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Topics - Sami

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136
Development News / Season's recovery greetings
« on: December 24, 2018, 12:34:53 PM »
There went the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, and we're heading towards the increasing daylight. I've also got my fractured shoulder off the sling by now, but the recovery continues. All the movements are painful, and I'm increasing the range of motion bit by bit. The official sick leave has been extended until January 2019, and my absence from the forums continues.
But you'll be fine, and I'll be back eventually. Thanks for all the warm words and understanding and wishes.

Winter Sale is going on at Steam so once again it's good time to grab UnReal World for yourself, or gift a friend into the Far North.

And lastly, huge big seasons greetings to each and everyone of you, from the tiny dev and the winter tree. Merry whatever, fellow adventurers!



137
Development News / Life hurts
« on: December 01, 2018, 06:15:00 PM »
You know what... During the past two decades it hasn't been too many times that I have been on a sick leave, or unable to work on the game due to medical condition, wounds or injuries. But now a week ago I fractured my shoulder when falling of the horse during horseback archery training. Doctors orders are to wear arm sling for the next two weeks. After that a new x-ray will reveal how the recovery goes. Luckily no operation was needed. I just have to rest and wait, and so do you. So, I'll enter on a sick leave now and report back after two weeks.

I am mostly unable to answer to emails or at forums, but we'll try to handle the urgent cases somehow.     
Not to worry, I will survive. Game development and archery endeavours to be continued when the doc says so.

My current wounds and injuries screen looks like this  ;)

138
Development News / Version 3.52 released on the homepage
« on: November 12, 2018, 11:16:47 AM »
Version 3.52 standalone installers have been now released on UnReal World  website, at Downloads section.
Additions foremostly bugfixes for smoother survival, but some balancing of exploitish issues is also featured.

Cheers!

Here's the changelog:

Code: [Select]
Version: 3.52 (stable)

** Saved characters from version 3.40-> are compatible with this version. **


 - balanced: villagers' interest to buy boards
 
         Previously trading boards could be used an exploit as villagers did buy them without any reasoning.
         Now there's a cap for villagers' interest in boards and they only buy the amount they want to
         have as a reserve. This varies from village to village, and some villages are not necessarily interested
         in player character's board trading attempts at all.

 - added: NPCs will store the obtained timber in the village

         NPCs may obtain timber (eg. boards) through trading. Previously NPCs just carried the heavy loads around
         causing unncessary burden for themselves. Now they eventually store the timber in the village.

 - added: roasting meat/fish decreases its weight

         We tought this was featured already, but no. Now roasted meat/fish loses about 25% its weight in the process.

 - updated: NORTHERN BOW game encyclopedia info + image added

 - added: new NPC kid portrait

          Still not much variety with kid portraits, but if you are into portrait customization more of them can be now
          added for kids as well -> truegfx/kid?.png

 - fixed [Linux]: redundant libcurl dependency removed

 - fixed: character creation extra skill point issue for 0% skills

          Increasing and then decreasing skill for 0% level skills mistakenly allowed two points then to be spent
          on the said skill.
 
 - fixed [rare condition]: quest generation and companion rehire delays

          Long lived migrated character might encounter extremely long intervals between new quest generation and
          earlier NPC companions willingness to be rehired.

 - fixed [rare condition]: bird thief quest sages forgetting about the quest

          This occurred only with long lived characters. Sages involved in the quest first talked about
          it normally, but might not recognize the quest anymore after a while.

 - fixed: kids not recovering from wounds and injuries

 - fixed: young animal skins were worth the same as adult animals skins

          Now the price is reasoned according to the skin size.

 - fixed: when trading with NPC the accepted items they couldn't carry just disappeared from their inventory after the trade

          Now the excess items NPCs can't properly carry are put on the ground as a common village property.

 - fixed [rare condition]: aquatic birds flying still above the frozen waters

          This was a result of aquatic birds terrain exploration routines failing to find them new meaningful areas to check if the waters at their habitat got completely frozen.

 - fixed [rare occasion]: irrelevant quest related persons appearing in chat dialog

          Sometimes you were given chat options to ask whereabouts of irrelevant quest related persons in the village.   

 - fixed: young animals giving as much fat as the adults

          Now the fat yield from young animals is more or less smaller depending on the cub/calf actual age and size.

