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Monday, April 25, 2011

Monday update - more patches, more info, Item Store on temporary hold for a day or so

First of all, unfortunately in the last build there is a VERY annoying issue that snuck in along with all the various fixes (in v.73) that makes it so that you cannot switch districts once you have joined one without crashing.

The crash actually happens when you try to unload the current district, and the bug is related to what happens when 50+ people have custom characters and it gets pushed to everyone else in the district, and there are thousands of people in the world, and then you try to exit your district. We didn't catch it in QA, simply because we didn't throw enough people at testing it for this last build.

We expect to have a working patch shortly to put out there. Of course patching this bug will be hard to 100% confirm until we put in under live load and this patch may even require a follow-up patch depending on what data we see in live.

For the next few days we anticipate having several patches and updates that we release until OB is really ready (and yes - keep in mind - THIS IS STILL A CLOSED BETA GAME! Some of the comments seem to disregard this time and time again, though we are now extremely close to go Open Beta). So again - thanks to all our Beta testers for their patience and their diligent reporting of the issues (or in this case, the automated crash reporting system's reporting of the issues).

Also once we get through the general issues, we will then turn toward solving more specific case issues. In particular issues related to specific hardware configurations (this is where your Beta Application DXDiag is very helpful to us in conjunction with the crash report) where we solve for more and more unique combinations of hardware, and much less frequent crashes (like the first-time startup issue we are seeing at some frequency).

We also were originally going to  put out the Item Store today for the current group, but we are keeping it on hold until we can confirm the current general fixes. We don't want people buying things before the general issues are solved.

So now - back into the grind (!), and we will update this blog as new patches get applied. And yes - we are intending to be the most communicative game publisher/developer of all time :). I hope we are succeeding so far!

Cheers,

78 comments:

  1. /inb4rage well this looks good haha :) good luck!

    people just dont realise what CBT means.

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  2. why no comment on the punkbuster issue where it uses 25% cpu? :(

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  3. Don't know if this is the right place to post it, but I'm unable to send error reports. It stop at "sending to server" and stays there.

    Also, with 4gb RAM and a 32-bit system, I run out of memory very often. Do I have to upgrade to 64-bit or is this something that is being worked on?

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  4. why no comment on the computer freeze - forced reboot? realteak issue

    I cant play with sound man

    anyway, great game

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  5. @Ole Kristian the crash reporter? and also you need to upgrade to 64-bit to use your full 4GB RAM as 32-bit limits it and APB uses close to 2GB itself.

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  6. Thanks for the update. I do think most people understand this is closed beta still. I'm impressed with G1's hard work and response time to the users / CB users.

    My game is crashing about every 10 minutes as I'm sure a lot of people are seeing the same... I don't mind because it's all part of the CB process. Keep it up G1 and I will go premium at some point just for you guys. I bought the original but I don't care... hard work deserves pay.

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  7. Are the General Page Fault/Illegal Instruction errors part of the bugs being reviewed and anticipated for repair in the next patch? Or are we focusing on the district change bug (which understandably is annoying-though has a solid workaround that could push it back in priority).?

    Just asking, appreciate all of G1's work.

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  8. @Bjorn & the GamersFirst crew
    Keep fighting the good fight! As a member of the software industry I have so much respect for your openness and user-centric model.
    I'm one of the unlucky few still anxiously waiting for a key, but I can't wait to see your hard work pay off.

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  9. I wasn't able to test APB Reloaded but i frequently read this dev blog. You really give much feedback about development and issues of the game. I like the way you guys treat the Betatesters. I Really hope you get the most Important Issues & Bugs fixed so OB can start then. That's all I just wanted to tell you =D

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  10. @ Bjorn / TechMech

    Great job keeping us informed. It's really important from a player's and tester's point of view to know exactly what's going on, if we're being heard, and to know things are being fixed.

    Also, could you please email me, or message me on the forums? I have a question I would like to ask on a business sort of topic that isn't best to place here. Roegner1030@gmail.com if you will.

    Keep up the great work.

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  11. Will we be able to restore old RTW characters soon? :) Keep up the good work!

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  12. Are you actually putting out IN BETA, that we have to BUY Premium and wpns and what not?..

    that just seems silly to pay with (REAL) money in a game that is currently in beta..

