So it's been quite a while since I did one of these, but I had some time so here you go. This CC/stream was pretty long and there were a ton of new discussions, including some interesting surprises.
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- E-mail notification for the stream contained an error regarding the time of stream. However, Grummz has noticed the demand for a 3pm PDT stream especially from the EU comuunity, and this might be a consideration for the future.
- Text chat with names of sender, now available, worked on by Fillmore.
- Emoji support available.
- Chat history available, even for chat that has happened prior to the player logging in, helpful for guild chat.
- Graphical overhaul will be part of the kickstarter reveal.
- The team continues to work on the Hub demo. The male and female character overhaul are an integral part of the demo. Female characters are close to being done. The male character texturing is in progress, samples are below:
- The suit worn by the pilot in the picture of the light frame revealed earlier is not the default suit. Players will see whatever cosmetic skin/geesuit they have equipped, while piloting the frame.
- Reveal of the first Kaiju in the build.
Lore Name:
This was a joke, if not obvious. It's just a doodad set up by Fillmore.
- All movement/stand animations are generic placeholder elements. They will be replaced with custom animation once the omniframe model redesign is complete.
- The heavy omniframe is planned to be another 30% larger than shown in the last artwork.
- The light frame is the melee specialist frame. Has high mobility, wall running, dual melee.
- Initial prototype of the light frame will be blocked out with placeholder art in game builds, initially. For kickstarter, the blocks will be swapped out with the final model
- Chat system is barebones. Chat systems are becoming rarer in game, particularly due to rise of VC, discord. Additionally there are new US laws that require TtS and StT support. Accessible and cheap systems are currently not available for indie devs to set these up. Currently a chat system is possible since the game is in alpha state. Once the game goes live, a solution will be required to have TtS and StT systems in game.
- UI Customization: Grummz's opinion: Customization leads to lazy UI design. MMO teams tend to prioritize customization, and as a result neglect optimal workflow. Teams need to start with an optimal workflow, fixed locations for UI elements and avoid overwhelming the user with choice. Solve for the 80-90% use-cases, streamline and polish the system. Once this is done, customization can be added. This prevents situations where the user ends up with broken UI states.
- UI Customization: WoW did their frontend in lua and xml markup, which set the framework for players that wanted to write plugins. Unreal does not support this. As an indie developer, the most the team can promise right now is a largely polished and optimized workflow. The current UI will be overhauled for kickstarter. WoW style customization is not possible. Some customization may be possible depending on the future success of the game. But this means that the customization process will be a lot more difficult since the code was not designed to be customizable from the outset. This means the dev team will have to draw a line at useability and functionality, with gameplay as priority.
- The kickstarter will depend on finishing the kickstarter movie, the art pass and the THMPR calldown demo. The team plans to focus on AI refinements, getting the THMPR demo working, and making enemies more interesting
- THMPR encounter design: Why does the design require that players pick up resources from the ground?
- QoL features for chat, such as copying text, hyperlinking, are planned, but they will likely be worked on only after, and based on the success of, the kickstarter
- Grummz wants a blend of gameplay, epic moments, none/minimal cutscenes to be presented at the kickstarter. The demo will bring a level of interactivity that a simple trailer will not.
- Harrypearce plans to improve the fps counter, with additional data (averages, peaks, lows).
- Question to the community: If you could choose one thing to improve in the demo, what would it be?
- Currently being worked on: Tsi-Hu AI being stripped to core components and adding flavor, stagger, on-hit animations, refining chat system.
- Grummz would like to start work on the light frame to see it’s interaction with the medium frame
- Question to the community: What ability would the community like to see in the kickstarter demo.
- Em-8ER is not a VR friendly game.
- Melee combat: multiple games being reviewed for reference – Sekiro, DMC.
- Afterburner ability being looked at. Conisdering the possibility of it being usable on the ground and knocking enemies over.
- Weapon tiers are not based on energy. Kinetic/plasma weapons are available early in the game.
- Em-8ER twitch channel now qualifies for affiliate status
- Plans to implement updrafts, convert the current jumppad deployable into a geyser that players can fly over and receive an updraft
- There are currently three animators on the team. There are additional animation states for the Tsi-Hu in the works.
- Next demo: jetpack tuning, weapon tuning, gliding tuning, more AI (not confirmed)
XX
- E-mail notification for the stream contained an error regarding the time of stream. However, Grummz has noticed the demand for a 3pm PDT stream especially from the EU comuunity, and this might be a consideration for the future.
- Text chat with names of sender, now available, worked on by Fillmore.
- Emoji support available.
- Chat history available, even for chat that has happened prior to the player logging in, helpful for guild chat.
- Graphical overhaul will be part of the kickstarter reveal.
