Things have been slowing down here on the team, and not the bad type of slowing down that you hear of. We're getting close to the end of 1.2's development life cycle, and nearing a very special milestone date that we have all had in our head. Team members are now communicating much more than normal, and helping with other’s tasks to meet this deadline.

As always, the IT/Support team has been busy chipping away at a new navigational menu for everyone. Now, a re-written website has a perfect companion of expanded navigation, you’ll notice a drop down menu in place of the older menu that opens up the overview, team, awards, irc and supporter page. The team page has been updated to include proper links to forum profiles for those who need to get in contact with us. Also, on a special note, please take the time to congratulate Spire on being Dystopia’s new art lead! Spire has displayed a large amount of skill and dedication in regards to art on Dystopia, and has proven every confidence. He has a difficult job ahead of him, and walks in very difficult footsteps.

Lastly, when speaking about the new navigation menu for the website, the third party map page is now available for everyone! This long overdue page is a source for anyone looking to get that extra feed of Dystopia through more maps, and incorporates the winners of the third party map competition and the team’s hand picked favorites. Wrapped up with a bow in a nice installer for everyone, you'll get community favorites and competition winners like like Tower, Infect, Racetrack, Desert, and Fusion.



Be sure to stop by the third party map page, get a heads up on the maps featured there, and grab the installer. We will be sure to update the installer as often as possible, and provide the community with the best levels available. The media gallery has been updated with screen shots from each of these great maps as well as an album of the upcoming 1.2 release.

On the development side of 1.2, as mentioned, we are nearing a very special milestone date. One of the tasks to get to that milestone, is completion of one of our upcoming maps, Exodus. Exodus, based on a later iteration of an older map called Abandon, takes place in a depleted urban area with rampant criminal activity. Fight to protect what little order is left in this exhausted inner-city, before all hope is lost here and the last presence of a corporation vanishes!



Originally a testbed for movement and low-level code during Dystopia's pre-release development, Abandon slowly came to fruition over the last few years. Now called Exodus, a highly collaborative map, many have given their all to make this level very fun and balanced! Exodus is now available in our latest RC, Release Candidate 4, be sure to check out the Exodus media gallery. Also featured are plenty of in-game and level screen shots from in-game, check em out! RC4 brings changes and fixes, as well as this awesome new map!

• Energy no longer drains while holding sprint in cyberspace.
• Medi-plant turns back on when decking out, if decking in disabled it.
• Added a fade in to grenade IFF.
• Fixed a bug where Supporters would get kicked.
• Fixed cyberhands showing up in meatspace, and the subsequent crash they caused.
• Updated Assemble.
• Updated Broadcast.
• Updated Cybernetic.
• Included Exodus.

One month ago, we expanded the Dystopia team to incorporate better aspects of our Support/IT Group. The Support/IT group is comprised of those who manage the databases, servers and statistics -- It's a full time job. However, a need for web developers was fast approaching. Please welcome Cin, long time Dystopia fan boy and play tester (he was here on the forums long before most, and he'll tell you all about it...) and cornix, longtime play tester who has already been in a support role as a testing coordinator. Cin has invaluable experience with HTML and CSS with strict W3C standards, and experience with web design, to generally make things very pretty and run fast. Cornix is a powerful asset, knowing the ins and outs of Javascript, AJAX, PHP and MySQL. These two combined make quite a force.

Evidence of this was published late last week, when both released a re-coded website to be faster and sleeker, and new and improved upgraded forums that run off of the latest PHPBB3. The outdated media gallery has received an update as well. There you can find media like concepts, previous build screenshots and a large amount of information regarding Dystopia and its origins. Copious amounts of effort and time were put into this by not just the web development support guys, but the entire Support/IT team. Take the time to thank cornix, Cin, Contre and mindstormmaster. They keep this website and its services running, and make the development team's lives much easier.



On the development side, finally being able to get some breathing room after releasing 1.2 to Supporters, the team is hard at work again. Supporter testing has been a great help to the developers in getting positive feedback regarding weapons, levels, balance changes and much more. The atmosphere, as always, has been fun and energetic when playing the supporters. Hearing good things about what you have worked on for a very long time, is always a motivational booster.

