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SCP: Secret Laboratory News

Scopophobia public beta announcement!

Hello, everyone!

We are aware that you all have been patiently waiting for the Scopophobia update, and that we have missed our original estimate for its release by quite a long shot.

This is ultimately our fault, and we want to open by apologizing for the situation. We majorly underestimated both the problems that would occur as a result of the update and how long they would take to fix. What's important to know, however, the beta is playable, but very unstable if the servers are running for a couple rounds without a restart.

Going forward, we will be working to regularly update as development progresses and problems are solved. We are doing our best to get the Scopophobia update out to you as soon as possible, and are prioritizing it over all other projects.

We thank you all for hanging in there with us despite the delays — we couldn't do this without your support.

On May 29th, if we are not ready for public release, we will be releasing Scopophobia (Version 10.0) as a public beta on a separate branch. This allows you to play the content promised, while we iron out the problems. We thank you for your patience and hope to see you all in the public beta.


Thanks,
Northwood Studios

Stream Reminder!

Hello again! We'd like to remind you about our Twitch stream that starts in less than an hour. We'll present and answer your questions regarding version 10.0.0 "Scopophobia"!

https://twitch.tv/scpsl_official

- Northwood Studios

Scopophobia Presentation and Q&A Stream

Hello everyone!

We are going to have a presentation and Q&A about Scopophobia on our official twitch account. Feel free to join us this Saturday at 4 PM GMT (in 24 hours) and get all of your questions answered!

twitch.tv/scpsl_official
twitch.tv/scpsl_official
twitch.tv/scpsl_official

- Northwood Studios

[April Fools 2020] Patch Notes - Megapatch 2 Two

Hello, everyone!

Because Megapatch 2 was so well-received, and because being able to wait more months before release lets us feed our enslaved monkeys more bananas from our funding, we’ve decided to cancel Scopophobia. Instead, we’re going to release a new update, and long-awaited sequel: Megapatch 2 (Two)! We plan to release this sometime in 2030, so make sure to keep an eye out! We see no way that this can backfire.

Of course, like the other megapatch, Megapatch 2 Dos will change nearly every aspect of the game. Hold onto your hats, because we’ve got a lot to get through! Unfortunately, there won’t be any screenshots; Unity now crashes every time we attempt to load into the game, so we were unable to get anything for you to look at.

New Surface Zone

Because the old surface zone is clunky and taken from Containment Breach, we remade it from the ground up in Megapatch 2 两. It has been fully revamped, and includes nothing from the original surface zone in it. In fact, it doesn’t include anything at all. Once you exit the facility, you’ll emerge into a giant, empty field with just the elevators in it and the warhead console standing in the middle. CI and NTF will spawn at ends of the field respectively. Because making maps is hard, we used a stock Unity texture for the grass so we could focus on more important things like arguing about which sounds to use for doors.

We think that this new surface zone will promote skill-based gameplay by opening up sightlines and allowing good players (or people with aimbots) to shine, while mercilessly crushing anyone who would dare to not be an expert shooter player who can hit a flea across the map. We hope you like it! If you don’t, sucks for you!

MicroHID Rework

The new MicroHID was great, but you know what’s even more great? Spending development time to change features that don’t need to be changed! For that reason, we decided to rework the HID again by turning it into a sidearm. The new and improved Very MicroHID is now a pistol-sized object that can be wielded like a normal weapon, with iron sights functionality. By firing, you instantly shoot off a high-energy laser, which melts through any doors it strikes, instantly kills humans, and deals severe damage to SCPs.

The Very MicroHID must be reloaded after every shot, because otherwise it would be unbalanced. Not enough guns use 9mm ammo, and so we felt like it was a good idea to make the Very MicroHID use it. That way, it fits within the existing gun dichotomy, despite not even remotely resembling a conventional firearm in functionality.

You can now also get a new Very MicroHID by putting a COM-15 or USP into SCP-914 on Very Fine. To make it fit better with existing weapons, you can now also put plenty of fun and balanced attachments on it, such as the Gyroscopic Stabilizer, Heavy Barrel, Drum Magazine, Release Delayer, Shotgun Lens, Confetti Gun Adapter, and more!

