Frontier
Lacuna Corporation Developer
Lacuna Corporation Publisher
2016-03-04 Release
Game News Posts:
29
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
( reviews)
The Game includes VR Support
Public Linux Depots:
- Frontier For Linux [1.36 G]
Going It Alone- A Brand New Plan
Our plans for multiplayer are to eventually allow you to rent a dedicated server which is online 24/7, but for now we are limiting the system to self-hosted games. This means that you need to be playing for your friends to join your server, but it's free. We hope that this is a relatively short-term setup, for now though it's simply not viable for us to do this with dedicated servers. Our goal is to use the Amazon EC2 cloud to host servers, eventually. As of now, I think our system is pretty neat. When someone joins your server, their PC talks with yours to find out info about the game. They first ask if they have a save file (when somebody saves their game the file is sent to the host and stored on their PC), and if they do then all their data is sent over and they can play. If not, they are sent to character creation. This prevents cheating by players, but the host is free to change save data, which is something we did on purpose. Save files are managed by your SteamID, which is unique, so there can be players with the same display names without any save conflicts. Our code has been planned to keep bandwidth as low as possible so you don't need a great connection to play without any lag. The data which has to be synced will increase when we add in new systems, but we're confident that multiplayer performance will always be good, even on self-hosted servers.
The chat system is finished and lets players talk with each other at any time. It can easily be hidden or brought back up with keyboard shortcuts so it doesn't get in the way.
Other players can easily be identified by their "marker", which appears above nearby players. This shows their name, class, and rank. We haven't fully built the player class system but the idea is that players can unlock new class types as they progress. Each class has 3 levels (subject to change) which you can use to show off your achievements. For example, as you rack up hunting kills you will progress in the hunter branch and earn new designations. And if you have huge trading profits, you can unlock new trader classes to show on your marker. There is already a large variety of classes written into the system, but they won't be functional until we've built all the supporting systems so you can actually unlock them.
We've mentioned PBR a few times in the past, but for those of you who don't know what it's all about, here's a brief summary. In short, PBR (physically based rendering) uses a combination of textures to push graphics to the most realistic limits. We use real-world material data to make objects shine (literally, sometimes); it's all about lighting. Wood reflects light differently to leather, and this is all taken into account to create the most realistic effects possible. The colour and intensity of light sources affect surfaces, as shown below.
Shown above is the character creation scene at 4 different times of the day. As you can see, every object changes based on the lighting, just as they do in the real world. This even applies to the plants scattered across Frontier's landscape. Speaking of which, I worked on some new techniques to create hand-drawn plants for the game, which are very performance-friendly but look complex. We'll be building a library of trees, grasses, flowers and bushes to populate the new map with.
Character creation has undergone a major overhaul, with tons of new options added. This is all done with PBR, too. We've also brought in stubble for the face and head as new hair options, which weren't in the first system. Eye colour can now be changed along with skin colour, which were bugged previously.
I came up with some scary-looking abominations while testing:
Hair has been thought out in a new way to let it work properly with hats. Each type of hair now has two versions; full, and clipped, which is where the top half is sliced away so it all fits under your hat. The game works out if a player is wearing a hat and then displays the correct type of hair.
We can't show anything just yet but Karsten is hard at work on the new terrain. This will replace the map everyone is used to seeing so far. This is the first sketch of the design, which is mostly accurate though the coastline has been changed slightly.
There will be distant mountains visible in the background and certain exists which are blocked by rocks and other obstacles. When we add new map zones in the future, they will be connected to these exists and the obstacles removed, so you can walk from one zone to the other without us having to build everything in one go. We'll post more updates on the map with early screenshots as Karsten progresses over the coming weeks. +++--------------------------------+++ We hate to keep everyone waiting, and we know that there's certainly been a lot of it, but we all agree that this is in everybody's best interests. Our reasoning is that through multiplayer there will be a whole new angle to the game, and player interaction will make the entire experience much more enjoyable. With multiplayer, we should be able to make enough sales to expand the team without the need for outside investment, and we can progress from there.
