Hail travellers. Today we bring you a new update full of fixes and quality of life improvements!

This week behind the scenes we have been continuing our work on combat and A.I improvements. We are making good progress but we are not quite ready to release these newest additions yet. So instead with this weeks patch we wanted to squish some issues that we knew were plaguing some people such as AZERTY key bindings and UI issues amongst other things.
We also worked on fixing numerous bugs, adding some sound polish and adding some quality of life improvements such as a server browser filter for alive characters. (Allowing you to quickly reduce the server list to just the servers you are interested in), and adding in the option to increase the size of your chat box even further.

We also wanted to say thank you to some of the community members that have been continuing to help us improve our translations! rAiGa for the German translations and Roleander for the Spanish translations!


Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• Added a filter to the server browser UI so that you can search for only servers that you have an alive character in
  
• On PVE servers players can no longer cause damage to player built items e.g. buildings, walls, well etc (they do still degrade over time)

Updated:

• Updated the chat box scale options in "Settings" "Gameplay" so you can now increase that chat box even more to x1.5 and x2 the size
  
• Increased frequency of chicken general sounds
  
• Added a repair success sound when you repair something to make it clearer that the item was fixed
  
• Added a unique swinging sound for attacking with torches
  
• On HUD moved the hit icon either side of the weapon abilities to make it more minimal
  
• Updated the sound played when you drop an item to play a different sound per material it lands on, so for example if standing in water it will make a splash
  
• Made it so you get the option to split stacks in your own inventory, when using a lootable and when trading with a trader

Fixes:

• Fixes for bugs when using AZERTY keyboards (can now use/assign to Quickslot keys 1 2 3 4 5 6)
  
• Fixes added to help stop some peoples mouse going off the right side of the screen when not in menu screens
  
• Fixes added to help stop the inventory items options popup appearing not where you click
  
• Fixed/updates added for German language translation
  
• Fixed/updates added for Spanish language translation
  
• Fixed bug which stopped you closing the guild menu with "O" or "E" shortcuts
  
• Fixed some main menu bugs which stopped you "Esc" back out of some menus e.g. language popup
  
• Fixes added to help with refreshing the inventory lists after you use/interact etc with items (to help stop the stack numbers being incorrect)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused chickens to play human death sounds
  
• Fixed a bug which caused the main menu settings not to visually represent the games current actual settings
  
• Fixed a bug where if you were on a 4 ability weapon then switched to a 3 ability weapon, the 4th ability would still show
  
• Fixed collision that let players walk through spawned infected carts
  
• Fixed collision that made thrown torches passthrough and rarely damage infected carts
  
• Fixed A.I. logic that caused guards and chickens to attack each other
  
• Fixed a recipe that prevented roast meat from ever burning (when players have low crafting attribute levels)
  
• Fixed a bug that made large cooked meat not stack and become normal cooked meat
  
• Fixed a bug that made infected A.I. “glide” faster than their animation played

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Be vigilant citizens, a plague is spreading throughout the land of Mercia! Along with a whole host of fixes, polish, balancing, optimisations and the inclusion of another language!

This patch includes our new plague mechanic, a dynamic world infection system. If left unchecked the outbreak will spread across the land of Mercia, infecting all in its path. It can be slowed and even stopped by cleansing the dead bodies left in its wake. You gain XP and gold as a reward however it is very easy to become sick, I have heard rumours of masks that can be crafted that can protect you from the sickness….



We have been continuing work on the A.I and combat mechanics, with updates made to the animations for the starting beggar enemy and the inclusion of further ai types into the world such as the masked bandit and chickens. We have also added a first pass of Polish translations into the game. We want to say a big thank you from the whole team to Discord user Balwur#5010 who helped us greatly with getting the game translated into Polish!

Here are the patch notes in full:

Due to improvements with the character saving system and world saving optimisations a full wipe to character and building saves is required.

New

• Dynamic world infection system, an outbreak of the plague can start anywhere on the map and will continue to spread if the sources are not destroyed
  
• The location of where you last died is now show on the map as a tombstone icon
  
• 1st Pass at Polish language implemented in the game
  
• New procedural chicken A.I. with their own logic.
  
• New plague mask bandits that spawn within the world infection zone

Updated

• Updated the base punching ai beggar, animations and animation back-end, also added per ground type footstep sounds so you can hear them sneaking up on you now
  
• Updated HUD to show shield icon/durability if you have a shield in your inventory slot
  
• Updated the repair list at the anvil to only show items that need repairing instead of every repairable item you have
  
• Updated the map screen key info
  
• Updated main menu and settings UI to accommodate the Polish language option
  
• Updated some undergarments to have physics simulation
  
• Updated the simulation of dying A.I. so they fall more realistically
  
• Updated the beggar character create screen with better lighting
  
• Updated culling to be dithered fade out/blending on some meshes
  
• Updated resources to have more visual states when collecting from them

Fixes

• Fixed a bug which made you do the drop animation when you repaired an item
  
• Increased Maximum concurrent sound allowance, as sounds were getting limited too much
  
• Fixed a bug where the blood decals would move around on a dead body
  
• Fixed a bug that didn't apply profession attribute bonuses to beggars and knights after character create
  
• Fixed some overlapping HUD elements
  
• Fixed weapon hit sound concurrency rate bug that could stop hit sounds playing
  
• Fixed an issue that would allow honey resource to spawn
  
• Fixed a bug so that now when your weapon breaks your highlighted quick-slot returns to the punching slot
  
• Fixed a bug causing other players animations to react incorrectly as they got further away from you
  
• Fixed pelt plague mask to not protect you from the plague
  
• Fixed a bug that wouldn’t let loot bags simulate physics resulting them sometimes floating.
  
