Update 1.9.2: Echoes of the Past is Now Available

7:16 AM willsterling23 1 Comments

Hey everyone! We wanted to let you know that Update 1.9.2 is now available on Steam! This update brings a lot of great new features that we are excited about. Let's dive into some of the content you can expect to see in this update.

Sea Hunter NPC

This update introduces a new quest giver in the world known as the Sea Hunter. Like the recent introduction of the Sea Scholar and Sea Fisher, the Sea Hunter will feature five quests that unlocks vendor items as you progress. Once those are completed, you'll be able to do a repeatable quest for a random rare loot drop. Each of these NPC's contains about eight new random loot drops from the repeatable quest, some of which are epic and at least one legendary.

Pirate Graves

Salt is all about exploration and discovery, and so with this update we wanted to add in another new piece of content for you to discover: pirate graves. Throughout your adventures you will now find tombstones occasionally on islands with grave text and often times, buried treasure. The graves will have a chance to either have bronze, silver, gold, or a ceremonial lock box. These lock boxes can be opened with a key of the corresponding color and will contain a piece of loot.

You probably already have some bronze, silver, or gold keys laying around, but with this update we've also introduced ceremonial keys. These keys will be used exclusively to open ceremonial lock boxes, which will contain a rare item. You can obtain these keys from various places throughout the world so stay on the lookout!

Inventory and Crafting Changes

In addition to new content in the world, we've also made some adjustments to the inventory UI and the crafting system. For the inventory, we've added the ability to drag and drop items and the ability to sort your inventory by a few different filters.

For the crafting system, we've now adjusted it to where when you craft multiple items, it will craft each item individually, gradually increasing the speed as it goes. We've also completely revamped the crafting discovery window to show you any and all recipes that can be made with the item in the crafting window. This will show you recipes you could potentially make but don't have all the required items for yet. This adds an almost quest-like element to the crafting discovery system that sends you out on the hunt for various items in order to craft something new.

New Island Music

With this update you will now occasionally hear music while you are exploring islands. This music will only occur on large natural islands, so as not to interfere with combat and things of that nature. Our goal with this music is to be unobtrusive but add to the feeling of exploration and wonder when exploring islands. There will be new exclusive music for daytime island adventuring and for nighttime.

Patch Notes

We've made a bunch of other small changes and fixes that you can read in the full list of patch notes below:
- Added a new NPC to be found in the world.
- Added pirate graves.
- You can now drag and drop items within the inventory. This allows you to sort it as you please. Each inventory section can be sorted individually.
- Added a button to auto-sort your inventory.
- New music can occasionally play while exploring some islands.
- Added new recipe discovery features. When adding one or more crafting items to the crafting window, all recipes which require those items appear in the recipes window. Recipes that need more components than what is in the components window will be greyed-out (but still selectable). This allows players to discover recipes that they may not have the required items for yet. Note that although most recipes can be previewed, some "hidden" recipes will not appear at all in the crafting interface until all components have been added. Only a very small number of recipes are hidden.
- The recipe list is now scrollable.
- Crafting multiple items will no longer happen all at once. Instead, each item will auto-craft individually, with each subsequent craft being faster.
- Changed method of acquiring bamboo poles. Players must now manually pick up rare, slightly greener bamboo stalks that spawn in normal bamboo clusters. Running through them no longer has any effect.
- Help menu items are now marked as seen as soon as its corresponding notification appears.
- Smoothed out transition between when the loading screen is done and play begins.
- Improved performance of some trees and foliage.
- Some NPCS who would spawn too close to the water and be submerged by tides have been moved up the beach a bit.
- Changed "Armor" stats on some pieces of equipment to "Physical Armor".
- Bamboo and palm trees are now affected by wind.
- The Old Pirate Hat can no longer be looted multiple times.
- Fixed a bug that would allow for multiple applications of set bonus effects after death.
- Changed the way sea scholar final repeatable quest works.
- Fixed an error that would occur when trying to place a boat into a chest.
- Fixed map to cartographer and sea scholar not having a location.
- Fixed an uncommon error where pirate forts would be placed at the wrong location on an island.
- Fixed some deer hide recipes incorrectly stating the number of deer pelts required.
- Fixed the description on the White Deerhide Cloak to properly convey what it does.
- Fixed bug where multiple Sea Scholar NPCs would sometimes appear on the same island.
- Fixed description on Red Spotted Mushroom to indicate what it does when eaten.

