Atlas Devlogs 2021

[Iyoforeayo]

Dev-Devlog #1

Written by Iyoforeayo

We wanted to take a bit of a departure from our normal mechanic-based devlogs, and give a shout-out to the incredible members of the development team that are helping us truly bring Atlas to life. One of the most important things this development period has allowed us to do is revisit and re-evaluate all aspects of the server as a group with fresh eyes after a solid period of player activity. Polishing and improving the gameplay experience has been the major focus of this period, and you can thank this incredible team of developers for helping us make that a reality:

The Build Team
Terryn
teapressed
clockwork
Desertdweller_
Diggerdoge99
Noahjsc

There’ll be plenty of new content to explore when Atlas relaunches - from the brand new spawn city of New Nauru, to our new dungeons, to new event islands - and the build team has been hard at work on all of it, making it look shiny and pretty (and of course, 1.16-ified!) (Also want to give a shout-out to Herald_King, who is currently on hiatus but responsible for the awesome Craftsmans’ District in New Nauru!)

The Programming Team
Chiliwing
SourPsycho
Desertdweller_
Aestrus

From overhauling the website to creating exciting new plugins like event islands and achievements (more on these in future devlogs), Atlas as a whole is going to feel a lot more polished and succinct thanks to these folks.

The Art Team
MisterGriimm
Falksi

You’ve of course heard that Atlas will now have its own custom texture pack - but did you know that we’ll now have our own 3D models too? That’s right - thanks to our new modeler MisterGriimm, we’ll have custom designs for things like our dungeon bosses (check out some of the early concept sketches below), legendary items, and even the return of proper furniture! And thanks to Falksi (one of the teams’ original artists) there’ll be lots more fine art for you upscale collectors to get your hands on.



The Writing Team
(At the moment, this is just myself and Tee - but we want to give a shout-out to Raiyoku and ShardianPreston for helping us develop some of the new major characters you’ll meet in the upcoming New Nauru storyline!)

The Marketing Team
BorkMork

The one, the only, the irreplaceable Bork has been championing the Atlas marketing team since nearly the beginning. We’re exploring a lot of new advertising routes this time around, and Bork has been our trusty sherpa guide through the crazy, often nonsensical world of marketing.

[Iyoforeayo]

Dungeon Devlog #2

Written by Iyoforeayo

New Dungeon: The Lost Tomb of Arkamidos

While excavating the island of New Nauru to construct the city’s new sewer system, builders stumbled upon a long-lost tomb belonging to the ancient Dravidian king Arkamidos - purported to be the richest Atlian that ever lived. Ecstatic at the prospect of uncovering the treasures within (and the prices they would fetch) the Naurlians began sending explorers in. But after all were either killed, disappeared, or driven mad by something inside, it was decided that the tomb would be sealed. 

Recently, however, a team of graverobbers have discovered a new way into the tomb - and they’re looking for help in retrieving the treasures inside…

Located in the spawn city of New Nauru, the Lost Tomb of Arkamidos is Atlas’ new “beginner” dungeon. But by no means does that mean it’s easy! With all old dungeons getting a hearty difficulty boost, the Lost Tomb will likely be closer in difficulty to the previous version of the Kairos dungeon. A solid group of 2-3 players in New Nauru-obtained quest gear should be able to handle it.

Tomb Raiders
To begin the dungeon, players should speak with Rufus in the sewers of New Nauru. You’ll find him standing near the entrance to the tunnel inside, looking to hire suckers adventurers brave enough to delve into the haunted tomb and recover Arkamidos’ lost treasure.


Once inside, players will make their way through the graverobbers’ tunnels to a series of aqueducts that drain down into the main chamber of the tomb.


The grandiose entrance to Arkamidos’ burial chamber is sealed until players defeat the undead leaders of the kingsguard protecting it:

Ranger Captain Al’uwana
Even in death, the Dravidian rangers are deadly sharpshooters - none moreso than their leader, Ranger Captain Al’uwana. After making their way through a flooded hallway full of archers, players will face off against the ranger captain as she forces them to take cover from her deadly kill-shots.


