Jun 13, 2019

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

Hey! Today I wanted to share the next game mode being developed in v2.0.0: Survival mode.

If you've been under a rock, I am rewriting this game from scratch and releasing it as a completely free update. You can try out an early version of the update by owning any B-Man DLC and launching v2.0.0 from the Steam launch menu.

Anyways, Survival mode has gone under some big changes. The biggest change is lives are no more, instead the lives system has been replaced by a money system similar to Zombrains mode.

With money, it's used to open chests and to revive yourself from death. Killing enemies of course will give you cash, however to minimize a player from hogging all the kills, cash rewards are shared by all players.

You collect items from chests to power up your character called "Vices". I've gotten a lot less edgy in my old age, but I always kind of liked how vulgar Boring Man is, so thats why Vices are themed after "adult" substances such as alcohol and drugs. For example, collecting certain beers would upgrade your movement speed or your damage with all weapons.

You can collect the same vice multiple times to improve the upgrade it provides, for example having two Ales instead of one will give 4 extra damage instead of just 2. I've made the vices screen a lot more helpful in this regard, as seen below:

The green number in the description will reflect the total amount of efficiency your vices are giving you. So the more Hard Lemonade you collect, the larger the dual wield reload speed shows. Edit: wrong vice

All 20 original vices have returned (with a few of them reworked or swapped around) and additionally, 20 new vices have been added to the game. I posted a screenshot of all the new vices earlier this month and I challenge you to try to guess what the new ones do.

Vice collection is also synced across the server, so no more "client side" chests, aka opening 1 chest will give every player a vice. When a player opens a chest, 1 vice will come out that is available to any player.

To prevent instances of stealing, accidental or otherwise, the vice that comes out of the chest will not be collectible for a few seconds to anyone except the person who bought the chest. There is also a server setting where you can set a limit on how many chests a player can open per wave.

Additionally, when you die, you will have to spend money to revive. It's game over if all players are dead and unable to afford to come back to life. The cost of revival is about 20% of your wealth plus a fixed amount depending on how many vices you've collected.

This is an attempt to put a natural hamper on "hoarding" vices for yourself. Sure you're powerful, but it also costs $22842 to revive, so dying will be much more punishing for you. On the flip side, this will also allow players who just joined the game to revive more often/cheaply and get a chance to catch up to more wealthy/powerful players.

In the old version you and your teammates would have to stay alive for as many waves as possible. To advance the wave, all enemies would have to be eliminated. This was the only objective, and you could do weird stuff like cheese the AI or find a good camping spot and pretty much have Survival enemies line up waiting to die.

To change this, there is now an additional objective to Survival where you will also have to defend inconveniently placed control points from a siege of enemies. Players can contest the point similarly to TDM, but if the enemies capture the point its game over. There is a brief period before the control point unlocks where players can search for chests and maybe deploy some strategy on collecting them.

I'm predicting players will get pretty good at this, so there is a server setting where you can set how long you want this buy period to be, or to turn it off altogether.

Most of the Survival enemies will be making a return but they have a new look. They get their OWN set of "hats" that players won't have so they are easy to distinguish as an enemy outside of the red arrow being over their head. Making unique hats for them also tickles you with a little bit of lore, for example the Purples wear scary, almost ceremonial masks when they enter the battlefield to try to stop you and your team.

As you get deeper and deeper into Survival, new and stronger enemies are introduced and even past that they "ranks" where they will appear with different outline colors to display their strength. For example a Purple with a white outline has x1.3 health, speed and damage. This should make late game Survival mode a little more challenging when I run out of enemies to throw at you.

I have also created a few Survival bosses, I don't plan on making them randomly generated like in the old version, I wanted to have bosses with substance and a little creativity.

For example, one boss is a martial arts master that can "dodge" all weapons example punches and hadokens. This will give players a reason to use unarmed combat and get use out of Vices that benefit from unarmed combat.

Another boss is a Blue Soldier that uses a skateboard and dual sawn off shotguns. His AI is unique where instead of capturing the point, he will skateboard around the map and try to do drive bys on players and try to get the most speed out of his skateboard. I would like to make a ton of bosses like this to fill the void that maybe randomly generated bosses left, but it will be tough.

Last but not least.. saving! Your progress gets saved now in Survival mode, so if you get disconnected or need to leave for whatever reason, as long as the same Survival match is going you can rejoin with all of your vices, money, kills, etc.

