Post by: x4000 on August 21, 2016, 10:44:43 pm
We have been very busy. That said, another minor delay. But! This time there is a huuuge silver lining if you just can't wait to get your hands on the game: you CAN get it tomorrow.
Wat?
The current delay is caused by a couple of things, but the need for adequate testing (even for an early access launch) is one of them. There were some severe performance issues in procgen-levels-only that I've ironed out in the past day, and that set me back. It also made me really antsy about wanting more eyeballs on this before we start selling it.
You Can Get A Copy, Tomorrow
So! If you're interested in testing the game, please send an email to arcengames at gmail dot com, and we'll provide a limited number of people copies of the game based on our best guess as to who will give us actual testing feedback based on how they present themselves.
This does mean that you'll get a free copy of the game that will continue to work after we release it. Free stuff, yay!
But, as we've done in the past with testers on other games of ours, our one request is that you do a good-faith effort to actually not just play the game, but also report any bugs or issues you find. Instructions one how to do that will be provided via email, but it's basically just mantis bugtracker reports.
Despite one person having a crash in a video today, I'm pretty confident in the demo levels at this point (they are limited in scope and have been beat to heck and back by press and a few testers we do have and of course our staff). The procgen stuff is a lot more voluminous and has had far fewer eyeballs on it, which is my core concern.
Streamers Get A Copy Tomorrow, Too
We've been hesitating on reaching out to twitch streamers until the procgen stuff is in place, because that's what is needed for them to really be able to do longer-term streaming. That will be ready enough tomorrow, although I shudder to think that some of them may run into some issues like being able to find a hole in a room and jump out of the level and get infinite falling death, or find some other issue that we just need to spend 5 minutes on to fix once we (or someone else) find it.
Having press/streamers and QA running simultaneously is not the ideal, but doing that AND having a launch at the same time is straight-up stupid if you have any alternative. So if you're a streamer and you run into a problem, please let us know if you will, and give us a little extra slack for just two days. ;)
Full Release Into EA On Wednesday The 21st
This last delay will give us a few things:
- I'll have time to do a last trailer and screenshot set that best represent the game on the storefronts.
- We'll have time for more press and streamers to get in there and do previews so that potential customers can be more informed on launch.
- We'll be able to run an intensive last cycle of pre-EA testing with more testers than we currently have, and thus have a smoother launch from that angle, too.
- If I happen to have spare time on my hands (haha), then I can throw in a few extra goodies for the launch. Otherwise those can come the day after launch.
Last Note
I know that all these delays have been really frustrating to folks, and may have looked unprofessional in some respects. I've spoken on the Arcen forums on this subject at some length, but basically I've been caught between competing "challenges" for a while now.
Ultimately I've chosen to continue to do what is in the best interest of the launch of the game, even if that means a later launch, and I think that you'll appreciate that when you get the launch version. And then hopefully that will transition well into us making more content very quickly after launch, too, to further reinforce the forward momentum we're picking up at this point.
Anyway, so I apologize about the rollercoaster this has been. Hopefully if you're invested enough into the idea of this game that this has been a big frustration for you, you won't mind getting a free copy in exchange for some early testing. We can't give out a thousand copies of the game in that way, but having a few dozen extra sets of eyeballs would be a really good thing as a last sanity-check.
Thanks as always for reading, and for your support!
Chris
Post by: Mánagarmr on August 22, 2016, 03:40:51 am
Post by: Pumpkin on August 22, 2016, 04:12:21 am
my car project takes a lot of time.Don't burn it down, this time. :P
I prefer buying RR when it'll be in good shape. (I won't buy it for myself.) Plus, I'll have an excuse to throw money at my favorite game studio.
Good luck for the launch!
Post by: TheVampire100 on August 22, 2016, 05:31:46 am
Except this I think I can wait a day longer, from all the deleays so far this is the shortest. But please don't push it back another 5 days tomorrow :(
Post by: x4000 on August 22, 2016, 09:11:59 am
Post by: Draco18s on August 22, 2016, 10:52:50 am
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KH_0uybs93I/hqdefault.jpg)
Nice screensaver!
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 22, 2016, 11:24:03 am
but as much as Id like to help test a day early id rather wait particularly with how my laptop refused to let me send you any messages last time I tried to use g mail.
Post by: Pumpkin on August 22, 2016, 12:54:50 pm
I would love to test this game, but my computer is on fire right now.Okay. Mánagarmr burnt his car (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18816.0.html). Draco18s burnt his PC. Who's next?(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KH_0uybs93I/hqdefault.jpg)Nice screensaver!
