duplex
06-15-2009, 09:21 AM
Closed Beta Report
Part 16
Since we have skipped last week’s report, we are glad to reveal many updates today.
Balancing
As mentioned earlier we have begun in-depth balancing last week. It was not useful to start this earlier, because the game was not yet feature complete according to character stats before the new booster item system was implemented. Even though the game is still not fully feature complete, we’re at a state now to do serious balancing.
As a first step we changed the weight values of all weapons, adjusted the cone of fire, changed and improved the calculation of cone of fire and weight factors and implemented a few tests that will give us useful input for the next balancing steps.
Motion Blur
This effect is missing in FoM after we switched engines during open beta back in 2005. We never really had the time to re-implement it, because there were always features with higher priority. Motion blur appears if your consciousness is lower than 50% (the effect will be stronger the lower your consciousness gets), during cloning or when zooming your weapons in or out.
The new effect was implemented in a more flexible way and will leave us enough room for other new effects based on the technology.
http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_001_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_001.jpg)
World Takeover
We received a lot of complaints about the world takeover system, so we decided to make a few simple, but effective, changes. As introduced before, activity is still collected throughout the weekly cycle until the final battle day is reached (which is different on each world). It is important to determine the 2 opponents for the final battle for world takeover.
The final battle mechanism has been revised. Instead of repeating the activity collecting for a shorter period of time, now both opponents have to gain access to the colony control terminal and hold it for one hour (realtime). During the final battle, both opponents have no access to the world's security barrier (yes, the "defenders" as well). To capture colony control, a rank 4+ player has to access the colony control terminal. The timeout will be displayed on the terminal. If the other opponent is able to take it again before the timeout runs out, the one hour timeout restarts for them. In the rare case that this repeats until the end of the official final battle time (usually 2 game days) and there is no clear winner, the colony automatically goes to the Dominion, NOT to the defender.
Groups
Another big topic of concern was the objective and group system. I took all the input and combined it with many ideas I had myself. The first part of changes included new features to increase player freedom.
It is important for groups to define specifically what they want to do. Check the screenshots to see an overview of the new group window.
http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_002_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_002.jpg) http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_003_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_003.jpg)
A few more features are planned to get implemented in part 2 of the group system revision.
At the end of this week’s update we have to make an announcement.
Closed Beta 2 is coming.
Here is the timeline:
Sunday, June 21:
The forums and the FoM portal will be moved to new hardware and a new network. This will be done before launch of CB2 in order to unite the FoM portal database and the game database. This is a necessary step to allow for open beta, so it can’t hurt to do this earlier for a smooth OB launch later on.
Monday, June 22 or
Tuesday, June 23:
Except the gamemasters and a number of very active testers, all existing closed beta accounts will be removed and replaced by 500 new random testers who applied for beta from the entire account database.
There is no need to make a bunch of alternate accounts to increase your chances, because we will only consider those accounts who registered before June 8.
Closed Beta 2 will be launched in a clean state. This is also very important for balancing purposes and will most likely not be the last wipe.
Next week there will be no development update; it will be replaced by the Closed Beta 2 launch announcement. The next development update will be following a week after.
-duplex
You can discuss this update here: http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=9881
Part 16
Since we have skipped last week’s report, we are glad to reveal many updates today.
Balancing
As mentioned earlier we have begun in-depth balancing last week. It was not useful to start this earlier, because the game was not yet feature complete according to character stats before the new booster item system was implemented. Even though the game is still not fully feature complete, we’re at a state now to do serious balancing.
As a first step we changed the weight values of all weapons, adjusted the cone of fire, changed and improved the calculation of cone of fire and weight factors and implemented a few tests that will give us useful input for the next balancing steps.
Motion Blur
This effect is missing in FoM after we switched engines during open beta back in 2005. We never really had the time to re-implement it, because there were always features with higher priority. Motion blur appears if your consciousness is lower than 50% (the effect will be stronger the lower your consciousness gets), during cloning or when zooming your weapons in or out.
The new effect was implemented in a more flexible way and will leave us enough room for other new effects based on the technology.
http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_001_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_001.jpg)
World Takeover
We received a lot of complaints about the world takeover system, so we decided to make a few simple, but effective, changes. As introduced before, activity is still collected throughout the weekly cycle until the final battle day is reached (which is different on each world). It is important to determine the 2 opponents for the final battle for world takeover.
The final battle mechanism has been revised. Instead of repeating the activity collecting for a shorter period of time, now both opponents have to gain access to the colony control terminal and hold it for one hour (realtime). During the final battle, both opponents have no access to the world's security barrier (yes, the "defenders" as well). To capture colony control, a rank 4+ player has to access the colony control terminal. The timeout will be displayed on the terminal. If the other opponent is able to take it again before the timeout runs out, the one hour timeout restarts for them. In the rare case that this repeats until the end of the official final battle time (usually 2 game days) and there is no clear winner, the colony automatically goes to the Dominion, NOT to the defender.
Groups
Another big topic of concern was the objective and group system. I took all the input and combined it with many ideas I had myself. The first part of changes included new features to increase player freedom.
It is important for groups to define specifically what they want to do. Check the screenshots to see an overview of the new group window.
http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_002_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_002.jpg) http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_003_tb.jpg (http://www.fomportal.com/downloads/fomscr_cb15_003.jpg)
A few more features are planned to get implemented in part 2 of the group system revision.
At the end of this week’s update we have to make an announcement.
Closed Beta 2 is coming.
Here is the timeline:
Sunday, June 21:
The forums and the FoM portal will be moved to new hardware and a new network. This will be done before launch of CB2 in order to unite the FoM portal database and the game database. This is a necessary step to allow for open beta, so it can’t hurt to do this earlier for a smooth OB launch later on.
Monday, June 22 or
Tuesday, June 23:
Except the gamemasters and a number of very active testers, all existing closed beta accounts will be removed and replaced by 500 new random testers who applied for beta from the entire account database.
There is no need to make a bunch of alternate accounts to increase your chances, because we will only consider those accounts who registered before June 8.
Closed Beta 2 will be launched in a clean state. This is also very important for balancing purposes and will most likely not be the last wipe.
Next week there will be no development update; it will be replaced by the Closed Beta 2 launch announcement. The next development update will be following a week after.
-duplex
You can discuss this update here: http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=9881