Close Beta Build 238 Major Update
Alright, it’s time for a big update! We’ve added a LOT in this new release, touching on almost every aspect of our VR Roleplay platform. We’re reaching new heights with this update, featuring verticality as we’ve never seen it before. We’ve also made our stage creation tools more powerful than ever and squashed so many bugs that it could give a certain popular new game a run for its money.
Without further ado, let's jump in!
What’s new:
Premade Sets
“I swear I didn’t steal your idea, that secret passage was always there from the start, you just never noticed”.
With premade sets, Aexia takes a giant leap forward in regard to stage creation quality of life.
Find premade sets by going to create → sets → and selecting any theme filter
Place premade sets on your stage to instantly create a detailed set with props, textures, and lights
premade sets are fully customizable once placed
Save your own sets and create icons for them to pull them out instantly when you need them
Use it to duplicate sets, add sets mid-session, or even transfer sets from one stage to another
Give your set names and take a photo to create a thumbnail
Whisper, Speak, Shout, and new HUD voice indicator
“Remember: The Game Master can always hear you, even if you think you’re being quiet”.
Added gesture controls to control your audio range and visual indicators so that you know when your microphone is broadcasting audio and what the current range is
Cup one hand by your mouth to whisper
Whispering only lets nearby players hear you
A speaking mouth icon will appear to let you know you are whispering
Cup both hands by your mouth to shout
Shouting lets others hear you from farther distances
A speaker icon will appear to let you know you are shouting
When audio is being picked up by your microphone, an icon shaped like a microphone will appear to let you know
When you are muted, that icon will be crossed off to remind you you are muted
When you are not speaking, the icon will disappear until you start speaking again
Jumping And Falling
“Players have unlocked the ability to traverse the third dimension”.
You can now jump
Hit B on your right-hand controller to jump
Great for climbing into places your GM didn’t expect
Players will fall if no solid objects are below them
Object Collision
“Ghosts will once again enjoy the benefits of being the only ones that can phase through walls”.
Stop players from phasing through props using the new Solid toggle
Selecting a prop and toggling on “solid” will cause players to collide with the prop
Yes, this means stairs work now
And jump puzzles
Combined with jumping and falling, Aexia has gone VERTICAL
Visibility toggles
“It’s either this, or mastering the art of moving so incredibly slowly that you’re effectively invisible.”
Players and props can now be set to invisible.
As a Game Master, select a prop and toggle visible to hide it from player's view
Suitable for hiding props and effects that you plan to use during a session
Just make sure to toggle off solid, or someone might trip
As a Player, open your menu and select the visibility tab to turn invisible
Great for spectating while out of character
It also lets you spook players as a disembodied voice
Upload custom Audio/Images
Audio/Image uploads have been reintroduced but are still very beta, we'll be implementing an even better version soon!
To try it yourself, open your Google Drive in the game deck tab:
hit copy link on a file with permissions “anyone can view”
place a prop from the UGC tab, either a picture frame or speaker
select the prop and hit “paste link”
Other Additions
You can now add custom nameplates in addition to your username
Added several new props, including a host of new 3d walls
Added intro video on first launch to help new players learn the ropes
Added a wrist menu for checking controls, muting, and opening the player menu
What’s changed
Working Portals
“Now we’re thinking with portals, again”.
Portals work. They are finally working and seemingly bug free. Certainly someone will find a niche case, but for now we’re just happy that they finally no longer need to be included in the “known issues” section of the patch notes.
Place two portals and connect them to allow players to teleport between them
Drag from the green connector of one portal to the orange connector of another portal to create a one way portal
Drag from the green connector of the second portal back to the orange connector of the first to make them two way
Or abandon all sense and logic and daisy chain portals together in weird and unpredictable ways to confuse and delight your players
Portals placed facing the edges of sets will be blocked and their orange connector will turn red
this prevents users from falling off the stage
turn the portal around and it will work again
Improved Main Menu
“Now slightly less likely to frighten players with the Aexia GM looming overhead”.
The main menu has been revamped to display more information and improve readability
The menu is now divided between three panels
The leftmost panel displays tutorial videos and information
The center panel is for multiplayer connection and now features a “recent games” list
The rightmost panel is for creating, editing, and publishing your stages
Adjusted icons and terminology for better clarity
The discord panel now sends interested players an email link to the Aexia Community discord server
The main menu environment has been optimized to reduce computational load
Self registration for an Aexia account is now possible without dev assistance
Other Changes
The green room has been adjusted to reflect the new main menu environment
The possess GM button is now next to an Aexia GM avatar similarly to the select character buttons and their avatars
Letters on the keyboard are now entered on press instead of on release
This should greatly improve keyboard responsiveness and greatly reduce reports of forgotten passwords
Adjusted the keyboard to include more special characters
The password input field now accepts more characters
Props will now align with each other when rotated with the gizmo
Fixed several issues with menus not spawning in front of players
cloned stages are now named after the original stages
Voice filters have been re-enabled
Improved premade stage thumbnails
Adjusted VFX colliders to stop them from preventing other props nearby from being selected
VFX now shows a star icon for the GM which functions as the interactable center point
Bugfixes
The GM no longer gets locked out of the menu when at max scale
Fixed props becoming unselectable after being placed
You can once again place multiple notes with different text
Portals no longer default to being grabbable
Portals no longer randomly teleport you off the stage
Portals no longer randomly make players permanently invisible
Portals placed up high no longer trap you in the sky
Fixed prop desynchronization issues when moving sets
Fixed a bug that caused player move speed to get stuck so fast that they started experiencing the Doppler effect
Fixed several voice communication bugs that prevented players from speaking
Fixed a bug that caused players to recenter higher than intended
Fixed the SkyBox not changing correctly
The “play online” button in create mode after hitting share now properly sends you to the room you just created
Fixed incoming calls only appearing if you had previously opened the comms menu
Known Issues
When Aexia is out of focus on PCVR, it stops picking up players microphone inputs
Click back onto the Aexia window to fix this
Comfort Vignette defaults back to on whenever you load into a new scene
The GM can collide with the gizmo
The GM menu is getting hidden behind props and textures
Publishing a stage with 0 characters from the main menu and hitting “Go Play” causes an endless loading screen
Vive and Knuckles controllers do not have a default binding and must be manually bound
Recently played and recently published are not loading in the correct order in the main menu
The mute icon changes to the broadcasting icon after triggering whisper/shout while muted
you are still muted despite the icon changing
After the GM moves a prop with the gizmo, the player can’t grab it
If the GM moves the prop by selecting it directly, the player can grab it again
Auto snapping is incorrectly disabling on props placed over a certain height
Thank you for your continued support
Patch notes this big are only possible because of our dedicated community that has been with us every step of the way. A special shoutout to our patrons for helping out a little with development costs; every penny counts!
A particularly big thank you and shout out to Shinkurex, our volunteer community moderator who goes above and beyond to host games and help welcome new roleplayers to our community.
If you want to help shape Aexia, the biggest help we can get is more people enjoying roleplays on the platform. If you'd like to help support our development, contributions to our Patreon are greatly appreciated!