Welcome to Developer Update #4, a retrospective analysis on a missed deadline, and some amazing updates from our development team.
Delays and missed deadlines
Delaying City 17's release was a hard decision, but one we had to make. We underestimated the time it would take to program the systems necessary for an initial launch, and allowed ourselves to feature-creep launch with things we thought were cool to add, but ultimately not very necessary.
We believe we can get City 17 out in late April to early May, assuming we can keep the current pace and our team remains consistent, however we cannot provide a solid date.
For those who have not been keeping up with regular updates, we have been keeping in touch in community chat, as well as allowing developers to post updates independently in developer showcases.
Progress Report
Astro
Astro focused heavily on our weapons testing, and has even provided a test environment that you can check out . Featuring an RCL-style toggle (V), Over-the-shoulder camera, first person with synchronized animations, locked animations while reloading, ricochet, bullet drop, and even an AR2 alternate fire, he's developed a weapon framework that will last far into the future and continue to be iterated on.
Ballads
Ballads went through and performed an excellent detail pass of the train station interior, an environment we've felt has been extremely lacking for a long time, as one of the first interiors developed. We feel that the new interior will serve as a better introduction to City 17, and the contrast between the train station interior and initial plaza should not be as stark.
Chris Comstock
Chris Comstock continued and refined work on the initial menus, server selection screen, and a lot of back-end systems necessary for initial release. These menus, largely, control the player's direct interaction with the game. Included is footage of the main menu and the apartment demo. Our next steps going forward are getting these developed systems hooked directly up to City 17.
Nya0
Nya0 has revamped many of the menu screens, and developed new menu screens for the search/frisk system, character customization, loadout, and unit selection screens, filtered by branch. Attached are images of the following. These have not been hooked up, and contain placeholder images for the moment, but capture the idea we are going for very well.
PngNoRe
PngNoRe has finalized the city center, and is doing detail passes on the surrounding regions to create a more decorated gameplay environment for players.
Dam1a2
Dam1a2 has developed a frisk system for searching and taking contraband from the inventory of civilians, along with animations for the system to be hooked up to the UI developed by nya0. Combining these two systems should create a better idea of what we are going for, but the idea will be that a member of the Combine 'initiates' a frisk, and the citizen will be able to choose to resist or comply. Similarly, we are experimenting with the idea of a citizen being able to search another citizen, or even Combine.
Von Kremlin
Von Kremlin was contracted to do the Nexus Interior, and while it has a dated style, we have a valid interior design to build up and replace with our own internally made assets/props. We definitely believe a large overhaul is in order, but having a framework to work off of makes an overhaul significantly easier for our other developers, as the planning stages are some of the longest in interior design.
And last but not least, but for real...
Civan did some amazing work designing a client-side transport car for the train station that players will see the first time they join City 17, being transported into the city literally by train, alongside the bicycles for the Citizens and Combine, which is totally not an inside joke.
I knew I was missing someone, and I apologize about that! (I also hit the character limit.)
FROM THIS UPDATE
In pictures.
About this edition
Republished from the original announcement and its continuations. Discord ping syntax, thread-opening notices and unrelated personal asides have been removed; contributor names and links have been made readable. Historical plans retain their original context.