Oct 6, 2023

Day of Dragons - Bad Parrot

Welcome back to another Dev Blog!

It's been a few months since our last update. A lot has happened in that time. Those of you who are active in our discord server already know, but our Lead Developer, Jon, had a serious accident in August leading to multiple broken ribs and a punctured lung. After multiple hospital visits and some close calls, he is finally able to get back to work. While he is not yet completely healed, he is well enough to begin working on the game once more.

Due to the accident, we have had to delay the release of the 1.0 update. However, we now have an definitive release date!

Day of Dragons will be releasing Saturday, February 17th, 2024!

The release will include four new playable dragons, one new playable elemental, new AI, the new skin crafting/nesting system, updated UI, game features, a new dragon pearl loot and inventory system creating a player economy, new game modes such as CvC and DvE, anti-hacking variable encryption, new emotes, new animations, new skins, new eldering mechanic, new maps, new UE5 engine features such as Lumen lighting, updated dragon models and textures, new/updated sfx, and much more.

We are very excited and we hope you are, too! Now let's see some of the awesome stuff we have been working on these last few months...

New UI and Systems

Coming in the 1.0 update will be a new Character Panel UI design. This new design, shown as a early work-in-progress in the image above, will use tabs at the left side of your screen to open different information boxes. These boxes will contain the important information you can find in the current Character Panel, as well as additional information such as nesting and your new inventory.

We are currently working on crafting the inventory system for Day of Dragons. "An inventory system?" you say. "But dragon's don't have purses, silly developers," you say. Well, dragons don't need purses to carry their loot. They already have a built in one. Our dragons have an extra organ known as a crop that is used to store useful items such as dragon pearls.

Dragon pearls, as depicted in the above image, will be a new feature to the game. Players will be able to loot these from aggressive AI and player carcasses and equip them onto their characters. These pearls will have a variety of benefits, including stat boosting or cosmetic effects. Unless the pearl is from an exclusive cosmetic (i.e. from Patreon rewards packs), you will drop the pearls and your inventory once your dragon dies and other dragons will be able to loot your carcass.

Players will also be able to trade or drop pearls at will. And if you are wondering how, it is probably exactly as you would expect. With the new pearls, we will also be adding the regurgitation animation for each dragon.

Flame Stalker Regurgitation Animation

Animation And VFX Update

Brood Watcher Mating Display

Our sixth dragon's animation set is completed! The Brood Watcher will be joining the Biolumin and the Blitz Striker as the new dragons coming in the 1.0 update. With the Brood Watcher will come major updates to the nesting system as well as skin crafting which we will talk about in more detail in a future dev blog. The Brood Watcher will function as a caretaker to young dragons and will be able to carry and incubate eggs in their throat pouches.

With the overall animation sets for the six dragons and first elemental that will appear in 1.0 completed, our animation and vfx teams are working on polishing content and looking ahead. Some of our animation team is already moved to working on content found in our next update. Check out some of the content and when it is to be expected below.

Update Biolumin Bile Attack VFX (1.0)

Feathered Zygovo Rig (1.2)

Singe Crest Flight Animation (1.1)

Polished Swamp Snapper Turn-and-Bite Animation (1.0 or following patch)

Shadow Scale Dynamic Idle (1.0)

Flame Stalker Dynamic Idle (1.0)

Welcome back to the Forgotten Forest

We have a new developer who has joined the team! Echo will be our Level Designer and has already begun work on the map that will be featured in the 1.0 update.

With the delay of the Mega Map, we have turned our focus to the Forgotten Forest map that is currently in the game. We will be starting from scratch and redoing the entire map for the 1.0 update. The update map will feature new landmarks, micro biomes and more. Echo has already begun working on the river section of the map and has created some beautiful new areas for our players to explore.

The Forgotten Forest iwon't just be one giant forest biome. Instead, it is a temperate rainforest ecosystem which includes multiple types of micro biomes that you would find in areas with temperate climates. We plan to include multiple forests (coniferous, temperate, redwoods, birch), grasslands/meadows, snow caps (on mountain region), and wetlands. There might even be some volcanic activity that fire bile dragons can call home.

We can't wait to explore this new environment with you all!

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Q&A livestream has not yet scheduled. Stay tuned and watch for updates to find out when the next one will be!

From the Community

Each blog post, we pick some of our favorite screenshots and artwork posted by the community to showcase here. Want a chance for your submission to be showcased on our next blog? Post it in the appropriate channels on our discord!