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  13. The game has definitely progress very far from its original incarnation I feel the game has come loads closer being balanced and simply fun.. looking forward to apb reloaded continuing future. And mos def this has been the most communicative dev hoping this will continue beyond OB this would be a great forum for discussing future; updates, media and content keep up the awesome work

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  14. Thx for the update!

    A very weird problem has popped up since I got into APB Reloaded.
    After about 1hour of playing the game, my computer seems to "overheat" and shuts down.
    This did not happen when RTW was hosting APB, nor does it happen to ANY other game I play.
    I have the lowest possible graphical settings there is on APB, yet still my computer shuts down.

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  15. nightgamer are you on a macbook pro in boot camp?

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  16. Thanks for all the hard work. I like the progress so far, I think the vehicle slowdown is still a bit too high, but look forward to further balancing. I'll be testing as much as I can.

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  17. Yeh you guys are doing fantastic work here by the way G1. Just wanted to get that out there.

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  18. the pixelized tatoos and cloth custamization really suck :(

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  19. @jOkerel yeah I agree they should REMOVE the restrictions for the 32-Bit OS's because I have a tricked out PC with 4GB RAM and I hate the crappy textures and pixely CRAP!

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  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. What about the character restoration? That was planned to go out today as well. Will that happen at the same time the store gets online?

    I understand you're focusing on the crashes, but im waiting for my character to be restored to actually start progressing.

    Would like to hear something about this.

    Anyway, keep up the good work and the amount of effort into this project! You're doing a great job!

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  22. Nothing said about the client stuttering every 20 secs, that is probably related with PunkBuster's eating all CPU cycles issue?

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  23. Please fix the crashes involving missions. Since the last patch, most people who try to play a mission will crash randomly. I haven't crashed much in the past until the most recent patch.

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  24. my game still crashes every 10 minutes and no answers bout it... is there a solution? what is causing this? why other computers dont got this problem? i already reinstalled APB and deinstalled all antivirusses. please help me i wanna play apb :(

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  25. Bjorn,
    I made a significant hardware change since applying for CB, is there somewhere i can go to update my DXDIAG?
    Thanks

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  26. Still no word on the general protection faults that seem to be randomly crashing peoples games?

    Seriously I think we can all get over the district changing crash for a while as long as the gamebreaking crash gets patched.

    I appreciate all your hard work but this crash should be top priority.

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  27. ...you guys bitching about pixelated decals? Cho! You haven't played the RTW version then!

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  28. @plutboy2_90 You don't have to buy them if you don't want to and have you heard of Minecraft?

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  29. i hope you sort out the huge lag problem ... even whit my graphics set to low the leg is worse then it was on us server, and the punkbuster is kicking me out sometimes for no reason(i do not cheat...)

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  30. "And yes - we are intending to be the most communicative game publisher/developer of all time :). I hope we are succeeding so far!"

    Thank you for the amount of communications lately - its been quite above what would be expected!

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  31. Hey Bjorn

    Thanks for keeping us up to date :D

    My Game didnt crash for 4h now so keep up the good work.

    One Bug is very anayoing... when u are in Team with 2 Members and using one car getting ready for action and if u are thrown in a mission ur groupmember always get kicked out of the car most time at full speed so u have to break or to let him behind :(

    One Question Bjorn:

    Must i write a feedback in english or can u translat it from german?

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  32. Check out the FPS issue.

    Doesn't seem like its player based.

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  33. They've mentioned before if you uninstall punkbuster then run the launcher (Which reinstalls it) that should fix Punkbuster issue.

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  34. @ Devin yeah ... i did that ... but same thing

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  35. @Yuu
    DE:
    Dein Englisch ist doch gut ^^ Warum solltest du ein feedback in deutsch schreiben?
    Eng:
    Your English is very good ^^ Why do you want to write the feedback in german?

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  36. are you guys really gunna charge people for item store and premium while still in beta?

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  37. Before startin OBT you guys really need some sort of Punk Buster.

