- Hardware & Server Upgrades - 10 August 2022
Good morning community! This morning 08/10/2022 will mark the beginning of many infrastructure and hardware upgrades. The current stage of the upgrades is Account Migration to upgrade the current servers. Players should be aware that the initial upgrades are unlikely to cause any major issues, as our initial migrations to the current servers were successful. However, due to the new AWS requirements some players may experience periodic login failures during the upgrade process. For those curious as to why we've chosen this time to update the servers I'll briefly explain why this decision was made. The Repopulation servers and hardware are both considered to have aged into the legacy category by AWS. Recently their company made the decision that they will no longer be supporting these servers. We must attempt to bring Repop up-to-date with their policy. However, this is not without many r…
- Optimization Report - 23 February 2022
Good morning, everyone! We’ve officially rang in the New Year of 2022. While we hope everyone is well, some of our staff has had a bumpy start to 2022 so far. New years handed us Covid, a broken arm and hand, and other medical issues - setting us up for a rocky start in January. While we haven’t yet resorted to living in a bubble we have had to delay our big announcement for just a little longer. The good news is that the team is on the mend, and we have started to get back on pace. This update will go into a bit more depth of what we have been working through the last three months. As many of you know we hit a snag last quarter regarding the optimizations of the animations and the female faces. We also have done some reductions to help optimize the island for players and to be able to account for the high overhead vs. the mem cache crashing issue. In addition, there were a few fixes as…
- End of Year Recap - 17 December 2021
HAPPY HOLIDAYS COMMUNITY! HAPPY HOGMANAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY YULE, HAPPY HANUKKAH, HAPPY KWANZAA, BOXING DAY! Good morning community! It’s that time for our monthly article post. We do apologize as we are running a bit behind on our article schedule. As we reach the end of the year we want to wish everyone very happy and safe holidays. These last couple of months have been very busy for us at Repop. We’ll be bringing you more news on what we’ve been up to in our January 2022 Article. Januarys’ article will include information concerning an optimization update, an updated roadmap, and an exciting announcement. For this article, however, we want to reflect on what progress we’ve made this year and what we’ve learned. So let’s jump in and review. This Year's Updates: This year we have released three patches and several Hotfixes. Early in 2022, we’ll be releasing another optimization Pa…
- September Character System Update - 24 September 2021
Good morning community! Last month we let you know that we would be doing a featurette about the Characters, both Player and Non-Player characters. This is primarily what this month is about. Yet it is a bit longer than a featurette. We are also including an update to our development on the Character side. So grab a cup of coffee and sit back. This month's article is focused on some of the joys and difficulties we have encountered with the NPC’s. During this process, we have learned many things and realized additional ways in which we can improve the new system. The challenges we have faced not only mean that we can make improvements in the game but with the engine as well. Current NPC Optimizations The testing process: Initially, we had thought we could update the PC’s and NPC models to be more efficient by removing parts that were not needed and consolidating set textures. However, as…
- July-August Update - 17 August 2021
Good morning everyone! We hope you have had a good summer so far. This update is going to be going over what we have done in the last 60 days and our current progress. This has been quite the adventure, however, working in the new design into the game and keeping the same original theme and style has been a lot of fun. It is even more fun seeing this start to take shape on Dev. So, without further ado, we will begin with the largest undertaking and the core of all other systems to come: The Item System and the new GUI! Item system update As we have walked you through the process of the Item system from the start, we are happy to give you some of the current updates. As a quick review, we have worked on and covered the following: Trace and list all current usable Items in-game Base Item System design process Audit of the current multiple Item Systems Audit of the Container multiple syste…
- May/June Update 2021 - 3 June 2021
Good morning community! June is here, and so is our monthly update. Today’s update will cover both May and June. These last two months have been quite busy and have gone by way too fast. We have a lot of information to share with you, especially since we have begun this next sprint. This month's article update focuses on three areas. The best part is, the players will be able to see and interact/test some of these upcoming changes in the near future. We will keep you, the players informed of the progress and updates as we get closer to the Game Update. This update article will be covering the following topics. New/Revamped Furniture models and art replacement New game GUI replacement Animation cleanup Item System revamp progress update There’s a lot to cover regarding these upcoming features, so let’s dive in! ON-BOARDING AND WELCOME! We recently welcomed two team members on board. We w…
- April Update & A.00.03.52 Patch - 4 April 2021
Good morning community! Spring has sprung, the team is busy with spring cleaning so to speak. Happy Easter, Spring Equinox, and Passover. We hope you are enjoying a safe and joyous day with those close to you. Today’s article will not be a particularly long one, but we will cover multiple topics. Let’s hop right in! READ OUR PATCH NOTES FOR BUILD: A.00.03.16 HERE ISSUES AND FIXES: In Patch A.00.03.40 our updates revealed an old bandaid or two to the mission system had been removed during the Container update. Generated Mission Related Bugs: Generated missions used additional unique container and item types. This resulted in two different issues that were found: Players would see that their required items picked up from NPC’s updating, but the Generated Mission system was not recognizing the count data. This meant that even though it showed those steps were completed with a green checkma…
