Dev Stream Full Youtube Link (starts at 9:13) - 09-26-2019 - Written Summary
Hello to the people’s of the lands of the Exiles. Featured sightings of the Funcom land for this stream includes:
- Jens: Community Manager - On stream
- Robert: Senior Designer - On stream
- Ignasis: Community Support - Moderating Chat
- Scooper: Funcom Lead Programmer and made his disturbance in the force presence known in Twitch chat.
The main focus of today’s stream was all about the new Dungeon. There was some other things shown like new weapons, armor, and idle animations as well. In addition, there was also a major tease reveal at the very end, though it wasn’t discussed in today’s stream. Since this is a content stream, be very aware that there are spoilers abound. I did use spoiler tags, so only click on the blurred text if you are fine with spoiling the surprises of the dungeon. You may also want to avoid clicking on any of the time stamps starting after the Idle Animations link.
As usual, various improvements and bug fixes are expected to be part of the upcoming Dungeon patch. If you would like a very early peak at the initial patch notes, proceed to follow the below link(s). Further, it’s always encouraged for players to test the new content if they are able on Testlive, the more people the better!
At the end of this write up I also have something special. This dungeon release, like the Warmakers dungeon, was designed by the very talented Snowhunter. If you are not already familiar with Snowhunter, he is a modder who partnered with Funcom to make Warmakers and the Wine Cellar dungeons. You may also recognize the thrall named after him, Dalinsia Snowhunter, who can be found in the Mounds of the Dead.
To coincide with today’s reveal, Snowhunter sat down and answered some Q/A about what that process was like, how he got started in modding, and etc. Be sure to check that interview out towards the ends of this write up, along with Snowhunter’s Art Station and his extensive mod offerings on the Conan Exiles workshop via the two links below.
Following Snowhunter’s interview, there will be also a section for Robert’s post Q/A twitch answers that he sent to me post stream. There were a lot of questions asked that he was happy (and able) to answer, so it’s rather long! With that, onto the summary!
For you immersive fans out there, Funcom has added more idle animations for when a Thrall or player is still. NPC’s (non converted Thralls) have their own animations so they are unaffected by this change. An official number of animations wasn’t known at the time of the stream. Jens estimated it could be as many as 10, while Robert said he could think of 3 for sure but wasn’t sure if there were more.
It was asked “why idle animations now” on chat, and the response was that they felt it was something worthwhile that their animators could work on that didn’t take a lot of time to do. Working on animations doesn’t cause stoppage of work for other people working on their projects (coders, artists, etc).
Robert gave Snowhunter a shoutout here, letting those watching know that the dungeon was indeed created by Snowhunter. It was dubbed Snowhunter’s Second Dungeon internally.
The Wine Cellar is another example of Funcom’s desire to give each dungeon it’s own theme. The Dagon dungeon was themed around underwater mechanics, for example. They’ve also pushed to make the dungeon’s significantly more difficult, as was the case with Warmakers dungeon. The Wine Cellar dungeon is focused on three themes: How to deal with darkness, general exploration, and avoiding fights via sneaking methods.
It’s entrance location was only revealed to be somewhere in Sepemeru. The stream wouldn’t give any more of that information out. If you would like to find this out, you may download and try it out on testlive, or many content creators have already posted videos showing where to find the dungeon and can be found via their channels.
First Enemy Type Contact (16:37):
I’m not going to show every single enemy or boss shown on the stream, just time stamping for when a new type of enemy is presented.
Starting off, we have Szeth the Drunk is your first encounter. Make sure to fight this guy properly when you test this out, as Robert said this engagement is more unique then an average NPC fight.
Relic Hunter Treasure Seekers, up to no good to say the least. You’ve may have come across these treasure seekers on other adventures, but have now found their way down here.
When Will the Dungeon be Patched In? (19:15):
It’s out on testlive now (as previously mentioned), with an official date only given as “soon.” It will be released along with the next DLC, which was revealed to be the “Debaucheries of Derketo.” DLC details will be given out on another future stream.
Where’s Tascha, Nichole, and Andy? (19:47):
They are preparing for Twitchcon this weekend, where Conan Chop Chop, Moons of Madness, and Conan Exiles will all be showcased at the Funcom booth. Conan Exiles will have a surprise on the floor for players to see as well (not revealed, could have something to do with the tease at the end of today’s stream).
