Clone Drone in the Danger Zone News

[p]Hello Humans![/p][p]We’re starting a brand new series of dev logs to give you a look into what we’re making and how game development works![/p][h3]This is our first official announcement that new multiplayer modes will be coming to Clone Drone![/h3][p]Erik the Creative Director answered some questions to get you up to speed on where we are in development.[/p][p][/p][p]All screenshots are work in progress levels. They'll look a lot cooler on release![/p][p]Why are we adding multiplayer modes now?[/p][p]We’re a small team and that means we mostly focus on making one thing at a time, and for a long time that was Clone Drone in the Hyperdome![/p][p]After the launch of Hyperdome and its big Skyscrapper Update, we took a moment to ask ourselves what we should do next. We always want to entertain and take care of our players, so we looked at what most people were playing. That was still Danger Zone.[/p][p]So we want to breathe even more life into this awesome old game, and the most exciting way I can think of to do that is with Team Based PvP![/p][p][/p][p]What is important for us about the multiplayer experience?[/p][p]We know from our stats that people love playing co-op with their friends. A smaller number of people love our current PvP mode, Last Bot Standing, which puts a lot more emphasis on fierce competition and individual skill! One hit and YOU LOSE.[/p][p]Team Based PvP is really interesting because I think it can combine the great vibes of working as a team from co-op, but maintain the sort of tension you only get from facing off against fellow humans.[/p][p]King of the Hill is our first take on this. You’ll find familiar elements from LBS like upgrade drops, but also new dynamics like infinite respawns.[/p][p]Our one hit kill voxel mechanics mean that our game has different dynamics from other PvP games, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to figure out what other modes, rules and levels will make it shine![/p][p][/p][p]What have we seen the community doing with mods? How do we want to make something unique?[/p][p]Modders have already toyed with multiplayer and I think that’s super cool! There are fantastic people in our Community like TVCat who have created their own versions of PvP modes. People keep mentioning the Juggernaut mode especially, which sounds really fun. :)[/p][p]With the team modes we’re exploring, we want to make it possible for the community to create new and unique experiences alongside our own efforts. So supporting workshop content and allowing people to make cool things in the Level Editor is definitely on our list of things we’re looking at. (But we want to put King of the Hill live asap, so this might come in a future update.)[/p][p][/p][p]What about the future of multiplayer after this update? What are we doing now that we will build on in later updates?[/p][p]Right now, we need your feedback on this next update. Thank you to everyone who has helped us playtest the rough and buggy version on my Twitch channel! If you're interested in joining in, find me on [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink] where I develop this game right in front of your eyes![/p][p]Developing Hyperdome was lonely without an early access process. We’re returning to our roots by going back to open development. Eventually the multiplayer modes we're making will be available to test on the "experimental" branch of Steam.[/p][p]When our players can play the things we’re making while we’re making it, great things happen![/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]Thanks for reading everyone. As Erik said, we can’t wait to see what you get up to in the latest update. There will be more Dev Logs from other members of the team as we get closer to launching the update. Until then, good luck in the Danger Zone![/p][p]Make sure to follow us on all our channels to keep up with Danger Zone news:[/p]

[p]Hello Humans![/p][p]The Ride or Die competition is officially over![/p][hr][/hr][h2]Visit this page to vote for the winners of the Community Pick Award![/h2][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]The Doborog Team and our Community Judges will take the next week to decide on the winners. There have been over 100 entries so we’re carefully taking our time!
[/p][p]Meanwhile it’s your turn to decide who wins the Community Pick award! Because there were so many entries, this voting form is very long but please scroll through and see as many entries as possible before you click submit! You will be able to vote for all of the art that you like on the form, so don’t be afraid to pick lots of them![/p][p]Unfortunately there isn’t a way to include videos in the list. To help with this we’ve made an extra list with all the videos so you can see them, and labelled the videos in the voting form.[/p][p]Thank you for all your hard work making these entries. We can’t wait to announce the winners on Saturday 14th![/p][p][/p][p]The Doborog Team[/p][p] [/p]

[p]Hello Humans!

We're hard at work on fixing both the game and servers. Here's the list of bug fixes:[/p][p][/p][p]Game:[/p]

• [p]Invisible enemies - fixed numerous bugs that caused these and added logic to auto-kill them[/p]
• [p]Fixed placement of fire on fishing pole and picnic hammer[/p]
• [p]No longer plays an emote when customising weapons[/p]
• [p]Localised weapon text[/p]
• [p]Fixed "This is not co-op" achievement[/p]
• [p]Fixed mounts not getting cleaned up when you lose and between levels[/p]
• [p]Settings menu "Get more" \[workshop endless levels] button opens in steam overlay instead of web browser[/p]
• [p]Tracked mounts so they persist if you reload your save[/p]

[p]Servers:[/p]

• [p]Dynamic server capacity - servers will now start up and wind down based on demand[/p]
• [p]Fixed server crash related to player disconnecting while riding something[/p]

[p]Thank you for your patience! If you "see" any more invisible enemies, let us know on Discord or via email![/p][p]Team Doborog[/p]

[p]Hello Humans![/p][p]Apologies for the server connection problems lately, and thank you immensely for your patience as we work to get things resolved.[/p][p]The servers have had stability issues because right now we're trying to upgrade how they work.[/p][p]Toward the end of last year, we hired a new server engineer who’s working hard to get everything back on track. (You may have already met them; say hi to ButterOverflow in our official discord!)[/p][p]We’ve got a mix of work we’ve done, work that’s almost done, and plans to improve things in the long term.[/p][h3]What we’ve already done:[/h3]

