SCUM - Development update #103

Summer is slowly coming to a close, but what isn't slowing down is the work on our game. Here's a fresh new dev blog for your reading pleasure!

The vast majority of our programmers are still hammering away at all those bugs, with the exception of a few who are continuing their work on the armed NPCs.



Our level designers are sprucing up existing POIs and other parts of the map. Over the last week, the team has been optimizing the nuclear power plant, and they've continued their work on the castle ruins and walls. Work has also started on reworking the airport hangar, the military hangar, and the prison located in sector C2.



Our art team, busy as bees, is working on a wide variety of tasks — from visually reworking items such as the small toolbox, cooked food materials, and a variety of weapons, to creating a new mesh for vehicle lights. Foliage and other level optimizations are underway as well. All departments do what they can to ensure that the game runs as smoothly as possible!

The animators are also keeping themselves quite busy as well with new and improved animations for the quad and for sentries when they drop from the... well... dropship. Significant progress has also been made with the NPCs in the outposts and I heard through the grapevine that the new trailer is shaping up nicely!



The sound team is still working on ambient sounds and their implementation. They are being very secretive about it, but we'll find out what they're up to soon enough.



The dust has slowly been settling after the patch, and our QA/CM team is returning to business as usual: finding new bugs, testing new features, catching cheaters, and staying in contact with all of you.



Work has continued on the much-anticipated quest system, while the team has also been researching ways to improve the driving camera and rebalancing the formula for meat cutting.


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To wrap things up, we'll answer some of the questions that were posted in the comment section of the previous post:

• While we can't give a specific date for its return, we promise that all the vehicles already in the game will return by the time we hit version 1.0 — including the hydroplane.

• While that sounds great on paper, it's doubtful that the engine (and the game) would survive an additional enlargement of the map. It would be better to make the current map denser with additional POIs, buildings, or whatnot. However, all of that is reserved for future post-launch support of the game, which we fully intend to deliver. For now, as we've mentioned several times, our focus is on delivering the remaining features for version 1.0, along with overdue bug fixes, optimizations, system reworks, and more.

• I pick these questions from time to time to emphasize the point we've already made. We know it's a contentious matter that created a lot of frustration for a substantial subset of players. That is why we want to remind and reassure our players by saying that the puppets and their spawn rates will be further tweaked. Our programmers are working on it, but it may take some time to implement. We kindly ask for your patience on this matter.

• We're in the process of testing the fix for the well. We should have it ready for the next hotfix. Don't dehydrate on us!

• It's a neat idea that's definitely worth exploring. We acknowledge that our players really want to exact their revenge on the sharks (or at least have the means to defend themselves while swimming). It was definitely considered, but it would require a lot of work, which would distract us from more pressing matters. However, after version 1.0, who knows? :)

Have a great week everyone!

Fratman