The Repopulation - A SciFi Sandbox MMORPG - End of December 2013 Update

We say goodbye to December and 2013, and now turn our sights on what should be a great year for The Repopulation. We are very excited about the upcoming year, and the ability to start bringing in larger number of players to Alpha 3 and Beta Preview weekends starting in March. While we still have a ways to go we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that is encouraging.

December was an eventful month for The Repopulation. We launched a Kickstarter Stretch Goal Campaign, and a Steam Greenlight Campaign, and are happy to say that both are doing very well so far. It only took us 7 days to reach the top ten, thanks largely in part to receiving 83% yes votes so far. Meanwhile the Kickstarter Campaign is currently 78% of the way to the initial goal after just six full days. We'd like to thank everyone who has supported these campaigns. It's drawing new exposure to the game and should be very beneficial to both us and the players.

On New Years Eve co-lead developer Joshua Halls did a 2 hour Q&A on Twitch over weapon and armor types as well as many other questions pertaining to other aspects of the game. You can check out the recording of the event or join us live at 8 PM CST on Friday, January 3 for new game play footage. Once the initial footage and information is covered we will open the broadcast for questions from anyone present. We plan on conducting a handful of interviews over the next few weeks and are always looking to add a few more if anyone is interested.

Development wise, we continue along the same path as the past couple months, focusing most of our efforts on bug fixes, content and polish. The FPR received increased attention. The Calendar and Weather systems also received a number improvements. These changes allow for season, date, or weather changes to activate missions, engagements, or trigger world events. The weather has also been adjusted throughout the world and is now more greatly affected by seasons.

We are very happy with the direction this game is moving in currently, and look forward to making 2014 a great year. Happy New Year everyone!

AI

Adjusted the flee code slightly so it would work better if it runs into a minor blockage.
Scared NPCs will now heal 1% of their HP if they are not running away from the target. Once they regain 20% of their health past the original flee margin they will go back to their normal activities.

Combat

Added new fist weapons which allow Unarmed Combatants to equip fittings or alternate damage types.
Beefed up the damage on Unarmed combat's basic attacks.
Added a cache for applied fitting list so damage would be applied to the matched fittings as that code wasn't being called.

Engagements

Created a new FPR NPC controlled vehicle for use in engagements. This is currently being used in a new escort engagement to the Scorched Gorge Outpost, and in the future will also be used in other locations.
Added a number of engagements to the Scorched Gorge area. This includes a collection, a raid, and an engagement which requires you to aid a Scientist in collecting his samples as he treks to the dangerous crater areas.
Implemented five new seasonal engagements.

Graphics

Elkar have an all new model and animations.
Improved Burning special effects.
Building model optimizations (mesh & texture).
Added new flag models.

Housing

You can now sit on several chairs and stools which previously were not marked to allow it.
Added new walls and props to the housing system.
Some structures had their names changed to make them easier to identify.

Inquiries

Inquiring with NPCs about local events can now indicate if there is a traveling collector in town or if mushrooms are in season.
Added a series of new inquiry questions which allow you to ask about books and authors of the books in inquiries.
Introduced new inquiries based on prominent FPR figures.
Introduced new inquiries revolving around the Players organization. You will gain access to these questions after completing Players related missions.

Items and Fittings

Added new weapons that can be used in Unarmed Combat. These weapons allow you deal modified damage types while using Unarmed Combat abilities and also support fittings.
Books can now award multiple bits of knowledge when read.
Shrooffles are a new type of ingested food. These are only in season during the Rainy Season, and are a strong psychoactive. They have a visual effect, and will diminish your reflexes, while increasing your health.
Introduced a new readable book: Rifle Crack. This book will grant the first person who reads it a small but permanent boost to their Stealth skill.
Introduced a new readable book: Mayflower Grind. This book centers around some noteworthy regulars at the Mayflower Pub, and the effects of the civil war. Being the first player to read a copy of this book will grant a small but permanent bonus to your Culinary Arts skill.
Introduced a new readable journal: Scorched Gorge, Day 1. It rewards the first player to read it a small but permanent boost to their Concentration skill.
Added a new two part Weeping Child book series. Reading these books for the first time will grant you a hidden bonus which will make it easier to befriend the Lesoo, if you so desire.
Added 18 new weapon visualization icons and attached them to the appropriate weapons.
Added new bits of knowledge to multiple books.
Reading the First Invasion book will now grant a small but permanent boost to your Bladed Weapon Tactics skill.
There are now different repair kits for melee/firearms/armor fittings.
Vulture Claws are now considered unarmed combat weapons.
Maces, Hatchets, Long Blades, Broad Swords, and Morning Stars have new models.
Double Axe renamed to Deluxe Axe.
Adjusted Fully Automatic mount/stow positions.
Energy Booster attribute was missing from armor fittings. It was added.
Added some lower quality fittings to a couple of mission reward tables. These are rare and of lower quality but could be useful for new players.
The Setlang-hide Armor set features improved visuals.
Added new rare loot tables for Brachura.
Added new resource related drops to Mubark bosses.
Added a new readable book which will grant a small but permanent bonus to your First Aid skill when read.
Changed Contaminated Water default stack size to 5.
Repair kits will now only work on the appropriate type of fitting.
Added new readable propaganda.

