A29 Experimental is now live!
The Factions Update is ready for testing! As you know, this time we put a lot more time and effort into developing this update, so it includes quite a few nice additions and slowly brings the game towards the finished state. There are still things we want to finish before release, but it's getting closer and closer to how we envisioned CryoFall to be in its finished form.
Since this update is called Factions Update - as you can imagine, factions are the key feature it introduces. Anyone can create their own faction (in both PvP and PvE) and invite other players to join it. You can also create a public faction where anyone can join freely. Once your faction is created you can assign roles to its members allowing you to tightly manage your faction permissions. You can also configure your land claims and doors to ensure that only certain faction roles would have access to them. So, you don't need to worry that if you invite strangers into your faction that they might deconstruct everything and steal your possessions—just don't give them unnecessary permissions.
And yes, the most important feature of factions is the Leaderboard. Players can compete for the highest rank on the server. The game will track the progress of all faction members and derive a score for each faction. It already tracks a number of metrics measuring the faction's performance, and based on your feedback we will continue expanding and tweaking the leaderboard system during the experimental version and beyond.
Also, if you think the factions are useful only for big teams and big servers—not only, they bring competition even for solo PvP servers thanks to the Leaderboard, and servers like CryoSmall and CryoFive will be able to enforce stricter control of the server rules with the faction mechanics.
Some other key additions and changes include:
- massively reworked map with new areas, new boss arenas, large central city, and new secrets
- 3 new creatures and a new boss!
- fast travel through the network of alien teleports which you can discover on the map
- new wall type (fence) which you can shoot through (unlocked in T3)
- changes to UI and overall presentation of the game
- new world events
- lots of new items, crafting recipes, food, plants, technologies, status effects, etc
- many performance and QoL improvements
- maybe even turrets (!), we will see it it works :)
As usual, the detailed patch notes will be available on our forums in a few days (we will notify everyone in discord and post a link).
To test the update we've deployed two experimental servers (PvE and PvP, with PvE hosted in the USA and PvP hosted in Europe). You can choose either of the two to test the game. The servers will be live for about 2 weeks.
[h2]How to connect[/h2]
To join you need to manually set CryoFall Steam branch to "experimental-a29". To access it please right click on CryoFall in Steam Client, choose Properties, then open the BETAS tab, and select the "experimental-a29" from the dropdown menu. After the game is updated—launch it and find the A29 Experimental server in the featured servers list.
If you're using our GameLauncher app, just click the "cog" icon near the Update button and you will find an option to enable the experimental branch.
We really need your feedback this time. Please give the experimental a go and let us know what you think about all of the changes and all of the new content. Share your thoughts here in Steam or in Official Discord.
[h3]Work in progress[/h3]
Work in progress for this experimental version:
- Game balance (especially for the new creatures, but also we want to rework balance of the existing content)
- Some sounds for new creatures, structures, items
- Translation (only German and Simplified Chinese are ready and integrated)
- Teleportation animation and sounds
- Some world events are currently disabled, we will enable them soon in the patch
- Turrets (for PvP)—currently they are not present in the game
Since this update is called Factions Update - as you can imagine, factions are the key feature it introduces. Anyone can create their own faction (in both PvP and PvE) and invite other players to join it. You can also create a public faction where anyone can join freely. Once your faction is created you can assign roles to its members allowing you to tightly manage your faction permissions. You can also configure your land claims and doors to ensure that only certain faction roles would have access to them. So, you don't need to worry that if you invite strangers into your faction that they might deconstruct everything and steal your possessions—just don't give them unnecessary permissions.
And yes, the most important feature of factions is the Leaderboard. Players can compete for the highest rank on the server. The game will track the progress of all faction members and derive a score for each faction. It already tracks a number of metrics measuring the faction's performance, and based on your feedback we will continue expanding and tweaking the leaderboard system during the experimental version and beyond.
Also, if you think the factions are useful only for big teams and big servers—not only, they bring competition even for solo PvP servers thanks to the Leaderboard, and servers like CryoSmall and CryoFive will be able to enforce stricter control of the server rules with the faction mechanics.
Some other key additions and changes include:
- massively reworked map with new areas, new boss arenas, large central city, and new secrets
- 3 new creatures and a new boss!
- fast travel through the network of alien teleports which you can discover on the map
- new wall type (fence) which you can shoot through (unlocked in T3)
- changes to UI and overall presentation of the game
- new world events
- lots of new items, crafting recipes, food, plants, technologies, status effects, etc
- many performance and QoL improvements
- maybe even turrets (!), we will see it it works :)
As usual, the detailed patch notes will be available on our forums in a few days (we will notify everyone in discord and post a link).
To test the update we've deployed two experimental servers (PvE and PvP, with PvE hosted in the USA and PvP hosted in Europe). You can choose either of the two to test the game. The servers will be live for about 2 weeks.
[h2]How to connect[/h2]
To join you need to manually set CryoFall Steam branch to "experimental-a29". To access it please right click on CryoFall in Steam Client, choose Properties, then open the BETAS tab, and select the "experimental-a29" from the dropdown menu. After the game is updated—launch it and find the A29 Experimental server in the featured servers list.
If you're using our GameLauncher app, just click the "cog" icon near the Update button and you will find an option to enable the experimental branch.
We really need your feedback this time. Please give the experimental a go and let us know what you think about all of the changes and all of the new content. Share your thoughts here in Steam or in Official Discord.
[h3]Work in progress[/h3]
Work in progress for this experimental version:
- Game balance (especially for the new creatures, but also we want to rework balance of the existing content)
- Some sounds for new creatures, structures, items
- Translation (only German and Simplified Chinese are ready and integrated)
- Teleportation animation and sounds
- Some world events are currently disabled, we will enable them soon in the patch
- Turrets (for PvP)—currently they are not present in the game