First patch is here! Woohoo! I have never rolled out a patch before, so I really hope I didn't mess anything up! The big new thing is that we've got a new map! I explain it in detail below, but the gist is that you have a new place to walk to in addition to walking outside. If you go down the tunnel, then you'll end up in the cave map, and automatically join a room in the same way. You can still go back to the start where the computer is without leaving the room, but if you walk to the other map area (outside the door to join the forest, and through the tunnel to join the cave), then you'll leave the room you're in and join a room of the other level. I put up some signs that will hopefully make it clear what's happening. In private rooms, you can roam the entire map, however. There are also a few major bug fixes, including incorrect skins being applied if you join a room, leave it, and join a new one, as well as the bug where the artificial turning will toss you around randomly.
I've also read a lot of the comments I got on my last news post and they were very positive! I really appreciate that, and I'm glad so many of you are happy to pay for some cosmetics. I still need to work out some of the more critical details (like how at the current moment, I'm not sure I can actually sell any DLC on the Quest...), but I'm going to start building something to sell. I'm not 100% sure it'll be ready for the next update, but I'll give it my best shot. Since the last news update, the total number of people who have launched the game has skyrocketed up to over 40,000 people, which is completely insane, and to be honest I'm feeling a little dumb for still not having any way for you guys to give me any money! Lol, whoops
As far as what I'll be working on for the next patch, I'm going to focus on a few pieces of functionality that really feel like is missing. I want to make it easier to group up with friends in public lobbies, so I'm going to try to make it so you can meet up in a private room and join a public lobby as a group. I also want to make reporting more granular, since right now it's just a binary choice of sending a report or not. I want to have more specific reasons, like "racism/bigotry, harassment, hacking/cheating, griefing" that sort of thing, which should make it easier to see if there are patterns to reports people are making. I also want a "tryhard" queue for the people who are looking for more of a challenge, so they don't get bored constantly being in lobbies with new players. I also need to work on less visible stuff, like more server regions, lag compensation, and network culling, but this is already too many things to fit into one update. I'm not sure exactly which of these I'll focus on yet, but hopefully this gives you a better idea of what I'm thinking about.
I also have a cool idea for another map, that I'm going to begin working on as well. I'm shooting for releasing a patch every 1-2 weeks or so, so hopefully you guys will look forward to it! Thanks for playing, monke monke monke
patch notes:
-new map! instead of just walking outside, you can now go down inside the dead tree. i wonder where the tunnel came from?
-with the new map, the behavior of the game will change a little bit. if you're in a public room, each room will be limited to certain areas. you can always return to the tree to change settings and stuff, but if you're in a room in the forest and go to the cave, you will join a new room to play in the cave. if you're in the cave and you leave the tree and go into the forest, you will join a new room in the forest. this way, each playable area is restricted to a reasonable size. if you're in a private room, you can go anywhere in the map without changing rooms, but i recommend setting some house rules to constrain yourself to a specific area to make it more fun.
-there's a new board in the tree room with the gorilla code of conduct on it. it outlines what behavior is appropriate and what isn't. if someone isn't being a cool gorilla and making sure everyone feels welcomed and comfortable, please report them! i will not stand for people being racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, or anything else like that. i really like banning those people, so please press the report button next to their name and let me know what happened in the discord!
-unfortunately, since a lot of people have thought that they could away with behaving inappropriately and breaking the rules, i added a ban message reason along with counter for how many hours are left until the ban expires. if your ip is banned and you're playing on a different headset, then it will just say that your ip has been banned. there's currently no way to get the reason and time left unless it's from the banned headset.
-fixed bug where snap and smooth turn would launch you randomly. please let me know if there are still any remaining issues
-fixed bug where if you leave a room while tagged/infected and join a new room, you still appear as the tagger or infected even when you aren't
-updated the forest map walls to make it a little bit more difficult to escape the map. too many people were trolling by becoming uncatchable. it's still not impossible, but it should be less easy.
-updated the branches sticking out of the dead tree to be a ramp. this will make it easier for new players to make it up to the computer where they can change their settings.
-added 4 random digits to the default gorilla name so each player will be distinguishable from the start.