Surprise! We have a few updates to the N v2.0 beta for you to check out. Thanks for all the feedback you’ve been emailing and posting to the blog and forum, by the way, it’s helped identify quite a few bugs. We and Golden Gear Games have been working tirelessly all month on fixing them, plus adding features and testing like there’s no tomorrow, and as you’ll see there are quite a few improvements to the latest build.
Check it out at the same URL as last time: N v2.0 Public Beta
It’s still not quite finished, but we’re pretty happy with the progress we’ve made. Known bugs include:
- The editor is still missing. We’re working on it!
- Accounts are working, but there are some issues that need to be worked out still. Playing an unlocked level from the “levels” page and then pressing esc to return to that page results in some buggy progress data. We recommend not doing this until you’ve beaten lots of levels!
- Some UI text and graphics are still placeholder.
- The buttons on the level pages to watch replays, favourite levels, rate levels and flag don’t seem to do anything at the moment.
- Sounds still cutting out.
New in this version:
Lots of bug-fixing. So, so much.
FUNlockables (TM)! Beating a column unlocks ninja flavours again. Hooray!
Arcade Mode is enabled after beating a column, allowing you to play through that column again using Arcade rules (Resume Game does not currently work with Arcade Mode, though it appears in the main menu — don’t click it, it breaks stuff. It will work eventually). We think the addition of Arcade Mode sufficiently up’s the difficulty ante, and plus the new rules are just fun.
There’s currently a cheat enabled so you don’t have to play through all the levels to see the userlevels columns or Arcade Mode: ctrl+click on an episode to “beat” it, then exit to the main menu and return to the “play game” screen to see the change.
Speaking of the userlevels columns, we painstakingly went through the levels that were recommended plus many more from NUMA, and selected a set of our favourites and levels that we thought would work well in this context. We had to cut many, but we tried our best to show a variety of map-makers and types of levels, while holding true to our aesthetic. There were so many we had to add two bonus columns instead of just one.
Because of the cheats and other stuff, we WILL be wiping the database before the final release, so don’t get too attached to those highscores. We will leave your accounts intact, we’ll just clear progress and replays.
Any feedback you have can be sent to metanet AT metanetsoftware DOT com, subject line “N v2.0 feedback”, or posted in this forum thread. Thanks for your help!
We are continuing to refine N v2.0, and as always, will keep you posted. Until next time!
ps. in case you missed it, the title of this post was a reference to Cryptic Sea’s A New Zero: https://www.crypticsea.com/anewzero/ Check it out!
I seem to have missed something. Where can I find more info about this “N2.0”? How does it differ from the original version?
@Alex: Check out the previous post on this blog: http://www.metanetsoftware.com/?p=854
arcade mode! yay!
guys i love you <3
Forgot to say a thing:
do you think there would be an arcade mode even for a mapper? I mean I should create a map for highscore/speedrun, or I can do an entire episode or a bunch of episodes in an arcade mode? Not supported?
Looking nice. Do I need to cheat-click my way through all the episodes to unlock the usercolumns or is there something I’m missing? I mean, it’s much better than the alternative, but still kind of a hassle.
gloomp i did that, and i unlocked all the arcades (they’re all the same and redirect to the first column) and the usercolumns (+ flavours).
i think for a custom rgb flavour i need to finish the arcade, am i right? eheheh.
Great work M&R loving the beta so far.. so smooth to play!
I was able to sign up correctly (I think anyway although I didn’t get any email confirmation) but I’ve been unable to log in with those credentials after signing up: msg “user name or password is incorrect”
Pretty sure I have entered them correctly..
Hey, thanks a lot for all the hard work, its really cool 😀
The only thing that dissapoints me a bit is that highscoring has lost so much importance 🙁
The levels page is filled with other things and the “highscores” zone is relegated to a tiny corner, meanwhile it should be the biggest thing on that page. If you want to focus on levels, then Id create another tab for highscoring or something like that, honestly :/
Also, the levels tab seems to be very bugged. When I play a level, and then go back to the menu, I cant see any levels anymore! I know you already talked about this buggy issue, but you didnt mention /this/ happened. Also, sometimes the runs are submitted, sometimes they arent. For that reason, maybe a submit button could solve this, unless that is fixed as well.
