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Hello hello! Posty here delivering you the latest instalment of Desolation Development™. It’s been a while folks and I hope you all are doing well! And not suffering too much with this heat (if you’re from the UK, you know how the weather has been lately), before I jump into this beast of a blog that I have lined up for you all, I just want to once again say thank you. The reception we received following the news of Caz’ Departure was overwhelming with love and support for myself and the rest of the team to continue carrying the torch he passed onto us. We are excited for what’s to come, and this post will showcase the changes we have been working on to improve the Deso experience, but first one last little announcement. From one departure to another, Crim has decided to leave the team. Crim joined us during early EP6 development once we decided it was about time to expand from our original 3 man band. They provided a ton of useful insight and produced some stunning work which has left an impactful mark on the game. We are forever grateful for the time and effort they put into the project and wanted to thank Crim for everything. We wish them all the best for their future endeavours! And with that, let’s move into what this post is all about… Gameplay. This blog is going to be… long, juicy! But long. So I will be splitting this into individual sections with spoiler tags, so feel free to read all of it, the sections you are most interested in, or just skip to the end and say “first” down below in the comments. Anyways, we have a lot to cover so buckle up folks, so let’s get into it shall we? Gen 9 Mega Evolution Changes Overlays Boss Mechanics Field Updates Ability Boxes Drinking at Drifblim Drinkery --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, that was a lot of information huh? I hope these last two posts were interesting reads for you battle folk out there. We have a lot of cool updates coming to EP7, from optimisations to further gameplay balances, Desolation continues to improve with each version. We have a lot of exciting content to come and I really do look forward to sharing more with you all! Now before I wrap up this post, I have a few extra details to go over. Patreon Updates A few updates have been made as of this post going live to our Patreon tiers. For starters, I want to make an announcement regarding our Crown Tier. As you know, this was removed due to Caz’ absence. Now that he has taken a step back from development, what will happen to this tier? After a discussion with Ruby, we have decided to not bring back the Crown Tier during EP7’s development, instead we will look to bring it back once we begin work on EP8. The reason for this is due to the length of EP7 development already, adding additional workload to what is already a monstrous amount of work developing the story would only continue to delay the game coming out. I want to be able to develop side quests that our Patrons have requested to a high standard and not half ass them. So this will be something I would look to reopen once we begin EP8 development. It will function similarly as it did in the past, with only a limited amount of slots available, more information on this once we get closer to EP8’s development. Furthermore, we have adjusted the wording for our Stargazer and Rose tiers to make it a bit clearer about what you are allowed to ask for as part of your perks, the changes are as follows: Stargazer Submit your name to be an NPC in the current version of the game! Rose At this tier, you can choose some attributes for your named NPC (Class from a list, Max Team of 5, and if you would like them to appear in the Keneph Resort Fight Club) Keneph Resort Fight Club? Yes, I will reveal this now as a part of this blog, Keneph Resort will be the host of a new Fight Club. We will go more into details about this in a future update, but for now that’s all you’re getting! Anyways, hopefully these clarifications make sense, I have compiled a list of Trainer Classes you will be able to pick from, in which we have now added new ones that will be appearing in EP7! Development Blogs This one will be kept short, but starting from the post in June, we will reduce the number of development blogs from once a month to one every 2-3 months. The reason behind this is to prioritise bigger and more informative posts, similar but not the extra length to this post. I want these posts moving forward to really showcase what’s to come in EP7, while also really focusing on development without having to rush about “what to put out this month”. This will allow me to think more in advance about what I would like to include for our blogs, and spend more time writing them up. I may start dropping some teasers here and there on our Twitter or in the Reborn server, so keep an eye out! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Woah boy this was a long post… I had to split this up into two individual Patreon posts as it was so long, but thought I would just chuck it all into one for the development blog. Anyways, I hope this has got you a bit excited for what’s to come, especially for the battle enthusiasts out there! And with that, I bid you adieu, until the next one folks! Posty

