Blog

State Of Play

DEV SCHEDULE UPDATE

We have put the unlocking of vehicles and aircraft for testing, on hold for the time being.

We are working on completing and unlocking the final weapons and attachments, as well as minor player character related items and tweaks. They include the following:

  • rocket & grenade launchers, throwing knives
  • mines & grenades
  • shot tracer, laser marker, target designator, grenader launcher attachments
  • player states: stunned & blinded, from nearby explosions, location based damage with UI reference
  • player actions: sprint, heal another player
  • streamline the player inventory system with the final game restrictions on what you can carry etc
  • add “Flashpoint” (where the current action is. see “events” below) indicators to the login screen so that players know where current action is in progress
  • tweaks to the infantry fps handling to make it a bit more robust, fluid etc. For those who think it “sux”, well, this one’s for you. But make no mistake, we’re not going to allow an infantry character to run around at 100 m/s. That’s not this game.

We expect most of these to be completed and released for testing in the coming weeks.

Then we’re onto….

THE WORLD EVENTS

This game, from the start was designed to be PvP, but with support for server events which throw some NPC assets into the mix.

We have now added a description of these events to the FAQ.

With all the weapons and attachments almost completed, we will be activating these events as part of our Phase 3 dev schedule as this is the best way to get everyone involved in testing everything, without waiting for a lot of players to join.

The Flashpoint indicator on the login screen will allow you to see where the current action is taking place.

Once the last of the updates (mentioned previously) has been released, we will be starting with the Hostile Intent server event.

This means that vehicles and aircraft, will unlock later on, due to them being needed for the other two server events. We were planning on unlocking them next, but I felt that getting players involved in the event, was more important at this point.

So until vehicles and aircraft appear, those with access to a jetpack, wingsuit, High Altitude Insertion Suit, or TAB vehicle, have a way of getting around the planetary bases. If your paid tier or free starter kit doesn’t have any of these, you will be able to buy them from within the game around the time that we launch this event.

OPTIMIZATIONS

The performance could be better; even for the minimum requirements. Yes, we know. We have already started on scene and other optimizations, which will start appearing in updates as things progress.

OPEN BETA TEST

Back in March, before we even unlocked weapons, and all the scenes, we held a free play weekend for testing and tweaking purposes. Though we had some very good feedback, the results were not as expected, and for various reasons which I outline in this State Of Play update.

We won’t be doing that again.

However, through PlayFab, we are going to be hosting an OBT outside of Steam, where we can focus on meaningful feedback, have better abuse controls, no Steam review bombings etc.

This means that the batch of Starter Kit keys we sent out yesterday for those who have signed-up during this CBT session phase, will be the last.

NOTICE ABOUT GAME TIERS

The three limited time tiers (Commander, Ambassador, Emissary) which went live in Sept 2014 when the product was first launched in Early Access, have been discontinued as of Mar 27th.

Now you can only purchase one of the four Tactical Advancement Kit tiers which the final game release will have.

During Early Access, any Tactical Advantage Kit tier that you have, gives you access to everything that we release between now and the game’s final release.

After we release the final game, items that your tier does not come with, will be removed. e.g. all TAK tiers currently have a wingsuit/wingchute for testing purposes. After the game is released, those with TAK Level 1 tiers will no longer have access to these items since they are not part of the tier bundle.

Note that the Starter Kits are free when the final game launches later this year. Until then, we periodically give away these keys in order to bring more people in to help us test certain aspects of this massive game, without them having to pay for a tier. This is what we did in March in order to test those tiers. You can read the results in this state of play dev update.

Later on when we enable the in-game store, anyone will be able to buy single items as-needed, even if you don’t purchase one of the game’s bundled tiers.