Hey all, the second duping method that came to light, involving exiting and re-entering the game whilst respawning, has been fixed.
We're aware that there may be a couple other methods which we're currently looking into, but for now we've dealt with the major exploits that were causing the most frustration.
Thanks for your patience and understanding during this time, and we hope you keep enjoying the skies!
Bossa Studios’ Co-Founder and CEO, Henrique Olifiers, and Lead Worlds Adrift Designer, Luke Williams, invite you to join them live on Facebook on Tuesday the 10th of October at 18:00 BST for an hour where you can ask them any and all of your questions about PvP. We'll be sharing what it means to Bossa Studios, what it means in Worlds Adrift, and what it means to YOU as players.
We understand that this is a major point for a lot of our players and the discussion around it is complex, so rather than just putting up a blog post which wouldn’t do the matter justice, we’re inviting you in for a live chat about this hot topic no matter where you are in the world.
Can’t make that time?
We know a lot of our fans are all over the world, and we’ve tried to pick a time that will work for as many people as possible, but if you’re not able to tune in at this time, fret not! You can still ask your questions...
We’ll try and get through as many as we possibly can, but please be aware that we may not be able to cover everything.
We'll also be posting the video onto our website afterwards, so if you don't have Facebook, or can't tune in at that time, you'll still get the chance to view it.
Firstly, we’d like to give a massive thanks to those of you who have made us aware of another method to dupe in the game. We are investigating and working on this right now as we know this is one of (if not) the top priorities to fix. Inventory bugs are by no means uncommon in MMOs and we are well aware of the negative impact they have on other people’s experience. We are listening and committed to resolving bugs of this nature as quickly as we can.
To keep everyone in the loop, we’re working hard to get a hotfix ready for this particular method ASAP and will update you guys when we have news. To add further clarity on our position regarding this and what you’re saying about it; we encourage you not to continue to use this method of duping now it has been reported and acknowledged by us. You did your job highlighting it. Now we’ll squash this one as well.
We still welcome you to tell and show us if you spot anything else new. At this stage of development our focus, time, and resources remain on making the game better for everybody.
Hey all,
We’ve just released a patch (version 0.1.4.11) and with it we’ve resolved the major Duping issues you were reporting to us. We listened, investigated, verified, and then we got to work fixing it. We’re already aware that a couple of new ways to duplicate items in the game have come to light, which we learnt during the recent beta branch test, and we’re straight to work on a similar fix for these as well which will be with you soon. If you spot anything new, discover a way to do it yourself, or have any comments about this patch please let us know.
Credit to Reddit user maxyVIL for the image.
Last week we shared our views on cheaters and exploiters. We understand that some of you are frustrated, but hopefully this demonstrates why we take the stance that we do.
How would we have known the fix worked or learned new information if we’d banned everyone who could do it?
A key thing to remember about closed beta is that this game is still in development. It’s also being created using brand new technology. There’s no existing “help sheet” on how to fix the kind of bugs and exploits we’re encountering. We’re building it as we go along, and this takes time.
That’s why our Founders are so valuable to us. During this journey together, your support in helping us find problems with the game at this early stage of its life, and to get it ready for its next phase may be frustrating, but with all of your help we will make the game better for everyone - we’ve just done it, and are continuing to do so.
So, a big thank you from us to you for helping in resolving this particularly nasty bug, and here’s to the next!
Please see below what else is being rolled out in this update:
Patch Notes
A major duping exploit has been tracked down and fixed.
Invisible environmental assets have returned to their correct locations on islands.
A memory leak has been fixed.
Numerous small optimisations have been performed to improve loading assets when travelling to new islands.
Island shaders have received an optimisation for Unity 5.5.
We are aware that there remains confusion and hot debate over our stance on what we consider cheating, hacking and taking advantage of certain bugs in-game to be - and we totally accept ownership and responsibility for this, so we wanted to take this opportunity to say sorry that we haven’t made this clearer before now, and we hope we can continue to work with you all to make Worlds Adrift a great experience for everyone playing.