God, how is it November already… Hey everyone! Hope you all are keeping warm during these colder months. Today’s blog post will go over some Sidequest content I have been working on during some Development Streams we have been doing over on our Patreon Discord! But before I go over that, I have a couple of announcements to make. Firstly, If you saw our previous dev blog, then you would know that we have been looking to recruit some new members to the team. We had a lot of interest, so thank you to everyone who showed interest, shared the post around and applied! Myself and the rest of the team truly appreciate it. On that note… Please give a warm welcome to our new Team Members! @Dred Twitter @IronicOmens They don't have social media... @Rust_ Twitter Dred and Omens you may recognise from their work on the Overseers Mod for Rejuvenation (which you can find here!), they also have been working on Project Vanguard (you may have already seen some of Omens’ Spritework for Vanguard on Twitter!). They will be joining us in the Mapping and Artwork department, and what they have been cooking up so far has been really exciting to see, and I can’t wait to showcase some of their work to you all soon. Rust on the other hand will be joining us in the Music department. He has expertise in compositions working on projects such as Azure and Garticmon. Working already on tracks alongside Darius in Azure, we are really excited to see what this duo will be able to cook up for our soundtrack for EP7 and future versions, so look forward to some new banger tracks! If I get their permission, I may be able to give you all another little teaser for a track in a future development blog, but we will have to wait and see. Once again, thank you to all that applied, we were impressed with the quality of work people within the community had to offer and ultimately, we were really overjoyed with the interest people have for the project! Moving on, for the second announcement! So if you remember from the previous development blog, I mentioned potentially about hosting a dev stream if there was interest. So with that said, I am happy to announce that we will be looking to host a Public Development Stream on Saturday 7th December at 8:30pm GMT! I will be looking to go live on my Twitch channel, which you can find here below! https://www.twitch.tv/postyhd For a little bit of insight, during this Stream, I will be doing some mapping on a new area coming to EP7, Astraciel Wildwood! So come along and hang out, myself and a bunch of the other developers will be there to chat and have a good time! Also we can do a little Q&A if people have some questions. We are looking forward to it! That’s about it for the announcements, time to move onto the main topic of the dev blog, Keneph Resort! ~ Excerpts from Patreon ~ Ah... Keneph Resort, it’s been a while… You may remember this area being mentioned previously, since we’ve made a few dev blogs about it now, but for a quick rundown if you have forgotten, Keneph Resort was going to be my main focus for EP7 when we begun this development cycle, however due to unforeseen circumstances and becoming temp lead of the project, I decided to put this on the backburner to focus on other aspects of development. This is why there hasn’t been many updates regarding this area from me… until now! I’ve already gone over Keneph Resort in previous dev blogs and hinted at some things which will be coming to the area, but it’s been a good while since then so I think I can mention a couple things I have planned. One thing that Desolation has lacked has been… Move Tutors, guess where they will be going? Might be worth going back to invest into the Resort now during EP7. The resort will also act as a hub for trainers across Ayrith to come down and spend some time to unwind, maybe you will see familiar faces turn up? Maybe even itching for a fight, but there’s a rule about keeping shut about fights. And maybe even some new faces. So with construction beginning in EP7, how do you play a role in the development of the Resort? The construction team is a little bit behind due to the delay of some shipments, you can see where I'm going with this. One part of the quest requires you to head down to Cellia North to try and come to a deal on the materials needed for Keneph Resort, trying to potentially haggle the additional funds needed for one of the shipments. And when I say I was having fun writing this quest… I was having fun Another part of the quest will see you heading down to Sunshell to check up on another shipment of Sandstone. Which you may need to help out the Miners down near Fairbale to gather the remaining materials needed. It’s safe to say you will be working hard to get this Resort up and running! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before I close out this blog, I will leave you all with one last thing. Our new member Omens has already been hard at work when it comes to graphics and sprite work, and well, I will just drop this here and not elaborate. That wraps up for this month, hope to see you at the Development Stream on the 7th of December! Posty