Quintet
6-8-15: Capture Wars test, tonight at 7 PM EST!
IMPORTANT NOTE: For the purposes of this test, anyone is allowed to participate. However, once the scenario goes live for serious playing, only upgraded accounts will be able to participate in Capture Wars, even for joining ships. Each upgraded account will also be locked to their chosen race in this mode, for the duration of the war. No switching sides mid-game. (You'll still be able to use the other races' ships in other scenarios, so don't worry about that!)
For those wondering why CW will be an upgrade-only game mode, please bear in mind that we give you access to most of the content in the game for free. At worst, someone who has upgraded must be the one to launch a ship. We think it's more than fair to let you keep doing that with the existing content. CW is different, since it's our first crack at a persistent game mode. It will also lay the ground work for more persistent content in the future. A one time upgrade (for life, mind you) at a cost of $5 isn't too much to ask for that access.
As usual, we'll be on our Teamspeak server tonight, so join us, won't you? ts.quintet.us:5
We may also be streaming to our Twitch channel.
Also in 14.6:
- Carmine has added major improvements to assist the game's stability for our Linux users.
- Passwords on ships now persist upon returning to the lobby.
6-1-2015: Monday Battle Night tonight @7PM EST (4 PM PST!)
As usual, we're starting at 7 PM EST (GMT -5). We might be streaming some of the action on our Twitch channel, as well.
Join us on our Teamspeak server: ts.quintet.us:5
Some of you have already noticed that we have recently implemented in-game voice chat. This feature is still in its infancy, but Carmine actually built it from scratch. He'll make improvements to it over time, but we're glad to see that people have been using it!
For those that don't already know, the default Push To Talk hotkey is Left Alt, and you'll need to hold it down while transmitting.
5-28-15: V 14.0 is now LIVE!
We have some big features in this version:
- The Tutorial is replacing Target Practice. It's the exact same map, but is now instanced for each ship that starts in it. Think of it as a built in Wiki, which I wrote to cover the basics. Between this and the Controls display, just about anyone can figure out the basics of the game. You can redo the tutorial from the main menu at any time.
- Related: We added the Controls display button to the lobby menu, so people can read it before jumping onto a ship. Hopefully they'll read the controls, and then start the tutorial.
- In Game voice chat is now implemented! Once you connect to the voice server and pick a channel, you can use the left alt key as your push to talk key. For those on mobile devices, we added a PTT button, as well. Currently, you can choose between the Alpha, Beta, and Delta channels, or the Scenario/Your Ship channels if you're on a ship. We'll tweak this function more over time.
- You want to add your friends? You can! If you're in the lobby, you can click on their name while they're on a ship, and you'll get a popup menu. You can add that player to your friends list, and that player will be displayed in green. You can even filter the ship list by Friends, and see which ships they're on. Need someone's voice chat muted? You can also do that from the popup menu. Note that the Friends/Muted feature is tied to your account, and will sync up regardless of which device you log in from!
- Open Space 2.0 is BACK! We fixed the issues that it was causing, and now you can return to it for your PvE mission cravings.
- On that note, The original Open Space has been renamed to "PvP Sandbox", to better differentiate the two. If you want PvP, then go to PvP Sandbox or one of the PvP scenarios. If you prefer PvE/Roleplaying, OS2 is the place to be for that.
- Several bug fixes.
- Is the Tutorial not enough information for you? Then look in the Community Guides section, and check out the Quintet Comprehensive Guide I posted this morning! It's filled with information about the races, ships, and strategies.
A note for iOS users: It should take 7-10 days for the update to go live there.
For Android users, it should take 2-4 days for Play Store approval.
For those downloading from our website, just download the latest version right now.
Urgent: Open Space 2.0 Maintenance
NO OTHER SCENARIOS WILL BE AFFECTED.
Again, all other scenarios will remain available to you (if they were already available) during this time. Apologies for the inconvenience; we'll post another announcement once the issues with Open Space 2.0 have been fixed.
May 18th, 2015 - Steam launch week, and a battle night!
It's been just one week since Quintet expanded on to Steam, and what a week it's been! We've had a lot of constructive feedback on our forums, and we've read your reviews. Some of you have asked for features that we also want to see, and some have asked for things that would require building a totally new game. I'll address a few of the immediately feasible ones, at least!
The most requested feature so far is a tutorial, and we're working on it. We will implement it as soon as it's ready, and that should happen fairly soon - possibly as early as this week. In the meantime, there is a Controls button at the top when you're in game, and that is useful for learning the very basics.
The second most requested feature is integrated voice chat. It's being worked on, and it should be ready even sooner than the tutorial, because communication is crucial in this game! This feature has had most of Carmine's attention for the past several days. You'll be able to automatically log in to our voice server, if you choose (it's off by default.) You'll also be able to mute specific players, if you need to - just click on their name in the VoiceComm menu, and you'll get a popup with that toggle. You'll also be able to Friend people, and then find them easier later on. Those Friend/Mute Player settings will be tied to your account.
One of our long standing traditions (remember, Quintet has been playable for over two years) has been our battle nights. Some of you who have been around since the Steam Greenlight campaign (or even as far back as the Kickstarter!) have joined the dev team for these nights. We usually run through a few scenarios, maybe get into some crazy PvP, and in many of the past battle nights, we've done beta testing. Lots (and lots) of beta testing.
If any or all of this sounds fun to you, our next one is going to be TONIGHT, at 7 PM EST (GMT -5). That's just under an hour from now! The dev team will be on, and we may end up streaming on our Twitch channel for part of the evening. Please consider joining us on our Teamspeak, as well.
The Quintet Teamspeak server is: ts.quintet.us:5
Open Space 2.0:
Many players like the Open Space mode of the game, which is a PvP sandbox spread across 25 sectors. We've been working on Open Space 2.0, - its bigger and beefier brother, which you can access from the Player Created Scenarios section of the menu. Note that this mode has dynamic AI spawning in and out of sectors, as well as missions you can elect to take. You CAN still go around just shooting the ships of the other races, but you might have more fun flying around from sector to sector just taking on missions.
In addition: Each race in OS 2.0 now has one sector called Simulator. You can use the dialogue box there to spawn new missions - just note that in order to "reset" the sector, every player ship needs to jump away (leaving the sector empty of players) and then jump back into it.
And now, since some of you like statistics, here are a few of ours:
- Prior to the Steam launch, we had 14-15k created accounts. We're now close to 25k created accounts. This doesn't include people who log in as a guest, of course.
- As of the time I post this, we have over 23k Steam accounts that have played Quintet. Many of those were existing players, so while there is some overlap...it's still a lot of new players!
- Prior to the Steam launch, the highest number of simultaneous players we had was around 38. After the launch, we've seen it peak at 148, with anything under 35 players being considered "slow".
- As of this moment, 95 people have bought either the Basic or Trio upgrade via Steam. You can play for free forever, but we really appreciate it when people support us by upgrading. These upgrades are both permanent and universal, so you can access your account from any compatible device.
- In terms of reviews, we have 50 positive reviews and 16 negative reviews on Steam, as of this post.
We're looking forward to what the future weeks and months will bring, and we're excited to be making a game that so many of you have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy. We wouldn't be here without you, so thank you!