Funcom will have one or more IRL Twitch streams for the event. No time or day was given for those streams. If or when these streams happen and there is relevant information revealed, I’ll update this summary to reflect that information.
Will the New Dungeon have Lorestones or Lore Text? (20:06):
Yes, there are lorestones and lore text added in the Wine Cellar dungeon. They also want to update the Warmaker dungeon in the future to add relevant texts and lore as well.
Where’s Joel Bylos (Funcom Creative Director) (20:48):
Joel is still considered the loremaster of Conan Exiles. Jens also wanted to clear up some confusion as to what Joel has been up to. Joel is still involved in Conan Exiles and has his hands all over Conan Exiles, in particular lore related material. However he is the Creative Director for the whole company, so he is involved with many projects behind the scenes in addition to Conan Exiles.
There are many treasure chests throughout the entire dungeon. Shown at (24:29) is an example of a chest that doesn’t always spawn. Inside some of these chests are Khari steel, which is the dungeon specific crafting supplies that are needed to craft armors and weapons from the dungeon.
Spread around the dungeon are torch markers that players can use to help identify if they’ve explored an area or not. PvPer’s can use this to their advantage though, so be wary of that!
Undead enemies are found in the heart of the dungeon. The glowing blue enemies will summon other undead from their graves to attack the player. These enemies will crawl back into their graves on disengagement.
You can fight your way through the dungeon, as usual. Or you can watch the enemy patterns and sneak your way through instead. Use the blue aura of the undead to your advantage in this.
Fighting Undead Changes - Stagger (29:10):
This is in the testlive patch notes, but Undead enemies will be able to be staggered going forward. This apply’s to any human type non boss undead.
It was mentioned a few times, but exploration is another important feature of this dungeon. There may be areas where you can double jump over, but if not, will have to find a crawl space instead. There are optional chests and optional bosses throughout. There is lore spread throughout the dungeon, and etc. Speaking of optional bosses, all mini-bosses and bosses in the dungeon have desirable loot. That can range from the Khari steel, to fragments of power, to rare loot and etc.
Revisiting Old Dungeons (32:14):
Funcom has put more of a focus on having players be giving incentives for running dungeons multiple times. They would like to revisit the older dungeons to do this as well.
Epic Bridge Leading to a Mysterious Area (33:41):
Just a cool scene. Avoid clicking for spoiler reasons, but if not, I thought this area deserved some attention for how well it was designed.
Can You Climb in the Dungeon? (37:15):
Like many other dungeons, no you cannot climb in this dungeon. Rob liked the idea of making a parkour/climbing type of dungeon though. Maybe in the future? Guess we’ll see!
No. And players will not be able to make Khari Steel either. Lootable only.
Shoutout to Just Horse (40:30):
It was brought up in chat that Just Horse would probably release a video revealing everything, so Jens and Robert gave Just Horse some love.
Other Youtube Names brought up were Firespark, Vaniverse Gaming, JohnBane, NeebsGaming, and VintageBeef.
Lead-Up to the Final Boss Fight (42:17):
If you want to see where the final boss resides and to get a sneak peak at the boss, click on the provided timestamp.
Will There be a Viking Themed DLC? (45:06):
The next two DLC’s are set in stone, and while Jens didn’t fully reveal what they are, he strongly hinted that they are not Viking themed. Any other Viking themed specific updates may or may not be on the table in the future.
Snowhunter was given some more love for all the hardwork that he did. Along with a Funcom employee, John, for the final boss fight. Finally Manos was given some kudos for all the animation work that he has done, in particular the new idle animations.
Sorcery/Other High Demand Features?(49:50):
Funcom will not discuss Sorcery or other high demand features until if or when they are ready to reveal them.
Will There be Other H.P. Lovecraft Stuff in the Future? (50:18):
Funcom (IE Robert) isn’t allowed to talk about it, even as much as he clearly wanted to.
For some backstory, H.P. Lovecraft was also an author who coorisponded with many authors. This included Conan’s Universe own Robert E. Howard. They were both good friends and Howard intertwined many of Lovecraft’s stuff into his work.
Will There Be New Building Pieces Added to the Base Game? (51:22):
Maybe. They will unlikely introduce more unique building pieces into the base game (star shaped was a given example) because then they would have to also add those to the DLC’s. Going back and creating those unique pieces for every DLC comes at a tremendous cost (Robert probably meant in both terms of money and allocation of time that could be used for other projects).
