Xen Released – Happy Holiday Sale!

Happy Holidays! Did you keep in mind to get your Steam tokens and playing cards as we speak?

Xen is OUT, Black Mesa is on sale for 20% off, a lot of different nice games are discounted, and I’m certain everybody has caught up on their gaming backlog in anticipation of the Steam Holiday occasion, proper?

Yeah, neither have we…

We have pushed a serious patch to the Xen ranges and launched the total game on Steam “mainline”. This means you possibly can play a refined and examined model of all Black Mesa with out having to change into public-beta. If you might have been holding out for Xen, that is what you might have been ready for!

With this replace, we not solely carry the beta over to mainline, but additionally implement suggestions to refine the problem, enhance participant steerage, repair bugs, in addition to enhance efficiency all through the Interloper chapter. See the detailed change record under.

The game continues to be in Early Access (EA), in order that we are able to get much more information and bug reviews from a wider set of gamers and machines. We can be watching folks play the game and listening to how we are able to additional enhance the game for the following huge replace to take us out of Early Access. In addition to sprucing the degrees, we wish to take a look at the game as an entire earlier than switching out of Early Access.

Note: It is extraordinarily probably that workshop mods will at present break the game in unusual and sudden methods. During the beta we observed odd points attributable to seemingly unrelated mods, akin to gamers’ lengthy leap modules not leaping them far sufficient. If you might be experiencing unusual points together with your game, strive unsubscribing from all of your workshop mods. This could resolve some points. In the longer term this can hopefully be much less of an issue, as workshop modders replace their mods to work correctly with the most recent model of our engine/game.

With the Xen ranges full, we now have acquired a number of questions on what’s subsequent for ‘Mesa. Here are our present plans. Keep in thoughts these are our plans; they’ll change primarily based on new priorities and new information.

There could also be extra bugs discovered because the game will get performed by a wider viewers. We will repair any main bugs as they arrive up, and likewise implement any small high quality of life adjustments for the degrees. We have a brand new set of achievements which might be able to be applied for the Xen ranges. We want to launch each of those as quickly as potential, but when no main points are discovered instantly, we could roll these fixes and achievements into the 1.Zero launch.

We will do an intensive evaluate of the game’s techniques and ranges to work out any bugs and damaged bits for our launch out of EA. This contains:

• A Multiplayer Pass. There won’t be any options added to MP for 1.0, however we do want to verify all the present options are working and work properly.
• An AI Pass. The alien AI between Earthbound and Xen is totally totally different. We wish to consider if it may be ported again into Earth with out breaking the gameplay steadiness. We additionally wish to take a look at the HECU Marines and ensure they’re utilizing all their options, and see about reining in some unhealthy behaviour.
• Workshop Pass. We would like to make the most of the workshop for our personal experiments and to see what the neighborhood can do with our belongings and instruments. The first step on this can be ensuring all of the workshop techniques are working correctly and enhance usability.
• Bug fixes and refinements to the whole thing of the game. With Xen, Gordon’s journey clocks in round 15 hours. We wish to ensure that there are not any main sticking factors, and that everybody has the most effective Black Mesa expertise they probably can.

 

After the game leaves EA, we want to undergo and contact up Earthbound to verify we’re utilizing all our new graphical options, enhance gameplay, and attempt to make the entire game really feel cohesive. We jokingly name this the “Black Mesa: Definitive Edition” however the scope can be pretty small. We wish to add a few gameplay enhancements primarily based on what we now have discovered through the years, and add a few visible enhancements now that we now have much more expertise making pure constructions utilizing . A serious aim of this replace can be so as to add these adjustments with out drastically affecting efficiency.

We took in A LOT of suggestions from the final beta, and labored laborious to get some main enhancements to efficiency in Interloper and different chapters. Here is a complete record of what we now have modified and improved on this replace.

Thanks as all the time! The betas have been extra useful they we ever thought potential!