So! Hopefully you like the sound of these changes, let me know what you think. Survival mode will be available in beta5, the next update. I'm not sure when it will come out because maybe I went a little overboard with adding stuff and now I have a lot of testing to do. But I would like to get it out before the end of this month. If you'd like to get into the beta, you can do so by owning any of the DLCs below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/626491/TACCORP_VIP_Access/

Thanks for reading! See you later.

- S

Follow development on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpasmanGames

Mar 13, 2019

Dev Log 3/13/19: Boring Royale!

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

In case you missed it this weekend, the rewrite's beta was released! I think it went pretty well, a lot of stuff I thought wouldn't worked at all worked wonderfully, and I didn't have too much of a hard time fixing stuff. The game is now at beta version 4.1 and I think its in a stable state to leave alone for a little while so I can work on the next big thing which will hopefully be the map editor.

Something I've kept under wraps until now is a new experimental battle royale mode called Boring Royale! While the idea is starting to get stale at this point, I thought it'd still be fun to make and play, and if you're not into it that's OK because I'm not going to let it take over the original game. But I am hoping it brings in new players. I didn't think I'd make this game mode until later, but I changed my mind because I thought figuring out a game mode that would need to handle a lot of players should be started early in development.

So if you've played it already, its probably not too different from all the other BR games you've probably played. I do have plans to make it unique and I'd like to share what I'm thinking. Right now there is only 1 server and if there is a match in progress you have to wait for it to restart. I may make some sort of matchmaking system but I need players first and with the small player count I think this is the best thing to do for now.

But first I'm going to explain how it works for those who haven't. In Boring Royale, you are loaded into a big, crappy version of Varia Mines, its just a huge map I made by making small changes to the one existing map and copy pasting it a bunch. This is not the final map of course, as I have a much better map in mind but development needs to come along first before I can start working on it. I'm gonna keep this map idea close for now, as I'm not sure it will work yet, but I will start working on it when the map editor takes some sort of form.

You can select a preset spawn point to spawn your guy. There isn't a fancy battle bus or cargo plane to drop out of or something yet, but I think I have an idea to make spawning more fun. On the spawn screen, you can see a general idea of where other players are spawning with the red Xs.

Once you select a spawn point, you start with an empty inventory and have to find chests which contain weapons.

The weapons have very scarce ammo, as for right now this is the only way B-Man can offer looting. Ammo boxes, which restore ammo for all weapons on your person, are very rare and can ultimately decide games unless your opponent is very resourceful. I have already received feedback that ammo boxes may be dropping too frequently, but we can figure that out as we go along

Boring Man now has server synchronized dropped weapons/ammo, so you can find used weapons and what not all over the map.

So! While you're looking for a usable weapon, you are also pressured by a shrinking play area, similar to other battle royale formats. There is a dangerous field of energy enclosing on the map dubbed "The Emission", and it is the ultimate show of The Man's power. If you are inside the Emission, you will take damage overtime. There is a basic map screen in the game you can use by pressing the Scoreboard key, and it can show you the safe zone and where the emission is headed. It looks cool, I think!

As the match progresses, the Emission will increase in damage and ultimately consumes the entire map, if the safe zone gets too small it will simply disappear and players have limited time to make sure theyre the last ones alive when the shows over.

Boring Royale matches are designed to be very fast paced, and to only last a few minutes because I don't plan on having perfect server support for it. This is so players can be cycled in and out of BR matches at a decent pace without making them wait too long. Boring Man's naturally fast time-to-kill would make a BR match pretty confusing and boring if its made too complicated, but I do have a couple more mechanics I would like to introduce and hopefully stick with.

Right now, chests are just scattered through out the map to be mindlessly pilfered by players, but I would like to introduce unique ways of getting certain chests.

This could involve requiring a certain weapon to either reach the chest or meet some kind of demand.

For example, you could find some random NPC guy running a shooting range booth who will give you 2 chests if you destroy the targets with a certain weapon

Or maybe something more simple like a lone chest high above you that you can't really reach with acrobatics, and need a mobility weapon like the grapplehook

Some chests would only be obtainable by solving a puzzle, a quick puzzle that takes 2 or 3 seconds to complete and its more of a test of speed then it is of puzzle solving skills.

I think these concepts would add to the value of weapons that aren't as reliable at killing as others, as they could grant you access to more chests then other players who are trying to build a loadout by finding easy to get chests only.

