Dogs Of War Vu

Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on October 09, 2017, 07:35:15 PM

Title: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on October 09, 2017, 07:35:15 PM

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/header.jpg?t=1505590858)

World of Castles is a medieval themed online action-strategy game, featuring unique combinations of modular castle construction, taking siege to other player castles, and commanding marshals who themselves lead armies that number in the hundreds.


Official Site: Here (http://hammer-games.com/)
Official forum: Here (http://steamcommunity.com/app/619430/discussions/)
Steam: Here (http://store.steampowered.com/app/619430/World_of_Castles/)
Youtube Channel: Here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqh-BMZnh5q-_MSviHszLFg)


Single-player:


Trailer

https://youtu.be/UflBzGygVLo



About

Have you ever dreamed you are a lord of medieval castle? In World of Castles you can be right the one! Build your castle from a scratch or select from build ones and just modify it. Would you also like to lead armies and fight with a sword in a hand?


Building your own castle
At the beginning you’ll have a small pool of starting blocks to build your very first castle. Develop your skills in combat to earn money and experience. Money will purchase more blocks to expand your castle. Experience levels you up, opening up new block types and other building opportunities. A higher level also earns you more fame, which indicates how many blocks and items you can use to build your castle. The more fame you have, the bigger and more elegant a castle you can build. Every piece has a specific use: ballistas for defence, beds for soldiers, and plants and art to improve the morality of the castle’s occupants. As the castle’s king, it’s your duty to provide the perfect balance of defence, occupancy, and morality. From this, what will begin as a small keep will evolve into a sprawling fortification with towers, steeples, and secrets.

•   Build your very own castle with no limit but your imagination and prestige
•   Build a castle from scratch or choose from prebuilt castles that you can modify or defend
•   Build according to realistic defence and physics
•   Use extensive terraforming to improve environmental defence or aesthetics of the castle
•   Tiny details to improve the look or functionality of the castle
•   Realistic physics: if you knock out the base of a tower, the entire structure will fall
•   Choose from over 200 block types
•   Customize your own flag
•   Customize your marshal and army loadout for defence and for offence

Combat
When fighting other players, the game’s balancing system ensures you and your opponent have similar levels, prestige, and fame. As the siege commences, the attacker deploys their marshals to the field while the defender sets up their marshals inside the castles at appropriate defence sites. As an attacker, take advantage of trebuchets and other siege equipment. As a defender, utilize your battlements and other historically accurate defence techniques. Command your marshals in battle or take first person control and engage in the fight yourself. As an attacker, eliminate the defending army or take the throne within a given time limit to win. As a defender, ensure you survive the time limit or kill off all the attackers. Battles are not just one-on-one: invite friends to help defend your castle too.

•   First person and top down combat depending on how you want to fight
•   Destruction of the castle is not permanent. Damage automatically repairs after combat
•   Dying in battle happens. You can still fight as you’ll switch to another marshal
•   Commanders deliver real-time reports of ongoing battles
•   Battles contain hundreds of units
•   Combat is realistic
•   Take control of various historically accurate siege weapons
•   Capture the throne or kill off all enemies to win an assault
•   Singleplayer combat options

Campaign
From time to time we’ll publish short campaigns based on storytelling and role-playing. Some will teach players about intricate game mechanics and others will be inspired by true historical events. Campaign victories reward players with useful blocks, units, items, and other relics to improve their own castle. From the beginning, new players will have access to the tutorial campaign and one or two additional campaigns.

•   Adds engaging story elements to the game
•   Campaigns will be regularly updated, hopefully two new ones per year
•   Campaigns offer unique rewards for your castle to show off your achievements
•   Campaigns will consist of 4-7 missions

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_691f49de5bb7dbb6919e70bb7b60ac06a989afa8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_48fac8b50fbcc6ee5c1f0e6c8dc0f5b667729555.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_0b08686854c8936d18623af61833a441fce8febc.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_5276f433a4dae33d39c725eaef18cadeee878021.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_b2c6f08104c378605f1971ebaa356c09b3860e42.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_bdad438c1a7094a6cbb4d95436f59eda9ecc1d60.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_cf299ba9cb9fa361792ac3ab84ccb9d65281e398.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_96294ecb90ba4c1003448f40800fa5e8c03a902b.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_1ce446bda6af9a5e12831cfa1d1b6adc0ef53a11.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_62044733e02e629149ea9e88063db59922e843d2.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/619430/ss_e00442fd8c6fe68022d255cb885d64280697a7a2.1920x1080.jpg?t=1505590858)

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on October 09, 2017, 07:36:29 PM

EARLY ACCESS IMPORTANT NOTES

We want to clarify why this game is being released in early access instead of using crowdfunding. One reason is that it introduces players to the basic mechanics of the game early on, allowing the community share ideas for improvement while the game is still being developed. Although we are a small team, we have worked diligently on this project for almost three years and still have a long road ahead of us until we can expand our development team to speed things up. So please be patient as we continue to improve the game and add new features. We want to deliver the final project as fast as possible, but we also want to ensure it is polished and optimized. We believe feedback from early access is the best way to ensure a quality final product.

Current state
- unlimited sandbox build mode
- flag customization tool
- your marshal skill tree and equipment tool.

Coming soon
- Marshal walk mode and destruction mode

important notes
- combat and siege mechanics are not implemented yet.

