Hello everyone, welcome to the 10th development update. We finally have some news to share on what we are working on and what new content you can expect in the coming months.
Small content update on September 15
Ancient Dungeon will release on the Quest Main Store on September 15, 10AM Pacific Time. Along with this release, there will be a small content update on both platforms as well as a rewrite and expansion of the games journal pages to make it align with our future planned content. First, all journal pages that had no real connection to other parts of the game ("The Thief", "The Innocent") will be replaced by journal pages relating to the sealed souls adventurers. Unlocking ghost fights will also change: You need to find all journal pages that belong to a certain soul in order to unlock its ghost fight. This will flesh out each of the soul delves and make the journal pages more connected to the rest of the game.
There will also be entirely new journal pages concerning the **Main Story** of the game. When the player finished a run, new journal pages will appear which will further expand on the lore of the game and hint on future content.
All in all, there will be 24 new journal pages for you to find and read through. We have also added 6 new items for you to find in the dungeons.
More future content
Since we did not have too much time adding content for the main store release update (QA deadlines, preparations for marketing, bugfixing on the OpenXR update, and lots of other behind the scenes work for the main store release), we will focus on a bigger content update as the update after the main store release update. In general there are 4 things we want to add very soon. Depending on the amount of time we need, we might split them up into 2 updates to reduce waiting time for you.
Points of Interest system
This is probably going to be the biggest addition to the game and will make the dungeons a lot more varied and interesting. This system can be understood as a compromise between development time and dungeon variation. Initially, we wanted to have an alternate floor for each of the current floors (except The Cradle), with new enemies, new rooms and a new boss. These alternate floors would be the same difficulty wise as the original floors but appear randomly in order to make runs feel more unique. However, there are a few issues with this approach:
- Development time: Creating a new floor takes a lot of development time. Even if we can reuse some enemies from their original counterpart, creating a new floor will probably take around 2 months of dev time until they are fully functional, balanced and varied enough. Multiply this by 4 and we are looking at more than half a year of dev time just to create these new floors. - They have the same difficulty: While the new enemies and variety definitely would be cool, the difficulty of the floors would be similar to the already existing ones. This means, the novelty of encountering an alternate floor would quickly wear off, because players that already manage to win runs consistently, would not have a lot of new challenges in the alternate floors. - More dungeons result in less dungeon variation: The more dungeons we have to manage, the more time we need to improve them. Adding variation or a new enemy to 4 dungeons is a lot easier than doing the same for 8 dungeons. Right now, the current 4 dungeons we have still do not have enough rooms and mechanics to feel like a fresh experience for experienced players each run. We are planning on adding a lot more rooms and mechanics for the already existing dungeons, but the prospect of doubling our workload by adding alternate floors, does not seem like a good idea.
To summarize: Adding alternate floors seems like a cool idea to increase variation in the game, but ultimately would result in extremely long development times and even more managing overhead for us. We think this development time is better spent on increasing variation of the existing floors and working on an even more difficult floor after the Cradle (more on that in a future devlog). The solution we came up with is called the "Points of Interest System".
In general, this system will add more dungeon variation by adding themed room groups into a dungeon that can be randomly found (or with some prerequisites). If you still know the subareas from the beta version, points of interests will act like a subarea, but smaller. For example, the overgrown gatehouse can have a variation which is called "The Barracks". This variation will have a slightly different wall and ground texture, as well as wooden bunks scattered in the rooms. A new type of enemy can also be found there. It can randomly appear in the overgrown gatehouse and fill up 2-3 rooms maximum. This has multiple advantages over the other system:
- More variations possible: Since each variation is only 2-3 rooms big, we need to build a lot less rooms to make a varied point of interest. This means we can introduce a lot more variations with less development time for each dungeon. - Increases variety of the existing dungeons: We have multiple points of interest planned for each dungeon, which means we automatically increase variety in all of them without creating new "base" rooms for the dungeons. We will still create new base rooms, but we need fewer of them, because we already increase variety with building points of interests. - Unique challenges: Since these points of interests are often just a small part of the dungeon, we can introduce some unique designs or challenges into them. For example, we could create tall vertical rooms with unique climbing challenges and have them generate as the "Wailing Pits" point of interest. A whole floor made up of climbing puzzles would be too big and tiresome, but a small localized version of it that only spawns roughly every 10 runs could be a fun and interesting addition. There are a few other cool things we can do with this system, such as introducing harder variations in early floors for experienced players. - More bosses: Since we do not need to create a new boss for each of the alternate floors, we can use that development time to create a new boss for each of the existing floors, increasing the amount of bosses to 2 per floor.