Some of our favorite recent screenshots...

by nicknetted

by lusewing

by birishlove

Some of our favorite artwork from the community...

by optimisticp08

by mykamila

by kemikel

Thanks for reading!

~The Day of Dragons Development Team

Don't want to miss out on updates? Follow us on our social media accounts or become a patron to get updates before they are released!

Discord | Twitter | Youtube | Instagram

Jul 14, 2023

Dev Blog #23

Day of Dragons - Bad Parrot

Hello, everyone!

It's time for another Dev Blog!

During the last few months, our team has been working on a variety of projects, including preparing for the 1.0 update as well as getting things started for what comes after. Our animators and modelers have added the finishing touches to the dragons coming in 1.0 and the current dragons from Legacy Beta and have moved on to work on dragons for the 1.1 update. For the first time in a long time, we are all caught up on animations and are able to work ahead while we wait for the coding, sound, and vfx to catch up.

Update 1.0 is still planned for a 2023 release. All models and animations have been finished for 1.0 but we are still working on coding and integration as well as some sound and visual fx and UI. Thank you to everyone who participated in our Open Testing events that were held. We hope you enjoyed your taste of Update 1.0. Thanks to you, we were able to pinpoint some huge bugs that were causing major performance issues with large numbers of players in the same area. We were also able to test out our portal systems with a over-capacity server and can confirm that they work great. Much of the work we have been doing since the last development blog has been stabilizing the current build and working through various UE5 issues to get DoD to a playable state and working on some of the new creatures coming to the game including the new Sand Snapper and the new Tidal Shock - a class 6 Lightning Lung Drake that will make its debut as a free starter dragon when we introduce the underwater biomes.

Now a word from the Lead Dev.

Hey all, Jon Slabaugh here. I don't have a lot to talk about in this blog. I just wanted to say thank you for your patience and support. We're working hard to get update 1.0 out and making progress, a little each day, and one day, it will be time to release it to everyone. A lot of time has been spent adjusting to Unreal 5 and the new (and often buggy) technology. With UE5.2, a lot of the issues we were facing have been fixed and we're able to proceed, even though trying to work through those issues slowed us down quite a bit. But, that's all in the past and we're moving forward on the programming/integration side again. We can also confirm the system requirements for update 1.0 which is higher than our Beta Legacy build due to using UE5 and the new technology it provides. UE5 is heavy on the graphics side of things so you will need at least Windows 10/11 64bit and a RTX 2060 to run the game well. However, it will technically run with a GTX 960 but it is not recommended for performance reasons. RAM is not heavy, so you should be good with 8GB, but to future proof your system, you'll want 16GB. We are also no longer supporting Linux clients or Vulkan, Most of UE5's new tech right now only supports DirectX 12 with SM6.6 which is why you need at least a GTX 960, as older cards do not support DX12 + SM6.6. We'll still of course support Windows and Linux servers, but servers do not render anything so don't need DirectX/Vulkan, etc.

One last thing before I go, we read your feedback regarding the new Creator Skins and stats. We have decided to make Creator Skins and other special loot drop skins like the Sand/Snow Slayer skins, a cosmetic overlay skin that you can equip and unequip giving you that appearance without affecting nesting. So you will nest in whatever your real skin is, not the special skin you're wearing. Doing it like this solves a lot of community concerns. This allows us to keep the skins out of the nesting system so they can't be passed on and also allows players to continue to nest and pass on their stats and stat up.

Once again, thank you all for believing in us and being a part of our journey, from Kickstarter to Alpha, from Alpha to Beta, and from Beta to Release 1.0 and beyond! We appreciate you.

- SuperRhino
Lead Developer

The Elementals Have Arrived

The Elementals are officially here. These creatures will bring a new aspect to game play, being the first non-dragon playable and filling the role of an enemy to all dragonkind. Made for combat, Elementals have multiple powerful attacks including stomping, swiping, throwing, pounding, stabbing, and their deadly bile attack.

The Bile Attack of the Elemental

Elementals are alien to the world of Jrakhon and are unlike any of the other creatures found in the world. Unlike the playable dragon species, Elementals will not have a "hatchling" or "juvenile" stage and will instead spawn as their adult size. This also means that Elementals will not hatch out of eggs either. Instead, Elementals will spawn in from dormant rock shards buried in the world's crust.

