User talk:Alkalineprodigy

Shadowrun Beta
'''The Shadowrun Beta Public Beta Started Jan, 5, 2007 '''

'''Shadowrun Beta Scream Sheet 1 ''' Welcome to the first weekly issue of the Beta Screamsheet, your source for all the latest and greatest Shadowrun beta news! Here's where you can find stats, contests, issues, profiles, hints, tips and tricks. But no ponies. Friendly Reminder: Missing Logs = BAD The reason this beta exists is to gather information. Our primary information gathering method is the logs uploaded at the end of each match. Please, please, PLEASE don't quit out or shut off your console during the log uploading process. We are tracking who is missing logs and we will begin issuing warnings soon. If the problem persists we will begin booting people from the beta. The Numbers Most People Concurrently Online: 72 (1/7/07, 5 PM PST) Peak Play Hours: 5pm-10pm PST Daily Top Five Beta Testers by Games Played (12/28/06 through 1/5/07) 1. Tsfreaks 2. Flow 3. TrainwreckX 4. Charyoutree 5. No dice11111111 Top Five Beta Testers by Time Played (12/28/06 through 1/5/07) 1. Tsfreaks 2. TrainwreckX 3. Charyoutree 4. Flow 5. Goku2057 Much congrats to Tsfreaks for being the most hardcore player of the first week. TsFreaks, Flow, TrainwreckX, Charyoutree: PM Piett your address data and we will send you out a random piece of swag from the FASA vault for being crazy enough to be on both lists. Dev Profile Each Newsletter we will be tossing out info on the playstyle of a different dev team member. This week's lucky winner is our own Lead Program Manager, Kimona! Name: Dana Gamertag: Acute Doggie Forum name: Kimona Favorite race to play in the beta? Elf Why? Elves are an excellent choice for those of us who flee while screaming. Favorite race overall? Troll Why: I can take more damage while fleeing and screaming before dying. What are the first few powers you buy? In the beta; resurrect, teleport, vision. With my troll: tree, resurrect, wired reflexes, smartlink. What weapon do you prefer? In beta, katana. Otherwise, minigun. What are your favorite tactics? In beta, I hang back and play rez monkey for the first few rounds and save up my money. By the time I get vision and katana, I'm looking to sneak overhead or underfoot and get lucky with an unaware. After I get owned several times doing that, I wait for people to forget about the artifact and look for ninja run opportunities. When I get to play my troll, I like to ping vision, spin up the minigun, trolloport to an enemy, and attempt some patented Svvweet L00 TROLL RAGE! What's Coming Well we're going to be tossing more people into the mix this week so expect some new playmates soon. Our plan is to add more people on a weekly basis. Also coming up soon is Beta Patch 1. That's right, we're patching the beta to fix some of the bugs already found and add in some new stuff to play with. But Piett, when is soon? Soon. How soon? Pretty soon. Come on, when exactly is soon? Sorry, not telling. First test, then cert, then announce, then release. Nature's rules, Daniel San, not mine. But what will be in patch 1? Expect more data on that next newsletter. But here's a little hint to whet your whistle. I think Dana's gonna be happy. The Big January Contest So what did we save for last? And if we already casually handed out swag above what do we consider a big contest? Becoming immortalized. It's simple, folks. Whoever plays the most hours while uploading at least 95% of their logs in the month of January will be able to name one of the bots in the game. You want your gamertag proudly displayed for millions and millions of gamers to see (what can I say, I'm an optimist) then this is how you pull it off. Winning is easy. All you have to do is. 1. Make sure that at least 95% of your logs get to us. This means NO quitting out of the game while your logs are uploading. 2. Be more hardcore than everyone else in the beta for the month of January. Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review. This basically means no copyrighted names and no profane ones. Known Issues Recap This is just some of the top issues found over the previous week. For a complete list of new issues found go to http://forums.shadowrun.com/forums/thread/21786.aspx and scroll down. Please keep up on the known issues so you don't report known bugs. Players can get stuck in the casting animation, causing you to be unable to shoot. If this happens just switch weapons and it will fix itself. UI highlight sound will continuously loop if you are holding the joystick or d-pad in a direction as you join a game or training mission. Accepting an invite to Shadowrun while in the dashboard will freeze your system. All Training mission audio and text is placeholder and should not be considered 100% accurate. If the host of a game loses connection or leaves the entire game ends and everyone goes back to the lobby. Force feedback can continue to play if force feedback is playing at the end of round or upon server disconnect. Joining a new game or beginning a new round will stop this. Final Words Congratulations on making it to the end, we'll see you in game. I'll be the human with the SMG lying on the floor begging for a res. And, as always, thank you for playing.More Legal Rigaramole

