What's new?
The bulk of this week was focused on fixing some memory issues on the server (see below). Beyond those improvements this week brings you a new static dungeon in the Meadowlands, a new /rope command to help you get unstuck, a number of bug fixes, and a slew of design improvements.
Server Memory Leak Update
These past few weeks have uncovered a server memory leak causing our zone executables to bloat in memory footprint the longer they are up. This eventually leads to our server running out of memory which leads to the operating system closing zones to avoid a system lockup.
90% of my time this past week has been spent investigating and implementing fixes for these leaks. To make a long story short: the way Unity really handles the destruction of objects within the game is not what I expected. I have had to relearn everything I thought I knew about how it happened and when the engine released memory references. In my opinion, this particular issue never surfaces for most users of Unity since most are not running an executable for days on end with tons of player traffic and tens of thousands of npcs spawning in and out. The build up of memory for each individual player/npc is quite small but over a long enough period of time those dangling references ended up adding up to a large chunk of memory.
My work this week has eliminated a huge chunk of dangling references and I am hopeful that this will severely reduce the rate at which our server executables grow. The plan moving forward is to take memory snapshots of the servers just before they come down on Thursday so that I can continue to find and eliminate additional dangling references. Thanks to everyone for their patience as we work through this!
Bug fixes / improvements:
The Undercroft
A new static dungeon has been added to Meadowlands! This level 26-27 dungeon has various sections supporting solo, small group, and large group play. It currently resides in "The Aquifer" zone but is not connected to it in any way. We are working on tech to better identify zones you enter even if they are within the same scene.
Rope
We have added a new "/rope" command to assist players in getting unstuck. This command requires a defensive target to be within 3m of your character, and remain there while the command executes. This command is on the same timer as /stuck and operates in a similar fashion. We have in depth logging when this command is used and will be monitoring for abuses so we can make potential adjustments.
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
New Creature (art has been delivered, awaiting tech & design)
Redmanes are primarily solitary hunters, due mostly to the fact that once they smell blood, they enter a feeding frenzy, and will readily turn on their own to sate it. In this state, as they lick blood from their mouths, their coarse tongues tear at the soft tissues of their face and eyes and they will keep licking until only bone remains. Though blinded by their own hunger, they remain excellent hunters thanks to their unparalleled hearing. Rumor has it that even though they've lost their eyes, once they smell prey, a faint shine can still be seen in the depths of their bloody sockets.
Item Linking (timeline 1 week)
Item linking in chat is about 90% complete. We are still working through a few usability concerns and hope to have this in for next week!
More Ashen! (timeline 1-2 weeks)
We have received ashen textures for Crocs, Raccoons, Rats, and Wolves. These will be implemented shortly to expand our ashen variants.
Repair Cost (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
We are looking into improving how repair costs are calculated to mitigate repair costs at higher levels. Still some work left to do but just wanted you to know we are working on it! We should have this updated by the time players get to high enough levels where this starts to become a pain point.
New Zones?! (timeline 2-3 weeks)
We are still whittling away at new zones. This week we have brought you a new static dungeon to Meadowlands. We will next swing back around to some more static dungeons for Dryfoot and Redshore.
Known Issues:
The bulk of this week was focused on fixing some memory issues on the server (see below). Beyond those improvements this week brings you a new static dungeon in the Meadowlands, a new /rope command to help you get unstuck, a number of bug fixes, and a slew of design improvements.
Server Memory Leak Update
These past few weeks have uncovered a server memory leak causing our zone executables to bloat in memory footprint the longer they are up. This eventually leads to our server running out of memory which leads to the operating system closing zones to avoid a system lockup.
90% of my time this past week has been spent investigating and implementing fixes for these leaks. To make a long story short: the way Unity really handles the destruction of objects within the game is not what I expected. I have had to relearn everything I thought I knew about how it happened and when the engine released memory references. In my opinion, this particular issue never surfaces for most users of Unity since most are not running an executable for days on end with tons of player traffic and tens of thousands of npcs spawning in and out. The build up of memory for each individual player/npc is quite small but over a long enough period of time those dangling references ended up adding up to a large chunk of memory.