• Fixed a bug that showed A.I. to “T- Pose” after death at certain distances

Balancing

• Balanced/increased door health to match the tiers of gatehouses such as the iron door having the same health as the kingdom gatehouse, reinforced door having the same health as the castle gatehouse and wooden door having the same as the palisade gatehouse.
  
• Balanced the tailor and blacksmith shop NPCs to have the same sell modifier for cost also added new items to sell within the tailor.
  
• Balanced the player’s lootbag to destroy after 10 minutes instead of 5.
  
• Reduced the spawn rate of wolves

Optimisations

• Optimised UI textures and deleted unused ones
  
• Optimised the order built objects spawn in on first load

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Mercians we have another update for you! Today we bring you more fixes, polish, optimisations as well as further localisation.

This week we started the process of polishing the games weapon visuals, fighting mechanics and combat animations. This is a ongoing progress and we are going to continue polishing these systems over the following weeks updates. We also spent time fixing numerous bugs, most importantly tracking down and fixing some rare server crashes, increasing the games overall stability. We have also pushed forward with the games localisation. The French and Russian translations have been updated and they now include the tutorial/quest texts from the top right hand of the screen. We have also added a 1st pass of Spanish translations! We want to give a big thank you to Discord user Roleander#2197 who helped us immensely with the Spanish translations.

Here are the patch notes in full:

• The server browser now shows which servers you have an alive character in (From now on when you create a character in a server the next time you go to the server browser in the main menu it will show that you have an alive character in that server)
  
• 1st pass localisation of Spanish Localisation

• Updated French translations
  
• Updated Russian translations
  
• Updated Bone Club 3d model
  
• Updated Stone Battle Axe 3d model
  
• Updated various weapons to have reduced cool downs from their secondary attacks
  
• Updated torch so you can block and improved it's hit FX and fire FX
  
• Updated two handed weapon light attacks to pass through the crosshair making it easier to land strikes
  
• Updated the players unarmed aim offsets (looking around animations)
  
• Updated map to give a more accurate current player location
  
• Updated the events UI to match the HUD look and added a sound when a new event occurs
  
• Updated the map UI
  
• Updated the voices used for some placeable NPCs, so for example the hunter sounds more like a hunter
  
• Updated chicken farmer NPC to have 1 moving skeletal mesh chicken, instead of 2 static mesh ones

• Server crash fix for auto equiping a null item
  
• Server crash fix for loot all item data name corruption
  
• Server crash fix for accessing null abilities on destroyed weapons
  
• Server crash fix for rare null quest item checks
  
• Fixed extra fog appearing when you first spawn in
  
• Fixed bug which stopped bandits walking around and performing animations when at a distance from the player
  
• Corrected text in the char create screen for Knight so it says "Unlocked by getting 6 skill points in ALL SKILLS"
  
• Fixed a bug where if you were using a different language the plague doctor dissection menu wouldn't work properly
  
• Fixed a bug that caused friendly AI to spam their audio repeatedly while you were standing next to them
  
• Fixed animals and enemy NPCs death voices/sounds
  
• Fixed some NPCs that had icons to say they could trade above their head, when they shouldn't have
  
• Fixes made to placeable NPCs animations
  
• Fixed bug where lumber mill/mining camp peasants collision could throw you up in the air
  
• Fixed map key being hidden by UI
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the drop animation to be used instead of the pickup animation when interacting with lootable items and utilities
  
• Fixed a looping error on the Rat up close to player idle animation
  
• Fixed sun is setting days alive number being incorrect

• Balanced build timers for placing NPCs bought through contracts
  
• Balanced player built structures to have their health greatly increased. wooden and stick structures increased by 50%, Stone structures by 100% and brick structures by up to 400%
  
• Balance to structure decay interval increased by 20% decay damage amount increased by 30%
  
• Balanced the maul weapon to 35% less damage to stronger structures
  
• Balanced siege weapons to do 100% more damage
  
• Balanced iron and reinforced doors to have 100% more health. stick and wooden doors now have a 50% health increase

• Optimised the lumber mill and mining camp skeletal meshes
  
• Optimised animations for placeable NPCs

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Good day Mercians, Today we have another update with more fixes, more polish and more localisation!

One of the main focus of this updates polish pass has been on updating and adding sounds to the game, like that of the combat swings, damage hits and destruction sounds. We also fixed numerous bugs, most importantly tracking down a rare client side crash when blocking with your fists. We also spent time updating the French translations and implemented a first pass at German translations (reporting any translation errors you see will really help us out). Big thanks to Discord user rAiGa #1949 for sending us a large amount of German translations!