 Shadowrun Beta Screamsheet 2

Welcome to the second weekly issue of the Beta Screamsheet, your source for all the latest and greatest Shadowrun beta news! Friendly Info.: Piett why does this e-mail have no formatting? If you are getting this with no logo on the top and no formatting then when you set up your connect profile you told connect you wanted e-mail in plain text rather than HTML formatting. If you want to change this you need to visit connect.microsoft.com. click on "manage your connect profile" click on "e-mail address" select the checkbox for "I want e-mails in HTML format when available." We apologize for this interruption and now return you to your regularly scheduled newsletter, already in progress. Not so Friendly Reminder: Missing Logs = BAD, REAL BAD. I mean horrible. Nasty. Picture listening to William Hung singing Twisted Sister's top hits to the accompaniment of someone swinging a cat by its tail. Worse than that. We are still having people quitting out without letting the logs upload. Folks, this has to stop. The logs are what we live and die by in this beta. Remember, only you can prevent missing logs. Thank you, that is all. The Numbers See the dev profile for why our stats got much better this week! Remember, one set of stats each week wins something. That reminds me. TsFreaks, Flow, TrainwreckX and Charyoutree. Your swag is on the way. Each one of them got an 11x17 screenshot on glossy paper signed by the team. Oh yeah. The screenshot isn't from either of the beta maps. It's from one of the as yet unseen in the real world Slum maps. And now, on to this week's numbers. Yes, what stats we show will be changing from week to week. All stats are for the week of 01/08-01/15/07 (Note: If it says "FASA" after someone's stats that means they are a FASA Employee) Top 10 killers. Kills per game. 1 Xion89 17.87 2 EnragedGnome 15.13 3 Fall360 14.99 FASA 4 goku2057 14.22 5 flow 11.76 6 tsfreaks 11.36 7 Troul Hawk 10.8 8 GalvanDemitria 10.00 9 ComRavenUs 09.71 10 Sorahn 09.44 Top 10 Team Killers. Team kills per game (and yes, three of these people are FASA employees) 1 station1 0.19 2 Jet Black 2071 0.18 FASA 3 Alijah Green 0.15 4 beewaxers 0.15 5 Acute Doggie 0.15 FASA 6 ThinkKillMeNow 0.15 7 Zero22XX 0.14 8 Portergraphic 0.14 FASA 9 kamel427 0.13 10 FzDmn 0.13 And now for the money stat! Top four people in this list PM Piett your real name and address for some nice swag. Big Spender! Average money spent per match 1 GalvanDemitria 16909 2 tsfreaks 16092 3 Spiffy337 15607 4 Sorahn 15591 5 DocApoc 15570 FASA 6 Fall360 15479 FASA 7 hyperdive 15373 8 SoonerHawk 14878 9 Horatio 14822 10 no dice11111111 14605 Why choose big spender as the "money" stat this week (pun intended). Because no one was expecting it. -) GalvanDemitria, Spiffy337 and Sorahn PM Piett your address and RL name for whatever comes out of the swag closet this week! TsFreaks I still have your address. Dev Profile So we have much cooler stats this week. Time to meet the man behind the stats. He's one of our own testers. He's the stat maven. He scrubs the bugs YOU report and analyzes gameplay for the designers! He's the one, the only Matt Webster! Name: Matt Webster Gamertag: Fall360 Forum name: Fall Favorite race to play? Elf all the way Why? They look cool and move fast, much like me. Least Favorite race to play? Troll Why: He moves too slow and his huge noggin makes an easy sniper target. What are the first few powers you buy? Resurrect, teleport, gust, vision. Gust? Why gust? I can use it to toss a grenade long distance, break my fall, knock flag runners around. It's the swiss army knife of Shadowrun, only without the tweezers. What weapon do you prefer? SMG. Best all around weapon that doesn't slow me down. What is your favorite tactic? Using vision to find stragglers then pick them off like the fools they are. Anything else we should know about you? I like playing in competitive gaming tournaments. I have played in CPL and in the World Cyber Games. In the CPL I placed in the top 32 for Unreal Tournament 2003. Mind you, we weren't playing Shadowrun. I would have done better then. Patch One Update Oh yeah, I promised to say something about what will be in patch one, didn't I? Coming soon to a beta near you. Dwarf: Dwarves are small and have the innate ability of absorbing essence from their surroundings, allowing them to bypass magical defenses and frustrate enemies by draining their essence. They: Absorb essence from magic in the environment, destroying trees of life, minions, and strangle vines while replenishing their own essence. Absorb essence from players, though this ability works on enemies at a farther distance than on allies. To drain essence from an ally, you need to be standing almost on top of them. Have the most essence of any race, but it regenerates extremely slowly on its own. Absorbing essence will help to keep their essence bar full. Have the third highest health, after the Troll and the Human. But what about Trolls? Magic? Tech? Weapons? Features? Will any more of those be in patch one? Tune in next week and find out. The Big January Contest Just a reminder folks. We have one big contest running through the month of January. Rules are simple. Whoever plays the most hours while uploading at least 95% of their logs in the month of January will be able to name one of the bots in the game. All you have to do is. 1. Make sure that at least 95% of your logs get to us. This means NO quitting out of the game while your logs are uploading. 2. Be more hardcore than everyone else in the beta for the month of January. Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review. This basically means no copyrighted names and no profane ones. And no we won't be publishing hours played in the stats section until January ends. Final Words Look for the Screamsheet to make it out on Mondays every week starting next week. Watch your 6. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo.