Development
This game is still in development. Initial Early Access release may not have all these entire feature initially implemented but we will continue adding them over time. Follow Early Access release notes to keep informed about updates and additions.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on October 09, 2017, 07:40:28 PM

World of Castles - Cantiga rehecha OST

https://youtu.be/c3coOSyiXQ4

World of Castles : Dev Diary #2 - Building Mechanics

https://youtu.be/e-r_UsPLoBc

Short presentation of how to build castles in WoC.

World of Castles : Dev Diary #3 - Statics

https://youtu.be/JQVt02vgb48

World of Castles : Dev Diary #4 - Destruction mechanics

https://youtu.be/53DmXIc07Ls

Take a short look how basic blocks are destroyed in the game World of Castles.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2017, 01:59:58 PM

Update 0.0.02C - revealed
World of Castles - 19Molnija85

Hello dear friends.

Many of you are expecting a new scheduled update, the one which should bring you improved save game system, new game objects, bug fixes and what is most important, completely new map. For a long time, we were deciding what we will do with this day.

Truth is that we have completely implemented logic of new save game system, we also created and implemented new objects, we fixed tons of known bugs and what is most important, we implemented new map. We know that it sounds like utopia, but without torture we must confess that there is a lot of severe bugs in every said point we have done and we need to fix these.

When we came with World of Castles product to the market, we have promised you regular updates, patches and serious conduct of company Hammer Games. So we decided to release update 0.0.02C with promise of that we will try to patch newly appeared bugs in the shortest time possible. Please know that we are working day-and-night and every day we fix a lot of problems but you know how it is in IT. With every fixed bug we find a lot of new and often more severe bugs.

We are currently working on these problems:
- optimization of improved engine and new map
- solving of system bugs resulting from implementation of new objects and game logic changes

At the same time, we would like to slightly attract you to new update 0.0.02C with a few images from the game:

- new save/load game system

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/3a3f697e8ba4040cf8dd75d6b494d87d0f21b18b.jpg)

- new map (highlands)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/f40e7ca40ba20bef5428f8484e6e79a797725250.jpg)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/05c1840c8f16f9847088fbb311c15445d304f9d3.jpg)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/adaf03c6e19c71522a0d488c0b6ad9e27c9d5e97.jpg)

- new game objects

Patch notes:
Full list of patch notes will be published after update release.

Release of update 0.0.02C for main Steam branch is scheduled on 02.11.2017 EOD.

Thank you very much, we are very proud of community which World of Castles have.
Hammer Games

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on November 11, 2017, 04:23:50 AM

Listen, Listen - Patch 0.0.02D
World of Castles - Hammer Games


(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/f0eacd59aab22f29385756aa101641fde1c6ec68.png)

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am glad you have gathered there again to hear some news. Since today finally managed how to clean ceilings so finally take a look upside! No longer they are covered by strange black dirt, probably from castle's high usage of Torches... Which will not be so much needed to keep good-looking interiors in such count.

We also fixed doors in Don Jon, which would remain in your hands after you touched them. Not really safe and trusty doors for siege times. Now they hold strong as a stone! When we are talking about repairs we also told peasants to clean windows from dirt more carefully, so now you can clearly see how sun is shinning alongside our beautiful lands.

We decided to include some armory stuff from older versions, as reworking of these models are sheduled quite far in the future. Also feel free to check some new blocks in Don Jon or Cellars.


Patch 0.0.02D is ready to be Uploaded for Win & Mac. Linux is expected to be out tomorrow.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: zakblood on November 11, 2017, 09:45:38 AM

must admit it looks good, just not got the time atm to support or do any more EA games for now, maybe next year :book

but thanks for the heads up and post all the same :howdy

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on December 02, 2017, 10:23:25 PM

Take your Lord at walk!
World of Castles - Hammer Games

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/ba75794668986b285a1c901c87fe1a8c925b90d4.jpg)

We are glad to see you again.

Today we are talking about great changes. We finally convinced our lord, to let you control his moves around your castle. Now he is able to walk upstairs. Although we’ve found some unexplained issues in the 3rd person camera, which prevents you from interacting objects (works well in 1st person).

WoC 0.0.03a:

- walk mode (available in build mode, as an option in the menu instead of restarting world)
- map 2 shows minimap correctly
- new visual of Preview blocks (please give us feedback, if you like it more than older (grey) one
- fixed some issues which might be led to not being able to save the game, or crash the game.
- added new blocks in DonJon category (roofings - they are here as houses using 30cm offset from other blocks, so Castle roofs do not match houses and house roofings does not match castle blocks)
- DonJon window got Floor

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on December 22, 2017, 12:58:32 AM

New worlds - Patch 0.0.03b
21 DECEMBER   - HAMMER GAMES

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/b6f99b97078cbc649cd470c207ccd0d733383e8d.jpg)

Greetings highborn nobles. We would like to announce another set of improvements coming to World of Castles. At first, we wanted to make the game run faster. We did some tests to find out two things despite our hatred grass causes lags, while moving fast over terrain it had almost zero influence on average fps. We found that huge frame eaters were trees, so we reduced their numbers and placed them in better places to not look so plain. When we did this cruel thing to mother nature, we wanted to do also something positive with trees which survived, so we added new evergreen trees and improved some tree textures. We also improved water without reflections to reflect at least sky.

Another great thing we promised for some time, was to make guards less depressed and stop them jumping from walls. So now soldiers can walk safely on your ramparts. Or move through stairs to different floors. Although still, we have some issues, that some blocks do not draw path correctly (thinks there is a less space, than it is, saying nobody can walk there) We believe this is a significant improvement in their behavior and we will continue. It is necessary to make movement flawless to battles.

