Update: EV2 is getting some last-minute upgrades, so she's not quite ready for the spotlight. Trailer coming later this week!

Series EV2 lands in May. Are you ready?

This week, keep your eyes peeled for the Series EV2 trailer and release date. Then, on May 13th, tune into the Devstream at 5PM EDT for her complete gameplay reveal!

Here’s what we’ve revealed so far:




EV2 has two extendable node defenses. Node defenses allow you to connect point A to B to C and on and on, letting you create unique setups and patterns. We expect "Hi" will be the tamest thing we see in the Steam screenshots section...

Anyways, her first node defense is the Proton Beam, which zaps enemies as they walk through it, which we hear is quite painful. We wouldn't know. We're not dumb enough to walk in a straight line while refusing to avoid obstacles.




Her second node defense is the Torpedo Beam! A slow-moving torpedo travels along the beam, and when it reaches a node, it'll explode. As the torpedo moves through it each node, it deals more and more damage, so long links are gonna deal more damage than short links. See what we did there?




Her anti-gravity bots are her first ability. Set these bad boys up, and then shoot 'em to make 'em explode. Any nearby bots will also blow up, so you can cluster these in Build Phase preparation and then set 'em off when the big bads start walking through.

Check out the trailer on Tuesday and the Devstream next Friday for her full gameplay reveal!

Update: EV2 is getting some last-minute upgrades, so she's not quite ready for the spotlight. Trailer coming later this week!

Series EV2 lands in May. Are you ready?

This week, keep your eyes peeled for the Series EV2 trailer and release date. Then, on May 13th, tune into the Devstream at 5PM EDT for her complete gameplay reveal!

Here’s what we’ve revealed so far:




EV2 has two extendable node defenses. Node defenses allow you to connect point A to B to C and on and on, letting you create unique setups and patterns. We expect "Hi" will be the tamest thing we see in the Steam screenshots section...

Anyways, her first node defense is the Proton Beam, which zaps enemies as they walk through it, which we hear is quite painful. We wouldn't know. We're not dumb enough to walk in a straight line while refusing to avoid obstacles.




Her second node defense is the Torpedo Beam! A slow-moving torpedo travels along the beam, and when it reaches a node, it'll explode. As the torpedo moves through it each node, it deals more and more damage, so long links are gonna deal more damage than short links. See what we did there?




Her anti-gravity bots are her first ability. Set these bad boys up, and then shoot 'em to make 'em explode. Any nearby bots will also blow up, so you can cluster these in Build Phase preparation and then set 'em off when the big bads start walking through.

Check out the trailer on Tuesday and the Devstream next Friday for her full gameplay reveal!

May the Fourth be with you, Defenders! Here's what we've been working on this week:

You have until May 13th to choose the next map! This vote is between the Crumbled Bulwark and The Buried Bastille:


Crumbled Bulwark
Crumbled Bulwark is a remake of DD1’s Ramparts. A full moon hangs over this fragmented castle fortress. Medium-sized map. Three cores.

VS.


The Buried Bastille
The Buried Bastille is a remake of DD1’s Glitterhelm Caverns. This underground fortress has three wings, each filled with the distinct, lingering smell of death. Large map. Four cores.

Which one would you like first? Vote here and let us know!

With the influence vote in full swing, we are ramping up on an incursion for the map that wins the vote. Gathered some good feedback from the forums about the latest incursion, and the next patch will have some quality of life adjustments to the incursion to make it more accessible.

Ever make a visual effect that you could just stare at for hours?



Made a cool visual behavior setup for one of EV2’s towers to reduce beam noise because of the way in which you can place this tower.

Currently Listening To: Sarah Jaffe - "Defense"

Greetings Defenders!

This week I’m working on making sure our new UIs are split-screen friendly. They should be much easier to read and navigate on the PS4 and PC (when split-screen becomes available). I also updated the Summary Screen to be muuuuuch simpler with a little sizzle to it. The final touches are going in now that sound and art have gotten their hands on it.

For the rest of the week I’ll be working with Brys on the Server Browser.

And now for some pictures!









Testing continues on EV2 and more. Folks that haven’t been contacted yet, should hear back from me soon. We’re bringing in new playtesters in rounds, and the next round will be soon.

Also working on hotfixes and looking at the latest DD1 community beta patch!