• Fix for static / screeching sounds – rebuilt the soundcache. Please tell us if this doesn’t resolve points with static / screeching sounds for you. We assume this repair ought to resolve the problems for everybody however we’d like reviews to know for certain.
• Fixed Interloper / Nihilanth / Endgame not unlocking appropriately.
• Fixed lacking music in On a Rail. This was a bug and never an intentional selection!
• Fix for the Rare Specimen achievement not triggering in Lambda Core.
• Fixed some Vort sounds. They weren’t being correctly positioned by the engine, so now will play appropriate positional sound.
• Optimized sound code for Controller vitality ball assault. Helps with efficiency, particularly when a lot of Controllers are attacking you.
• Fixed “Always Run” (once more!)
• The participant will now not drop objects if they’re holding them and stroll onto a bouncepad. This helps with the purple hat!
• Fixed incorrectly written / formatted names in Credits. Tidied up some components of the credit on the whole.
• Fixed Sound Effect and Music quantity sliders. You can now flip down or up sound results and music independently. Also added a Master Volume slider that controls general quantity.
• Last, I’m the final…

 

• Fixed map B mortar associated crash. Also fastened crash associated to capturing the gonarch mortar in mid air.
• Reduced Gonarch’s well being within the ultimate battle. Health diminished from 3300 → 3000, which means it now requires Three much less rockets to kill him.
• Fixed basalt columns within the ultimate battle. There was a bug the place the basalt columns within the Gonarch ultimate battle would both deal far an excessive amount of harm and even one-shot the participant.
• Updated Gonarch loss of life sequence for greater affect.
• Re-balanced Gonarch ultimate battle on laborious issue.
• Fixed incorrect net texture in map C chase. There was a breakable net texture on an unbreakable net which was inflicting a number of gamers to die throughout the map C chase, as a result of they thought they might go down a route which they really couldn’t.
• Various visible and lighting enhancements all through the chapter.
• Soundscape enhancements all through the chapter for higher mixing.
• Fixed RPG colliding with acid mortar fireplace in Gonarch’s Lair ultimate battle.

 

• General optimisations all through all Interloper maps. This ought to enhance normal efficiency for everybody.
• Optimized dynamic gentle settings all through all Interloper maps. This ought to enhance efficiency, significantly on decrease finish techniques. In some locations this has improved efficiency rather a lot.
• Fixed the “no free edicts” crash in map D.
• Split maps C and D for important efficiency good points (10 – 20 fps) on CPU bottlenecked techniques. No further content material has been added. Map names was once Interloper C, C1 and Interloper D. Maps at the moment are Interloper C, C1, C2 and Interloper D, D1.
• Fixed map A crash.
• Lighting, participant steerage, and pathing enhancements throughout all Interloper maps.
• Significantly re-balanced elevator battle all through map D. The battle now begins a lot slower/simpler and ramps up all through. Controller spawns are far more spaced out, and the dynamic cowl system on the elevator has been considerably tweaked to offer far more cowl for the participant, and variance in the place the participant is roofed from. You now solely face a full-on 360 assault of controllers throughout the ultimate “pull-down” sequence. Otherwise you’ll all the time have cowl.
• Fixed Controller telekinesis explosive barrels typically one-shotting or dealing large harm to gamers, and considerably diminished their harm. Changed these barrels from 120 explosive harm + uncapped affect harm (physics) to 45 explosive harm with no affect harm.
• Many visible and lighting enhancements all through map D.
• Reduced panel well being in elevator battle in map D. All panels needs to be a bit simpler to interrupt now, decreasing the period of time you spend on the “final” cease.
• Removed cowl boundaries in the midst of elevator in map D. This makes it simpler to path freely across the elevator with out getting caught now.
• Fixed many spots in map D elevator battle the place you would get crushed in opposition to partitions, killing you for no motive. Numerous gamers died to this, as there have been a number of causes. We have resolved most of those now.
• Fixed a bug in map D elevator battle the place some Controllers may use electrocluster assault. They weren’t meant to, and this made the battle tougher than it was imagined to be, because the electrocluster assault considerably limits your motion.
• Reduced panel playertouch harm in map D elevator battle. Previously, if one of many spinning panels touched the participant, it could break and deal 20 harm. This has now been diminished to 10 harm. This makes the spinny panels extra forgiving when you fall into them.
• Added sirens to closed ceiling doorways in map D elevator battle. This ought to assist make gamers extra conscious that getting crushed in opposition to the ceiling is probably imminent.
• Fixed elevator visibly clipping by way of surrounding geometry.
• Fixed participant clipping in/out of large therapeutic pool in map D1. It was very laborious to climb in/out of the pool, it’s now buttery clean. And there may be additionally now a mega HEV crystal within the center. This replaces an outdated (and redundant) therapeutic bathe barely earlier within the stage.
• Fixed some floating props in map D1.
• Made the parkour pistons alternate in map D1. This makes it a bit simpler to climb up when you missed one “upward” timing.
• Adjusted island positioning on tower high sequence in map D1. This makes it take a bit of bit longer to get to the tower high from the beginning island (giving the sequence a bit extra size and pacing), and can also be simpler to leap round than earlier than.
• Many visible enhancements and tweaks to the tower high sequence in map D1.
• Split map C1 (conveyor dash) music. The music is now in Three elements, so gamers can not find yourself doing the 2nd half of the conveyor dash with no music taking part in.
• Made the map C forcefield hearts glow. We had a bug the place these didn’t glow, so weren’t attracting participant consideration as a lot as they need to. This will make them simpler to see and perceive now.
• Made map C ledge drop down earlier than machine Three extra clear. We observed lots of people acquired confused right here so we eliminated the highest platform.
• Reduced size of Vort Village intro sequence. Removed an pointless wave animation that one of many Vorts does within the introductory sequence, to scale back the period of time the participant has to face round watching them.
• Fixed many map skips throughout your complete chapter. It’s a bit tougher now to interrupt maps by completely skipping sure sections or doing a little intelligent leaping.
• Removed a couple of illogical therapeutic showers in sure elements of the maps.
• Fixed damaged hologram screens on map B.
• Fixed a lot of pod pile ups throughout map C. This may assist efficiency by stopping pods from build up (they’re efficiency hungry).
• In map B, Vorts will now concern you and run away when you assault them unprovoked.
• Potentially fastened gibs floating above water in map B2.
• Fixed B1 first management room controllers that didn’t assault the participant.