Here is a small graphic that tries to explain our new system:
Points of interest will not spawn on each floor in every run, but they will show up occasionally in order to make a run more varied. They will also be listed in the homebase world map panel so you can see which ones you have already encountered and which ones you have not. I hope this explanation makes sense, we are still in the planning stages so changes to this system are still very likely.
New modifier system
We have removed the current modifier system, because it was pretty outdated and did not have a lot of actual interesting modifiers to offer. It also stopped game progression, which further discouraged players from using it. This is why we plan to rework the modifier system and make it more interesting. We will add new modifiers which change the way the game plays, and also add modifiers which need to be unlocked by completing soul delves. Each modifier will have a "difficulty multiplier" which is a value of how much harder the modifier makes the game. For example a modifier that increases the chance of enemies spawning as abberrants, has a difficulty multiplier of 1.2, meaning the player will get 20% more Insight when completing a run with the modifier active. Modifiers can be stacked, so players can turn the game a lot harder (or easier) if they want to and get rewarded accordingly.
Improved modding tools
The modding tools (especially the room modder) have been neglected for some time now. With the upgrade to OpenXR and a new Unity version, the tools are in a very broken state (that's why there are currently no new rooms being added by us). Since we need these tools ourselves to create most of the rooms and items, we will rewrite them and provide new builds for you in the near future. We will also work on adding new modding tutorials to get more people into modding the game.
Lots of QoL improvements
When looking at the trello page, there are a lot of QoL improvements that we want to do (Reset progress setting, multiple save slots, evasion sounds, better pointer angles, etc.). Some of these will make it into the next update, and some of them will still take some time to get implemented.
Goodbye Thom!
Thom joined the ADVR development team roughly 9 months ago and has contributed a lot to the game (sealed souls runs, new items, helping with the OpenXR port, and much more). Thom has decided to leave the dev team to pursue other career paths and we thank him and wish him the best! He will still remain active on the discord though and stays part of the community.
We are excited to bring to you the very first dev log for Dungeons of Sundaria. We will be doing these to show you some sneak peeks and development progress on future updates for DoS!
This first one starts strong as well, with a new dungeon, improvements to melee, new languages, and more!
Please note that everything shown here is still a WIP and is coming soon!
So without further ado, let's hop into it.
New Dungeon Preview #1 – The Icy Depths
Deep within the Teberon Mountain Range to the north lies the the human stronghold of Korumak. The mountains are treacherous. Few Sundarians dare travel this far north. Whispers for ages have come to Galdrin's Crossing about the downfall of the human stronghold. Now new rumors of Goblin marauders being seen in the region with icy blue skin and glowing eyes, feasting upon the power of the mountain. As you gather your allies you head to the Korumak on the far side of a lake, you gaze up in horror at a monstrous crowned skull which leads to the Icy Depths.
Above: The main entrance of the Icy Depths!
Melee Combat 2.0
Champions and Rogues are about to turn the pain up to 1000! We've been hard at work on making multiple improvements to melee combat, including improved hitbox precision and enhanced feedback. Players can look forward to improved swing and impact animations, blood splatter visual effects, and sounds. We hope these changes will offer better control to our melee players to improve targeting and make the overall controls feel better.
New Languages Supported
We are pleased to announce that the following languages will be supported for all game text: Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, German, Italian, French, Chinese and Portuguese. Language options may be configured from the in-game Options menu.
Account Wide Shared Stash
We are super excited to announce that DoS will be receiving an Account Wide Shared Stash! A notorious Goblin Banker is arriving in Galdrin's Crossing to open the town's first bank. When completed, it will be a full-service shared stash, allowing players to store and transfer items across all heroes on their account. Players will receive their first large lockbox for free and can purchase additional storage space with in-game gold.
Conclusion
That concludes the first Developer Journal, Adventurers!
This is something we are planning to do very regularly so plan to see a lot more of these in the future.
Labour Day Sale! What’s better than taking the day off? Taking a hefty percentage off all chips and creds for a limited time! Double up with our 2x Chips & Creds Sale starting now!! Kick back and add to your stack. You’ve earned it.
The Season Finale We’re back with our fifth and final stop of the already historic MPT Season 1. Join us as we close out the season Casino One style. Dress to impress and compete with the best. With three more bracelets up for grabs, now’s the time to make it count! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEXin9GGlYE
To celebrate a successful MPT Season, we’re hosting a 100M Freeroll during the action on September 2nd at 4 PM ET. Read on for the full Stop 5 schedule.
