Author Archives: Interkarma

November Builds 0.10.12

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Live Builds have been updated to 0.10.12. This is another primarily bug-fix release, with one major new feature.

Class Questions (Numidium)

This is a feature from The Elder Scrolls 1: Arena that has carried over to other Bethesda games, including Daggerfall. Even the infamous G.O.A.T. in Fallout 3 is a variant of this system. During the class questions process, the player is presented with several ethical problems and a few alternate ways to resolve each situation. Each answer will weight player towards the Thief, Mage, and Warrior archetypes. Once the questions are completed, a class hopefully fitting your play style will be offered.

This UI is more than just an elaborate class selector. It provides hooks for the imagination to think about how you might roleplay your character once generated and plunked into the world. Thanks to Numidium, this feature is now fully implemented in Daggerfall Unity.

[gfycat data_id=”majesticcomplexcarpenterant”]

 

 

If you find it hard to see the darker portion of above animation on your device, Numidium created the following screenshot with false colours that make the archetypes easier to see. If you’ve played Skyrim, you might recognise these designs from the Thief, Mage, and Warrior Guardian Stones. It’s wonderful how the later versions of TES make little nods like this towards the earlier games.

 

New Release Schedule

I have a backlog of pull requests (pending changes) open on GitHub for review. Every change can take a lot of time to work through and test before merging into the monthly builds. This can mean simple fixes might take a few weeks to come out, or be held up while a larger change is still under review. Sometimes a change might get bumped to the following month just because there isn’t enough time to review it properly before end of current month.

Now so much of the game has been built out, I can’t see any reason to stick with a strictly monthly schedule. Rather than dropping a big release with many combined changes each month, I will start releasing new builds approximately weekly. If something minor is fixed, I’ll try to release a new build just for that change. This also has the benefit of making it easier to pin down new problems when the number of changes is fewer in each release.

On the Live Builds page, I will start retaining longer history of available builds rather than cycling out old builds once per month. If you encounter problems with a new build, you can roll back to the previous build until it’s fixed. I’m looking at retaining approximately 4-6 weeks of build history.

This also means a scaling back of the monthly blog updates. Unless something big is available to feature, I’ll use the forums to post incremental changes and save the blog for more interesting content. I will link future releases to change log as they’re posted to Live Builds page.

 

General Fixes & Improvements

The November builds have several other small fixes included.

  • Allow mods to change wagon weight limit (AsesinoBlade)
  • Fix opening quest log clearing residences from map (Nystul)
  • Use classic formula for Masque of Clavicus (Numidium)
  • Support for custom books is now stable (TheLacus)
  • Fix player falling through floor when entering certain buildings while mounted (Hazelnut)
  • Add console command “add_all_equip magicWeapons” to spawn all magic items for testing (Hazelnut)
  • Make spawned weapons identified (Hazelnut)
  • Fix issues wth replacement buildings (Hazelnut)
  • Fix 1gp quest reward (Hazelnut)
  • Fix rented rooms duration underflow (Pango)
  • Use webm videos on Linux (Pango)
  • Fix NullReferenceException in DaggerfallVidPlayerWindow.IsPlaying for loading screen (Pango)
  • Fix comment displayed in text block for quest C0C00Y10 (Jay_H)
  • Do not resist “caster only” self-cast spells, e.g. heals (Interkarma)
  • Do not reflect spells from caster onto self (Interkarma)
  • Fix Thieves Guild O0A0AL00 using local NPC for contact, causing a crash in some cases (Interkarma)

October Builds 0.10.9

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Live Builds have been updated to version 0.10.9. This is primarily a bug-fix build, but a few new features have been added to the mix.

Edit: Builds have been updated to 0.10.10 to fix an intermittent issue with combat targeting.

World Data Overrides (Hazelnut)

This is a longer-term initiative empowering modders to edit and change the world itself by providing substitute game data on the fly. While this is still under development, substantial progress has been made and is available in Daggerfall Unity now. For an early example, the below crypt has a few customisations. I have copy-pasted Hazelnut’s words in the list below.

  • A third coffin – the centre one.
  • A fiery birdbath (or whatever you would call it) in the corridor outside the door.
  • A floating green pot which you can just see behind, a bit further down the corridor.
  • An Archaeologists sign! I needed to test new models would work, so just used the one provided by my guild mod.

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September Builds 0.10.6

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Live Builds have been updated with version 0.10.6. This release patches a massive number of bugs, and we still made time for some new features. I’ll provide a quick summary of the major stuff first.

Quest Lists (Hazelnut)

If you enable setting Advanced > Enhancements > Guild quest player selection, then guild quest-givers will offer multiple quests at a time, rather than needing to keep clicking “no” until you see a quest you like.

 

Quests will rotate every so often to give you a fresh selection to choose from. This feature also has thanks to Firebrand who entered all the quest display names.

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Daggerfall Unity Alpha Release

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The first Daggerfall Unity alpha release is now available on Live Builds. Since announcing this a few days ago, I’ve been honestly overwhelmed by the well-wishes and positive feedback from you all. Thank you everyone for your support, it means so much for a project like this. Your kind words help me to come back each day with a fresh heart.

So what does the alpha milestone mean? For Daggerfall Unity, this means we are now at broad feature parity with classic Daggerfall. Not only is the game playable from start to end, but all the core gameplay systems from classic are implemented and available. Hitting alpha means that development will shift from adding new gameplay features to refinement and fixing bugs. There are also a few features unique to Daggerfall Unity that I’ve been saving for the alpha cycle. Check out the roadmap to see what’s coming up next.

In some ways alpha doesn’t feel like a big deal. We were almost there in June with only a single enchantment effect and a couple of artifact effects remaining. But emotionally I feel that reaching this point really is a huge milestone. It represents the final stages of development are here at long last.

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June Builds – Map Upgrades, Retro Rendering, Crime Features, and More!

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New Live Builds are now available, combining all our work for month of June. We managed to get a lot done this month, even making a break into 0.8 with new crime features. Let’s start breaking it all down.

Improved Travel Map Search (Pango)

Some of the randomly named locations across the Illiac Bay can be challenging to search for. Either the name is very long like “Bleeding Redeemer of Kynareth” or just plain weird like “Old Barbyvyra’s Farm”, and players would sometimes need to switch back and forth between quest log and map screens before they could perfectly enter enough of the location name for search to work.

Those days are over with Pango’s most welcome upgrade to search in the travel map. Now you can just enter any part of the name, you don’t even need to spell it quite right, and the search will find all the closest matching locations. Look what happens when I mangle “Old Barbyvyra’s Farm” to just “barbv”.

 

First hit is exactly what I’m searching for, along with a reasonable number of other matches. If you enter enough of the name perfectly like before, the location will be selected immediately without showing the above UI.

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May Builds – Lycanthropy

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It’s almost the end of the month, which means a fresh round of Daggerfall Unity Live Builds. May comes bearing the full lycanthropy feature from curse through to cure. If you’re the kind of Daggerfall player who just loves to wolf out (or tusk out if you dig more on wereboars) then this update is for you! Note that some spoilers are below for how lycanthropy operates and the paths to curing or managing it.

Lycanthropy

If you tangle with a stray werewolf or wereboar while out adventuring, there’s a small chance (0.6%) that you will become inflicted by their same curse. Unlike other infections, this one will bypass your normal disease resistance unless you happen to already be a vampire or lycanthrope. On the first evening after infection, you will have a dream about a “man who is less than a man”.

If you see this dream, you have just three days to find a temple healer or cure yourself through magical means. If you let the disease run its course, you’ll be cursed to hunt the innocent once per month and will be forced to shapechange when either moon is full.

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