[Loudninja]

Two New Maps on Cypress: Let’s jump right into the big stuff in 1.03 and that’s the 2 new maps! We really wanted to craft a new world that was more lush, more green, with lots of plants and huge trees and shallow water that you could drive and run through. Yet at the same time, we listened to some of the player feedback regarding our levels when we first launched Starhawk. Players wanted to see more cover and places for troops to hide. They also wanted to see some pre-built structures that you could go inside. Cypress: Collider and Cypress: Origin have all those things!

So now that this blog post is done I’ve got to get back to work. We still have even more great stuff on the way for all of you in our next 1.04 Update! I’ve already exhausted my daily allotment of blog words but the 1.04 Update is another meaty one. Stuff like two entirely new gameplay modes, 5 new smaller layouts, even some new Build & Battle load-outs, and a bunch of other stuff too. And of course we have been working on DLC as well, but we’ve been prioritizing all the free content for you guys first. Let me end this post with a little DLC tease that’s in development. Yes, I cleared this with the SONY corporate hive-mind and they are totally ok with me showing this behind-the-scenes pic.

Update:

Prestige Levels: In the initial version of Starhawk, we supported levels 1-50. To be quite honest, we thought that would have the player community covered for quite some time. However, we had underestimated the rate at which people were going to get through the levels so we had to accelerate the release of our prestige levels for those players who are above 50. The Prestige levels in Starhawk are not numbers; they’re a Greek symbol ranking of ALPHA through OMEGA. The Greek symbol will be displayed by your name in-game. These are very hard ranks to achieve and the jump from level 50 to ALPHA is steep because these are really intended for the hard-core community. New Space Homeworld “Waypoint”: In Starhawk, Homeworld’s are like lobbies. They are 3D levels where you and your friends can go to party-up, talk tactics and then pick a game to join. This new Homeworld is a cool space station. We added this because we really wanted players to enter a deep-space “lobby” to mess around in. Team-Balance Fixes: There were some bugs in the party/clan cohesion system where servers would keep parties and clans together in *ALL* cases and this resulted in some brutally mis-matched games. This has been fixed! There were some other issues that resulted in messed-up team balance and we have resolved those as well. Should be a ton better! Revamped Voice Chat System: During the initial launch of Starhawk we received reports from the player community about voice-chat dropping after a few games or in some cases, the voice-chat would simply not work. As you can imagine in a deep, team-based game like Starhawk, voice-chat is critical. So we did a ton of digging to find-out what the issue was and it ended up requiring a change to our Client/Server voice system. This change makes the VOIP far more stable and resolves the voice connection issues that some players had been experiencing in the past. Bug Fixes: These are not as super-sexy as free maps, but the fact that they are fixed will really help the community. We also addressed some host migration issues, a number of crashes and network instability issues, and even the laggy pick-up bug was fixed as well. Push-to-Talk Option: This was requested by so many players, and in concert with the revamped Voice Chat System, the PTT option really is a great addition. Now players have the option to have their microphone turn on when they press L3 rather than automatically when they talk. I guess, too many players were being yelled at by their Moms, had crying babies in the background, or hell, maybe both! You can find the PTT option in the Audio Settings menu in the Uplink.

Capture the Flag Scoring Change: We’ve been playing CTF in Starhawk a ton here in the studio and we’ve always felt that there were too many games ending in draws or times when the match would get into awkward stalemates. So with the 1.03 Update, we have changed one of the key rules for CTF and one of the key contributors to the stalemates. Now, to score a point in CTF, you need to take the enemy flag back to your base — period. Your team’s flag does *NOT* need to be there for you to score. Now certainly, your team still needs to play defense because you don’t want the enemy team taking your flag and scoring, but this change makes the pacing so much better. Much faster and far fewer draws and stalemates. Sorting Unlocked Customization: Now this is more of a simple convenience thing but we changed the way the various characters and vehicle customization options are presented so that the unlocked ones are always displayed at the top of the list. Not a super-big change at all but I thought I’d include it here. Drop-Pod Upgrade: One of the things that we were experimenting with during our Starhawk playtests to help combat “base-ravaging” was to make the Drop-Pod more deadly. Our whole design goal with the drop-pod system was to make the act of respawning in your home base an incredibly powerful weapon. This was to help combat against “base-ravaging”. After a lot of review, and play testing and tweaking, we decided to upgrade the drop-pods to be more maneuverable *AND* have an increased impact radius. This along with some changes we made to the respawn timer really makes a huge positive impact on the reduction of “base-ravaging”. Custom Music via XMB: In Warhawk we added support for your own music and we’re doing the same in Starhawk. The 1.03 Update now allows you to play your own music through the XMB. So if you want to experience Starhawk’s unique Build & Battle gameplay while blaring Pat Benatar you totally can!