1 comments:

Update 1.9.2 Coming to Testing Branch Soon!

8:49 AM willsterling23 2 Comments

We are in the process of finalizing the content for the 1.9.2 Update and plan on pushing to the testing branch within the next week or two. Today we want to go over what you can expect in this update, as well as some other things we've been working on!

Update 1.9.2 - What to Expect

This update will be another one of our content updates while we are implementing multiplayer. If you've been following us for a bit, you'll know that since multiplayer implementation is a long endeavor, we wanted to release small updates during that process so that you would still have fun content to experience while you wait on multiplayer.

With our next update we are introducing three major new changes. These changes will include a brand new new NPC and quest giver known as the Sea Hunter, pirate and NPC graves that can be discovered throughout the world, and the introduction of island music to some large natural islands.

Sea Hunter

The Sea Hunter NPC will be much like the Sea Scholar and Fisher, where you will able to complete a number of quests, rank up to earn new vendor items, and eventually do a repeatable quest for a chance at a nice loot drop. Each of these new npc's are meant to tailor to a certain playstyle. In Salt, we've always wanted players to feel like they can play the game the way they want and still be rewarded for it. The Sea Scholar rewards players for exploring and finding lore books, the Sea Fisher rewards players for fishing, and the Sea Hunter will reward players for fighting and hunting down particular enemies.

NPC Graves

Salt at its core is an exploration game about discovering new content, and as such we try to constantly introduce new places and things for the player to discover. With this update we'll be adding in a new piece of discoverable content that we are calling NPC Graves. These will basically be tombstones that you'll find scattered throughout the world, and if you have a shovel on you, you'll be able to occasionally dig up a lockbox and get some nice loot.

The graves will feature four different lockboxes: bronze, silver, gold, and ceremonial. Each one of these will require a key of one of those types. The ceremonial lockboxes will contain very nice high end items and will only be able to be opened with a ceremonial key. These keys will be introduced in this update and will be found in various places.

New Music

We are also introducing brand new island music in this update. This music will only occur occasionally on large natural islands so as not to negate the feeling of combat or intensity on other islands. The goal for this music is to add to the relaxation and exploration aspect of the game while roaming around some calmer islands. To begin with, there will be three daytime island songs that can play and three night time island songs that can play. We will likely add more in the future.

What Else Have We Been Working On?

In addition to the 1.9.2 Update, we've also been making some good strides in other areas. Robert has been working hard on designing a new recipe discovery system and overhauling the current crafting system to be more intuitive and streamlined. We will talk more about this in a future update. John has also been working very hard on the multiplayer update and we are making some great progress there. We still have a ways to go but we will be sharing some more info on that soon as well.

Thanks for reading and as always we would love to hear your feedback!

2 comments:

A Look At The New Music In 1.9.2

6:48 AM willsterling23 2 Comments

Hey everyone!

We've been busy here at Lavaboots working on a bunch of new content. The past month we've been working hard on Update 1.9.2, multiplayer implementation, and a bunch of polishes and changes that we think you are going to like a lot. If you haven't read up on it yet, go read this post so you can get an idea of what our next update (Update 1.9.2) will entail. With this update we are introducing a new NPC with quests and over 30 new items to earn, NPC Graves that you can discover with buried treasure, and brand new island music.

Today I wanted to share some of the new music we've been working on with you.

New Island Music

With Salt, we've always wanted to keep the music unobtrusive and so we originally opted to only have music play occasionally at sea. We believe that too much music can be overstimulating and actually take away from the immersion of a game. Walking around on an island listening to the birds, wind, and waves hitting the shore can really immerse you in the game, and we didn't want music to take away from that.

That being said, we do think that some island music could be beneficial in the right setting and with the right restrictions. We've decided to introduce new music for large natural islands. These islands are usually quite big and do not contain enemies. This means a good bit of time spent on these islands is pure exploration and walking across the land. We figured these islands would be a good place to introduce some light and occasional music.

I've composed specific songs for day and night time that will be able to play while you are exploring large natural islands.

Here are some of the songs you can expect to hear soon.

Day Island Examples

Night Island Examples

Soundtrack Update

We'd also like to note that we've updated the soundtrack to include the boss music in the game as well. You can stream the soundtrack in its entirety for free here. We will eventually be releasing a downloadable copy of it when the game releases.