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  38. hey guys, i also have a 32 bit system with 4 gigs, and an decent video card (gtx 460). Alot of textured don't load correctly (pixelated) is this cause of my system or the current build. Other than that the game runs pretty decent despite the occasional crash lol

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  39. was this 2nd hotfix released again?didnt noticed any new files and when i logged in i couldnt test it cuz i crashed after i did few steps.This game is "Rage and LOL" at the same time.Waiting for the next mega hotfix.

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  40. @ derecalator this game is ment for a 64 bit operating system i once too had that problem.

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  41. would you guys stop complaining about the punkbuster issue its your computers not the game
    i havent had any crash issues from punkbuster if its not your computer then your useing cheats simple as that now shut up about it

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  42. @bruce I'm not a hacker and my pc use to run the game before the fix now it crashes every 5-15 mins of game play and my pc is over the recommended specs

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  43. It seems so many people are having problems, it makes me wonder why I'm getting not a single one of them. Only problem I'm experiencing is the server-wide fps lagspike that happens from time to time that lasts for a few seconds.

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  44. i was accepted in closed beta testing so before actually trying out the game i decided to reformat a disk and then reinstall APB before patching to 1.5 only to find out that the main site and the forums are both down. patching takes a lot of time (like 23 hours) and once the client is closed you have to start all over so i have to do it straight. is there a released manual patch of all the previous versions? if not i'll just do it the hard way xDD

    i know this is just another wall of text but i'll be glad to receive a reply thanks

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  45. When do Open Beta come ???
    realy want to play this game its AWESOME :)

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  46. You are the best, do the best you can.
    We believe in you !

    Thank you for giving new life to APB and good luck for the next patch !

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  47. I hope the real-tek sound card issue gets fixed before friday :p

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  48. @Flapman

    Yeah playing without sound sucks...

    Yesterday I played without sound (due to this freeze issue) in 12 hours - Guess I'am confused when I hear sound anywhere in my appartment now

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  49. Servers went offline now - Update/patch is inc !! ^^

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  50. ****IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR GAMERSFIRST!**** :D

    I have a Logitech G35 Headset, and i think there is a combatibility problem, because everytime i try to use it while playing apb, i just get A LOT OF NOICE.. like.. when a tv is unable to find the channel and all you get is "tv snow" on the screen, and a sound going. BBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.... thats what i get.. maybe you could look into it? :) and it is ONLY during APB :)

    Cheers EzioDK :) cant wait for the next patch ;)

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  51. I think GamersFirst are doing a great job getting APB back together.

    I don't get why so many people are complaining about the game not working, or "It's not as good as the old APB".. Dude, it's still BETA. Help make the game better by posting usable stuff without complaining!

    I'm Looking forward to the next few patches.
    Thanks for bringing APB back to Live. I quited WoW for this!

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  52. @konra

    ye, I played yesterday too, but its very annoying to not be able to hear footsteps, so you get sneaked up behind.

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  54. General Protection Fault issue update please? Randomly crashing every 5 minutes isn't exactly the type of game you log into daily.

    And on the topic of: "we are intending to be the most communicative game publisher/developer of all time :). I hope we are succeeding so far!"

    Trion Worlds will ALWAYS have you beat. I've never seen so much hand holding in a game ever before. Their support staff are basically willing to give you a backrub every time you post on the forums. Of course, it feels amazing, and they've got a massive budget to work off of where you guys are just a small company. So no hard feelings, just thought I'd put that out there. If you want to be the most communicative, you'll need a larger staff.

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  55. @Kyle

    Perhaps you could give some specifications about your computer and what the crash massage says and so on. I played for several hours yesterday, and only had two crashes.


    The less time they use on commenting EVERYTHING,
    the more time they spend on fixing the game. So i think it's a good thing NOT to comment on everything.

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  56. I love you G1.

    Keep up the brilliant work.

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  57. Hi,

    You're doing an OK job communicating with us, but if you really wanna be the most communicative game publisher/developer of all time, you gotta inform us beta testers EVERY downtime you put on the servers...

    Just put a short note in the forums. I know it often feels that "this downtime will only last for a few minutes (yeah, right) - no point informing those little *******", but try to remember how awful it is to live in uncertainty. =)

    It takes only minute of your time, but it means A LOT to us.

    Keep up the good work.

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  58. @Timmy maybe he can't estimate how long it will take the update and thats why he prefers not to say anything about the downtime.