 - fixed: nameless villagers ie. occasional blank NPC names


139
Time for a small but essential patch update. Version 3.52 is now released on Steam and for Lifetime Members.
Additions in the now released version are foremostly bugfixes for smoother survival, but some balancing of exploitish issues is also featured.

Find the full changelog below, here's UnReal World Steam page, and the version is also available for lifetimer members at the designated forums section.
Standalone installer versions at the homepage will be released in November.

Cheers!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version: 3.52 (stable)

** Saved characters from version 3.40-> are compatible with this version. **


 - balanced: villagers' interest to buy boards
 
         Previously trading boards could be used an exploit as villagers did buy them without any reasoning.
         Now there's a cap for villagers' interest in boards and they only buy the amount they want to
         have as a reserve. This varies from village to village, and some villages are not necessarily interested
         in player character's board trading attempts at all.

 - added: NPCs will store the obtained timber in the village

         NPCs may obtain timber (eg. boards) through trading. Previously NPCs just carried the heavy loads around
         causing unncessary burden for themselves. Now they eventually store the timber in the village.

 - added: roasting meat/fish decreases its weight

         We tought this was featured already, but no. Now roasted meat/fish loses about 25% its weight in the process.

 - updated: NORTHERN BOW game encyclopedia info + image added

 - added: new NPC kid portrait

          Still not much variety with kid portraits, but if you are into portrait customization more of them can be now
          added for kids as well -> truegfx/kid?.png

 - fixed [Linux]: redundant libcurl dependency removed

 - fixed: character creation extra skill point issue for 0% skills

          Increasing and then decreasing skill for 0% level skills mistakenly allowed two points then to be spent
          on the said skill.
 
 - fixed [rare condition]: quest generation and companion rehire delays

          Long lived migrated character might encounter extremely long intervals between new quest generation and
          earlier NPC companions willingness to be rehired.

 - fixed [rare condition]: bird thief quest sages forgetting about the quest

          This occurred only with long lived characters. Sages involved in the quest first talked about
          it normally, but might not recognize the quest anymore after a while.

 - fixed: kids not recovering from wounds and injuries

 - fixed: young animal skins were worth the same as adult animals skins

          Now the price is reasoned according to the skin size.

 - fixed: when trading with NPC the accepted items they couldn't carry just disappeared from their inventory after the trade

          Now the excess items NPCs can't properly carry are put on the ground as a common village property.

 - fixed [rare condition]: aquatic birds flying still above the frozen waters

          This was a result of aquatic birds terrain exploration routines failing to find them new meaningful areas to check if the waters at their habitat got completely frozen.

 - fixed [rare occasion]: irrelevant quest related persons appearing in chat dialog
      
          Sometimes you were given chat options to ask whereabouts of irrelevant quest related persons in the village.   

 - fixed: young animals giving as much fat as the adults

          Now the fat yield from young animals is more or less smaller depending on the cub/calf actual age and size.

 - fixed: nameless villagers ie. occasional blank NPC names

 - corrected typos: harvesting dialog "select select the plants..." -> "Select the plants..."
                    northern name "Duo?gi" -> "Duongi"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

140
The second world record received acknowledges UnReal World as a forefather of the genre.

So...

Back in 2016 we got (and proudly hold) the record for longest update support for a videogame in GWR Gamer's Edition 2017.
And now, in the recently published Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2019 UnReal World gets the record for "First open-world survival videogame". Oops, we kind of created a videogame genre, but we do not regret :)

The book happily presented at the end of this post is a Finnish edition, and here's how GWR mentions the record in English:
Quote
    "The second millennial decade has witnessed an explosion of open-world survival games, particularly on the Steam platform with the success of PC tiles such as DayZ, Ark: Survival Evolved and the battle-royale shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrouds.
    The genre's trues roots can most likely be traced back to the indie sandbox RPG UnReal World, first released in 1992. Set in Iron Age Finland, player's principal aim was to survive its challenging and harsh environments. Incredibly, the game was still going strong and receiving updates, as of September 2017. The game was developed by two people - head creator Sami Maaranen and programmer Erkka Lehmus (both Finland). As of September 2017, it held the record for longest update support for a videogame."
(Yeah, it's out-of-date info with latest updates as the books live in press-time info. And in case somebody wonders about the near future updates a new bugfix and balancing patch is actually to be released this month.)

Cheers and thanks to all of you for making history and taking part in creation of a videogame genre with us.


