Not A Blog Redux IV

[travisbaldree]

It's Friday! Time for another Not A Blog.

I don't have earth-shaking new news this week or a specific 'featurette' in mind, so I'm just going to give you a dev update.

I'm now done with everything in Act 2 except the last boss - which I hope to mostly complete over the weekend. There will probably be a few trailing animations and FX that get picked up on Monday, but my aim is to be wrapped on Act 2 at that point. This makes me very happy. I think Act 2 has turned out really well, and am pretty jazzed about how very different it feels from the other acts. I was hoping to be done with the whole Act by the end of the week, but didn't quite make it, largely due to some unexpected bugs cropping up that chewed up a good day and a half of time.

We ended up putting together some new art this week for the three superchampions in Act 2 part 2 ( which are part of a boss chain ), and they came out pretty cool. Their previous incarnation was 'meh', and this is a big improvement.

This isn't a comprehensive list of other tasks - but here goes.
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This week Marsh and I ended up spending a good bit of time doing some bugfixing.

*There was an erratic issue with UI sorting which we found, due to an uninitialized variable somewhere.
*There were some 'dirty pathnode' occupation issues in warping situations that I fixed.
*We fixed an issue with dead boss units on level loads triggering certain events they shouldn't.
*We found a problem with ai-animations not properly updating when offscreen for level owners in certain situations.
*I fixed improper culling of scaled animated background room pieces. I fixed several problems with quest flags not restoring properly.
*We had a problem with magicfind where unnaturally high boosts (which we sometimes use in spawnclasses to guarantee nice items) could pass the max limit and cause unexpected results. I added in protective code which prevents that but maintains the ratio between itemtypes.
*I made it possible for any unit to consistently ignore your pet as a targetable.
*Marsh added the ability to have footstep particles ( he really needed it for one of his boss battles, because it felt lame not to have splashes ). I added some to desert and snowy regions after that went in.
*Some music fading issues with boss battles were resolved.
*I fixed some problems with certain kind of localonly triggerable units pingponging messages in multiplayer
*Matt Uelmen put together a even more cool ambient sounds which Patrick integrated
*Some special modifications were made to the level running up to the last Act 2 boss to make it cooler.
*Erich did some more fishing hole work and some unique work
*Erich did some magicfind balance and made merchants cooler
*Matt worked on NG+ UI stuff and some trailing portal/waypoint UI fixes.
*Achievements are now being hooked up.
*A new unit was made for the last Act 2 boss battle I'm working on right now which should make it much, much cooler.
*Marsh continued to make good progress on his act and fixed bugs
*Everyone everywhere continued with polish.
*Jeff added some more face and hair options, among other things


My plan for next week is to focus almost entirely on skill tree polish for the classes (although I may switch gears throughout the week to help Marsh out on Act 3 )

Thanks all!

Travis

[gold163]

IT BEGINNNNSSSSS

[narbss]

Thanks man

[Shaddw]

Thanks for these updates. I really enjoy reading them.

[Kurrus]

Thanks for the update, great to hear Act 2 is almost finished!

[gameqb11]

cool...1.5 acts to go

[Vortaka]

Thank you for keeping in touch!
And thus, this fan is happy!

Vortaka

[AppleShrapnel]

Thanks for the update, sir.

Delighted to hear more customization options made it in. :3

*We had a problem with magicfind where unnaturally high boosts (which we sometimes use in spawnclasses to guarantee nice items) could pass the max limit and cause unexpected results. I added in protective code which prevents that but maintains the ratio between itemtypes.

So, if you would humor us (or maybe just me, but I doubt it ), what were these "unexpected results"? Was it like magic find was a cat, and the "unnaturally high boosts" was catnip and it just totally spazzed out, causing rares, uniques, set and legendary items to explode out all the crates and mobs?

[Fhaarkas]

What a lovely way to start my Saturday.

[Bulwarkcoco]

<.< add an option to change your beard and whatnot during the game. i FUCKING LOVE beards. o_o

[darknais]

I have a question about unique items that says 50zombies to upgrade it okay I understand this but there will be uniques that can be upgraded more than once?

[Webbstre]

Achievements... steam only or for everyone?

[Zidders]

This gave me a tingle in my pathnode

[Fhaarkas]

Achievements... steam only or for everyone?

Though I'm not much of an achievement whore anymore, it would be cool to have a list of milestones in-game.

[Acalanatha]

Thanks! Everything sounds great! Adding on to what darknais asked, perhaps there could be (or already are) multiple upgradable uniques (i.e. Kill 50 zombies, after that it upgrades once and tells you to kill a zombie champion, then it upgrades again and asks you to kill a specific type of zombie champion)? Just an idea.

EDIT: Could even add special pre/suffixes according to the requirement? (E.g. Zombie-Tickling Hammer of Cuteness and Death)

[TaviMuteo]

FUk yea! i didnt read yet!

[gameqb11]

Thanks! Everything sounds great! Adding on to what darknais asked, perhaps there could be (or already are) multiple upgradable uniques (i.e. Kill 50 zombies, after that it upgrades once and tells you to kill a zombie champion, then it upgrades again and asks you to kill a specific type of zombie champion)? Just an idea.

EDIT: Could even add special pre/suffixes according to the requirement? (E.g. Zombie-Tickling Hammer of Cuteness and Death)

I really hope they put alot of thought into these unique item quest. I also hope a few of them arent easy to complete (at least in NG+) Dont hold back Runic! get as crazy as you can.

[Killmouse]

cool...1.5 acts to go

+ skill tier balance and quality testing


we will probably see the game end of september

[Quantaltro]

Awesome. I'll never get tired to say it. So many things to take care of, so many new problems spawning that need to be fixed in some hours...
I admire all the devs, really, they have superhuman patience and skills.

[Glass]

<.< add an option to change your beard and whatnot during the game. i FUCKING LOVE beards. o_o

It says "*Jeff added some more face and hair options, among other things", put the two together and you get facialhair