This week we release an update to fix some issues with the game and started to add small features incrementally. We are hoping for another update next week (ok ok this week) with more incremental additions. The following items are the closest to being ready:

• New torch VFX
  
• HUD - status text above players, creatures and machines
  
• New Slingbow models with material progression to match the other equipment

The updates after that should include the following.

• New Grapple models with material progression
  
• Warp Conduit block
  
• Hopper, Cuttletrunk and Roadrunner models and initial AI.
  
• Explosion VFX
  
• Additional SFX

We already have the foundation done for adding a tutorial and achievements for players. 1st pass will be released before end of this year.

Code
This week we’ve continued on the HUD, adding logic so when it displays the information is smarter, e.g. hidden creatures don’t show up. Additional information on interactions with items have been added. On the GUI we’ve fixed some of the smart stack issues but are reworking the systems to make it more robust going forward.

Additionally we have:

• Started work on integrating the updated Slingbow and Ammo,
  
• Normalised the lighting pipeline to make it more balanced and render closer to the original art,
  
• Made the portal transitions smoother by fixing the obvious remaining issues.

On the back end we have:

• Reduced the server memory footprint per user to be markedly lower so the servers will be under less stress when many people are online.
  
• Reworked some of the client network updating to make it more responsive (less lag) at lower frame rates and pushed that to a test branch.
  
• Continued with the local database work to integrate it into the Boundless server.

Design
This week, Rob has been helping Marc with the HUD implementation as well as polishing up visuals and user experience on existing and new GUI screens.

Ollie has been helping Rob and Marc to iterate on the HUD, as well as looking to polish the inventory, and go over stats and attributes with Luke. Also spent time thinking about how ammo changes should be integrated with the new Slingbow revision.

Luke has been continuing with the intro to the game, as well as stats, attributes and status effects.

Art
This week, we have continues to worked on the following.

• The Hunter animation: Check out the latest animation here. It will be perfect for the Halloween season!
  
  
• Grapple mesh: As seen in the previous concepts, they are like a third hand with big claws. The next step is to integrate this into the game but it will take a bit of effort as it will require new animation and VFX for the grapple wire.
  
  
• The Basher progression level 5: This is still not ready to show but we should be able to show you its screenshot next week. Stay tuned!
  
• The Temple concepts: The Temple is the player's first entry point into the game. Here players will go through an initial but simple tutorial to get them ready to enter the main Boundless universe. You will also select your starting world and build a Warp to travel to it. We are planning to have the Temple in the game before end of this year. (The name temple is just a placeholder for this special starting location.)
  
  
  
• Animation / item holding positioning support for the new Slingbow: With the help from our animator, the new Slingbow is in the dev build. We still need to work on the VFX and getting the power up on the slingbow.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we release an update to fix some issues with the game and started to add small features incrementally. We are hoping for another update next week (ok ok this week) with more incremental additions. The following items are the closest to being ready:

• New torch VFX
  
• HUD - status text above players, creatures and machines
  
• New Slingbow models with material progression to match the other equipment

The updates after that should include the following.

• New Grapple models with material progression
  
• Warp Conduit block
  
• Hopper, Cuttletrunk and Roadrunner models and initial AI.
  
• Explosion VFX
  
• Additional SFX

We already have the foundation done for adding a tutorial and achievements for players. 1st pass will be released before end of this year.

Code
This week we’ve continued on the HUD, adding logic so when it displays the information is smarter, e.g. hidden creatures don’t show up. Additional information on interactions with items have been added. On the GUI we’ve fixed some of the smart stack issues but are reworking the systems to make it more robust going forward.

Additionally we have:

• Started work on integrating the updated Slingbow and Ammo,
  
• Normalised the lighting pipeline to make it more balanced and render closer to the original art,
  
• Made the portal transitions smoother by fixing the obvious remaining issues.

On the back end we have:

• Reduced the server memory footprint per user to be markedly lower so the servers will be under less stress when many people are online.
  
• Reworked some of the client network updating to make it more responsive (less lag) at lower frame rates and pushed that to a test branch.
  
• Continued with the local database work to integrate it into the Boundless server.

Design
This week, Rob has been helping Marc with the HUD implementation as well as polishing up visuals and user experience on existing and new GUI screens.

Ollie has been helping Rob and Marc to iterate on the HUD, as well as looking to polish the inventory, and go over stats and attributes with Luke. Also spent time thinking about how ammo changes should be integrated with the new Slingbow revision.

Luke has been continuing with the intro to the game, as well as stats, attributes and status effects.

