This is a repost from City of Steam Dev Journals
The end of Alpha is still a bit hazy, but we’ve all showered, slept and de-caffeinated now (a little, at least). So onwards! Now the whole point of Alpha was to have you delightful folk test the game, shake it up a little and see what breaks. So firstly, a big hearty thank you for all the bug reports, feedback and suggestions!
Now to get down to the fun stuff. We’ve sifted through the ticket system and forums for all the bug reports and issues that were noted. Screenshots were super helpful, especially when descriptions like “I’m stuck in the thing and there’s this wall and can’t see over but there’s a noise and I’m in some dungeon” just left us scratching our head. With a comprehensive list, it was easier to figure out what players were having problems with, and what we really needed to focus on for beta. Even multiple reports were great so we could see if bugs were really bugs or just local computer glitches.
Coding’s been quite busy these last few weeks since Alpha. Basically, the entire client code has been refactored, which in my mind is like a coding spring cleaning.
With a more readable infrastructure, a lot of old functionalities have been migrated to a new client. This has increased the framerate by 15-20fps, so it will help the game perform much better on low-end machines. With an optimized streaming pipeline, players should now be able to enter the game faster as well.
Camera collision-detection has been reworked for the dungeons to allow for better camera angles during combat. Character movement has also been improved, with smoother animation overall.
We’ve also been working a lot on the combat feeling and control scheme for smoother battles. These should be much smoother for Beta. We can also tell you that new features for PvP and the Guild System are also being developed, but not too many details yet, need to leave some surprises! (…Ok, fine, maybe a few spoilers here)
Give us your thoughts in the Forum!