(I love this community! :D)
Post by: Draco18s on August 22, 2016, 01:02:08 pm
Post by: Mánagarmr on August 22, 2016, 03:49:19 pm
At least it wasn't my project car that burned up! It was my daily driver :Pmy car project takes a lot of time.Don't burn it down, this time. :P
Post by: garpu on August 22, 2016, 04:29:33 pm
At least it wasn't my project car that burned up! It was my daily driver :Pmy car project takes a lot of time.Don't burn it down, this time. :P
No joke, my mom's VW bug burned up in my Kindergarten parking lot. Everyone was fine. (It had a gas heater, and those were prone to leak.) Cool little car...
Post by: chemical_art on August 22, 2016, 05:34:37 pm
Post by: chemical_art on August 22, 2016, 05:38:22 pm
I would love to test this game, but my computer is on fire right now.Okay. Mánagarmr burnt his car (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18816.0.html). Draco18s burnt his PC. Who's next?(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KH_0uybs93I/hqdefault.jpg)Nice screensaver!
(I love this community! :D)
One time while making fireworks my whole hand caught on fire. I had three layers of gloves on so I just admired it for a second.
Post by: Captain Jack on August 22, 2016, 07:48:26 pm
Post by: Misery on August 22, 2016, 09:39:13 pm
I would love to test this game, but my computer is on fire right now.Okay. Mánagarmr burnt his car (https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,18816.0.html). Draco18s burnt his PC. Who's next?(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KH_0uybs93I/hqdefault.jpg)Nice screensaver!
(I love this community! :D)
I could always smash something, if that helps.
With my car, that is.
Post by: x4000 on August 22, 2016, 11:39:15 pm
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 23, 2016, 10:02:25 am
Thanks everybody! Sorry for the slow responses today, I've been a bit busy, heh. But the tester build is now out to those folks. :)thanks I won't be testing the pre release build for a reason I've already mentioned.
but I am looking forward to testing it tomorrow if its anything stars testing period then it'll be a hell of lot of fun
but what time are you releasing it tomorrow exactly? just because I won't be able to get in till the afternoon tomorrow.
Post by: Timerlane on August 23, 2016, 11:31:40 am
i.e. It says 'approximately 1 day and 13 hours', as of posting.
Hmm. I always assumed Steam released everything at 1PM Eastern, as that's when all the Steam Sales usually commence.
Post by: x4000 on August 23, 2016, 03:51:32 pm
Releases happen when the developer pushes the big green button. I could push the button now and it would override the timer. And when the timer counts all the way down, it will just sit at 0 until I press the button. This is all after Steam approves the game for release in general (which they did back in May).
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 23, 2016, 04:23:26 pm
I accidentally chose 10pm instead of 10am -- thanks for the catch. I've fixed that now.so steam let you choose when you want to release? to be honest I always assumed that was the case but its still nice to know.
Releases happen when the developer pushes the big green button. I could push the button now and it would override the timer. And when the timer counts all the way down, it will just sit at 0 until I press the button. This is all after Steam approves the game for release in general (which they did back in May).
also sounds like ill be able to get straight in when it releases although Ill probably be to tired to test for longer than a couple of hours then.
Post by: x4000 on August 23, 2016, 04:37:00 pm
Post by: Penumbra on August 24, 2016, 01:06:39 pm
Edit: Saw your post on the Steam forums, I can wait the extra hour...
Post by: x4000 on August 24, 2016, 01:27:18 pm
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 24, 2016, 02:53:26 pm
Almost there! :Dits released now on the steam sore(at least for me :D so providing your in uk time then you'll be able to play it right now!.
Post by: x4000 on August 24, 2016, 03:22:27 pm
Post by: TheVampire100 on August 24, 2016, 03:27:52 pm
The level design is okay but I coem across a lot of closed doors. Entering doors in third person view is also a small challenge because in 9 of 10 times the door swings open in the wrong direction and pushes the raptor a little out of the way. because of the turn rate it's hard to aim for the door again and until then it is closed, repeating the circle. that happened so many times for me, I had to mention this. In general, the turn rate on the raptor and the ctonrols in general seem a little "clunky" in thrid person view. I know you wanted to add a realistically movememnt pattern for the raptor but the problem is, in narrow places it get's a bit tiresome navigating this way.
I cannot tell abput first person view because nowhere int he controls I found the key to switch. Can you tell me what I have to press?