Oh, and another suggestion, I think that on the levels page, on the “metanet” tab, the levels should be sorted by episode, you know, like old-school, I think its tidier that way. But thats up to you! I dont actually mind.
But just so you know, we can only see the first 10 unlocked levels, but theres no way to scroll down and see the rest. Also, the submitting is buggy, sometimes it does submit the run, sometimes it doenst.
Oh, another one, sorry to post so many times. Firstly, I found that not everybody is seeing the same scores on the boards, haha. For example, some people say they see my score and some more submitted on 0-0, meanwhile I can only see a single score on 0-0, and its from andrewtest3 o.O Thats weird.
Another problem we saw is that when a person ties the score of another, his score appear above! Thats unfair, because if a person ties a score, his score should appear below the other one.
Wow this looks great, a lot nicer than the earlier beta too. Excited to get the finished product, you guys are awesome!
Another bug we found, The score you achieve isnt the one it saves. i.e. I did 95.266 on a level, which multiplying by 60 gives 5716. But the score saved was 5711 instead, which is 95.183. And thats the one which was submitted as well.
@Pai Check your spam, probably you just need to confirm your email to activate your account. If not, let us know.
@Eddy yeah a lot of the levels page is placeholder while we figure out how best to display it, and as you’ve noticed there are still many things to fix 🙂
Can you give us an example of tied scores?
M&R – Yes, got filtered as junk; now sorted – thanks!
Ah sorry, I dont think its tied anymore, I improved it :/
The weird thing now is that, I can only see some levels having their scores updated. Some levels I can only see a couple scores out of the real ones that there actually are. On some others, I can see all the changes, my score being submitted, etc. And this seems to change depending on the person.
Another suggestion, which would be very appreciated, is if you could possibly add a message for when you improve a score. That would be great.
“Another suggestion, which would be very appreciated, is if you could possibly add a message for when you improve a score. That would be great.”
Seconded!
I would like if the feature where after beating a level you can immediately watch your replay put back. Was quite satisfying.
Is there somewhere else to watch your own replays, that I’m missing?
I noticed some bugs with the highscores:
1) After playing single levels at the metanet highscores screen i can’t review the highscores again after playing. (need to refresh then)
2)At 00-0 I often got the times 114.833 – 115.000 and when I sometimes got 115.083 it told me 115.830 or something like that. It was a bug cause I wasn’t much faster than before (It isnt even possible). I guess the last two number where at the wrong place.
After playing 00-0 for some more I’m not 100% sure about that bug anymore, but the times I get seem to vary too much. I only get the times 114.800 – 115.000 and 115.500 – 115.830. That seems wrong to me and I *guess* it should be 114.800 – 115.083.
By thinking a bit more about this: 115.330 isn’t even a valid time? It should be 115.316 or 115.333, shouldnt it?
Hey xela, here you have some bug list we have noticed:
* After playing a level and going back to the menu, you have to refresh.
* If there is a 0 after the . on your score (like 115.066) it will go to the end (115.660), so the score is fake.
* Not all players can see the scores on the boards, for exmaple, I can only see the scores on 7 out of 10 levels, on the rest, I can only see 2 scores that do not change even if I submit mine.
Watching highscores seems not to work.
For example, I cant see the real scores on 0-0, I only see andrewtest3’s score, but I dont see yours, mine, zaps, or anybody else’s score.
Out of all 10 levels we can see on the levels page, I think I can see 7 properly, the other 3 (0-0, 0-1 and 1-2) I cant 🙁
These weird bug seems to differ depending on the player, for exmaple, zaps can see 8 out of 10, but differenty levels actually. I think lord_day could see all of them. I wonder what does that depends on.
Yeah, those buttons do not work. Watching, flagging, etc.
Hi there!
