Tis 5 days before xmas, and all through the house, The QC Games Team prepped Breach to be roused. With invites galore, and Alpha testers at the door, The servers were lit and ready for smores!
If you didn't get the deep symbolism that has been laid out before you in the groundbreaking poem above, we're inviting in pretty much every person that has signed up to play Breach up to this point. Happened to be SUPER unlucky and didn't get your name off the wait list until now? Well, your time has finally arrived. The reason we're doing this is because it's time to break stuff. On Friday, December 21st, we're going to run a short Technical Alpha test of just 3 hours The reason for this is we want to get a concentrated amount of players all at once across all our regions so we can test our scaling for Early Access launch in January.
"Only 3 hours? Come on!" - We can hear the internet screams through the monitor. But wait, there's good news. Starting today, and running through every Alpha Test before we turn on Early Access (yes, there will be more), if you participate, we'll reward you with this snazzy Alpha Tester exclusive outfit once we begin Early Access. There will likely be a spray along with this, but we're still finalizing what it looks like.
In addition to that, for anyone that manages to hit Level 100 in the Technical Alpha before we switch over to Early Access, you'll receive this 💯 outfit, allowing you to extend two thumbs and point at your back for days on end. There may be a spray included with this as well.
Finally, to let everyone know in advance, we're going to take off the week between xmas and New Year's, but will hopefully be back soon after for another longer test period as we continue our final prep towards opening Early Access on Steam.
Updates & Fixes:
Known Issues:
Patch Notes: December 14th, 2018 Alpha Test
[UPDATE 2 - Dec 14th] We are finishing up correcting the issue, and plan to open servers at Noon on December 15th. Emails with new keys are going out shortly.
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[UPDATE] Unfortunately, we've had to delay the opening of our Alpha test this weekend due to an issue found. Once we have an official launch time, we'll let everyone know. Thanks for being patient, and being a part of our Alpha testing.
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Everyone have a good week off? For all of us here at QC Games, we needed a bit more time to get this next build ready for Technical Alpha testing, and it'll come with quite a few additions, updates, bug fixes, and adjustments. Let's hit the main points at the top, then move onto the more specific bullet points that everyone loves to read down at the bottom.
EU Server Expansion - It's finally happening! Since first revealing Breach at Gamescom in Germany, our EU servers have launched. You can read full details about it in a separate post we wrote right here, and we'll be inviting in all those Gamescom Priority List code holders. Thank you for being patient, and please remember this is the first roll out, so there may be latency and connection issues, but we'll be watching.
Breach Launcher - While this may not seem like a big thing on the surface other than some art, this allows us to connect with all of you a bit more outside of just this website, and it opens up the door for code redemption moving forward. Yes, we have plans for that other than Alpha keys.
Your Feedback - This continues to be super important to our team here at QC Games, and we appreciate all of the bug reporting, constructive criticism, and general community feedback we've received. Seeing experienced players teaching new players, various fan art, and all of the opinions being thrown around helps us continue to build the game and move forward towards Early Access for Breach in January. Keep it coming!
With all of that discussed, here are the dates and times for the next test as we continue to build on our around-the-clock service.
Want to know how long until servers open for your region? CLICK HERE
Now - onto the bullet points!
Updates & Fixes:
Spell Adjustments:
Known Issues:
Please remember, if you find an issue, you can let us know in #bug-reporting on Discord, or file a Support Ticket with full information.
Breach - Turning the world to "ON"
Today, let’s talk about servers, and how we’re planning to expand Breach. For those of you that have been playing along with us so far, our servers have only been located in North America while we continued to adjust our backend, scaling, and other networking things that use acronyms like AWS, HDTV, and SNAFU. Super technical.
Ever since we first revealed Breach back at Gamescom in Germany, we’ve had a lot of players across EU and other regions holding onto those Priority Access keys, waiting for their chance to play. We’re about to switch things on for a new region, and hopefully send out a bunch more invites than ever before. This brings up a handful of questions, so let’s run through what we’ve already received from our community as we built to this point.
Above all, please remember that this rollout is in a Technical Alpha state, meaning that it could go up and smoke, we then fix it, and we try again. We’ve greatly appreciated everyone’s patience so far, and looking forward to starting Steam Early Access in January. Also, if you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to message us on Discord, Twitter, or other platforms.
A1: That is the hope, and we’ll announce any additional regions as they come online.
A2: At this time, we’ll choose your region automatically based on your lowest latency to all available regions. However, because our service is global, this will not prevent you from chatting with, grouping with, or playing with people who are in other regions.
A3: Matchmaking will occur between a set of regions with a certain latency tolerance to ensure fair play.