Test of Magma Elemental Spawning

They will also not leave a body for their enemies to feast on as they are not made from flesh and bone like other creatures. Upon death, the Elementals will break into large rock fragments that crumble away. While they don't leave a meal, they will leave something else that dragons will find very valuable.

Test of Magma Elemental Despawning

Development wise, we are nearly finished with the Magma Elemental's addition to the game. We still have some aspects of its gameplay to add and some others to polish before it will be completed. If you would like to see a more in depth view of the Magma Elemental, make sure to check out our latest Development Livestream in which we featured this monster.

Getting Ready For After 1.0...

Singe Crest Updated Model

While most of our team is working on the 1.0 update, some of our developers are further along than others. Our modeling team is usually several steps ahead of the animation and coding departments, meaning they work on content for future updates.

Our modeler finished preparing the next dragon models. In the 1.1 update, we will be bringing the Singe Crest and Brood Watcher (aka the Nurse Dragon) to the game. These two dragons were Kickstarter Stretch Goals and will be auto-unlocked for all Kickstarters. Non-kickstarter Players will be able to permanently unlock these species per server through gameplay.

Brood Watcher Updated Model

Like with all of our wyverns, we have gone back and done some tweaks to the Singe Crest. We have increased his leg and neck length and he will be our first bipedal dragon. We also made some tweaks to the baby morph's legs and neck.

Hatchling Singe Crest Model

Our animation team has already begun working on these two new dragons, with the Brood Watcher already having some of her animations finished.

Brood Watcher Walk Animation

Brood Watcher Flap Animation

In addition to the dragons, our modeling team is also working on biome-variants of some of the AI creatures. Our first variant will be a new species of Snapper AI. This species, known as the Sand Snapper, will be found in the dangerous dunes and will hide under the sand like other predatory species in the area. We plan to create more AI biome-variants in order to make the world feel full and alive.

As an extra bonus to this blog, here is a look at the Biolumin Dragon's fierce new physical attack, the angry bio boop. Since this is a cosmetic dragon, the attack will of course do no damage, but that doesn't stop the bio from trying.

Angry Adult Bio Boop

Angry Baby Bio Boop

Thanks for reading and following along with our development!

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Q&A livestream has not yet scheduled. Stay tuned and watch for updates to find out when the next one will be!

From the Community

Some of our favorite recent screenshots...

by アゼリア.#9369

by Whisphim#4467

by Ayanami Rei#4339

Some of our favorite artwork from the community...

by Kaliber#4188

by Tale#8661

Apr 26, 2023

Dev Blog #22

Day of Dragons - Bad Parrot

Hello, everyone!

It's been awhile. We apologize for the delay in Development Blogs over the past few months. We have been very focused on the upcoming update and have had to delay some things, like the blogs. Development, however, has been going strong during this time with some changes to our release schedule.

Many of those who are following our other social media accounts (such as Discord) are already aware that we have had to delay the development of the Mega Map. This is due to the current Unreal Engine version 5.1 which has caused issues with memory leaks and crashing when loading large worlds. Because of this, we have moved around our development schedule and are pushing the Mega Map back until Update 2.0 which will be our full release update when we leave Early Access. This will not, however, delay the next large content update known as Update 1.0 which we like to call "The Promised Update."

The 1.0 update will still include all other content as planned, excluding the Mega Map. The update will include FOUR new playable creatures, new AI, faction play, a new breeding system, a new skin crafting system, and a first look at questing. We plan to use several smaller maps in the meantime, including an updated version of the current Forgotten Forest map.

A Word From Our Lead Developer

It's been a bit since I last got to write a blurb in the dev blog. We have been busy. Livestreams, testing, and crunching to get Update 1.0 out for all of you to play. Speaking of Livestreams, our next one will be in May. We were hoping for April, but things happened that slowed me down, technical issues. Want to hear about my woes? It all started with a February Windows 10 update. I started getting random Bluescreens, which started happening at bad times while working. I then updated my PC again hoping a newer update would fix the issue and it got even worse, bluescreening 5 or more times a day, sometimes back to back. It got to the point where I had to reinstall Windows 10 and after handpicking my Win10 version and revision, I can happily say that I haven't had one bluescreen crash since reinstalling Windows. ːsteamhappyː

I do still get a lot of crashes in Unreal Engine 5.1.1, and I'm hoping that those crashes will be fixed in Unreal 5.2 which is the version we plan to ship Update 1.0 on. According to the UE 5.2 patch notes, the issues we have experienced in 5.1 are fixed in 5.2, so we are hopeful. UE5.2 also brings a lot of performance improvements to the new UE5 tech such as Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps. I look forward to testing the framerates and performance improvements once the 5.2 update drops which should be any day now.

