This week at Depths of Erendorn, the development team made substantial strides across multiple aspects of the game, ensuring continued progress toward delivering a rich and immersive RPG experience. The client team concentrated on refining gameplay mechanics and resolving bugs, with particular focus on improving combat interactions and enhancing the Map Panel's functionality. The server team worked diligently on implementing and refining the population monitoring system, alongside addressing critical bugs and updating server code to enhance stability and performance. Meanwhile, the sound team focused on importing and setting up new ability sounds, refining audio cues, and enhancing the diversity of sound effects to better match the game's atmosphere. The environment team made notable progress in developing the settlement area, focusing on the placement of house foundations, stairs, and detailed set dressing to bring the environment to life. The animation team honed in on player locomotion, improving the speed and fluidity of character movements to create a more realistic experience. Finally, the VFX team concentrated on adding impactful visual effects to in-game abilities, ensuring that each action feels visually distinct and powerful. As always, join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn. Alternatively, join our Discord for all the latest! - now let’s get into it!
Programming
Client
This week, the client team at Depths of Erendorn concentrated on resolving several key issues and enhancing various aspects of the gameplay experience. Significant progress was made in addressing bugs related to entering combat with larger groups of players, particularly by fixing issues where party members had incorrect Nav Indexes when joining combat mid-movement. Improvements were also made to cursor interactions during combat, including adding more triggers to clear potential movement paths, ensuring smoother and more intuitive gameplay. The team continued to implement and refine the Map Panel, testing potential map textures and improving map widget scrolling and zoom functionality. Additionally, efforts were focused on finalising and testing updates to the inventory system, which now features consistent context menus, the ability to swap between the player’s active backpack and stash, and a character select screen that accurately displays character levels. Work also continued on fixing the currently inactive level-up pop-up, ensuring that it properly activates when players reach new levels.
Server
This week, the server team at Depths of Erendorn focused on implementing the population monitoring plan established the previous week. While the initial implementation was successful, some flaws were identified, and further refinements are planned to streamline the process and address complexities in server transfers and population monitoring. In addition, the team dedicated efforts to bug fixing and updating the server coordinator and cache clearing code, allowing for individual server restarts without triggering a full cache clear. Other significant progress included resolving various effect block issues identified during testing, such as abilities that reduce their own cooldown, damage redirection abilities, trap removal abilities, and area-of-effect tile selection. Fixes were also applied to issues related to quitting and relogging on a new character, joining ongoing combat, and implementing new weather effects. These updates contribute to a more stable and responsive server environment, enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
Sound Design
The sound team continued importing and setting up the latest abilities within the engine, creating cues and attenuation settings for a range of abilities, including the Javelin Throw for Drovals, Toxic Arrow and Plague Arrow for Fen Elves, Deafening Screech for the Sonic Striker, Chitinous Flare for the Flare Beetle, Ice Web Blast for the Coldweave Spider, and more. In addition, new sound cues were developed for the Fen Elf vocals, with pitch adjustments applied to create a wide array of variations, increasing the diversity of audio feedback. The Plague Spread effect, triggered after a Plague Arrow hit, was also refined by replacing the coughing sound with the more fitting buzz of flies, enhancing its suitability across different character types. Furthermore, updates to the Coldweave Spider's vocals and attack sounds were completed and successfully imported into the game, laying the groundwork for a more immersive and dynamic audio experience. Examples of some of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
Environment Art
The environment team made significant progress in developing the settlement area. They completed the creation and placement of house foundations for all buildings, ensuring a solid and cohesive structure throughout the settlement. Stairs were also created and positioned where needed, enhancing the accessibility and realism of the environment. Additionally, the team continued with set dressing, adding detailed touches that bring the settlement to life and contribute to the immersive world of Erendorn. Examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
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Animation
This week, the animation team concentrated on refining player animations to enhance realism and fluidity. The primary focus was on polishing locomotion animations, with efforts directed towards improving the speed and dynamism of character movements. By addressing these aspects, the team aimed to create a more responsive and lifelike experience for players, ensuring that character actions feel natural and immersive within the game world. An example of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
Visual Effects
Throughout the week, the VFX team at Depths of Erendorn focused on enhancing the visual impact of in-game abilities and effects. They developed OnRemove effects—final visual flourishes such as explosions or pops—for both the Crystallic Preservation and Arcane Mines abilities, adding a dramatic conclusion to these actions. Additionally, the team created several colour variants for the Icacian Necromancer's attack, inviting feedback to determine the most visually appealing option. These updates contribute to the overall visual richness and dynamism of the game, ensuring that every ability feels distinct and impactful. Examples of the teams work can be seen below.
That’s it for this weeks’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of July yet?!