My work this week has eliminated a huge chunk of dangling references and I am hopeful that this will severely reduce the rate at which our server executables grow. The plan moving forward is to take memory snapshots of the servers just before they come down on Thursday so that I can continue to find and eliminate additional dangling references. Thanks to everyone for their patience as we work through this!
Bug fixes / improvements:
- Launcher
- Fixed: issue preventing our frame rate lock from working. Many of you may have noticed your launcher chewing up a decent amount of your system resources - it should now chew up significantly less when open as the frame rate is properly locked to 30fps.
- Added: new concept images.
- Tech
- Fixed: client exceptions
- Removed some game controller bindings so as to not conflict with some players' custom setups
- Fixed some nullrefs due to missing guild roster data (still looking into guild caching issues that cause this)
- Fixed issues with respawns in the dungeons. I really fixed it this time, I promise!
- Adjusted the number of available Emberdrifts at any given time. To avoid issues with unrecoverable bags we are aiming to have all drifts available at all times - although their entrance locations will continue to cycle positions.
- Condensed cloud quality settings.
- Minor optimizations on the server
- Environment / Art
- Misc. bug fixes in Meadowlands, Dryfoot, and Redshore.
- Fixed: navigation issues in The Aquifer. This also resolves an issue where /stuck command to put you under the world.
- Fixed: navigation issues between spider rooms in the Meadowlands.
- Fixed: floating cube in Northreach. All mourn the cube.
- Adjusted the Dryfoot side of the Northreach-->Dryfoot zone line to get rid of some dead space.
- UI:
- Fixed: issue with Dryfoot Stronghold not showing on the map.
- Doubling the width of the chat input caret in hopes that this will reduce the frequency that it disappears.
- /world and /trade have "slow mode" enabled. This restricts users from broadcasting to these channels to once every 30 seconds.
- Quests:
- Taming the Meadowlands has been split into two new quests (yes, you can take the new ones if you've completed Taming the Meadowlands, double rewards!)
- Hallick's Tower now requires you to kill any of the bears in the cave (Misha is the ancient bear now, and is not a part of the quest)
- Hunting in Northreach now no longer requires you to kill Nighthunter, but instead requires you to kill spiders.
- Hammal is no longer quite so stoic regarding Brock's fate
- Cleaning House quest is now disabled
- Design:
- Harvested gems can no longer be sold for coin.
- Reduced damage on 2-chevron mobs.
- Added bonus stats to different flux tiers. Now each item will receive a different bonus depending on the flux tier used.
- Reduced bonus dice modifiers for lvl 20+ imbued weapons. Tiers of flux for imbued weapons previously gave a +1/+2/+3/+4 etc. dice modifier based on tier. This caused imbalance on some of the faster weapons and has been reduced. Other stats have been introduced as Flux bonuses in place of the bonus dice modifier which are specific to the weapon type, for example daggers get additional bonus haste for higher flux tiers.
- Organized Tea Leaves, Tea refinement and Tea Brewing naming conventions to be less wordy.
- Add new recipes for Ramie Tea Leaves and Teas. Ramie Leaves will be rare drops from Ramie harvests, the associated recipes for Ramie Tea can be found in Newhaven.
- Changed Bottles, Crates, and Adhesive back to being considered "Raw Components".
- Fixed issue with higher cost bottles not being required for higher tier potions.
- Fixed required level on Spike Cap Oil.
- Fixed issue with Ashen Basilisks ability preventing hit triggers.
- Daze resists given to named mobs.
- Items no longer required for Quests have had the "Quest" tag removed (only applies to new items)
- Increased number of Flask Reagents dropped by mobs.
- Reduced stam cost of Hidden Strike ability.
