Open Alpha Development Update

🛠️ Networking Team Update:

This week, our networking team focused on refactoring code to sync state via our new entity system.

We've made great progress on attributes, abilities, buffs, targeting, and combat components. Currently, we're ironing out the remaining kinks to facilitate the deployment of a remote server.

All backend tasks required for the Alpha launch have been successfully accomplished, keeping us on course to initiate internal server stress tests as early as next week.

Additionally, we anticipate welcoming a new networking team member, dedicated to enhancing our game pipeline.

Lots of improvements planned such as:

⚔️ Improvements to build deployment for both public and development builds.

⚔️ Dynamic server scaling to adapt to game load.

⚔️ Provision for future platforms such as Mac and Steam.

⚔️ Code signing our launcher to avoid Windows Defender SmartScreen.

We're eagerly awaiting the final checks before their official onboarding, recognizing the urgency of bolstering our team to compensate for lost time.

We have avoided hiring elsewhere currently as there is a lot of onboarding involved which would have delayed open alpha more. The backend pipeline job is quite separate, so this is a good time to bring new members in.

🎮Gameplay Team Update:

Gameplay team has been continuing working on environmental improvements.

⚔️Foliage Updates:

We've tailored foliage density based on your graphic settings, optimizing performance by adjusting the amount of grass, bushes, ferns, flowers, rocks, and seaweed. Reducing the amount you see, helping take the strain off your GPU.

⚔️Hillrum Island Enhancements:

A town now greets players upon arrival, in future this town will evolve into a hub bustling with quest givers and shops in the future.

⚔️ Terrain Refinements:

We have started to research into improving our terrain tools and these are the areas we are currently focusing on:

Diversifying terrain textures to eliminate repetitive visuals.

⚔️ Enhancing terrain blending for more visually appealing pathways around towns and cities.

Given the extended development timeline for multiplayer features, we should be able to push the 1.4.0 update within a week or two of Open Alpha launch.

Lastly, our QA team continues to diligently unearth and rectify bugs in both current and future builds, ensuring a smoother gaming experience for all.