From: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org (alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest) To: ammf-digest@smoe.org Subject: alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V14 #6695 Reply-To: ammf@fruvous.com Sender: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest Thursday, June 3 2021 Volume 14 : Number 6695 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Help prevent dangerous situations. ["Safety Device" Subject: Help prevent dangerous situations. Help prevent dangerous situations. http://mosquitoe.us/YOdWgN3U85gYbIMHYPNj4uExJi3NuAXKbu7vmDlNLC22ZeFt http://mosquitoe.us/qkP0T12gwN1sYruMpDSCOy3j3VjQOVu6fdhjY4stDYHyZQ2K uehole used closed alpha and beta periods with about 80,000 players to gauge initial reaction to the gameplay and adjust balance prior to a wider release. Just prior to the early access phase on Steam, Bluehole opened a few servers and invited some popular live streamers of similar games to try it out as to start gaining interest. Early access for the Windows version launched on March 23, 2017. This period was planned to last approximately six months, originally aiming for a September 2017 release. In July 2017, Greene announced that they would need to extend the early access period by a few months, continuing to release updates on a regular basis, with plans to still release by the end of 2017, as committing to this original period "could hinder us from delivering a fully featured game and/or lead to disappointment within the community if the launch deadline is not met". Initially, Bluehole had expected that they would just gain enough players through early access to smooth out the gameplay, and only when the game was completed, they would have started more marketing for the title. The sudden interest in the game from early access exceeded their expectations, and put emphasis on the stability of the game and its underlying networking alongside gameplay improvements. Through August 2017, these updates generally included a major weekly patch alongside major monthly updates that provided key performance improvements. However, from August onward Bluehole backed off the rate of such patches, as the high frequency has led to some quality control issues, and the developers rather make sure each patch content is well-vetted by the community before providing new updates; this did not change their plans for a 2017 release, where it fully released out of early access on December 20. In part of the game's success in early access, Tencent Games, the largest publisher of video games in China, approached Bluehole that same month with an offer to publish Battlegrounds in China and purchase equity in the company. However, the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association issued a statement in October 2017 that discouraged battle royale-style games, stating that they are too violent and deviate from Chinese values of socialism, deeming it harmful to young consumers. The following month however, PUBG had reached a formal agreement with the Chinese government to allow the release of the game in the country, with Tencent as the publishing partner. However, some changes were made to make sure it aligned with socialist values and traditional Chinese morals. In South Korea, the game is marketed and distributed by Kakao Games. Despite the lack of a Chinese publisher prior to the Tencent deal, players in China had found ways to acquire and play the game through Steam via proxies and other networking tricks. To address it, PUBG Corporation planned to add maximum client ping limits for servers which can reduce the issues with latency problems and prevent some of the cheating that has occurred. This would not prevent cross-region matchmaking but may make it difficult for some players to play outside their region if they have a poor Internet infrastructure. Tencent has also helped by identifying and reporting around 30 software programs to Chinese police that can be used to cheat in Battlegrounds, leading to over a hundred arrests by the beginning of 2018. Separately, this technical issue, in addition to the larger number of Chinese players, has created complaints in the player community. Some Western players fear that many Chinese players are able to cheat in the game by exploiting some of the network latency issues, something that PUBG Corporation continued to address as the game shifted out of early access. However, a small number of players called for server segregation by region and had used racial insults at Chinese players they encountered in game. Greene was disappointed with this "xenophobic attitude", calling it "disgraceful", and asked the player commu ------------------------------ End of alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V14 #6695 **********************************************