Hello there,

The day has finally come! We can present you the release date of Thief Simulator VR. This is the day game leaves Early Access.

What is the date? It's easy to remember. Remember, remember the 5th November. ;)

Releasing Thief Simulator VR in the form of Early Access was the best decision we could make. After our adventure with the "thief", we found out that the players know best what this game should look like. The amount of information with ideas that we received made us extremely grateful. You supported us every day, and we gradually introduced the changes you suggested. Thus, since the game's debut in the form of Early Access:

• we've made 149 minor changes to the gameplay
  
• we added a significantly better tutorial
  
• we changed the look of the inventory
  
• we have introduced new story quests
  
• players got an additional neighborhood
  
• changeable weather appeared
  
• players got the opportunity to buy a house and decorate it
  
• we added the "junkyard" location
  
• we added a new vehicle - VAN
  
• we have enabled a sitting game mode

Watch the new trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObOTllkGC-0

And once again - thank you, community.

Hey, survivors!

Life is booming not only in the ruins of abandoned towns and factories, not only in the Wasteland but also on the Crossout forums! Heated disputes, discussions, new acquaintances — everything happens there. To help make your Crossout forum profile stand out, we have made animated avatars with the game's characters.

You are welcome to use them! And remember to be polite and friendly. This will make your profile even more attractive.

You may check out and save (open the picture - right mouse click - “Save the picture as…”) these avatars below:

Air Shaman

• 600x600
  
• 120x120

Augustus Donner

• 600x600
  
• 120x120

For more information on Crossout, follow these channels:

• Twitter
  
• Instagram
  
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• Facebook

Hi, I'm embarrassed you guys are waiting for me for so long,
on the one hand, the product is ready, and I would really like to share it,
on the other hand, while it doesn't quite meet my usability requirements,
given that users have even higher ones, I'm not in a hurry.
Today I recorded a video demonstrating the capabilities of the new DPS
to make it clearer how cool it is and why it took so long.
https://youtu.be/QIPlIRKrEvU

Upcoming Time-limited Events (Special Halloween Editions)
- High Roller Event – do well, and get a bloody weapon in your arsenal
- Community Event – prove you’re a trooper by pushing the team to get better; teamwork is key!
- Mr. Peaches Event – the bunny turns evil
- Blue Moon Halloween Event

Make sure you stay connected to our social channels, we’re also planning a special Halloween Contest with prizes. ;)

A brand new BattlePass feature that brings loads of exclusive prizes (including a free VIP Crate).

New additions & cosmetics
- Pacific BSW
- Pumking-Ops Mask and Killsign
- Severed hand trinket
- More blood, bats, and Halloween surprises

Game fixes and improvements
- minor bugs and back-end fixes
- minor visual and sound adjustments

Greetings strands fresh and old, it's been some time since the Wilds welcomed. :]

The previous version of Echo of the Wilds was made in a rather old version of GameMaker, so I spent a bit of time updating it to the new version of GameMaker, and since I had to do a bunch of tinkering under the hood thought I might as well just have a good old rummage through it all.

There's not a huge amount in terms of brand new stuff, but a lot of modernisations to make the game nicer to play. Note there are some big changes so old game save files won't work in this new version. If you want to continue playing the previous version it's now available in the Betas Tab of the game properties.

The biggest change is how the map system works. Previously you just had a small map and had to constantly Forget old places to make room for new Scouted places. An issue with this is it's very difficult for newer players to get a sense of progression and direction through the game, as well as not really knowing if/when areas will become useful. You no longer have to Forget areas, instead you now craft Paper which is then added to your existing Map increasing its size. It gives a very good sense of where you are in the game and is quite nice to look over to see how far you've come. You can also do some more interesting things with it, for example the Gateways now block off entire regions, and the Treasure Cove is more of a true treasure hunt.

The other main change is in the way you learn bushcrafts. Previously it felt pretty random what you were forced to learn, but now you have more control so you can be more strategic with it. The value of bestowed items is now also added together and visually represented so you have a better idea of what's going on. This is especially useful for bestowing high value foods since now excess value is no longer wasted.

