Big, fat brand spankin' new producers letter

Civilian · 2003-04-16, 08:28 PM

Enjoy:

New Producer Letter

Hello again!

Times have been busy as we march toward release. E3 should be an absolute blast next month.

We made some major strides in server stability last night. There was a heavy load issue that was plaguing us and causing occasional zone errors, but it's gone now and we're looking forward to a great playtest tonight.

We've got something like 60,000 beta keys out there now. Folks are still receiving their CDs and downloading the content, so we should have swarms of folks trying to get into the game in just the next couple of days. This weekend should surely be interesting.

The game balance elements are also progressing. Those of you already in beta can see the patch notes. For the rest of you participating vicariously through forum posts, here's a boiled-down version of some recent improvements, as well as a list of upcoming improvements we'll make before release. Almost all of these improvements got into the game as a direct result of player feedback. Our beta testers have been doing an excellent job of catching bugs and providing comments. It's been an excellent test so far.

Recently fixed (tomorrow's patch):

a) Heavy armor (tanks and such) are pretty much immune to small-arms fire now. That makes them much more fearsome on the battlefield. Their weapons and turret speeds were also improved somewhat to make them a bit more intimidating.

b) We did major map revisions based on the gameflow that we'd seen in the last couple of weeks. More chokepoints were added so that more battles should occur away from the facilities. We'll be watching that avidly.

c) VS weapons got a lot of attention. There were some bugs that were gimping a couple things, and some improvements were made in other areas. The VS are close to balanced now, but we still have a few things to tweak.

d) We improved player statistics so that you can more accurately see how many types of armor you've killed, how many vehicles, how many bases you've capped (or assisted capping), etc.

e) We've improved vehicle collision logic so that light vehicles take damage when ramming things, but heavy vehicles can pretty much just plow through things.

f) Fixed a bunch of compatibility issues with GeForce, ATI, and Matrox cards. (Matrox Parhelia actually runs pretty dang fast now.)

g) Fixed the grief system to allow accidental griefers (folks who only grief occasionally) a lot more leeway. Also, the system is set up to dissipate grief faster and to cap the amount of grief that can be done through a single accident.

h) Huge front-end screen improvements. All the beginning screens got a major facelift.

i) VoiceIP was added to the game via TeamSound. It's built-in now, so as long as you have a functional microphone, you should be able to communicate with any of your squadmates.

j) Battle plans are added for Command Rank 3. With this ability, you can actually draw lines and add text to your overhead map, real-time, and your squadmates will see that information as you lay it down. This adds a great deal that you can do as a Commander and makes commands very visual.

Stuff still to come in the next week or two:

1) The phantom hacker fix (finally!)

2) Implant improvements

3) Facility link ability improvements.

4) Medic improvements.

5) Continued weapon balancing.

6) Sharing xp for squads across a continent

7) VR Training improvements

8) Off-line training modules

9) Weather improvements

10) More...but the changes get too detailed and minor for a list like this to cover.

So...lots here (as of tomorrow) and more to come. And release is a mere month away. Can't wait.

-- Dave.

http://planetside.station.sony.com/n...sp?story=55242

Ginzue · 2003-04-16, 08:37 PM

Thoght that was OFN so dident post it

Sheesh, had my change to be first...

Anywho, ya looks like some awsome changes in there.

Cyanide · 2003-04-16, 08:40 PM

Sweet, sounds like the game is finally coming into its own.

Vash · 2003-04-16, 08:46 PM

Sounds great

I hope grief generated by deployables gets reduced too though. I racked up almost 1000 points last night just by teammates fighting right on top of my mines and getting grazed by my spitfires.

Should be fun to see the new changes to the VS, and it's pretty nice to see they added in-game voice-comms too

Is it thursday yet?

Dharkbayne · 2003-04-16, 08:52 PM

No, its Octobember

Vash · 2003-04-16, 09:05 PM

Octobember???

Looks like I need a new calendar

Cyanide · 2003-04-16, 09:07 PM

Yeah, see on auraxis there's only 11 months so they just combined october and november into one month.

1024 · 2003-04-16, 10:55 PM

Finally, a VoiceIP system

Dharkbayne · 2003-04-16, 11:04 PM

Ph34r my l33t month future seeing powers! YOU SHALL ALL WORSHIP OCTEMBER!

WeaponssBug · 2003-04-16, 11:05 PM

Sounds like they are already looking at stuff and implementing things that would take most companies months of patches afterwards to do. Great job guys, I love this game.

Tieom · 2003-04-16, 11:11 PM

Detailed and minor! Living vicariously through the forums requires all things detailed and minor!
Rawwwrgh!
Give me every single microscopic change!
I... MUST... HAVE... IT... ALLLLLLL!!!!
:o