 Shadowrun Beta Screamsheet 3

Welcome to the Screamsheet. Your beta source for beta news about beta things in the beta.

Friendly Data: How do I make sure my logs upload?

There has been some question about how to make sure your logs upload. What constitutes a missing log? Here is some info to help make sure your logs upload.

When does my account show a missing log? If.

1. You hop into a game and leave before you have played for a minute or so. 2. You quit during the upload period.

So what can I do to make sure my logs upload?

1. Play at least a round in a game before you leave. Leaving sooner could cause a log to be considered 'lost.' 2. Don't leave during the uploading logs screen--it may cause a log to be considered 'lost.' 3. To minimize the likelihood of losing a log, leave your box on the main menu screen for 1 minute after leaving a Shadowrun match.

Remember, logs are our first and best method of making sure the beta does what it's supposed to do.

Not so Friendly Reminder: Unacceptable behaviour.

(yes, I know this is already on the boards. Not everyone reads the boards so it goes in here as well)

As the size of the beta grow we have begun getting reports of Team Killing, NDA breaking, behavior issues, etc.

This is, of course, wholly unacceptable. Remember folks, you are here to test a game. You don't get to say "I paid my fifty dollars, I can do whatever I want". You are here by invitation and that means certain minimum behavior levels are expected. But what is expected behavior? Glad you asked.

1. Talk nice. This means be polite to teammates in game and be polite to others in the forums. I'm not saying don't joke around in the Lounge. I'm saying err on the side of caution here folks.

2. Play nice. Intentional Team Killing, popping out of game from frustration, going AFK for the entire game, etc is bad

3. Remember it's a beta. Lag, broken weapons, strange behavior, etc is to be expected. That's why we're here. If you are upset over issues in game them maybe being in a beta is not for you. If there weren't any issues then it wouldn't be a beta and you would have paid to be here.

4. NDA stands for NON DISCLOSURE Agreement. Don't post in public forums what you think about the game, that you had problems with your download token, that snipers piss you off, that you think X is teamkilling. In fact the only data you can post in a public forum is that you are in the beta. That's it.

5. The general catch all rule. If you think it would be unacceptable behavior in public then don't do it in game. Better yet, if you think your parents would have considered it unacceptable behavior in public then don't do it in game. Except for the whole killing your enemies part. That's fine.

So this begs the question of what happens to me if I break the above rules. From this point on the first time we find it happening you get a warning in your e-mail. The second time we find it you get banned from the beta. There will be no second warnings. In severe cases we can do more but I really hope it doesn't come to that.

What if I find someone breaking the above rules? PM Piett with the info.