Art
This week, we have continues to worked on the following.

• The Hunter animation: Check out the latest animation here. It will be perfect for the Halloween season!
  
  
• Grapple mesh: As seen in the previous concepts, they are like a third hand with big claws. The next step is to integrate this into the game but it will take a bit of effort as it will require new animation and VFX for the grapple wire.
  
  
• The Basher progression level 5: This is still not ready to show but we should be able to show you its screenshot next week. Stay tuned!
  
• The Temple concepts: The Temple is the player's first entry point into the game. Here players will go through an initial but simple tutorial to get them ready to enter the main Boundless universe. You will also select your starting world and build a Warp to travel to it. We are planning to have the Temple in the game before end of this year. (The name temple is just a placeholder for this special starting location.)
  
  
  
• Animation / item holding positioning support for the new Slingbow: With the help from our animator, the new Slingbow is in the dev build. We still need to work on the VFX and getting the power up on the slingbow.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.



Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Release Notes:

• Torch particle effect in first-person renders like the torch itself now, forced to not intersect with geometry in the world.
  
• When quitting the game the character remains in the world in a logging off state for 60s. The character will still take damage and may die in this state so make sure you find somewhere safe.
  
• Mining progression now given for hitting grass blocks.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing players from moving more than one item at a time from within smart stacks.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by smart stacks being created within plinths.
  
• Items will no longer exceed a quantity of 99 in any slot.
  
• Fixed duplication issue on selling plinths caused by shift-clicking items from shopping baskets or dragging them back to the plinths.
  
• Updated HUD health and stamina bars

Known Issues:

• Cannot smart stack walls.
  
• HP and SP bars are briefly stretched when opening settings or inventory menus.
  
• Occasional crash after choosing to join client from World Builder.
  
• Scrolling up and down the Warp Locations menu may cause a crash.
  
• Shift-clicking an item from the selling plinth will show odd numbers and will not always go in the shopping basket.
  
• Shift-clicking and dragging on the coin icons from within the trading menus may cause a crash.
  
• Smart stacking does not update recipe information from within the compactor without closing and reopening the menu.
  
• Some items in player hands in 3rd person view are huge (e.g. Power Core).
  
• Some of the items are not positioned in the hand correctly when the players are seen in 3rd person view.
  
• Some of the items displayed in the inventory screen are not positioned correctly.
  
• Sometimes the animation for left handed tools do not swing continuously.
  
• The recipes are not final.
  
• Z-fighting with some items (workbench and other machines) when placed underwater.

Additionally

We have been working to improve the network latency issues affecting some players, especially at lower and variable frame rates. This work is now ready for players to test. The changes are quite extensive and have resulted in a large chunk of the networking code in Boundless being replaced. As this is a large and potentially unstable change, we have decided to release a custom build so that it can be tested before we release it to everyone. Hopefully the change will either be neutral or positive for all players. But as it's new we didn't want to risk exposing all players to the code incase there are some issue or negative performance changes.

If you've experienced high latency, rubber-banding or lag spikes in the past, or simply want to test that the networking remains solid, then please give the following special build of Boundless a try. The build is fully compatible with the Live worlds so can continue to play with everyone in the Live worlds.

The build is accessible via a Steam Beta using the unlock password key of: SXG7buBiOohbTjQr3nz6

Release Notes:

• The networktest branch includes a refactoring of the internals of the Boundless client's networking to try and ensure that low, high or variable frame rates have a much lower impact on the latency of the client's communication with the servers.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.



Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Release Notes:

• Torch particle effect in first-person renders like the torch itself now, forced to not intersect with geometry in the world.
  
• When quitting the game the character remains in the world in a logging off state for 60s. The character will still take damage and may die in this state so make sure you find somewhere safe.
  
• Mining progression now given for hitting grass blocks.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing players from moving more than one item at a time from within smart stacks.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by smart stacks being created within plinths.
  
• Items will no longer exceed a quantity of 99 in any slot.
  
• Fixed duplication issue on selling plinths caused by shift-clicking items from shopping baskets or dragging them back to the plinths.
  
• Updated HUD health and stamina bars

Known Issues:

• Cannot smart stack walls.
  
• HP and SP bars are briefly stretched when opening settings or inventory menus.
  
• Occasional crash after choosing to join client from World Builder.
  
• Scrolling up and down the Warp Locations menu may cause a crash.
  
• Shift-clicking an item from the selling plinth will show odd numbers and will not always go in the shopping basket.
  
• Shift-clicking and dragging on the coin icons from within the trading menus may cause a crash.
  
