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[MADSOFT]

Introduction

Join the Velyrian colonists as they explore the deadly secrets of the planet's core. Project: Velyria is a compelling new browser-based MMORPG where you can choose your class, select your skills, and save the planet from what lurks beneath.

Project: Velyria is an upcoming browser-based, sci-fi MMORPG that revolves around classic dungeon crawling and turn-based combat.

Official Website | Facebook Page | Twitter | Tumblr | Youtube Channel | Vine


Previous Development Updates

#1: Where Is The Alpha?
#2: No, Seriously, Where Is The Alpha?
#3: Or How Our Programmer Never Sleeps
#4: Combating Combat And Other Programming Headaches
#5: We Can Build Them Better, Stronger, Smarter
#6: Nearly There!

Screenshot Saturday #1: Chipping Items
Screenshot Saturday #2: Combat Interface
Screenshot Saturday #3: Messaging & Trading

Shortcuts To In-Topic Updates

Screenshot Saturday #4: Base, NPC Conversations, and Accepting Missions
Screenshot Saturday #5: The Training Menu
Screenshot Saturday #6: Profile and Settings
Screenshot Saturday #7: Spending Stat Points

Development Update #6: Nearly There!


Development Update #5: We Can Build Them Better, Stronger, Smarter

It has been quite some time since our last update, but rest assured, we've been very busy. This month has been all about nailing out the finer details of messaging, trading, and combat.

Before we discuss our recent completed tasks, we would like to draw your attention to the status of our pre-release blogging schedule:

Every Tuesday, we post a new Weekly Feature highlighting a weapon, armour set, or skill, and its lore.

We are continuing with our Facebook Previews. Every 100 Likes earns a new preview, which we share on our various social media platforms a few days after reaching the milestone.

Unfortunately, the Task Corkboard Update, previously updating every Friday, has been put on hiatus. If you would like to see a return of the weekly task update, let us know in the comments below.

Our new addition, Screenshot Saturday, already has three entries. In these blog posts, we will post gifs and screenshots of Project: Velyria's UI and discuss some of the reasons behind our design decisions.




On with the progress report! Here's what we got done this month:

Chat: We have added the ability to mute and unmute players. This particular feature is not meant to block players completely and it will not prevent private messaging from muted players, but we hope it will help players organize their chat. Players will also receive in-chat notifications when friends log on. Additionally, the chat system has been stabilized and we have fixed several bugs.

Exploration: Players can now use and drop items while on the map! In order to facilitate this, we built a new map-exclusive inventory UI. We also identified a major security flaw in relation to the inventory and map; fortunately, we were able to seal up the problem with relative ease.



Messaging/Trading: Items can now be successfully attached to outgoing messages. Trades have an interface for rejecting and accepting items. You can learn all about the new UI in our recent Screenshot Saturday post. In-game and browser notifications were added for different trade statuses.



Combat: Boy howdy has combat ever evolved from our initial plans. We've added a brand-new UI and hotbars which you can read about here. Players can finally use items in combat. Monsters have been programmed with enhanced AI; they can actually hit back now! (More on that in the next segment of this post)

Chipping: Weapons and armour pieces can now be enhanced through chipping. You can read a blog post that mention the risks and rewards of chipping here.



Alliances: We cleaned up the UI on the page. We think it looks a lot nicer without the floating buttons.


Here's what still remains to be done:

Exploration: Informational tiles on map, Improvements to Mission tiles, First-person view. Briefing: Dynamically updating sector stats after completing missions/conversations. Combat: Critical hits, Monster weaknesses/strengths Chat: Reporting users Player: Character selection screen Marketplace: Front-end coding and design, Directory and item listing, Dashboard for shop management

For this update, we really want to shine a light on the development of the monster AI. Instead of simply resorting to randomized attack patterns, we wanted to expand the enemy AI to provide a more interesting and varied combat experience. For this blog post, we will be using a randomly-generated Orange Slyhorn as our example monster. We will call her Pip.


