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3.0 Beta 3 includes a public beta testing period before the official release. So, here are the links for those wanting to help beta-test this version (or just really impatient). No previous beta testing experience is required - it's as simple as playing the game normally and report any bugs you encounter.
(Update 3 April night: Added Release Candidate 3 - this should become the official release tomorrow unless major game-breaking bugs are reported)
Update 3 April: Added Release Candidate 2 - a lot more playable than RC1. It fixes most of the game-breaking bugs from RC1. Will continue to work on Beta 3 after RC2 though so hopefully Beta 3 official release tomorrow should be quite solid. Bugs that remain in RC2 and will hopefully be fixed by tomorrow's official release of Beta 3: Companion sometimes doesn't stay typing filter text into interactions can get around interaction conditions after a while, contact menu - click on name > appear one second > disappear with no actions, correct age and stats though > persist even after save / load. But this fixes itself after a while go meet actor from Contact > Current, appears one second then invisible, interactable still though actor can drop below surface if the interior space changes from big room into small room, or some scenes like companion strip poker hooker from "get hooker together" keeps disappearing
(This public beta testing period for Beta 3 is a bit different cause this is the first time where I'm still actively working on the update. Here are the bugs I'm aware of and are still trying to fix before Saturday - so if you run into the same bug while playing the RC above, it would be helpful if you're able to pin down exactly how to reproduce it (do X, do Y > bug happens 10 out of 10) since most of them are hard to fix because they are time-consuming to reproduce (i.e. seems to happen randomly after some gameplay).)
The beta testing period will last around 36 hours, aiming for official release of v3.0 Beta 3 (which will include the rest of the platforms and mirrors of course) before Saturday, 4 April)
My preferred channel to receive bug reports from beta testers is via Discord. But a reply here would do too.
If you're not interested in beta-testing the game and are not super impatient to try out the new content in this version, it's recommended to just wait a bit more for the final v3.0 Beta 3 releases.
Thank you for all your help!
Change Log:
This will be the third update of our 5-update AI and Interaction Overhaul -the 60% progress mark. It will build upon the foundations laid during the first two beta updates and actually start implementing the AI and interaction systems into the game.
- Introduce a new AI system, along with a first bunch of conditional NPC behavior packages. Each NPC will now have somewhere to live, work and/or study and they will be logically somewhere on the map at any point of gameplay (work during the day, home at night, shopping / leisure activities depending on their stats for the rest of the day etc).
- Introduce a new Interaction system where you can physically click on the 3d model of any NPC at your current location and be prompted a list of relevant interactions you can do with that NPC, some of which will directly lead to scenes (i.e. this improves how 'proactive' gameplay feels - less doing random things and hoping for things to trigger). Also add a first bunch of NPC interactions, their conditions & linked scenes to go with this new system.
- These systems are designed in a way that ensures both these first NPC behavior packages and NPC interactions will be editable / moddable right away and easily with any text editors. Modders will also be able to add their own AI packages and interactions that will be picked up automatically by the new systems.
- Add a navigation system for indoor 3d space so that NPCs don't rely 100% on furniture like in Beta 2 to know where to spawn and they can stand idle or wander around too. This also means that player and NPCs will try to walk to rather than just teleporting between objects and dialogue/ interaction targets like in Beta 2. Scenes will feel less awkward than Beta 2 because of this.
- Some very basic physics mostly to aid the navigation system above
- Bug fixes and other improvements
- In summary, Beta 3 is a major coding effort and will already have most of the core components of the AI and interaction systems planned for v3.0. It will mostly just lack in variety of AI packages and interactions (which will continue to be added in Beta 4 and 3.0 Stable). Scenes will feel less awkward than Beta 2 thanks to the navigation system, although I will still have to go through all the lpscene files and add new API functions so that the scenes fully take advantage of the new fully 3d gameplay and the new AI data.