Pages

Saturday, April 14, 2012

More 1.7.0 - Get Ready for Countdown!

Welcome back to the second half of our “New Breed Part 1” blog post!  As mentioned in the first half, here we will get into more details on the other new features coming with the big 1.7.0, including environmental changes, new weapon mechanics, and new character mechanics.  

As with any of the changes made to the game, we make a concerted effort to take into account the feedback given to us from the Community.  In 1.7 we have tried to address both community feedback and to implement new items that will give us room to grow the game in the future.  On that note, without further ado;


Environmental Changes: You will see that we’ve made quite a few improvements in both the Financial District and the Waterfront District.  While, most of the changes focused on Financial we think you’ll like what we’ve done for both.  And we didn’t forget about our latest maps from Fight Club. Some of the things we did to improve Fight Club maps include removing a few camping spots and adding details where we felt more depth was needed. While city planning can be a full-time job, we’ve also made sure to add a few new areas in preparation for future content updates, where some of the other New Contacts (cough – New Breed Part 2 – cough) will have a home.



Financial

Gaijin Club: A smoking area has been added to the back of Gaijin for late night clubbers. This is accessible through a new entrance on the top floor and from the alleyways around the rear. This extra entrance helps make the area a lot less impenetrable as a defensive location.  Now you can dance, hang out, and assault other players all in the same locale.  Sounds like a fun night to us!

St Medina's Incinerator: The Incinerator Building (opposite Wilson LeBoyce) will now have an extra rear entrance added to the roof, so take advantage of this new route of attack. The rear courtyard now contains overflow waste waiting to be incinerated.  This place might be ideal to hide a dead body or two – I mean – an ideal place to recycle a thing or two!


Alexandra Park and Display: The top two floors of the car park have been opened up, with the top floor TipToe’s stomping ground. Multiple entrances and a gaping hole in the floor for access to the level below make this a great combat space also. Remodelled parking complex in the Financial District now gives players access to its top floor.  Keep one thing in mind – only visit the top floor if you have business with TipToe. If you don’t she might give you a one-way express ticket to the ground floor (courtesy of the gaping hole in the floor)…


New-Cross Skate Park:  You might remember getting a first glance at this area from our sneak peek video of the new Brick Mod. The Skate Park has extensively been rebuild and re-envisioned. This area now features a number of ramps and jumps, and has access to vehicles. The perfect place for all you aspiring stunt car drivers and extreme sportsmen/women.


Pretorian Offices (Justin Teng): A new stairwell has been installed in the rear of the building allowing access to the upper section of the building, making this popular camping ground far harder to hold.
SSPD Offices (Violet Prentiss, Ty Durrant & Grissom): The interior decorator has been in and given these offices a fresh lick of paint and installed some new lighting fixtures. 



Waterfront

Prentiss Boxing Club: For all you real contenders out there head to his spot to train in the “noble art” and maybe learn a few more “unorthodox” methods of combat. The gym itself is not currently open to the public but its break area and upper balcony are, offering a strongly defensible location to set up in. A stairwell and offices have been created inside the Prentiss Boxing Club to give better access to the roof-top as well.

Villanueva Hotel: The luxurious sea front property has had some work done to its upper balcony, allowing Michael Simeone to relax in style - though he’s thinking of hiring some security to keep to riffraff out… An extra stairway has been created to the top level, and the area has had some graphical improvements to bring out the hotel class.


Rimbaud Cocktails: A new cocktail bar has been opened in the down town area the Waterfront district, just across from the Tsunami Casino. An exclusive bar, its popularity among the wealthier of San Paro inhabitants has blessed it with a 24-hour alcohol licence. The cocktail menu is mixed Mandarin and Renaissance Italian. Apparently, the house Absinthe is the best in the city.



Baylan

There has been an extra 'base' area added near the cranes, and the enforcer spawn point has been moved to the Dog-Crate in the north-west. The previous enforcer spawn has also had a small makeover, with extra entrances in and out. This is primarily to facilitate the new 'Scavenger' Game-type (I'll cover that in the Fight Club Challenges section).

A shipment of new creates was recently “commandeered” by the factions and relocated (with some planks they also “borrowed”) to give them new routes to navigate the Baylan container yard. The Criminal faction have also set up a new, better fortified, base at the feet of the crane. The billboards by the Enforcer’s base are now free for anyone looking to throw up some of their tags.



Beacon

The top floor of the north tower in the beacon has had a few changes to make it less defensible. In addition, the scaffolding on the west side has been extended, giving an extra (though risky) fast access from the fifth to eleventh floors.

The construction site has recently had some new scaffolding installed, making it easier to ascend to the roof from the front of the building. General work has been on going, so you find various tweak and changes to this decadent high rise building. Some blank billboards, that are just asking to be tagged, have also been installed at the entrance to the construction offices.



Vehicle Changes

New ambient taxi with a roof mounted advertising board. Mobile billboard sounds like a good place to advertise and recruit new clan members? Maybe you are planning on having a player event and want to spread the word. The sky is the limit for things you might want to show on that cab! (Just keep in mind the limit for the things you CANNOT show, and you will avoid the banhammer).
We also will have new vehicle kits for both the Enforcer and Criminal carrying kits for you to carry your group in style.  And as hinted here and there we’ll have a few new Uber Packs, new Vehicles and Kits in store for you soon.



New Weapon & Character Mechanics

Now, Qwentle, our Lead Designer spent some late evenings a long with the rest of our team, trying to make some of these needed adjustments become a reality.  So if you see him around be sure to say ‘Thanks’ or emote some happy dance.

Marksmanship and sprinting mobility improvements: Now we have different speeds for Marksmanship, depending on type. For all but the heavy weapons, this has either increased or stayed the same. Large weapons such as the heavy-snipers and LMGs have had their marksmanship and run speeds reduced, but have been given the ability to sprint, albeit at a much lower speed than normal weapons. This removes an arbitrary constraint (not being able to sprint) while still maintaining the effect (the weapon is bulky and slow).


Marksmanship and sprinting movement speed is now modified by the weight and encumbrance of a weapon. This means that you can technically sprint with every weapon, but how fast you move will be determined by the aforementioned modifiers.


Kevlar Change: Kevlar will now only adjust movement speeds, and not acceleration. It now slows as follows:
L1: +10%hp, -10% Sprint Speed
L2: +20%hp, -10% Sprint Speed, -10% run speed
L3: +30%hp, -15% Sprint Speed, -15% run speed


ACT44 ‘Last Stand’ Change: Qwentle wanted to ensure the retail box magnum was not overpowered, and perhaps erred too much on the side of caution.  But to re-balance things, we’re switching out the mod for this weapon and replacing it with a mobility sling mod. This should allow it to move faster when aiming. This should fit it into a fairly interesting place, being a high damage side-arm that can be aimed and fired when moving at near run-speed.


So there you have it folks!  We hope all of you are prepared for New Breed Part 1 (1.7.0) and as you get to make your way with exploring the new content please feel free to share your feedback with us.  For more nitty-gritty details, we’ve pre-emptively posted Release Notes on our Official Forums - http://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/270423-170-patch-notes/


There have of course been many additional improvements that will make life harder for unpleasant players and for cheaters, though we will not discuss those in an open forum. That's an ongoing battle which continues unabated behind the scenes.



So stay tuned for more news about 1.7 when we go LIVE and keep your eyes peeled for some special upcoming promotions and Armas Releases around the release of 1.7, by visiting the Armas or checking your registered GamersFirst e-mail.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep comments on-topic and reasonably civilized. The moderators reserve the right to remove any off topic, uncivilized or troll-ish comments.