But before I can add all of that, I need to add items or something that makes looting more valuable. To solve this, I've been thinking of a very basic storage system, where you can store 1 item on your character. This could be a medikit, or an ammobox, or even a weapon. I may even add storable items that grant a passive ability, like a radiation suit that reduces Emission damage or a flak jacket that prevents 1 instant death from a direct hit from an explosive. I'm not quite sure yet, because like I said I can't make it too complicated because then these mechanics would probably get ignored since the possibility of death is so high.

I still have some other ideas up my sleeve, but I'm taking it slow for now. Not many players are playing it due to the paywall (the BR server has bots on it to help games get going) but if you'd like to try Boring Royale, you can play it now on the v2.0.0 rewrite beta if you own any of the following DLCs:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/626491/TACCORP_VIP_Access/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

You can launch the beta in the Steam launch window with the "v2.0.0 beta (Requires DLC!)" option.

Thanks for reading! And keep the feedback coming. -S

Mar 11, 2019

FOR DLC OWNERS: Boring Man v2.0.0 beta4 is now available

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

I lied, there was a save delete issue I wanted to fix so this should be the last version of the week. Now to work on something fun!

- Added a new trick: If you air roll into a wall then wall jump while the roll animation is still playing, you will get extra jump distance. Demonstrated in this GIF:

- Decreased the random accuracy spread for the Bow

- Disabled grapple hook being dual wieldable on the Extra dual wielding mutator for now

- Fixed dual-wielding the Double-Barrel not consuming the correct amount of ammo (with the Extra dual-wield mutator enabled)

- Fixed an instance where your level progress is deleted

- Changed how getting free gold tickets and the free level 100 weapon skin works, a side effect of this change is you should get these rewards again. Yay!

- Fixed being able to select premade loadouts when the server is forcing weapons

- If the Boring Royale server has no human players, it will end the current match immediately when a human player is waiting to join

- Fixed not being able to reload while on a ladder (similar to 1.2.2.7)

- Made collision checking when mounting a ladder better

----------------------

"Whats going on?!"

The beta for the rewrite was released. You can play it right now if you own *ANY* of the DLCs below.

You can launch the beta in the Steam launch window with the "v2.0.0 beta (Requires DLC!)" option.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/346170/Boring_Man_Premium/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/Boring_Man_Platinum_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/Boring_Man_Burning_Weapon_Skins/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

https://store.steampowered.com/app/626491/TACCORP_VIP_Access/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

Feb 20, 2019

Dev Log 2/20/19: Leveling up, beta release date and more..

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

Hello! Yes, another dev log so soon, I'm just catching up on some things I've been meaning to share but haven't had the time until now.

Today I'd like to share how leveling up and game progress will work. In the original game, you would earn XP from killing enemies and would level up to unlock a random weapon you didn't own.

The rewrite will be featuring this again, but with some changes to keep things under control. I think unlocking new weapons in the middle of a match was a big draw for the game and I would like to recapture that magic.

So, once again, killing enemies will grant you XP, up until you reach level 100. Once you are level 100 or more, XP from kills will be disabled and there will only be time-based ways to earn XP so you can focus on playing the game instead of trying to find weird shit to do to grind. There will also be a couple restrictions made so grinding isn't super easy, but not too many because I think it's kind of fun to use mutators and stuff to make your own XP grind set up.

Anyways, the only way to earn XP post-level 100 is by completing matches, but I will be finding other ways that are time-based. When you complete a match, your XP gain will be a certain percentage of how much you need to level up. So you don't really need to worry about being too high of a level to earn level ups at a steady pace. The longer the match goes on, the larger this percantage becomes. It maxes out after about 30 minutes of game time.

Like I mentioned waayyyy before I started development on the rewrite, your current save file will not transfer to the rewrite, so you will need to start over. Or do you? I am also introducing a new feature for "veteran" players. The game will take a look at your profile and determine when you first started playing. If you started playing before a certain time, then you will unlock the ability to unlock all the weapons from the start and skip straight to level 100. You choose to do this yourself anytime you want, so if you want to start over from level 1 you're welcome to.

Why is leveling up so important when there are a finite amount of weapons to unlock? Well I'm glad you asked, today I'd like to introduce the thing I've been working pretty hard on...

Weapon skins! Some of you guessed it already, but I'm excited to share this none the less.

Weapon skins are new items that make your guns look different, but have no stat altering effects, they are merely for show. After you reach level 100, every time you level up you have a 20% chance to unlock a random weapon skin that you don't own yet. Gold tickets are making a return as well, you can still find a golden ticket instead of a random golden weapon and use the ticket on a weapon of your choice.

