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This will be my Hidden Mist Village Launch Post-mortem talking about what it took to create the Hidden Mist Village’s initial launch state in Nin Online. It's been a long journey to create this major expansion for the game, and with the release a few months ago, it's been very satisfying to watch the dynamics of the game change. Elk's Work (2013) But the journey to create the Mist village actually goes back even further than you may think. Because it started in 2013, with some concepts drawn up by @Elk, one of the artists at the time. Back then, there was little to no reference of what the Mist village actually looked like besides a blur image on Naruto's Fan Wikia. The only other reference of the land of water, was from flashback scenes of the snowy smaller village that Haku was born in, in the original Naruto series. We had 2 simple directions, we wanted to keep the Mist village dark and gloomy, and really bring out the feel of the Zabuza Arc, and that's all we knew. Unfortunately, all of the artwork that Elk posted back then has gone offline and expired from image hosting sites, so I can't show you what he did. But the way the village looks from his concept art, and what we ended up having is uncanny. My Timeline of working on the Mist village (2018-2019) Like all the villages, it all really starts with a sketch, a very barebones sketch. Unlike the Suna one, this one was done digitally (in paint). Which you can see the similarities between the final product. Going from that sketch (Mid 2018) to this (Mid 2019) is rewarding! Tiles One of the hardest things to make for tiles are round objects, especially large round objects. So making a lot of different sized round buildings for Mist was definitely a bigger challenge than the square buildings in the Leaf and the one size round buildings of the Sand. But I felt that it was necessary for this village. I didn't want Mist village to just be a recolored Leaf village, so the majority of the tiles were made brand new just for the Mist village, besides small common objects that could just be recolored. In total, the Mist village has 3 tilesets (2048x2048) of sprites, 2 of them full! as well as a smaller tileset for the ant cave and one more for the Ship tiles for the new ship ride to the land of water. This is some early style tests of what Mist would look like Maps Although it may sound simple, like oh just add Mist map and the surrounding forests. The total number of maps created for the Mist village thus far is 58 including the interiors to buildings, and there's more to come. With the release of the Mist village also came the small village outside, the ports, the organization bases, the Academy, the shops, Asoki Port village and all the maps previously non-existent linking the old playable map space to the new. I didn't want each map to look like a clone of each other, so I made sure that different parts of the Land of Water felt different, and so it feels more like an entire country, not one village! These maps were all hand crafted and a lot of them contain new artwork made specially for them. The new mist graphic that overlays the maps was also custom made based on the Zabuza Arc's look and feel. The village map consists of unique buildings that can take a whole day to complete, and I took time to make sure maps like the Spa felt different from what you already have in the Leaf and Sand village. Like I said though, because there was little to no references of what Mist village should look like, the entire layout of the village was created originally for Nin Online, and so if you start seeing it look this way in any other game, chances are - they've been playing Nin Online! Mobs & Summons I made 10 mobs for Mist village. Including Ants, Boars, the Kraken etc. There's only two summons at the moment, Clams and Pandas! But for Clams, I wanted it to be very different from the other summons, so we made it so it was a stationary summon and I created Acid Mist Jutsu for it too. Adding summons is a process of doing the art and animations, then adding their Summoning Jutsu and stats, adding their NPC database stats, adding their summoning manual and adding the NPCs that sells their manuals. Bubble Mastery I wanted Bubble Mastery to work and feel different from other masteries, so I designed it around traps and snares, but utilizing a weapon. Although there's still more to do for it, I'm happy with how it looks! The art for it took a few weeks and then the implementation took a few days. Along with every new jutsu and mastery, comes a bunch of backend work like creating Jutsu/Jutsu Manuals/Scroll Scribe in the database. New Items/Equipment Mist Military Police Uniforms, Purple Forehead Protectors, Hunter-nin Robes and Masks, Mizukage Clothes, Mist Utility Vests, Blue and Colored Collar Jackets, Bubble Pipe are some of the equipment I did the art for, as well as all the mob drops and mission items! Oh, and the Bandaged Face Mask was done just a few days before launch to let people look more Misty. Scripting Making maps, doesn't just make them work. There's a lot of scripted systems for features like RP Missions, the Academy, Fainting and the hospital, Imprisonment, Kage command room, adding Mist to the War Event Map, and the Boat Ride too! These take time to make and are all done within the game itself. Missions The mission system is a complicated system. It's built upon both scripting and hard coding. The hard coded system is relatively simple, and it leaves a lot of the customizing each mission to the in-game scripting, so each mission takes a bit to create. I make NPCs and place them around and design fetch missions, I design mobs and place them around and design kill missions, I create a gate map and then script the timers for it, and then create guarding missions. I didn't want to just make missions for the Mist to go to the Sand and Leaf, so I also had to make missions for both the Sand and Leaf to now venture into the land of water. It may not seem like it from one village's perspective, but we effectively doubled the number of missions in Nin Online just by adding Mist! Missions have to be scripted down to the level of what to do to the player when he dies, and it has to be linked to the Village Score System for example, which has to be linked to the War System, and with systems so interconnected, it gets exponentially harder with every additional piece added into it. Clans This was a relatively simple thing to do, I looked through all the submissions for clans for Mist and created emblems for them or used ones submitted. Most of adding clans is just in the UI.. so.. UI & Forum / Website New UI pieces like symbols for the bingo book, the character selection, the world map and the village map had to be made. This was all done around April 2019. New introduction scene for the Mist village was hacked together myself as well! New login screens to celebrate the Mist launch too. The forum and things like updater had to be updated with new graphics pieces to feature our new village as well! Things like promotional banners were and social media images too. Music I did one piece of soundtrack for the Mist village, and the others are done by @Afilion! My piece plays in some of the interiors. I'm not a professional musician like him, but I wanted to leave a mark in a different way. NPCs I created 11 NPCs with full walking and attack animations for the Mist village, for things like Guards, and just wandering NPCs. Other Staff's Contributions Besides, Elk, our ex-artist @Sezu also contributed to the village with Dragonflies & Fox Mobs, 8 Misc. Static NPCs, the Striped Clothing Styled Items, and the to be seen Chunin Headband (Slanted Mist Protectors) & Mist Flak Jacket! On the programming side, there was a little bit of work to be done to prepare the engine to support a third village, which was all done by our resident programmer @Seth. Reaper/Santa Chulo also contributed with yet to be seen art like the weapons of the 7 Swordsmen of the Mist. @Afilion did the new village theme songs! I also commissioned an artist named Daikai to create new artwork for Mist Ninja! Conclusions Mist took a lot of work. It was a lot of carrying from myself. It gets exponentially harder to add more things to a game where every feature is interconnected. I left out a lot of backend work I had to do, and I'm sure I missed a ton of things I had to do. I'm thankful for the help everyone has contributed to the village. There were times I just felt like releasing Mist half done without summons, without organizations, without new jutsu.. but I decided against it because I wanted everything to be experienced at once and for people to get that feeling of a big new update coming, instead of the usual small patches with one or two new items. Although we announced that I hoped Mist would release in 2018, the original pipeline changed very quickly in that year. Between then and now, we also went to add major systems like Summons and Clans which were not initially intended to be added before Mist. I had to spend a good few months working on fixing the major crash bug in 2018 which you can read about here.. Mist was a lot of work, it still is, and adding more content is getting harder and harder. But we'll keep going, slowly but surely. Thank you all for the support and for playing Nin Online!

