Posts on Nov 2015

Trench Run Free Preview 2!

Hey everyone!

The next Trench Run Free Preview is here, this time for one weekend only – servers go down Monday 4pm UTC!

For this preview weekend the servers are hosted in EU. We weren’t able to get the backend set up on the USA box in time, sorry about that!

 

Changes since last time:

  • More Servers! 2 skirmish and 3 run servers for dramatically increased capacity. Tell your friends!
  • New Backgrounds and some colour tweaks.
  • New Run Maps with a more easily defended “finish line” and simpler terrain. This means there should be much fewer run-by wins.
  • Changes to Skirmish Maps.
  • Run renders the distance for both teams (if its 150m or less) so you can see who’s winning the race.
  • Experimental Commando Changes:
    • Spamming slash slows your movement speed to make more tactical stabbing required.
    • Flashbang is a small area instead, and you have 3 uses.
  • Experimental Medic Changes:
    • Medic drops combined supply + medkit rather than healing with touch.
    • Medic gets one supply per 5 seconds
  • Experimental Engineer Changes:
    • Crates are thrown in a straight line when moving rather than an arc.
    • Can jump off the rocket.
  • Lots of minor bugs fixed!

 

Known Issues:

  • Chat still sucks – we haven’t had time to get the 10-way chat system up yet, but its top of our priorities for next time around.
  • Medic GUI sucks 🙂
  • Medic Resupply seems buggy and has problems with healing the enemy
  • Commando Flash is less useful – we’re considering a proper flash grenade if the area-flash is going to stay.
  • Commando Flash is visible at end of round temporarily.
  • Engineer Rocket is still “Laggier than your mother” – we’re working on a new firing system to make it lag-agnostic but it didn’t make it for this release, sorry!
  • Engineer Crates still suck – we’re looking for good alternate abilitites. I’ll tell you about our plans soon to get your feedback.

 

Preorders:

  • We’ll be putting up preorders once we have a supporter version ready for consistent play. We dont want to sell the game before we’ve settled 100% on a price and can offer something in return for the money – we’re still not 100% that this will all work at a larger scale.
  • If you want to support us, there are some things you can do other than buying the game!
    • sharing the game on social media
    • getting cool gifs and screenshots for us to share
    • reporting bugs
    • getting excited!

    That should keep you busy until we can get something more permanent into your hot little hands. Lets just say we’d love to make it a Trench Run Xmas!

 

That’s it! Get your friends on board and see how those servers hold up!

Cheers,
Max and Michał

Trench Run – Free Preview Build Available!

Hey everyone! You can download the online preview release of trench run here!

This preview is in the EU region – there will be preview weeks in US and AU regions in future, but for this week we’re afraid most will have to deal with some lag. Pick the more ping-friendly classes: assault, medic, and commando.


Bring your friends or make new ones in the lobby!

 

Unfinished content:

  • Menus, GUI, and Settings
    The menus and gui are a placeholder currently, and a lot of settings (most importantly your name on start) dont save themselves. This will be addressed in future versions, however the number of options is likely to remain very minimal in any future preview releases.
  • Engineer
    The engineer in general leaves a lot to be desired. The rocket riding is fun but causes issues with hit registration a lot of the time. The rocket itself desyncs a lot. And the crates need a total rethink. In short, expect a lot of changes to the engineer.
  • Medic
    The overall design of the medic class (defend, resupply and heal – hard support) is good, particularly when teaching someone else the game – but the GUI and presentation in general needs some love.
  • AI
    The AI is borderline drunk in many cases. You’ll want a human 5v5 for best experience (though 2 players can still have a fun skirmish)
  • Maps
    The current maps are just a single example of the kind of map we have planned for each biome. There will be multiple maps per biome, eventually.
  • Chat
    The chat system is an interim measure just to get anything at all in there (the KAG chat doesn’t work, there’s not enough screen real estate). It will be replaced with a system based on the faces that appear at the start of a Run game.

 

Stuff that’ll only be in supporter releases:

  • booze, cards, live band, and other lobby distractions
  • character skins
  • persistent coins
  • multiple lobby tiers
  • proper coverage of AU, US, EU regions
  • offline play

 

Known issues: (incomplete list, but this is the major stuff)

  • settings not saved (will be dealt with asap)
  • rendering tearing/glitching
  • pixel stretching when on non-default resolution
  • engineer rockets desync and sometimes dont do damage
  • clipping into walls with crates or rockets or very high speed from explosions causes problems
  • possible to double-up classes in run with some latency on join
  • sniper trail renders through tiles that it destroyed (with lag)
  • players sometimes desync dead (looks alive, but moves “glitchy” and is dead on their screen)
  • some sync errors in the lobby resulting in “weird” games – please report any exact circumstances you can find

 

Have fun!

Max & Michał

Weekly News – TR Preview Build Coming!

These last few weeks we’ve thought long and hard about the future of Trench Run.

We want to get a public build released as soon as possible. However, we want to stay away from the “open alpha” preview style that we used for KAG and the division in the community that that caused.


In effect, we want to dodge a messy fate.

Instead, we’re planning a free, time-limited preview build. The build will only work for set periods, but you can play as much as you like during those periods. During initial testing, we’d be opening it for a week at a time. After release, probably one weekend each month or fortnight.

We’re still hammering out the details and hitting implementation hurdles. The plan was to release it last Wednesday, but each release candidate has had too many issues upon entering testing. We’ll see how it goes this week and keep you posted.

There is no single player mode available in the preview build. The preview build is only able to connect to one “test” region. The test lobby is capable of both “skirmish” and “run” games. The preview build will replace the current demo build, and will patch over it. It will (hopefully!) form a much more PC-relevant, online look at how the game plays, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you!

Stay tuned!

Max

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