As for Day of Dragons, our animation team is nearly finished with all the animations needed for 1.0, and we're expecting to be starting our animators on Update 1.1 content in May. Most of the work remaining for 1.0 is programming, level design, tech art and a few sound fx. We expect Update 1.0 to release in the second half of 2023. When it does release, we will be shipping with a new launch trailer which we are in the early stages of producing. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel for some teasers.

Today we made the Emote Packs available for pre-order on our Store. Each emote pack will add 4 new emotes (Affection, Challenge, Distress, and Mourn) to the dragon for roleplay purposes. These emotes are purely cosmetic and provide no in-game benefit. These 4 new emotes make 9 emotes for each dragon if you count the 5 standard emotes and there will also be a new unlockable emote in the game players can get through questing which makes 10. Patreon's get an additional 2 emotes (Laugh and Rage) which brings the grand total up to 12 emotes. Don't worry, we're going to be adding an emote wheel to make it easier to use emotes, especially with controllers. That will probably come after 1.0.

Each week brings us closer and closer to Update 1.0 and we're excited! There is so much new stuff coming, Weather, Boss fights, Quests, new Dragons, Faction Play, new game modes, new server features, new skin system, new nesting mechanics, mutations, etc. We can't wait until you all play it. It's going to be our largest update ever with more content than all the previous updates combined. It's going to be awesome.

Creator / Lead Developer,
- Jonathan Slabaugh

---

Our team is hard at work bring the new creatures to life as well as doing some touch-ups to the current dragons. In this blog, we will look at where our team is on developing the new dragons as well as what we have done to touch up the dragons currently in-game.

New Playables Coming in 1.0

Inferno Ravager

As mentioned above, we will have four new playable creatures in the 1.0 update. This included the Inferno Ravager, Biolumin Dragon, Blitz Striker, and Magma Elemental.

The Inferno Ravager will be the third Starter Dragon in the game. Like the rest of the Starter Dragons, this species will be automatically unlocked on all servers and players will be able to spawn in as them right away. The Inferno Ravager is a fire wyvern and will be able to engulf itself in its own fire for its special ability. While on fire, the dragon will be able to burn away any acid decay and make itself immune to additional acid attacks.

We are currently in the testing phase for the Inferno Ravager. We have finished all of the required animations and models for its initial testing phase and have done quite a bit of combat polishing to balance it with the three current species. The next step in its development will be testing the baby and juvenile models and animations.

Biolumin Dragon

Our first Kickstarter Dragon to join the game's roster will be the Biolumin Dragon! This Dragon is a Kickstarter exclusive, meaning only Bio Dragon Key holders will be able to spawn in as this species. Other players will have to be nested in each time they wish to play as a Biolumin. This 100% cosmetic dragon will be able to hover like a hummingbird and is the fastest flier in the game. It's bile attack will be a bioluminescent spit that causes other dragons to glow.

Like the Inferno, the Biolumin Dragon's animation set is completed. There are still a few things we need to finish, however. We are in the process of creating its nest asset (continue reading to find out more) and are working on adding its bile attack into the test server. If you are interested in what the effect of the bile attack will look like on the different dragon species, you are see some examples in our last Dev Blog.

Blitz Striker

The final dragon for the 1.0 update will be the Blitz Striker. This dragon will be a DLC species and owners of the DLC Key will be able to spawn in as this species. Other players will have to be nested in each time they wish to play as a Blitz Striker. This will be the game's first amphithere and lightning element. It will be able to emit a powerful EMB and stun other creatures.

We are currently polishing the Blitz's animations and, once those are done, we will work on bringing it fully into the test server. We will begin the working on the baby and juvenile animations once the adult one's are polished. Like the Biolumin, we are currently working on creating a nest for the Blitz Striker.

If you would like to pre-order the Blitz Striker DLC, you can at our website.

