DD# 160 Two Years Ago the War Starts news - [Neolithic]To the End

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.

First of all, today marks the second year of Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Let's turn back the clock and remind ourselves of the developer's diary exactly 2 years ago.

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In the beginning, many have joined the cause to support Ukraine like us. There were many great fundraisings on Steam, Humble stores, Itch, and many other places. There were many developers like me making donations to Ukraine. That was a great moment when the world demonstrated solidarity and unity, standing with Ukraine. However, as the war went on, many grew fatigued, many went silent, and many even forgot this war was still not end yet. That will not do!

Thus, let's start with this week's developer's diary with new Ukraine-related game content.
During this week's update, we got 2 new playable character variations.

The first one is an Iron General in Ukrainian Power Armor.
The armor is basically a re-texture of the Templar Power Armor with a bit of modification.
The character is based on an old image online that illustrated General Zaluzhnyi in a Warhammer 40K Space Marine armor. I cannot make the model too similar to that one of Ultramarines because of potential legal risks. And I know Zaluzhnyi is no longer the command-in-chef any more. But, that does not stop me from making this model to remember his heroic deeds at the very beginning of the war. Just like we also have another "old gentleman who likes smiles" who is still giving quests to players to close the sky. Hopefully, we can see F16 this year.

The second one is a Ukrainian Cossack. The outfit is made by Optigon and I purchased a commercial license so that it can be used in our game. Cossacks were people seek freedom from Feudal Lords in medieval. They escaped from their overlords and made their communities in Ukraine. In their communities, they decide everything important in a democratic tradition which can be quite rare in that era. As such they become a symbol of Ukraine.

Although those are just cosmetic skins with no story content related to them at this moment, maybe there will be in the future. We still have a large undeveloped area in Siberia. The original plan for that area was canceled because of Putin's invasion. But, maybe, one day, we can get a new story of that area with all those characters involved.

One more thing, just as a bonus content. We cannot just add a Cossack without also adding their iconic weapon. Thus, here we are:

No, wait. Not this guy from Metal Gear. Just the last part of his name.
So, here it is.

Shashka has been added to the game as a traditional cossack weapon.
The weapon can always cause bleeding and may also have other prefixes.
You can purchase it from several merchants in the game.


OK, that's all the Ukraine-related content of this week. My support for Ukraine will continue. This may be the longest live-operation of this game even in its almost 20 years of history. But, isn't that awesome?


Now let's cover our other content update of this week. There are 3 main parts.
1, Elemental Proficiency Books.
We now have 8 books that you can read to improve your 8 different elemental proficiencies. You can find them in the Book Store of Liu among other books. Alternatively, you can go to the Mages Guild to find another vendor who sells those books. Some enemies such as the corrupted books in the Grand Library may also drop those books.
They are not just some random books you read and forget. I intend to make fun of them. Thus, each book has its narrative in a light-hearted manner and they all seem quite mundane yet can somehow improve your elemental proficencies.
Here are some examples:

2, New Food Recipe.
It has been a while since the last update to our cooking system. So, maybe this time we shall have more recipes added to it. New recipes are mostly fish recipes so that we can make better use of our fishing system and egge recipes.
Here is one of the new fish recipes:

But, eggs? Yes, this food ingredient is finally in our game now. But, where can we get it in addition to purchasing from those food ingredient vendors?
That's a question that led to my over-complex game design. In real life, eggs are from animals that can lay eggs of course. So, in our game, we can do the same thing.

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Something seems not right. OK, to be honest, a certain North Korean human male known as Kim Jong Um cannot lay eggs. The screenshot is here because I captured a female turkey and renamed her Kim Jong Um just to make some fun. :P
So, basically, all the female bird pets in your group can now lay eggs for you periodically. (Unfortunately, we only have Turkeys in the game right now. We will get more, such as chickens, ducks, and other pets later.)
Meanwhile, all those eggs are procedurally generated and named after the pets that lay them.

Now, let's cook those eggs. We can get...

Fried eggs will automatically named after which egg you fried just to make it even more fun. As we can rename our pets to anything. So, you can basically fry anybody's eggs no matter that's Trump, Biden, your boss, your coworkers, your classmates, someone you hate, or someone you like. The important thing is you shall have the freedom to have all the fun. You can do all that just by renaming your pets.
There are 7 new recipes added.
And here is a bonus. As we have new cooking recipes, we shall also have a cooking-related quest. Thus, we now have a new NPC in the Marinas Town Hall. Marinas is famous for her fish. But, they are now also looking for good cooks to make fish dishes. If you are confident in your cooking skills, you can submit your fish dishes to a Fish Dishes Critic. If he likes your dishes, he will reward you. You may even get some items with "chef" prefixes. Alternatively, you can also be a trouble person to submit some poisoned fish dishes and see what will happen. :P

Now, as we just talked about food. Maybe we shall wait a bit here. Because the 3rd part may cause some uncomfortable to people.

So, let's wait for a bit.
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OK, are you ready?
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3, Poops
Errr...I told you I have warned you. :P
Alright, as not many pets can lay eggs right now. But, we have a system to passively generate resources from them. What else do most of our pets generate? After taking a few moments to think like a Palworld player, I get the conclusion that most pets at least create poops! (If you have a cat or some other pets, you know it's your duty to take care of their poops. Thus, this is the first thing that came to my mind. :P) So, now many different pets will automatically generate poops for you to use.