Level generation looks fine mostly but I come across some very big rooms with little to no decoration items. There was this big open space with staircases (I think this is a side street betwen two buildings? Hard to tell because the sky is darkened). The biggest problem weren't however the design but that tehre have been flying robots with no chance to hit them because were too far away from the staircases.
Personally I like th eapartment sections a lot more than the warehouse sections or whatever they shall be. The apartment sections are probably the best part of the game, the feeling you have while moving through such familiar places is awesome. they are also the places with most varity I've seen.
The destriuctible nature of every objet is a nice touch but do you have to use the same disambling behaviour on everything? I can understand this for chairs, paintings, doors and other stuff, but in the apartment you can find balls and tehy break apart like anything else. Please change this. What would be cool is, if you could act a realistic ball physic to the balls. they bounce of if you hit them with accelerating speed. If you hit to hard they "pop" (sorry, I don't know how to say this better in English, what I mean is that they loose their air, not really popping, a football rarely pops btu he can loose his air). I would actually enjoy kicking a ball around the game, thats some of the tiny stuff that people like to do.
Okay, now to real gameplay problematics. At some point I was seen by a robot that I never saw. i never foudn out where it was but it was alarmed and because of this I couldn't finish the game. It destroys the purpose of a stealth mechanic in my view. A suggestion would be, let robots stay alarmed but if you move out of sight you have an (to the player invisible) timer where the robot searches you. If he cannot find you, he returns to his usual behaviour and deactivates the shield again. I notice that you've added a lot of places with dead ends and I'm pretty sure these are meant as hiding places but they serve currently no purpose in my eyes. Robots do not roam between different room, actually I haven't seen robots moving at all unless provoked. Please add my idea and give this hiding places a purpose, I think it would be a cool idea.
Now performance. I noticed some lags but at one room it was unbearable. There was this big dark room in the apartment section that connected to different apartments. It had this mirroring pillar in the center and strong lights on the ceiling. Whenever I enter this place the game lags really hard.
I hope this helps you a little.
Post by: x4000 on August 24, 2016, 03:52:54 pm
* Fixed an issue where we did not actually allow players to rebind the zoom keys or the first/third person toggle buttons, to our surprise. No wonder nobody knew it's the F key!
Responses:
1. Yes, lots of closed doors. Thanks for the kind words on teh graphics.
2. Smash doors rather than having them just open, heh. They do open, but why let them?
3. The turn rate on the raptor is for the sake of navigation in small places, not for the sake of realism. On WASD it's impossible to control her if the turn rate is too high, because then you can only go cardinal and ordinal directions without turning the mouse. If the option for a turn rate adjustment slider is something you want, that would be a good thing to throw in mantis.
4. The alleys and a few of the other places are sparsely decorated at the moment, yes, because we're still getting more objects set up for them. In the case of one of the really giant rooms, you're meant to be facing a miniboss there, hence the extra room.
5. The cicadabots way up out of reach are by design. You don't have to fight them to get through the level.
6. There are not many fracture algorithms out there that can be run in realtime in particular. We're using voroni fracturing, which has to be run on a secondary thread as it is. Potentially we could get into softbody deformations with some things instead of them fracturing, but that strikes me as a very ancillary nice-to-have thing versus core gameplay additions. It would be nice, but I think that it has to come far later in the process if there's a lot of pickup of the game, because otherwise we lose the audience in the meantime.
7. Robots that are alerted are going to be on the minimap. That will make it so that you can find them.
8. I'm not a fan of timed search periods and giving up except in games where the searchers are infinitely generated (police in GTA). It's too easy to just go hide and sit around, which is really annoying. The other thing that would be absolutely game-breaking with that if robots ever gave up is that you just run to the end of the level past all the robots, and if you're fast enough you outpace them and they all give up and you win without ever fighting them.
9. The dead ends and whatnot are for tactical situations with robots that don't yet exist, and for places where there will be goodies to find.
10. Robots do not roam between chunks, but they do roam within rooms. For performance reasons, their AI and so on is disabled when you are not in the same chunk as them anymore. We have complex waypointing capabilities and other tools that we are not making good use of yet but that I spent a lot of time on. Having the ability to hide from robots in nooks and crannies is very much a design goal of mine. I particularly want to have some enemies designed around that. We have a ton of enemy designs that are not implemented yet.
