Build Log #06
The Art of Dying
The sixth biweekly report of the MLM beta
Three build logs have ended on the same line: real death is coming with looting. This one is where it arrived. On July 27, dying began to cost you what you carry. Die of thirst, hunger, lack of air, or a lightning strike, and your body is left on the ground with your belongings inside it, for anyone to find and take. Everything the survival systems have been building toward is now real.
This is the last quiet stop before that changes completely. When PvP looting arrives, killing you will let another player take everything you carry. For now, only the world itself can take it from you. Enjoy the calm.
01What changed on the server side
Grouped by subject.
Lootable death goes live
- Dying now costs you, from July 27. Death from thirst, hunger, lack of air, or a lightning strike now drops your loot. Your body is left where you fell, holding your belongings in a container, and other players can find it and take everything.
- The rollout was deliberate. It came in stages: first the corpse dropped a body, then corpses gained loot containers, then loot drop was activated, tested at low rates, and confirmed working. Loot drop from other causes of death, including PvP, was held back to give players a few days to secure their belongings first.
- What stays with you. Everything worn stays. Anything visible on your character after pressing TAB remains on you. Containers are emptied. Liquids are a special case: you keep the empty container, and the liquid drops with your body.
- A death marker. A "Latest death" marker now points to where you last died, so you can return to your own body, though it only lasts until the next server save.
- Respawn is not safe. A lightning strike can kill a character lying on the respawn point, which drops their loot. There is a respawn under a bus stop roof for shelter.
Protecting what matters: keys and vehicles
- Keys on a string, from v16.0.2. A key can be given a string and worn in the neck slot. A key worn on the neck is not lost on death, unlike a key in a pocket. The string is made from twine, which comes from thread, which comes from a rag, which comes from any clothes. Only one key can be worn this way, and the string can be removed again with scissors.
- Vehicle keys as storage. Until vehicles are added, a vehicle key can be used to access a vehicle's container. Stand near the driver's door with the key in your left hand to reach it. You can see the memorized contents without the key, but you cannot add or take anything without it in your left hand.
- Two keys, one vehicle. There are already two keys to the same vehicle in the world, and about 364 cars and vans that a key may point to. The warning is plain: someone else may hold a key to your vehicle, so do not store anything very valuable inside it.
- Copying keys. Master keys can be copied. Copying a master key needs the master key in the right hand and a key blank in the left, with a key blank craftable from a door key.
Combat gets a body
- Dementals attack by posture. Whether a demental is crawling, crouching, or standing now decides which of your body parts it can reach. A crawling demental can only attack legs. Approaching one on the ground risks a leg. Kid and adult size matters too: a crouching kid cannot headshot an adult.
- Five ways to be hit. Each demental attacks with one of five means, teeth or one of four limbs, each with a 20% chance. Break the matching body part and that attack fails.
- Height as defense. Lying on the ground can save you, since a demental attacking with teeth cannot reach that low. Standing on a dumpster protects your head from headshots. A successful hit to the head is still death for now.
- The left hand matters now. If a demental damages your left hand, you can no longer parry. Guarding your left hand became as important as your right.
- Shotgun ballistics. Each shotgun shot launches eight pellets, each with a 50% chance to hit, and each hit pushes the target back slightly, so damage can be read from how far a victim is knocked. A close target has a higher chance to be hit. There will be weapon preferences rather than aiming, for example a clown's hammer that always strikes the head.
Survival deepens
- Organ damage. After thirty minutes without water a character's organs begin to fail, lasting roughly another thirty minutes before death, rather than dying instantly. Death from dehydration happens with a 50% chance within thirty minutes, so timing varies. The same organ-damage system was extended to dementals.
- Air is a budget. Crafting consumes about as much air as is restored with healthy ribs; building consumes twice that, so it exhausts you faster. Reading a book consumes no air at all, even offline, making it the one activity you can do without spending air, water, or food. Broken ribs slow air restoration, and if air falls to a quarter of maximum a long craft cancels.
- Winter is coming. Freezing weather will begin to affect players soon. The standing advice through the period was to stockpile firewood and save fuel, since a campfire provides heat as well as light. A message about "balls" is a thirty minute warning: find a campfire or die.
- Lighting. Torches and lanterns can now be lit with matches or lighters. Without any light, some things become impossible, such as reading a book or surviving when a mare is near.
- Cooking and eating. Roasted meat is cooked from raw meat, though eating is still being finished. All demental meat is now equally poor quality.