They are considering adding neutral pieces that could be used (an example of this are the Prison Doors that were added not to long ago), but nothing finalized nor any current plans.
Showing Off the Dungeon Armor (57:45):
Khari armors are shown at this time stamp. The Khari Soldier Armor is shown first. Then the Khari Raider set is shown second.
Showing Off the Dungeon Weapons (1:02:12):
Robert wouldn’t confirm how many new weapons there are in the dungeon. He would only say there are at least three. Then Jens decided to show more then three anyways. Shown on stream are the Daggers, 1 Handed Axe, 2 Handed Sword, 2 Handed Hammer, Bow, and Pike.
Funcom ended the stream with the biggest tease they could possibly conjure up. As they were saying their final thoughts, a mounted person on a horse ran by behind Jen’s character in the background. If you watch ever so closely, you can see Jens just slightly smirk as he shuts down the dev stream for the day (as if he is very aware of what kind of fire burning he is about to unleash). For a short video to watch over and over, clicky this, which was posted on Discord very shortly after the stream was over.
Post Stream Update
Funcom just dropped the official announcement for Mounts. Link below for the Blog Post.
Q/A With Snowhunter
As I previously mentioned at the top of the written summary, Snowhunter took some time to talk about his experience with working on the dungeons. Here is what he had to say!
- When and what made you decide to start dungeon modding? Did you have any previous experience with modding or game development in general before?
Snowhunter:
I started with dungeon modding after four months of playing Early Access of Conan Exiles. I know that the game was lacking some dungeons at the time, so I wanted to put more into the game for myself and a few friends. I decided to figure out how to use the Unreal Engine, which was the first time I had ever attempted it. That was a big learning curve for me, to say the least.
At first, I was completely overwhelmed, and more then once questioned why I was trying to learn this stuff. What I think kept me going was my stubbornness and discipline I learned from serving in the United States military.
I started out by basically reverse engineering the already existing dungeons in the game. Every big and minor detail I had to learn from scratch, from NPC spawners, to building blocks of the layout, and etc. I had to figure out how to load the world and how the map levels worked in the developer kit. Then I learned how to use the various terrain sculpting tools: foilage, light, sound, physics volumes, and etc. One thing in particular that I found that was of great help was using Youtube and UE4’s official documentation for references. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, the motto of “always back up your stuff” rings very true here!
After two months of scraping my way through and learning everything I could, I released my first dungeon mod, The Ruins of Acheron. I was definitely very nervous at first, really expecting people to dislike the mod. But to my surprise, the mod was very well received. That’s when I really started to wonder if maybe I had the natural talent to do this, and it was a great driving force for wanting to learn more.
Fun fact, I had absolutely no art experience to my name when I first started modding. My grandmother is the creative artist in the family. My family often says that my grandmother’s artist genes had passed onto me.
- How did the conversation with Funcom start with regards to them contracting you to work on the two dungeons?
Snowhunter:
It started out from communication between Jen’s and I. Jen’s wrote a blog community spotlight, in which the Ruins of Acheron was named mod of the week. Something I didn’t know at the time though, was that members of the dev team had installed the mod themselves and played through it. That’s what got me on the radar to start with.
A few weeks later is when I met Robert (Robtheswede) and he helped critique the dungeon and other things I was working on. This was also where I helped come up with a great deal of modder names for Robert to name Thralls after. Which is where Dalinsia Snowhunter was born.
Sometime later, Funcom contacted me and said they had been looking over the dungeons I had released, and were impressed. Then the greatest news of all, was that they had need of another dungeon creator. This lead to Funcom’s HR setting up an interview over Skype. From there I signed a contract and the rest is history.
- What was it like to work remotely? As I understand it, you live on the East Coast USA, that’s a 6 hour difference from Osla, Norway. How did that impact your work, if any?
Snowhunter:
Well we set up a time that Oslo would use for meetings. The meetings were at 10:00 AM EST, so 4:00 PM Oslo time. We set up these meetings twice a week to go over everything. I was given a parameter on what Funcom was looking for, to get an ideal for what I was working on. Joel, of course, was the one who created the main theme behind the dungeon via a handy docuemtn I used a lot (for both dungeons). From there, I was free to create and go wild with design using the various assets, within some set parameters of course, to keep the dungeon optimized for all the various gaming platforms.