A4: Yes. It should be noted that your party leader’s latency will be one of the core components when entering matchmaking.
A5: All accounts in Breach are global, meaning you will always log into the same account, whether in NA, EU, or another supported region. You will always play as the same account / character.
A6: Please file a Support Ticket and provide us with your general location (we don’t need your exact address), ISP, and details about the issue you’re having.
Thank you all, and stay tuned for details on the next Technical Alpha test coming soon.
Patch Notes: November 30th, 2018 Alpha Test
It's been a few months since we began the Technical Alpha for Breach, but this next test marks a new chapter. Not only did we just announce that Breach will officially hit Steam Early Access in January 2019, but the time has arrived to hold our official first 24+ hour long test. We've heard all of you across Discord, Twitter, Reddit, and more, and we know how much you all want longer sessions so you can play with your friends, your communities, and of course, random internet strangers.
After doing some quick math, this comes out to a 59-straight hour test. Please remember to drink water and sleep.
Alongside the increased hours, we're also increasing our total number of Alpha Testers by sending out a bunch more invites to those that have signed up for an account. However, it should be noted that as we've mostly invited North American players only so far (we're planning to start testing outside NA in the near future), we fully expect queue times to increase during off-peak-hours, but it's time to really see how our servers do with a rolling population. BUT WAIT, we have something else new to add that may cause increased playtime...
CHRONOMANCER ARRIVES
Starting Friday, all Alpha Testers will be able to leap into the future or slow time to evade your enemies and protect your allies. Even stop time altogether to rearrange the field of battle to your advantage. We're also giving everyone 1,500 Sparks to ensure you can add this new class to your growing list of choices, or you could always go back to last test and grab Soulfiend. As with all previous testing, if you see a bug or have some feedback, please let us know on Discord, our forums, or even the Steam forums. We look everywhere, and respond where we can, and we appreciate every single person that has been a part of the Technical Alpha so far.
With that, onto the bullet points!
Updates & Fixes:
Known Issues:
Breach hits Early Access in January!
Welcome to the dungeon brawl ⚔😈 We're excited to reveal that Breach is officially coming to Steam Early Access in January 2019!
We've got a brand new 🎥 trailer for all of you over on IGN >> https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/11/27/breach-welcome-to-the-dungeon-brawl-trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsldJxCnCY0
Don't forget you can pre-order your Founders Pack now at https://www.playbreach.com/ to get you in on day one to Early Access!
Patch Notes: November 16th, 2018 Alpha Test
Soulfiend. The name alone brings nightmares to mind, which is what some of our favorite Veil Demons will be attempting to create this weekend as we officially welcome Soulfiend to the VD roster. If you're ready to possess and empower your minions with the souls you've collected from across the realms, then it's your turn to shine.
Infuse your soul with that of any minion to possess and empower them unlike any other Veil Demon class. The longer you control them, the more powerful they become. Want to summon a Grael Heart to make one of your allies immune to damage? Want to possess an ally and give it instant stealth? All of those questions are now answers with the Soulfiend, who comes with a host of new spells to really take control and empower your army of demons.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the next Technical Alpha test session, which includes our longest test yet - 8 straight hours! We're going to test only on Friday and Saturday this week, and we've heard the requests from our West Coast testers who have been asking us to go later into the evening. As a general reminder, we have not yet started to invite our friends from outside of North America at this time. Once we feel like our North American servers are in a good place, we'll place some in other regions and extend our hours more in those tests, as well as invite in those who have been eagerly waiting since our reveal at Gamescom. For full timing, see below:
We're excited to see the various cheers and jeers that will undoubtedly occur with the addition of the Soulfiend to Breach, and please be sure to provide us your feedback either in the forums or on our Discord channel.
Updates & Fixes:
Known Issues:
Patch Notes: November 9th, 2018
Quick note: We have a Technical Alpha test TODAY (Friday Nov. 9th) from 3-5 PM Central
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The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived, the first official set of Breach Patch Notes!
Thank you all for participating in the Technical Alpha tests so far. Your feedback on the forums, discussions on Discord, and data we’ve collected from the tests have been a tremendous help towards our continued development of Breach. Together we are defining a new hybrid genre of gameplay, and we are so grateful to have you as part of this growing community.
For this week, we’re rolling out a new build of Breach, which should be quite evident from our awesome new loading screens. In this build you’ll see some changes that are aimed at both smoothing out the experience for new players, while keeping it challenging for seasoned players. Among them is a slight change in how the revive mechanic works, where Heroes will now automatically consume a health potion (if they have one) after being revived.