We're taking everyone's opinion into account, and making the changes accordingly to help alleviate problems that are immediately being seen. It seems that the supporters are always hard at work to impress us with bugs and very constructive feedback to give about Dystopia, as the testers did only a few short months ago. However, testing has not always been this way. When working very, very hard it's important to take some time out to have fun with what you're doing, especially for the testers and developers. It is an easy chance to joke around and play silly. Take for instance when the new assemble laser had some trouble actually reaching its destination, and instead sinking through the level -- or when the tesla secondary became miniature balls of destruction. Oh fun!



As you can see, play testing can be fun and full of surprises as well, when it's not serious and down to business. The play testers have worked very hard to make sure that builds for supporter testing go down as smooth as they have.

Speaking of supporter testing – we have completed our next milestone release, RC3. Release Candidate 3 for the supporters will include an old favorite, broadcast, and new additions and fixes to many of our maps. The update will resolve the issues with the new stats system we have had in the past, as well as fix many in-game issues and include improvements to the game. You can grab Release Candidate 3, by becoming a supporter. In the meantime, we'd like to show everyone a little bit of release candidate 3 is all about.



Included is the version 1.2 changelog since version 1.1 to 1.2 Release Candidate 3.

RC3 1.1->1.2 Change Log:

• Fixed some stat server connection issues
• Fixed minor problems with "callvote kick" autocompletion
• Fixed turrets not crediting deckers with kills
• Stats page centers correctly on all resolutions
• Optimizations for Injection
• Split primary path for punks to last objective area in two
• Fixed bug where energy regains while EMPed
• Updated Assemble helpers
• Included Broadcast
• Updated Cybernetic and Injection

RC2 1.1->1.2 Change Log:

• Map overlays updated for Injection, Silo and Assemble.
• Sensitivity now scales when zoomed.
• Fixed a crash when a player would leave after firing a rocket or a bolt from a boltgun. (#0001887)
• Fixed a cause of dropped stats connection.
• Fixed crash when callvoting while not in a server. (#0001906)

RC1 1.1->1.2 Change Log:

Meatspace:

• Turrets no longer get bugged into the wrong state
• Cortex only explodes if enemies are in range; if friendly players are around it will create a small explosion with minimal damage; if no players are around, it will explode normally.
• Fixed a bug where players could not fire boltgun secondary immediately after firing primary
• Fixed a bug where if a player locked onto another player using Smartlocks, and then grabbed a ledge, the lock was lost
• Fixed a bug where Smartlock pistols would stay locked on after death
• Turrets are no longer distracted by players they cannot properly hit
• Spider grenades, tesla balls, debris and explosions no longer go through forcefields
• Spider grenade explodes with 1/5 of normal radius and damage if it is not yet deployed
• Spider grenades are now destroyed if stuck inside things
• Spider mines no longer get stuck in player's heads
• Fixed an exploit where players could immediately capture objectives.
• Fixed bug where mp_ceasefire didn't stop cortex explosions
• You can no longer callvote balanceteams over and over with no delay
• Fixed bug where launched grenades would disappear sometimes
  
  Buttons:
• Fixed the "button bug" where buttons would intermittently just not work. Or at least it's incredibly rare now
• Players can no longer press buttons through solid objects
• Buttons now only activate once per use instead of once per frame while you hold the use key
  
  Spawning:
• Fixed a common bug where players wouldn't spawn and needed to switch to spectator and back
• Fixed bug where fast-loading players would spawn immediately on new maps
• When a team loses any objective, they get quick spawns for 15 seconds so they can defend the next one.
• Spawn times now slowly decrease for the attacking team if that team has not captured any objectives for a substantial amount of time
• Players now spawn with full energy after balanceteams
  
  Movement:
• Fixed legbooster network prediction errors. This should help with the perception of too-long katanas
• Legboosters are now passive and always on. To charge a jump, tap sprint as you begin to hold down the jump button
• Thrown grenades no longer block players as much
• Fix bug with uncrouching while sprinting
• Removed ability to walk in meatspace
• Players have to be on the ground at least one frame between jumps
  