Erkka (co-designer) at the left, Sami (creator) and Alli (the cat) at the right.
And if you take a look at our previous GWR post it seems like have started a tradition with these world record promo pictures as well ;)



141
Development News / Survived the summer
« on: August 14, 2018, 01:38:07 PM »
The summer is passing, the holidays are mostly over, and the time has come for me to return to the development chambers and slowly start getting back on track with the coding chores. When leaving on holidays somebody said to expect to see at least one fishing holiday picture. Well, unfortunately I managed to be so very absent from the forums that I basically didn't post a thing, but as a substitute for the past silence here's half a dozen random summer pictures for you.

Now it's whole lotta e-mails and post to go through to get an idea of how the community and unreal world has survived the summer of 2018.
And then, some fresh lines of code... One at a time...








142
Version 3.51 is now released also on the homepage.
For those who have curiosity towards Steam and supporting the game we remind that summer sale there continues until 5th of July, and here's UnReal World Steam page.

The current version is trucking quite alright, and despite of few bugs that may come in your way we are good to hit the holidays now. We trust that you will survive.
Finnish summer will surely bring us some rainy days too so some tweaking, fixing and even patching may take place during the summertime - but officially I'm mostly absent from development chambers until early august.

Best wishes,
enjoy the game,
enjoy the seasonal goodies and I'll be sure to do the same...


Midsummer midnight 2018, just outside the UnReal World development chambers.

143
Version 3.51 is now released on Steam and for Lifetime Members.

Here comes a minor but significant new patch before I'll start settling for summer holidays.

The additions in this version 3.51 mostly consist of balances, fixes and additions related to interacting with both the spirits and NPCs. Many small game hunters should be happy to know that for example the unreasonably harsh forest spirit mood changes are now toned down.

Find the full changelog below, here's UnReal World Steam page, and the version is also available for lifetimer members at the designated forums section.

I wish you all great adventures in both real and unreal worlds -
and nice and cosy summertime, if that happens to be your local season.

Cheers!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 3.51 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.40-> are compatible with this version. **


- added: map of known areas (F6) remembering the toggleable settings to show or not to show cultural areas and map markers

This was once featured, but got broken somewhere along the way. The settings are remembered after exiting F6 map view and persist until toggled otherwise. The display for both cultural areas and map markers is on by default when the game is first started.

- added: ask NPCs to find quest related persons in villages

You can now ask villagers if certain quest related persons are around. This is done by automatically appearing chat options within the common greet dialog. For example:
"Is Sampsa around?" or "Where can I find Tornia?"
All the quest related persons, including the original quest giver, are covered within these chat options if you are aware of them.
There are some exceptions though; NPCs who are involved in quests themselves can't be asked for others whereabouts, but there are always enough common villagers around to assist you.
When it comes to finding quest related persons in other villages the chat options become available only when you are in the right village where the person can be actually found. This can be considered slightly gamey in our standards, but it is more helpful that way.

- adjusted: no more multiple villagers with same names

Possiblity of two NPCs having the same name within a single village has been removed. In seriously crowded clustered villages it is theoretically possible that villagers might run out of unique names, but real chances for that to happen are practically non-existent.

MIGRATION NOTICE: Within villages created in the previous version two persons with same names may still exists.

- added: dozens of new northern names

Due to aforementioned adjustment it was necessary to add lots and lots of new names for northern men and women.

- improved: NPC name randomization routines

NPC culture has more distinguishable influence to their given names. There's noticeable variation between the eastern and western names, but especially the current wider range of northern names now appear unique from rest of the world.

- added: light a torch with another torch

If you are already carrying a lit torch a new torch can be lit of it. This is done in normal fashion by [a]pplying the torch to be lit.

- balanced: forest spirit's attitude in regards to hunted animals - size and significance matters

When an animal is felled the forest spirit's mood change and need for compensation by sacrifices now depends on the size and significance of the animal. Previously almost all the killed animals were valued equally by the spirits which resulted in small game hunters often receiving unreasonable disgrace. Now it is far more tolerable to hunt smaller game and get along with only casual sacrifices every now and then.

- fixed: only one sacrifice allowed per day

If any kind of sacrifice to any spirit was performed even the different kind of sacrifices during the same day were considered excess. This was not intentional, and is now fixed back to normal:
You can perform multiple sacrifices on daily basis as long as they are targeted at different spirits, ie. forest or water spirit, or if the act of sacrificing is a part of unique spell.