The third part was more about adding something absolutely useless, but nice. As we have new forests, we decided to add some wild animals like rabbits, boars, deer... So now you can watch these neutral fluffy characters from your ramparts.

This patch also should improve character camera, animations and remove some bugs.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on January 12, 2018, 12:01:26 AM

Patch 0.0.03C - Make big castles at better performance!
World of Castles - Hammer Games

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/f0eacd59aab22f29385756aa101641fde1c6ec68.png)

Greetings all of you in the new year 2018. We wish you all the best. In this year WoC should move forward, gets more playability and we should fulfill most of our promises.

In this first patch of 2018, we are coming with a new way of controls. Now you can rotate your camera, just while holding space key. On the other hand, you build blocks, where you point cursor with your mouse. Also, you can select block, just by clicking on Bottom block line or switch ghost mode, invert block etc. also just by mouse. You can still use shortcuts, but since now there is no need to remember them. Just that space key for camera rotation...

Note: Old controls can still be used if it suited you better. You can change that in your settings.

Besides that, we improved movement of soldiers. We also improved LODs of most used/complex blocks so bigger castles should slow your pc way less than before.
- Added new blocks of the Early medieval church, donjon staircase, which is not rounded and one special donjon gate.

Lastly, we fixed many reported issues from you and from our testers.

Main fixes:
- Terrain loads properly with a game load.
- Mac users should not have pink preview blocks and terrain.
- Various block models fixes ( missing colliders, missing floors, missing faces, broken normals...).

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on January 16, 2018, 06:05:33 PM

WoC Roadmap
15 JANUARY   - HAMMER GAMES

Ladies and gentlemen,

we would like to proudly reveal our work plan. How we would like to spend a year 2018 in our studio. Feel free to ask any questions about future of WoC ;)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/dd4ff0da09ea177a654f1f593297333c370f450b.jpg)

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on February 19, 2018, 11:29:37 PM

Prepare for a new patch! (0.0.03D)
World of Castles - Hammer Games

New patch of WoC about is right behind the doors. Right now we are finishing internal testing. After fixing newly created critical issues we are about to release it out. Take a look on some quick sneak through, what you can expect.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/db545a2ded22f8b0fa3cb9f04addeb8cfa3b2219.jpg)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/c259925b6116db52a23779b44262991fdb68b9ef.jpg)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/7b3ec70e91900736f7508433272ac9e1c6a3b2f4.jpg)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/8ca5b1604db4a920e7ee674413f42206d451e3e6.jpg)

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on February 19, 2018, 11:30:59 PM

Patch 0.0.03D - The grass is always greener when the church bells ring!
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Kings Queens and nobleman! Today is the day for a journey. A journey that
will take you back to a medieval Europe a time when great cathedrals
triumphed all across the land.

With this latest update, you can build your very own cathedral walk across cleaner more detailed grass and let those bells ring out across the lands!

Changes Made:
- GPU grass.
- reworked options connected to grass settings.
- further block optimization.
- Increased castle size limits.
- new map selection GUI
- Basilica blocks.
- added a new interior tiled floor.
- Unit avoidance.
- saves of unit patrol paths
- Fixed many issues

What does this mean?

GPU Grass: (system impact reduction + Graphical improvement)
The grass has received a makeover! Flying grass should now be a thing of
the past. The grass has become lighter and denser for a better feeling on the
toes!

Increased Capacity and optimization: (system impact reduction)
We have increased the building block capacity to an unlimited amount along
with optimizing the blocks to better perform in the game allowing you to
create more magnificent fortresses.

New Map Selection GUI: (Graphical Improvements)
The Graphical user interface for map selection has greatly improved.

New Basilica Blocks and tiled floor - (Romanesque architecture)
relating to a style of architecture you can now build your very own
Romanesque cathedral! Just be careful that the bells don't wake your
enemies.

You can now style your floor with our new interior tiled floor.
New unit avoidance - (Graphical Improvements)

Player units will now avoid each other instead of having a visual human
biology lesson.
Now you can die safely in walking mode! Do not afraid of not respawning, or get scared of shaking your dead bodies.

got annoyed as you set your soldier to walk over your castle and when reloading the game. He stayed and stared on you? These times are over.

You will no longer kill entire garrison walking on ramparts when trying to check structural integrity

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on March 08, 2018, 05:05:50 PM

Patch 0.0.03E - Introducing shovel manual for your peasants!
7 MARCH   - HAMMER GAMES

Dearest friends and royalty.

With this update, we would like to finally get rid of our old arrears. In shortcut sometimes happened that block could not be removed after load, default house had broken statics, building multiple objects in line could cause huge lag or removing soil from your castle was somehow impossible. So most of the things you have reported us in bug section or in reviews. We are glad, that you give us your feedback and we are happy to see even more ideas, reports and suggestions from you in the future! Thanks.

Key Patch updates:
The save mechanics have been updated and your old saves will no longer work properly. Please read below!

Changes Made:

- Save game mechanics.
- Game optimization and build/deconstruct lag reduction.
- further block optimization.
- Donjon floors reworked.
- Big-Block multi-build option.
- Terraforming issues fixed.
- New blocks have been added.
- Throne models have been replaced.
- Donjon columns added.
- Fixed smaller issues.

What does this mean?