I tried to sign up ingame under this name (Bumperguard), but I did not receive an activation E-mail. Trying to login says incorrect name/password, trying to sign up again said, that the account name awaits activation. Tried another name under the same (correct!) adress and doublechecked the spelling and did not receive a mail either. It’s a Hotmail adress FYI.
Only when I tried a completely different adress, that belongs to a friend, it worked. Now I’m stuck with a stupid username 😀
Please resend the activation mail for Bumperguard or let me re-register it under another adress.
Thanks a lot!
PS: The rest of the bugs I noticed are already mentioned here.
think i found a small bug, if you play a level and you look in the bottom left corner for the episode and level number then you will only see the units digit of the episode, for example if you were playing 35-0 and you looked in the bottom left corner you would only see 5-0.
I can now suddenly see the scores on 9/10 boards, because two of them got fiex, weird haha.
Btw, the leaderboards are not scrollable, which means the names get out of the borders of the game.
Oh btw, you can only see 10 levels on the levels page, because you cant scroll neither.
Another thing, I’ve seen some more ties now, and I think that when some scores are tied, they are sorted in inverse alphabetical order. Because now I tied a score but I didnt appear above him, so I can only think that its sorted alphabetically but inverse.
Some bugs, game-breaking ones listed first:
1. Getting a score of x.0yz on a level causes it to appear on the top of the screen as x.yz0 (y and z are two digits)
(e.g. 115.083 appears as 115.830)
2. Arcade mode doesn’t reset gold counter on death, so you can die on purpose to get really high scores
3. Level b7-4 is impossible because it relies on a one-way glitch that you’ve removed. Just take out the relevant one-way
4. All arcade modes are the levels from the zeros column
5. When loading the game, it begins playing in slow motion for a few seconds before playing as normal
6. Some scores aren’t appearing for some people, like lord_day can see my 5715 score on 0-1 but I can’t
7. Playing a level on highscore mode and going back to the levels screen makes all the levels disappear and you have to refresh to get them back
8. The highscores go outside the box (and we should certainly be able to see more than seven highscores anyway)
Apart from these, this beta is definitely a great improvement. Keep up the good work 😀 Really liking the second user column!
Thanks for compiling the bugs Zaps! M&R, that list includes all bugs I mentioned on my posts, so better check that one.
Thanks so much for working through this M&R. Glad to see the jump button reassignment works now, back to the old worn j key.
I’m being told my username or password is incorrect, after resetting it to make sure. Also it says at the levels section “you have not beaten this” when I have and there is no visible record of my scores
Oh well, he forgot about a single bug. Tied scores dont work properly, since they are sorted in inverse alphabetical order, while they should obviosuly be sorted chronologically.
is there a way to play the user column with a short cut?
@Jeremoon
Yeah, first you have to hold down the ctrl key while you click on each uncompleted episode. Then, go to the main screen. Go back to the levels and the first row should be ‘completed.’ Repeat this until all episodes are ‘completed’ and you should see the user level column show up on the right.
Thanks for all the bug reports everyone! Looks like we have a lot of work to do 🙂
Question: have floorguards been slowed down or am I going crazy?
nope Meta, I have that too.
by the way, I’m stupid – can someone explain me what’s the difference between arcade mode and regular mode?
Hey M&R,
Remember you asked me about tied scores to see their weird behavious? You can see 3 tied scores at the top of 0-1.
The order those scores were done is [xela->EddyMataGallos->Raif] so as you can see, N doesnt sort the scores chronologically as it should. I used to think it sorted them in inverse alphabetical order, but now that I’ve seen these scores, it seems thats not the pattern it follows.
Maybe you could take a look at this?
@lsudny
Regular mode is the same as before–play through an episode of 5 levels, and the time resets each time you die. In arcade mode, the gold you collect during the level is only added up after you finish the level. Also, if you die, the time you lost doesn’t come back. The arcade mode for each column should go through all of the levels in each column (currently not set up properly in the beta). If you play both modes for the first column, it should make sense.