- fixed: spoiled food items were seemingly accepted as sacrifices

Now it is foolish to try that sort of sacrifices.

- fixed: former companions never agreed to be hired again

Despite of their "maybe in the future" responses former companions did never reach proper status to be hired again. This is fixed now and companions can be rehired after a varying NPC dependant timespan from few months to full year.

MIGRATION NOTICE: Rehiring possibility timespan may appear glitchy as companionship date information was broken in the previous version. For most succesfull rehiring of former companions try it at villages that were visited long time ago.

- fixed: skinning young animals mistakenly gave adult animal size skins

Now skins obtained from young animals are more or less smaller depending on the cub/calf actual age and size.

- fixed: village items getting easily corrupt upon crash

Crash security improvements added in version 3.50 are hereby improved/fixed in regards to certain crash vulnerable village items.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

144
Development News / Balanced that spirit, fixed them sacrifices
« on: June 07, 2018, 01:59:14 PM »
Two important things to help us get along better with the spirits in the upcoming patch:

 - balanced: forest spirit's attitude in regards to hunted animals - size and significance matters

        When an animal is felled the forest spirit's mood change and need for compensation by sacrifices
        now depends on the size and significance of the animal. Previously almost all the killed animals
        were valued equally by the spirits which resulted in small game hunters often receiving unreasonable
        disgrace. Now it is far more tolerable to hunt smaller game and get along with only casual sacrifices
        every now and then.

 - fixed: only one sacrifice allowed per day

        If any kind of sacrifice to any spirit was performed even the different kind of sacrifices during the
        same day were considered excess. This was not intentional, and is now fixed back to normal:
        You can perform multiple sacrifices on daily basis as long as they are targeted at different
        spirits, ie. forest or water spirit, or if the act of sacrificing is a part of unique spell.


These are future additions not yet functional in current version 3.50 (stable).

145
Heatwave has struck Finland, and has basically lasted for almost the whole may. While the light and warm summer days has effectively turned my focus to outdoors activities, it's been a bit exhausting as well. Only the nighttime has been somewhat tolerable for coding and of my nightly works the most worthy of mentioning are tweakings of how the spirits get angered or pleased depending on character's actions. There's room for tweaking there, and I've followed the related fair discussions on suggestions section. Most important thing probably is to reason how much different kind of animal kills affect to spirits mood change, but as the system is quite complicated I've also made some groundwork for spirits to actually tell the player why they might be so mad sometimes.

Then, an interesting opportunity to give a deep interview for Chinese gaming media came upon me. The article is now published and you can read it here:
http://www.chuapp.com/article/285323.html

It's in Chinese, so some of you gotta rely on computer translation, but images in the article alone are worth of checking out. Coming up with this took a good slice of my time this month, but I'm happy with it. The approach was fresh, and the questions were interesting and unique.

I wish I could have kept up more frequent update post pace this month, but apparently I failed. One things you should know though is that my plans are to wrap things up as soon as possible for a new release - to offer some essentials additions, and some bugfixes for your summer days.

It's pleasantly cold now so it's time to head to sauna. What else :

146
Modding / MOVED: Fennec's Random Plant Mod
« on: May 01, 2018, 06:33:58 PM »

147
You know, despite of my lazy posting frequency we are active behind the scenes and adjustments for a next update are on their way.
Lately I've been sorting out mostly the quest related annoyances and confusions arising from locating certain villagers, and their names.

Code: [Select]
- added: ask NPCs to find quest related persons in villages

          You can now ask villagers if certain quest related persons are around. This is done by automatically appearing
          chat options within the common greet dialog. For example:
          "Is Sampsa around?" or "Where can I find Tornia?"
          All the quest related persons, including the original quest giver, are covered within these chat options if you
          are aware of them.
            There are some exceptions though; NPCs who are involved in quests themselves can't be asked for others
          whereabouts, but there are always enough common villages around to assist you.
            When it comes to finding quest related persons in other villages the chat options become available only when
          you are in the right village where the person can be actually found. This can be considered slightly gamey in
          our standards, but it is more helpful that way.

 - adjusted: no more multiple villagers with same names

        Possiblity of two NPCs having the same name within a single village has been removed. In seriously crowded
        clustered villages it is theoretically possible that villagers might run out of unique names, but real chances for
        that to happen are practically non-existent.

