$70k Stretch Goal: Adversarial Camps

We’re happy to announce that we’ve reached our first stretch goal. When we crossed $60k in pledges it ensured that the Rocharus Mount will make it into launch, and become our first tamed mount. Stadi Thompson spent the past few days getting this mount rigged and ready. We still need to write some of the mechanics for these and there is some animation work to be done, but you can find a screenshot the first pass implementation of this mount at the end of this update.

We now turn our sights to our $70k stretch goal: Adversarial Camps. Adversarial Camps are a new spawn system which is aimed to add even more randomization to our areas. Adversarial Camps work similar to our Den system, except with very different goals.

Dens were designed to scale spawn rates based on the number of players, to be able to randomly select the mob types in an area, and to provide a variety of different spawn rules to allow for scaling waves of content. They were also designed to shut down though if no players remain in the den’s trigger grid for a period of time, and also to prevent an area from running out of mobs when there are larger concentrations of players. The combination of these features makes them very scalable and in general we are happy with the system. But they also need to be laid out in a grid, which means that their locations are static, they just turn on and off based on need.

Adversarial Camps are similar to dens in many ways, but they are able to handle longer term spawn manipulation. That functionality is currently only available through engagements. When the world manager decides that it needs a new camp from a certain type and range of monsters it will randomly place one into the world. Once spawned this camp will grow in size and difficulty until it is stopped. The chosen location and the rate at which it expands is independent of players. If an Adversarial Camp is left unchecked it can grow to become very large, but will also generally provide greater rewards for the player who band together and clear it out. The longer they exist, the tougher they will become. Where Dens ensure that our world has a constant supply of mobs, Adversarial Camps mix up the counts to allow for more random infestations.

 The goal of this system is to add variety to our existing spawning systems, to allow us to create new content more quickly, increase the randomness of our spawn systems, and to add an additional layer of variety from one trip into an area to the next. They should make a fine addition to the game.