Primal Carnage: Extinction News

We've got some fun new stuff in-store for everyone's favourite mercenaries this week, but first, a look at what's in today's patch...


[h2]PATCH 1.15.2[/h2]

This patch brings additional compatibility for dinosaur mutations, allowing Novaraptor model mutations to work with classic feathered raptor skins, and fixing some skins that should have supported mutations but didn't previously. We'll be continuing to extend mutation support in future, and plan to convert the Spiked Tyrannosaurus model into a default mutation option soon.





There are also a couple of other minor fixes, and stability improvements both under the hood and with our economy server architecture. We're continuing to add extra checks and optimizations to improve overall connectivity. This patch also lays the groundwork for some of the new features coming in the Meltdown update later this month.


[h2]HUMAN APPRECIATION WEEK WHAT? [/h2]

We're adding a bunch of new community-created human items to both the in-game store and free drop / crafting pool. After 2000+ days of dinosaurs hogging the spotlight, it's time for the mercenaries to shine!





There's several new outfits and addons for the human team, ranging from a swanky new backpack everyone gets for free (and its slightly less worse for wear companion), to a wonderfully ironic firefighter outfit for everyone's favourite Pyromaniac, and even a couple of brand new human taunts.

That said, don't panic if you're looking for where the Mutations have gone.
You can still find them under the Bundles tab in the Extinction Store.


[h2]EXTINCTION SDK UPDATE[/h2]




We are releasing a content update for the Primal Carnage: Extinction development tools today. This brings the latest material shaders and maps to the public dev kit, so creators can test what their sprays look like and see how cool new environments such as the Borealis facility were constructed!

We have a dev wiki that goes into details about how to use the editing tools. The SDK can be found in the Software tab of your Steam library (~9GBdownload , unpacks to ~18GB on your hard drive).

If you haven't gotten involved in making your own content for PCE and are interested in where to start, check out these links...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sglmPfaoYvk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsHuinv8knw
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645449098
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=788783707
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMDvE8dKaBM


We are currently putting together a community mapping contest that will have some seriously sweet prizes, which we hope to share more details on soon. So now's a great time to start learning the tools!


[h2]PSA: STEAM FAMILY SHARE [/h2]

For a long time, users have been able to evade server bans by using Steam Family Sharing. We've had an increase to the number of regular players over the last few months, and a lot of new server owners. We want to do all we can to support our community server operators, and have therefore taken the difficult decision to disable Steam Family Share when the Meltdown update releases later this month.

We realize that not everyone who uses Family Sharing is doing so to break the rules, but for security's sake and to improve things for the community as a whole, this is a step we feel compelled to take.

After more than 5 years, playing via Steam Family Share will no longer be supported by the end of June.


[h2]IS IT GETTING HOT IN HERE?[/h2]

The Meltdown Event for PCE will be arriving soon! We're really looking forward to running our second community scavenger hunt and launching a seriously meaty update. It's so meaty in fact that it's going to be split in two, as a summer-long extravaganza! (That's a lot of meat).



We're happy to say that we're adding the first new Get to the Chopper level ever (please forgive us, GTTC players), and there are some bugfixes planned for GTTC in general as well.

Along with a second wave of dinosaur mutations, you can look forward to a completely overhauled challenge system in Meltdown Part 1! This introduces rank evolutions (reset your level and receive rewards!), and new tiered challenge levels.




Meltdown Part 2 arrives later in July and introduces new cosmetic types, including legendary sprays. The system for stat track items is also being completely rewritten, with support for more items and better functionality in general.

And depending on how far along the community gets with the summer scavenger hunt, there may well be some extra special surprises unlocked for everyone when Phase 2 arrives!


[h2]PATCH NOTES v1.15.2 [/h2]

Changes included with today's patch for Primal Carnage: Extinction:

-Challenge verification improvements
-Fixed localized pricing in store appearing as a "discount"

-Added new human outfits and weapon skins

-Fixed a rendering issue with decloaked Hunt raptors
-Classic feathered raptors now support model mutations
-Fixed certain default rex skins not supporting mutations
-Fixed double barrel skins half-working in third person
-Fixed some cosmetic offsets on Royal Dilo

-Numerous other minor fixes and tweaks to various skins

Okay, we know everyone's been asking about new dinosaur classes for the longest time.
We don't have any plans for that currently, but we've got the next best thing...

[h3]NEW FEATURE: [/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKSY_Rc9-wU

Model mutations are new cosmetic items that can modify the appearance of your dinosaur character!




