Monsters & Memories - An Old School Indie MMO

[Zukan]

Rolling right into another update, the January update just dropped, and as always I recommend you check it on the site here because there more images and videoes than I will be posting here. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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Hi all!

We’ve rolled into 2023 with the same steady pace we’ve had throughout 2022. One big difference is that we’ve been able to do it with our friends and family in tow.

As we mentioned last month, we had a goal of getting people from outside of the team onto our new Test Server, so that we could work out any obvious tech challenges while starting to gather feedback on the game.

That goal was accomplished, and we’ve been operating in a hybrid New Development & Live Operations mode ever since.

This means that while we’re continuing to create new features and content, we’re also addressing the bugs and feedback that have been rolling in via our /bug tool and the Discord channels we’ve provided our testers.

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Why are we testing so early?
The bug fixes we make now, priorities we identify from real players, and the feedback we gather all make our foundation stronger and should save us time in the long run. Waiting to gather this info later or at the end of the development cycle makes no sense to us.

Also, since we’re making a MMORPG, our thought is that the sooner we build and test the tools needed to support a live service, the better. And this approach will help us build our live ops “chops” well in advance to going live.

We’ve received a couple hundred bug reports and pieces of feedback, and the team has been steadily chipping away at them.

The changes are too many to list here in text.

If you’re interested in seeing what’s been going on behind the scenes, we’ve provided a peak into that work in the images below:

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Character Art & Concepts

• Iteration on Player Character texture style, technical approach, and pipelines
  - We’ll show some of this here, but expect another big iteration to be shown off next update
  
• Iteration on the Human player mesh
• Various NPC and class related concepts
• Class illustrations for future website revisions and Player’s Manual
• VFX iteration
• Bug fixes in support of playtesting

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Environment Art & Concepts

Night Harbor

• Finished gray box of Sagesyde Library interior.
• Finished gray box of Sagesyde Wizard tower.
• 85-90% completed on Spellbinders Spire block out.
• Started cleaning up navigation from the Main gates to Sagesyde.
  - Redirected street flow
  - Temp signage
• Gray boxed new PoI to draw players attention towards Sagesyde and The Necropolis districts
• Building out of interiors for the Harbor District

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Tomb of the Last Wyrmsbane

• Blocked out new rooms in the Ossuary Antechamber area.
• Finished underdeveloped room in the central area of tomb.
• Full lighting, quality and optimization pass of the zone's tomb section. (Cave section not started.)
• Modeled unique torches for Wyrmsbane.
  - Animation for pulling torch created.
• Spike trap prefab and animations created.
• Various Nav mesh and geo fixes to prevent pathing and navigation exploits found during friends and family testing sessions.
• Created stone decal of the current Wyrmsbane symbol.
• Created a banner material for the current Wyrmsbane symbol.
• Various Nav, Geo, Lighting fixes across various zones.

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UI Art
Ability Icons and Backgrounds concepted and created

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Game Design / QA / Animation / Sound / Tech

• Too many changes to list here.
• Scroll through the Patch Notes in the first section of this update.
• If we continue at this rate, we’ll work on finding a better format for this in the future.

MnM Category Added to Twitch
Monsters & Memories now has its own Category on Twitch. Be sure to give us a follow here via THIS LINK.
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In Closing
As always, thanks again for being here!

And a special thanks for all of the Friends & Family that have been putting in some serious hours playing the game, giving us feedback, and writing up bug reports.

It’s been huge for us!

For everyone else, be sure to join the mailing list if you haven’t already. We’ll make better use of it in 2023.

We’ll see you in the next update.

[pink grapefruit]

this is so interesting. how fleshed out will the lore be? will there be a deity system, and pvp?

[Zukan]

Originally Posted by pink grapefruit [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

this is so interesting. how fleshed out will the lore be? will there be a deity system, and pvp?

There is a lot of lore, but we've purposfully been tight lipped on it so people can explore that for themselves when they get in game. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] There will be a deity system that will be more involved than just picking which god you follow at character creation; its more like factions. You can build faction with the god you want to follow, and even switch gods.

While we're not making a PvP centric game that doesn't mean there may not be PvP in some cases. Probably in the form of duels, area zones, and if there is enough interested to create a PvP ruleset server that is on the table as well.

[Ennewi]

Loading screen lore: Neat feature. Always enjoyed reading back when it existed on p99, even if most were silly and more or less Snapple facts.
Females capes added: The one article of clothing absent from fashionquest.
New level down jingle: Death knell, yes please!
Command /random for ph4t l00tz: Still haven't seen any roll 32k out of 32k. Love the anomalies where there's a tie or when a roll off takes place and it's zeroes.