Thanks for reading as always we'd love to hear your feedback!

2 comments:

Update 1.9.2 Preview

8:47 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Today we wanted to give you a guys a brief preview of some of the content you can expect in the next update. We are still working hard on multiplayer implementation, and that is coming along well. As we've stated before, we want to release smaller content updates during the process of multiplayer and this will be another one of those updates.

Here are some things you can expect in the next patch:

Sea Hunter

In our most recent update, we added in two new NPCs known as the Sea Scholar and the Sea Fisher. With this update, we'll be adding in another new NPC known as the Sea Hunter. Like the other characters, he will feature five quests that allow you to rank up and unlock new vendor gear. After completing his ranked quests, you will then be able to do a repeatable quest for a random drop of rare gear.

NPC Graves

This update will also include new content you can discover throughout the world known as NPC Graves. These will be the tombstones of old pirates, captains, and other various characters. With most of the graves you will be able to read a small bit about the character and how they died. Occasionally these grave sites with contain buried treasure in the form of a bronze, silver, gold, or a ceremonial lockbox. You will need keys to open these lockboxes and they will obtain unique and rare loot.

Island Music

Although music primarily only occurs at sea, we are about to introduce new music for large natural islands. In Salt, we've always made a conscious choice not to bombard the player with music every step of the way. We wanted the natural ambience and atmosphere of the world to immerse the player and we felt that too much music could take away from that. After some recent discussion though, we've decided to add in some occasional music that can play on large natural islands. On these islands you often have some downtime since they are fairly large and don't contain pirates. We thought music might fit these nicely and so you can expect some new unique music for both day and night exploration on these islands.

We are very excited for the next update and can't wait for you to go after some of the new content we've been working on! As always, we would love to hear your feedback.

0 comments:

Dev Update: Recent and Upcoming Changes

8:43 AM willsterling23 1 Comments

It's been a fun few weeks at Lavaboots recently. We've made a lot of new changes to the game and we're still chugging along multiplayer implementation and making some great progress in that regard. As you probably know we recently released Update 1.9.1 which added a lot of new content including new characters with quests and items, and some major changes to the island distribution system. If you haven't read up on that update yet, you can do so here.

Today I want talk about some additional changes we've pushed recently since the 1.9.1 update, and some things coming up in the future.

New Map Items

One of my favorite changes we've made recently is the introduction of new map items. You can now find maps in the world that give you coordinates to a certain island type or place. These maps can be found on various NPC's as well as in chests. One of the big reasons we made a change to the island distribution system in patch 1.9.1, was to help players find more varied islands. This is a further step in that direction. This also adds a fun sense of objective and discovery to the world.

Tier 2 Island Visual Changes

Another change we've made recently is further changing the visuals of tier 2 pirate islands. We wanted to make them easier to spot and to differentiate them more from other pirate islands. The islands now have a more orange look to them, both in the grass and the ground texture.

New Item Highlighting

Another small but important change we've made is new item highlighting in your inventory. Now, when you pick up a new item, it will be highlighted in your inventory indicating which item is new. This helps players more in the beginning and adds a degree of intuitiveness to the game.

Misc Changes

In this recent update we've also made some minor changes such as bug fixes and increasing the size of the item description window. We had some issues where, unless you right clicked an item, you couldn't see its full description and effects. We've also made some lighting changes to the merchants, inns, and hunting shacks to be less intense, particularly with merchants during the day.

Upcoming Changes

We have some fun new ideas planned for our next update, which we'll be talking about in more detail in the coming weeks. In short, this update will include another new character known as the Sea Hunter, NPC graves, and new music. The Sea Hunter will be much like the recent Sea Scholar and Sea Fisher. He will have a set of quests that allow you to rank up, purchasing new items. Once you hit max rank, you'll be able to do a repeatable quest for nice loot drops.

In addition to the Sea Hunter we will be adding in NPC graves that can be found throughout the world. Most tombstones you find will have a tombstone text on it, indicating how the person died, and there will possibly be a lockbox buried with them. You will have a chance at finding bronze, gold, silver, and ceremonial lockboxes with unique loot inside them.

In the next update we also plan on adding in new island music. Our goal is to include a few new songs that can occur on large natural islands during the day and night. These will be unobtrusive and only occur occasionally, but will hopefully add to the experience of exploration when on the large natural islands.