We realise that in the past, some of our blogs and terms of use have not been clear enough. They represented a vision of the game as a completed product and do not reflect it’s current pre-Early Access state. They’re our goals and what standard we eventually want to hold the game to.
As it currently stands the game is still heavily in development. You are still helping us fix the game by breaking it and we fully appreciate your diligence in finding and reporting problems to us.
In light of this we’re excited to share that we have a beta branch available to test right now! This includes 3 speculative fixes for some very important issues:
Duping
Client freezes
Invisible Island assets
To access this:
Right-click on Worlds Adrift in your Steam Library
Select properties
Go to the ‘betas’ tab
Enter the following access code ‘mns7AkwHd32a’
Select the ‘beta - Pre-release channel' branch.
Download the update / verify the integrity of the cache if necessary.
Please do let us know on the forum post if this has successfully fixed the above issues or if they are still present.
So, to add much-needed clarity here’s how things are currently.
Cheating/Hacking:
Our definition of cheating or hacking (to us they are the same thing) is using third party programs (or modifying memory / files directly) to access and change in-game values or modify the game client. This is invasive and a premeditated attempt to undermine the integrity of the game. It is not discovering bugs and serves no purpose other than to ruin the experience for others.
We have already implemented the first stage of EAC to help combat this with a comprehensive additional upgrade on the way soon.
Since we announced our stance on hacking we have banned over 100 accounts and will continue to be vigilant and proactive against people who do this.
If you are found to be cheating or hacking, you will be banned for this permanently.
Exploiting Bugs
We fully appreciate this is a contentious issue and are listening to your feedback.
At the moment we do not consider the discovery and use of bugs as cheating so long as they are reported to us using the appropriate channels. Given the current nature of the game there will be things that are broken and need addressing. It is more important to us to find and squash these bugs than to punish people who are using them - you can’t keep using them if we squish ‘em! As we are developing the game using technology that is also being developed in parallel, we are also developing the tools and services on the back-end too; development-ception if you will. This is the reason why there is not exclusivity between a developer fixing a bug, and customer support finding and disciplining people taking advantage of them.
Thanks to you, we have already worked on and crushed over 350 bugs, and we know there’s many more you will yet find - this is just the tip of the bug-berg!
For now, this is our stance, and we welcome you keep finding and reporting bugs - working with us to make sure Worlds Adrift is as stable and fair as possible before it opens up to a wider audience.
Our Terms of Service will be modified to make this clearer going forward and they will be adjusted in time to reflect any changes in our stance, which will be informed by you.
We call you Founder’s for a reason; now let’s build something amazing together!
Hi everyone, our Worlds Adrift Producer, Herb, has given a quick update on the bugs and other issues that we're currently tackling on our official forums, where he also poses a question to the community that we'd like to hear your thoughts on.
We’ve knocked out a nagging memory leak, a compatibility issue between the island shaders and the version of Unity we’re using which could have caused a big freeze.
Island Lighting Inefficiencies
We’re looking at a couple more potential sources of inefficiencies in the island lighting solution, and a bug in the materials shader for ship parts (the thing that colors and tints an object correctly based on what materials you made it from).
There'll be more updates coming out soon, so make sure to keep an eye out for them, but we hope this shows a small glimpse of the progress we're making.
Also, if you have an interest in the way we create the great effects in Worlds Adrift, you should read our previous update by our resident VFX Artist, Jason.
Hi there, I’m Jason the Visual Effects (VFX) artist for Bossa. As a bit of background, I’ve been working in games for a long time and over the years I have had the chance to work in various areas of computer graphics, but the one field I always return to is VFX. For me VFX is about creating dynamic visuals to better enhance the game experience.
VFX is the art of blending light, objects, particles and animation with some storytelling. By “storytelling” I mean being able to communicate what an action, object or enemies purpose in a visual form.
