Hey guys (puns!)
I want to point out really quick before I forget - if you are posting comments in response to news posts, that is cool, we appreciate hearing from you, etc. - however it is not the best place to get a response, as it doesn't send me a notification when a new comment is posted there. I get notifications for forum posts, which I review regularly. So, if you want the best chance for a quick response, post in the forums please!
I was out of town last weekend, so I didn't get much face time at RWS, but I did drop in for a few hours on Sunday when I got back. Grant and I talked a bit about what our next steps are going to be, and he showed me what he has been working on.
We have the infrastructure in place for a zone-in, zone-out approach to the game. We considered dropping it in a patch on Monday, but I'll be honest - it kind of looks like hell at the moment, because we are just throwing some assets together to test the code, and there are still some bugs to squash.
Since this is a new conceptual approach we are testing out, there are still a few questions we need to answer internally. The biggest one right now is how best to display the map. We have a few approaches in mind - I will list what we have considered and what we are looking at.
The current prototype uses a smaller-scaled version of existing map assets - the idea was for it to feel a bit like a "travel" mode where you can still fly around etc. This wold look and feel pretty cool; but it presents some challenges as well. The first is we want a soft and hard fog of war on the map; this is hard for us to simulate. We also run into the draw distance/map scale problem; which basically amounts to there not being a big enough difference between the two scales of map.
The other way to tackle it, and what we are looking into now, is a hand drawn 2D map, similar to what you might see in an RPG. This comes with a lot of advantages: we can show the fog of war really easily; it lends itself more to the "realm management" UI a player would want to interact with (for instance, to see which villages you control, and what they are sending you.) The downside is that it is less hands-on than a 3D overworld would be. And, of course, someone has to draw it.
It is looking like 2D approach would: a) ultimately "look" better, b) be more fun, and c) be much easier to implement with regards to the eventual realm management UI. At this point, we are not fully committed to either approach, but our judgement is saying a 2D map is going to be our best bet, so is what we're going to test first.
For the next "big" patch, our goal is going to be a small explore-able 2D map with two or three area nodes, fog of war working, and make it all look look pretty good. Rather than hold off and wait for an entire map to be made, we are going to just make a small one for now and if it looks like it's the way we want to go, we will put some effort (and possibly precious dollar bills) into a better one with a distinct art style some time in the future.
We are looking to push something like this out in the next few weeks, with some luck. If it is going to take longer, I'll let you know where we are at. When I get a look at the sample map, I'll see if I can post a sample.
In the meantime, we are going to try to get a small patch out on Monday with a bug fix/QoL improvement or two. We have a meeting on Wednesday where we'll discuss what we can get out this week.
All for now.
-Laersk