So here we are, just over two weeks after the Milestone 4 build, and we have the Milestone 5 build for you to take a look at.

Take a look at the notes below, and please leave me comments about whether or not this build works for you, and any thoughts you might have! Thanks so much for your help, guys; couldn’t do all this without you! :)

Downloads

• Windows build (updated 15/07/2014)
• OSX build (requires OSX 10.8 or later)

What’s New

This build adds two core new features: quest editing, and the information pane. The information pane is accessible by clicking the “Info” button when any item is selected. When clicked, it will open up an extra HUD panel on the right side of the screen, in which more detailed information about the selected object can be seen.

When you click on a quest giver, information on that quest giver’s quests can be seen in the information pane. This will tell you the name of the quest, where players will be sent to complete the quest, and what they must do in the quest location. (caveat: non-combat quests currently display “[do a thing]” as the activity to be performed.) You may drag these quest panels up and down to reorder them, or drag them off the panel to the left, to destroy them. You may also click on ‘Add new quest’, to add a new randomly generated quest to the end of the list (maximum of 5 quests per quest giver).

If you want more control of the quests, when you have a quest selected, you can click on its title to rename it. Or if you click on the string stating its destination, you can click on a structure in the world, to have the quest go to that building, instead of its current destination. For hunt quests, you can click on the text which states how many monsters must be killed, to alternate between requiring 1, 4, 8, 16, and 32 monster kills, for the quest to be considered ‘complete’. (known issue: If you change a quest destination, the game will rebuild the quest from scratch, targetting that new building. This means that any custom-set quest title or other settings will be overwritten. For the moment, I recommend changing the destination first, and then editing title and # of monster kills required)

Notable changes since MS4

• Buildings may now be rotated while being placed. To rotate a building, instead of simply clicking the mouse button, hold the left mouse button down, and drag toward where you want the front of the building to face. Release the mouse button to finalise the placement.
• Grinding zones are now treated as buildings, including rules about non-overlapping. (Previously, only the marker pillar in the middle was treated as a building) They now have a simple fence surrounding them, the same as respawn points.
• Fixed a crash when too many buildings are queued up to build. This involved converting building outline rendering over to the new vsLines3D-based rendering, instead of the old immediate-mode line rendering.
• Fixed bug which could result in quest givers generating quests to visit themselves.
• Fixed bug which caused the game clock to start at time 0, but then play the game adjusted for the user’s local time zone. (This could result in users having a very short “Day 1”, if they’re in a time zone slightly behind Greenwich Mean Time)
• Fixed a bug which resulted in dead monsters still being drawn in the world as if they were alive (though players couldn’t see them, they couldn’t be selected, and they didn’t attack anyone.)
• Lines should now look much better on retina/HighDPI screens.
• Bloom is now higher resolution. Shouldn’t noticeably affect performance, but should look heaps better on retina/HighDPI screens.
• Roads are now made of equal-length segments, and joining to/from roads will snap to the middle of the nearest road segment.
• Fixed crash if the user tries to make a road with too many spline segments. (User is now limited to 10 spline segments).
• Fixed crash if the user tried to make a road which is too long. (User is now limited to 2km for a single road. Note that if you reach this limit, you can finish your current road, and start a new road from the intersection at the end of the first road).
• Fixed a crash bug which occurred when an AI developer tried to activate a building which the player placed, and then cancelled before the AI developer had managed to activate it.
• Fixed vertical camera jumps, when zooming in on terrain.

Instructions

Not much different than earlier builds. Here are the basics:

WASD or arrow keys to move around. Hold down the right mouse button and drag to rotate the view. Mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Your first step will be to select a region, and choose ‘Activate’ from the context matrix, to allow building placement. Next, use the “Town On” tool from the “Terrain” action bar tab to place a town somewhere in the region. Next, use the “Build Inn” tool from the “Buildings” action bar tab to place an inn inside the town, and then use the “Build Respawn” tool in the same tab to place a graveyard somewhere nearby outside the town.

Next, you probaby want to place a few grinding zones — these are where monsters will be located, for your players to fight. Finally, place one or two quest givers. You’ll find them under the ‘NPCs’ tab.

When you’re ready for subscribers to start entering the world, place a starting point (“Build StartingPoint” in the “Buildings” tab).

While you have something selected, click the “Info” button in the context matrix (the little 3×3 grid of buttons, just to the right of the selection header). This will open an extra panel of information on the far right side of the screen. Most things don’t provide very much information, yet, but you might like to watch a player’s satisfaction level change as they do quests and fight monsters. Note that right now, players are distinctly favoured over monsters — much more than they should be at such a low level, so it will actually probably be difficult to make them unhappy, yet.

If you select a quest giver while your information pane is open, you’ll see a list of that quest giver’s quests. Feel free to add or remove quests, redirect them, and then watch your players obey the modified quests.

Known issues

• Changing a quest’s destination regenerates the rest of the quest’s settings, even if they had been customised by the user.
• If you start changing a quest’s destination, there’s no way to ‘abort’ changing the destination. Even selecting a different quest or a different quest giver leaves your cursor in “set quest destination” mode until you click on a building.