I think this update takes the honor of being the most troublesome one to get done so far, having taken literally months now (whereas previous updates were generally in the order of weeks).
A lot of the features here are mainly for the purpose of encouraging a more active playerbase, so hopefully you can find a match more often. Needless to say, this will be an ongoing effort.
As usual with complex new features, you can expect issues, particularly with the dedicated servers. If there are no servers in the dedicated server browser, it's probably crashed or something, so just let me know on the forums (I haven't set them up to automatically restart yet, although I believe this is possible [yes, I know, ideally they won't crash in the first place]). Also, there may be an issue where dedicated servers stop sending data properly after being up for the best part of a week. Not sure on this, but will be characterized by just about everything but your local control of your avatar not working.
You can expect less frequent but larger updates from now on, as there's going to be increasing overhead per update in updating dedicated servers.
Hopefully future updates will go smoother than this one though, as that really was an insufferable faff.
Lastly, if you've been helping me to test the update prior to release, thanks again for the help, and don't forget to opt back into the main branch before trying to play online.
-Jon
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
- There's a new map from Max Graw (Ex3mx) called “Mine”, which he finished not long after the last update, so needless to say it's about time it made it into the main game. As usual, Max's latest map has a very distinct and focused visual style, so I think you'll be able to see why I hired him to make some assets for the main game (in this update: an array of helmets).
CHANGES:
FUNCTIONAL:
- Dedicated server(s). I've parenthesized the “s” there, because I've currently just set up one dedicated server, although it will be easy to set more up as the need arises. If the server's always full (we can hope), just let me know and I can set up another. I've found a very affordable hosting package, so I can set up a few more without money being much of an issue. The first dedicated server is located in New York City, so good news if you live in that neck of the woods: you should get a low ping. When I set up more, I'll try and get some in different parts of the world.
- Achievements. Currently there are 27 achievements, relating to kills, kills with specific weapons, and also speed. I intend to add more and more interesting achievements in future. Note that all the current achievements are only unlockable when playing on official dedicated servers. Thanks to Deika, who made the background floor-panel-inspired image you can see in the achievement icons of the final achievement in each category. He also made the whole achievement icon for the final ERC_479 achievement (but perhaps more significantly, some of you may remember he made the model for the ERC in the first place).
- The first elements of a cosmetics system (see also: “art” section). Cosmetics are unlocked by achievements, but are otherwise free. Obviously having a good system for cosmetics has plenty of advantages of it's own (player identification, e.t.c) but my intention in locking cosmetic options to achievements is mainly to provide some long term objectives to the game, as well as encouraging people to play on the new dedicated server(s) more often (hopefully keeping the playerbase more active) and, of course, to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different cosmetics. Note that the current cosmetics may change the achievement they're associated with over the next few updates, as there may be more appropriate combinations once more achievements/cosmetics are added. Anyway, I'm intending to add all kinds of other cosmetic options in future, perhaps including shoes, textures, armor e.t.c. Will have to think more about what will be most practical though.
- Increased delay after match before map vote to 10 seconds from 5
- Increased map voting time to 30 seconds from 15
- It appears that turning the “value” slider for your armor colour up to max or near max now causes your armor to glow. I do not remember intentionally causing this behavior but I'm going to declare it a feature.
MAP CHANGES:
- Replaced the pillars in Core with the new model made by Max Graw.
UI:
- The main menu has a very different look, and a few functional changes too:
- The background is now a 3d scene, featuring your avatar
- The character edit menu now appears over the same scene, instead of moving to a new level
- The graphics menu is now translucent, and takes up less space so that you can see the effects of graphics changes from the main menu. It also has an FPS monitor, so that you can make an informed decision on graphics settings from the main menu.
- I've replaced most of the buttons with a simple one that echos the wall panel design. Will probably work more on this in future.
- Removed LAN mode tickbox from server list menu. It doesn't work and I forgot to remove it earlier. Joining LAN games is handled though the LAN menu, by entering the host's local IP.
- Various visual changes to in-game menu.
ART:
- Avatar cosmetic options:
- As the first example of avatar cosmetics, there are a range of helmet options with this update, one of which was made by me (“Octangle”), but all of the others were made by Max Graw. Although he's still learning 3d modeling (very quickly, I might add), I much prefer his designs, so intend to commission more models from him in the near future. Stay tuned for more cosmetic options in future updates.
- Team colours now glow, since team identification was becoming a major issue for some of the darker maps, particularly inside a KOTH zone too. I was going to add something fancier to the suit, but for now I've just made the coloured sections glow.
SOUND:
- There's now a sound effect for the slide animation, once again made by Deika. I've wired it up so the volume and pitch scale with speed, and I think it's sounding pretty much exactly how you'd expect a slide to.
NEW BUGS:
Here are some of the brand new bugs I've been working on (unfortunately I did not have time to fix these and get the update out this weekend, but they are minor enough that I felt inclined not to delay the update any further):
- When first joining a game, all the other players will share your appearance until a new match starts or they die and respawn.
- Sometimes , on joining a game, all of your cosmetic options fail to load and the avatar appears completely black with the default helmet. This always rights itself after you die and respawn.
- Sometimes, after a match change, the countdown timer to match start isn't initially set to the correct time on your screen, so goes into negatives before the match begins.
BUGFIXES:
- I've hidden the server host's control panel for auto managed servers, since it didn't do anything.
- The SMG stopped firing when it ran out of ammo, but the sound and muzzle effects continued playing as long as you held the mouse down. This is fixed now. Well spotted by DarkGuy1001.
- Fixed despawned weapon pickups remaining despawned on the match starting (previously, if they were despawned when the match started, the respawn timer wouldn't reset, which is not ideal behavior).
- Fixed issue where FOV reset to default on map change
- It's questionable whether or not this was a bug or not, but several people have observed in the past that your health sometimes shows as 0, but you continue living. I'm pretty sure this is just because health can be fractional but it's rounded down for the HUD, so was probably just <0.5 when it appeared as 0. In any case, I've made it show as 1 for values between 0 and 0.5 now, so it'll only be <=0 when you are dead.
- Fixed pickups being invisible for clients when first joining match, or being invisible all the time, but I think the latter may have been introduced since the last update anyway.