And a bunch of other stuff...
- Game now runs at 60 FPS.
- Text resolution size has doubled to make it easier to read.
- Silky smooth sub-pixel camera movements.
- Button prompts show the bound button and can be set to different inputs (e.g. keyboard, Xbox pad, etc).
- Can rebind gamepad controls.
- Can change the game's difficulty mid-run via The Further.
- Separate volume sliders for Music and Sound Effects.
- The amount of save slots has doubled to 6 and you can now save to any slots mid-game.
- Now have the option of auto-saving the game at the start of each day (can be toggled in the Endly Altar).
- Added a Title to text boxes (e.g. showing item names, or the name of whose speaking).
- General menu usability improvements (e.g. when stood in front of a resource the Use Tool prompt will now show the inventory item to be used and instantly use it when pressed).
- Camp upgrades now store more items to keep your home tidy (e.g. storage boxes have twice the capacity).
- Winter can now be survived through (it changes to Spring after the usual Season days), so Endless Mode is now a Hard Mode since the normal game is effectively endless.
- Added a couple of new narrative scenes and extended some others (including the ending).
- Rather a lot of other tweaks and minor bits and bobs to make things more intuitive, better explained, less annoying, etc.
- The Branular Grove area can now be used to change the Season for the day.
- Added a new Fishing Pond area for... fishing.
- New bushcraft - Frog Pockets: Increases your inventory by 2 slots.
- New bushcraft - Workbench: Allows you to see the current durability of tools, as well as repair them and upgrade gear.
- New bushcraft - Leafy Hood: Keeps the rain and snow off your comfy camp fire.
- New bushcraft - Spyglass: Can see unscouted areas on your map and ignore fog.

Enjoy! :]

A very important aspect of software development, whether in games or applications, is the process of optimization. I'll discuss this briefly, but don't expect a lengthy tutorial (I am sure there are far better specialized tutorials out there). However, I'll perhaps provide some guidance about approaching it.

Additionally, I'll go over some new changes and updates in the Forest area for VoidGate, along with a few other small, yet significant, changes.

If one were to simplify the process of programming it could be put into 3 steps, it would probably look like this:

1. Get it working right
   
2. Clean it up
   
3. Make it efficient

While it is good practice to keep in mind the cost of using certain algorithms, especially in terms of the Big O, it is far more important to simply get your current problem solved and working. Thinking about optimization while struggling to get a particular feature or function working could very well be a waste of time.

In the case of Big O, it's best to consider how to approach the problem before implementation. Other than that, it is very difficult to determine performance impact of any function/features before its implementation.

Trying to optimize a particular part of your program before knowing if it actually causes a bottleneck is like looking for a needle in ten stacks of hay, and not knowing which haystack contains it.

This is where the powers of profiling come into play. Profiling should be a tool every developer becomes familiar with; it removes the guesswork and gives precise details on how to optimize your program.

Since VoidGate is being developed in the Unreal Engine, we use Unreal's profiler. All profilers essentially work the same.

So let's take a look at a screenshot of profiling pre-optimizaiton:



As we can see here, the major bottleneck in the game at this time is on the primary GameThread, particularly AI (monster/enemy) movement and animation.

At of the time of this writing, the randomized Forest Area in VoidGate spawns approximately 200 enemies on the map. So this bottleneck is understandable, though obviously not ideal. So optimization comes down to reducing the performance time.

There are a few options to consider. First, rather than spawning all enemies at the beginning, we can spawn them as they are needed. For example, we can check when a player nears an area where a particular set of enemies reside, then spawn them as the player reaches it.

However, this option has flaws for a number of reasons. First spawning actors (instantiation of objects) is an expensive process. This is because memory allocation for the object is slow. Even with Unreal's specialized pooling it is a slow process. Now, if we could specifically choose when to spawn an object in the game (such as during a loading screen, cinematic, etc) it would be a viable option. However, during gameplay this is impractical. If we spawn the enemy while the player is in the middle of combat (or even outside) there will be a very noticeable frame rate dip. If we spawn the enemy when the player has to fight it, we'll get a frame rate dip and an enemy potentially popping out of nowhere.

I spent a brief amount of time trying to find how others might approach this issue and couldn't find anything. It doesn't mean no one has addressed it and has tackled the problem, I just couldn't find it.

So I came up with my own approach (even though it's highly probable I'm just reinventing the wheel here). Memory is cheap and not really an issue right now in the game, so it is safe for us to spawn all of the enemies during the map's load time.

After this, we simply have each enemy do a check regarding their distance to the player. It's important to note this check is not done every frame or tick; checking distance can be an expensive operation, especially if Unreal uses the accurate square root method (which I assume it does; Manhattan distance is cheaper, but also less accurate).