Save game mechanics:
The save game mechanics have been restructured and coded to allow for improved performance and the alteration of those pesky blocks that didn't want to be removed! Unfortunately, all old saves will no longer work correctly.

Game optimization and lag reduction:

we all know how frustrating those pesky blocks can be. well, no longer will they hold us back in our triumphs!
With adjustments and tweaks to the interface, you will now find that placing and removing blocks speed has doubled! Building blocks in the line will benefit even more.

Big-Block multi-build option:
The ability to add multiple large blocks in a line has now been added to the system. now you can build your towers or palisades at a greater speed.

New blocks
Donjon columns and thrones have been added and the existing Donjon floors have been reworked to now allow wooden beams to carry tiled floors on top of them. Bridges now have ramps. Some models were updated like Transept and its wrong foundations. Arches and other blocks with columns have updated foundations also with columns.

Optimisation:
As mentioned above the building and removing block speed and efficiency has been doubled! Scene LoD improvement should bring 1-3 extra fps increase in the overall game performance. Grass density settings got more flexibility allowing you to set low or none grass correctly (No change for high densities).

Terraforming
Where that stubborn soil didn't want to be removed from on top of your blocks has now been fixed.
Terraforming speed has been also increased and optimized by 20%

We would like to thank you for your continued support and comments regarding bugs and issues we like to try and address all of them with speed and efficiency and hope that you are enjoying the fixes and improvements.

Release time 8.3.2018 11:00-13:00 UTC related to your OS

Don't forget we have a discussions board:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/619430/discussions/

Discord group:

https://discordapp.com/invite/rBudrde

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on March 27, 2018, 01:46:30 PM

Patch 0.0.03F- Ducktape for your castles
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Greetings fellow lords!

In recent patches, we have reworked some core codes, which lead to worse game stability, some visible or hidden crashes. Simple there was a lot of dark magic. So Spanish Inquisition ordered a game purification.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/bcd72fe1663a6a6af4c0bc17098deff05562bb2f.jpg)

Key Patch updates:
We bring fixed many crashes and other errors. Or scene dynamic batching for lesser draw calls on your GPU. Merged with combat branch (accessible for those who have dev key)

Changes Made:

- Statics classes reworked, fixing known crashes and miscalculations
- Scene draw calls reduced (combined trees shadows, and distant trees)
- terrain tessellation values corrected.
- Added new inventory category - rounded towers with bastions
- added some missing blocks in multiple categories
- load crash of huge castles fixed (it did not load huge castles)
- terraforming speed 4x
- terraforming update terrain collider and LODs after 5s of stop editing terrain
- sheat/hide sword and 3 attacks & 3 defends available in walk mode
- combat main menu & duels for dev-key users
- delete key - hard block removal (removes blocks with broken statics)



What does this mean?

Statics classes reworked:
The main feature of this patch. Once an error occurs in the game it stops working properly (showing other objects, freezing, saving weird blocks, disappear, making blocks unable to remove etc.) And after last few patches, this was a place for many errors. So expect game should crash far less often.

Scene draw calls reduced:
this should send 60% less separated new scene objects to be painted on GPU. Although we see a huge jump in engine editor performance, we did not notice much improvement in the built game. Probably it is very dependant on your GPU.

terrain tessellation values corrected:
There was an inverted value by mistake. So if you set the best quality, you got potato results and vice versa.

load crash of huge castles fixed:
If you built a huge castle, you could see next time you run the game that some parts of your castle are missing... This was caused by wrong data type index, which could hold up to like 6 000 blocks. With this patch, you should be able to load your broken castles correctly, if you did not overwrite save.

hard delete:
As there were plenty ways how to break statics leading to unremovable blocks, we have added a new kay available during EA. If you point the cursor on the broken block and press delete button it will delete block regardless of statics.This is not recommended to use as a default way to remove blocks with correct statics as it might break statics of surrounding blocks or make them fly.

combat main menu & duels:
In this patch, it remains locked for most of the players. The reason is simple, we are still not satisfied with the result and we need more to work around fight system. Focus more on animations and make it more enjoyable. Also, we want to make it more accessible for our close advisers, testers etc. This could affect the loading time of the main menu. As a side effect, you can use a sword in walk mode. You can sheat sword by click mouse button and hide it with "H". Left mouse button is related to attacks, right to defends. If you move the mouse when holding a mouse button you point a sword into 3 directions.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on April 26, 2018, 12:01:16 AM

Patch 0.0.03G
20 April - Hammer Games   

Greetings fellow lords!
At first, we would like to apologize for recent stabilization issues. We changed a lot of core code which caused some new issues or even returned old ones. We would like to special thanks to Miro, who helped us find a lot of issues. Also, we would like to thank anyone who gave us any kind of feedback.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/29be4c2cf284800d7c8293289314d375bbf196a5.jpg)

Key Patch updates:
Patch 0.0.03G is another stabilization patch. We have focused on rest parts of the game which caused severe issues. In this way, we have reworked tree removal/return and planting algorithms. Did some little tweaks to grass or distant trees sprites. You can see hints during scene loading. Besides that, you can see changed all wall extended battlements which are now way slimmer. Also, you can find few more new blocks as usual.

Changes Made:

- Trees removal/return and plant algorithms reworked
- Grass grows less organized.
- Distant trees sprites now face correctly to a camera.
- Hints appear when loading.
- Blocks with exposed battlements reworked (way thinner wall)
- New platform blocks and passage block in strong ramparts
- Fixed crash when planting a tree.
- Fixed crash on load, when it tried to load removed trees
- Fixed crash, when building the nearby edge of a map
- Fixed crash, when building nearby flag
- Church bells now respects your sound settings.
- edge of map moved slightly to not project edge on closest blocks.