Thanks for reading and as always we'd love to hear your feedback!

1 comments:

Update 1.9.1 - Sailor's Delight is Now Available!

7:25 AM willsterling23 3 Comments

Update 1.9.1 is now available for download! We are very excited for this update as it includes a lot of good new changes for Salt, as well as new content for you to experience.

World Changes Overview

The distribution of islands and the content that they contain has changed. This is an optional upgrade for current saved games. With the addition of new content and island types throughout development, the distribution of islands and content has been something we want to re-balance. For example, some island types have become rarer than intended, while others too common. Also, it is often the case during play that you run into many islands in a row with very little content of interest then run across a single island with tons of content. All of this combined would occasionally cause unlucky players to play for long periods of time without the chance to experience exciting content. It is for this reason that we wanted to do some re-balancing.

These world changes are not automatically applied to existing saves. You can manually upgrade these saves by pressing the upgrade button next to each existing save file in the "Load" menu. If you have spent time mapping the world, note that this will render your map inaccurate as the placement of islands will change. However, if you have had the Cartographer NPC check your map, the game will offer to automatically populate a portion of your map for you based on how much and accurately you filled out your previous map.

Patch Notes:

Island Distribution
- The chance for each island type to appear has been adjusted.
- How far away from the origin certain island types can appear has also been adjusted.
- Removed the too-vast expanses of ocean that could appear past 50 units away from the origin.

Island Content
Spread out the content among islands so that you are now less likely to encounter many islands in a row without special content.

New Help Interface
Replaced the old help book with a new help interface to make it easier to reference the topic you are looking for. Additionally, added pop-up notifications to direct new players towards particular help sections as they encounter related content.

New NPCs
Added two new friendly characters to find in the world. Each offers a number of new quest and items to obtain.

Other Changes
- Nearby dead enemies will no longer block you from saving the game.
- Changed the way campfires and flags save their positions internally to reduce bloat in the registry.
- Made question mark on merchant interfaces pulse to make it more noticeable.
- Added close button to NPC dialog window
- Fixed a bug where money would be given to the player when an NPC's wares would update due to a quest completion while the wares were visible.
- Fixed money count in player equipment window not always updating properly when selling items.
- Merchant inventories now start out scrolled to the top.
- Increased the chance of named king challengers to appear.
- Slightly improved map performance.
- The whole number portion of the precise sextant's location now matches the normal sextant.

Notes:

For those of you waiting on multiplayer, don't worry. It is under development. This is one of a few smaller updates to be released during the multiplayer development period.

3 comments:

Update 1.9.1 Now On Testing Branch!

8:04 AM willsterling23 1 Comments

Hey everyone!

You can now download and play Update 1.9.1 - Sailor's Delight on the Steam testing branch. If you aren't already on the testing branch and would like to help us test the new update before an official push, you can follow the instructions here:

Steam Testing Branch Instructions

This update comes with a lot of new changes. Let me go over briefly some of what you can expect to see!

Island Distribution Changed

With this update we have changed the distribution of islands in the world. The new system better spreads out content and discoveries so that you'll be less likely to find multiple islands back to back with nothing on them. We've still got some content gated beyond a certain point and things of that nature to keep a sense of progression, but we wanted to decrease the lull a little bit and make it easier to find some of the unique content we've put into the game.

These changes will take effect to any new games you create and are an optional upgrade for previous save games.

New NPCs, Quests, and Items

Along with the new island distribution system, we've also implemented two brand new friendly characters with quests and rewards. These new characters are known as the Sea Fisher and the Sea Scholar. Each NPC will have five quests and as you complete the quests, you'll unlock access to rank 1 through 5 of their vendor gear. Once you hit rank 5, you'll be able to do a repeatable quest for a random loot drop. The random loot drop is guaranteed to be a rare item, but also has a chance to be an epic or even a legendary.

With these new NPC's we've introduced over 50 new weapons, armor, and items into the game to give you lots of new loot to work toward.

New Help Interface

This update also includes a new help interface intended to make it easier for new players to learn the mechanics of the game. The new interface is more intuitive to use and will direct players to a portion of the help journal as they encounter related content in the game.

In addition to all this we've also made some other changes. We've fixed a bug on the merchant window where the inventory would sometimes start out scrolled at the bottom. We've also made the question mark on the merchant interface pulse slightly to better indicate his available quest.