Guard Captain Karakora
The ancient Dravidians made sure to bury plenty of soldiers in the King’s tomb to protect the artifacts within, and they are loyal even in death. After making their way through the winding, undead-infested halls, players find themselves face to face with Guard Captain Karakora - a deadly berserker capable of leaping high into the air and crashing down on his enemies with explosive force.


King Arkamidos
With the leaders of the kingsguard defeated, the entrance to Arkamidos’ burial chamber opens. But the dark labyrinthine chamber proves to be the perfect stalking grounds for the specter of the undead King Arkamidos, capable of vanishing and reappearing randomly throughout the maze. Players would be wise not to split up to find him, as the ancient king can quickly overwhelm a solo player unlucky enough to stumble into him around a dark corner!

[Iyoforeayo]

Art Design Devlog #1

Written by Iyoforeayo

The dev period has given us a chance to revisit the overall look and feel of Atlas. You’ve seen a good number of devlogs so far that explain how Atlas will feel different for players (new or changing mechanics, etc.) but the server will also look quite a bit different upon re-launch. And while our new resource pack will be a major factor of that, it won’t be the only thing that’s got a fresh coat of paint.

For example - here’s the current version of our brand new Atlas logo!

One of the places you’ll eventually see this new logo is on our brand new website! That’s right - the Atlas website is being rebuilt from the ground up, with a new look and greatly expanded functionality. You can expect a devlog or two about the website in the future - but for now, let’s get back to art design!

Custom GUIs
With our new resource pack, a lot of in-game things will be getting a new, unique look. In a previous devlog, Tyrriel went a bit into the new functionalities the resource pack will offer players (like the compass HUD.) But one of the most exciting parts is our ability to introduce customized GUI menus for everything!

Say goodbye to the clunky old book-based Quest Journal, and get ready for a brand new way to track and view quests:

Similarly, Cartography will have a new interface as well:


And of course, custom skill workstations won’t just work differently - they’ll have their own shiny new GUIs to go along with them! Take the new Arcane Altar for example:

But it’s not just custom mechanics that will have new menus - all the vanilla GUIs will receive an updated look as well. Here’s an early version of the Anvil:


(Keep in mind, these GUI menus are all still a WIP - but we wanted to share some of our progress on them so far!)

New Fine Art
And what is an art design discussion without mentioning, well… new art! The in-game Fine Art selection is getting quite a few new pieces for the avid collectors to purchase. Here are just a couple new selections (from the incomparable Falksi) you can expect to see for sale in New Nauru:

[Iyoforeayo]

Itemization Devlog #3

Written by Wizardteepot

Is it too late to make an April Fools joke about religions being complete? Yes? Aww man…

Well, here’s an update on AtlasLegendaryItems instead! As you may recall from our last Itemization Devlog, AtlasLegendaryItems (or ALI for short) is the new plugin that will handle a bunch of custom items dotted around the server, taking the place of an older plugin called UniqueQuestRewards. This plugin will take care of items that are rewarded as Quest Rewards such as the Grappling Hook and Karag’s Sabre, or Dungeon Armors like the Kairos Armor set. Furthermore, there are some more “utility items” that will be included in this plugin, such as the old Groundshaker, which could be used to destroy all the leaves in a selected chunk.

A rewrite of the plugin means that I can rewrite some really messy and inefficient code, along with fixing age-old bugs, on top of adding lots of new items to the system. Let me tell you, going through some like 3 year old code today has really shown just how far I have gotten in coding, and how much further I still have to go. But for real though, I brought down like 30 lines of code for the Grappling Hook down to like 10. It was great.

Attunement
Nerding aside, let’s talk about some actual updates to the plugin. Attunement is still a very work in progress system at the moment, and there’s not too much I can show for it, but I can talk a bit more about the design philosophy that has gone into it.


(Note: the above structure is still a work in progress/rough idea. It is subject to change.)

Originally the idea was for player’s to type in a command akin to something like /attunement which would bring up a GUI for players to choose what items you wanted to be attuned to. However, there would then be issues about having to combat tag players so they could not change attunements in the middle of a fight or a siege. While it is possible to make a combat tagging system to avoid this, it’s probably more effort than it is worth.