- ROADMAP AND GAME UPDATE A.00.03.41 - 26 February 2021
ROADMAP & GAME UPDATE A.00.03.41 Good day community! We hope everyone is having a great Friday. Our team is wrapping up February with a small patch and heading into March by releasing the updated Roadmap. PATCH A.00.03.41: Today we launched a small, but major patch. Read our patch notes HERE. We focused on the major and some minor bugs that appeared after our Container update. During this update, we were able to find a plethora of methods that items were created. Though this did cause additional unknown issues, it has helped with tracing down how these were done in the current system. We want to thank ALL of the players that played, tested, and reported the issue, and thank you all for the patience over the last two weeks! FIXES: This list may seem small but it was quite the undertaking as the amount of work that needed to be done backend to make sure all was working for the players was…
- FEBRUARY UPDATE AND PATCH A.00.03.40 - 18 February 2021
Good morning community! This morning the server came down for Patch A.00.03.40. This patch primarily focused on bug fixes, and clean-up now that the Container System has been added. You will also be able to preview some of the new items for the Lunar New year that will be made available to the players once the Item and Crafting System is done. READ OUR PATCH NOTES FOR BUILD: A.00.03.16 HERE CONTAINER SYSTEM REMNANTS: As many of you know, when we recreated the Container system to clean and reduce overhead, we also ripped off many bandaids. Some we were expecting, some were very unexpected. However, thanks to the wonderful players, we were able to identify those bugs and trace them to the root cause. BUG FIXING: Just a few of the bugs we fixed were game-breaking for most players. You can find the full Patch Note list here. These bugs (expected and unexpected) have helped us refine the des…
- Patch A.00.03.16 Release - 13 January 2021
Good day community! We hope everyone is well and eager to start a productive year off with us. On Wednesday 13 January 2021 we will release Patch A.00.03.16. This will take place at 10:00 am EST (2 pm GMT). Once the server is back online we will inform you here. Below you’ll find a list of known issues and a link to our patch notes. CONTAINER SYSTEM: The container system and all subsystems under that are a primary base that all games, especially MMO’s have. A container is basically anything that holds “something”. These can be data containers which tell the system what it contains (such as the Character container that holds all character information) to the player inventory. Other good examples of Containers would be merchant inventory, loot windows, and even your hot/ability bars. The work that has been done over the last several months has touched upon almost every aspect of the game'…
- December - System Wrap Up - 28 December 2020
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! HAPPY HOGMANAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY YULE, HAPPY HANUKKAH, HAPPY KWANZAA, BOXING DAY! Happy Monday community! We hope that everyone is well, and excited to hop into today’s topic. As promised on the 25th, today's article will cover the upcoming patch, and supporting information. First, we’ll review the update itself, the challenges we faced, what to expect next, and a tentative push date for the patch. CONTAINER REVAMP UPDATE The inventory has been streamlined. Previously the player inventory was handled in a multitude of ways. The backend was handling the player inventory as actual listed items, and a separate vault system that was handling structures as different but actual item types. The old/current way was doubling or even tripling the client to server data/communication. However, the frontend used various GUI containers to display these items and structures with…
- November - December Update - 25 December 2020
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! HAPPY HOGMANAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY YULE, HAPPY HANUKKAH, HAPPY KWANZAA, BOXING DAY! We wanted to give you a quick but informative update during this special time. We know posted news has been sparse for the last 6 weeks as we have been very busy, but we really enjoyed all of the one on one with our community. This is more a teaser of what is to come than anything, however, we wanted to let you all know that we have been working hard and have not given up! I want to give a special thanks to all the players and testers! We have all been busy working and testing, and this has really paid off. So, Thank you! As always, it has been great working and talking with all of you on Production (Live) and on Test. HOLIDAY CHEER GAME UPDATE! As many of you may have noticed, we have added in some holiday cheer throughout the Island and the Mainland. Decorations have been hotpatched…
- October: Boney Update - 31 October 2020
Good morning community, Happy Halloween, Dia De Los Muertos, Samhain, and Diwali! This month's update is a progress report. Since our last post, the team has been hard at work. As the progress continues with the new container and inventory system, we have also been able to identify a lot of issues that have plagued The Repopulation and opened up some of the bare bone causes for inventory bugs in the game. This allows us to compare the old/current system to our new systems in development now, and those being designed. To make sure we are able to learn from the mistakes of the past team and our own and make The Repopulation even better. So let’s dive right in, and show you what we’ve been up to... CONTAINERS: There has been significant progress with the container and inventory systems. This is thanks to the hard work of our engineer and the support of our testers. The testing process unco…
- September Technical Update - 22 September 2020