- temporarily disabled category: Defensive devices.
- temporarily disabled destruction precalculation.



What does this mean?

Stability is current priority:
Crashes made impossible to play WoC, and as even after the last patch some crashes remained. We focus on to solve them. Unfortunately, errors are visible only in dev versions or inside logs. Casual gamer see only it starts behaving weird sometimes crash absolutely.

Trees removal/return and plant algorithms reworked:
working with trees did not work correctly and threw some errors under some circumstances. So we reworked system and now returning removed trees does not cause any lag and are returned correctly. Now it also removes bushes, which in previous versions withstood any attempts of removal. Planting new trees still cause some lag as it needs to render shadows and area on a minimap. But it also should be way faster than before.

Battlements rework:
We got some reports that some ramparts are unrealistically extended out of the wall. That was true fact and we made these blocks just 1 stone size thick. (4x thinner).

Temporarily disabled stuff:
We found some severe memory leaks with catapults. This caused an error when moving far away from the catapult or leaving catapult after operating with the catapult (e.g. shooting). Combined with placeholder quality of this cathegory we decided to disable it for some time. There is a second reason that we can skip destruction precalculation phase because there is nothing that can destroy your castle. This precalculation was designed up to 1000 blocks. Means on way more complex castles it would take a long loading time making walk mode impossible. So skipping destruction, we can skip loading time to walk mode. We plan to return destruction with siege mode. We will just have few times speed up precalculation process (this should be done when we would replace physics methods with math ones).

Release status
released for all platforms

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on May 19, 2018, 08:20:29 PM

Patch 0.0.03H
19 May - Hammer Games   

Greetings fellow lords!
In this patch, we focus on remaining issues caused by game loading or returning from walk mode. Also we focused on huge castles issues. And fixed visual issues of some blocks.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/12bf46fd95eaa076cac5f5fcb33a14112760df68.jpg)

Key Patch updates:
Main changes of the patch are related to correctly load your game as sometimes some trees or terraforming did not load correctly. There were also a lot of issues when returning from walk mode under certain conditions. We also improved graphical issues of many blocks. And lastly, we would like to say, that we cleaned up donjon category and reordered blocks to make better sense.

Changes Made:
- donjon gate got stairs for easier reach of the opening mechanism
- fixed issues related to loading map
- reworked donjon rails - now they will fill gaps when they do not detect columns.
- improved collision detection, when removing blocks with holes e.g. roof support.
- removed dust when loading/ clearing map
- improved LoD's of gates
- Basilica frescos repainted.
- fixed issue with black water on map "mountains" with the reflection:off.
- fix church bell will no longer ring additionally at a wrong time.
- new blocks
- donjon corner replaced by a smaller corner block
- removed condition of the necessity of always having the throne.


What does this mean?
Improved collision detection:
Some objects were hard to hit on destroy and sometimes lead to the destruction of objects behind them. In this way we added extra colliders, which fill these gaps of objects, so delete will hit the first object regardless if you point on directly its mass or not. These colliders are abstract means, it will not affect any collisions and are also removed in battles as they would have no purpose there.

Load map issues solved:
Donjon rails rework:
Donjon rails fit well between two columns, but when you wanted to place them, where there were no such columns, there were empty gaps. So we added mechanics, which check if the rails are connected to any wall, or they should connect themselves.

Replaced donjon corners:
Donjon corner walls have been removed from the game, so if you had some you will see blank spaces instead of them. We added just one smaller corner block, with this one you will get more freedom in designing donjons.

New throne condition:
The game will allow you to remove throne or objects which would affect the throne. You will also be able to save the game without having any throne. Now you are only unable to take a walk mode without the throne, as it is a place where the player spawns.

Main issues fixed:
Loading map could not remove some removed trees
Loading map from the building mode did not remove terraforming, minimap and grass differences from the current state.
Fastly removing blocks could lead to some spaces, where was unable to place any block.
Leaving walk mode could break minimap position, or keep some variables, which would affect next walking mode before leaving the game to the main menu.

Release status
released for all platforms

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on July 05, 2018, 12:21:43 AM

Patch 0.0.03I - All nations together!
4 July - Hammer Games   

Greetings fellow lords!
We finally bring the game to whom does not understand much of English. As well we wanted to improve the game in a way of performance of big castles as well finally add more skies, so the game will not always look the same.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/7f980d88cb00ef3eb6a8125e92ad509c2d2ecca6.jpg)


Key Patch updates:
In this patch, we focused on support for foreign languages, so you can play the game in German, Spanish, Turkish or Czech... (French translation got delayed and will be published in hotfix). Beside that we improved the performance of lights and blocks, so you can build again bigger castles at better performance. We made more skies, so it will not always look absolutely same. Ramparts got a diet and now fit well aside bridges. And many new objects are added to the game.