Furthermore, as you may notice with some of the changes that we started making with Atlas in the last few months of the past iteration, and some of the changes we have mentioned in the other devlogs, we are trying to move away from players having to remember and type commands. So really, having a command like /attunement is kind of counterintuitive to that point.

This is where Tyrriel had the idea to make a structure that would be available to players in the NPC capitals, that looks sort of like a magic altar or shrine. This should allow for easy access of the Attunement system, before major events like going into a dungeon or The Trials. With some changes coming to Sieges as well (talked about in a future devlog maybe, don’t quote me on that), players will also have ample time to go to an Attunement Shrine before any fighting starts up.

Furthermore, last time I talked about the idea of hard limits set on how many items you can have attuned. This is some dangerous magic for mortals to mess with, and even the mages of New Nauru are saying that attuning to two items seemed like a lot. That said, some...misfortunate tests...have shown some really bad curses come to people that try to use items they are not attuned to, so be careful out there, Atlians!

Let’s Talk Items!
For the rest of this devlog, I’m going to show off some of the items that have been coded already, with many, many more to come!

Karag’s Sabre


Let’s go through some items that already existed in this system, like Karag’s Sabre. Since Legendary items are really meant to outclass other types of items around Atlas, I wanted to beef this item up a bit. Originally this item just gave you two hearts and called it a day. Now, however, this item should reflect more of its original design philosophy: the sword of a bloodlusting warlord who could easily face down an enemy horde, slaying opponent after opponent without ever feeling their own pain!

Grappling Hook


This should be another familiar one: the grappling hook. First, let’s talk about the change to a crossbow...it just makes more sense, let’s be honest. Plus the crossbow is cool! Furthermore, as I had previously mentioned, this plugin allows me to redesign some items and fix really old and annoying bugs. As you can notice in the gif above, the Grappling Hook can be fired from both your main hand and offhand, something that wasn’t initially possible before...because I was coding very stupidly three years ago. Additionally, since crossbows can be pre-loaded with their bolts, grappling hooks can make for clutch escape methods if you play your cards right!

(Note: eventually the grappling hook will look as if the player is being dragged towards the block, rather than an instant teleport)

Phantom Hourglass


Here’s a new one: the Phantom Hourglass! This is the first example in the devlog of an “On-Use” item that we talked about in the last Itemization Devlog. These are items that are not inherently pieces of armor or tools, but they have interesting effects upon activating them with a right click. For the Phantom Hourglass, the first time you use the item, it marks your current location. 30 seconds later, or if you use the Phantom Hourglass again within that time frame, you will be teleported back to your marked location! Similarly to the Grappling Hook, if used correctly, this could be good for getting out of a sticky situation, or even saving yourself from a failed parkour jump in places like the Kimara Cave.

(Note: Not shown here, but the location that is marked by your Phantom Hourglass will have a particle effect surrounding it, as a sign that the Phantom Hourglass is active. It will give your enemies a target to look for, while giving your allies a spot to defend.)

Zombie Heart


Here’s another new one, and our first example of a passive item: the Zombie Heart. Passive items can be anywhere in your inventory, and they work at any point in time as long as you are actually attuned to the item.

The zombie heart, for example, makes it that if you are at or below half health, you no longer take damage from poison, instead of the normal half a heart that Minecraft would leave you at. This would make a great utility and sustainability item, especially when taking on a dungeon like Kairos that makes heavy use of poison based effects!

(Note: A voice in your head will prevent you from eating this item. Thanks, subconscious!)

And many, many more!

There’s a whole list of new items that we intend to add that I’ll be working on within the next few months as well. Seriously, there’s an internal doc with like 50 of these item ideas that devs have been passing back and forth for awhile. There’s a lot of cool things coming, and this plugin will affect everything from Quests to Dungeons to even World Boss drops! Can’t wait to see what you all think!