Here are the patch notes in full:

• 1st pass at German translations

• Updated French translations
  
• Updated the language swap UI to show German
  
• Polished the skinning of the male and female player heads
  
• Pickups now have a highlight around them, making it easier to tell that they are interactable
  
• Updated weapon type swing sounds for the player
  
• Updated weapon/fist hit sounds for the player
  
• Updated buildings and barricades to now make sounds when they are destroyed
  
• Updated per weapon type drawing weapon sounds for the player
  
• When an item breaks it now plays a breaking sound based on the material of the item
  
• Updated/added some misc combat sounds
  
• Added sound to the bandage/heal animation
  
• Updated HUD UI when building as a Mason showing the player they have a bonus
  
• Updated the sun is setting UI HUD to be a similar theme as the new morning one, also tweaked some new morning pop-up
  
• All the main shop NPCs should now have icons above their heads showing what they stock
  
• Updated the punching sounds that the hostile NPC's use
  
• Updated player placed merchants shop UI to help explain how they work (they have no stock unless the merchant profession owner places items to sell in them)
  
• Updated the new merchant shopkeeper trade window to the paper UI look
  
• Updated merchant trade window so that you can set the value to sell something for by typing in a value not just using the +/- buttons

• Fix a client based crash that could occur if you had a shield in your shield slot and you block a hit with your fists while punching
  
• Fixes to the who/what killed you text and days survived info in the death screen
  
• Fixed main menu UI texture clipping problem on the server browser list, updated some popup textures and fixed some small misc errors
  
• Fixed main menu server incorrect password entry error popup and stopped the text input area from constantly losing focus
  
• Fixed a bug which would cause a old mesh LOD to appear on the crude shield
  
• Fixed quick looting with "T" when in looting mode
  
• Fixed double pickup sound playing when picking stuff up
  
• Fixed drawing weapon attenuation problem, so drawing weapon sounds are back in
  
• Fixed male player heads that didn't have a mouth inside part
  
• Fixed character create bugs to do with switching between beggar and other professions (as beggar purposely has no customisation options but other professions do)
  
• Fixed base bow pose twitching when encumbered and sprinting
  
• Fixed misc blueprint compile errors that were slowing down the game cooking process
  
• Fixed death screen early access number being incorrect
  
• Fixed resources that require a sickle not playing the cutting animation when you gather from it

• Optimised animation notifies so that they don't play sounds and VFX on the server
  
• Optimised shields
  
• Optimised the skinning of player heads
  
• Optimised VFX crows actor so they don’t play sounds and VFX on the server

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Greetings plagued ones, and welcome to Dev Blog #63!

We wanted to cover the above topics and features in last week's issue but we had so much to show you all from the last 2 months of progress!

This week we take a look at:

• Dev Updates: Including progress on Localisation and our newly added controller support.
  
• Polish Extras: Showing our new NPC vendor types, tweaks to the building system including: new animations, precise rotation and larger land claims.
  
• New Features: Animal Husbandry and our Profession unlocking system.
  
• Spotlight Feature: Taking a look into our World Events.

Localisation Status

We talked about our progress on Localisations for both French and Russian for The Black Death in a previous Dev Blog. We have since added French and Russian localisations into The Black Death! To access these, when you have loaded up the game, look to the bottom left hand corner on the Main Menu screen where the flag is. Clicking on the flag will bring up the Language options, French is situated in the centre, Russian is situated on the right hand side and English (UK) is on the left. Clicking to and from these will change the localisation for The Black Death.







Please note that our Quest text and NPC chat trees are currently still in English (UK) for all languages. These are still being worked on and will be added at a later date, as these systems are separate to other elements of the game

Partial Controller Support Info & Bug Form Updates

When submitting Bug Reports to us, you can now select your input method that you are using, whether this is a mouse & keyboard or a type of controller. Selecting this along with your bug report details will help us greatly to fix any issues relating to controller support within The Black Death.

Let us know how you get along playing with a controller in The Black Death!



Along with the above, you can also highlight the co-ordinates and now right click and select "copy" on the Unreal Engine context menu that appears. Making it easier to copy co-ordinates for bug reports too.




More NPC Merchant Variety

As another addition to our ongoing polish to The Black Death, we have added more merchant types to the world of Mercia! These include: Plague Doctor, Tailor and Hunter! The Hunter NPC merchant can be found roaming around the outskirts of Freeman's Port, whilst the Plague Doctor can be found to the left of the Blacksmith, and the Tailor can be found facing the food vendor across the central bridge in Freeman's Port.









Both our new and existing NPC merchants have white glowing icons above their heads, making them more identifiable whist throwing in some new faces into the mix! These NPCs should be moving into Raven's Reach in the future too.

Barricade Door Mini Polish

We have given our breakable barricade doors a polish. Upon smashing these doors, they now break into smaller pieces of wood and drop to the ground in a pile! Check out this Dev Blog over on our website to see a video of this in action. Dev Blog #63

Building Tweaks & Polish

We have some tweaks to our building system, these include a change to Land Claims, rotation of structures and animations too.



We have changed the region zone for our Land Claims. When you are looking to place a Land Claim you will now notice the region that is covers is much larger than before! Also, if you place a Land Claim on a raised platform such as the inside of a house, when placing structures within this volume the ground area will be lit correctly.

Jump over to this Dev Blog over on our website to see a video clip of our new rotations, with our Wattle Wall used as an example. Dev Blog #63

Another polish to our housing system is that we have changed the rotation on placeable structures. Rotation on structures is no longer fixed at 90 degree increments. Structures can now be rotated with much smaller detail, this is great for placing walls and wall corners around tricky spots on stable ground, or making unusual designs. The video clip above shows our Wattle Wall as an example of the new rotation.

Jump over to this Dev Blog over on our website to see a video playlist of some of our new building animations! Dev Blog #63

When placing structures on your stable ground, as of our new V0.30 Professions update, each craftable and placeable item has it's own animation. We have selected a few in our video reel above for you to check out.


Animal Husbandry is a new feature included in the release of our V0.30 Professions update! You can now purchase Cows and Chickens from a Peasant Merchant, place them in your own plot, feed them and gain resources!



