[[{“value”:”
Over the weekend, Wardogs hit a mammoth peak concurrent count of over 425,000. Today, the game is undergoing scheduled maintenance to improve the server browser experience for players. The servers will be down on Monday, 14 September from 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM GMT for approximately one hour while the patch is deployed. Here’s everything included in that patch and what it means for your Wardogs experience.
Server Browser Improvements
In the patch notes, Wardogs developer Bulkhead acknowledges that the server browsing experience hasn’t been as good as it should be. “Community servers have been underserved, and the server browser experience as a whole has been poor,” the developer writes. “It is clear to us that we have not put the same amount of care and passion into community servers that we have into the rest of the game.”
As a result, Bulkhead says it “worked through the night” to put together an update that will “start the process” of improving the server browser, with a focus on community servers.
“Community servers are the lifeblood of FPS games like ours,” Bulkhead adds. This means that the developer will be “actively” creating technology to support the growth of communities. “We have failed to do that by rushing our community server strategy. As we’ve always said, when we’re wrong, we’ll hold our hands up. We got this bit wrong.”
To address this, Bulkhead will be making the following changes to the server browser:
- New front-end browser split into community and official
There will be a new interface appearing when searching for a server. “A game with this many players realistically should be using matchmaking, and server browsers aren’t massively fit for purpose, but we don’t want community admins and hosts to suffer.” This option for players allows you to choose between joining official or community servers, but doesn’t make the experience unfairly weighted toward official servers.
- Removed unnecessary filtering from official servers
Filtering is not necessary for official servers right now, since there are no official modified game modes just yet. For now, filtering has been removed from the official server browser.
- Improved reliability of filtering in community servers
- Added text-based search to community servers
- Community server IDs now persist between matches and restarts
Community server IDs were previously wiped on map change and restart, but will now persist. Each server has its own unique ID so you can join via that. However, the number will be much longer. Bulkhead says this is for “security reasons.”
- Added “Show Empty/Full” to server browser quick bar
No more endless scrolling to check the player numbers and find a server with space.
- Updated Host button to direct to the correct location
- Server name ordering and naming
New requirements on servers require them to be alphabetical, regardless of special characters and numbers. You will no longer be allowed to use more than one space at a time.
As an apology, next week community servers will offer a bonus 5% end-of-match cash bonus.
Upcoming features
Bulkhead is still working on a list of features that communities have requested “as a priority.” It won’t affect the content the team is working on for Season 2, but it says it is “heavily focused on reactive quality-of-life feedback for the very short term.” While the features are not yet ready, Bulkhead has shared the following new features are coming soon to Wardogs:
- Community server favoriting
- Tiered priority queues for community servers
- Message of the Day prompt
- Improved warmup activities
- AFK kicked during seeding disabling
- Team switching controls
Other fixes
Various cash exploits have been fixed, and GPU crashes have been addressed.
Increased capacity in Asia
The server capacity in the Asian region has been increased to support the interest coming from Asia. Bulkhead adds, “Thank you to our players across Asia who have shown interest and continued to play the game. We will be putting more focus into supporting Asia as an important part of the worldwide Wardogs playerbase.”
Economy abuse
The economy of Wardogs links all players into a shared universe and experience, and Bulkhead wants to make its stance on economy abuse clear. “As an early access game, we’re not perfect, and we never will be. But if you do find something and take advantage of it, we have decided to come down hard.” As a result, you can expect the following repercussions if you exploit the game:
- Abusing cash exploits and bugs will result in a timed ban, the length of which will be determined based on previously applied bans. Cash and XP will be reset to 0.
- Creating content that tutorialises economy exploits and bugs will be regarded as advertising cheats and will result in a permanent ban. “There are easy ways to get things in front of us. We are not saying do not post on social media or Discord. We are saying there is a difference between promoting and alerting.”
- XP farming will result in the most serious bans. Bulkhead tracks every server you enter and says it is “very aware” of which servers are XP farming servers. “If your account is tracked as joining one of these servers for more than a few minutes, we will ban your account permanently.”
Bulkhead says that it’s open to feedback on its policy, and invites players to communicate with the studio to let the team know if you agree with its stance or think it should be adjusted.
You can read the full patch notes here. The new Wardogs update should help communities build a stronger base, and from a player perspective, I’m just glad I don’t have to endlessly scroll through servers to look for any that aren’t full. If you’re still facing difficulties getting into the game, check out our guide on how to fix the Wardogs WD-L014 error code. We’ve also got all you need to know on how to level up each skill in the most efficient way.
