AVWW Beta 0.582 "Still Paddling The Old Knew " Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/02/avww-beta-0582-still-paddling-old-knew.html

This one fixes a variety of bugs and regressions, and in general focuses on polish.

Ocean Travel
However, it also introduces a new guardian power -- create buoy -- and new ocean travel mechanics in general.  You no longer get sucked into ocean tiles, but you also can't go into "turbulent" waters.  And you now travel the oceans in a canoe, rather than mysteriously walking on water on the world map.  Except for deep oceans, of course, which are still traveled by ship.

The world map mechanics for the oceans are now working very well and are probably final for 1.0 -- the kludgy aspects of them have been ironed out, and they now pose barriers that you can overcome via strategically-placed lines of buoys.

The actual ocean exploration itself has had a couple of improvements, but is still very glitchy in a lot of areas.  Haven't had time to get to those just yet.

Crafting Screens
The crafting screens no longer have those giant tooltips that are always in your way, and instead require you to click the item in question to see that information.  That does add a small extra step, but there's another major benefit: you can now hover over material costs and get the material tooltips right in this popup window, rather than having to back out to the planning window.  This sort of cross-referencing is something some of our older crafting screens had, and something that players have been very vocal about wanting.

Terminology Shift For Crafting Materials
Move over "commodities and rare commodities."  There are now three categories: building materials, common ingredients, and arcane ingredients.  Hopefully this breakdown will be a lot more clear to folks in general, and it also sounds cooler.  Thanks to a lot of folks for weighing in on the names of these.

To my recollection, Keith and I never could figure out a good name for "commodities," but felt that was the best of what we'd been tossing around, and then it just kind of stayed ever since.  And then I completely forgot about even wanting to change it, and got quite used to the name.  But it was definitely due for a change!

Some Tutorial-Type Popups Added
The first time you enter a windstorm region, or whenever your continent tier increases, it pops up some messages now to make sure that you know what's going on.  It explains the mechanics a bit, and even talks about things like monster migrations -- concepts that are otherwise not documented anywhere inside the game itself.

For the ones like windstorms, there's a "don't bug me about this again" checkbox.  For ones like the continent tier increase, it doesn't provide an opt-out simply because it is otherwise easy for you to miss that the tier has increased even if you know what the increase means.

These popups help with isolated "what the heck is this new thing" moments, but they still don't address the "okay, I'm done with the intro mission, now what?" and "how the heck do I use guardian powers?" issues.  We've got plans for those also, but they are more complex, and are something I'll be working on this weekend.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.

[zebramatt]

I'm ashamed to say I've still not reinstalled the game since a major hardware fault fried my last laptop (it's a work laptop; it's fine) so I don't know if the game already does this but...

When you collect/unlock somematerial for the first time, do the various crafting interfaces give you a visual indication (on the menu options/icons) that there's something new in a given section; and then which actual things are new? You know, like a "New" sticker/banner in the top right?

[Attilha]

Great update, A valley without wind is always more amazing!!!
Just one thing: I do not know if it was already reported but the jumping animation is now the same if I jump from left to right or viceversa (is always clockwise).

[x4000]

I'm ashamed to say I've still not reinstalled the game since a major hardware fault fried my last laptop (it's a work laptop; it's fine) so I don't know if the game already does this but...

No worries, there's no rush.

When you collect/unlock somematerial for the first time, do the various crafting interfaces give you a visual indication (on the menu options/icons) that there's something new in a given section; and then which actual things are new? You know, like a "New" sticker/banner in the top right?

No, it does not do this.  It would probably be helpful, but it's mildly tricky.  There is a history of all this stuff in the chat log, though, so if it literally just happened it's not like you can miss it permanently.  What you're describing is something I'd like to do, but I think there are much bigger flaws that should be addressed first and that would solve a lot of the issues.

[x4000]

Great update, A valley without wind is always more amazing!!!
Just one thing: I do not know if it was already reported but the jumping animation is now the same if I jump from left to right or viceversa (is always clockwise).

Thanks for the kind words -- and welcome!  And yeah, I got one other report of that -- fixing some of the rotation animations broke this one, go figure.  I aim to have that fixed in the next one.

[BobTheJanitor]

The puns in the titles for these beta releases are getting better/worse (same thing, with puns) with each release. I applaud/deride you.