What if I have questions about what is and isn't acceptable? Post them in here. http://forums.shadowrun.com/forums/30790/ShowThread.aspx#30790

The Numbers

We apologize but due to certain technical issues and minor problems this week's stats section will be delayed until Thursday. Expect an emergency special extra edition of the Screamsheet on Thursday covering stats. We thank you for your patience in this matter.

Now I'm not going to say why there are no stats and I am certainly not going to point fingers but.

http://forums.shadowrun.com/forums/thread/30685.aspx

Fall360 is worth 20 points now.

Dev Profile

This week we present to you the man you unknowingly swear at every time you don't make it to the ledge in lobby.

Name: Paul Ehreth

Gamertag: bad framerate

Forum name: bad framerate

Job Title: Level Designer/Environment Artist

Favorite race to play? Human

Why? Mo' Money, Mo' Powers! And they're not short.

Least Favorite race to play? Dwarf

Why? Because I don't understand them. And they're short.

What are the first few powers you buy? Resurrect, Tree, Teleport.

What is the most fun thing you have ever done in the game? The most common thing I've done in the game is kill Mantis but the most fun? When one of my teammates has been killed and he's about to be cleared I swoop in like the angel of mercy that I am, resurrect him then wreak horrible vengeance upon the vicious fiend that dared attack my teammate.

What weapon do you prefer? Shotgun. I love teleporting on top of somebody's head and then removing it.

What is your favorite tactic? Teleporting on top of someone's head and then removing it.

How many games have you worked on? Including this one, three. And one major feature film.

Which map that you've done are you most proud of? Lobby, because it seems to be well balanced and everyone seems to enjoy playing it and it made it into the beta.

If you could have any one Shadowrun power in real life which would it be? Teleport, because at most I could only keep two people ressed.

What else would you like our glorious readers to know about you? This is my fifth answer to this damn question.

Patch One Update

You know, since stats are late this week let's unveil TWO patch items.

Coming soon to a beta near you.

Wired Reflexes: While assigned, Wired Reflexes increases your movement speed, makes you jump higher, allows you to reload weapons faster, and gives you the ability to block some or all of most weapon attacks while you are wielding a katana, facing your attacker and not yourself attacking.

When activated, your movement speed increases even further, you jump even higher, and you reload weapons even faster, but activating Wired Reflexes costs you health, potentially even killing you.

Smoke: When you activate Smoke, there is a short delay as you smoke, after which you are unable to be damaged by anything other than Gust. While active, Smoke drains your essence to maintain itself, and will shut off when you use it again or when you run out of essence.

While assigned, smoke renders you invisible to Enhanced Vision and prevents enemies from locking onto you with Smartlink. See "What are the different techs?" below for details on these techs. While assigned, Smoke reduces the rate at which you regain essence.

The Big January Contest

NOTE: The rules for the Big January Contest have changed slightly due to greater understanding of how mission logs work.

Whoever plays the most hours while uploading at least 60% of their logs in the month of January will be able to name one of the bots in the game. All you have to do is.

1. Make sure that at least 60% of your logs get to us. This means NO quitting out of the game while your logs are uploading.

2. Be more hardcore than everyone else in the beta for the month of January.

Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review and can't be someone else's gamertag. This basically means no copyrighted names, no profane ones and no gamertags except your own.

And no we won't be publishing hours played in the stats section until January ends.

Final Words

Smile. You don't have to be happy. Think of it as showing your fangs.

And, as always, thank you for playing.

 Screamsheet Special Edition 1

The Screamsheet Special Edition! Stats, Stats and MORE Stats!

Today's stats edition centers on. Teamwork. That's right. Today we give our props to the people who helped out their teammates the most. So without further ado we give you the stats of the week!

Money Earned by teamwork. This stat shows who earned the most average cash per game through teamwork numbers. That's things like cash earned by healing people with tree, cash earned by ressing people, etc. The vast majority of the money in the game comes from the end of round bonus but actions in game earn bonus money.

1. AdamBomb 1618

2. GalvanDemitria 1338

3. the lordzero 1279

4. Iota Chi 1197

5. ComRavenUs 0937

6. Troul Hawk 0919

7. bad framerate 0808 (FASA)

8. flow 0796

9. SoonerHawk 0760 10. Charyoutree 0742

Next comes Flag caps per game. This is pretty self explanatory.