You’ll have to wait until the patch releases to see any of this in-game, obviously, so settle in for the long haul, bucko. If you thought you were going to see an update any time soon, you haven’t been paying attention!

SCP-682

Another big star player of Megapatch 2 Dos is our brand new playable SCP, SCP-682! This has been one of our most widely-requested, despite it not even remotely having any semblance of being workable for SCPSL’s gameplay formula, but we put it in anyway like dumping a rotten apple into a perfectly fine pot of stew.

To start off with, SCP-682 has no health bar and can’t take damage. What did you expect? It can also destroy doors it sees by interacting with them, including heavy gates. In order to make use of our new status effect framework, it also applies the Dead status effect to any player it comes in contact with, creating a formidable, perfectly-balanced basic attack.

In addition to this, SCP-682 can survive the alpha warhead! Even if caught in the facility when it goes off, SCP-682 will simply be teleported to the new surface zone to wreak havoc on survivors who had the audacity to hope for a fun and interesting enemy to go against.

For SCP-682’s audio, we sat our lead game designer down and recorded his reaction to when we told him we were going to be adding SCP-682. Then we fired him.

We’re still working out the kinks for SCP-682, so expect more updates as time goes on, but we think it’ll be an addition that will NOT kill the game. Stay tuned for Megapatch 2: Epsiode 2, and Megapatch: Scientist, where we'll bring in even more commonly-requested SCPs!

Serpent’s Hand

Finally, after so many requests, we’ve added a new human faction: the Serpent’s Hand! Occasionally, they’ll spawn in instead of NTF or CI. They don’t have any inventory slots, and just have magic spells they cast at things, like throwing fireballs at people to kill them or teleporting through doors. SCPs also just like them for some reason and can’t kill them. Honestly, we didn’t really read the lore on Serpent’s Hand, so this is probably fine. You're welcome

Realism

This is a small one, but because having a realistic game is always more important than having a fun one, we’ve changed a bit of how human characters react to various events. For instance, if you get shot in a vital area as a human class, you have a 90% chance to die instantly. The other 10% of the time, you will collapse and writhe in utter agony on the ground for 30 minutes, unable to move or act as you slowly bleed out until you get medical attention from a trained professional and spend weeks in recovery. If you get hit by the new Very MicroHID, your head explodes like a baked potato wrapped in tin foil in a microwave.

This also extends to the SCPs too! If you get captured by SCP-106, you get moved to a separate game instance, where you spend two real-life days attempting to escape the Pocket Dimension and failing until you’re finally granted the sweet, merciful release of death. If you see SCP-096’s face in SL, you also die instantly in real life, to simulate what would happen if you had actually seen SCP-096’s face. We hope these changes are enjoyable!

Balance Changes

For Megapatch 2 2 2 2 2 2 2, we changed many aspects of the game’s balance. God help you.

SCP Changes:
  • SCP-106
    • Targets now cannot escape the Pocket Dimension, as stated in the realism section
    • Now only takes damage from the Very MicroHID
    • Can now activate noclip at will
  • SCP-049
    • Can now speak over the intercom
    • Is now instantly recontained when a player holds a sprig of lavender out; lavender spawns randomly in the new surface zone and must be picked by hand
    • Can now combine SCP-049-2 instances into one giant SCP-049-2 instance that moves faster and hits harder
    • Can now penetrate through the protection of SCP-714
  • SCP-096
    • Jaw now extends much farther, and is visible across facility levels due to its length
    • Can now run at 500 m/s for lore accuracy reasons
    • Greatly increased trigger range; you can now trigger SCP-096 by seeing only as little as four pixels of its face on your screen!
    • Remains triggered indefinitely until the person who saw its face is dead
  • SCP-939
    • Now wears crocs that make floppy sounds
  • SCP-079
    • Now runs the latest version of Windows
    Edit: No longer runs the latest version of Windows


