It's been a long time since we posted an update about our social media numbers, so it is time to set that right.

We have twice as many followers on game portals - like Steam, GameJolt, and so on - as we did in Q1 this year, and another few hundred came even on top of that with GOG.com accepting Vagrus into their portfolio just recently (as a note: we only consider actual followers, and do not count people who put the game on their wishlist).

Obedience is a stat describing how disciplined (or disgruntled) the slaves owned by the comitatus are at a given time. It was implemented to give a rather fluid drawback to owning slaves: they might provide free workforce but keeping men and women enslaved does have its risks even if it is 'part of the system'. You typically lose Obedience if you do not guard your slaves well enough (too few fighters to look after them), if you get or buy a lot of new slaves, if you do not feed them enough, if you arm them in Crew Combat, or keep choosing options in Events that endanger or embolden them.

• Understaffed (lower workforce than the requirement) applies Movement Point penalties.
• Severely understaffed (workforce below 50% of the requirement) applies severe Movement Point penalties.

As the new Trading system was shaping up for Milestone 5 alongside the emergence in our storylines of some of the less lawful factions (such as the Loader's Guild), we figured we would need a sub-system for smuggling goods as it makes sense that these organizations would be willing to hire a vagrus to do just that.

In short: GameDevDays was phenomenal. The speakers and the community made it an absolutely amazing experience for us.

It started off a little rough considering that we could not borrow a reasonable size car for the trip to Graz and with all the tech equipment we needed to bring along it was a miracle that everyone could squeeze in. In the end we did get there even if a bit cramped. The next hoop we needed to jump was a mix-up with our accommodation (someone was already in the room we booked :O ) but eventually we solved that, too.

We met with the Vault 51 guys at PlayIT - a gameshow we attended with Vagrus - where we discussed how cool it would be to organize a fans & developers meet-up there some time. We exchanged numbers and unlike most things that get forgotten soon after, we followed through, and it was a blast.

Laurels All Around

In our endeavour to get Vagrus into the sights of as many cRPG lovers as we can, we applied for featured spots in a number of nearby game shows - successfully! Not only did we get invited to present Vagrus the game itself but our art design and developer pitch has been rewarded as well making it into the official selection of said shows (see above). That reminds us to bring to your attention the upcoming opportunities to meet us in person:

We are super excited to share some of our progress as we are getting closer and closer to releasing the build that has the new trade pricing system feature.

This short video demonstrates how the comitatus carries goods from one market to the other trying to make some profit. The quantity and price of goods are calculated based on their source location and the time spent on the road to get to a certain place. Will your comitatus be able to transport them quicker than the market flow to realize a profit? 

Ever since we came up with the idea of Vagrus, a game where you manage a comitatus, we knew we needed to develop an elaborate, dynamic trade system that would serve as one of the major features of the game and would also aid in fleshing out a living world.

Basic Premises 

While trading was always to be one of the main sources of income for the player, we also wanted to avoid creating a pure trading simulator game. It's not that those are not fun for the right people - stories about Gabor dominating the Auction House on our server in World of Warcraft for a period of time still surface in conversations among friends - but because our strengths lie elsewhere. Our unique setting, The Riven Realms, and telling stories with memorable characters was the first and foremost motivation to create Vagrus, so it was also much more likely to excel in that rather than in a simulation - which we knew relatively little of.

You will most likely come across the artwork you can see here when wandering into sewers below Imperial cities in Vagrus' main campaign. This might not seem a very good idea since such places are typically neglected and extremely filthy. They are also most likely infested by mutated beasts or stray undead. Yet a vagrus needs to plunge into such vile places more often than not.