Patch: september 2nd, plane ball, bug fixes, misc improvements

lamster · #1 09-02-2009, 11:37 PM

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September 2nd, 2009

fixed a memory leak in the UI code; this should get rid of the OutOfMemoryError some users would experience after running the game for a long time

modified "bot team balance" server option to correct mismatched teams beyond the threshold limit (ex: a single bot will stop spectating to even out a 5v4 game even if spectateThreshold=4)

taskbar title now changes from "Altitude" to "Joining - Altitude" when autjoining; added taskbar title animation (*** Altitude ***) after joining server while Altitude is in the background

added 3 new official ball maps:
ball_cave
ball_lostcity
ball_mayhem

added 2 new official demolition maps:
obj_cave
obj_middleground

planeball:
reduced ball size by 50% (also modified gfx: removed blue bubble, added spin)
ball ejection point changed from (center of plane) to (front nose of plane)
increased ball elasticity from 56% to 75%
increased ball ejection velocity; decreased dependence of ball velocity on shooting plane's velocity
dying with the ball no longer resets the ball's team: if you die and your ball falls into enemy goal it will score
modified ball netcode for better passing
fixed bug that would allow one player to respawn before others after a goal was scored
scoring a goal is now worth 50 XP
(cosmetic) added 2 new awards: "ball hog" and "most goals"
(cosmetic) removed blue bubble from behind ball, added spin
(cosmetic) when carrying the ball the objective arrow now shows the enemy goal posts

Evan20000 · #2 09-03-2009, 12:37 AM

So does this mean people won't steal the ball from behind when you shoot in plane ball? Awesome. ^_^

eth · #3 09-03-2009, 12:48 AM

Awesome, looking forward to trying this! Planeball is so so so good.

Thanks!

e: I just played(for a bit too long.. T_T) and it feels amazing. Ball passing/throwing is a LOT better now.. I would kill to see(play) some competitive planeball matches.

gameguard · #4 09-03-2009, 12:53 AM

thanks for the updates. Keep up the good work ^^

lamster · #5 09-03-2009, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gameguard

thanks for the updates. Keep up the good work ^^

Please let me know if this patch fixes your "Altitude eventually crashes due to OutOfMemory" errors

Evan20000 · #6 09-03-2009, 01:00 AM

Haven't had one since the patch, but it hasn't been long so it's too early to tell.

nobodyhome · #7 09-03-2009, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamster

Please let me know if this patch fixes your "Altitude eventually crashes due to OutOfMemory" errors

i thought the OutOfMemory thing was actually a feature designed to prevent gameguard from playing 5 hours a day.

Ajplagge · #8 09-03-2009, 01:11 AM

plane ball is the fun! Great work lamster.

-bob/bobo

combat · #9 09-03-2009, 01:36 AM

Plane ball is the coolest thing ever in the history of AMURICA!

Evan20000 · #10 09-03-2009, 02:24 AM

Love the new plane ball maps.

as red as black · #11 09-03-2009, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamster

Please let me know if this patch fixes your "Altitude eventually crashes due to OutOfMemory" errors

lol. Gameguard would be the one getting problems from playing too long...

Love the new patch, everything seems to be working great....plane ball is the best thing to happen to altitude since i've played (open beta)

now all we need is capture the flag!

Evan20000 · #12 09-03-2009, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by as red as black

lol. Gameguard would be the one getting problems from playing too long...

Love the new patch, everything seems to be working great....plane ball is the best thing to happen to altitude since i've played (open beta)

now all we need is capture the flag!

Capture would be awesome.

The thing I like about planeball is that camping is strongly discouraged. You're forced straight into the foray, and I think that's how the game was meant to be played.

yoshi · #13 09-03-2009, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evan20000

Capture would be awesome.

The thing I like about planeball is that camping is strongly discouraged. You're forced straight into the foray, and I think that's how the game was meant to be played.

Or you can kill whore and defend the basket like I do >

Evan20000 · #14 09-03-2009, 02:37 AM

And we saw how that worked out for you once the terminator bot came out. ;P

AtomikPi · #15 09-03-2009, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evan20000

Capture would be awesome.

The thing I like about planeball is that camping is strongly discouraged. You're forced straight into the foray, and I think that's how the game was meant to be played.

I actually think it might encourage camping since there are easy kills to bad had from goal-oriented players.

And +1 for CTF. For that matter, I can think of quite a few game modes which would be nice, such as "conquest" or whatever where different teams capture points and win by controlling all of them.

as red as black · #16 09-03-2009, 04:16 AM

suggestion: something to prevent goal tending?

I've seen a few people just reverse thrust hover inside of the goal. I then try to fly completely inside of the goal to score, but because of natural lag and ping, when I shoot the ball, they immediately gain possession of it even though I'm completely within their goal. I can suicide into the back of the goal and they still gain possession of my would-be-goal.

maybe some sort of thingy that keeps teams from entering inside their own goal while allowing the enemy's team to go all the way inside for scoring purposes?

People wouldn't be able to goal tend. And, it's not like people are going to hover inside their enemy's base because they would just be shot.

Kuja900 · #17 09-03-2009, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamster

Please let me know if this patch fixes your "Altitude eventually crashes due to OutOfMemory" errors

Lamster before today in 2 months never has my altitude stayed logged in the menu for more than 10minutes without crashing and telling me "outofmemory". Now its gone 4 hrs and counting, you have made this game 10 times less frustrating for me and I cant thank you enough!

gameguard · #18 09-03-2009, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamster

Please let me know if this patch fixes your "Altitude eventually crashes due to OutOfMemory" errors

actually i never crashed with outofmemory error. It was kuja. But I did (along with many others) experience the lag spikes (more like processing spike?) caused by the memory leak. I cant tell if those are gone too, but kuja tells me her problem is fixed and I believe those two problems were connected. Ill let you know if i get hiccups later on.

actually i did get one spike just now, but i duno it might be a isolated incident

Esoteric · #19 09-03-2009, 04:48 AM

Good patch.

