The Black Death

[Asid]

Dev Blog #64: Exploits Cheating, Dev Updates, Unreal Engine Upgrade Community Extras
The Black Death - [SIG] Emily

Greetings plagued ones, and welcome to Dev Blog #64!

Apologies for the large gap between blogs, we have been very busy with V0.30, V0.31 and our Hot fixes in-between. In this issue we will be taking a look at what we have been working on, fixing exploits, clamping down on cheats and our Unreal Engine Upgrade.

Exploits And Cheating

Thanks to our diligent community we are aware of serious issues related to exploiting/duplicating items and players using cheats on our official servers, so we are currently working on solutions to combat it, the coming unreal engine upgrade will make it easier to locate and ban cheaters alongside this.

Dev Updates

In this Dev Blog we will be taking a look at a lot of different content features that we have been working on!

Prisoners And Contracts

We are expanding recipes and creating new items to require contracts for example the trebuchet requiring the “sapper contract” and to help extend this system you will be able to obtain contracts from prisoners that you can free from bandit camps all around the world, this system will be placed procedurally within bandit areas allowing you to acquire contract items from other sources rather than just your local town earl. Why don’t you save your next guard captain from the clutches of the bandit king?




Full notes here

[Asid]

Patch Notes: V0.32
29 July - Smallimpact



Welcome citizens of Mercia,

We have built another large update for the black death, this version focuses on upgrading the unreal engine version and solidifying door and land claim ownership systems to provide a smoother and more enjoyable experience. This update also lays down strong foundations for us to add more content in the near future and aid us in solidifying the black death’s core mechanics.

WARNING: DUE TO SYSTEM CHANGES THIS UPDATE MAY WIPE PLAYER BUILT STRUCTURES BUT SHOULDN’T EFFECT CHARACTER PROGRESSION

As a side note, the update for engine version 4.20 may cause issues that are unforeseen and we are prepared to fix issues as fast as possible so please don’t hesitate to let us know of any issues.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   Upgraded to Unreal Engine Version 4.20
•   Doors now have permission settings on them (if you are the owner you can set it to either self or guild)
•   Land claims come in three sizes (crafted), land claim, town land claim and kingdom land claim. The owner can set permission to build on their land to self only or Guild). Other people can no longer access the other player's land claims
•   Caged prisoners that provide a range of contracts
•   Dead bodies spawn pools of blood
•   Players now spawn at random safehaven towns across the map instead of just at freemans port
•   Mercenary and thief NPC enemies
•   A.I. dagger attack logic and animations
•   Anti-cheating security measures for VAC banning

Updated:
•   Updated A.I. animation system to allow seamless transitions between full body and upper body animations
•   Updated behaviour of A.I., they will flank more and be more varied at a distance
•   A.I. play a blend of a death animation and ragdoll when they are killed now
•   Updated and tweaks to the player movement system
•   Updated procedural placement systems to be more responsive and consistent for A.I. and resources.
•   Updated tutorial to include new changes to mechanics
•   Storage has been changed to be a weight system instead of slots
•   UI popup added for when you hit max storage in a chest
•   When taking items from storage you now get the option to take the entire stack and to take just one item
•   Tweaks to the HUD to make it more immersive
•   A.I. get bloody when hit
•   Hit blood vfx updated
•   Temporary tweaks to bow
•   Added a fade to black transition from server browser when you enter a match
•   Updated version number
•   Primitive wells now spawn around the world to provide dirty water instead of puddles

Fixes:
•   Fixes added for various exploits
•   Fixes for some rare client side crashes
•   Fixes added to help stop land claims from being able to overlap
•   Fixed name bug where Ale would say “Resource” in the UI
•   UI fixes across the entire game because of engine update
•   Fixed a bug which caused you not to play an animation when you used a lock door
•   Fixes added for A.I. perception

Balancing:
•   Town Earls now sell royal items and no longer sell contracts, because of the new prisoner mechanic and craftable land claims
•   Wardrobes now have greater storage capacity and re-balanced recipe requirements

Optimisations:
•   Large optimisation to networking

Known Bugs:
•   Fishing is currently not functional

[Asid]

Patch Notes: V0.32 Hotfix #1
2 August - Smallimpact
 


Gather round Citizens of Mercia we have a new update for you, full of fixes, quality of life improvements as well as the introduction of ingame server admin tools!