[Iyoforeayo]

Dungeon Devlog #3

Written by Iyoforeayo

New Dungeon: Odera Manor

There was a time when Lord and Lady Huntington were among the most well-known nobles of Telaria. Before the War of Athera, as tensions across Atlas began to rise, the Huntingtons decided to escape the political fires of the Purelaker capital by moving to their grandiose mansion deep within the Odera Forest. At first, the nobles often returned to Telaria to conduct business - but as time went on, the Huntingtons were seen in public less and less.

At present, it has been over a year since anyone has seen or heard from Lord and Lady Huntington. With the War of Athera in full swing, the lands outside Telaria have grown more dangerous to traverse. But even the most well-armed scouting parties sent to investigate the Huntingtons’ manor have gone missing...

Returning Atlas players likely remember the previous iteration of Odera Manor, which was more of an “overworld puzzle” so to speak. But we figured this creepy place was deserving of its own formal dungeon - so we’ve completely redesigned it for a brand new group experience!

The new Odera Manor dungeon will be around a “high-medium” difficulty - intended to be comparable to (or slightly harder than) the Shen Catacombs, but not as hard as the Fall of Devshire.

Be Our Guest
To begin the dungeon, players should speak with Irixi, the Huntingtons’ loyal steward that stands guard outside the manor’s entrance. Irixi laments that spiders have once again gotten into the mansion’s redstone wiring, and he would be ever-grateful for a group of passers-by willing to kill the spiders and repair the electrical problem. He’d even reward them with a nice, warm meal!


Once inside, it’s quickly apparent that something is wrong… not only is the redstone lighting out, but the grandiose foyer is in disrepair and filled with spiders and crazed spirits - not a living soul in sight. Perhaps the manor’s occupants are simply in another part of the house?


Making their way upstairs towards the redstone problem in the attic, players will encounter more and more clusters of what appear to be spider eggs. The eggs seem to only stir when touched, so they should be avoided at all costs - but that appears to become harder and harder to do.

Broodmother Zeryys
Upon reaching the attic, players will find the spider responsible for the lighting issue - and she’s a big one! A massive, ancient Oderan spider, Broodmother Zeryys has taken up residence in the manor’s attic and laid her eggs all throughout the room. This fight will require some careful footwork in order to avoid the eggs and prevent a terrifying spider-pocalypse. But with an array of abilities that yank the players around, Zeryys certainly won’t make it easy…


The Bloody Feast
Once the spider has been cleared, and the lighting restored, the players are urged to head down to the dining hall for a grand feast. But it isn’t until they get there and the doors lock behind them, that it becomes apparent the manor guests are cannibals waiting to dine on the unsuspecting group of interlopers.


Putting down The Mad Chef before he can carve up the players might be the only way to survive - but it also enrages the famished cannibals, who charge the group en masse in an attempt to eat them alive.

With the guests cleared, a horrified Irixi locks the doors behind the players, hoping to trap them in the manor forever. The only way out appears to be through the kitchen - and the only way out of the kitchen is down a slough that hopefully drops onto something soft…

Phlemm
The good news is, the sewer water that players drop into breaks their fall. The bad news is, it’s pretty caustic - so once they climb out of it, players will want to avoid it as they make their way through the sewer tunnels beneath the manor.


It’s unclear whether the massive sewer golem Phlemm is a construct created by the Huntingtons, or simply a natural amalgamation formed by the toxic sludge - but either way, he wants to play with his new visitors. That is, until they attack him and he grows angry. And you wouldn’t like Phlemm when he’s angry…

The fight with the sewer golem extends across two phases, in between which the players will need to traverse more tunnels to reach the top level of the golem’s chamber. If they manage to subdue Phlemm a second time, a maintenance door reveals itself, and players are able to escape the sewers into the basement of the manor.

Lady Huntington
As players climb up into the basement, they start to overhear a meeting between Lady Huntington and a group of shadowy figures. It soon becomes clear that the Arkayo who had struck a deal with her are going back on their word, and as the players burst in to confront the group, the Arkayo inform the lady that she has “served her purpose” and promptly vanish.

Even without the Arkayo there to protect her, however, Lady Huntington and her guards won’t go down without a fight...

