DD #148 Light-Hearted Thanksgiving news - [Neolithic]To the End

Hi, everyone! Welcome to the last developer's diary of November!

That also means we are in the week of Thanksgiving.
I'd like to thank everyone who is on this long journey with me, especially the people who provide me with feedback and help. The game will not be the same without you! As you may find in our daily updates, we got 2 additional updates this week with changes and bug fixes all thanks to those constructive feedback and bug reports.

Now, let's go further down to the content updates of this week.
First, we get Turkeys!

After all, it's Thanksgiving.
But, where can we find turkeys in the game? According to the old Stone Age Online, turkeys exist in a town located in the west part of Sayinas Island, known as Hottle. Thus, we expanded our map all the way to there to include this town in our playable areas. Now we have access to three towns in Sayinas Island.

However, the path to get there is not that easy. Also according to that old Stone Age Online, there is a bandit called Genzou guarding a bridge on the path to there.

But, as we are now living in a modern world, we no longer call bandits as bandits. They are now called toll collectors. :D
Anyway, that makes a return of another iconic character.

Certainly, he has a relationship card here. If you pay him tolls to pass the bridge, you can improve your relationship with him. But, you can also attack him to get through the bridge. Such action will decrease your relationship with him of course.
If you decide to fight him, his loyal dog companion will join him. The dog will be very useful in the battle by sleeping all the time and deciding to escape once Genzou is defeated. Well, at least, moral support is provided.
The entire encounter and this character are supposed to be funny just as he was in old times. However, just like the theme of this game, there are always secrets beneath something that seems so natural and happy. Our past defines who we are. We will know about his past in future updates.
Meanwhile, feel free to use his appearance on your main character or any customized teammates.

I know some people want to make a character with his big Afro hairstyle. It's specifically designed to make him look closer to what he was in Stone Age Online.
A side note: Porting hairs from DAZ is a very bad idea. Too many polygons. It took me quite a while to manually reduce the hair to a usable level.

To more peaceful players, there is also another easier way to solve this Genzou problem. That is using our new Mammoth Inc. Bus Services in Sayinas Island. As the area in Sayinas is growing bigger, it's time to add public transportation between towns in addition to the Butterfly Wings. By using public transportation, you can technically teleport to any town in Sayinas Island except one that is not in the game right now. The driver will briefly introduce your destination as each town on this island has its unique features.

Meanwhile, to make our Templars with Machine Gun meme a real thing, we now also added new bullet types in Samujier Cathedral

Just for a reminder, here is the screenshot of that old Templar Cutscene:

They are your potential allies back in Chapter Two. :)

What else do we get this week?
Samujier's post office is open! You can put yourself in a package and tell the postal officers to deliver you back to your safe house or pocket dimension. A strange way of transportation. However, it may solve the problem that the doorway system does not exist in Salinas.

You can ask Alicia how to become a cat-lover like her in a short quest. Consequently, you can gain more benefits from having cats in your group, especially for a magic user.

You can now buy analysis bullets in Bazaar. It's more about filling in a missing piece of our previous story. After all, that is the type of bullets Zhang Yin used in both versions of prologues.

That's for this week. More detailed updated information can be found below.
Now we also get some good news and some bad news.
Bad news: I think I may get quite busy all the way till December 4th because of pressure from both my daytime job as a lawyer and another side project of mine. Thus, the update speed may be affected. Alright, it's just a big maybe. Because you can see me talking about such things all the time. Yet, we still maintain daily updates.
Good news: There will be another sale right at the start of the December after Steam Autumn Sale. Because of two "Holy Days" in this game's history. A reminder of all our past glorious. :)

So, have fun and enjoy the Thanksgiving. I will be working on filling in the remaining parts of Sayinas Island while also pushing towards Qinuyi Island.


This week's full update log:
20231118
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[Gun Module]New Module: Rifle Holy Light Mag.
[Gun Module]New Module: Pistol Holy Light Mag
[Samujier Cathedral]The merchant now sells Rifle Holy Light Mags and Pistol Holy Light Mags.
[Samujier Cathedral]The merchant can now modify guns for you.
[Samujier Cathedral]Random prayers now appear in this cathedral.
[Battle]Specious-specific power modifiers will now check if the target belongs to the target species before applying. (For example, a modifier +10% damage to demons, shall now first check if the target is a demon before applying this modifier.)
[Battle]Optimized the calculation of elemental damage modification for guns.
[Samujier]New Location: Samujier Post Office.
[Butterfly]Once you visit the Samujier Post Office, you can teleport there.
###########Debug##################
[UI]Fixed some display issues for array-based special attributions on gun modules and after attaching them to a gun.


20231119
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[Character Customization]Added a new male character variation for your main character or any customized teammates.
[Relationship]Captain Nameless will now only appear in your relationship UI after the Prologue.