Changes Made:

- Faster main menu loading & faster game loading by few seconds
- further older blocks optimization
- Furniture placeholder models simple optimizations.
- Weapons in holders replaced with newer ones.
- Lights optimization ( candle's lights blends into one light after few meters and disappear on distance)
- models and textures fixes (seams between objects, wrong materials etc)
- randomly select one of 6 skies (you can change it with T hotkey - later we plan that night & day cycle will change the sky for next day)
- water with the reflection of improvements & fixes
- Ramparts are slimmer (80cm -> 40cm) and now fits to bridges blocks.
- new blocks - Ramparts for 4m diameter rounded walls. Some missing DonJon roofs. Well.
- New objects - 8 Candles.
- reduced size of some oversized furniture to fit better in rooms.
- Small objects (candles, plates..) can be put onto flat object surfaces (tables, wardrobes...)
- Translation supported (German, Spanish, Turkish, Czech) Sorry that french is not included as it was not finished yet by our translator.
- FPS test removed in settings. Instead, you can display FPS directly on the screen.
- Fixed terrain will no longer drop 20cm under its collider on load directly from the building mode.
- Fixed crash on leaving game near the edge of the map
- Fixed crash when restarting world with destroyed trees and somehow lost their reference.
- Fixed issue when placing block not attached to block underneath, caused unable-to-remove case.
- Fixed issue when fireplace placed to an inner wall had a white wall inside.

What does this mean?

Language support:
We added a flag to main menu scene. If you click on the flag you can change it between English, US (it is same as English), German, Spanish, Turkish, Czech. French is translated just from 40% so we decided to not delay this patch anymore because of waiting for translation. Also if you are from France, or any other nation and would like to help us bring also your language to our game - feel free to contact us (it is under 1000 words and we can give you a free copy for your help ;) ) On the other hand current translation might not be perfect, so we are sorry for that and if there would be something wrong, we would appreciate any feedback.

More skies:
We added more skies with light settings to the game. With every load, it selects randomly one. If you want to change sky, press "T". Later with day/light cycle, we plan to change sky with every twilight.


Rest of ramparts got thinner:
We changed a thickness of ramparts from 80cm to 40cm now it can be seamlessly connected to bridges.

Faster main menu loading:
The combat part, which is still not accessible to casual players, is loading on the background. So it loads the main menu faster at around half of the time. Unfortunately, we are aware of long loading time of bigger castles or on slower disks... We are investigating what is causing these long times. Please if the game freeze after load, give it a time, it is not frozen, just loading way longer, than is usual and pc thinks it is not responding.

FPS display:
In settings, we removed list called "FPS test". We added an option to show fps directly on the screen when play.

New blocks & model changes:
We fixed some issues with materials on LoD models (models visible on distance). We removed some seams between some blocks. Changed size of some oversized furniture. Added some blocks: Well, some donJon roofs, house roof, more ramparts types, some platforms at 45°. And from objects, we are adding and replacing all candles & candlesticks.

Light optimization:
You might see that candlesticks using light for every candle. Which would be very performance heavy with big castles. So we are blending seamlessly these lights into one (around 5m from a candle) and later let it disappear at all (around 40-60m). For interiors, you will probably not notice it at all, but when you will see to disappear light on your exterior wall, it might be noticed.


Release status
released for all platforms

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on July 30, 2018, 05:47:51 PM

Near Future of WoC
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Dear friends,

For sure you’ve registered that the development is not going as scheduled especially with the promised combat. We are fully aware of the commitments we have to you, as our supporters, our customers. That is why it should be fair to inform you our faithful community about such important things.

We started the project full of enthusiasm and engagement, and this state remains. Still 2 devs are working more than full time on this project. Some time ago we realized, that this game needs to deliver gameplay as soon as possible. And our original combat concept has one big flaw. The gameplay is possible only when combat is flawless and highly detailed as you see enemies from a very close distance. Which brings a lot of unexpected issues and in the level of highest details. Also combat without destroying castles would not be as catchy and would not make sense, why should we build castles, when they cannot be besieged for a long time. So making such realistic combat with all that features, which makes World of Castles a game that would take way longer time than expected with our small team. We do not want to release combat for all at the cost of an unfinished state when we know, it is not pleasant to fight yet.

We would like to go into waters of village management strategy. At the start, you will get a few settlers and two houses for them. You will have to manage their roles, setting who will be woodcutters, who hunter, who will work on the field etc. Your villagers will harvest resources. Resources will be consumed by villagers (food, wood as fuel) or will be used to build more houses or a mighty castle. Firstly we want to implement bare mechanics, which will be quite limited, on harvesting only wood and food, and limited villagers free time activities (just to sleep). We plan to deliver this in September and later we will improve and expand this by more roles, events - which will also fluently entering the combat with thieves attacks. Which will be seen from first person and then you will see all the details but will not be the only and main feature, we believe even the current state should be at the more acceptable level, than just duels.

We do it in our good conviction in the name of this game, that this is the right way we have to go right now. We are really afraid, that this project would face existential issues if we would continue with this huge chunk of work without a safe budget and without adequate manpower. And if there is an option to deliver not-less interesting gameplay within our current strengths, we will not risk your money and trust. This does not mean, we will never make combat we promised, we for sure still see it interesting as you, but we want to deliver something, we will not be shamed for. Just noticing that also this mode could one day have an event of type siege of your village/castle 😉 So it goes hand in hand with our original ideas.

Hope you understand us and our changes. And will look forward to the new direction we would like to go. Feel free to ask on anything, or express yourself to these changes. We all want to have this game to improve, so your feedback is valuable to us.

