It has been a while since we have done an official Development Blog. The 1.0 Countdown took the place of our last one, but we will try to begin posting monthly blogs to keep you all up to date on the game's development. This blog will be looking at what the 1.0.0 update has brought and what is in the works for the updates to come.
The 1.0.0 update has been met with some mixed reviews and contained a number of optimization issues and bugs - some of which were fixed in the various hotfixes released, but some can't be fixed until 1.0.1. Aside from that, 1.0 also contained a lot of new and exciting content, some of which isn't directly visible, but lays the groundwork for some pretty awesome stuff coming in the future such as Skin Crafting. The 1.0.0 update is just the start of the 1.0 Soft Release and we will be addressing common issues as we continue to work through the 1.0 Soft Release schedule.
We understand many of you were frustrated that the scheduling has been changed with the Soft Release and 1.0 in general. We pushed ourselves very hard to reach the February 17th release date with as much finished content as we could. Some of our staff even skipped sleep some nights to continue working on the update. As a result, brains were fried, bugs were missed, and some aspects of the release suffered, but we didn't want to push it back again. After taking time to reflect, we have decided that release dates are not something we can continue giving due to the pressure it puts on us to finish in time and the disappointment it causes fans if we don't make it in time, so for the mental and physical health of our team, we are no longer giving public release dates unless whatever we are releasing is already done and ready. This allows our team to focus on what is important (quality) and properly test the updates before releasing them.
What 1.0.0 Achieved
While the reception of the 1.0.0 update has had mix reviews, we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish with this update. Moving from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, to future proof our game being one of them.
The new engine allows us to have a lot of features we couldn't in UE4. One of the most noticeable features is the new lighting, which brings our models to life in a new and amazing way. Our dragons look better than ever and no longer have dark, unnatural shadowing caused from UE4's global dynamic illumination. UE4 works best with baked/static lightning and struggled with realtime lighting needed for time-of-day environments. We are also able to expand our world and create bigger maps than what was available in UE4 thanks to UE5's 64bit float precision. This update also came with new and improved servers, which have shown to be extremely stable and preforming well even with the stress of our 1.0.0 launch day, which smashed our all-time concurrent player record telling us that a lot of people want to play Day of Dragons, but not in it's current state... hence the player drop.
With new technologies come new problems as you all are well aware. Frame Rates have dropped considerably in 1.0 compared to Legacy, this is largely due to UE5's Nanite (video memory) and Virtual Shadow Maps (frame rate). We're also aware of issues with the new map, dragon hitboxes being broken in pvp, incompatibility with older PC hardware causing a lot of players to not be able to play with their friends. We appreciate the feedback and have been exploring options to resolve all of these issues causing patch 1.0.1 to take longer than we had expected, because we want to fix these issues when this new patch drops. We want the game to be beautiful but also playable with 30-60fps. There are currently a few options we are considering while weighing the pros and cons of each and at the time of this writing, we just finished up a meeting discussing our plans for fixing all of these issues in the 1.0.1 Patch.
Servers in 1.0 have been extremely stable and now have more config options than ever - even the option to host your own LAN server.
1.0 was our biggest update ever and brought a completely revamped map and two new dragons to the roster, but 1.0.0 was just the first of the 1.0 Soft Release schedule which some of you are enjoying, while others wait for 1.0.1-1.0.4. We are looking at all of our feedback and will be using it to improve on the upcoming updates. The 1.0.0 update was just the beginning of many things to come for Day of Dragons.
What 1.0.1 Will Bring
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With our last hotfix for the 1.0.0 update finished, we are now working on 1.0.1 which will include the following:
Blitz Striker
The most anticipated feature coming in the 1.0.1 update is the Blitz Striker. This dragon is our first amphithere and first lightning type playable in game. It will be a DLC dragon and, like all of our DLCs, it can be nested in and be played for free for players who do not wish to or can not afford the DLC. While some players may not like paid DLCs, they help us fund development with rising costs of inflation and cost of living without having to increase the cost of the game.
While most of the Blitz's models and mechanics have been finished for some time, we had unfortunately found issues with the model that needed to be addressed (who knew babies needed to blink?). Unfortunately, when we find issues with the models, the textures, rig, and animations must be reworked as well to fit the new model. We have finished the updates and now just need to plug all the components into the game and start testing.
The Blitz will be bringing many new mechanics into the game, including the ability to stun other dragons. If done incorrectly, stunning mechanics can be too overpowering and ruin the gameplay experience. We are going to take our time in testing these new mechanics in order to balance this new dragon with the rest of the world.
Weather
With the Blitz will also come a new weather system. Some of you may have already experienced some of the weather changes while our developers have been online. The weather is already in game, we just need to hook it up to work on its own and with the Blitz as well as to implement an option to turn off lightning flashes for users prone to seizures. The Blitz Striker will be able to replenish its bile at any time during a lightning storm, being the first dragon to be affected by weather changes.
New AI
Patch 1.0.1 will be introducing the long-time-coming Swamp Snapper which has been finished for quite some time. The Swamp Snapper will lurk in bodies of water and will need to be lured out to kill. Running into water to avoid combat has never been more dangerous! But having a larger AI will make feasting and surviving much easier.
Optimizations
We are working hard on optimizing DoD for UE5 and are working on a solution that combines LOWSPEC with MAIN so that players using older hardware are no longer separated from their friends.
Bug Fixes and Other Tweaks
Along with the new content we will be working on fixing bugs that players have been reporting since the 1.0.0 update. One of the main bugs we will be focusing on is the hitbox bug in PvP. While we have an idea of what may be the issue, we are going to investigate further and test the hitboxes before releasing Patch 1.0.1. The hitboxes and combat balancing had been tested last year when we first introduced the Inferno Ravager to the testing server and no issues were reported at that time, but like anything, implementing new game code may inadvertently break old code.
We will also be focusing on the optimization of the game and map. We will be adding more food spawns and sources to keep players fed while they grow and more spawn locations to prevent spawn camping. We are currently investigating a bug that is preventing some of the spawn locations from working properly. We have also been exploring mechanics to limit spawn killing overall and give hatchlings a safer area to grow.
Overall, the 1.0.0 update has been a success for Day of Dragon's early-access development. It was designed to lay the groundwork for the rest of the 1.0 Soft Releases as well as future updates and did just that. From the response of the 1.0.0 release, we know our players are very passionate about Day of Dragons and so are we, and our team is committed to bringing you all the best dragon survival game on the market. Quality, however, takes time. So thank you for your feedback and patience while we work towards bringing you the next piece of the 1.0 puzzle, Patch 1.0.1, which we hope will resolve all the issues players had with 1.0.0.
Thank you for playing our game.
From the Community
Each blog post, we pick some of our favorite screenshots and artwork posted by the community to showcase here. Want a chance for your submission to be showcased on our next blog? Post it in the appropriate channels on our discord!
Some of our favorite recent screenshots...
by blakelyexp
by syperius
by reubs_93Some of our favorite artwork from the community...
by ashutm
by lolpyi
by tempest2189As always, thank you for your support and see you for the next Dev Blog!
~The Day of Dragons Development Team
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