Here in early July, Camelot Unchained is once more offering its customary reports about June’s development progress in its standard newsletter and dev blog formats, which means it’s time to bring everyone up to speed on where things stand in the MMORPG’s decade-long development.
The newsletter provides its typical granular looks at City State Entertainment’s work, starting off with a close look at vox modules, which are mods that can be slotted into the vox crafting table to change elements of the crafting process, whether that’s crafting time, item stats, or resources consumed. Players can craft these modules and then slot as many as six into their vox, though the maximum number of times a module can be put into the same crafting table depends on its rarity. This new feature is considered a “proof of concept,” though CSE says it’s a way to “greatly expand on player agency and choice within the bounds of CU’s crafting system.”
The newsletter then goes on to talk about the application of “style packs,” which are basically preset rendering bundles that will let the art team more easily apply a wide assortment of visual panache to regions. Finally, there’s a lot of ink spilled about the studio’s Unchained Engine AI System that powers NPC behaviors, with specific focus on improving line-of-sight, enhancing NPC alertness levels, and adding multiple phases of behavior. The newsletter also has a big giant math-filled section about item interaction.
Meanwhile, the monthly blog post counts up additional features like the addition of critical successes and failures for crafting jobs, updates for crafting UI and gameplay, faster server startup times, and the end of ragdolled models wildly spinning their limbs around, among other updates.