Robert in this whole process helped me a lot. Even on his free time, he and I would go over my current progress. This really helped to ensure we were meeting the requirements or close to the envisioned outcome. Meeting’s were always a great experience, where I would engage with many members of the dev team to go over my progress. I can not stress enough on how communication and keeping everyone informed is absolutely key to success.
- What was one of your proudest achievements?
Snowhunter:
During a particular bad weather event, I managed to complete my tasked work using a electric generator to keep my PC running. I felt it was very important that I submit my work on time, weather events or no!
- What inspired you for the Warmakers Dungeon? Also the recently revealed Wine Cellar dungeon? Did Funcom say, this is what we want, or did they give you free reign, or a little bit of both?
Snowhunter:
Well as I mentioned, Joel gave me a theme to work off of. But what inspired me for the Warmaker’s Dungeon is that I envisioned that he is a great general who leads many fights of the giant kings. I wanted to make the dungeon look thick and hardened for war. This is, after all, where the giant kings lived and planned their battle strategies. Every Giant King room is also themed, as if it their personal space was customized to their liking.
I don’t want to reveal to much about the lore of course. Hopefully soon the lore will be implemented into the Warmaker dungeon so players can learn and read about it for themselves. Time constraints kept these lore tidbits from being implemented. That’s part of the development process of course. But in general, I found that my military background played a big part in the design…while the creative document provided and gave insight inspiration. And remember the part where I talked about communication is key? The slave pits and jail cells were inspired by internal discussions with the developer team.
Shoutout to the Funcom team for this one, as I was able to get a few new art assets upon request to make the dungeon really stand out. That was a huge plus and it really helped me create the dungeon to my vision. Also, by the way readers, there are a few secrets many people have missed in the Warmaker dungeon. I’m not spoiling those secrets though, that’s up to you all to figure it out!
The Wine Cellar was an absolute challenge, but a whole lot of fun…This was a big project and it pushed my modding skills to a whole other level. I had to incorporate terrain and a small dungeon temple all in one along with two portions of a lost city. I drew personal inspiration from a little bit of a Bards Tale (the game), the Grand Canyon, and a very helpful Concept Art from Gavin, Funcom’s Art director.
This Wine Cellar dungeon is one we really wanted to allow the players to explore and find rewards for looking into the dark and strange areas off the beaten path. I worked really hard using as much of the area as I could to allow players to explore. There are a few secrets hidden away in this dungeon too of course.
There’s lots of details I feel stand out, but I won’t reveal all. Especially since the dungeon isn’t even out yet. But since it was brought up during the dev stream today, I’ll talk about the “Epic Bridge” as Robert put it on stream. I wanted to put a platform out in the middle of the dungeon where you could fight a boss. Almost like some sort of religious area to summon dark things from the chasm. The bridge was used so that it made crossing seem epic and mysterious.
- What was your job primarily focused on? Layout, design,etc.
Snowhunter:
My primary role was layout, design, and building of the bare bones dungeon. The Dev team went in with new assets and swapped my placeholders out with new and improved textures as needed. I helped in this process as I gave feedback on my ideas on how certain things stood out, how the art looked, etc etc.
Due to logistics, we decided I would work within the mod dev kit and not the actual version of the UE4 engine. You would think that this could cause a lot of issues, but it worked out really well. For example, I would place lighting and such where I wanted it, and the dev team in Oslo would bake the lighting the (the dev kit doesn’t allow for me to bake level lighting.) I placed the NPC’s, and discussed puzzles, key ideas, traps for the Warmaker, and etc.
The major bosses and asset placements would be implemented and tested a lot throughout the process. One thing that was a bit difficult for me was keeping all the secrets about what I was working on. I was really involved in the modding community, but became quiet as a mouse in the discord channel for a while. I think modders might have thought I had fallen off the planet, but instead I had been really busy working on making new content for Conan Exiles. But I did still manage to implement and update my mods and show my face once in a while to keep them off my tracks.
7. What’s next for Snowhunter? What are your hopes and dreams? Any advice for aspiring modders or game developers?
Snowhunter:
My future plans are to keep modding and creating content for Conan Exiles as long as I can. Basically, as long as the Conan community continues to grow, positive feedback continues to come in, and people still show enjoyment with my mods, I will be around. The positive experience I’ve had with modding and the community is what honestly keeps me going.
