This week, the teams at Depths of Erendorn have made remarkable progress across multiple aspects of development, continuing to enhance the quality and functionality of the game. From optimising server performance to refining the visual, audio, and environmental elements, each team has contributed significantly to shaping a more immersive and seamless player experience. Key updates included the completion of the Minotaur model’s retopology, groundwork for new sound effects and ability visuals, as well as substantial advancements in landscape rebuilding and dungeon setup upgrades. Collectively, these efforts underline the team’s dedication to creating a polished and engaging world, ensuring Depths of Erendorn continues to evolve as a dynamic and immersive online RPG. 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
This week, the 3D Modelling team at Depths of Erendorn completed the retopology process for all components of the Minotaur model, ensuring the creature’s form is optimised for in-game performance while retaining high-quality details. Following this, efforts shifted to unwrapping the model in preparation for the texturing phase. Once unwrapping is complete, the team will begin applying textures to bring this ferocious beast to life, using a palette of colours inspired by the concept art. This meticulous process will enhance the Minotaur’s visual impact, ensuring it embodies both the power and menace expected of this iconic character in the game. An example of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
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Programming
Client
This week, the Client team at Depths of Erendorn focused on refining several key systems to improve gameplay functionality and stability. A significant portion of the work involved upgrading the Dungeon setup to align with recent changes to Session switching and the transition to 3D coordinates implemented earlier this year. Additionally, the team began integrating a new plugin to support imports from the terrain generation software Gaea, although plugin issues introduced file conflicts that required urgent attention. While these conflicts were not severe, they necessitated the reimplementation of dialogue and tooltip graphics, as well as fixes to vendors to ensure they displayed the correct player inventory and removed placeholder items from vendor inventories. Following a thorough sweep for any lingering or resurrected bugs, efforts resumed on refining camera tethering and speed scaling to further optimise player interaction and navigation within the game. These updates continue to enhance the reliability and polish of the game’s systems. 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.
Server
Throughout the week, the Server team at Depths of Erendorn finalised the first iteration of optimising active effect proc logs sent to the client. The server can now analyse its own logs and only transmit messages to the client when a relevant change to the game state occurs. This refinement has reduced the number of logs sent by up to 90% for particularly complex active effects, such as Relentless and Tide of Undeath, significantly enhancing performance. Building on last week’s work, connection groups were implemented, and message-sending processes were refactored to increase bandwidth between servers and enable asynchronous communication across multiple connections. These improvements have resolved the majority of lag and latency issues, ensuring a smoother and more responsive gameplay experience. Further refinements to scaling functions are planned to allow the server to react dynamically, using a model informed by more than just player count, to better accommodate future demands. Other work completed by the server team included:
- 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
This week, the Sound team at Depths of Erendorn continued developing audio for various abilities, laying the groundwork for impactful and immersive gameplay moments. Progress was made on key sound effects, with Incision and Quick Strike receiving initial treatments to complement their animations and gameplay mechanics. These early iterations ensure that the sounds align with the visceral tone of combat while remaining flexible for further refinement. Next week, the team plans to showcase the completed sound effects alongside the latest visual effects, demonstrating the cohesive integration of audio and visuals within the game. Examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
Environment Art
Over the past week, the Environment team at Depths of Erendorn has undertaken a complete landscape rebuild, incorporating significant upgrades to the game’s world. This process began with research into using Procedural Content Generation (PCG) to spawn trees, which necessitated a rework of the master material and the creation of a new terrain to enable full functionality. Additionally, the sea material was refined, with wave frequency and shoreline foam effects now behaving more naturally to enhance the visual quality of water interactions. The team has also begun importing settlement structures into the newly updated map, laying the groundwork for dynamic and immersive player hubs. Lastly, the blizzard weather zone was successfully imported into the mountain region, adding a dramatic and atmospheric touch to the game’s high-altitude areas. Examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
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Visual Effects
This week, the VFX team at Depths of Erendorn focused on refining a new batch of abilities to enhance their clarity and efficiency during gameplay. The abilities Alert, Ignore Pain, and Elbow Slash received significant updates, with each visual effect carefully reworked to ensure better readability and impact during combat scenarios. These improvements not only optimise the visual performance of these abilities but also elevate their overall presentation, making them more intuitive and immersive for players. The updated effects contribute to a polished and engaging experience, further enriching the dynamic combat system within the world of Erendorn. An example of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of October yet?!
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