Only able to skim through rn, but those are the initial ones that stuck out beyond the more substantial fixes. Cool update! Loving the progress.

[Ardok]

ngl I'm pretty excited for a new MMO that tickles my holy trinity.

[Zukan]

Originally Posted by Ardok [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ngl I'm pretty excited for a new MMO that tickles my holy trinity.

Tank, DPS, Heals? We have CC roles as well. Monk/SK/Necro Feign Death spliting, Enchanter/Bard/Inquisitor Mez, Enchanter/Cleric/Paladin Lull.

I like to think of it more like a Holy Quaternity. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Zukan]

Got the Wererat model setup with his little idle animation in-game on stream last night. I think he looks pretty neat. But still more texture work needed to polish up!

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[Zukan]

Feburary update just dropped! I recommend you check it on the site here because there more images and videoes than I will be posting here.

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Hi all!

The big theme from last month involved our focus on the Friends & Family testing that we kicked off at the end of the year. Read more about that in last month’s update.

The testing has continued and we’ve stayed busy reacting to the feedback. While that’s been going on, we’ve also been steadily working on the assets, pipeline, and other changes needed for our Proof of Concept.

Our current goal is to get the game to a state that we’re comfortable showing during the Public Stress Test.

This test will be a very early in development look at the game, in which our focus will be technical stability.

It’s risky, because it’ll give everyone a firsthand view of the game as it is now, and not everyone will be able to frame their expectations accordingly - but the hope is that we’ll get technical information that’ll save us development time in the long run.

Our target for that is the end of March, but we’ll update everyone via the livestreams and Discord, should we need to push it until later.

Fingers crossed, and maybe we’ll see you in game before the next update.

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Character Art & Concepts

• Added a new artist to the team (more on that below)
• Reorganized the player system, human male model, UV layout, and textures
• Developed two Armor Prototypes for the new system
• Modeled and implemented the Wererat
• Small update to Horse model/texture
• Mob & NPC Concepts
• Weapon Concepts

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Environment Art & Concepts

• Continued developing the Sagesyde district
• Continued building out interior spaces along the waterfront
• Roughed out ideas for the Northern Newbieyard
• Boundary Pass for Night Harbor and Shaded Dunes (seen below in fuchsia )
• Water Volume fixes in Night Harbor and Shaded Dunes
• Created ladder prefabs, and replaced many of the old ladders in Night Harbor
• Created a new Concept for the Goblins’ Heap

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Game Design
Content

• The Lost Traveler in Shaded Dunes is on hiatus for now. He (and maybe others) will return later
• The Frottage portion of Elrind’s quest now accepts “/rub carvings” as well
• Typo fixed in Guard Jeskal’s dialogue
• Jacobin’s quest text regarding necklaces at each stage should be clearer
• Fixed exp exploit in Spellblade quest
• Fixed some pathing errors linked to revisions to the city layout
• Chompers feedback loop fixed. Chompers is now unique
• Quartermaster now mentions the bounty quest if asked
• Diseased Blood drop rates increased (for now)
• Quest requiring Snake Poison and Venom Glands, now all take Venom Glands
• Many existing starter notes updated for clarity
• Buckmarr's list has been updated for clarity
• a Wandering Ghoul's spawn rate has been adjusted
• Multhele Root has been modified in several ways
• Inquisitor quest instructions should be clearer
• Old Rankle now mentions the bounty quest if asked
• New secret cooking recipes
• New cookbook added, dropped from particular enemy npcs

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Itemization

• Bucklers are no longer considered “small” items
• Ornate Cultist Lamp shines a little bit brighter
• Giant Fire Beetle Eyes can now be equipped appropriately
• Blessed and Giant Fire Beetle Eyes now emit light as intended
• Spell and Trade Skill (and a few other) Vendors should now buy back the items they sell
• Aashir’s Journal’s description has been updated to reduce confusion regarding slots
• Adjusted weight for Chain and Plate armor equipment
• Fixed class requirements on certain Chain armor sets
• Adjusted weight of all Robe items

Tomb of the Last Wyrmsbane
Several named can no longer have certain status effects such as Mez, Charm, etc. applied to them

Sungreet Strand
Added some placeholder base mob population

Vale of Zintar
Adjusted and added to placeholder base mob population

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Abilities Changes
General Abilities

• Most 40 Meter Range Abilities have been reduced to 30 Meters
• Archer retains 40 Meter Abilities
• All 20 Meter Range Abilities have been reduced to 15 Meters
• NPC Shoot now has a cast time and cooldown of 2 seconds each
• Flameburst damage reduced from 5 (L1) to 7 (L4) to 4 (L1) to 7 (L4)
• Noxious Deluge damage reduced from 3 (L1) to 7 (L4) to 3 (L1) to 6 (L4)
• New Abilities: Conjure Food and Conjure Drink
• (Back) Stab, Round Kick, and Targeted Shot max damage variance reduced from 450%/400%/400% to 400%/350%/350%
• Mind Surge can no longer be casted on yourself and now has cast messages

Archer

New Ability: Deadeye (Level 2)

Bard

Redesigned. More work on this to come.