11. Glad performance was okay in general. If you have a chance to take a picture of the one room that is so problematic, that would be appreciated. I have a feeling I know which one you're referring to, but I'm not positive. If you look in your PlayerData folder in your game folder, there is an InfoLog.txt file that should have the seed you were playing on. I could duplicate the issue from that, as well. It may be that it was not a problem with the room, but rather was causing too many chunks to be active at once because of the way raycasting currently activates them. I have a less-naive approach to raycasting that will cut down a lot on raycasts (which are presently about 40% of the non-graphics load) as well as being more accurate.
Cheers!
Chris
Post by: TheVampire100 on August 24, 2016, 04:39:58 pm
Here's my info log anyway.
Post by: x4000 on August 24, 2016, 04:57:19 pm
And yep, while the game does feel quite mature in a lot of respects, it is still very much a work in progress in terms of what is and isn't there. It is, well, early access. Hopefully still fun though, and not giving anyone the impression of too-early-for-EA. The point was to deliver a baseline fun experience and then continue building that up into something that is hopefully truly great.
Incidentally, we're working with some folks on camera stuff, so that will also be better in the future with the third-person camera. There have been temporary difficulties with that, to my frustration. I'm under NDA on that one, so I can't say more (atypically).
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 24, 2016, 05:35:43 pm
(what I call when your frame rate goes down to low enough that the actions your inputting to do happen a fair after inputting them therefore making it like playing a stop motion movie) which I can generally cope with for testing purposes. (I had to put up with this when I used to play warframe)
but not when the cameras going all over the place like that
so I decided take the bottom texts advice and actually look at the graphical settings and now its running at relatively workable rates although ill probably try it on my friendly neighbourhood pc(although I find this laptop being the best it is tends to get better performance than it) but any way now that's out of the way some general points.
1 what is this I see about a 4th mouse button in the key bindings? although I do REALY! appreciate being able to key bind screenshot taking since the idiot that designed the key workings on this laptop managed to make the screenshot function useless all over the place.
2 you may want to (in the future) put toltips off to the side for graphical options mainly because its handy to new players.
3 more out of general curiosity but what exactly is ,blend weight,? and why is its effects described in bones? its something that I've never ever heard of.
4 actual combat so far feels pretty good I encountered a suppressor turret who I bit to death(lol) after weaving to dodge his shots
and then a spidery thing which split it self of who I then also bit to death.
will need to test a bit there but it appears that the kick attack isn't doing anything but that's probably because of the lack of hit confirm.
5 the raptor sounds adorable :D I know this isn't what you were going for but I LOVE it !.
I'm going to finish this off now before it turns into enougher wall of text.
if your wondering why I didn't mention graphics its because I set everything so low in the quest for performance that its going to not look great regardless what ever happens.
try not to take that personally its just that I usually have such a hard time getting 3d games to run well in general that I always do this first thing when I play 3d games for the first time.
Post by: Cinth on August 24, 2016, 05:41:22 pm
Post by: Timerlane on August 24, 2016, 06:27:49 pm
I hear the music, and can hear the clicks from mouseovering the (invisible) main menu buttons. Nothing I can change from the launcher seems to help.
I know I can (barely)run the Overload Teaser (http://steamcommunity.com/app/450220) successfully(which is on Unity 5.2.3), so I'm hoping there's just something quirky going on here.
EDIT: Whoops. Overwrote the log; reattached.
Post by: Cinth on August 24, 2016, 06:42:22 pm
I suspect I'll be another near-min spec-ish tester(Bay Trail-M graphics, on an Intel Pentium N3540 w/4GB, Win8.1), but ATM, I can't see anything but a blank screen.
I hear the music, and can hear the clicks from mouseovering the (invisible) main menu buttons. Nothing I can change from the launcher seems to help.
I know I can (barely)run the Overload Teaser (http://steamcommunity.com/app/450220) successfully(which is on Unity 5.2.3), so I'm hoping there's just something quirky going on here.
EDIT: Whoops. Overwrote the log; reattached.
You're likely going to be short on memory if you only have 4 GB of RAM. As far as why you don't even get the menu screen, I'm not sure.
Post by: garion333 on August 24, 2016, 08:22:04 pm
5. The cicadabots way up out of reach are by design. You don't have to fight them to get through the level.
Well that explains my confusion. Since I had no idea what they were called when the game is telling me a Beetlecleft was left I thought it mean all those flying bots.
Obviously this is the alpha so I wouldn't expect this to be in the game, but some sort of catalog showing what enemies are would be helpful to new players.
Post by: Misery on August 24, 2016, 09:19:34 pm
Maybe a catalog really would be a good idea? If there's time for such a thing.