These range from subtle alterations to more overt transformations that may resemble other species.
To give everyone a chance to see how these work, we have partnered with the community to provide three default mutations, that you will have right from the start...


free mutations: Inflexus Novaraptor, Serratus Spinosaurus, and Crassarius Oviraptor


Store-bought model mutations come with a free skin, and are compatible with most of the existing skins in your library as well. For example, equipping an Imperius Acro mutation with the Biohazard Acro skin.




The only limitation when using mutations right now is pairing them with skins which already use a custom model. Items such as Spiked T-Rex skins, Feathered Novaraptors, Alpha Carnos, and Royal Dilos are therefore incompatible with mutations (for now?).

Special thanks to community members such as Dinobear, Velociboy and Mr. Troodon for spearheading this latest exciting addition to Primal Carnage: Extinction!


[h3]NEW FEATURE: [/h3]
Have you ever wanted to be the next Banksy? Is inappropriate graffiti your bag?
Well, now you can leave your mark on the world by spraying these sweet new tags in-game!



Sprays are a new type of free drop. Equip one in your loadout, walk up to a surface and press P to place it.

Sprays feature different styles depending on if they are placed by a human or dinosaur. Humans have those ever-useful opposable thumbs, so they use spray cans to make beautiful designs in living colour. Dinosaurs on the other hand, claw their designs into the walls using the blood of their enemies!



You're probably pretty familiar with these if you've spent any time on the official Primal Carnage discord.

The first wave of Sprays are based on the lovely server emojis that community members BBQ and SilentCicada graciously created for us. Different sprays can be equipped per-class, and to start you off we are providing you all with everyone's favourite Happy Carno.




[h3]"YOUR LUCKY PACK"[/h3]
That's right!, humans now have their backpack slots.. uh.. back.

Pyro can swap in alternate fuel tank styles once more (3 new ones have even been added this update), and we'll be adding different rucksacks for the other humans soon. We're keenly interested to see what new items the community will come up with, now that this extra customization option is available!


[h3]BALANCE CHANGES[/h3]

When PCE resumed development recently, we introduced health and ammo pickups for humans to use in the regular ranked game modes. This has helped with the overall pace of the game and reduced the amount of camping going on, but also put the dinosaurs at a slight disadvantage.

For that reason, the bigger dinos (Tyrants and Bruisers) are now able to heal faster when eating from corpses, and Tyrants receive more health from eating humans.


We hope these are positive changes that will make players not have to turn tail as Tyrant so much, allow Carno users to stay in the game more, and reduce the time you are vulnerable when feeding at a corpse. Tyrants these days have a much bigger health pool than they did when we started several years ago, and without accelerated healing speed it was quite a chore to restore.

Stamina drain is less of a worry for Carno and Spitters now, and Dilophosaurs now have larger spit globs with increased hit radius to make things easier (because not everyone is a precision venom sniper).

As for humans, their shotguns no longer have the effective range of sniper rifles, and the sniper rifle itself has higher scope sensitivity. For additional fixes and tweaks, see the full patch notes lower down..


[h3]STORE OVERHAUL[/h3]
We've started the process of upgrading the Extinction Store to be more user-friendly.
A big part of this is allowing you to "try before you buy."



When you click on a skin or mutation in the store, it will be previewed for you in the customization screen. This lets you take a good look at these beautiful community created designs, instead of having to squint at a postage stamp version.

Notes: -Previewing is only available if browsing the store from the Main Menu, not during a match.
-Other cosmetics (hats, shackles, etc.) and / or bundles do not currently support previewing.


[h3]DUDE, WHERE'S MY CHALLENGES?[/h3]
Unfortunately we couldn't fit any new challenges into this update, but a major rework of the system will be coming soon. We want to make challenges more rewarding to complete and will be making some big changes to them that we hope people will be excited about. Stay tuned.



[h2]FULL CHANGE NOTES[/h2]

We'll be back in June with the Meltdown event. For now, here's the full patch notes for today's update...

• NEW: spray customization slot added
  
• NEW: model mutation customization slot added
  
• NEW: store preview option for skins
  
  
• PC-Borealis: various asset and collision optimizations
  
• GTTC TheFalls: fixed missing sub-objective text
  
• GTTC TheFalls: removed annoying river rock that tyrants were getting stuck on
  
• PC-TheFalls: added more corpses to inside the dome area
  
• PC-TheFalls: moved most human spawn points to outside of the dome
  
  
• Spitters: increased base movement speed from 360 to 380
  
• Spitters: reduced sprint stamina consumption rate
  
• Cryo: faster stamina regeneration time
  
• Dilo: increased size and hit radius of spit
  
• Carno: reduced sprint stamina consumption rate
  
  
• Raised max health of Spinosaurus from 4200 to 4400
  
• Increased healing speed of Tyrants and Carnotaurus
  
• Increased health received by eating humans as Tyrant
  
• (was: victim health + 50, now: victim health +450)
  
  
• Fixed players marked by Ptera roars not granting kill assists to the Ptera
  
• Added +10 EXP assist for Ptera roar marking players
  
  
• Slight increase to sniper rifle scope sensitivity
  
• Reduced momentum transfer on sniper rifle bullet impacts
  
• Reduced sniper rifle damage at maximum range from 60% to 50%
  
• Tweaked damage falloff for default shotgun and Spaz12 to have shorter effective range
  
  
• Fix for Royal Dilo eye glow & antlers not lining up properly (thanks to Shurrackia!)
  
