Saturday 11 June 2016

DevBlog #23 - New PlayStation4 & Steam Update and Avatar Customisation

Greetings,

Welcome to this week’s DevBlog, brought to you by the friendly people at Atom Republic.

Patch v0.3.2.4112


Players were finally able to explore our first private space and better yet, you could invite up to 15 friends to join you.


Video by Your PS Home

Now that said, we’re still in Early Access and we’re still testing the server scalability. For some players loading times between public and privates may vary in length, some taking longer than others.

Avatar Customisation

If there is one thing we know, it’s that you want Avatar customisation. So far we’ve seen a wealth of accessories get implemented into Atom Universe, but you want more. Physical changes for your avatar, different clothing items and hairstyles, the list goes on.



While this is possible for us to continually add more accessories to the avatars head, hands and back via sockets (this allows the art team to add items without altering the Atom Universe’s code).  Allowing you to alter your avatar physical appearance (size, build and features), or your avatars clothing (tops, pants, shoes etc) it would require a massive change within Atom Universe’s code.

We’re very excited to start work on the avatar customisation. However, we’re not at that point in the development cycle just yet. The main focus right now is to get the servers working correctly allowing everyone to enjoy Atom Universe without any connection troubles and of course, we’re working on the PlayStation 4 build so everyone can join in on the fun.

Weekly Developer Activity


Art



  • Starting to integrate the Mirage House.
  • Added an additional 25 accessories.

Design



  • Even more bug fixing.

Programming



  • Bug fixing.
  • Testing server scalability.
  • Configuring in-game commerce.

Community



  • Reporting community bugs to the development team.
  • Discussing possible content ideas for future distribution.

5 comments:

  1. Nice DevBlog Dave. This has certainly been a great week for the Early Access version of Atom Universe! I love exploring the Woodland House and saved a few pics to this Flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tbaby_84/albums/72157669439726316. I had noticed a few issues trying to access the Woodland House during what were probably peak usage times, but was able to see it the morning it was released and a couple other times since then. I hadn't gotten a chance to invite friends over yet, but thinking about doing that during our Community Meetup tomorrow. I completely understand about avatar customization and I think the accessories that are being added are a great start for now. I always knew the shaping of our avatars (face, head, body, etc.) would come later. I thought clothing wouldn't be so bad, but I guess it falls under in the same bucket as the shaping of our avatars which is fine. I know a lot of accessories are coming down the pipe so I'm totally cool with that. I agree that work on the server scaling should take priority so everyone can get on without issue to play the game together. I'm excited that the Mirage House is being integrated into the game and can't wait to explore it as I interviewed SubD studio about remastering it here: https://tbaby84.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/mirage-house-updated-by-subd-studio-for-atom-universe/. Nice to hear about the in-game commerce being worked on as many have been wanting to know about the purchasing of items like the Woodland House which is currently only available if you subscribe as it is not a free space like the Mirage House. Keep fixing those bugs, especially the "missing sound" one as it has been open for a while and impacting many players such that they are not able to enjoy the game fully as it was intended (e.g. background noise at Hub and Woodland Hills, music at Arcade Plaza, sound effects for bowling game, new sound effects added to Player Menu UI, etc.).

    In any case, thank you Atom Republic/Atom Universe team for all your efforts and keep up the great work! :)

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  3. Yes, I know. Sorry, I was using the word "invite" figuratively not literally in that I meant have people join me in my house, not necessarily by an explicit invitation. I know that currently you go to the "Friends" tab of the "Social" screen, select a player and then click "Join Player" button in the lower right hand corner. During the early stages of the development of the social features, there was an "invite" option for friends and so I'm sure something like that will come back as I agree it's preferred to only allow people to come to your personal space by invite. Besides you inviting them, friends should be able to request an invite which can be either accepted/rejected by the owner of the personal space. Otherwise, the personal space wouldn't be a private space if anyone could join you.

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  4. if they don't make an option to invert the camera then this game will fail.

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  5. if they don't make an option to invert the camera then this game will fail.

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