Soon™ It all depends on the animation more than anything, and if it goes especially smoothly we can maybe think about a release around Christmas time. This is not guaranteed in any way, and it will probably take us longer, but development has been stepped up significantly. Frontier is my full-time job, and Karsten and Dazalius are spending every possible minute to ensure that we can complete our plans. We all want to say one more enormous thank you to those of you who have stuck around through the uncertainty over the past couple of months. We've heard some concerns, and rightly so, about the devs being quiet on the forums, and as a result I will resolve to check the forums daily to keep on top of your posts. Feel free to drop a comment below with your thoughts on the new plans, or leave a message over on the forums!
[ 2016-10-14 21:54:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Long time no see, huh? Don't worry, we've been very busy. After missing out on the first investment, we decided to evaluate our setup and work out a way to get things rolling on our own. And I'm pleased to say that we've made a lot of changes to ensure that we can finish Frontier. The animations were causing a lot of trouble, and we ended up in a dead end with the system we had planned. This has been rethought to make it easier to build, and while we still have to do this, we won't be running into the same issues. From reading through the forums, it was clear that multiplayer is high on the list of what you guys want to see. Bearing this in mind, we pulled all of the art assets we wanted to keep, and scrapped every last line of code from the original project. Why? Rather than wasting time converting old systems to multiplayer early next year, and having to work out the bugs as we go, we decided to put down the project so far as one big test. We've learned a lot and won't be making the same mistakes twice. This is what we've achieved since scrapping everything about 2 weeks ago:
- Can host a server on your own PC
- Can join a friend's server by IP address
- New custom save system (no more XML for save files); .sav files for players, .svr files for servers
- Total graphical overhaul; PBR for everything
- Chat system on servers
- All-new character creation system with dozens of extra options
- Inventory system working over network; rebuilt to use lists instead of a grid, with a carry weight feature based on your stamina
- New XP/stats system with classes in addition to the old ranks
- Character data syncs over network
Multiplayer
Our plans for multiplayer are to eventually allow you to rent a dedicated server which is online 24/7, but for now we are limiting the system to self-hosted games. This means that you need to be playing for your friends to join your server, but it's free. We hope that this is a relatively short-term setup, for now though it's simply not viable for us to do this with dedicated servers. Our goal is to use the Amazon EC2 cloud to host servers, eventually. As of now, I think our system is pretty neat. When someone joins your server, their PC talks with yours to find out info about the game. They first ask if they have a save file (when somebody saves their game the file is sent to the host and stored on their PC), and if they do then all their data is sent over and they can play. If not, they are sent to character creation. This prevents cheating by players, but the host is free to change save data, which is something we did on purpose. Save files are managed by your SteamID, which is unique, so there can be players with the same display names without any save conflicts. Our code has been planned to keep bandwidth as low as possible so you don't need a great connection to play without any lag. The data which has to be synced will increase when we add in new systems, but we're confident that multiplayer performance will always be good, even on self-hosted servers.
The chat system is finished and lets players talk with each other at any time. It can easily be hidden or brought back up with keyboard shortcuts so it doesn't get in the way.
Other players can easily be identified by their "marker", which appears above nearby players. This shows their name, class, and rank. We haven't fully built the player class system but the idea is that players can unlock new class types as they progress. Each class has 3 levels (subject to change) which you can use to show off your achievements. For example, as you rack up hunting kills you will progress in the hunter branch and earn new designations. And if you have huge trading profits, you can unlock new trader classes to show on your marker. There is already a large variety of classes written into the system, but they won't be functional until we've built all the supporting systems so you can actually unlock them.
Graphical Update
We've mentioned PBR a few times in the past, but for those of you who don't know what it's all about, here's a brief summary. In short, PBR (physically based rendering) uses a combination of textures to push graphics to the most realistic limits. We use real-world material data to make objects shine (literally, sometimes); it's all about lighting. Wood reflects light differently to leather, and this is all taken into account to create the most realistic effects possible. The colour and intensity of light sources affect surfaces, as shown below.
Shown above is the character creation scene at 4 different times of the day. As you can see, every object changes based on the lighting, just as they do in the real world. This even applies to the plants scattered across Frontier's landscape. Speaking of which, I worked on some new techniques to create hand-drawn plants for the game, which are very performance-friendly but look complex. We'll be building a library of trees, grasses, flowers and bushes to populate the new map with.
Character Creation
Character creation has undergone a major overhaul, with tons of new options added. This is all done with PBR, too. We've also brought in stubble for the face and head as new hair options, which weren't in the first system. Eye colour can now be changed along with skin colour, which were bugged previously.
