The February Producer’s Letter for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is out, and the past few weeks in review have brought dev conversations on lore and programming, and various updates including the first HDRP build. Development continues as this build is key to some of the goals that Visionary Realms has planned.
Having the HDRP build in the hands of the QA team has let them begin to investigate some of the issues that could arise with a significant change. Putting the bills to the test also includes gameplay and they are reporting positive feedback. as for what's next, they continued testing and tweaking the build in preparation for continued goals.
One of those goals is to update Thronefast in the HDRP build. This is one of the tests that will allow them to figure out where NPCs should be placed and where spawns and objects should go as a result of the build change. This falls to the design team, and the other teams will also be adjusting populations and itemization as well as combat flow. They plan to transition this same process over to another area by the end of the month.
They’re eyeing the eventual pre-alpha too, with the work on network integration happening alongside the HDRP work. They expect to be able to integrate and add their flora, biome, and water systems alongside the sky and lighting systems they’re working on on the road to pre-alpha.
The Visionary Realms team is growing so some of their focus was on hiring but the Alpha roadmap is still the main focus. Among the updated segments of the roadmap (outside of the HDRP conversion) include work on the tutorial and starting experience, class development, work on the gathering and crafting system, and trait and spawning rules, like character behaviors and NPC abilities.
Also included in the Producer’s Letter is a section on the past month in review. Here you can find two discussions that will give more of an idea of where the team is and some of what they’re working on. The first dev discussion covers the lore for Pantheon and the second is all about the programming side. With the HDRP conversion happening and the network upgrade also coming, these things are very much connected.