First we'll go over the result of the check, then we'll go over the timing of the check.

So, once we have our result of the distance between the enemy and the player we have a few different options. I base this on three tiers of distance: short, medium, and far. I use these rather than actual values because it will depend on the game, and the medium distance may be unnecessary in other cases.

VoidGate has stealth mechanics, though not all of it is fully implemented yet, and AI is perception based (hearing and sight) and uses alert levels of awareness.

This means short distance needs to be far enough for the player to be aware of an enemy then either engage or avoid. Since the game depends heavily on randomization, medium distance is far away enough the enemy doesn't need to be visible, have active animations, or have active perceptions, but close enough to still move around. And far distance means the enemy/AI is completely inactive.

Medium distance may be omitted completely, and may be in the future. We will do more testing on it, and may find it ineffective.

• Short - Enemy visible and fully active, perceptions are active (fully active).
  
• Medium - Enemy not visible, animations not active, perceptions inactive, brain still active.
  
• Far - Fully inactive.

So, how do we do the timing to check? In my case, I use Unreal's event timers. The frequency is determined by the distance. The minimal amount of time is half a second, while the maximum amount of time is thirty seconds. These bounds are set by simple clamping.

Then I use a formula to determine the amount of time: Time = (Distance - ShortDistance) / TimeDistanceRatio.

There is no magic to this formula, and it certainly can be changed. I only picked it by asking: At what distance do I want to make a check every second? In Unreal terms, each Unit (1.0) is approx. 1 cm in distance. Let's say my short distance is approximately 5000 units, this means as long as the enemy is within this distance we want to do a check at our minimal amount, up to that amount.

In my case I chose TimeDistanceRatio as 2000 units. This means for every 1000 units past the short distance, half a second will be added to the amount of time.

The rationale behind this is simple: it is improbable that a player reach a certain distance to far enemies in a certain amount of time, so the farther they are the less frequent we need to do the check. But as the player gets closer to the enemy, we need to make the check more frequently.

So, what is the result of doing this method? Obviously the results will vary according to the formula, variables, and distance among other things. I could certainly play around with the formula and values for different result, however I was happy with the result I got on this basis.



As you can see, the amount of time spent in the GameThread was cut in half, from 10.542 ms to 5.275 ms. The majority of enemies now have their performance time cut in half, even when "moving."

Of course, this doesn't mean the job is done. The instructions for game optimization can be found on bottles of shampoo: Lather, rinse, repeat. It's not something that needs to be done after every step, but often enough. Too much and progress will be slow, too little and progress won't matter much. The when fits inside a vague Goldilocks zone.

Now we can move onto some recent changes.

First, we have implemented a feature to improve the camera view. Since our game depends on randomized level generation, we can't design our levels to avoid obstructing the camera. There are a number of other ways to deal with this, however, we'll stick to our own solution.



Whenever an object obstructs the camera it becomes translucent, so the player won't lose visibility. Special thanks to this YouTuber for the method and base setup on doing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COodvTeEfSM
I recommend if you use this for your own project that you modify it to suit your particular game, as we have. The code is built for general use for ease of plug and play, but taking some time to fit it around your own project will increase its efficiency. As an example, the code has you select a particular Actor class to filter through. In our case, we don't even care about the class. Rather than have Unreal fetch any actors matching the class and iterating through an array, we only need one actor. So we grab it directly and remove the array iteration. While the performance difference may be negligible in this case, it is good practice.

Additionally, there is a flaw in the basic setup that ALL static objects will be susceptible to this (allowing the camera to break through the ground to look up at the player, though this might be what you want). And it requires the spring arm on your camera to ignore any collision. This can cause problems. For example, in our dungeon level we don't want the player to be able to swing the camera outside of dungeon walls and examine the "outside" of it, allowing them to view dungeon layout among other things.

So we managed this by setting up a new object type within Unreal's custom channels called Fade, referring to the code's fade ability. Any object we want to use this effect, we set its object type to Fade. There will be a few other tweaks you might require, such as properly setting collision on your pawn/character.

Other than that, the code is well-designed. It uses Unreal's tracing system to search for objects, which Epic has demonstrated has little impact on performance.

And finally, we would like to mention a small update to the Forest Area and other similar maps. These maps generate a pathway to connect important parts of the map; offering guidance to the player. Enjoy some screenshots.

Thank you.