Weapon skins have different qualities, and the better weapon skin quality the cooler it looks! For example, common quality weapon skins are just boring solid colors and patterns, while more rare skins have a more exciting look and can even feature special effects and changes to the weapon's sound effects, look or even special death animations for enemy players!

So, how many weapon skins will there be? 10? 15? 30?

How about..

1,706! 1,706 weapon skins are currently in the game right now. Wowzers! How can little old me make so many gosh darn weapon skins?

The weapon skin system features a colorized pattern system, similar to how the ship customization works in Tunnel Divers. I can draw up to 3 different patterns on a weapon, and give them any color I want.

Additionally, I can assign them special effects and make them glow different colors too. I can also completely change the look of the weapon to an entirely different sprite.

Basically, when I make a weapon skin, I can assign its properties to EVERY weapon in the game. So when I want to make a white and green striped skin, this skin can be applied to every weapon in the game in only a couple of lines of code. This makes adding a bunch of new skins really easy.

I have generated 1,706 weapon skins myself, but for the rest of the skins that are added I want the community to make. Theres a little weapon skin creator in the game any player can access, every player is welcome to use it but for right now the only way to share your is to generate a JSON string on your clipboard.

I won't be taking weapon skins from players at this time, but thats because I want it to be done through Steam Workshop. It's not implemented yet, but the community could vote up their favorite weapon skins and I can add the top most Workshop submissions to the game. When a set of weapon skins are added, the author is granted credit for every one of them and the player will be able to click their name on the weapon skin selection menu and visit their Workshop page.

So with that exciting new feature finally out in the open, I'd also like to introduce the new DLC for the game, two new DLCs in fact! You have already probably guessed they are weapon skins. I have made their Steam store pages visible today and you're welcome to check them out below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018760/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018761/

Each DLC will give you the entire weapon skin set for $2 each. So if you buy the Platinum weapon skins, you will automatically unlock the skin for every weapon in the game (and every weapon added in the future). Even if you're not level 100 yet, you will still be able to equip them. I may add more DLC skins in the future.

These weapon skins are only available through the DLC, you won't be able to randomly unlock them. Even owning the Tunnel Divers DLC will get you a special weapon skin! For the love of God please give me money.

As a side note, B-Man will NEVER feature loot boxes. When you purchase a weapon skin DLC, you will get what you are shown. All other weapon skins must be randomly unlocked by leveling up and cannot be paid for.

Weapon skin usage is totally free, you won't need to own any DLC to unlock weapon skins. So you can not spend a single dime on this game and still have a chance to sport yourself a super rare weapon skin to show off!

B-Man will also not be implemented into the Steam Inventory. Weapon skin unlocks will be handled by my cloud saving. This will allow me to release the game on different platforms, and not just Steam. Also the Steam Marketplace is sketchy as fuck and I don't want B-Man to mix with the wrong people.

The purpose of the weapon skins is to increase the replayability of the game. While I would like to use them to generate income, this is the main reason why I added them. I'm not sure how long it'd take to unlock every skin in the game or if it's even possible, but I think I like it like that. Maybe it doesn't take as long as you think.

So, all thats exciting but I do have some sad news. I have decided to cut two weapons from the game, the Old Pistol and the Old Shotgun.

These weapons were mostly jokes and I think most players can agree they're mostly useless. They're also not very good for the weapon skin system, however I'm not deleting them entirely, they will be "retired" as super rare weapon skins, also known as "Artifacts".

Artifacts are extremely rare weapon skins that are unique to the weapon they're assigned to. For example, the Old Pistol is a Pistol skin that changes the sound effects and even brings back the death animation you get when you killed someone with an Old weapon. The Old shotgun is for the Pump Action.

Artifacts will usually have a unique effect for them that make them stand out from other skins just like this. So, the plan is to have at least 1 Artifact skin for every weapon in the game. I can't promise I will achieve that goal but I'm gonna try. There are about 5 Artifacts in the game so far.

So, my apologies if you were a big Old weapon fan, but they just weren't a good fit anymore as fully featured weapons. There is 1 more weapon I might cut from the game but I'd like to avoid it if possible.

So, when can you play the beta? I am thinking March 8th, since thats when I have a long weekend and can work on making sure the game has basic functionality when problems arise.

The beta will be available to players who own ANY of my DLC. This includes, Premium, the new weapon skin DLCs and even the Tunnel Divers DLC. All of it will grant you access to the beta on March 8th, instantly. It will only be available on Steam for now, when the rewrite takes over the current version then it will continue to be F2P as always. The new DLC will be available for purchase on March 8th as well and you will be able to use the skins immediately.

