ETA on new Animation system?

[Aionlasting]

When is this happening? We were told maybe a year or more ago that it was coming soon. Complete silence. Given up on it? I asked several months ago and I vaguely remember the answer being something along the lines that unity engine updates or something of the sort or rather along there somewhere caused delays or reworks or something... so what gives?

[Citan]

Yes, as I discussed in blog posts, the mount system and the animation system have run into technical problems, so in the short term we've reordered the schedule to focus on rolling out new/updated land areas instead.

The animation update is necessary for mounts to work, so it can't really be abandoned -- but the method we tried hasn't panned out, and we're trying a new tack. This is programming work that we've contracted out, so I don't have anything close to an exact timeline, but I can say it's not happening before the end of the year. We're going to have to switch from Unity 2017.4 to 2018.4 in order to make it work, and that's a very BIG technical hurdle that we're slowly working through behind the scenes in each update (e.g. replacing particles that aren't supported anymore in the next version, that sort of thing). And beyond that there are a bunch more steps involved before we get mounts into the game.

In my ideal ordering of features, mounts would be added before we added tons of new outdoor areas, because obviously it's not ideal for beta-testers to have to run everywhere on foot. On the other hand, we're trying to create new content in a way that most benefits beta-testers. The next area we're working on is a complete replacement for Sun Vale, making it much larger, because the game needs more level 30 outdoor adventure areas. (This new Sun Vale will also serve as the Fey race newbie-hunting area, as fairies will start with some combat skills in the 30s.) After that, we'll be pushing on to the lands past Rahu and on to Statehelm in the first part of next year. (There's other lands beyond Statehelm, mainly the "end game" lands in the Crone Hegemony, but they're not in our pipeline yet, so I don't have any idea when those will show up.)

There are other big technical tasks that are happening behind the scenes, too. Due to the animation delays, it's looking much more possible that the first version of instanced housing will happen before mounts do. I dunno for sure. But mounts will happen when they can, that's all I can say right now.

[Aionlasting]

Okay, fair enough, thanks for the detail reply. I really want the new animation system because while I enjoy the gameplay, the animation and models, particle effects etc... are... still... not... pleasing... to... the …. eyes...……………………….. and i'm boogie like that.

On a side note: Is it possible to make the new sunvale as large as Arramora was in Ac2? The current sunvale reminds me of it but in a very tiny fragment of it... or does the game engine not support a zone of that size? :(