Hey Carnage Crew – We’ve got another sale for you! Don’t miss our exclusive Steam sale running now through December 10th at 10 am! Get 45% off a single copy of Primal Carnage: Extinction for PC.
Also, the more the merrier – From now until December 1st, get 35% off when you buy a Primal Carnage: Extinction 4 pack! Get a copy for you plus three EXTRA COPIES for your friends!
Over the next week, we’re going to push out our first open-testing build. The initial build and updates to that build will usually be minor but we have the ability to push updates often. Keep in mind builds may be unstable from time to time.
Our goal is to make the game more fun, engaging, and long-lasting.
Initially, the main focus of open-testing will be balance and stability. When new maps and gamemodes are ready for testing, we’ll also likely be rolling those out in open-testing. Surprise features may be given to a private group for testing.
Players will be able to opt-in to a public branch of Extinction. When we update, we’ll post a changelog to the main forums and a public Steam Group. You can either join an official server and try out the new changes or set up your own server.
Regarding the economy, the branch works the same as the main game and doesn’t affect your drop chance. You obtain drops normally.
We’ve just created new a new forum section for reporting issues found in testing builds. Once an issue has been found and confirmed as real, we will post it to a public Trello board where players can vote on the issue that bothers them the most.
Along with reporting issues, there’s also a forum for suggesting and discussing balance tweaks. We’ll also be providing a damage/value sheet to make this easier.
(Thanks to Toa Metru 6 for the banner image!)
The Christmas Carnage Winter Update is here! Get a breakdown of the long awaited crafting feature and the new holiday items here.
Las Vegas, NV – December 16th, 2015 – An update to Primal Carnage: Extinction has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Primal Carnage: Extinction. The major changes include:
General
Human
Dinosaurs
Economy
New Suicide Penalties
There are now penalties for players who consecutively suicide to help prevent griefing. This is configurable for server owners, with the default being an auto-kick for 3 consecutive suicides. Players who are close to the suicide limit are warned in their chat window.
Crafting
Crafting has now been added to the game! You can access it from the Customization tab.
You can control the resulting class output using DNA Strands for Dinosaurs, or Requisition Orders for Humans. These are available from the in-game store for purchase.
Open Testing
Want to contribute your opinion for the direction of Primal Carnage Extinction, and be the first to try out new features and balance? Open Testing is now running, with regular build updates and new features, tweaks and balance changes. Check out the Open Testing Forum for more information!
Las Vegas, NV – December 17th, 2015 – An update to Primal Carnage: Extinction has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Primal Carnage: Extinction. The major changes include:
General
Thanks to WarBear for the header!
Las Vegas, NV – December 18th, 2015 – An to Primal Carnage: Extinction has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Primal Carnage: Extinction. The major changes include:
General
Thanks to Kasca for the header image!
Unwrap a dino-filled holiday with the perfect prehistoric bundle including 6 DLC packs for Primal Carnage: Extinction. Play and enjoy festive weapons like candy cane guns, frosty dart guns, and toy striped tranq rifles, plus three sets of holiday-themed earmuffs for the dinosaurs, a Santa-themed pyro outfit and a Santa hat that can be worn by any humans. Santa Pyro’s coming for you – Get it now!
North, Central, and South America
http://bit.ly/PCE-PS4-Holiday-Bundle-US
The EU, Australia, and New Zealand
http://bit.ly/PCE-PS4-Holiday-Bundle-EU
Complete DLC Details:
http://bit.ly/PCE-PS4-Holiday-DLC
With limited availability and in the united States, the packs are available until January 5th but can be enjoyed all year long.
Las Vegas, NV – December 24th, 2015 – An update to Primal Carnage: Extinction has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Primal Carnage: Extinction.
The major changes include:
General
Thanks to Xmas Kino for the header image!
Don’t miss your chance to win amazing rare Primal Carnage: Extinction skins, plus your very own dinosaur from December 24 through December 30. Each day from December 24 through December 30, one lucky winner will receive rare in-game skins and a code to print the dinosaur of your choice form Sandboxr ($89.99 value)! Want to enter to win?
Click here for your fighting chance.
https://gleam.io/Ki76L/7-days-of-christmas-carnage
Day 1 – 24th – Spitter Day
• Spitter Rare Skin Pack (2x rare items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 2 – 25th – Christmas Day
• Christmas Item Packs (x2)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 3 – 26th – Tyrant Day
• Tyrant Rare Skin Pack (2x rare items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 4 – 27th – Human Day
• Rare Human Item Pack (5x rare items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 5 – 28th – Flyer & Carno Day
• Carno & Flyer Rare Skin Pack (2x rare items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 6 – 29th – Predator Day!