 

• Fixed Nihilanth voice strains. There was a bug the place in Phase 1 he would solely use his strains the place he tells the participant to die.
• Fixed Nihilanth defend panels (section 2) not breaking in 1 RPG hit.
• Fixed Nihilanth music. Increased its quantity and stopped it from pausing mid-song.
• Fixed collision of therapeutic crystals not recessing into floor when crystals do.
• Nihilanth now has 50% harm resistance in section Three scripted intro, in order that gamers can not minimize his well being down too far and shorten Phase 3.
• Disabled the radioactive trigger_hurt when the participant will get pulled into Nihilanth on the finish of the battle. This fixes a uncommon bug the place gamers can die after killing Nihilanth.
• Sped up the ultimate teleport out on the finish of the Nihilanth battle. Should make it much less probably that gamers will clip into Nihilanth.
• Increased effectiveness of Gluon in opposition to spinning panels for defend pylon. The Gluon was too ineffective in opposition to the defend pylon panels, which didn’t play properly contemplating we taught the participant to make use of the Gluon in opposition to these in Interloper. The Gluon now does 1.5x harm in opposition to the panels.
• Buffed Nihilanth mortar assault. Damage is similar, however falloff is diminished considerably, so the participant will really feel the impact of upper harm if they’re stood on the sting of the assault.
• Buffed Nihilanth vitality balls assault. From eight harm in any respect phases to 12 harm in section 1 / section 2, and 20 harm in section 3.
• Buffed Nihilanth telekinesis assault. Doubled pace at which he throws his projectiles at you.
• Re-balanced Nihilanth battle on laborious issue. The battle ought to present far more of a problem now on laborious issue.
• Fixed glitched clavicle on Nihilanth loss of life animation.

 

• Fixed having the ability to fall out of the tram.
• Fixed a bug the place the participant may transfer round contained in the invisible room and trigger points throughout the good ending.
• Added tooth shader to gbuffer. This fixes the difficulty the place G-Man’s tooth have been rendering in black.

 

• Minor exploits and collision bugs. The neighborhood has finished a fantastic job discovering exploits and collision points. We can be fixing these with the following main replace.
• Glowing pink and inexperienced props. Some PCs have a small quantity glowing props. We hope to have this corrected with a hotfix (requires map recompiles).
• Saving holding objects is damaged. If you save whereas holding a physics object, while you load that save the item will float in air. We additionally hope to handle this in a hotfix quickly.
• Multi coloured NPC tooth. The repair above for the tooth being fully black, could trigger them to be rainbow coloured on some machines. We will examine.

Hope you get pleasure from!
-Crowbar Collective

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