MattScott

Just giving you an idea of the scope first. I'll be updating our progress as we go attempting to figure out some overall percentage. This is an accurate statement. For me, when I have so little overall understanding of the game, you have to be willing to learn as you go and let the project take you where it needs to. I think the goal is to start with a completely rewritten version of the current game including tools. That gives us a really solid base to work with, and we can get a sense of all the places we want to dig into. From there we can decide whether the level of change fits into the current game or should be done as a sequel.

Not going to lie. I wish we could have done something like this.

I am not familiar with the HQ bloom settings. Can you walk me through those? After we launch the engine upgrade, we have plans for the threat system. The current plan is not to go back to the old system, but we aren't staying with the current system either. I try to update the community at least once a month, and the link to that blog goes out in our newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, and here in case you want to keep tracking our progress.

Hi all, This was our first attempt at putting in a new vehicle, and it looks like there is a bug. We are going to be fixing that asap. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, We had a build staged for SPCT to test right at the end of 2018, but we hit a snag while one of our developers was on vacation. I'm going to give us some time to test and work some kinks out, and then I'll let SPCT post pictures. Thanks, Matt

I'm not going to disagree. Our focus is fixing the game, and we are holding back most of this sort of thing till after the UE 3.5 engine upgrade is live. However, in some cases we can't control the timing of opportunities like this or if we will get invited to participate. So I opted to do this one to get the experience. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I've locked this thread, since we were able to fix the problem. We are looking into ways to help players trial weapons without opening up exploits. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Here is some context on the choice and design for the Alienware car: We were given an opportunity to participate, but not much time to execute. We were told not to use the alienhead and given several other design limitations. My team has never engaged in anything like this, so none of us knew how hard these codes are to claim. We weren't sure if existing players could easily get them, and we didn't want to upset anyone with some crazy car they couldn't get. While I think we could have done plenty of things differently, I'm not a fan of creating rare, unbalanced items for a random promotional giveaway. We have a couple more of these opportunities coming up, so we'll continue to explore better ways to do them. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, We are looking at this issue. There is no plan to remake Waterfront, but there are ideas for making the existing district more attractive to play in. Stay tuned. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I think we are way too early to assume that everyone is going to have to start over. As I have said in other discussions, we will do everything we can to help players migrate to the new version. I also agree that we would have to do a lot more than upgrade art to warrant that level of reinvestment. The goal of the rewrite is to get a new version in place ahead of the day when the code will literally stop working on modern day systems. My only real concern for bringing across progress, items, and chips is eliminating progress/items from those players who abused the duping issue. We don't want to immediately start off with a messed up economy. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Rather than clutter up the forums with random posts, I'll be putting up progress shots on my twitter feed (@mattpscott) using the tag #ThisOldGame. Lately I've been bouncing back and forth between finishing the art import and starting some of the backend server programming. This test was slightly tricky because the raw data is Z-Up and rotations are in angle tenths for Yaw, Pitch, and Roll. I had to experiment a bit to get things to line up properly. Dynamic lights are all temporary values, so they don't match the actual game. I tried to line up the camera angle as best as I could for the comparison. Here are the latest test shots of Boneclaw. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We are looking into the Nekrova situation. Honestly we have inherited a mess, but we’ll do our best to sort this out. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Here are a couple points of clarification: "Little Orbit support Cheaters or what?" I really shouldn't have to answer this. We spend millions a year on improving the game, building new features, and on anti-cheat systems themselves. APB is a PvP game that is only fun if you get a fair match. I've already gone on record saying that the game will die if we can't fix the cheating problem. Why would we subvert all that hard work and money by supporting cheaters and letting them run rampant? Does LO do permanent bans? Yes. With proper evidence, we ban cheaters. There is no warning or second chance. You get permanently banned. If BattlEye or any of our other systems flag you, then you get a temp ban ranging from 3-7 days. During that period, my staff verifies the information and converts the ban to a permanent ban. This happens in the vast majority of cases. "Support takes too long to respond to cheat reports." I agree. The turnaround time was atrocious. That's why we revamped the /report system to make it more useful. We are still responding to old reports that were submitted, but the team is now using data from the new /report system to focus their efforts. Who can ban cheaters? Only LO employees and paid contractors can ban players. We do have volunteers who help, and they have some power to remove problematic players, but they can also escalate reports or summon someone we employ directly. We did this because of the history in this game and abuse by previous GMs. Permanent bans are only a partial solution for cheaters. This is important. Bans only deter players who really want to play the game and progress. For those cheaters who don't care about their accounts and want to troll other players, they just come right back under a new account. We ban using various methods. They come back. We ban them again using other methods. They come back. The only long term solution to battle these cheaters is to block the actual cheat, and that takes time. Several players post or contact me with lists of "known cheaters", and then complain when they still see those players in the game. I get messages all the time from players with "proof" and lists of names. I always turn that information over to my team. However, we cannot act directly on player submitted evidence or testimonials. There are several reasons you may still a "cheater" in-game: (1) we are still collecting evidence, (2) we did an investigation and could not prove they were cheating, or (3) we found evidence but sometimes we'll flag that player for BattlEye so they can work on detecting the cheat and block it. Once we have collected enough data, then we ban these players. Waiting is sometimes critical to gathering information, because banning isn't an effective long term solution. As I have said before, we can never make the game cheat-free, but we are working hard to continually improve. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I just saw this thread. Removal of the Free Trial system was purely an oversight on our part. It just got lost in the shuffle. In a game like APB with so many complex weapons, players need to be able to try before they commit. I’ve let the team know, so we can work on getting that back in. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, I'm looking into this. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We’ve reported this to BattlEye and asked them to temporarily disable it till we can test further. Thanks, Matt