We plan on pushing this update out officially soon but can use your help on the testing branch in the mean time. Thanks for reading and as always we'd love to hear your feedback!

1 comments:

Update 1.9.1 Coming Soon: New World and New NPCs

11:47 AM willsterling23 5 Comments

Hey everyone!

We're really excited to share some information with you regarding our next update and what kind of content you expect in this patch. We are still working on multiplayer and making progress with that, but this is one of the content updates we wanted to push out so you all would have some new stuff to do while waiting on multiplayer.

So let's get down to it. What can you expect from this update?

A New World

First, this update is going to change the way islands in the world spawn. This is similar to our previous cataclysm done a long time ago. We try not to do these types of changes often, since they can mess up your maps and will change where things are found in the world. However, with this update it will only affect new games unless you choose to upgrade your existing world, which there will be an option for in-game.

So why did we choose to change the world again? Mainly for a much better player experience. Over the last couple years we've added more and more content into Salt. However, the spread of that content got a bit off balance. This could cause a frustrating experience, particularly for new players, where one would encounter many islands with nothing on them before finding islands with content. This made Salt feel empty on content, when in reality it was just too difficult to find the content.

With this update we drastically improved this. We have significantly increased the chance for you to find content on islands and spread that content out much more efficiently. This update also changes the island variety so that you'll be more likely to find various island types early on and experience the content they have to offer as well. We've also changed the post 50 unit spread of islands to be normal and no different than other islands. As of right now, once you get past the 50 unit mark, you hit extremely long stretches of ocean before finding more islands. This ended up not being fun and we've gone back to a normal spread of islands.

Overall, we hope that the new changes to the island distribution system will help you find new content and discoveries more frequently and create a better variety of island types as well.

New NPC's and New Items

This update is also going to include two brand new characters that can be found throughout the world. These characters are the Sea Scholar and the Sea Fisher. Each NPC will have five quest steps that unlock various ranks of vendor items you can buy from them. Once you hit rank 5, you'll then be able to do a repeatable quest for a random loot drop. The random loop drop will be a guaranteed rare item, and occasionally an epic or a legendary.

We've added over 50 new items with these NPCs, mostly armor and weapons. These items are unique and won't be found anywhere else. We hope these new quests and NPC's give you more reason to do some of the things you've already been doing in the world, and reward you for investing time into the game.

Other Changes

In this update we've also made some changes to loot and done a little bit of balancing. Tier 1 and Tier 2 pirates now have a better chance to drop armor, keys, and can drop some new additional items such as health potions. We've also some minor adjustments to some weapons and AI damage based on some testing.

Be on the lookout for this update to hit Steam soon. We plan on pushing this update out within the next couple weeks! As always we'd love to hear your feedback.

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

5 comments:

Update on Multiplayer and New NPC's

8:39 AM willsterling23 3 Comments

Hey everyone!

We've got some fun stuff coming up for Salt and wanted to share some of that with you today. First, let me give you guys an update on our multiplayer progress.

Update on Multiplayer

As you may know, we are currently working on adding multiplayer into Salt. Right now we have been mainly working on getting the technical foundation of multiplayer implemented. This means getting the basic systems designed, written, and debugged. This largely consists of getting multiple player's games to talk to each other in an organized and efficient way.

We've also been working on integration with Steam friends so that you can easily invite your friends on Steam to join you in Salt. You will be able to invite your friends from the main menu, and select a current save to play on, or start a new game. Your friends will also be able to select a save file to play, as long as the world seed matches the seed of the world you choose. This allows players to progress their game either by themselves or with other people, whichever they are in the mood for at the time.

The Sea Scholar and Sea Fisher

In addition to working on multiplayer implementation, we have also been working on adding two new NPC's into the game. These new characters will be known as the Sea Scholar and the Sea Fisher. They will feature multiple quests that allow you to rank up with their guild. As you rank up, you'll be able to unlock and buy armor, weapons, and other unique items from these vendors. Once you reach max rank, you'll be able to do a repeatable quest for a rare random loot drop.

We've got some other big changes we are working on that we will talk more about soon. As always we'd love to hear your feedback and thanks for reading!

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

3 comments:

Salt Game Design: RPG Elements

11:34 AM willsterling23 5 Comments

Hey everyone!