1. Master Shisno 3.06

2. FulM3talJack3t 2.80

3. YouRLasTBreatH 2.06

4. Neub86 2.00 (FASA)

5. Sorahn 1.67

6. Talzor 1.54

7. AlkalineProdigy 1.41

8. GalvanDemitria 1.30

9. PrairieGhost78 1.18 10. Antediluvian 1.02

And, as per usual, we come to the money stat. The one that gets the swag. This week it's average resurrects per game. The envelope, please.

1. Iota Chi 10.97

2. Troul Hawk 09.19

3. Talzor 05.93

4. the lordzero 05.68

5. bad framerate 05.67 (FASA)

6. ComRavenUs 05.01

7. GalvanDemitria 04.92

8. TSJ Konkins 04.86

9. Sithlord77 04.81 10. SoonerHawk 04.08

Iota Chi, Troul Hawk, Talzor and the lordzero PM me (Piett) address data so we can send you your weekly dose of swag!

Shadowrun Beta Screamsheet 4

The Beta Screamsheet, volume 4: All the print that's new to fit.

Friendly Data: Come on, Piett. When is the patch coming out?

Given that the first rule of game development is that no date is ever 100% certain.

There is a 95% chance of patch 1 coming out by EOD This Friday. Instructions on what, if anything, needs to be done to download the patch will be coming out that day.

What is in patch 1? Lots of stuff. Basically a slew of patch fixes and every feature that the final game will have except parties, dedicated server and all the maps. All the races, all the magic, all the tech, private match, new stats pages, etc. All in the patch. Have fun, folks, and keep those bug reports coming!

The Numbers

First let's have some fun with the overall stats for the beta so far. All these numbers are through 1/28/2007

Total time played: 168 days, 20 hours, 52 minutes, 5 seconds

Matches played: 1841

Average match length: 15 minutes, 27 seconds

Shortest match: 4 minutes, 22 seconds

Longest match: 57 minutes, 3 seconds

Take a look at that. Almost 169 days of play time thanks to the people in this beta. That has been immeasurably helpful for us making this game tight and tuned. Thank you all and keep up the good work.

Now on to the bragging rights for the week.

Kills per game for 1/22-1/28

1. EnragedGnome 18.15 2. Xion89 15.33 3. flow 14.86 4. goku2057 14.44 5. Horatio 14.23 6. tsfreaks 12.52 7. Abbaddon 12.27 (FASA) 8. Iota Chi 11.55 9. Bry4 11.26 10. OMGWTFNINJA 11.06

And the money stat? I'm On YOUR team! Most team kills per game for 1/22-1/28

1. MxE Khaos 0.42 2. Abbaddon 0.41 (FASA) 3. HereWeGo 0.27 4. so wut 0.26 5. UFSanity 0.25 6. Beandip 0.25 7. MonsterLlama 0.25 (FASA) 8. TimSykes 0.23 9. Rapidreb 0.22 10. goku2057 0.22

MxE Khaos, HereWeGo and so wut PM me (Piett) your address data for the weekly swag. Abbaddon I'll drop yours off in your office while I point at you and laugh.

Dev Profile

Do you like our UI? How about the (intentionally rich because it's not balanced yet in the bat) economy? The (as yet not shown to you) matchmaking system? Ok, fine, how do you like the UI. Oh wait! What do you think of the Map Iteration testing series in the Dev Diaries!? Today we meet that man behind all these things. Shake in fear for you are about to experience Bill.

Name: Bill Fulton

Gamertag: Abbaddon

Forum name: bill

Job Title: Game Designer

Favorite race to play? Human

Why? Because if you know how to play it you can always find a way to maximize the enemy's weakness. You're faster than the slow people, you're stronger than the fast people.

Least Favorite race to play? Dwarf

Why? Too complicated. A well played dwarf takes a lot of time to master and I have not done that yet.

What are the first few powers you buy? Vision, Tree, Teleport or resurrect

What is the most fun thing you have ever done in the game? The funniest thing I have ever done in the game (I don't know if it was the funnest) was accidentally mapping grenades in my vision slot at the very beginning of the match. Beginning of first round I ping vision, or thought I did, hear the grenade, yell "GRENADE!" to warn my teammates that some opponent was tossing grenades in the area and then pinged vision again to find whoever threw the grenade. I ended up killing more than half my team, including myself. What did I learn that day? Never, ever map anything into your vision slot but vision.