We’ve also started making balance adjustments to some spells, equipment, gems (now with differentiating icons) and NPC stats in this build, with more on the way as we continue our path through Technical Alpha. You’ll see additional changes as we roll out some more balance adjustments over the next couple of weeks, but a few weeks from now we’ll be introducing a suite of new equipment and Veil Demon spell synergies that reward difficult to pull off combos with bonus damage output. One other very noticeable change is that during the Class Selection phase, the Veil Demon will now choose their core class after they choose their first Elite and two heroes have been chosen.
Finally, this build has a bunch of bug fixes, due in large part to all of you reporting your crashes (THANK YOU!) and sending us detailed reports about issues you've run across when in and out of a match.
Here's more specific details for those that like bullet points:
Boss Fight Updates
Also, here's a list of known issues currently:
Pre Orders & Next Alpha Test
Instead of us writing a few paragraphs, let’s focus on the best parts of our next Technical Alpha testing period:
Let’s also cover the specific test dates / times for the next three days:
As with all previous tests, we'll also be sending out a handful more invites to those that have already signed up for Alpha Testing via this website. Also, just to make it clear, purchasing a Founders Pack does not guarantee you access to the Alpha. We're excited to get even more players into Breach starting tomorrow as we continue our Technical Alpha testing.
For all of you streaming, you may just see some friendly QC faces (or the official PlayBreach account) jump into your stream over the next few days, so keep an eye out. Don't worry, we won't judge your skill level too much at this point, but just a little. We've also added some new channels to our official Discord server, so feel free to play along with other members of our growing community that have access along with you.
Win a Breach Origin PC + TwitchCon 2018 Exclusives!
As a special surprise as well, for anyone that comes by our booth can pick up a handout card that will grant you an EXCLUSIVE TwitchCon 2018 outfit + spray, which will be added to the game during a future test. Supplies are limited, so we recommend you come by earlier in the weekend, or let your friends in attendance know to come by the booth.
Good luck to all that enter the giveaway!
First Alpha Keys + Breach is headed to TwitchCon!
Did you know that we sent out the first VERY SMALL batch of keys to some of you for testing this weekend? Be sure to check those emails (including your SPAM/JUNK sections) and see if you were one of the lucky few. It should be noted that you are more likely to NOT get a code for this first test. If everything goes well, we'll send out more keys next weekend, so stay tuned!
Now, Let's talk TwitchCon 2018!
We’ve booked a trip to San Jose, CA, and you’re all invited to join us! On October 26th - 28th, QC Games and Breach will be setting up shop on the floor of TwitchCon, amidst the sea of purple, Kappas, and FrankerZ’s (We’ll miss you buddy). Let’s talk about our plans for the show, and why you’ll want to stop by the Breach booth on the floor.
First up, the most obvious reason for our attendance (since we’re at an event called TWITCHCON) is that we’re there for everything Twitch. We know, CRAZY IDEA. Whether you stream, watch, or just like using random emojis in our Discord, we’ve got you covered. We’re bringing out members of the dev team to Booth #1447 (map coming soon) along with a couple of couches, some kiosks to play Breach, and a few surprises....
Speaking of surprises, we’re going to have a fantastic one debuting in our booth, in the form of a giveaway. There’s an image of it above, isn’t it amazing? For the folks not attending, you’ll be able to enter as well. Details on that soon™, but let’s talk more about Breach.
In addition to going hands-on with Breach, we’re also there to talk directly to content creators. We’re ramping up the early stages of our Breach Partner Program, for which we still need a MUCH better name. Feel free to suggest on in our Discord. We want to talk to creators about how we can help build YOUR community through Breach, and how you can maybe even earn a spot inside of the game (via more than just making your personalized in-game avatar).
NDA’d secrets? We’ve got them. Feel free to DM us on Twitter and let us know if you want to set up an appointment.
If you’re not a content creator and are coming to visit us in San Jose, we may also have a few things for you too, but they’re still going through an approval process. We’ll update this post with new information once we get the purple light to make it happen. Also, if you’re not going to TwitchCon, we may still make them available via various ways, once approved. Don’t forget to follow our official Twitch channel, as streams from the office are planned to begin soon.
As a final note, we want to give huge Thank You to some amazing friends from Origin PC, as we’ll have a handful of their CRONOS machines to play Breach on the show floor, all connected via Razer peripherals, and some slick PIXIO monitors. It’s going to look AMAZING all together in the booth, and we can’t wait for you to try it out hands-on. We’re looking forward to seeing all of you at TwitchCon to discuss Breach, all while continuing to move forward with our Alpha testing process, with the first tests occurring this weekend!