For example, when a player jumps and lands on the ground a puff of dust blows out from the impact point, and maybe some stones flick out. This effect tells the player they have landed safely onto a stony/dusty ground. Maybe next time the player falls from a higher height but lands in a heap. The VFX needs to reflect this and the `story` of this effect is a bigger dust cloud that spreads quicker from the impact point and lingers longer in the air. We add in more stones and even cracks on the floor. With just a few tweaks, the player now knows that landing was a lot heavier.
How Effects Begin
When creating an effect for Worlds Adrift, I need to understand what the effect is trying to tell the player. I spend time with designers and artists to figure out what the characteristics should be. I then build a basic first pass version with Unity’s particle system. We then test this in the game to see if these ideas work and to get feedback. Next I do a second pass of the effect incorporating these changes. After another round of feedback and iteration, I’ll build a final pass, and hopefully this is then signed off and ready.
All effects start with an emitter, the most basic component of any particle system. Think of it as a continuous firework whose attributes you can change on the fly. Once the designer is happy with the basic effect, I start layering on additional emitters to create more depth and give it its own personality. Below is a typical setup for a multi emitter effect.
Worlds Adrift has so many effects covering everything from simple dust motes to large ship explosions. We have creature and player effects that need to show what they are doing – are they eating, exploring or fighting? We have different impacts and explosions for wood, stone, metal materials and contact impacts for different surfaces, etc… the list is extensive but all necessary to add that extra level of life and contextual feedback to the player’s manoeuvres and interactions.
A lot of effects are now at first pass stage; we’re gradually adding effects in slowly to make sure they work correctly, but also to make sure they don’t have a negative impact on the game. If an effect has too many particles, is too large, or stays on screen for too long, it can cause the game to slow down. So my job is to make sure the effects are running as optimally as possible, especially in such a vast game as Worlds.
To give you a taste of how I create some of these, I’ll break down the sequence for the revival chamber, which hasn’t been implemented into the game yet. The chamber has three parts, and all emitters need to be timed to work correctly. The story of this VFX is that this room has the power to bring players back to life. The room is big and tall so it needs to make use of this space. A powerful force has to happen to bring someone back, so it needs a build up sequence. I also need a focal point for this build up phase and another for when the power is discharged. This regeneration sequence needs to be quick so it doesn’t grate with the players.
So now that I have the sequence story, I can start building the effect. I start with the charging up sequence. I create a pulling inward effect which sucks energy from the surrounding area towards the roof. This is the first focal point. I add attributes, emitters, offset timings, colours, etc. till I get the look I want.
Next is the discharge beam. Once sufficient power has been gathered. A beam fires down and impacts the chamber floor. I use the charging up emitter as a starting point and edit the attributes to create a long beam from roof to floor.
And the final effect is the discharge impact. Once the beam makes contact with the floor an explosion of particles acts as a reveal for the freshly revived player. The explosion needs to be big enough to cover the players respawn but also bit of a spectacle to convey its regenerative qualities. Once you have built the various emitters for the whole effect. you put them together adjust the timings till you get final effect. The charging up is still a bit long but it’s just first pass.
That’s a very simplified explanation of VFX design. In a future post I’ll go into more of a deep dive. Thanks for reading and keep your eyes open for further updates.
Thanks everyone for your feedback and suggestions on these features. We've been taking it all on board and are going to be making some adjustments to remove potential exploits and simplify some of the more confusing parts.
First off we're thinking of separating the 2 forms of "transporting" around the world:
Reviving - As it works now. Death means you can spawn on a reviver or revival chamber and keep the contents of your belt.
Teleporting - Crew beacon and switching your active reviver is now considered a teleport. This method will not take the contents of your belt with you.
Personal Revivers works as they do now and once you’ve built and registered to a crew reviver you can use it to choose your active reviver.
Switching revivers will initiate a teleport and a cost in shards. Crew members can make the switch for you and you will have the option to confirm or cancel the switch.
ORIGINAL POST
Hello fellow travellers, Luke here to talk about some new features that are designed to give players more freedom while playing the game and allow smoother ways to meet up with friends and new crew members. So once again we’re giving you a peek at what’s to come to get your thoughts and feedback!
