Project status, work in progress and call for contributors news

PROJECT STATUS AND PROGRESS UPDATE.

Firstly, I'd like to say hi and thank everyone who has shown their support and love to Arx Insanity over the years. We're thrilled to be a community of over 1200 members on Discord and that fact holds great significance for us. If you're interested in becoming a part of our community, engaging in discussions about Arx, or keeping track of Arx Insanity's internal updates, we invite you to join the Arx Server below::

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PROJECT STATUS AND RELEASE UPDATE

We feel it's crucial to be honest and forthcoming about the current state of the mod and its development. Your unwavering support and anticipation for the game have meant a great deal to us over the years

We believe in being direct and transparent with you. At present, the Arx Insanity development team has disbanded, with the majority of its members having departed from the project. As a consequence, the official releases are now on hold, and the release date is yet to be determined (TBD).

We understand that this news might be disappointing, but we want to be open about the current state of affairs. Despite the setback, we deeply appreciate the support you've shown us throughout this journey. We will keep you informed about any future developments, and we thank you for your understanding and patience during this time.

Over time, several members made the decision to leave the project due to various reasons, including personal commitments, changes in their private lives, a loss of interest in the project, or a desire to invest their time in other endeavors. These departures have had a cumulative impact on the project, reaching a critical point over the past years and months.

At present, we have a significantly reduced team with only 2 or 3 members actively involved in the main development. The limited work and time has inevitably affected the pace of progress.

FINAL RELEASE DATE IS NOW TBD

We had set multiple dates in mind, including testing phases to ensure a stable and polished release experience for the public. We were genuinely confident about these release plans. However, the unexpected departure of team members and the subsequent lack of staff have overwhelmed us. Despite our best efforts to work swiftly and meet the announced dates, the reality of the situation has made it difficult to achieve those targets. The sheer amount of work that needs to be done, coupled with the limited team size, has resulted in an overwhelming and unmanageable workload in recent months.

We are fully committed to bringing this project to a proper and successful conclusion, realizing the vision we set out to achieve. While the project has become ambitious with various ideas and add-ons, we understand that it's time to prioritize and focus on accomplishing those essential elements to ensure decent results. To ensure a smoother and faster development process, we have made the decision not to introduce any new delays, unexpected ideas, or major changes from this point onward, allowing us to concentrate on completing the core aspects of the game.

*At this time, we're unable to provide an estimated release date for the public version or testing phases. The game still requires completion and polishing, and we want to ensure a high-quality experience before making it available to the public, Managing time and schedules has been difficult, especially with team members having other commitments like work. Additionally, relying on voluntary contributions and pending assets has introduced further complexities into the development process, We acknowledge that we rushed the previous release date announcements due to the community's requests for official dates. However, unforeseen complications arose during development, causing delays and subpar results. This, coupled with personal stress, has impacted the progress.

The current situation has led to a crisis within the team. Dealing with difficulties, lack of personnel, time constraints and RL work or activities can be incredibly challenging. The overwhelming nature of the development process, combined with the burden of working alone on the mod for most of the time, has added to the complexity.

I want to extend my heartfelt apologies for the delays and challenges we've faced during the development of Arx Insanity. I feel deeply frustrated and even a bit ashamed that things haven't progressed as smoothly as we had hoped,I've decided to prioritize my peace of mind and creativity, and I will be continuing the development at my own pace, I believe that approaching the project with passion and without pressure will lead to a better result in the long run. Though my available time is limited to around 2 or 3 hours a day, I promise to make a dedicated effort to move forward steadily.

I want to take a moment to give a special shout-out to my dear friend Bjarky, our talented Art Director and Lead 3D Artist. Bjarky's incredible dedication and hard work on creating stunning weapons and 3D models for the game have earned him the well-deserved position he holds, his passion and unwavering enthusiasm have been a tremendous source of inspiration for me. Witnessing his boundless energy and creativity in action has motivated me to keep pushing forward with the mod. His contributions have truly transformed the project, bringing in fresh perspectives and designs for weapons and models.

