ROADMAP and PATCH B incoming | OGZ Progress Report 9/29/2024

Hey guys, how are you guys doing.
Sorry for the late as usual, been experimenting on the world stuff.
This time it's also gonna be about the roadmap and milestones for the project. I've also achieved one milestone this month and it is Persistent Procedural World Generation (PWG) 

The entire test footage above is focused on a stress test of PWG and not a showcase of other contents.

PWG is now able to generate the game world, procedural generation, barely handcrafted (still handcrafted but like only 5%) and as detailed as handcraft in a scale that the handcraft method will never come close, generate a grid in under a minute to 5 minute depending on the hardware performance and the complexity of the region. (recommending powerful CPU and good SSD)

The next patch will be entirely about PWG featuring 1k km radius size of testing area with 2 new biomes, improved and adjusted vehicle physics and control, introduce a few new gameplay features and mechanics.

My goal is to drop at least 5 patch updates here (expecting to be Patch F) before considering moving onto steam page entirely, that also means Patreon page will be closed if steam page is launched (just the page, not the game)
This is not the official announcement but I've also registered myself on steam.

Now let's take a look at the progress so far:

Persistent Procedural World Generation PWG
The game world will be separated into 2 parts, sandbox and specific (handcraft for specific contents/purposes). The sandbox map is 99.5% of the game and the size is now incomparable to the traditional handcrafted map. This is no longer 'always randomly generated' and all the players are in the same world, same POIs and same item placements.

The game world is now the size of 25,000,000km square (this is real, it's 25,000km x 25,000km), all explorable if you want to because all that is a big optional sandbox area but it'd take ages to explore all that. The game world is only 5% of the real Earth size and it was planned to be 1/4 of the Earth size at first but it was too big and now it is reduced to only 5% of the Earth size, even 5% is excessively gigantic.
The 25,000,000km square size isn't only for the sandbox exploring/farming but it is also for sandbox mission/job generation.

The keys and the important areas are 100% gonna be handcrafted btw. Even the POIs are mostly handcrafted, just procedurally spawned in the sandbox world.

Grid Based World and Transition.

Players now can travel between the areas. It has screen transition due to the world requires to be generated again upon moving to the nearby grids but this is how the game will handle the game world, its size, world chunk data and performance.

I've also updated the Region Map System to be World Map System and now it can read the world and terrain channel info, including icons. The world map texture is also done by procedural system. At least the players now can see the glimpse of the surrounding regions.

World Map System

I've added the ability to pinpoint and mark map. Player can also use this for fast travel and accept job/mission because job and mission will also appear on the world map if is available.

Pause Game Feature

Player can also pause the game now. Sometime it is a real pain when the game can't be paused. So this will do.

Other Gameplay Features.
Now players can request/reposition a selected vehicle via an item. Players can also use quick scan skill to detect the nearby loots and POIs within 1.5 km radius.

Players can depart to anywhere in the planet by creating the Expedition Site. The players will only get to explore 100km radius around the created expedition site (no point of moving any further because driving through thousands of km to reach the major outposts/towns is not very fun, it sounded cool but I've already tried it, it's very exhausting. Instead, fast travel to fast forward things is more practical for the gameplay perspective)

Note that creating expedition site will use load of credits and resources and the regions are stats/level based, can't create deploy zone if your character isn't strong enough for some of the regions.

Update Inventory System.
Item system now has cool down system and it applies to all consumable items especially skill items.

Startup Equipment/Item Loadout.
I know a lot of people are confused with how to equip the items, so I decided to add a startup loadout. Players will be able to learn how to play inside the base, at training area.

Dynamic Camera System.
The camera movement now is working pretty similar to MHW, nothing much, just more cinematic/dynamic.

Updated Lighting and Weathers.

Increased distant cloud and increase hazy fog opacity. Extended render distant for immersion.

Sunset sky is more colorful now.

Night sky is brighter and it is easier to navigate around during night time just in case I added the enemies that will chase the target at night, so you guys will at least be able to see things in the messy moment.