- Marshall's Dodge ability changed to grant Parry.
- New Shirt visuals added to loot tables and replaces some rare shirt visuals.
- Mandrake Seedlings have been spotted in Newhaven Valley. These variants are not fully mature and therefore not harvestable.
- Filled in some resource locations in Redshore that had none.
- Increased number of Grub Bat spawns in Northreach farms.
- Meadowlands
- Water colliders have been removed. With last week's updates to the nav mesh settings the shorelines came out a bit cleaner and should reduce the frequency of wraths.
- Respawn rate increased on Island of Ill Fate.
- Removed the lvl 30 resources around the lake
- Increased skinning level for named Wolves in the Cave Connector (passage between Wolf and Spider caves).
- Fixed skinning level of named crocs in Aquifer (was fixed previously but accidentally reverted).
- Returned River spawns to Meadowlands.
- Added pockets of mobs in the more forested areas
The Undercroft
A new static dungeon has been added to Meadowlands! This level 26-27 dungeon has various sections supporting solo, small group, and large group play. It currently resides in "The Aquifer" zone but is not connected to it in any way. We are working on tech to better identify zones you enter even if they are within the same scene.
Rope
We have added a new "/rope" command to assist players in getting unstuck. This command requires a defensive target to be within 3m of your character, and remain there while the command executes. This command is on the same timer as /stuck and operates in a similar fashion. We have in depth logging when this command is used and will be monitoring for abuses so we can make potential adjustments.
Works in progress:
To see a full list of what is currently in progress head on over to this thread. I will do my best to update this list on a weekly basis and highlight the differences from the previous week with bold font. Below I will highlight some of the upcoming changes in more detail.
New Creature (art has been delivered, awaiting tech & design)
Redmanes are primarily solitary hunters, due mostly to the fact that once they smell blood, they enter a feeding frenzy, and will readily turn on their own to sate it. In this state, as they lick blood from their mouths, their coarse tongues tear at the soft tissues of their face and eyes and they will keep licking until only bone remains. Though blinded by their own hunger, they remain excellent hunters thanks to their unparalleled hearing. Rumor has it that even though they've lost their eyes, once they smell prey, a faint shine can still be seen in the depths of their bloody sockets.
Item Linking (timeline 1 week)
Item linking in chat is about 90% complete. We are still working through a few usability concerns and hope to have this in for next week!
More Ashen! (timeline 1-2 weeks)
We have received ashen textures for Crocs, Raccoons, Rats, and Wolves. These will be implemented shortly to expand our ashen variants.
Repair Cost (timeline: 2-3 weeks)
We are looking into improving how repair costs are calculated to mitigate repair costs at higher levels. Still some work left to do but just wanted you to know we are working on it! We should have this updated by the time players get to high enough levels where this starts to become a pain point.
New Zones?! (timeline 2-3 weeks)
We are still whittling away at new zones. This week we have brought you a new static dungeon to Meadowlands. We will next swing back around to some more static dungeons for Dryfoot and Redshore.
Known Issues:
- Occasionally a loot roll may be skipped entirely and a carcass will be given. When this happens please provide any relevant details as we are still trying to track this one down.
- Not all ember rings and/or POIs are proper map discoveries.
- Deconstructing crafted items returns junk 100% of the time.
- Not all clothing/armor has visuals
- Dragging a group-nameplate in the group window will set the wrong pivot point for the group window and the whole thing will drag a bit weird.
- Typing chat text may occasionally become invisible. Unfocus your chat window and trying again a few times typically resolves this.
- Sometimes when you respawn you don't end up at the proper Ember Ring --> if this happens please report the position where you died via the "/report" command or "/debugposition" (if using debugposition you'll need to paste the value here)
- MacOS:
- Zooming the camera while holding the right mouse button can cause your chat window to scroll. This is not intended behavior.
- At some camera angles the sun may go dark. This should not happen frequently but is readily reproducible at some locations. Investigating a fix.
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