We just started work on a new level! Another DD1 remake! As always, the first thing we do is to define the tileset, so we did some visual tests and built up some architecture, and then Jordan came up with this visual reference callout. Simply stunning!



This week we are working on a new map. We are establishing the tileset for the level, which means creating the basic modular pieces such as trims, walls, grounds...

New monthlies are out and everyone should be swimming in new pets on the PS4. The PS4 Inventory Pack is still held up in Sony’s QA, so I’ve been trying to sort that out. I’m looking into the events system as well because we’d like to do more than the triple daily mission refresh, but we have to figure out how to do it efficiently first.

If you look up at Mr. James Reid’s entry, you’ll see that we’re working studio wide on improving the split-screen experience by reducing the number of fullscreen takeovers.

Other than that, we’re working on some server and client stability improvements that should be shipping this week as well.

This week I’m spending a little bit of time polishing EV2's animations and making a few small tweaks. Most of my time, however, is focused on the hero after EV2, the Gun Witch!



I am also working on adding some animated elements to our new maps. So many skeletons hanging from the dungeon ceiling, so little time...

Still chugging away at hotfixes as they come in ( _._) . But more than that, we’re full charge ahead with testing of the current milestone. That means testing on EV2, new costumes, new skill spheres, new passives, new metrics data to track, new weapons, all while making sure all the old stuff still works. I’m getting too old for this.

It puts the lotion on its skin...and by lotion, I mean pixels.

May the Fourth be with you, Defenders! Here's what we've been working on this week:

You have until May 13th to choose the next map! This vote is between the Crumbled Bulwark and The Buried Bastille:


Crumbled Bulwark
Crumbled Bulwark is a remake of DD1’s Ramparts. A full moon hangs over this fragmented castle fortress. Medium-sized map. Three cores.

VS.


The Buried Bastille
The Buried Bastille is a remake of DD1’s Glitterhelm Caverns. This underground fortress has three wings, each filled with the distinct, lingering smell of death. Large map. Four cores.

Which one would you like first? Vote here and let us know!

With the influence vote in full swing, we are ramping up on an incursion for the map that wins the vote. Gathered some good feedback from the forums about the latest incursion, and the next patch will have some quality of life adjustments to the incursion to make it more accessible.

Ever make a visual effect that you could just stare at for hours?



Made a cool visual behavior setup for one of EV2’s towers to reduce beam noise because of the way in which you can place this tower.

Currently Listening To: Sarah Jaffe - "Defense"

Greetings Defenders!

This week I’m working on making sure our new UIs are split-screen friendly. They should be much easier to read and navigate on the PS4 and PC (when split-screen becomes available). I also updated the Summary Screen to be muuuuuch simpler with a little sizzle to it. The final touches are going in now that sound and art have gotten their hands on it.

For the rest of the week I’ll be working with Brys on the Server Browser.

And now for some pictures!









Testing continues on EV2 and more. Folks that haven’t been contacted yet, should hear back from me soon. We’re bringing in new playtesters in rounds, and the next round will be soon.

Also working on hotfixes and looking at the latest DD1 community beta patch!

We just started work on a new level! Another DD1 remake! As always, the first thing we do is to define the tileset, so we did some visual tests and built up some architecture, and then Jordan came up with this visual reference callout. Simply stunning!



This week we are working on a new map. We are establishing the tileset for the level, which means creating the basic modular pieces such as trims, walls, grounds...

New monthlies are out and everyone should be swimming in new pets on the PS4. The PS4 Inventory Pack is still held up in Sony’s QA, so I’ve been trying to sort that out. I’m looking into the events system as well because we’d like to do more than the triple daily mission refresh, but we have to figure out how to do it efficiently first.

If you look up at Mr. James Reid’s entry, you’ll see that we’re working studio wide on improving the split-screen experience by reducing the number of fullscreen takeovers.

Other than that, we’re working on some server and client stability improvements that should be shipping this week as well.

This week I’m spending a little bit of time polishing EV2's animations and making a few small tweaks. Most of my time, however, is focused on the hero after EV2, the Gun Witch!



I am also working on adding some animated elements to our new maps. So many skeletons hanging from the dungeon ceiling, so little time...

Still chugging away at hotfixes as they come in ( _._) . But more than that, we’re full charge ahead with testing of the current milestone. That means testing on EV2, new costumes, new skill spheres, new passives, new metrics data to track, new weapons, all while making sure all the old stuff still works. I’m getting too old for this.