Magma Elemental

Dragons won't be the only playable creatures in the 1.0 Update. The Magma Elemental will be the first Elemental species to join the DoD roster and will also intro faction play into the game. Elementals are the sworn enemies of dragons and players will need to figure out how to unlock these monsters in order to play as them. Magma Elementals will have multiple attacks and be able to throw objects to knock down flying dragons.

The Magma Elementals are currently being testing in our development branch. We are working on perfecting the animations, combat, and faction play. Faction play brings a lot of exciting new functions to the game. Elementals will not be able to view global chats and neither faction will be able to understand the other in local chats. We will be featuring the Elemental in our next Youtube Livestream likely coming in May.

Retouching the Older Dragons

Acid Spitter

While we work on bring the new dragons into the game, we are also working on improving aspects of our current dragon species.

As many of you remember, our first dragon we brought to life was the Acid Spitter Drake. We chose this one because of its simple design compared to its winged counter parts. We were able to learn and experiment with creating this dragon and have thus been able to perfect our technique more and more with each species after. However, looking back, we were able to spot some things we could improve on for several of the species, including the Spitter.

Left: old, Right: new

The main issue with the Acid Spitter was its lack of armpits. The structure of its arms caused stretching in the torso when the arms are brought forward, like in walking movments. While not extremely noticeable, we felt this was a good time to fix this issue as well as touch up on the textures to give them more definition.

Shadow Scale

The Shadow Scale also had similar issues with its underarms. We had actually discovered this issue while creating the Flame Stalker, which is the dragons made after the Shadow Scale do not have this issue. In addition to the armpits, we noticed some other errors on this dragon that needed to be fixed.

Left: old, Right: new

Some players may notice an issue where the back scales do not move properly with the back of the dragon when walking. We tweaked the back of the model to help keep those spikes in place. We also removed an annoying chin point on the model that made it look a lower quality than it actually is as well as improve the overall textures. Check out the thumbnails above to see the fixes for yourself.

Flame Stalker

The next dragon to get a touch up is the Flame Stalker. We are currently working on the tweaks to its textures to give it a better overall look with more detail.

What's In the Works

Biolumin Wall Mounted Nest

The dragons themselves are the only thing that needs to be completed for the 1.0 update. We are also working on creating their visual effects and environmental assets.

We are currently working on finalizing the Biolumin's nest. This dragon's nest will have two different forms; a wall mounted and a ground mounted. The Bio's nest in the Shimmering Caverns where the flora and fauna emits a beautiful bioluminescent glow. The nest itself is made from the sticky saliva of the Biolumin's and emits its out light. This was inspired by real life swiftlets who make their own nests out of saliva in cavern settings.

The Blitz Striker's nest is also being worked on. It is inspired by fulgurite, the formation created when lightning strikes sand.

Blitz Striker Nest

The Biolumin egg is also getting its own special effects. Unlike other dragon's eggs, you will be able to see the growing fetus in the Bio's egg. As the egg matures, it will become less and less transparent until the egg eventually hatches in a cute Biolumin hatchling. To get this effect to work, our Visual Effects Artist had to sculpt a fetus version of the Biolumin Dragon to fit in the egg.

Biolumin Egg

Biolumin Fetus Model

In addition to dragon related assets, we are also working on environmental assets for the Shimmering Caverns and other landscapes. The Shimmering Caverns will be home to bioluminescent flora and fauna as well as natural structures that emit their own glow. This biome will be filled with environmental assets not found anywhere else in the world.

We are getting closer every day to the 1.0 update and the release of all the content it will include. Make sure to follow our various social media accounts for frequent updates and check back here for our next Dev Blog!

From the Community

Some of our favorite recent screenshots...

by 7SpeedBumps#4970

by Graeme#3108

by SingingBell#7658

Some of our favorite artwork from the community...

by TimeFuze#4812

by reddish#3699

by ProwlerPaws#1414

Thanks for reading!

~The Day of Dragons Development Team

Don't want to miss out on updates? Follow us on our social media accounts or become a patron to get updates before they are released!

Discord | Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Twitch | TikTok

Dec 2, 2022

Dev Blog #21

Day of Dragons - Bad Parrot

Hello, everyone!

We hope you are having an awesome start to the holiday season! For those who missed it, we hosted a livestream on YouTube last week. We went over some new content and answered some of your questions as well. Check it out of you haven't!

In November, we have continued our progress to create the adult animation sets for the next three dragons to be added to the game. With only a handful of each adult set left, we will likely be finishing the adult sets in December and moving onto the juvenile and hatchling sets. The younger age animation sets will take less time as most of the work is tweaking current animations to fit the juvenile and hatchling models.