One of the bigger things we have been working on so far this week is a first pass at ingame server admin tools. Players can now press “F8” (by default) to bring up the admin console menu. Upon entering the correct server password you can access tools allowing a range of functionality; from flying, giving gold and xp to spawning in items and kicking specific players. We will build on this adding more functionality and cleaning up the UI over the following builds.



We have also been making good progress crushing a few bugs that came around with the upgrade to Unreal engine Version 4.20, namely some interacting with object problems as well as issues with procedural resources spread and the gold transfer from lootables. We have also added in some quality of life improvements based off community feedback such as auto closing the loot window when you loot all and being able to use items from/while in your storage.

Here are the patch notes in full:


New:
•   Added a admin menu (“F8” by default) which if you have the server password, gives you access to server admin controls
•   You can now use items directly from storage and lootables
•   Added a new light attack animation to thief ai
•   Wheat, Oat and Sugar crops now spawn procedurally (on farmland) around the world

Updated:
•   HUD chat box tweaked to make it less obtrusive while playing
•   Updated looting menu so now, clicking “Loot All” automatically closes the inventory
•   Tweaked some HUD elements and made it so things fade out partially when they are not currently relevant to the player
•   Tweaked player camera

Fixes:
•   Fixes added for problems with interacting with items in the world (crosshair, trace blocking etc)
•   Fixed a bug that caused gold not to get moved into your inventory when using loot all
•   Fixed it so you can no longer jump/crouch through Kingdom Keep windows to gain access to a player’s base
•   Fixed a bug which caused Ai with bone clubs to not cause damage
•   Players can now retrieve farmer contracts from prisoners, peasant contracts are now separate and for recipes only and can also be obtained from prisoners
•   Fixed a bug which caused Merchant NPC contracts to be unattainable
•   Fixed bugs that could cause NPCs to spawn on top of roofs
•   Fixed locked door animation bug
•   Fix added for a bug which could cause the using item sound in the inventory to be cut off before it had finished
•   Fixed a bug that stopped some ranged ai from doing close up melee damage
•   Fixes for friendly Ai: Head to rotate towards players, blood effects now trigger on them, distance anims and randomisations
•   Fix for Ai not keeping in up close upper body pose while near the player
•   Fix for the quest in the top right hud scale issue after engine upgrade
•   Fix added to make procedural wells make water sound when used
•   Fixes to stop ai sliding around on the floor

Balancing:
•   Carry weight for bags has been tweaked. There is now increased weight between tiers
•   Campfires now save and decay like tents rather than being destroyed after a short period of time
•   Rebalanced campfire and cooking recipes to require kindling

Known Bugs:
•   Barricades take damage but their health bars don’t update correctly

[Asid]

Caged Prisoners

[Asid]

Patch Notes: V0.33
11 August - Smallimpact

Citizens of Mercia the weeks end approaches and so does an update with new exciting content, a broad range of fixes and further admin tools!



Find the new relic helmet through world events and dominate Mercia in style

Our first priority this week was fixing the LAN server issues. The latest engine update (4.20) from Unreal came with a bug that caused connections to LAN servers to fail. We looked into their code and managed to fix the problem so you can now connect to your own LAN servers again. While fixing things we thought we would further empower server admins by added extra features. Server admins can now destroy any player built object in their server (even if they are not the owner). We also added two new options to the admin panel (“F8”). Admins can now force destroy all buildings on a server and can also wipe a specific characters save from their server (by using their steam id which you work out here: https://steamidfinder.com/)