We are still hard at work on getting the foundational system in place for multiplayer. As we've mentioned before, the multiplayer update is going to take a while but we will keep you up to date throughout the process. Right now, John has been hard at work setting up a system for efficient communication of information between clients and making sure we set multiplayer up to run as optimized as possible.

Over the next few weeks I'd like to talk about some of the game design principles behind Salt and why the world of Salt is designed the way it is. Today I want to talk particularly about the role playing elements in Salt, and how we use those to add more adventure into the game.

Loot, Loot, and More Loot

If you've ever played many RPG's, you'll know that loot is often a large aspect of the game. Finding rare items, upgrading your gear, and searching for that legendary weapon has become a staple of many RPG's today. This aspect of game design has always appealed to us and we knew early on that we wanted to incorporate it into Salt. Although Salt is a game primarily focused on exploration, we wanted players to have a reason to explore beyond mere discovery. This is where loot came into play.

Items in Salt are separated into five rarity categories: uncommon, common, rare, epic, and legendary. This rarity is reflected in the color of the item so that there is an instant visual cue for the loot if you open a chest or loot an enemy. The rarity of an item is also reflected in its stats and abilities. Usually the rarer an item, the more powerful and valuable it is.

We've done our best to add in a ton of different armor sets, weapons, and other items in the game of various rarities so you are always left wondering if you've found them all.

Quests

Another RPG element that we've always been a fan of are quests. Quests can provide a linear sense of objective in an other wise open world. In Salt, we've included side quests and a main story quest for players to experience. Completing quests gives the player some unique rewards that can't be obtained elsewhere. Side quests are mainly short missions given by merchants that have various rewards whereas our main quest line involves boss fights and gives hints to the lore behind the world.

We did feel it was important however to leave quests as an optional aspect of the game. One of our early design philosophies was what we called playstyle focus, which essentially just means that we wanted to players to be able to play the game the way they wanted. So if quests are your thing, they are there for you to experience, but you are also free to pick a direction and sail free of any constraints.

Bosses

Along the lines of loot and rewards, we wanted to include bosses as well. There's nothing quite like fighting a difficult boss and looting a really rare weapon or piece of armor. We've included multiple bosses in Salt of various types of difficulties. Some are even fairly secret and difficult to find, but of course rewarding should you find them.

Lore

Last but not least, we wanted Salt to have lore. Because of this, we have chocked the game full of lore books. Some books are relevant to the backstory of the world, while others are merely stories of adventurers and travelers. Lore is one of those things that is easy to pass up but should you dive into it, it can add a sense of depth to the game that previously wasn't there. We even try to reward players for reading lore by included crafting recipes and hints to secrets in some of the books.

Overall, we feel like Salt has a lot of fun RPG elements and we hope that you all enjoy them as much as we do! We'd love to hear your feedback on the RPG elements in Salt and perhaps even some RPG themed ideas you'd like to see added into the game?

- Will Sterling (Game Design and Sound Lead)

5 comments:

Dev Update: Multiplayer and What's To Come

6:57 AM willsterling23 5 Comments

Hello everyone!

It's been a fun ride at Lavaboots so far. We've made a ton of changes to Salt from when we first released on early access. We've revamped graphics such as the grass, water texture, GUI, pirate models, ship models, and even added stars. We've added merchant quests, a main story line, tons of lore, new NPC's, new island types, and a whole bunch of armor, weapons, and new items. We've also added new functionalities such as in-game cartographer, a quest and player journal, controller support, and a bunch of bug fixes and polishes along the way.

We finally feel like Salt is at a good state as far as a single player game. This was always our goal before we moved on to multiplayer implementation. Now, that time has finally come.

Implementing Multiplayer

Over the past couple weeks we've begun the process of multiplayer implementation. This is going to be a lot longer than the average update since it's going to require a whole lot of foundation work. There's a lot of technical work that has to be done to get something like multiplayer up and running, as well as a lot of game design choices to be made. We don't have an exact time frame for how long this will take currently, so our goal to keep you up to date as best as possible along the way. As we progress in the multiplayer implementation process, we'll be updating you and getting your feedback along the way.

We are very excited about multiplayer and we think it's going to add an entirely new element to Salt for those that want to play with others.