Upcoming Tasks:

New Mechanic: Mining.
Players will be able to mine the minerals or ores (Inorganic Materials). Players will have to equip Plasma Cutter and charge then fire at the ores to break it. Simple but almost every equipment upgrade will require inorganic materials, so players will have to mine a lot.
Plasma Cutter will be able to use for the combat too but it's gonna be slow and short ranged. Its function is expected to be the same to the handgun but infinite ammo (require battery point which functions the same to stamina point)

Simple Save System.
The game will only feature 1 save file and will only save when the player is heading to the base. Players will be able to play several characters in 1 save file, all can share the inventory and share the same world.

Simple Outpost Building.
Players will be able to build a simple tiny outpost in any expedition site via item (Limited use)
Each outpost has to be at least 15 km apart. Players will be able to start fast travel to any outposts created by players.

New biomes.
Now the game has highland and ocean tho desert and field are still placeholders but these 2 are in the game now. Valley, Swamp, Deep forest, Volcanic, Snowy mountain and etc. are also confirmed.

Inspiration for the cold sandy desert.

Inspiration for the freezing swamp.

Proper Addon/Plugin Menu.
This is essential to modding, it'll work the same as how Skyrim's, Fallout's and, of course, Starfield's modding work. (Load order and such)

Note that the PWG is modding support. Players might as well be able to adjust the entire planet by themselves via in game options (world seed) or mods for the external contents.

Fixes

Vehicle Memory Leak
This was one of the reasons why the game was getting more and more laggy during gameplay, some references and objects should had been removed during gameplay but the game kept spawning/adding those object references until the game was unplayable. Now it's been fixed.

Vehicle Physics and Damaging.
I've adjusted a lot of stuff related to the vehicle, most of the old stuff were not correctly coded or adjusted due to the deadline, now the vehicle and its damage system should be less of a pain while driving. I've greatly increased the vehicle speed to suit the world scale.

Bound teleport/respawn has been fixed.

Hologram Compass is now working properly.

This is the roadmap and milestone (Just roughly):

Not all sub-tasks will be mentioned here but this is pretty much covered the roughly goal I have set for the game.

Character Creation System CC.
This is gonna be my next focus and it's gonna be one of the patch contents.
Players will be able to adjust facial structure, eyes, nose, lips, mouth, chin, jaw, eyebrow, hair and voice set. No sliders but only presets to pick. Players will be able to custom backstory of the characters, backstory will adjust the startup stats and will never impact anything after.

Modular Outfit/Armor Customization System.
After CC is set, this is gonna be next. Players will be able to equip bodysuit combining with L/R arm/leg gears and body gears to create diversity of the look. Gears will buff the stats and some abilities. But 75% of this feature is mainly for cosmetic.

Modular Weapon Customization System.
Weapons in this game will work the same as how Dead Space 3's weapons work. Players will have to combine the weapon modular to suit the liking.

Modular Vehicle System (Quad, Truck, Bike and Drone)
3 part customization for any vehicles are confirmed. Players will be able to custom wheel/engine, frame and body part of a vehicle. Mainly a cosmetic feature.

Modular Outpost Building System.
Nothing much, just add more modular outpost items to make things get more interesting. (tbh, I haven't planned about this that much currently)

Procedural Character Creation System (for NPC)
Just an automatic CC system based on seed and ruleset data for the non essential npcs. Since the game world is now gigantic, this is the only way to handle the massive amount of npcs.

Procedural Mutant Generation.
The mutants in the game will be the work of procedural generation based on world seed and ruleset data and I want the massive amount of unpredictable mutant variations based on the region's ruleset.

Dynamic World System.
The game world will be actually moving, the corporations are gonna take their turn trying to occupy and take over the uncolonized territory during gameplay, off screen. The corporations will be able to assault the outposts of other corps for example. This will serve as a background mechanic and will never actually impact the progression beside changing the area occupier and patrol troopers.

Dynamic Job System.
More jobs will be available as long as the players are exploring the world. Jobs will be involving around the discovered outpost most of the time. The more active outposts are in the game, the more jobs will be available and all will be procedural generated.

Dynamic Questline System.
Jobs, Missions and Questlines are kind of the same things tbh. Questline will start by accepting a job from the same person again and again for a few times until they will ask players to do some specific jobs for them personally which might lead to the outcomes for the better or worse. I based off this from Soulsborne stuff but it'll work as procedural generation contents, so it's gonna be endless for grinding tho it'll be available from time to time.

