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Why games fail at first contact

I believe any kind of entertainment is a failure if it doesn’t give you direct pleasure at first contact.

In computer games you often get a title screen and company and publisher credits which you can’t skip. You press space, enter, escape, smash the keyboard. Can’t skip it. Gotta watch the carefully rendered animation made for some ego-centric publisher to show that it was his money put into the game.

The first experience of a game like this is – frustration. This theme continues, later with menus and long loading times. You put up with it because you paid money and now you believe it will be worth it.

Most likely it won’t be. Because if the game developer wasn’t conscious of serving you frustration right at the beginning, then how the hell can he be conscious of serving you other feelings – like fun and excitement?

I believe a game should just rocket launch you into action. You don’t have time to wait. You want to play it – right here right now. You want instant satisfaction and instant pleasure – at first contact. You run it, you touch it, you control it. You dive straight into the game world – It feels good. You’re having fun. And that’s how it should be. And this is how Cartridge will feel.

MM

Hotfix for Build 1026 – Server Disconnects

A hotfix is slowly rolling out that should fix a bug resulting in everyone being disconnected from servers. An upgrade isn’t mandatory but will obviously benefit server owners. We apologise for the games likely ruined occasionally by this bug over the past few days.

Have fun!

Max/Geti

Build 1026 minor patch – added Japanese servers

Hey,

We’ve just added 2 new official servers hosted in Japan. This patch changes their colour in the server browser. 

Regards,
Furai/Lucas

Build 1026 – Miscellaneous Improvements

This build has many nice new features for all:

image

  • Colour Coded Server Browser
    The server browser now displays official servers in gold, and modded servers in blue, so you can find the play experience you’re after more easily, and so it’s clear if any mods need to be downloaded without clicking anything.
  • Time-Based Vanilla-Only Filter
    The Vanilla-Only filter turns itself off after 1 day of play now, to help modded servers get more traffic.
  • Item Spam Prevention
    Thanks to a modified script by community member ZeroZ30o a bunch of easily-spammed items will quickly decay if there are too many in one spot.
  • AFK’s will Auto-Disconnect
    Thanks to community member Norill for the majority of this script. This is effective in CTF, TTH and Sandbox at the moment (and any other mode with rounds longer than 5 mintues)
  • Fixed “Simple” Lighting
    Mainly for TDM, where lighting is more nuisance than fun, but might also be welcome on small CTF servers, and will make the game run slightly faster for players with weak computers on those servers.
  • Fixed Bans, Whitelist
    Server bans and whitelist are now fully functional again.
  • Lots of Community Maps
    Maps from community members 8x, Asumagic, Joiken, Srgt_Sneaky-Pants and kodysch have been added to the TDM cycle to spice up that mode.
  • Map Shuffle More Random
    The map shuffle is “more random” (whatever that means), and the cycle is re-randomised each 15 minutes (rather than every 12 hours).

Full Changelog:

[modified] drop items on class change at shops (consistency purposes)
[added] a bunch of tdm maps from the community
[fixed] random map shuffle is more random now
[fixed] people being able to "cheat" unique/blank heads.
[fixed] game auto-restarting even when noautoupdate set
[fixed] ban reason strings not getting applied correctly ("/ban Sedgewick -1 Relentless griefer" should work properly now)
[fixed] IP banning local IP addresses (omits 178.etc block at the moment)
[fixed] whitelist/blacklist/ignorelist getting corrupted on load
[added] ability to color servers list box
[added] links to script docs in some txt files
[added] modded and official servers are marked with color
[added] non-vanilla servers should be disabled only for first day of playing
[fixed] massive typo bug in checking blacklist
[fixed] reloading security would not automatically "expire" any already expired bans for a few minutes
[fixed] ban time not checked at the time of joining, so bans lasted longer than they should
[added] script to automatically kick AFK players - thanks norill! (note: doesn't work on TDM or any gamemode with rounds shorter than about 5 minutes)
[added] Lanterns, Crates, Buckets, Boulders, Sponges automatically decay if spammed, adapted from script by ZeroZ30o
[fixed] no_shadowing bool in gamemode.cfg
[added] no_shadowing to TDM
[added] no "spikey" script CPU usage by staggering based on blob network ID
[added] 2 more 8x maps
[modified] maps are randomised each 15 minutes (previous over-randomisation was causing too much doubling up)

Have Fun!

Max/Geti

New Build This Week

We’re working towards releasing a new build of KAG this week, with many improvements for the average player, modders, and server admins.

  • Bans and Whitelist Fixed
    A long standing issue with bans has been fixed, and the whitelist has also been fixed for those that want private servers. Bans by username, and IP should work properly again. As a bonus, ban reasons now work and are reflected in the blacklist file and under /listbans
  • Server Browser more Intuitive
    We’ve added colour support to the server browser, so official servers will show up gold, and modded servers will show up blue. This gives players more visual cues without clicking anything, so they’re better informed as to what they’re joining. The “vanilla only” filter will also automatically turn itself off after a day of being registered so that new players can more easily find modded servers.
  • More TDM Maps
    Exactly what it says on the tin 🙂 Many community maps, from 8x, Asumagic, Joiken, and kodysch have been included in the default map cycle, and a larger one from Sgnt_Sneaky-Pants has been included separately in case any hosts want to run a different TDM experience.
  • Mapycle Randomisation Fixed
    Hosts may have noticed that the randomisation was quite lacking before, it should be quite a bit more engaging now, especially useful for TDM or small CTF servers.

There are a couple of miscellaneous fixes in the mix as well, but you’ll have to wait for the changelog for those. Should be out on Friday if testing goes smoothly.

Cheers,

Max/Geti

I like my games no bullshit

I like my games no bullshit.

No complicated controls, the need for tutorials, unnecesary menus, long instructions, introductions, cut scenes and filler features. No loading times, title screens, installers, big downloads and sketchy pricing schemes. No waiting years for it to come out, endless patches and changes, microtransactions and DLC, 

Time to stop the bullshit!

I only want the pure enjoyment and satisfaction of playing a great video game.

MM

Hi there, I’m Marc Castellanos aka Skykanden and I’m the artist for Storm2d
Some work in progress on the ingame HUD, every class will have it’s own variation.

Stormdev-Old

We’ve moved blogs. Click here to see our old one!

Stormdev-Old

Server for flagged people

We have set up a server for cheaters, griefers and abusers – it doesn’t mean that we encourage such behaviour, though. 

The banflags are disabled on it and everyone who was flagged for breaking the KAG rules (bad, bad KAGgers they are). Its name in the server browser is: KAG Official TTH EU (No banflags) 

Regards,
Lucas/Furai

Updates with no changes

We’re currently moving our repositories around, and to check everything’s working we need to trigger new builds, potentially more than once as everything goes ahead.

These new builds have no new content in them (sadly!), we just figured we should keep you in the loop regarding why they’re happening. Better safe than sorry and all that jazz.

Cheers,

Max/Geti

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