Updates During Multiplayer

Since the multiplayer implementation is going to take some time, we want to release small updates during the process so that you'll still have some new content to experience. We've got some neat ideas for these updates and are excited to share them with you. One thing we are going to be adding is a set of new NPC's that have quests and ranks for completing their quests. As you rank up, you'll get access to higher level merchant gear through that NPC. If you get through all the ranks, you'll then be able to do a repeatable quest for a random loot drop from a really nice set of items, potentially legendary and epic items.

Along with these smaller updates we also plan on doing bug fixes and polishes.

Keep an eye on our dev blog for more updates regarding multiplayer and the patches to release during the multiplayer implementation.

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

5 comments:

Update 1.9 - The Summoning is Now Available!

8:15 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

You can now download Update 1.9 - The Summoning on Steam. This update includes a lot of new changes, particularly to the main story which we'll talk about below. Also, now that Update 1.9 is out, we have begun work on multiplayer! We'll talk more about that later as well as some updates you can expect during the multiplayer implementation process.

New Quests

Our main goal for this update was to finish implementing the remaining main story quest line. Although Salt is a game about freedom and playing at your own pace, we did want an optional story line in the game for players who enjoy that. And so we began working on designing a story with quests and rewards based around a main story. Until this update, you could only progress through the story up to a certain point. Now we've added the remaining quests needed to complete the story so you can journey all the way to the end boss.

Some of the new quests are going to take you to different island types, on the search for new mysterious items, and even involve a boss fight. If you haven't played the story or don't remember what's going on, a good place to start is to check your quest journal. If you open up your journal and look at the quests tab, that should give you a good idea of where you are. If you haven't even started the main story, the first step is to speak to The Innkeeper.

New Boss

Once you've made your way through the last remaining quests, you will be tasked with fighting a very difficult but rewarding boss. We've put a lot of work into this boss fight and are very excited for you to experience it! We've even made it so the boss fight is repeatable and you can get different loot drops by defeating the boss in different ways.

Legendary Loot

If you can prove yourself worthy of defeating the final boss, you will be rewarded with brand new legendary gear. These items have some really unique and powerful effects that we think you will enjoy.

This update also includes some bug fixes and things of that nature. Now that this update is out, we are beginning work on multiplayer! We will talk a bit more about this later, but this is going to be a large update that will take a good bit of time and design work. Our goal is to keep you informed as often as possible about our progress, but also to release some smaller updates throughout the process so you'll have some new content to play while waiting on multiplayer.

Thanks for reading and as always we'd love to hear your feedback!

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

0 comments:

Update 1.9 The Summoning is now available on the Steam Testing Branch

9:03 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Hey everyone!

We just wanted to let you know that Update 1.9 is now available on the testing branch. Please help us find any bugs so we can get those fixed before an official push.

This update adds the remaining main story quest line as well as a new final end game boss, new items, bug fixes, and other changes!

If you'd like to know how to opt into the Steam testing branch, follow the instructions here.

0 comments:

Update 1.9 Heading to Testing Branch Next Week

6:30 AM willsterling23 3 Comments

Ahoy!

Next week we will be pushing our next patch, Update 1.9 to the Steam testing branch! This update is going to introduce new quests, new items, and an end game boss. We are excited to release this update and will definitely need your help working out any bugs in the quests or the final boss before official release.

Stay tuned next week for this update to hit the testing branch!

3 comments:

Sneak Peek At Final Boss Battle

7:58 AM willsterling23 1 Comments

Hey everybody!

We are really excited about the next update which will introduce the last remaining main story quests and most importantly, the final boss. Today we just wanted to share with you a few glimpses of the boss battle. John has been working really hard on this last boss and we can't wait for you guys to experience it!

A Look at Draegon

1 comments:

This Week at Lavaboots: Final Boss, Multiplayer, and Sea Hunters

8:20 AM willsterling23 2 Comments

Ahoy everyone!

It's been a crazy couple weeks at Lavaboots, but we are super excited about some upcoming updates! First off, thank you all so much for your support of Salt and continuing interest in our game. We couldn't have made it without you all and we are looking forward to bringing you the best game we can make.

Today I want to talk about some content coming up and the plans for the next few months.

Final Boss

The next update is going to feature the remainder of the main quest line. This will include multiple new quests, rewards, and of course an end game boss. We've heard your feedback that you want more interesting boss mechanics and so John has been hard at work on this final boss. I have to say, it's looking really good so far and is going to have some fun and challenging mechanics. It's by far our best boss battle yet and we're excited for you to experience it!

