GAMES Posts
I made an HTML color picker for Unreal Engine 5. It's mostly for map creators, in games like Splitgate 2. UE5 uses an RGBA format that is the regular value divided by 255 (0 - 1). This color picker converts those values for you to use in maps. You can see it here: https://daviddyess.github.io/ue5-color-picker/
Splitgate 2 has been working hard to fix their server issues. Fortunately, the game play has been fantastic, even when there were other issues. They enabled support for Proton on Linux! It runs good, but not quite as well as Windows, yet. They've also fixed the XP issues, sometimes with a progress delay, and are working on Challenges. Some Challenges are beginning to work, but some aren't counting correctly or are possibly delayed. I've had no login errors, no crashes (even on Linux), and it's been nice to finally make XP progress (currently you get a double XP bonus).
Yesterday the Splitgate 2 Beta came roaring our of the gate and quickly hit a brick wall. The developers haven't given many details, but the symptoms seem to indicate they have some network bottlenecks and scaling issues. It started with in-game live updates being slow or non-existent, so transactions wouldn't show up under a player and player experience progression wasn't working either. It was just annoying at first, because every faction and weapon has a level, with each level working to unlock a new feature. No experience meant no unlocking.
To be fair, the Steam player count peaked around 12,000 players, which is probably double what was anticipated. I'm assuming console numbers were probably double or triple that at least. A Thursday morning launch probably seemed like a safe spot to get a soft launch and a chance to tweak things. Unfortunately, they had some issues hiding that soon appeared and were problematic throughout the rough day for developers. The player base has been drooling over the Beta launch date for a couple of months, but I didn't expect more than a couple of thousand players on Steam.
I did get to play the game. There was a point in the early afternoon where the player count dipped and I played 4 matches. Then late last night I was given a tip the servers were unofficially back online for some spot testing. I played another 5 matches before the servers were taken back down. The game is great! I love everything about it and can't wait for them to fix the issues so we can get back on. I really hope the player enthusiasm hasn't taken a hit, because this has been my favorite game since the 2nd Alpha test and I really want it to prosper.
Splitgate 2 Beta launched today (about 2 hours ago). I still haven't been able to play it yet. I downloaded it on Steam on Linux the moment it released, but sadly the game is locked to Steam Deck for Proton support. According to 1047, even Steam Deck support is experimental and they hope to fully support Linux in general sometime after the official launch (following the Beta). I rebooted into Windows, as soon as I saw it wouldn't work with Proton, and it wouldn't download the game. It stayed at 0% for an hour. I then decided to just wait and install Windows updates instead. That took about an hour (including a new AMD driver). Now it's downloading and locked on 3 minutes remaining for I guess eternity (still at 0% downloaded). Linux downloaded it in about 2 minutes...
1047 Games has released a new blog about the upcoming Splitgate 2 Beta. It features some exciting additions we didn't have in the Alpha:
The Lab
The new map and game mode creator in Splitgate 2 Beta looks very promising. It's collaborative, shareable, and looks like it packs tons of features.
Take Down
The original mode is back with new Simulation maps and the promise of bringing back some old Sim maps, including Charlie in the Beta.
Onslaught
The massive 8 vs 8 vs 8 game mode has a new name and 2 new massive maps
Mythic Skins, Battle Passes, Founder Packs, Oh My!
Splitgate 2 promises to push the cosmetics to a new level and it has a name, Mythic. It's an ultra rare tier and, unlike other games, it'll use the same in-game currency as everything else. It's also just cosmetic, no pay to win here. The new Battle Pass will be $5 and is followed up with an exclusive set of Founder packs to get more goodies.
Other than the Lab and Take Down, the biggest announcement of this blog post is that player progression will not reset after the Beta runs into full release.