Build 30

[rob]

Greetings Brave Testers,

Although last week we said we wouldn't, we pushed a new build anyway. We present build 30!

Changes include:

* Buff Predator's rear turret rotation rate
* Add frontier to zoomed out map
* Require that towns be connected to Origin before they can be leveled
* Draw unconnected town icons with a magenta outline
* Have new towns be overrun with fortresses
* Add "/leave" as a synonym for "/leavetutorial"
* Add Trailblazer class
* Fix bug where VPs were not awarded at victory (but also we didn't go back and award them)
* Change victory conditions to 150 town levels

The big change this week is the frontier outline and the requirement that towns be connected to Origin before they can be leveled. We are experimenting with more strategic info in the zoomed-out map. Our hope is that it will help players find interesting things to do.

We are hoping to continue in this direction by requiring that the area around towns be cleared out before the town can be leveled. I think it would also be interesting if enemies on the frontier occasionally spawned a new enemy inside the adjacent conquered territory. This will incentive a more "round" conquest area and make the "finger" style of conquering a little less attractive. Also we need to add some objectives to the map for explorers to find and for people to want to go grab (or kill). Coming in the next few builds I hope.

Next build is tentatively set for Dec 5, and we hope it will have logins.

As always, thanks so much for playing. Please leave comments, suggestions, gripes, bug reports etc below.

Rob & Tim, the Grid12 team

[sven]

By first impression it looks fantastic! Especially the role of taking responsibility of clearing out territories from minions.

Bugs (Interface) & Gripe:

i.imgur.com/XkC19.png

• 1. I find it odd for the radial rotation overlap with the tank selection screen, it's the first I seen it here on this build.
  
• 2. I just realized that leveling and experience are not center properly. Unless it's intentionally? I was shock to see it without catching this sooner, perhaps the game-play was so engaging to lure my attention to it during the global buffs period.
  
  
  
  
• The white puff particles after the destruction of minions looks showy, imo. It did cause a slight slowdown on screen while traveling towards the wilderness when Hercule's random bomb deploy as it explodes. The effect for chained explosives would make it impressive but it's too much for Hercules in general.
  

[fenrir]

Frontier map is nice, I think it helps coordinate exploring efforts quite a bit while also giving players a new challenge .

The trailblazer is awesome except for the fact that since it has no weapons, it can't kill anything to show that the area has been explored (quite handy).

Not related to anything new, but since this build was mostly about exploring, it'd be nice to have a way to get to safety without leaving "/tele ori" in your chat. After all, it's not really coop to punish a player for chatting with others.

[amitp]

Exciting!

[frogboffin]

Well then, haven't posted in a while,
In the time I've not played the game seems to have turned from a short lived arcade style game, to a long term expansion mmo, with different roles ingame appearing (exploration/expansion) This excites me.

One question comes to mind - Will there be any incentives to exploring? Finding new towns could grant victory points maybe, or something similar.

I love the frontier outlines on the map but I think they get ruined by the large town icons and names. Perhaps it would look better to only show the frontier outline when zoomed out a certain distance?

I really wish I had the trail blazer when I explored into the depths of the old builds, it would have sped things up so much!
I played earlier and managed to find a couple of towns quite far out, Medusa (made me laugh) and Dunant.

I haven't really concentrated on looking at different tanks, so I have little to say on them.
The trailblazer does seem kind of useless at the moment though, finding new towns in deep enemy territory doesn't have much use, and that's the only thing it's good for at the moment. Perhaps it could be used as a decoy when playing with others.

One other thing, soon after finding the new far out towns, my computer tried committing suicide and blue-screened on me. I'm hoping this was just one off glitch as I can't see anything wrong with my machine. Though if it happens to anyone else while or soon after playing, it could be a fatal glitch. (Possibly? I don't know)

Can't wait for towns to have a use again. ;D

-Frog

[tarbomb]

Trailblazer can go on indefinitely. It's like the energizer bunny - it goes on, and on, and on...



At the moment trailblazer power seems limited not by the tank but by the "clearing" mechanic of the game (you can't actually use a town until you clear a path to it).

Bug: sometimes the change tank icon in the top right flashes green and then goes back to grey. When it's doing that I can actually click it and it'll pop up the tank window, but I can't change tanks since I'm outside a town.

