A short-lived time during the development of Camelot Unchained when anyone with an Alpha account could play CU before the true Alpha of the game was finished. It was not very close to a real game at this point, but somewhere between a tech demo and a mini-game. It should also be noted that Pre-Alpha was never part of the original plan. Only Internal Test was supposed to see the game at this early stage of development, but with the 6 month delay of Alpha, Mark Jacobs offered to try and make it up to the Alpha backers in several ways, one of which was access to the Pre-Alpha Tests, as a kind of "mea culpa".
The P.A.T.s were held at scheduled times, during which anyone who had an account with Alpha access could get in to play a simple control point game in a small Battle-Ground-like zone. This was the first time any Backers (outside of the Internal Test group) could semi-regularly test or play the same basic zone and game that the game's developers and Internal Testers had been working and testing on. The P.A.T.s happened on the Wyrmling server (the production server), and were not the cutting edge game that IT saw on Hatchery, but a more stable build. While it was quite close, it wasn't the same as the Hatchery (IT) server, where the game developers could and would change or add things daily.[1]
Early Character Creation[ | ]
During the P.A.T.s, players could pick from all three Realms, and 3 different races within each Realm, to play a total of 9 races. However, there were only 3 total Archetypes to pick from. Prior to the P.A.T.s, everyone had all the same abilities, but now got to pick between 3 different Archetypes: fighter, mage, and healer. During this time the races and Archetypes were locked together, e.g. if a player wanted to play a Viking Mage, they had to play the Valkyrie race. The races were all a little different from each other (speed, mass, etc.), and some of the Archetypes eventually had significant differences in the abilities available to them, albeit on a similar theme (for example, a fireball as opposed to a waterball).[1]
First look at Stats, Banes, and Boons[ | ]
During the P.A.T.s, many early systems were added to the game, including character stat read-outs (during character creation), with 20 points of stats to allocate, and the first implementation of the Banes and Boons system. The 20 points allocated to states were not implemented, so had no impact on the game. This also went for the Banes and Boons; even though over 400 of them were available, they ware also purely cosmetic at the time. Some of the base stats of your race did have an effect; mostly the character or race's max movement speed, mass, max stamina, and max HP.[1]
The Archetypes and Abilities of the P.A.T.[ | ]
Each Realm had 3 fixed race/Archetype combinations to choose from. While the races clearly differed from Realm to Realm, the Archetypes had subtler differences in their abilities. All had significant, if non-obvious, mechanical differences in their abilities, despite appearing very similar. For example, the Arthurians mage magic was fire-based, and came with damage-over-time effects. The Vikings mage was water-based and got snares, and the Tuatha Dé Danann mage was earth-based, with knockbacks.
Every race had a different speed, though the different Archetypes were close to the same speed (meaning fighters of any race were in the same league as the other fighters). From fastest to slowest, the archetypes were: fighters, healers, and mages. Also, both healers and mages used health in order to cast any and all spells (their hit points were also their mana). Even if a spell would take them into negative health, it would still go off—killing them. Everyone got a self-healing ability, which at first was the only way for fighters and mages to heal. Although the healers could heal themselves to a point, the self-heal bandage was still useful to them. Health regen, a stamina bar, and stamina regen were also added as time went on. While fighters' attacks didn't use any stamina at the start of the P.A.T. (early on everything just had cool-downs), by the end they get a stamina bar. The mass of the character was mainly a factor for the healers; they got a self-push spell that took their mass into account. Fighters also had a knock back attack that was somewhat less powerful than the healers quick escape spell.
This was City State Entertainment's very early showcasing of Archetypes in a build. Most of the attacks and powers were picked for their game mechanic testing value, rather then game balance. Most of the casting was on an unusually long cast timer (up to 15 sec), which was done deliberately to make spell interruption easy to test. Also, the Alpha testers got their first taste of the A.I.R. system (Action, Interaction, and Reaction) during the P.A.T.s. If a water-based spell collided with a fire-based one, steam would be created at the point of contact.[1]
The Control Point game of the P.A.T.s and the first look at the C.U.B.E. system of Camelot Unchained[ | ]
The P.A.T. matches lasted 10 minutes, with a running tally kept of each Realm's score and a clear winner at the end. There were 2 ways to score points: killing other players, and holding onto Points of Control. At the center of the map, there was a Point of Control (PoC) that started as a yellow duck. If one Realm could take control of it, the duck would change color to whichever Realm owned it. As time ticked by, the Realm with ownership of the PoC gained additional points. A PoC was added in between each Realm's spawn point, for a total of four including the central point.
