Part Two: Path to Prologue

Welcome back! By now you’ve seen Part One covering some of the things we’ve been working on since Ultra Deep, and read our deeper dive around $EMBER and the economy of Ember Sword.

We’ve been hard at work making some significant leaps forward in many aspects of development, and as before, you can find a more comprehensive list of the changes we’ve implemented later on in this article. But before that, we’re really hyped to share more information with you about what we’re planning for the rest of this year.

Play Time

We’re delighted to announce that Ember Sword: Prologue (our Early Access builds) will open its doors to players starting July 12th, with a small-scale test taking place on our Test Net. This first series of tests will be open to people who have an Ember Sword account with a connected wallet, and who meet ONE of the following criteria:

• Have Ember Sword Land
• Have $EMBER badges (holding or burned)
• Have at least 5000 EMBER tokens (this is initial entry requirement and subject to change)
• Be accepted into our Creator Program (more on this very soon!) The test is the first opportunity for people in our community to try various aspects of the game and give us their thoughts since Ultra Deep. Our plan is that when we’re ready we’ll add more waves of people, allowing more and more of you to try out the game. The tests we ran last year were hugely valuable and much of that learning has already been applied to make Ember Sword better, so we can’t wait to get the feedback train rolling again!

During the Ember Sword: Prologue, the game will likely be taken down several times whilst we make adjustments and tweaks for elements like server stability and game performance. We may also need to reset character progress and other account specific data.

Once we’ve completed this test, and we’re happy with how everything is going, we’ll be switching all NFT and $EMBER token transactions to the Main Net, meaning all on-chain items will be tradable on the Blockchain. We’ll keep you all updated with timings as we go, but there will be a period of downtime in between the transition so that we can make the necessary upgrades. Once we transition to the The Main Net test Ember Sword will be open to all players, with a registered account! From this point onwards, the game will stay live 24x7. WeW we with us will still continuously be able to make improvements without the need for players to patch or re-download large files thanks to our innovative proprietary engine!

Ember Sword: Prologue

We know it’s been a long wait for many of you and you can’t wait to get your hands on the game, and we can’t wait to share it with you. But what is Ember Sword: Prologue, and what can you expect to play versus the full launch of the game? Please read on to get the answers to your questions.

What is Ember Sword: Prologue?

Ember Sword: Prologue will allow early access to Ember Sword while it’s still in development. It will focus on a smaller portion of Solarwood and include preliminary versions of all core gameplay and economy systems, with the expanded map and other features added over time. We’ll also be including the first wave of sublime collectables like character and weapon skins, and some vibrant emotes to help players express themselves in game. Note, while on the Test Net all NFTs and $EMBER will be temporary and only usable on test servers. They are not intended to be used outside Ember Sword: Prologue.

Once we have moved to the Main Net, players will be able to earn real rewards like NFTs and $EMBER right from the get-go, and landowners will receive their share of NFTs being traded in-game.

Why Early Access?

As we are a small studio with limited resources, our aim is to release an amazing game as soon as possible, and then enhance and expand it with the help of our incredible community. This is a common strategy in game development, especially for smaller studios, and it allows us to get the game into your hands more quickly, whilst raising the money we need to fully realize our exciting vision for Ember Sword over time. Ultimately, it allows us to build the game of our dreams, without needing to sell our company to investors who can end up driving decisions that prioritize returns for shareholders over things like player experience and community.

Ember Sword already feels amazing to play, and it will only get better over time, with the help of direct feedback from players. One of the best examples is the economy, which is such a huge part of Ember Sword. Because we're introducing innovative elements and implementing features that haven't been seen before, testing things exclusively behind closed doors or in smaller simulated versions of the game won’t give us all the information we need to properly test things like performance, security, and player behavior at scale. Building iteratively over time based on player feedback makes it more likely for us to build something that lasts for years to come.

How will Prologue be different from the full release?

Weapons 2.0

Our primary focus is on gameplay feel and after revamping various aspects of Ember Sword, we realized that weapons, which play a crucial role in our game (since abilities are linked to the weapon type rather than fixed classes), also needed a significant upgrade. We're referring to this as Weapons 2.0, and our strategy involves concentrating on one weapon type at a time, thoroughly enhancing everything from latency and hitboxes to ability synergy. We’ll be updating more weapons after Ember Sword: Prologue launches.

First up is Sword and Shield!

Taking elements from Fighters, Tanks and Melee Brawlers - players wielding the sword and shield will be able to strike a balance between offensive and defensive. As part of our active-combat philosophy, the Sword and Shield will reward well-aimed skill shots, but also scratch the itch of those who want to charge in full-throttle and watch their enemies fall around them.

