New Host posted by Dan Menard on Jun 16, 2009, 06:49 pm
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Hey Guys,
If you're reading this, your DNS has finally updated. Welcome to our new ad-free hosting. Paid for by yours truly. This server should be much more stable, since we're about the only site on it. Hopefully this is the last move we will ever have to go through.
I haven't posted any news recently, but I figure it's time to update you guys a little bit. Development has slowed considerably, but we still have a few dedicated members of the community moving forward with new maps.
Personally, I've been working at EA for the last couple of weeks and learning a lot. I haven't touched a line of code in Eternal Silence in over 3 months, which I'm sure will scare a few of you, but it also opens new doors for me. Eternal Silence has had a great run, and I will continue to encourage the community which has formed around our game.
We've got a new programmer, Alpha Crow, currently getting his head around the code, and he may continue where I left off. I will be mentoring him in the weeks to come. There are still things to be done, and we will try to get more content and fixes out to you through Steam in the next few months, but there is no roadmap for the changes at this time.
Enough about me. I hear a few Eternal Silence clans have played matches recently. The results are on the forums and some of the strategies used are quite interesting. I suggest you check it out, maybe join a clan yourself!
Dan
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Player's Choice posted by Dan Menard on Mar 3, 2009, 03:27 pm
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Hello everyone, we have some tidbits of news for you all! Since the 3.3 update, containing two new maps and a bunch of other fixes, we have been met by happier players and an even better experience out there on the public servers. We want to take a moment and thank all of you who continuously provide us with feedback, which we use to make the game better and to all of you who voted for us in the 2008 ModDB awards!
We made 7th place in the overall Player's Choice awards, which means a great deal to us, seeing as large parts of this community are less than two months old. We also recieved a mention in the Editor's Choice 'Most Innovative Multiplayer' and 'Best Multiplayer' categories, which seems appropriate, seeing as we are both innovative and multiplayer.
We are very happy with the results, and the increased amount of players on our servers.
Now to the development news. We have taken much of your feedback to heart and are tweaking parts of some maps, and infantry combat. Future updates will grant you greatly decreased reload times for many weapons, and weapons like the pistol will see more use.
There are also rumours that both factions are working on a new type of ship.. the current data points at a stealthy fighter, specialized at chasing bombers and gunships. Stay tuned for more detailed info as this development progresses.
We've had a spur of creativity on the forums lately. Community and Staff are all participating. I'd like to point out some of the amazing stuff being made by the members of our forum, so here are some pretty pictures for everyone's enjoyment:
Check out the Creative Discussion and Mapping Forum to see what else is going on.
Now get back into space, marines!
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3.3 Live! Big Asteroids posted by Dan Menard on Feb 23, 2009, 04:17 pm
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It's been less than 3 weeks since our steam release and Eternal Silence 3.3 is already live. This patch includes 2 new maps, ctf_asteroid and de_asteroid as well as a host of other fixes. These new maps have been a load of fun for our testers and bring back some nostalgia from the old 2.3 days. Here are a few screenshots of the new maps:
I've also had the pleasure of being interview by the folks over at TheReticule.com. Here is an excerpt:
TR: Have things changed at all throughout the development?
The only constant in life is change. This is even more true with a mod
team. We’ve had developers leave for all sorts of reasons. The game
itself has changed immensely over time. Everybody that touched the mod
left his or her mark, and that’s one of the great things about working
on a mod. Thing are flexible. We reinvented the gameplay of Eternal
Silence three times, once with each major version, and each time we
look back at the last version we think “How on earth did people play
this junk?”. That just tells you how much we’ve evolved and how we
will continue to evolve.
Read the full interview here
A full change log is below. Note that this patch does break compatibility with 3.2, so servers will have to update before you can join them.
[ADD] Kill assists. Person with the highest damage done gets a point too.
[ADD] Added game events requested by server admins (game_start, game_end, round_start, round_end)
[ADD] New map, de_asteroid
[ADD] New map, ctf_asteroid.
[ADD] New help screens during map load. Look better and more up to date.
[FIX] round_restart only works for server admins. Patched other commands also.
[FIX] Game automatically sets rate to 10000 for awesome network smoothness (like you've never seen)
[FIX] Increased visibility in space (thanks to new network fix)
[FIX] Removed "Attack" waypoints from targets with cut engines.
[FIX] Shortened ship trails to increase performance.
[FIX] Class menu won't keep popping up when there are no spawns to choose.
[FIX] Fixed CP spawns when no more subsystems were left.
[FIX] Fixed heavy weapon reload being interrupted by melee attack (these guns don't have melee).
[FIX] Heavy fighter now displays properly in the scoreboard.
[BAL] Increased Pistol Runspeed.
[BAL] Locked enemy gunships in ES mode
[BAL] Increased gunship HP by 20%, decreased shields the same amount
[BAL] Hacking points only awarded when the subsystem is captured.
cp_warpath:
[FIX] The NGM first spawn is now secured. UTF can’t capture it.
[FIX] Not enough spawnpoints left
[FIX] slightly increased the Lightmapgrid for better performance
[ADD] new duct from the NGM Spawn to the next Subsystem
[BAL] added a new crate nearby the first utf subsystem
[BAL] widened the old hallway to the first subsystem
cp_valhalla:
[FIX] Moved waypoints so subsystems don't overlap
[FIX] Added cables to shallow pits of death
[FIX] Optimized starting hangar to reduce lag
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Network Announcement posted by Dan Menard on Feb 12, 2009, 11:44 am
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Hey All,
I've been doing some research, and I think I've found out why the network code has been behaving so oddly since our Steam release. The network rate setting for clients seems to default to a value of 3500. According to Valve: For Internet games the only console variable that should be adjusted on the client is "rate", which defines your available bytes/second bandwidth of your network connection. Good values for "rate" is 4500 for modems, 6000 for ISDN, 10000 DSL and above.
This means that for some reason, Eternal Silence is configured to accept less traffic than a modem by default. Changing your "rate" console variable to something more appropriate to your connection will GREATLY increase your network performance. Because the "rate" is set so low, servers have been aggressively throttling all connections to prevent lag (even though the connections can handle many times more traffic).
I am working with Valve to find a global fix for this now. Those of you savvy enough to use the console can benefit from it right away.
UPDATE: Patch has been posted. You should be getting it automatically.
Dan
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