1. Intelligence Levels

Monsters in Project: Velyria are randomly assigned an intelligence classification when generated before a battle. Intelligence determines whether the monster will calculate its skills using its AI or randomly select a skill. There are three levels of intelligence:

Dim: The monster has a 50% chance of ignoring its AI and randomly selecting a skill every turn. Average: The monster has 25% chance of ignoring its AI and randomly selecting a skill every turn. Bright: The monster always uses its AI to calculate its skills.

Pip was generated with an intelligence classification of average.


2. Attack Patterns

All monsters in Project: Velyria will be given a set attack pattern determined by its species.



There are four attack patterns:

Damage-Dealer: The monster prioritizes dealing damage to the player. Tank: The monster prioritizes buffing itself and debuffing/damaging the player. Healer: The monster prioritizes healing allies with HP lower than 50%. Support: The monster prioritizes buffing allies.

We know that all Orange Slyhorn are given the attack pattern Damage-Dealer, so Pip is an average Damage-Dealer.


3. Personalities

Each monster is given a randomly selected personality at the start of combat. This determines how the monsters react to the actions of its allies and the player.



There are five personalities:

Short-Tempered: If the monster was attacked during the last turn, the monster will select a skill to target the player. Egotistic: If the monster selects a skill that could heal or buff an ally, it will instead use that skill on itself. Coward: If there are other monsters on the field, the monster will use a skill that does not target the player. Protective: If another monster was attacked during the last turn, the monster will select a skill that targets the recently attacked monster. Careless: The monster's personality does not affect skill or target selection.

Pip is now a short-tempered, average Damage-Dealer, meaning she has two characteristics that preferentially call for attacks on the player.


4. Targeting Patterns

Certain monster skills are given predetermined targeting patterns. For example, a damage-dealing skill would always target the player. Some skills, particularly those that target a monster's allies, do not have a set targeting pattern. Instead, the skill uses the monster's inherent targeting pattern to determine its target. This allows one skill to perform differently depending on the monster using it. Some examples of ally-targeting patterns a monster might have include:

• Strongest: The selected skill will target the monster with the highest HP.
• Non-matching: The selected skill will target a monster that does not have the skill's buff.
• Random: The selected skill will randomly target a monster.
• Tank: The selected skill will target a Tank monster.
• Defenceless: The selected skill will target the monster with the least defence.

Pip has an inherent targeting pattern of defenceless. It is unlikely that Pip would buff or heal her allies considering her short-tempered personality and Damage-Dealer attack pattern, but in the event that she randomly selected a buffing skill due to her average intelligence, the skill would target her ally with the lowest defence.


5. Monster Types

In Project: Velyria, monster species are separated into four distinct type categories. These categories determine their strengths and their weaknesses when combating players. Each type is associated to a colour for the player to quickly distinguish the monster type during combat.

Sprites (Green): Sprite monsters are quick and agile. Some may be able to fly. They are weak to scientists and strong against soldiers. Barons (Blue): Baron monsters deal major damage with every attack. Some of them may have very high HP. They are weak to recruits and strong against workers. Brutes (Orange): Brute monsters are those that seek refuge in the ground. They often have very high defence. They are weak to soldiers and strong against scientists. Mystics (Purple): Mystic monsters are bizarre creatures that can control the elements. Some species lead aquatic or semi-aquatic lifestyles. They are weak to workers and strong against recruits.

All Orange Slyhorn are Sprites due to their swiftness. This leaves Pip as a short-tempered damage-dealer of average intelligence with an inherent defenceless targeting pattern that enjoys beating up soldiers in her spare time. Whew! That is a bit of a mouthful!




We hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the new enemy AI! We love hearing from you, so let us know what you think in the comments below. For our question this month we want to know: If you were a monster, what would your profile look like?

Read the post on Tumblr (Like and/or reblog too if you want)!

[8-Bit Ape]

The GUI looks really awesome!