“}]]
[[{“value”:”Over the weekend, Wardogs hit a mammoth peak concurrent count of over 425,000. Today, the game is undergoing scheduled maintenance to improve the server browser experience for players. The servers will be down on Monday, 14 September from 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM GMT for approximately one hour while the patch is deployed. Here’s everything included in that patch and what it means for your Wardogs experience.
Server Browser Improvements
In the patch notes, Wardogs developer Bulkhead acknowledges that the server browsing experience hasn’t been as good as it should be. “Community servers have been underserved, and the server browser experience as a whole has been poor,” the developer writes. “It is clear to us that we have not put the same amount of care and passion into community servers that we have into the rest of the game.”
As a result, Bulkhead says it “worked through the night” to put together an update that will “start the process” of improving the server browser, with a focus on community servers.
“Community servers are the lifeblood of FPS games like ours,” Bulkhead adds. This means that the developer will be “actively” creating technology to support the growth of communities. “We have failed to do that by rushing our community server strategy. As we’ve always said, when we’re wrong, we’ll hold our hands up. We got this bit wrong.”
To address this, Bulkhead will be making the following changes to the server browser:
New front-end browser split into community and official
There will be a new interface appearing when searching for a server. “A game with this many players realistically should be using matchmaking, and server browsers aren’t massively fit for purpose, but we don’t want community admins and hosts to suffer.” This option for players allows you to choose between joining official or community servers, but doesn’t make the experience unfairly weighted toward official servers.
Removed unnecessary filtering from official servers
Filtering is not necessary for official servers right now, since there are no official modified game modes just yet. For now, filtering has been removed from the official server browser.
Improved reliability of filtering in community servers
Added text-based search to community servers
Community server IDs now persist between matches and restarts
Community server IDs were previously wiped on map change and restart, but will now persist. Each server has its own unique ID so you can join via that. However, the number will be much longer. Bulkhead says this is for “security reasons.”
Added “Show Empty/Full” to server browser quick bar
No more endless scrolling to check the player numbers and find a server with space.
Updated Host button to direct to the correct location
Server name ordering and naming
New requirements on servers require them to be alphabetical, regardless of special characters and numbers. You will no longer be allowed to use more than one space at a time.
As an apology, next week community servers will offer a bonus 5% end-of-match cash bonus.
Upcoming features
Bulkhead is still working on a list of features that communities have requested “as a priority.” It won’t affect the content the team is working on for Season 2, but it says it is “heavily focused on reactive quality-of-life feedback for the very short term.” While the features are not yet ready, Bulkhead has shared the following new features are coming soon to Wardogs:
Community server favoriting
Tiered priority queues for community servers
Message of the Day prompt
Improved warmup activities
AFK kicked during seeding disabling
Team switching controls
Other fixes
Various cash exploits have been fixed, and GPU crashes have been addressed.
Increased capacity in Asia
The server capacity in the Asian region has been increased to support the interest coming from Asia. Bulkhead adds, “Thank you to our players across Asia who have shown interest and continued to play the game. We will be putting more focus into supporting Asia as an important part of the worldwide Wardogs playerbase.”
Economy abuse
The economy of Wardogs links all players into a shared universe and experience, and Bulkhead wants to make its stance on economy abuse clear. “As an early access game, we’re not perfect, and we never will be. But if you do find something and take advantage of it, we have decided to come down hard.” As a result, you can expect the following repercussions if you exploit the game:
Abusing cash exploits and bugs will result in a timed ban, the length of which will be determined based on previously applied bans. Cash and XP will be reset to 0.
Creating content that tutorialises economy exploits and bugs will be regarded as advertising cheats and will result in a permanent ban. “There are easy ways to get things in front of us. We are not saying do not post on social media or Discord. We are saying there is a difference between promoting and alerting.”
XP farming will result in the most serious bans. Bulkhead tracks every server you enter and says it is “very aware” of which servers are XP farming servers. “If your account is tracked as joining one of these servers for more than a few minutes, we will ban your account permanently.”
Bulkhead says that it’s open to feedback on its policy, and invites players to communicate with the studio to let the team know if you agree with its stance or think it should be adjusted.
You can read the full patch notes here. The new Wardogs update should help communities build a stronger base, and from a player perspective, I’m just glad I don’t have to endlessly scroll through servers to look for any that aren’t full. If you’re still facing difficulties getting into the game, check out our guide on how to fix the Wardogs WD-L014 error code. We’ve also got all you need to know on how to level up each skill in the most efficient way.”}]] Read More GameSpot – All Content
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