It puts the lotion on its skin...and by lotion, I mean pixels.

• Requirements:
  
  • Slow 100,000 Enemies
    
  • Knockup or Stun 10,000 Enemies
    
  • Provoke 1,000 Enemies
• Rewards:
  
  • Pet: Dragolich Variant
    
  • Gold: 300,000 Gold
    
  • Medals: 2,000 Defender Medals
    
  • Title: Mesmerizing

• Made a code change to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Added a 1 second Build Phase cooldown to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Removed “Brought Hero Into Combat” announcer text to improve our sanity.
  
• Pet rerolls should no longer give duplicate empowerment stats.
  
• Skill Spheres should now properly update if a player changes a Sphere and then swaps to another hero.
  
• UI will now update to reflect recent actions -- for example, if you leave a party, the “Leave Party” button will now properly disappear.

• Requirements:
  
  • Slow 100,000 Enemies
    
  • Knockup or Stun 10,000 Enemies
    
  • Provoke 1,000 Enemies
• Rewards:
  
  • Pet: Dragolich Variant
    
  • Gold: 300,000 Gold
    
  • Medals: 2,000 Defender Medals
    
  • Title: Mesmerizing

• Made a code change to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Added a 1 second Build Phase cooldown to hero hotswapping to improve server stability.
  
• Removed “Brought Hero Into Combat” announcer text to improve our sanity.
  
• Pet rerolls should no longer give duplicate empowerment stats.
  
• Skill Spheres should now properly update if a player changes a Sphere and then swaps to another hero.
  
• UI will now update to reflect recent actions -- for example, if you leave a party, the “Leave Party” button will now properly disappear.

Each weekend in May, get a new Daily Mission every 8 hours! The event begins tomorrow!

Remember: You can stack up to three Daily Missions, so be sure to clear out your Daily Missions every day in order to take full advantage of the event.

Join us on the TrendyEnt channel tomorrow as we reveal more details about Series EV2! We’re also giving more free costumes to viewers in the chat.

Show starts at 5PM EDT!

Each weekend in May, get a new Daily Mission every 8 hours! The event begins tomorrow!

Remember: You can stack up to three Daily Missions, so be sure to clear out your Daily Missions every day in order to take full advantage of the event.

Join us on the TrendyEnt channel tomorrow as we reveal more details about Series EV2! We’re also giving more free costumes to viewers in the chat.

Show starts at 5PM EDT!

In this week's Dev Log, we talk about the newest Unholy Catacombs update, share some work-in-progress EV2 details and show off some more images of an upcoming magma level!

This week was one of those weeks where we had plenty to do but very little time to do it. The goal for the week was to get EV2 functional by Friday so that we can start playtesting her. This week was also our first mid-milestone release. I designed the Sword of Unholy Fire for the Squire with the hope that we’d finally have our first viable DPS Squire. We originally wanted to have the passive to vary the damage, range and angle of the flamethrower shield. Unfortunately our system didn’t support that and after working late one night to try and get it to work, we decided to just have it vary damage.

From there I transitioned back to working on the lovely EV2. Like I mentioned earlier, we got her functional this week and now we are playtesting and tweaking. I put a lot of time and effort into making some variations for her canisters. For example, if you are lucky you might find a Bow Canister that fires like the GIF at the top.

Or you might find a shotgun canister whose bullets explode after they reach their max travel distance into a wide area of damage:



I hear you like weapons that fire multiple projectiles in a spread! Well check this guy out below. He’s a rare Polearm Canister that should have your enemies PLOTTING their revenge!



(get it? Plotting? Because… it’s like a grid? Yea?)

Her Defenses and Heat mechanic are where we need to focus most of our attention going forward, but she is coming together nicely. Only a few more weeks of intense work and she should be ready for you all to play and enjoy!

While you are looking at all these cool gifs we’ve made for you, remember that her visuals are still subject to change and that involves everything from how her projectiles look to how she moves and animates.

The Unholy Catacombs update is here! 

This mini-release has tons of cool stuff and some new things we’ve never tried before. Usually we have a big backlog of items we bundle together into a single theme and a major patch release, but we currently have tons of long-term things in progress, (strategy revamp, Game Browser, more UI improvements, and new heroes to name just a few), so we thought it would be cooler to have a mid-milestone release with gameplay and new stuff for you to have fun with. Let us know if you like it!