Siren's Call now properly charms (hotfixed)

Songs now work while sitting

Druid

Moonflame damage reduced from 4 (L1) to 7(L4) to 3 (L1) to 6 (L4)

Elementalist

Pet abilities Elemental Fire and Bolt of Water damage changed from 225/175 Damage (L60) to 125 (L60)

Fire and Water Pets do 50% less physical damage and are now Wizard class

Earth Pets do 25% less physical damage

Air Pets are now Monks

Enchanter

New Ability: Runeskin (Level 12)

Necromancer

Blood Pact is now beneficial and self casted only

Shaman

Malady now correctly does 3 Damage Per Tick, up from 2

Consume now only works on yourself

Healing Spores line now has a 30 Meter Range, up from 20 Meters

Spellblade

Can now use Shoot (Archery)


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Tech

• NPCs no longer attempt to cast buffs on friendlies if the target already has a more powerful buff
• Fix for charmed pet not re-aggroing former master after charm fades
• Fixed issue where current target became bugged if you had a charmed pet targeted when charm faded
• Gnomes have returned to character creation menu
• Bard song target now maintains the target even if you change targets. The song will continue to be sung against the initial target at the time the song was started.
• Bard songs now end if the song can not affect the target (song target dies, goes out of range, etc)
• Fixed an issue where bard song target rules were being applied on songs that didn't require a target
• Fixed an issue where bard song skill-ups could happen even if the song didn't affect the target (out of range, etc)
• Now when opening the ability book UI, if the character has a spell book equipped it will default to it (rather than innate abilities)
• Fix for looting item from NPC corpse showing "your" corpse
• Removed some GM command from being displayed in normal player help message
• GMs can now summon players from any zone
• Chat messages for activity (abilities, hits, misses, etc) by NPCs and other players can now be filtered separately, so you can have them in different chat windows
• Fixed an issue where you could single pull mobs with abilities that missed
• Fixed an issue where if a player died while disconnected and re-connected fast enough, they would be stuck forever as a corpse
• Added support for NPCs to be defined as having mez or stun immunity
• Player name plate size and color has been adjusted
• Fixed sound for procs and instant cast abilities
• Fixed pet not defending player when the player is hit by a NPC's harmful ability
• Pets will now assist the player on player's melee/ranged auto attacks
• Receiving items when trading with a player can no longer overflow to your cursor. So you must have enough inventory space now.
• Various fixes around our new database transactions with player trades
• Bugfix: spell haste not working properly
• Display lore blurbs with any random background during loading screen
• Prevent players from logging into the same world with multiple game clients
• Logging into the game world will now not instantly kick out other characters of the same account, preventing instant escape exploit
• Attachments added to the dressing room functionality
• Generate DB string for dressing room functionality, better doll loading logic
• Bugfix: playing chest close sound effects at the incorrect times
• Bugfix: Allow players to connect to another server when a server goes down without having to restart the game client

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In Closing
As mentioned above, this month we also welcomed Patrick (vgfx) to the team. We’ll get a bio added for him on the Team page, but for now:

Patrick is a senior character artist within the games industry, who has also worked on MMOs in the past. He brings close to 20 years of experience with him, and has been following the project for quite a while now. We’re excited to have him on board!

~~~

So, to wrap things up - we’ll continue to be focused on driving towards a public playtest this month. You can follow that progress via our new Twitch category and the VODs we post on YouTube.

Join the Discord and Mailing List if you haven’t already. And we’ll get word out on the upcoming playtest as soon as we know more.

~~~

Thanks again for reading this far and for being a part of the community!

[mrgoochio]

When can we play [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Treefall]

I was watching a lot of the streams and Youtube videos until the second baby arrived.

Can't wait for this.

Old school MMO in a smooth engine is long over due.

LanternEQ may compete for my attention a bit if they ever get that finished up, but I plan to throw my money at Monsters and Memories.

Hoping to have the whole family subbed and working through content!