Hey there, Raif discovered another bug.
If you are playing a level and you improve you score several times, only the first one is saved, that is, the worst one. So you actually have to refresh the page, not only to be able to see the levels again, but also to have your score saved every time you improve it.
its not working
A bug I’ve found (could have been reported before, not sure)
When playing through the levels the first time normally, if you pause and close the tab/window, then resume after some time, you’ll be in arcade mode for the rest of the episode. Don’t know why.
While playing 2 player mode, I noticed that it is difficult to distinguish the ninjas. It would be a good idea to be able to choose different flavours for both players.
The ninja moves really slowly in Chrome, but just fine in Firefox (though my display driver crashes occasionally).
The reset local data button should be moved to the left side of the screen.
And multiplayer! I’m excited for that!
Not a bug, but 99-4 (Slippery trip hazard) is ridiculous. I looked up a video on youtube of how to do it, and I noticed that most of the laser thingys had been converted to rockets. This makes the top part near impossible because there’s a section you have to run through where it’s too small to go over or under a rocket, and there’s no clear way to get there before a rocket, or have the rocket follow you through since it’s so cramped. I love a good challenge, but you said some levels might be impossible.
Here’s a screen shot comparing the youtube video (left) to the new version (right). I’ve marked the relevant area.
Note: By near impossible I mean I have yet to do it, and see no clear way to do it, but it might be doable.
Oops, forgot the link. My bad: http://i.imgur.com/akUfcLy.png
A lot of people, including myself, have beaten that, and I dont think that represents that serious trouble.
Moreover, considering its suposed to be a game-enging level, I would have made it even harder. Try waiting for it before entering the tunnel, and then jumping over the rocker asap, then when you reach the end of the tunnel, jump again to avoid it.
Yeah, I have beaten that level, too, but it was definitely harder than most levels in N V 2.0. Similar to what the above poster said, you have to wait until the rocket is just about to hit you (it has to get closer than usual), and then jump over it. I actually waited just inside the tunnel, though–it is possible to avoid it inside, too. You might notice that as the rocket gets closer to you, it moves slightly downward even in that narrow tunnel…so, you have to wait until it is right in front of you, and then you can jump over it without it killing you (it’s more of finding a sweet spot rather than just running quickly and jumping to avoid it like you would normally do). It’s a bit tricky at first, but it can be done once you realize what you have to do.
I actually really like that 99-4. The last level should be really hard, and this one delivers. For those of us who have been playing for awhile, it isn’t even that hard! My only suggestion would be to add some gold to it, so that those who arrive at that level without much time remaining can still complete it.
@zserf:
A demo and explanation for you
http://youtu.be/-ISSKYxG768
Im making a The Way Of The Ninja wiki! I need help with pages, like N+, enemies, history and much more! Link:
http://thewayoftheninja.wikia.com
@rigbymad12
Contribute to this one!
http://n.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
You know what, screw my wiki. 🙁
Thanks everyone… sooo many bugs 🙁
About floorchasers: I can’t tell for sure if there’s a difference; they seem to move at the same speed (i.e slightly faster than the ninja’s top speed), however one difference is that they might start moving one frame later than they used to… I’m not sure, but it’s possible. We’ll look into it!
About 99-4, we know it’s really hard… however, we’ve made it past the top-right rocket twice, so we know it’s possible. Maybe it’s not very fun though..
@M&R
I would definitely leave 99-4 in the game! It is pretty hard, but it definitely feels rewarding once you complete it. You might have N+ players complaining about the difficulty on that level if they were saying that Master Control was a hard level, though, but at least it will give them a good challenge to overcome…it is the last level in the game, after all.
I made it past 99-4. Whatever happened to that level that was a spiral with a bunch of mines? I remember that being a super hard level as well, but also lots of fun.
Occasionally, it seems like the game says I’ve completed more levels even though I haven’t. I’m sharing wireless, so perhaps that’s it, but it seems like it would be stored by cookies so I’m not sure why it does that.
