This update attempts to solve some economy balancing issues and improve functionality overall.

• Increased legendary pack price to 500g, to be more in line with its actual value
  
• Banned Struggle from Explorer
  
• Removed most of the alternative default game modes
  
• Removed all booster box bundles
  
• Changed gold per win to 15 (down from 25)
  
• Fixed target prompts submitting immediately when in a prompt with variable targets (like Up To)
  
• Rebalanced reward track and weekly chest
  
• Fixed AI Use deck parameter being reset in default decks each run
  
• Restored lobby rewards for sealed and draft modes
  
• Added background to prompt text
  
• Added collection mode dropdown in the collection screen

This update attempts to solve some economy balancing issues and improve functionality overall.

• Increased legendary pack price to 500g, to be more in line with its actual value
  
• Banned Struggle from Explorer
  
• Removed most of the alternative default game modes
  
• Removed all booster box bundles
  
• Changed gold per win to 15 (down from 25)
  
• Fixed target prompts submitting immediately when in a prompt with variable targets (like Up To)
  
• Rebalanced reward track and weekly chest
  
• Fixed AI Use deck parameter being reset in default decks each run
  
• Restored lobby rewards for sealed and draft modes
  
• Added background to prompt text
  
• Added collection mode dropdown in the collection screen

Dear Auraxians,

We are excited to announce that our team at Toadman Interactive is taking over development duties for PlanetSide 2. Our colleagues at Rogue Planet Games have created a unique gaming experience that has thrived for over a decade. We have assembled a team of developers who have many years of experience working on Massively Multiplayer Online games and First Person Shooters. Although we are not the purchaser of the franchise, the team is delighted to carry the PlanetSide 2 torch forward. Additionally, we will continue working with the Daybreak Games publishing team to ensure the game continues to receive best-in-class marketing and community support. 

Our vision for PlanetSide 2 is to highlight unique aspects that have given it such a storied place in gaming history while improving the general game experience. To that end we’ve laid out three major principles to guide us moving forward along with our 2024 roadmap following below:

• A renewed focus on the elements that make PlanetSide 2 great, rebalancing mechanics and content while addressing the current pain points that get in the way
  
• Create more objective-based player goals within the core gameplay loop to
  
• capitalize better on the breadth of PlanetSide 2’s potential
  
• Infuse each major update with more theme, lore, and world building to give more
  
• structure and context to the world we all inhabit

Q1
If you look back on Q1, you can see that we put quite a bit of effort into fixing bugs that were major causes of pain points for everyone. We're not at the end of the road just yet, and we are dedicated to identifying and squashing more.

The tradition of developer letters that started at the end of last year will continue. We want to be as transparent as possible and also share some insights with our community on how we create assets and develop features for PlanetSide 2. In addition, we reworked Capture the Conduit and created several beautiful bundles celebrating Auraximas, Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, and St Patrick's Day.

You may have noticed that the reward structure for the Seasonal Directives is much more rewarding. Below is an example of how we want to continue with directive rewards:


Q2
We have exciting content waiting for you in Q2, which we are working on right now. We’re starting with the Puzzler Bundle on April Fools' Day, in which you will find a handful of Puzzler themed cosmetics, all for only 10 certs.

New color variants for the NS-44 “Primed Amethyst” Commissioner that were featured in the 11th Anniversary Bundle are entering the Depot as well as a new base/facility capture method (more details to follow).

Q2 also includes the PlanetSide Franchise Anniversary and other equally exciting holidays such as: Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Q3
Q3 is going to be hot with the return of two summer directive events with great rewards. We are also very excited to release the updated Sunderer, although it may happen sooner if we manage to overcome some technical limitations. Additionally, we will have another new game mode, which some of our colleagues have already started working on, and we will also celebrate holidays such as Independence Day and Labor Day in a big way.

Q4
The most anticipated PlanetSide 2 updates will arrive at the end of the year. We do not want to reveal all the cards just yet, but at the same time we want to share some of the novelties that are waiting for you closer to the end of the year. We will start with the traditional Halloween celebration, for which we are preparing an intimidating event, and right after that we will release the Anniversary Update. There, we will introduce a completely new theme, which will include a new vehicle type, armor sets, helmets, weapons, and cosmetics.

We cannot wait to show you a behind the scenes look at our upcoming new art assets, story elements, and the technical workings of creating a new type of transportation in PlanetSide 2. Expect more Auraximas events, a bundle with winter weapons, sales, and holiday decorations.

Naturally, to accomplish our goals for the year, there will be a learning curve involved, not only for technical reasons, but also because PlanetSide 2 is a large and venerable game with many gameplay niches and a deeply passionate community. This transition has been under way for several months and is largely the reason updates have been smaller and slower lately than what the community is used to seeing.

