I wanted to take a moment to update you all on where we are at with beta testing and development of Firefall. Please keep in mind that any features or development plans I mention are subject to change at any time and are by no means completely exhaustive of everything we are doing and working on.
Current Status
We were able to run a beta test this last Saturday to test out the fixes of our server infrastructure. For the most part, the test went well. We had some issues in the first hour of the test that prevented games from happening, but thanks to the quick work by our server team, we were able to get things up and running for the rest of the test.
We tested multiplayer matches on Orbital Comm Tower utilizing all five battleframes, so people got their first taste of the Dreadnaught in this recent test. We had hundreds of people concurrently playing on multiple matches across load balanced servers. This is a great step forward over the issues we were having with our new infrastructure during the last test.
What’s In Progress
The development team is mostly focused on getting our open world experience to a level where we are ready to have testers involved in play sessions. This is a huge push for us this month and we hope to have something ready for beta testers soon.
We have various issues with performance and optimization that are always on-going and we pleased to announce that we’ve hired additional programmers to help with this and increasing the overall visual fidelity of the game.
Our UI team has been hard at work retuning things like inventory management, the forge, squads, and overall look and feel of the UI. What I’ve seen so far is looking great.
One of the biggest projects still on our plate is a proper installer and patching program. Currently testers are forced to download the entire game before every test which is definitely not fun. This project is high on the priority list for us.
There’s a lot more in progress that I just can’t talk about yet, but I will give updates as I can.
Beta Testing Schedule
Thanks to our most recent test, we are now moving into doing tests twice a week which will allow testers much greater access to the game. Do not fret that you do not have beta access yet, it is definitely not a "demo" of the game. There are many times where testing is nothing but repeatedly banging your head against a wall while we watch the log files. Much thanks to all of our testers that have stuck it out so far.
Invite Rollout
As many of you have probably guessed by now, we are not rolling out invites at the same rate that we had hoped to when we got back from PAX in September. The infrastructure issues and technical limitations of the last few tests have made us wary of adding additional users until we have a better handle on the overall experience. Now that we are moving into a more regular schedule of testing, we are feeling better about things and will be increasing beta invites soon.
Keep in mind that it will be at least a couple of weeks before you will see additional invites go out. And we are still keeping a tight control on the number of invites. As mentioned in the past, we plan to roll out invites all the way into next year. There is no specific number we need to hit by any specific date, thus we are going to be cautious for a while longer. I understand you all want to play as soon as possible and I appreciate your patience.
Upcoming Community Features
FadedPez, Paran0rmal, Rhoulette and I are all working on some really cool content for you and trying to get things in a more consistent schedule. As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been doing new screenshots every Wednesday and a community round-up every Friday. We have additional video content that we are producing and will have stuff to show there soon.
Stick around, there’s still plenty to see and do. Thanks for being a part of this community.