[MADSOFT]

The GUI looks really awesome!

Thank you! Really glad you think so

[Bones]

Looks pretty sweet, I had a browser MMO phase for a while.
The top down dungeon exploring reminds me of Fallensword or BARP online, one thing I liked about Fallensword was that you could see the names of players in the same tile as you. And then you could challenge them to a duel if you wanted.

The sounds of the monsters AI sounds quite unique.
Will you be mainly focused on PvE instead of PvP?

[MADSOFT]

Thanks, Bones!

We have something in place that allows you to interact with other players on the same dungeon floor as you, but I can't really talk about it just yet
And yes, the main focus of the game is PvE, but that does not mean PvP is entirely out of the picture. Once again, can't talk about that yet. Maybe in a future update!

[0x0961h]

Oh, it's very beautiful combo of non-pixel and pixel art. Like it. And subscribed to the thread, of course!

[MADSOFT]

We posted some screenshots and gifs of the base and npc conversation UI in the Screenshot Saturday Topic and wrote about how conversations work!

>>> Click here to go check them out! <<<



You can also read the post on our Tumblog!

[MADSOFT]

Clicking on an NPC's name in some dialogue/text, or clicking the "info" button next to an NPC when talking to them, will open this box:



It's still a work in progress, so the UI might change, but this is essentially all the information that will appear.

• The background represents what sector of the base they're in and the "Visit In" button will display the sectors name.
• The "Respect" section's colour is red when negative and green when positive. It will intensify the closer you get to -100% or 100%. If the character is set as your favourite, the respect you earn and lose will be doubled. You can only have one character as your favourite at a time and that can only be changed once a week.
• Enabling notifications for a character will make the game notify you whenever a new conversation, mission, or other action becomes available.

I feel like the bottom section is kind of empty though, so I might add some additional data there, like stats maybe? Not sure. Feel free to leave a reply if you have any suggestions!

[MADSOFT]

Hello everyone!

We've mentioned this in a past development update and, thanks to your feedback, we decided to  release the Status Page! If you happen to be a Gold or Silver Founder, you can now access the brand new Status Page simply by logging in to your account and clicking the banner located below the navigation bar.



The Status Page is a private section where you can keep track of the game's development as we get closer to the first private alpha. You also get access to exclusive content such as screenshots of what we're working on, early access to development updates, personal notes from the team, and gifts, including wallpapers, in-game items, and PDFs!



Each person will have their own, securely generated RSS Feed to be instantly notified when new content is posted.
The page also includes a comment section for the Founders to connect with one another and discuss directly with the team members!

To those of you that have purchased a Bronze Founder Pack:
Thank you for your support! If you really want to access the Status Page, you can easily upgrade your pack by logging in to your Project: Velyria account and clicking the buttons at the bottom of the prelaunch page. If you upgrade, not only will you get access to this awesome new Status Page, but you will also be supporting the development of the game!

To those of you that already are Silver or Gold Founders:
Thank you so much for your amazing support! We truly hope this new page will make up for taking so long to get the game ready for the private alpha. We will be adding new, exclusive content regularly for you to enjoy while you watch us finish up tasks.

If you have any questions, feedback, suggestions, or comments, don't hesitate to post in this thread or on the Status Page's comment section.

Also, here is a preview of what the status page looks like (click for full size):

[MADSOFT]

Screenshot Saturday #5: The Training Menu

Today's post is about the skill tree and little aspects that power each skill.

There are three categories of skills in the game:

Mastery: These skills increase your proficiency with a certain type of weapon. Higher proficiency means more stable damage with that specific weapon type. Passive: Passive skills directly affect your character and do not need to be activated. They can apply permanent boosts to your stats or function as active skill prerequisites. Active: Active skills are the kind you can use in battle to fight your enemies. They don't always deal damage, sometimes they work like a passive skill, but with a temporary effect that only lasts a certain number of turns after being activated.

