Chief Chat July 30, 2018 Posted!

[Grummz]

For those of you who missed it, the Chief Chat video from Monday has been posted to our YouTube channel!

 

[Mahdi]

Totally thinking of Patrick Warburton's "all right!" scream right now.

 

[Pandagnome]

Can we have what is that song game for next chief chat?

Aim is to guess the song that someone attempts to sing, hum or immitate the instruments of a song incredibly well or very strangely.

Whoever guesses the song right wins

Ronyn or mark has to start this game first or do a duet!

 

[Wyntyr]

Excellent chat! Heard some interesting things in there. Wish I coulda been there live. Can't wait for the next one!

 

[Maven]

So I know this is extremely late, but I finally got around to pulling out important details from the Chief Chat and listing them down. While most have already watched the video or been a part of the Chief Chat, I'll leave this here as a reference. This only includes details that are either in the works, or those planned to be implemented with some certainty.

System Updates

• Prototypes are currently being white boxed
• Jetpacks and Gliders are in a working state
• A New Locomotion system – ALS is being implemented. This will be combined with IKinema which will enable procedural generation of animation (I believe this is what is referenced in the video, do correct me if I’m wrong)

The following is a link to the above system for reference:

General

Note: For those new to the game, skip to 10:13 in the video for an overview of what Em-8ER is all about.

• Terraformed zones will be around 4 to 8 km wide, which is the maximum possible size without the necessity for custom coding
• Skip to 16:16 for an overview of the Milestone Funding Program

Playable Mockup Status

• THMPR unit: completed
• Omniframe unit: nearing completion
• Humans/Player Characters: built and being animated
• Tsi-hu humanoid form: built and being UV unwrapped, being prepared for texturing and moving into rigging and animation
• Tsi-hu Beast mode: in prototype state
• Kaiju: The first Kaiju is currently being worked on

Upcoming Deliverables to backers

• Intermediate build – A new art demo is in the works. This will allow backers to log into servers, view the characters, omniframe and THMPRs up close in default terrain
• Omniframe movement demo will be delivered after the aforesaid art demo

Mobility and Combat

• Kaiju battles are to be somewhat akin to those in MH, they won’t be simple bullet sponges
• Mobility will be Firefall-esque, with refinements
• Jumpjets have more stability while hovering and a dodge functionality
• Weapons can be deployed during gliding. Players can hold down shift to independently aim from the direction of glide
• Landing after a glide will also involve a bit of skill. Come in too steep and you will crash/roll and ragdoll. Land properly and you can continue running.

Cosmetics

• Achievement-based cosmetics are not under consideration yet, however there is agreement that there needs to be a manner to acquire cosmetics outside of buying them outright
• Cosmetics can be a shader, color shift or an entirely new mesh geometry

Omniframe Update

• There will be a deviation from the original plan for omniframe builds
• Light, Medium and Heavy Omniframes were originally planned to be the same size and same frame with minor cosmetic variations.
• A new look will be offered: Light omniframes will be smaller and more compact, heavy omniframes will be beefier and chunkier than the medium frame. Thus, each frame Light, Medium and Heavy, will have its own distinctive look.

Crafting system

• Research tree will have to be unlocked: invest resources to unlock different recipes and work down into different paths on the tree. This opens access to recipes. There are some pre-requisites, e.g. Unlocking Xeno-tech will require you to have Kaiju parts or Tsi-hu weapon parts
• Resources will have to be invested into crafting weapons and abilities

Dropships

• THMPRs shall be delivered by dropship
• Gliding and glider-pads: the current plan is to make it such that gliding can be initiated from anywhere on the map without having to set down or use a separate glider pad
• Omniframes will also have the skim mode of transit available
• Following the above, there will likely be no dropship transit system within zones, instead they may be used as a way of transitioning between zones

More General Stuff

• Trading and Auction house is a planned feature right after launch
• Guild Support will be available
• Fillmore has prototyped the afterburner. This will likely be a slotted movement ability with directional movement
• Ricardo is working on the glider system
• Thermals over lava flows have been prototyped. These thermals can be used while gliding
• No quests and raids are planned for the first phase of the game. This may be under consideration for future addition depending on how successful the game is.
• Power system for omniframes: power can be distributed between weapon, mobility and defense, on the fly.
• In order to reduce player concentration in a small locale, and avoid lagfests akin to Thump Dump, invasions will cover entire zones, with battles at multiple locations at the same time. Dynamic phasing akin to WoW may be utilized to reduce load, but is not under consideration yet.
• Lore/Storyline will be told through recordings and text scattered throughout the world.
• Invasion difficulty will be scaled dynamically based on the number of players in the region and the tier of technology they are at.
• Discord will be integrated into the game and will provide VoIP and chat functionality, this is planned to be made available and working for the playable mockup

Post-launch plans

• Army mechanics
• Dynamic event system with an AI director as was planned to be implemented in Firefall
• Vehicles such as tanks and aircraft are planned to be implemented further into the future.