Releases 79 and 80, plus US-East server move before going Open Beta

Hi guys

The blog went a little quiet last week as we were dealing with a lot of post monetization items and preparing to get ready for the big May 18 date. In the meantime the moderation team on the forums have been cranking out a lot of answers, so go check out the forums in particular if you are already in the Closed Beta.

This week we are going to release Patch 80 on Tuesday night US time, and we are also going to perform the "formal" move to the "real" US-East location, in Washington DC later in the week (probably on Thursday this week) - which should really improve latencies for everyone east of the (imaginary) Dallas / Oklahoma City / Wichita / Omaha / Sioux Falls / Fargo line across the US.

Or - put a different way - if you live in Dallas - you should have approximately the same latency to either side - but since local cable conditions vary wildly (for example - Comcast LOVES peering in Washington DC and if that's your provider certainly go that direction), it's entirely possible that you will in fact be much better to one location specifically (so test it out once it is live).

Patch 80 fixes a lot of little things that will make for a better game now that they are patched (see below) and improves a few stats for some Armas marketplace weapons, while the team continues working on the BIG patch items that are upcoming in the next release. After the "80" patch is out, the team is really focused on working on the formal OB patch, and we should know this week if all the features we are aiming to add can make it in to the final OB version.

And - I realized that I had not posted the Patch 79 notes on the blog from last Thursday night (though Vali and Nueme handled that on the blog), so I have added them here as well. We were unfortunately forced to perform a music wipe in that patch to fix long running music bugs that were unable to be addressed any other way. Going forward that should not have to happen again.

Looking forward to the Open Beta excitement that's just around the corner!

Cheers,
/TechMech



1.5.0.80 Release Notes (scheduled May 10, 2011)
Bugfixes
• Made an initial fix for black and dark clothing showing random colour patches on it due to DXT compression. We’ve still got a few fixes to make here but this will remove the blotches of green/purple.
• Fixed characters sometimes not being lit in the Wardrobe and appearing as a black silhouette.
• More spawning bug fixes.
• Renamed female Cowboy hat to Cowgirl hat.
• Made clothing items that are not available through progression non-tradable.
• Fixed an exploit: Tutorial missions are now only offered to solo players.
• Increased Prestige multipliers for Enforcers (as even with witnessing they're getting a much lower cash turnaround than criminals).
• Increased the VIP lives on VIP missions by a factor of 1.5.

Weapons
• Named the weapon presets for the ALIG 762 and the Colby PMG 28.
• Adjusted Effective ranges for several weapons (Joker down slightly, Obeya up slightly, Star LCR up).
• Adjusted damage falloff percentage for the N-HVR's, the DMR and the STAR 'LCR'.
• Improved accuracy on Obeya CR762.
• Reduced Recoil and FoV on the Scoped NTEC-5.  Also increased accuracy loss when moving in marksmanship.
• Increasing damage of Armas shotgun.  Now slightly less damaging than the JG rather than only half damage as previously.
o Tradeoffs:
 JG - Extreme damage, medium spread (good at close range, bad at medium range)

 CSG-20 - High damage, low spread (worse at close range, decent at medium range)


Known Issues
• Localisation/Translation
o Much of the new and edited in game text has still to be translated and entered into the game. Playing APB in languages other than English may result in English text being shown anyway in some places.

1.5.0.79 Release Notes (released May 5, 2011)

Bugfixes

• Moved broadcast messages to upper centre of screen rather than centre to avoid blocking line of sight.

• Fixed the one-slot van not having it's one slot

• Killing a prestige 5 enforcer as an enforcer drops you to prestige zero.

• Fixed a bug in the spawning algorithm.

Songs and Themes

• Corrected inconsistencies and bugs across several musical instruments (note sequences off, patterns of sounds out of order) making them easier to use correctly.

• Unfortunately this requires a wipe of all character-created songs and themes, since existing songs break using the corrected instruments.

Known Issues

• Localisation/Translation

o Much of the new and edited in game text has still to be translated and entered into the game. Playing APB in languages other than English may result in English text being shown anyway in some places.