It's here! Patch 1.5 has arrived! You have all been so patient and kind and we are super thrilled to address many comments, concerns, and feedback with this patch. But I'm also super happy to say we're diligently working away on Patch 1.6 which will offer an entirely revamped Camera Controller, among other reworks. =)
We'll quit wasting your time with all this text and give you what you really want... text of changes!
PATCH 1.5 NOTES:
<*> Greatly improved load times and stability for very full biodomes.
<*> Ensured the loading screen will not go away before all calculations are completed during loading of the biodome (some users experienced access to their biodomes but time still catching up to their new date, which would be seen by the 999/999 impact points, coins counting, name and age not loading during the rest of the calculations).
<*> Fixed multiple types of reported crashes for both PC and Mac users.
<*> Grouped grasses to reduce performance load (render 1 group of 7 grass instead of 7 separate grass). Adjusted leaf values to balance with this change.
<*> Added a “Resolution Quality” option to Graphics. This will increase the clarity and density of the resolution. We suggest “ultra” if your computer can handle it!
<*> Added the ability to turn on the territory range for any individual species of animals or decomposer in the Data Tool.
<*> Added transitional animations so that animals no longer “pop” between sleep and wake.
<*> Aligned animals with hills so they no longer walk straight despite being on angled surfaces.
<*> Improved the appearance of water.
<*> Increased max draw distance options.
<*> Improved the load time and efficiency of the Data Tool for very full biodomes.
<*> Fixed a bug where low population and low health notifications would sometimes report multiple groups even if only one was being impacted.
<*> Updated the visual effects with the pause button (added a popup and pulse the play option) to make it more clear to users that they are paused and how to get back into play mode.
<*> Removed a save that happened every time the user paused, as it was making the process take too long. The game currently auto-saves every couple minutes, adds save notes after main events like unlocks and placement of species, and does a full save when you return to your main menu.
<*> Added a quick save of unlocked zones so if you do experience a crash, it won’t lose the expensive zone unlock.
<*> Optimization of some plant LODs.
<*> Fixed a bug where the Data Tool would only keep species view turned on for a zone if you were zoomed into it then returned back to the global map. Now it will make sure to show them in each zones after that action is taken.
<*> Fixed a bug where the territory radius would remain if a territory was selected when it died.
<*> Fixed a bug where territory markers would sometimes pop in and out visually after switching between view modes.
<*> Fixed a bug when juvenile plants’ UIs were reporting as mature after re-entering the game.
<*> Fixed a bug where some users were being re-granted every achievement every time they entered the game. Will happen one more time then no stop happening. (Sorry, for those happy with all the Tyto Coins, had to be done!)
<*> A fatal error will no longer occur when dragging plants around quickly during placement out of the boundary of your view.
<*> Removed the ability to pause in camera mode as some users accidentally hit the key command and got stuck / confused.
We are pretty sure we fixed these, but need confirmation from you all:
<*> A crash due to audio.
<*> The achievement list duplicating itself into huge numbers.
<*> Crashes while loading very full biodomes.
<*> Crashes while saving very full biodomes.
Here's what the new Pause looks like.
Here's the updated water visuals.
New animation transitions!
**One Known Issue: we didn't have time to fix this before 1.5, but we wanted you to know about it. In some cases, when your biodome loads, your notifications will not display the badge telling you how many items you missed while away, even though there may be events you missed while away. For now, until we hotfix it later this week or early next week, please make sure to check your notification system when you dome loads. Thanks!**
Well, for those of you still with us after that.. thanks! Keep us posted in the comments if you're experiencing any issues and especially update us if your issues are resolved! Happy building, friends. =)
Oops! Patch 1.4 Here to Fix What We Broke
So we pushed out 1.3 and fixed a bunch of bugs. But due to a spreadsheet error (no, really a spreadsheet error, no human involvement at all, really...you buy this, right?) we introduced some extra detritus growth that is crushing users' biodomes. Below is the change list for this patch. Not only did we fix our oopsie, but users can now tap on a territory and see the range marker around the territory to help understand what the territory is interacting with!
Update Changelist:
--------------------------
*Corrected the blooming cycles of several plants - grasses and flowers
*Territory ranges are now able to be toggled by selecting the territory
*Plants that spawn every month (all grasses) now have no detritus (temporary) so that people have a chance to recover from last patch.
*Several plants have had their leaf point value and group sizes changed (mostly in grassland)
*Notification System now states when populations are getting low instead of saying health is low (unless, of course, the health is low)
I hope you find your domes more usable now and find it in your hearts to forgive us. We do realize this may cause some of you to have to rebuild your domes. Let's just pretend this is a hard life lesson. Something like... "when detritus destroys your biodome, you have to cultivate your life all over again." That's got a ring to it, doesn't it?
Seriously, thank you for bearing with us. We expect the roughest behind us at this point and patches here on out to be less problematic. Looking forward to new screenshots and discussion following the download. =)
Patch 1.3: Graphics Options is LIVE!
It's here! Patch 1.3! As a reminder from the previous patch:
TL;DR:
Fixed:
Plant Reproduction (example, grasses reproduce every month properly)
Fish Disappearing has been fixed. (confirmed they get eaten, replenish, and you can use Impact Points to replenish them)
Multiple critical bugs that caused crashes have been fixed.
Graphics options for higher end machines are now available.
For those of you that tested on the beta branch, thank you! We did make one change before making it live. One particular setting, "Resolution Quality" has been throttled back to a low setting due to the FPS issues it created for lower spec machines. For those of you with monster machines, don't worry! We're going to add additional anti-aliasing and resolution quality settings in for you as early as next week. =)
No one in-house has experienced a crash yet, but then again, a lot of our machines are similar, so please report crashes especially.