The screenshot below shows the details of an active skill (click for full-size).


Skills are also assigned types, which are there only so the player can quickly and easily identify what kind of active skill they are choosing in battle. The small icon in the top left corner of the skill hoverbox is the type indicator (click for full-size):



The one shown in the screenshot above (the lightning bolt), indicates "damage dealing." There are six types of skills:

Heal: An active skill with this type assigned to it means that its primary role is to heal the player. Buff: Active skills assigned that type will apply status effects that buff the player or other targets. Debuff: Similar to the buff type, except the status effects that it would apply will debuff the target. Damage Dealing: Those skills focus on dealing damage to the target. Mastery: This type is usually only applied to skills of the "Mastery" category. Meaning you will never see this type in combat or on active/passive skills. Bonus: This type is usually assigned to passive skills that apply a permanent bonus to the player. Such as a health or defence increase.

Of course, the type icons don't indicate everything a skill can do. It is very possible that a skill can deal damage and apply a status effect, heal the player and damage the enemy, or even apply buffs and debuffs at the same time. The type icons are only there to indicate the primary role of a skill. If we think the players will mostly use a certain skill for its damage dealing aspect over the status effect it has a chance to deal, we will give it the "damage dealing" type.


(Click for full-size)

As you can see, clicking on a skill will show its details in the sidebar. Details include the skill's level, description, target, cost, cooldown, blocks, power increase method, and a preview of what the stats will look like at the skill's next level. You will also notice, towards the end of the gif, that the skills fade in and out. There are buttons outside the gif (visible in the previous two screenshots) that allow you to highlight skills based on their category and class. This will be useful when you reach a very high level and have a ton of skills visible in the tree.

There are a few skill details that need to be explained:

The cost will not always be NB (Nanobots, the "Mana" equivalent), sometimes a skill will cost HP or other stats, so you have to be careful when using skills! The blocks, as seen in the "Powerful Slice" skill, are what powers the skills. This is somewhat complex, but it's properly explained in the game and you only need to pay attention to it if you're the kind of player that loves micromanagement and devising strategies in battle. There are several types of blocks and they indicate what kind of actions a skill will be performing during one or more turns. The Power Increase Method indicates how a skill progresses when you spend points on it to level it up. The graphs should be pretty self-explanatory, so I will post them all below.

Stable: The skill's power increases in a stable manner.


Exponential: The skill's power increases more and more every time you spend a point on it.


Even: A skill's power only increases the first time you spend a point on it. The remaining times will affect something else, like lowering the cooldown or cost.


Burst: A skill's power only increases every time you spend a certain number of points on it. In this case, two.

That's all for this week! Hope you enjoyed this little look into the skill tree and skill mechanics

[MADSOFT]

Screenshot Saturday #6: Profile And Settings

When you click on another player's character name, either from the chat or your buddy list, this is what you will see:



(click for full size)

Everything is pretty straight forward except maybe that table at the bottom which represents their placement in the game rankings.
There's an empty space at the bottom though that feels awkward. I'm not entirely sure what to put there, but we've been given a few suggestions via twitter including a personal description or a shelf of achievements. Would you happen to have any ideas? Feel free to let us know!

Also, here is the settings UI:



(click for full size)

The settings that appear here are not final. For example, we never really planned to have music playing in the game. That setting is just there because I needed more setting tabs in the sidebar. It's all still a work in progress.

[MADSOFT]

Almost forgot to post something for Screenshot Saturday!

We've been really busy re-factoring some combat mechanics and implementing the new animations system which, unfortunately, isn't really anything that can be shown off. So instead, I'm going to keep this post brief and show you how a player spends the stat points they earn by leveling up.



As you can see, stats are divided into two categories:

The Primary Character Stats are the ones the player can manipulate directly. You'll notice that the Strength's specs appear in the gif after the little question mark icon, which appears when hovering over the stat, is clicked. There are three different sources that affect each primary stat. The points you have spent on the stat, the boost your current equipment is giving that stat, and the additional bonus points your passive skills might be giving that stat.

