InstantAction Blog

Podcast #34.5 - All Funned Out

Episode 34.5 - All Funned Out
Be sure to talk about the podcast and make your suggestions at the forums!

Ace of Aces Updates

Back with more updates that rolled out with the latest IA update.  This time they come from Ace of Aces developers.  Here we go!

Ace of Aces

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• The repair balloon goes away when someone uses it, but then returns after 30 seconds.
• We improved the re-spawn locations. Team Dogfight should work better now.
• We adjusted the score values of the aircraft: Spad 7 and Albatros D.III: 15 points each. Albatros D.Va, Camel, and SE5a: 20 points each. Fokker Triplane, and Spad 13: 23 points each. Fokker D.VII: 25 points.
• We improved lag-handling for some players.
• Fixed a bug in which sometimes you'd fly through the Spy, but the game wasn't recognizing this. Now when you fly through the Spy, you should always successfully pick her up.
• We fixed some scoring bugs.

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So jump into a game and check out the updates.

-Dr Wiley

Lore: Aftermath Updates

Today we rolled out a new release and within that release were some updates to Lore.

So let's jump right in.  Straight from the developers.

Lore: Aftermath

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Death Animations! No longer will your opponent simply blast themselves into bits when they are destroyed, now you can savor your victory over another MAV pilot a little longer as you watch them crash to the Earth and then burn up into a glorious ball of power critical mass destruction :)

New cockpit for the Malice. We updated it so that it better suited the way the Malice cockpit would look.

and the following bug fixes:

• Tower buildings now have doors to them.
• We tweaked the settings that save your customized MAVs to your save slots. Unfortunately this means that you will need to recreate all your saved MAVs. This should be the only time we ever do this and we greatly apoligize for the inconvenience.
• The powerplant now overloads (as opposed to the direct center of the MAV). Also the critical overload upon death will now follow the MAV as it dies or moves.
• Recentering your torso will now take the shortest path.
• Pressing ESC while in an in-game chat window will now properly close that chat window.
• Foot puff effects are now seen on all clients and not just the host machine.
• Only 1 player may now use a repair bay at a time.
• Fixed a bug where players were able to use a repair bay at the mid-point base on Artic Battlefield even if their team no longer controls the base.
• Fixed a bug where players were able to capture the mid-point base even after death on Artic Battlefield.
• You are no longer able to spawn at the mid-point base on Artic Battlefield if your team loses control of the mid-point base while your spawn screen was up.
• When a weapon is destroy, your reload bars no longer reset.
• When you suicide you can still control the MAV up until you explode (previously you lost control when you suicided). This should help you better target enemy MAVs while trying to do a Kamikazi run.

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Lore on IRC

In addition to all these updates they've got information about a Lore IRC Server.  Now you can jump in and chat with the Devs about the game as well as other players.  The channel is set up on irc.quakenet.org(#lore_aftermath).  So hop on in and get to the chatting.

Lore Blog

Finally, you should head on over to http://loreblog.instantaction.com/ and follow up with posts from the developers.  If you haven't found that blog yet, head on over there and get your updates.

-Dr Wiley

InstantAction Issues

Hello everyone,

There is an issue with the site that we are looking into and working to fix.

IA is currently experiencing an issue with our party server.  Currently you will most likely not be able to join games and chat is on a delay.  You may also be running into timeout issues.

Thanks for your patience while we work this issue out.

-Dr Wiley

New Designs and Fixed Designs

With a little work and a lot of determination I've gotten the blog looking like it's regular old self.  Thanks to WhatTheCrap (Andrew Colclough) for helping get it back to normal.

In addition to this you can also once again subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.  For your convenience here's a link to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes: IA podcast on iTunes.

Finally, we've got a new face lift for the IA homepage.  Congrats and thanks to our design team for making this much cleaner version of the homepage. 

Lamb of God: Wrath

InstantAction has teamed up with Lamb of God to use their new song "Grace" from the album "Wrath" for a new Legions trailer.  The album released today, so pick it up if you dig the music.

