SteemKnights - Development Blog #002

TL;DR

Development Updates
- Integrating new map Throne Room into current game logic
- Milestone reached; completed the first draft of the new UI (see below for sneak peek)
- @mrbandler is working on the automation of our game development content over all our social media channels
- He also integrated new character assets with our current animations
- @mwfiae achieved a tremendous milestone in implementing the social login system (email and Google authentication)
Eternal Artifacts game design updates
- Ranking will be based on the ELO-Rating-System
- We will have five main ranks with three sub-ranks each
  - Items will have levels maxing out at five
  - Therefore: 3 * 5 = 15 which will define the amount of ranks we have
- Level items will be capped depending on the rank the player plays in
  - For example: starting at the first three sub-ranks, players will be able to use their level 1 items
- Items will have a weight value called Stones
  - Rarer and more powerful items will have a higher weight which means we are able to provide a fair match-making
Our thoughts about the current state of Steem #justinsun #steemit
- Pro community
- Pro decentralization
- For Steem we fight!
Please let us know what you think of all these proposed changes
Have a great weekend!

Greetings Lords & Ladies,

Today I want to dive into our new Ranking System. But first let me summarize what we did over the last two weeks.

I was working on integrating our newly designed map into our existing game logic framework which will serve as the main place of all the user interactions via UI elements outside the battlefield. This is what we call the Throne Room which will not only hold our interactable UI but interactive environments as well.

Here is a first sneak peak of the greyboxed Throne Room:

Another milestone I reached in the current sprint was the completion of the first draft of the UI. So we can now use the "more or less" final layout that will be used in the game. This is great because it is now easier to iterate on it because it's a more visual experience.

This is the new style of our new UI:

But for sure I was not the only one who got things done. @mrbandler was productive as well. Unfortunately he could not start the level design process with our new assets to fill the Throne Room with life. Instead he was working on Cobbo - Content Broadcast Bot; which is intended to reduce the amount of time we put in to get our game development content to all our social media channels.

@mrbandler attends to write a short section about it in some of the upcoming game development blog posts, as we think this tool could be interesting for the Steem community.

While working on Cobbo he also took some time to advance his tasks on the SteemKnights project where he successfully prepared our current animations for the upcoming knight design. God this will be amazing! If you are interested in the workflow @mrbandler used to prepare our assets, check the VOD post of the SteemKnights Development Stream tomorrow. Or just swing by every Monday at 7:00 PM UTC on @threespeak (here) and Twitch!

But what would the three musketeers be without their third member? In our case @mwfiae.
Martin achieved a tremendous milestone in implementing the social login system with which we had problems when we started the new client. But finally, it works! Now we are able to login, not only with Steemconnect, but also with common Email and Google authentication. This enables us to smooth the onboarding process for non steemian users even more. With this base set we can achieve our goal of creating a game that will lower the entry barrier to the Steem blockchain for the masses. And as the cherry on the cake even the Steem users benefit from this as well, because there is no need to retype the password/posting key everytime they start the game.

Now to our main topic for this post: the ranking system.

Ranking System

Our ranking system for Eternal Artifacts will be based on the Elo-Rating-System. The players will be matched within the ranks they are fighting in. To separate experienced players from fresh starters we will cap the item level allowed on each rank. Long story short: we did not talk about items and their levels just yet but here is a short primer. Every item has it's own level which can be "upgraded" (for lack of a better word, if you have a fitting inspiration for us please leave it on the comments below) to a maximum of Level 5. Which brings us back to the point of ranks and their amount of 15, which results from three sub-ranks for each rank, and as we want to limit the items used per rank we chose to use five main ranks which result in 3 * 5 = 15.

To make this a little bit clearer: Players will be able to use their level 1 items starting in three sub-ranks of the first main-rank (Peasant I, Peasant II, Peasant III). Level 2 items can only be used after reaching the second main-rank (Squire I, Squire II, Squire III), I'm sure you'll get the idea.

Here a overview of the ranks:

Additionally every item has it's own weight value in Stones. The player's army has a limited weight capacity which they can carry on each rank. Rarer and more powerful items will have a higher weight which means we are able to provide a fair match-making. We use this to prevent one player being able to stomp his opponent with epic or legendary weapons in the lower ranks.

You might have noticed we were heavily inspired by @steemmonsters and their ranking system. Props to them! 🍻

If you have any ideas or thoughts to further improve our ranking system, please let us know in the comments below.

Unfortunately before we let you off to the weekend we felt the responsibility to share our stand on the current state of the Steem blockchain. Yes, we are talking about #justinsun #steemit.

While the initial strike of the witnesses was harsh, we can understand the reasons and motivation behind it. We trust that the witnesses had the best interest of the blockchain and the community in mind.

On the other hand we think that the reaction and the current behavior of @justinsunsteemit is unprofessional. Not to forget the resulting actions from the exchanges, abusing their users funds is absolutely not acceptable! But we still encourage all parties to enter into a lengthy dialogue about the future of Steem.