As we become more proficient and knowledgeable, the scope and pace of updates will speed up and our ability to take risks will grow. Becoming experts in the full scope of such a massive enterprise will take time, and mistakes will be made. However, we promise to listen closely and carefully to your feedback so we may learn and grow as quickly as possible.

- Toadman Interactive, PlanetSide 2 Team

- Changed Hardborough and Woolwiich to have slightly different layout and building types.
- NPCs who are farmers now sell seeds. This will be changed in the next update to farmer NPCs will sell the seeds of the crops/trees that are growing on their farms. This is the first of the vendor updates. In upcoming builds, I will be adding Smiths and Pottery vendors to the towns.
- Fixed bug in the NPC conversation dialog that would randomly cause the mouse click even to always fail.

Hello everyone!
I would like to share with you the latest news about the development.

The public version can already be considered stable and this means that the next development cycle has already begun. Therefore the public version will not receive updates for a while until the development of the Nightly Build ends and merges as usual.

This nightly build is special as it will be the last one before entering the beta version of the game and therefore carries significantly more content than other nightly builds from the past. I preferred not to split this nightly build into two or more parts, since that would entail extra time for fixing regression bugs after each merge, which always tends to take several months, so this time it is preferable to introduce all the planned features in the same nightly to fix all those regressions at once and thus save some time.

As this nightly is going to take me more time to develop than what is usually normal, this time I am going to publish updates (Developer Previews) about the state of the development regularly to keep you informed about which feature I am working on at those moments.

This time, being the first update, I still do not want to go into many details since I am working on several features at once and there are certain parts of the design that I want to finish defining first, but I can tell you broadly what the new attack vector will entail.

The new attack vector, which will complement the current buffer overflow, is being designed with multiplayer mode in mind, specifically for PvP mode. It involves 0-day-exploit attacks combined with code injection, which along with buffer overflow will allow for a more dynamic and balanced PvP between attack and defense, especially among more veteran players.

The 0-day-exploit attack will consist of several phases, requiring in the first of them that players collaborate with each other in order to advance. Upon reaching a certain level, players will be able to obtain limited pieces of information (rumors) which, upon completion, will lead them to a specific network to continue with the discovery of the exploit. This will encourage collaboration among guild members to obtain this privileged information before another group, whether their intention is to attack or protect a specific network or server.

Once this information is obtained, players will still need to do research work to discover and deal with the engineers who have worked on the library that may contain the undiscovered exploit, thus being able to move on to the next step of the attack which will then be more technical for the player.

In the next phases, the player will need to create specific code, which will vary depending on the vulnerability of the 0-day-exploit to continue the attack. Therefore, as an exception in the game, this time players without programming knowledge trying to discover the vulnerability will be at a disadvantage compared to players who know how to program. Hence, exploits of this type of vulnerability will not be generated in stores, unlike the current buffer overflow. Although players without programming knowledge can always use them once they are discovered and published by other players.

What I have described would be the first phases of the attack explained in a general way, the attack does not end there. There are also parts that I am currently exploring such as the introduction of an API that can only be accessed temporarily depending on various factors, or the introduction of additional, smaller attack vectors to help with the balancing of this new system.

In the upcoming dev previews, we will be exploring other parts of the nightly that are also being designed, as well as more details about this new vector attack.

More news soon!

- Changed machine gun bullet speed to S - 65m/s, A - 60m/s, B - 55m/s, C - 50m/s
- Swapped history and objectives in the Flaunt area
- Shrunk objectives, unlock will now only display on mouse over
- Split user settings to another window
- Added placeholders for future content

Fixed a blocker and added VFX.

Hello, fellow zombie scientist!

We’ve just released an update to Black Mesa. Our goal was to improve performance, improve controller support, and fix a number of issues, without breaking your save files.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Here are the patch notes!

• Improved performance of the game (Vulkan, UI optimization, New Renderer/New Post Post Process Optimization)
  
• Fixed cases where game would crash on startup
  
• Fixed UI flickering and artifacting
  
• Fixed crash in the first map of Interloper that players were experiencing
  
• Improved controller support using Steam Input
  
• -Click here for detailed notes on adjusting controller support
  
• Fixed hitch when weapon decals are first applied to gun
  
• Re-enabled weapon decals by default

• Ported the game to DXVK 2.3.1 (first launch option)
  
• Performance enhancements have been implemented for the New Renderer and New Post-Process systems, particularly noticeable in scenes featuring water
  
• Fixed moss shaders and direction control for both vertex lit shader and skin shader (for props with/without phong)
  
• Fixed halflambert/warp/specwarp related problems across all the shaders
  
• Unlocked the even higher graphics setting in options menu
  
• The lighting quality settings in the New UI have been updated to reflect recent changes.
  