I've Lost My Beta Label

You may have noticed a nice refresh of the homepage - and with it - the InstantAction beta label has disappeared. We are pleased to announce that the beta goals  IA set out nearly a year ago have been achieved.  

Coming out of Beta means:

• Stability and quality: We've done a ton of work on the back-end and it's now easier and faster to load games, play with most hardware configurations, and stay connected through intensive gameplay.
• Games from all genres: InstantAction.com now spans many genres, including First Person Shooter, Real-Time Strategy, Flight Simulation, Mech, Platformer, and more. 
• Play in all major browsers and on both PC and Mac platforms:  InstantAction.com now supports all major browsers on both Windows and Mac OS.  Chrome support coming soon.
• Community: InstantAction.com has thousands of players logging in each day to play. Users can jump into any multiplayer game and make new friends while engaging in team combat. 
• Live development: InstantAction.com has grounded its roots in ongoing development via a feedback process from the community, allowing players to be a part of the evolution of the site and games. 

Coming out of Beta does NOT mean: 

• The site is finished.   It's not in the least. We've identified a list of community features that will be released in the coming months, including specific features for the first person shooter, Fallen Empire: Legions.  One of the biggest benefits of focusing on a single game is that is that it gives us the flexibility to test various features and functionality that can be brought to the rest.
• Legions or any of the other games that are in beta are out of beta.
• You have to pay for games now. All of our games are still free to play and our pricing structure was just the same as it was yesterday (when we were still in beta).  We have more content and services lined up for the future and will revisit pricing as these are released.
• We're bug free.   With the release of new features, we're always going to find new issues - but that's just the way we can keep evolving at a rapid pace
• We're not going to listen to you.  Again, quite the opposite we're listening more now than ever with Live Development, private testing teams are available for our alpha games, and the outlets have grown as to where you can give feedback (keep reading.... almost there...) 

What's next and how you can help:

• Legions, Legions, Legions.  Fallen Empire: Legions will be getting a huge focus very, very soon. We can't say too much, but let's say getting people trained and in the game as quickly as possible are 2 things that are going to happen really soon.  And all those other features you really want? They are on the list.
• Registration, what?!  We hear you: the mandatory registration is a big barrier to getting into a game quickly on IA and we're working on getting you playing anonymously very soon.
• Rokkitball, Part Deux.  We love this game and we know it hasn't reached its full potential.  Look forward to more features, such as dedicated servers, soon.
• More Games - next up? A kick-ass racing game we most likely will be calling "Rev" ( for those of you watching closely, you know this name is subject to change)
• YOU can get more involved. Behind the scenes, we've put together a set of tools and a testing environment for game developers to take the opinions and ideas of the community and rapidly implement those ideas inside a private InstantAction site. Interact with the developers on our forums, and your ideas can see the light of day in the games you love.

A huge shout out to the private testers and VIPs who have got us this far.  Your roles will only become more important in the coming days as we expand the platform and features set of IA.

-Dr Wiley

Motivational Poster Contest - Winner

It took a lot of deliberating but we've finally come to a conclusion and the winning poster comes to us from Gheist!

Gheist will be receiving a print of his poster as reward for coming up with some great text to go along with the image.

So congrats and thanks to everyone who participated.

-Dr Wiley

Podcast #34 - Verzajjerbaun

Episode 34 - Verzajjerbaun (Right Click to Save As...)

Don't forget to tell us what you think of the podcast and discuss at our forums!

Don't forget to tell us what you think of the podcast and discuss at our forums!

Legions Radio - Backlog

If you missed the latest episode of Legions Radio with guest star Legions 3D Artist, Chris Flanagan.  You can catch it and all the previous episodes right at Legions Radio.

To make this post a little bit longer I've included a link to the latest IA podcast as well.  Starring Derek Manning, from the Legions team: Legions Your Mom.

-Dr Wiley