• Predator Rare Skin Pack (2x rare items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Day 7 – 30th – Finale!
• Legendary Skin (1x Legendary items)
• $89.99 Sandboxr Coupon
Let the holiday carnage begin.
We’re spreading cheer this season with plenty of sales. Enjoy 50% off the Reticulated Cryo, Tectonic Acro, Ashfall Acro, Golden Oviraptor, Crowned Raptor and Beer Helmet. Plus, the Christmas Gifts will be 25% off. This is for a limited time only during the Seven Days of Carnage, so don’t miss out! #HolidayCarnageSale
We have good news and bad news. The bad news is somebody gave us a fake email for the 7 Days of Christmas Carnage campaign and we have absolutely no way to reach them. Way to go, that guy.
The good news is that means we have an extra $89.99 Sandboxr coupon. After failing to trade it for Bitcoin, we decided the best thing to do is put on a week-long Christmas Carnage Art Contest. With strategic use of some moderately priced alcohol, we even managed to convince the bean-counters down at HQ to let us give out some more in-game items.
General Info/Theme
This contest starts now and ends on January 7th around 6PM PST. Winners will be chosen by an internal shadow council.
The theme of the contest is anything related to Primal Carnage and the Winter Season.
To see the rules, prizes, and enter your art piece- head over to the thread on the Primal Carnage Forums!
Hey everyone,
To begin the new year, we’re going to start keeping the community informed through one or two newsletters a month. In addition, we’re also going to re-define the way the Ask a Developer thread works- instead of answering questions directly in the thread, the answers will be posted here twice a month.
Community Moderator Sanguis will be running the newsletters/AaD answer posts, and he means business. So check back often!
Open Testing
For those that don’t know, we recently started pushing public testing builds. Whenever we add new features or make balance changes, we push them up to a separate build so anyone can try it out. The following weeks will see a steady output of test builds that will include gameplay tweaks, bug fixes, and other minor improvements. Based on feedback from the community, we’ve decided to do open scheduled testing from 11AM to 2PM PST every Saturday. Tomorrow will be the first scheduled test.
Unfortunately this window might not work for everyone, but as popularity grows we’re interested in finding an alternate schedule for those who can’t make it. The testing servers will always be running, so we also encourage the community to test whenever they like. The purpose of the weekly scheduled testing is to guarantee that each open testing build is properly tested with as many people as possible under the supervision of at least one developer.
For testing builds, the overall focus for the weeks to come are improvements of the core gameplay. For the main game, the goal is to release smaller but more focused content updates on a monthly basis.
You can find information on how to join the open testing branch and post issues you find on the Open Testing Subforum.
Extinction Editor
January will see the release of the Extinction Editor, a tool to empower the artists and creative ones among the community to bring their own ideas into the game. The editor will allow anyone to create maps, simple game types using Kismet, cinematic videos, and skins. You can try the editor out yourself once it goes into the open beta phase, and we will be providing plenty of documentation and tutorials on how to use the editor. The forums will receive a new section exclusively for questions regarding the editors and how to bring your visions to (digital) life.
The editor release is something we’re very excited about, and we’re looking forward to seeing what the community can do.
What’s Next
The next few months will see the implementation of taunts, a Human Class Update, an item stat-tracking system (more information regarding this will follow), the long awaited “Hunt”mode, and a challenge system. “Capture the Egg” is on the radar as well. Several much-needed features such as human melee, an optional votemap/votekick system, and others will also find their way into the game soon.
Smaller, but more frequent content updates will make sure a steady stream of new things to discover is available, while the overall core-game experience will steadily be improved. For more information, you can check out our new roadmap here. You might notice that March only has one item listed and we have nothing for the months after. Don’t worry- this is because these months are farther out and we don’t want to over-promise.
Happy New Years!
(Thanks to Trident for the header image!)
The results are in! We’re overwhelmed by everything the community entered. We had a tough time choosing our top 3, but after taking a vote we’ve found our winners. If you’re just now tuning in and want to see the entries from the contest, check them out here.
We were so happy with the results that everyone who entered will get a small prize. If you won or entered the contest, private message Apoc on the forums with your Steam Profile Link for your prize.
Third Place
It was a tough pick for third place, but this one got the most votes. We particularly liked the smooth style with pinpoints of sharp detail on the raptor’s feathers and the rex’s scales. This piece perfectly captures a common iconic moment of Primal Carnage, where you can drop your opponent out of the air straight into a tyrant’s mouth. You can find a higher quality image along with more of Hanches’ artwork here.
