Question about improved visuals

[xKeiro]

So now that you have a constant flow of revenue, how much of a visual improvement is to be expected down the line?
I'm following this game since it's early stages, but never been able to fully enjoy it because of how it looks (especially the animations), so if you could give us some detail about what can we expect in this regard would be really appreciated.
Thanks, and keep up the good work!

[Doutrinador]

i agree, better character models and animations will be awesome

[MarleVVLL]

An honest look at this aspect would be useful although I predict that the extent to which they are updated are correlated with EA sales.

[Karamasha]

It would be nice to know if they have plans to update models and animation or not

[Citan]

We don't yet know the full scope of what we'll be able to do in terms of major art changes. To some extent it really does boil down to how well we do on Steam, and it's a bit early to tell. (And I don't want to jinx it.) But the first thing on our list, and the thing I'm most confident will happen, is animation improvements. In fact that work began shortly before the Steam launch.

Before we start trying to improve specific animation problems, first we have a big hurdle: a major code rewrite. We're remaking our animation system to better support fluid animation transitions and animation blending. This will fix a lot of the weirdness that happens in combat -- or, at least, it will give us the ability to iteratively improve animations by adjusting weighting and positioning in ways that we simply can't do right now with our old (5 year old!) animation system. That code overhaul is underway now, but as it's partially outsourced I don't have a timeline -- I expect it'll be ready soon, but these major code overhauls always take longer than I think they will, so we'll see.

We'll also be replacing some of the "problematic" animations that are live now. Some of them will change in conjunction with the code overhaul, but most will be replaced iteratively.

We've also begun fleshing out our animation list, adding missing ones that we didn't have budget for in the past. I've just ordered a batch of animations from our animator Vincent, and I expect those will show up in a month or so. This first new batch of animations includes combat animations for two skills: hammer (right now, hammer uses sword animations and it's kinda disappointing-looking) and off-hand knife (right now, knife can only be in the main hand due to animation limitations). We'll order more animations after that, although we'll need to go slowly at first while we work out the kinks in the new code system.

We also have some plans underway for new armor shaders and, eventually, new skins, faces, etc., but that's further down the line. I'd also like to replace some of the monster models that are currently using store-bought Asset Store models. But that work will have to wait until after the new animation system is done.

So we have lots of plans, but as usual I can't give much of a time line -- it's really hard to predict when all the pieces will line up. When stuff is ready to go, we'll get it live! In the mean time, we'll continue with our other work including new dungeons, new outdoor areas, new skills, some major skill overhauls, and major revamps to existing areas. Expect a game update every 2-3 weeks on average, the same pace as during alpha.

Not much else to say right now, except thanks for playing and backing us, and I'm excited to show you some of the stuff we've got in development!

[Karamasha]

We don't yet know the full scope of what we'll be able to do in terms of major art changes. To some extent it really does boil down to how well we do on Steam, and it's a bit early to tell. (And I don't want to jinx it.) But the first thing on our list, and the thing I'm most confident will happen, is animation improvements. In fact that work began shortly before the Steam launch.

Before we start trying to improve specific animation problems, first we have a big hurdle: a major code rewrite. We're remaking our animation system to better support fluid animation transitions and animation blending. This will fix a lot of the weirdness that happens in combat -- or, at least, it will give us the ability to iteratively improve animations by adjusting weighting and positioning in ways that we simply can't do right now with our old (5 year old!) animation system. That code overhaul is underway now, but as it's partially outsourced I don't have a timeline -- I expect it'll be ready soon, but these major code overhauls always take longer than I think they will, so we'll see.

We'll also be replacing some of the "problematic" animations that are live now. Some of them will change in conjunction with the code overhaul, but most will be replaced iteratively.

We've also begun fleshing out our animation list, adding missing ones that we didn't have budget for in the past. I've just ordered a batch of animations from our animator Vincent, and I expect those will show up in a month or so. This first new batch of animations includes combat animations for two skills: hammer (right now, hammer uses sword animations and it's kinda disappointing-looking) and off-hand knife (right now, knife can only be in the main hand due to animation limitations). We'll order more animations after that, although we'll need to go slowly at first while we work out the kinks in the new code system.

We also have some plans underway for new armor shaders and, eventually, new skins, faces, etc., but that's further down the line. I'd also like to replace some of the monster models that are currently using store-bought Asset Store models. But that work will have to wait until after the new animation system is done.

So we have lots of plans, but as usual I can't give much of a time line -- it's really hard to predict when all the pieces will line up. When stuff is ready to go, we'll get it live! In the mean time, we'll continue with our other work including new dungeons, new outdoor areas, new skills, some major skill overhauls, and major revamps to existing areas. Expect a game update every 2-3 weeks on average, the same pace as during alpha.

Not much else to say right now, except thanks for playing and backing us, and I'm excited to show you some of the stuff we've got in development!

Damn! that's some detailed answers, much more information than i could hope for. wonderful!
I'm so happy i backed this project!