Another of our core fixes this week has been working on land claim exploits to help put and end to some exploits being used on the PVE servers. With the fixes out the way we moved on to finishing off some new content we have been working on behind the scenes. New character models, new animations, new relic item etc.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   Now all new spawn players start in their underwear
•   Added underwear models for both male and females
•   Added more options to the admin menu (you can now clear all buildings on the server as well as deleting a specific players save file on the server)
•   Added the ability for server admins to be able to destroy any building (even if they are not the original creator)
•   Added new relic event which contains a rare helmet
•   Added functionality to allow female versions of equipped clothing (currently limited to primitive vest)
•   Added new animations for the dagger weilding Ai: parried, idle close to player, blocking idle, blocking hit react, heavy strike 01 and heavy strike 02
•   Added new primitive clothing recipes (primitive vest, primitive trousers, fingerless gloves)
•   Added new potato procedural resource
•   Added new potato stew recipe under the food filter in the inventory


NPC dagger animations added and soon will be added for the player's attacks

Updated:
•   Server names can now have spaces in them
•   The beggars customisation restrictions have been removed and you can now customise their head and hair like as with the other professions
•   Updated character create UI for the new clothing spawning and we also added a fade on gender switch to cover up the mesh swap
•   Inventory and utility recipe lists now have all unlocked recipes at the top then locked after that to make it easier to use
•   Updated/added sounds to some AI dagger animations
•   The tent is now a bed roll and has a new sleeping bag model and is unlocked earlier
•   Tweaked all clothing meshes to fit new underwear models
•   Tweaked the HUD building timer and icon to be more minimalistic


Enjoy deeper customisation with new underwear clothing for male and female characters

Fixes:
•   Fixed a Unreal Engine 4.20 LAN connection issues, so you can now connect to your LAN servers again
•   Fixed bug which stopped you setting the server name in the server settings config
•   Fixed distance checks for placing different sized land claims so they don’t overlap
•   Fixed a bug which stopped doing your sprint animations on other clients view of you
•   Fixed a bug which caused players to have to relog in order for the land claim permission toggle changes to take effect
•   Fixed a bug where using next on head options wouldn’t loop round to the beginning of the array again when it hit the last head option
•   Fixed bug where UI armour value on inventory items would get rounded to the nearest int, instead of being to a decimal value
•   Fixed a bug that caused siege weapons to disappear after construction
•   Fixed a bug which stopped you getting guild points for land claims
•   Fixes to blueprint errors in the HUD
•   Possible fix added for flickering green
•   Fixes to French and German localisation
•   Fixes to animation backend for the dagger weilding AI


Additional admin control has been added for your rented/created servers

Balancing:
•   Re-ordered campfire and cooked fish recipes to be unlocked earlier
•   Small bag is now unlocked automatically and requires animal pelt
•   Increased the amount of resources that spawn procedurally around the world.

Known Bugs
•   Some NPCs will deal no damage with bone club attacks

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

[Asid]

Update V0.34 - Kings and Queens
The Black Death - Smallimpact



Behold citizens of Mercia, Kings and Queens has arrived! New content awaits and can be found all across the land!

First up a new profession in Mercia, that of Royalty. To ascend to Royalty you will need to be proficient (level 10) in all skills as well as saving up enough renown (by purging the land of sickness and infection). Becoming Royalty is tough but it is well worth it. Royalty have access to craft exclusive high tier items that other professions can’t access such as royal helmet and the royal polearm. They also have a passive bonus, a x2 bonus when earning renown. With great power comes great danger, you will want to make sure you have allies and a strong guild in place when you become a King/Queen.