Second Place
This one really entertained us. You can’t help but get a good laugh from it and it’s packed with hilarious detail – everything from the graffiti on the side of the car to the Pathfinder’s dog riding shotgun (and is that that the Transfer tower we see in the background?). You can check it out at a higher quality along with more of Shuffleplay’s art here.
First Place
Our final winner’s entry is simply beautiful. The perspective here really grabbed our attention. Every detail of this piece highlights the intensity of the situation and the danger that lurks behind our human trio. The darkness of the foreground (broken only by predatory yellow eyes) compared with the background’s lighter snowy forest makes for superb contrast. You can’t help but be drawn right in to the hunt. It was almost a unanimous vote and the personal favorite of most of the judges. As a bonus, Kaz even provided a step-by-step of how it was done. You can check it out here.
Honorary Mentions
Even though we had to pick a top 3, there’s a lot more entries we really liked. Here are a few (in no particular order) that came very close to winning. Hover over the picture to see the name of the artist:
For the honorary mentioned pieces- even though you didn’t win, don’t worry! We have a special way of immortalizing your artwork in-game. What will that be? It’s a surprise!
Because of the success of this contest, we’re going to start doing these more often. Stay tuned!
Thank you all for participating in Seven Days of Carnage! We hope that the odds were in your favor this holiday season. Enjoy your gifts, and #HappyCarnage!
Discord
We’ve recently stumbled upon this great application called Discord. It’s like a mix of IRC and Teamspeak. One of the nice features is it can be used in your web browser or their desktop app. Since we love it so much, we set up a channel for Extinction. You can check it out here (We highly recommend creating an account).
It’s a bit empty right now and only has some basic channels, but we’re hoping it’ll catch on. Besides being a general chat hub for the community and allowing players a direct line to developers, we’re going to be using it to coordinate Open Testing Sessions. Players will be able to join the open testing channel and figure out who’s testing and what to do. We know the last few open testing sessions haven’t gone very well, and we think this will help.
January Update
Work on the January update is going well. All the taunt assets are ready to go and we’re just working out a few more kinks. Map voting will also be going in. Unfortunately we’ve run into a few issues with the Editor’s workshop integration so we’ll be postponing that. Don’t worry- the editor will still be coming out this month. By the time everyone has a chance to use the editor and get acquainted with it, we’ll be rolling out workshop integration.
We don’t have a hard date on the January update yet, but it’ll most likely be a week or so away.
(Thanks to Paradox Sox for the banner image!)
Hey, Primates! We’ve got another sale for you. For a limited time only, get 50% off on Humble Bundle for PC! That’s $9.99 for Primal Carnage: Extinction! Get yours now before it’s too late, it ends on January 29th. The question is, will you survive? #Sale #HumbleBundle
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/primalcarnage_extinction_storefront
Gamers in the EU, Australia, and New Zealand – Don’t miss your chance to get the PS4 version of Primal Carnage: Extinction as part of Sony PlayStation’s Digital Discounts! On sale now through February 3 (with even bigger savings for PlayStation Plus members).
store.playstation.com
With all the confusion in the past, what is the process of skin development and addition to the game, including the relevancy of Trello, Trello voting, and why certain skins do not make it?
So far we’ve given skin designers like Jurassic4Life and Senoba full autonomy when it comes to making skins. We’ve put a few restrictions on them- like making sure their overlay and mask textures are of a certain size or not using too many shader features at once (For example, the pattern system + hue shifting). We also encourage occasional variants to cut down on texture memory.
Trello voting combined with the comments give us a general idea on the popularity of a skin which influences our choices on rarity. Originally I chose the rarities almost arbitrarily, which resulted in poor feedback from the community. Since then I’ve consulted with several people in the community to refine my rarity choices.
The other thing that impacts the rarity choices is rarity distribution. This is especially important because of crafting- If the Novaraptor has 8 rare skins but 4 uncommon skins, we need to start filling in the uncommons.
Secondly, will Trello be more maintained, in consideration some skins come out much different than what we’ve seen before?
In some cases this comes down to perception, in other cases it’s last minute tweaks. For example, a few of the Christmas skins were seen as “cartoony” and were tweaked a bit before launch based on that feedback.
In a lot of cases though, I think this comes down to the way skins and the icons are taken. If a skin artist shows off a skin on Utility Base or Docks (Where the sun has a distinct orange tint to it) it can look very different from a shot of it on Forest Chasm (where the lighting is much more neutral). Additionally, the icons are taken in a special green-screen map with completely neutral lighting. That’s why the icons can look so different from the screenshots.
