Alpha 6 - The Graphics Update and a look into 2023

This update adds a completely new graphics feature: Dynamic clouds! They move with the wind and will allow for weathers like rain and snow in future updates. Modders will also be able to easily customize them and even combine them with classic or procedural skyboxes.

The second awesome change is: First person weapons now receive shadows! This enhances immersion and makes you feel more connected to the environment. Effects and decals like blood splats and impacts also are shadowed now and don't stick out in caves or inside buildings anymore.

If you were playing on lower texture resolution settings, you might have noticed parts of the UI (Interface) being blurry. Thanks to a new engine feature, they will now always be as sharp as possible.

These graphical enhancements don't affect the games performance at all and are highly optimized.

Another major enhancement is a new melee collision system that is now in place. Previously, very fast swings or swings with a low frame rate could miss. Thanks to this new system, this will no longer happen, even with very fast spear swings!

And lastly, there has been an engine physics performance improvement, allowing large numbers of bots to run even better than the last update!

Download the free alpha here!

A look ahead at the future of Dragonfield:

Alpha 7 will be out in January, in time for the Steam Demo Festival in February. It will (finally!) focus on adding more exciting content to the game. You can expect a new unique map, siege ladders (:o), and a few awesome surprises!

After that, I will focus on development of the Steam Early Access version of Dragonfield, but that does not mean updates to the free version will stop, and I will add content and enhancements along the way as usual!

The dragons are still asleep for now, but who knows for how much longer...

Happy holidays and an amazing 2023 to you all! -Vincent-

Graphics

• Clouds have been added, and they are fully dynamic and react to wind direction and lighting, without impacting game performance! They will later allow for weathers such as rain and snow! Modders will also be able to easily customize them for their maps or choose from preset options!

• Your weapon now receives shadows from the environment

• Almost all particle effects now receive shadows, including impact decals and blood decals

• Hitting the environment with your fists now shows the correct impact effects

UI

• Small changes to kill feed text out-fading that make it more satisfying

• Made an awesome change to UI graphics like capture point statuses, so they are no longer impacted by texture quality and will look sharp regardless of your graphics settings! This wouldnt have been possible without the new Unity 2022 mipmap limits, it only took them 17 years!!

• Modified the mouse cursor slightly (rotated it a little)

• Fixed setting for vertical synchronization (VSync) not being saved properly

• You can now select refresh rates different from your highest monitor refresh rate in the resolution settings

Bots

• Some further improvements to bot targeting behavior

Technical stuff

• Updated Unity to 2022.2.1 with big physics (cpu) performance improvements, allowing for large numbers of bots to run even better than since the last update

• Fixed base spawn flags not having collision anymore

• You can now hit dropped weapons with melee attacks

• The spear and the bow are now made of wood instead of metal when it comes to impact effects

• A new