News: The scary not so scary Halloween edition blog post (1 Viewer)

Kunezite · Oct 14, 2016

The Scary (Not So Scary) Halloween Edition Blog Post!

Hello Everyone!

This is my 4th blog post and you would think these would get easier as time goes by, but they don’t as it turns out! =) We have a few things to talk about since our last blog post, and if you’re not one to visit the forums, you may have missed out on some information. I will provide a brief recap for the less forum inclined below.

Punk Buster melt down

I don’t go out of town often for business, but rest assured that when I do, something will break. On October 1st, PunkBuster had a major melt down and started banning all players upon login. Once the team realised what was happening, PunkBuster was disabled and allbans relating to the incident were reversed. We currently have PunkBuster disabled and have not made a decision regarding if PunkBuster will stay or if it will go away permanently. We have seen feedback from players that their in-game performance has been much better with PunkBuster turned off. We’ll keep that in mind when deciding its fate.

FairFight on steroids

While PunkBuster is recovering, we have been working with GameBlocks to automate more of what FairFight does and do some fine tuning. FairFight will also do player kicks now if it suspects someone is cheating. This kick is a warning to clean up their act.If the person doesn’t change their ways, then FairFight will act accordingly with a ban. We will not say what triggers the kick, just like we won’t define anything FairFight does. Needless to say, it has been on a banning spree. FairFight is almost completely automated, with little intervention from GMs. This has made a huge impact on cheaters, and players and GMs alike are noticing less cheaters in game as well.Keep in mind not everyone is a cheater and just because you think they cheat, it doesn’t mean they do. There are some really good players in our game, and while you may think they cheat, they’re not…unless you see their name being banned by FairFight of course!

2nd Chance for Punk Buster bans in last 30days

On October 7th, we removed the bansfrom over 450 accounts that were banned by PunkBuster in the last 30 days(From September 1). This is a chance for those players to prove that they deserve a 2nd chance at playing the game without cheating. So far a little over of the unbanned accounts have logged in and only 10 accounts couldn’t play by the rules. Since the 2nd chance is going so well, we’ll be going back one year and releasing those PunkBuster bans over the next few days. Keep watch of our forumsfor more information on when this will occur.

A few things to note on these reversals:

Note:

If your account was multiple banned which means by PunkBuster and FairFight,or for another Terms of Service violation and PunkBuster, your account willnotbe unbanned.
Do not contact support to be unbanned. Once the unban process is completed, you’ll receive an email letting you know your account was unbanned.
PLEASE,DO NOT CONTACT SUPPORT TO BE UNBANNED. If you contact support regarding this, we’ll not give you a 2nd chance, so be patient.

Xbox One

We’ve submitted a build for certification, and once it is approved, we’ll get this out to our players. You’ll then be able to participate in the Halloween Event! More information will be posted about how the event will work for you once we’re ready to patch. Also,we’ll be addressing some crash issues that players have been experiencing.

PlayStation 4

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the PS4 release has been pushed out. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to push the release beyond September, since we’re now going to be hitting Sony’s very busy months. We’re hoping that we can get in line for a release in the next few weeks, and hopefully out to everyone by Christmas. That’s our hopes, but reality is once we have a build in, we’ll wait on Sony to tell us if it passes, and when it’ll be slated for release. Once we’ve submitted our final build for review, I’ll post and keep you updated.

HALLOWEEN 2016!!!

Happy Early Halloween! We’re aiming at releasing a patch tomorrow which will enable Halloween for the PC community.Maintenance will be at 3 PM UTC, unless we have any issues reported overnight that may postpone the event by a day or two.

Halloween 2016 Horseman Event
The rules for the event are simple:

Collect X amount of pumpkins to become the HORSEMAN and start the event (Timer Starts).
The HORSEMAN must kill other players to convert them HORSEMAN’S army (SOLDIERS).
SOLDIERS must kill other players to recruit them into the HORSEMAN’S army.
SURVIVORS must avoid being killed, till time runs out (Timer Ends).

NOTE: SURVIVORS blip on the HORSEMAN’S army's radar when the bell tolls, signifying that the HORSEMAN Event is coming to an end...keep fighting, running or hiding to survive.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

HORSEMAN

BUFFED UP HEALTH, FLARE GUN and a custom steed ENVEGAS
EARN POINTS BY KILLING SURVIVORS

SOLDIERS

ABLE TO RE-SPAWN MULTIPLE TIMES WITHOUT PENALTY
EARN POINTS FOR KILLING SURVIVORS

SURVIVORS

EARN POINTS FOR SURVIVING
EARN EXTRA POINTS FOR KILLING AND BECOMING THE HORSEMAN

PRIZES AND REWARDS

Achievements, titles and a new backpack can all be won and earned in this year’s event.

The titles are:

SURVIVORS - STILL ALIVE
HEADLESS HORSEMAN - LEVEL HEADED
PUMPKIN SOLDIER - THE PUMPKIN MENACE

Participate 10 times in the Headless Horseman Event 2016 :

PARTICIPATOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

That about sums up everything, enjoy the event and have a Happy Halloween!

Tiggs

Click here to read the full blog post.

Kunezite · Oct 19, 2016

I wanted to wait until I could check out the Halloween Event before commenting, but I haven't had the chance to due to being swamped with work, but from what I can see here, it appears to be just the same old fun as last year, except minus the temporary ban on the Car Surfer mod.

That ugly butt backpack isn't very inspiring either unfortunately, but if anyone has had a chance to check out the Headless Vegasdriver, let us know what you think!

Ocean · Oct 24, 2016

[MENTION=48461]Kunezite[/MENTION] This event is poopy and I find it hilarious how they're trying to get their playerbase back by offering "2nd Chance" to banned accounts. What a load of bullshit. Still no word on actual date for Engine Upgrade. I can almost guarantee their falling behind again.

Kunezite · Oct 24, 2016

Ocean said:
[MENTION=48461]Kunezite[/MENTION] This event is poopy and I find it hilarious how they're trying to get their playerbase back by offering "2nd Chance" to banned accounts. What a load of bullshit. Still no word on actual date for Engine Upgrade. I can almost guarantee their falling behind again.

Why so poopy? I like the survivor/you-vs-horde feel to it, but maybe just because it's a break from the usual 2v2/3v3/4v4 point/item control that is APB. Plus I get to work with the Crims and sometimes ride around in their crazy mad-max style vehicles, and who doesn't love the dump-truck gunship of death?

Although I agree that the second-chance thing is a bit of a desperate grasp to get more players, they must be really struggling to gain (and retain) new players, so they're going for the older ones, what is really strange to me is that they must have population data on how the game was when they were doing the regular daily-events vs how it is now with no events, because there has been a noticeable drop in population since they stopped them, considering what they were giving away was basically junk, I can't see how it being much of a loss if higher population numbers was the goal.

And yea, I can't help but feel a fool for getting all excited last time they mentioned the Engine Upgrade, since we're now back to square-one with it being released soon[SUP]tm[/SUP].

NovaGenetics · Oct 31, 2016

Is it really that surprising? I mean the game is crawling with hackers and has one of THE MOST Toxic communities known to gaming. If that's not enough to scare away any kind of player base. I'm not sure what is.