Missions

Introduced a lengthy new series of missions revolving around the Players Club. Although this organization is based in Freedomtown they span the globe.
The Unarmed Combat tutorial will now reward you with a knuckle blade at the end of the tutorial.
Increased the difficulty and rewards of the Priority Assignment: group mission.
Populated the area south of Freedomtown with a number of new mission templates and one time missions.
Added a slew of new mission opportunities to Freedomtown.
Added a new four part mission series for OWON entertainer types.
The Water is Life generated mission template is no longer available in the large cities, but is still available in smaller locations. It has had it's difficulty rating and thus rewards also increased.
Added additional rewards to the Breaking and Entering generated mission template. It should also be noted that each of the forks for this mission also reward some hidden reputation changes based on your choices.
Changed the profession type required for one of the random NPCs in the Rotten Meat generated mission template, and made it completable in more locations.

NPCs

Introduced a new NPC faction which is available throughout the world: The Players. These NPCs are tied in to a large new series of missions and are best described as pranksters... with a twist.
OWON has begun backing a band of thieves in FPR controlled territories.This have a chance to drop items which FPR characters can turn into bounty collectors for rewards.
Fragaria Achillea and Dwarf Achillea combat effects have been improved. In addition to this they now have a poisonous spit attack.
Introduced numerous new types of NPC responses (emotes and chatter) to be used in different situations.
Improved numerous NPC visualizations to make them better fit their intended role.
Lesoo now have a larger variety of weapons.
Introduced several new "Joker" inspired visualization for NPCs.
OWON has deployed a reasonable number of scout bots in FPR controlled territories.
Rare Hokfigs have new resource related loot.
Added numerous new forms of Lurkers.
Added many new soldier spawn locations in Plymouth City. This should distribute the soldiers a bit more for mission purposes.
Cleo and Otis Bores have opened a new shop in Freedomtown which doubles as a butcher and bakery.
Added background and location information to many new NPCs in the Freedomtown area.
Introduced several new types of Elkar including a leadership type. These direct the attacks of their allies and make them more efficient in combat.
Added the species flag to the rest of the Bandits so they can be salvaged for parts.
Added new NPC boss abilities including an ability which allows generated bosses to summon in a wide variety of reinforcements.
Mubark now have their own perception system. They have longer than usual awareness ranges, and a chance to detect hidden players.
Created many new types of Elkar and Brachura bosses. These are primarily designed for the Subterranean Thicket, but some will also appear elsewhere.
There are now Elkar Scouts in some areas. These mobs will run for assistance, rather than fighting.
Removed the Elkar stealth ability as it was using old stealth techniques.
Added an OWON Morale Officer to Plymouth City. Another can be found in Timbertoc.

Pets

You will now receive a notification if you try to tame an animal which can not be tamed.

Player vs. Player

Added new bonus loot drops for general purpose PvP combat. These drops are rare, but will occasionally result in a collectible item, or a readable book after you have killed another player. These are not items from the other players inventory, and are completely generated similar to mob loot tables.

Skills and Abilities

The Scrounge for Water ability (Survival) saw significant changes. Water quality and grade will now vary greatly from area to area. The pop-up also lists the grade now as well. Last but not least the recharge timer was reduced from 15 to 10 seconds.
There are new items which can be stolen from Scorched Gorge Outpost. As always, keep in mind that thievery will turn the locals against you and may eventually result in you being exiled.
You now receive a bonus when scrounging for water in Koleyna, the Pipeworks, and Southeast of Freedomtown.
Added new stealable objects to Freedomtown.