This was also the first time Backers (again, outside of IT) got a look at the very rudimentary system that would become the C.U.B.E./Building System. Although it didn't greatly affect the mini-game, it did have some role. One could only build with the blocks at each Realm's spawn point, or at the PoC's (not including the center point).[1]
How and why the P.A.T.s came about[ | ]
Back when City State Entertainment first announced the delay of Alpha, it came as a surprise to very few. CSE had said many times that they were short on the programmers they needed. Unusually for many game studios, CSE stuck to what they promised from the beginning: rather then backpedaling or trying to deceive their Backers in some way, they came right out with the truth, which was that they were behind schedule. (Mark Jacobs noted that he could have repeated that the listed dates were just estimates, and been done with it). At this time, Mark Jacobs spoke of a way to start getting Alpha Backers into the game ahead of the true Alpha release date. This turned into what is now known as the P.A.T.s, and was one of several mea culpas offered by Mark by way of apology.[1]
The checklists were a series of milestones published by City State Entertainment during the lead-up to the launch of their Alpha testing. As both a form of a countdown, and an effective means of keeping the Backers up-to-date on everything that was getting done (some of which was all but unnoticeable), CSE added a link on the main Camelot Unchained website home page: the Pre-Alpha Test checklists. Anyone on their main site could check up on just how they were doing with their up to date checklist. Basically, as soon as everything was checked off the final list, CSE would launch Alpha. There were 4 different checklists. A few items were not checked off, and instead moved to Alpha to make room for some other tasks that came up during the P.A.T.s. The most notable of these surprise add-ons (54 in total) was the C.U.B.E.. The C.U.B.E. system wasn't supposed to be in the game until after Alpha, but was one of Mark Jacobs' mea culpa rewards to make up for being late with Alpha. Once Alpha did come about, the Backers were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the main production server (Wyrmling) didn't need to be running to get into the C.U.B.E. system. Not only that, but in this early state they could build in their own zone, without worrying about running into anyone else's creations.
Going into Alpha, the P.A.T. Checklists were replaced by user stories to describe a range of technical details.
Detailed Lists[ | ]
P.A.T. Checklist #1
System to define abilities by player race and archetype
New archetypes - Mages, Support, Melee.
10 abilities per archetype with different strengths and weaknesses per realm
Projectile tracking
Ability to spawn a wall spell/object
Wall has health and is targettable
Character mobility system when casting
Ability VFX for corresponding ability types First Pass
Ability tool tips
New character creation UI
Interim ability editor
Abilities moved to Database
Movement speed tied to terrain incline
New physics objects
Dynamically updating placeable collision using mesh or primitive shapes
First pass configuration settings on character and client
Character persistence - position upon logout, health, kills, stats
First pass skeleton masking system for animation
Multipart animations to support stages of movements
Female Firbog in game
Server auto-updating system
Dynamic master server list
Server Zone Control and rezoning
Set up new server hardware and software
Up to date server list for server controller and master server
New weapon models for testing
Texture updates pre-existing characters
Jumping!
Terrain size increased 4 times.
Improved terrain shader
Improved height map generation and accuracy
Improved draw distance fogging
Sky parameters exposed to editor
Objective based gameplay
New website and forums
Fixed low framerate for lower end graphics cards (object/tree fixes)
AMD cards visual issues with trees/alphas - fixed
Client side crash logging and sending to DB
Projectile Collision system with secondary effect spawning - Steam cloud
Ranged Magic projectiles and physics
AOE damage ability
First pass VFX system with lighting
Player to player collision.
Server side collision
Players have mass by size
Knockbacks
Forward + rendering system added
Point lights in world
First pass inventory system
Torches - point lights on characters
Improvements to CSE account editor allowing us to handle requests better.
P.A.T. Checklist #2
Add 'Send' notifications to all servers.
Add attachable lights/vfx to objects.
Add character bone LOD'ing.
Add editable patcher play test times.
Add editor support for particle effects on walls and cloud effects.
Add Inverse mouse support.
Add lifetime subscription option for Builders. Defer to PAT3
Add Resource Manager to server.
Add self-targetting.
Add store banner for Lifetime Subscription pledge for Builders.
Add tabs to chat UI and expose to API.
Add toggle-able name plates.
Build additional client-test machines.
Concept heavy armor for each realm.
Enhance website screenshot section.
Facelift for PATS UI.
Finish internal server hardware setup. Defer to PAT3
Finish mid stance with two handed sword animations.
Finish Vision Document for Viking Warrior class.