We have also been working on a lot of new and exciting content from new weapons and animations to new ai types and ways to create a more plague like experience.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   New royalty profession, play as a King or Queen to earn double renown with your profession ability and craft exclusive items at your kingdom table utility
•   New renown mechanic implemented (Renown can be earned by killing the infected and purging infection carts. Renown can be spent on switching profession at any time)
•   You can now switch profession at any time if you have the required renown (The switch button is located at the top center of the inventory)
•   New building Town Hall (Here you can hire bakers, wheat farmers etc)
•   New building Barracks (Here you can hire a range of guards)
•   New Kingdom table (A royalty exclusive utility which contains high-tier recipes)
•   New Courier Ai type (holds valuable items and can be found with a personal guards)
•   New note system, messages are strewn across mercia
•   3 New ai light spear attacks
•   2 New weapons (royal polearm and wooden pitchfork)
•   4 New prisoner animations (idle and three idle extras)
•   New royal helmet recipe
•   New royal guard to hire
•   New gray wolf enemy NPC
•   New bodyguard enemy NPCs (for couriers)
•   New peasant rebel enemy NPCs
•   Player spawn locations have been themed to add more context to the world
•   Added search for recipe functionality to the inventory
•   Now more levels of attribute points with an exponential cost
•   Renown and up to three random attribute points will be lost on death
•   New infected animal versions (deer, boar, wolf and rat) can be found in infection zones
•   nfected peasants, guards and wandering merchants can now be found in infected zones
•   Infected resources now spawn in infection zones (that provide infected mush)
•   Infection material visual effects have been added to objects within the infection zone
•   Ai can now spawn in groups
•   Animal manure can now be found around the world
•   Procedural resources now have the chance to spawn on forest floor
•   New rotten food procedural resource
•   New loading screen animated rat icon
•   Temporal AA is now on by default however this can be changed back by adjusting your graphics settings (anti aliasing) in your launcher



You can now switch profession at anytime by clicking the profession badge inside your inventory, however profession will cost you renown

Full change log here

[Asid]

Patch Notes: V0.34 HOTFIX #1
The Black Death - Smallimpact



Citizens of Mercia we bring you a new update for the weekend! This patch contains a whole host of fixes as well as new prisoner animations and the King/Queen of the server feature!

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   The most powerful player who is of the “Royalty” profession will be named King/Queen of the server (shown at the top of the map screen)
•   In the map you can now see which direction you are facing (a small arrow at your player location)
•   New prisoner animations (for kneeling prisoner): 1x extra idle extra (struggling) 1x released thank you anim
•   New prisoner animations (tied to stake): 1x idle anim and 4x idle extra anims
•   Ambient water/river sound tests added around a few streams near Freemans Port
•   Speed hacking detection



Have the most renown as the royalty profession and enjoy being king/queen of the server, we are currently working to extend this feature to give the player additional benefits,hopefully coming within the next few updates.

Updated:
•   Added sounds/voice to prisoners
•   Polished and updated paths in the environment

Fixes:
•   Fixes added for blocking sometimes failing to function properly
•   Fixed cure sickness by exiting to main menu exploit
•   Fixes added for combat attacks sometimes swinging through enemies and causing no damage
•   Fix added for a vender refresh issue
•   Fixes for attribute points costing less than the shown amount
•   Fixes/tweaks added to misc spanish translations
•   Fix for storehouse access through roof exploit
•   Fixes added for misc resource spawning issues
•   Knockback now scales correctly with the amount of damage taken
•   Wolves no longer resort to passive behaviour randomly
•   Fixes to primitive wells and animal waste to remove delays on pickup
•   Chamomile mesh reduced in size to prevent problems spawning
•   Fixes to make wooden doors easier to place in the palisade gatehouse



We are continuing to improve the fidelity of the prisoners in the black death such as this new release animations

Balancing:
•   Wolves are now more aggressive
•   Stone weapons have had their durability increased by 50%
•   Stone mace durability is increased by 125%



Navigate Mercia with ease and use the new player direction icon on the map to get your bearings.

Optimised:
•   Optimised resource management
•   Optimised prisoner skeletal meshes
•   Optimised misc animations

Known Bugs
•   Chat log can sometimes not appear, relogging should fix it though

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

[Asid]

Update V0.34 HOTFIX #2
The Black Death - Smallimpact



Gather round Mercians, a new patch awaits you! This week we bring you new admin controls as well as fixes and optimisations galore!