Human Class Changes:
  • Nine-Tailed Fox
    • Now tire after three seconds of running and must wheeze heavily to catch their breath because of all their tactical gear.
    • Squad hierarchy is now enforced, and disobeying orders from a commander can result in a game ban.
    • Removed disarmers from the game. Who used those things anyway, am I right?
    • Can now time their blinks manually against SCP-173, which is perfectly fair for SCP-173 and allows Realism™ to thrive!
    • Now possess SCRAMBLE gear for use against SCP-096, which doesn’t prevent triggering 096 because it was canonically designed to fail
  • Chaos Insurgency
    • Logicers now have infinite ammo, getting rid of pesky things like “ammo economy”
    • Screeching “CHAOS” over voice chat now heals you for a small amount, with the heal becoming stronger depending on spoken volume
    • Addendum: Saying “CHAOS” over the intercom instantly converts all Class-D to Chaos Insurgency
    • Now have smoke grenades back
  • Class-D
    • Now have a chance to spawn with a janitor keycard and a mop they can beat people with
    • Are now immune to headshots, owing to the power of their beanie
  • Scientist
    • Can now be beaten up by D-Class who press E on them; after falling below 50% health, they will collapse on the ground and drop their keycard and lunch money
  • Facility Guard
    • Unchanged. Facility guards are fine as-is.


Miscellaneous
  • Added 10 new keycard varieties, because we hate people who make flowcharts
  • Replaced all the existing rooms with Containment Breach rooms, because we don’t want to make replacements
  • SCP-096’s screams now play at 300 decibels
  • Added workshop support*
  • for SCP-018 texture replacement only
  • Added VR support
  • Removed VR support
  • You can now find the room where we keep our enslaved monkeys, and you can feed them bananas you pick from the surface zone to make the next update come out faster
  • SCP-914 recipes are now randomized each round
  • Gave lockers glowy particles and a whoosh sound when they open to adhere to AAA standards of getting randomized loot from crates and other containers
  • Added a findable wave pool that you can swim in; talking about SCP-999 in this room will cause you to die
  • Fired all the staff who didn’t play the game enough
  • Rehired all the staff after we had no more developers left
  • Killing yourself as SCP-049-2 now uninstalls the game
  • Prepared a full rework of SCP-173’s kit, making it a lot more consistent and fun to play as and against!
  • Removed SCP-173 due to legal issues
  • Removed SCP-055


Conclusion

We’ve worked very hard on making Megapatch 2 Two the best update it can be. We hope that these patch notes can give you an idea of what you can expect in the coming times. Megapatch 2 II will be releasing very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very soon.

And remember…
Happy April Fools!

~ Westwood

Important update regarding Scopophobia!

[h3]Hello, everyone[/h3]
With the global pandemic continuing, we have an important announcement: Version 10.0.0, "Scopopobia", our newest update, will be getting delayed until April 2020.

For context, we're an international studio, and we work all around the world. With COVID-19 being a worldwide issue, some of our staff are now in quarantine or self-isolation, with a few of them living in Italy. Because we work remotely, this hasn't affected us too much, but a lot of our developers have shifted their focus towards keeping themselves healthy and safe.

Because of the slowdown in development, coupled with 096's rework not being as polished as we'd like it to be, we've made the very difficult decision to delay Scopophobia's release to early April. After how long the wait was for Megapatch 2, we wanted to push hard to release more consistent content updates so as to not repeat the situation, and our March has been very productive, but COVID-19 interrupted our workflow and slowed things down. We're sorry about having to delay this update, especially when it comes with such a big rework, and we hope that we can get it out as fast as we can. It also means that we won't be able to release a special version for this year's April Fools Day.

Thankfully, however, further delays are unlikely. All features except for 096 have been finalized and tested thoroughly. Patrons have had access to a beta version featuring everything except 096's rework for about a week or two now, and we've been further refining the update based on feedback from those tests. Although SCP-096 abilities are subject to change based on playtesting and feedback, we've released an early showcase for Patron supporters a week ago and we decided to share it with you now:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Stay healthy, remember to wash your hands often, stay at home, and if you think you have been exposed - get tested if your locale has testing readily available. We're all in this together.

~ Northwood Studios