The latest Founder’s Update on the Crowfall website contains a few pieces of information that backers of the game may want to pay attention to (and I’m not just referring to their revisions to the legal documents for the game, e.g. the Terms of Service). For one, some sort of Kickstarter pledge upgrade is imminent:

Tomorrow we’ll launch our “Kickstarter pledge package to 2015” upgrade options. These have been in development by the Web team for a while and are in final testing now. Upgrading Kickstarter packages has not been possible since the beginning of July when we ended this promotion. This new offering will provide an option for those who want a more robust pledge package.

These upgrades are a bit complex because we are adding onto the Kickstarter package you already own, so they will have a restriction on them that folks should understand before purchase: YOU CAN ONLY UPGRADE ONCE. When you upgrade your package, it will be consumed (unbundled) and we won’t be able to rebundle them once they are purchased and consumed (unbundled).

T-shirts will also be made available (albeit in limited quantity):

Also coming tomorrow is the preorder for our first, limited edition Crowfall t-shirt! We’re only planning to make ~1,000 of these and then retire this particular design. The shirts are very high quality, 100% cotton, soft & comfortable. We’ll start preorders now and kick off the manufacturing within two weeks so that we can deliver them in early September.

And they’re also changing up how they deliver their newsletter to backers:

Speaking of our “As the Crow Flies…” (ATCF) newsletter, which summarizes the prior week in Crowfall, we recently shifted the delivery day from Fridays to Mondays as test to see if that would get more folks opening and reading it.

Our primary objective with all of the information we release is to tailor the delivery to our backers’ needs and to keep them updated with the progress we’re making with the game as well as the company. Some backers visit the site often and participate daily on the forums, and then there are some who prefer to get a weekly digest like ATCF or even the monthly updates we continue to post onour Kickstarter site.

A second, more recent Founder’s Update offers some information about how ArtCraft Entertainment’s ongoing capital raise is faring. Here’s the important bit:

Our fundraising efforts have gone extremely well!  The response has been so overwhelmingly positive that we’ve already raised over 70% of our target. To finish out the remainder, we are working with an Austin, Texas-based syndicate called Moonshots Capital.  Moonshots is going to offer the remaining $300k to accredited investors via their AngelList syndicate with a minimum $5,000 investment.

Last week, ArtCraft also gave us a behind-the-scenes look at Crowfall’s animation mechanics:

The code that moves a player around the game is something called a character controller. While we are all familiar with the animated 3D character that appears on the screen, under the hood the character is represented as a much simpler shape. We affectionately call that simplified shape the ‘pill’ or ‘character pill’.  We call it this because it looks like a pill. The character 3D model you all know and love is attached to the pill and essentially just follows the pill around. Yes all those years you have been playing games, you are just steering a pill!

…

What about Crowfall? Because we are trying to keep the character pill in the physics simulation all the time, we are currently using the Dynamic controller model. But, because the audience we are aiming for is PC MMO based, we are trying to make it behave like a typical MMO Kinematic controller when it comes to turning, starts and stops.

When I start talking this mumbo jumbo to people their eyes usually glaze over. So I like to describe theCrowfall characters as wearing a belt of rocket thrusters. When you press the W key to go forward, the character activates the rear rocket thruster and moves forward. When you take your finger off the W key, the thruster is turned off. In a physics simulation, this is going to cause some drift because things do not normally stop on a dime. To solve the sloppiness of the drift in a Dynamic controller, we use a counterbalancing thruster on the front of the rocket belt to bring the character to an instant stop.

While it feels great when you play the character, there is a downside to these sudden speed transitions: the animators have very little time to blend the animation of one speed to another. For example, going from a full speed run instantaneously to a full stop can lead to a pop in the animation. Our animators put in the extra effort to make sure these transitions look as awesome as possible.

More details can be found in this video, in which we also get to meet the animation team:

https://youtu.be/GYk92p52qhw

And finally, ArtCraft also gave us a first look at the powers and animations of the Legionnaire archetype:

Mechanically, the Legionnaire uses rage to fuel any power in the 1-0 position. His left click primary attack is a melee attack chain that generates rage for the Legionnaire. This chain doesn’t cost any resource; in fact, it generates rage for the Legionnaire. The third power in the chain also applies a buff to other players in his group called Discipline that generates mana for 30 seconds. The fifth power in the chain also applies a mana buff for the group called Command with a duration of 30 seconds. Command restores more mana per second, and will overwrite any instances of Discipline.

We will also be showing the Legionnaire’s right click power, Dodge. This power leaps the Legionnaire 10m in whatever WASD-based direction is provided. Any characters in the path are also shoved a bit and will take damage. Due to the size and mass of the Legionnaire, this may or may not knock those characters out of the way. This power is fueled by stamina.

If a Legionnaire needs to create space in his immediate area. Scatter Horde is one of his options. The Legionnaire rears up, spins his weapon and slams it into the ground, knocking back enemies around him and dealing damage.

The Legionnaire’s C key activates Eternal Rage, instantly gives the Legionnaire a large chunk of rage. This enables the Legionnaire to start combat using tray powers, or to generate some rage even if no one is in range for him to attack. The cooldown is long enough that it can’t be used as a primary method to generate rage.

And yes, there’s a video of the Legionnaire in action:

There’s also another video, in which we get to know a little bit more about Design Lead Thomas Blair.