Forgive me but what exactly is new with N 2.0? It looks and plays exactly like the very original N.
M&R: the fact that a bunch of impossible scores are appearing on the v2 beta highscores boards already is enormously unappealing. You should really get this score hacking fixed (unless they were in fact accidental, in which case… you should fix that too). I was told you’re already working on it, which is great, but let us know about your progress.
Insert monthly reminder about v2 arcade beta prizes here. Come on it’s been over a year already >.<
Yeah there seems to be a new bug were scores are not being submitted to their respective boards. i.e. I’d say the two top impossible scores in 0-1 actually belong to 0-0
Its either that, or hacking has already appeared D:
Tied scores are another bug, Im not really sure how they are ordered, but I seem to be put the last one always! haha
I saw however that you improved the game by transparent update somehow (i think) because im now able to watch peoples runs, and i dont need to refresh the game everytime i improve my score. Nice job there 😉
On the other hand, however, the lag has worsened for me :/ The framerate doesnt decrease like on other peoples PC, but it does skip frames, so its pretty hard to control it sometimes.
Wow for instance, check the boards of level 1-2. Not only my score got bugged, thats my score of level 1-3 which also got submitted to 1-2. Even worse, another player called sohil got a score submitted to 1-2 with MY score of 1-3 as well, hahaha.
The top rocket on 99-4 is very easy to dodge if you know the trick to it. (IMO, anyways)
Experienced a highscore bug as well. Suddenly got the same time (and replay run) as Eddy on 00-4. Though I never got this time nor did I do such a run (at least I never succeeded trying it :D).
No idea how it could happen.
Anyway, keep it up! Makes much fun! Especially the 2-Player.
The possibly minorest bug of them all, but I think I should mention it anyway:
The ESC-button (back) works in almost any menuscreen but not on the “Story”-Screen. 😉
Not exactly a bug, but if you are going to hit escape to pause a level and die accidentally before hitting esc, you end up quitting that book of five levels. Needless to say, this can be rather annoying, especially given that during normal game play, you can’t quite by hitting esc, you have to hit it and then Q. Thus I would propose hitting esc takes you to the same menu, regardless of if your ninja is alive or dead.
Just beat the first column and it did not unlock a flavor.
how is work going guys?
After refreshing today, the flavor showed up!
http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?p=164892#p164892
Possible solution to that problem? I know it’s from years ago, but I’m dieing, I need newz!!
^^
With regards to the lag.. I have experienced much better performance after reloading the game. Over time it then goes back from smooth to not-so-smooth. Problem with cache? 🙂
hey M&R,
i, personally, have not experienced lag on Chrome at all. the framerate has been ridiculously fluid and consistent, regardless of how many processes i am running at the same time.
i have experienced some other bugs, though.
sometimes, when revisiting the game and clicking “resume game” without logging in, you are taken to a completely random episode. this happened once to me and i still don’t know what episode it is i beat. it’s the one with the level all-spark.
if an event that triggers a game sound occurs while one is already playing, the second sound doesn’t play at all. for example, if you get two lock triggers in quick succession, the sound for the second lock won’t play. this can easily be replicated on claustro.
only the units digits of episode numbers display when actually playing through them. e.g., 85-4 is 5-4.
floorguards respond once to the ninja’s corpse (not sure if this was intentional).
that’s all i can think of at the moment. thank you so much for putting such hard work into a game i know and love. i’m forever grateful.
Hey M&R,
I’ve had alot of trouble with pausing during gameplay, Sometimes i need to quit and the keys are confusing (Sometimes is Escape and Sometimes its Q) also when i pause sometimes any of the buttons just dont work. Please try and make the Controls more easier.
The Laser drone’s time of shooting laser is shorter (you might of done this on purpose)
And What happened to the level transitions from v1.4? that makes the game feel more N-ish. =)
Could you guys consider a standalone .exe when the final version is finished? Pretty much like the ‘old’ one, you know. Playing in browser sometimes is a bit of a pain. Thank you very much and keep the effort. Good luck sirs.