Evan20000 · #20 09-03-2009, 05:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by as red as black

suggestion: something to prevent goal tending?

I've seen a few people just reverse thrust hover inside of the goal. I then try to fly completely inside of the goal to score, but because of natural lag and ping, when I shoot the ball, they immediately gain possession of it even though I'm completely within their goal. I can suicide into the back of the goal and they still gain possession of my would-be-goal.

maybe some sort of thingy that keeps teams from entering inside their own goal while allowing the enemy's team to go all the way inside for scoring purposes?

People wouldn't be able to goal tend. And, it's not like people are going to hover inside their enemy's base because they would just be shot.

Interesting. I've never had that problem because I'm likely pelting them with randa-spam as I fly near. I can see how that would be a problem for other planes.
On a side note, the lagspikes are a bit better, but not perfect.
On another side note, is Kuja a girl or a boy pretending to be a girl?

as red as black · #21 09-03-2009, 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evan20000

Interesting. I've never had that problem because I'm likely pelting them with randa-spam as I fly near.

it sucks when you juke out like 3 people for an epic bomb and are low on energy on the way to the goal....and some bastard is in there camping.

Evan20000 · #22 09-03-2009, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by as red as black

it sucks when you juke out like 3 people for an epic bomb and are low on energy on the way to the goal....and some bastard is in there camping.

I can sympathize with you there. When you're out of energy and there's an Explodet waiting for you filling up the goalpost, there's really nothing you can do but get raped by a Director. >.>

PS: What's your ingame name, red as black?

gameguard · #23 09-03-2009, 09:15 AM

ok as far as i know, i think the spikes have been fixed. I had alt running for like 5 hrs in the background. I just played it again and it was fine.

phong · #24 09-03-2009, 02:20 PM

Lam, as fun as planeball might be (similarities with Subspace/Continuum's powerball), I think there are much better areas in which development should be focusing. Primarily in that there has been a big community push for a clan/squad system since launch, and imo would have a much larger impact to the game than planeball.

Triped · #25 09-03-2009, 03:55 PM

Nice patch.

kirbmasta · #26 09-04-2009, 07:58 AM

well, tonight was the most fun ive had in this game for a while, and the server was full of good passing and good players

the only suggestion id have, is the ball seems a little close to the wall in mayhem, which can cause crashing if you try to swerve fast to get it.

argonide · #27 09-04-2009, 08:13 AM

Plane ball is really fun.

FYI: your hack of auto-shooting the ball when your inside the opponents net isn't going to cut it. It was 5-5 and I had the ball by the other teams net unchallenged so I went into the net reversed(facing away from it) and the ball auto-shot... the wrong way, ended up costing our team the game LOL.

I saw a bug where someone went into the net and should of scored, but the ball ended up being shot out of the other side of it.

Also going into the small lost city nets doesn't really work with Miranda at least.

bong · #28 09-04-2009, 09:15 AM

Great patch for ballgame! thx. But i think its kinda sucks with that bot thingy, theres often we play game 8v8, some bots r screwing with the team number. thats imo tho..

EDIT : Sorry for my english, couldnt find a better teacher..

Cheers!

DiogenesDog · #29 09-04-2009, 06:03 PM

Yeah, actually the issue where bots don't immediately leave the team (I think they wait until dying?) has been a problem for a long time.

Karl · #30 09-04-2009, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

Yeah, actually the issue where bots don't immediately leave the team (I think they wait until dying?) has been a problem for a long time.

it's a somewhat complex problem... what if the bot had the bomb? etc etc there are a few situation where the bots just instantly leaving would suck.

nesnl · #31 09-04-2009, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl

it's a somewhat complex problem... what if the bot had the bomb? etc etc there are a few situation where the bots just instantly leaving would suck.

If the bot has the big bomb then just have it drop it (like when a plane is shot down). I mean this is the same problem when a real player quits the game and they have the big bomb... it just disappears. I mean you could also just simply make an exception that says if the bot has the big bomb then it won't leave the game until it either dies or drops the big bomb.

The only real reason I see for keeping the bots in the game is because you wouldn't want a team to gain some kind of advantage because a bot just disappears. Maybe set it up so that a bot will leave the game only after a certain time period has elapsed (10 seconds) once a new player has joined a game.

Seems like the solutions are fairly simple as compared to where it stands now that you can sometimes have a large advantage due to bots.

DiogenesDog · #32 09-04-2009, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl

it's a somewhat complex problem... what if the bot had the bomb? etc etc there are a few situation where the bots just instantly leaving would suck.

Actually, that's another issue - it's pretty annoying when your teammate grabs the bomb and then leaves the game so you randomly lose one of your bombs.

Maybe a rule like:

1) if it's a center bomb game, t he bomb is vaporized

2) if it's a team bomb game, the bomb is dropped as if the player died

3) in planeball, I dunno what to do.

but at least have the non-bomb bots leave earlier if possible?

EDIT: oops, I see that maimer just said something similar. yeah. whatevs.

gameguard · #33 09-05-2009, 06:37 AM

hey lam, the bots have got to go. I understand what you were intending but really its just annoying. Im sure everyone agrees with me here. Bots dont disapear until they die and often times they tend to imbalance teams more than balance it. Also, they take our bombs and waste it.

oh i thought i was the first one to complain. Ithink its just better to go back to how it was. They only join if its less than 3v3 or osmething