• Potential fix for Enforcer MK2 doing weird things with arm meshes
  
• Fixed the human backpack slot, expanded functionality to other classes
  
• Potential fix for creating TDM games using the Host Game menu
  
• Added a bunch of new free drop items
  

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...
IT'S A DOUBLE DROP WEEK.

[h2]LET THE MAY-HEM COMMENCE![/h2]

We've got a lot of cool new things to share, but first, a word about the "eggstravaganza" we just had..

[h2]The Easter Eggcitement Is Over[/h2]
Okay, we've eggshausted our puns. With the end of the Easter event upon us, we have concluded our first community scavenger hunt. Over the course of 6 days, players collaborated in-game and on Discord to find all the clues and decipher their riddles, unlocking special time-limited item codes.



Unravelling the mysteries of the scavenger hunt tested your knowledge of dinosaurs, prehistoric media and videogames. From a fictional phone number that provided a key piece of the puzzle, to an alphabet substitution test based on dinosaur nicknames, dozens of fragments were figured out and finally pieced together by the efforts of the intrepid primal codebreakers.

A real big thankyou to everyone who got involved!
We all had a lot of fun, and the team is already thinking about another similar event in the future.

In other news- points bonuses in Capture the Egg are back to normal now, and the Oviraptors have been netted and cleared out of the Extinction Store (FYI- if you still see any hanging around, you may not be fully connected to the PCE servers!).


[h2]Extinction Roadmap[/h2]
With the Easter event out of the way, here's a sneak peek at what we're working on next...!



MAYHEM is up first, planned for the end of next month. We're introducing model "mutations" to PCE, which replace the default model for a dino class with a genetically different version. These modifications can dramatically change the look of your dinosaur, with some giving the *appearance* of a neighbouring species.

Talented community artists like Velociboy and DinoBear are already working on several variations...



Also coming next month are unique human and dinosaur sprays to use in-game. Whilst humans are blessed with opposable thumbs and can make beautiful art as seen below, the dinosaurs haven't quite figured out how to use a spray can (yet). Instead they will use the blood of their enemies and those sharp claws to leave their mark on the world.



(Alongside big content updates like these, we will also be continuing to address bugs and other issues, such as investigating just what is going on with Hunt mode).

MELTDOWN is the second major update in the works, and should be out sometime in June. This is a huge multi-week event, with a lot of community participation. Debuting with the Meltdown update will be the next two officially accepted Workshop maps, and they're HOT HOT HOT!

...PC-Volcano by ArchShiranui

...GTTC-PhantomCave by L.Merah

We are also working on several improvements to the ranking system, which involves tweaking the rewards received from rankups and challenge completions, and allowing players to "evolve" by starting fresh. Evolving resets your current rank to zero, but will give you something special for doing so!

There are 2 new community contests that we're planning at the moment as well, which will be announced in-between these updates, both here and on the official Discord.

And on top of that, we have another big surprise waiting to be unveiled closer to Meltdown's release which we're bursting to talk about-- but can't reveal right now, sorry.

We hope you're excited for what we've shown so far, keep an eye out for future announcements!


[h2]Extinction Store: it's rewind time![/h2]
Since game updates resumed at the tail end of last year, the number of impressive new creations from the community has skyrocketed. In fact, we've just passed the threshold of 500 items officially accepted on Steam Workshop!



To mark this milestone (and allow us to put all our efforts into the next major game updates), we're rolling back the clock to feature some of the best items that have been accepted since we returned in October. We have a handful of new skins in today's update, but check back over the next few weeks for a selection of modern classics cycling back in-store.

If you missed out first time around, now might be your chance to grab the skin that got away!


[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
We are pushing another patch out today, to end the Easter festivities and resolve some minor bugs...

