Happy New Years Everyone,
This is our 6th development post in total and our 1st development post fof 2022 for Ex world Online: Obsidian. During our last devlog, we briefly mentioned how we customized Unreal Engine to fit our needs, created our custom cel shading for our models, switched from PlayFab to MySQL, and other 3D updates that I won’t bore you with.
Over the past 12 months, we were able to accomplish quite a bit, which has pushed us to aim for an open pre-alpha state of the game in the ballpark of July of 2022. You can join our Discord server for more information on that.
OK, let’s jump right into it.
• Ex World Online Obsidian Combat Abilities.
Over the last few months, we were finally able to flesh out all the abilities the current 5 classes in game would have access to, and have set up the logic, effects and status effects of each class. Ex World’s combat at its core, is a rock-paper-scissor type of style, but factoring into that player skill and character progression immediately eliminates that rule. Meaning, players can achieve through skill a mastery over others, which can be demonstrated in our planned Ranked Arena PvP. Currently, the combat system supports a full action combat style but we are integrating a hybrid system to allow certain tab targeted abilities implemented.
Every class will have two universal skills. An active block and iframe dodge ability. Depending on the race and class you play this will cost different resources, but are integral parts of PvP and PvE content, so learning to manage your resources and when to dodge instead of block or vice versa, is critical.
Over the course of the next month, we will be posting previews of the skills on our social media accounts. Please make sure you tune into those to offer early feedback on the visuals, movement and feel.
• Backend Update
We mentioned in our previous devlog that we were switching from playfab, which has been successfully completed and we are now using a custom solution with a .net core 5 api interacting with mysql database, where we have all player/accounts data stored in a database. There is quite a bit to report on this specific topic, but frankly, I could not care less about backend stuff.
• Questing & Leveling Up
Players can now obtain quests from the various NPCs that are placed in the world, which in return gives you XP, silver, resources and gear, AKA - your standard rewards for questing. However, we are taking a couple of steps forward by allowing each NPC to have their own personality meter with the player, depending on how many interactions he has had with given NPC and his reputation in the village/town/city will determine the tier of rewards he will receive upon completion of the quest. There will be several different activities you can engage in with NPCs to increase your renown with them before accpeting quests from them to progress your character level. We hope to touch more on this in one of our streams/videos.
Here are some of the NPCs currently awaiting to dish out their tasks and quests to the players to be seen below: -
• 2D & 3D Concepts
We recently reworked the starter bikini and shorts gear to something more in tune with the lore of the world. The 2D department has had much fun working on these starter clothes and I can’t wait to see them in the project on our characters.
• Nile Island (Alpha Island)
I would say Nile Island has received the most attention in the last few months, with more detail added to this starter island that will serve as a crucible for the three races, and new biomes added to the map to test out new and different features unique to certain biomes. There is still a lot that needs to be done before this island is ready to receive players on a larger scale, but it is getting there.
• Combat & Animation Update
The combat has been something that has gone through a variety of iterations before finally setting on a combination of root motion and split body animations. I believe this approach will add a unique diversity to certain class/race gameplay that and we are eager to test out with the feedback of our community! We will start showing animations blasts to give you guys early iterations, as they are made, either in Discord or on our YouTube channel!
That's all for this month's devlog, hope to see you guys next month with more to report!
Best regards,
Geneva
Community Manager