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   Added the ability to ban/unban players from servers if you are the Admin
Updated:
•   Updated char create start button to give more info e.g. Locked, Renown required
•   Updated player dagger animations with the new ai ones for now (will be tweaked in the future)
•   Updated player spear attacks with the new ai ones for now (will be tweaked in the future)
•   Updated the heavy attack of the stick clubs to be a new ai swing (will be tweaked in the future)
•   Updated crosshair icon on the hud, it now hides when looking at angry ai, and the icon changes depending on what you are looking at doing, talking, picking up, using
•   Updated successfully repairing a building with a sound to make it more obvious it has been repaired
Fixes:
•   Fixed a bug where you couldn't repair anvils
•   Fixed a movement issue that was causing movement lag
•   Fixes added to stop chat from breaking on first entry into the game
•   Fixed a large amount of level bugs
•   Fixed a bug where if you try repair a building object but didn’t have enough money, it wouldn't run the can’t do that popup
•   Fixed misc spelling mistakes
•   Fixed a bunch of log spam across the game
•   Fixed bug which caused main menu music not to transition in and out when going into and out of the menu
•   Fixed a bug where eating rotten meat had no negative effects
Reduced the size and volume of the ambient stream sounds
•   Fixed a bug where a wood material was missing its phys material, now hit sounds/vfx and triggers footstep sounds
•   Turned down the volume of rat footsteps
•   Fixed a bug where you could go into minus renown in the character create and the profession switch screen by pressing the switch button multiple times
•   Fixed a bug, where when drawing your bow you couldn't see your crosshair as it would be blocked by health bar/interact crosshair icons
•   Fixed multiple objects missing from the world
•   Fixed issues preventing A.I. spawning inside churches or in bandit camps
Balancing
•   All spears and daggers now have a block move
•   Adjusted cooldown timers of spears to make combat smoother
Optimised
•   Optimised tick rates across the game
•   Optimised main menu
•   Optimised skeletal meshes of shop ai and purchasable ai
•   Optimised the compass system
•   Large amount of optimisation for the world level
•   Optimised greedy blueprints

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

[Asid]

Update V0.35 - Expedition
28 November - Smallimpact



Welcome Citizens of Mercia to EXPEDITION, the newest and biggest update The Black Death has ever seen! Servers are now live and client is fully released.

We have been working hard on a wealth of new content, reworking/enhancing older systems (such as XP/Leveling and Combat) as well adding completely new systems (such as Traveling between lands and First Person Mode). The purpose of these changes is to lay the technical groundwork for future updates, opening up a multitude of future possibilities.

Let’s get straight to it:

Major Features:
•   Travel Between “Lands” With A Persistent Character
•   New Homestead Map
•   Merica Mainland Map - Size increased by 15%!
•   New Arena Map - A new land where players can fight friend or foe to the death
•   New First Person View Mode - (Third person can be accessed with “Y”)
•   Updated Combat System - Directional attacks with different animations per weapon type
•   New Quests System - Jobs can be found on boards around major towns
•   Numerous Visual Improvements to lighting, sky, fog effects as well as the fidelity of forests
•   New NPC Enemies - Flagellants and Celtics
•   New Sneaking System
•   New Dynamic Music System & New Music
•   New Territory System - Claim plots of land, name your town
•   Backend Rework To Items - Make them more robust and a lot more optimised
•   Update to XP/Leveling System
•   Enhanced Inventory

Supporting Features:
•   Improved IK solving, A.I Navigation and A.I Head Look At
•   Slopes Effect Characters Speed
•   Easier To Invite Friends To Play With
•   Destroyed Building that need cleaning Up On Territories
•   New Experimental Logic For Commanding Owned NPC Guards
•   New Loading Screens

Breakdown of the new features: here

[Asid]

Update V0.35 - Expedition
The Black Death - Smallimpact
 


Welcome Citizens of Mercia to EXPEDITION, the newest and biggest update The Black Death has ever seen! Servers are now live and client is fully released.

We have been working hard on a wealth of new content, reworking/enhancing older systems (such as XP/Leveling and Combat) as well adding completely new systems (such as Traveling between lands and First Person Mode). The purpose of these changes is to lay the technical groundwork for future updates, opening up a multitude of future possibilities.

