Star Stable February Blog: Path of Terra, Unicorns & Tech Update

Path of Terra & Unicorns

By Emma Jerlin (Junior Designer), Harri Jokinen (Content Game Designer) & Yonna Ingolf (Content Game Designer)

Hello dear Jorvegians! We are Em, Harri, and Yonna, a brave bundle of designers here to share some behind-the-scenes tidbits about the Path of Terra and the Unicorns of Hollow Woods.

Path of Terra

Path of Terra was the third and final path in the Hollow Woods progression, split into its own release to allow the team to give the project, and the brand new gameplay introduced in it, the time it deserved. 

Have you tried out gardening yet? The Valedale communal garden uses a new gardening system, built by our Gameplay Programmers, which made the implementation process so much smoother for us designers! We could easily tweak plants' unique growth times or other values, the conditions required for a rare plant to grow, or which mesh was associated with which plant. We could then try it out in-game and quickly make adjustments as needed! For example, at the beginning of production, every plant cost 3 Wild Seeds to plant, but this was later reduced to 1 as we realized that felt better!

Additionally, having this new system as the foundation opens the door to adding more plants, new fertilizer types, or new types of rare plants in a fraction of the time it would otherwise. Or perhaps a completely new garden, with new rare plants exclusive to somewhere else on Jorvik? And my (Emma) personal favorite - this system allows the plants to keep growing even when you’re logged out of the game!

Another big part of Path of Terra was giving Farah’s plants more use. With the plants you grow in the garden or find around Jorvik, you can not only craft fertilizer and consumables, but you can also crush them into light or donate them to Farah to improve your reputation with her. 

“Consumables” in the context of Hollow Woods was a brave experiment where we put entirely new magic in players' hands - such as being able to open your storage from anywhere on Jorvik. Did you know the Storage Consumable underwent a few name changes during production? Sir Storage and Glow-get-my-stuff were both possible contenders; however, Will-O-Wardrobe was the name we ended up going with in the end.

Unicorns of Hollow Woods

We also released two unicorn-related quests! They involve discovery and finding hidden things within the forest. 

Tynan is a philosophical unicorn who often gets lost in thought and lost in Hollow Woods! If you see the little black squirrel Sterling standing around alone close to any of the main roads in the forest, you’ll know Tynan is off daydreaming somewhere. Sterling has a good nose for magic, and he’s always searching close to places where magical trails of stones will appear and help lead you to Tynan. 

Nanny the goat has been looking over Phoebe for eons, and she acts as a guardian to this unicorn. When Nanny rings her magical bell, Phoebe follows the sound of this voice. Phoebe’s gameplay involved finding pieces of runestones, which have magical bells floating around them. By ringing the bells, you discover more locations for the activity and finally reunite Nanny with her unicorn. 

It was an interesting challenge to fit these quests into the timeframe that we had, with the unicorn- and pet releases already set in stone! We had a very short discovery and prototyping phase, and the whole production spanned over three weeks. Of course we had to do fixes to the gameplay according to QA feedback after the deadline as well!

Since the release, we’ve seen some players concerned that the pets and horses are locked behind this content, but we’re happy to tell you that’s not the case - they’re available for purchase in Valedale Village whether you’ve played through the quests or not! This was one of the instructions that we were given for this project, and we felt like it was fitting for the release. If players enjoy this kind of content, we might try out some more experimental features with the horse-related content in the future. 

Thanks for reading, and for playing! We hope you’ll have fun with all the new bell-ringing, goat bleating, horse-finding, squirrel squeaking, rare planting, and cozy gardening there’s to do in Hollow Woods <3

Tech Update - Unsupported Operating Systems

By Ismael Serrano (Technical Director) & Ali Farha (Technical Producer)

Hello! We're Ismael Serrano (Technical Director) and Ali Farha (Technical Producer), and we're here to discuss the deprecation of unsupported OSs (Operating System) that will happen on March 6th and the main reasons we are doing this that include security, testing and modernising our tech.

Let's take a closer look at the operating systems being phased out.

For Windows Users:

• Windows 7

• Windows 8

• Windows 8.1
  

For macOS users:

• macOS 10.13 High Sierra

• macOS 10.14 Mojave

• macOS 10.15 Catalina

• macOS 11 Big Sur

We're saying goodbye to these OS versions for several reasons, which we'll explain next.

Security Concerns:

The primary reason for removing support for old OSs is that Microsoft and Apple, the once developing the systems, no longer support these OSs, meaning they no longer fix bugs that happen to these versions including receiving  security updates anymore. Here's when support was dropped for the OS from their makers:

• Windows 7: January 2020

• Windows 8: January 2016

• Windows 8.1: January 2023

• macOS 10.13 High Sierra: December 2020

• macOS 10.14 Mojave: October 2021

• macOS 10.15 Catalina: September 2022

• macOS 11 Big Sur: September 2023

This carries a significant security risk for us and should concern you, too. Being exposed to a security issue from an deprecated OS can have serious consequences. Deprecated OSs may not receive the latest security updates and patches, making it more vulnerable to cyber threats. If attackers find a vulnerability in the outdated system, they could potentially gain unauthorised access, steal personal information, install malicious software, or disrupt normal operations. This could lead to data breaches, financial losses, identity theft, and other harmful consequences. Regularly updating OS helps to address known security vulnerabilities and protect against evolving cyber threats.

Testing Efficiency:

We'll require less time to test features by dropping support for several OSs. This allows us to catch more bugs and solve issues faster for devices that we do support and the overall game experience will be more coherent.

Evolving Technologies

Parts of our tech stack are limited today when we support these outdated OSs. Deprecating those OSs then enables us to update our tech to use newer functionalities, offering better performance and allowing us to craft a better player  experience while ensuring a system that is keeping your experience secure.

We're also excited to integrate new features from C++20 (C++ is our code language and the version 20 was released Dec-2020) into our Engine. This upgrade promises a more secure code interface, reduced compile times, and cleaner code for faster iteration. 

But what does this mean to you as a player? This means a more stable game experience and being able to locate, fix, and deploy bug fixes faster!

What do you need to do?

If your operating system is not supported, first check if it can be updated by visiting Microsoft support centre if you are on Windows and Apple Support if you are on Mac. If you can’t upgrade    you will unfortunately not be able to play the game with that computer. If you have access to any other computer, an Android phone or an Apple phone your account will still be there and you can continue to play the game on those devices. Your account will not disappear when we stop supporting the operating system that your computer runs on.  

If you're affected, you should have received an alert on the launcher. Ensure you upgrade your OS to at least the new minimum before March 6th to continue your adventures in Jorvik. Our promise to you has been to move to a more secure and better   user experience, and this is another step to move in that direction!