Posted by teratos at 10:08 am, 11/18/08  |  Category: Announcement

I have not written an update for some time. We have spent a considerable amount of time working on preparations for our beta testing program. These include ironing out how operations will go for the program, building an installer and automatic update system. Most of these things were mentioned in previous updates and none of them are very interesting.

We have also spent a considerable amount of time searching for hardware compatibility problems. We have managed to identify and fix a wide range of these problems.

As we began to actually do more playtesting such as playing capture the flag, we began to notice some problems with Ascension. There were some depth perception issues and problems with balancing. We began experimenting with some changes to try to resolve the issues. Approximately one month ago we decided that we needed to rescale virtually all of our art assets and then update the appropriate scripts. We have spent the last month fixing this problem. I am happy to say that as of last night, we have completed the rescaling. Today we are finishing up some improvements to the team code. We plan to test this new build tomorrow.

After we test this new build and correct any bugs, we will have to rebalance a good portion of the game.

If this new build works as intended, we feel that we will be able to finish selecting testers for our first round of closed beta and begin shortly after*.

We appreciate your continued support. We are trying our best to have Ascension to you as soon as possible.

 

- Teratos

 

* As always this is subject to change, modification, etc. I may in the future completely deny making this statement.

PS: As always, if you know anyone that is talented and able to help us, especially texture artists/skinners, please have him or her contact Calsa or myself.

Posted by teratos at 4:11 am, 9/27/08  |  Category: Announcement

RenWerX Studios is now accepting applications to participate in our Ascension Beta Testing Program. We will select a number of applicants to help test Ascension. We encourage everyone to fill out the form because we will be choosing testers with diverse hardware, gaming background, and technical knowledge.

 

More information can be found here.

 

The application can be found here.

Posted by teratos at 10:43 am, 8/30/08  |  Category: Highlights

Introduction
So far the response to these smaller but more frequent updates has been positive. Continue to let us know what you think and how we can improve them. We will attempt to implement your suggestions.

Also I want to say that if you have sent a message via our contact form and did not get a reply from me, please contact me directly on the forums. Occasionally a message gets missed/filtered in our system. If I see your message, I will reply to it in some way. I apologize if I have missed your message.

 - Teratos

This update will cover:
Community Highlights
 - Reminders
Developer/Staff Updates
Ascension Updates
 - Playtesting
Open Positions


Community Highlights
Noteworthy threads:

·        PB*Tech’s “Working on Ascension teaser video” – Complete with (his) teaser video.

·        StarSeeker’s “Suggestion: Recording and playback” – Discussion of recordings, what people would like to see in-game, and existing limitations.

Reminders:

We want to encourage our new members AND old members to take the time to introduce themselves in our "Introduce Yourself" thread.

We encourage all our community members to chat with us via IRC - the quickest way to ask a question and get a response from the RenWerX team. More information can be found here.

Also, don't forget the Q & A Time thread where you ask questions, and we answer them.

Inside Ascension

Engine

The Engine Department continues to work on the beta build of Ascension. The installer and patching system have been tested by multiple team members over the last two weeks with no errors. The engine department has also been removing some software we integrated to make up for missing functionality in TGEA that has become available. Byte has also begun working on clan tag support. The current system is limited but working.

Some of the other fixes:

·        Keybinding errors

·        The mission list bug

·        A scripting department error that only allowed health kit usage when player had full health

·        Increased lexel count for AO

Marketing

Two weeks ago we promised to release the FFP interview in this update. For more information, you can look at Magellanic’s “Interview with the Devs: Got questions?” thread.

The audio file can be found here.

~ 12 minutes @ ~ 11 MB

 

We would enjoy hearing your comments. 

Modeling

The Modeling Department continues to work on the smaller items that are left. Fleeky informs me that he is currently doing a grenade set from word (our concept artist).

He has also been doing some Polysoup tests within Ascension. If things continue to go well, this will allow for some interesting additions to our current maps.

The modeling department is also fixing various items on the current issues list. Several incorrect pack rotations were corrected tonight.

Scripts

The Scripting Department has been seeing more bug reports as we are now play-testing more often. In addition to continuing work on the inventory system, Mr. Keen and Guardian have been tuning things like hand grenades, the disc launcher, and the grenade launcher.

There has also been continued work on the GUIs so that the initial group of testers will not need to know our console commands. This includes the first release of the admin GUI.

Other Work:

·        Improved Vehicle Station performance

·        Improved handling of clan tags

·        Fixed gnome-armor bugs

Play - Testing

We are going to continue to include information about play-testing since it seems to be popular.

Since the last update, there have been a few patches put together for the beta build. I had been using the beta build exclusively since the last update while most of the team continued to use the developer build. Not surprisingly, this occasionally caused some issues…

So now I tend to use the developer build more often as it is more up-to-date.

