Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem Update #80

The latest Kickstarter update for SolarFall Games’ upcoming hack ‘n’ slash action-RPG Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem brings us up to speed with the game’s development and explains in great detail the reasons for going with a static camera instead of a rotating one. Check it out:

Hello everyone!

We would like to provide you with some updates on the Beta. We’re progressing well on all the features planned, and everyone in the studio is working hard to honor the deadline for the Beta transition.

If you wish to see some previews, you can visit the Trello Beta Roadmap and vote for the preview that you would like to see 😉 Every Monday, another sneak peek is posted based on your votes.

Presently, our developers are all focused on the creation and implementation of all the new creatures, effects, characters, weapons, armors, animations and environments, and of course Multiplayer, just for you! We’re all really excited about this, and we’re quite confident you will be too.

Now, let’s talk about the rotating camera. As told in the Beta news, the feature was removed because we realized it was barely used and considered confusing. We know you don’t all agree on that point, and that some of you were disappointed by this choice. Although we’re confident you will appreciate the change, we would like to tell you a little more about the other reasons why we made that change and share with you another preview of the Beta game.

When we first started the development of Umbra, we tried many camera configurations. Different focal, distances, angles, and movement… As the development progressed, we started identifying a few small issues, and in the end, we realized that the rotating camera didn’t serve the gameplay like we expected.

Here at Wolcen Studio, we want the quality of gameplay to come first. When something goes in the way of a good game experience, we seek out solutions to make it better. That’s what we did for the rotating camera.

For the Beta version of the game, we want to improve the camera by streamlining its behaviour, get the ‘perfect’ settings, and freeze the rotation control for players.

One of our main priorities on Wolcen, with the quality of action, is visual quality. Passionate artists work hard every day here to deliver a beautiful experience, and having only one camera angle greatly improves our ability to achieve this objective.

In the meantime, level design is clearer for the player, and it should be easier for you to enjoy and follow the flow of the action without getting lost or lose the rhythm of the adventure.

Last but not least, optimization is facilitated, and production time of a given area is reduced, allowing us to do more content of a higher quality.

At the end, this was a great experiment for us. The top-down camera has the advantage of giving a great visibility of gameplay, and we really want to make the most out of this possibility.

We hope that this explanation made our choice a little more clear for you. Of course, you will have the opportunity to tell us what you think about these changes during the Beta in September.

See you soon!