What weapon do you prefer? Rifle. Excellent mid range gun and it's the best area denial weapon in the game.

What is your favorite tactic? The sniper trifecta. Snipe someone, wait for one of their teammates to come up for the res and then snipe the resser. If you time it just right you kill the resser then get credit for the ressee when they bleed out.

How many games have you worked on? As a designer, one. But I have been involved with a large number when in our user testing group.

What part of the game are you most proud of? The economy system. It is effective at promoting team play.

Why did you swap careers and move to game design? User Testing's job is to find areas of the game that need improvement. I wanted to be the guy making the improvements.

Anything else you want out beta testers to know? My rifle's name is Charlene. Better hope you don't meet her.

Patch One Update

So we know Patch 1 is almost but not entirely totally certainly coming out by this Friday. We know it has everything but maps, dedicated server and parties. But what is that? Here are the rest of the races, magic, tech and weapons going into Patch 1! See screamsheets 2 and 3 for the other items.

Summon: Summons a minion to attack your enemies. If you cast summon while targeting an enemy player, the minion will hunt them down, otherwise it will defend the area around where you targeted.

Troll: Trolls are the assault troops, large and slow moving, but hard to kill. They:

* Harden when hit, reducing the amount of damage that they take, but slowing their movement. If a troll is trading bullets with a non-troll, the non-troll is likely going to lose. Hardening takes essence and will wear off over time if the troll runs out of essence or stops being damaged. * Are the slowest race, but are not slowed at all by carrying heavy weapons. * Have the same essence as humans but pay a higher essence cost for tech. * Have the most health of any race.

Rocket Launcher: High area damage, moderate to low accuracy, fires a slow, wire-guided projectile. Can clear areas and kill multiple enemies at once, though it takes a steady hand and oftentimes some luck to use.

The Big January Contest

Next week's Screamsheet will include the winner of the big January contest! Keep tuned, folks.

Whoever plays the most hours while uploading at least 60% of their logs in the month of January will be able to name one of the bots in the game. All you have to do is.

1. Make sure that at least 60% of your logs get to us. This means NO quitting out of the game while your logs are uploading.

2. Be more hardcore than everyone else in the beta for the month of January.

Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review and can't be someone else's gamertag. This basically means no copyrighted names, no profane ones and no gamertags except your own.

And no we won't be publishing hours played in the stats section until January ends.

Final Words

Remember: Freedom of Speech means the Freedom to Disagree.

And, as always, thank you for playing.

 Shadowrun Beta Screamsheet 5

The Beta Screamsheet, volume 5: Now with more stuff

Friendly Data: Say it ain't so?

Yup, that's right. The patch has been delayed. Basically while the patch passed Microsoft's certification process we found a major bug in it. Voice didn't work on retail boxes. It works when we test it in the office and it works if we bring dev boxes home to test it but testing it on retail kits gives us no voice.

When will it be fixed? As soon as we figure out what is causing it. No we haven't figured it out yet. Yes we're working on it. Right now we are working with the live team to find the issue. As soon as we have more data it will be sent out to the tester.

Meanwhile we have the rest of the game sitting out there for you to enjoy and pound on. Go for it. -)

The Numbers

There's only one set of numbers people are wondering about right now. Who won the January contest for most time played? The envelope please.

10. Sorahn 2 days, 8 hours, 55 minutes

9. station1 2 days, 11 hours, 22 minutes, 51 seconds

8. Xion89 2 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes, 15 seconds

7. Troul Hawk 2 days, 17 hours, 26 minutes, 7 seconds

6. Horatio 2 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes, 2 seconds

5. goku2057 2 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes, 58 seconds

4. tsfreaks 4 days, 5 hours, 45 minutes, 48 seconds

3. Talzor 4 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes, 47 seconds

And now, genties and ladlemen of the audio radiance, our runner up. Should our champion not be able to fulfill the duties of his position then the runner up will take over as the most addicted person in the month of January.

2. flow 4 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes, 45 seconds

And finally we have our hero of the hour, the winner of the January contest, the man who gets to name a bot in the final game, the one, the only, Sniper Extraordinaire.

