We hope you enjoyed your holidays! We definitely did but that did not prevent us from getting work done as promised. Barlowe Square and Pioneer Express are coming along fantastically and if all goes as planned we'll be seeing them in the public build next month. We're also making significant progress on our Linux and Mac platforms as well as our Dedicated Server and working on Sourcemod to help those running servers have more control.
We've got so much going on it's a bit overwhelming but with the new hires we're blasting through it all. We've also got some interesting news that may reassure many or just irritate others (Playing our game for 2 hours a week apparently really gets on some ppl's nerves haha). Both Alex Wright (COO & Lead Animator) and Dec Doyle (Lead Programmer) are packed and flying out to Seattle, WA for Steam Dev Days where we'll meet face to face with some of our friends and colleagues as well as improving relations with contacts and furthering our reach and experience that will benefit all.
From there they will be flying to England for a few days (not even 24 hours rest) heading to our Motion Capture Studio where we've hired professional actors as we do a complete series of animations to replace the existing (it helps to have experienced and learned from our last MoCap session last year) animations for Player Survivors & Zombies, NPC Survivor (not all are friendly) & Zombies. With our layered animations and improved mechanics this will make a significant impact to immersion.
Our guys have been at it without much free time to live their lives so very soon the work we've been on will be pouring in. Yes that means NEW CONTENT and we thank all of you (most of you) for the patience as developing a game is nowhere near as simple as some would lead you to believe. Early Access is/has been better than we could have ever hoped for and the cooperation of the community in helping us catch and reporting bugs and issues with the game that will make for a smooth Full Release!
Here is this weeks changelog-
Contagion "Early Access" Build 3918
- Fixed & Improved lag compensation as well as hit boxes on both Survivor and Zombie players (Waiting for the told you so's heh)
- Improved net-code update and latency timers
- Fixed not being able to reload sniper and mossberg
- Fixed missing bullet decals
- Adjusted sound system update system for NPC's
- Adjusted sound system state updating for player deaths
- Fixed missing floor textures
- Fixed stuttering while holding melee secondary attacks
- Added melee weapon attack gibbing system
- Removed melee attack stamina limit for primary attack
- Melee swipe attacks now has the chance to do more damage to the head
- Added grenade and explosion gibbing to zombies
- Added non-fatal grenade explosion gibbing
- Remade melee system again for steady reliability of attacking (WIP but definitely worth it in the end. Sorry to those who prefer the old HL2 crowbar melee system)
- Fixed hit detection on melee, while distance is still WIP
- Removed ability to sprint while charging melee attacks
- Recompiled material VPK's due to modified directory structure further optimizing the game
- Removed Christmas update, models, textures, sounds etc
- Possible fix of invisible and T-pose zombie models by forcing model update on spawn (Please grab screens/vids and report if still seen)
- Improved environmental assets for all existing maps
- New & Improved sound updates and attenuation fixes for all weapons
- Fixed AR15 looping sound error fixed
- Fixed KG9 attenuation
- Fixed nav issues in RPD
- Fixed fire dynamic lighting
Don't worry the content and media updates are coming sooner than we thought. Will keep you guys posted on how things go during Steam Dev Days and our progress. Don't stop reporting bugs, we couldn't have made it this far without you all.
-The Contagion Team