Attention, Citizens of New Citizen!
We’re thrilled to introduce a major update filled with new features, optimizations, and bug fixes designed to enhance your gameplay experience. Check out the detailed list of what's new in this latest update:
New Cars: Fresh additions to your vehicle collection
We're excited to bring you a significant update featuring a variety of new vehicles with superior quality and detailed interiors. This update increases our total vehicle count to 29, including those you can purchase from the dealership, player-owned vehicles, work-related vehicles, and AI-driven cars on the roads. The new additions range from old, rusty cars to high-end sports and luxury vehicles. In addition to the new vehicles, we've overhauled the AI traffic system. More roads have been added for AI traffic, resulting in a denser traffic experience in major areas of the map. You can now control the amount of AI traffic on the server through the in-game Admin menu and adjust the tick-rate of the vehicles to optimize performance when necessary. Thank you for your continued support, and we hope you enjoy these new enhancements!
Leveling and Skill System: Persistent leveling and skill system to track your progress.
Players now have access to a persistent level/skill system via the inventory menu. While this system is currently in its early stages, it's already fully integrated with new jobs like mining and garbage truck driving. In the future, this leveling system will extend to other jobs such as police, paramedic, and firefighter, creating a persistent rank system. You can open the inventory, hover over your levels, and see how much more XP you need to reach the next level for each specific skill. For example, when mining rocks, every ore you complete mining gives you XP towards improving your level for that specific ore. To mine richer ores like gold, you'll need to reach a minimum mining level. Players must start with simpler ores and progress, creating a progression system where you need to grind your levels before mining rich ores and making major profits.
Garage System: Manage your vehicles and economy efficiently.
We're excited to announce a major addition to New Citizen: a fully functional garage system! Civilians can no longer obtain vehicles for free; you now need to purchase them from the dealership and use the garage system to store them. The garage system is persistent, allowing you to build and manage a collection of vehicles you own. To maintain network optimization, each player can only have one vehicle out at a time, with the exception of work vehicles. To return your vehicles, visit a vehicle return point, which can be found on your in-game map. Garage locations are also marked on the map, making it easy to manage your vehicle collection.
View Distance Optimization: Better performance with optimized view distances.
We've made significant improvements to the cull-distance and draw distance settings by grouping many parts of our map into grouped objects and instanced meshes to optimize draw calls. This update provides a substantial performance boost, allowing lower-end computers to minimize their draw distance and experience improved performance.
Player Injury System: Blood trails and injured animation state.
When you take damage, you will now start bleeding and leave behind blood droplets until you recover. Additionally, you will walk and move in an injured state for a while, making it difficult to do much for a few seconds after being hit.
New Jobs: Become a garbage truck driver or a semi-truck driver with new job roles.
Visual Radio: Handheld radios for better communication.
We've added a new feature where your character will now play an animation of talking on a radio or walkie-talkie when you speak. This animation is an overlay, allowing you to walk around while speaking on the radio. It's also replicated, so other players can see when you're talking on the radio. This small yet important addition enhances the immersive experience and helps clarify whether a player is talking to you or on the radio when standing nearby.
Faction Selection: Choose your faction, get police guides, and select your spawn points.
A major change has occurred in the way the game is played for civilians, sheriffs, and paramedics. Previously, everyone started as a civilian and had to visit the sheriff or fire station, take an in-game exam, and go on duty to change their job. While this system was interesting, many players found the exam questions too difficult, creating an unnecessary step that slowed down gameplay. Now, when you load into the game, you'll be prompted with a faction selection screen where you can choose which faction you want to play as. Following that, you'll see a spawn point selection screen, allowing you to spawn at the police station, hospital, fire station, and other locations. We've temporarily removed the cinematic loading sequence to develop a better one, as the previous video didn't meet our expectations. When you select the law enforcement faction, you'll be shown the sheriff's guide, which you can read before starting the game or skip if you prefer. Additionally, both the fire rescue and sheriff factions will require you to submit your call sign before selecting your spawn point. This streamlines the process and enhances the overall gaming experience.
New Areas: Explore newly added regions in the southern town.
The town down south has received significant enhancements! We’ve added more residential zoning to the area and expanded the town, allowing players to purchase new homes. Additionally, we’ve introduced a motel, a general store, a hardware store, and more in the southern part of the map.
New Fire Station: A new facility for our firefighting heroes.
The old fire station has been replaced with a new and improved facility! We received numerous complaints about the previous station's European/Australian theme, so we replaced it with one that better matches the aesthetic of a small American town.
New Characters: A brand new set of characters.
Previously, we were using MetaHumans for our in-game character models. While these characters are visually impressive, their complex rigs and advanced materials made them unsuitable for our gameplay needs. They are better suited for cinematics and cutscenes in the game. This update brings a major change as we have transitioned to a new set of characters that are perfectly optimized for our game. We've noticed a significant boost in performance, both in terms of FPS and networking. The previous setup involved live retargeting MetaHumans to the ALS character, which resulted in a noticeable movement delay on each client's screen. Now, our characters move smoothly, providing a much better gameplay experience overall.
