Day of Dragons - News - Dev Blog #23 | eprison.de

Hello, everyone!

It's time for another Dev Blog!

During the last few months, our team has been working on a variety of projects, including preparing for the 1.0 update as well as getting things started for what comes after. Our animators and modelers have added the finishing touches to the dragons coming in 1.0 and the current dragons from Legacy Beta and have moved on to work on dragons for the 1.1 update. For the first time in a long time, we are all caught up on animations and are able to work ahead while we wait for the coding, sound, and vfx to catch up.

Update 1.0 is still planned for a 2023 release. All models and animations have been finished for 1.0 but we are still working on coding and integration as well as some sound and visual fx and UI. Thank you to everyone who participated in our Open Testing events that were held. We hope you enjoyed your taste of Update 1.0. Thanks to you, we were able to pinpoint some huge bugs that were causing major performance issues with large numbers of players in the same area. We were also able to test out our portal systems with a over-capacity server and can confirm that they work great. Much of the work we have been doing since the last development blog has been stabilizing the current build and working through various UE5 issues to get DoD to a playable state and working on some of the new creatures coming to the game including the new Sand Snapper and the new Tidal Shock - a class 6 Lightning Lung Drake that will make its debut as a free starter dragon when we introduce the underwater biomes.

Now a word from the Lead Dev.

Hey all, Jon Slabaugh here. I don't have a lot to talk about in this blog. I just wanted to say thank you for your patience and support. We're working hard to get update 1.0 out and making progress, a little each day, and one day, it will be time to release it to everyone. A lot of time has been spent adjusting to Unreal 5 and the new (and often buggy) technology. With UE5.2, a lot of the issues we were facing have been fixed and we're able to proceed, even though trying to work through those issues slowed us down quite a bit. But, that's all in the past and we're moving forward on the programming/integration side again. We can also confirm the system requirements for update 1.0 which is higher than our Beta Legacy build due to using UE5 and the new technology it provides. UE5 is heavy on the graphics side of things so you will need at least Windows 10/11 64bit and a RTX 2060 to run the game well. However, it will technically run with a GTX 960 but it is not recommended for performance reasons. RAM is not heavy, so you should be good with 8GB, but to future proof your system, you'll want 16GB. We are also no longer supporting Linux clients or Vulkan, Most of UE5's new tech right now only supports DirectX 12 with SM6.6 which is why you need at least a GTX 960, as older cards do not support DX12 + SM6.6. We'll still of course support Windows and Linux servers, but servers do not render anything so don't need DirectX/Vulkan, etc.

One last thing before I go, we read your feedback regarding the new Creator Skins and stats. We have decided to make Creator Skins and other special loot drop skins like the Sand/Snow Slayer skins, a cosmetic overlay skin that you can equip and unequip giving you that appearance without affecting nesting. So you will nest in whatever your real skin is, not the special skin you're wearing. Doing it like this solves a lot of community concerns. This allows us to keep the skins out of the nesting system so they can't be passed on and also allows players to continue to nest and pass on their stats and stat up.

Once again, thank you all for believing in us and being a part of our journey, from Kickstarter to Alpha, from Alpha to Beta, and from Beta to Release 1.0 and beyond! We appreciate you.

- SuperRhino
Lead Developer

The Elementals Have Arrived

The Elementals are officially here. These creatures will bring a new aspect to game play, being the first non-dragon playable and filling the role of an enemy to all dragonkind. Made for combat, Elementals have multiple powerful attacks including stomping, swiping, throwing, pounding, stabbing, and their deadly bile attack.

The Bile Attack of the Elemental

Elementals are alien to the world of Jrakhon and are unlike any of the other creatures found in the world. Unlike the playable dragon species, Elementals will not have a "hatchling" or "juvenile" stage and will instead spawn as their adult size. This also means that Elementals will not hatch out of eggs either. Instead, Elementals will spawn in from dormant rock shards buried in the world's crust.

Test of Magma Elemental Spawning

They will also not leave a body for their enemies to feast on as they are not made from flesh and bone like other creatures. Upon death, the Elementals will break into large rock fragments that crumble away. While they don't leave a meal, they will leave something else that dragons will find very valuable.

Test of Magma Elemental Despawning

Development wise, we are nearly finished with the Magma Elemental's addition to the game. We still have some aspects of its gameplay to add and some others to polish before it will be completed. If you would like to see a more in depth view of the Magma Elemental, make sure to check out our latest Development Livestream in which we featured this monster.

Getting Ready For After 1.0...

Singe Crest Updated Model

While most of our team is working on the 1.0 update, some of our developers are further along than others. Our modeling team is usually several steps ahead of the animation and coding departments, meaning they work on content for future updates.

Our modeler finished preparing the next dragon models. In the 1.1 update, we will be bringing the Singe Crest and Brood Watcher (aka the Nurse Dragon) to the game. These two dragons were Kickstarter Stretch Goals and will be auto-unlocked for all Kickstarters. Non-kickstarter Players will be able to permanently unlock these species per server through gameplay.

Brood Watcher Updated Model

Like with all of our wyverns, we have gone back and done some tweaks to the Singe Crest. We have increased his leg and neck length and he will be our first bipedal dragon. We also made some tweaks to the baby morph's legs and neck.

Hatchling Singe Crest Model

Our animation team has already begun working on these two new dragons, with the Brood Watcher already having some of her animations finished.

Brood Watcher Walk Animation

Brood Watcher Flap Animation

In addition to the dragons, our modeling team is also working on biome-variants of some of the AI creatures. Our first variant will be a new species of Snapper AI. This species, known as the Sand Snapper, will be found in the dangerous dunes and will hide under the sand like other predatory species in the area. We plan to create more AI biome-variants in order to make the world feel full and alive.

As an extra bonus to this blog, here is a look at the Biolumin Dragon's fierce new physical attack, the angry bio boop. Since this is a cosmetic dragon, the attack will of course do no damage, but that doesn't stop the bio from trying.

Angry Adult Bio Boop

Angry Baby Bio Boop

Thanks for reading and following along with our development!

Dev Q&A Livestream

Our next Q&A livestream has not yet scheduled. Stay tuned and watch for updates to find out when the next one will be!

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!