June 25th 2020 Patch

This patch was released June 25th, 2020 during the month's Dev stream. It is a Pre-Alpha patch which primarily included changes to the visuals and animations, with a focus on trying to update older visuals to bring them in line with the art direction seen in Faerthale.

## World Building

 Zone Lines now default to spawning you at your previous location within the new zone. Hitting zone lines will feel much more organic because you end up on the same spot on the other side.

 Teleporting to a zone has been implemented, now allowing you to place a location marker to specify where you want the character to be ported. This is going to govern things like world teleportation. If we have a druid or wizard that wants to travel to a specific gateway we can now implement this. It also allows (while preparing for PA5) for a unique starting area for each class. Classes like the Dire Lord would not start next to the village inn. Having a more class appropriate place to start is the plan.

## Aesthetics

 Finishing passes on the Black Rose Keep area, greyboxing and the Keep itself getting ready for PA5 testing.

 Implemented new login screen layout and art, as well as the character creation screen with both the 2D and 3D art. Also in work are installing the loading screen layout and art. It’s a small thing but it’s very refreshing.

 Technical Artist Bruno Rhyme has finished the Lava/ SAP shader system. That will be intensely used for the Isle of Infinite Storms zone and encounters, and also enable a “scorching environment” that is planned for the near future.

 Major improvements and fixes to the visuals and performance of the new fog and water surface systems.

 Phase 2 art for player and NPC chat bubbles has come in and they are looking fantastic, and add another level to the polish, immersion, and QoL aspects of the game.

 All current race-specific humanoid NPCs have been converted from placeholder models to the player models, and presents a more native flow in your journey throughout the game.

**Animations**

 2H slashing combat idle animations and auto attack animations added in. For now, this will cover the animations for 2 Handed Swords, Maces, Hammers, and Axes. Down the road we will differentiate blunt from slashing types.

 Basic Unarmed/ Hand to hand idle animation and combat animation added. These are different from the Monk who has their own specific attacks, animations, and stances.

 2 Handed Staff combat Idle and auto attack animations added.

 Animator Ross Armstrong has done several polish updates on the spell casting loop, channeled spells, omni-directional, and targeted release/ firing animations for spells.

 Significant refactoring of NPC animations has given more precision and performance gains to NPC reactions and fighting actions, meaning they will appear more like player actions.

## User Interface

 A small but important note by Joppa was given about NPC text in Italics; this will signify when they think they are speaking privately, or as if alone.

## Programming

 Support for interacting with mesh colliders in the client. We can apply the click triggers in mass. So now the perception system can easily link to those mesh colliders, so you can click on complicated shapes in the world. Like a root or bundle of mushrooms in Old Wood. Also if a root is type is to be interact-able every root in the area can be made interact-able. The perception system will feel better because of this, and possibly reduce or eliminate “pixel hunting”, where the trigger was only on a small piece of an object.