We have loads of other unique weapon types in the pipeline, and we'll release a roadmap detailing when you can expect other weapons a bit later this year.

The World: Solarwood in Flux

The world of Thanabus has been impacted by a flux storm and this cataclysmic event has made much of Solarwood apparently uninhabitable for the time being. Those who have tried to pass through the pulsating wall of magical energy have perished, with the inhabitants of North Dalland, Millwheat and the capital, terrified and isolated from the rest of Thanabus.

Is the storm a natural occurrence, or is it something manufactured by nefarious agents of chaos with dark motives? Speculation is rife, but as you take to the world, no-one is quite sure. Stay tuned to find out more as we’ll be releasing more story-related content later this year as we build up to the release of Ember Sword: Prologue.

Because the mysterious flux storm has closed off much of Solarwood, players will be limited to a smaller section of Solarwood during Ember Sword: Prologue. As the story develops and players explore more of the world, we’ll be opening more regions over time. Even though the map is limited in terms of size, it’s rich in diverse landscapes and creatures, and will feature a range of areas – some safe, and some which are PvP enabled:

PvP rules are dependant of the zone type:

• Blue Zone: PvP is disabled, players cannot attack each other.
• Yellow Zone: PvP is enabled, players have a chance to drop some of the inventory upon death.
• Red Zone: PvP is enabled, players drop inventory and have a chance to drop some gear upon death.

Yellow zones are more common than red ones. Red zones however have rare creatures or resources inside (higher risk = higher reward).

Unfair Fight If a player is killed during PvP combat and the sum of the levels of their killer(s) is greater than their own level, they get a reduced death penalty proportional to the difference in the levels. In this case, the chance to lose items is reduced by the sum of the killer(s) levels divided by the victim level. Death penalty can be reduced maximally by 80%.

Destroyed items Each dropped item/gear piece has a 25% chance to be destroyed - that means it will be removed from the owners inventory, but instead appearing on the ground it will simply disappear from the game. This is to provide a money/item sink that keeps driving the need for player-created items and help minimize in-game inflation.

Drop chance All rolls are done separately (each item, each gear piece has its own roll).

Yellow

• 50% chance of losing each item stack in the inventory Red
• 100% chance of losing each item stack in the inventory
• 10% chance of losing equipped gear piece. (gear pieces carried in the inventory have an “inventory drop” chance.

As you can see, there will be a huge emphasis on either collaboration or conflict within Ember Sword – players will need to brave the most dangerous, high-risk areas of the world to compete for the best resources.

The Economy We’ve covered this in detail in our Economy blog here. But for a quick overview:

So hopefully we’re got you excited about what’s to come over the next few months! Whilst we have you, we’d also like to share a bit about the progress our development team has made over the past few weeks.

What We’ve Been Working On Since the Last Update

The World

We’re hard at work bringing the world of Solarwood to life, with different areas to explore, creatures to fight and loot to discover. A big focus has been on upgrading the look of the world, including our water shaders. All of these improvements along with the new camera, completely increases the level of immersion players will feel.

Character Creator

For a long time, everyone in Ember Sword looked the same. We know that level of homogeneity made it feel like you were trapped in some kind of dystopian nightmare, but fear not, now you can customize your character's appearance to your heart's content! From choosing your hairdo to picking your face and body type, you've got the power to make your character truly unique. So, time to get creative!

New skins

Our wonderful Art team has been crafting some unbelievable collectables for players to enjoy when they get into Ember Sword: Prologue. Here’s a sneak peak at a couple of armor skins, with lots more to follow. We’ll be sharing some weapon skins in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to our socials!

Patrols

Following on from our creature AI update in the last communication we did, we’re excited to share the latest update: Patrols. NPCs and creatures will now group together and roam around Solarwood looking out for anything suspicious that they can stomp. Some of the enemies you will encounter will be particularly nasty, especially grouped up, so you’ll need to make decisions around which patrols you can fight and which you should avoid.

Premium Shop

As soon as players get access to Ember Sword: Prologue, they’ll be able to access the first version of our in-game Premium Shop. Players will have the opportunity to peruse and make purchases from an assortment of spectacular weapon and armor skins, and vibrant premium emotes.

Keep in mind that during Ember Sword: Prologue, while playing on the Test Net, all items picked up, crafted, traded, and purchased will be reset at a later date. These items will not carry over to the persistent Main Net version of Ember Sword.

