Hello everyone,
It has been almost two weeks since the last dev blog was published. Some of you may have already seen a few screenshots of what has been worked on during that time, mainly on Discord, but we didn’t go into any details so far.
Dragon Eggs and Nests
The dragon eggs and nests have been something we worked on and off. A lot of players are excited to build nests, but they are not really part of our main focus at the moment, since the dragons themselves aren’t ready yet.
However, some work has been done and we finished the Eastern dragon nest.
In Draconia, the Eastern dragon represents the water element like it often does in the Asian culture. Since water is an essential source for every living creature, the Eastern dragon’s strength will mainly lie in abilities which regenerate health and remove or weaken negative status effects instead of its defense and attack stats. Even though it is often describes as powerful, it will be a rather gentle creature and we wanted to represent this characteristic in the appearance of the Eastern dragons nest by giving it a lotus-like appearance.
Ka’sai
A not-so-official species of the game are the dragon people, also known as “Ka’sai”. Reptiles with humanoid features can be found in several mythologies, but they are often a result of shape shifting and don’t have their own category, so we let the community decide over their name.
To answer the often asked question, if they will be playable: It will mainly depend on how well the crowdfunding campaign goes. The Ka’sai are a vastly more complex species than our regular dragons and they should be treated like that, which means, they would get their own special skills and mechanics, which aren’t easy to do, especially when it comes to interacting with the dragons. Both live in the same environment and should therefor be able to interact with each other in either beneficial or destructive ways depending on the players play style. Regardless of the outcome, they will be found in certain parts of the map and even guide you on your way.
The image you see below is a screenshot of the work in progress model of the main character “Taruk”, which has been worked on as well, but is still far from being finished.
His model will get more attention once the European dragon is done.
The European Dragon
The low poly version of the European dragon has been completed and is now undergoing texture work.
The pattern colors can be modified later in the customization menu and the dragon will receive more patterns as the development continues. In the above screenshot you can see the dragons maximum size. Your character will be rather small at the beginning and grow and get stronger with each level. However, we are playing with the thought of adding in-game items that temporarily set the character back to a weaker level, which should mainly be interesting for role-players.
Level Art
Lots and lots of work has been done on the level art side of things.
Since the Ka’sai are part of Draconia’s world, they will need places to call their home. Players will be able to find several of these points of interest, which can be (but not only) villages, camps or monuments created by the Ka’sai. Many of these locations will tell a story about how the Ka’sai live and what happened to them before the player entered this world.
The village above is a very early example of what such a point of interest could look like.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will add more buildings and smaller details as well as some things that will make each place feel more alive, unique and interesting to explore.
That’s it for dev blog #2! With a bit of luck, we will be able to show you the first animations of the European dragon in dev blog #3, so make sure to keep an eye on our social media or join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Bhx4F8M