We have also been working on other aspects of the game needed for the 1.0 update. Continue reading below to find out what our team has created this month, but first...

A Word From the Lead Developer

Greetings all,

We just wrapped up a Thanksgiving livestream where we showed off some of the stuff we've been working on as we get everything ready for our game's 1.0 release. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it, it has a lot of good information and sneak peaks of what's coming.

We also got to take a few days off and enjoy Thanksgiving with our families. Indeed we are very thankful for all of you, especially those of you who have been with us since the beginning. Speaking of which, December 4th marks our 3rd anniversary since DoD came to Early Access in its early Alpha state. Fast forward to December 2020 and the early closed beta version released featuring the Acid Spitter. Fast forward again to July 2021 and we saw the release of our Beta version with the Shadow Scale. Fast forward once more to April of this year when we released our third dragon, the Flame Stalker. I know many of you are looking forward to our next release of 1.0 coming in 2023 which will feature not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 5 new playable creatures including the Biolumer, Inferno Ravager, Blitz Striker, Magma Elemental, and the playable Swamp Snapper AI. It's a lot of new content coming in one massive update that will change our game forever.

Release is a special time, we have one chance to get it right, and we're going to get it right! We plan to release patches to our Test server and allow our Testers and Patreons to comb through the content and find bugs which we'll fix, then when we have a stable build, we're going to put that build up on a public test branch that players can download and play on their own private servers. Once all the content is in and the bugs are worked out and game is polished for release, we will push the build to release and the current Beta will be moved to a Legacy branch on Steam. Why? Because release will be using the next gen version of Unreal Engine (UE5) which requires more compute and graphic power and memory to run. Don't worry though, we plan to put some of the new content in Legacy as well, just don't expect a new map for Legacy as it will eventually be deprecated once we don't see anyone using it.

We don't know when in 2023 that 1.0 will release, the only answer I can provide is, "When everything is ready." It's a lot of work, but we've already begun testing 1.0 on our Test Server. UE5 is beautiful. The adult anim sets for the new playables should be finished by the end of January, then we'll make the necessary modifications for the youth sets which should take 1-2 weeks per set. Then it is test test test, polish, balance, test, polish, release.

We will be hosting a Holiday/Anniversay livestream later this month on our Test Server featuring some of our favorite content creators and will be giving away some Plushies, Collector's Soundtrack CD's, and game keys. It should be bioluminawesome! You won't want to miss it! Livestream Date TBA

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2023 will be awesome!

This is DoD, and we have DRAGONS.

- Jon Slabaugh (Lead Dev)

And now onto the blog...

Mega Map Update

A hatchling cave system

We are continuing to flush out the landmarks and height map in the upcoming Mega Map. Our focus is on the lower right side of the map, which will be polished and added to the testing server first while the next section is being worked on.

The square objects you see in the screenshots are placeholders for environmental assets. Some of these assets will be custom created by our Environmental Artist, Brigade.

Check out the thumbnails below to see some screenshots of different views of landmarks begin created.

Animations

Biolumer Dragon Mating Display Animation

As stated above, we are almost done with the adult animation sets for the three dragons coming in the 1.0 update, with the Inferno Ravager trailing a bit behind. We are expecting to finish the adult animations in December and will then begin working on the juvenile and hatchling sets.

Check out some of the animations our team has created for each of the three dragons below.

Biolumer Animations Lay Down, Flap, Glide, and Hover

Inferno Ravager Glide, Sit, Stalk, and Hover

Blitz Striker Bile Attack, Sniff, Sit, and Flap

VFX

Acid Spitter Bioluminescence

Our VFX artist, Flicker, as been working on the bioluminescence for our dragons. As most of you know, when a Biolumer Dragon uses its bile attack on another dragon, the chemicals in the Biolumer's spit will react with the dragon's scale chemistry and reveal its hidden bioluminescence. This effect will be temporary and does not harm the targeted dragon. However, dragons in PVP servers may want to wash off this effect as soon as possible, as it will make it an easy target for enemy clans.

A dragon's natural bioluminescence may also become visible in certain locations in the new map, including in the underground cave systems of the Shimmering Caverns.

Check out some of the bio spit effects we have created so far!