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  59. @Timmy - we actually announce downtime IN the game usually at least 15 minutes before we go down (or sometimes longer when we have bigger patches) and we normally do it on the forums too, but this time it was 01:00am here in the US and noone was around to post on the Forums this time :)

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  60. @Kyle - whoa - you think Trion is doing a better job than us on the Closed Beta forums? Really? I'd take on TWN anyday, no matter how big or small we are :)

    But if you like Rift events, I am sure they'd be happy to have you...

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  61. Ok fine - maybe not taking on TWN in hand-to-hand combat or even in the magic department, but I'd LTL them and lock them up for sure :)

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  62. G1, great job on these patches but you are missing one point. You repair all kinds of bugs but you are letting the biggest bug in the game since 1.5.0. People cant play the game for more than 10-20 minutes, they crash, making it impossible to play/test. Please make this bug your priority. Thank you.

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  63. Hi Boss

    Yep - actually it's not time based, those are hardware specific GPF issues, and we are in fact addressing them in order of frequency.

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  65. I hope some of those fixes come soon. I can barely get through a single mission before getting a general production fault crash. -.-

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  66. people, get a 64bit os on a real pc, i can play for HOURS without crashing, it does happen just not nearly as much as i hear ppl cryin about, get off ur daddy's pc and build a real one! if my wife can build it you can too...

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  67. on side note: LET ALL OLD USERS INTO THE BETA PLEASE!!!!!

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  68. @Bjorn / G1

    Any ETA or update on the Realtek issue?..
    Im having a hard time doing anything when i have
    30-40 minutes to do anything before reboot.. :/

    Havnt tried the 1.5 update yet but updating as we speak so gonna go check it out and see if its resolved :)

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  69. damn.. its worse.. got to the intro video after creating a char :(

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  70. Huhu :D had only 2 crash yesterday. worked better to go to lobby and then into a new district.
    the 2nd crash was just a random one after 3 hours with no problems =3

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  71. Same issue cant send error reports, Also the lag issue is very bad. its not a computer issue or internet issue.
    Computer 1 Dualcore 3.4ghz 8 gigs ram 1gig gt 250
    Computer 2 Dual Xeon Dual core 3ghz 4gigs ram gt 250
    Internet 1 house. upload speeds 4.5 downloads 4.5
    Internet 2 Work. Upload speeds 31.2 Downloads 30.5

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  72. Bjorn / TechMech

    if all goes well, if the patches work as expected, when will we play the Open Beta?

    and an optional question XD
    You can send me a key to my mail?
    I would love to be a beta tester
    my mail is:
    frf_06@hotmail.com
    theprinceofbutt_06@hotmail.com

    :)
    Thanks

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  73. @Bjorn

    Oh man, if you were there during Trion Worlds RIFT Beta, you'd know what I mean. Every time there was a patch, we got like 50 in-game messages giving us a heads up:

    OKAY GUYS! PATCH IN 45 MINUTES!
    OKAY GUYS! PATCH IN 30 MINUTES!
    OKAY GUYS! PATCH IN 20 MINUTES!
    OKAY GUYS! PATCH IN 15 MINUTES!
    ...

    You get my point.
    On top of that, at least an hour before any server downtime, there was a post on the forums stickied in the closed beta forum about the downtime, what it was for, and how long it would be.

    Furthermore, they were absolutely on top of things hour by hour. For example, 4 servers who were linked by battlefront went down altogether and had some strange issues. Within 10 minutes, we got an in-game message that said "We're working on it!" - 5 minutes later they told us servers were going down in 15 minutes. I checked the forums and there was a nice, big thread about how our servers didn't get the last update correctly and they needed to reboot them.

    Really, there's no way you could watch every movement on your servers day-round like they did. There's no way you can have someone sitting at a computer ready to post about every little minor problem that happens. It was possible for Trion, but I'm not expecting it from you.

    If you meant most communicative per staff member, then you definitely got them beat. All of your staff communicates with us regularly, and I appreciate that. Just... with Trion... they had a full staff DEDICATED to communicating with us.

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  74. It's probably far, far too late for this, and I may be the only one to like the thought, but would it be possible to toss in a 1st-person mode for FPS players? it could be toggled with F5 (like Minecraft)

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