P.S. we will keep an option to build freely without any limitation or need of caring for your villagers as you have it right now

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on July 30, 2018, 05:49:25 PM

Patch 0.0.03J - Warming patch for frozen issues.
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Hello our players,

In this patch we focused on critical issues as very long loading times of bigger castles, which behaved like the game is not responding. Which was few times reported as a crash. We also reworked terraforming little bit and added an option to paint stone paths. Also french & polish are new languages you can select from.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/a0f1c1ab9dc6bfe3cedde18496a8b1044c8e4d33.jpg)

Changes Made:


- Faster castle loading after minimap appeared, lag reduced from hundreds of seconds to around 5s on the bigger sized castle and our devices.
-Terraforming is painted by the brush of custom size, also removed slope limitations.
- Blocks will no longer modify terrain when built/removed
- selected units have a circle beneath them.
- Save positions now use own folders (To make your older saves please working follow instructions below)
- Stone Path tool.
- New Mode selection screen (Peacefull mode is available only for testers at this moment)
- Distant fog color now changes with a sky.
- New donjon corner tower, with doors, to be able of making a walkable roof.
- Unity engine update (from 5.5.0 to 5.6.2), means we are now using GPU instancing, which shall reduce scene rendering complexity.
-improved stone wall shader, which removed the need for multiple materials.

What does this mean?

Faster loading:
With better performance, bigger castles were built. Unfortunately in the algorithm, which detects corners of blocks to add for example stones, or hide multiple columns worked well on a low number of blocks, but its calculation time slows with every built block more than with previous one. And so it might take several minutes to load the save as a result, when you built around 20 000 blocks... Fortunately, we drastically changed this and improved performance that these calculations will not take longer than 0.5s. But there are more things, which are calculated and later can be also optimized, but we are talking now about feasible 5s on the same castle in contrary to several minutes. Beside loading time, it also improved the performance of building multiple blocks at once. And even very little reduced the lag of building a single block.

Terraforming :
Blocks will no longer modify the terrain. So it will not destroy your changes. Terraforming can change size from 3m diameter to 13m diameter. You can change brush size by rotating mouse wheel. Slope restrictions removed, so it will no longer limit you in your design.


Stone Path:
In the terraforming section, there is a path tool. Unfortunately, due to triangulation one diagonal direction does not look smooth in all directions. But as with a lot of stuff we will improve it one day, when more important things will be done.

Save Folders:
There was a little bit messy in save folders, so we decided to make a folder for each save position separately. Now it is easier to sent us save, in case of any issue (just pack that folder). In order to load your old saves. Start a new game and save the empty world on any position. It will create folders. Then take a look to game folder/World_of_Castles_Data/Resources/Saves/Map/
Then all files with indexes move to the corresponding folder to that index (e.g. blocks1 -> SaveGame1) Then remove indexes (blocks1 -> blocks). Sorry, we would have to do it one day and it is better sooner than later.

Optimization:
We moved project onto new engine versions allow us to reduce the number of drawing request for your graphics card. To support this feature to work at best we also reworked stone walls, which was before done with many materials, which randomly tiled together to keep it seamless and not showing a pattern. This was merged into one material, so it should be also easier. Unfortunately, we did not see great improvements as we got in our other game runaway train (there was scene complexity for GPU reduced almost 200x). In WoC we see it works, but we did not notice any such improvement as probably rendering is not a bottleneck anymore on our testing scene and our device. But for sure your GPU will thank us, that it is melting little bit less. As a side-effect updating engine caused that lot of data has to be downloaded again and so this patch will be around 2.3GB. In this patch, we did just minor model optimization.


Release status
release sheduled around 30.th July 15:00 UTC

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on August 03, 2018, 01:28:59 PM

Patch 0.0.03J Mac Issues
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Hello our players, we were forced to revert the last patch for macs from 0.0.03j to 0.0.0.3i due to rendering issues on some critical materials (terrain, block preview etc.). Issues are probably caused by engine patch, which changed some keywords for macs and now it is ignoring its exceptions and tries to render as on windows... Unfortunately, the solution might take many days and that's why we decided to revert the patch before we are able to solve it.


Thank you for understanding.
Jakub

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on August 10, 2018, 12:07:06 AM

0.0.03J windows hotfix
World of Castles - Hammer Games

Hello fellow lords, we have released a hotfix for windows.

Main changes
-fixed missing (pink) material on corner ramparts block
-fixed issue of dark skin, when the character was near light (skin ignored other lights than sunlight)
- fixed issue when taking a walk might not work.
- fixed issue that "back to build" button displayed as "continue" in walk mode
- fixed issue when removing the bigger block with selected small block might break removal and made block indestructible.
- fixed issue where interaction with objects was not localized (showed in English)
- fixed issue in French, that there was forgotten note from translation.
- added food storage block
- fixed issue that top of the donjon roof disappeared on inner corners

We are not releasing this hotfix for other platforms, that we still have rendering issues on macs with 0.0.03J patch & and it says that just very few people play the game on Linux so we will release these changes with a regular patch for other platforms.

Thank you guys for all the reports which lead to solving some of these issues.

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on August 14, 2018, 10:49:13 PM

WoC 0.0.03J Win Hotfix2

- fixed  issue with donjon passage block caused errors on load
- fixed issue when fps displayed in main menu, althought it was set as off.
- added block wood stoerage
- fixed issue that distant trees had doubled transluscency
- fixed several issues connected to loading game directly from build mode

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on September 18, 2018, 12:22:48 PM

another hotfix
World of Castles - Hammer Games

(http://steam://openurl_external/https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/160afbf4806a28e299abd4ee8111f53670ba4ae1.png)

Hello, our players,
we got some reports from you about some new issues. And as we have fixed them, there is no reason to not release cleaner version. Also, we are adding some extra fixes found by our testers and some new models or GUI changes as a side product of the upcoming fief simulation.