Hello everyone,

It’s big patch time. But this time, not only are you going to feel the improvements, you’re also going to see them. As we’ve previously said, Early Access is about improving and iterating on every single facet of the game, and that includes all of the things you see and hear.

In this big patch, we’ve got general fixes for cinematics such as this one below. He was starting to get a crooked neck, and we’re pretty sure he doesn’t have health insurance so we helped him out a bit. See for yourself:

              

It’s not just about tweaks though. As many of you know, despite playing through the Early Access content sometimes for up to a hundred hours or more (wow!) you still haven’t seen all of the content, because incrementally new things are seeded into the game. In this case, a missing cinematic. Where once was darkness, there is now light!

                           

See if you can spot the differences in the game for yourself, or continue to read this Community Update with attached patch notes for spoilers. You know you want to.

                           

A certain song has also been ‘re-shot’ by our cinematics team, which gives you an excuse to check it out again. Did you need one? Side note: we’ve been watching your reactions to this song in your VODs and YouTube videos, as well as in various streams, and the reactions are beautiful. Watching you play the game as we improve it is very motivating for all of us.

On the topic of music and joy, last week saw the Symphony of Sin, which included the first ever live performance of some of the music from Baldur’s Gate 3, as well as some wonderful songs from Divinity: Original Sin 2. You can watch the VOD here, it’s well worth it:

With that said, let’s look at some of the data that’s been making us smile over the week.

Everyone knows you can pet the dog in Baldur’s Gate 3, but did you know the dog has been petted 400k times? Such a good boy deserves that many pets.

                           

Speaking of good boys, last update we discussed how Gale was ultimately attacked quite a lot. Check out last week’s update for the stats on that. Somewhat contradicturally, he’s the most “romanced” of the party. He’s been “romanced” by 33% of players. Shadowheart came second, falling in love with 31% of players, and in return 31% of players fell in love with Shadowheart.

1.37% of players chose to sleep alone. Which is cool too! We have the other stats, but thought it might be fun if you gave it a shot and guessed them. One thing we’re seeing is the stan memes aren’t correlating with the actual “romance data”. For sure, there’s enough tinder in the campfire to ignite some flames.

On a less romantic note (though this really depends on your tastes), 5.87% of players tried to steal the ring… but 26.3% of those players merely sucked a toe. If you haven’t got there yet, you’ll know when you see it. Since we’re talking about failure statistics, many people have made it to The Underdark. But 40.79% of players who jumped down a large, dark hole arrived dead, because they leapt without Feather Fall.

We’re saving perhaps the most interesting until last. Slight spoiler, so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read this. You may know that at a point in the game, you may side with one of two factions: the Tieflings against the goblins, or with Minthara who demands the gates are opened for the goblins to attack the Druids Grove.

74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems.

An optimistic note to end on.


Changelist:

Improvements:

• Optimized overall sound settings to improve performance on lower spec machines
  
• Added polish to several in-game cinematics
  
• Attack of Opportunity indicator is now correctly hidden for invisible enemies
  
• Improved timing of some tutorial messages
  
• Improved usability of skill selection in character creation
  
• Added new tutorial messages related to combat
  
• Listening to other players’ dialogs now correctly shows the other players’ dice rolls
  
• The reason for a waypoint being unavailable is now displayed on the map
  
• Party members now correctly cancel their spell prepare state when switching to another character

Fixes:

• Fixed a crash on startup for specific driver and hardware combinations
  
• Fixed a crash related to trading with Zevlor after the raid on the grove
  
• Fixed a crash in dialogs related to dynamically adding items
  
• Fixed a crash in combat AI
  
• Fixed a potential crash with moving platforms
  
• Fixed a crash related to loading savegames while in a dialogue
  
• Fixed a crash when destroying multiple familiars with a single spell
  
• Fixed a crash related to unloading resources (when loading a save or returning to main menu)
  
• Fixed a blocking issue when someone would join during level transition
  
• Fixed a blocking issue when starting a dialog just as someone leaves the game
  
• Fixed not being able to save anymore on the host when another player is stuck in “in dialog” state
  
• Fixed players getting stuck in the same dialog inside the camp after choosing to fight Minthara
  
• Fixed characters being stuck in animation if downed during precast spell
  
• Fixed characters not being at the correct position after loading
  
• Fixed not being able to talk to party members after talking with gale and summoning the weave
  
• Fixed not being able to use some spell scrolls when out of spell slots
  
• Fixed a rare issue for players that don’t have a profile on startup, requiring selection or a profile or creation of a new one
  