  UI:
• Added spawn timer while alive
• Added many more ingame text helpers, and an option to turn them off
• Added emotes by using "/me" at the beginning of a chat message
• Changed scoreboard to show classes and implants dead players will have when they spawn
• Spawning HUD now has enough room for the full seven implants that a light can take
• By default, corps now have blue IFF and punks have red IFF. There is an option to revert to the previous colors (red enemies and green allies)
• Added IFF circle around thrown grenades
• Added health to turrets' IFF display
• Cortexing players have orange IFF
• Fixed a bug where the player was given a button-push arrow when cooking a grenade and looking at a screen
• When a global rank for a player is not available, it shows no number instead of 0
• Added confirmation prompts for the "tutorial" and "disconnect" menu items when you're connected to a server
• SWT is shown on IFF along with cyberdeck, tacscan, and mediplant
• Added messages when objectives are captured
• Enhanced cyberdeck has a different icon
• Decked-in players have a yellow cyberdeck icon on their IFF
• You can now see friendly IFF when you have thermals on
• Increased the maximum distance you can see IFF at
  
  Graphics:
• Low DirectX levels no longer make it easier to see stealthers
• Players no longer occasionally see cybertrails in meatspace
• Fixed bug with hovering weapons at round-end
• Fixed bug where stealthed players were sometimes visible when decking in
• Fixed bug with disappearing decker corpses
  
  Sound:
• Added ingame music
• Explosions no longer cause ear-ringing
• Removed endless looping burning sound
• Fixed a bug which caused the "objective lost" and "objective captured" sounds to overlap for some players
• I don't think so sista" works now
• MK shots sound louder to others
  
  Scoreboard:
• Assist points are now given to players even after they die
• Assist points are handled correctly when you switch teams
• Fixed a bug where players got the wrong number of points for objective captures
• Cyberfrags count as frags on the scoreboard now
• Fixed various bugs with weapon awards
• Killing an enemy who gets autobalanced no longer counts as a TK
• Fixed scoreboard objectives sometimes showing up from the previous round
• Improved backend flexibility for player icons
• Switched statistics server connections from UDP to TCP
  
  Weapon/Implant Balance:
• You start with only two frag grenades or three EMP grenades.
• EMP grenades do slightly more damage
• The clip size of the Smartlock pistols has been increased to 30
• Smartlocks' spread now makes sense
• Smartlock users get a machine pistol now
• The rate of fire on the MK-808 has been reduced
• Teslaballs lose charge faster when they do damage to players
• The grenade launcher now starts with only 12 spare ammo and has a max of 24
• The grenade launcher does not have its reload time improved by wired reflexes
• Basilisk secondary fire now uses 3 ammo instead of 4
• Basilisk secondary always explodes on contact
• The basilisk now receives 10 ammo from the ammo dispenser instead of 9
• The spread of the Basilisk primary fire has been tightened
• The rocket launcher starts with 4 ammo
• The rocket launcher can be fired at any range
• The rocket launcher now does 115 damage but has a 9 second cooldown
• The rocket launcher's secondary fire now starts very mauneuverable and then becomes harder to steer. You can also detonate it in midair with primary fire
• Legboosters now drain a tiny bit of energy on normal jumps
• The mediplant now heals more
• Wired reflexes no longer give a weapon switch-time bonus, and they give less of a katana blockstun recovery bonus
• The coldsuit is two slots instead of 3
  
  Cyberspace:
• Sprays on cyberbubbles are drawn over a solid background of the player's teamcolor
• Returned air control back to the way it was in Demo Update 4. You accelerate twice as fast in the air
• ICEMine damage has been increased from 30 to 50, and you can't easily shoot it down
• ICEScan now removes GreenICE
• ICEScan takes two buttons now
• GreenICE is now activated when players ICEBreak a GreenICEd wall
• GreenICE only emps for .75 seconds now
• Removed the ability of players to run two cyberspace programs over each other
• ICE can no longer have GreenICE at the same time as an alarm or mine
• Fixed bug where a cyber shard would drop from a player who is being spectated
• Fixed a screen/button pressing exploit
• Fixed a bug going over ledges and up ramps
• Players can now always fire immediately after jacking in
• Fixed a bug where players could get stuck inside phantom ICE in cyberspace
• Fixed a bug where a player could create yellow ice
• Mediplant is now turned off when you enter cyberspace (you can still turn it back on)
• Programs no longer run upside-down on the wrong side of ICE
• ICEMine tracking sounds don't repeat endlessly anymore
• Fixed bugs with which sounds you can hear from meatspace while you're decked in
• Made neutral ICE more consistent: anyone can pass through new purple ICE. Nobody can pass through yellow ICE
• Shaft damage has been increased from .75 to 1.0
  
