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MattScott

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Posts posted by MattScott

  2. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    Please see the update announcement here:

    https://apbreloaded.gamersfirst.com/2018/06/june-2018-anti-cheat-update.html

     

    Sorry this took so long to nail down on our end.

    We had to address many different issues internally to get ready for this patch - everything from upgrading libraries to bring them current to training a new QA team on testing the game. I know the radio silence and lack of clear date was frustrating for a lot of players. We will do better in the future of giving more of a timeline and heads up.

     

    EDIT: For clarification, players can still use the Advanced Launcher for the time being. The developer was generous to share the code so we could test and review it. We hope to incorporate many of these features directly into APB in the future.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 54
    • Thanks 55

  3. Posted

    Hi niblyv,

     

    We are doing our best, and I can appreciate your frustration. We are banning people, but not fast enough.

    I full understand that there is a rampant cheating problem right now.

     

    Some of this has been posted elsewhere, but I'll repost it all in one place here, and then I'm going to lock this thread since I feel it has run its course.

     

    - We finished with development and integration of BattlEye on Friday.

    - We all worked the weekend doing some initial rounds of testing, but we keep turning up bugs - specifically false positive bans.

    - I am reluctant to post exact dates on anything like this because (a) its our first patch (b) anti-cheat requires extensive testing and I don't want to get it wrong.

     

    I will post an update with an exact date as soon as I know what that date will be.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 8
    • Thanks 18

  4. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    This thread is now locked, but I want to follow up personally.

     

    My original comments still stand, and I don't intend to delete/edit them.

     

    However here is what happened after I made that post:

    - It was pointed out to us that Shini plays on Citadel not Jericho. This means we needed to check a different server's logs and the time of day in the logs is different.

    - We did find an issue, and we interviewed the GM. The GM clearly made a mistake in judgment. They saw some comments from Shini on the stream, and misinterpreted those comments to mean that Shini *wanted* someone to mess with them. The GM then took the liberty of "making the game more fun".

     

    Regardless of the good intentions, we have removed the former GM's privileges in-game, and they are no longer a GM.

    This player understands now that they crossed a line, and all parties involved are fine with the resolution.

     

    As a recap:

    - We are new, and we are going to make mistakes.

    - We will be transparent when that happens, and we will own those mistakes.

     

    Thanks,

    Matt

    • Like 13
    • Thanks 23

  5. Posted

    Hi guys,

     

    Let me step in here. I'm not sure how to answer this more clearly than Lixil already has, but I'll walk through this.

     

    1) The first video looks like lag to me.

    It's hard for me to see when Shini was streaming exactly, but I know 4 hours ago we got hammered fairly significantly. NA servers have been on mitigation ever since. We do know that lag and teleporting happens during these cases. Teleporting occurs when a player's movement updates are sent out of order or lost by the server. For the player they move on their client, but the server eventually tells the client to reset in an attempt to sync and get packets flowing properly between the client and server again. A reset teleports the player back to wherever the server's last valid location was. If Shini's last valid location on the server was a spawn point that happened to be far away from the objective, then that is unfortunately, and we apologize for his bad experience in-game. I have already posted the steps we are taking to reduce the lag, and we are following those steps.

     

    2) The second video is definitely speed hacking, but why is it assumed this is a GM?

    We've gone frame by frame in that video, and that's a newb shirt with no identifiable marks. Is everyone on this thread assuming that the first and second videos are tied together? That for some reason a GM would cause Shini to rubberband intentionally to interfere with their mission, and then that same GM became visible and speedhacked past Shini to troll him? I just don't follow the logic being presented here.

     

    3) All GM commands are fully logged on our end so we can review them.

    I am well aware of the big debate over volunteer GMs. We are watching very closely, and in this case I can confirm that Lixil and her team saw this post and reviewed the logs. There was no hint of any GM abuse or speedhacking.

     

    Let me be as transparent as I can on this issue:
    - If a GM messes up, they will be punished and taken off the team. Period.

    - I feel like there is no value in hiding or covering up problems. We own them, take care of them, and move on.

     

    4) Announcements

    This comment on this thread concerns me the most.

     

    10 minutes ago, Techdev said:

    No offence to the new staff.

    But pls do not anounce stuff untill it is ready, LO had the biggest chance to work things out and walk in with everyting ready.