A short summary of recent add-ons and Implementations

• We have 81 different and unique weapons, all designed by our lead 3D artist, Bjarky. These weapons have been remastered with new 3D models, some are also brand new
• We're proud to introduce a new time system in the Arx universe, where each in-game day spans 6 real-life hours. This time system adds a dynamic element to the game, allowing players to utilize time strategically for various interactions, shops, NPCs or quests, for instance, players can only save Shany during the early morning hours from 10:00 am to 10:20 am.
• NPCS in the City Of Arx now have activities and routines, for example, Shopkeepers, for example, can be found at their stalls during the day but not at night. NPCs also engage in random activities, bringing the city more life and authenticity.
• We've introduced a new sleep system to the game, where player sleep is now a must, but we've ensured it won't be annoying. This addition aims to enhance immersion and offer you the option to skip time when needed, especially if you want to attend a specific event.
• We've implemented new weapon balances that give each weapon a unique identity with distinct stats and properties. This update allows players to explore a more varied and personalized experience, as they can now weigh the pros and cons of different weapons and tailor their builds accordingly.
• We have a new weapon class "maces", they will have unique stats and the ability to damage heavy armor.
• New passive ability "Armor rend", designed for heavy armor damage, against heavy armored enemies.
• We have a new agility system, based in weight, we can have heavy armors and very dangerous double axes or big shields but they will cost a bit of movement depending on how heavy the player is.
• We are changing the boss fights as well, for example with the ice dragon, he has new attacks and decisions, in addition that it now can fly during a combat.
• Akbaa boss fight will be totally reimagined and imrpoved so this is one of the hardest parts to make nowadays.

• Temple of akbaa is now darker and raw, you can see a really evil cult over there
• Some cut-scenes have been improved or even reworked, for instance, we have a richer cinematic with more details and even new OST music when some characters meet themselves in a certain point of the game
• Almost all scripted systems in Arx are reworked, fixing bugs or simply making them more credible
• We have a new thief system, some of you already tried it out with Tizzy at the tavern, but now NPCs reacts to robberies, for example in the bank or some specific locations.
• We changed the art direction of some levels to make them more atmospheric and immersive, you will notice that some locations are totally different for for good reasons and you will still be familiar with them.
• We added a new fishing system, that let you immerse yourself a bit more into fishing, with real time animations and player's actions when using a fishing rod, completing it with new systems when you success but also you have chance to fail, also when using this and you are out of a fishing area or a level.
• We have new secrets, plot and surprises in one of the troll mines.
• The Brotherhood of Gem Dealers now make its own appereance in the game
• We have a redesigned smithy so we can have a larger variety of options and weapons to buy.
• Quivers have now extended purposes and functions, we have empty quivers now, and semi full, you can add arrows to them to reload your archer arsenal, the arrows you add, the arrows you will have in your quiver
• Now we have arrows very present in the game, you can buy them or find them in different levels and locations, you can use a single arrow, stacks of them or even combine with quivers, all options can be used with a bow

Crypt changes

Well the crypts are one of the levels that were totally changed and we still working on it, some of the changes and addons are:

• Crypts are now darker and more immersive, adding visual storytelling to enhance the experience.
• Extended lore, rituals and fresh stuff to bring more life to the levels.
• New puzzles, some of them reimagined, changed with different solutions or even new ones.
• We have new traps and credible events inside the crypts.
• Undead opponents are now formidable, instilling a sense of danger and fear. They are no longer to be taken lightly, and facing them will require caution and skill. Engaging with undead creatures is now a risky and tricky endeavor, earning them the respect they deserve.
• Mummies may have reduced resistance, making them easier to eliminate, but don't underestimate their threat! These formidable opponents are highly damaging, forcing you to devise new tactics and strategies to defeat them
• On the other hand, liches will be transformed into mini boss fights, each possessing unique and distinct abilities that set them apart from other ones
• Brand new and mysterious enemies await you
• Now we have lore about ghosts or better known as "The voices".
• If you have the ability a hidden world of secrets and ghostly actions will be unveiled.
• While preserving the original locations, we're also embracing new artistic directions and designs to create even more unique and captivating places within the crypts.
• There are new surprises but we don't want to spoil them now

ARX INSANITY LITE VERSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED

We have decided not to create a low-resource version due to the substantial growth and the addition of intricate details to the environments and textures, making such a version would mean compromising a significant amount of content from the full version. We will see later if we implement more quality options, allowing users with older hardware to have access to the mod. Currently, the mod consumes a total of 4-6GB VRAM, which can be challenging to translate into a simplified version. However, we believe that Arx Insanity should take at least a small leap forward, as hardware has advanced significantly. If we resurrect the plans for this version in the future... we will see, but it's cancelled at the moment.

THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND SEE YOU IN THIS JOURNEY

Thank you for your unwavering support and understanding. We're fully committed to delivering a good experience for you in Arx Insanity. This journey has been a learning process, and thanks to the perspective shared by your friend Saggi, we are more inspired than ever to infuse this project with passion and love. It's a big journey and we get experiences from the beginning so we want to still giving love to Arx and we are dedicated to finishing this project with our goals. We periodically post in our discord server, if you didn't join yet you can do it now here.

