DUST 514 saw another title update yesterday with the launch of Uprising 1.2. The upgrade brings a whole host of changes across the board with graphics, sound, control, performance and balance all getting some love on top of some new content and features.
Uprising 1.2 marks the first of CCP’s ‘rapid-fire updates’ which will deploy on a monthly basis. Earlier this year, CCP explained that DUST 514 would probably get 3 to 4 sizeable updates a year. However, in a recent dev blog, Creative Director Atli Mar Sveinsson (CCP Praetorian) explained a change of direction in the company’s approach.
"We listen to your feedback, as well as to feedback from the media. As a result, we have decided to move into a faster, more iterative update cycle. We will be pushing out point releases (Update 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.) on a near-monthly basis. This is unique in the console space, only possible because our friends at Sony work with us to evolve the submission processes to suit free-to-play massively multiplayer titles like DUST."
Check out the dev blog where Praetorian explains some of the bigger changes made in 1.2.
I had the chance to speak with DUST 514’s Executive Producer, Brandon Laurino, at this year’s FanFest. In the midst of our lengthy chat he told me that the company is growing in leaps and bounds in its ability to develop and author content for the game. They are able to do more, quicker, and it’s starting to show. According to this thread at the official forums, the content of Uprising 1.3 has already been locked and is presumably in for a month of QA before it launches around the end of July or early August.
Rapid-fire updates are just part of the equation. Another important part of this evolving methodology is the community of DUST gamers and the Council of Planetary Management (CPM) that acts as a liaison between the community and the devs. The CPM consists of DUST players who were picked by CCP for the role. Hans Jagerblitzen is one of those members and is blogging about his experience. If you are interested in learning how CCP is reaching out to its community, check out his blog.
CPM Activity Report #1 – June 07, 2013
CPM Activity Report #2 – June 18, 2013
CPM Activity Report #3 – June 29, 2013
Follow Hans on Twitter to keep up to date with future instalments.
Before You get stuck into the patch notes, there are a few other things you ought to know. First up, there are a couple of events taking place over the next weeks that will be quite lucrative for New Eden’s mercs. From a recent blog:
Triple SP Event
Starting on July 4 and ending on July 10, we will be hosting a Triple Skill Point Event for all players who log in to play. During the event period your skill point cap will be tripled and your skill booster bonuses are stacked with the triple skill point reward. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to earn extra skill points and get that level 5 skill that you’ve been training for. Here’s some details on the Triple SP event that you will want to know:
The weekly SP cap will reset on Wednesday, July 3rd as usual after DT. If you hit your weekly in the first day then you will still be eligible for the extended SP cap for the event on Thursday.
The passive SP gain and caps are not part of the triple SP event, so they will work normally.
Your extra SP earned from skill boosters do not count towards your weekly SP cap.
If you can reach the SP cap between Wednesday’s downtime and Thursday’s, you’ll be able to maximise your accrual as the cap will be reset again for the triple SP event.
Check out the Dev Blog for info on the Mordu’s Challenge event and DUST 514 Prime League Tournament coming later this month. Ok, last but not least, the patch notes:
Uprising 1.2 Patch Notes:
Path to Game and Related UI
* Implemented logging out character from NeoCom
Spawning and End of Match
* Added "call for help" button to kill screen
* Updated strings and information on the kill screen to better differentiate between bleeding out and death state
* Updated icons for bleeding out so logistics can distinguish between players that have and have not called for help
* New icons for EOM stats screen
Dropsuits
* Added Commando dropsuit role
* Added Neo dropsuits for all roles
* Updated third person female walk animations
Weapons
* Updated weapon range system to include absolute range (Giving us optimal, effective and absolute ranges)
* Updated range settings for all handheld weapons to allow for damage to be dealt over longer distances.
* Increased weapon switching speed
* Fixed aiming friction on turrets when pitching so it is correctly applied
* Improvements to location of fallen character for revive
* Fixed slight misalignment with forge gun projectile
* Increased spawn height of orbital strike to ensure it didn’t miss highly positioned enemies
* Fixed client/server mismatch on equipment deployment locations
Modules/Equipment
* Added new dropsuit modules:
* Ferroscale armor plates
* Reactive armor plates
* Shield energizers
* Increased radius for nanite injector revival
Maps/Environments
* Added new yellow sun mood layer
* Added new night mood layer
* Added two new terraforming types
* Manus Peak – fixed the issue where MCC shield would let bullets through
* Fixed navigation issue regarding movement along vertical covers/walls
Audio
* New material types for ladders and snow
* New UI sounds
* Moment-to-moment audio improvements
* More information on taking hits
* 3rd person reload sounds
* Memory and CPU optimizations
* Fix ducking problem on killing enemies
* Fix echo problem in Biomass
* An issue where voice was not available for certain very old chat channels has been fixed
* Smooth sound of LAVs in the distance
UI
* Fixed mail list, now player can roll down to bottom of the list to load up to 1500 latest emails
* Added several new attribute icons
* Now the weapon switcher will display the remaining number of deployable equipment
* Now the background color of Corporation logo on player list will always display red for enemy and blue for friendly
* Now the MCC hit point indicator on spawn page will display in correct color, red for enemy and blue for friendly
* Unified the font case in several NEOCOM pages
* General UI polishing on NECOM pages and HUD
* Fixed multiple UI related issues
Vehicles
* Improvements to the vehicle icons and driver name tags display
* Upward thrust not working when in first person view for dropships
* Ground speed limit being ignored has been fixed
Visual effects
* Added SSAO
* Improved lighting & shadows
Performance
* Improved UI rendering performance
* Improved content streaming stability
Planetary Conquest
* Directors can now kick teammates from Planetary Conquest battles while they’re in the warbarge before the battle starts. Characters that are kicked are banned from rejoining the same battle again
* Districts are no longer locked once conquered by a new owner
* The estimated number of clones at the target district displayed when moving clones to attack is now more accurate
Starmap
* System security level has been added to the starmap information panel
* The planet model in the starmap will no longer randomly revert to a default texture
Storefront
* Added option to purchase bundles from the market
Other
* Characters can now transfer ISK directly between each other and to any corporation
* Directors can now transfer ISK from the corporation mercenary wallet to any player or corporation
Additional 1.2 changes include:
* All the salvage acquired during a planetary conquest match will now been shown on the End of Match screen instead of just 5 items
* Improved speed of RDV vehicle delivery as well as applied tweaks to the RDV AI
* Improved server to client performance of projectile based weaponry
* Chat channels with more than 50 users (mercenaries or capsuleers) will now operate in delayed chat mode
* The launcher now displays total number of players on the Tranquility server