FROM THE BLOG

[KAG] Pre-Build Summary – Simple Join and New Maps!

Hey guys, another pre-build update here to keep you posted on things coming some time next week. We got a good response doing this last time, so hopefully keeping you in the know beforehand can help each update go smoother.

Hopefully there will be fewer furrowed brows all around with the new simple join system!

Done:

• Simple Join:
  The existing “quick join” buttons have been replaced by a full “simple join” menu. The server browser remains as an option for more advanced players.
  The simple join menu lets players quickly set parameters for a game size and mode to play, and then join the best match.
  The default settings are “dont care” for both size and mode, resulting in joining the best ping, active game.
  Simple join also allows joining modded servers by default, which will hopefully help boost the population in modded servers and alleviate modders concerns of the server browser “blocking” people from trying mods.
  Note that this whole system is still an interim measure, as Norill is working on new menus that will eventually replace this, but if you have any quick suggestions for it feel free to bring them up in the thread. A more sophisticated scoring system may be developed if needed, but the previous (five pass) system was very “opaque” to players, which is something we’d like to avoid.
  A screenshot of the new system is provided here.
• Maps:
  Multiple maps have been added and removed from the CTF and TDM map pools. Most of these are community sourced and some of them have issues, so we’ll be looking for feedback on which ones should continue to be included, and any possible changes to be made.
• Bug Fixes and Small Changes:
  A few bugs have been fixed, most notable ones being more server crashes in the vote system, a server “lock up” issue, and “command missing” spam in vote scripts.
  Trampolines were changed to do slightly larger bounces for a few things (most notably spikes), and digging at the edges of TDM maps was removed.

Still To Do:

• Controls/“Desync” Fixes:
  While these issues are actually ongoing, they’ve become much more common with all the control handling rework from trench run, and can cause synchronisation issues for some players among other bad things.
  Michal will be looking into this and we’re working with testers to try to find all existing cases that cause trouble. This has been hard to find and fix because its a result of multiple systems interacting, not just simple errors in one part of the code.
  We’re hoping we’ll have at least handled the worst of it by early next week.

As always, we look forward to bringing this build out as soon as possible!

Have Fun,

Max/Geti