Thornes

Woooo!  After many weeks of sifting through and reading testing applications (thank you SO much to everyone who applied) we have chosen some testers!

We sent emails out earlier today, so everyone who has been invited should have received an email by now.  Please make sure to check your junk/spam mail and search for [email protected] to make double sure you find it.

We accepted exactly 700 applications - sorting 100 testers into each category that we shared in a minor teaser.  We are very sorry that we couldn’t accept everyone, but we have discussed possibly having a second wave of testing at some point in the future where we may accept more testers from the applications that didn’t quite make it through this time.  This is very provisional though, and highly depends on whether we think we need the extra testing.

Important Dates Going Forward

Wednesday 18th March @ 2pm PST - Wolvden First Look stream (https://twitch.tv/lioden)

In Wolvden, you will play the role of a lead wolf, which will be the one wolf in charge of the pack - the “head” if you will. This wolf will be the wolf you use to explore with, and is meant to be your character. It is the wolf you’ll see on the sidebar, the wolf you’ll participate in events with, and the wolf you battle with.

This wolf does not have to be male. You are perfectly able to have your lead wolf be a female if you prefer!

So how does breeding work? In the beginning of development we tossed around a lot of ideas for how best to balance realism with enjoyable gameplay. The first idea was to have a mated pair - so a male and female that could only breed together and everyone else in the pack were almost ‘pack helpers’. The problems with this were fairly high - it meant that studding was no longer an option, and forced players into a playstyle where they had to have a male and female always. The next idea involved the possibility that breeding pairs were still a thing - but they could be changed out fairly often. This provided a few more problems - studding would be tricky, breeding would be severely limited by how often you could switch out your pair, it would mean constantly pairing and unpairing wolves, and female leads would be at a significant disadvantage compared to male leads as they would not be able to produce the same number of puppies a lead male could, assuming he had a lot of females in his pack.

In the end, we decided on this:

There is a single breeding male within every pack that chooses to have one. To breed within your pack, you must first designate a breeding male to be the ‘stud’ if you will, which is locked in as its own role, and carries its own retirement process. The breeding male can be bred to any female in the pack, and can also stud out to other players’ wolves if you choose to do so. The lead wolf - even if male - does not necessarily have to be the breeding male. The game does not force you to have a breeding male at any time - only if you wish to breed within your pack. So in theory, it would be perfectly possible to have an entire pack of females and to still produce pups by using outside studs. The flexibility this offers means numerous options for roleplay and doesn’t force a player down one particular route with what they want to do with their pack.

Can the lead male be the breeding male as well? Yes, this is perfectly possible.

What sort of retirement process does a breeding male have? Breeding males are locked into their role until they die once it has been set. You will not be able to chase off or kill a breeding male. If you wish to retire your breeding male early, there is a ‘castrate’ option which means he will be released into the pack as a normal member, but will be unable to be the breeding male again… Obviously. ;)

What about retirement for lead wolves? The same applies to lead wolves - they are locked into the role until they die. This, again, can be bypassed by retiring them early if you choose, but the wolf will die and be sent to your dynasty.

What happens when you retire a lead wolf? Your leader will be sent to the dynasty and die (or will already be there, if it died of old age). You will then be taken to a ‘Choose Heir’ page which will show you all possible wolves that could take on the leader role. You can choose one of these (including the breeding male, if applicable) to take over the helm or choose to reroll, which will give you the same limited customisation options to generate a new wolf entirely.

What happens when your breeding male retires, or you castrate him? Nothing. The game doesn’t force you to pick another breeding male, and you are able to play the whole game without ever choosing one again. You just won’t be able to breed within your pack and will have to use outside studs if you want to produce more pups.

But I really wanted to have two leaders? This can easily be simulated. On the pack page, the lead wolf is featured at the top of the page. There is also an option to pick a ‘featured wolf’ to appear alongside them. The title of the “featured wolf” and “pack leader” can be adjusted to different options - you could call them the ‘Queen’, ‘King’, ‘Mate’, or whatever you choose to be a better fit for the roleplay of your pack. By default, it will just be called a ‘Featured Wolf’ and ‘Pack Leader’. Users who do not wish to make much use of the RP elements of this feature could even use it to feature a particular wolf they have for sale. *Please note, the image displayed is of an early mockup for demonstration purposes.*

After taking some time to process and prioritize everything that we’d like to achieve during our closed development period, our team is excited to announce that we are aiming for the official release of Dappervolk to be within the first or second quarter of 2019!

As always, please keep in mind that this timeframe is subject to changes depending on any obstacles that we may encounter while developing some of our more complex new features. But rest assured, we will have more specific news and updates for everyone regarding our launch timeframe as we continue to make headway through our development projects - so stay tuned!