Going back to an earlier section of this Dev Blog, Cows and Chickens can be purchased from a NPC Peasant Merchant, such as the one next to the barn in Freeman's Port, for a price of course!



After purchasing your livestock, when you have found a good place for your animals, simply place them on your Quick Slot Bar and then press the assigned key and place and rotate them like you would with a house structure.

Jump over to this Dev Blog over on our website to see our video clips showing our new Cows and Chickens in action. Dev Blog #63

Crafting either a Small Animal Feed or Large Animal Feed, place this on your Quick Slot Bar, then press the assigned key, then highlight your chosen animal, then press E. You will then use the feed and receive Milk or an Egg in return.


We showed off a teaser of our new world events system in last weeks Dev Blog. This system is still being worked on as we iron out issues, add more events, test the gameplay and focus on how it all flows together with other elements of the game such as combat.

This feature released with our new V0.30 Professions update, we are working on polishing this system as we receive feedback from the community and work on adding new events too.

As mentioned the World Map will play a very important part within these events, it's your indicator for knowing where these events will be, or if you are not feeling up to it, you can avoid them until you have some better gear! In the top left hand corner of your HUD you will see an event notification, if you open your World Map, you will notice a glowing exclamation mark, this is where the current event is located.







The image gallery above shows off one of our events the "Bandit Construction Site". This event spawns inside the Bandit caves found around Mercia. There's only one entrance and exit with this event, so be careful not to get trapped in the Bandits nest!

Within this event you will see a half built structure, lying on the floor of this will be a nice pile of resources. Killing the enemy Bandits will give you some nice loot, then searching this construction pile will yield a nice selection of materials! These can include; Iron Nails, Forged Bricks, Clay Tiles and more.







The gallery above shows another one of our events you can find in the world of Mercia. This event has a Plague Doctor who has been tied to a stake by the Templars. Sadly, the Plague Doctors fate has been sealed as there is no way of saving them from the grip of the Templars.

Guarding the deceased Plague Doctor will be an array of Monk Fanatics, Templar swordsmen and a Templar Grand Master. The Grand Master is the main target of this event, and will have a crown icon above his head.

Killing the Templar Grand Master will yield some nice loot, the Plague Doctor at the stake will also have some Doctor tools and other healing items for the taking.



We hope you enjoyed reading this weeks Dev Blog and we hope you are all getting stuck into our new Professions update! As always, thank you for playing, that's all for this week, see you next time!

// The SIG Team

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Hello Mercians, Today we have a update with some fixes and polish.

Most notably a fix for a server crash that was occurring when events were being cleared and a rework to how shields are used. We found having shields equipping through the quickslots was causing issues and lacked fluidity, so we adjusted the system to instead work like how arrows and armour do. You now have one shield slot (in your inventory top right). Whenever you equip a single handed weapon your shield will automatically equip with it.


Here are the patch notes in full:

• Shields now have an inventory slot (like helmets and other armour) instead of being equipped through the quickslot bar

• Updated drop animation/system, now does left/right hand if you have a weapon out
  
• Updated pickup animations/system, now does left/right hand if you have a weapon out
  
• Updated the player open door animations, now does left/right hand if you have a weapon out
  
• Longsword animation base poses have been switched over to the One handed anim base pose for now
  
• Updated drink, eat and heal animation/system, now does left/right hand if you have a weapon out
  
• Builder placement actor arrow fades out as building gets to 100%
  
• Right clicking on the inventory item in shops you now get an option to sell all stack as well as selling singularly
  
• Foraging animation now uses the pickup low animation
  
• Added a popup to character create screen to explain that you can't customise the beggars appearance
  
• Added highlight to doors to help show they are able to be interacted with
  
• Updated resources that require a tool interaction timers so that they line up with the animation hits better

• Fix for server crash caused by events clearing
  
• Fix added for launching custom servers through our launcher
  
• Fixed bug where the HUD ability icons wouldn't update when you were using a weapon
  
• Fixes for shields and weapon equipping
  
• Fix added to make sure you get correct XP if crafting multiple items at once
  
• Fix added to stop lag/jittering if you login encumbered
  
• Fix to stop siege ammo being used as ammo for the bow
  
• Fix for relic multiple spawning in events
  
• Fixes to house collision
  
• Fixed tools context sensitivity bug. You will now do an attack animation unless looking at the correct resource in which case it will play a gather resources animation
  
• Fixed some tool gather resources animations that were not playing correctly
  
• Fixed missing collision/physics assets on spades, fishing rods, sickles and animal feed
  
• Fixed a bug causing some doors to not play sounds when open/closing

• Optimised building placement actor
  
• Optimised networking for doors

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

WARNING: A WIPE WAS REQUIRED FOR THIS UPDATE THERE MAY BE LOSS TO YOUR CHARACTER PROGRESSION AND BUILT STRUCTURES

Good day everyone and welcome to another massive update to The Black Death. This update brings huge quality of life improvements to all areas of the game, including much needed fixes to disappearing walls and also the return of fan favorites, the Beggar and the Knight. These new professions come alongside an improved profession system which include exclusive passives, a stunning new character selection screen and profession unlocking/progression much like the old days of The Black Death.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• The Beggar profession - Start as a down on your luck poor person with restrictive but unique player visuals. Beg for survival and learn skills to unlock the profession of your choice
  
• The Knight profession - Unlocked by gaining level 5 in all skills. Knights have a passive ability that provides you with bounty payments when you kill infected A.I, the bigger the better
  
• Profession passives - Gather double resources as a Peasant, sell items through your own shop as an Artisan, be rewarded with double loot from animals as a Hunter, craft double food items as a Cook, repair weapons as a
• Blacksmith, befriend bandits but have guards as an enemy as an Outlaw and build faster as a Mason
  
• Profession unlocking - Each profession requires a certain skill level in order to be played, such as level 5 in farming to unlock the Peasant
  
• Events - Use your map and compass to locate procedural events around the map and take part in fights with unique deadly NPCs, loot valuable items and claim relics before other players do. The current active event appears in the top left corner of your HUD
  
• Animal husbandry - Owning animals makes a return with a new more intuitive system. Buy animals from a farmer shop and place them on your land, use animal feed on them to gain items such as milk and eggs
  
• Localisation - Partially complete, an early version of French and Russian translations (if you spot mistakes, let us know!)
  
