We have been actively working on making Outbreak: Pandemic Evolution making the game that we personally want to play. That being said, it has been no secret that when we took over the project there were a lot of core gameplay mechanics, bugs, and features that were missing. We appreciate all your support and patience and can't wait to fix what is here and begin adding our new content and ideas. We are sure that you guys are going to enjoy the direction we are taking the game.
We'd also like to welcome industry veteran Scot Bayless to the team. Scot has decades of AAA game experience and will be heading up Outbreak: Pandemic Evolution and its team going forward.
We do have a Discord channel for those interested as well.
https://discord.gg/sarMhNa
Thanks
The Forthright West Development Team
CHANGES IN THIS BUILD
COLLISION Alaskan Cedar branches no longer block attacks. This was happening from only one direction which is why you could sometimes end up getting shot by an AI while simultaneously being unable to shoot back.
Chain link fences no longer block attacks.
AI Player movement now affects ranged enemy accuracy. Basically, the faster you run, the lower their chance to hit. The effect is range dependent. At close range, running won't help you much. At long range, it'll help quite a bit.
Crouching now affects enemy accuracy. As with running, range is a factor.
PERFORMANCE Some general improvements have been made on the rendering side. This should get most players a noticeable boost in overall perf.
CAMERA We've been tweaking the 3P camera to improve on the parallax problem that can cause you to shoot cover that's in front of you even if your sight shows a clear shot. It's still a work in progress and, at the moment, 3P aiming with long guns is a little frustrating since your target can be obscured by your head. When fighting with long guns, the 1P view is probably your better choice at the moment.
The FOV change when aiming has been changed to zoom your view in a little tighter. This happens in both 3P and 1P and is intended to give you a better sight picture when you're aiming.
UI / UX Changed the font in existing UI elements to improve readability, especially on smaller monitors. We have also added a version text to the HUD to help make reporting bugs easier going forward.
Largest Fan Request! We also added a compass to the top of the HUD to help navigation and communication going forward.
WHAT'S NEXT
This isn't a full roadmap. At the moment, we're focusing on knocking down the really egregious bugs and on nailing the fun in moment to moment gameplay.
MASSIVE UPDATE & GRAPHIC OVERHAUL
Hello Players,
We wanted to apologize for such a long time between updates. The team has been hard at work fixing a plethora of issues and doing a complete overhaul of our graphics such as new flora, more LODs, and overall performance improvements.
We have added a new 3rd person default view to the game, but you can still play in 1st person as well by pressing 'V'. We have also added a newly localized voice-chat that so many of you have asked us for. Check out the list below of all the updated changes. We have more still to come but we hope you enjoy the new and improved Outbreak: Pandemic Evolution!
CHANGES
Updated game to the latest Unreal Version (4.17)
Major graphical improvements and environment enhancements.
Players now spawn at capture points. If you loose all capture points you cannot respawn anymore.
Added localized voice-chat (Press 'X' to talk in the vicinity)
Optimized game-world to improve performance (Pre-Patch 70 FPS -> 150 FPS on GTX1080)
Improved loading times.
Improved rendering speed of the water resulting in a small FPS increase.
Added third person Mode to the game.
Enabled ThirdPerson by default, you can now toggle to FirstPerson using the 'V' key.
All Control points will now be available on the map showing who controls them.
Support Airplane now flies in a higher altitude and no longer drops smoke grenades.
Smoke from supply drops is no emitted once the cargo pod drops on the ground.
Mutants now attack wild-life.
NPC presence has been increased drastically.
Added additional capture points throughout the map.
Increased amount of ammo dropped by military personal.
Added chance to drop pistol ammo on military personal.
BUG FIXES
Bugfix: Capture points are now updating properly in multiplayer games.
Bugfix: The turret are now properly coloured again during the placement phase.
Bugfix: Turrets are shooting hostiles again.
Bugfix: The stun gun no longer stuns non-mutants, instead it will apply very low damage.
Bugfix: Train doors now open and close properly.
Bugfix: Train now can go in reverse.
Bugfix: Some capture points could not be captured properly.
Bugfix: You can now see under the water.