    Blow us all away with a new anticheat, ..... why didn't LO wait untill everything was up and running and take apb by storm, srry but this feels like G1 trying to milk us 1 last time before shutting down.

     

    :(:(:(:(:(:(:(

     

    This feels a bit extreme given that there is literally no basis behind the information presented in this thread.

     

    I have taken great care in what I have announced. Everything we talk about publicly has a plan that is being executed on. I have specifically not announced the BattlEye patch release date, because I can't be 100% certain when that will happen. It's our first patch and we want BattlEye to be bullet proof.

     

    I think Techdev is making the assumption that we had months before the acquisition to plan and get a bunch of work done first. However, that simply isn't the case. We were barely allowed to review code. 

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 8
    • Thanks 6

  7. Posted

    Hi guys,

     

    I've read this, and added it to our internal tracking system. I honestly have no idea where it fits within the roadmap, but we have at least one color blind person in the office, and several of these comments already came up.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 3

  9. Posted

    Hi guys,

     

    Sorry for note being better about communicating the patch notes for the weekly maintenance.

     

    We removed ARMAS gifting because it has been abused quite heavily over the last two weeks.

    Until we can sort it out, we've taken it offline.

     

    The focus of the maintenance has been adding more servers for districts as the player base grows.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 6
    • Thanks 1

  10. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    Edit: 06/02/2018

     

    It's now been about 3 weeks, and I want to take some time to speak directly to the Fallen Earth players.

     

    First, I know there have been lots of questions asked on the forums. I have spent some time reading many of these, and I found them intricate, well written, and virtually impossible for me to answer right now for reasons that I'll explain below. I also want to acknowledge the many players who have reached out to me offering help or detailed walkthrus of some of the issues plaguing the game. That kind of detail helps. I've been in-game a little messing around with specific mechanics to familiarize myself with some of what has been talked about, and I'll continue to get up to speed.

     

    Second, I don't have a long term plan or roadmap for the game yet. I'm still in the investigation phase.

     

    So instead I thought I would write a short post to talk about where we're at and what we have to work with, because I think that will guide how we proceed.

     

    The codebase for Fallen Earth is split into three parts:

    - The original Icarus engine and tool set used to build and maintain the world

    - The Frontend client / updater

    - The Backend servers

     

    Let's start with the Icarus Engine and tools.

     

    Unfortunately, there is some code missing here. We have one developer who has been slowly reverse engineering the missing pieces just so we can get the tools back up and running. There has been some progress, and we obviously have the output from the engine, which is what the servers operate on. So in theory the tools could be entirely replaced some day. But the editor itself doesn't work right now.

     

    Next the Frontend client.

     

    We have all the code, and it is theoretically possible for us to patch the game or the updater. However this code is significantly old. It requires tools that are more than a decade in age, installations of old libraries, and very customized windows installs to even build everything. It is a matter of time before current operating systems wont be able to run this client. We need to think ahead and start migrating to something much newer and maintained. This means a complete rewrite using the framework of what has been built as a roadmap. 

     

    The challenge is that we also don't have any of the source art files. No 3DSMax files. No PSDs. No high rez textures at all. We have reached out to the original dev team to see if we can get these, but in their absence, we will need to create these files from the data that ships with the game. This is not at all ideal, since these files have all been compressed or down rezed to work. But it will at least be a starting point, and it will give us an idea of scope for the art, so we can assess how extensive it will be to rebuild.

     

    Lastly the Backend client.

     

    This is in the best shape. The developer who is currently assigned to the project has been able to piece everything together so that each server can be rebuilt and redeployed. I think this is where we can make the most short term improvement to the game by fixing bugs and exploits. Ultimately we will still want to migrate these systems into whatever the new framework is so they can be more easily maintained.

     

    Where do we go from here?

     

    Please don't read this as Little Orbit giving up, or even us being discouraged. I knew most of this before we took over GamersFirst. I just want to share where we are at, and that it's going to take some time to provide a clear roadmap of how we're going to rebuild. From there, we can look at the design and possible changes down the road.

     

    I am still looking to schedule some time to answer as many questions as I can with players. I'll have Lixil post that update when we get a little closer.

     

    Edit: 06/15/2018

     

    This week was E3, so I didn't get a lot of time on Fallen Earth.