1. EnragedGnome 5 days, 4 hours, 53 minutes, 24 seconds

Much grats to you oh crazy one. PM me what you would like the bot to be named and I will get the glorious wheels of progress, or at least the legal department, working on it.

Dev Profile

The testers are probably the most maligned, least praised group in game development. Yet without them games would be even buggier than game players are used to. And that's saying a lot. One of the more interesting branches of test is the SDET, coders dedicated to writing automated testing systems, thereby freeing up the testers to do things like track down bugs rather than playing the game over and over and over and over and over and over and.

This week we bring you one of our SDETs. Let's hear it for the Llama man.

Name: Michael Hughes

Gamertag: MonsterLlama

Forum name: MonsterLlama

Job Title: Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Favorite race to play? Human

Why? Because they kick elf butt. They have more health than elves and low tech costs.

Least Favorite race to play? Troll

Why? They're so frigging slow.

What are the first few powers you buy? Tree, Res, Vision.

What is the most fun thing you have ever done in the game? We were in powestation and outnumbered two to four. We didn't quite pulled it off but losing six to five was a moral victory.

What weapon do you prefer? SMG. Best bang for the buck.

What is your favorite tactic? Keeping the team together and picking off the enemy cowboys one by one. Then once you have the numbers it's clobberin' time!

How many games have you worked on? This is the first.

What part of the game do you like the most? Enhanced vision. It gives me a good heads up on where the other team is.

How did you get into games? I just finished up over on the media center team and this position opened up. I got lucky and managed to get it.

Anything else you want our beta testers to know? Stop shooting me so much!

Patch One Update

OK, we all know it's delayed but you know what. Nowhere has there been a list of the new features in patch one. So let's use this space to do so. Here is the readers digest condensed version of the patch one feature list.

Races: Dwarf, Troll

Magic: Smoke: Summon Minion

Tech: Wired Reflexes

Weapons: Rocket Launcher

UI: Private Match, Enhanced Stats Pages

Other: Lots and lots of bug fixes

There ya go folks.

The Big February Contest

Well it's not like we can keep the January contest going. So here is the new one. Just as before, the first prize is the right to name a bot in the game.

Once patch one is out the plan is to be inviting lots of people. We mean LOTS. We go from testing gameplay (though that of course will continue) to stress testing the game. And to help do that we plan on having specific times of day when we ask people to play. What does this have to do with the February contest, you ask? Glad you asked.

For the month of February the person who spends the most time playing during scheduled game times will win. It's that simple. Now we're not just looking for people to play. We're gonna be looking for people to play during stress tests.

In the case of more than one person tied for time played we will go to a tiebreaker system of most games played during these periods then least logs lost during said period then if it's still tied we will put everyone tied into a room with a single butter knife in it. Last one standing wins.

Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review and can't be someone else's gamertag. This basically means no copyrighted names, no profane ones and no gamertags except your own.

And no we won't be publishing hours played in the stats section until February ends.

Final Words

Middle names were created so children can know when they're in trouble.

And, as always, thank you for playing.

 Shadowrun Beta Screemsheet 6

The Beta Screamsheet, volume 6: Established 2007

Friendly Data: So What about the patch?

Even if I wanted to give dates I have none to give. There are a number of tests the patch has to pass before it can go out and if it doesn't pass any of those it's back to square one. All I can say in this case is that I will get info out as soon as possible.

Also, to answer a question from the forums our plan is to release patch 2, wait a while and THEN invite in a large pile of people. Don't worry. Those here now get to play first.

Friendly Data 2: So what about this survey I heard of?

Recently we sent out a survey to all those people who have downloaded the beta but not played it much. In order to drive actually answering the survey free copies of crackdown to 40 random survey answerers. Here below are those lucky 40 names. If you are one of the below people and have not received your e-mail saying you won please contact me (Piett) via PM on the boards. Thank you. And Congratulations!

Captain Grumpy, Benthic7, Bill The Brewer, ChiTommy, Copesnuffdss,CozmoXP, CryptoArgonaut, CSQWong, DallesandroiD, DemonLlama, Diddly, Faron Oakes, Festive Turkey,filliam, Gimpster, Insane, Jaken Bear, jenovaproject, Jonah Falcon, KingOfSnake, klutch80, LeweyG, Manic Turk, Meathead, missingdata, Mr Spy, mraymond, RabbiLoWang, Ramy, RedFox89, Rimbol, Ripley, Roedor, Sideshow Dobbs, The Pale Rider, Toxic Statistic, trek73, Wingman1977, xIx Coeus xIx, zematus

The Numbers

Today we honor that most maligned of people, the median. Every group of people need those who are right in the middle. I mean imagine if the political parties didn't have their moderates to pull in their mates?