UPCOMING UPDATE - STILL ALIVE AND KICKIN
Greetings Everyone,
We wanted to update everyone and let you all know that while we have appeared silent on the store page, we are hard at work improving Outbreak. When we upgraded the title from Unreal 4.14 to Unreal 4.16 it caused a bug that had multiple adverse effects that we were not able to fix until the latest patch of Unreal 4.17. This was one of the major reasons for a delay in updates on the game. The next update will include
Upcoming Outbreak Patch Notes
- Updated game to the latest Unreal Version (4.17)
- Added localized voice-chat (Press 'X' to talk in the vicinity)
- Optimized game-world to improve performance (Pre-Patch 70 FPS -> 150 FPS on GTX1080)
- Improved loading times.
- Improved rendering speed of the water resulting in a small FPS increase.
- Added third person Mode to the game.
- Enabled ThirdPerson by default, you can now toggle to FirstPerson using the 'V' key.
- All Control points will now be available on the map showing who controls them.
- Respawn at nearest control point under your control
- Revive downed teammate (45-second timer)
- Major graphical improvements and environment enhancements.
We look forwarding to being able to push this update out in the next few weeks and just wanted to touch base with all of you. We appreciate your patience during this time!
Regards,
The Forthright Outbreak Dev Team
Content Price Reflections
Greetings Everyone,
As we have been listening to our player base, one thing that we have heard you all saying and agree with you on is that the game, in its current mode, needs more content to be worth the previous $19.99 price tag. As this is in Early Access, we have dropped the price to $9.99 for the time being, as we believe this price point reflects the current value of the game. As we continue to add content, we will increase the price over time to reflect the value of that content. This will also reward players for adopting the game earlier. The game, in its current state, is best played with friends, and personally we recommend starting in the Sandbox mode so you can experience the game to its current fullest potential. As we have said before, we are planning on a list of changes that include revive features, spawning at a control point you own, and making sure the mutant horde doesn't attack your base immediately and every single night. Please be patient with us as we continue the code review, update the project to the latest Unreal Engine build, and begin to add more content. Thank you all!
Regards,
The Forthright Outbreak Dev Team.
NEW OWNERSHIP
Hello everyone,
Outbreak was recently acquired by Forthright Entertainment. As many people are aware, Forthright Entertainment also purchased of the Beasts of Prey IP. So the very first item to answer is that these two titles are being worked on by separate teams within Forthright. The second thing that needs to be addressed, is that Outbreak will be completed for PC before any more console version work is done. It will be a few weeks before we have the team in place to continue updates for the game, however, below is a list of the changes that will be addressed in our first update to the game.
Respawn near a control a point that you have secured or choose to respawn at the base.
In Co-Op, there will be a 60-second timer that an ally can revive you.
Your location and your allies location will be shown on the game map.
There are many more changes to come, but we wanted to say hello and that we will be continuing to bring more updates in the future. We know that the game needs more "life" in it, more items, and more things to do, and we will be working towards that end.
DENY has graciously agreed to come on board as our Moderator. He has brought valuable insight and a unique perspective for our team, and he is a friendly face for many of you. We look forward to delivering the game that we as players have been desiring to see brought to life.
Regards,
Forthright Outbreak Dev Team
Update 21 - Performance Boost
Hello,
we've been a bit silent over the last weeks as we were focusing development on porting the game over to the XB1. During the development it became clear that the game wasn't optimized enough for the XB1 console. During the past weeks we redesigned many shaders and effects in order to optimize the performance. The result is a 40-60% FPS increase, depending on the machine you are playing on (low-end machines will have bigger boosts).
Changes :
- The game now utilizes the UE4 HLOD System.
- Implemented cascaded far shadows for landscape.
- Redesigned many shaders to improve the FPS.
- Shadows are now calculated a lot faster.
- Fixed a bug where the robots would not accept commands.
Update 20 - A New Mutant Arrived!
With Helloween arriving we are added a new mutant variant. They are bigger and a lot stronger but have very bad sight. They'll chase you and try to find you when making noise. They are social and if one of them sees you the others will make a run for him. Before engaging them ensure you are prepared. Additionally we also fixed a few issues you were reporting previously. During the Helloween Sale the game is also discounted by 40%. Happy holidays, everyone!