Let’s get straight to it:

Major Features:
•   Travel Between “Lands” With A Persistent Character
•   New Homestead Map
•   Mercia Mainland Map - Size increased by 15%!
•   New Arena Map - A new land where players can fight friend or foe to the death
•   New First Person View Mode - (Third person can be accessed with “Y”)
•   Updated Combat System - Directional attacks with different animations per weapon type
•   New Quests System - Jobs can be found on boards around major towns
•   Numerous Visual Improvements to lighting, sky, fog effects as well as the fidelity of forests
•   New NPC Enemies - Flagellants and Celtics
•   New Sneaking System
•   New Dynamic Music System & New Music
•   New Territory System - Claim plots of land, name your town
•   Backend Rework To Items - Make them more robust and a lot more optimised
•   Update to XP/Leveling System
•   Enhanced Inventory

Supporting Features:
•   Improved IK solving, A.I Navigation and A.I Head Look At
•   Slopes Effect Characters Speed
•   Easier To Invite Friends To Play With
•   Destroyed Building that need cleaning Up On Territories
•   New Experimental Logic For Commanding Owned NPC Guards
•   New Loading Screens

Breakdown of the new features: here

[Asid]

Update V0.35 Hotfix #1
1 December - Smallimpact
 


Good day Mercians!

We have put together an update to fix the issues arised from the latest update. We appreciate everyone in the community coming forward with issues with playing the black death, this allowed us to track down problems efficiently. We also have a roadmap to annouce so please read on!

That been said here is the list of fixes:

Fixes:
•   Fixed a bug with lighting which could cause severe framerate drops
•   Fixed a bug which could stop you being able to switch to third person view
•   Fixed a duplicating items exploit
•   Fixed a item stack exploit
•   Fixed a character exploit
•   Fixed a bug which caused clothing to not be removed from your inventory list while you are wearing it
•   Fixed a bug that caused some building items not to build
•   Fixed a bug that stopped you being able to repair items at anvils
•   Fixed bugs to do with items becoming invisible in your inventory
•   Fixed a bug which could cause items to drop instead of equipping
•   Fixed a bug with dropping items falling through the floor
•   Fixed bugs relating to land claims
•   Fixed a bug related to traveling between lands
•   Fixed a bug that could cause doors to be unusable to the owner
•   Fixed multiple floating objects in homestead
•   Fixed a misc saving bug
•   Fixed a bug with chest saving
•   Fixed a bug which caused peasant bonus not to work
•   Fixed bugs to do with retrieving LAN servers
•   Fixed bugs that could cause problems with resources spawning in homestead
•   Fixed a bug that would cause you to throw certain weapons (this system isn’t ready yet)
•   Fixed a bug that stopped barricades from visually being destroyed
•   Fixed a bug which stopped fishing working
•   Removed a hotkey for testing the leveling up popup
•   Fixed a bug which could cause the guild crosshair UI to show when looking at some dropped items
•   Fixes added for some broken UI transitions
•   Fixes for log spam
•   Fixed potential exploit
•   Fixed a bug getting moved to (0,0,0)
•   Fixed bug being able to sell equipped armour
•   Fixed Dup on split stacking

Updated:
•   Flagellants now drop their headwear named ‘flagellant veils’
•   First person arm shaders improved

Balancing:
•   Removed wolves from the homestead
•   Removed mid-tier bandits from homestead
•   Additional low-tier bandits added to homestead

Optimisations:
•   First person arm textures have been mipped to save memory.

We will continue to address issues we and you (the community) discover in the coming weeks but we have already laid out plans and started development to bring the black death up to a better level of content, gameplay and replayability so it's my pleasure to show our roadmap of the coming months:



Thanks everyone for playing and we will see you around Mercia!

The S.I.G. Team.

[Asid]

Update V0.35 Hotfix # 2
7 December - Smallimpact



Good Day Everyone!

We have another hotfix for the expedition update focusing on issues with player's characters being stuck in certain situations, items disappearing and extra quality of life improvements across the board. Thanks everyone for helping us find these issues so we can get these fixes out to you in a timely manner!