I also definitely had a great time working with the Conan Exiles dev team and would gladly do so again. I had an absolute blast and was really honored to be part of such a huge successful title for Funcom. So of course I’m open to further adventures with Funcom if those opportunities arise again.
I have been working on a private Indie game I’ve been developing on the side in my free time. I like to have breaks on the projects I’m actively working on. This helps prevent, as what the gaming industry calls, developer burn out. It genuinely helps to prevent this by working on some side projects when I’m not updating Conan Mods or been contracted to work on this awesome beautiful game. Again, I really I cannot thank Funcom enough for the opportunity.
The tips I can give to any modders or future gamers wanting to get into the game development industry is a few things that I think that are key to know. It takes a lot of dedication, communication, self confidence, and good ole fashion hard work to achieve this level of success and being part of a large game like Conan Exiles.
Don’t let my own personal opportunity fool you into thinking this process is easy (any of it). It takes time and patience, it’s very real work. I have a lot of respect for the game development industry and everything that is involved with it. Being part of developer meetings, contributing your part of the plan, it’s amazing. But to do those things you have to be flexible and be willing to speak up, you have to be willing to sacrifice some features and ideas due to time, budget, and platforms, and so many other complicated factors that go into game development. And you have to be willing to listen and accept advice, you will never grow if you are unable to recognize that you can always improve your skill set.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my experience working on this wonderful game. I may have started out as a complete novice without a clue as to what he was doing, but I’m glad to say that Crom isn’t laughing at me now.
Post Stream Q/A With Robert Answering Twitch Chat Questions
Robert, who was on stream, always takes time to look over Twitch Chat questions whenever he is not in Twitch chat himself. He then sends what questions he can answer, as post stream responses, over to me for these write ups.
Twitch Comment: Can you please fix players being able to build by the Oculus. Is Funcom going to work on stopping people from walling up places?
Robert: We are constantly looking for places where it’s possible to grief using buildings, we’ll have a look at it.
Twitch Comment: Is there a roadmap for Conan Exiles somewhere?
Robert: No because we don’t want to promise features and then not deliver them. Instead, we’ll talk about features when we’re ready to.
Twitch Comment: Where can you buy the Funcom hoodie Jens wore?
Robert: You can’t - it’s a developer hoodie
Twitch Comment: Can we possibly get a feature on note items to make them placeable anywhere, so people can leave messages on other people’s bases?
Robert: I would love to do that, but I can see some opportunity to grief here by placing notes all over someones house, and so probably not.
Twitch Comment: Are you going to fix the lag issues because of all the buildings and things that exists in Conan?
Robert: We’re constantly trying to optimize the game in many ways, this is among them.
Twitch Comment: Have you considered mouth movements when the player is speaking? What about NPC?
Robert: Mouth movements already exist when using the in-game VOIP system. As for NPC’s, yes, we have talked about and considered it. I don’t have a status for that but it may come. With the operative word being “MAY”.
Twitch Comment: What about adding turning animation when you’re standing still?
Robert: Yes, we have discussed this as well. I don’t have a status for that but it may come. With the operative word being “MAY”.
Twitch Comment: Robert is a bit quiet
Robert: That’s because Robert had a throat-thing going on where if he speaks loudly in any way, huge hairballs and coughing fits occur. Sorry about that.
Twitch Comment: Any possibility to switch to first person view, pretty please?
Robert: I’m not sure if this was a questions as far as the stream goes - if so: Sorry, we didn’t see this and so we didn’t switch. If you mean in the game itself, you can use the scroll-wheel to zoom into first person mode.
Twitch Comment: Drunk idle animation for immersion please
Robert: Agreed
Twitch Comment: What level is this dungeon designed for? End game?
Robert: Yes - any dungeons going forward will be end-game related, as there isn’t much purpose behind making dungeons that don’t give proper rewards. We prefer dungeon gear to be something a player can use continuously at max level.
Twitch Comment: You’re a good friend to Joel, Robert.
Robert: We get along very well - he doesn’t rub my belly as much as I’d like, but you can’t have everything.
Twitch Comment: There should be server options that reduce spawn rates of raiding mats, as well as make raiding cost much more.
Robert: We are looking into the cost of raiding and building.
Twitch Comment: Any plans on further improvements to the combat system?
Robert: We are constantly trying to improve ALL aspects of the game. The combat system is among those things. I don’t think we will do anything like making Arkham style combat or Tekken combos or anything like that, but we’ll do improvements when and where we can.
