Final x64 bit public playtest for build 318 on Wednesday Sept 27th @2300 CEST / 1400 PST!

IronHorse

So while x64 bit has been worked on for months, and the Windows version has been getting thoroughly tested by multiple popular servers in the live build over the past months, we hit a major snag with Linux servers that's held up this release for much longer than expected. The Linux server previously could be crashed just by looking at it the wrong way, and the issue required some serious custom rewrites of Physx. There will probably be more details on this from the ardent @McGlaspie who performed said magic after slaving away on it for a few sleepless weeks.
But in the meantime, it's been resolved and we're now gearing up for our final Public Playtest before entering Release Candidate mode and hopefully releasing September 29th.
(if everything is *perfectly smooth and working correctly*, or else we push back one week to October 6th.)

So since our previous Public Playtests have resulted in great turn outs and an amazing resource for catching last minute bugs and hardware/software incompatibilities, we'd like to invite you all to the last one before we ship this beast officially!

Join our Official Discord Server this Wednesday, Sept 27th @ 2300 CEST / 1400 PST for some typical games on a x64 Linux server.
You'll need to swap to the BETA branch of NS2 for this test (DO NOT SELECT THE x64 BRANCH - IT IS A DIFFERENT x64 VERSION!)
Once you've selected the branch, then just idle in our General Voice channel to coordinate with us joining the server.

Don't worry about having to manually select the x64 executable, the game should automatically detect your system's capability and select it for you. This is subject to change to a manual "Opt in" with a prompt potentially, once we "ship" this build into the wild. There should be more info on this as we get closer, as we're leaning towards communicating to everyone that the x64 is in a live beta for 30 days, whereupon the 32 bit version will be removed at the end.


We're looking for community feedback of any kind, as well as assessing the stability of the build/server through typical games. This branch will also come with a new official Auto Crash/Dump Collector that is far more snazzy and useful for everyone, (instantly uploads the crash report in under 2 sec) and should help us quickly eliminate any outstanding/edge case client or server bugs we were unable to catch going forward.
It's also a good chance to get the "Kill a Dev" achievement if you haven't gotten one already, or just to chat with some devs after the games.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me in our discord.
Thanks and see you there!

.trixX.

leod

So, was everything perfectly smooth and working out correctly?

MoFo1

leod wrote: »

So, was everything perfectly smooth and working out correctly?

Good question.. I'm also wondering whether it will be Sept 29th or Oct 6th..

Either way I can't wait.. Praying so insanely hard for some fixes to help with how hilariously broken balance is right now.

IronHorse

@leod
We wont know until another hour or so, since the testing session is just starting in 15 minutes from this post
I'll update everyone here afterwards

IronHorse

It definitely went very smooth, no major issues at all after about 2.5 hours of games.

However, we've decided to push the date of release back to the 6th of October anyhow because we do not want to interfere with the Newcomer Tournament that is beginning this weekend. The last thing we want to do is have a nasty bug slip through and mess up a community event like that, so we're going to wait a few more days, which is nice because it gives us extra time to polish the build and quadruple check for any issues.

Thanks everyone who participated in the test today! Really helped out, and highlighted some small issues with NS2+ and the Linux client that need to be addressed.
Was also some enjoyable back and forth games, too.

Rammler

IronHorse wrote: »

If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me in our discord.
Thanks and see you there!

when do you revert the ridiculous hp boost of lerks? this is one of the last remi bullshit changes

SantaClaws

@Rammler I like how you quote him saying you can contact him in discord, but proceed to write here anyway.

IronHorse

That wasn't his idea. That was a change largely advocated by @Nordic and myself, with some of the balance group members.
I'd share the reasoning and justification for the exact numbers behind it, but I think you already are aware of them given you posted just after Nordic went into details here
But that topic is really meant for another thread, or in discord

The_Welsh_Wizard

Lerk HP increase was a very bad change. Yes, you can read the reasoning in that post there, but it is not a good one and especially none that justifies that change.

But it is also clear that this won't get changed again, so pointless discussion.