• Monitors and refract views can now leverage the New Renderer features
  
• God Rays support has been added for the sun and local lights
  
• -Note: God Rays are intentionally turned off for monitors and reflection views
  
• Improved the blending quality of normal maps within 4-way blending
  
• SpotLight cookies should now work on any orientation. Cookie sprite sheet no longer needs to be square.
  
• Black Mesa now requests high-performance power management on Windows, which should reduce power throttling impacting performance
  
• Implemented the ability to dump environment variables (-dumpenvironment launch option), assisting in resolving potential issues
  
• Lots of misc graphics fixes
  
• Disabled CPU-based backface culling for Func_Brush models
  
• Disabled CSM for viewmodels for secondary cameras
  
• Fixed flicker near Light Volume edges
  
• Fixed Xog artifacts with cheaper water

Controller support for Black Mesa has now been given the love and attention it has been seeking. Black Mesa now fully supports and integrates with Steam Input, allowing both us as developers and you as the community to create your own custom controller bindings and share them!

With Steam Input now implemented, we now have partial support the following devices:

• Xbox Controllers
  
• Playstation Controllers
  
• Nintendo Switch Pro Controllers
  
• We have also implemented proper Gyro support for Steam Deck!

To get started, simply navigate to the Steam Controller Layout configurator and select one of our official layouts and hit 'Apply Layout'.

Details on how to use it here.

• Modified the Game/UI rendering synchronization, aiming for stable UI presentation across all three available modes
  
• Updated the UI frame limiter logic to enhance the smoothness of frame pacing, which was particularly noticeable when vertical synchronization was active
  
• Improved performance by optimizing the texture lock implementation within the UI
  
• Resolved the issue where the UI occasionally failed to render at full size after resolution adjustments
  
• Fixed alpha blending of UI with background map
  
• Added a number of missing translators, including the 2012 mod translators (need to track down a list of who did what language)

• Interloper A crash fix
  
• Resolved the issue where the Tau Canon would crash upon the owner's demise
  
• Addressed a potential hang issue upon exiting the game
  
• A reflection bug involving Xen fog at extreme angles has been fixed
  
• Transparency issues in fake water have been resolved, and it now supports New Renderer, New Post-Process, and CSM
  
• Resolved outline artifacts present in alpha-tested materials
  
• Resolved an issue where view models were improperly identified within one shader, leading to lighting and shadow inconsistencies
  
• Fixed a bug related to the Diffuse Warp when using more than eight slots in the atlas
  
• Fixed a Workshop Client issue related to double initialization, which had the potential to cause crashes

• Alt-Tabbing while using Vulkan can sometimes crash the game
  
• Anti-virus can sometimes flag the game as malicious even though it is not (we’ll see what we can do about this)
  
• Minor UI overlap errors on some ultra wide monitors
  
• Some UI elements need localization

Next, we may look into more robust fixes that might break saves and switching over Linux support to Proton, but we don’t have a timeline for that.

Also, here is a sneak peak at what the HECU Collective has been up to with Black Mesa: Blue Shift. Check out their ModDB page and Discord for the latest news on their amazing work!





More to come. Thanks to our community for all the help testing and bug reporting! This went very smoothly thanks to your work.

Hope everyone is having a great spring!

Discord

This is a small update to try to address some of the bugs reported with the last release. Thanks to every one for the reports.
- Change how the Armory flow is implemented, to try to prevent locked mods from sometimes being selectable. This should hopefully have also fixed some crashes that were occurring when opening the Armory.
- Add some safety checks to Spiralius to try to prevent a crash that could occur while fighting him.
- Change how Timers are used across the codebase, to hopefully prevent an Error message that was sometimes being emitted.
- Fix an error message that was being emitted when using the Knife and fighting bats in the Underground.
- Fix an error message that was sometimes being emitted when applying conditions to enemies.
- Change Javelin Shrapnel mod behavior to prevent it from instantly killing large groups of low health enemies.
- Fix the behavior of the Sudden Death mod with the Parasite mod, for Poison. This was dealing thousands of damage by mistake.
- Update the Extra Schrap mod for Slingshot to be more descriptive.
- Fix a bug where Poison and Bleed could be applied multiple times to the same enemy, when it shouldn't have been possible.
- Fix the damage reporting for Poison and Fan of Knives. This same bug may have also been affecting other weapons.

Thank you!
TitanCrestGames

Empire Chronicles (Version 1.5.12) - Hotfix

• Removed an invalid refrence to map22 in Ashlan Castle.