That's all I have today! Thanks for reading. -S

Feb 15, 2019

Dev Log 2/15/19: Dual-wielding

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

Happy Friday! Today I'd like to share the finer details of how dual-wielding in the rewrite works.

Dual-wielding is something I've wanted in B-Man in a very long time but couldn't write a system well enough to implement. This time I have, and it's in full swing.

Dual-wielding allows the player to carry and use a one-handed gun in each hand. The design is based on Halo 2, a game a lot of people (or at least old people like me) think of when you think of dual-wielding in video games.

There are some up sides and down sides to dual-wielding, and I can happily break it down for you.

So! When you want to dual-wield, the most obvious way to get started would be from the loadout menu. Select two dual-wieldable weapons, and then click the checkbox to indicate you'd like to spawn dual-wielding them. The checkbox will not appear if the two weapons you select aren't compatible for dual-wielding. You will also be able to indicate dual-wielding when creating saved loadouts.

You can pick up a weapon to dual-wield out on the field as well. Simply walk over the weapon you want to pick up normally, but instead of tapping E to pick up the weapon (or whatever key binding you have), you hold E for a short while instead and you'll pick the weapon up off the ground and into your "off hand" slot. When dropping weapons, you will always drop your off hand weapon first.

When I say your "off hand slot", I am referring to the weapon your character considers your less dominant weapon, which is the one you would pick up off the ground. The secondary weapon slot on the loadout menu will also always be considered your off hand when enabled for dual-wielding.

You are able to tell if the weapon you are holding and the weapon on the ground are compatible for dual-wielding when you get the dual-wield text prompt while standing over the weapon as seen here:

So, you're packing a cannon in each hand, this is great, but whats the downside?

When you are dual-wielding, both weapons will take an accuracy penalty. In the GIF below, I am dual-wielding two Sawn-Off shotguns. I am using the Infinite Ammo mutator to help demonstrate.

Notice how this penalty effects where your character shoots the weapon, but not the cone spread of the shotgun. This is to simulate how the character is having a hard time pointing the shotguns perfectly since he is holding two of them, and not necessarily an accuracy problem with the gun itself. This penalty is the same across all weapons.

Both weapons will also take a 50% reload speed penalty. The reload speed for the Sawn Off while dual wielding and not is compared in the GIF below.

While the spin reload animation is cool looking (and keeps it easy for me on reload animations), it's much slower then if you had both hands readily available.

Carrying an off hand weapon isn't very convenient either. When you change weapons or throw a grenade, you will drop your off hand weapon to do so. See below.

Originally rolling, climbing ladders and even double jumps would force you to drop the off hand weapon, but I figured that was all too much so it's just throwing grenades and changing weapons.

I can always remove penalties or introduce new ones, but we won't know how overpowered or underpowered dual-wielding will be until we test. Right now before releasing the beta, all of this is just throwing a handful of spaghetti straight at the wall.

"Ahh ammo management is gonna be a nightmare!" You might say as a potential dual-wielding user. But it's a lot more flexible then you think. For example, when you dual-wield two of the same weapon, the ammo pool will stack and each weapon hand will use each others ammo.

In the GIF below, I pick up the second Sawn-Off to dual wield it with another. The current ammo pool for each shotgun combines, and the player is able to seamlessly use both ammo pools while dual-wielding, making ammo management a non-issue.

Additionally, when you drop your off hand weapon, it will automatically give your main hand weapon as much ammo as it can, so you don't need to worry about losing ammo when you want to get rid of your off hand or do it by accident.

Again, these ammo management comforts only work when dual-wielding two of the same weapon, obviously combining the Revolver ammo pool with the Sawn-off wouldn't make much sense.

As development goes along, I will always listen to feedback and look for what makes dual-wielding frustrating or under powered due to inconvenience. I would like to see dual-wielding to be used in load outs, but also as an improvisational thing during combat.

And of course, you can turn off dual-wielding on your server via a mutator. There is also an extra mutator setting for it that will let you dual-wield more weapons, but not all of them. Anyone order a quadbarrel?

"BUT SPASMAN... I AM DIE HARD DUAL PISTOLS/SMGS FAN! WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY PRECIOUS IMPRACTICAL WEAPONS?"

For a while I was concerned the best thing to do was to remove them from the game..

But it turns out I don't have to. While I had to refactor a lot of code, I managed to find a way to fix this awkward situation, and I would like to re-introduce these two weapons today.