If you've checked our Dev Logs over the last few months, you’ve probably spotted the Unholy Catacombs map, which is a reimagining of the classic Dungeon Defenders map, Foundries and Forges. Well, now it’s available for play with lots of variations.

• A regular tower defense map across ALL skill levels. So if you want a new map with a different layout, this is your stop!
  
• A new Spectral Knight Incursion for Nightmare I-IV. This is where coordinating with your friends becomes critical to win unless you have mad solo skillz. Steve intentionally made it hard for players who want a group challenge to tackle with their friends.

The Spectral Knight Incursion has two exclusive drops: the Squire’s Sword of Unholy Fire and the first iPWR 750 chest piece. We showed off the Sword of Unholy Fire in our last Dev Log. It has a pulsing taunt so if you’re tough enough, you can round up enemies and drag them somewhere else without having to use your Provoke ability. Once you have a nasty stack of baddies, turn and block, and a flaming skull appears on your shield and belches unholy fire on your enemies. It’s super fun and makes the Squire a riot. The damage scales off Ability Power and can drop up to iPWR 750.

I promised Steve not to give anything away about the map. Go play!

Working on Series EV2 VFX. Experimenting with bouncing sparks on her base attacks.



Built some cool visuals for the weapon canister for EV2 as well.



On the backend (where I do most of my best work), I've spent time updating our VFX libraries to use a newer base material system. This allows for more options when it comes to a particle's ability to drive and modify material properties. While redundant work, this really helps when it comes to being able to rapidly prototype VFX.

Also helped transition Series EV2 out of prototype phase. I hooked up all the backend archetypes and systems to see what we can do vs. what features are still needed that we do not have.

Finally,



Currently Listening To: "Boom Boom" - jennylee

Revamp underway! Working on feedback and making tweaks to really push the changes to be super impactful. There is some changes still to come that will make towers much more deadly to enemies of different genotypes.

We are almost done with the magma level thing! Still have to polish it up a bit though.

At this point if you are a true Etherian Defender, you should know what level it is. And because In.Session asked for it, here's another picture!



Finishing up the world building phase on the magma map! We are pushing the lighting and polishing it up a little more.

In addition I would like to mention that this level will feature a cool secret on the last wave!





There are a number of really cool things we’re working on outside of EV2 that I wanted to share.

• We’re bringing back the Dragolich as the May monthly quest reward. Now everyone will have an opportunity to earn one of the most sought after pets in the game.
  
• The Goblin Siege Tank enemy is starting to come together. Our goal is to have it ready for playtesting by the end of the week.
  
• The strategy revamp went out to the Remote Playtest Group, and we appreciate all of your feedback! Seriously, we spend hours digesting the feedback and discussing plans moving forward.
  
• I was able to see the first pass UI for the session browser the other day and even though it’s not fully functional yet, this is one of my most anticipated features. No release date yet, but it’s in the works!

More testing, more planning for testing. Thanks to the folks that applied to RPG last week. We’re almost ready to let you guys in and test out the current state of the revamp. We’re currently changing a few processes here and there. Once we’re done with the initial (there will be more!) revamp testing, we’re be moving on to EV2!

Speaking of EV2, the RQA folks having been pouring over EV2’s new frame and testing out her expanded and deadly arsenal. She might need some work, some oil changes and some other spare parts, but she’s already decidedly deadly.

In this week's Dev Log, we talk about the newest Unholy Catacombs update, share some work-in-progress EV2 details and show off some more images of an upcoming magma level!

This week was one of those weeks where we had plenty to do but very little time to do it. The goal for the week was to get EV2 functional by Friday so that we can start playtesting her. This week was also our first mid-milestone release. I designed the Sword of Unholy Fire for the Squire with the hope that we’d finally have our first viable DPS Squire. We originally wanted to have the passive to vary the damage, range and angle of the flamethrower shield. Unfortunately our system didn’t support that and after working late one night to try and get it to work, we decided to just have it vary damage.

From there I transitioned back to working on the lovely EV2. Like I mentioned earlier, we got her functional this week and now we are playtesting and tweaking. I put a lot of time and effort into making some variations for her canisters. For example, if you are lucky you might find a Bow Canister that fires like the GIF at the top.