Fixes:
•   Fix added for chest Items not showing up in chest
•   Fix added for chest crash
•   Fix added for crash that could occur when a bow broke from durability damage
•   Fix added for items being lost on relog that you had equipped when you logged off
•   Fix added to stop you getting stuck from main menu trying to enter a server that you couldn't enter and not being able to change
•   Fix added for land claims never being able to be destroyed on PVE servers
•   Fix for land claim names getting stuck as “none”
•   Armour can now be repaired at anvils
•   Fixed memory bug which could cause you to lose frame rate over time until you died and respawned
•   Fixed a bug where inventory items would not show their durability
•   Fixed a bug where equipped items wouldn’t show items durability
•   Fix added for not being able to hit built land claims easily/broken land claim mesh collision not being turned off for built states.
•   Fix added to land claim so when you change the name, it will instantly update players in the area HUD info
•   Fixed an issue where the character view within inventory displaying LODs instead of high fidelity meshes.
•   Fix added to stop helmets being cut off from the top of the paper doll inventory view
•   Fixed an issue where some foliage wouldn't have the building effect
•   Fixed a bug which would stop you getting feedback when you used a locked door (animation and sounds)
•   Server versioning to filter redundant servers

New:
•   Added a first person door knocking, drinking, eating and healing animation
•   Added a warning popup for when you are not in a guild but try to toggle land claim build permission as well as when you try to toggle use permission in a door
•   Added a sound when a server announcement happens (new player to server, player died etc)

Updated:
•   Wattle wall and stone wall structures are now the same height as palisades to provide a better solution against exploits
•   Updated the in-game settings control list to include the the 1st/3rd person view key information
•   Updated the paper doll pose to be a hands down idle instead of a arms crossed

Optimisations:
•   Freeman’s area/West side of Mercia has had further optimisations to prevent extreme GPU bottlenecks

Thanks everyone for playing and just a healthy reminder that we have created and published a roadmap for upcoming content for the black death HERE.


See you in Mercia

The S.I.G. Team

[Asid]

Update V0.35 Hotfix #3
The Black Death - Smallimpact



Good day Mercians!

We have another expedition update hotfix for you addressing various item issues and general stability.

Here is the patch notes in full:

Fixes:
•   Fixes added for character saving issues
•   Fixes added for invisible chest items
•   Fixed a duplication exploit
•   Fixed misc item related bugs
•   Fixed a bug which stopped you being able to draw a weapon from quickslots
•   Fixed a bug where broken weapons would still be usable
•   Fixed bugs causing network data spam
•   Fixes/Further safety measures added to the travel book for switching to Mercia servers
•   Fixed a bug that could cause a character create scene to spawn in when you travel back to Homestead
•   Fixed an issue that prevented players entering parts of West Mercia
•   Fixed issues where A.I. and resources won’t spawn in West Mercia
•   Fixed issues where A.I. won’t spawn in ‘River Town’
•   Fixed a bug which let you run backwards faster than running forward
•   Fixed a bug causing the HUD territory UI element to periodically close by mistake
•   Fixed and tweaked third person crouching unarmed anims
•   Fixed a bug that caused chicken ragdoll bodies to not spawn
•   Fixes for misc log causing errors in the char create and the profession switch screen
•   Fixed an issue that made all loot act as a stealable
•   Fixed a bug which could cause you to stop playing swimming anims while in water
•   Fixed misc log spam
•   Fixed an issue where opacity masks were turned off at certain distances for trees

Updated:
•   Updated the main menu character create screen with a cancel/go back button
•   Tweaked A.I base movement animations to match their move speed
•   Updated A.I upper body animation play method to be less stiff while in their fighting stance
•   Tweaked values on A.I IK feet
•   Tweaked values on Animals IK feet and spine

Optimisations:
•   Optimised the character create scene
•   New foliage LODs have been adjusted to greatly reduce the amount of verts being drawn in West Mercia

Thanks again for playing the black death and helping us find these issues and we look forward to getting new content into the game soon.

[Asid]

Update V0.35 - Hotfix #4
The Black Death - Smallimpact



Good Day Mercians!