- The team continues to work on the Hub demo. The male and female character overhaul are an integral part of the demo. Female characters are close to being done. The male character texturing is in progress, samples are below:
- More masculine head in the works.
- Feedback required on hairstyle
- Community opinion sought on stylized hair combined with photorealistic textures
- Realistic hair is an option
- Team intends to set up a vote on realistic hair vs stylized hair after they set up a realistic hair version
- Grummz's opinion: Gamers no longer wish to see pre-rendered content, they need to see gameplay in order to form an opinion of the game. As such, it is essential to get as many aspects of the game trailer as correct as possible in order that it does not detract from other elements of the trailer. One bad element, in this case a bad hairstyle, may be enough to detract form the ‘wow’ moments of the rest of the trailer. Viewers tend to get hung up on such bad elements and it can affect the ovcerall reception of the trailer.- The suit worn by the pilot in the picture of the light frame revealed earlier is not the default suit. Players will see whatever cosmetic skin/geesuit they have equipped, while piloting the frame.
- Reveal of the first Kaiju in the build.
Lore Name:
CHAD
This was a joke, if not obvious. It's just a doodad set up by Fillmore.
- All movement/stand animations are generic placeholder elements. They will be replaced with custom animation once the omniframe model redesign is complete.
- The heavy omniframe is planned to be another 30% larger than shown in the last artwork.
- The light frame is the melee specialist frame. Has high mobility, wall running, dual melee.
- Initial prototype of the light frame will be blocked out with placeholder art in game builds, initially. For kickstarter, the blocks will be swapped out with the final model
- Chat system is barebones. Chat systems are becoming rarer in game, particularly due to rise of VC, discord. Additionally there are new US laws that require TtS and StT support. Accessible and cheap systems are currently not available for indie devs to set these up. Currently a chat system is possible since the game is in alpha state. Once the game goes live, a solution will be required to have TtS and StT systems in game.
- UI Customization: Grummz's opinion: Customization leads to lazy UI design. MMO teams tend to prioritize customization, and as a result neglect optimal workflow. Teams need to start with an optimal workflow, fixed locations for UI elements and avoid overwhelming the user with choice. Solve for the 80-90% use-cases, streamline and polish the system. Once this is done, customization can be added. This prevents situations where the user ends up with broken UI states.
- UI Customization: WoW did their frontend in lua and xml markup, which set the framework for players that wanted to write plugins. Unreal does not support this. As an indie developer, the most the team can promise right now is a largely polished and optimized workflow. The current UI will be overhauled for kickstarter. WoW style customization is not possible. Some customization may be possible depending on the future success of the game. But this means that the customization process will be a lot more difficult since the code was not designed to be customizable from the outset. This means the dev team will have to draw a line at useability and functionality, with gameplay as priority.
- The kickstarter will depend on finishing the kickstarter movie, the art pass and the THMPR calldown demo. The team plans to focus on AI refinements, getting the THMPR demo working, and making enemies more interesting
- THMPR encounter design: Why does the design require that players pick up resources from the ground?
Omniframes have high air mobility, and can simply stay in the air and conduct combat. The team wants to introduce an element of risk vs reward: land, pick up resources and thereby take a bigger risk to acquire these resources
- QoL features for chat, such as copying text, hyperlinking, are planned, but they will likely be worked on only after, and based on the success of, the kickstarter
- Grummz wants a blend of gameplay, epic moments, none/minimal cutscenes to be presented at the kickstarter. The demo will bring a level of interactivity that a simple trailer will not.
- Harrypearce plans to improve the fps counter, with additional data (averages, peaks, lows).
Intends to change the font of the HUD, opinions invited.
Plans to redo the layout of the options screen
Additional Simple and advanced switch for options for kickstarter
- Current subscriber count: 1280- Question to the community: If you could choose one thing to improve in the demo, what would it be?
- Currently being worked on: Tsi-Hu AI being stripped to core components and adding flavor, stagger, on-hit animations, refining chat system.
- Grummz would like to start work on the light frame to see it’s interaction with the medium frame
- Question to the community: What ability would the community like to see in the kickstarter demo.
The next ability worked on will be turrets, based on discord community request.
- Em-8ER is not a VR friendly game.
- Melee combat: multiple games being reviewed for reference – Sekiro, DMC.
- Afterburner ability being looked at. Conisdering the possibility of it being usable on the ground and knocking enemies over.
- Weapon tiers are not based on energy. Kinetic/plasma weapons are available early in the game.
- Em-8ER twitch channel now qualifies for affiliate status
- Plans to implement updrafts, convert the current jumppad deployable into a geyser that players can fly over and receive an updraft
- There are currently three animators on the team. There are additional animation states for the Tsi-Hu in the works.
- Next demo: jetpack tuning, weapon tuning, gliding tuning, more AI (not confirmed)
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