• New starting animation on spawning in to the world
  
• Partial controller support - Most of the game is now working with a gamepad, some menus such as guild and settings, are still being worked on
  Coal resource

Choose your newly unlocked professions in the new character creation screen

Updated:

• New Game Launcher - Improved visuals and functionality, including a news feed, patch notes display and server settings
  
• Updated main menu cinematics
  
• Overall style/mood of menus and UI have been improved and are more consistent
  
• Profession/character creation screen - Now displays professions with a unique scene, animation and uniform. The character creation process has also been adjusted
  
• Only doctors can perform dissections and only beggars can beg for gold
  
• Tutorial Quest - The old quest has been removed and replaced with an extendable tooltip quest on the top right of your HUD. This is more helpful for learning core gameplay without being intrusive and should help new players greatly. Currently can take up to 3 hours to complete and will be expanded further in the coming months
  
• Atmosphere - further improvements have been made to the graphics of the game to improve mood and provide a unique experience
  
• Resources now have improved effects and provide more gameplay feedback
  New enemy types
  
• The map screen has more information on it. Your own location, points of interest as well as event locations can now be seen. You can now also show/hide elements as well as being able to zoom in and out for a better view
  
• Building system - now provides more freedom with better control for snaps and rotations. The building effect has also been improved. A new camera position is now active when building to make it easier to see placement of structures
  
• Hitting wooden structures should now provide accurate feedback
  
• Combat - Hit registering has improved including a subtle short slow motion effect when a hit has been successful to provide more gameplay feedback
  
• Shops - Far more items available from a larger range of shops
  
• Skills have been renamed to prevent confusion with professions. Such as
• Medical skill instead of Doctor, Survival skill instead of Hunter and Cooking skill instead of Cook
  
• Your screen now desaturates more the lower your health gets
  
• New craftable quality types for stick helm, stick greaves, stick chest armour, stick gauntlets and cooked meat. Example is burnt meat and sturdy stick helm. These have varied durability amounts
  
• A.I. Spawn balancing, rats and other infected A.I. shouldn't spawn close to player spawns
  
• More echo volumes have been placed around the world, for example can be heard when you are in churches
  
• Different rain sounds will be different when you are under cover on out in the open
  
• Infected A.I. now have a red X icon above their heads
  
• Shop A.I. now have trading icons above their heads
  
• Heavy Gambeson armour can now be crafted through the banditry skill
  
• Fog will now move around the world
  
• World - Large amount of new raidable areas have been introduced. Also new larger stable ground plots
  
• Updated version number
  
• Barricades now have destroying effects
  
• Loading screen art has been updated and improved
  
• Adjusted the way animations play (emotes, sickness, weapon holding) so they can only play on specific parts of the body helping to keep things more fluid
  
• Adjusted location of crafting progress tab within the inventory screen to make it easier to read
  
• Removed UI cooldowns for attacks
  
• Blocking - You can now block with your fists, however only prevents a small amount of damage, not effective against weapons. Blocking NPCs causes a full body reaction. Blocking is now a toggle and can be held rather than a short parry
  
• Relics - Multiple relics can now be acquired
  
• Punching now spawns trail effects
  
• Enemy NPCs now have accurate names for clarity e.g. Club Bandit
  
• Weight amount in hud and in inventory is now displayed in decimals to give a more accurate reading
  
• You can now move items in and out of storage even if it puts you over weight
  
• Player spawn/start locations are now scattered along beaches and no longer concentrated in Freeman’s port
  
• Claim zone now controls more area above and below to help with elevated placement
  
• Interaction outline - objects you can interact with are now displayed with an outline, this should help the player see content easier such as a stick resource in a forest
  
• You can now attack with tools
  
• Camera animation upon death
  
• Ranged weapons used by the player can now aim your throw more effectively

Combat has been improved again, you can now block with your hands

Balancing:

• Decay system - the decay system is now half the damage and ticks every
• 3 days rather than every 3 hours, repair less often for less cost
  
• Claim zone size has increased by 200%
  
• Durability on all tools has been increased
  
• Durability on all iron and silver weapons has been increased
  
• A.I. gold drop amount has increased
  
• Crate spawn rate for items has increased
  
• Boars now have increased chance of dropping bones
  
• Wood Axe recipe has been re-balanced
  
• Lower tier enemies such as bandit beggars have had been re-balanced to be less difficult
  
• Thread and String are available sooner through the artisans profession instead
  
• Stone arrows are now lighter weight
  
• Mason profession now has an additional starting bonus of 1 for the merchantry attribute
  
• German Battle Axe has now the correct damage amount
  
• Chamomile resource now provides more items per node
  
• All types of bandages including the cotton swab have had their recipe requirements re-balanced
  
• All Ingots now require coal to craft

Take part in procedural events that can spawn around the world

Fixes:

• Built structures should no longer disappear
  
• Mesh skinning improved to prevent clipping on clothing and bodies
  
• Items in player storage should no longer duplicate when removed after a server restart
  
• The player being infected should now spread to another player when they cough, sneeze or throw up near them
  
• Player storage that has been destroyed should no longer respawn after a server restart
  
• Map locations and points of interest should be more accurate
  
• A.I. should no longer spam ranged weapons and throwing rocks at players behind cover/walls. They should either retreat or find a better position.
  