Changes
- A new Mutant Variant has been added to the game.
- Additional Spawn Points have been added to the world.
- Robots are now properly saved.
- Robots now accept commands from network players.
- Portable Lights are now saved properly.
- Fixed the bear animation when running fast.
Update 19 - Sandbox Mode & Polishing
Hello everyone,
this Update took us a bit longer due to Hurricane Matthew and a rendering bug we had to hunt down. In this patch we are adding the sandbox mode that gives you a huge amount of resources to play and experiment with. If you are in for a lot of action we recommend setting the faction movements to 30 seconds as it will advance mutant raids and military expansion very quickly. On the upcoming patch which is scheduled for release next week we will be adding a new mutant variant to the game.
- Added Sandbox Mode. In Sandbox Mode you'll have endless resources on your base.
- Inventories no longer auto-close sometimes. (No more unintended firing)
- Fixed a bug where the robot would spawn twice on network clients (ghost version)
- Disabled DBuffer Drawing for Decals
- Fixed Fast-Semantics Bug in DX11.RHI (UE 4.13 Bug)
- Optimized DX11.RHI Buffer Clearing (L1/L2 Caches)
- Fixed an animation on the bear.
- Fixed an AI bug where enemies would stop seeing you.
Update 18
Hello everyone,
these are just a few changes and balancing/bug issue updates that came up after the last patch. We have a few smaller issues reported by you which we will be addressing during the next days. Patch 20 should be about adding content again. Hope you like the new menu scene.
Changes :
- New Main Menu Scene added.
- Improved GFX & Performance slightly (Optimized shaders, fine-tuned post-effects)
- Fixed an inventory bug.
- PDW no longer requires 2 blueprints.
- Animals/NPCs no longer trigger tooltips. (Damn Racoons!)
- Fixed an inventory dupe bug.
Hello everyone,
now this Update is slightly larger but we are finally releasing the long awaited Craft-Your-Robot Mechanic. The robots you can now craft will fight alongside you, guard captures areas and follow you through-out the game-world. To craft a robot simply place the legs of the robot on the ground, then interact with them using 'e' - add all robot parts and a G3A3 rifle to it and your robot will activate itself.
In addition to the robots we also improved the graphics and the performance of the game. We updated the engine to Unreal 4.13, re-integrated VoiceChat with Push-To-Talk and added 3D Tutorial Tooltips (which can be toggled off in the main menu).
The engine update was quite some pain as the engine changed quite some API calls so some of our C++ required a bit of work. As usual please report issues you are running into to our forums. Within the next week we intend to polish the game again, work on the balancing and solve any issues coming up.
Changes :
- NPCs no longer drop a bag, instead you loot them directly.
- Added 3D tooltips through your facility (when starting a new game).
- Added menu option to disable 3D tooltips.
- You can now craft robotparts and assemble your very own robot army.
- Robots can be controlled by running up to them and pressing the 'e' key to cycle through their commands (Follow/Stay/Patrol).
- Added some robot parts in the crafting room to give you a little head-start on crafting your first robot.
- Robots can be repaired with the repair gun.
- Removed TemporalAA and replaced it with FXAA resulting in a less blurry and crispier game-world.
- Replaced one of the SpeedTree models with a nicer looking but less resource-intense tree model.
- Improved & Adjusted Post-Process effects to improve the overall look and feel of the game.
- Switched a few ground textures and increased resolution in general on landscape, resulting in better looking ground textures.
- Improved the landscape shader to render slightly faster increasing the overall performance of the game.
- Replaced SSR material on water since we no longer use TemporalAA.
- Improved water shader to render faster.
- Fixed Capture Point not being affected by Toxin.
- Fixed several animations on the NPCs.
- Fixed several minor AI bugs.
- Updated engine to UE4.13
- Reimplemented VoiceChat with Push-To-Talk functionality.
- Added Push-To-Talk Button V.
Update 15 & 16 Notes (Mini Updates, already released)
- Dropped spores are now highlighted.
- Turrets are now placed around capture points rather than just your base, allowing you to fortify locations.
- Reduced gasoline weight to 1.5lb
- Reduced weight of a mutant spore to 1.0lb