20231120
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[QuickSave/QuickLoad]A message will now display when you try to use hotkeys to quick-save or quick-load while the game is unable to do so.
[QuickSave/QuickLoad]You can now quick-save and quick-load during most of the dialogs.
[QuickSave/QuickLoad]As I am currently not able to test all cases of quick saving during all dialogs, bugs may happen. Thus, a warning message will appear.
[Samujier Post Office]Added a postal manager.
[Samujier Post Office]You can put yourself in a package and ask them to send you back to the Safehouse or Your pocket dimension if it's unlocked.
[Samujier Post Office]Added a local version of the "Lost & Found" vendor.
[Lost & Found]The shop inventory is now a function shared between different Lost & Found vendors.
[Lost & Found]After you get Kayir's medicine once during the Paddy Field quest, Kayir's medicine will now appear in the Lost&Found inventory in case you somehow lost the item.
[Sayinas]New Location: The Bridge of Genzou


20231120B
English
############Content################
Optimized the memory control of the game party class. A clean-up to hash tables will automatically trigger when your group gains/loses an item/weapon/equipment.
###########Debug##################
Fixed a bug that may cause the crash in some random item delivery missions. (Caused by null pointers in item inventory. (Thanks for 渺兔's bug report.))

20231121
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[Skill]All speech-based skills now provide their users with speech EXP. (Scaled by the number of targets.)
[The Bridge of Genzou]Added Genzou and his dog.
[The Bridge of Genzou]You can pay a toll to let Genzou let you pass.
[The Bridge of Genzou]You can attack Genzou to get through here. (His dog will join the fight but not do anything helpful at all. Once Genzou is defeated and his dog is not sleeping, Genzou's dog will start to escape.)
[Genzou]After meeting him for the first time, he will appear on your relationship list. (Attack him reduces relationship, pay tolls increases relationship.)
#############System################
Added la_addexp as a pure virtual function in Game_Battler to be inherited by its child classes. The reason here is just to make a failsafe against potential crashes.


20231122
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[Tileset]New Tileset: Mountain-Desert (It can be used in your pocket dimension.)
[The Bridge of Genzou]The area is now set as a generic Sayinas Outdoor area. Thus, you can teleport from here by using Butterfly Wings. It also has fishing data automatically set.
[Sayinas Island]New Location: Hottle Suburbs
[Sayinas Island]New Location: Hottle (Map only, no content yet.)
[BGM]Added new BGMs for those two new locations.
[Hottle Suburbs]Cactus People may be found in this location.
[Pet]New Pet/Animal: Turkey. (Happy Thanksgiving. :D)
[Hottle Suburbs]Turkeys will appear in this area.
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Random caves with "Cute Animal" themes may now have turkeys.
[Butcher]Zhao Sandao can now butcher Turkeys.
[Butterfly]Added Hottle into the Sayinas Butterfly Wings Network.


20231123
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[Hottle]Random townfolks now walk around the town on their life routine. They have their own greeting messages. They will also tell you local rumors.
[Hottle]Added 4 random merchants in the local market area. (Their types are randomized every time you enter this town.)
[Hottle]Added a static food vendor.
[Hottle]Added a static caretaker.
[Sayinas Island]You can now find Mammoth Inc. Bus Services in all major towns. You can now use buses to travel around the island. (You can also use those buses to unlock the teleportation of those towns you previously have not visited. You can also use those buses to bypass Genzou's bridge.)
[Mammoth Inc. Bus Services]When you select a destination, the driver will tell you some information about that town.


20231123B
English
############Content################
#############System################
Disabled the quick load during dialogs. It's way too buggy in some cases. (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)
Changed the quick load hotkey's behavior, it now calls the entire loading menu so that you can select which save to load.
###########Debug##################
Fixed a missing localization in Chinese languages in the Windows setting. (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)
Unified Harold's name in Traditional Chinese. (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)
Fixed some characters in Traditional Chinese that are displayed as Simplified Chinese. (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)
Fixed some typos in Chinese languages. (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)
Fixed two places where Harold's name is incorrectly displayed as Zhang Yin in the quest "Hello Stranger." (Thanks for Loni's streaming. :D)


20231124
English
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[Samujier Hospital]All healing spells now bypass any learning limitation here.
[Localization]Moved localization text of equipment modules to their own localization file.
[Gun Module]New Gun Module: Pistol Analysis Mag. (Sold in the Bazaar. That shall explain where Zhang Yin got his analysis bullets from during the prologue. )
[Hottle]Added a Phoenician Captain to provide mercenary service.
[Pet]Petting cats or dogs from the menu now also increases your total cat-petting and dog-petting statics.
[Quest]Added a tiny little quest in the safehouse: How to become a cat-lover? (Talk to Alicia to start.)
[Wiki]Added a wiki page of the quest "How to become a cat-lover? "
###########Debug##################
Fixed a bug that when a character has no life skill unlocked, there may be a display error in their life skill menu.