XBLA Update.

[Spadge]

The update should be with us in a few days time, it is now out of certification and approved for release.

General Fixes

• Jet Pack SFX will no longer loop when a worm dies by drowning.
• The Wind indicator is now visible whenever the weapon panel is opened regardless of the equipped weapon.
• Team health bars will now appear at the start of every turn and also when the weapon panel is open.
• Various code improvements added to handle downloadable landscapes.
• Fixed exploit allowing for deployment of 2 weapons in one turn while using the ninja rope.
• Challenge 13 – the last remaining enemy worm will no longer teleport out of the play area.
• Fall damage will no longer be taken by a worm that started a Jet Pack flight in mid air.
• AI/CPU worms will now make a decision and take action much quicker.
• AI/CPU worm’s grenade accuracy has been tweaked to reduce the number of “unfair” shots.
• SFX will now play to indicate a change in fuse time.
• Removed inactive indication of fuse time settings on user placed mines
• Various code tweaks to improve frontend stability.

Xbox Live

• Fixed 4 Player Crash in lobby relating to multiple users attempting to join a game simultaneously.
• Improvements made to the handling of users with strict NAT settings. Only one player with Strict NAT settings can be present in a game at a time – the game will now inform of this and stop any other players with this setting joining the game.
• The user will now select a Team before searching for a game. This speeds up the process of joining a game and reduces the amount of “Game is unavailable” messages.
• Code improvements made for displaying and refreshing list of available Player Matches.
• Added message and visual indication to notify Host that a downloaded landscape can not be used unless all current members of the game have also downloaded it.
• Team names and colours will no longer be mixed up if a player drops out of the game between rounds.

Ranked Games

• The Ranked Game scheme now contains random fuses for all mines placed on the landscape at the start of the game. Mines will now randomly detonate at any point between 0.01-3.00 seconds after activation. This is a balance improvement added to stop mine clearance at the start of each match. This setting can also be carried over into Local Play and Player Matches by using the “Ranked” scheme when setting up the match.
Leaderboards
• Friends list scores will no longer be corrupted or displayed incorrectly when a user has reached a limit of 100 friends.
• Challenge time Leaderboards will now display times in excess of 20:00 minutes for completion.
• Fixed exploit allowing for times of 0.00 to be reported when playing through the Single Player Challenges.

Leaderboard Resets

Unfortunately, after conversations with the server folks at Microsoft, we are having to reset the leaderboards due to exploitations. We understand that this is disappointing for many people and apologise for the need to do this. With the changes in the update, it should prove a much better field of play and look forward to the update going out and people getting hotly competitive again. No awards or gamerpoints will be lost.

However we will be displaying the current leaders of all boards on our site for historical purposes and are currently looking at doing something special for those that have led the boards (with an authentic score). A URL of these will be released in the meantime.

We thank you for your patience, your business, enthusiasm and understanding. We hope you enjoy Worms even more when the update arrives and the first batch of DLC that will follow in the coming weeks - which includes some free content as promised

[Melon]

So you haven't changed much then?

At this rate we'll be getting recorded game replays in the next 2 months...

[Spadge]

I can guarantee you won't :-)

Most of the time was spent back in testing, pre-certification and then certification & approval. We spent a few weeks testing and fixing (and tweaking a few bits) prior to that.

Two packs of DLC are ready to roll soon too.

[velocity]

So the random mine fuses only happen in ranked scheme, or is it possible to have them in a custom scheme?

We've played and tweaked a custom scheme and the only thing its missing is random fuses. Playing ranked would be ok, but the shotty is unlimited (we limit it to 2), no jetpacks, bannana bombs, etc.

Can you clarify?

Cheers.

[lightsup55]

This is excellent news.

I'll be posting this in the Xbox Live Arcade - Worms section of the Xbox.com forums.

[Spadge]

Originally Posted by velocity

So the random mine fuses only happen in ranked scheme, or is it possible to have them in a custom scheme?

We've played and tweaked a custom scheme and the only thing its missing is random fuses. Playing ranked would be ok, but the shotty is unlimited (we limit it to 2), no jetpacks, bannana bombs, etc.

Can you clarify?

Cheers.

Unfortunately they are in the 'ranked' scheme only and not editable in the custom schemes, sorry.

[velocity]

Ah well, still a fantastic update! Why did you decide to just put random mines in just the ranked sheme?

[wickedfool]

Great update and I look forward to playing it. I mostly play with friends and wish that the mines were random (at least in option) but everything does sound great.

[velocity]

Yeah, having random mines when playing with mates (in the same room) would make a huge difference. Every thurs night has become worms night (used to be a pro night!)

