It's developer update time! Today we are digging into the technical details about Wonders of Aether and when you can start playing!

The road to Alpha and new milestones

## It's developer update time! Today we are digging into the technical details about Wonders of Aether and when you can start playing!

*First off, I would like to give a big thanks to everyone in our [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt), [Twitch streams](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether), and our moderators for helping out while we code away! Everyone is positively incredible, making every stream and interaction so much fun!* ***Thank you sincerely!***

## We are growing!
Not then; what I wanted to talk about today was something I thought would help calm the "let me in!" jitters. I couldn't believe the extensive amounts of attention WoA would pick up so quickly. I couldn't be happier and truly grateful! Thank you! Because of the new pace of members joining us, I've been asked many times a particular question, so I thought it would be good to clarify in more detail here. The question, of course, is, "When can I play the pre-alpha!?" Let me first dig into what a Pre-Alpha is, in case you didn't know.

## What is a Pre-Alpha?
Now, this is a term I've seen thrown around a lot, but we use it for a technical reason. Pre-Alphas in software release life cycles are in development milestone versions that incorporate specific sets of functionality to each release. They are in technical terms released in night builds or the latest compiled versions of code for testing. They are not LTS(long-term support versions) as they may get wholly reworked or become incompatible with other updates later. One way to generalize this is to think of a Pre-Alpha as many parts of a whole combined to create the Alpha build.

![Wonders of Aether Road to Alpha](/news/2021-08-10/road-to-alpha-milestones.jpg)
## Why is WoA in Pre-Alpha?
We are recreating the wheel, it seems! As a passionate gamer and knowing the hurdle of building an MMORPG, I decided to build in reverse by starting with the community. I knew what I wanted to build from the beginning but understand that it would be ignorant to assume what other people wanted out of WoA. I was also tired of making software with user-needed assumptions based on some (possibly misleading) data points. Also, that's not very fun, and WoA is a passion project worth more than a few points on a chart. That's when I thought, why not include the community in the Pre-Alpha stage and find people interested in building such a game. The game would be made regardless but could be tweaked and modified early on based on community feedback. This method also increased our flexibility to change and prevents building feature assumptions, creating a better overall game!

## What does that mean for WoA?
We are in the process of building our Alpha, or the next step. The true Alpha is a nearly completed piece of software that is being tested as a finished product. To get to this stage of release for WoA, we need to complete our milestone tests during this Pre-Alpha phase. So today, I have released a milestone tracker on everyone's profile here on wondersofaether.com! [Please go check it out!](/dashboard)

## The road to Alpha
The milestone tracker will be updated live before each milestone testing period. If you want to be ahead of the update curve and contribute your thoughts on each release, please join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)! We would love to have you, and I am always there to chat under the name @Waffles! I hope this clarifies some confusion, and I can't wait to talk to you on [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)! Have a great week, and see you next time!


[Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)

[Watch our Stream (Every Friday!)](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) 




Huge community updates released! Interact and build with our new community tools out right now.

Suggest and vote on new features to be added to WoA

## Huge community updates released! Interact and build with our new community tools out right now.

*As always, I want to thank everyone for joining our [Twitch streams](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) and chatting with us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt). Without your support and ideas, WoA wouldn't be in the place it is today. I can't believe how positively wonderful our community has become. Everyone is so sweet and fun to talk to, so thank you again for being a part of this journey!*


## V is for voting?
That's right; we can now suggest and vote on community ideas. We combined the functionality of Reddit and a simple, agile development scrum board to give you the ability to contribute ideas directly to us! Now this update is in its infancy, but we will adjust its functionality based on your response! You could even suggest updates to the new voting system with the new voting system; now that's meta.

![Wonders of Aether Suggest a Feature And Vote](/news/2021-09-15/wonders-of-aether-voting-system.jpg)

## How does it work?
First off, if you are full of ideas, you need to fill out the [Suggest a Feature](/vote/new) form. After reading the rules and submitting the form, we will moderate your post and release it into the wild within 24-48hrs. If you need rush delivery, feel free to @Waffles in our [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt), and I can take a look! After your suggestion gets posted [here](/vote/popular), users will be able to vote up, down, and comment on your suggestion. When your post gets popular and we've solidified the request, you might see your feature move into [Selected for Development](/vote/selected-for-development), where the spec is established on the feature with no further edits. After this spec process, you will see the feature move into [In Development](/vote/in-development), where you can see live updates to your feature all the way to completion!