Full Release Notes - Closed Beta 1

Combat

• PvP design is complete and all fundamentals are now in place. Adjustments and balancing is in progress. Buckle up for intense player-versus-player battles!
• Added dynamic stat modification support, allowing for more intricate and customizable character builds.
• Numerous bug fixes to ensure a smooth and enjoyable combat experience.
• Fixed creature loot drops, so you'll never miss out on valuable resources again.
• All attack animations are now functioning properly, bringing the combat to life.
• Created starter items (chest, pants, boots) and set player starting inventory, giving you a solid foundation for your journey.
• Adjusted leash range, providing a more predictable and engaging combat experience.
• Upgraded loot table systems, enhancing the variety and relevance of loot you'll encounter.
• Updated various enemies, including Razorback, Farmhand, Bandit Skiver, Raider, Watchman, and Ulsvar, with new statistics, experience, behavior, and unique loot tables, offering fresh and challenging encounters.
• Tweaked and fixed attacks of the enemies listed above, making them more dynamic and challenging.
• Separate XP tables for combat and non-combat skills, allowing for more focused character development.
• Boar abilities and new animations, including cooldowns, timings, duration, audio, and more, making these creatures even more formidable foes.
• Adjusted creature circling behavior, dynamically decreasing its radius as the target approaches and increasing it as the target moves away, creating a more immersive and intelligent combat experience.
• Boars now attack more frequently within the circle, making battles with these creatures more intense and unpredictable.
• Fixed Boar attack patterns, ensuring consistent and fair combat interactions.
• Changed the formula and values for the Attack Power gain, fine-tuning the character's strength progression.
• Implemented new "ranged" behavior for enemies using distance weapons, adding variety to combat encounters.
• Found and fixed some UI bugs related to displaying weapon AP gained from character levels, ensuring accurate information.
• Bear Deer received some new anger management animations, making it even more ferocious when provoked.
• Created "strafing" behavior, primarily for ranged units like Bandit Skiver, which makes them move backwards and then left/right to gain distance from the player instead of standing idle during ranged attacks, adding a new layer of strategy to encounters.
• Added the Power StatModification and adjusted Complex StatModifications, providing more depth and control over character builds.
• Fixed the UI regarding StatModifications giving wrong information, ensuring accurate and transparent character statistics.
• Fixed PhysX shapes which were not being updated when the world was transformed, maintaining the integrity of the game world.
• Developed a new formula for the player's damage growth with level, allowing for a more balanced and rewarding character progression.
• Updated AP/HP values for player's gear, enemies, and creatures, ensuring a fair and challenging combat experience.
• Re-implemented the following enemies and creatures, giving them fresh looks and improved behaviors: Bandit Skiver, Ursval, Bandit Sharpshooter, Bandit Raider, Bandit Thug, Urkador, Uberdor, Bandit Watchman
• Enhanced attack animations for the enemies and creatures listed above, adding a polished and immersive feel to combat.
• Re-rigged Ursval 'Bear Deer' to include the mesh update and re-animated it to be more aggressive, creating a formidable and intimidating foe.
• Added "Charges" indicator to abilities with charges and improved the in-game text, providing clearer and more informative UI.
• Fixed dodge not showing up on the ability bar, ensuring players have access to all their abilities during combat.
• Fixed channel abilities crashing the game, ensuring a stable and uninterrupted gameplay experience.
• Fixed UI tooltip resource usage, such as "costs 10 mana," providing accurate and consistent information.
• Upgraded VFX for Uberdor, enhancing the visual impact of its attacks and abilities.
• Fixed VFX for Javelin throw, ensuring a visually stunning and satisfying ranged attack.
• Upgraded VFX for Musket Maiden (sharp shooter), adding a touch of flair to her ranged attacks.