Finally, depending on your video option settings skins can look very different. If you’re running with lighting on low, the skin will look dramatically different from the skin artist’s screenshot.
Are old outfits/models for the humans still feasible?
Absolutely. We have 4 out of 5 of the original human skins ready to go, and we’d like to see these come out soon. Having models skinned to skeletons has always been something missing from our pipeline, and other stuff usually takes precedence over this.
How long do you guys think it will take to get different sounds for the Oviraptor, Tupandactylus, and Cryolophosaurus?
Dinosauriac has done a lot of work on these, but the problem comes down to the way we play sounds. Most of the sounds are played through animations- such as the Raptor slash sound being played at a specific time during the slash animation. In the case of the Raptor, Dilo, and Ptera- their animations are shared with the Oviraptor, Cryo, and Tupa respectively. To add in the sub-class specific sounds would mean an entire rehaul of the way we play sounds which is a considerable amount of work.
It’s still not out of the question, but it’s not our current focus right now.
Are there any plans for a universal melee weapon that all human classes can use?
It’s definitely possible. Currently the two melee weapons we have are the Stun Baton and Machete, which were meant for the Scientist and Pathfinder in the first game. We believe the community would be against having them go to any other class, so we’re going to keep it that way. There’s no reason that future melee weapons couldn’t be more generic and used by multiple classes, but it’s a decision we haven’t made yet.
Will you guys ever be interested in sound mods? (Implementing sounds from ‘Jurassic Park’ and the likes)
It’s something we’re interested in. But just like our issues with adding the sub-class sounds, this isn’t an easy task to do. In engines like Source, this was easy- if you added a sound with the same directory/name as the original in your base directory it would override it. You see funny workshop mods like the “Teletubbie” mod in L4D, where all zombies and zombie sounds are replaced with Teletubbie assets. Unfortunately stuff like this isn’t possible with Unreal Engine 3. The engine uses a package system that cooks everything down to a compressed format without a proper way of overriding the individual files.
Were the Pachycephalosaurus and Ceratosaurus removed from Trello because they are scrapped or just too early in development to warrant being there, or something else?
They aren’t completely off the table. We removed them because we recently re-structured our priorities. While we know the community would love to see more dinosaurs be added to the game, they’re probably the most resource-intensive and challenging things to add. Right now our problem isn’t new dinosaurs- it’s making the game fun and interesting to play. We think it’s a better use of time and resources to improve the existing game and classes.
In the editor mode, is it possible to implement new models as skins?
Kind of. There’s nothing stopping you from creating a model, texturing it, rigging it, and importing it into our editor. You could create cinematics with it or share it with the community. But you wouldn’t be able to create a new class and run around as that dinosaur. It’s not out of the question that we could create a method to let people do this, but it won’t work that way initially.
When it comes to creating new skins (an actual skin, not model) you won’t be able to add it to the game. You would submit it through a workshop curation system, where people vote on them and developers would be able to approve them.
Theoretically you could create a dinosaur model and submit it to curation (Maybe a cosmetic replacement to the T-Rex with feathers, for example) but in order for it to work it would need to be skinned to the respective dinosaurs skeleton. In order to do that we would have to release those skeletons publicly- which we may or may not do. We’re interested in working with individuals that have the talent, though.
Are there still plans for a secondary attack for the Tupandactylus?
We’ve experimented a bit with an air ram and a few other things. It’s something that’s always in the back of our heads, but it’s not currently on the timeline for the next couple months.
Will you ever bother with Oculus Rift at any time, maybe for a future game or something?
Unreal Engine 3 doesn’t have native Oculus support. On top of that, there’s quite a bit of work that would need to be done to give the “true” VR experience (such as fully body awareness). The dinosaurs are also third person, which has even more challenges.
Because of the rising popularity of VR, if a future game had a proper use for it and made sense then I don’t see why it wouldn’t be considered as a feature.
Will you hire a person that is focused solely on bugs/balance? Is there already one?
Hiring someone for this specific purpose doesn’t make sense right now. It’s something all the developers chip in to do.
With Open Testing and the recent Discord channel, we now have the ability to quickly get feedback and information on issues in the game. Since bugs/issues, balance, and small features has been our current focus we’ve been eliminating as many of these issues as possible.
Will we be able to put custom music or at least pick what music will play on maps made with the editor?