Shadow Scale Bioluminescence

Inferno Ravager Bioluminescence

Flame Stalker Bioluminescence

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Q&A livestream has not yet scheduled. Stay tuned and watch for updates to find out when the next one will be!

From the Community

Some of our favorite recent screenshots...

by BeliK#6971

by Reubs_93#2946

by Kem#1680

Some of our favorite artwork from the community...

by . , Jaeger , .#4612

by [SMOKE™] SilverKitty14#9122

by spotycoffee#2709

Thanks for reading!

~The Day of Dragons Development Team

Don't want to miss out on updates? Follow us on our social media accounts or become a patron to get updates before they are released!

Discord | Twitter | Youtube | Instagram

Sep 20, 2022

Dev Blog #20

Day of Dragons - Bad Parrot

Hello, everyone!

Sorry for the delay with the Dev Blog this month. There have been quite a few things that have come up in the last few weeks and I was unable to write it up. However, here we are now! We have lots of juicy development news for you, but first....

A Word from Our Lead Developer

Greetings everyone,

As some of you know, earlier this month we were attacked by a hacker. I wanted to write an in-depth explanation of what exactly happened.

I woke up early on the morning of September 9th to a bunch of messages letting me know that our Official servers had been compromised by a hacker that goes by the monicker "123." According to the server logs, it appeared that the hacker had cracked two of our admin's Steam accounts and used their accounts to begin slaying and banning users from the servers. The logs displayed our admin's Steam ID's and logged the slays and bans to those ID's. Our Senior Administrators quickly acted and removed those Steam ID's from having Administrator access on our official servers. After a staff meeting, we decided to require all of our Admins to use 2-Factor authentication on their Steam accounts (aka Steam Guard) to prevent their accounts from being compromised. We also enabled 2FA on our Official Discord to prevent Moderator accounts from being hacked and compromised (which would be a nightmare, could you imagine?).

That evening we released a patch to the game which included Server Admin Passwords, additional logging, and some experimental user validation features. The patch was broken as no user could pass validation now. Two hours later we released a hotfix followed by another patch immediately after. These new patches caused issues as there were features being worked on for 1.N that were not finished and things in 1.M had changed and I was tasked with going through code and trying to undo the 1.N changes, revert things back to 1.M, all while introducing new security features to prevent more hacking. It was very stressful. We also talked to our admins who had appeared to have been hacked the day before and they assured us that their accounts were not hacked and they were already using Steam Guard. This could only mean one thing, the hacker was using Steam ID spoofing software. A little bit of Google research showed me that this is an issue in multiple online multiplayer Steam games including CS:GO and told me that the vulnerability rested somewhere in how the game retrieves Steam ID's from players.

The next day, we woke up to servers that were down again, our night staff encountered the hacker who again kicked, banned, and slew players causing us and our players a lot of grief. But this time the hacker was logging in as my own developer account. We released another patch to fix things that had broken in the previous patch the night before, as well as putting passwords on our Developer accounts, but this patch included it's own set of issues such as players spawning out of bounds. A total of 3 patches and 2 hotfixes were released on September 10th alone. We had also received reports that hackers were on private servers kicking, banning, and slaying players by logging in as Private Server Admins and also as me. They were again able to fake their Steam ID's, bypassing our game's validation checks, and spawn in as the dragons of other players as well as admins. We left our servers offline that night and I continued working on a new patch to both fix the 1.M/1.N issues as well as find the backdoor that these hackers were using to bypass our Steam ID validation checks.

On September 11th, we released a hotfix followed by another patch. Again, the patch failed to fix the vulnerability and the hacker(s) were able to attack both public and private servers. This of course forced us to shut down all servers again to protect all the player data on all Official servers.

For the next 14 hours I studied the logs and dug deep into the Engine code and Steam Subsystem plugin to find the backdoor the hacker had been using to allow him to login with an injected Steam ID. I knew that the hack was client side, as the hacker cannot access the server remotely, they must be injecting their Steam ID at login during server-client network communication. This was going to be challenging, but my brain loves a good challenge, and I've never been faced with a problem I've not found a working solution for.

On the afternoon of September 12th, I finally found the vulnerability in the Steam subsystem that the hacker had been exploiting to inject a fake Steam ID to the server during login. I won't go into details on exactly what I found or what I did to fix it, but I am positive that that particular vulnerability in the Steam subsystem is patched. I was pretty excited when I figured it out and thank you to all of you who believed that I could.

