DEVLOG 01 – A Journey Begins

Hello, World!

Welcome to the first of many developer blogs for project Ex World Online. These blogs will be written every month for you to digest should you wish to keep up to date with where our game stands in terms of progress towards an eventual launch. Committing to that is a bit daunting to be honest with you, in 2021 there will be 53 Fridays alone…
So where do I begin now that you know we are in the prototyping phase? I suppose with the following tidbits…

• The project is fully funded, any fundraising efforts will be for marketing events and community building.

Z House Studios is funded by an automotive company in Dubai as part of their R&D branch. I acknowledge that fact is amusing… but it is the truth, and ultimately it means we can comfortably push forward without a Kickstarter or some other form of crowdfunding. As we do, our budget will increase which in turn will allow us to hire on all the talent we require to make Ex World Online a reality.

• Project Ex World Online, what is it?

Simple Answer: Anime inspired Action Combat MMORPG.

Long Answer: An action combat MMORPG (With an anime inspired art style) that seeks to blend theme park mechanics with a bit of sandbox gameplay at end game. As the game develops we will share more of our GDD and design principles with the community, we want you to be part of the process and to understand our intentions.

• The project started on Unity, but switched to Unreal Engine 4 roughly six months ago (Ideally we’ll end up on UE5 sometime in 2021)

Unity is a great engine, but not so much for the type of game we are making. Unreal Engine 4 allows us to create the world we want with fewer limitations. Unreal Engine 5 starting to roll out next year is just icing on the cake.

• We are experimenting with Spatial OS

Though not married to the technology / service, we are seeing good results through our initial implementation of mechanics using Spatial OS (https://improbable.io/multiplayer-networking). If everything continues to go well it will allow us to develop a more complex world than we would otherwise be able while keeping system requirements on PC reasonably low. It is also important to note that in choosing to use Spatial OS we are using a custom branch of UE4.

• We are targeting both PC and next gen consoles (Xbox Series S / X + PS5)

It only makes sense to develop the game with consoles in mind on top of PC, particularly with the power the new consoles bring to the table. Not only do console gamers represent a huge pool of potential players… but with how much more common cross-play is becoming we may find ourselves in the fortunate position of it possibly being a reality for our MMO that all players regardless of which platform they choose to play on are all on the same server(s). I obviously cannot commit to that as I cannot predict the future, just know it is on our minds as we push forward.

So where are we at beginning of 2021?

Using a mixture of our own animations and store-bought art assets we are defining the feel of our games combat, and although we ultimately need to rewrite the blueprints that make up our combat system in C++ for more flexibility, progress is being made every day. Alongside the games combat the backbone of Ex World’s user interface, networking, and NPC AI are taking shape. Outside of the realm of coding several scenes have been created for our prototyping needs, as of writing this we have an island map meant to simulate how we envision players starting their journey in the game, a dungeon to help us develop boss encounters / dungeon mechanics, and a PvP map where we can begin experimenting with instanced PvP game modes when ready.

At the bottom of this post I will include some screen shots to showcase some of what is being worked on. Please note that every art asset in our prototyping phase (Outside of the User Interface) is from the unreal engine marketplace. We have begun the creation of our own art assets, and we are hopeful that we will have enough to show you guys by our next monthly development update.

Bottom line we have a long way to go before release, however, the journey will be exciting… particularly the next few months as we fill vacant positions on the team and begin to see the game take on its own unique look.

So what can you expect from dev logs moving forward?

• Weekly (Friday)

Like alluded to at the beginning of this post there will be a written dev log once a week. With that I will discuss which aspects of the game have improved or been worked on since the last week. Some weeks may be more exciting than others, but I will always include several new screen shots of the scenes being worked on.

• Monthly (Starting January 2021)

At the end of every month, members of our Team will go on camera and attempt to showcase what is new in Ex World Online. Perhaps I’ll have other developers join me in a call, perhaps not. Only time will tell. It will be these vlogs that allow us to give you a closer look at our game running as development progresses.

In closing I will simply leave you with this. We are excited to show you our vision for what Ex World Online will be, and I hope you decide to keep track of our progress through these dev logs… because if no one does why am I doing this?

Best regards,

Geneva