Be the Champion This Season As we close in on the first official finale of the Metaverse Poker Tour, there’s still a chance for you to claim the Player of the Season title and boast the flashy Winner’s Pendant Necklace and All-In Pairing. The top 9 finalists who don’t quite hit 1st place will still receive the Finalists’ Pendant Necklace and All-In Pairing.
A Winners’ Game Won any standard events at past MPT stops or plan to collect some dubs in this finale? Get ready to flex the exclusive Metaverse Poker Tour: Season 1 Winner’s Ring, which you’ll find right in your stash as soon as this season ends.
The Sims™ 4 First Fits Kit is here! Whether a child Sim wants to turn heads on the first day of school or run around having fun with friends, these versatile styles will keep them looking fashionable (and SO cute). Give child Sims more ways to express themselves with the kinds of leopard-print jackets, patterned leggings, and colorful shades they’ll want to wear when they grow up. These casual looks don’t require a special occasion, but they won’t be out of place at one either.
*REQUIRES THE SIMS 4 (SOLD SEPARATELY) AND ALL GAME UPDATES. SEE MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PACK.
To give thanks to all your hard work and contributions to the economy we are hosting increased rates for a Labor Day Golden Time Event! Starting at midnight, enjoy a 3x EXP, 3x Skill, and 3x Drop event!
Event Duration: September 2, 2022 00:00 - September 5, 2022 23:59 Pacific
This Labor Day Golden Time will only last until Monday, September 5th before midnight, so don't wait to take advantage of these increased gains!
Releasing a quick hotfix to deal with a bug that prevents the player from changing their weapon. Would occur when the player had "none" in a weapon slot and they attempted to fire. Deactivating the camera with the right mouse button would change the weapon selection back to "SAFE," but you wouldn't be able to change the slot after that.
After the fix, I haven't been able to replicate the issue again. Be sure to comment or let me know via our discord if you continue to see this issue.
The first Astrea Oracle Spotlight for our very first playable character, Moonie, is now live!
A scholar using wisdom and intellect to enhance and manipulate her dice, Moonie's specialty in converting corruption to purification and undoing the curse of hex dice will carry you to victory! If you've played the demo that we set live for Gamescom 2022, you're probably well aware of Moonie and all that she offers, but I also want to mention that the demo will be live until next Monday, September 5th! If you want to dig into Moonie for yourself (or our next Oracle, Cellarius!) feel free to find some time over the weekend.
If you've never played the demo before, here's what's on offer: Play through a short run of battles and one boss, collecting dice, star blessings, and sentinels along the way, to see what Astrea is all about! While runs in the base game will be longer, with more battles and bosses to overcome, this should give you a good understanding of what the Astrea experience will be like!
I'll be making more Oracle Spotlights (for all six playable Oracles in Astrea) so be on the lookout for future spotlights over the next few months!
I’m glad to announce that after 6 years of development Deisim is finally released. This has been a very long journey that started with me making a game after my day job and some of you played a version of the game that was very different to this one. I hope you will all enjoy all the changes that have been made during this early access.
I really tried to listen the community and I think the game is now better because of all your feedback and suggestions. This new update contains a lot of bugfixes and improvements to make the game as good as possible for release. It is now a very solid platform for all our future updates.
What’s next?
This launch is not the end of the journey but the start of an exciting new one. We will use the revenue of this launch to grow the team and deliver exciting new updates in the coming months. The next big update will be about Pirates as it is the most upvoted idea by the community and it should be available in November!
We want to continue working with our community even after early access and we will pay a lot of attention to the suggestion you make on https://deisim.featureupvote.com/ for all future updates! A non-VR version is also in the works so stay tuned to try Deisim on your PC and/or on your Steam Deck this year.
Your support in the early days made this game possible.
The biggest new feature at this time is that I've started working on letting you, the player, manipulate the terrain.
For example, builders will be able to raise and lower terrain hex by hex. They need to do this to guide new procedurally generated rivers that spring up when outcrops burst through fault lines in the ground, so that the realm is not overrun (buildings damaged) by these rivers.
You can pick which hexes to be raised to form the "wall". This assigns tasks, the builders perform them and the terrain adjusts bit by bit as they work.
You can also add and cancel waypoints (indicated in yellow) to build a more elaborate wall.
Sometimes, things may go a little awry… I was testing the "flood fill" that will be used to identify enclosed dams or areas. Help! 😅
When things go right, however, this should be what it looks like. The dam wall has been completed and the dam is filling up!
Once again, thank you for all of your support, encouragement, and excitement throughout the last two and a half years. I can’t wait to share more about World Turtles with you!
If you want to be more a part of the journey, feel free to join our Discord where you can hang out with myself and the community.