• Smart stacking does not update recipe information from within the compactor without closing and reopening the menu.
  
• Some items in player hands in 3rd person view are huge (e.g. Power Core).
  
• Some of the items are not positioned in the hand correctly when the players are seen in 3rd person view.
  
• Some of the items displayed in the inventory screen are not positioned correctly.
  
• Sometimes the animation for left handed tools do not swing continuously.
  
• The recipes are not final.
  
• Z-fighting with some items (workbench and other machines) when placed underwater.

Additionally

We have been working to improve the network latency issues affecting some players, especially at lower and variable frame rates. This work is now ready for players to test. The changes are quite extensive and have resulted in a large chunk of the networking code in Boundless being replaced. As this is a large and potentially unstable change, we have decided to release a custom build so that it can be tested before we release it to everyone. Hopefully the change will either be neutral or positive for all players. But as it's new we didn't want to risk exposing all players to the code incase there are some issue or negative performance changes.

If you've experienced high latency, rubber-banding or lag spikes in the past, or simply want to test that the networking remains solid, then please give the following special build of Boundless a try. The build is fully compatible with the Live worlds so can continue to play with everyone in the Live worlds.

The build is accessible via a Steam Beta using the unlock password key of: SXG7buBiOohbTjQr3nz6

Release Notes:

• The networktest branch includes a refactoring of the internals of the Boundless client's networking to try and ensure that low, high or variable frame rates have a much lower impact on the latency of the client's communication with the servers.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

At the moment we're focused on the implementation of a new collection of features and updates. The plan is to release them as each individual part is ready. These parts aren't as interconnected as the previous releases so it's easier to release updates incrementally.

In general the focus is on delivering a 1.0 quality HUD and expanding the range and quality of the creatures.



The next items for release are:

• New torch VFX
  
• HUD - status text above players, creatures and machines
  
• HUD - updated health bar
  
• Sign out animation
  
• New Slingbox models with material progression to match the other equipment
  
• New Grapple models with material progression
  
• Warp Conduit block
  
• Hopper, Cuttletrunk

Code
This week we been working on elements of the HUD to show information about objects you can see and interact with, for example: the health and type of creatures and blocks.

Both the Hopper and Cuttletrunk have been worked on with them moving around in game and the Hopper exploding when it hits the user.

The skeleton of the beginning of game for new users has been added, where users will get some direction of what to do. Related further work on the Achievements and Progression Systems have also been.

Some enhancement to the effect systems were added, for example: torches should now remain in front of block if you plunge your torch in the wall.

We also added the sign off stop so user remain in the world for a while when they quit, so no avoiding death by quitting.

We added Auto Restart to the servers in Release 146 so if they crash you won’t need to wait for a human to restart them, unless something major has occurred.

Otherwise we worked on bugs, including the smart stack issues people have experienced and some memory profiling and optimisation. In the backend the integration of the database interface into the server continues.

Design
Luke has been designing the flow for the beginning of the game and the new-user experience, as well as fleshing out how Status Effects will work.

Rob has been supporting the engineers on the implementation of the HUD, as well as continuing to design and mockup further aspects of it.

In between Ollie working on planning, and supporting some of the implementation work, he has been sitting in his analytics hole trying to wrangle the vast amounts of data that you are all generating.

Art
This week has been super busy for the art team. It’s very exciting to see all the new block textures in action. We especially appreciated this image by Nyuudles because of the creative use of the growth blocks.



Keep it up, the more creative you get the more it inspires us. Great work all!

Production has almost finished on the Slingbow - here are Jess' latest models:



Amanda has continued concepting prefabs.

Claudio has been finished the Wildstock progression level 5 to enable the elemental enhancements. He has also explored a mood board for the intro of the game.



Dom with input from all disciplines has been planning the full scope of VFX.

Gerry has been supporting the code integration of the Hopper and Cuttletrunk whilst also animating the signature locomotion of the new Hunter creature.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

At the moment we're focused on the implementation of a new collection of features and updates. The plan is to release them as each individual part is ready. These parts aren't as interconnected as the previous releases so it's easier to release updates incrementally.

In general the focus is on delivering a 1.0 quality HUD and expanding the range and quality of the creatures.



The next items for release are:

• New torch VFX
  
• HUD - status text above players, creatures and machines
  
• HUD - updated health bar
  
• Sign out animation
  
• New Slingbox models with material progression to match the other equipment
  
• New Grapple models with material progression
  
• Warp Conduit block
  
• Hopper, Cuttletrunk

Code
This week we been working on elements of the HUD to show information about objects you can see and interact with, for example: the health and type of creatures and blocks.

