Elemental Beta 1-Z2 News and Changelog

Beta 1Z2 is scheduled to be released this week (today or tomorrow). The beta will close to new members tomorrow afternoon.

As I mentioned earlier this week, we are committed to releasing the game when we’re happy with it even if it means we have to delay it repeatedly to do so. 

That said, as you can see with this 1 week of progress, there is also good reason to believe that we will still make the 3rd quarter release (if not, it’ll get pushed to 1Q2011).  I currently do think that we’ll likely make the 3rd quarter release if progress continues at the current rate (especially since the whole graphics engine continues to evolve in tandem which, when switched on, will change the perception of how far along the game is).

What’s new since last Friday:

- Elemental 1Z Update Change Log -

* Unit Movement *

+ Fixed bug that would pick invalid destination tiles when leaving a city+ Added check in CancelDestination to fix offcenter object only if not moving in tile (using temp code set to false)
+ Added function CheckNextTile (moved CMoveCheck and set move cost from MOveToTile
+ If MoveToTile is called when the next tile has already been set to the tile being passed in, it just updates FOW instead of checking the tile and setting the position, so that it can be called after animated moving
+ Changed QuickMove to Move and added code for animated movement if the unit is visible
+ Added function MoveAnimated which contains very similar code to AnimateMoveGfx, which was removed.
+ Added cost callback AutoExploreAStarCostCallback for picking good destinations for auto explore
+ AutoExplore now will go through the rest of the tiles in the sector if the first one is not a good destination
+ Added Move cost parameter to CollisionDetection so that when it's in path check mode, it can affect the move cost based on what is in the tile (your own city tiles cost 0)
+ Fixed bug in CollisionDetection where the code was using m_lNextTileX, m_lNextTileY instead of the tile being passed in
+ Added function HitCheckObjects, made from code that used to be at bottom of CollisionDetection
+ Removed parameter bMoveInstantly from SetPositionTile and related code
+ Added check in FindPath to skip leftover moves if the destination is cancelled because it can't create a path
+ Added checks for m_bWaitingForUserResponse in FIndPath
+ Added call to CalcAStarPathToDest under UpdateDirective so that the unit can move immediately after its directive is updated

* Unit Customization *

+ Can now alter the face and eyes of your Sovereign

+ Added a bunch of IsBodyPart checks alongside checks for clothing and hair so that faces are treated as randomized backup items like hair and clothes already are, and so they don't get cleared when the unit type is cleared
+ FillItemList doesn't make a category for the face equipment slot

+ Fixed crash that occurred if CreateTemporarySceneNode failed
+ Fixed bug where items would use custom textures of other items on a character

+ Fixed some T-poses that would show up for female sovereigns (like female children) because of some doubled animations that caused it to access random animations with out of bounds indices

+ New "EYES" material added.
  - This material animates the eyes so they automatically blink
  - Blinking eyes is disabled on info card
  - Blink constants are defined in CharacterGraphic.cpp

* Event List *
+ new tooltips implemented specifically for the Event list...line up over whichever entry triggered it
   - right clicking on certain events will either select the UNIT or CITY the event refers to (still hooping this up for more events, but it should work for the main ones)
   - started converting all the seperate CReportItem classes to just use the core one...the other classes were proving redundant
   - Hit detection improved in the Event list by setting several editfields to be transparent

* Gameplay *

+ Pioneer can not longer build on top of an existing pioneer improvement

+ Removed retreat code

   - Retreat button is now Cancel button, only available to attacker.  Since you no longer move into the tile when attacking, no retreat code is necessary

+ Custom Unit Quotes and Names being auto-generated, picking from a handful of options
   - currently hardcoded...will be converting to the FlavorText system next

+ Turned autosave on by default
+ Fixed bug where ability bonus options weren't actually being applied to factions in the customize faction screen, which manifested itself by clearing all the checkboxes when the race spinner was updated (because of a UI refresh) and obviously not getting any of the ability bonuses
+ Entries used for showing stationed units and subunits in main UI don't show number if the unit has only one troop
+ AI will now check that the items it is using to design unit types are supported by the model of that unit (no more female faces on men), and will make sure that a face is always chosen
+ Fixed bug where auto-upgrading your housing would cut your population level to whatever it was without any housing, because of capping it in the middle of the upgrade.  I've fixed it for now by making sure no UI updates are called that will try to get these values and force the capping to happen, but I don't think this will always work in case some construction code ever needs to just access a resource amount in the city during that in-between time, so I think I'll add something more robust tomorrow.
+ Changed OnConstructionComplete to be called on completed improvements after they've been added to the correct vectors in the city/player, so that when stats are set to dirty they can be accessed anytime and we know they'll be recalculated to the right value

