NC2 EVOL 2.1
Reakktor’s different departments are currently working on some large improvements for the game. Our main focus currently lies on improving the graphics and further developing the graphics engine.
We consider some of these improvements so drastic that we decided to present these as Neocron’s evolution stage 2.1 to the public. Of course this upgrade will be free of charge for all Neocron 2 customers and will be released in several large packages. We are aiming to complete this process within the next 2-3 months. As these measures will, once they have been completed, have a considerable impact on the effectiveness of the client and the download sizes, we will provide a new client that contains all the current patches and upgrades. The current clients will naturally remain compatible.
Now on to what is being worked on: as we have learned to be cautious with announcements in the past, I can’t reveal too much about the changes to the engine. What I can tell you is that we’re working on improvements to areas like shadows, physics, collisions and player position updates. Updates about specific features will be released as their development finishes. The main points of the graphics package are:
Vegetation Update:
Our graphics department has completely reworked or replaced the complete Neocron vegetation. Therefore we were quite pleased to see several requests for nicer vegetation in the forums; that was a nice coincidence. In the same line of thought we have started to further develop the appearance and content of the Wastelands, so that the new vegetation can take full effect. We are currently on this step of the process, which will take some more time. We will keep you updated with graphical content. Here's a first sneak preview:
Weapons:
The weapons currently available in Neocron are admittedly from "another time". Their look is consequently somewhat stale. But we will bring an end to this soon! Even though we are still bound to the technical foundation of our engine, we will gradually replace all important weapon models. The first package will contain about 10 new models. For starters, our focus lies on the models used by the first weapons the players get to see at the beginning of the game and those that are in special need of a makeover. Unfortunately we can not give an exact timeline yet. But to give you a feel for the new direction, we’d like to show you a few images from already completed models:
Some of you will certainly miss NPC- respectively player models in this listing. There is only so much we can do in one package, therefore this will come at a later time, in a future package.
PvP Server
As announced a while ago, the time to convert the server Pandore into the PvP server Neptune is coming. Neocron 1 players will remember that we had plans to implement a PvP server called Neptune back then. These plans were never implemented for diverse reasons. Therefore we are looking forward to finally be able to offer this service.
I’d like to announce some details concerning the change right now, even though most of the exact procedures and timings will be announced on the forums.
Players that have been playing on Pandore with their characters will have the opportunity to have their characters transferred to another server. The transfer has to be requested at our support department. Once the transfer is complete, the characters will be removed from the server of origin, Pandore.
There are several rules for these transfers:
The most important point is that the characters will be transferred in the state they were in when the database snapshot is created. The snapshot will be created on September 7. Any changes done to the characters after this date will not be considered! Therefore a thought out preparation is suggested!
Characters can take any items they carry on them as well as the contents of the GoGuardian with them to the other servers. This also applies to their money. While all items will be transferred, apartment and vehicle keys will be reset and can be registered again on the new server. To make this easier on the Pandore players, we have further extended the possibilities of the NC1/NC2 transfer. The only data that will not be transferred are things that are too interlocked like clan membership. All other character data remains untouched.
We hope that this procedure will satisfy the Pandore players as much as possible under the circumstances.
The game rules for the server will be open for discussion in the forums shortly. There will however be some limitations to the rules, considering we can not implement branched out patch structure for this server. It will remain technically compatible to the other servers, meaning that you can play on all available servers with the same Neocron installation.