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/...e-1-03-today/\
The rest of the patch notes are in the link

[sometimes]

Excellent

I posted on the OT, but cannot create threads - cheers

[iNvid02]

i was sooo pumped for this game after warhawk, man what a disappointment

its still good to see them supporting a game after release like this though

[shagg_187]

Any bug fixes? Oh and where is my PSN release?!

[Winterblink]

i was sooo pumped for this game after warhawk, man what a disappointment its still good to see them supporting a game after release like this though

What issues did you have? Me, I was working through a considerable PC backlog thanks to previous Steam sales, but had always thought to get back to this to mess around in multiplayer. Otherwise, what I saw was ok. My only gripes were a somewhat claustrophobic field of view, and some possible balance issues with vehicles, but that's par for the course really considering its lineage.

[waypoetic]

Puuuuuuumped!

[Loudninja]

Any bug fixes? Oh and where is my PSN release?!

Yeah their is way more details in the ink.

[Pai Pai Master]

The CTF and Drop Pod changes are pretty big for me. CTF just wasn't fun when 90% of games ended in a 0-0 stalemate.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Need to get playing this game, it's just a case of finding the time right now. I know for certain that my winter months are going to have so much gaming involved though!

[Mikey Jr.]

How is the game anyways?

[KalBalboa]

How is the game anyways?

It's pretty awesome. The cooperative mode alone had its hooks in me for a while.

All these changes seem great. The revamped chat system, custom music, the free map, the drop pod upgrades, and the structure inventory idea... all great. I can't wait to jump back in this weekend.

[waypoetic]

OP should update his post with two of the most important fixes in the latest patch :

Build & Battle Icons While Respawning: Another thing we did to help players when using the Build & Battle system was to display a simple graphic icon of each of the structures on the battlefield as the player is drop-poding into combat. This simple change really helps players know what structures are already built and helps them make better use of the stuff their team has built. Not to mention it helps let you know immediately where you should run when you crack-open your drop-pod!

and

Display Nearby Build & Battle Structures: There are now some new visuals to help players recognize Build & Battle structures that are built nearby. For starters, any time you place a structure; Starhawk very clearly displays how many are nearby. It also now highlights those nearby structures on your map *AND* displays some markers on the edge of the screen to help inform you that not only is there a structure nearby, but which direction it is.

[Metalmurphy]

I completely forgot this game exists. Some should make it a free game with the PS+ game rotation and add loss of paid DLC (cosmetic stuff). I'm sure it would generate a nice income on what's pretty much a forgotten game at this point.

[waypoetic]

I completely forgot this game exists. Some should make it a free game with the PS+ game rotation and add loss of paid DLC (cosmetic stuff). I'm sure it would generate a nice income on what's pretty much a forgotten game at this point.

This game doesn't have any paid DLC, nor will it. And it released in may ; free on PS+ three months after? Mmhmm.

[Withnail]

Agreed. Put it on PSN with a healthy PS+ discount and watch that community explode. I can't believe that it's doing much at retail.

[Metalmurphy]

This game doesn't have any paid DLC, nor will it. And it released in may ; free on PS+ three months after? Mmhmm.

I know it doesn't, that's the point. It should have. After 3 months the game already sold 90% of the copies it's gonna sell, which wasn't much unfortunately. So might as well take the freemium approach, specially now that PS+ has the free game rotation system.

[TheSeks]

Two maps with cover... out of... 7(?) default maps.

Prestige Levels

TonyKornheiserWHY.jpg

to both of these. The first is "too little, too late" and should've been set into motion (and the game delayed) once the beta happened and people were SAYING to do that during the beta. The second isn't even needed at all. "Too many players are hitting max rank too fast!" Uh, yay? That means your game must be good if they are continuing to play after that fact?