We are continuing to stablise update V0.35 Expedition with another hotfix before we want to commit with further content such as V0.36 Expedition Phase 2, this update addresses issues with stamina, PVE land claims and attributes not saving, here is the list in full:

Fixes:
•   Fix for multiple lootbag exploits
•   Fix for attributes not saving bug
•   Fixed a bug with NPCs that was causing network spam
•   Fixed a bug where you could over fill a storage chest
•   Fixed a bug where stamina could stop recharging
•   Fixed a bug where when you had a shield equipped hit reacts wouldn’t play
•   Fixed a bug where loot UI widgets were overspawning
•   Fixed a bug where you would have to close the repair menu before being able to repair another icon
•   Fixed a bug where land claim territories would not show up on the map
•   Further fixes added to PVE land claim servers not being able to be destroyed
•   Stamina now works correctly for swings
•   Fixed items not refreshing in loot window
•   Fixed a bug where when holding an attack stamina would drain for a second and then start to recharge when it shouldn’t
•   Fixed a bug where you couldn’t “Take One” from a storage chest
•   Fixes added for 3rd person crouch bow not working correctly
•   Fixes added to make first person sickness anims work correctly

Optimisations:
•   Optimised networking
•   Optimised inventory UI

Thanks again to everyone helping us find these bugs!

See you in Mercia

The S.I.G. Team.

[Asid]

Update V0.36 Expedition - Phase 02
30 Jan @ 9:15pm - Smallimpact



Good day Mercians! Today's update brings fixes, optimisations as well as new exciting content!

“Attack on the North” Siege Experience
Our new “Attack on the North” map! Team up with friends and try to retake the city, launching a full scale assault with the promise of xp and riches. This new mode is accessible through the travel menu for a price. Exclusive loot such as helmet, heavy armour and shields are up for the taking.



Rideable Horses
Horses have been added to Mercia and can be found wandering the wilderness. If you catch up to a horse you can climb-up on its back and ride it around making travel much faster



Guild Guards Commands
Light guards that you own can now be recruited and commanded (current commands: Follow, Patrol, Guard, Attack, Disband). Ordering them around allows you to position them in more strategic locations, trigger them to attack or make them follow you around so you look like a badass with your own private guard.



Here are the patch notes in full:

New:
•   New “Attack on the North” Siege Experience
•   Horses
•   Guard commands
•   New foliage painted resources
•   New enemy types, shield enemy and pyro enemy (currently only in siege map)

Fixes:
•   Fixed crashes relating to items
•   Fixed multiple client side crashes
•   Fixed multiple server crashes
•   Fixed a crash relating to placeable guards
•   Fixed territory name clearing a few seconds after you enter area
•   Fixed a bug which could cause anvils to not repair items
•   Fixed a bug where splitting items could make them disappear
•   Fixed a bug which could cause dropped items not pickable again
•   Fixed a bug which allowed you to put items into lootable container in the world (you can only store items in player made chests)
•   Fixed a bug which could stop ai items spawning
•   Fixed a bug which caused you not to be able to do damage to plague carts
•   Fixed a bug which caused deer to disappear when you hit them
•   Fixed a bug with placeable NPCs buy sell multiplier
•   Fixed a bug where you could get stuck with no mouse when using utilities through the radial menu
•   Fixed a bug which stopped you being able to damage stick doors
•   Fixed a bug which cause problems with relic items
•   Fixed a bug which could cause cotton to give out berries
•   Fixes added to placeable NPCs

Updated:
•   Combat tweaks (Headshots do 2.5x damage to A.I. and helmets can be knocked off A.I.)
•   There is now a cost to Travel between lands (currently only siege level has a cost)
•   Stone, Iron ore, Silver ore, Gold Ore and Coal Ore should now spawn on rocky areas and in caves
•   Updated the games visuals at night to have more contrast and made the rivers less dark
•   Moon is now 35% smaller
•   Reworked the crosshair area of the HUD to be cleaner and less obtrusive
•   Tutorial notes are now in homestead
•   Updated version number

Balancing:
•   Increased the amount of resources that spawn throughout Mercia
•   Balanced basic items value such as sticks, rocks, berries, mushrooms and cotton to now have a value between 0 and 1
•   Base carry weight increased by 5 and increased extra weight given for each strength level

Optimisations:
•   Further optimised item data
•   Optimisations added to house NPCs
•   Optimisations made to the Mercia map

Thanks everyone for playing and we hope you enjoy this hefty update.

See you the Mercia

The S.I.G. Team.