4 December

Dragon 0.78A Update Open Beta Patch Notes

Newest build December 22nd
Right-click on "Dragon The Game" in your Steam library. Click on "Properties" and then the "Betas" tab.

We're going to keep the current build live for all of the newcomers but please opt-in to Dragon's open beta.

NPCs
NPCs can be picked up, carried, and dropped. If you're strong enough you can now pickup and carry NPCs and rocks by left clicking and holding. If you're awesome you can snatch them while flying by.

NPCs don't like any of this and will continue to attack you while carried.

Dropped NPCs will take lethal damage if released from sufficient height. We'll be expanding this feature to enable some really clever game play.

NPCs re-spawn after a few minutes and will take uneaten food with them. So eat up or lose out.

Slain NPCs now show as dead on the mini map.

Known Issues:
If you set an NPC down too gently they are so freaked out by your kindness they get stuck in weird positions. They just need to know you mean business. Pick them up and put them down again to show them who is boss. Or just eat them. Either way will resolve this bug.

Occasionally if you set an NPC down when they are on a slope, they will fall through it. The solution is to be gentile but not too gentile. Dropping them just before landing works better than waiting till on the ground to release them.

Camera
New camera mechanics. We're playing with new code and camera animations we think you'll like. Please let us know what you think. Later releases will allow you to customize how 'loose' the camera follows so you can change it to just the way you like it.

For now holding middle mouse or ~ rotates around the dragon and on release snaps back to behind you. Scrolling the middle mouse up/down will zoom in and out.

Invert Mouse. Hit "i" to toggle an inverted Y axis.

Known Issues:
When impacting the ground too hard, the dragon seems to jar loose from the camera rig, this is actually a movement system problem, not a camera problem and will be fixed with the new movement system. The solution for now is to hit the "~" key to reset your position. If that doesn't work re-spawning should fix it.

Re-spawn
Click it twice if the first re-spawn doesn't work. Sorry for the bug we will figure it out.

Other Miscellaneous Fixes:

• Shatter rocks when you attack them and when dropped
  
• Music randomly selects tracks for you
  
• NPCs leave bodies when they die
  
• Physics based breath effects. Flames collide and splash across objects they hit.
  
• Increased breath weapon range ~10% to show off the above splashing effects
  
• Press 'c' to bring up the character screen
  
• Press '1' to cycle through in-development breath attack effects
  
• Press 'i' to invert the mouse.

Content:
Game World: We're doubling the current map size and splitting the world into sectors so we can stream them dynamically. This will decrease lag, increase frame rate, and be awesome. This is an important step in creating a huge open world. We'll be able to bring in even more maps soon.

What's coming up:
-Re factored GUI code base.
-Options and controls menus.
-Improved saved system, should correct load/save issues for Linux and introduce moddability.
-RPG mechanics: Your dragon's agility, health, and strength will be adjustable and will impact game play. Finally something to do with all of those growth points!
-Flight Physics: Aileron rolls, camera corrections, and landing issues.
-New terrain sets, trees, and NPCs.

Other Known Bugs:
Re-spawn is glitchy: Resets characters texture and can cause problems with the GUI which affects frame rate. Re-spawn twice to clear most problems.

Multi-player Lag: This will be fixed when the player system is revamped to the better system. This is a high priority.

Multi player animations are a bit wobbly: this will be fixed with the new movement system. For now it looks like there is lag because of hiccups in the animation, this will be fixed soon.

Combat is quirky: Sometimes you miss when you should have hit. NPCs can hit you when they should have missed.

19 November

Dragon 0.77A Hotfix #2

NOVEMBER 27 - RED LEVEL GAMES
Happy Thanksgiving!

Version 0.77a Hotfix #2 is live. Patch notes are below.

New Content:
Occlusion culling: The camera no longer draws objects which are out of your line of sight. Players should see better performance. We will continue to improve this feature over the new few weeks.

Camera animations: New camera animations for character creation.

Bug Fixes:
-Terrains have been restiched to remove seams and gaps.
-NPC stats have been slightly balanced.
-Tweaks to the camera orbit code.



NOVEMBER 24 - RED LEVEL GAMES
Hi everyone,

We're trying to get in a series of updates before Thanksgiving. Here are the patch notes for our release today. We'll be patching again in a couple of days to address re-spawning problems, GUI improvements, and MP performance.

New Content:
New creatures: Tree Ents - Slow moving and hard hitting. Resistant to fire. Ogres - Large, smelly, and strong. Expect a fight.

8 new dragon skins: New colors (yellow, gold, white, green, brown, pink) and new variants which include hair and other details.

New effect: Blood spurts when you hurt NPCs.

GUI refinements: Some minor adjustments. Making way for an options menu and adjusting layout for screens with small resolutions.

Here is the complete list of changes from 0.76a. We think you'll like them, enjoy!


Mini Map: An early version of the mini map is now available to aid your dragon's hunting and navigation.

New maul attack: Hit "F" or Mouse 4 to slash and bite enemies in front of you, at the risk of exposing your head. Will eventually knock back enemies as well.

Added "fire blowback": Flames now splash and lick around things instead of blowing straight through them. This will be an upgradable feature of fire breath attacks. NOTE: *Temporarily disabled*

New creatures: Skeletons, ghouls.

New animals: Goats, sheep, pigs, wolves,

New building: Outpost towers.

New flame effects: More dangerous flames for your dragon.

Map improvements: New skybox, a lot more animals, locations, and villagers.

Improved Camera rotation : Middle mouse button or tilde. Zoom in and out with the mouse wheel for first person and extreme 3rd person view.

 
- Performance Improvements for most systems.
- Items already destroyed bug removed.
- Bears no longer hump you instead of attacking.
- Corrected lag issue due to fire burning particle effects.
- Improved frame rate when breathing fire.
- Fixed NPC's so they no longer continue to shower gibs after death, but somehow broke re-spawn. Oops.
- Fixed errors the animations on some creatures were throwing, this also improved the frame rate.
- Improved melee moves so it is easier to strike NPC's with head swipe and claw strike.
- Minor flight improvements.
- Fixed an audio loop which was causing some players to crash
- Fixed the "can't play can't exit" bug. Everyone should be able to create a character and start the game now. If you continue to have problems email us your character files at bugs@dragonthegame.net
- Multiple other bugs were squished but the exterminator couldn't keep track of them all. Just know they were great in number and have been slain. 

Re-spawn is glitchy: This will be fixed when the player system is revamped, right now the character does not re-spawn, but is instead moved to the spawn point. The flight controls are fighting with this idea and trying to continue to move the character where they were going before, even if they were not moving. We will begin resolving this issue on Thursday.

Multi-player lag: This will be fixed when the player system is revamped to the better system.

Object flickering:The way the objects are "streamed" in and out of the world when you move away is currently broken, it sometimes will stream an item out and then refuse to bring it back in. It is most obvious when the landscapes disappear. This will be fixed when the region editing is added, as it will use the same code and repairing it at that time will be best.

Combat is quirky: Sometimes you miss when you should have hit.

Imperfect map stitching: We're still dialing in our process for making large tiles of terrain seamless.