[Iyoforeayo]

Magic Devlog #1

Written by Tyrriel

It’s no secret that prior to the dev period, Magic was the only viable form of combat. Due to “powerbeam” literally dealing infinite damage per second it was literally unmatched when it came to DPS. In this devlog we are going to break down how and why Magic is changing (some of y’all have already tested some of the upcoming changes). Everything from Spell crafting to spell casting has or is getting a rework or touch up.

Spell Crafting
Overall spell crafting wasn’t in a bad place, but it definitely could have used improvement. Version one of the changes simply introduced a GUI that both grouped words, making it easier to craft a working spell, and prevented those that were hard of spelling from mucking up their spells. 

(Art WIP)

While this is, for most people, good enough we weren't happy with how once one person figured out the words, everybody knew the words. That along with spell crafting simply being a spreadsheet simulator has been something that we have been aiming to solve. At this present moment we are still exploring some options that we aren’t fully comfortable sharing how exactly this system is changing, maybe at a later date.

Spell Casting
Spell casting is drastically different to the pre-dev period. Before we dive into what exactly is changing, we need to first talk about what we consider is the role of Magic in our combat system. Magic no longer primarily fits into the single target DPS role, as in, while it is possible for Magic to deal single target damage, that is not what we intend it to be used for. There are better, more effective forms of single target damage, namely melee weapons and bows. Magic is now intended to be used for something that nothing else in the game can currently do, with the exception of lingering potions, AOE or Area of Effect. From AOE buffs for your allies to AOE debuffs for your enemies, to even AOE damage and damage over time. This along with summoning still makes mages necessary to effectively participate in combat, but gives some leg room for the other means of combat to participate as well.

Introducing, cast times. Essentially similar to casting times for skills in MMORPGs, you can no longer cast a spell the instant you right click. Instead you must wait, at minimum, 1 second to cast the spell. (After some feedback from the dungeons test, there is going to be some audio visual feedback associated with this). As will be explained by the other major change to spell casting, this was to prevent players from insta-casting multiple spells (casting all the spells on their hotbar) which could have led to a powerbeam 2.0 (albeit a bit weaker).

Introducing, per-spellbook cooldowns. Each spellbook (moreso each spellbook slot, more on this later) has its own individual cooldown, effectively making spell “rotations” viable. The cooldown really applies moreso to the slot than the actual spellbook however as the spellbook is stuck in the hotbar slot when it is on cooldown, this was done purely for technical reasons. This change has also led to slightly longer cooldowns (as of writing this the absolute minimum cooldown on a spellbook is 5 seconds)

Smaller misc. changes include:

• Making it such that buffs only apply to allies and debuffs only apply to hostiles
  
• Increasing the number of spell effects
  
• Making projectile AOE spells work more consistently
  
• Making the on-cast AOE spells also affect the caster.
  

Overall we believe these changes will lead to a more balanced and fun combat gameplay loop. (All changes discussed in this devlog are subject to change based on increased combat data)

[Iyoforeayo]

Itemization Devlog #4

Written by Wizardteepot

Now that we’re through with our first Dungeons Beta Test, let’s talk about some more items you will get to see as a result of these dungeons, both in future tests, and when the server relaunches! This devlog will showcase some new Utility Items, akin to the Groundshaker, that will not fall under the Attunement System (as mentioned in previous Itemization Devlogs), but still add a quality of life component to the average player’s day. In addition to that, this devlog will also reveal the work in progress idea for the Dungeon Armor set that will come with our new dungeon, Lost Tomb of Arkamidos!

Grappling Hook
First though, a quick change about the grappling hook: as some players might remember it, the Grappling Hook in previous iterations of Atlas required a special “Grappling Arrow” to function. While this was originally planned to still occur with the new grappling hook, we took another look at how powerful we wanted certain items to be as Legendary Items that you needed to specifically attune to. By adding the attunement system, there is a certain restriction and choice that needs to be made with what Legendary Items you actually choose to use, so we felt that it was necessary to improve the power of certain items in our planning sheet to be more in line with the power levels we want each item to have. The Grappling Hook was one such item.