![Wonders of Aether Suggest a Feature And Vote](/news/2021-09-15/build-features-together.jpg)

## Get your name in the credits of WoA!
People who contribute by posting features and adding constructive conversation to feature requests will get their name credited in the final version of WoA! Just be sure your comments stay on topic and contribute to building the feature, and you're in! Champion your post to popularity by sharing it with friends to help improve your chances of changing that request into a full-blown feature!

## Good soup, but why?
We had a mixture of ideas coming from all over the place, and it was getting difficult to manage everyone's input on ideas. It became hard to track all your great ideas! So I didn't want to lose the connection with our community as we continued to grow and decided this was an excellent first step to staying organized.

## But Wait... There's More!
As we grow, I have been automating as much as I can along the way. Our community is vital, and we've been making improvements with our [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt). If you just joined us, you might have noticed our bot Lucia.
![Wonders of Aether Lucia Discord Bot](/news/2021-09-15/meet-lucia.jpg)
Lucia comes from our planet Aether to accompany us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt). You'll learn more about Lucia as we progress through Pre-Alpha, but for now, you can say hi to her on [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)! With her powers, we can level up and more. Curious about what actions you can perform with Lucia? Use the !help command in the #bot channel to find out!

## What to expect next?
As we start to hit our rhythm again after taking a break to build out community features, you can expect to see more gameplay in the coming weeks! Like always, join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt) to get bleeding-edge information. You can also talk directly to me the developer @Waffles! Hope to see you on our [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) streams every Friday at midnight Tokyo time! Thanks again!

[Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)

[Watch our Stream (Every Friday!)](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) 




Welcome back to our dev blog, where we summarize what you might have missed the past few weeks on our social media and streams.

Community driven game development and Discord update

## Welcome back to our dev blog, where we summarize what you might have missed the past few weeks on our social media and streams. For the last few weeks, we have focused on getting more feedback and ideas from our community.

![Wonders of Aether Twitch Live Stream 3D Landscape](/news/2021-07-20/wonders-of-aether-stream-rock.jpg)
## Sculpting On Twitch
Together we sculpted new landscapes on our [stream](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) and came up with some great ideas along the way. We thought it would be nice to include you, our supporters, into WoA's game assets. So we came up with the idea of etching your names into our newly sculpted landscapes. After creating the landscape and texturing, we decided where on this landscape we carve our names. After much deliberation, we came up with some great new ideas.

 - We will etch our followers names using the Aether's language.
 - Instead of using the landscape we created, we will create a new scene using designs from our community!
 - We came up with a quest/story system to revolve around decoding the names.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we can show off more of what our community has created, and we look forward to seeing what you make!

![Wonders of Aether Island Twitch Stream](/news/2021-07-20/wonders-of-aether-house-building.jpg)
## More Island Building!
Another fun stream we had the previous week included some island-building! We constructed this small house outside of Everhart and introduced the ***Sea of Lucia***. Although our stream was brief, we were able to build this house from scratch reasonably fast, thanks to our community's quick thinking. Let us know what you think in [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt).


![Wonders of Aether Island Twitch Stream](/news/2021-07-20/wonders-of-aether-house-building-lucia.jpg)

![Wonders of Aether Island Twitch Stream](/news/2021-07-20/wonders-of-aether-game-island.jpg)

![Wonders of Aether Island Twitch Stream](/news/2021-07-20/wonders-of-aether-house-building-twitch-stream.jpg)
## Now on Discord!
Also, in other news, we have created a [Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt) server! As it's been challenging to keep up with all the messages we get about the game; we decided to create our discord server! If you'd like to join our growing community, come on by and say hi!
It's great that we could come up with such great ideas from our community. We look forward to coming up with new ideas for WoA and hope to see everyone in the Pre-Alpha soon!

[Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/JTu93Ee2pt)

[Watch our Stream (Every Friday!)](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) 

![Wonders of Aether Join our Twitch Stream](https://media.giphy.com/media/lj8QaJGwOKF0egyxFl/giphy.gif)



Oh yes, we have done it. Out with the old UE4 and in with the new UE5. We've managed to migrate the entire project months ahead of schedule and are already seeing excellent results. 

Unreal Engine 5, monster taming, musical instruments, photography mode, cinematic camera, free games, and more?

## Unreal Engine 5 updates are in, and we are ahead of schedule!
But before I begin, I'd want to again thank everyone for joining our [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) streams and being a part of our [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether). Whenever I start streaming or chatting with you guys on [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether), I get a burst of motivation from all your positivity, and I am always grateful! Thank you again for being here along our journey!