     

    We have been able to extract the compiled game issues from the main data file.

     

    We have been able to get about 40% through re-organizing all the C++ code. The main problem was that several core libraries were copied and included several times. It's impossible to know which version is the most up-to-date, but it's clear they aren't all the same. So we've started moving everything into a new repository with each library referenced and only included once. We still have to do this for all the server code and some of the front end code, but we were able to get some of the tools recompiling this way.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 12

  11. Posted

    Hi all,

     

    Lots of discussion here. Obviously things got a little off the rails.

    I want to acknowledge the players who have had bad experiences with non-employee GMs in the past.

    This is something we will need to manage going forward.

     

    I think we've reached a solid understanding of what Lixil intended with this post and the reaction from players.

    I'm going to lock and unpin this now.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    I appreciate the OP's sentiment, and we are doing what we can with the existing tools in place. The next patch with BattlEye is very very close.

    I'm going to lock this thread, because I don't really see any further value in it. But I hope the OP will give us another chance down the road as things improve.

     

    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 12
    • Thanks 9

  13. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    I really enjoyed reading this thoughtful discussion about why players have stuck with APB. It's one of the first entirely non-toxic threads I've seen on the new forums that made me smile, because I got an inside view into the game from the perspective of some older players. Thanks to the OP for not only posting the topic, but then prompting more people to answer. And thanks to everyone who engaged to give honest and open answers.

     

    Matt

    • Like 23
    • Thanks 1

  15. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    I've seen a number of players who are frustrated at the extended delays with our support team. 

     

    First, I want to acknowledge that we did send a cut/paste email to all the players who opened tickets in order to get unbanned. Many of them went to players who had been banned for cheating. Unfortunately some of the unban requests were for different reasons. It can't have felt very good to get a cut/paste email response that didn't even address your ticket.

     

    Second, it's clear that my staff was too small. We worked hard to get the new support portal up, but the number of tickets and types of issues far exceeded our capacity. Part of the problem is that my staff are still learning all the tools. They have three different systems they need to switch between in order to look up or correct issues. They are getting faster, but this is taking more time than I thought.

     

    Here are the current CS stats right now:

    - 1,689 total tickets have been created for APB since the new portal went up on 5/25.

    - 480 of them were players requesting unbans. Since we will be unbanning so many players after the next patch, we are not going to be responding to unban request until after that date. As I said above, if you requested an unban, you should have received an auto respond message.

    - 252 of them have been closed.

    - 957 are untouched.

     

    The vast majority of the current open tickets are players who can't access their accounts after G1 reset their passwords in January. These are time consuming tickets. My team takes a lot of extra precautions to double check many different data points in the account to make sure they don't accidentally allow someone to take someone else's account.

     

    Here is what we're going to do to fix this situation:

     

    • Selali and his team are putting in extra hours over the weekends and try to bring the ticket count down.
    • We have already hired twice as many CS staff to get ahead of this.
    • We are looking for ways to optimize the CS training and tools to make our staff more efficient.

     

    Until I feel comfortable with our service level, either Selali or I will be posting these same stats every week on Friday evening before the weekend.

     

    We invite you to keep track, and hold us accountable. There should be no guess work. Hopefully we'll all watch these numbers go down and improve. I'm going to lock this topic, but feel free to discuss this in other threads. I just want a pinned area that we can add posts to it in order to keep the running tally.

     

    Thank you,
    Matt

    • Like 49
    • Thanks 31

  16. Posted

    On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 3:27 PM, GavidaR said:

    1- Do you plan on inserting more languages into the game such as Spanish, so those without the ability to understand English have it easier to get into the game?

     

    2- Will you hire people with the ability to answer tickets in Spanish and/or community managers that people can get help from?

     

    3- Do you plan on making advertisements in Spanish?

     

    4- Will you make some kind of system that rewards old players for having played for so long while keeping the game alive?

     

    5- Will you make a more comprehensive and player friendly tutorial? 

    Hi there,

     

    (My apologies for not posting this in Spanish)

    We appreciate all our players no matter what language they speak. Little Orbit has a history of translating their titles to many different languages.

