Guilds of Mountgate · public · first seen
Greetings Adventurers,
v0.3.4.0 is now live!
Following the successful launch of Guilds of Mountgate and the enormous amount of progress made since then, this update marks another important step for the game.
Over the past updates, we've spent a lot of time not only adding new systems, but also filling, connecting and polishing the world that already exists. Settlements have received their own identities, professions have become increasingly interconnected, and many of the systems that started as relatively isolated mechanics are now becoming part of a much larger whole.
With v0.3.4.0, several of those systems come together – and we're reaching a point where we're finally ready to start looking beyond the borders of the currently accessible world.
Players can now take a much more active role in the movement of goods across Vellgar with the new Player Freight System.
At the newly opened Mountgate Trade Office, you'll find Supply Contracts and Public Tenders, offering new opportunities to participate in the regional economy.
Rather than simply selling whatever happens to be in your Inventory to the nearest merchant, these systems are another step towards making production, transportation, regional demand and the different settlements of Vellgar matter together.
And this is only the foundation.
Freight, contracts and regional trade give us plenty of room for further expansion as more settlements, resources and industries become part of the world.
The original Community Project in Greenford was always intended as a pilot.
That pilot has now been replaced by a proper dynamic Community Project system.
Projects can appear across the World Map and give players shared objectives to work towards, rather than permanently tying the system to one location.
The first new addition is the Flea Market Community Event, with more projects and variations planned as the system continues to develop.
It's another piece of the broader goal for Guilds of Mountgate: even when you're mostly playing at your own pace, you should still feel that you're part of a world inhabited and influenced by other players.
Mountgate Harbor has received another full questline.
The Harbor has grown considerably since its first implementation, and this update further connects its inhabitants, districts, economy and activities through new objectives and stories.
We've also improved several underlying Quest mechanics to make objectives clearer and progressing through questlines more comfortable.
This brings Mountgate Harbor another important step closer to the role it is supposed to play as one of Vellgar's major cities.
Smithing and Crafting Stations across the world have received another substantial usability pass.
It should now be much clearer what kind of items can actually be produced at a particular location.
This is important for more than just UI readability.
One of our continuing goals is to avoid turning every settlement into the same collection of interchangeable menus. Different places should have different purposes, industries and reasons to return to them.
As Vellgar expands, that distinction will become increasingly important.
The recently reworked Tool System has received another round of improvements.
Your currently used Active Tool is now highlighted directly inside the Tool Bag or Inventory, making it easier to understand what the game is actually using for your current activity.
If a Tool breaks and a suitable replacement is available, it can now be replaced directly inside the Tool Bag.
We've also continued improving the underlying Tool selection logic so activities choose appropriate Tools more consistently.
Stone Tools can now be crafted from Crafting Level 1, and several Survival drop tables have received additional items.
With Stone Arrows, Hunting also receives a more accessible starting point, while Arrow recipes in general have been rebalanced to better fit the surrounding progression.
A number of items that previously had little or no purpose have received new uses.
New Jewelry recipes and Potions have been added, including a new Agility Potion, while existing Food and Potion buffs have received another balancing pass.
Item prices and Quest rewards have also been revisited as the game's economy and progression continue to mature.
It's all part of the same direction we've been moving towards for a while now: resources and systems shouldn't exist in isolation if we can give them meaningful connections to other parts of the game.
Player Camps can now trigger random events while resting, adding a little more uncertainty to nights spent away from civilization.
Taverns have also received a balancing pass. Resting prices and bonuses now better reflect the location and quality of the establishment instead of following overly similar values everywhere.
Firewood management has become more convenient as well. It now has its own dedicated interaction at Cooking Stations, and an optional automatic Firewood refill feature has been added.
You can also enable automatic Coin Banking. Whenever Bank access is available, the game can automatically deposit carried money while leaving behind a threshold chosen by you.
Several frequently used interfaces have received another round of improvements.
The Character Screen has been overhauled, the Tool Bag can now be accessed directly from the Inventory, Bank sorting has been improved, and the Highscore List offers a cleaner overview and additional sorting options.
The NPC Dialogue interface has also received another visual pass, making changes and newly appearing dialogue content much easier to notice.
Several remaining scaling issues, UI inconsistencies, Crafting time problems and other smaller bugs have been addressed along the way.
The visual overhaul of the older parts of Vellgar continues as well.
Riverfork has received a major visual refresh, while several older artworks in Mountgate Harbor and Stonebridge have been replaced or updated.
We've also heard the feedback surrounding the game's current use of AI-assisted artwork.
For the foreseeable future, it will remain part of Guilds of Mountgate's development. As a small independent project, it currently allows us to build the amount of locations, characters and visual variety the world requires while keeping our resources focused primarily on developing the game itself.
That doesn't mean we're treating the current visuals as something that isn't worth improving.
Quite the opposite.
We're currently working through the existing world to bring older artwork up to the same standard as the newest content. This also means paying much closer attention to visual consistency between locations and their inhabitants.
An NPC appearing in a location should actually resemble the character shown in their portrait – from clothing and colors to their overall silhouette and appearance.
We're not completely there yet. Some older characters and locations still don't match as closely as we'd like, but the difference is already becoming increasingly noticeable as this work continues.
Amberbend and Smallbrook are next on the list, alongside another pass over the remaining character artwork.
Long term, our visual ambitions for Guilds of Mountgate go considerably further, including the handcrafted and pre-rendered graphics we've talked about before. Reaching that point properly requires resources we would rather not take away from building the actual game at this stage.
Until then, the goal is to make the visual direction we currently have as coherent, intentional and polished as possible, while continuing to build towards what Guilds of Mountgate can eventually become.
There's also been substantial work underneath the game.
The server architecture now distributes more work across multiple processes, providing additional performance headroom as the number of concurrent players continues to grow.
We've also continued fixing localization issues, remaining scaling problems and smaller stability issues throughout the game.
These aren't necessarily the exciting parts of a feature list – but they're an important part of keeping Guilds of Mountgate healthy as the game itself becomes larger.
v0.3.4.0 also represents something we've been working towards for quite some time:
Every settlement currently accessible in Guilds of Mountgate now has meaningful content and its own place within the game.
That doesn't mean these regions are "finished" and will simply be left behind.
Quite the opposite.
Our goal is for the entire world to remain relevant throughout the life of Guilds of Mountgate.
Existing settlements will continue receiving new quests, systems, activities, events, stories and other content whenever they naturally fit into those regions. A location being part of the early game shouldn't mean it becomes irrelevant once you've moved beyond it.
But reaching this point does mean we can increasingly shift our attention towards something we've been looking forward to for a long time:
expanding the accessible World Map.
Over the coming updates, new parts of Vellgar will begin opening up piece by piece.
At the same time, Amberbend and Smallbrook will receive their planned visual overhauls, the remaining character artwork will continue being brought up to the current standard, and newly introduced regions will naturally be built around everything we've learned while developing the world so far.
We're reaching a point where the foundations are no longer just foundations.
There is now a connected world, an economy, professions, settlements with their own identities, characters, stories and increasingly more reasons for all of those systems to interact with one another.
And now we get to build outward.
The launch was only the beginning.
We're incredibly excited to show you more of Guilds of Mountgate, Vellgar, its people and their stories – one system, one settlement and one piece of the map at a time.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
See you in Vellgar!
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