Both the Hopper and Cuttletrunk have been worked on with them moving around in game and the Hopper exploding when it hits the user.

The skeleton of the beginning of game for new users has been added, where users will get some direction of what to do. Related further work on the Achievements and Progression Systems have also been.

Some enhancement to the effect systems were added, for example: torches should now remain in front of block if you plunge your torch in the wall.

We also added the sign off stop so user remain in the world for a while when they quit, so no avoiding death by quitting.

We added Auto Restart to the servers in Release 146 so if they crash you won’t need to wait for a human to restart them, unless something major has occurred.

Otherwise we worked on bugs, including the smart stack issues people have experienced and some memory profiling and optimisation. In the backend the integration of the database interface into the server continues.

Design
Luke has been designing the flow for the beginning of the game and the new-user experience, as well as fleshing out how Status Effects will work.

Rob has been supporting the engineers on the implementation of the HUD, as well as continuing to design and mockup further aspects of it.

In between Ollie working on planning, and supporting some of the implementation work, he has been sitting in his analytics hole trying to wrangle the vast amounts of data that you are all generating.

Art
This week has been super busy for the art team. It’s very exciting to see all the new block textures in action. We especially appreciated this image by Nyuudles because of the creative use of the growth blocks.



Keep it up, the more creative you get the more it inspires us. Great work all!

Production has almost finished on the Slingbow - here are Jess' latest models:



Amanda has continued concepting prefabs.

Claudio has been finished the Wildstock progression level 5 to enable the elemental enhancements. He has also explored a mood board for the intro of the game.



Dom with input from all disciplines has been planning the full scope of VFX.

Gerry has been supporting the code integration of the Hopper and Cuttletrunk whilst also animating the signature locomotion of the new Hunter creature.

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.



Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Release Notes:

• Fix for square button on PS pad closing menu
  
• Allow handcrafting to Smart Stack its output
  
• Implemented Quick Move for Smart Stacks
  
• Enabled server auto restarts. After performing some basic consistency checks when a crash occurs servers will now auto restart (usually within a minute)

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This update is accessible via the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam.



Please report all issues discovered with the update to this support thread.

Please restart Steam to make sure you get the latest version of Boundless. If the update happens whilst Steam is open it's unlikely you'll get the latest version.

Release Notes:

• Fix for square button on PS pad closing menu
  
• Allow handcrafting to Smart Stack its output
  
• Implemented Quick Move for Smart Stacks
  
• Enabled server auto restarts. After performing some basic consistency checks when a crash occurs servers will now auto restart (usually within a minute)

Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we finally promoted all the development from "Testing" to the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam. This included:

• Some final fixes and polish in the Testing 28 release,
  
• Release 144 bundling everything from 15 Testing releases to Live, including a new set of worlds to explore, and finally
  
• Release 145 where we added a little extra polish to the Worlds in the Sky and fixed a startup issue hitting new users.

The Live worlds will be fully maintained (i.e. no wipes) until the start of next year at the minimum but hopefully longer until 1.0.



The development focus will now shift onto:

• Delivering a 1.0 quality HUD.
  
• An updated set of sandbox focused creatures - described here.
  
• A full set of 1.0 quality Equipment and Weapon models, including the Slingbow, Grapple, and Spanner.
  
• An initial implementation of the Boundless Tutorial + Achievements system to help guide new players into the game.
  
• A complete set of core SFX, including: creatures, machines, combat, characters and many more.
  
• An update to the music playing logic.
  
• A new and updated set of VFX, including: all torches, mining, combat, creatures and many more.
  
• More player activity animations, including: trading, operating machines and many more.
  
• An initial implementation for the the Start of the Game, presenting how players first enter the Boundless universe.
  
• An updated algorithm for the generation and presentation of block tints between worlds.
  
• More client and server performance and stability.

So hopefully lots of cool stuff coming.

Code
This week we’ve spent time on rolling over the Testing branch to Live, bringing up new worlds and additional regions for this. The release showed up a number of bugs which we have been spending time to resolve, such as the issue new users were hitting.

The new HUD is being to be added into the game with various discussions on it and underlying tech needed for it. The Achievements and Progression Systems are being enhanced, with notification pop-ups for gaining an achievement as well as a log of them.

We are prototyping the technology required for the Beginning of the Game, where a new user starts, has control over their spawning world and is given direction on what to do. The logging off is also being worked on so the character remains in game for a short while rather than immediately vanishing.

The database work continues with some refactoring to allow the different options to be plugged in more easily.