Wait, does that North Korean human male Kim Jong Um actually poop? Some rumor says he is a great guy so great that he never poops. I don't know. :P

What's their usage?
The first usage is quite obvious, they are biological weapons that you can throw at your enemies. (They even get a special animation for that.)
Meanwhile, they can also be used in alchemy to create some very disgusting potions to cause more mayhems.
You can also sell them to some merchants to make some profits.
Of course, there shall be more usage of those poops. Unfortunately, I failed to get all planned features added this week so we will have to get them in later updates.

One more thing, it may be annoying to see Kim Jong Um keep pooping and laying eggs every now and then. Thus, I also added control over our passive resource generation system. You can turn on/off each pet's resource generation in the character menu.

Now Kim Jong Um can no longer poop.


Alright, that's for this week. I hope everyone has fun and don't forget Ukraine is still at war.

Another thing is I will be on a business trip to Guangdong next Monday and Tuesday to handle some legal business which is my daytime job as a lawyer that I do not enjoy but it pays well to financial the game's development. Thus, the update will likely pause on Tuesday as a result of that. Sorry about that.


This week's full update log:
20240218
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[Butterfly]Liu's Book Store is now a location that you can teleport to. It requires you have visit this location once after this update to unlock.
[Item]It's now possible to have books that give elemental proficiency experience.
[Item]New Item: The Art of Drinking 80 Cups of Water Everyday (It provides water elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: Guide to Travel with Wind in Typhoon Seasons (It provides wind elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: 8 Steps to Build a Perfect Sand Castle (It provides earth elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: Everything Is Fine in This Burning House (It provides fire elemental proficiency experience.)
[Book Store]All those new books may now randomly appear in Liu's Book Store.
[The Mages Guild]Added a book vendor that sells those elemental proficiency books.


20240219
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[Books]Moved the book name lists of all life skills books and all elemental proficiency books to two constant arrays.
[Loot]Corrupted Books may now drop elemental proficiency books.
[Book Store]Increased the number of random books the book store generates each time you want to buy books.
[Item]New Item: The Light Pollution PC and You (It provides light elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: 2084 (It provides dark elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: A Real Man Plays Kite in Storms (It provides thunder elemental proficiency experience.)
[Item]New Item: How to Cook Ice Cream: 1001 Failed Attempts (It provides ice elemental proficiency experience.)
[Cooking]New Recipe: Fish Cake (Flour+Water+Yeast+Salt + Any Fish)
[Cooking]When making Fruit Bread, the fruit you use will now affect more on the HP recovery rate of the final product.
[Cooking]Increased the EXP gained from successfully making bread of fruit bread.
[Cooking]New Recipe: Fish Frumenty (Any Fish + Wheat + Water)
[Cooking]New Recipe: Fish Baozi (Any Fish + Baozi Wrapper)


20240220
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[Item]New Item: Egg
[Food Ingredient Vendors]They now sell eggs.
[Alchemy]Eggs can be used as alchemy ingredients.
[Character]Female Turkeys in your group will now lay eggs periodically. The quality of those eggs is based on their level and Max HP. (You will get a popup that says "The Pet's Name just laid an egg.")
[Eggs]Those eggs are procedurally generated, and they will be named The Pet's Name + "'s egg." (Thus, you may make fun of this mechanism.)
[Cooking]New Recipe: Fried Egg. (The name will be automatically changed to Fried + The egg's name. Thus, you can make more fun of it. XD)
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[Alchemy]When you successfully make a potion. The system shall now correctly says "Alchemizing Success!" instead of "Cooking Success!"

20240221
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[Marinas Town Hall]New NPC: Fish Dishes Critic (He comes with a unique interactive that allows you to submit any fish dishes to him. If he likes your dishes, he will reward you. Basically, it can be considered a short repeatable quest.)
[Wiki]Added a page with details of this new NPC: Neolithia.fandom.com(NPC) [Cooking]New Recipe: Egg Frumenty
[Cooking]New Recipe: Steamed Egg with Minced Meat
[Cooking]New Recipe: Steamed Egg with Suspicious Minced Meat


20240222
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[Pet]You can now control if a pet shall lay eggs or not from the character menu.
[Pet]You can now pet more types of pets from the character menu.
[Pet]Cats are even more easy to capture now.
[Item]New Item: Poop (You can throw them at enemies. There will be other features of this item in the future.)
[Alchemy]Poops can be used in Alchemy.
[Pet]Many types of pets in your group now create poops periodically. The damage of those poops is depending on their MaxHP and level. Those poops are named as "[The Pet's Name]'s Poop."
[Pet]When a pet poops, there will be a popup to notify you.
[Pet]You can now control if a pet shall poop or not from the character menu.


20240223
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[Character Customization]Added a new playable male character. (A certain general in Ukrainian power armor.)
[Character Customization]Added a new playable male character. (Cossack.)


20240224
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[Weapon]New Weapon Type: Shashka (Always can cause bleeding. May have other prefixes.)
[Hottle Equipment Store]They now sell Shashkas with "Storm" prefixes.
[Marinas]The Blacksmith now sells Shashkas with no prefixes.
[Bazaar]The Weapon Merchant now sells Shashkas with no prefixes.