Twitch Comment: Is there a way to have interactive items glow to make it easier to spot ?
Robert: We have talked about that in the past, but perhaps we will again. The trouble is that it takes away a bit from immersion and in some cases, you’ll see “glowies” all over the place, which is not what we’d like.
Twitch Comment: Does the dungeon respawn/reset stuff when you leave?
Robert: Yes, unless there are other people in the dungeon as well.
Twitch Comment: Are you able to knock out and take any of the NPCs in the dungeon?
Robert: The relic hunters, some, yes - although it’s much easier to get them from Sepermeru or the Unnamed City.
Twitch Comment: So the chests with Khari Steel behave like the Fragment’s of Power chest’s in the unknown city?
Robert: Yes
Twitch Comment: Are the new weapons just new names and re skins of old weapons?
Robert: No
Twitch Comment: Will we be able to dye torches someday?
Robert: That’s an interesting suggestion - I’ll look into that for a Radium Torch
Twitch Comment: Will we ever see an expansion to the armor we have in the game that we do not have to buy as a DLC?
Robert: Yes, through the dungeons, among other places, you can learn new armors as part of the base game.
Multigun’s Note: They already have been doing this for some time.
Twitch Comment: Can you tell us more about the QoL updates?
Robert: Testlive will have a list of patch-notes about what these are, as will the patch to live. We don’t rattle off a list of minor improvements on the stream, as a fair amount of them have been done, sorry.
Twitch Comment: Is the loot going to be on Warmaker Tier as far as how powerful it is?
Robert: That’s a little bit subjective, but the intention is for all dungeons to be end-game tier equipment sources
Twitch Comment: Why can’t blacksmiths make the legendary repair kits?
Robert: We wanted to limit the availability of these in order to make legendary weapons have more value. There are a number of different ways you can get hold of legendary repair kits though (such as the Unnamed City)
Twitch Comment: Any plans on reworking the Black Keep dungeon?
Robert: I would love to revisit it and make it more interesting; same thing goes for the Dregs.
Twitch Comment: Can we get a “hide helmet” option? Sometimes a person wants to be fashionable.
Robert: Not currently in the plans, but never say never. In the meanwhile, if you are playing on PC on a server with mods, the mod “Fashionist” will allow that.
Twitch Comment: If there are spiders in that dungeon, I will never do it!
Robert: It’s optional and you’ll see the webs long before you encounter it.
Twitch Comment: Guys, since the beginning of game, there are only few styles of storage chests. Are there any plans to add some new styles?
Robert: Good suggestion, I will keep that in mind.
Twitch Comment: I don’t like this optional boss thing - whats the point, players will always skip optional stuff
Robert: Then you miss out on rare loot but it’s a choice, like many others. I think it’d be more annoying if you HAD to do every single boss even if you have the loot you’re looking for.
Twitch Comment: Will there a quick exit at the end or do u have to run all the way back?
Robert: There are two quick ways back - at the end of the dungeon, or by jumping down into the darkness.
Twitch Comment: At one point, Scooper claims “I’m like a white eminem dude”
Robert: He’s not. I’ve heard him try to rap - it should be considered a war-crime.
Twitch Comment: What ever happened with you guys redoing the ending of the game?
Robert: It’s still on the table but not currently planned for, as we have other priorities at the moment.
Twitch Comment: The new boss is probably just a Warmaker boss reskin.
Robert: Not in the least, not using the same animations, or model or skeleton or textures, attacks or mechanics.
Twitch Comment: Wait…did the gates close upon summoning the boss?
Robert: Yes
Twitch Comment: We need a rework on the crafting menu. Like categories, such as how games like Ark has it implemented.
Robert: Agreed, although low on the priority list, this is something I would also love to do. We’ve put in literally thousands of items into the crafting system, it’s hard to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Twitch Comment: is Robert also Norwegian based?
Robert: I work in the Norway (Oslo) office, but I am from Sweden.
Twitch Comment: So you’re confirming that you’re potentially not not doing sorcery then?
Robert: We’re not confirming or denying anything. The policy is to not talk about features at all until we’re ready to show them. So, we won’t talk about Sorcery unless we decide to do it, and even then only once we have something to show for it. The same goes for any other feature you might think of.
Twitch Comment: What about adding a mini map.
Robert: Unlikely, sorry
Multigun’s Note: There are several mod options for this.