• Player Head LODS have been fixed which should prevent harsh LODs at a short distance for the entire body.
  
• A.I. now ragdoll more realistically rather than drop in an idle pose.
  
• Blunt weapons/fists should no longer cause gibs and beheadings
  
• Bandit arrows should no longer fall to the ground immediately after being fired
  
• Fix to stop crosshair info staying up when looking at the ground after having looked at an object
  
• Removed old stamina out of breath audio which could play when you were attacking sometimes
  
• Fixed a bug with wet clothing which would make it flicker to full wetness for a second
  
• Destroying a standard table now has a destroying effect
  
• Animals now drop animal fat again
  
• Secret “Bookcase Door” now shows a name again when you are looking at it
  
• One handed swords should no longer have a two handed animation set
  
• Culling - various objects around the world should no longer cull at short distances
  
• Distance colours/textures for the landscape should no longer be bright
  
• Misc spelling mistakes fixed in the UI

Optimisations:

• Optimised and deleted UI textures

Known issues

• Destroying/Killing farm animals that are placed by the player will drop debris loot

Thanks everyone for playing and we hope you enjoy this update as much as we have!

See you in Mercia

The S.I.G. Team

Greetings plagued ones and welcome to Dev Blog #62!

We apologise for the long break between Dev Blogs, we realise that it has been almost 2 months! We have been super busy and now it’s time to take a look into what we have been working on in this issue.

This Dev Blog features a lot of media in the form of galleries and video playlists to show off what we have been working on for The Black Death. Be sure to check out our comparison sliders too, these allow us to show off our new visual changes in a nice format alongside our information.

In this issue, we dive into our Dev Updates, our shiny new main menu cinematics, character creation overhaul, game polish, new world events system and loads more.

Dev Updates

For our usual segment on Dev Updates we will be focusing on our Localisation progress, changes to the decay rate system and our controller support progress.

Localisation Progress
If you have been playing on our Beta branch recently, you may have noticed the addition of the option to switch Languages, amongst other features too, more on these later! We have been working in our Engine to get Localisations working in The Black Death. This has taken some time due to the sheer workload involved. We have implemented new fonts into our Engine for specific language character sets, as well as translating text and feeding this back into our Engine.



We are currently working on getting French and Russian into The Black Death. Some of you may have seen that German was also in a previous Beta build. Sadly we have had to take out our German localisations for now, although it may be added back in at a later date.

Those of you wanting to try these out can switch to a preferred Language in our Beta Builds. You can change languages by selecting the language Flag in the bottom left hand corner of the initial Main Menu when booting up the game, with the Beta client.

If you happen to spot a translation that you think is incorrect, submitting a report using our Google Bug Form is the best way of letting us know.

When these make there way into a Live build we will be announcing there arrival in a formal post on our Steam News feed as well as on our social pages and of course here on our website.

Changes To the Decay System

We have been gathering your feedback and have been reading your forum discussions too. We have been devising a way of tweaking the current decay rate of player placed structures and buildings in the world.

Decay is now on 3 day intervals instead of 3 hours to prevent such regular repair being needed. damage has been increased to 225 from 18 however now the interval has increased greatly is means your structures will last around 200% longer. Less repairs, Longer Life.

An example of this is the wattle wall which use to last 6 to 7 days now lasts between 13 to 14 days and the kingdom wall can last up to 60 days instead of 30 and will only require 20 repairs throughout that period rather than 200 (if you want to keep it at 100% health of course).

Controller Support



To go with our current work on our Localisations for French and Russian, we have also been working on adding our controller support back into The Black Death. We are currently testing out our mapping setup and input for use with a Xbox 360 Controller for Windows PCs, this configuration should also work with the new Xbox One Controllers for Windows PCs as well as they share the same layout. Currently in our Beta builds the controller settings that are currently in are partial. Some of the menus are not quite functioning as they are still being worked on.

New Main Menu & New Cinematics

Main Menu Changes

We are proud to introduce our new main menu for The Black Death! As we progress forwards in shaping The Black Death, this is a change that we wanted to make some time ago to unify the overall themes and tones of The Black Death, across all elements of the game. Notice the addition of the language flag in the left corner.



These changes are also reflected in the new in game menu. All of the features, settings and options have been retained as our UI has been given a fresh coat of paint. Technical information is now in a more compact form in the bottom left hand corner too, when in game.



Main Menu Cinematics Reel

When booting up The Black Death you will now be greeted with cinematics that play in the background of the menu! Here are shots from the Plague Doctor and Hunter Professions. To view the full gallery jump to this Dev Blog over on our website:

Dev Blog #62





Below is a video playlist link to this Dev Blog over on our website of all our new cinematics on our Main Menu. Each one represents key elements of The Black Death and a taster for gameplay and the setting of Mercia.

http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/

Even our loading screens have been given a rework with our new golden title branding. Tooltips are now displayed in the centre for visibility and concept art for The Black Death is now used as opposed to in game screenshots.


One of our new Beta loading screens...