Trade Skills

Added Excess Fat Extraction as a low tier recipe to Culinary Arts. It sacrifices the meat to get the fat from the meat. It is used in other recipes and is a side product in the higher steak recipes.
Fruit Juice recipe added to Culinary Arts. Requires edible fruit and a preservative for the agent.
Added a new Culinary Arts recipe: Flour. Needs Maypuri and vitamin spray to make it.
Added a new harvestable resource: Sweetfinger Mushroom. These can be found in temperate areas after rainfall, but they are seasonal and only available during the winter.
Added a new harvestable resource: Rhyolite. It is currently used as a source of Moissanite and Silica. It was added to the Mineral breakdown recipe and the stone breakdown recipe was removed as it was the only product and seemed kind of redundant. Rhyolite can be found in Kupletskite Deposits.
Added Quicklime to the Mineral Breakdown recipe as a result of Limestone. It also produces Carbon Dioxide as a side product.
Syrup added from Destructive Distillation of Hardwood recipe from Takayura and Rezzo wood.
Vegetable Oil added as recipe to Culinary Arts. It replaced generic "Oil" as the Momentum Retention agent for fittings.
Seed Extraction added to Foraging line to get seeds from plants.
Incendiary Production was added to the Chemistry line allowing the production of RDX and HMTD.
Added 27 new resource icons.
Added crafting and skill imprinting stations to the Scorched Gorge Outpost.
Added the following harvestable resources near the Scorched Gorge Outpost: Hok Weed, Maeglium, Morgun Tree, and Evaporite.
Increased the replenishment rate of resources throughout the world.
Increased the rate at which harvestable resources replenish.
Added the following harvestable resources to the Subterranean Thicket: Fish, Falasium, and Abandoned Bundles.
Added the following harvestable resources to Elkar Wood: Calibrite, Melanko.
Thermite now has the attribute of Attack Speed used for fittings.
Turpentine added as the Dodge attribute for fittings.
Added Evaporite Deposit introducing Borax into the game.
Added Salty Prophyra to the following areas: Plymouth Pond, Southeast of Freedomtown, Koleyna, and Fool's Sanctuary
The Gurthnium deposits in Upper Oasis Valley, Timbertoc, and South of Freedomtown have been removed in place of Kupletskite Deposits.
Added Salty Prophyra as a plant to the game. It will be showing up in/near water.
You can now harvest the following resources to the South of Freedomtown: Rhyolite, Calibrite, Abandoned Bundle.
Generic hard and soft resin is now a byproduct of the Destructive Distillation recipes for both soft and hard wood. Both are used as fitting attribute agents.
Fluorspar added as the Increase Base Damage attribute fitting agent replacing an item that technically didn't exist.
Quicklime now has the proper fitting attribute for Bladed Damage Resistance.
Strontium Sulfate was not properly entered into the system. Item was properly added and flagged.
Lesapen Fruit has been renamed to Lesapen Stalk. It needs to be processed to get the fruit from it. There is a new Fruit Preparation recipe in Foraging to take care of this along with the Kosha fruit.
You can now harvest the following resources to the South of Freedomtown: Gurthnium, Calibrite, Abandoned Bundle.
Diethylene Glycol correctly added as a byproduct of Ethylene Glycol.
All hides in the game now work properly as crafting agents for the range attribute for fittings.
Hides can now be stacked in much larger stacks, which match the size of other resources.
Soft Wood (Maypuri, Rue, Jessup, etc) moved over to the health attribute for fittings as they were improperly flagged.
Specialty Wood added as a source for energy booster attribute (used to improve energy shielding stats). This removed Hydrogen Chloride used for it.
Sarnium deposits now have Gypsum (was missing) and added Limestone as a new mineral. It doubles as calcium carbonate, which is extracted on the fishing side, as well.
Repair Kits added to the fitting creation skill lines so they can be made to repair the fittings. New recipes were added to the appropriate recipe books.
Added Sarnium and Geel Flower resources to the newbie grounds in Freedomtown.
Added Evaporite deposits to Torn Mist Valley. This is new deposit with Borax in it.
Scrounge for Water now produces five times more water than was previously the case.

User Interface

Adjusted the Structure List GUI so it fits with the rest of the windows, and added a scroll area for it as well. There is a bit more padding on the corners so you should be able to resize it easier.
You will now receive a localized text banner any time you gain SI (Skill Imprints). This is in addition to the previous chat indication.
If you interact with an NPC who you have a tracking arrow to (from an inquiry or through the Track ability), it will now clear the tracking arrow.
Added the new icons from M. Yatskar and mapped a few to some of the items in the crafting demo list and matched a few that were missing in the fitting attribute list.
Floating Text (damage, skillups, etc) can now be disabled in the options.
Flipped the slider adjustments on the Energy Pool Split so it increases the value you slide it toward.
Ability icons that are still recharging will properly show a timer shadow if you change ability panels.
Tooltip for abilities now displays time left until it is recharged when you hover over the ability.
Ability icons will properly go into a needing endurance/momentum indicator after the recharge is over instead of waiting for the respective values to update forcing a recheck.
Endurance checks on abilities now checks for the useWeapon information so it will properly indicator lack of endurance if you run out and an ability is flagged to use the weapon info.
Hitting escape when the repair icon is active will exit out of the repair mode returning the cursor back to normal.