+ City hubs are now taken into account when calculating battle bonuses for stationed units
+ Unstationing or removing multiple units from an army will leave whatever unit was last selected selected, instead of just selecting the first unit in the list

+ City Hub now offers bonuses to stationed units
+ Forge and Granary now have XML tags for improvement requirements
+ Mine and Apiary internal names changed for consistency
+ Town Hall adjusted to give +2 prestige points instead of a percentage
+ Crystal now uses new Icon

+ Fixed issue with quests that required you to escort a unit back to a city not completing (the quest condition tracker was attempting to get said units by calling CWorld::GetUnitByIndex( ) with the unit’s ID, when it should have been using CWorld::GetUnitByID( )).

* UI *

+ Race Logo appear on the Unit Context window for the currently selected unit

+ City Build List: you may now select non-buildable improvements so you can mouseover their stats easier even though you still can't build them.
+Reworked zoom to cursor to zoom in along the vector pointing to the area on the ground where the mouse is pointing, rather than gravitating toward nearby objects. The camera system will need a bit of a rework to make this a little smoother.

+ Recruited champions now correctly show up in the empire tree after a load.

+  Improvements that require previous improvements now have those requirements implemented.  Example: a forge cannot be built until you build an iron ore mine.

+ tweaks to edge scrolling
+ Selecting a unit from the stationed unit list in a city will show the information for that unit

+ Fixed bug where units under fog would occasionally pop in and fade out

* Restarting a Game*

+ Starting a new game from within a game will now "work". Still some issues to be tracked down.

   - Fixing an issue where game modifiers saved their parents, which could cause an issue with reference holding.
   - The game, when uninitializing itself, will now clean up tactical map graphics, and will now properly call ResetWorld on the world.
   - Added a DestroyWorld function to world that clears data when world is deconstructed (as opposted to simply reset).
   - The world will now delete and reinitialize the event center.
   - The world will now add its listener when it is reset.
   - Added an assert to see if a unit was leaking when the world released it.
   - The loop to create champ NPC units and place them on random tiles will no longer run infinitely, and will assert after 100 runs.

* Misc.*

+ Fixed crash caused by adding patchwork armlets and a shield to the same guy (both used the same attachment pt)

+ Fixed bug where using quickstart with your prefs/faction configs set such that you ended up playing one of the core factions, your units would have all white hair and skin

+ CClothIconManager now tracks which icon sets have had icons added/removed since the last update, removing the need for external code to keep track of “dirty” icons.

* Memory *

+ Restructured CClothIconManager to use std::maps for storing tiles, rather than pre-allocated 2D arrays, resulting in a dramatic reduction of the game’s memory footprint. Previously, the cloth icon manager was pre-allocating data for each tile in the map for every active icon type, regardless of whether or not there was actually an icon at that tile. On the Beta 1Z map, which is 128 by 96 tiles and has 47 different cloth icons on it on the start of turn 1, this system would consume nearly 150 megabytes of memory. By switching the cloth icon manager over to using std::maps and only allocating memory for icons that are currently on the map, we save enormous amounts of memory. If you clear the fog of war at the start of the first turn on the
  Beta 1Z map with this new system, it uses roughly 21 kilobytes to represent all the cloth icons on the map, giving us a reduction of Elemental’s memory footprint of nearly 150 megabytes. On larger maps with a greater number of different icons the memory savings will be even more dramatic.

* Balance *

+ Lots of tweaks to costs and benefits on buildings

* Known issues *

There are some pathfinding issues and mountains aren’t showing up in FOW early.

* Is this build ready for beta 2? *

Will have to play the beta version first. Our internal build is, as you can imagine, nothing like what is in the public beta.

* How will I know if it’s ready for beta 2? *

The goal of this build is stability. If it is stable and doesn’t run out of memory then it’s ready.  If it’s unstable (crashes) or runs out of memory on you then it’s not.

Beta 1 is not about game balance. If you’re enjoying beta 1 then we have failed as beta 1 should not be remotely fun (I’m seriously about this guys because if it starts feeling fun it will create unanticipated inertia towards certain game play elements that we may radically change for beta 3 – ask anyone who’s ever been in a beta before, people get really invested in bad game concepts that they get used to).

Stay tuned!