First Draft of Vision Document for Arthurian Mage class.
First Pass - Ability interaction matrix.
First Pass - Dual-Targetting system.
First Pass - Quantity setup for store.
First Pass - reticle aiming art.
First Pass - Skill and ability training template.
First Pass - Stormrider model.
First Pass - T-shirt setup for store.
First Pass - UV Layout for Stormrider heavy armor.
First Pass - UV Layout for Viking heavy armor.
First Pass - Concept Mages.
Framework for additional ability resources. Defer to PAT3
Implement sRGB textures. Defer to PAT3
Improve current concept art section on website.
Improved compression of client/server commands. Defer to PAT3
Improved compression of UDP packets.
Improved crash report generation.
Improvements and fixes to current PAT terrain.
Improvements to bots to further stress test networking code.
List of materials for armor and armor types defined by light, medium and heavy armor.
Move server limits to config file.
Multithreading renderable / animation updates on client. Defer to PAT4
Next Pass - TDD Bean Sidhe armor concept.
Patcher iframe "popup" functionality added.
PATS vfx improvements.
Preferred playtimes tracked on user accounts.
Preliminary axe and shield animation list.
Preliminary longsword animation list.
Preliminary Realm-based vfx concepting.
Reduce client install size.
Regenerative resources such as health.
Reticle aiming design.
Second stance animations for melee combat prototyping.
Several rewrites to lore.
Store artwork for future SWAG offerings.
Various improvements to internal world editor.
Additional Items
Add Auto-run
Cleaned up / improved several terrain textures
Control Game Improvements (Spawn at dais if enter mid round and vfx stop when round restarts)
Improvements to reporting of server-side collision data.
Unify server and client code for handling of assets in a zone.
Combined three different physics objects into a single gameplay-focused object to handle collisions.
World Editor - Placeable point and spot lights
World Editor - Lock feature for placeables
World Editor - Search filter in Scene Tree.
Added a /help command that prints out all chat slash commands.
First Pass - VFX concepting Magma and Storm elements
Optimized how data is organized behind the scenes, resulting in faster client start up time.
New ability classifications: Friend, Self, and FriendOrSelf.
Character Art Pipeline - Create a single equipment resource.
P.A.T. Checklist #3
Finish internal server hardware setup Deferred
Improvements to Client Performance
First Pass new building system
First Pass building system UI design. Defer to PAT4
First Pass building system design.
First Pass - List of all magic and spell types for tech and vfx scoping.
First Pass Stormrider abilities for melee combat prototyping
Channeling abilities
First pass spell and ability crafting system back-end. Defer to PAT4
Finish framework for Additional ability resources.
Fix to missing Characters upon login due to SSL exploit patch.
UI Layering - Synchronize order of input and order of rendering.
UI Layering - Allow users to change a widget's layer.
Move applicable UI fields to OnChanged callbacks rather than continuous polling.
UI - Reduce inter-process redundancy.
First Pass Ability Crafting System UI
Color CSE account messages in client chat
Implement sRGB colorspace for textures. Deferred
Begin HDR/sRGB render target. Deferred
Update store with Additional, limited quantity, tiers.
Update store with Lifetime pledge for Builders
Various Improvements to store - responsiveness and caching.
Add human readable callstacks to database and CrashReporter UI.
Create interface to sort crashes by time and file location.
First pass building system UI Defer to PAT4
Improve nameplate handling for large number of onscreen players.
Character Art Pipeline - Pull geo from sub materials assigned to model.
Character Art Pipeline - Reduce number of model files for a Character.
Character Art Pipeline - Character built from parts animates correctly.
Character Art Pipeline - Load Character art resources into slots according to layers.
Character Art Pipeline - Merge per-slot pieces with vertex merg/averaging.
Character Art Pipeline - First pass texture decaling.
Set up Stormrider archetype for melee combat prototyping needs.
New model loading solution to correctly verify model ready issues. Deferred
Set up an import comparison system to reduce errors with FBX imports.
Animation use hierarchical transformations
First Pass Ability Crafting UI Design
First Pass Building system UI artwork Defer to PAT4
Determine First Camelot Unchained tshirt printing. Deferred
Review all edited/pitch Lore Docs from Max
Approve final edits to Lore Docs
Second pass Crafting Doc
Rewrites to the Ulfhednar Becoming story.
Rewrites to the Dvergar Becoming story.
Rewrites to the Luchorpan Becoming story.
Rewrites to the Hamadryads Becoming story.
Rewrites to the Golems Becoming story.
Final rewrites to stories based on Mark's feedback