Who’s ready for nothing but director’s commentary? There’s been a lot of moving parts this month so I’m giving the team a break from having to provide an entry. There may be a distinct lack of media in this particular devblog since it’s just me, but I’ll try to catch the more interesting stuff the team is doing. For a little bit of time we unfortunately had to divert attention and resources away from the HordeTest to deal with a few vulnerabilities discovered on our public evrima build. The result of that is that players on the HordeTest have sat with some pretty rough bugs and imbalances (and cheaters) much longer than I’d have preferred but updates are once again headed your way to mend the issues at hand.
The first big visual change in the HordeTest you’re going to notice is the new UI is in the process of being implemented. You will see it in partial completion as the HordeTest builds go on so expect to see some clashing designs for a little bit as we move forward. The monkey’s paw curls.
The other notable visual change you may see is that the old prototype ceiba trees have been replaced with final versions. There are a few edits to the branch materials that may result in a few tree species having slightly abnormal color for a build or two, but the jungle feels great both on the ground and to fly through. Hypsilophodons may look forward to potential communal building in the largest of the jungle trees, as well as some increased climbing capabilities to assist it further without it becoming impossible for herrerasaurus to catch. Concepts courtesy of Tapwing.
Hypsilophodon can now mock you from its own family tree.
With the help of a lot of you violently breaking the elder system (thank you, though), we’ve found a lot of things to fix and a few considerations that were missed. Since quite a lot of the merciless jank has been pushed out of the elder system now, lifecycles are going to slow down a bit. When players grow to adult, any growth bonuses from diets will no longer apply (the rest of your diet buffs will remain unaffected). There will be additional ways in survival to remain prime for longer (possibly de-age), but for now this is what we need while elders are ironed out.
Note: Remember, if the elder system isn’t for you, server owners will have several options to alter or remove its impact for a more sandbox experience. The system may be turned off entirely to remain an immortal adult forever.
Some more of the animal roster will also have their growth curves moved to a less linear style so there’s more overlap with small carnivore animals before hitting a more considerable growth boost to move them up the next weight class. For animals that may grow to adulthood a little faster now, that time can be moved to the time spent growing in their elder phase for playtime in that part of life (This may not fix something like troodon/hypsi at the moment, which is currently very fast. There are other solutions actively being worked on for them).
Mutations have had adjustments, with some mutations no longer being inheritable when an offspring wouldn’t be able to use it, and values being moved around to help with problem areas we’ve seen. Cannibalism will temporarily have no requirement to unlock it for selection, so that’ll be interesting. Player speed is no longer increased by any mutations and two new mutations have been introduced that allow players additional opportunities for nesting: Sequential Hermaphroditism is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to change to the opposing sex and Parthenogenesis is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to nest and lay eggs alone.
Tyrannosaurus has upcoming changes for its crush so it’s no longer capable of punching upward and pinning massive targets, as well as some alterations to pin conditions so a tyrannosaurus can’t enter that lethal crush so easily. There’s also some stat updates to fracture damage for when tyrannosaurus leaves its juvenile stage to prevent it from being so oppressive towards anything in its active weight class before it becomes an adult. These changes together should give some much needed breathing room when dealing with the king of the dinosaurs.
Tyrannosaurus paleo calls are making their way in with some new animations to follow shortly behind in an upcoming build (I repeat, it’s not out at this moment. It will be put in the HordeTest notes when it is). There’s nothing suitable for a juvenile or subadult sound set for now so it's only available when you become an adult! You can activate paleo calls by holding F and pressing secondary fire for your vocal call or 1 for your broadcast call.
Note: The paleo calls were fun and cool. This doesn’t mean every animal on the roster will get some sort of infrasound or “paleo” call. We may do it again in the future. We may not. We just hope you like what we did for the rex here.
Pteranodon flight is still being worked on to achieve that organic flight feeling while keeping pteranodon relatively nimble in comparison to the much larger counterpart that’s coming. Expect to see sharper turning capabilities and some pitch adjustments in the near future. The days of free aerial harassment are over. Flight is not the only thing being given attention, as pteranodon will also be getting some edits to make it more capable on the ground to encourage its gameplay in that area. We want him to confidently hunt small animals or juveniles without feeling the need to take to the skies unless a larger threat emerges.
Anti-Air Commentary: Pteranodon can only attack heavier players on the ground while they are hovering in airbrake or they will knock themselves out of the sky.
Allosaurus has received a few more updates and it’s closing in. The new claw swipe is in, a mobile attack that has allosaurus using its forelimbs to slash targets alongside it without losing momentum, which also happens to be the last of its attacks to be implemented. The sound team has been moving quickly through the juvenile sound sets for this animal, though it may be introduced before they are all complete. To be clear, yes, allosaurus will be moving into the HordeTest alongside tyrannosaurus.
There haven’t been many visually hahafunnymaymay bugs to display this month. At most, allosaurus has an odd thing where he occasionally stares straight down really intently.
Fig B. Allosaurus stares at the dirt where it belongs.
The animation team has been everywhere. Allosaurus needed a few touch ups found during testing and the tyrannosaurus paleo calls are nearly complete, but bringing camarasaurus to life has been their main focus. These gentle giants will have an interesting lifecycle, seeking shelter in dense undergrowth before growing to sizes no predator could hope to bring down alone. There is a unique approach planned for sauropod nesting and gameplay to set them entirely apart from the rest of the animals on how they work, but it must survive the testing phase first. One thing is for sure, the camarasaurus will bring some long awaited trampling mechanics with it to the roster.
Speaking of roster, here’s the current order for some of the upcoming playables:
Tyrannosaurus
Allosaurus
Austroraptor
Kentrosaurus
Baryonyx
Oviraptor
Camarasaurus
Quetzalcoatlus
Parasaurolophus
Spinosaurus
Honorable Mention: No sweet, sweet details on everyone’s favorite hadrosaur yet but now you know where parasaurolophus is in the lineup. Spinosaurus is last here as it’s going to be a lot of work for one animal.
The core vocal calls of the austroraptor are complete, keeping some familiar animal sources players may recall from previous versions. This gives the audio team a good jump on austroraptor as the audio palette is already there. Once the allosaurus audio is complete, the sound team will be jumping straight to this animal.
Quetzalcoatlus got bumped up in priority to take advantage of the flight system being worked on. The quetzalcoatlus rig is coming along, with some tools to help the animation team based off of what we learned since we first started pteranodon. Once the animation team completes the camarasaurus, they’re diving in (or taking off?) to quetzalcoatlus. This animal will be a terrifying threat to things smaller than it, utilizing its reach to both close distance on prey or keep distance from predators until it can retreat. But if you can get the drop on it, it’s certainly not invulnerable. Was that just the trees creaking, or something else?
As most of you know, GUTS encountered some loading issues in the latest engine update. These environments have been stashed so they won’t be lost in the future, but we’re putting a building shell around many of these locations so they can be brought to the game ASAP. Expect to see a large increase of human structures on the island, from their emergency shelters dotting the island interior to the extended ranger stations that will have emergency shelters, medical buildings, and armories. And if you’re tired, try grabbing a BEIPSI JAVA. Just don’t ask how fresh it is.
There’s a lot I haven’t covered that’s also on the radar, but I’ll leave you all with some additional media because I can’t go breaking trends. See you next month.