• [p]Clearing finished matches: Fixed an issue where we weren’t properly cleaning up “old” games from our list of games to connect to. This would cause you to try to connect to a game which was no longer running, which was a major cause of failing to connect to public matches in late December/early January[/p]

• [p]Prepared for futured updates: Internally, we’ve cleaned up a bunch of issues that have been making it hard to release new updates to the game as fast as we want. Hopefully, this should make it faster and easier for us to release hotfixes to address bugs in-between our feature releases.[/p]

[h3]Coming soon (next hotfix, hopefully in the next week or two):[/h3]

• [p]Dynamic server capacity: We’ve upgraded our game server hosting to use a new system that will auto-scale our capacity. Some of our connection issues have been due to our servers being “full”; moving forward, it will automatically spin up a new game server host as needed.[/p]

• [p]Fixing Invisible Enemies: We’ve got a tentative fix for the annoying “invisible enemies” bug that is happening due to game clients getting out of sync with the game server. Alongside that fix, we’ve also added additional logging and metrics to our backend so we can track down if/when it’s still happening and have more info about what’s broken and how to fix it.[/p]

[h3]Planned future work:[/h3]

• [p]Rebuilding our “Matchmaker”: This is the program running on our servers that helps your game client find a game server to connect to whenever you play online. It’s missing a lot of features that could make it more robust and better at handling errors. And as we want to build out more features for CDDZ, we want a more solid foundation to build upon![/p]

• [p]Better Error Messages: Right now, whenever you have connection issues, the error messages we present aren’t very helpful. They’ll often give some generic troubleshooting advice like “make sure you’re on the latest game version!” even if you already are. We’re planning to make them more specific, and also to include more information on the error screens so that, when you send us a screenshot asking for help, we have more info to work with so that we can provide much better help and troubleshooting.[/p]

• [p]Better Server Metrics: (Don’t worry, we don’t mean your personal data! We’re just talking about on our servers.) We’re planning to add more logging and metrics around when server connection issues happen. That way, we can more proactively find issues that are occurring and squash those bugs. Also, this ties back into our previous point about better error messages: on our error screens, we’re hoping to include things like a “request ID” that we can use as part of our customer support to be able to look at our logs and figure out exactly what happened for you, specifically, as our player, when you run into issues. And if we notice things like a big increase in connection failures, we can jump on it right away without having to rely on players reaching out to us before we find the issues.[/p]

• [p]Upgrading Unity versions: this isn’t multiplayer-specific, but it will probably help with stability and performance in general. Right now we’re still on a rather old version (2019) and we’re looking to make the upgrade to the latest version soon.[/p]

[p]If you do see multiplayer connection issues, you can still let us know by emailing [email protected] or posting on our official discord.[/p][p]Thank you![/p][p]The Doborog Team[/p]

[p]\[Entries for this competition are closed, thank you!][/p][p][/p][p]Hello Humans!
[/p][p]To celebrate the release of the Ride or Die update we’re running an art competition! Do your friends ride and die for each other in Co-op and battle it out in Last Bot Standing? Do you try to look fashionable on top of a Rip Rider? We’re giving away skins to the winners of 4 categories of artists! If you have screenshots or art of Clone Drones then enter them into the Ride or Die competition! [/p][h2]Rules[/h2]

• [p]The competition starts now! (January 7th)[/p]
• [p]Submit your art through this form or email [email protected][/p]
• [p]All except Best Dressed accept any form of art.[/p]
  • [p]Best Dressed will only accept screenshots from the game.[/p]
  • [p]Examples of accepted art: Pencil drawings, Clone Drone screenshots, 3D renders, photos of Lego, animations and many more![/p]
• [p]New art only, if it was submitted to previous competitions, it isn’t allowed.[/p]
• [p]Art can be disqualified for any reason. [/p]
  • [p]Examples are: being offensive or being made with AI.[/p]
• [p]You can work together in groups, if a group project wins, all participants will have the option of a prize.[/p]
• [p]You can submit as many entries as you would like, you are only eligible for one prize.[/p]
• [p]The competition will end 1 month from now on February 7th at midnight UK time![/p]

[h2]Categories[/h2]

• [p]Best Dressed - A screenshot only category. Send us a picture of your favourite bot part combination![/p]

• [p]Your Ride or Dies - A group screenshot or drawing of you and your friends as clone drones!
  [/p]
• [p]Need for Speed - Clone Drones riding stuff, Riprider, Raptor, The Emperor, a hot air balloon, anything![/p]

• [p]Community Pick - All shortlisted art will be entered for this prize and the community will vote for their favourites. The top 3 with the most votes will be winners.[/p]

[h3]Judging[/h3][p]The winners will be picked by Community Judges and the Doborog Team. Entries will be judged on creativity and originality![/p][p]The judeges will take 1 week to look at all the entries and decide on winners! At the same time, the community will vote on the winners of the Community Pick category![/p][h2]Prizes[/h2]

• [p]All entrants will get the “Everyone Wins” Emote.[/p]
• [p]There will be 3 Winners in each category who will get a choice of one bot skin and one weapon skin.[/p]
• [p]The "Good Luck, Have fun" Emote.[/p]
• [p]All Winners will have their work featured on Doborog social media![/p]
• [p]If more than one person worked on a submission, they will also get the same prizes![/p]

[p]When you're ready, submit your art here![/p][p]If you have any questions or want to look for friends to work with, join us on discord: [/p][p]discord.gg/doborg[/p][p]
Good luck![/p][p]The Doborog Team[/p]