World

Significant Improvements were made to the calendar and weather systems. We can now do things like activate engagements, missions or other activities based on a combination of the current weather settings, combined with previous settings and the current month. This allows us to do things like make certain engagements or world events to occur after it stops snowing during winter, or when it starts raining during the summer, etc.
Weather conditions now take the season into account throughout the world. This means it may rain, snow, have dust storms or other effects at different rates based on the current calendar date.
Added a new tier 3-5 cave to the area surrounding Freedomtown, known to the locals as the Subterranean Thicket. This is the FPR equivalent of Plymouth's Underbelly and is populated primarily by Elkar, but also features a number of other species in certain sections. Along with those it also features traps, interactive objects, missions, lootable corpses, and harvestable resources.
The Scorched Gorge Outpost has opened it's research facility and military base. The primary goal of this outpost is to research geothermal activity in the area, but it also serves as a military outpost. It features a slew of missions and engagements.
Introduced the Scorched Gorge Outpost to the southeast of Freedomtown. The first time you visit this location you will gain a small but permanent boost to your Pharmaceuticals skill as a result of the research going on in at the outpost.
Introduced a new tier 2-4 area which is known to locals as Elkar Wood. This area is located south of Freedomtown and includes an entrance into the Elkar's Subterranean Thicket, a new cave based dungeon.
Populated the area South of Freedomtown with mobs. This area features tier 1-2 mobs and multiple dens. It gets a little bit tougher at night time, and feature low tier raid content that will sporadically become available, as well. There are currently nine different boss types that can spawn in this area.
Added numerous new dens to the Scorched Gorge Outpost. This volcanic region includes some never before seen mobs, and is a mixture of solo to group tier 3-4 content.
Populated the Elkar Wood using dens. At night time the area will be much more dangerous as the Elkar come out of their Subterranean Thicket. During the day you will find Okolat, Mubark, and Raxin primarily.
Added a new newbie area through the new back exit of Freedomtown. This area includes a number of entry level mob types and some missions related to them. In addition to these mobs, there are also new NPCs guarding the back entrance.
The tented area behind the pub in Freedomtown has become the meeting place of the Players Club. Occasionally leadership will visit, as well.
There is now a trail from Freedomtown to Kaavo, by way of the Wailing Chasm.
Decorated part of the backside of Plymouth Pond which had no decorations.
A large number of crawlers have appeared in the caves underneath Timbertol.
Added a new Rogue city to the Kaavo area.
Added new NPC spawn locations to Plymouth Pond, and moved several NPCs into new locations in the Exile Camp.
The Plush room in Sept Falls is somewhat livelier than before.
Removed the top part of the Timbertol caves from the map so you can get a general idea of where the cave section is and where you are at.
The first time you visit the Overlord's Lair in the Subterranean Thicket you will receive a small but permanent boost to your Intimidation skill.
Updated the Exile Camp in Plymouth Pond with new props and buildings.

World Events

Introduced a new world event which will only occur after it stops raining during the rainy season. When this event becomes active in an area mushrooms will spawn. These can be harvested for both Sweetfinger Mushrooms, a harvestable resource, and also for Shroofles, which are psychoactive. These mushrooms attract some types of local wildlife, altering spawns in the area, and the longer the mushroom exist the higher numbers they will attract. They will also alter the behavior of those mobs. When this event is active, new NPCs will spawn who offer a collection mission to gather the mushrooms for additional rewards.
Added new NPCs that will travel the world during the rainy season in their search for Shrooffle mushrooms and are spawned when a patch of them appears nearby.