World

• Added more elevation and transitions to the wider map, creating a more diverse and visually interesting landscape.
• Crafted new assets for prefabs (water, cobblestone, roads, bridges), enhancing the graphical quality of the world.
• Implemented an upgraded water system, introducing more realistic and dynamic water bodies.
• Enhanced the map with additional water tiles, elevating the visual appeal and adding depth to the environment.
• Undertook a comprehensive map makeover, refining region boundaries, names, and levels to establish a cohesive and immersive world.
• Meticulously cleaned and improved hundreds of assets, textures, and prefabs, ensuring visual consistency and quality throughout the game.
• Streamlined workflows by updating prefabs, expanding generic props, and organizing all props into a centralized library for easy access.
• Restored terrain tiles to their former glory after a thorough cleanup, ensuring seamless transitions and vibrant materials.
• Upgraded colliders for select prefabs, enhancing character movement and interactions.
• Embarked on a journey through the mountains, mapping subscenes in a preliminary pass to lay the groundwork for future exploration.
• Explored the Savanna region, charting main and subscenes to create a cohesive and engaging environment.
• Implemented Shader updates and improvements, enhancing the visual fidelity and overall quality of the game.
• Tackled mesh issues and eliminated glow-related bugs, ensuring a smooth and visually stunning experience.
• Beautified the map with the addition of numerous beaches, creating opportunities for relaxation and adventure.
• Fixed textures on various prefabs, eliminating visual glitches and enhancing the overall aesthetic.
• Conquered the challenge of NavMesh ignoring certain colliders, ensuring seamless character navigation.
• Introduced a superior Patrol Node, infusing the world with a lively ambiance and enriching the gameplay experience.
• Provided tools to efficiently manage spawn points, empowering players with greater control over their gaming sessions.
• Resolved a critical issue with CraftingStations that caused crashes, ensuring a stable and enjoyable gameplay experience.
• Remedied creatures sitting inside the terrain, eliminating immersion-breaking glitches and ensuring a realistic and believable environment.
• Constructed Witwood Glen by meticulously crafting the map, producing assets, and applying an initial layer of scenic artistry.
• Brought Espire Plains to life by connecting existing subscenes, laying down water tiles and shorelines, plotting land plots, sealing up seams, reorganizing transform groups, building roads, adding borders to Old One's Rest and Buttercuprise, optimizing scenes, and fixing a crash related to enemy and creature spawners.
• Revisited Millwheat, adding water tiles and underwater tiles, introducing prefabs and vegetation clusters that align with the new style, removing elements that no longer fit, constructing roads, and connecting land plots to the road network.
• Constructed North Dalland by creating the required prefabs and materials, populating the area with assets, handling terrain export and import, fixing modularity issues, cleaning up colliders, and implementing road meshes and prefabs.
• Focused on populating the map with tree and bush clusters, resource nodes, and mob spawners, enriching the environment and creating opportunities for exploration and encounters.

Gathering and Crafting

• Adjusted loot icon size for enhanced visual clarity.
• Eradicated bizarrely colored shadows from loot icons, ensuring a consistent and immersive visual experience.
• Upgraded in-game trading with improved functionality and seamless user interactions.
• Introduced missing gathering nodes, including Maple, Oak, Spicemoss, Mooncrackle, and Kingsleaf, expanding resource diversity and exploration opportunities.
• Overhauled the loot/gather system to enable versatile processing of looting, gathering, and rewards, elevating gameplay dynamics.
• Refined tier and recipe names in crafting, streamlining the crafting process and enhancing player comprehension.
• Aligned resource node EXP and resources gained with intended values, ensuring balanced progression and rewards.
• Reduced bone requirements for crafting bone tools from 10 to 2 per tool, facilitating efficient crafting and resource management.
• Restructured weapon recipes to incorporate more planks, giving them greater significance while maintaining the need for ore.
• Streamlined refinement recipes by reducing ingredient requirements, optimizing resource utilization.
• Implemented a 3-state recipe icon system to clearly reflect crafting knowledge and availability, enhancing the crafting experience.
• Decentralized crafting timing to the zone level, allowing the client to respond to zone events and grant resulting items over time for a more immersive crafting process.
• Augmented the crafting window's side panel with detailed item information, empowering players with comprehensive crafting knowledge.
• Eradicated visual anomalies in crafting error messages, ensuring a polished and user-friendly interface.
• Optimized crafting window performance, reducing loading times significantly (from 850ms to approximately 60ms when opening Armor crafting), enhancing overall gameplay fluidity.
• Incorporated item info into the crafting page, providing convenient access to crucial data and streamlining the crafting process.