Dynamic Market and Economy System.
Required Dynamic World System. The amount of active outposts will impact the price of all items. Some may raise/reduce the item prices or material requirements.

Progression System.
Reputation Point and Credits are the actual progress of the game. Doing jobs and missions for the corp directly or for their employee will always gain RP and Credits. RP and Credits will unlock the character endings and contents. (it's similar to how GTA online works)

Other discussion
The game setting is now about the Planet Terra III and takes place in 2130s to 2140s. There are a few main events in the planet that have been ongoing for decades, so this is the most simplified lore event as of now:
The purpose of player characters are to survive the world as the Class C civilian which is basically labor class tho players will be able to custom the background of the characters but the fate has been decided and no matter how good the background is, they will end up being Class C civilian.
Player characters decided to unwillingly/willingly accept the offer done by Cristine which earned player the Freelancer title. Players are not the only freelancers in the world but they are many and are everywhere in fact, it's just a hopeful job for the hopeless group of people in the worst time to be alive.

The incidents that freelancers are getting into quite commonly:
Groundzeroes Crisis
The kind of 'proxy warfare' hosted by mega corporations (SCE, UI and ARC) where from the rival group of people to companies/corporations level can join and settle their conflict but in the fair rules and can't go all out. The economy is obliterated to oblivion and Union Earth Federal (UEF) is at brink of the total collapse. Now this is a chance to earn some credits and rep by doing a business with the corp as a merc role, freelancers can do everything as long as it benefits the corporation even if being part of the bloody, degenerated, depraved warzone.
Full Scale Epidemic
Nobody cares about the outbreak anymore as all the attention is on the groundzeroes. Outbreak is now at its worst stage: the planet scale, the infected and mutants are everywhere. Everybody already gets used to it tho. No rescue, support and safety are ensured because they have been warned and have been authorized to protect themselves or their own properties at all cost. Still this is a chance to make some credits and reps. People are isolating themselves in the outposts and in their properties, so maybe deliver some package and cargo, or even find the missing people/asset for them to earn some credits, just don't get wrecked and dragged away.
Protocol Zero Incident
Anti corporate groups are at work. The heads of the sector have been declared the war towards these groups and especially Labor Liberator Group (LLG) is being hunted down one by one. But seems like these groups never run out of man power as this has been over decades and the civil war is getting nowhere. The rumor is that LLG is one of the responsible for the planet scale outbreak and bioterrorism, especially being the first to trigger the third biological warfare. Maybe this might be good if you got some intel to sell and make some credits if you don't mind getting some bounty.

Now what is your goal and what are you gonna do with all that credits after you got your hands dirty, build/buy a ship and illegally leave the planet and risk getting brought down by the heavily armed defense system? buy your social class and become a corpo? or simply disappear, erased from the existence?

More POIs stuff will be added when PWG is stable enough but PWG is 90% ready now.
The stories are planned to be in the game too, but it'll be part of steam postlaunch updates. Stories are gonna be quite short because those aren't the focus and stories are to introduce the new sandbox contents at the end of each. This game is now career based and grinding is the key to progress the game.

My focus is still on PWG because it's the leg of all contents, this game requires world to dynamically spawn the contents, adding the contents blindly without established world system is at risk of reworking and the dominos effect of the worst. I personally think that the world is a big part of the game because even if with all the characters/stuff are added but no world to roam around is kind of incomplete and so I'm gonna get the world to work once and for all. You guys are gonna get bored by this PWG but yes it's primary and it needs to be 100% working (I personally super bored of this task right now)

The game map size may be hyper excessive (I kind of agree with that) but it has the unimaginable potential especially for the postlaunch and 'especially' if it's done by procedural system. I will be able to add the new stuff as many as I please in case if I figured something out later on without having to go back and manage world scale things that much. Plus I'm the only one handling the whole game production and so I may need to rely on the automate system otherwise I'd have to face the impossible tasks.

I'll drop a patch when one of the milestones is done or ready with at least a few new established game contents.

That's it for this post.
I hope you guys enjoyed the progress so far. See you guys next post.
Have a nice day.
Matto.