[keith.lamothe]

I applaud/deride you.

I should put that on my refrigerator.  I think.

[x4000]

This actually isn't a pun in the traditional sense -- it's a quote from my favorite book. A very obscure but memorable quote. Google it to see, but I was waiting to see if anyone caught the reference without it.

But yeah, mostly the puns are the work of our own free association thinking. Many are mine, "oh carp" was Keith.

And I, too, think applaud/deride would be a good refrigerator magnet. Better bumper sticker.

[BobTheJanitor]

Ah I should have known the reference. I've read all those books. I had to google it though, before I remembered. Still, fun word play anyway.

[Hyfrydle]

Are wind shelter missions supposed to be really hard? I just completed my first on and it was hell, definately the hardest mission I've come across so far. If I didn't have any crates the mission would have been impossible as I had no way to climb through the chunks to reach the wind shelter site. Putting crates down in a storm was really frustrating especially when I destroyed them by mistake when under attack.

I finally made it to the end of the chunk and set up my wind shelter feeling very proud of myself I then realised I had no crates left so couldn't get back to the world map so I'm now stuck in the mission chunk. It does say that gates are in all the chunks except the windshelter chunk but I have now way to reach any of them.

Maybe I was unlucky with the rng but this is something I feel needs investigating.

[x4000]

Wind shelter missions generally are quite easy, because you don't have to fight the bosses, you just run past. But in any procedural system (see ai war) you will have pockets of strangely high or low difficulty. That's actually one of the more interesting things about a semi-bounded procedural system versus one that is allowed little leeway in randomization.

Once you reach te wind shelter site and get the shelter up, you are done -- just pass through it to end the mission, there's a prompt when you stand by it.

Stone legs enchants can help with your jumping in windstorms, by the way.

Hope that helps!

[Hyfrydle]

Thanks I'll try that. Managed to get back to the world map but it was really difficult and I had to spam platforms so I could reach the top of a cliff. I will try and be more prepared in the future.

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm curious, what enchants can be found whole in the world, as opposed to unlocked through enchant points? I know moderate light can be (I know this quite strongly) and I've heard acid gills, though I've never seen it, and possibly others? I ask because in my world the only thing I have ever found has been moderate inner light. My enchant inventory claims I have 17 of them, although it seems to have stopped listing duplicates some time ago, because I have noted that number not increasing as I find more of them. I would report this as a bug, but it seems that I am the only one running across this issue.

[x4000]

Thanks I'll try that. Managed to get back to the world map but it was really difficult and I had to spam platforms so I could reach the top of a cliff. I will try and be more prepared in the future.

Assuming you actually make it to the windmill and complete the mission (by hitting E), the prompt then changes to "hit E to exit to world map."  Press E a second time and you're done.  No need for boxes or platforms or anything.

I'm curious, what enchants can be found whole in the world, as opposed to unlocked through enchant points? I know moderate light can be (I know this quite strongly) and I've heard acid gills, though I've never seen it, and possibly others? I ask because in my world the only thing I have ever found has been moderate inner light. My enchant inventory claims I have 17 of them, although it seems to have stopped listing duplicates some time ago, because I have noted that number not increasing as I find more of them. I would report this as a bug, but it seems that I am the only one running across this issue.

A prior patch makes it so that duplicative stuff of that nature no longer gets actually picked up.  It shows you the message and hides the thing that you picked up, but doesn't actually add it to your inventory because that would just be clutter.  There is no broom dungeon.

In terms of the actual question, I can't answer that with any precision because I don't remmeber offhand.  There's half a dozen or so.  I'm working on an in-game reference for this that will contain that information, though.

[BobTheJanitor]

A prior patch makes it so that duplicative stuff of that nature no longer gets actually picked up.  It shows you the message and hides the thing that you picked up, but doesn't actually add it to your inventory because that would just be clutter.  There is no broom dungeon.

In terms of the actual question, I can't answer that with any precision because I don't remmeber offhand.  There's half a dozen or so.  I'm working on an in-game reference for this that will contain that information, though.

So now I have to ask, couldn't it be made so that duplicated stuff no longer shows up at all? I mean it's all procedural generation, right? So instead of checking when you grab it, couldn't it check when you walk in the room and just spawn a different enchant, or if you have every enchant that it could drop, just drop an extra upgrade stone or something useful instead?