Character Systems

• Unleash your creativity with our brand-new character creator/customizer! Design your unique avatar and bring it to life.
• Witness the transformation of old equipment structures into sleek and modern ones, enhancing your gaming experience.
• Dive into a world of seamless character customization. Test and refine your creations, ensuring perfect compatibility with their equipment.
• Immerse yourself in the captivating character UI as we polish the final touches, offering an intuitive and immersive interface.
• Explore the depths of our engine's character coloring system. Discover how color palette structures, equipment structs, and colormap indexes interact to create vibrant and lifelike characters.
• Witness the seamless integration of gameplay animation systems with new engine utilities, enhancing fluidity and responsiveness.
• Experience the thrill of equipping your characters with a vast array of items, made accessible through an intuitive inspector.
• Rejoice in the addition of four fully functional face caps, allowing you to express a wide range of emotions and personalities.
• Indulge in the creation of diverse ear shapes, adding depth and uniqueness to your characters' appearances.
• Refresh your style with updated hair designs, featuring intricate details and vibrant colors.
• Master the art of vertex color masks to achieve realistic hair stubble and seamless fading effects.
• Engage in expressive gameplay through the introduction of player emotes, accessible from an intuitive UI.
• Collectables
• Founders' skins enhanced for improved in-game visuals.
• Exciting Additions: 3 captivating new weapon skins, 3 stylish armor skins, 5 premium emotes for expressive communication.
• Thanabus Settler skin model underwent a comprehensive makeover, featuring deformation UVs and optimized skinning.
• Embarked on a journey to conceptualize the next batch of character skins, promising unique designs and aesthetics.
• Initiated exploration for an upcoming collection of weapon skins, aiming to deliver a diverse range of armaments.
• Audio
• Refactored environmental audio systems for improved clarity, dynamic changes based on context, and immersive soundscapes.
• Created a new background music player that seamlessly blends ambient sounds and background music, creating a cohesive and atmospheric soundscape.
• Added a new background music system with a priority system, allowing for more controlled and nuanced music playback.
• Normalized the AudioGroups to maintain a balanced and consistent audio experience.
• Fixed the audio options menu, ensuring smooth navigation and customization of audio settings.
• Audio is now played consistently even when you control-tab and alt-tab to other tabs in the browser or other app windows.

Miscellaneous (game)

• Improved the Help Menu's usability and functionality, making it more accessible and informative.
• Enhanced icon transparency, resolving visual issues and ensuring a consistent and visually appealing user interface.
• Addressed naming inconsistencies with various abilities, bringing clarity and coherence to the game's terminology.
• Optimized the deformation map around the neck area, eliminating low pixel fidelity issues and ensuring seamless integration of cosmetics.
• Implemented a robust chat system, allowing players to communicate through local shouts, automatic party chats, and private conversations, supported by a robust backend infrastructure.
• Introduced interactive right-click options, allowing players to chat, trade, invite, or kick members from their party, enhancing player interaction and social engagement.
• Upgraded the admin console with new features and functionalities, streamlining administrative tasks and improving overall management capabilities.
• Refreshed the tooltip UI, providing a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, along with a fix for tooltip placement issues.
• Updated the UI for the action bar, incorporating a scaling logic that ensures optimal display across various screen resolutions.
• Added a dedicated UI control for items, consolidating future UI elements and improving usability.
• Eradicated minor UI bugs, ensuring a smooth and seamless user interface.
• Resolved a critical bug that caused crashes in nameplates, enhancing stability and preventing potential game interruptions.
• Incorporated a visual indicator for when players are typing in global chat, promoting better communication and engagement.
• Eliminated a bug that resulted in lingering cooldown numbers when moving items in the inventory, ensuring accurate and consistent item management.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from casting abilities in specific situations, ensuring uninterrupted gameplay and combat functionality.
• Introduced UI window placement customization, allowing players to adjust the starting position of various windows, enhancing accessibility and personalization.
• Added silhouette and equipment slot icons to the player inspector, providing clearer visual information about characters and their gear.
• Tackled a myriad of bugs, including incorrect tools when mining, missing models on gathering nodes, player invisibility in certain scenarios, and party functionality issues, resulting in a more stable and polished gameplay experience.

Blockchain

• Premium Shop now accessible directly within the game. Time to shop!
• $EMBER integration successfully completed.
• Test Net is now live and operational. You can now preview the blockchain capabilities within Ember Sword.
• Persistence implemented for collectables, ensuring that you can actually use your prized possessions in-game.

Infrastructure

• Our network software stack has undergone a colossal transformation, enabling us to reach new heights of flexibility and performance.
• Unleash the power of our test game servers, now soaring through the digital realm, ready for your exploration during Closed Beta.

Engine

• Enhanced performance and stability through extensive bug fixes and improvements.
• Introduced a user-friendly character editor for customizable avatars.
• Streamlined prefab workflow for faster and more efficient asset creation.
• Revamped editor context menus for intuitive navigation and easy access to tools.
• Improved error handling to provide clear and actionable feedback.
• Revamped asset browser for seamless asset management and discovery.
• Enhanced scene importing for smoother integration of external assets.
• Improved importing and exporting of files.
• Optimized load times across the board for a snappier and more responsive experience.
• Refined the editor UI and UX for an intuitive and visually appealing workflow.
• Enhanced logging capabilities for comprehensive debugging and analysis.
• Improved navmesh generation workflow.
• Enhanced object scaling for precise and flexible transformations.
• Elevated the console functionality and error message handling for a more informative and user-friendly development experience.
• Implemented a visually appealing and user-friendly theme to enhance usability.