The sprint meeting took place yesterday and we presented our work and development progress to our peers. There was a film crew present that was getting footage for the making of a documentary. We’re also very happy to have one of our comrades back who was out due to health issues for almost 2 months and was sorely missed.

Before we go into the sprint meeting details, please allow me to address a few points of concern we’ve noticed within the community:

1. The Political Map we were going to launch in February, was not launched for the following reasons: Firstly, the world has changed so much due to the relaunch activities, that we need to wait for everything to be in place. Also, it is no longer just a political map, it is a complete information interface and contains everything inside the Darkfall world. Finally it has been enhanced with many more features. It’s a very powerful tool, which we are still working on and we think it will definitely be worth the wait. We apologize for not mentioning this change of plans specifically, this was an oversight. The mention of an ETA for the political map should have been followed up.

2. The new Siege System Expansion: Is still being tested and (re-)balanced. It’s a massive framework with numerous parameters and it’s taking time. I can tell you that our testers think it’s awesome and that it’s going to improve the experience in a big way. Some more info on the Siege system and a GUI element from it is available in today’s Activity Report. As for an ETA, I’m told it should be out within the month.

3. The Darkfall relaunch: First an ETA: Development should be completed sometime in August and we should know around that time when we’re going to release it and we’ll give out a release date and all the details. This relaunch is not an expansion. It’s a new game we’ve been developing in parallel with the current version of Darkfall. The scope is massive, and it has been difficult to stay on schedule after several unexpected issues we’ve had with the current version, changes and additions we decided to make for the new version, some business developments, and the decision to add the siege system into this version of the game rather than in the relaunch. There are shifting priorities having to do with business issues for this relaunch, and another part being some Asian developments we also need to take into consideration. We can assure you that everything we’re doing in this regard is in the best interest of our players and of Darkfall, and that the relaunch of the game will be very exciting for everyone.

Finally, we try to give you estimates based on our best information at any given time. This is done with the understanding that this is a dynamic environment and that priorities shift every day based on feedback from the live game and from the development process. We understand the frustration of being a player waiting for things to change. We’ve been there, and this is exactly why we’re moving forward with a complete redesign of the game incorporating the lessons learned from the current version, rather than just keep patching up this version. Please know that we are very hard at work trying to make Darkfall the best it can possibly be. We apologize for the inevitable inaccuracies in trying to predict the stages of our development cycle, but we feel it’s better than “it’s done when it’s done”.

On to the sprint meeting:

The redesign of the world continues and the designers and the worldbuilding team has been working long hours. Starting areas and NPC cities have been redesigned in a way to make them practical and easy to navigate while also improving aesthetically. We were presented details on the completed central area spawns and dungeons complexes, also of Yssam, Nifleheim, Rubaiyat and Cairn’s details having to do with dungeons, spawn redistribution and hamlets. We were also shown localized versions of monsters and monster types to suit the variety of the environments of Agon, as well as some of the completely redesigned epic monster lairs and new epic monsters. These were some really amazing details and designs.

Dungeons have continuously evolved to the point that aside of the redesigns, mob placement, new lights and environmental effects, there are also new mechanics introduced. A few nice examples were presented during the meeting: A character navigating a bridge in a massive cavern was trying to avoid massive ice spikes coming out of the walls with Yetis waiting below. Dungeons are no longer static. Doors open and close to protect boss rooms, walls shift to change the dungeon layout, shifting rocks and other contraptions will hinder progress, and various trap types will be sprung on the unsuspecting players.

The new audio system is still receiving enhancements. We’ve noticed complaints on how some of this is boring to read about, however, this audio is really exciting and innovative, and more importantly it’s designed with Darkfall’s unique gameplay characteristics specifically in mind. The music system for example is geared to enhance player immersion and isn’t something repetitive players will turn off right away. Music isn’t constant, but dynamically shifts depending on location and time of day. Day/night cycle related sounds and the dynamic weather audio system has been finalized and the quest sound notification system is also complete. The reverb effect in enclosed spaces is fully implemented and tweaked, and it makes a big difference in how these spaces feel to the player. A new system that allows us to add specific sounds to monsters and wildlife is being developed. Sounds will differ on the state the monster is in and will reflect that state. Finally audio morphing which deals with distortion having to do with player movement, is now implemented. We saw/listened to several impressive demonstrations of these systems.

The new Information Interface we spoke of above, has been getting more optimized, detailed, accurate, practical and helpful with each new build. The latest additions allow us to implement any type of marker faster and more efficiently. There are more zoom levels now that allow you to zoom in all the way to highly detailed images of individual cities.

Also the siege system we spoke of above: As we mentioned in previous updates this is a complete rewrite of the siege system. On our end it’s a siege system tool with numerous configurable parameters. There’s now a new button in the main menu named “Conquest”. This opens up a new window which lists all active attacking and defensive activities a player’s involved in. Right now, there’s no limit on how many challengers can declare a siege on the same holding at the same time. Each clan though pays a higher wager depending on how late it joins in an active challenge, how many clans are involved in the specific challenge, and how many challenges the clan has issued. As you can understand the system is completely open allowing for a single clan to declare siege on multiple holdings and multiple besiegers to contest for the same holding, all that at the same time. When it comes to attackers, scores are calculated depending on clan stone damage and in case the stone is destroyed the city will pass to whichever of the active challengers that dealt the most damage.

The siege system is currently undergoing extensive testing: Challenge initiation, multi-attackers, multi-defenders, siege stone placement, clan size limits, challenge end scenarios and the new conquest interface are all tested and working properly. Wagers paid, wager penalties , wager division, and wall destruction are currently being tested.

The lighting system got some more enhancements, some final adjustments and some issues solved. The blood decals system got more enhancements and the blood splatter effects look really good. All new armors are now in the game and so are their icons and we heard about challenges in refitting everything. Also, 5 percent of the world’s coastline needs to be redone and we have a new vendor creation system in place which allows us to customize vendors even more.

Finally, some of Darkfall’s resources were not loaded asynchronously. A new system is now in place which will fix this and alleviate load lag experienced in various situations.

There’s a lot more that was presented during our sprint presentation meeting and we keep telling you about things we’ve seen and heard, without actually showing you most of them. The reason for this is that these are usually not presentable enough for public consumption, they are developer presentations for utility purposes. However, we’ve decided to start showing you media from our sprint presentations from now on, as long as you can keep these disclaimers in mind. Today we have a video for you of a test of some of the latest additions to the lighting system, and a siege system GUI element. We’ll show more during the course of next week.

Thank you for reading.