Over the past month, the development team has made substantial progress across all areas of Depths of Erendorn, delivering crucial updates and enhancements to both the gameplay experience and the game world. From completing the intricate Minotaur character series to refining dungeon setups, camera functionality, and combat animations, every department has contributed to improving the immersive quality of Erendorn. The introduction of optimised server management, vibrant environmental updates, expanded ability effects, and distinctive soundscapes has further enriched the game. With new textures, materials, and assets added, alongside significant performance optimisations, these developments continue to shape a polished and dynamic RPG experience for players exploring the world of Erendorn. 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!
3D Modelling
The 3D Modelling team has completed the entire development process for the Minotaur series of characters, from retopology and unwrapping to finalising detailed textures. Each step was carefully executed to optimise in-game performance while maintaining the intricate design and imposing presence envisioned for these creatures. The texturing phase introduced rich materials like rough metal, tough leather, and crimson cloth, culminating in a ferocious and menacing aesthetic that aligns perfectly with the game’s concept art. With the addition of refined facial features to enhance the base Minotaur’s intimidating appearance, this series is now fully prepared for engine integration, marking a major milestone in the game’s development. Examples of the team’s work can be seen below.
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Set Piece Design
Throughout November, the Set Piece Design team has made substantial progress on the upcoming marketplace pack. This included the creation of new tileable materials tailored for marketplace assets, ensuring a consistent and polished aesthetic. Significant advancements were also made in constructing wooden structures for the market’s diverse stores, laying the groundwork for a vibrant and immersive trading hub within the game world. As development continues, plans are in place to introduce a fabric store, adding further depth and variety to the bustling marketplace environment. Examples of the team’s work can be seen below.
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Programming
Client
Over the past month, the Client team made substantial advancements in refining key gameplay systems and enhancing the overall player experience. Dungeon setup was adjusted to accommodate recent Session switching and 3D coordinate changes, while efforts to integrate the Gaea plugin for terrain generation involved resolving file conflicts and reimplementing essential UI elements. Issues within the Dungeon RoomBuilder were identified and addressed, ensuring more stable and functional Dungeon creation. Camera functionality underwent significant improvements, including a tethering system, refined acceleration calculations, and more responsive controls. Additionally, the ability database was expanded and refined, enriching gameplay depth and clarity. These collective updates contribute to a more polished, intuitive, and immersive experience throughout Erendorn. Additional work completed by the team can be seen below.
- Modified Dungeon Session setup to reflect the new Session switching methods. As we now maintain a connection between Sessions certain steps in the execution order for generating Dungeons have been refactored.
- Updated Dungeon Session and Combat Data parsing to reflect recent Serverside changes.
- Worked through a number of RoomBuilder crashes stemming from the upgrade to 3D coordinates.
- Fixed some compilation issues regarding the Gaea Unreal Tools plugin.
- Explored a number of different ways to include Gaea in the project.
- Removed Gaea from SVN to prevent issues preventing team members from recompiling.
- Worked through a number of different crash causes relating to the building of walls and combat grids for Dungeons.
Server
The Server team has implemented a range of optimisations and features to improve performance, scalability, and gameplay depth. Extensive work on active effect proc logs now ensures that messages are only sent to the client when they genuinely affect the game state, dramatically reducing unnecessary data and enhancing overall responsiveness. Connection management was streamlined through connection groups, asynchronous messaging, and improved scaling logic that accounts for unique sessions rather than just player count, effectively mitigating lag and latency issues. The introduction of a control panel for server agents enables remote configuration updates and paves the way for future expansion, while new server API endpoints, along with session tracking and a CPU profiling tool, further bolster server efficiency and stability. Gameplay was enriched by integrating Quests into the Party system, refining NavEdits for Dungeon layouts, reworking abilities for classes such as the Earthen Dwarf Character Class, and fixing issues with set pieces and doors in dungeons. Additional refinements to communication, resource handling, and error reduction were made to ensure a smoother, more immersive experience for players exploring the world of Erendorn. Additional work completed by the team can be seen below.
- Added a debugging mutex to better solve mutex locking issues.