Key changes are:
-fixed crash caused by trees, which appeared under water, because of terraformation.
- fixed statics issue, that did not add basements to small blocks, resulted in flying structures
- collider performance improvements of some platform blocks.
- floors algorithm upgrade, now it is easier to place floors
- house floors added
- platform entry blocks added
- fixed seams on rampart corner block
- added triangle floors
- harvester's hut added
- new slider and checkbox visual (in settings and friendly mode)

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: General Sandman on December 28, 2018, 11:52:46 AM

Watching this trailer from 0,41 to 0,47 always makes me laugh.   :coffeescreen

I cant help myself, but I just cannot avoid thinking:

The lord´s reaction is just like a dude´s little brother runs to big brother and informs him right after finishing the day´s 5th waterpipe, that their parents just arrived at home much sooner than expected.   :sifone    :pray :dunno :punishment

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on December 28, 2018, 02:20:30 PM

Merry Christmas patch
World of Castles - Hammer Games

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/16694d5a8c64d7197af3aa706d96ae60207dcfdc.png)

Greetings our players! :)


We wish you to enjoy your Christmas time, a lot of presents, delicious food and a lot of time to spend with your closest persons.


At first, we should apologize for very slow development. We are very sorry that this project had hopes to be developed in at least a small team (around 5-7 people) to bring a decent amount of new stuff per taken time. Which this project would deserve. Unfortunately you might see that the budget did not allow us to work more than in core team of one artist and one programmer which is crazy state as these high detailed things takes quite a good amount of time... On the other hand, we absolutely understand, that it is very fair to wait with purchase up to the time, when game brings at least some more playability. Two months ago we realized, that even though we will be able to bring village simulation at around promised time, it would still need some extra more features, to not look weird and have a positive effect on sales. For example time of day, when AI respects the time of day to determine their actions. And with that, there is more stuff connected to it as for example tree optimization, which will not work with the change of lighting... and so on...

So we had to do one quite unpleasant decision for you and to raise the budget for WoC from other game than WoC, which we will be able to finish very soon and will not need much time after release, so we will be able to fully focus on only WoC again. That game was already finished and should be released 8.th of January 2019.

What is important to you, is that we will give this game for free to all our WoC players for Christmas!!! :) Unfortunately before Christmas steam had too much work around, so we do not have verified steam page for that game yet and also steam does not support any way how to give you the free steam keys. So we will add the game to the World of Castles folder with the upcoming patch. Later we will try to find a way how to distribute keys to you directly so you will have a nice extra game in your steam library ;) You deserve it as an apology for all the problems we were and still are struggling in WoC.

That given game is Called Transport services and it is a dynamic transport tycoon game, where you try to solve passenger and good transportation among expanding cities. There are cars, trains or planes for your solutions. The game will cost for non-WoC owners 9.99$

There is a trailer:

https://youtu.be/UhvsAnin4MY

I hope you will enjoy it. Just take in mind that you have even pre-release access, so it might have some bugs.

That's enough about transport services. Now go back to WoC. In the upcoming patch, there will be some new objects like this windmill. Do not expect any gameplay changes. The current state of dev version village simulation remains the same as two months ago. We made core mechanics for villagers, they are able to cut trees, gather apples from trees, take resources to storages. They do not have any free time activities after work yet. Just go sleep at night... Also, the AI does not know how to behave if something abnormal happens. So it will need some time to get solved and be somehow more playable... The patch is expected to be out 26.12.2018. I hope that the decision with transport services will show as correct and help us to give more to WoC again :)

Enjoy Christmas! And our new game :)
Jakub

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on January 04, 2019, 02:09:26 PM

Patch reverted
4 January - Hammer Games


Hello, community, for the recent time we received much feedback of low game stability, and many bugs, which appeared a long time ago, or are brand new... to provide you stable version meanwhile we will try to solve all the reported issues we are reverting the patch. Those who have dev version please report us any error you spot. Thanks for understanding and sorry for all the issues...

Title: Re: World of Castles
Post by: Asid on April 28, 2019, 04:39:19 PM

0.0.04 Patch
27 APR @ 3:54PM   - HAMMER GAMES


Hello our players,
After a very long time, we are coming with another patch. Where we are improving terraformation tools, changing controls, adding dynamic weather, more optimized and populated nature. Also some new models.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/b0a57892bc9d41a4e0204eb7bdd40724934b0155.jpg)

Changes Made:


- Dynamic sky and weather, Time of the day. You can let time flow, or pause at anytime as well as you can change hour or day on sliders.
- reworked controls. Camera look is changed when you hold the right mouse button or with an assigned key for camera look. Block removal moved into separated category accessed via the button next to the inventory button.
-Smaller objects like bushes, stones, deadwood etc. Spawns in the forests nearby camera similar way as a grass. Also, are affected by grass density in settings.
- added option to turn of statics for your game.
-fixed terraforming. Now it should allow you to remove soil under blocks and still keep an eye to not make your blocks flying.
- improved preview of some hard-to-place blocks, now it predicts if it will or will not allow you to build.
- Added some blocks into house, production & rustic categories as well a bonfire in exterior equipment.
-You will find the newest build of Transport services again in your folder.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30526646/2e67938a05171de93298eca750d71fc6116dc41f.jpg)

Release status
released