Avoid The Draft - Enlist Today!

 I woke up drunk and found myself in the army, and that is why I forgot it was time for end of the month devBlog! A tale as old as time itself no doubt, personal experience not included, honest.

Well, here it is, a few days late. And what, pray tell was I doing that occupied my attention so much that I missed that fabled deadline which I had kept for the past 4 years? Enlisting of course! Enlisting in a favoured band of hardened warriors! Or maybe not even favoured, maybe any company of cut throat raiders that would have me. Because it's all an RNG as to how each and every warband will accept the player, and this RNG changes every time the player or that warband respawns.

Five Levels Of Diplomacy

 So there are 5 levels of diplomacy that each Raiding Party shows towards a neutral player. These range from; "Just find some pants to wear and we will take you", to the much more hostile; "Anything less than level 20 XP isn't good enough".

These responses also decide how that warband will treat the player when their blood is u, ranging from the friendliest avoiding the player at all costs, going through only engaging the player if they get in the way during combat, all the way to treating the player as a mortal enemy. It is usually best to avoid walking into someone elses pitched battle, and wait for things to calm down a little before inquiring about membership, or looting the corpses of the fallen for those all important pants.

But once you have enlisted in a warband, you get a cool motif on your shield, and every other warband declares you a sworn enemy. 

Blood Brother For One, Blood Vengeance For All Others

 You don't have to enlist in a warband if offered, and they will peacefully go about their business and ignore you - unless you cause them trouble, or until the player or themselves meet an untimely end and respawn.

But once you have enlisted, and become a sworn blood brother of that company of heroes, you get to follow them around on their merry journey and have pitched battles against many foes. This is when I discovered that the target lockOn system was useless in a melee as it would lock onto any target, friend or foe, and a melee was confusing enough without the camera sticking on the wrong target. A little bit of C++ later and the targeting system now only locks onto enemies which is a lot less confusing.

Me And The Danelaw Boys Heading Out To Cause A Ruckus!

 

The Ruckus Went Badly ...

 

Currently the player can only follow the warband around, or ignore them completely and go cause trouble alone on their behalf, but it is a shame to miss a pitched battle. In the future I do plan to code a ranking system, were the player can rise up the ranks and eventually lead the raiding party, with them then following the player around rather than vice versa.

Also allow me to introduce the Carolingians. They were supposed to be in from the start but the future planned warbands seemed a little Gallic heavy so I replaced them with the Lombards, but now they have been added in as well, bringing the current number of active warbands up to 8, which is about half of what I have planned, and I am still only up to the 11th Century.

Arming Yourself As A Warrior Involves More Than Just Finding Some Pants

 And here it is in video action! As my Saxon comrades and I take on the newcomers, the Carolingians. I have good weapons and armour, we have the high ground and our archers have superior range, and I was feeling quite confident ... right up to the moment I got staggered from a long axe blow coming in from the side and then skewered from behind when unable to defend myself. Ouch.

 So, that was the merry month of May. It started off with wind and rain, there was a bit of a heatwave over a weekend, and then it ended with wind and rain again.

This month will mostly be concerned with a bit of tweaking of code and assets, and generally making the menus more attractive, before finally sorting out a listing for Steam.