The same is true of the beta. Every large group of people has those who don't do worse than most but don't do better than most as well. But where is the median for the beta? Let's cover that first.

The average beta player.

Picks Elf

Buys SMG, Shotgun and Sniper Rifle

Buys Resurrect in the first round

Buys Teleport in the third round

Buys Enhanced Vision in the fifth round

Gets 5.02 kills per match

Dies 5.08 times per match

Earns $18786 during the course of a match

First off look at this. Later, after the patch is out and we are all playing with all the gameplay, we will be doing this again. I think you will be interested in the changes that take place.

But it is hard to give prizes to this mythical average player. So we dug deep to find out who comes closest to the average. Listed below are those seven players who comes closest to the average number of kills per match.

SoonerHawk 5.09

Aceattorney 5.06

KillerAssClown 5.04

SquidgeyFlint 5.03

Fry 5.02

MthdDirector 5.02

briguy992 5.02

Now we have three people, all at the magic number of 5.02. But we have never given only three pieces of swag in the course of a week. So what do we do? We hand out MORE. All 7 of those above PM me (Piett) with your address data and you be getting some swag this week!

Dev Profile

Last week we talked to one of our testers so it seems only fair that this week we talk to our lead designer. John Howard has worked on a couple of low profile games, like say Halo. So without further ado let's meet him!

Name: John Howard

Gamertag: mediocre

Forum name: mediocreFASA

Job Title:Lead Designer

Favorite race to play? Dwarf

Why? One, I can play them completely differently than people play elf or human and two, because they mess people up. When you rush a troll with a minigun to leech his essence you can almost see the look of confusion and terror on his face as he realizes what you're doing.

Least Favorite race to play? Elf

Why? Too dainty.

What are the first few powers you buy? Res, Smoke, Wired Reflexes, Tree.

What is the most fun thing you have ever done in the game? The first day we put teleport in. It was immediately cool and it was obvious that there were all these uses for it that we hadn't thought about. Things like extending your jump were something we hadn't discussed.

What weapon do you prefer? Minigun. Combined with wired reflexes it makes the dwarf excellent at charging in, sucking essence so you can't get away and laying waste. Then you use all that essence you pulled to pop smoke and get away.

What is your favorite tactic? Put up wired reflexes, smoke, a minigun and charge in screaming.

How many games have you worked on? Somewhere between three and five. Eventually they all become a blur.

What part of the game do you like the most? When I play a lot of other games I feel there is something missing. Once you play Shadowrun a lot when you go back to other First Person Shooters they just feel so plain. I miss all the other abilities.

How did you get into games? I started playing at the Virtual World sites and was going broke because it was so expensive. So I started calling up Tom Peters every day asking for a job and eventually I got one.

Anything else you want our beta testers to know? Anytime I'm not playing the beta assume It's because I'm playing a different version of the game.

The Big February Contest

Repeated below for those who didn't read last week. Shame on you!

Once patch one is out the plan is to be inviting lots of people. We mean LOTS. We go from testing gameplay (though that of course will continue) to stress testing the game. And to help do that we plan on having specific times of day when we ask people to play. What does this have to do with the February contest, you ask? Glad you asked.

For the month of February the person who spends the most time playing during scheduled game times will win. It's that simple. Now we're not just looking for people to play. We're gonna be looking for people to play during stress tests.

In the case of more than one person tied for time played we will go to a tiebreaker system of most games played during these periods then least logs lost during said period then if it's still tied we will put everyone tied into a room with a single butter knife in it. Last one standing wins.

Random Legal Notice: Whatever name you choose must make it through a legal review and can't be someone else's gamertag. This basically means no copyrighted names, no profane ones and no gamertags except your own.

And no we won't be publishing hours played in the stats section until February ends.

Final Words

It's not he who dies with the most toys that wins. It's he who dies having played with the most toys.

And, as always, thank you for playing.