Multiplayer

Once this next update is out, we are going to start work on multiplayer. As we've said before this will be a long endeavor and we aren't exactly sure just yet how long it will take. We will know more once we actually dive into the implementation process and can get a better idea of the time required to get it fully working. However, since multiplayer is going to take up a lot of development time, we didn't want months and months to go on without any updates while you are waiting for multiplayer. So one of our goals is to do a few smaller updates throughout the process of multiplayer implementation. This way you will still have new content to look forward to even while we are working on multiplayer.

These updates will include bug fixes, polishes, and adding new content. One such content update will be the introduction of what we are calling Sea Hunters.

Sea Hunters

I don't want to go too into too much detail about this update since it's in the early stages, but one thing we are working on is the introduction of a new NPC known as the Sea Hunter. This NPC will have different ranks that are unlocked by leveling up weapons he gives you and turning them into him. Once you unlock a rank, you get access to that rank's inventory which includes new armor, weapons, and other items you can buy.

Once you hit his max rank, you then will earn a Sea Hunters Badge which will allow you to loot tokens from high level enemies. Once you turn in so many tokens, you'll be rewarded with a random really nice item.

As I said, this NPC is in the early stages of development and is subject to change, but this is one update idea we'd like to add in during multiplayer.

Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for more info on the next update!

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

2 comments:

Story Update Coming Soon!

7:55 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Hey all!

It's been a fun couple weeks here at Lavaboots. Our lead dev, John, just got married and is returning from his honeymoon. We also just recently released Update 1.8: The King's Bounty. This update added a new set of pirate islands we like to call Tier 3 Islands which have some really tough pirates and good loot. If you haven't downloaded this update yet, be sure to do so!

You can read the patch notes for that update here: Update 1.8 Patch Notes

Today I want to talk about what kind of updates you can expect coming soon!

The Main Quest

Recently we've been working hard to finish implementation of the main quest. This includes adding multiple new quest steps that pick up where we previously left off. Some of the new quest steps are going to take you to jungle islands, involve searching for a hidden item using a special compass, and some neat lore revelations. This update is also going to include a pretty epic end game boss fight that John has been working on.

We expect this update to be out fairly soon and are excited to share some more details with you in the coming weeks!

Multiplayer

Once the story update is out, it's time to move on to multiplayer implementation. Multiplayer is likely going to be a long endeavor but one that has been missing in Salt for quite some time. We are very excited to begin work on this and can't wait to share the seas with you all!

Since multiplayer is going to be a long process, we will still be working on smaller updates that will release throughout this update. These smaller updates will include new content, polishes, bug fixes, and things of that sort. We've got some neat ideas for these updates and will share more as we get closer to their release.

Overall we are very excited about the content coming up soon and we think this is going to be a great year for Salt!

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)

0 comments:

Update 1.8 The King's Bounty Now Available!

7:58 AM willsterling23 0 Comments

Update 1.8 is now available on Steam!

This update introduces a brand new pirate island which we call Tier 3 Pirate Islands. This islands come packed with of new content for you to discover and experience. You can read the patch notes here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/327860/announcements/detail/840298172287842368

Here's some of what you can expect.

New Pirates

These are no ordinary pirate islands and as such contain no ordinary pirates. On these islands you'll find a set of new pirates called Pirate Elites. Within that set there are Brutes, Navigators, Herbalists, and Captain's. The new Pirate Elites are fairly difficult and will defend their island to the death. Killing enough of these elites will place a bounty on your head and will summon a Pirate Bounty Hunter that are even more tough than the Elites and drop some nice loot.

Become a true pirate slayer and you may even summon a Pirate King...

New Look and Resources

In addition to new enemies you'll also find some new resources such as cobalt ore and pristine white flowers. These islands will look more "trimmed" than normal islands and be more open with less trees. You'll also find a pirate fort on the islands with a gold chest guarded by Elites.

New Weapons, Armor, and Loot

With high level pirates also comes high level gear. We've added brand new weapons, armor, resources, lore books, and other items for you to loot from the new islands. This update also adds a couple new side quests you can find from merchants that will reward you with some good new gear!

We are very excited about this update and hope you enjoy!

- Will Sterling (Sound Lead and Game Design)