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Last week was the first developer meeting of the year and a good time to discuss what comes next for Antilia in 2023. Something I was focusing on in 2022 was getting Antilia to the point that we had regular closed testing again, but most importantly that the game starts to become fun and engaging. We've had a few closed alpha tests, but I'd say we're still not entirely there on either account. I'll save a review of 2022 for the upcoming video update. Plans for Development in 2023In this week's post I'd like to focus on plans for 2023 and what I plan to work on next. In last week's meeting I asked the question "What does Antilia need to become more fun to play?" and was happy when the first responses back echoed my own thoughts - combat and crafting. Right now Antilia has a lot of game systems roughened in, but offers no challenge. There's nothing preventing the player from fully exploring the terrain and opening the scattered treasure boxes, so there's no sense of accomplishment or fun in doing so. So here is a rough agenda for 2023. Work on Antilia always takes longer than I like, so don't expect me to fully meet this timeline - the timeline is just here to set a pace and keep things moving. First QuarterBefore I stop my current tasks and dive into a new set of goals (the shiny new toy) I'd like to spend a couple months wrapping up some of Antilia's current loose ends. NPC Conversations & QuestsObviously I'm still working on the NPC conversation system and a very rough system for jobs or quests. I'd like to get this system a little more functional before moving on. Items still on the to-do list include:
Building SystemThe Building System was disabled for our initial test releases to reduce memory usage and ensure everyone could get into the game successfully. We've gotten that far now - everyone I've invited to help test can get fully in-game without crashing. I'd like to turn the building system back on and address some of the deficiencies of that system so that everyone can get in-game with the buildings in place. Current deficiencies include:
We probably won't quite get to the point that players can own properties and change them, but I think that should wait until after combat anyway. I just want this system in a state where buildings are rendering again and NPCs can enter their homes. (Doing this should reduce the number of NPC merchant tables and objects that have to be rendered in the towns.) Second QuarterIn the second quarter of the year I'd like to start work on a combat system. This will include:
Second Half of the YearWe're getting pretty far out at this point, and past this point the timeline and plan is likely to change. There will without doubt be some weeks or months where Antilia needs debugging and improvement before I can move on. Once we have combat is in place and working good I think it'll be time to open the doors for full community testing. (Mind you I still want to slowly invite more people to test over the first half of the year as well, but it won't be an open invention yet.) After combat I think the next gameplay systems to add will be some crafting systems, and possibly if time permits I'll start work on the magic systems to compliment crafting and provide some puzzle challenges in dangerous areas like ruins. That wraps up my plans for 2023 - please let me know what you think of this in the #development channel of the Discord chat! Antilia 0.12.6 Release and TestLast week I focused development on putting together a new build of Antilia ahead of our monthly developer meeting. This version included the fixes made for AMD graphic cards and a variety of small bug fixes.
The test also discovered some new issues that'll need to be fixed in future updates. Many of those issues were known, just not recorded in our bug tracking channel. NPC ConversationsThe NPC conversation system also received some additional improvements, fixing a few markup bugs and a new system for setting variables when a player selects a response. Last week I also added two new NPCs to the world with full dialog trees. One of those characters was Medai da'Lantros, who had previously appeared at the Two Pools Camp in the Antilia MMO. (He is now stationed at the Isle of Mist). Medai makes his return to Antilia, and has a wealth of exciting information to share with you about Taipii Monohorns! That's all for this week, thanks for reading! |