This weeks Devlog features a major breakthrough on our Golang server, finalising some 3D sculpts and adding the finishing touches to some animations. As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
We added the finishing touches to our second heavy armour sculpt this week. However more work will likely be done down the line to ensure we deliver the best possible experience for our players! We experimented with a few techniques while crafting this armour set, all of which have taught us a lot for future projects.
Animation
This week we continued work on our bear animations. Focusing on the Swipe and Bite attacks. The animations are now in-engine and ready to be applied to the game! We also rigged, skinned and imported the Scarab skeletal mesh - more work to come on this one. Finally, we began work on the Mammoth animation set. This will likely take a couple of weeks before it's ready for engine implementation.
Programming
It's been a big moment for the Golang team this week, as we have successfully connected our test client to the Golang server, but this time actually hosted on one of our servers, and not just running on our work PC's. Naturally there have been a few bugs that have taken a couple of days to iron out, now that the joys of internet traffic have been introduced to our code, but otherwise it's been smooth sailing!
As the trailer has been moved to post production, focus has shifted to the long awaited DOE Client server switch, updating the Client's server connection from the old PHP to the brand new Golang backend. As some important improvements to security and efficiency have been added to the process of connecting and communicating with the Server, a number of changes have been made to the Client's Web Socket functions to facilitate the switch:
- A new header based authentication has been added to our Web Socket connection to streamline the process when connecting to the Settlement and Game Servers. This allows us to effectively cut out a step that previously occurred after a connection is made, reducing the amount of processing needed to log in to Depths of Erendorn.
- A new encryption method has also been added to messages being sent to the Server and will be able to verify message content at a much faster rate than the previous method.
Finally, we created a pipeline for updating and restarting our new golang servers. We are using Docker in this process to run our game servers in containers. Additionally we fixed a server crash if an account had no characters.
It's been a massive week on the Programming side of things! But it's all essential work to ensure players have a smooth and enjoyable experience when logging in to, and playing, Depths of Erendorn.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of August yet?!