Twitch Comment: Good job on the claw nerf, that was really needed I think.
Robert: Thank you!
Twitch Comment: Please add an option to put your thralls and pets on passive so they don’t attack people outside your tribe.
Robert: We’re looking into thrall behaviors over time. And yes, this is one of the things we’d like to do. Another example being able to tell archers “Don’t move from your current spot” and some other QoL improvements. No promises when we will do this though.
Twitch Comment: The dungeon is cool, but did u guys know about the XXXX glitch/exploit, etc.
Robert: We’re constantly trying our best to squash glitches and exploits. We do know about the ones mentioned here, and we’re always patching out exploit fixes. The most problematic ones tend to resurface as players find new ways of doing it. That’s a problem with cheating in general, if we knew all the ways of cheating, we’d fix it, but we’re doing our best. Please be patient =)
Twitch Comment: Any plan to offer more character customization options, for instance better beards?
Robert: I’ll think about it, no promises - it’s a widely requested feature and we know players want more customization options.
Twitch Comment: Will you guys make the musical instruments have an autoplay?
Robert: You mean the drums, Zheng and harps and whatnots? No, sorry.
Twitch Comment: Ever considered buffing animals to put them on par with thralls?
Robert: Balancing the game needs to happen over time, and we know about the “thrall hero stats” and we will fix them. Wowever, it’s not just a matter of nerfing thralls or buffing animals, PvP and PvE needs to be considered. We do have plans though.
Twitch Comment: Robert, have you considered a “universal block” system, that would deploy in to different shapes ?
Robert: There are several games as what you mention, such as 7DaysToDie, Minecraft, etc. We won’t be doing it due to how our system is implemented though, sorry.
Twitch Comment: Are we going to be able to run and swing at the same time in the future ?
Robert: No - at the moment, the best you can hope for is to run after someone and try to catch them using a wide swing with the hammer, or a charge with the spear or something akin to that.
Twitch Comment: Where are the fence foundations for the blood and sands DLC?
Robert: Not in, and they’re not going to be made.
Twitch Comment: Scooper/Joshtech? they are the same person?
Robert: No. Although sometimes one wonders.
Twitch Comment: How about the ability to assign dancer thrall to music instruments?
Robert: Maybe, no promises
Twitch Comment: A shame that Purge controls could not be more Admin direct-able… but that’s not for this stream.
Robert: Agreed
Twitch Comment: Jens, you look like you got slapped on the cheek. Everything okay?
Robert: Jens blushes easily. Although blushes is the wrong terminology. His internal powersource sometimes overheats and so his cheeks glow.
Twitch Comment: Will there be a wipe on official servers at any point?
Robert: Currently, no plans for this. IF we do, we will let everyone know well in advance. The support for this seems to be growing.
Twitch Comment: Hi guys, I love this game. But I desperately need you to fix the elephant chuffing audio loop glitch.
Robert: I will let Arild know first thing Monday, I promise.
Twitch Comment: Robert should be more in the stream ! He seems like Jens dad there. Loving the beard though
Robert: I’m not sure what to say to that. I guess I have a daddy-vibe? Errr…
Twitch Comment: Is the new helmets the same look on females?
Robert: Yes
Twitch Comment: These guys are more frustrating than they’re worth.
Robert: I think the word you’re looking for is “frustatingly sexy”. Feel free to visit the office, we’ll give you the tour of the balcony.
Twitch Comment: Do the idle animations automatically happen, or is it only while wearing that armor?
Robert: Automatically, it’s not related to the armor
Twitch Comment: How appropriate Boozy wins in the Wine Dungeon raffle.
Robert: It was meant to be!
Twitch Comment: Inventory optimization, does that include increasing the number of potions stacked? Night Eye Potion, Set Antidote, etc.
Robert: The inventory optimization is a code thing - we’ll look into stacking as well but not on testlive at the moment, sorry.
Twitch Comment: Are there new weapons from the dungeon as well?
Robert: Yes
Twitch Comment: I think the 2 Handed Swords are really weak now and need a buff.
Robert: We’ve sped up the attacks in the upcoming patch. Putting in the new animations last patch made them a bit slow, we realize that, and we’re going to keep tweaking (all) weapons until they become more user-friendly. If that is even a word that is applicable to weapons.
Twitch Comment: Was that a horse?!
Robert: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see a horse, I was looking in a different direction.
