[COLOR=‘Red’]Update: Beta release![/SIZE]
Latest Version: OaR Uncut Beta 1. Download here.[/SIZE]
Missing texture hotfix here.[/SIZE]
Right, so here it is guys - a little later than promised but I’m sure you’re used to that by now.
As usual, let me know if there are any missing textures (purple/black checkerboards) or models (ERRORS). I’ll fix them ASAP.
This is like the beta of the beta. I’m with a friend currently so I don’t really have time to properly support this release right now, so I’m only posting it here for now because I know you guys have been waiting so damn patiently. Consider this release here to be a quick “testing the waters”. Assuming everything is fine with this release and there are no major problems, this same release will be made officially on ModDB, tomorrow at some point.
There isn’t much to be said about the beta which hasn’t already been said. I worked my ass off to improve on aspects of the Alpha which I thought were weak. Gameplay, aesthetics, flow, intuitiveness, balance, it’s all a lot better than before. Performance has been improved a fair amount (though is still not at the level I’d like it to be), and lots of bugs have been worked out and squashed, including a lot of bugs which I thought I couldn’t work through.
A1 and A2 have been dramatically expanded and by far are the most improved maps of the bunch, from their alpha variant. I really feel like I’ve nailed them this time around. Try them for yourself. They feel really polished, at least to me, and I’m delighted with how they turned out.
A1 feels more like a complete and full package now rather than a small bit of A2 which got cut off. The base map now flows a tonne better, and there are a few additional and unique side areas to explore as well. The overall path is still relatively short and is largely unchanged from before, but the map has a lot more of its own character and uniqueness now thanks to my aesthetic changes.
A2 has been changed pretty dramatically too. Most noteworthy is that every single NPC battle on the map has been rebalanced to have less enemies. This is to account for the numerous complaints that there were too many enemies before, and is made possible by me finding a workaround to the bugged Vortiguant AI. It does work a lot better this way, and alleviates the issue of players being left to fight ridiculous amounts of enemies at the end of a fight. Though the fights are ultimately shorter and a bit less rewarding to watch as a result, the overall trade is definitely better this way. The final battle before the electric tracks is a helluva lot better now - over the course of 30 tests I conducted to test the final results, the highest number of enemies I ever had to face was 4 surviving Vortiguants, which is fairly manageable. The lighting in the office complex is now a lot more varied, and hopefully the player direction has improved as a result. I’ve tried hard to make it lead the player the right way a bit better. The hallways in the office complex have seen a lot more detail now, and the performance has actually improved from previous versions due to me optimizing the lighting. The Anomalous Materials stripes along the walls are a very tenuous change which I’m still unsure about. I personally really like them, I think they give the office its own unique flavour and help to direct the player. But I’m still very on the fence about it, so I’d love to hear the community feedback on it. A2 has also seen a few of the boring tunnels become much more interesting thanks to aesthetic vertical expansion. It makes the rail system feel far more expansive.
B1 has seen a fair amount of changes and has seen some (relatively insignificant, but still worth mentioning) new side areas. There haven’t really been a great deal of major, impactful changes done to the map, it’s mostly just optional new side areas to explore, and some bugfixes. I spent about 3 days working on getting the turntable to not be shit. It was hell, I tell you. Crashes up the wazoo. But it works now, at least as far as I can tell. The entity setup is infinitely more complex than it was before, but hopefully it should be pretty difficult to completely break that sequence, which was really buggy before. It probably still has problems which I’m sure the community will discover, but we’ll see! I couldn’t break it, myself. Hopefully the community can’t either. Still, we’ve got a release candidate on the horizon, so it can still be fixed further. The only other major thing which I haven’t really addressed on B1 is the poor optimization in the turntable room. It still runs about the same as before. I’m actually not so sure there’s a great deal I can do about this. Source HATES dynamic lighting, and the whole turntable room is designed around them. There’s nothing else about the room which really makes it perform badly aside from the lighting. If compiled without lighting, the room performs perfectly fine.
B2 hasn’t seen any serious changes aside from some combat rebalancing and a slight aesthetic touch up here and there - B2 is definitely the least changed map of the lot. Not much else to say really. It’s mostly the same as the alpha version, but the combat is more spread out now.
Alright, that’s about it. I hope you guys enjoy it. I worked bloody hard on it and I’m really proud with how its turned out in comparison to the alpha. Hopefully, if we work together, it can be made even better. I really feel like it’s nearly there in terms of a finished product though. Optimization aside, it’s pretty close to how I envisage the final product will be. Let me know what you think, I always enjoy reading on the feedback and interacting with the community about it. Cheers guys!
(damn those disgusting HECU and Xenians).
(as a matter of fact I knew nothing about STU v2.0 till it was released, and I was like … “Wow!!!” )
