MattScott

Hi all, We are working on the Citadel latency issue causing odd spikes and rubberbanding. Working through network configuration and server configurations now. Thanks, Matt

Yes. To confirm what Frosi said, we are swapping the console UI font to the Live APB 1.20 UI font.

Hi all, We had a very busy week on APB 2.1. We fixed the NPCs popping through raised floors. We fixed the remaining missing props. And we made significant progress on the massive lighting issue. Before we were seeing steady framerates when the player wasn't moving, but then you would drop 30-50FPS once you moved. Now we're seeing steady framerates. Unfortunately its clear we're game thread capped (as opposed to the render thread). This means the CPU is doing more work than the GPU, and CPU computations are preventing the FPS from running higher. Overall performance is well below Live at the moment. We need to spend a little more time this week looking at where the game thread is spending all its time. Since the game is now playable, we are starting to also focus on smaller bugs such as some gates not being destructible, issues shooting through windows, minimal settings not improving the FPS much, some character lighting is too dark, and marksmanship sensitivity issues. I haven't shown any screenshots in a while, and one of our SPCT testers was kind enough to gather up some, so here is what the game looks like right now. All screenshots using Ultra graphics settings at 1920x1080. GPU: GeForce GTX 1080 CPU: Intel Core i9-9900KS Edited 12/01/2020 - 06:51 am PT Note from SPCT @rooq: Hey guys! I made a huge mistake when capturing the original screenshots. Turns out that I had anisotropic filtering completely disabled, giving all textures a low resolution appearance. I tried to recreate the same screenshots with proper settings, sorry for the mishap! Thanks, Matt

We are working with the new provider to optimize routes into the data center. We added another circuit around 12am GMT, which is why there were drops on Citadel districts. Let's see how things run over the next couple days.

This is a good question. Each year we make the call on what items to bring back for the event and what new items we want to make. So the answer is some likely will and some wont. Right now, we're offering old seasonal items as one bundle on ARMAS, and a second bundle with the new event items. Obviously this year we had issues with the playability of Christmas due to poor latency. But the goal of putting the bundles on ARMAS is to generally make items available for collectors who want to customize their characters and help take pressure off players who can't complete the event (for whatever reason). We adopted this strategy after a majority of the community asked for it.

Citadel is live using Europe servers (except for Social).

Threat districts will be returning as soon as we have enough local EU servers to support them. The key is that no threat is currently awful for newer players. We need better match making capabilities to eliminate thread districts, and that wont happen till APB 2.1 (Engine Upgrade).

Hi all, As of today we have: 380 unanswered tickets 590 total tickets We are answering tickets from 12/21 which puts us at 3 weeks. Thanks, Matt

We’re still missing a ton of servers for Europe, so Social will likely stay in NY for now.

District servers are all located in the Netherlands but in a different (better) data center than we were hosting in before. We can run multiple districts per physical server. The new architecture was designed to allow us to add new district servers in different locations in the future (similar to what we're doing with LA and NY for Jericho).

Yes. The hope was that we could patch late last night. That was pushed to this morning due to a licensing issue. Everything is cleared up now.