Every time you level up, you are awarded 5 stat points to spend. Be careful where you spend them though! Those primary stat points affect nearly everything you do, and it's important you learn how each stat affects the class you are playing as!

The Derived Character Stats can not be directly manipulated, but are affected by the primary character stats. Each derived stat is calculated with unique equations that include primary stats, among other things. As you spend your stat points, you will notice that the derived stats update dynamically. This gives you a little preview of exactly what derived stats are affected by each primary stat before you save your changes. The equations for each derived stats vary depending on your class, of course.



To make it easier for you, hovering over a derived stat preview will show the total sum

Click here to read more about managing your character!

[MADSOFT]

Development Update #6: Nearly There!

It has been two months since our last development update. Two months of hard work and very little sleep. Two months and we are now so tantalizingly close to Project: Velyria's alpha that we can scarcely bear it.

So what exactly have we accomplished in the past two months? Let's dig in.

NPC Respect System: We've introduced an NPC respect system to Project: Velyria. Every choice you make in a conversation can potentially earn or lose you respect with that conversation's NPC. Having the respect of an NPC can earn you enhanced mission rewards or potentially unlock secret missions and conversations. Every NPC has a different respect threshold, so it may take some experimentation to figure out the optimal way to a character's heart.

QIU Overhaul: Our friendly, neighbourhood Query Indexing Unit has undergone a serious overhaul, upping its capabilities to guide you through tutorials and better help you navigate the world of Velyria. With a shiny new interface, QIU is ready for the big time.





(Please note that clicking on an image will open the full sized version in a new tab.)

Play Container: We've separated the game's load screen from the rest of the game, leading to an overall reduction in load times. Additionally, with this improvement, both the chat and QIU can be used during screen transitions, ensuring you never miss a message from your buddies or alliance.

Enemy AI Fixes: Enemy AI has been whittled down to transform Velyria's monsters into lean, mean fighting machines. Enemies also now remember previous turns and can attack based on combat history.

Victory And Defeat Screens: Snazzy new end combat screens have been designed and implemented, providing interesting combat statistics and a way to efficiently collect item drops.



UI Improvements For Everyone: The buddy list, mission log, and combat screen have undergone some much needed UI enhancements. Buddies can be easily organized.



Missions have been separated into 'complete' and 'on-going' sections, and mission objectives are clearly marked and ordered. In combat, rounds and turns are easily distinguishable, and we've added a whole slew of new animations to improve clarity and overall smack-down satisfaction.



Additionally, NPC infoboxes can now be viewed, highlighting NPC descriptions and current respect levels, and the mission/conversation indicators on the base and briefing pages dynamically update.



Crafting: We've reworked the crafting system, setting tight but necessary restrictions on how players can craft items. You can also now choose to discard unwanted items after crafting.



Exploration: Mission tiles now work as intended, removing and giving items depending on the mission in question.

Server Move: We finally moved the Madjestic API to our dedicated server. Everything runs super fast now!

In the next couple of weeks, we hope to release edited footage from our 12-hour Twitch Livestream we hosted back on Sunday, September 28th, 2014. During the event, our artist worked on location backdrops, and we got a chance to show-off some combat, exploration, and conversations.

We already released the first of two illustration time-lapse videos that we planned on creating using the streaming footage and you can watch it here!

Make sure you subscribe to our Youtube Channel so you don't miss out on any other videos!

The MADSOFT Games Blog will continue to post Weekly Features on Tuesdays, but as we strive to complete the alpha, we anticipate having occasional hiccoughs in the schedule. We apologize in advance if we fall a touch behind!

Finally, we want to take the time to remind you that access to Project: Velyria's alpha is restricted to people who have purchased Founder Packs. If you were holding out on buying one, your time is running out!

Thank you once again for your continued dedication and support!

Read the post on Tumblr (Like and/or reblog too if you want)!