Or you might find a shotgun canister whose bullets explode after they reach their max travel distance into a wide area of damage:



I hear you like weapons that fire multiple projectiles in a spread! Well check this guy out below. He’s a rare Polearm Canister that should have your enemies PLOTTING their revenge!



(get it? Plotting? Because… it’s like a grid? Yea?)

Her Defenses and Heat mechanic are where we need to focus most of our attention going forward, but she is coming together nicely. Only a few more weeks of intense work and she should be ready for you all to play and enjoy!

While you are looking at all these cool gifs we’ve made for you, remember that her visuals are still subject to change and that involves everything from how her projectiles look to how she moves and animates.

The Unholy Catacombs update is here! 

This mini-release has tons of cool stuff and some new things we’ve never tried before. Usually we have a big backlog of items we bundle together into a single theme and a major patch release, but we currently have tons of long-term things in progress, (strategy revamp, Game Browser, more UI improvements, and new heroes to name just a few), so we thought it would be cooler to have a mid-milestone release with gameplay and new stuff for you to have fun with. Let us know if you like it!

If you've checked our Dev Logs over the last few months, you’ve probably spotted the Unholy Catacombs map, which is a reimagining of the classic Dungeon Defenders map, Foundries and Forges. Well, now it’s available for play with lots of variations.

• A regular tower defense map across ALL skill levels. So if you want a new map with a different layout, this is your stop!
  
• A new Spectral Knight Incursion for Nightmare I-IV. This is where coordinating with your friends becomes critical to win unless you have mad solo skillz. Steve intentionally made it hard for players who want a group challenge to tackle with their friends.

The Spectral Knight Incursion has two exclusive drops: the Squire’s Sword of Unholy Fire and the first iPWR 750 chest piece. We showed off the Sword of Unholy Fire in our last Dev Log. It has a pulsing taunt so if you’re tough enough, you can round up enemies and drag them somewhere else without having to use your Provoke ability. Once you have a nasty stack of baddies, turn and block, and a flaming skull appears on your shield and belches unholy fire on your enemies. It’s super fun and makes the Squire a riot. The damage scales off Ability Power and can drop up to iPWR 750.

I promised Steve not to give anything away about the map. Go play!

Working on Series EV2 VFX. Experimenting with bouncing sparks on her base attacks.



Built some cool visuals for the weapon canister for EV2 as well.



On the backend (where I do most of my best work), I've spent time updating our VFX libraries to use a newer base material system. This allows for more options when it comes to a particle's ability to drive and modify material properties. While redundant work, this really helps when it comes to being able to rapidly prototype VFX.

Also helped transition Series EV2 out of prototype phase. I hooked up all the backend archetypes and systems to see what we can do vs. what features are still needed that we do not have.

Finally,



Currently Listening To: "Boom Boom" - jennylee

Revamp underway! Working on feedback and making tweaks to really push the changes to be super impactful. There is some changes still to come that will make towers much more deadly to enemies of different genotypes.

We are almost done with the magma level thing! Still have to polish it up a bit though.

At this point if you are a true Etherian Defender, you should know what level it is. And because In.Session asked for it, here's another picture!



Finishing up the world building phase on the magma map! We are pushing the lighting and polishing it up a little more.

In addition I would like to mention that this level will feature a cool secret on the last wave!





There are a number of really cool things we’re working on outside of EV2 that I wanted to share.

• We’re bringing back the Dragolich as the May monthly quest reward. Now everyone will have an opportunity to earn one of the most sought after pets in the game.
  
• The Goblin Siege Tank enemy is starting to come together. Our goal is to have it ready for playtesting by the end of the week.
  
• The strategy revamp went out to the Remote Playtest Group, and we appreciate all of your feedback! Seriously, we spend hours digesting the feedback and discussing plans moving forward.
  
• I was able to see the first pass UI for the session browser the other day and even though it’s not fully functional yet, this is one of my most anticipated features. No release date yet, but it’s in the works!

More testing, more planning for testing. Thanks to the folks that applied to RPG last week. We’re almost ready to let you guys in and test out the current state of the revamp. We’re currently changing a few processes here and there. Once we’re done with the initial (there will be more!) revamp testing, we’re be moving on to EV2!

Speaking of EV2, the RQA folks having been pouring over EV2’s new frame and testing out her expanded and deadly arsenal. She might need some work, some oil changes and some other spare parts, but she’s already decidedly deadly.