Added 3rd Form of Panda Summon - Panda King! Removed Legacy Clan NPC (meant for characters made before Clans were released) as it's been a more than reasonable amount of time to choose (6 months) and it was confusing new players. Fixed description of Dragon Fire Technique Rank 1 stating a wrong amount of base damage.

Finally finished this!

Sasayaki Robe added to Sasayaki Clan House. Legacy Sasayaki Robes (bought for general public before today) have been changed to Ragged Robes. Hayashi Clan Outfit (Hayashi Back Plate) added to Hayashi Clan House. Hayashi Clan Styling Preview added to Character Creation.

Entrances to areas that do allow moving through other players no longer stop traps. Summons can no longer cast traps on areas that prohibit traps. Projectiles no longer are blocked by areas that do not allow traps.

Projectiles and traps will not work on entrances to places. Healing Jutsus no longer replace a stronger heal. Fix server crash. Concealment now hides the name color.

Will fix that soon! Thanks everyone!

What I love about the new village is that we actually gets vibes of the mist. The atmosphere is heavy. The mist makes it ominous. The art is very good and well structured. Much like the sand village, this is a GG. keep on the good work!

Player kills will not be stolen by your summon. Can't unequip or equip an item while casting. Teleports will no longer work when you have no target or not a player. Added lifespan, where a summon can disappear after a set amount of time. This will be used by Rory soon!

