LEGO Worlds - Stuff we're working on...
Hi everyone,
Weve been a little quiet lately, and since its the end of the month we thought wed give you a run-down of what were currently working on. Please note that a lot of what were sharing here isnt necessarily planned for the next update well go into more details of that separately and its not even a full list of everything were working on, just a few examples.
So, lets take a look
Underwater stuff
Well, many of you noticed theres a lot of water, and we figured it was time to make it explorable since it was already there right in front of everyone, and especially because there are already a few characters that can walk along the sea bed you found them all, right?
So the initial focus is on solving the technical and visual problems caused by allowing the camera to follow underwater instead of colliding with it were also having to adapt many of the build tools and underlying systems to cope with the presence of water volumes.
Meanwhile, there will be a logical gameplay treatment when you dive down you get blue hearts and limited time to explore, while underwater vehicles will have no such problems!
Weve got some fun plans for underwater life, but thatll develop once the core exploration is ready.
Discovery stuff
There has been some debate on the forums about whether the game should have a survival mode, or RPG elements, or quests and so on. Weve stayed relatively quiet about this, but have spent plenty of time discussing it internally. At this time were not making any plans to have separate gameplay modes we feel strongly that the identity of the game would suffer. And in a way, there is a natural separation between the exploration and discovery aspect, and the creative tools. Note that we will continually strive to improve both these components, and the transitions between them!
However, its still a videogame players should feel like they have things to do that make sense, especially if they dont particularly like building, but the game should not become arbitrarily difficult or grindy either! All of which is a difficult balance. So we do aim to draw inspiration from modes and mechanics weve seen elsewhere, just not in a packaged story or survival mode.
Well reveal more as we get closer to the next update. Like yourselves, weve got more ideas than we can possibly ever implement, but we feel this is important so of course when the initial treatment is ready well be reaching out for your thoughts and opinions.
Navigation Stuff
We know that many players are reluctant to explore too far for fear of losing their sense of direction and not being able to find their way back, especially if theyve built something awesome. This can be especially bad if you need to run at low settings.
So weve been working on showing waypoints in the world, so you can always see where you came from, and a map to allow you to place your own. Well explain how it all works as we get ready for the next update.
Ability Stuff
You may have seen that some characters have special abilities if you hadnt noticed already, theres a transform for one character, and others can whistle to summon a particular creature. Well, theres another ability coming that should be hitting the next update, with more to follow over time as we keep making all the existing content better.
Game Camera Stuff
As always, the camera is constantly under review, particularly tracking setup. Chris P actually wrote a really in-depth analysis of his work so far here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/332310/discussions/0/535150948600674729/
Additionally, we have been looking at adding more modes and options, as well as tuning up the way the camera interacts with the landscape.
Camera Item Stuff
At last, more of those items in your inventory will have a purpose its all part of our current push to make sure everything in the game has a function before we start throwing even more stuff in!
GUI Stuff
Along with the addition of a map, weve been tiding up the GUI a little. Right now this is intended to improve usability in fairly simple ways, by reducing visual noise, while everything works the same way, but it is also the first step towards a bigger overhaul that we need a little more time for.
Brick Stuff
We are exploring the technical feasibility of adding additional bricks into the Brick Building tool. Some of you have correctly surmised that the reason the set of bricks were offering at the moment is only a subset of everything is that they are all compatible with our optimised landscape mesh. Additional bricks need to be rendered in a different way and many have additional complexity with collision and connections.
Hopefully well be able to post a proper technical discussion about this, but we do aim to package up a lot of improvements to brick building in a future update, including the ability to place fixtures and fittings.
We also have a couple of new ways to place bricks within the existing build tool.
Animation & Audio Stuff
As well as any new content, existing models continue to gain more character with their own animations and audio please look out for them, as the game is all about those characters! Sometimes it seems like this stuff just gets done but it takes real talent and effort so we hope you like it!
Visual Stuff
One of our longer term undertakings is an integrated skybox, fog and lighting system to replace the simple horizon rendering
Many visual improvements are currently being worked on by the Render team. This includes a new Skybox that will alter the lighting and fog in-game. It looks stunning already, but its not quite ready to show you just yet.
Town Stuff
Also tying in to making exploration and discovery better, we are working on a procedural system for generating towns & settlements. We may be able to share some screenshots soon, but well talk more about this feature when the towns come alive with characters, creatures and vehicles.
Multiplayer Stuff
Work on multiplayer is ongoing! Weve explained it in individual threads, but its worth us offering up another explanation as to why its not something we can just throw out there.
Our engine was initially designed to be used as a single machine, local co-op experience. That means all of the old mechanics we designed were never programmed with networking in mind, which means that when we made our first efforts to do so, there was a lot of issues with it. As were now able to start the work on something incredibly new, weve begun the process of ensuring that all the new mechanics in Worlds are designed and coded with networking in mind. Theres a lot of testing required here before we can roll anything out to the community, but it is something were taking seriously and actively working on because its part of the core appeal building together!
Were also factoring in local co-op with split screen here obviously there are performance implications, but this is something weve always offered in our games and we think its still an essential part of family gaming.
So with apologies we cant offer any new information about an ETA on multiplayer, but when we know, youll know, you know?
Update 2 information will be with you next week.
Thanks and have a good weekend!
LEGO Worlds Team