Hi all, We will be taking Europe worlds offline starting at 10pm UTC (2pm Pacific). The plan is to take XB1 offline first so we can swap the districts to local Europe servers. That world has the lowest population, so it's easier for us to work the kinks out. We will test XB1, then bring that world online, and then move to the next. We anticipate it will take 1 hour per world to swap districts. I know this maintenance is being done on a Friday at prime time, but the European players have waited long enough, and I want to get these servers online before the weekend. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We have 6 new servers on the West Coast and 7 new servers in Europe coming online today. That's still only a fraction of the total servers that will eventually be in place, but it's enough to host the current configuration locally in Europe with the possible exception of Social districts which will stay on the East Coast. I'll be posting the maintenance announcement soon. The plan is to stop one world at a time, change out districts, do some testing, and then open that world to players. So there will be rolling availability during the down time. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, We are including the Elf Ears in the Christmas bundles coming out on the 15th. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, A portion of the EU servers were turned over to my team last night. We are getting game server software and testing done immediately. There are enough servers that we should be able to move all action districts and fight club districts locally to Europe. The plan will be to do a short maintenance on Citadel on Thursday night to take these live. The remaining servers should all be racked early next week. I'll be watching the tracking numbers and providing status as I get it. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We're going to be adding the Christmas items to ARMAS on January 15th during our scheduled maintenance. As part of that transition, we'll be removing the Halloween 2019 items. Specifically the following packages will be removed: Halloween 2019 - All Items bundle: https://www.gamersfirst.com/marketplace/ingame/product_details.php?storetype=g1c&gameID=20&productId=6359 Halloween Classics bundle: https://www.gamersfirst.com/marketplace/ingame/product_details.php?storetype=g1c&gameID=20&productId=6357 Halloween 2019 In-Game Rewards bundle: https://www.gamersfirst.com/marketplace/ingame/product_details.php?storetype=g1c&gameID=20&productId=6361 Get them now while you still can! Thanks, Matt

NGL, I laughed out loud when I watched this. Well done.

Typo. Unexpected.

Hi all, Lots of good progress on getting the remaining servers up and running in our new LA datacenter, however the EU servers continue to be a black box. I hate excuses, so I’m not going to make any. I haven’t had a direct response about the EU servers since they said they would deliver access on Friday. We scheduled our network team to work the weekend, but nothing has been turned over to us yet. I believe the group we are working with outsourced their EU support, so they are likely waiting on someone else, who is probably waiting on actual datacenter staff to move around hardware. With all these problems, many players may be wondering why we chose this new provider. Simply put, they are experts in defending DDoS attacks, and the end of our previous contract gave us an opportunity to be in the same cage as high-end custom hardware that can protect the game far better than in the past. Since we cutover in November, we have been hit with some of the biggest attacks I have seen since we took over. One attack was 200Gbps. That is 10-20x what were seeing in the past. Our new provider blocked nearly all of the attacks with zero impact to players, and the few that got through were analyzed immediately so our rules could be patched in minutes. I will continue to push for status on the EU servers, and I’ll post here when I have more details. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I’ve seen some good responses to the OP’s issue. I appreciate the players who took the time to share their view point. I’m going to lock this thread, as it seems to have reached its conclusion. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I was hoping for more of an update this week, but the holiday got in the way. As of Friday, we believe we have fixed the massive lighting issue that was plaguing us during December. I’m waiting for a build to evaluate performance. For console players, we noticed that both Sony and Microsoft have required upgrades to their latest SDKs before we can resubmit again. The work on the Sony SDK is complete, and we are 50% done with Microsoft. Looking forward to seeing progress next week now that vacations are done. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, This is a quick note to let you all know that Lixil has had an unexpected life situation that requires a change in her role. She is staying with the company but stepping down as the Community Manager. We are actively looking for a replacement. In the meantime Ritual and the rest of the team will be filling in. This is a bit of a scramble for us, but I hope to introduce the new Community Manager soon. EDIT: Unexpected. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Missed the holiday week while we had reduced staff answering support tickets. Definitely saw a rise in tickets during that time. As of today we have: 497 unanswered tickets (up 159 over the holiday) 677 total tickets (up 137 over the holiday) We are answering tickets from 12/13 putting us back to 21 day turnaround. We have a new CS starting on Monday, and all staff will be back in the office to help bring this back down. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, All of our networking partners are back from the break. It was extremely frustrating to see everyone leave for the holidays with our servers not back online. I'm told my team will have access tomorrow (Friday) and that we can start installing images over the weekend. If everything holds true, then EU servers will come online during next week's patch maintenance. I will be extremely happy to have this put behind us, so we can concentrate on the next phase of world consolidation and local districts. Apologies, Matt

We are working on this issue.