Registered players and subscribers to our newsletter saw this special 1.1 update edition dropping into their inboxes yesterday, just in time for Thanksgiving. Along with info on the latest update, it also included a code for a free set of goggles from the in-game store, our way of saying thanks for playing the game and supporting us.
To our US fans, hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, and to our friends around the world, hope you had a really fun Thursday!
(If you missed it, you can go here to check out the full issue of the newsletter, and sign up here to receive future updates and stay in the loop!)
We released a patch last night to fix a bunch of little things; just open Steam and the game will auto-update. Release notes!
Features
-New users now have one week to verify their email address. During that period, they can skip the screen prompting for verification code each time they log in.
-UI: more colors, highlighting yourself and blackening blocked players.
-UI: game list displays captain counts / slots
-“Death cam”: Camera orbits the site of last ship death while respawning
– Added display and filtering of server location to match list
– Added ability to select preferred location at match creation time
– Added pregame match chat
– Global lobby chat moved to Steam group chat
Balance
-Field Gun has a decreased turn speed, rate of fire, turn radius, as well as an increased reload time and slight drop. No changes to damage have been made.
-Rocket Launcher has an increased rate of fire.
-Squid has a major boost in top speed, from 37m/s to approximately 47m/s. This should bring back kiting back and make the Squid a viable support ship.
-Discrepancy between intended balance and database numbers found. Should mitigate carronade issues
–Squid should have had 850 armor instead of 700
–Flechette modifier against armor should be 0.2 instead of 0.4
–Small Carronade should have slightly slower rate of fire and slightly longer reload time
Bug Fixes
-Stats and achievements are no longer tracked in Sandbox.
-Achievements requiring you to do something to targets that are inside a cloud now can be progressed.
-Store purchase errors caused by Steam declining transactions are now displayed to users.
-UI: player information popup refreshes automatically on rank info update.
-UI: running matches now correctly display ship names / classes.
-AI: disconnected players will now be replaced by AI crew on ship death / respawn.
-Fire Extinguisher no longer rebuilds destroyed components.
-Fixed some performance problems (sudden framerate drops) with ship deaths
-Fixed an issue with Steam integration that could cause voice bugs and possibly crash very high-end machines.
Known Bugs
-Certain routers are known to corrupt the game’s traffic, in particular the Linksys WRT54G line. We are working on a more permanent fix, but bypassing your router should work around the problem.
Hurricane Sandy hurt a lot of people and we tried our hardest to find a way to help those affected. We made two items over the weekend where all the proceeds will go help those suffering. While we are still trying to regroup after Sandy, we ended up very lucky. Our office may still not have internet, but we still have our homes and our lives and we want to do everything we can to help those who weren’t so lucky. Howard volunteered at The Rockaways in New York which was hit very hard and we’re hoping the proceeds from the new item will help alleviate some of the suffering people are going through.
As we regroup from launch our main focus is lots of planning, organizing, prioritizing feature lists and optimizing to get ready for new content.
Happy Halloween everyone! We wanted to celebrate by giving everyone a free mask so they can trick or treat while they fly and plunder. The two masks are The Red Death for the guys and The Demoness for the ladies.
The Red Death
This mask grants the wearer a fearsome countenance, reminiscent of
that dread specter, the terror of which strikes deep the heart of
mortal man. On All Hallow’s Eve death walks among us, raining fire
from the skies.
The Demoness
She is a legend, invincible in combat. When captains who have run
afoul of her guns sit in smokey taverns and share their scars, some of
them swear she’s not quite human. They saw her laughing face as they
went down, they say, and she had horns, horns like a demon from hell.
It is very important to note that the free masks will not just appear in your inventory automatically. To get them simply go into the in-game shop, find them under goggles and “buy” them for $0.
Available for one week only! So claim your masks before November 7th!
Just a quick announcement. All of our Kickstarter backers should be receiving their retail keys and associated keys for other goodies in their email. If you do not receive anything (please check your spam as well) in the next 24 hours please get in touch with us at feedback@musegames.com
The release of Guns of Icarus Online is on the horizon! The scheduled October 29th release is set to go. Steam will be flipping the switch some time tomorrow. It’s been one helluva ride! We want to thank every single one of our beta players and supporters for their time, effort, enthusiasm, and support. A small team like our would have never made it without you guys. Thank you so much!
Another thing that’s happening on the 29th in Hurricane Sandy, aka FRANKENSTORM. It’s hitting NYC at 3am. The reason why I’m mentioning this is that while our servers and Steam release will not be affected, us in NYC will be. There might be power outages and who knows what. What we do know is that all of us will be in game with our Community Ambassadors (anyone with a funny colored name is serious business) supporting release while working from home.
However, if there are internet and power outages then we’ll have limited access to our various communication outlets. Just want to get that out there. Some of our CA’s will be in game to field your questions though.
That’s it! Last few hours to pre-order the game for CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!
If you don't know where this came from, ask someone older than you and watch the movie NOW.
We’re pushing a lot of stuff right now (RC) and doing crazy stuff to our servers so everything will be down for several hours. Keep y’all up to date as we get the news.
Only four days till release and it’s all hands on deck in the office. We’ve been very happy with how the beta has gone. We want to thank everyone on how patient they’ve been hunting out glitches and issues for us. We hope you’re ready for the final leg of the journey.
You’ll notice in the next patch that weapons are going to have fancy new names. We wanted to give a little more flavor than “Medium Carronade.” So every weapon will be getting a new nickname.
We are also changing the name of the Missile Launcher to the Rocket Launcher and the Rocket Launcher to the Rocket Carousel.
The last change is small and medium weapons will be renamed to light and heavy weapons respectively.
We’ve revamped the tower ship, now the Spire, and it’s going through the final flight tests and will be out tomorrow. We decided on three light weapons and one heavy weapon which will require a strong crew to use effectively.
Along with the Spire coming out tomorrow is the the Hwacha missile launcher which fires a bunch of rockets for area-of-denial effect while damaging components. The Lumberjack is still in the art pipe and getting particle effects added despite Sgt_Spoon’s great suggestion.
Plan B
There is also be a new vanity camera is being added so you can see your character in third person and enjoy how brave and noble your character looks against the backdrop.
We are also pleased to announce a new 2v2 map currently codenamed “The Fjords” which is currently in the works.
For news on the server front, Conrad and Alex have locked themselves in a room tending to the servers. We toss food in every so often, but they told us they’re not coming out till release. We got almost everything in place except a bad switch in Europe, but we think we’ve tracked it down and it should be fixed soon.
Yup, we know there’s server slowdown and it’ll be happening until we’re able to bring more instances online. We’ve currently ordered them but not sure how long that’ll take to deploy. This is due to the EU server being slammed like cray.
But basically this is all good news. More players are coming! And we have that other video cast this weekend too… holy crap!