I came up with some scary-looking abominations while testing:
Hair has been thought out in a new way to let it work properly with hats. Each type of hair now has two versions; full, and clipped, which is where the top half is sliced away so it all fits under your hat. The game works out if a player is wearing a hat and then displays the correct type of hair.
Terrain
We can't show anything just yet but Karsten is hard at work on the new terrain. This will replace the map everyone is used to seeing so far. This is the first sketch of the design, which is mostly accurate though the coastline has been changed slightly.
There will be distant mountains visible in the background and certain exists which are blocked by rocks and other obstacles. When we add new map zones in the future, they will be connected to these exists and the obstacles removed, so you can walk from one zone to the other without us having to build everything in one go. We'll post more updates on the map with early screenshots as Karsten progresses over the coming weeks. +++--------------------------------+++ We hate to keep everyone waiting, and we know that there's certainly been a lot of it, but we all agree that this is in everybody's best interests. Our reasoning is that through multiplayer there will be a whole new angle to the game, and player interaction will make the entire experience much more enjoyable. With multiplayer, we should be able to make enough sales to expand the team without the need for outside investment, and we can progress from there.
So, when is this all coming?
Soon™ It all depends on the animation more than anything, and if it goes especially smoothly we can maybe think about a release around Christmas time. This is not guaranteed in any way, and it will probably take us longer, but development has been stepped up significantly. Frontier is my full-time job, and Karsten and Dazalius are spending every possible minute to ensure that we can complete our plans. We all want to say one more enormous thank you to those of you who have stuck around through the uncertainty over the past couple of months. We've heard some concerns, and rightly so, about the devs being quiet on the forums, and as a result I will resolve to check the forums daily to keep on top of your posts. Feel free to drop a comment below with your thoughts on the new plans, or leave a message over on the forums!
[ 2016-10-14 21:54:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Wild West...
The turning point of all Western civilisation, the dawn of an era- for the first time in decades people could leave their hard lives all over the world with the hopes of becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Do you want to make money out of the gold rush? Or do you have other plans in mind? No matter! Whatever you want to do, you will be able to do in Frontier! Currently in Early Access, we have huge plans for development and a dedicated team who is ready to bring you a steady stream of updates so you're always finding new features to discover. With everything from tobacco farming and cigarette rolling to crime fighting and destroying evidence in the works, we are working towards creating the most diverse simulation of the frontier movement ever imagined for gamers to experience!
Frontier is whatever you want it to be. The current version already brings you a robust building system, resource gathering, stunning graphics with PBR textures, a huge map (which is tiny in comparison to the final world we're constructing), 6 types of animal to hunt, alcohol to keep you entertained on your travels, wild hallucinogenic plants to harvest and consume, a butchery system so you can skin dead animals, plus a beautiful and dynamic weather simulation.
But this is only the beginning.
Frontier is in it's infancy. Over the next few months, the game will grow to include countless new features, including intelligent NPCs to populate your cities, a detailed economic simulation, and an enormous and lore-rich environment, just to name a tiny amount of what we have planned.
Our designs revolve around player freedom. We want to put the world in your hands, giving you complete control over how you live your life in the Wild West. Create settlements and manage your people, become a cattle baron and make your fortune, compete in drinking contests in one of your own saloons, trade goods, fight outlaws, rob banks and engage in the hundreds of activities we have planned!
You're probably wondering exactly what we have in store for you. Well look no further, here is a brief summary of some of our more unique future updates. THis list is not comprehensive, and is subject to change (with the guidance of the Steam community, although we fully intend to include everything on this list);
Community involvement is going to be key to the development of Frontier. We want to know exactly what you like and don't like, and exactly what you want to see brought to the game in future updates. The team will be talking to players to hear their opinions and suggestions, and we openly welcome you to come and talk to us on the discussions forums or in our official Steam group.
Here at Lacuna we are dedicated to our work. We've been through a lot to make it onto Steam, with countless hours of work going into the very first version of Frontier. We are all super excited about the future of the game, and can't wait to get to work bringing our plans to life with the help of the community! We're the fine folks you'll meet around Steam, and we're always more than happy to have a chat with you about Frontier. Don't forget to come and say hi on the discussions forums!