When utilizing a grappling hook, players will no longer need a special “Grapple Arrow” for the item to function. This should free up an additional inventory slot for players, and they won’t have to fumble around with different types of arrows just for a niche item to function.

Carpenter’s Axe
One of the new Utility Items coming your way is the Carpenter’s Axe! This item should be the dream of every builder who needs items on the fly. While using this axe, chopping any log now drops six (6) wooden planks of that type, instead of dropping the raw log. This should help get players started on constructing some impressive log cabins, I hope!

Treefeller
Okay, bear with me on this one, because it’s still entirely work in progress. It is subject to change based on how efficient it actually works behind the scenes...still, the Treefeller! This is something players have requested for a LONG TIME now, and hopefully it can finally come to life! The Treefeller will chop down any wooden log or leaf above it from the block that the player mines!

Endless Decanter of Water
This item is entirely what it sounds like: a bucket that will never run out of water. Useful for those who are making large farms and don’t want to run back and forth to your infinite water source miles away, or are trying to fill a large, man-made lake somewhere! 

Vacuous Bucket
This item will function as essentially the opposite to the Endless Decanter of Water: a bucket that can never fill up. This will be useful for daring and adventurous players who want to cross large bodies of lava, but perhaps don’t want to risk burning alive. Furthermore, it will be useful for players who might need to drain out large pockets of water!

Whatever the case may be, one should not expect to find an endless supply of air in this bucket, so don’t put your head in it!

Dravidian Kingsguard Armor
This is the first “Set” type of item, which means it’s a full set of armor. Don’t worry, when attuning to a set, you only use one Attunement Slot for all four items (boots, legs, chestplate, and helmet).

The Dravidian Kingsguard Armor draws on the power of the final boss from the Lost Tomb: when players are struck by either another player or mob, there is a chance for the damage to be negated and the two combatants to swap their locations.

[Iyoforeayo]

Skills Devlog #2

Written by Ajaxan

Wait #2?

First off, you’ve probably noticed there is no “Skills Devlog #1”. Well there is… kind of. As the dev period has moved along we’ve begun to think of all of the skills as a single area of focus. So the first Skills Devlog is actually the Smeltery Devlog #1. Anyway on to the details!

Note on the Dev Process
As often happens in development the process of development isn’t always a sprint forward. It’s often a few steps forward and one step back. It’s important to never be too attached to an idea because sometimes it’s flawed and needs to be revisited. Now of course, I bring this up because the entire first Smeltery Devlog? Yeah go ahead and toss it. But don’t worry I’ll explain why and what to expect instead.

The Old Flaws
Make sure to read the old Smeltery Devlog otherwise this entire section will make far less sense. However, if you only care about the new stuff and not about how we arrived at the new idea, feel free to skip down to the next section.


Now the old smeltery devlog talked about one key idea that was to become the new identity of Smeltery (and other skills like tannery and cooking). And that idea was skill testing through minigames and other means. The idea was to have these skills be, by the very definition, “skills”. After much consideration we came to the agreement that one thing Atlas has in spades is skills and mechanics. Do we really need more things for players to learn? In a way we’ve considered Atlas in certain aspects to be as wide as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle. Now, that’s not an entirely fair comparison (some aspects are quite deep and interesting) but ask any veteran players and they’ll agree it’s been a problem for Atlas.

We agreed that instead of the content pipeline looking like this:


It should instead look like this:


Now, to put those images into words. We want to focus on slimming down the breadth of content in exchange for deepening and expanding on what we are calling the core content of Atlas. What this means for Smeltery, Tannery, and other skills is that we are ditching the minigame and skill testing idea. Instead we will be treating “skills” more as workstations that are simply tools to connect core content on Atlas. 

The New Design
We want to focus on making Smeltery, Tannery, and other previous skills into polished and interesting tool stations for combining resources in interesting and unique ways. While before you would discover the recipe to combine average materials into new materials the future will be different. Now you will combine far more exotic materials to make large quantities of new materials. And yes this means that you will be making larger recipes (no more running a smeltery recipe 20+ times for a single set of armor). 