[Neiteio]

I loved Warhawk but am dragging my feet on Starhawk, out of concern that multiplayer is still like the beta where the two sides settle into either A) staying put building bases, B) jetting over to the enemy base to shoot fish in a barrel, or C) one side does A, the other does B. Has multiplayer become more balanced, with more people meeting in the middle of the map and building outside of their bases? Also, is there a snow map and/or a rain map? You know, maps with atmosphere? Or is every map a dusty canyon or spacestation (outside of these new forest maps)?

[SniperHunter]

A sequel to one of the best selling games on PSN isn't on PSN! What a disaster...and they should have called it Warhawk 2

I really enjoyed the beta, that big open desert map was so much fun -_-

[shagg_187]

A sequel to one of the best selling games on PSN isn't on PSN! What a disaster...and they should have called it Warhawk 2 I really enjoyed the beta, that big open desert map was so much fun -_-

But it's not Warhawk 2, nor is it a direct sequel.

If there is a Warhawk 2, I don't want to see RTS elements in them for it's one of the reasons why the community is so dead (in my opinion). You don't break or fix what was already perfected. I would play the shit outta Warhawk 2.

[Kenshin001]

Seems dumb they don't put it on PSN. Drop the SP and just put the MP on for $20 or something. Played hundreds of hours of Warhawk but for some reason I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for this.

[shagg_187]

Seems dumb they don't put it on PSN. Drop the SP and just put the MP on for $20 or something. Played hundreds of hours of Warhawk but for some reason I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for this.

Day one if this happens similar to that of Killzone 3.

[SniperHunter]

Seems dumb they don't put it on PSN. Drop the SP and just put the MP on for $20 or something. Played hundreds of hours of Warhawk but for some reason I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for this.

exactly...the KZ3 multiplayer did so well, Sony should do it for all their games.

[darkwing]

exactly...the KZ3 multiplayer did so well, Sony should do it for all their games.

heck yes! Starhawk MP only would be awesome

[waypoetic]

It's a good game. It's fun. Buy it. No? Well don't. I guess it's just me and FoomMan playing then..

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Needs to be said in the open... This update is much better than UC3's. That game is just becoming a goofy clusterfuck.

[waypoetic]

From Dylan Jobe on twitter

@DylanJobe: Hey Everyone -- we still have the #Starhawk servers offline while we wait for the global deployment of the 1.03 Update to finish.

EDIT: Patch up in EU, soon US and JP.

[KalBalboa]

It's a good game. It's fun. Buy it. No? Well don't. I guess it's just me and FoomMan playing then..

Co-op it is.

In all seriousness, there's usually more than enough to have a kickass 32 player game going, and this patch is going to be a serious shot in the arm for the game's player base. More people need to try this thing.

[Man-is-Obsolete]

It's funny they finally acknowledge there is a problem with CTF and their fix isn't a solution to what's really wrong with it. The problem is it is large empty maps and teams have a finite amount of resources to build everything from the home base to a jeep to weapons to a forward spawn. They should have had capturable bases like warhawk and build and battle would be used to fortify them. It always boggled my mind when thinking about how things were on a warhawk map compared to a starhawk map. Starhawk felt empty in comparison.

[KalBalboa]

It's funny they finally acknowledge there is a problem with CTF and their fix isn't a solution to what's really wrong with it. The problem is it is large empty maps and teams have a finite amount of resources to build everything from the home base to a jeep to weapons to a forward spawn. They should have had capturable bases like warhawk and build and battle would be used to fortify them. It always boggled my mind when thinking about how things were on a warhawk map compared to a starhawk map. Starhawk felt empty in comparison.

If you have a good team (or even just two or three friends whom you can communicate with) the map will never seem barren. All you need is one or two good remote-base-builders and you're gold.

[Mario007]

I really like what they are doing with the free DLC strategy but you really gotta wonder how does the game pay for itself and this post-development, considering it was a commercial flop.

[waypoetic]

It's funny they finally acknowledge there is a problem with CTF and their fix isn't a solution to what's really wrong with it. The problem is it is large empty maps and teams have a finite amount of resources to build everything from the home base to a jeep to weapons to a forward spawn. They should have had capturable bases like warhawk and build and battle would be used to fortify them. It always boggled my mind when thinking about how things were on a warhawk map compared to a starhawk map. Starhawk felt empty in comparison.

I played Warhawk last night. Eucadia is the biggest non-DLC map and that map is pretty empty. The only base people go for is the base right after their homebase. I'd say that it's on par with the Basin map in Starhawk.