Who’s ready for Director’s Commentary 2: Return of the Donblog? It’s just me again. I’m going to play a bit of catch-up with some Hordetest info and some immediate plans.

Since I’ve last written an entry the whole island has been updated. Jace had been hard at work getting the feel of each area nailed down, from the forests and jungles to redwoods and mangroves. Mangroves in particular were previewed before the redwoods but there were some additional pieces that needed to be done with them to make sure we got the feel as solid as everything else. They’re the last of our (mostly) terrestrial environments that need to be moved in and I’m confident we’ll pull off some interesting semi-aquatic locations and unique sanctuaries when they enter the swamp and surrounding areas.

Note: Doesn’t deserve its own paragraph of info but small AI is moving in. From rats and lizards to snails and insects, these lil’ snacks will be excellent meals for small carnivores, omnivores, and juveniles. There may be some carnivore sanctuary tests we try but we’ll see if time permits.

The biomes getting finishing touches moved much faster than the dome. You can all thank Kissen who pushed for the biome to be moved immediately into your hands which resulted in them being used as a breakup into highlands and then the rest of the island. I think redwoods stand undefeated in being universally loved by everyone which is always good to see since they’ll be remaining even after the dome interior is open for exploration.

Speaking of the dome, there has been no shortage of progress trying to bring the behemoth to life. The entrances have been updated and the final (entrance) shell is wrapping up on completion. There are four major entrances with several side paths and locations. The main routes are massive, large enough to let in the largest of our current in-game roster several times over. There are several side paths, such as pipes and broken service locations that serve as routes for smaller creatures and especially climbers.

Note: Don’t try this at home. Building believable interiors for a structure that size, with space necessary to transport the largest of animals while still having additional routes through that didn’t turn entryways into a hallway of death is challenging. It’s resulted in expanding a lot of areas so there’s the possibility of moving through the interiors and actually being able to avoid encounters if you took different routes. Making sure everything flowed well unintentionally turned each location into its own type of POI and manmade playground.

Kentrosaurus came with the first rollout of this HT which I hope you all have been enjoying. Overall the animal took a little longer than I’d have liked it to, but it is one of the remaining few animals that has a key ability that would be shared with others on the roster. There’s still work to be done for its defensive stance. It will receive a small stability boost and will proc recoil on an enemy attack or when blocking certain abilities to better convey they are taking damage. He also received a small weight boost to put him over the edge of being a free pin. Once all the features of reflection damage and defensive stance are working smoothly on kentrosaurus, you’ll see similar capabilities on things like ceratopsians and spinosaurids.

The austroraptor and possibly oviraptor will be enabled at some point during a future update to this HordeTest for some early hands-on. Oviraptor gets to come before baryonyx for the same reason redwoods came before mangroves. It was simpler and moved faster towards completion. I will accept no oviraptor slander.

While austroraptor is closer to completion, oviraptor has had some horrifying things to fix over the last week.

Austroraptor primarily focuses on spearfishing like pteranodon or hunting small game. Despite being taller than omniraptor, it has a lighter build and is more fragile. Austroraptor does have a basic pounce and latch capability. It can swap pounce slot positions but lacks unique primary/secondary attacks while latched since it is not specialized in taking down large prey. Austroraptor also has the capability to swim underwater and can hunt elite fish, though be mindful of deinosuchus and angry beipi groups.

A vibrant addition to the playables, oviraptor is a small and quick opportunistic omnivore. While it will have a primary diet of plants, we’ve leaned into the idea of egg-thief. Oviraptor will be able to scent for active nests of other species that currently have eggs in them. Snatching an egg and turning it into a meal will reward the oviraptor with considerable nutrients (this capability may make its way to a few other animals on the roster in the future, but remains exclusive to oviraptor at this time). Parents that do recover an egg from an egg-thief can pick that egg up and return it back to the nest.

Pteranodon received additional aerial and terrestrial updates. There’s still work to be done on directional attacks, but overall the direction has felt nice to see it becoming a terrestrial fear of smaller animals. But maybe we’ll bump up his size just a bit to really cement it as a credible threat to unwary animals out in the open.

Quetzalcoatlus is still in development but you can see some of the animations in the media at the end of the post. It may be fragile in comparison to the heaviest on the ground, but it is still exceptionally quick and lethal. It can close the distance between itself and a target, or create distance by striking forward and evading backwards to stay out of biting range of a bigger target.

While avaceratops will not be in this HT, it is receiving a quick aside here. Some of the animation team is currently hard at work supplying it with the necessary spar animation suite, as the animal will be released as a full playable instead of just AI. It’s going to be an ornery, aggressive, burrow-stealing ceratopsian that will eclipse the boar as the most aggressive “You exist so you must die,” animal on the island. You asked for this.

The sound team is rounding out the last of baryonyx. It has some unique thwumpy noises that really help define the character and really sets it apart from anything we currently have. After that it's on to the next animals: avaceratops, camarasaurus, and parasaurolophus. I’ll let the sounds speak for themselves when the time comes, but we’re hoping to utilize parasaurolophus vocals in a way that actively benefits the players from using their calls.

The skin system’s updated functionality will be merged in during HordeTest. The entire roster up to baryonyx has its default palette completed and while the default gradients alone are more restrictive, there will be additional color options made available moving forward. The mixing of different palettes over time may yield some interesting results. Lastly, I’m sure you’ve seen the eye work being done as well but eye customization is unlikely to make an appearance until after the current HT.

Hillslides are also on the horizon with a few small changes on how we handle terrain slopes, and may enter this HT or the next (depending on how well kentrosaurus behaves). Animals now lose momentum moving uphill with some differences depending on if they are quadrupedal or bipedal. Animals will now intentionally slide down hills at certain steeper angles, and also adjust depending on whether or not a player is walking or attempting to run down certain angles. This has been a great way to help a player orient themselves and slow down to prevent themselves from breaking a leg or falling to their doom. Functionally it has all worked pretty well in testing and I’m showering it with praise because seeing it all come together has been really neat. I’m sure I will regret this when you all figure out something heinous that the team never could have anticipated with the slides.

Elders are getting further adjustments to the system based on feedback. Overall lifetime should be unaffected for the roster, but more of an animal’s lifetime will be spent at its peak physical condition (adult or prime stats) before their attributes begin falling off.