One of our current V0.29 Live loading screens...

New Profession Character Creation Menu

Our Character Creation menu has been given a new coat of paint and has been reworked with a new style. Each Profession is now shown off in their full glory. Selecting a Profession will show your character in that Profession’s clothing or armour, giving you a feel for what they are all about.

http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/





Down at the bottom of the screen just above the Profession description you will see a set of arrows. Clicking on these will spin the camera around your character, giving you a full view of their attire. As the camera pans around you will be able to see the details in each environment that make up the themes and characteristics of each Profession in their natural habitat.

To check out our video playlist of all of these Profession turntables, jump over to this Dev Blog over on our website to watch them all and see all of the new environment scenes for each Profession. http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/

Polish Overhaul

Highlights

We have been focussing on a lot of areas of The Black Death recently. One of these has been polishing up existing systems and elements of the game. We wanted to give clearer but subtle hints for interactable elements, such as NPCs, resources and lootable containers. When approaching these elements in game they will be outlined with a white glowing effect to help guide players around the world of Mercia.

Quest System Revamp

The tutorial that was featured upon creating your first character has been removed and replaced with a more intuitive system. This new system was created to help guide new players around the world and help introduce them to the various gameplay elements found in The Black Death. The UI for the Quests tracker below is a placeholder and will be changed later.



Each quest is broken up into 3 tasks. These can vary from gathering resources to craft an end product which then helps the player, or can guide the player into engaging in hand to hand combat with a infected Beggar and even housing tasks too!

There are around 60 new quests that have all been hand written as part of our new system!

New Church Pillage Areas

The Monk fanatics have been busy, Church areas have been popping up all around Mercia. These feature breakable barricaded doors, loot for the taking, and of course infected enemies!

An extra addition that comes with these new Church areas is an “echo” audio effect when you are inside these new areas. Swinging your sword or throwing punches around is amplified in the form of a new echo effect when in these plagued halls. Even the calls from enemy Bandits and Monks that you may find camping within these Churches are also echoed!

Atmospheric Effects & Mood Overhaul

You may have noticed with our most recent update V0.29 Loyalty that we have started to create a more gloomy and deathly atmospheric environment, which we feel is more suited to the Plague and the themes of The Black Death. We are continuing with this over on our Beta, factoring in many different elements to tie everything together to create intense visuals for the dreary and deathly setting of the Plague.

We wanted to create an atmosphere of death, using heavy fog, rain effects, more gravestones, a darker day and night cycle, strong moonlight, low moody lighting, more dead vegetation and the addition of depth of field. With all of these elements complimenting each other together, we feel so far that we have achieved this with the changes we have made to our Beta build so far.

To show our new changes, here is a shot of Freeman’s Port from our new Beta (top) compared with a shot from our current Live build (bottom) of The Black Death. These screenshots instantly show the differences explained above.

We have slider tools for the below images in our full Dev Blog over on our website. If you would like to see our slider tools, jump over there at the link here http://www.small-impact.com/BlackDeath/dev-blog-62-dev-updates-game-polish-atmospheric-overhaul-world-events-system-teaser-more/

The Beta images featured below have an additional element to them. You may notice that there is an almost “haze” to these images. This is a part of our new World Events System. We go into more details of this later in this Dev Blog!

Here are some comparisons from a shot of Freeman's Port.


Environment changes on our Beta...


The environment on out current V0.29 Live build...

Here is another set of comparison shots, this time from the new low lighting effect changes.


Lighting changes on our Beta...


The lighting on our current V0.29 Live build...

Following on from our aforementioned information regarding our new changes to The Black Death’s mood and atmosphere, here are some more screenshots taken from our Beta that highlight these changes to our environments and scenery across Mercia.

World Events System Teaser

As mentioned earlier, we are excited to unveil our new World Events System! We will be showing you all a teaser of this system, our progress so far and how it will work across the world of Mercia. This system is still being worked on and implemented with each Beta build that goes out.



The screenshot above shows an encounter during one of our new World Events. As we work on shaping this system we look forward to you all taking part in these events around the world and working together to fight and cleanse the Plague.

The World Map will play a very important part in our new World Events system. Just to note, the preview featured below is not the final version! We will be tweaking the map alongside our world event system as progress continues.



To start with, you may notice that there are new icons strewn across the Map. These icons are represented in the form of a legend/key on the far right. You will be able to see which cities and towns across the map feature different types of merchants and world utilities for you to use. There is also a small icon shown as a character icon, this shows your characters location in the world!

The element on the World Map that your eyes have probably focused on is the large black smog like element, this circle of smog denotes a World Event area. The red crosses on the world map show areas that need to be cleansed of the Plague. The smog like area on the map will grow over time if the area is not cleansed and will spread further across the map.



These two screenshots above show some of the enemies that you will encounter during these world events. Notice how some of the enemies have red crosses above their heads, including the rat in the second image! These enemies are marked for the plague and are infected. Being in a close proximity to these fellows will be sure to give you the Plague and you will become infected, if there are multiple victims close to you it will intensify.



Another major feature of these world events are Plague Carts and infected corpses, we will be showing these off in full in a future Dev Blog. Plague Carts will be scattered all over the affected event area. These carts are highly dangerous, they have bodies stacked of plague victims in them and emit a black smog like substance. Getting close to these carts will infect your character, on top of enemies lurking around the area. Fire is a key tool here in cleansing these areas, throwing a torch at these Plague Carts will burn them and help to cleanse the area within the event.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading and we will see you next time!

