Dev Update : 0.6.5 Release

The 0.6.5 version of GRA should be available somewhere between Sunday and Monday. I could release it right now, but I am tweaking the new dungeon and debugging a few errors I found adding this stuff. Anyway, here is what's going to happen in this release and the few next ones.

First, the "dungeon" stuff is working correctly. It is not perfect, but it's enough, and probably better than what you expected. This release will feature one single dungeon, the NecroTech building. The name itself is a dead (uh) giveaway. All the mobs will be unique to this dungeon. It's relatively small and a bit easier than the military base. However the final reward is a really fun toy. It is possible with this release to add new custom dungeons through the various editors, but figuring that by yourself is going to be quite painful. I will update the wiki and release a tutorial video as soon as possible to explain the whole process.

This release also improves the graphics of many NPC, it fixes a large amount of bugs and tweak the faction warfare in quite a dramatic way as the whole city will be taken over by gangs in the long run. However the lack of a real savegame system prevent the player lambda from seeing this stuff. There's a reason why I am delaying the save/load feature so much. Basically even if I can generate the whole city architecture from a single number, whatever happened in the said city still need to be put into a file. That's several factions, the content of thousands of chests, the current state of thousands of NPC,  who own what, and so on. The quantity isn't really an issue, but the main issue is that I am not sure that I am going to keep the current structure of my NPC, factions, effects, and objects. Each time those things change, I will have to rewrite large parts of the save/load code. It's this kind of code: easy to write, but very long and very boring to do so. So the more I wait to write it and the easier it's for me to add new features. In other words, it's not going to happen before 0.8 or something release.

This said, and now that the dungeon stuff is basically done. The first new kind of feature I am going to add is a news system (like Pirate Guild's BBS). Kiosks will be put around the town, and you'll be able to look at all the notable events. At the moment, it is stuff like sectors taken/liberated by gangs/police. But once it's in place, I will be able to advertise more interesting stuff. For example, banks will be added to the game world. Allowing, at first, NPC to deposit money (and then you). Gangs will be allowed to raid banks in addition to sector invasions. Such events will be displayed in the news system.  And AI wise, it doesn't need a lot of code. I'll have to tweak the gang AI but regarding the police, they should react correctly.

This bank robbery event will be the first stuff to trigger the mission arc. In a few releases, if the player is the member of a said gang, he will be notified of such events before they happen. As a result he can decide to help with the robbery and get some money (and reputation) this way or not. The same stuff will happen with sector invasions. Joining a gang / faction will grant the player new goals. And yes, it will be possible to join the police and military too.

That's all for now :)