     

    The situation with APB is a bit tricky. There are well over 600K words in the game. Typically translations cost $0.10 a word (or higher), so there is a fairly significant cost for each language we do. During the console port back in 2016, it appears that text changed significantly between both the PC and console titles. This caused huge chunks of text to show up in English regardless of the language you selected, because there weren't any new translations, so the decision was to remove many of the other languages.

     

    We are looking into how we can re-introduce localized text, but we need to figure out a long term solution for doing this that we can also maintain as new content gets added down the road.


    We have staffed many multi-lingual new GMs and Customer Support persons. We hope to support each community better in the future.


    As for your other questions, I don't honestly have those answers right now.

     

    Lastly for everyone else bringing negativity to this thread - give it a rest.

    There isn't an official Spanish forum, and the OP clearly stated this message was for LO.


    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1

  17. Posted

    Hi guys,

     

    Again, I think the OP has gotten enough answers, so I am going to lock this thead.

     

    But first, I'll answer this as definitively as I can.


    The Code of Conduct says:

    "Racial slurs, hate speech, threats, spam, and other forms of harassment will not be tolerated."

     

    The Nazi symbol and the confederate flag are two different issues:

    1. Displaying the Nazi symbol is illegal in some European countries where this game is sold. We are simply complying with the law when we find it used in game.
    2. The confederate flag is a question of intention. If you use it to recreate the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard - go for it. If you use it to harass another player, we will enforce the Code of Conduct.

    Personally I don't want to get caught up in legislating policy and making subjective decisions related to creative content. If something is reported by another player as offensive, then we're going to look at you're actions. Creating knowingly questionable content puts you at risk. If you want to take that risk, then you put the decision of your account's future in our hands and you should accept the consequences.

     

    Thanks,

    Matt

    • Like 8
    • Thanks 1

  18. Posted

    Just now, Cocoonutz said:

    Good to hear that the lag will be over soon enough 😄

    Are the new servers for hosting Jericho, Citadel, Nekrova and Han better or are they going to be like whole new server worlds separate from the others?

    They are new district servers spread across existing worlds to help host more in-game players.

    • Like 4

  19. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Similarities said:

    Thanks a lot for the update, is there an ETA on when we can see this new system in place, or does the player base just need to keep our heads above the tide for now? Are these new servers that are being rented out going to help with the population, or help to mitigate the current lag? Or is that just preparation for the future?

    The new servers allow us to offload an instance here and there to help the servers perform better. But mostly we just need to keep pace with the growth.

    • Like 3

  22. Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    Several posts around the forums have mentioned network issues and especially bad lag over the weekend, so I thought I would address this publicly.

     

    First, I don't want to get in the habit of blaming "DDOS attacks" every time there is a problem. Sometimes that's the case. And sometimes it's not. It's important that G1 and LO be honest with the community when we mess up, and when our systems are being effected by external factors. 

     

    We did get an especially heavy DDOS attack on Friday a few hours after the Q&A that took a bit to recover from. We switched on mitigation, and we were able to weather the storm. While we are on mitigation, our servers simply do not perform well. However, the attacked caused a side effect issue where some servers were "up" but disconnected from each other in a way that prevented new districts from spinning up and existing districts from responding. It took the better part of the weekend for us to both discover and resolve all of these issues.

     

    Simply put, the initial lag was out of our control, and we have been on mitigation ever since which creates lag, but we also messed up and made the situation worse over the weekend. Please accept my apologies. We're a little new a this.

     

    Second, we take this game and our players very seriously. An apology would be meaningless if we didn't describe how we are going to fix the issues. So here is how we're moving forward.

     

    • We now have a new DDOS solution that is being tested, and if we find that the results are solid, then the new solution will all but eliminate the kind of lag caused by the existing mitigation solution. I'm already sick and tired of talking about how DDOS mitigation causes lag. I never want that to be an excuse for laggy servers again.
    • We did some brainstorming, and we started on some new networking layer changes that will help with DDOS vulnerabilities. These sorts of changes need to be thoroughly tested, but we are committed to making this more difficult.
    • We have provisioned several new servers. The player concurrency has doubled since we took over, and we are expanding our ability to host districts and provide a smoother in-game experience.
    • We are altering our monitoring to not only determine whether servers are up, but also whether they care actively increasing their concurrent player count and other important metrics that let us know things are running correctly.


    Thanks,
    Matt

    • Like 101
    • Thanks 46
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