IMPROVEMENTS

New game mode: Jail Bait.

New map: Yellow Sector – Fahrenheit.

New map: Red Sector – Peer Pressure.

New map: Quarantine Zone – Doctor Sid’s Lab.

New map: Grey Sector – The Killing Floor.

New map: Dream Sector – Cloud Nine.

Fixed bugs with the audio and multiplayer settings.

Fixed bug preventing a match from loading it’s respective settings.

Polished the bot AI to perform better with Flag Hustle and Jail Bait.

KNOWN BUGS

Bot AI is still a WIP; finally playable with Flag Hustle and experimental with Jail Bait.

Players may seldom disconnect as the server changes to a new level.

Players may be unable to rejoin the same server they were abruptly disconnected from, requiring a restart of the game.

Instant Action: Bots have trouble navigating through teleporters, seldom rendering some maps unplayable on certain game modes (Flag Hustle and Jail Bait).

Teleporter sounds lack proper attenuation; sounds will still play as if you are close by. For this reason, it is recommended to play Doctor Sid’s Lab and Cloud Nine with at most 4 players/bots to reduce noise spam. Expect a patch soon to remedy this.

After feedback from the team, we decided to alter our plan for the final release and post-support. We will take our chances introducing mod support before early access ends and hope for the best. We may have been looking at this the wrong and realized the potential the game truly has beyond just an action-arena, E-sports-friendly, shooter. We want to make it modular and expand the game with multiple themes to suit the gamer’s preference, somewhat similar to Prison Architect only better. As a spin-off to our main project, we now seek to expand this game outside the confines of a prison, and we will start showing this by the next update version 0.7 with more outdoor levels and another new game mode.

Version 0.8: We will bring two more new game modes, and a handful of game themes (to be discussed when that time comes).

Version 0.9: Bot support should be completed, and mod tools released in beta phase.

End of early access (Version 1.0): Mod tools will leave beta, completing the entire project.

Post release: Possibility of two additional game modes, and a series of holiday events for two years.

_____________

I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena!

– Establish. Explore. Expand.

Initially, we stated prior sometime in the past that multiplayer will mark the day Maze Qore Arena leaves early access with a price tag, but after some months deciding hard on it, and re-evaluating the quality of the single-player component, we decided to release the first multiplayer update free into early access, and we will continue this tradition until Version 1.0, which will mark the full release out of early access.

In addition, we have already decided to make the singleplayer version a separate component via ‘demo’ release, available on the front page.

Now please note. this game is still not complete, let alone feature complete. We still have plenty of features to complete before the game leaves early access. At this point, due to personal reasons related to COVID-19, we can no longer guarantee it will leave early access before the end of 2020 as we had hoped, but we still intend to ensure it does, hopefully no later than Holiday 2020.

As for post-support, well to be honest with you all, that all depends on how well this game performs and how much the players care. We are willing to devote our time and efforts to supporting this game to be polished and complete, even after early access, however there is little purpose to do so if it is dead on arrival. To help prevent this phenomenon that many multiplayer titles succumb to, we are working on bots (player AI substitutes) to fail-safe this game from such predicament. As it stands now in V0.5, they are unready, and to a point where some game modes can be unplayable due to behavior. This shall be fixed in Version 0.6 or 0.7. Regarding mod support, this will also be completed during post-support for the very fears aforementioned – no point in mod support if no one cares about the game.

KNOWN BUGS

Bot AI is a broken mess, yet they are fairly playable on Riot and Gang Riot.
Players may seldom disconnect as the server changes to a new level.
Players may be unable to rejoin the same server they were abruptly disconnected from, requiring a restart of the game.
Score streaks are still a work-in-progress, thus you may experience an “unknown scorestreak” message, often when you kill multiple enemies.

IMPROVEMENTS

Many features from singleplayer have been transferred to this multiplayer build, with necessary changes and omissions to balance online play.
Players have the ability throw grenades and carry up to 8 at a time. Subject to change.

_____________

I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena!

Establish, Explore, Expand.

_____________

NOTE

If you are having trouble finding a multiplayer server to play on, or finding players to play with, you can join our Discord server to lobby for players and join a match together.

Use !register to access the server, then use the #gaming channel to host a session to other gamers.