Welcome ExpectoPatronum, I appreciate the sentiment, and DDoS is no joke. But this community has a twisted sense of humor. I take most of it as them just making the best of a bad situation. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, I’m sure you have noticed consistent outages in APB since Christmas. Unfortunately, we have been getting hammered by a new form of DDoS attack, and it is taking our networking team time to work up and test a new defense. For the time being, I’m going to put the servers on Mitigation, so at least things are up and stable. I honestly hate turning on this form of mitigation because it adds significant latency. Apologies. Bear with us. Thanks, Matt Edit: Apparently my network engineers have determined that the large Citadel crash this morning was an issue with our provider. We’ll keep watching things.

Apologies everyone, Since Christmas, we have been getting hammered by a new form of DDoS attack. Our engineers are working nonstop on a way to mitigate it. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, I appreciate the debate over whether we will need to start progression over for players, but it’s not really productive right now. Even my comments on the Q&A stream were speculative. No decision has been made, and wont be till we see the full new solution. Just so I have said it, I consider our veteran players the ambassadors of this game. It’s my goal to build something they will be excited about and help us grow again. Of course, the content itself needs to be able to attract new players as well. Wiping progression is not something I take lightly. It’s also not an ‘all or nothing’ lever. There are many waypoints along that spectrum that range from having progression stay mostly intact to the possibility of only minor elements being carried over. Rest asured, I’ll keep everyone posted on how we need to proceed. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Apologies for the issues yesterday. We got hit with a new form of DDoS attack on Jericho that caused outages every couple hours. Our engineers our working on it. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, The G1 pre-order is for PC, and it has a ship skin along with some other goodies. If you already have the Steam Early Access version then you’re good to go. The normal retail for the PC version will be $39.99. All of the retail versions (Gamestop, Target, etc) are for the console version, which will come out at $49.99. Thanks, Matt

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks, Matt

Lots of great questions (and ideas) here. I’ve been working a reduced schedule over the holiday break, but I’ll try to get some amswers organized soon. Thanks for the heads up. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, My State of the Game for the end of 2018 is up. We got off to a slow start, but looking back I’m pleasantly surprised by how much we were able to do. Here is a recap of 2018 and a little of what is planned for 2019: https://www.gamersfirst.com/fallenearth/news/2018/12/31/state-of-the-game-2018 Update 1/1: In order to give a bit more information about the size of the project, here are some basic stats that we can use to create a "progress meter" along the way. The code for the Frontend client: There are about 175 code files and 210 headers with nearly 165,000 lines of code in total. The code for some common libraries and tools: There are about 250 code files and 1450 headers with nearly 650,000 lines of code in total. The code for the Backend services: There are about 720 code files and 1170 headers with nearly 1,000,000 lines of code in total. The data for the game: There are 77 3D levels There are 6,200 3D models There are 5,100 3D animations There are 22,500 Textures Thanks, Matt