This week brought meaningful progress across every corner of development as the team continued building on insights from the recent friends-and-family alpha. From visual refinements and animation improvements to backend robustness and clearer player-facing systems, each discipline contributed updates that move Erendorn closer to its next stage of testing. New assets advanced toward game-ready quality, long-standing bugs were resolved across quests, events, and interactions, and key systems were strengthened to support smoother gameplay and more reliable world behaviour. As all teams push forward, the game’s foundation grows ever more cohesive, offering a clearer picture of the experience taking shape. As always, join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn. Alternatively, join our Discord for all the latest! - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
This week, the 3D Modelling team continued progressing the Forest Druid’s third equipment set, pushing the texturing phase toward completion. Recent work has focused on establishing the final material qualities and colour variations that define the set’s organic aesthetic, ensuring each piece reflects the class’s deep connection to natural elements. Layered surface detail, tonal contrasts, and subtle material blends are now being brought together to create a cohesive visual identity that complements the earlier sets while offering its own distinctive character. With the textures nearing their final pass, the set is approaching a game-ready state and will soon join the expanding catalogue of Forest Druid gear.
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Programming
Server
This week, the Server team continued strengthening the reliability of core gameplay systems while preparing a larger refactor of server transfer logic for deployment. Although the transfer overhaul is set to go live next week, preliminary setup has already laid the foundation for a more stable handoff process between servers, as well as improved recovery options should disruptions occur. Alongside this groundwork, the team resolved several issues affecting how the server communicates essential information to the client. Fixes included correcting the delivery of chat messages, introducing a new logging method to report interactable states more accurately, and refining the flow of XP rewards so that post-combat experience is granted independently from corpse looting. Early work also began on a new system for storing hero locations, supporting future improvements to world persistence and player tracking. Together, these updates contribute to a more dependable and informative backend as development progresses.
Sound Design
This week, the Sound team made several key improvements aimed at enhancing clarity, comfort, and environmental presence across Erendorn’s audio landscape. Storm ambience received a significant update with a rebalanced wind intensity system, reducing the upper threshold to create a more controlled and less overwhelming experience during severe weather. The Ogre’s vocal and movement sounds were also reintroduced after failing to trigger in the previous playtest, restoring the creature’s auditory identity. Alongside these fixes, work began on implementing global reverb behaviour, with subtle effects now applied to abilities to soften their attack and blend them more naturally into the wider mix. Early dungeon reverb tests were also brought online, successfully creating a sense of enclosed space, with further refinement planned to ensure the effect disengages cleanly when leaving subterranean areas. These updates strengthen both audio reliability and environmental immersion as the soundscape continues to evolve.
Animation
This week, the Animation team delivered a broad round of refinements aimed at improving character performance, personality, and overall motion quality across the game. The Ogre received particular attention, with a temporary but more fitting weapon assigned to strengthen its silhouette, alongside updated animations and an increased walking speed to better align its movement with world-space traversal. Cloth physics were also implemented to further enhance its physical presence. Work continued on refining merchant NPCs, introducing a more relaxed idle pose that avoids combat-ready stances, supported by new subtle hand-expressive variations to give them greater individuality and life within settlements. Beyond these targeted updates, the team undertook additional polish across enemies and NPCs based on observations from the recent alpha test, laying the groundwork for an upcoming focus shift toward improving player animation fidelity.
Visual Effects
This week, the VFX team continued working through the feedback gathered during the friends-and-family alpha, focusing on correcting visual offsets across several spell effects and ensuring each one is properly integrated within its respective ability stepper. These fixes help restore clarity and consistency to combat readability while supporting smoother testing cycles. Alongside these adjustments, the team began exploring potential improvements to the world portal’s visibility, prompted by reports that it can blend into the environment under bright or clear weather conditions. Early sketch concepts have been produced to investigate possible design variants, and upcoming tests will determine whether these ideas offer meaningful improvements in readability without compromising the portal’s established aesthetic. Together, these efforts maintain forward momentum on both polish and visual problem solving as the game moves toward broader testing.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of October yet?!