One of the major projects that we are currently working on for official launch is a brand new town to explore! This location will continue the storyline where many beta testers left off, departing from the sandy shores of Aviar Cove in search for exciting, new horizons - or perhaps, great new depths?

Our current work on this new town and its inhabitants will largely be kept as a surprise for players to unlock during official launch, so we won’t be able to share any new sneak peeks with you - but if you’re curious about our progress, we are currently in the process of finalizing the art assets and fleshing out the quest writing! What we can share, are some fun in-progress assets for other areas of the site that we are currently developing. For example, we will be expanding Peddler’s Port with various new NPCs like the one below. 

Some of our most anticipated features for official launch are also some of our most coding-intensive projects thus far! Currently, our coders are hard at work transforming our design mockups for these features into fully functional parts of the site. Below are some of the major upcoming features that we’re working on right now.

USER-RUN GUILD SYSTEM

During our beta testing phase, you may have noticed that our “upcoming things” list was updated with a few bullet points dedicated to a new feature called Guilds! This system is designed to give users the ability to create and run their own public or private group, with built-in features such as a customizable theme and homepage, customizable ranks/permissions, a guild-only mini forum and live chat, guild events, and guild upgrade goals to work toward.

Since our last update, this feature has progressed through the concepting and UI design process, and onto the coding and refining stage! Our coders have made great progress thus far, so be sure to keep an eye out for more details on how this feature will be implemented into the game as we get closer to putting the finishing touches on this exciting project. 

ADVENTURE EXPANSION

During beta testing, users got to experience our initial framework and first build for a feature called Adventure! Admittedly, this early iteration of the feature was designed as more of a functional test run of its newly built framework than a fully realized, fun game for players to experience - so we completely understood when many felt a bit disappointed by its beta testing debut.

However, thanks to all of the testing and input that we received from our beta testers, we are very excited to now be working on implementing and realizing the full range of ideas that we’ve been planning for this side scrolling mini-game styled feature!

Some new features that will be coming to Adventure are a variety of new default and unlockable sprite appearances, toggle-able active and passive game modes, better optimization, new regions to unlock, new Adventuring music, an encounters bar, and more!

HOUSING PROGRESS

By far, one of our most anticipated - and most ambitious - upcoming features is the introduction of customizable player homes into the world of Dappervolk!

Once unlocked, users will be able to decorate and arrange the contents of their homes on an easy to use grid-based system. Additionally, we plan to integrate a player’s Adventure sprite into this feature, allowing you to freely hop throughout your home and even invite your friends over to chat in real-time! Each home will also include skills activities and crafting - but more details on this will be revealed in the future, as we are currently focusing on building the framework for this feature and refining the artistic direction that we’d like to take for the massive amount of assets that it will require. Please note that, while we regard housing as one of our most important new features, the sheer amount of technical considerations and graphic assets that it will take to produce this feature is something that we do not want to underestimate during development. Because of this, there is a possibility that housing may not be completely ready for release at the time of official launch. Nevertheless, we are extremely excited about the feature and can’t wait to share more about it with you as we progress further through development!

MINI GAMES & MUSIC

It wouldn’t be a complete update without some news on our upcoming mini game plans and gameplay music, right? Because we plan to officially launch Dappervolk with a brand new town, a new mini game will also be released via the Playground alongside that town! Additionally, we also plan to have some amazing new music to go long with the new mini game, as well as our Adventure expansion.

Interested in listening to our existing Dappervolk music? Visit our talented composer’s Dappervolk page over on Bandcamp! https://stijnvanwakeren.bandcamp.com/album/dappervolk

MINOR DELAY

Over the holidays, an unexpected hard drive failure occurred on the main desktop of our lead artist and project manager, Quis. Thankfully, we keep regular data backups on external drives, so no files or progress were lost in the process. She has since invested in a new desktop to replace this older device, but some technical issues with the new build have delayed her ability to switch over. This is expected to be resolved soon, with the only major impact being on her ability to continue progress on the content that we have set aside for streams.

We’ll be sure to update everyone when our art development streams resume. Nevertheless, it is full steam ahead into the new year!

❄ CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE RAFFLE!

i’m an idiot and i didn’t save the sprites. actual textposts won’t be around for a while.

however

i’ll still be blogging about dappervolk for a little bit. might start a side project. who knows?

final impressions post up tomorrow hopefully

http://dapperhell.tumblr.com/tagged/NPCs

i’m an idiot and i didn’t save the sprites. actual textposts won’t be around for a while.

however

i’ll still be blogging about dappervolk for a little bit. might start a side project. who knows?

final impressions post up tomorrow hopefully