WE ARE MAKING A CALL FOR HELPING US, IF YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE AND MAKE THIS PROJECT HAPPEN SOONER, WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

• Programmers (C++, Github, Arx Libertatis modifications and source code management)
• NPC texture designers (NPC Armor, clothes, skins, drawing over the current vanilla models)
• Level textures (We want to achieve high quality textures for some specific locations, like floors, stones, ornaments, with some realism and similar to the Arx Insanity art style, we work textures from 1k to 8k in resolution)
• Props and 3D environment remastering (Remaster and improve props and deco objects in the game)
• Lighting artist for a specific level.
• Audio engineer or some knowledge in professional mastering for sound quality and audio structure in the game.
• Arx scripting and game design (If you have some knowledge to make scripts or solve complex scripting, or at least add detailed events in the game, for example new behaviors or quests, you can help us a lot).

TO APPLY DON'T HETISTATE TO CONTACT US HERE OR IN OUR DISCORD SERVER. ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE VOLUNTARY AND FOR OUR PASSION FOR ARX.

Thank you for standing by us. Your support and enthusiasm have been a driving force behind our progress. We'll continue to keep you updated with all relevant information as we move forward, maybe soon or in a while...

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 12/06/21:

Hello everyone, some months have passed since the last demo patch was released and we are still working daily in the Full mod and the next patch.

The patch was expected to be released a month ago but it was delayed due to new implementations and addons that we are finishing, we want to release a major patch instead, some of the upcoming features are:

IMPLEMENTATIONS:3D Remastered models for weapons and misc objects

It's a very requested feature from the community, redo most of the weapons in better quality, after we did and experimented with the implemented bone as a contribution, a lot of you requested to remaster every weapon in the game so now it's happening, thanks to our new 3D artists we have some of the remastered weapons already done, a new Lord Inut's bow is in the works, after that we are done with every weapon from the demo.

The work consists in work the mesh on blender, fix and add details, collision spheres and the required attachments, paint textures and finally make a post-process to make the new weapons fit in the Insanity graphics environment.

As an standalone step we make about 6-7 blood variants for every weapon in 5 different blood colors found in the game, our idea is to have dynamic and real time bloody effects depending on the NPC we fight.

Bringing back to life early concepts and ideas discarded by Arkane

We want to implement new content based on old concept arts, ideas and concepts that Arkane Studios removed back in the days because of their deadline or other reasons.

Early concept art by Arkane Studios, featuring a goblin weapon and a shield.

As you already know, we have brought back the Miguel's Fight Arena, a concept that was completely discarded by Arkane due to the lack of time, we are using unused dialogues, sounds, weapons, skins, puzzles and many things that were lost in the final version.

New Am Shaegar's faces and some remastered NPC faces

We experimented remaking the textures for the Am Shaegar faces, our goal was to make them more realistic and the first prototype had very good results, so we decided to implement this feature as official and replace all the Am Shaegar's faces in addition to remake others such as Tizzy, Alia, etc

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UPDATE: MINI-PATCH 0.4.71:

Patch 0.4.71 has been released solving and balancing some issues found in the latest one:

• Fixed a bug with 2 trapdoors at the outpost
• Fixed Kultar not firing the first cinematic at the prison
• Fixed a wrong description for the medicinal herb
• Buff for the drop attack game mechanic, now they inflict more damages
• Nerf for general npcs in insanity and nightmare difficulties
• Taar is now on its old spot and not inside a crate anymore

The latest patch is now available in 2 versions, full and patch only. 84 new bugs fixed, requests and new features done, update your demo installation to this latest version to get an improved game and a better experience.

In the most important changes and addons:

• Optimized all-fog quality to significantly increase game performance on most systems and very high resolutions
• Fixed a bug with a door not opening when showing a gem dealer license at the prison introduced in the previous patch
• New magic system and balance
• New and improved drunkenness system
• Updated level design and level lighting for some levels
• Localization minor improvements
• Fixed some buggy goblins not hearing noises in the goblin prison
• Nerf for drop attack and added a new system for them
• Nerf for trapdoors and new system for them
• A few brand new gameplay mechanics
• New sound effects
• General bug fixing and improvements

IMPORTANT NOTE!

To install the latest version or reshade read the complete updated instructions once again.

PREVIOUS SAVED GAMES

Old saved games from old Insanity demo versions/vanilla/libertatis are incompatible with new patches, so start a new game to apply all changes and avoid corrupt scripts or broken games, thank you very much.

DOWNLOAD:

There are 2 different downloads available for version 0.4.7:

• 0.4.7 Patch only version: this just include updates so it's required to have 0.4.5 (Or latest) previously installed before hand (0.4b is obsolete and not supported).
• 0.4.7 Full version: this is an all-in-1 package (Full Insanity demo + patch), if you don't want complications just install this package and you're done, older demo versions or patches aren't required.