Byte and I hopped in-game a few nights ago to test some things. One thing was the working mine. Byte planted a mine near my base, but I had just spawned so I killed him (I cannot help myself sometimes). In the spirit of cooperation I ran over and stepped on the mine – to my surprise Ascension said “You picked up a mine”! That is fixed now, but it was a bit of a surprise at the time.

After that the game went well. Byte made some pretty good capping runs. He even managed to beat me back to his base a few times. A few other people joined and we were playing CTF until the flag carrier dropped...at this point the flag disappeared. That is fixed now too.

Recently we have been playing on Serpentine quite frequently. Serpentine is something of a shallow oblong-bowl with two small tower bases and few platforms on either end. Fleeky has been adding a little variety to the map – some other-worldly terrain formations - with his Polysoup tests. Calsa has been dying so quickly that he has been using the heavy armor more often. This makes him considerably harder to kill, but the good news is it is easier to MA him (which I do often enough). I am not fast enough yet to steal his flag and get back without him taking mine. I tend to go outside of the bowl for my capping routes in something of an angle bracket shape <, pass just over the type of a rock arch, and grab the flag. This sets me up to either do the same on the return trip (on the other side of the bowl) or come back through the inside of the bowl on the far-side. Coming back down the center to kill Calsa returning with my flag has taught me two things:

1.      Calsa cannot aim a mortar very well.

2.      Calsa is pretty good at dropping a mortar just below a fold in the ground when I am chasing him – this results in me dying.

Last night we kept crashing the server while playing. We narrowed the cause down to an active shield pack. Hopefully that will be fixed by the next update. Between crashes, I did manage to MA/kill Guardian a few times.

The physics continue to improve, but they still feel a little strange at times. We continue to make adjustments. They are a major improvement over the changes we had made towards the end of June.

 More next time!

 

Open Positions

If you are applying for a position, please have a sample of your work ready to show us. We will then give you a test assignment.

Please be aware that the samples must be your own work.

If you do not provide samples, we will not be able to consider your application. If you have any questions, please contact me (Teratos).

Skinning:

If you are a skinner/texture artist, or know of someone that is, please contact fleeky.
Sound Effects:
Our sound effects department is a little behind the rest of the team, if you have the ability to help them catch up, please contact either Calsa.


If you wish to discuss this update, you may do so here. Also, I apologize for any formatting abnormalities - this stuff is giving me an anxiety attack.

 - Teratos

Posted by teratos at 12:54 am, 8/5/08  |  Category: Highlights

Introduction
As I mentioned in the last update, we are once again changing things around. We are now putting out updates more often (our target is every two weeks). These two week updates will be smaller than a four week update, but we will aim to include at least half as much information as the monthly updates.

 - Teratos

This update will cover:
Community Highlights
Developer/Staff Updates
Ascension Updates
 - Playtesting
Open Positions


Community Highlights
We have once again had some questions I would like to address.

Donations: We appreciate donations and everyone that has donated so far. However we are committed to releasing Ascension and all the game content for free. You will not have to pay monthly, or for skins, maps, or any content.

However, we still incur expenses. We have absorbed the most of the licensing costs ourselves and Novanix pays for our hosting, dev server, and domain names.

We are considering purchasing content packs (basic artwork like vegetation, small structures, crates, etc), these typically run $20 - $100. We will also need to purchase some advertising spots around release time.

So, wait to donate, we will tell you when we need money, and you can donate at that time if you wish. Above all, we want to make sure you feel your money has been put to good use.


Reminders:

• We want to encourage our new members AND old members to take the time to introduce themselves in our "Introduce Yourself" thread.
• We encourage all our community members to chat with us via IRC - the quickest way to ask a question and get a response from the RenWerX team. More information can be found here.
• Also, don't forget the Q & A Time thread where you ask questions, and we answer them.

RenWerX Developer Updates
We have one new hire. It is my pleasure to welcome long-time community member Guardian (also known as “Angel”) to RenWerX Studios as a scripter. We like to credit ourselves with guiding this confused young youth from IRC terrorist to productive scripter.

Seriously though, he did a good enough job on his test assignment to impress lead scripter Mr. Keen which is a rare event. We look forward to Guardian helping us to finish Ascension.

Inside Ascension

Engine

For some time now, we have been talking about getting the game ready for beta testers. As of Saturday night, the engine department has completed their work. The first beta build was released Saturday night. You can think of the differences between the developer and beta builds like the differences between Linux and Windows respectively.

 

Marketing

We have had some questions about releasing the interview Calsa and I did with the Final Frontier Podcast. We are still waiting for FFP to be ready for release on their end. Hopefully, the interview will be released before the next update, but if it is not, we will release our copy. We apologize for the delay.

Models

Level of detail work continues, but recently fleeky has been working on the gnome model, which may or may not become the developer model. I personally hope it does. You can see a picture of the gnome in fleeky’s most recent blog post – forum post.