The turning point of all Western civilisation, the dawn of an era- for the first time in decades people could leave their hard lives all over the world with the hopes of becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Do you want to make money out of the gold rush? Or do you have other plans in mind? No matter! Whatever you want to do, you will be able to do in Frontier! Currently in Early Access, we have huge plans for development and a dedicated team who is ready to bring you a steady stream of updates so you're always finding new features to discover. With everything from tobacco farming and cigarette rolling to crime fighting and destroying evidence in the works, we are working towards creating the most diverse simulation of the frontier movement ever imagined for gamers to experience!
But what's it all about?
Frontier is whatever you want it to be. The current version already brings you a robust building system, resource gathering, stunning graphics with PBR textures, a huge map (which is tiny in comparison to the final world we're constructing), 6 types of animal to hunt, alcohol to keep you entertained on your travels, wild hallucinogenic plants to harvest and consume, a butchery system so you can skin dead animals, plus a beautiful and dynamic weather simulation.
But this is only the beginning.
Frontier is in it's infancy. Over the next few months, the game will grow to include countless new features, including intelligent NPCs to populate your cities, a detailed economic simulation, and an enormous and lore-rich environment, just to name a tiny amount of what we have planned.
Our designs revolve around player freedom. We want to put the world in your hands, giving you complete control over how you live your life in the Wild West. Create settlements and manage your people, become a cattle baron and make your fortune, compete in drinking contests in one of your own saloons, trade goods, fight outlaws, rob banks and engage in the hundreds of activities we have planned!
Upcoming Features
You're probably wondering exactly what we have in store for you. Well look no further, here is a brief summary of some of our more unique future updates. THis list is not comprehensive, and is subject to change (with the guidance of the Steam community, although we fully intend to include everything on this list);
- NPCs- A wide range of intelligent characters to settle your towns, spend money in your shops and interact with you throughout the world
- An authentic arsenal stocked with period-correct weaponry, carrying everything from Winchesters to Gatling guns
- Many more blocks for our building system, allowing you to create expensive, upscale mansions and cozy campsites
- Enormous, lore-rich map system for you to explore, with different areas bringing their own environments and wildlife
- Diverse activities system, bringing you everything from drinking contests and shooting challenges to bar brawls and bounty hunting
- Indepth "Vice" System- New drugs to harvest and create, illegal activities to take part in for quick cash, and even poker tournaments
Community Involvement
Community involvement is going to be key to the development of Frontier. We want to know exactly what you like and don't like, and exactly what you want to see brought to the game in future updates. The team will be talking to players to hear their opinions and suggestions, and we openly welcome you to come and talk to us on the discussions forums or in our official Steam group.
The Team
Here at Lacuna we are dedicated to our work. We've been through a lot to make it onto Steam, with countless hours of work going into the very first version of Frontier. We are all super excited about the future of the game, and can't wait to get to work bringing our plans to life with the help of the community! We're the fine folks you'll meet around Steam, and we're always more than happy to have a chat with you about Frontier. Don't forget to come and say hi on the discussions forums!
- Joshua McAnaney, CEO- Josh started Frontier in late 2014 as a game concept which blended huge open-world titles like Skyrim into a completely player-driven dynamic. He has coordinated the team ever since, while coding many systems and working on different aspects of development, but none of it would have been possible without the amazing developers we have at Lacuna!
- Cody Jorgensen, Lead Programmer- Cody joined Lacuna way back in early 2015 as a 3D modeller, designing all of our building system objects. Building on his long time interest in coding, he learned our development API within a matter of weeks and has since personally designed the most complex systems in the game from scratch.
- Karsten Sperling, Lead Artist- Karsten is one of the most talented artists we've ever met and is behind the beautiful PBR textures you can find throughout Frontier, and our stunning first map. With huge plans for the future gameworld, Karsten is the guy who will be creating the terrain you'll be playing on.
- Steve Harbin, PR Manager- Steve is the man with the words! He handles all of our press releases, media communication, and all the important legal documents the rest of us are too scared to handle. He's been with us since the very beginning, starting out as a programmer, before moving into a management role to ensure that everything runs smoothly!
- Gabriel Lavoyer, Lead Design Artist- Gabriel is the newest member of the team and is the creative brains behind all of our amazing artwork! We are looking forward to seeing his future work!
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