Crew Beacon Revamp
We’re looking at making some changes to the crew beacon that should make sticking together a lot easier for crews if you get split up or shipwrecked, while maintaining its primary purpose of letting new players start the game together.
The crew beacon will still allow you travel to the nearest revival chamber to your crew leader, except it will come through a respawn, and will unregister you from your personal reviver. The plan is that you’ll able to crew beacon to any crew leader who is in a Wilderness biome, but in order to beacon to any other area of the world you must have visited personally sometime in the past. Eventually, after you’ve travelled the world, you’ll be able to use the crew beacon to travel anywhere that has a revival chamber. The crew beacon will still retain its lengthy cooldown.
New Ship Part: Crew Revivers
Crew revivers are a new type of reviver that crew members will be able to register to if the crew leader has already done so. Players can register to both a crew reviver and a personal reviver, but the personal one will always take priority unless deactivated or destroyed. Leaving your crew will automatically remove you from the crew reviver.
Your crew may never agree to a fish ship, but now you can have your own for solo play!
To illustrate it better, let’s say my crew is about to log off, but I want to continue playing without risking our crew ship. I would log out with everyone (allowing the ship to despawn) and then on the character select screen I’d choose to re-activate my personal reviver. When I enter the world now I will log in my the ship with my personal reviver on it and continue playing.
UI Mockup
If my crew are ready to play again a few hours or even days later they will log in on the crew ship. By interacting with the crew reviver, and spending atlas shards based on how far away my personal reviver is, they can respawn me at the crew reviver and deactivate my personal reviver. My personal ship would then log out.
Your Feedback
Like my last blog post we now leave it to you lot to give your feedback and ideas about these features. We’re hoping this opens up a lot more ways to play and allows you to safely play as a group and as a solo player when you want to. However, this does add additional complexity and rules to the game, and might be confusing for new players; we’re open to your thoughts on whether this feature is worth it, and whether any of the tradeoffs could be done better.
We’ve been working hard to fix a serious bug which was impacting gameplay and a common visual issue which was spoiling your glorious ship designs. We are happy to say that these are resolved with the release of 0.1.4.7 and it’s safe to take your ships to the skies once again!
This hotfix will coincide with a delayed maintenance which will happen later this afternoon.
Without further ado here’s what the hotfix includes.
WORLDS ADRIFT CLOSED BETA 0.1.4.7 HOTFIX NOTES
Occasionally, loose panel or deck pieces colliding with a ship would cause the ship to disappear. This was introduced in 0.1.4.5, and has now been fixed.
Procedurally-generated ship parts, especially wings, should no longer appear in the wrong position when mirrored on the opposite side of the ship.
A couple of months ago, we mentioned that we were working on major updates for the Island Creator - updates that would allow you to act as game designers. Go wild with Steam Workshop as we're proud to say the update is NOW LIVE and is included with every purchase of Worlds Adrift!
Players have created OVER 8000 islands that have appeared in-game since the Island Creator tool first launched in April 2016, but this release marks the first opportunity to add specific gameplay elements to your creations.
Today’s update will enable the Worlds Adrift community to act as game designers as you can now add non-climbable surfaces as well as turrets, spikes and barbed wire to your island designs, creating new platform puzzles and adventures full of dangers, challenges, and surprises for players worldwide to discover and explore.
“With Worlds Adrift we are creating a new game where we give the opportunity to our community to craft the world, in its entirety, the way they want it,” said Bossa Studios CEO and Co-Founder Henrique Olifiers. “We’re proud of two very different things that have helped us to break with the norm: the first one is that the content for Worlds Adrift will be created before its launch; the second, not so obvious, is that Steam Workshop content will be integral to the game, rather than an optional additional. The game world will be made by the players, voted upon by the players, and its quality will be as good as we could make it with an internal team.”
Watch our video for more detail or head over to the Island Creator Workshop to start creating straight away. We can't wait to see your designs!