[Spadge]

Simply because it was viewed pretty much as an exploit in the ranked matches. Whereas it's less of an issue amongst friends - people just agree not to do that, or not use weapon X etc.

[velocity]

Yeah, but the introduction of random mines will change the game dynamics, with a lot more randomness of what's going to happen. We don't mine farm but we do know EXACTLY what will happen when we approach a mine. More ways to be sickeningly screwed! Which is why I love worms.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bash the hard work that's gone into the update, and no doubt you're rolling you eyes and saying 'some people will never be happy'. Just keeping it real.

[cngodles]

There goes my overall rank of 60. Oh well, I got it legitimatly.

Any word on fixing the issue where people can attach ropes onto the ground and do anti gravity tricks to get over hills, etc? That has got to be my biggest hate right now. I'm sure it's hard to adjust something like that, but if it's not in this version, please consider it late.

Reguardless, thanks for the update! And Spadge, I wish more developers/etc would keep us up to date like this.

Thanks!

[ninjarat]

I too wish the random mines were put into the customizable schemes(perhaps sometime in the future). But just having it in Ranked is awesome as mines are completely useless and command no fear as they ought to right now.

Spadge, 2 quick questions. First question is whether it would be possible to allow the user to set the fuses on mines...mines right now are just used as dropped bombs but if we were able to set them to short fuses they could actually be used to strategically block off certain paths. Second question for you is do you have permission to tell us about the DLC packs now or do you have to wait until further notice?

Thanks again for the continued support Spadge.

[Spadge]

Originally Posted by velocity

Yeah, but the introduction of random mines will change the game dynamics, with a lot more randomness of what's going to happen. We don't mine farm but we do know EXACTLY what will happen when we approach a mine. More ways to be sickeningly screwed! Which is why I love worms.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bash the hard work that's gone into the update, and no doubt you're rolling you eyes and saying 'some people will never be happy'. Just keeping it real.

In that case, I'd suggest when you play with your mates, agree not to use JP or shotgun? In many ways I perhaps wish we'd made all mines the same, but so be it - as many people again wouldn't have been happy. Worms is so full of subjective opinion regarding the weapon set & scheme, we can never win.

[ninjarat]

Originally Posted by cngodles

There goes my overall rank of 60. Oh well, I got it legitimatly.

Any word on fixing the issue where people can attach ropes onto the ground and do anti gravity tricks to get over hills, etc? That has got to be my biggest hate right now. I'm sure it's hard to adjust something like that, but if it's not in this version, please consider it late.

Reguardless, thanks for the update! And Spadge, I wish more developers/etc would keep us up to date like this.

Thanks!

I think that is part of Worms cngodles, it does get annoying from time to time. I've taken the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" philosophy on that one as I'm always doing rope stands now. I've heard that every version of Worms has had that...and some had even crazier rope tricks possible.

[Spadge]

Originally Posted by ninjarat

I too wish the random mines were put into the customizable schemes(perhaps sometime in the future). But just having it in Ranked is awesome as mines are completely useless and command no fear as they ought to right now.

Spadge, 2 quick questions. First question is whether it would be possible to allow the user to set the fuses on mines...mines right now are just used as dropped bombs but if we were able to set them to short fuses they could actually be used to strategically block off certain paths. Second question for you is do you have permission to tell us about the DLC packs now or do you have to wait until further notice?

Thanks again for the continued support Spadge.

No, its not possible to set mine fuse, that was actually a bug that's been corrected.
We've been asked to keep the release date and detail of the DLC under wraps, we'll find out when we can mention that. (All agreed with MS, btw, ready to go...) In fact some shots of Carcassonne have sneaked out and someone's got one of the Worms Gamerpics! (Since the additional material is up on Partnernet)

[Mink20]

The resetting of the leaderboards makes me happier than you can imagine.

I will soon be able to go back to enjoying playing my xbox 360.

[steviebwoy]

Hi spadge - is there any hope of getting some new features ala Worms Open Warfare 2 bolted on to the 360 version of Worms?

Sorry for the double post, didn't realise there was a 360 forum!

I'm pretty sure that more varied terrains and soundbacks are on their way anyway - but I'm really interested in more weapons, and the "grafitti" level designer that seem to be creeping into WOW2 from the merry days of Armageddon.

Is there any scope at all for this to appear in a paid-for update to 360 Worms?

Cheers chapola!

[Spadge]

Thanks, but there are no current plans for additional weapons and major features.

We are keeping our options open however and we're very happy with the results of our foray into XBLA. It's something we'll be keeping a very open mind about.

Right now our priority is to ensure that the current game runs as smoothly as possible and allows people new to the franchise to pick up and get playing. We appreciate that existing fans and hardcore worms fans want more :-)

There's no real hooks to add new content like you mention and we're concious of the fact that we'd end up with a very fragmented game; those with various elements and those without.