Exotic Resources
We will be keeping the idea of a recipe menus which allows you to know recipes from the get go, but we will be making them far more difficult to make. With known recipes we can be much more creative with ingredients. Be prepared to run dungeons, mine rare ores (is that a spoiler? Hmm maybe), hunt down rare creatures, and maybe even trade to get the materials necessary to make all manner of new unique materials. The main goal here is to make the gathering process far more engaging and interesting. Leading you all around Atlas to collect the best materials. As opposed to just compacting your 3 diamonds into 1 super diamond you’ll need to find some new actually exciting materials.

Masterwork Materials
Now along with this, we will still be keeping the idea of masterwork materials which you can read more about in the first smeltery devlog. However without skill testing we will be resorted to the dreaded idea of randomness for them. But! Don’t worry, we aren’t going to leave everything up to chance since we know too much randomness just feels bad. We will allow you to add a special reagent in varying amount to increase the chance of getting a masterwork ingot. However, it’ll be a rare material, so use it wisely and perhaps even trade for it! (Am I pushing trading too hard?)

New Designs
We liked where we were headed with more exciting workstations, but since we didn’t need them to be massive interactive machines we decided to focus on making them just really freaking cool to look at. Every skill now has a single workstation that is fully animated and makes the process of making the materials far more interesting and obvious of certain stages and their level of completion. Oh, and we shortened wait times because waiting is not a good mechanic. I know you’re all probably disappointed you don’t need to wait 5 minutes for a single ingot anymore and instead will be waiting 30 seconds for a block instead. But I promise you the designs you’re about to see for the new stations will make up for it!

The new forge will fill up a tank as the metal is melted. Then with  a right click you can activate the dispenser and watch the cauldron fill up with molten metal and harden. And for those of you familiar with Tinkers Construct, yes.



But! Now we support more blocks! A Blackstone Forge perhaps?


As for Tannery, we wanted to make it so the hanging station made a bit more sense. So now, instead of a random fence outline you simply hang the hide up over a campfire to dry it out. And you’ll be able to watch as the hide dries and goes from wet to dry.


As before, more blocks are now supported! In case anyone living in a desert wants to make a tannery station, sandstone perhaps?


Now for Cooking! We again wanted to get it down to one station but keep it interesting. In the kitchen (the new cooking station name) you’ll be able to watch the food cook and water pour into the cauldron on the side. And when the food is done it’ll appear on the bench ready to be picked up!


Whoops, didn’t remember to hit F1 for that last picture, oh well. Notice in the background the mass amount of prototyping and animation planning we did! (not that anyone actually cares)

That’s A Wrap
But yeah that’s all I’ve got this time around. We’ll almost certainly have a future skill devlog with the menus for each one (not all done yet) as well as some more specifics on reagents recipes and new attributes! But you’ll need to stay tuned for those later. Hope everyone enjoyed a peek into the skill world and some of our thought process on design!

[Iyoforeayo]

Magic Devlog #2

Written by Tyrriel

Wait wot? Another Magic devlog already? Last month we explored how Magic was changing drastically from where it used to be. But we mentioned that we weren’t comfortable at the time sharing how the Spell Crafting system was exactly changing. That is what we are here today to address.

Knowledge-based Systems
For those of you who have been here since the inception of Atlas, you will know how Atlas’ knowledge based systems are extremely exciting for the pioneers or the trailblazers. No one knows anything and everyone is racing to find that new unknown item! Sadly, we quickly came to the realization that this knowledge based system quickly becomes a boring, tedious grind. And once all the recipes are known, the system essentially falls to shambles until we introduce new items to discover.

The primary issue with this Knowledge based approach is that the crafting ingredients (in Smeltery/Tannery; actual items, in Magic; words) were the same for every player. Now you can imagine that making different item recipes for every player is no trivial task. But, with words for Magic, things are a bit different.

Every player will have their own set of unique, randomly generated words. The underlying meaning of each of the words is the same, but each player has their own translation of the word that they must decipher through trial and error (or by being giga-brain but I’m not sure how feasible that is).


For example, these are my generated words. The word generation is still WIP, but the basic idea is there. Don’t worry, the order of the words in the UI is also randomized / shuffled.