[rob]

Nov 28, 2012 13:51:20 GMT -5 tarbomb said:

Trailblazer can go on indefinitely. It's like the energizer bunny - it goes on, and on, and on...

This was not intended. Thank you for this oh-so-graphic demonstration of our incompetence.

Rob

[frogboffin]

This is the second time this has happened rob




Will there be a new version of the buff lands based on the frontier maybe?

[rob]

Nov 28, 2012 16:22:06 GMT -5 frogboffin said:

Will there be a new version of the buff lands based on the frontier maybe?

I was thinking maybe based on distance to closest level 1 or higher city. Or maybe higher level cities give you more exploring room. Maybe you need to build some buildings in the city to push back the buff. But, yes, something like that.

[sven]

* /leave works quite effectively even when the command doesn't took place in a tutorial, also spam worthy.

Although having "L" key as a leave shortcut could be desirable to prevent death from lag or dying while zooming or scrolling for a nearest teleport provider. Much more convenient than F5 where it starts back at the title screen where in the future builds a log-in screen will take place probably.

* During the times where Tarbomb and I are attempting to reach Kama, it seems a like endless path to nowhere. At the time when he's online it's about 35% there, in the screen it's 50%.

i.imgur.com/icQF5.png

If only a checkpoint can be made possible. With the current travel system it's like going on a lonely road trip with no pit stops made. With death the user have to resort from the beginning of the path where they travel or find a new unknown destination as asn alternative.

The checkpoint don't have to count as a town but a place to teleport, along with crafting Hp items. The further I travel, the more I realized how important to create health consumables when there's no towns insight... Well for the sake of convenience.

[randomg]

Sven -

A craftable teleport consumable would be pretty neat. Maybe three levels, just like the healing ones?

Level one just drops a teleport station where your tank is.

Level two drops a teleport station anywhere you click on the map, as long as it's within conquered territory.

Level three spawns a 'teleport buddy', that spawns a teleport on wherever you died.

On mouseover, it could say who spawned it and what type of building it's closest to, so some poor sap doesn't teleport to a pile of monsters and get shredded.

[sven]

randomg -

Fresh possibilities

Instead of teleport station I was thinking of a sample term "campsite", it's not town which a few actions are restricted but the teleport itself. No changing tanks, maybe crafting is ok?

As for dropping its location, I think it should be anywhere in the clear path away from the enemy territory. Agreed that there should be no griefing/ tricky death upon a teleport where an enemy still around it's parameter. I wasn't aware of healing levels, it's news to me!

---

Glitch (Frozen Death) -

I finally manage to replicate one of the methods of performing this bug.

1. Teleport to a town there's Watchtower within the area.

i.imgur.com/XLPJK.png

2. Tempt it to create a vast bursts.

3. Then keep changing tanks to full health while being dealt with direct hit.

a- Change by using the tank selection

b- Enter the command /drive <tank> at the right time.

4. The timing should consist of the direct damage that's to the tank, mostly absolute death. At the moment of death and simultaneously change a tank, the screen will freeze along with the game.

i.imgur.com/fodt8.png i.imgur.com/Dczh0.png i.imgur.com/W4HOV.png

[rob]

Hey guys,

I can see how it would be frustrating to get halfway to some far-far-away town, and then die. It's a really long drive to get back to where you can continue to push forward. However, the situation you describe came about because of a broken recon tank. No town should have been discovered that far away from civilization. So I'm disinclined at the moment to implement any type of droppable teleport thingy. I think the correct solution to the problem is to limit (somehow) the distance away from civilization that the scouts can go.

I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but at the moment there is no way to tell where scouts have already been. Perhaps there should be more features that light up on the map. Perhaps all drill stations or something.

We might also consider having a constructable building in towns that points the way to the closest undiscovered town? Or maybe this happens automatically when when you hit city level 6 or so? Not sure if this is worth doing.

Rob

[randomg]

'Some way to see where scouts have been'

Is there a way to do a secondary frontier that's just activated when something gets spotted? It would be pretty cool looking, like a light green or something.

[tarbomb]

The game went bonkers on me.

I was fighting normally and the screen flashed orange than black. It keept flickering between orange and black for a bit.

I closed the projector window and opened it again, and the game was all black, but flashed occasionally with what appeared to be the blue town background.

Same thing happened when I tried opening it in Chrome.