Off Limits development update news

With the last beta out for a while now I started looking into what needed fixing for a next update which will hopefully bring more people to our servers. I played with many people the first week of release and I have written down a lot of feedback and picked out the most important ones. Here is a list of the most important things we will be addressing:

- Fix needing 4 players minimum to start a game. Game needs to start when 2 people join a server.
- Make Juggernaut selection more random, many players keep being a Juggernaut round after round to their frustration and would also like to play some regular rounds as well (I too found this irritating). For this we will most likely have to rethink our opt-in option as well.
- Fix crash issues (received many .dmp files from players, hopefully they will help us pin down the issue(s)).
- Fix joining a server where all spawn points are captured of a team and you are unable to join the match (stuck in spectate).
- Fix heavy lag on servers (servers need to be restarted every day, which at the moment doesn't happen).
- Remove heavy screen shake as a Juggernaut and increase minigun damage.
- Increase knife damage.
- Make the Juggernaut not only heal team mates but also refill their ammo (excluding grenades or shield grenades).
- Show which team mate uses a voice command, now it's very hard to help someone in need of assistance because you don't know where the player is giving the command.
- Add distance to spawn point icons, showing a player which spawn in nearest.
- Fix ol_undersiege design, vehicle paths were annoying in a lot of areas. Decrease size between spawns (most of the time people were traveling between spawns and were taken away from the main action points).

These are just some of the fixes I have layed down for the next update. I hope we'll have most of this done this month and release a new update sometime in October. I wish we could role out update more frequently but we can only do so much with 2 people. Maarten should have time this month to start development on Off Limits again (cross fingers!).

I myself jobless as I am have time! So I spent the past 3 weeks working on the ol_undersiege design fixes. I had these design fixes in my mind before our initial release earlier this year but did not have the time to properly fix it back then (and I really wanted to release Off Limits). I basically re-did the entire layout bringing everything closer together. I got rid of the desert look and weird looking cliff formations. The entire level is now surrounded by docks and factories. The main thing I needed to fix was the vehicle path smoothness where you had some dodgy areas where you would smash into objects or walls. I also re-did the central spawn area balancing it out more evenly for both teams to attack. I also reduced the distance between spawns because a lot of the action was spread out too far apart. This should be more favorable for when it's played with less people on a server. I have uploaded a few screenshots of a new area, this is still under development but it should give you an idea of where I'm going with it. This area is (for those who area familiar with the current level design) where you exit the "Vertalon" building going up to the "Jakes" garage.

The other side of the level has the "Cornholio" building as the base spawn point area now (everything behind that, the long road and bridge section, are now gone). I wanted to have the tops of both main areas visible from both main base spawns. For this I had to come up with a way to seal off the lower half of both areas. I came up with a container ship idea and areaportals above. For this I created a custom ship cabin asset. I recorded this for my blog. Those interested in development can check out the video below. It's a 3 hour job compressed into 10 min.

I'll contact you all on our Steam group sometime next month as well so I can record a trailer for the PR campaign I plan to do after this release. I hope to reach out to many major websites in order to populate our servers. I hope I can count on you all to help out when the time comes!