Netsukes, sanity, and mares
- The netsuke test. Netsukes are the centerpiece of a psychological test survivors use to gauge insanity. Put netsukes in a container, hold it in the right hand, and click yourself. The higher your insanity, the more likely you are to see something meaningful in them. To a fully sane person they resemble nothing. More netsukes give a more precise reading.
- Copying them. A netsuke can be copied with a dry stick in the left hand and the netsuke in the right. Their complex form gives only a 5% chance of success per attempt, and each copy takes about ten minutes, with a chance to fail every second. Copies can be sold to other players.
- Dry sticks. The copying craze turned dry sticks into a small economy of their own. They are found more easily from taller trees, and searching with both hands empty can turn up two at once. A dry stick left in a campfire will eventually burn.
- Mares. Insanity conjures mares, enemies that appear in the Green Hell. All players see them and all are affected; only the transparency differs, with higher insanity making a mare appear more opaque. Mares come more often to groups, and keep their distance, so a small room they cannot fit into offers shelter.
World and items
- Half a million objects. There are now more than 0.5 million things in the world, with a live cap of 10,000 dementals and millions of dead ones. The developer's point stands: this scale is what makes MLM possible on Qubic.
- New trees and areas. New Q5 trees were added around town, along with new buildings and a new pool inside the playable area.
- Full card decks. The chance of a full 36-card deck on denim men was doubled, from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 500, with roughly one full deck loose in the world at a time.
- Cigarettes. Cigarettes arrived as a versatile item: poison against lice, filtering, a delayed explosion, and hands-free lighting of molotov cocktails. They also mark you as human, since dementals do not smoke.
02What changed on the client side
Releases
Client builds shipped frequently across the period, several flagged as required, alongside near-constant server updates. Notable client work included the new demental attack processing, the death and loot-drop mechanics, the death marker, key strings and neck slot, vehicle container access, and torch and lantern lighting.
Version 16
The v16 line brought the loot-drop system online and, at v16.0.2, the key-on-a-string worn in the neck slot so an important key survives death. The characteristics of liquids in containers, introduced earlier, continued to matter more as loot drop made what you carry a real risk.
03Community contributions
If your name isn't here and you contributed, post in the forum and we'll catch you in Build Log #07.
04Events
Loot distribution monitoring, July 19. Existing dementals were teleported into a single square so loot distribution from new dementals could be measured. Players were invited to set dumpsters in a G shape and loot non-stop while the developer watched the numbers.
The netsuke craze, July 20. The arrival of netsukes and their 5% copy chance turned into a multi-day community event of its own, with players hoarding dry sticks and comparing failure counts while the developer role-played the meditative process they were all ignoring.
Shotgun testing, July 24 to 26. A series of tests worked out the shotgun's eight-pellet spread and knockback model, with volunteers taking rented shotguns and reporting broken bones. A "gang showdown" with rented shotguns was run to gather data, with no winner declared.
Lootable death enabled, July 27. Loot drop from thirst, hunger, lack of air, and lightning went live after a staged rollout across the day.
Death disabled and returned, July 27 to 28. Death from thirst was briefly turned off, with all water and food set to zero, to test how food restores the food level. Death from thirst and hunger was returned the next day.
Corpse purges, throughout. Old corpses were repeatedly removed to test how quickly dementals now die under the water and organ-damage systems.
05On the bench
Named but not yet shipped:
- PvP looting. The next major change, and the one everything so far has led to. Right now loot drop applies only to death by thirst, hunger, air, and lightning. Soon, killing another player will let you take everything they carry. The developer called it a drastic change to the gameplay and told players plainly to enjoy these days of relaxed resource accumulation while they last.
- Eating. Roasted meat exists and restores the food level, but the eating system is still being finished.
- Diseases and low immunity. Drinking dirty water and other choices will carry consequences once diseases are added.
- Insanity and the sanity test. Netsukes are in, but the insanity system they measure is not yet active.
- Winter effects. Freezing is being prepared. Firewood stockpiling is the advised preparation.
- Light bonuses and further demental assistance, including special NPCs controlled by other players.
06By the numbers
A quick snapshot of the period:
07Closing
Build Log #07 will cover August 2 through August 15.
Death finally means something. What you carry can now be lost, and what you own is worth protecting for the first time. But this is the last quiet stop. The next step is PvP looting: when another player kills you, your belongings become theirs. These are the calm days of relaxed accumulation, and they are ending. Secure what matters while you still can.