All in all, this hack made us better. Our Admins are all now using Steam Guard to secure their Steam Accounts, our Discord Mod/User accounts are protected with 2-Factor Authentication, our game now uses Dev/Admin access passwords, client-server remote procedure calls are now encrypted preventing hackers from calling them from memory which now won't work without the key provided by the server, the changes in 1.N that made it into the 1.M patches actually make some things smoother such as flight and running, I learned some important things about Unreal's netcode that will benefit 1.0, and all of this happened in the Early Access Beta, which is better than if it had happened in 1.0.

The hacker(s) tried to hurt DoD, but in the end,.. they only made us better.

Jonathan Slabaugh
Lead Developer - Lead Designer - The Only Programmer
Day of Dragons

Now onto the blog...

Mega Map Update

We are ALMOST done creating the overall landmass for the Mega Map's continent. We have made some changes to it and added some more area as well.

The land area to the east of the volcano has been increased, giving room for more burnt and temperate forests. We also moved the desert dunes closer to the volcano. The area the dunes used to be in has transformed into a grassland area which will be home to three large lakes.

Up north, the floating islands have moved a bit west and we have filled more of the ocean in the tundra area to make room for a frozen desert, which will be the home of the Snowslayer worms. Then you may also notice a new sand bar/island area to the south. These islands will be covered in tropical forests.

We plan to do a few more edits to the overall landmass and then we will begin adding details and really bring this map to life.

Animations

Inferno Ravager Walk Animation

Over in our animation department, our team is working hard to bring the next dragons to life!

While animating the Inferno Ravager, we discovered an issue with the wing membranes clipping as it moved its arms. After some work, we were able to come up with a solution! Much like how a bat's membrane works, the Inferno's wing membrane will shrink and stretch as needed. This way we can keep the natural looking membrane size without having the issues that come with it. With the membrane issue fixed, we have been working on redoing the animations.

The Bio animation is going well! We have nearly completed all of his land locomotion animations. Like the Acid Spitter, the Bio will have an extra ground speed known as a "sprint". This will make the Bio very fast on land and able to run circles around most other dragons. However, Acid Spitters can still out pace a Bio on the ground, so these cosmetic dragons should keep on their toes.

We have also begun animating the Blitz Striker. Like the Inferno, the Blitz will also have the shrinking membrane to prevent its wings from clipping. Currently we are working on the land and air locomotion animations.

While the new dragons are being worked on, some of the old are getting some love as well. We are working on creating some new Acid Spitter animations such as the secondary idle animation shown below. This animation will play if your character does not move for a certain amount of time, bringing more live to the dragon. After all, it can be tiring standing in one place too long.

Inferno Ravager Fly Animation

Bio Dragon Trot, Run, and Sprint Animations

Blitz Striker Slither Animation

Blitz Striker Glide Animation

Acid Spitter Secondary Idle Animation

Models and VFX

We are finishing up the last few Kickstarter stretch goal dragon models!

Arguably the best dragon ever (not biased), the Feathered Zygovo's adult model is complete. It is now completely feathered and adorable.

We have also determined the sexual dimorphism for this species. The Zygovo will be one of several species that does not use bile to incubate its eggs and instead sits on its nests. Therefore, like snowy owls, the females will have extra spots on their backs to help with camouflage while they lay on their nests.

We are now working on the baby morphs and perfecting the coloration of the Feathered Zygovos. If all goes well we plan on having the babies covered in down instead of feathers.

Onto the other side of the size scale, the Ice Behemoth dragon has also made progress. After going through several different design ideas, we have finalized the horns for the male behemoths. These horns will be perfect for hunting the dangerous Snowslayer Worms in the frozen desert area of the map.

With the male's design done, we will now start working on the baby morph for this massive dragon.

MORE WORDS

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Youtube Livestream Q&A will be on...

Friday, September 30th at 1:00 PM EST

Join us while we celebrate our 3 year Kickstarter Anniversary! We will answering the community's questions and showing off the latest updates we have in store for the UE5 update!

From the Community

Some of our favorite recent screenshots...

by Dark Mink#2670

by JennyS#5422

by TargetVudu#4808

Some of our favorite artwork from the community...

by ghosteater#5611

by Kimmy#6669

by Oka/Karta#7648

That's all for this month's blog! See you next month and thanks for reading.

~The Day of Dragons Development Team

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