This change allows us to make spell crafting interesting and exciting for every player as all players are trailblazers for their own set of words. Now, Magic spell crafting is still a spreadsheet simulator (as we call it), but we felt that it was acceptable as it allowed for the spell experimentation aspect to remain a part of the game.

Other QoL Changes
The words screen now has a back button so that you can leave a word slot blank.


There is now a “create spell book” button in the menu. This allows you to name your spellbook right then and there (a text input field UI will pop up upon clicking). This also means that you no longer shift-click to remove a spellbook from an Arcane Altar.


All spells that have some sort of effect will have a description that actually describes what exactly the spell does. Dud spells will have descriptions in SGA (Standard Galactic Alphabet or the Enchanting language) as shown below.




No image for this, but Arcane Altars now persist the spells that were being crafted on them even through restarts. No more having broken arcane altars!

[Iyoforeayo]

Religions Devlog #1

Written by Wizardteepot

Oh my god, it’s happening people! Stay calm, everyone stay freaking calm!

That’s right, it’s Religions time, baby! The cursed plugin that will finally get to see the light of day. Many of you know that this plugin has changed hands between multiple developers of our team, and even multiple different iterations when it eventually hit my plate. We wanted this plugin to actually feel good to use, and the last time I was working on it to near completion, it was an absolute mess of commands and chat prompts. If you can remember in some of our recent devlogs, you’ll know that we wanted to move away from commands as much as possible. So not only does this version of religions come with an overhaul of a GUI system, but the actual basis of the plugin mechanically has been changed from the ground up too. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves…

The Altar

This is the altar that will be used for the majority of all things related to Religions. When you click on the altar, it will bring up a menu with different actions for you to perform, such as checking who is in your religion, additional information about your religion, and going on some quests specialized for your religion to receive a religion specific boon (more on that in a second).

Although we initially wanted this to be a grandiose structure for players to admire, or to change based on some specifics of your religion, we realized that the main point of the altar should be more of the stuff around it, rather than the altar itself. For example, we believe that players will already be working on grand cathedrals to place their altars in. Plus, if a player wants to interact with the Religions plugin but doesn’t want to make a large building, they should still be able to with a rather simple design.

The Mechanics
Religions, on their creation, have two major elements that let players customize their experience in the plugin: Tenets and Beliefs. Tenets are the general type of values that a religion might follow, and of these the system will have four at launch: War, Nature, Balance, and Chaos. Beliefs, on the other hand, will determine what the deity or deities of your religion are like, and again there will be four types at launch: Monotheistic, Polytheistic, Ancestral, and Cult. Each tenet and belief has a boon associated with it. 

Once a day, a player can go to the Altar and receive a special quest to make an offering to their religion. This could be a number of things like sacrificing animals or blocks to the Altar, or even going to one of the NPC towns around Athera to preach about your Religion to those that will hear you! After completing the quest, players will receive a small boon for their Religion’s Tenet and Belief for the remainder of the day (until server restart).


(Note: These boons are subject to change!)

Choosing your Faith
At launch, players will have the option to join one of four different NPC religions which will always be available to the public:

The Four (War/Polytheistic): A religion run by the Vantians, which relates to all aspects of a warrior culture.

Church of Kairos (Nature/Ancestral): A religion run by the Purelakers, based around the Tree of Kairos and peaceful people.

Tainted Mother (Balance/Monotheistic): A religion run by the Shen, revolving around the mages of the Grey Isles and the aspects of the Arcane.

Cult of Arkayos (Chaos/Cult): That’s right, you can finally, officially be one of the bad guys! Run by scattered individuals all over Athera, a religion that focuses on the unraveling of Atlas as we know it to start anew.

Players will also have the option, for the price of a few Coins, to create their own religion. You will have lots of customization options from naming your god(s), down to writing a Holy Text to give to members of your religion or even curious outsiders!

And There’s More to Come!
That’s all we have time for today, but there’s more news to come in the future for Religions, such as what players can do being part of a religion, the Faith score, and integration Religions might have with Nations and Diplomacy! (Might there be Crusades? Who knows!)