Well, heck. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds has delayed the first public test its new climbing and vaulting system, which was due to start this week. I had even ordered new headphones especially for intense nights of parkour around Pochinki. Plunkbat’s developers don’t say when we’ll get to flip out, only that the test servers aren’t quite stable enough for long stretches of testing (and presumably they’ll be in high demand too). This is a shame, as I’ve been so eager for more agility in this wonderful (and wonderfully daft) game. But hey, the devs did say the other day that Plunkbat is still on course to leave early access in late December. Fingers crossed this doesn’t delay that. (more…)
This is Playstyle Royale, where I head into Playerunknown s Battlegrounds and try to win my chicken dinner while adhering to arbitrary rules. Tonight, I m hoping to share my supper with RPS s very own Alec Meer – who has never played the game before.
As if that didn t make things hard enough, this week s rule is that Alec is the only one who can use his weapon.
That means that this week you get two after-action reports, with my version on the first page and Alec s on the second.
They’ve talked before about getting it down before the year’s out, but we’ve now got a more precise window for when industry-disrupting death circus Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds will become a full-fat PC game release. The devs last night made the spooktacular announcement that they’re now planning on putting out version 1.0 in late December. In other words, it’s sayonara to Steam Early Access after what (by December) will have been an eyewateringly successful 10 months in open development, and hello to whatever the hell ‘gone gold’ means in terms of game development means these days.
No doubt we’ll see various known and unknown tweaks and additions come the day, but of course the Very Big Deal for PUBG 1.0 is the release of the new desert map. (more…)
At Paris Games Week Today, the developers of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds announced it's leaving Early Access this December. "Late December," to be more precise. That release looks like it will closely follow the launch of the Xbox One version of PUBG on December 12, which will include the much-anticipated vaulting system that's coming to the PC test servers soon.
An Xbox press release by PUBG Corp. CEO Chang Han Kim says the following:
"In addition to announcing Xbox’s XGP launch date on December 12, we also shared the exciting news that we’re on track to launch 1.0 for the PC version in late December. This has been an amazing year for us and launching both 1.0 on PC and on Xbox through Xbox Game Preview are huge milestones for the team. I’m incredibly proud of how far we’ve come in such a short time, but I’m even more excited to say that we’re just getting started."
The press release also states that the two versions of the game won't be identical, though that divide may not last long: "Both versions are being developed at the same time, but they both have their own separate roadmaps. Various Xbox One features and functionality will change and come online over time just like they have on PC, with our goal being to have both versions align to each other as soon as possible."
The new desert map will be included in the 1.0 PC release scheduled for December, and will come to Xbox later. You can watch the full VOD of the announcements here, though watch out for some early audio problems (skip to 12:30 to save your ears, headphone users).
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds will launch for Xbox One via Xbox Game Preview on 12th December, Microsoft has announced. The game will play on Xbox One X with HDR enhancements, while 4K support is due to be added further down the road.
Today's announcement was made during Microsoft's presentation at Paris Games Week, where PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds stars as a console launch exclusive on Xbox One.
Eurogamer caught up with the man himself, Brendan 'PlayerUnknown' Greene, and Battlegrounds' executive producer, Chang-Han Kim, to chat about the game's console launch, its battle royale genre copy cats and the differences between the Xbox One and PC versions.
In a week in which Assassin’s Creed Origins has managed to break the charts to such a degree that it somehow not only appears three> times, but also stopped Feedly from being able to display the rest of the games in the correct order, we also see a few other new entries. But absolutely no new names. (more…)
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds aims to roll out its long-awaited vaulting and climbing mechanics this week on test server—however it appears the online battle royale game could now face being banned entirely in China, the game's biggest region by player population.
That's according to this Bloomberg report (via Gamesindustry.biz) which suggests the game's last-person standing, battle to the death-style makeup presents a "deviation" from the country's "socialist core values and traditional Chinese culture and ethical norms".
In turn, the Chinese content watchdog reckons PUBG is "not conducive to the physical and mental health of young consumers".
Loosely translated by Google, here's the watchdog's advice to Chinese developers that might echo games such as PUBG: "To this end, I recommend the domestic game companies should not arrange [research and develop], the introduction of such games, do not advocate to test such a way to attract users. At the same time, gaming, live and other platforms should not be such games to provide publicity, promotion and other services."
Recently, a Chinese Terminator 2 mobile game surfaced that includes a suspiciously familiar battle royale mode. The company responsible, NetEase, works in partnership with Blizzard in operating online games such as Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft 2 in the region.
Update: As detailed in our original story below, PUBG was expected to roll out its much-anticipated vaulting and climbing features this week via its test servers. Unfortunately, an unexpected issue during internal testing has postponed the new additions.
Bluehole hasn't provided much on the hows and whys of the delay, besides suggesting it's to "allow for a smooth testing of the new features and content."
We'll update as and when we know more.
Original story: PUBG creator Brendan Greene said in June that vaulting, climbing, and diving would all be coming to the game, a plan that was firmed up a few months later when he said that the vaulting part, at least, was expected to go live in November. It turns out that he was pretty much dead-on with the estimate, as the PUBG team announced on Steam today that "we will be running the test servers for PC 1.0 for the first time next week," giving players an opportunity to climb, vault, and test changes to driving, ballistics, and other "features and systems."
"Crossing and scaling obstacles may intermittently create many new tactical options available to the players. The standard jump feature can be used in standard situations, but there are many areas where it does not suffice. After all, PUBG features a play area of considerable proportions. In addition, objects located on the map differ greatly in shape and size," the developers wrote. "Such complexity can cause many problems for the players who need to rely on fast and effective means of jumping over (or on top of) boxes, containers, fences etc. For that reason we have decided to implement dynamic vaulting and climbing mechanics."