• Fixed quest markers not showing up correctly when multiple markers point at the same object or location
  
• Fixed the tieflings’ celebrations not proceeding correctly if the player had already done a long rest right before
  
• Fixed the physics of the door on the Nautiloid reappearing after saving and loading
  
• Fixed Ethel not triggering her ambush if she leaves her home during combat
  
• Fixed several minor bugs related to in-game cinematics
  
• Fixed zone spells not targeting invisible characters
  
• Fixed summons from items not having an owner, causing them not to join combat
  
• Fixed the goblins not using the war drum correctly
  
• Fixed issues with lockpick progress going out of sync
  
• Fixed savegame screenshots being too dark
  
• Fixed spell sounds not playing correctly in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a long black screen being displayed if a dialog was started just as another player was joining
  
• Fixed Zevlor initiating dialog during combat
  
• Fixed audio settings not resetting when switching profile
  
• Fixed not being able to correctly switch character in trade window
  
• Fixed not being able to click through scenery you can see through, improving navigation
  
• Fixed the Gith becoming hostile incorrectly if Lae’zel was never recruited
  
• Fixed additional reroll when using an inspiration point
  
• Fixed inspiration points not being able to go up after using an inspiration point or gaining another one
  
• Fixed an issue with the hidden vault entrance closing again after the puzzles are already solved
  
• Fixed marking an item as a ware not getting set correctly
  
• Fixed being able to select summons in the trade window
  
• Fixed Zariel Tiefling clerics not being able to level up to level 4
  
• Fixed character creation color tooltips
  
• Fixed characters sometimes falling off moving platforms
  
• Fixed several animation issues with torches
  
• Fixed being able to select invalid targets for Misty Step skill
  
• Fixed not being able to see other players’ hidden summons at all
  
• Fixed party members being rearranged when detaching and reattaching characters to the group
  
• Fixed certain equipment still generating sound after unequipping
  
• Fixed several texture and skinning issues
  
• Fixed several minor localization issues
  
• Fixed minor issues with the action log

Mac specific:

• Automatic crash reporter is now enabled for mac

Hi everyone

With the new update comes new problems..

- We are working on fixing the night time that is about 15 min to long
- We are also fixing the save system as soon as possible as it doesnt save your current inventory and base owner on the server side
- We are doing some tweaks on the zebra elephants and AI as they not roaming where they are supposed to roam

These fixes will be live before end of tomorrow we apologize for the inconvenience

I have a strange issue right now where the game refuses to give you your starting weapon. It takes like 10 seconds rather than just doing it instantly. The bug only appears in a proper build of the game and not in the editor. Its very strange.

Another bug I found which is hilarious gives you full access to a completely different version of the game that I plan to hook up in the coming months. All you have to do is :

• Begin the game as one of your characters and be in the hub area.
  
• Press escape.
  
• The escape menu brings up an option to return to the titlescreen.
  
• Woops that's the new title screen that gives access to the in game level editor and multiplayer options...

Nobody noticed the second bug. Its been there a long time I think.
The first one is just super annoying.

These issues should be resolved very quickly. The patch should go live today still.

It’s been a while since I made a blogpost. I took the time to work on the game, refactor a lot of code and try out new features. I’ll try to post new updates every 2 weeks again from now on.

Scenarios

One of the ideas that I spend time on was scenarios. Hopefully they will help to give the game a lot more content and create a challenge for people that like to have a concrete goal. For people that like to build at their own pace without a concrete goal, the free play mode is still available ofcourse. Right now the game has 2 scenarios: City and Fast food. In the city scenario you have to build a profitable restaurant in a small space. In the Fast food scenario you have to deliver your food fast to win.



Main menu

The old menu was a bit boring and not really suitable for a premium game. That’s why I reworked the menu. The new menu uses assets from the city scenario and is based on New York.



Rigging

I also spent a week creating a new rig for the characters. I don’t have any experience with rigging so this is something that I had to learn first. The new rig will allow me to create my own animations for the game.



Guest rework

While the game has evolved a lot in the last year, the guests have largely stayed the same. They were a bit boring and stupid so the guest AI has also received a rework. This allowed me to add toilets and a slot machine for guests to interact with. The AI rework allows me to now add guest activities and interactions way quicker than before.

What's next?

I’m currently working on a new scenario. In this scenario you will need to build a western saloon. I’m also working on a day/night cycle and I’m reworking some UI.