Update 19 consists of mostly underlying work to upgrade the game engine. Windstone now uses version 4.19 of the UE4 engine. Windstone will upgrade to 4.20 and 4.21 in the future and with each subsequent update to the UE4 engine when the new versions are stable. As of now, version 4.20 and 4.21 have an issue with the Blueprint Compilation Manager that conflicts with Windstone.

This engine upgrade required many things to change in Windstone's code, most of which is not apparent to the player, but the end result and development functionality is much better. A visual and performance increase should be immediately noticeable.

Other changes and fixes:

The custom mouse cursor now looks like a stone arrow head again instead of the standard windows arrow.

The custom mouse cursor also now appears at the same spot at the center of the screen when menus are activated.

An issue is fixed that caused the leg armour animation to become out of sync with the leg animation while walking.

A counter measure has been added to help keep from getting stuck in foundations when loading a game that was saved while standing in a building. A better fix is being worked on but this will be determined by how the new level streaming/loading system evolves as it is still a work in progress.

Button highlights in the inventory have been disabled. Upgrading the engine caused them to bug out entirely and much of the inventory drag-and-drop programming had to be changed. For now, the highlights are deemed unnecessary but may be implemented again in the future.

The Details pop-up Widget when mousing over an inventory item now shows after .5 seconds in both the inventory and storage. The position of the pop-up relative to the mouse cursor has also been changed slightly due to the custom cursor. A user setting may be added to change the time delay for the pop-up or to disable it entirely, but that's in the bells and whistles category for much much later unless enough people want it sooner and protest.

Windstone should now open in full screen by default instead of windowed mode.

It now takes 3x longer for your mental fortitude to become muddled from all effects. If you die now from being muddled you better just stay indoors for the rest of your life.  Some day I plan on adding difficulty levels where the muddled mechanic will be different for each one. For now, keep mushrooms on you and room in your belly to eat them at all times for emergencies and becoming muddled will never be a problem. Most mushrooms increase your mental fortitude. Warning: There are very few mushrooms in the snow biome except for what you may randomly find in storage baskets.

The female proxy character has been added to the dragon. When you are mounted on a dragon (the camera switches automatically to third person) you will now see some of the weapons and armour that you have equipped that are visible on your character in the inventory menu.

The default FOV (Field of View) has changed due to the engine upgrade. It is still not adjustable in options, but it is wider than it was. FOV adjustability is another for the bells and whistles of the future.

Stone arrows now inflict about 2x more damage and Obsidian arrows about 3x more.

Harvesting meat, carapace, hide and feathers from carcasses now will happen with every swing of the knife or hammer (the hammer is only used for carapace). Instead of the Obsidian Knife giving a higher chance of harvesting with each swing, it now allows you to harvest twice as much meat and feathers.

Below are known issues that have cropped up since the engine upgrade and have yet to be fixed:

The LOD system is completely different and may not be as optimized as it once was. This can cause some visual and performance degradation. I will be working on this more as everything is adapted to the new version of the engine.

AI and navigation of wildlife has more issues, especially with the Formicans on inclines and the Ostri in general. For the most part they still seek and attack you in the same way when you are close enough to them, but you may find yourself looking at the wildlife from a distance and thinking, "wtf is that creature doing over there?" as the creature tries to figure out wtf it is doing.

Some stones may not be able to be picked up that were able to be picked up before.  Please let me know if you find any other item that is not able to be picked up (that you knew you could pick up before). Basically every thing should be able to be pickup up or destroyed except for the grass, the pre-existing buildings and some ground foliage.

When loading a game from a save, it may hang at 40% (SaveInterfaceCall) for a few minutes. This did not happen before upgrading to 4.19. I'm working on a fix for this now as this is a huge priority.

Thank you for playing Windstone!