Happy 20th Anniversary!
Our little video game studio just celebrated 20 years of non-stop weekly adventures. AdventureQuest Worlds celebrated with a special event hosted by Elvira.
A crazy, huge, and fun event with returning guests
It was such an honor to work alongside the guests and team on this release. Special guests include Elvira, Aurelio Voltiare, George Lowe, Chaos Lord Kimberly Freeman, and our Mer'Angel Mia J. Park. Also, Beleen returned to help write the adventures alongside Memet, Alina, and myself. It has been a while since Twitter was filled with that much love and funny screenshots. The entire team went on overdrive to produce an event that big. The whole thing was an absolute blast.
Onto our next big thing... AdventureQuest Worlds: Unity!
The only thing that could have made that event better-- was if it was also happening here in AdventureQuest Worlds: Unity. Well, it will not be long until we are releasing our weekly updates across both games. While I was focused on the anniversary event, Warlic, Yorumi, Tunik, and Zhoom have continued making massive coding progress. Today was our weekly AQW:Unity meeting. When I saw the backlog of updates posts that I did not have to post my jaw dropped. Here they are....
AQ2D Meeting Notes
2022.10.05.(Loot Tables)
- Tunik
- Fixed a bug: The player can click on the loading screen and cause a random input error.
- Fixed a bug: Pressing “discard all” in the loot menu removes items from loot but doesn't add them to the discarded list.
- Loot is now it's own class instead of a mono-behavior with 2 lists on it. It contains functions for moving items. Before the UI scripts would change the lists directly.
- Changed the resolution drop-down to remove the hertz data & duplicates.
- Drop downs are no longer too small
- Loot & discarded inventories are now built on the server during login
- Warlic
- Fixed the Quest Objection notifications so that they no longer overlap when getting multiple Quest Objectives at once.
- Enabled hide/Show Cloak, Helm, Pet, other helms and other cloaks from Options Menu
- Created Server Request/Response for Hide/Show parts to broadcast to other players in the room.
- BUGS
- There is currently a bug in which the shoulder(cloak) and helms are not visible until you go into the options menu.
- There is also a bug where you can get stuck in flame when entering the Options menu. Flame gets fixed if you toggle helm visibility.
- TODO
- Work on the content auto-build system - using aq3d’s as a model.
- Yorumi
- Added mapIDs to quest objectives
- Helped Tunik with loot drops
- Built loot table in the Database
2022.10.12.(Server Commands)
- Tunik
- Set up server commands for moving loot to discarded / discarded to loot
- Set up server response for moving loot to discarded / discarded to loot
- Created client behavior for adding items from discarded back to loot
- Fixed a bug: Items in the loot menu didn't stack. This was causing lots of the null reference errors
- Warlic
- Started work on Server-side save/load Gameplay Options
- Got Content building tools working again on my current work machine
- TextureService
- Flash/DB Item crawler
- TODO
- Finish Server/Client Save/Load for Gameplay Option (show helm, cloak, etc…)
- Create Characters/NPCs Asset creation Project.
- Create Content auto-builder for this game.
- Yorumi
2022.10.26.(Update to Unity 2021 Long Term Support)
- Warlic
- Save/load User Gameplay Options.
- Fixed : Clicking Mainplayer shadow no longer targets main player..
- Updated Surge Asset. added null check for userPrefs.
- Upgrade to Unity 2021 LTS
- Fixed: null userPref - switched to getter/setter to ensure non-null value
- Removed Deprecated Anima2D Library and references in code/assets
- Error on item load progresses to playable state instead of staying in flame.
- Don't show item mobilecompatibility for non-graphic items.
- Tunik
- Fixed a bug: Mobile Chat isn't anchored to the right side of the screen.
- Fixed a bug: Null errors when mobile HUD is loaded
- Fixed a bug: Give the mobile joystick a bigger dead-zone.
- Fixed a bug: Buttons in cutscenes aren't anchored correctly.
