Corepunk’s latest alpha was meant to kick off this past weekend, but it wasn’t without a hitch. Artificial Core admitted that the alpha test, which roped in 10,000 players, suffered from both bugs and connection stability. The downside is that the game wasn’t properly playable. The upside is that it soon will be – and the studio is letting in another 5000 players and resending all of the entry keys, as well as mopping up those bugs, resetting the servers, and extending the duration of the test.
“We have found several critical bugs with the servers and game balance that significantly affected the gameplay experience,” Artificial Core says. “The most unpleasant bug occurred with the key distribution, and many members of our community did not receive their keys. IMPORTANT! Today at 6 PM Amsterdam time, we will start a new test, which will now run from today, May 28th, to June 3rd. We are extending it by one day to compensate for yesterday’s rough start.”
“All progress will be reset! We will shut down the servers for maintenance at 5 PM Amsterdam time. We have also made some balance adjustments in this iteration, and your progress should be smoother. We improved campfires and added two campfires in the starting locations. Minor balance fixes affected the Infiltrator and Ranger. Given yesterday’s downtime and the situation, we will send out 5,000 extra keys for the test. Total 15,000 keys. New keys will be sent to everyone, as OLD KEYS WILL NO LONGER WORK. The distribution will be 800 keys every 10 minutes. Those whose game experience was ruined or who were supposed to receive an invitation but did not will be able to start again with everyone else today.”
That’s noon EDT, if you’re wondering, so half an hour from when this post hits the front page of MOP.