Beta Status
2012.03.16 - 
The beta so far has been great and being a great beta means it has been rocky. We have had crashes, we have had bugs, and we have had great feedback that has changed the game. All of that makes sense. This is a game in development, a development you are part of.
Since this is our first game together, we should explain a few things up front and show you how we incorporate feedback.
Some feedback we simply act on, others we will look at the cause of the problem, and some we will get more data on. No feedback is ignored.
For some feedback, we simply want to collect more data. How are the changes in money working? Let’s have people play and then analyze the changes.
Other bits are straight forward. Lengthen the rounds in Arsenal: Demolition. Sure, makes sense. You will see that change this week.
Other bug reports are simple and tucked away. There is a bug with the scoreboard. Yep. Thanks for reporting it. We now know it is there and will fix it, we just have more important bugs to fix first.
Some are like fog or weapons. They are ongoing. For example, we have again adjusted the fog level in all maps with this update. You also helped us identify a bug in the particle systems that we will update next week.
This week’s update includes de_dust2_se. You will be able to access it through the map command “map de_dust2_se” in the console. This is a version of Dust2 with the fog off, props removed, cables removed, and particle effects removed. It was created especially for pro-competitive play and leagues.
We are consuming the feedback. We are listening to all and acting on some.
Our Friday updates are not the sum of all our work. It is what we have ready and tested for that week.
We don’t post what is coming in two weeks because of your feedback and how we work. While some of the update is planned in advance to test a feature or change, for feedback you have raised we are more iterative. So if you asked us a few weeks ago about how we would solve a specific problem – we might have told you a different answer than what we shipped today.
Our process allows us to adapt and make changes along the way so we aren’t locked into to just one solution.
Thanks again for all the feedback; we do read it. If it is a discussion, we normally do not like to voice our opinion on the forums because it is much more interesting to see the community work through the problem. This is why we suggest posting bugs to the forums. The discussion and solutions always get better with more people looking at them.
Enjoy this week’s update which includes Italy and chickens.
