2.5 Test #4 - PLAYTEST - Saturday 15th March - 19:00 GMT, 15:00 EDT, 12:00 pm PDT

The test on Sunday was a resounding success, despite not being able to post announcements in the group and having to delay it an hour in certain areas on the basis of Daylight Savings Time fucking everything up.

So, we're scheduling another test! This is 7 PM GMT, 3 PM EDT and noon PDT on the next Saturday. Until the last Sunday of March, it's a seven-hour difference between GMT and PDT, so you'll have to bear with me pushing the Euros an hour earlier, unless there's a significant number of people that'd rather it be 8 PM GMT and 1 PM PDT instead.

We're starting to enter the playtesting phase. This means we're focused on playing the game and reporting bugs that pop up instead of specifically hunting for bugs that might be around. What this means is we need people. Lots of people. We need to do infantry maps, small commander maps, big commander maps, maps that are good for vehicles, maps that work well for squad tactics, and in particular, maps with unique gameplay. In other words, we pretty much need to do almost every official map to catch any bugs in the maps so we can get to fixing the ones that are broken. I'll be spending any free time I can get to hacking the bugs out of the port; some of you already know how much effort I've put into pushing this out and I intend to continue that effort until the bugs and fixed and the game is out.

Keep in mind that the faster we do these tests and get the port out, the sooner the devs can get to working on adding features and adding some more polish to the game. And the faster we get the port out, the sooner we won't have to use a workaround to launch the game. I'm certain that I'm not the only person pining for the days when we could just launch the game directly, going back to before we had to do the switch to Steampipe when everything just worked somehow. Although many of you might've noticed that the MountAppFilesystem error fixed itself, more people are now getting the startup_loading.vtf error instead, which will be fixed once we can get this port out.

So lets give it our best and do some testing!

EDIT: Also, remember to update your SVN installs before the test. Last test, there were two people who scared the shit out of me because they kept crashing and revive didn't work for them even though I had already fixed it, and then it turned out they didn't update their binaries.

 

Since the physics bug is fixed, reimplement the shotgun because that desperately needs to be tested in a real game. And if you guys can't get a world model for it just use the HMG or RPG world model or someshit. Or the SMG3 model if that's still in the files.

 

We might put the shotgun back in for testing, but be aware that it won't necessarily go out with the engine port. The fact of the matter is that the engine port is of such critical importance over every other possible feature, that we're not going to delay releasing the port just to add new features. The current plan is to just release the port with a few things that got fixed/changed between the last patch and us starting the port, and then start working on another patch soon after to actually add features and fix bugs. My next term of university should be easier on my schedule and give me more time to work on development.

 

I'm really hesitant to release a version of Empires with more bugs than before the port, but I recognize the importance of getting this out. What it comes down to are the frequency, size and difficulty of the remaining bugs. If it can't be helped, I'd rather it get released with a few bugs than waiting an extra month just because there's a small amount of text issues in the GUI. But if we encounter a major bug in an official map or in the gameplay, then it will be delayed as needed. That's the reason I want a strong number of players for the tests, because if we have a large number of players not encountering bugs, then we can be confident in how ready the port is when it comes to being released.

At the very least, I'm hoping to have a test this week and next week. If both of those go smoothly and the rest of the bugs have been sorted by then, the best ETA I can give is a release a month out at the worst, assuming the release itself goes smoothly.

 

Bawmp for visibility.

 

Yeah, I'm definitely hoping to get a good player count. We haven't done any real testing on commander maps, which means we haven't done thorough testing on buildings, the commander interfacing with infantry, buildings and their placement, vehicle combat, and just checking lots of maps in general. I want to release this sooner rather than later, but I'm uncertain about releasing before having at least one or two large-scale playtests.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if we don't get a number of bugs when it goes public, even with testing, but that doesn't me we shouldn't put the effort towards minimizing those bugs.

 

I suggest we test on slaughtered, I don't want to have my eyes bleeding from crossroads again.
Half of us can't be bothered to disconnect, turn off hdr and then reconnect for the sake of one broken map.

 

I noticed that empires of revision 1576 started crashing,
because its seems to enter some infinity loop (sounds keep repeating when the game stops).
I couldn't reproduce it but I haven't faced it before.
->Watch out!

Moreover, when I alt+tab out of the game and let it run in the background, it will most likely be gone (crashed) after a while when trying to resume it or just be not responding anymore.
I cannot tell if this is new with 1576, but I would like to ask other testers to check that one out.

 

After steam updated my SDK 2013 Multiplayer today,
I haven't faced any empires cash yet.
Not even when minimizing the game...
Lets see if the playtest will change that.

 

Empires cash, the new bitcoin. The more rage you do, they more cash you will have.

 

Some more bug reports:

• The above quoted bug also affects the spectator camera controls GUI.
• Vehicle weapon reloading sound sometimes gets spammed instead of playing once.
• Sprays don't work. (Maybe this is caused by launching through source sdk base 2013 and not through empires directly?)
• A random crash, was driving a heavy tank at the time. Crash Dump Here

Everyone else do not forget to post your crash dumps from today's test!
You can find them in the \steam\dumps folder.

 

Any idea why the shadow detail is low and medium only. Lost high.

 

For me high is accessable.