Miscellaneous or Minor Changes

There is now a 5 minute time limit for players to decide if they should respawn at a local cloning location or at their home location. You will see it ticking down in the Death Window. If it is allowed to expire, you will automatically release to your home location.
Added the author's name to a number of readable books.
Renamed shotguns to shockguns.
Optimizations were made to the Skill Imprinting reward system.
Updated the background and location information on several NPCs in Plymouth City to make it easier to find them on missions.
Re-enabled female character creation on alpha.
The Sticks now has separate spawn locations for different factions.
Increased the spawn times on the NPCs at and outside the entrance of Plymouth's Underbelly.
Barca now have their own creature category.
Added additional Peacekeeper spawn points to Plymouth City.
Added a new Fungi Harvester title and achievement.
Plymouth Pond now has its own custom weather script.
Renamed the three books in the Letters to a Soldier series.
Fixed an issue with Beryl deposits near Plymouth Pond.
Introduced 7 new music tracks.
Tweaked health bars scaling to make them look better when scaled.
Shadow distance code cleaned up to work properly over restarts and through zone crossing.
Adjusted the repair kit numbers slightly after analyzing the ratios that were being used.
Made balance adjustments to the Fool's Sanctuary engagements.
Added a new achievement and title: The Jester.
Moved Angelo Duran and Don Pirre's spawn points in Freedomtown. They can be found in the crafter's workshop.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that was preventing one of the Victory audio tracks to never play.
Fisherman should no longer spawn in the middle of the lake in Plymouth Pond.
Fixed the momentum and endurance issues with ability icons. They now work properly and cleanly. Lacking momentum has a yellowish hue and lacking endurance is redish.
NPCs should no longer refer to themselves in the third person if they themselves are the cause of their current dilemma.
Fixed a typo which was referring to Variegated Alloys as Varigated Alloys.
FPR characters should no longer be able to obtain a teleport to Plymouth.
Fixed a tree on the back entrance of Freedomtown which was attached to the wrong zone and causing seamless issues when touched.
Had 2 desiccant crafting component types. Merged and fixed the items/recipes impacted.
Fixed some rocks that were attached to the neighboring area erroneously in Payton's Peak.
Rotated several trees South of Freedomtown which were located on a seam and had vines overhanging into the nearby area. This was causing some seamless crossing issues when a player came into contact with the vines.
Fixed a floating tree Outside of Freedomtown which could cause players to get stuck when they walked underneath it.
Fixed an issue that was preventing stealth from skilling up in some cases where it should have been.
Moved the FPR specific spawn point in Scorched Gorge Outpost so that you don't suffer falling damage when spawning.
Stitched a seam in the mountains of the Southwest Ridge.
Fixed an issue with which was preventing Lurkers from spawning in Plymouth Pond on occasion.
Corrected two markup related text bugs in the Sobbing Drunk's Tale timed mission.
Fixed a patrol is in Pond Cave resulting from a bad path.
You should now receive the FPR Trained achievement rather than OWON trained when you complete your combat training as an FPR trainee.
Corrected a bug in the first of the two part Awakening series for FPR characters which was giving OWON reputation rather than FPR.
You will no longer be able to get free Setlang-hide Sleeves even if you don't have the hides to give J.D. in his Setlang Hide collection.
Fixed a bug that was causing changes to the NPCs Cause trait to not always apply correctly.
Fixed an issue with the egg collection generated mission template in Plymouth's Underbelly, and made an FPR specific version of it for the Subterranean Thicket.
Fixed an animation/script issue where a stop call would be sent and the animation then would be replayed forcing the animation to play only part of the cycle till the NPC came to a stop (giving them a bit of a gimped look moving around).
Placed in a fix for an audio related issue with combat music staying on longer than it should have.
Fixed a bug that was preventing Craving Elkar from crawling if the spawned near a player.
You can no longer receive teleport abilities or military cards for opposing factions from mob dropped training cards.
Fixed an issue with some shadow settings now saving/loading over a restart.
Fixed the global recharge issue with the ability icons as they were not displaying the timer that blocks out all ability until it is up.
Resolved an issue that was causing loading screen music to not always switch off when it should have.
Fixed Tilapiine fish having the wrong type making it not work in crafting recipes calling for it.
Stitched together terrain in various parts of South of Freedomtown.
Fixed some cover issues in Sept Falls.
Removed some grass that was showing up through the floor of a large building in Freedomtown.
Banking window will now close if you are out of the interaction distance of the bank object.
Fixed a bunch of spawning issues with some npcs in Plymouth City that could cause Can Not See messages.
Each attribute successfully matched on a fitting could result in damage done to the fitting. Put in a time check since last damage to keep that from happening.
Fixed an issue with the Units tab not showing units properly the first time you run the window after starting/restarting the client.
Fixed a rank issue when first creating a nation and not having the ruler rank assigned to you. This would of been fixed on a relog, but should work properly out of the gate now.
Fixed an issue where a player was not added to the Units replication group as part of a nation if there was no units currently associated with the nation.
Some fitting attributes were not being applied due to a lack of ability info passed. This has been adjusted so this can happen as quite a few get their adjustments with no ability passed.
Fixed an issue with one of the fitting caches and mods being stored improperly causing them not to be applied.
Fixed an issue with subgrade being used instead of the difficulty of the fitting/repair kit.

End of December 2013 Update

AI