• Easter Eggstravaganza disabled
  
• Double EXP when playing CTE mode is now ended
  
• Cleaned up some crazy scribbles someone had left everywhere
  
  
• PC-Borealis: fixed CTE human spawn protection being enabled in TDM
  
• PC-Borealis: various optimizations
  
  
• Sniper rifle damage at max range increased from 20% to 60%
  
• Updated the Excited Oviraptor taunt to be less back-breaking
  
• Fixed a rigging oversight with the feathered Novaraptor mesh
  
• Fixed white paws Novaraptor skin using incorrect feathers type
  

The easter update for Primal Carnage: Extinction is now available. It's a bumper event featuring our own version of an easter egg hunt, Oviraptors galore and a new addition to CTE mode! Check it out...



[h2]EGGCELLENT REWARDS TO BE UNCOVERED[/h2]


We're running a SCAVENGER HUNT during the easter event! Look hard enough and you will find certain clues hidden around the maps. Once deciphered, these reveal a fragment of a special code. When a code is completed, players can enter it on the in-game store to receive an event item.



Each code is made of three fragments that must be entered in the right order, and there are 9 codes in all. We have a dedicated Primal Codebreakers channel on Discord, where players can work together to solve the riddles. Get involved!

(*Special item codes can be redeemed once per player)

A special thankyou to the following community creators for contributing to this event:
ArchShiranui, Akira, Ghostway, Mathew Mii, Paradox_Sox, Velociboy, Visser Al, and waddigator

[h2]NEW NESTING GROUNDS[/h2]


We're thrilled by the reaction to the new Borealis map and are happy to announce that it now supports Capture the Egg mode! Those crafty dinosaurs have had plenty of time to build nests all over the cloning facility after it was evacuated, with dozens of clutches hidden all over the place. Time to get in there and clear the place out.

As a reminder- each team takes turns playing humans, after which the one with the most egg points is crowned the winner. Remember: the highest value eggs are furthest from base!

[h2]DOUBLE EGGS-P [/h2]
For the duration of the Easter Eggstravaganza, players will receive double extinction points while playing Capture the Egg mode! We've also added a new throwable weapon that may or may not trick the scalies...



We call it the "Explosive Grenegg" -stroke of genius from the guys in the lab, nasty surprise if mama tries to take this one back to the nest!

So get out there and steal some babies!
Wait, that sounded wrong...

[h2]EGG-NAPPERS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE STORE![/h2]


You might have noticed a certain *feathered fiend* is everywhere in the Extinction Store today. We've got Oviraptors coming out of our ears over here! We think one of them might have found a leftover jar of brain hormone, and having hijacked a remote terminal is now trying to take control of the item list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gaf_yGfdW0
They pecked apart the control pad on the door, so it could take a couple weeks before we're able to get in there and clear out the chickens... In the meantime, you can browse all the feathered finery on display by using our special event page on Trello.

[h2]STAY SAFE, STAY PRIMAL.[/h2]
We're aware that many, many people are cooped up at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hopefully all of you are regularly washing your hands and staying safe indoors! If you're looking for something to do though, you could do a lot worse than becoming a dinosaur...

We'll soon be launching a month-long discount for Primal Carnage: Extinction, because who needs to go outside when you can hunt dinosaur eggs instead of chocolate ones? Stay safe people!


[h2]FULL CHANGE NOTES[/h2]
Below is the complete changelist for the Easteru pdate. We have a special something for Acro players who might have felt a little left out after Rexes and Spinos got their buff assists recently...

• New Acro roar assist -get bonus points if a player makes a kill under the influence of your roar!
  
• Double EXP enabled on Capture the Egg mode
  
• Added an "eggcellent" new challenge
  
• Added timed eggsplosive grenegg as a default item
  
• Secret clues now hidden on several TDM & GTTC maps
  
• PC-Borealis map: added support for CTE mode
  
• PC-Borealis map: collision fixes and refinements
  
• PC-Borealis map: can now go under the helipad in Freeroam
  
• PC-Borealis map: raised kill-Z floor to stop people surviving a fall into the river
  
• PC-Borealis map: added more spawn points
  
• PC-Borealis map: various level optimizations
  

[h3]
:egg: HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! :egg:[/h3]
-The Primal Carnage Team

A new patch is now available. This is a quick stability update for Primal Carnage: Extinction, improving connectivity with the remote inventory servers.

The last couple of days we saw a large increase in the number of failed connections when players start the game. If this occurrs, your loadout and items are not synced and progress is not saved. In light of this, we decided to make some rapid server-side changes to setup a new domain for synchronizing with. This should hopefully be a lot more stable.

Unfortunately this means we have to patch the game as well, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We're hopeful that everyone will be able to connect to the economy server without much issue after downloading the latest version.

In other news, keep an eye out for info on our upcoming Easter Event next week.
A certain egg-napping class will be getting its time in the spotlight!