  Spectating:
• STV first-person spectating now works sometimes
• Crash when user is a spectator and using space bar to move to the next user is fixed
• Fixed an unsafe reference to a variable that may have been causing spectating players to crash
  
  Server:
• Server now ignores stats from a round if sv_cheats was ever 1. Server will start keeping track again if a round_restart is given
• Fixed some bugs with odd characters in player names
• Improved sv_pure
  
  Console:
• New commands: muteid, unmuteid, callvote kickid. All operate on players based on their IDs as reported by "status" (this is for people with weird names)
• Autoexec.cfg should now automatically execute scripts properly
• New admin commands: swap_teams, balanceteams
• Mp_startdelay now only applies right after the map loads and a new variable, mp_rounddelay applies after a new round or map_restart
• New cheat cvars: mp_instantspawn (spawn instantly all the time), sv_pogostick (hold jump down to jump forever)
• New cvar cl_enablesprays. Set it to zero and you won't see anyone else's spray
  
  Mapping:
• The forceloadout entity has more options for what weapons players can have
• The cyber_jumppad entity has a field called JumpVector that points in the direction to boost players
• Added toggleable invincibility for turrets
• Added colorcorrection entity
• Teleport triggers in cyberspace now affect players' gravity
• The ForceSpawn input on dys_spawn entities works now

This month has been jam packed hard work by all the developers, as well as the testers. Roughly a month and a half ago, the developers started to go into their own crunch mode. Many new art assets, build commits and non-compiled levels were put into the queue. About 3 weeks ago, all of it was dropped on the testers. Daily builds of maps, many new code updates, and even more models, textures and animations were available for download. The test team began testing 3 times a day, 7 days a week, and at this moment, are still in crunch.

To help convey to you the great changes that have been occurring, here are some of the screen shots requested by the supporters that have donated to the new server fund. The first is a screen shot of areas from Detonate that have been given a face lift. Detonate has received many new changes in the past months, and we applaud all the hard work being put in by the developers. This map surely is something to celebrate.

The second screen shots are from one of our new maps, Cybernetic. Cybernetic, currently being working on by Venciera, is a map in which the player is thrown into a hostage rescue objective. The daughter of a powerful Punk organization has willingly joined an intelligence "brain bank" cult, called Cybersyn. The Punks want her back, and will do anything to get her. Here, we give you a little insight as to what the cyberspace environment looks like, with the towering Cybersyn skyscraper looming in both worlds.

As a special treat this month, we felt it necessary to unveil this new map to the world by showing you in-game, what it looks like, as if you were playing it yourself. The changes to Cybernetic since it's public releases have been amazing, and we're really excited to show you this gem.

After releasing our previous version, the developers took a 5 month break and went right into 13 months of hard work and a whole lot of planning. After such a long time of telling people "when it's done," we're thrilled to tell people the date in which supporters can play Dystopia. I take little credit for the hard work put in by the individuals to create such a polished product. I can tell you that these developers are some of the hardest working people I have ever witnessed.

With that, we bring you our next version -- 1.2 playable by Supporters, for Supporter testing on September 19th, 2008. To get in on the beta Supporter testing, go here. Version 1.2 represents a unique direction for Dystopia, with many polishing changes and extra features that are sure to make your experience more fun and energetic!

Supporters, we'll be ready to frag with you on September 19th! See you soon!

EDIT: To circumvent the "OMG YOU'RE CHARGING FOR DYSTOPIA!!!!" posts. We are not charging for Dystopia. We are not offering early access for payment. You are offering us a donation and we are being kind enough to let you help us.

Dystopia will always be free to you the player but it is not free to us the devs so any donation you make helps keep the game going. This includes things like the web server and the stats server.