Post by: Pumpkin on August 25, 2016, 12:37:16 am
Maybe a catalog really would be a good idea? If there's time for such a thing.I like how Teleglitch doesn't name enemies ingame but has a collection of commented pictures that unlock the first time you encounter them. Risk of Rain do that too, with little arts and backstory.
Post by: Timerlane on August 25, 2016, 01:43:36 am
I suspect I'll be another near-min spec-ish tester(Bay Trail-M graphics, on an Intel Pentium N3540 w/4GB, Win8.1), but ATM, I can't see anything but a blank screen.Update: It seems to fix itself after I enter a level(i.e. click on the upper right corner where the picture should be); always blank on first open, but after I start playing, the main menu will appear as normal.
I hear the music, and can hear the clicks from mouseovering the (invisible) main menu buttons. Nothing I can change from the launcher seems to help.
I know I can (barely)run the Overload Teaser (http://steamcommunity.com/app/450220) successfully(which is on Unity 5.2.3), so I'm hoping there's just something quirky going on here.
EDIT: Whoops. Overwrote the log; reattached.
Post by: Draco18s on August 25, 2016, 11:26:55 am
Maybe a catalog really would be a good idea? If there's time for such a thing.I like how Teleglitch doesn't name enemies ingame but has a collection of commented pictures that unlock the first time you encounter them. Risk of Rain do that too, with little arts and backstory.
A fair few games do that. Amorphous Plus did that years ago.
Post by: x4000 on August 25, 2016, 12:13:13 pm
@crazyroosterman:
Quote
1 what is this I see about a 4th mouse button in the key bindings? although I do REALY! appreciate being able to key bind screenshot taking since the idiot that designed the key workings on this laptop managed to make the screenshot function useless all over the place.
If you have more than a 3-button mouse, you can assign any functions to them.
Quote
2 you may want to (in the future) put toltips off to the side for graphical options mainly because its handy to new players.
It's a good point. I want to redo that screen at some point in general.
Quote
3 more out of general curiosity but what exactly is ,blend weight,? and why is its effects described in bones? its something that I've never ever heard of.
This is actually a physics processing thing, not a graphics thing, but it's... well it is a bit both. Basically models have bones in them that cause their meshes to be deformed in various ways (aka mimicing muscles or any other sort of movement). This describes how many bones can act on one part of the mesh at a time. More bones can lead to a more realistic look in terms of breathing motions and moving around, but it's also higher-load. So this has nothing to do with the GPU, but it does have an impact on visual fidelity.
It's a standard option in the quality settings for the unity engine, but you're right I've not seen other devs exposing this one either.
@garion333:
Quote
Well that explains my confusion. Since I had no idea what they were called when the game is telling me a Beetlecleft was left I thought it mean all those flying bots.
Completely understandable. I'm going to get the minimap in today, which should hopefully help with that issue a lot.
Quote
Obviously this is the alpha so I wouldn't expect this to be in the game, but some sort of catalog showing what enemies are would be helpful to new players.
Good point! I should definitely do that at some point.
@Timerlane:
Quote
Update: It seems to fix itself after I enter a level(i.e. click on the upper right corner where the picture should be); always blank on first open, but after I start playing, the main menu will appear as normal.
Well... that is incredibly peculiar, to put it mildly. I'm glad there is a workaround for you, at least. Hopefully when I completely redo the main menu this will no longer be an issue at all. Maybe I can do the menu at the same time as I get the monsterpedia type thing in.
Post by: crazyroosterman on August 25, 2016, 02:04:28 pm
2 yes ill try and remember to nag you into doing it in the future if you forget especialy for bone sampling most of the people who are going to play this are going zero idea what the heck that means.
3 so after deciding I thought the game felt alright I turned the fps counter on and yikes! 10 to 13 fps on average yeap this is definetly something ill need to delegate to my neighbourhood pc.
4 I actually noticed yesterday that there was a certain wall I think I bounced through if I can replicate that sometime ill put it up to mantis.
Post by: x4000 on August 25, 2016, 02:11:51 pm
Post by: Draco18s on August 25, 2016, 03:09:59 pm
1 4 button and up mouse's exist?! I that seems like it would be really fiddly to me but I guess it makes sense considering how you generally use your mouse in games.
I have a 5 button mouse. It's awesome. The 4th and 5th buttons are under my thumb. I love them because they're automatically mapped to back/forward in my browser (soooo goooood).