 - added: dozens of new northern names

        Due to aforementioned adjustment it was necessary to add lots and lots of new names for northern men and women.

 - improved: NPC name randomization routines

        NPC culture has more distinguishable influence to their given names. There's noticeable variation between
        the eastern and western names, but especially the current wider range of northern names now appear unique
        from rest of the world.


These are future additions not yet functional in current version 3.50 (stable).

148
Summary of the year 2017 has been now added up to the development history section at the homepage.
Our development history section covers overview for each year since the release of UnReal World 1.00b in 1992.

Check it out here:
http://www.unrealworld.fi/urw_devhist.html

149
After quite a long period of balancing and wrestling with glitches in the preceeding beta versions we are now ready to tag version 3.50 stable and...
Version 3.50 (stable) is now released on Steam and for Lifetime members.
Here you can find UnReal World Steam page, and the version is also available for lifetimer members at the designated forums section.
Standalone installer versions at the homepage will be put available some days later.

Here are the fixes/additions since 3.50 beta 2:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version: 3.50 (stable) changelog

- added: treat bleeding wounds of your pets and companions

It is now possible to try to stop bleeding of the wounds of your pets and companions. The attempt is started by using physician skill, or opening [F7] wounds screen, when facing a bleeding pet or companion. If bleeding wounds are found you'll be asked whether you wish to try to treat them.
The actual wound to treat is then auto selected based on its severity.

The actual game mechanics of applying physician skills to your pets and companions are the same as treating your own wounds. Herbs can be used in the process, the success or failure messages are the familiar ones, and so on.

- added: crash security to overcome creature and item losses when travelling with companions and watercrafts

There's now extra data save added upon each map load to provide crash security and to minimize certain creature and item loss potential. Previously it was quite often the case that the pets and companions you were travelling with would disappear upon a crash. The same sort of crash related disappearence might also happen to the items you were transporting with a watercraft - including the watercraft. This sort of losses should be history now.
Crashes may naturally lose some progress in the game world, but all the creatures and items should stay intact and be available upon returning to post-crash UnReal World.
Finally, let us remind that force quitting seems to be the most usual type of unexpected UnReal World termination and this addition should not in the least to be taken as an encouragement for safer force quitting.

- balanced & fixed: weight of some clothes

Some were found too heavy, and a few were found too light.
The corrections go as follows (with old weight in parenthesis):

* Woollen tunic - now weighs 4.6 lbs (was 5)

* Nettle cloak - now weighs 2.6 lbs (was 6)
* Woollen cloak - now weighs 5.3 lbs (was 6.5)
* Fur cloak - now weighs 11.5 lbs (was 14)

* Woollen overcoat - now weighs 6.3 lbs (was 5.5)
* Fur overcoat - now weighs 13.5 lbs (was 15)

* Leather leggings - now weighs 6.3 lbs (was 2.9)
* Fur leggings - now weighs 7.4 lbs (was 3.5)

- fixed [rare condition]: all too frequent map maintenance with some old characters

- fixed [rare condition]: sages offering the old style teaching of new ritual for some migrated characters

- fixed: triggered traps sometimes appearing as readied and erect

- fixed [rare condition]: too fast melting of ice in the spring

- fixed: animals tied in place with a rope remaining tied even if the rope was destroyed (eg. by a fire)

- fixed [rare condition]: spiritworld related entries cluttering the data stack and causing misleading hoarding warnings

- fixed: animal pens in the villages appearing too close to the western border

The problem was that your dog might end up located in the village animal pen when entering the village from the west.

- fixed: BUTCHER_CONFIRMATION setup option not checking whether the carcass actually could be skinned

Now the confirmation, if enabled, is asked when applicable only if the carcass actually can be skinned.

- fixed: wounded adventurer quest sometimes generating too lightly wounded adventurers

This made the intended quest giver adventurers not speak about their hardships at all even though
the villagers would hint about it.

- fixed: milk from rams and bulls

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

150
Today's clip (from my archery channel) is so UrWish that it needs to be here:

Archery on skis in northern fashion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez1CUoz0tdQ

Skiing archer can be quite effective, and Sami people even had ski-taff bows with rim and head attached to lower part of the bow so no separate ski staff was needed at all.
The video also makes you think that the the game [w]ielding rules could be adjusted a bit. :)

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