## The future is now, old man!
Oh yes, we have done it. Out with the old UE4 and in with the new UE5. We've managed to migrate the entire project months ahead of schedule and are already seeing excellent results. That's not to say that we haven't encountered any bugs! If you didn't know, UE5 is currently in beta, so we are in the bleeding edge technology zone. With this in mind, we weighed out the pros and cons of migrating early. Fortunately, we can live with some of the issues for now, as many of them are not gameplay-related and editor-only bugs. We hope that these issues will resolve on their own with further updates to UE5 and their official release coming early 2022.

![Riding mount Wonders of Aether](/news/2021-11-08/wonders-of-aether-riding-mount.jpg)
## Monster taming? Like Pokemon?
Yes! But think of it as more of a hybrid of Monster Hunter, Pokemon, and mix it with some Yu-Gi-Oh! We are still working on the spec, though, and decided to focus on one easy part, riding the creatures! If you want to contribute to the spec of this feature before we move it into our "In Development" board, add your comments to the suggestion [here](https://wondersofaether.com/vote/pet-system).

If you have joined our live stream on [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether), you might have noticed us riding two types of creatures.

First off, we have quadrupedal land-based monsters. As explained during our stream, some of these monsters may increase player mobility speed, but some may reach new areas unreachable by foot. For example, you may not have access to a boat to cross a large lake or the stamina to do it by swimming. This is where some creatures may provide you with this ability. We showcased a deer/horse-like creature, but in the future, we may add bipedal creatures for climbing and fish-like creatures as well!

The second type was flying mount-type creatures. Now, these will vary in size, but we expect you to have a ton of fun flying through the skies together with friends!

![Wonders of Aether Play Musical Instruments](/news/2021-11-08/wonders-of-aether-play-musical-instruments.jpg)
## Start a band, but in Aether!
We started to add instruments to Wonders of Aether, and although its current version is very limited to instrument types, we plan to add many in the future! Suggest us an instrument in our [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether) or post it on our feature request page!

![Riding mount Wonders of Aether photography mode](/news/2021-11-08/wallpapers-2.png)
## Photograph the world!
As suggested by you guys, we have been testing our new photography mode! Now, this is a bit different from other photography modes since we have no pause mode (online game!); we have to get creative. So if you want to take a screen during an epic boss fight, you will be able to freeze everything into your frame. After you finish positioning the camera, the only problem is that you might return out of camera mode to a dead character! Unavoidable, of course, but it might be worth the respawn for that sweet shot!

![Riding mount Wonders of Aether photography mode](/news/2021-11-08/wallpapers-4.png)
## Enjoy the view, why don't cha?
Along with the other updates, we improved our intelligent camera system. While idle or performing specific tasks, our camera system will intelligently move to more useful or cinematic areas in idle vs. in action mode. This is to help you fiddle less with the camera and focus more on gameplay and combat. The side bonus is to help you enjoy the views more while idle. Of course, if this isn't to your liking, you may disable this feature in our new settings menu!

## System requirements are no longer an Nvidia 3090 RTX!
I was kidding! It never was in the first place! But now, with our new settings menu, you can fine-tune it to your desire in case you are looking for that 120+fps bump! I wanted to get this in place sooner rather than later as we begin to test lower-end devices to make sure everyone can enjoy Wonders of Aether!

![Waffles No Mori](/news/2021-11-08/waffles-no-mori.jpg)
## FREE GAME?! Yes, come try it out!
We created side games for fun during our live streams, and within the 12 hours of total development time allocated, we created "Waffles No Mori."

![Waffles No Mori](/news/2021-11-08/waffles-no-mori-screen-2.jpg)
This is a horror game similar to slender man, where you have to collect three random spawning VHS tapes while avoiding me "Waffles" of the woods! Currently only available for PC, head over to the #downloads section in our [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether) if you want to try it out. And always, if you would like me to add features to the game, feel free to suggest it in [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether)!

Well, I believe that's all for last month's update! I'm sure I missed something, but we have "a lot cooking in the kitchen" and are excited to show you all what we come up with on our Friday streams! Thanks again for joining us, and if you want to stay more in the loop, join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether), where we share all the deets!

[Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/wondersofaether)

[Watch our Stream (Every Friday!)](https://www.twitch.tv/wondersofaether) 

Weather and time get a complete overhaul in the world of Aether. We are excited to announce a new mechanic introduced in our most recent Pre-Alpha update. Now, aside from looking aesthetically beautiful, Aethers weather and time system will bring new challenges to explorers.