Weekly Dev Update: 2016 September 30th - Testing Releases, Creature Designs, and more!

[james]

We have been updating the “Testing” version of Boundless everyday this week. Thank you very much for all the bug reports and feedback! We are planing to update the Live version early next week (the week starting Oct 3rd). More details about the Live update can be found here.

All the details of the recent releases are listed here:

• Testing 22: Warps, Planets, and more!
• Testing 23: Fixes, World Builder Node Library and more!
• Testing 24: Trading with the dead, fixes and more!
• Testing 25: Death, Respawning and more!
• Testing 26: Compass, Robustness and more!
• Testing 27: Smart Spawning, Less Lag and more!

Here is the list of things we will be focusing on throughout October.

• HUD + GUI update to the new skin.
• More Creatures added to the game: asset creation and gameplay.
• Slingbow, Grapple and Lance mesh updates.
• New SFXs and VFXs.

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Code
Beside the released code we continue to evaluate backend databases to help scale up. We’ve been evaluating LevelDB, LMDB and RocksDB, running various tests with full sized worlds to see how they perform. So far RocksDB is looking the strongest for our test cases.

Design
@olliepurkiss has been mainly concentrating on the releases, so mainly bug fixing, but also making sure the worlds are built and in a good state for our push to Live.

@luke-turbulenz has been helping with the releases, but also focussing on the beginning of the game, and how we introduce new players into the Boundless Universe.

Rob has been nailing down the HUD design, including the compass that was released in an early form this week. Part of that has meant looking into how we display combat information which has prompted many interesting discussions.

Art
This week the art team has been busy supporting the Testing releases and generating sky colours for the twelve different worlds coming to the Live release. We’ll be iterating the sky and block colour palettes for these worlds over the coming weeks as we iterate the generative colour system.

We’ve been concepting natural props to populate the biomes. Prefabs are working well adding interest to the worlds and we plan to enhance them with a suite of natural prop meshes. Here’s a sneak work in progress peek:

We’ve posted four more creature concepts, heavy flyer, hunter, ape-like and the relative scales sheets. Links for all the creatures posted so far:

1. Wildstock
2. Spitter
3. Roadrunner
4. Hopper
5. Heavy Flyer
6. Hunter
7. Ape Like
8. Relative size of creatures

The Level 5 Wildstock will be the first creature introduced to the game.

Work has continued on the final tool models with all the chisels now completed and the shovels started.

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[Tercel]

Awesome. Thanks for the round up James

[sikerow]

Wow the updates are comming out as fast as Apple releases a new iphone

[Inkgerm]

This week the art team has been busy supporting the Testing releases and generating sky colours for the twelve different worlds coming to the Live release

does this mean you guys are planning on releasing 12 worlds to the live “play version” soon or that when the game hits full release youre shooting for twelve worlds at launch? just curious. i love the look and feel of the game so far!

[Smoothy]

those flowers with the purple Gleam-Egg on top look so individual! I like it!

By the way, since you create 12 worlds, how is the concept here?

I guess there will be 3 worlds for each region (EU, US EAST, US WEST, Australia).
Are always 3 of a region kind of galaxy?
If not, can I reach every planet from every planet?
Since planets are rotating around planets and themselve your must have already created kind of universe map?
Do you have a sketch? Would love to see the concept…

I like the compass UI too! Will this in final game maybe just appear, when you craft a compass? or will we always have it? Ad what about a map? I remember kind of map interface @ben introduced when he worked on it…

And last but not least: you don’t focus on any balance. If you don’t want us to spend hours on maintaining tools, you should increase the durability here. So long until you have a right clue about maintaining/ or not maintaining tools and right durability. But right now, too much time gets lost in maintaining them. The time could be spend better, to give you more feedback.

[james]

does this mean you guys are planning on releasing 12 worlds to the live “play version” soon or that when the game hits full release youre shooting for twelve worlds at launch? just curious. i love the look and feel of the game so far!

We’re planning for the update to Live next week: 4 locations (US-East, US-West, EU-Central and Australia), each with 1 “home or spawn” world and 2 “moons”.

For 1.0 we’re planning more locations and more complex planet systems.

Are always 3 of a region kind of galaxy?

Nope - we’re just starting with that for next week as we don’t want to release too many new worlds. The majority of players want to meet people in the game. But we also want to make sure people have a low(ish) latency connection to their local servers. Then you have to option of opting into exploring remote worlds.

If not, can I reach every planet from every planet?

Yes. But it’ll be expensive.

• The cheapest in resources but expensive in time is to hop planet to planet.
• The expensive in resource and cheapest in time is to Warp directly.

Since planets are rotating around planets and themselve your must have already created kind of universe map?

Yes - we have a logical map. Meaning that there is structure to the universe and the relationship between the worlds and their stars.

Do you have a sketch? Would love to see the concept…

It’s generation specific and will grow as we put more worlds online. I’ll definitely share more closer to 1.0.

Will this in final game maybe just appear, when you craft a compass?

I personally always like the idea of needing to craft features of the HUD.

Ad what about a map? I remember kind of map interface @ben introduced when he worked on it…

No comment. Last time I attempted to tease something people were v. unhappy.

And last but not least: you don’t focus on any balance. If you don’t want us to spend hours on maintaining tools, you should increase the durability here. So long until you have a right clue about maintaining/ or not maintaining tools and right durability. But right now, too much time gets lost in maintaining them. The time could be spend better, to give you more feedback.

The primary purpose of releasing to the community is to iterate the balance. So expect more balance tweaks as people play the game. (If everyone dies too often we’ll make things easier. If everyone never dies we’ll making things harder. Same goes for duration of tools.)

[alexanderyou]

I personally always like the idea of needing to craft features of the HUD.

I also like this idea

If everyone dies too often we’ll make things easier.

Quick everyone set your home on top of a pillar and keep jumping off!

[Vastar]

Last time I attempted to tease something people were v. unhappy.

There is a difference between giving a teaser on a feature that might come in the distant future and saying “There is something amazing we’ll release next week, but I won’t tell you what” though

[ToothlessGamer]

Hey James, guys. Luke directed me here.

Admittedly i PREVIOUSLY owned this game… and refunded it because it didn’t seem all it APEARED to be… but anyway, that is in the past.

I am here to say i have looked through the updates and am now ready to take a risk and re-buy… although i have to wait about 2 weeks QQ

Anyway. James - Luke - Team… good luck and i will return soon and then hopefuly i can also update my review peace

[Clexarews]

If you don’t want us to spend hours on maintaining tools, you should increase the durability here. So long until you have a right clue about maintaining/ or not maintaining tools and right durability. But right now, too much time gets lost in maintaining them.

I’ve not found any issue so far with tool maintenance. See this guide on how to keep yourself freshly stocked with tools as you go about playing!