I also have another shot of the gnome while it has was being sculpted: link.

And, a short clip of the WIP animation - link.

Play-testing

We have had requests for information on play-testing, so this is my first stab. Let me know what you think.

Because the new build was coming out, we waiting with the update so that we could play last night (Sunday August 3).

Byte, keen, Calsa, Guardian, fleeky, and I played. We started out in a not too serious fashion and found that one of the death messages was backwards (the victim was listed as the killer and vice versa). There were noticeable improvements to this latest set of physics, but it still needs work. This is about the third major set(?) of physics. I personally preferred the second, but the current physics are improving daily.

The first match consisted of capture the flag on Deep Impact. We setup the teams to be coder vs. artists, I had to join the artists to give them a chance though. I think Guardian managed to MA me once and I hit an MA on Byte. Right now the models float just a little too much. With a little more mass, dodging MAs should be easier. Calsa did most of the capping for us which worked well. I cannot remember, but I doubt the other team got any caps since I was playing defense and chasing.

Overall, most things feel good. The disk speed is right, the chaingun spread and rate of fire is about right. I only played as a light, but Byte seemed to be able to mortar me enough that I think the mortar is ok.

            More next time!

Open Positions

If you are applying for a position, please have a sample of your work ready to show us. We will then give you a test assignment.

Please be aware that the samples must be your own work.

If you do not provide samples, we will not be able to consider your application. If you have any questions, please contact me (Teratos).

Skinning:

If you are a skinner/texture artist, or know of someone that is, please contact either fleeky or Teratos.
Sound Effects:
Our sound effects department is a little behind the rest of the team, if you have the ability to help them catch up, please contact either Calsa or Teratos.


If you wish to discuss this update, you may do so here.


 - Teratos

 

Posted by teratos at 12:44 pm, 7/16/08  |  Category: Highlights

Introduction
This update will be a little different from our last few updates. We try to change things based on feedback from you. We are making three changes in the ways we schedule and write our press releases.

Being an all-volunteer project attempting to create a quality product, we try to balance professionalism with our more casual interactions with the community (more on this in my next blog).  It seems, based on feedback, that our updates have become a little too … stuffy, so we will be changing the tone.

The other two changes are overdue. I feel that it is time for us to start increasing the frequency of our updates. Because updates will be more frequent, they will be smaller. HOWEVER, the total amount of information will be greater (more on this in my next blog).

This update will cover:
Community Highlights
Developer/Staff Updates
Ascension Updates
Open Positions


Community Highlights

First, we had some excitement a few weeks ago when a spammer registered a bot and ran an automated script to PM users on the forums. It seems it was designed to miss the staff, but unfortunately for it, it hit an account I had registered for testing purposes – "smurf". All the PMs were deleted in the database, so while you may have had an email saying you had a PM, you should not have actually received any. If you have any further questions, please contact Teratos.

Current Threads:

• Wipeout's 'Wipeouts Class System Idea' thread
• Brocephus's  'Sensor Jammers and You.' thread
• Angel's 'When I think of you I...' thread – A bizarre, but popular thread.

Reminders:

• We want to encourage our new members AND old members to take the time to introduce themselves in our "Introduce Yourself" thread.
• We encourage all our community members to chat with us via IRC - the quickest way to ask a question and get a response from the RenWerX team. More information can be found here.
• Also, don't forget the Q & A Time thread where you ask questions, and we answer them.

RenWerX Developer Updates

We have two new hires.

The first is innociv, a texture artist  that criticized our skyboxes, so we put him to work.

The second is Jexy, a marketing and public relations assistant.

Inside Ascension

Engine

The engine department has been really busy since the last update. There have been four new builds released and numerous other fixes.

 

Byte has made improvements to the netcode, GUIs, and the TriCon server admin program. A particularly annoying bug with rebinding keys in the options GUI has been fixed. Additionally, a long list of server browser and mission loading bugs has been fixed.

Marketing

The Final Frontier Podcast did an interview with Teratos and Calsa. We now have the unedited recordings and are awaiting the release of the finished version from Final Frontier.

Models

The modeling department has been working on level of detail (LOD) for the armors.

Scripts

Mr. Keen has been busy adding in some useful functions for scripters. He is now working on the inventory system (which we keep mentioning). That leaves improvements to the targeting AI as the last major hurdle for scripting.

Open Positions

Skinning:

Skinning remains our weakest point. If you are a skinner/texture artist, or know of someone that is, please contact either fleeky or Teratos.

Scripting:
Mr. Keen is looking for another scripter. If you are able to contribute roughly ten hours per week and have experience, please contact keen or Teratos.

Sound Effects:
Our sound effects department is a little behind the rest of the team, if you have the ability to help them catch up, please contact either Calsa or Teratos.


If you wish to discuss this update, you may do so here.


 - Teratos