Minor Patch 23728 - Core Architectural Upgrades and Bugfixes
Patch Type: Minor
Patch Number 23728
PTR Date: 5/21/2022
Release Date: 5/27/2022
We are excited to announce the next minor update comes with core architectural upgrades to Zenith's backend system, bugfixes, and a couple feature updates. PTR will slowly roll out across platforms on the following dates:
- 5/21/2022 - Quest, Quest 2, SteamVR, Rift
If you come across any bugs, we encourage you to report them here: https://ptr.zenithmmo.com/boards/bug-reports.
More about how to access PTRs can be found here
Architectural Upgrades to Support the Future of Zenith
In this update, we made much needed core architectural upgrades to Zenith's backend system. A strong and robust backend architecture is crucial to an interconnected real-time experience like Zenith. The upgrades will allow us to implement more of the interactive gameplay features that we've all been dreaming of, plus improve gameplay and networking performance over time. As a whole, this will improve our behind the scenes work and "quality of life" as developers so we can build the game faster too.
Breaking Changes
- 30 godstones limit per ability
- While we won't be removing any existing player's godstones, you won't be able to pick up additional godstones of that ability until you trash them.
- For convenience, we've included a clear godstones button that will remove all low level godstones with no XP from your inventory.
Resolved Issues
- Fixed several issues with referral points. In some cases the number of points shown in game was incorrect (too low), and in other cases the number was correct but the rewards did not unlock in the store.
- Fixed an issue with party members sometimes not being able to leave a party after previously disbanding a party.
- Guild members can no longer promote a party member above their own role.
- Fixed bug where the player was able to climb in the air after an object that was currently being held de-spawned.
- Fixed quest journal sometimes not appearing until the player switched tabs back and forth.
New Character Copying Feature (PTR ONLY)
We're running a phased rollout of the new systems -- initially 50% of users will be able to copy over their characters from production so they can avoid starting from scratch. The other 50% will need to use staging characters. As we test the core systems, we'll roll out this copy feature to all 100%
Feature Updates
- Add a button to remove all low rarity godstones with no XP on them.
- Capped the amount of godstones a player can hold to 15 (this will be increased to 30 for the public release due to player feedback!)
Known Issues (Will be fixed by launch)
- Some players may lose access to their cooking and gathering skills on their staging characters only
- Climbing currently requires you to hold grip once you've touched the surface, rather than keep the grip button held -- so climbing may be a little bit harder.
Testing Philosophy
We wanted to add a bit of color to how thoroughly we're testing this. Although there are no significant user-facing changes in this patch, it represents a significant code change in the backend, as such we're taking all steps possible for a small team to reduce the risk of disruption when we go live, namely:
- Hired 6 external QA testers and 1 new internal QA lead to test these builds non-stop leading up to launch
- Have been testing with 40 trusted community members on early versions of the PTR for the past several weeks
- Built a new phased rollout system that will let us dynamically increase the percentage of users on the new systems overtime.
- Several internal playtests where the entire team tested and reported bugs
Despite all this -- there's always a chance that we may experience some unknown bugs on launch day, please don't worry, we plan on resolving every single one of them as quickly as we can, and also helping any people that are affected by such changes.
One way interested community members might help us to reduce the chances of something going wrong is to help us catch the bugs by jumping onto the PTR build now and also helping out with our load test later this week.