Attention, inmates! Big post, big news and a big event for you big people, Check it out.-->
To start, in DEV related news. You could've seen the lack of activity from us here last week. That is due to the team attending Reboot Develop conference, which was our last time off we have for some time. We had a blast, in football tournament came in last, time went fast, some came home in a cast and now we are back to work on 1.0! Full throttle!
The programming team is working on a plethora of improvements, fixes, and new functionalities—so let's take it from the top. There have been improvements to the soundscape when the player is knocked out, and further balancing has been done regarding CON attribute gain, vehicle fuel consumption, and building blueprints around abandoned bunkers. Blurred vision is also being visually improved, with many fixes introduced for sweat and blood droplets on widescreen monitors, fog effects near the nuclear plant, and more. Additional optimizations were made to shadows and overall lighting.
Furthermore, the team has implemented an improved solution for character and NPC water buoyancy. In terms of UI, the server browser received some extra love this week, alongside additional localization functionalities. To top it off, progress continues on the new anti-cheat system, new methods for cracking base fortifications, and, of course, the armed NPCs.
The level designers are mainly focused on bug fixing, with an additional emphasis on bugs related to materials. Not much else to add here, but rest assured—they’re working hard to make the map look as awesome as possible.
The animators are hammering away at various bug fixes and reworks related to weapons, and have continued their work on the new trailer.
As for the hard surface team, they’re primarily focused on bug fixes related to vehicle collisions and vehicles in general, along with other optimizations and tweaks involving meshes, textures, LODs, etc.
The soft surface team is preparing assets for the trailer and working on general bug fixing.
The sound team is concentrating on bug fixes and certain tweaks to the main menu music.
QA is doing what QA does best: making sure the game experience is as smooth as possible once we get out!
The game designers are focused on improving tutorials for new players, as well as adding new codex entries and survival tips.
Now, onto your impressions from last week's transmission:
- If there are any doubts regarding the release, let me be perfectly clear: we WILL be releasing the game THIS quarter. When exactly that will take place... you’ll just have to wait and see. We can’t show all our cards just yet ;)
- We understand your concern, but this time things will be very different. Rest assured, the game will be adequately tested, we’ll be doing things differently, and this will be the best possible version of SCUM ever released.
- 1. Sport? Not planned for 1.0, but there are plenty of other sporting activities you can do.2. Armed NPCs are being worked on and will be included in the 1.0 version of the game. 3. We’ll share more on those soon!
- If the vehicle has an engine, it can be brought into working condition. The vehicle you saw is severely lacking in parts, but it is by no means unfixable. The best way is to gather the necessary parts, load them into an already working vehicle, and drive yourself over there.
- It's something we've considered and something we’d like to do, but we didn’t want to shift our focus away from what currently needs to be done—bug fixes, optimizations, reworks of existing features, and the addition of new ones. Once we reach 1.0 and get our bearings, we’ll revisit this. There will be a host of other priorities post-launch, so proper prioritization will be key.
- We completely understand your desire and agree that more can be done in that regard. You’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be adding new elements that PvE players will especially enjoy (*cough* armed NPCs *cough*), and we’ll continue to support the game with additional content, features, and improvements well beyond launch to further enrich the gameplay loop at every stage.