// The SIG Team
——————————————

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Hello Mercians,

we have a hotfix for our newest update V0.29 Loyalty!

Here are the fixes and updates for the Hotfix.

• Destroying built objects no longer crashes the server
  
• Tool meshes are now correct on the players back
  
• Mining Camp and Lumber Yard Peasants should no longer duplicate
  
• Rain should no longer be invisible in certain areas around the world
  
• All Tabard variants are now craftable through the Artisan Profession
  
• New Saving system to help prevent item duplications
  
• Mining Peasants no longer use Wood effect audio

Please note, you may need to Quit Steam and restart in order for the new Hotfix to start downloading. You can also set The Black Death to download updates before other titles in your Steam games library. Right click on The Black Death and navigate to the "Updates" tab, then click on the drop-down menu for "Automatic Updates" and select "High Priority".

As always, thank you for all of your Bug Reports, emails Steam forum posts and new screenshots on our Steam community hub!

Thanks for playing, and we will see you in Mercia!

// The SIG Team

Hello Mercians, Today we have a new update focusing on optimising and addressing issues with lengthy connection times and also some new content to enjoy such as guild colour player clothing, lumber mills and throwable torches. Here are the patch notes in full:

WARNING! THIS UPDATE HAS A NEW SYSTEM FOR BUILDING SO UNFORTUNATELY YOUR BUILT STRUCTURES WILL BE WIPED HOWEVER PLAYER SAVES ARE UNAFFECTED

New:

• Increased server stability and optimisations
  
• Reduced loading times for entering server
  
• Atmosphere enhancements:
  
• Day and Night Mood
  
• Fog Effects
  
• Rain ambience
  
• Certain military clothing items will change colour depending on your guild colours
  
• Weapons in your quickslots show up on your body
  
• New industry buildings added: Lumber mill, store house and mining camp
  
• Player built objects now have decay applied to them over time
  
• Ability to set servers as PVE
  
• New rat animations
  
• New movement animation for tools and torches
  
• New attack weapon trail VFX on single handed weapons
  
• You can now throw torches which create fire areas that cause damage

Not only have connection issues and loading times been addressed but the building feature has been greatly optimised allowing for much large cities without affecting performance

Updated:

• Plague masks now prevent infection if worn
  
• When you hit a profession level with no more recipes to unlock, it will say “MAX”
  
• Main menu has been smoothed out and online/Lan games are now more simple to join
  
• Player built lights (e.g. candles and braziers) lights are now always on
  
• Updated UI across the board with tweaks to help increase flow/smoothness (e.g. recipe size has been increased, so easier to read)
  
• Updated and smoothed out some blends on player movement
  
• English warhammer and long sword are now craftable
  
• Tweaks to aim offsets to help with aiming weapons and punching
  
• Increased the size of the debris pickup
  
• Adjusted the context wheel so it doesn't accidently popup as much (when no context)
  
• Updated hangable housing objects backend so they are easier to place
  
• Updated version number
  
• Updated collision across a range of assets to make object placement more accurate
  
• Updated and polished numerous areas across the land of Mercia

Hire peasants and build them a lumber mill or a mining camp to provide yourself much needed building materials

Fixed:

• Fixed crow material not correctly loading
  
• Fixes added to crafting at utility flow/UI
  
• Fixed drop object sound having no attenuation
  
• Fixed bug in combat mode where the character would slowly rotate in the opposite direction from the direction you were running if running at 45 deg angles
  
• Fixed start jump effort sound not playing
  
• Fixed bug that caused a double landing sound to play after some jumps
  
• Fixed current ‘screen resolution’ filling in incorrectly in the settings menu
  
• Fixed bug causing old stamina bar system UI to pop up when you are blocking
  
• Fixed bug where equipping a spade caused a fullbody animation with no movement on your legs
  
• Fixes added to ai to stop them ignoring you when you hit them from distance
  
• Fixed bug where crafting item amounts would not update when you dropped something
  
• Fixed a bug where the stone wall corner would build a stone wall
  
• Fix added to stop tooltip/options menu staying up after you press craft
  
• Fix to wooden spikes missing name when you look at it on hud
  
• Fixed a bug where friendly ai heavy hit reaction directions were the wrong way round
  
• Fixed a bug where the settings menu wouldn’t close when you are in-game
  
• Fixed the wrong icon for the storehouse item
  
• Fixed LODs for pickaxe, bone club and stick club
  
• Fixed small bread roll icon so it is no longer mouldy
  
• Fixed stone altar collision so relic will now spawn
  
• Fixed for bandits so now use the appropriate idle rather than a sword and shield one
  
• Fixed a landscape texture bug

Build yourself a large external store house for mass storage!

Balancing:

• Trophies and tapestries now stack
  
• Reduced the weight of clay
  
• All tapestries now require a loom to craft
  
• Throne, bookshelf and wooden chair now require wooden planks and nails
  
• Player built wells will now spawn water up to 60% faster
  
• Rebalanced health of buildings, walls and doors
  
• Seeds are around 75% lighter and have less gold value
  
• Balanced the cost of NPC contracts
  
• Flour now requires two wheat
  
• Ai have decreased amount of delays to prevent them so easily being spammed/beaten or caught in reaction anim loops
  
• Balanced weapon recipe costs
  
• Increased durability on all pickaxes and wood axes

Optimised:

• Optimised player buildable lights (candles, braziers)
  
• Fixed some errors that were slowing down the cooking process

That's all of it! Hope you enjoy the new features, see you around Mercia and thanks for playing.

The S.I.G. Team