Design
Luke has been implementing the first pass of the Boundless Tutorial and Achievements, it’s early days, but so far it’s looking good. He’s also been working with our new VFX artist Dom on listing out the VFX requirements for the game, and also a little bit more work on the stats system.

Rob has been mocking up different aspects of the in-game HUD which we will be implementing and polishing in the coming weeks.

Ollie has been deep in the analytics data trying to work out what’s going on with players in the Live release. There are a number of issues with the data, but we are working to fix those so we can start to improve the balance of the game.

Art
This week, the art team has been working on the following:

• Natural prop concepts - We have continued to explore ideas for the natural props. We will be adding more prefabs and props into the new worlds to make them more varied and interesting. Some of the props will be meshes, some will be made using the world builder.
  
• The Level 5 Wildstock - The mesh is almost done.
  
• The Hunter animation - Having overcome technical issues, we are full steam ahead for the Hunter animation. We will have some animations to possibly show next week.
  
• The new Slingbow mesh - We just started modelling and texturing so we will show its progress next week. Stay tuned!
  
• VFX for torches - We have made good progress with the VFX for the torches. The only thing we now need is to invest more time in improving the VFX tools before we can put them in the game for release. Here is the WIP VFX for the touches. They are burning HOT!
  
  
  
  
  
  Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here

This week we finally promoted all the development from "Testing" to the "Live" release of Boundless on Steam. This included:

• Some final fixes and polish in the Testing 28 release,
  
• Release 144 bundling everything from 15 Testing releases to Live, including a new set of worlds to explore, and finally
  
• Release 145 where we added a little extra polish to the Worlds in the Sky and fixed a startup issue hitting new users.

The Live worlds will be fully maintained (i.e. no wipes) until the start of next year at the minimum but hopefully longer until 1.0.



The development focus will now shift onto:

• Delivering a 1.0 quality HUD.
  
• An updated set of sandbox focused creatures - described here.
  
• A full set of 1.0 quality Equipment and Weapon models, including the Slingbow, Grapple, and Spanner.
  
• An initial implementation of the Boundless Tutorial + Achievements system to help guide new players into the game.
  
• A complete set of core SFX, including: creatures, machines, combat, characters and many more.
  
• An update to the music playing logic.
  
• A new and updated set of VFX, including: all torches, mining, combat, creatures and many more.
  
• More player activity animations, including: trading, operating machines and many more.
  
• An initial implementation for the the Start of the Game, presenting how players first enter the Boundless universe.
  
• An updated algorithm for the generation and presentation of block tints between worlds.
  
• More client and server performance and stability.

So hopefully lots of cool stuff coming.

Code
This week we’ve spent time on rolling over the Testing branch to Live, bringing up new worlds and additional regions for this. The release showed up a number of bugs which we have been spending time to resolve, such as the issue new users were hitting.

The new HUD is being to be added into the game with various discussions on it and underlying tech needed for it. The Achievements and Progression Systems are being enhanced, with notification pop-ups for gaining an achievement as well as a log of them.

We are prototyping the technology required for the Beginning of the Game, where a new user starts, has control over their spawning world and is given direction on what to do. The logging off is also being worked on so the character remains in game for a short while rather than immediately vanishing.

The database work continues with some refactoring to allow the different options to be plugged in more easily.

Design
Luke has been implementing the first pass of the Boundless Tutorial and Achievements, it’s early days, but so far it’s looking good. He’s also been working with our new VFX artist Dom on listing out the VFX requirements for the game, and also a little bit more work on the stats system.

Rob has been mocking up different aspects of the in-game HUD which we will be implementing and polishing in the coming weeks.

Ollie has been deep in the analytics data trying to work out what’s going on with players in the Live release. There are a number of issues with the data, but we are working to fix those so we can start to improve the balance of the game.

Art
This week, the art team has been working on the following:

• Natural prop concepts - We have continued to explore ideas for the natural props. We will be adding more prefabs and props into the new worlds to make them more varied and interesting. Some of the props will be meshes, some will be made using the world builder.
  
• The Level 5 Wildstock - The mesh is almost done.
  
• The Hunter animation - Having overcome technical issues, we are full steam ahead for the Hunter animation. We will have some animations to possibly show next week.
  
• The new Slingbow mesh - We just started modelling and texturing so we will show its progress next week. Stay tuned!
  
• VFX for torches - We have made good progress with the VFX for the torches. The only thing we now need is to invest more time in improving the VFX tools before we can put them in the game for release. Here is the WIP VFX for the touches. They are burning HOT!
  
  
  
  
  
  Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found here