Good morning community! Our apologies for being slightly behind our normal posting schedule this month. You may have noticed this month is a familiar topic. You may notice there are not as many images for this update because this article is focused on what we have completed and will be pushing to the test server in the next few weeks. This is a technical update and will be covering two topics. First topic: A major fix/improvement: We are including a significant fix that is currently on Test. This revamp is to the NPC Stealth management system and will help improve performance slightly at this time, but will increase with each pass of work to adjoining systems and subsystems. This issue was found to cause major overhead on the server as well as client side. Second and more familiar topic, Item and Containers: The first phase of the Item and Container system is done! We are excited to giv…
- August Update: Container System and Item Tiers - 9 August 2020
Good morning community! It has been another busy month of development for the team. So let's jump right in and discuss recent work, the coming Container System and supporting subsystem Items and its tiers. These systems will not be implemented for some time, but we want to help familiarize you with the coming changes. Before we transition into our main topic I'd like to touch on the continued work to clean up ticket issues. As always we are thankful for all the feedback and support we receive from the community. We’ve recently brought on additional QA members. We’d like to extend a big thank you to them and all of those who send in bug reports. It is thanks to all of you that we are able to identify existing issues. In an ideal setting, we could address each issue as they are found. However, with so many systems in need of overhauls, it can feel like a slow process. We appreciate your p…
- July: Item System and Updated Roadmap - 3 July 2020
Good Day community! Before diving into this month’s article we’d like to wish everyone a happy, and safe Independence Day. It has been a very productive six months for our team. This month we are going over a) this year’s recap, b) the Item system and c) our updated roadmap. Looking back, it has been a great year. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀1ST AND 2ND QUARTER RECAP: The first three months of the year were dedicated to improving performance on the island. We deployed three patches during this time. Patch A.00.02.29, and A.00.02.36 in January, and Patch A.00.02.39 in February. Thanks to player feedback we were able to address several issues to include crashing. During this time we continued to add optimized art assets, sculpt terrain, and update various content for the new starter island. The following three months were just as busy as the previous three. In April we deployed two more patches, A.00…
- May/June Update: Summer Already? - 5 June 2020
Read our full Article HERE. The month of May has been quite productive. We want to start this month's update out with a big shoutout to all the players new and old for their help, reporting bugs, and suggestions. Before we dive let’s begin with announcing our next scheduled patch date. Monday, June the 15th we will be launching our next patch push. The server will come down at 10:00 AM EST for approximately four hours. We’ll broadcast our normal warning on the server before bringing it down. Once it is live we’ll post an update to let you know. We have been able to do a lot over the last month on both the island and the mainland. So let us get started with updating you on the progress for the next game update, the island, and then move onto the current mainland areas. GAME UPDATE: 15 JUNE, 2020 @ 10AM EST (2PM GMT) Read our Patch notes for the Build: A.00.02.45 here. THE ISLE IS EVOLVIN…
- APRIL DETAIL PLACEMENT & A.00.02.42 PATCH - 21 April 2020
Good evening community! We hope everyone is doing well, and not feeling too stir crazy. On the 8th we released patch A.00.02.41. On Wednesday 22 April 2020 we will be releasing a small bugfix update patch. This will take place at 10:00 am EST (2 pm GMT). Once the server is back online we will inform you here. Below you’ll find a list of known issues and a link to our patch notes. This update includes fixes and updates for the Island and a few patches for the mainland issues that players have found. In addition to the fixes we have also started working on some of the details across the different Districts. This includes terrain detail as well as some clutter added to a few of the areas, including OWON and its embassy. Along with the newer issues and bug fixes we were also able to reduce a few more of the long standing bugs and issues. If you find any that are not listed here or in other…
- March/April Update: Terrain and Area Optimizations - 8 April 2020
Good evening Community! It is once again time for an update and patch announcement! Testing on the island has been going very well. We’ve recently moved on to a new strategy to reduce some of the heightmap issues on the island. We’ll discuss these more in-depth below. As always we want to extend our thanks to the community and testers for helping us continue our work. With your help, we hope to continue improving the game and your experience. This has been one heck of a month. We hope that everyone is doing well, healthy and or recovering and most of all, not going completely stir crazy. The most important message I want to give is: Be well and be safe! Our own two teams have also been affected by the current COVID-19 situation, however, other than some delays and a lot more business work on my end, we are all good, and this month's update will be released. On behalf of both HE and TGS…
- A.00.02.39 Update - 14 February 2020
Good evening community, it’s time to announce the next patch date. Push A.00.02.37 will be deployed, and the server brought down on 02/15/2020 Saturday at 10:00 AM EST (3:00 PM BST). We’ll make sure to update you when it is back online. A.00.02.39 Feedback and Updates: As always we’d like to extend our thanks to all who have taken the time to test and provide feedback. Your continued support allows us to continue to improve The Repopulation with each patch. Below you will find a brief outline of changes/updates for the coming patch. Read the full Patch Notes HERE System Changes and Adjustments: Knowledge Questions updated for the Island. Waypoint access updated. NPC Inquiry Knowledge updated for the Island. Item System Updates: Cleanup of Item scripts Additional fixes to item backend (odd, very old revert) Fixed item display and conflict Final cleanup for current update/prep work for ne…