First, the dual weapons have been renamed to "Compact Pistol" and "Compact Uzi" but they still have the same sounds and similar design.

To make them good weapons in a dual-wielding Boring Man universe, these weapons have the special ability to be stored like a secondary weapon. You can also throw grenades with them without dropping your off hand. Demonstrated below.

Please note though, they will still suffer from the reload and accuracy penalties.

Compact weapons are also organic, individual weapons. They can be used by themselves, and their benefits can be used by any other dual-wieldable weapons, so if you're dual-wielding a Revolver and a Compact Pistol, you can still put both of them away without dropping the off hand weapon. It doesn't matter what hand the compact weapon is equipped with, it will still let you put them away.

That's great! But in the original game, you always spawned with two pistols or two SMGs, not one. And to make these weapons individual weapons, I had to cut some of their stats in half.

To circumvent this nerf, an additional bonus to compact weapons is another unique ability which will allow you to spawn with 2 of them when they are a part of your loadout. This will allow you to equip 2 compact weapon and an additional weapons of your choice, just like in the original game.

By default, you will always spawn with two Compact Pistols/Uzis, but if you enable dual-wielding on your loadout, it will switch back to just providing 1 compact weapon so it can be paired with another weapon of your choice.

So, with all that flexibility introduced, the dual weapons have been rescued from the cutting room floor. I'm pretty proud of this system, I think its simple and easy to understand at face value, but I still wanted to go into detail with it.

That's all I have for today, thanks for reading. If you want to follow development, follow me on Twitter here. I also make bad tweets.

Edit: In the future, I would also like to make holding down Q (Change Weapon) to make you equip your holstered weapon as a dual-wield weapon.

Oct 19, 2018

Help the rewrite by using the NAT survey tool

Boring Man - Online Tactical Stickman Combat - Spasman

Hey folks, so I've been hammering away at the netcode on the rewrite, and one experimental feature I'm excited about is the UDP hole punching.

In short, hole punching will allow some, but not all players to be able to host servers without portforwarding. I'll say again, some but not all. Most players who play straight from home with a typical residential connection will be able to host without portforwarding, but if you play from a school, work, coffee shop, etc basically anywhere with public internet or where a lot of people will be using it at once, you will probably still need to portforward.

This is because there is heightened security across your local network due to so many strangers using it at once. This all might sound familiar to those who have ever had problems with services such as Xbox Live, which heavily depend on your network's NAT configuration to work correctly.

With a strict NAT, not only will you be unable to host but you may be unable to join some open NAT servers as well, unless they port forward. So even with an open NAT, its probably still a good idea to port forward your server so that all players would be able to join it.

If you're an aspiring networking nerd, you can read a more in-depth explanation on how it works here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching

Anyhow, I need to get a good idea of how many of you will see the benefits of this new feature just to see if it's something that will have an impact on the server hosting aspect of community. And I'm gonna need your help.

First, you will need to download this small tool I made. It will determine if your network is an open or strict NAT, and record your IP address on my server so I can get an idea of how many of you have open or strict NATs. This will be pretty helpful for me. You can download it below.

The NAT Survey is over. Thanks for your help!

And in case you think this tool is gonna hack your computer or something, I have also made the source code available for this tool. It's packed into a GMZ file, which can be opened with Game Maker Studio (1.4 specifically cause I made this on my laptop but it should work in GMS2 too)

The NAT Survey is over. Thanks for your help!

Once you have the EXE downloaded, run it and you should see a small black window. Press 1 to send your NAT Type to my server and it will be recorded. Once it says "Thank you" then you're done and can close and delete the program. If you can't connect, then you may need to allow the tool past any firewalls you have.

Yes, it can be unnerving to see a strict NAT type, but I will still be hosting my own servers for this case, and hopefully you'll still be able to connect to some other servers that haven't bothered to port forward. There is no real way to "fix" a strict NAT type, unless you have it in good with your local network administrator who could configure your internet to an open NAT. Maybe bake them cookies or something?

The more people that do this, the better idea I'll have as to how many people can host a game and I can adjust the rewrite's course accordingly. There are an infinite amount of different network configurations, and while it's impossible to write the game to make it all work perfectly, I'm exhausting every source of information I have to make server hosting easy for as many people as possible.

That's it. Thanks for your support!

- S

FYI regarding the last post I'm probably not gonna let you pre-order the second DLC, stupid idea. I will probably put up the first beta soon, available to anyone who already owns Premium, but I'm not sure when yet.