There's an awful lot of content in the new Open Warfare and not all of that would make sense on XBLA (which is more immediate) but we'll see. There are some plans ahead for Worms, but I can't really disclose them at this point.

[roboman]

Spadge, do you have a rough idea when this patch will hit the Live servers? I haven't bought this game yet because the huge CPU thinking delay drove me nuts in the demo. Now that it has been fixed I am eagerly awaiting the update so that I can download and buy it.

[steviebwoy]

Perfectly reasoned and understandable matey, cheers for the reply.

I can totally see that newbies to the game may be scared away by Salvie Army drummers and postal strikes, and I suppose I can also see that these kind of features would seperate players into those that could use them effectively, and those that couldn't. It might well be a bit harsh for Wormers relatively new to the series. Makes sense mate.

Plus, like you say, not everyone would have downloaded the new content so you may struggle to find players with the same set of weapons etc. Food for thought indeed. I guess it would be easier to just release a new game, rather than additional content - that way I suppose you could be sure everyone was starting from the same base.

In that case, perhaps this is something for a new game, rather than the existing release. Speaking from a personal perspective, I think the success of the XBLA game has proved that there's still a huge market for the 2D incarnation of the game and that, while the game looks fantastic, you don't need photo-realism to have a successful title on the 360. Personally, I would be delighted to see a full-priced version of the game with all the features of WOW2 for the 360, but I realise it's unlikely for the time being given that Team17 are currently ploughing their resources into the XBLA version.

The graffiti mode would be fantastic though, if it could be squeezed in at some point. I guess you'd have to have some element of level saving and storage for maps which I'd imagine would need addition coding - as far as I know it's just a case of jotting down a code at the moment.

Thanks for your reply Spadge, I must just say that you guys seem to be a lot more in-sync with the community than most other developers, and I love the fact that we can actually ask you questions and get straight answers.

I've been an active member on the Codemasters forums for some time and sometimes it's like trying to get blood from a stone! It's a totally different story on here though and your care towards the community really is to be commended mate.

Big up Team 17!

[j.m.ratkos]

congrats on getting the update past the approval process. the fixes definately should make gameplay a bit more enjoyable.

spadge:
can you give us an update on what sales have been for team17 on this title? it's definately one of the better worms titles to hit out of the last couple of incarnations and hopefully the sales reflect how much we appreciate the game.

also, any response for cngodles's comments about the ninja rope?

Any word on fixing the issue where people can attach ropes onto the ground and do anti gravity tricks to get over hills, etc? That has got to be my biggest hate right now. I'm sure it's hard to adjust something like that, but if it's not in this version, please consider it late

[Spadge]

Thanks for the nice comments.

Sales wise, all you're going to get is "it's done very well" And we're highly delighted.

Things typically changed post release; namely the size limit went up and now there's 2 releases a week, which means more competition for sales, but we have been pleased with it all. We certainly plan to do more XBLA stuff in conjunction with Microsoft and/or other partners, as well as maybe some more PSN (playstation network) titles too.

[AndrewTaylor]

Originally Posted by Spadge

We certainly plan to do more XBLA stuff in conjunction with Microsoft and/or other partners, as well as maybe some more PSN (playstation network) titles too.

Are these smaller games a sort of new favourite direction, then? Lemmings, Lemmings 2, Worms XBLA and four versions of Worms Open Warfare all seem to have come out in the time we'd normally expect to see about one major 3D, two-disc, cross-platform type game and they all seem to have done quite nicely for themselves (with the possible exception of WOW1 on DS).

[Spadge]

The smaller titles sit alongside other, major projects (two of which remain un-announced) - it's a good way of working for us and it'll continue in this way; with a mix of console digital distribtion titles and possibly more handheld games. It's a real comfortable mix for us.

DS WOW actually did ok in the market, we expect WOW2 DS however, to outsell it by a fair old distance... it's a far, far superior title.

[hobbzinio]

surely its possible jus to tell us if it will be here before friday???

[Spadge]

We hope so, but we don't control things over in Seattle (at Microsoft).

[rikimaru99]

hi are we going to be getting the baseball bat back because thats my fav weapon. pwease

[worMatty]

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

No new weapons will be added to the game. It has been said countless times. It is stickied in the thread marked 'READ THIS FIRST'.

[LiveFan]

I know, I know, but I must ask... is there ANY chance of adding multiple profiles online, even just for unranked matches?

I enjoy watching my wife play the ol' 360 online, but playing alongside would be much more fun.

That said, I like what's been improved and look forward to trying it out soon.

Thanks for the hard work!