- Increased connection sending buffer size.
- Fixed friends list not being sent on login.
- Fixed friends request notification not being sent to the client.
- Added pending friends requests to the friends list.
- Fixed Missing usernames from friends requests.
- Adjusted UI on our agent control panel.
Sound Design
The past month, the Sound team at Depths of Erendorn has made significant progress in refining and expanding the game’s audio design to deliver a more immersive and impactful experience. Several abilities, including Incision, Quick Strike, Alert, Ignore Pain, and Elbow Smash, were given unique sound effects, carefully crafted to align with their animations and gameplay mechanics, enhancing the visceral feel of combat. The team also successfully implemented Max XP and Level Up sound effects, which are now fully functional in the game, providing satisfying audio feedback for progression moments. In addition, innovative techniques were explored to enhance the auditory profiles of magic abilities by experimenting with transients and filters. This approach has enabled the creation of distinct tonal characteristics for different spell types and characters, enriching the game’s sound identity while allowing for dynamic layering and subtle variations. These developments ensure the audio landscape remains engaging and responsive, further immersing players in the world of Erendorn. Examples of the team’s work can be seen below.
Environment Art
November saw the Environment team deliver substantial improvements to the natural and constructed elements of the game world. A complete landscape rebuild was undertaken, beginning with the integration of Procedural Content Generation (PCG) to spawn trees, which required a rework of the master material and the creation of new terrain for full functionality. Enhancements were made to the sea material, improving wave frequency and shoreline foam effects for a more natural look, while landscape grass was refined to dynamically inherit colours from the terrain, creating a seamless and immersive environment. New saplings for spruce and beech trees were developed, alongside a set of bushes, diversifying the game’s flora.
Large cliffs were incorporated into the set dressing to add dramatic depth to the environment, and oak trees were upgraded with a realistic wind system to bring life to forested areas. Settlement structures were imported into the updated map, laying the foundation for player hubs, and the blizzard weather zone was successfully added to the mountain regions, creating a dramatic and atmospheric effect. Terrain materials also underwent experimentation with nanite, tessellation, and displacement for improved visual fidelity. Lastly, lighting adjustments brightened building interiors, particularly at night, and performance profiling reclaimed lost frames per second, ensuring smoother gameplay. These updates have significantly enriched the world of Erendorn, enhancing both its realism and playability.
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Animation
Throughout the past month, the Animation team at Depths of Erendorn made significant strides in refining character animations to enhance the fluidity, responsiveness, and realism of in-game movements. Key updates were applied to a range of combat abilities, including Sever, Blindside, and Palm Strike, ensuring smoother transitions and impactful execution during gameplay. General combat movement was also improved, contributing to a more dynamic and engaging experience for players. Additionally, refinements to cloth physics were implemented, resulting in more natural and realistic interactions with character movements. These efforts have brought further polish to the animations, making every action feel visually satisfying and immersive, while helping to bring the world of Erendorn to life with detailed and responsive character behaviour. Examples of the progress achieved by the team can be seen below.
Visual Effects
Finally, the VFX team at Depths of Erendorn made remarkable progress on refining and expanding the visual effects for a new batch of abilities throughout the month. Key updates were applied to abilities such as Alert, Ignore Pain, Elbow Slash, Savagery, and Wild Strikes, ensuring each effect is visually striking, efficient, and intuitive during gameplay. The team focused on enhancing readability and impact, elevating the presentation of abilities to provide a polished and immersive combat experience. Alongside these refinements, extensive brainstorming and conceptualisation efforts were undertaken for upcoming skills, laying the foundation for unique and impactful effects that align with the game’s aesthetic. New materials and textures were developed and fine-tuned, with experimentation in material optimisation leading to the conversion of certain assets to Virtual Colour and Virtual Greyscale modes to improve functionality and integration. These updates demonstrate the team’s dedication to innovation and maintaining a high visual standard, ensuring that the dynamic combat system in Erendorn remains engaging and visually compelling for players. Examples of this progress can be seen below.
That’s it for this month’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of October yet?!
