rip|TEAM

The Public Beta client build was made several weeks ago and since then, there have been over 1000 changes made to the game in source code and art assets, with significant improvements to game mechanics, maps, user interface, hit prediction and detection, and audio, just to name a few areas. Some of these aren’t quite ready for prime time yet, but we’re hoping to bring you a major update later in the Public Beta process.

Quick summary of the changes...

Bots, Bots, Bots

The most significant addition is that the bots are now activated. Server administrators will be able to populate their servers with computer-controlled bots to fill up empty player slots. id Software’s John “Maleficus” Dean has been working on these for quite some time and we’re very excited to be able to roll them out now for our beta testers to see them in action. There’s actually a great interview with John on IGN talking in-depth about the bots.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/795/795599p1.html

Improved Prediction

One of the most talked about items on the beta forums is that aiming is quite difficult at times due to the way player and latency prediction are handled in this particular revision of the beta. You’re seeing this because our antilag features haven’t been added to the public beta yet, but our latency wonder twins Tristan “FeaRog” Williams and Gordon “digibob” Biggans have been working tirelessly on them in recent weeks and several improvements are forthcoming there. The first is going into this update and you should find it a bit easier to hit targets now. We continue to toil away on antilag and we’ll have a bit more information on what’s going on here in a future blog update.

Server Browser Fixes

We’ve got two pretty significant server browser fixes in this update, courtesy of our resident user interface commando Jared “jRAD” Hefty. The first fixes the pesky “Server is full.” bug that sometimes occurs when multiple server instances are run on the same box. Essentially, the information sent back from the server would sometimes get confused about which instance was being queried and send the wrong information back to the browser.

Locki-SD wrote:
Since we're getting so many questions about another map ...
I'll type a quick update here to answer them all in one go ok...
I don't know why I'm saying 'ok?', since none of you can answer
Anyway! After the Programmers have completed their testing of new things like the anti-lag code in updates (along with Bots), we'll be releasing a brand new build called Beta 2.
This 'Beta 2' will feature a new map. At the moment we think that Valley will be the best choice, as it features additional vehicles (such as the Anansi Hovercopter, and the MCP objective).