November 2017: about current state of the game

Dear friends!

We would like to thank all players and guilds who took note of the project. We were happy to see you visiting our forum. It was a joy for us to receive your questions, discussion of the concept, and well-argued and grounded criticism.

Team and studio

We have increased the size of “creative” part of the team more than twice in the past two months. New members add value: programmers, 3D and 2D artists, level designers, animators. The back office grew in numbers as well, but to a somewhat lesser extent. We are still actively looking for recruits to fill open vacancies. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to do.

We have finally made a decision on the name for the studio. It is called Atlant Games now. Here is the logo:

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Location: Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. The majority of team members are working remotely, including outside RF. Very soon, we will prepare the page “About the team” at the website, where more details will be provided.

Testing

We continue “open” development of ROG and welcome testing at very early stages. This allows us to catch critical errors fast, while it allows you to evaluate results of our work for real.

There is one more important aspect of testing: it is the debugging of combat system in terms of its dynamics, physics, and calculations.

Website and forum

The structure of the forum has been reworked. New sections have appeared. The concept has got a more manageable form and decreased in length. A plot comprising 9 art-scenes is almost finished in page “about game”. The plot is not about the history of the world and it does not give any story clues. It is just a story about two people, who lived (still live) in this kingdom. It is one example of many what kind of path one can choose to follow in ROG.

It is not coincidence that I have drawn attention to the plot: the main trailer of the game will be based on it. We will tell more about it later, since it is a whole project in itself. Apart from that, the final logo of ROG has been modified and approved:

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Together with the current update, pages of F.A.Q. have been published. At the moment, two sections are done: "General questions" and "Testing". Later, answers to your most interesting questions will be published there as well.

During this month, we continue to design and improve the website. New sections will appear: "Devblog" and "Team". We are planning to report about the progress every two weeks in section “Devblog”.

The forum has got a new design for the main theme. It has got somewhat heavier when loading, darker look, but now is of better quality. For those who are used to the classical design and lite version of the forum, design variant "ROG_white" is available.

The website and forum have been translated into English during the preparation of the project announcement in the West.

Update №5

A new significant update is almost here, which will add:

1. Mechanics of magic and skills in the game. With that, ROG differs from medieval slasher games not only in terms of the close quarters combat system, but also in terms of availability of magic and skills. This is the foundation of universal system, to which it is very easy to add actual skills (e.g. teleports, invisibility, АОЕ roots and stamina burn, application of buffs, summoning mobs and mounts, etc ...) and magic (at a single target, small АОЕ, large АОЕ, chain АОЕ, a wave in front of self, a radius around self, a cone in front of self, etc ...).

2. Mechanics of levels, attributes, stats, and leveling-up of character in the game.

3. Mantras and buffs. We also include them in what we mean by magic. Mantras and buff will remind everyone what kind of game ROG is similar with! Oh yeah, these systems have already been developed and they are working. But they will be included in update №6. It will be possible to buff and heal a character, summoned mobs, and anyone around if they deserve it!

Meat on the bone

More details about the development are in the Devblog. Here, we will report briefly about what has been done by departments, which add meat to the skeleton of our MMORPG:

Programmers. Main efforts were dedicated to the update №5. Apart from that, together with the partners of the project, a character appearance editor is being worked on. And obviously, the race to catch up with the latest version of the engine: we have updated them from version 4.15 up to 4.18. Something always gets broken when updating the version of the engine and should be fixed. We will be working with the latest version of UE4 by the end of 2018.

Animators. More lively and universal animations of combat guards are being made from scratch. Each guard requires from 40 to 80 animations. The first example of animations are two magical guards: powders and mantras, cast on self and at the target.

3D artists. Very tedious and complicated process to create a male and a female model for the character editor. The editor will have about 30 modifiable areas (morphs) for the body and the same amount for the head.

Currently, the female model’s head is ready and morphs are partly adjusted. This allows to get different look for the characters even now:

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Sets for Assassin and Inquisitor:

Here is a new set for the Inquisitor. After that, a work has been done to create general concept for items and their module structure for characters; adaptation and import of models in UE4; adjustments of settings for clothes physics. Here is the Assassin:

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View and orbit the model in sketchfab: Assassin.

Inquisitor:

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View and orbit the model in sketchfab: Inquisitor.

Weapon

We have already mentioned here about the workings of the editor for weapon and that our team has decided to take a different path than many indie-projects. Currently, it is possible to achieve a great amount of variations.

Here is how spare parts of a claymore look like:

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And the hammers:

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Here are weapon models that are assembled already in UE4:

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Level design. There is still about one month before full-scale works on level-design. In the Devblog, we will explain why it is so and why our path is different from the conventional way used in indie-teams.

Now we are just doing quick checks of test locations about the atmosphere, lighting, weather, and optimization:

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Plans

Here is briefly about what we have in mind, and what requests we have for you.

After the release of update №5, we critically need to do mass test to check the performance of the program server. The more people, fights, and blood there will be, the better. This is why we ask you all, who follow the project, to gather together after we set convenient time.

After the update №5, we will work on physics of AOE. We are planning to introduce dynamic barriers into the system of calculation of АОЕ-damage, which will include different players, different abilities, and so on. Thus, it will be possible to hide not only behind walls and trees, but also behind other players. The main feature of the system will be the option to set magical walls and shields, which will protect from a wave of AOE.

More on the development map is in the next section of the Devblog.

Also, very soon, there are plans to organize several competitions with different prizes to lighten the tense atmosphere of development process. We may even set a small tournament, if there are those who will be willing to join.

Thank you very much to those who made it till here!