Dear Ninja, It's been a really long time since I've posted a development log. This is going to be the first one of 2018.. don't expect a lot of these though! It takes up time to write these and prepare pictures and stuff, so most of the time, I'm just going to implement them into the game quietly. But as we move into the next development phase, I thought it'd be interesting to share some plans for the future. The current development timeline is.. Mastery Combinations The recent balance changes was to make way for new jutsu based on hybrid stats builds. This is the start of level 50+ content, jutsu styles like Medical + Taijutsu giving Tsunade/Sakura aka. Inner Strength style. Inner Strength style will be scaled based on Agility and Chakra stat. We will release these combinations one by one starting with Inner Strength, then Taijutsu and Sword + Elemental Masteries, eg. Water + Sword to get Suigetsu/Zabuza style jutsu. Lightning + Taijutsu will give you Raikage style jutsu. Elemental Kekkai Genkai will take a backseat for now (eg. Wood Release). Second Non-ninja village Takumi village is a smaller, non-ninja village. There are multiple of these planned for each country. Takumi village is in the land of rivers, ran by the Daimyo of the land. The next one is a slightly larger casino/gambling village inspired by Tanzaku Quarters (the village they found Tsunade in), which will feature ways to lose all your savings! Forbidden Techniques I get this question about jutsu like Rasengan or Hiraishin Technique a lot. "What mastery is it going to be?". It's been one of the trickiest thing to balance, but I think I've managed to find a way to balance such techniques without being over powered. The latest addition of limited jutsu slot is one of the changes made to accommodate such a balance. With limited slots, just learning every jutsu becomes impossible. Combined with the rarity of these scrolls, you will find that even though very few ninja will have Rasengan for example, it will not break the game because they will be sacrificing another jutsu to make way for their Forbidden techniques. It will still be a challenge to fine tune these jutsu to not be over powered, but still feel valuable and pay homage to their anime counterparts, but I have no doubt we're going in the right direction! Specialized Masteries Once you reach level 50, you will be given the choice to specialize in your previous mastery to unlock Advanced Jutsu for that mastery. Eg. Taijutsu + Specialize will give you 8 Gates style Taijutsu. Fire + Specialize will give you Advanced Fire Ninjutsu which will feature even more crazy AoE. Specialized Masteries continue to scale with damage. Land of Iron This one has been in the works for the longest time. But it was postponed due to it being something from Shippuden. So it felt like it had to be level 50+ content. Once the new jutsu are released, it should be about time to implement all the art done for it. Mist village A slightly more distant goal, the hope is to release the legendary bloody mist sometime within the year. I hope this gets you excited for the year ahead! There's also probably going to be a lot of smaller misc. things added through the year. As always, it's not going to be easy mass producing high quality art, so I hope for your support in this journey. Regards, Rory

It’s amazing to see all your efforts come together to make a masterpiece. Thank you for your work Rory.

Good work! But bubble is rly bad

Updated with more screenshots~ Also, thanks for the warning @Now But if you check properly, the original post was in June, so the bump was warranted

pls stop with double posts @Ueda or you will get warning point.

Amazing work on mist! looks incredible Thanks!

Alright thanks

Amazing work man, respect.

Good Job Rory The Mist Village is Amazing the summons are cool tho but idk how the acid justu on the clam looks is that out yet?. Thanks for this great story btw

Respect Rory!

A great masterpiece nonetheless. Very refreshing to see how things happened behind closed doors. Thanks for sharing.

Nice Work you put there over the years respect.

Fixed Mist Military Police Force Prison. People could use jutsu in and out.

Fixed Mizukage Command Room & Imprisonment Technique.

New Alt New Life Nani? When you hear people referencing a "rule" called New Alt New Life, they're referring to a principle for RP within the game world that I called for a long time ago (but did not name). However, because of the name, it does get a bit confusing to people who simply take it for face value, so this is a more detailed explanation of New Alt New Life. What is an Alt / Main / RP Alt = Alternate Account/Character ie. somebody's different account Main = Your main account, the one the person is known for RP = Role play What it means for RP authorities Within the RP of the Nin World, you are not to assume somebody is someone else, or try to guess that they are and invoke, or dish out punishments to players who you assume to be somebody else's alt. If somebody creates a new Character called "Andre", you're not to assume that's the player "Indra" in an alt, and then exile that player, as they are a spy. What it means for players If you are playing an alt, and you purposefully do not disclose and you try your best to hide your identity, you should be safe from being exiled or jailed for something done by someone else whom you're being suspected of being. However, if you give out your identity, or you leave trails or clues and people find out your main account's identity, they are still going to be biased against you, and any actions they dish out on you are going to be justified in their own RP means. If you leak that detail in any way, this rule of not being treated like a "spy" is no longer applicable to you. This rule is created to protect innocent players who might have no idea of what is going on, but joins a village and gets exiled or punished being mistaken for someone else. But the moment it is clear it is you, it no longer protects you. What it means for RP in Nin Online If you are a missing ninja on your main, and you let people know you are an alt in the Leaf village for example, people are not going to treat you with bias, regardless of what the rules say. The RP systems and RP in general give a lot of freedom to people with authority to do what they want, even if it means making biased decisions. Even if we did try to enforce it, they could come up with excuses in RP terms to justify your punishment. We are not the moderation of your personal relationships in the game, if you make enemies and they start spam killing you, we will not step in. In the same way, if you are a hated missing ninja who wants to be in the Leaf village but can't keep your identity to yourself, we will not protect you from interpersonal relations with RP authorities.