New character Uniforms/clothing: A brand new set of clothing and uniforms
We’re excited to introduce new uniforms for all our jobs, including the sheriff’s officer uniform, paramedic uniform, miner gear, truck driver uniform, and much more! The new clothing and character pack we’re using offers a wide range of options for creating unique clothing items in the future. This modular format will also facilitate player customization when we implement that feature later on.
Pedestrian AI Crowds: More realistic pedestrian behaviour and crowds.
A major goal of ours has been to make our environment feel more alive. While we already have AI traffic that drives around and follows road rules, we lacked pedestrian AI to populate the streets, which is essential for creating a more immersive experience. We are excited to announce that we’ve integrated Unreal Engine 5's Mass AI into New Citizen! Currently, the pedestrian AI does not serve an interactable purpose, but this is just the first step as we optimize and fine-tune them for more advanced AI mechanics in the future. Our long-term goal is to enable players to stop and engage in conversations with these AI characters. Additionally, if you’re playing as a police officer, we plan to introduce extra interaction points, such as requesting ID from pedestrians and more.
Optimizations and Improvements
- Optimized Networking Code: Achieved smoother online gameplay with reduced lag.
- Optimized Gameplay FPS: Enhanced frame rates for a better visual experience.
- Visual Lag Improvements: Removed the outdated retargeting system to minimize visual lag for other players.
- HUD Enhancements: Added a ping display and server player count for better visibility.
- Respawn Mechanic: Changed the respawn system from a button press to a timer-based approach.
- UI Improvements: Revamped the UI for a crisper and smoother experience, including improved inventory interfaces.
Fixes and Enhancements
- Bug Fixes: Addressed numerous bugs for a more seamless experience.
- Interaction Fix: Resolved the issue where players had to look away before they could interact again.
- Car Movement Fix: Fixed the issue of cars moving when they should be stationary.
- Foliage: Added grass foliage to footpaths for a more natural appearance.
- Lighting: Brake lights and headlights are now fully functional on all vehicles.
- Police Missions: Introduced new sound effects for police mission spawns.
- Street Names: Added street names for improved navigation.
- Removed Cinematic Intro: Players can now jump directly into action without an introductory sequence.
- Ping Display: Your ping is now visible in the top left corner while in-game.
- Server Player Count: You can now see how many players are in a server in the server browser.
- Connection Lost Disclaimers: If you lose connection from a server, the reason will now be displayed when you return to the main menu.
- Player ID Display: Your player ID is now shown in the top right corner of the screen for easy identification in-game.
- Prison Doors: All prison doors and gates are now functional for police officers to operate.
- Map Enhancement: The in-game map now automatically zooms into your location upon opening.
- Car Movement When Stopped: Resolved the issue of cars moving slightly or significantly when stopped and exited.
- Look Away to Interact: Fixed the problem where players had to look away and back at an object to interact, especially with vehicle interactions.
- Brake Lights and Headlights: All vehicles, including AI, now feature fully functional brake lights and headlights using emissive materials and point lights.
- Inventory UI Improvements: Enhanced the clarity and sharpness of the inventory UI, with tooltips displayed when hovering over items.
- Foliage in Towns: Added foliage and debris around footpaths and town areas to create a more lively atmosphere.
- More Admin Commands: Admins can now change the server's time of day through the in-game admin menu, with a server-wide chat message indicating the change.
- Game Guides: All in-game guides now utilize the Steam overlay website viewer, simplifying future updates to the guides.
- Roads Reworked: Removed the overpass leading from the southern town back into the main town; the exit now leads back onto the highway.
- Sirens Echo: Sirens on emergency vehicles now echo throughout the environment, creating a more realistic effect.
- Interaction Hover Sound Effect: Removed the hover sound effect for interactable objects to reduce annoyance.
- Door Improvements: Doors now feature different opening and closing speeds based on their type, as well as unique sounds, and have been optimized for better performance.
- Driver Visibility: Players can now see their character in the driver's seat of the car, eliminating the need for tinted reflective windows.
- New Player Nameplates: Added new name tags above players' heads using screen-space widgets for improved clarity and readability.
The Community Voted And We Acted
We want to reaffirm our commitment to listening to our community, and what better way to demonstrate this than by adding features that reflect your feedback? In our previous updates, we mentioned that we would allow our community to vote on what they want to see more of in New Citizen’s future updates. We believe that our players know best when it comes to shaping the game. On July 15, 2024, at 11:30 AM Australian Melbourne Time, we conducted a vote within our community Discord, asking players to share their priorities for the next update. Attached are the results of that poll, and as you can see, this update directly reflects our community’s desires. We truly value your input and are dedicated to taking your suggestions seriously as we continue to evolve New Citizen together.
Sneak-peak for the next update
First Person Driving:
We are also exploring the implementation of first-person views for all vehicles in future updates. Attached is a video showcasing how it looks so far, giving you a sneak peek of what’s to come in the game!
Looking Forward:
Our primary focus with this update is to enhance gameplay mechanics, improve overall performance, and expand content to enrich your experience in New Citizen. Your feedback will be invaluable as we refine these new systems and prepare for future updates. Thank you for your continued support and patience as we work hard to deliver an even better gaming experience!
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Kind regards,
Specpixel Entertainment PTY LTD (New Citizen Team)