Some notes on known issues: some users are having terrible stuttering with their mouse cursors. We need you to post threads explaining what exactly the cursor is doing, whether you're using a trackpad or external mouse (for notebook users), and if at all possible, a video of GIF would be super helpful. None of us have experienced it in-house, except our lone Macbook Pro when the FPS gets too low. We're also aware of a weird bug with fruiting plants where they have fruit while fruiting, which shouldn't happen.
Lastly, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for all your support. This launch went way better than expected and your feedback has been critical. We will try to post on Monday or Tuesday about the next patch to be released and what it will entail. Barring anything game-breaking, expect no more patches this weekend. We've decided our team needs a little rest before starting the grind again on Monday, but we'll still be active in the discussion forums. =)
Happy building, friends!
Patch 1.3: Graphics and Bugs, Crashes Oh My!
TL:DR
Fixed:
Plant Reproduction
Fish Disappearing has been fixed.
Multiple critical bugs that caused crashes have been fixed.
Graphics options for higher end machines are now available.
Hello, all! Since launch, we have received a tremendous amount of feedback about nearly every aspect of Tyto Ecology. And it's been amazing! Thank you all so much for spending the time providing this information and playing!
One of the earliest and most consistent points of feedback pertained to the in-game graphics. We heard you! We will be rolling out an update before this weekend (if all goes well in QA) to give you graphics options. You will be able to select texture quality, shadow quality, draw distance, and anti-aliasing options.
We hope you'll use your new graphics options to take even more spectacular screenshots to share with the community. =D
In addition to the graphics options, there were multiple bug and crash fixes pertaining to fish, plant reproduction, and some critical instances where code didn't do what it should, so it closed your game!
Let us know in the discussion forums how everything's going after the patch. Oh, and don't forget to share us with your friends and family!
Some images with the new graphic settings as a teaser:
Early Access Hindsight
Hello, all! So over the last few days since launch, we’ve gotten a lot of questions and suggestions and have been engaging with the community. We’ve already started working on changes and features based on your feedback.
Which has brought up the question from several players, “wait, this game isn’t early access?!”
In hindsight, we probably should have been labeled Early Access in Steam. The guidelines say that you should only launch Early Access if you’re planning on continuing development no matter how well the game sells, though, and we were not going to be able to do that if the game did not sell well.
Given this is a game designed to help teach about the flow of matter through ecosystems, and our first released title, we were not expecting to make a splash on Steam, and have already sold 4x more than we expected, which quickly re-aligned our expectations.
As the Steam community has seen, we are working with you and listening to your feedback, and already working on improvements, like a game in Early Access would do. So in hindsight after seeing what the response has been, yes, that would have been a good idea!
Regardless, we don’t see a hard distinction in the current games market between early or full releases of games. We believe in interacting with our users, engaging with feedback (both positive and negative), and working with our community. We’ll continue to do so as the game continues to sell and provoke reactions, and as our community continues to invest their time into playing it.
So hopefully, even though this was not labeled as Early Access, the community here is enjoying the process and learning together, because we certainly have been. Feel free to continue to give us your comments on the Discussion threads, share YouTube videos, and Screenshots.
We’ve loved reading/seeing/watching, and are getting ideas on what we can do to improve as we see where you all struggle and succeed in your gameplay. People sharing stories and experiences, and spending their valuable time playing our game, is driving us to continue to improve the game and challenge ourselves. Thank you all!
Post-Launch Game Update!
Hello, all. First off, we're so thrilled with how amazingly supportive and interactive the Steam community has been. It's an exhausting and incredible process to work on this platform.
This is our first game, and we've had some unexpected launch issues, including ones that have been game-breaking for some users. It's certainly different going from 20-30 people with your team and friends trying out a game to 2000 people on a variety of computer types in a couple days. Thanks to your interaction on the Discussion boards, screenshots, and sending in crash reports, we've been able to fix a lot of issues over the last two days since launch. Also thanks for your patience for those who have been waiting to access some of their biodomes that had errors!
So, here's the update changelist:
Changelist for Update 1.1
Fixed some achievements not updating to Steam, and added a check to make sure the earned ones will get sent to Steam when the achievements panel is opened in game
Fixed multiple types of crashes reported by users.
Improved crash analytics / profiling system so we can more quickly resolve any remaining issues.
Made improvements to overall performance. This _will_ reduce draw distance right now, so there is increased popping in, but these combined changes have done as much as doubled performance for the lowest-end machine we tested it on. We are pending an update that will allow people to choose high or low graphics settings later.
Some users with advanced biodomes were seeing a weird error with 999/999 impact points and the biodome age as 3 years, 2 months, and [Name] that also causes crashes. When you return, it should be fixed. We had one user report they had to try to enter it twice with our update, but then it started working again. Woohoo!
Fixed (hopefully, we did not reproduce in house) a bug reported by a user of being unable to do things in the game after turning off the tutorial for a second biodome.
Clarified language for “Max Time Away” section of the options
Fixed it taking minutes for biodome health to calculate after re-entering a biodome (will say “Calculating” then happen at start sooner, up to ~20 seconds right now.)
Fixed the Biodex Social entries having duplicates instead of the correct section of info.
Improved the auto-saving when species are unlocked, as occasionally users have reported losing unlocks.
Clarified "holding down shift to move quickly" tutorial language that also need to be moving forward
1440p Resolution option.
We do still have remaining known errors, but since this fixed some game-breaking issues, we wanted to get it out as soon as possible. We're continuing to work on the next update, at least after everyone gets a decent night's sleep finally!
There is a Pinned thread here with more Known Issues that we're about to start working on, feel free to report any additional issues there: http://steamcommunity.com/app/453750/discussions/0/368542585860208600/?fp=2#p1
