Devblogs Condensed: Devblogs #68-69
Howdy everybody, you might remember me from the old subreddit. If you don't, howdy a second time! Every month, I take the monthly devblog that the devs post, and condense it down to "just the good parts" to save you the trouble of trying to find the most interesting parts of the devblog, or sorting through dev-speak to figure out what something means.
I skipped last month's devblog so this month's going to be a double-feature.
Before anything else, I want to preface that due to technical limitations of my weak-ass computer, I haven't been able to directly play the game for some time. So I will be slightly out of the loop on if a change has already been implemented as of last month's devblog. So just pretend that I wrote that post last month when it was still new, aside from the parts that I do know about.
Devblog #68
Another Dondi-only devblog. He leads by talking about how the entire map has been updates. The addition of redwoods and mangroves, courtesy of Jace. Small AI is being pushed for small carnivores, omnivores, and juvies. There may be a test of carnivore sanctuaries in the future. Some biomes that are meant for the dome have been pushed early at Kissen's urging.
Said dome has had a lot of work done on it as well so that we'll eventually be able to access its interiors, which are built absolutely massive, even by dinosaur standards, with side-paths for smaller creatures. A lot of design-work went into making sure that you can avoid encountering other players by taking side routes so you're not trapped into a cramped kill-zone when you go inside. There is then a suite of pictures of the new interiors.
Kentro got pushed to horde-test and its defensive stance is another core mechanic that will be shared with other playables. Once its passive defense and defensive stance mechanics are working, similar mechanics will be going into ceratopsians and, interestingly, spinosaurids. Austro (already) and Ovi will follow Kentro. Ovi goes in before Bary because it developed faster and was easier to implement.
A few videos are shown, showcasing bugs.
I'll skip the paragraph about austro since its already been in people's hands for awhile now. Oviraptor is primarily herbivorous, but has the ability to scent-track active nests. Eggs will give a massive nutrient boost, and this may be shared with other playables in the future, but will be Ovi-exclusive at first. You can, however, save your eggs if you catch the Ovi, picking them up and returning them tot he nest. Ptera is getting buffs to make it a better ground-hunter of small species, it may get a size buff.
Quetz is going to be fragile for its size, but has tools to make it a bit more evasive. A move that attacks forward while retreating backwards is mentioned. Further reiteration of Ava's niche as "The Playable Boar" in the game's ecosystem.
Sound work is wrapping up on Bary, and the next targets for the sound team are Ava, Camara, and Para. Para, as mentioned in the past, will have abilities that benefit you for using its calls. Notes about the new skin system being pushed soon, and eye customization, which I personally know nothing about but he speaks like it's been known for awhile.
Reiteration on the hill-slide mechanic, mostly stuff we already know. He wholly expects us to find some way to break this mechanic. More adjustments are being made to Elders so you spend more time at your peak before your stats drop too severely.
Lastly is the usual monthly suite of creature animations.
My Thoughts:
Short and not especially amazing. Most interesting thing in my opinion was that Ovi is coming soon, and that Quetz is actually going to be frail, as it should be. Otherwise, a lot of it is just reiterations on stuff we already knew.
Devblog #69 (nice)
Filipe's Section - Lead Programmer
Bug fixes on Kentro. Work on the skin system. Not much else to report.
Ariel's Section - Programmer
Bary is a sinker. It stays at the bottom, and it can push off the bottom and swim up, but if you idle anywhere other than the surface, you sink back down to the bottom.
Wedge's Section - Sound Designer
A new sound designer has joined the team, which has sped up sound work. Bary's sounds are even more almost completely done than it was last month. Camara's entering a sound concept phase, its sounds are meant to lean into media-typical sauropod sounds, with an emphasis on its sheer size. The newbie is working on Ava, with an emphasis of preserving its legacy sound identity while also modernizing it.
hypno's Section - Quality Assurance Lead
Apparently Kentro is one of the smoothest rollouts of a new playable in Evrima's history, and it only has a few bugs to iron out before it's pushed to the main branch. He then notes some issues that they've gathered from the hordetest, including:
Server resets sometimes wiping your dino. Eggs locking if someone takes one but never hatches. Rex's spar not working sometimes. ceratopsian horn and stegosaur thagomizers reflect damage, bite-speeds and damage output not lining up, pin counter-damage not scaling correctly, footstep sound issues that make Troodon and Hypsi footsteps too loud, Herrera's drop attack's interactions with Kentro's spikes, removing the stamina cost for body-dragging, and fixing migration zones so they don't get stuck.
Dondi chimes in that this list used to be longer, he abridged for, honestly unclear reasons. (It's Dondi)
The new skin system in the horde-test is still being expanded, this is just the baseline.
Kissen's Section - Producer/Animation Supervisor
Work's being done on polishing up the animations for Kentro, Austro, Ovi, and Ptera. Once those touchups are done, focus is shifting to Bary, Camara, and Quetz in no particular order. but they are the next target creatures to show up in a future hordetest. Ava is officially an omnivore, it even has a meat-eating animation, which is something Ovi is getting too. Which means that Ava and Ovi are going to be the first Omnivores who will actually have reason to hunt. Para is, of course, getting Maia's stance-change, which is going to be shared with all hadrosaurs.
Afterwards comes the usual long suite of animations. The most interesting of which, to me, is the Rex size comparison to Camara.
My Thoughts:
Another fairly short one. Not much exciting new info though. Cool to hear that we're getting our first TRUE omnivores who aren't just "Herbivores who also sometimes eat AI" Hypno, as per usual, is the Devblog MVP in my opinion, being only slightly kneecapped because Dondi cut down the "bugs we know about and are working on" list.
No condensing stats this month because it's 2 devblogs being condensed this time and I don't feel like it.