Dear Friends!

The 32nd report is out. Today we continue the discussion about the development of Reign of Guilds.

While the bug fixing and polishing were the main task of programmers during the last month, we with other departments decided to dedicate time to quality control of the created content.

But we begin with the latest news:

1. We published the page in Steam. The best promotion for “Early Access” projects is when one adds them to the wishlist based on new rules of traffic filtering if you know what I mean :



2. We made global efforts to the road map for its public demonstration. And, as we promised, we presented it in two languages: Russian and English. The main advantages of the road map are:
1. Sort tasks based on either their completion status;
2. or the status of the project, i.e. see what’s been implemented already and when or what’s still in the works;
3. All the dev-blogs and reports are gathered in one place. Cards marked with (*) contain images.
3. Well… you all are aware of the video from pre-Alpha testing.

Let's talk about real business.

I The new system for blending of animations

For us, this system is a transitional stage between the earliest version, that is used in the current ROG Club builds, and IK animations, that will make the character’s movements more realistic.

Initially, the switching between the movement animations was instant without any blending and this is how they looked like:

This is how they look like now:

We will tell you about the new animations, planned to be introduced, based on Inverse Kinematics later when we will test them in our project.

II Sprint animations in the run-up to the combat System 2.1

Since we are still working on the showmanship and the dynamics of the combat system ( especially close quarters combat), we are planning to introduce unique attacking animations from sprinting for LMB as well as RMB.

By the way, it is already in the current build for 2P weapon.

The key is that it will allow us to position the body turning in more correct stance for sprinting. And the attack will proceed from this new position. Previously, we had to play the fox by using essentially the body position from regular running and increasing the length of footsteps.

1H weapon + shield, before:

1H weapon + shield, after:

1H weapon + freehand, before:

1H weapon + freehand, after:

1H powder + shield, before:

1H powder + shield, after:

III Cloth Physics

We continue redoing the models of clothes as the new approach to the functionality and, for now, we’ve made it to capes:

Before:

After:

By the way, capes as items will be added in the next patch at PTR. We constantly forget to do so.

With regard to the question about the new approach to cloth physics and skinning of models of armor/clothes in general:

Professional armor of the Crusader (T5) with an average in length tabard:

And of course, the Necromancer in his full gear beloved by everyone:

IV Remaster of materials

Since we are back to armor, we wanted to tell you a little bit about what we understand under the remaster of materials that we've started recently. We gradually brush up all the content created over two years.

We use the same textures made by our artists, we use the extended capabilities of UE4 in post-processing and rendering.

Before and after in each image:

These materials together with extra textures which are currently in the works will allow us to dynamically change the appearance of items.

Base variance / Remaster / Remaster with dirt or aging:

V 2H powder (1.5)

Oh, and, it is so hard for us to work on the combat stance

These are the animations we’ve managed to do by now:

VI FOV and the effect while sprinting

At first, we decided to increase the FOV from 100 to 115. From a visual perspective, the increase is much higher than simply the ratio of 115 to 100.

We continue working on the increase of gameplay emotionality. This is why we will test the new effect when sprinting in the next patch of ROG Club:

VII New VFX system from the 1st and the 3rd person view

We modified the system by making it more universal. This was a forced decision because we needed to update the effects from a visual point of view and make them less cartoonish.

The new system in action from the 1st person view:

A list of new VFX which replaced the old ones from the 3rd person view will be shown in the next report.

VIII New VFX for areas hit by magic

For now, the effects remain only on the surface of the surroundings:

The next step are damage effects on character models and mobs. And of course, you already know this from the road map ;)

IX New VFX system for areas hit by a melee weapon

This is a more complicated system since one has to take into account the direction of the strike.

In general, each strike is accompanied by more than 10 VFX/SFX.

In order to introduce fully the system, we need to readjust all materials used in the construction of the surroundings (level design).

But you know, feel the fear and do it anyway.

X Conclusion

In conclusion, it's worth noting that we begin learning SpatialOS and its capabilities. The most important thing is the conscious transition to this solution instead of our seamless travel.

The registration for the Alpha-test was closed on 15/07/2019 and we've got no plan extending it. However, the registration for the ROG Club remains based on the old rules. We harkened to your wishes and updated the registration form (https://reignofguilds.com/ru/alpha/) with a text field where one can freely tell why it must be he or she who gets access to PTR.

Well and the most important thing: we've prepared everything that is needed to launch the competition, and found common denominators with the organizers and sponsors.

This is why we suggest you follow the news shortly and prepare for good prizes!

In the end, here is dancing in the night for you, which became possible thanks to the new blending of animations:

It’s Friday evening, let’s ROGgom up, Friends!

Yours sincerely,

The team of Reign of Guilds