worked through multiple iterations to get it where we wanted it to be. We've been testing that internally for the past few months, and we're ready to push it live. Which means moving forward instead of downloading a full game client + executable, you'll be able to simply patch it like you can with any other MMORPG.
We've taken some of the feedback of our Early Access community from the last couple of builds and added in some quality of life features (ahead of schedule) to make the pre-alpha a little more fun for people, though again, things are in their earliest stages and these are by no means in their final states.
For example, we will have banks + a shared bank that allow you to share gear between your characters, so getting backup gear for corpse runs should be much easier now. Tip #515: Store your backup gear in the bank in case of corpse runs.
Mobs in the 1k zone (the outpost area) will be tuned down so that players can solo/duo/trio in between larger adventuring sessions, and will thus have "something to do" in their downtime while LFG/LFM. This is the first step in our vision of "everything close to an outpost/city can be handled by well-geared and/or skilled individuals and/or duos/trios for micro-sessions of gameplay", with the world getting progressively more dangerous the further afield you travel.
We've removing the 2k zone and dungeon for now, and adding the 4k zone back into the mix with some new performance enhancements to see how things perform for folks across the board. Mobs in the 4k zone are tuned for groups of 4 to 8 players, with some requiring multiple groups to take down. Tip #217: Never go anywhere without a group of friends.
We've moved to the latest iteration of the inventory system, as Bobby mentioned (which is now much closer to how we envision it for launch). This also includes some UI revamping.
Mechanics-wise, the wounds system is now in place in its earliest iteration. Wounds can be applied to your physical health or your stamina, and will essentially lower your cap per wound. For example: your health cap is 100% with no wounds. Every wound you receive pushes your cap down.
Here's an example: you receive a 10% wound upon being knocked unconscious, which reduces your hitpoint cap by 10%. If you release rather than allow another player to resuscitate you, you will suffer an additional 15% penalty, down to 25% total reduction.
Note that those numbers are not set in stone; balance testing is required while we fine-tune what we feel is a severe enough penalty to inspire players to play strategically, without making it so hardcore that players rage quit. I believe the max penalty is 85% presently.
Wounds can be received in variety of ways. If you are knocked unconscious, you will acquire a wound. If you release and respawn at town, you will acquire a wound. Critical hits have a chance to apply a wound. Certain boss mob abilities will apply a wound. Critical failure to disarm traps will apply a wound. So on and so forth.
While the best solution to avoiding a wound is to play with a well-rounded group of players and avoid getting knocked unconscious (skilled gameplay trumps rushing in headlong every day of the week), wounds are inevitable at some point or another, so how do you remove them once they are obtained?
Long-term, the system will work as follows: players will be able to remove wounds using a variety of abilities + reagents. Player-built campfires (which will require reagents + abilities within the Survival mastery line) will also be another way to "rest up" and remove wounds. Alternatively, players can go to the nearest tavern and hang out inside for a yet-to-be-determined length of time and have their wounds automatically removed (like in Star Wars: Galaxies).
Note that the first iteration of campfires will be simply static locations in the world where players can find a campfire and rest up, similar to the Neverwinter MMO (though at a far slower regeneration pace).
Again, all of these features are in their early stages and we appreciate your testing and feedback as we work towards balancing things and working out the kinks.
Release 12
R12 is set for March of 2019, and will feature our first game loop (or close to it). Our present agenda for that build is to have the guards + faction system in place, the first iteration of our new questing system (the last questing system we tested was in the fall of 2017; anyone here remember Jenny?), and the first iterations of the harvesting + crafting system.
You heard right! It's time to finally start testing the crafting system. We're shooting for a hybrid mix between Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Star Wars: Galaxies. We've talked about this a few times over the past couple of years, and we're super excited to finally be able to start testing the system.
To-date, we've only ever focused on testing combat/adventuring + all of the back-end changes that have needed to happen to get us to this point. R12 is the first planned build where we will be moving towards having all of the major systems of the game in place in their earliest iterations.
This will also be the first major transition towards our official alpha (which will be coming down the pipeline sometime after Release 12). NDAs are coming folks, so get ready!
We are also planning on shutting down the pre-order store once we make the transition to alpha (timeline subject to change), so you'll want to stay tuned for that announcement as well. At some point, we'll be flipping the switch and if you aren't already on board by that point, you'll just have to wait for release.
Growth Beyond R12
Lore-hounds prepare! The next major item on our agenda is the release of the Volume I novel, which will launch sometime early in 2019 via digital format and paperback, probably prior to Release 12. I haven't settled on a date yet as I want to get past R11 first, and then we'll finalize. It will happen sometime between R11 and R12.
The Volume II draft is underway, and is 25% completed, with an expected early 2020 launch. Volume III will start being drafted in late 2019 at the earliest, for an early 2021 launch, and then Volume IV will be drafted in 2020 for a 2022 launch.
2017 saw us take on a handful of early seeders and angel investors that allowed us to hire a few contractors to fill in the gaps: this was mostly artists and modelers, plus a music composer (in total we've worked with half a dozen talented folks this year). As we wrap up their contracts in early 2019, we're moving into the next part of our progression.
We're currently in talks with a variety of investors for our next stage.
Most MMORPGs are built by teams of 30+; we've been operating with an average of 14 people for the past three years (with a handful of us here since 2014), and all of us on part-time schedules outside of our day jobs. We've done a lot with that, and we're on track to launch with just the team we have in place. However, we're not happy with our internal timelines based on part-time development, plus there are a half dozen or so roles that we'd love to have filled by experienced people to help streamline our development process, rather than having to do it all on our own.
Thus investments. Not required for launch, but desired so we can speed up our process, and add some polish to the game so we can have a smoother look and feel that sets us apart from other independent titles. We'll have a larger announcement on this in early 2019 once we wrap up all the contracts.
2019 will also see the first draft of the tabletop game completed; the current goal is to have the DM guide + player guide drafts wrapped by the end of 2019 for a digital launch in 2020; we may pursue a Kickstarter/Indiegogo for a print version of the tabletop game if the community reacts strongly enough to it. Alternatively, we may also self-fund the print version.
The novel/tabletop universe will be shared: in other words, as we expand our reach, we'll be bringing in other talented writers, artists, and creators to work on additional novels in the world + tabletop modules.
In short, Stormhaven Studios, LLC is expanding as planned based on our original designs back in early 2014 to encompass the MMORPG, novels, and tabletop. We're moving ahead full-steam, and looking forward to continuing to ongoing growth.
That's it on our front. We'll have more for you when we are ready to announce the official dates for R11. Stay tuned.
Tim Anderson
Creative Director - Saga of Lucimia
CEO - Stormhaven Studios, LLC
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Once-a-month science fiction and fantasy short stories from author Tim Anderson, plus regular writing updates on the Saga of Lucimia novels.
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