The initial plan was to enable climbing objects of up to one meter in height, but that was eventually increased to a height limit of roughly 2.3 meters. Almost anything can be climbed as long as the height is right; players will be able to climb chest-high objects with a weapon in hand, while those that are higher will require two hands, so your weapon will automatically be holstered before you start to ascend.
Predictably, implementing the new system will be a complex undertaking. The post digs into the technical elements a little, but the bottom line is that it will probably be a rocky road to start with. "Due to the nature of this system, we expect possible issues, bugs and problems to occur," the PUBG team said. "Ironing out this feature may take some more time, but we do hope you will have a lot of fun with it and make great use of it. We are eagerly awaiting your feedback and reports."
The developers also promised ongoing efforts against PUBG cheaters, including "new measures to better identify and track" the people who play unfairly.
"For a very long time, our development team has been analyzing data from a large pool of users who show abnormal gameplay behavior to build a system that helps us positively identify cheaters. We are now able to use the system to identify and ban these users more proactively. Using this system, we have already identified and banned about 20K additional users in only one day," the message says.
"This is only a start. On top of BattlEye, we will use a monitoring system to strengthen our efforts to prevent use of cheats and impose penalties on them. We promise you that we will continue to do our best to quickly find and ban people who use cheats. We hope you will start to see an improvement going forward."
One thing that isn't coming, however, is a single-player campaign: Greene confirmed with Gamespot at PAX Australia that despite wanting to do it, there's no time, no resources, and "no plans to add anything like this to the game. No single-player is coming to Battlegrounds."
Good news, PUBG-pals, the wait for vaulting and climbing is almost over! No longer will you get stuck on a fence as your squad points and laughs at your inability to just jump over it like a person. The feature isn t quite ready for the live version of the early access game, but you ll be able to take it for a spin in the new 1.0 test servers next week. Also up for testing are client and server optimisation, a ballistics overhaul and changes to driving.
We’re excited to share that we will be running the test servers for PC 1.0 for the first time next week! We would like to invite our players to test vaulting & climbing and other existing features and systems we have modified. The test servers will be up for several days to allow everyone to try out the test build and give feedback.
Key changes:
Client and server optimization
Added vaulting & climbing
Changes in vehicle driving
Ballistics overhaul
We have made changes to some mechanics to make them more realistic and balanced. However, all changes are not final and we need your feedback after testing. In addition, this is only the first test build so there will be issues and bugs that have not been fixed yet. But we would like to assure you that we will do our best to address most of those issues when we release 1.0 unless there is a critical roadblock.
Patch notes will be posted early next week but we wanted to explain a little bit about vaulting & climbing today. Action & Gunplay Lead Pawel Smolewski has written a piece about the feature.
Vaulting & Climbing
Crossing and scaling obstacles may intermittently create many new tactical options available to the players. The standard jump feature can be used in standard situations, but there are many areas where it does not suffice. After all, PUBG features a play area of considerable proportions. In addition, objects located on the map differ greatly in shape and size. Such complexity can cause many problems for the players who need to rely on fast and effective means of jumping over (or on top of) boxes, containers, fences etc. For that reason we have decided to implement dynamic vaulting and climbing mechanics.
This feature enables in-game characters to quickly scale obstacles in front of them. Although we initially planned to allow crossing over structures which are up to 1 meter high, we have eventually decided to extend the functionality of the feature by increasing the limit to about 2.3 meters. Almost any static object that meets the dimension criteria can be scaled. Additionally, passing through openings in structures (such as windows) is possible as long as they are wide and tall enough. You may scale almost any static object which is short enough. Objects which are chest level high can be scaled with a weapon in hand. Taller structures that require pulling up to vault need to be performed with both hands free of any items (they will be holstered automatically when animation is played). Running towards the obstacle will generate momentum that will ensure faster motion. Performing the action from stationary position is also possible but the animation played will be slower, leaving players vulnerable for a longer period of time.
On the technical side the system consists of about 40 animations adjusted for different heights and situations. We internally use the term vaulting to describe the action that involves crossing over an obstacle while climbing refers to a motion that will cause the character to remain on top of it. By default control over vaulting and climbing is placed on the same key as jump and is context based. However, we do provide the players with a possibility of splitting the jump and vaulting actions to separate key-bindings in the controls section of in-game settings. When attempting to vault, the geometry of the objects in front of the character is scanned and an algorithm decides whether vaulting action can be performed and what type of animation can be used to get across or on top of it. Climbing will be preferred whenever there is enough space for the character to stand up. However, vaulting can be enforced by holding sprint button while moving – if the obstacle is thin enough, character will slide or cross over. Motion that involves pulling up can be cancelled before reaching the apex by starting to move in the opposite direction.
Due to the nature of this system, we expect possible issues, bugs and problems to occur. Ironing out this feature may take some more time, but we do hope you will have a lot of fun with it and make great use of it. We are eagerly awaiting your feedback and reports.
In the next few days, we will also touch on other important changes. Please stay tuned for more updates on the test server.
Regarding the use of cheats, we will be doing everything we can and use all resources available to detect and impose penalties on users who use cheats. Recently, we have implemented new measures to better identify and track their usage. We have designed reliable systems to do this more efficiently than before.
For a very long time, our development team has been analyzing data from a large pool of users who show abnormal gameplay behavior to build a system that helps us positively identify cheaters. We are now able to use the system to identify and ban these users more proactively. Using this system, we have already identified and banned about 20K additional users in only one day.
This is only a start. On top of BattlEye, we will use a monitoring system to strengthen our efforts to prevent use of cheats and impose penalties on them. We promise you that we will continue to do our best to quickly find and ban people who use cheats. We hope you will start to see an improvement going forward.
Thank you. The PUBG Development and Community Team
