Hey there Armellians!

Trent Kusters, Studio Director here at LoG. Its been a little while! Im proud to announce that today weve soft-launched that update; v2.2. The one weve been talking about for quite some time now. I did say "soft launch" though, so stick with me and Ill fill you in on how were rolling out v2.2 over the next month or so, and of course, let you know whats inside it!

So what is this v2.2 soft launch? And why?

Soft launches are often performed when a developer needs to ensure the stability or effectiveness of a particular release - and thats the exact reason here too. The build thats just gone live on Steam today (v2.2b1) should be rock solid, but theres a complete overhaul of Armellos multiplayer architecture and we need to be extra sure. Because heres the big news... v2.2s major feature is the addition of crossplay multiplayer. Yep. Armellos new crossplay functionality will enable multiplayer between our Steam, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch multiplayer communities. Now, crossplay multiplayer isnt live just yet! Its ready to go, but weve deactivated all crossplay functionality on Steam while the consoles go through their final certification and approval process with Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation. When thats done, and weve ensured a safer, stable release with this soft launch, the Crossplay Beta will begin rolling out across all platforms (excluding mobile).

Crossplay Beta, you say?!

Thats right, curious Armellian! As soon as a console platform is approved for v2.2, well launch it and activate the Crossplay Beta for Steam and that platform. From the moment the first console goes live, the Crossplay Beta newsfeed asset and all crossplay functionality will go live on Steam and that console platform. You will then automatically start seeing players from that console platform populate the new crossplay multiplayer environment on Steam, and vice-versa. Soon enough, players from all platforms will be vying for the throne right alongside each other! Were at the whims of the console platforms approval process in regards to timing, but keep an eye out for that Crossplay Beta newsfeed item on the main menu as were aiming to have the Crossplay Beta live across all platforms within the next few weeks. The Crossplay Beta will run for as long as we need to ensure its stable (a week, a day, two weeks?) and once were happy, well call v2.2 official and announce it alongside the patch notes. Naturally, if Crossplay is not your thing for some reason, youll be able to opt out and just play with others from your platforms multiplayer environment.

Cool! What else is in v2.2?

As just mentioned, the full patch notes for v2.2 will be released with our final stabilisation patch at the Crossplay Betas end, but we can give you the headlines:

• Crossplay between Steam and all console platforms.
• New, improved multiplayer flow.
• Improved reconnect feature.
• Support for Steam Deck. (Armello is amazing on Steam Deck!)
• Community localisation improvements.
• A multitude of quality of life improvements.
• Numerous bug fixes, major and minor.

You can also find major known issues listed below. And for any of our console players sneaking a peek here (or those of you with console playin pals), yes; this does mean all console platforms are being updated to v2.2, bringing them into parity with Steam. And you guessed it; The Dragon Clan DLC will arrive on console too!

Give me The TLDR, pls!

Weve soft launched v2.2 on Steam, featuring a number of quality of life improvements, as well as major and minor bug fixes. Most importantly, we will be rolling out crossplay multiplayer between all platforms (excluding mobile) over the coming month.

Thats it!

For those of you who've been with us for some time, thanks again for your patience over the past couple years. I can't express how much those of you who have extended your understanding and support have made a difference to our team and our drive to get this update out. We cant wait to get you all playing together - its been over a year in the making on our end - so please, if you do encounter any issues in-game, submit a bug using the Bugsender in the pause menu. See you in Armello!

<3 Trent & the LoG Crew

Other Stuff

Major Known Issues

This is a rolling release, so there are some issues we're aware of and will be hotfixing over the coming days. Most notable of those are:

• Linux/MacOS Only: Splash screens and intro videos do not play.
• Linux Only: No audio. Fix incoming ASAP.
• Rare NMA can occur when multiple players disconnect/reconnect repeatedly.
• Party widget in pause menu displays incorrect Steam username, until clicked.
• Multiplayer loading spinner not aligned correctly in Gather Party menu.
• Very small number of text strings missing (i.e., Dragon Clan novella title in Clan Grounds).
• 'Click to Continue' prompts overlapping each other at beginning of Prologue.
• Shadows draw in front of singleplayer 'Continue' and MP 'Rejoin' options on the main menu.
• Custom Game rules can leak into (incorrectly appear in) main menu Game Preferences.
• Party Widget placement can appear far left of screen sometimes.

If you spot any issues in build, please do let us know via the Bugsender tool in the main menu (or pause menu if in-game)!

Why has this update taken so long?

With the time some of you have been waiting for this update weve seen speculation of a new clan, or 50 new cards, or 2v2, or a bunch of (admittedly real cool) content-heavy stuff like that, so I imagine that whats listed above might not meet some players expectations for this update. That's fair. We understand. It's easy for expectations to build and build in-between updates. After five years of content and feature-focused updates, when we reviewed all of the community requests and asked ourselves what has the best chance of ensuring Armellos future for our community, it wasnt more cards, clans or content, it was ensuring the game is stable and joyful to play, whilst connecting you all to as many players as possible. Additionally, for many, many years (in fact all of Armello's life), Steam has been Armello's lead platform (due to its agility for smaller dev teams) and as a result there are hundreds of thousands of console players that have always had to wait to receive updates long after Steam. For the last few years, they have been waiting far, far too long for an update. It was time for us to turn our attention to our console players again, bringing all console platforms up to parity with Steam - theyve been on v1.8(!) for well over three years now. So, this was always going to be The Crossplay & QoL Update that finally brings consoles in line with Steam. For a team of our size with two brand new games in the building thats already a lot of work, but honestly, the boring and tragic truth here is that with a global pandemic and a tonne of curveballs aimed directly at Armellos development that were out of our control, this update has taken over a year longer than wed hoped. For real, there were times we thought we'd have to just cancel the update, but we pushed on. Still, we do wish wed gotten v2.2 (and the console updates!) out much, much sooner. Theres no one more frustrated at how long this has taken than us, and we do understand what its like to wait for a game you love to address issues you experience. So on behalf of all of us at LoG, we thank you for your patience and understanding!

What about mobile?!

Sorry, mobile pals! v2.2 (inc. crossplay multiplayer and The Dragon Clan DLC) will not be coming to mobile platforms. This is just for Steam, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch. As previously announced, Armello on mobile only just makes enough dosh to keep the servers switched on, so active development and support of mobile platforms ceased back in 2019. We know there's a small dedicated community keeping it alive though, so we'll do our best to keep those lights on for as long as we can.

If you're still reading, thanks again for all your support. We appreciate you. <3

[ 2021-11-09 07:57:40 CET ] [ Original post ]