- Fixed a bug: Chat messages stack on re-log.
- Fixed a bug: Logging out then logging back in spawns the HUD twice.
- Fixed a bug: Pressing enter to submit a text doesn't work in the mobile chat window.
- Fixed a bug: The notification light graphic is null for some reason. This bug was introduced in the Unity upgrade.
- Fixed a bug: The loot menu tween runs at half the speed of all the other windows.
- Fixed a bug: The quest detail menu gets refreshed when switching tabs even if the highlighted quest is the same.
- Fixed a bug: Tween animations aren't visible when opening the inventory because the game stalls.
2022.11.02.("Artix & Spider Return")
- Announcements
- Morning builds starting tomorrow!
- 20th Anniversary Events were a huge success in AdventureQuest Worlds & AdventureQuest 3D
- Artix back on the project this week
- Spider back on the project starting this week
- Reenas and Artix need to review the tools to make sure the team will have everything needed to rebuild the content
- Almost ready for play testing
- Warlic auto auto published every item that we can auto export with our tools. (23,000 items)
- Yorumi
- Final version of the enhancement system ready for testing (the actual enhancements still need stats defined, but the process is accurate.)
- In theory any dropped weapon will come already enhanced. Players existing inventory is the current issue. (Will add a system that auto enhances an item if you log in have items that do not have enhancements to solve this problem.)
- Tunik
- Show error messages on Login (Need to show if they do not have the badge required to access)
- Playtest & Content Test
- How to get access?
- Give them Badge for Access (Requires badge to Log In)
- Give them Steam Code
- Known Issues
- Font sizes on Mobile are too small in some places
- I pushed the Heart button and... the game crashed?
- Item Completion
- Classes
- Need their own tab
- Need updated distinct Icon for Class (Make inventory wider) - same quality as new icons
- Equipped Items Tab
- Put a yellow line around equipped items
- Enhancement Button
- If you click on pet, the enhancement button disappears and never comes back
Next Goals
Towards the beginning of October, we had a long time AQWorlds player visit the lab. He asked if he could try AQWorlds:Unity and we were eager to see what he thought. We wanted him to log in with HIS character and try it. But his equipped class armors were bugged. Well, they were not converted over yet. There were a lot of problems with his items, hair, etc. So the new prime directive for the team became to make the system bullet proof so that any player can log into the game-- even if their class or gear was not converted yet. The player ended up playing the game on my Artix account. We were silent and waited eagerly to see what they thought. I was very nervous that the difference in graphics or lack of animations on some of the items would be major issues... So we were surprised when they were legitimately surprised and awe'd by how smoothly ran at 60 frames per second at max graphics quality and the background scrolled. They were even more excited when they learned about the ability to also use the WASD movement keys. The final unexpected thing was when they were shocked at how many maps were in the game. J6 had converted the entire town of Battleon and surrounding areas already. He even tried /joining a few random places that.... to his surprise existed (Even though they did not have monsters setup in them yet). After seeing this, we knew we had to start getting the game ready for early forms of testing.
Getting the Game Ready for Testers
- Make the game bulletproof so that anyone can potentially log in to the game (even if their items/classes are not converted yet)
- Get the leveling system and enhancements ready to rumble
- Do a polish pass on the Dragon's Lair and get ready for some super early testing.
The team is now starting every day with a "morning-build" of the game.
This weekend... everyone is flying in!?
Remote team members & VIPs from around the country and Canada are flying in this weekend. J6, Reens, Captain Rhubarb,and others (even Nulgath) will be at the lab on Friday. The 20th Anniversary is a really good excuse to get the whole band together in person. The big thing on everyone's mind will be our strategy to complete and release AQW:Unity. When we get everyone together... SOMETHING always happens. Maybe there will be a good story or two for next week.
See you for next week's update.
Battle on!
Artix & the AQW:Unity Team
Follow us before it's too late!
AQWorlds
Artix Krieger
| Wednesday, November 2, 2022