Yep, you can. Unlike the class sounds, the music is controlled solely by the map. A map-maker can replace all class music and even the win/lose music.
Are there any plans to increase advertisement and so on to potentially gain a larger paying audience?
Depends on what you mean by advertisement. TV ads, busstop ads, billboards and the like are far outside the financial scope of pretty much any indie developer. You only really see AAA games do this.
What we currently do is the best thing any indie company could do, and that’s contacting streamers and YouTube channels. Those platforms are the best ways of reaching gamers.
Will the currently altered skins, such as Peacock Oviraptor and Crystal-Eye Oviraptor (among others) be fixed to their original designs?
The reason why the Ovi and Tupa skins recently changed was the completion of the skin base system. Originally, skins were made by taking the original color texture (such as the default raptor skin) and using the 4-color system with a mask to get the look you wanted. This worked but obviously wasn’t perfect. Now we use a blank base with just the shape and detail of the dinosaur and use a separate 512×512 to overlay the color/pattern we want.
Here is what the Oviraptor base looks like:
And here’s what the Oviraptor Blue-Jeweled overlay looks like:
With the completion of the bases system, the original 2048×2048 Blue-Jeweled skin was removed. Quite a few of the Oviraptor skins used that texture so I did my best to fix them up. Since then I’ve refined them and they look almost identical to the originals and will be out in the next update.
If there’s still any issues with these skins, contact me or make a thread and I’ll take another pass at them.
Will most of the skins that were made from the 4-color system be remade into the new unlimited system?
Probably not. As discussed earlier in this post, we’ve had a bad habit of changing these skins after they’ve been released which pleases some and annoys others. It’s difficult if not impossible to re-make these old skins and make them look identical. Unless there is a technical problem with a skin, from now on we aren’t going to be making modifications.
Are community contests going to be a regular thing, or something that happens once in a blue moon?
We’re very interested in turning community contests into a regular event. We loved the recent art contest and it received a lot of good feedback from the community. We definitely want to look into a level design contest when the editor comes out, and the community have made several suggestions from a writing contest to a comic contest. The only thing stopping us is coming up with some enticing prizes, but we’re already working on that. I doubt the Winter Carnage Art Contest will be the last.
Regarding the Extinction Editor
The editor itself is ready to go, we’ve finished off all the remaining issues for it. Unfortunately, our Valve representative has been very busy lately and we’re having trouble getting the Steam application made public to everyone who owns the game. We’ll have this fixed soon- in the meantime we’ll be handing out keys to people who are interested.
Taunts
Every class has a default taunt, which can be equipped in the customization menu. To activate a taunt, press G.
Several more taunts can be found in the store, in Hybrid Crate #2, or drops.
Cook Style
We have changed the way we “cook” and compress our game files. While the result is now significantly larger, this new style is what works best with the Extinction Editor and the upcoming workshop. It also splits the files into several smaller chunks, so we’ll work to make future updates smaller.
Player Collision
Introduced a new experimental collision system for humans and dinosaurs. Humans will no longer collide with each other, and bullets & projectiles will not be blocked by other humans. Similarly for dinosaurs, small dinos & projectiles (ie cryo/dilo spit) will not be blocked. Tyrants & Carnos still block each other.
Gameplay Feed
Added a new “Gameplay Events” feed system. This is currently only present in GTTC to notify all players when an objective is captured by the humans. We’ll be looking to expand this to display other interesting events in other gametypes, such as dominations and killstreaks.
VoteMap and VoteKick
We’ve added a new votemap and votekick system to the servers. This can be enabled or disabled in the server’s config. Votemap works by typing ‘!votemap’ and the map’s full name, for example
!votemap pc-docks
Votekick does not work through the chat at this time, and can be used by holding tab and selecting a player.
Pounce Recovery
Raptors now have their movement locked for the duration of their recovery after completing a pounce (previously they could attack instantly) and Human recovery time has been slightly increased.
Freeroam Chat
The freeroam chat system is now disabled by default and can be re-enabled in the server’s configs.
New Assists
General
Human
Dinosaur
Economy
Thanks to TropischXD for the header image!
Las Vegas, NV – February 1st, 2016 – An update to Primal Carnage: Extinction has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Primal Carnage: Extinction. The major changes include:
General
New Server Admin Features
You can now add administrators via their SteamID64 to a list in DefaultGame.ini. This will automatically log them into the administrator role when they connect to a server. Once logged in, they can use several different chat commands that should remove the need for the old admin password system. You can also add VIPs, which will eventually come with a special tag in the scoreboard. You can easily see a player’s SteamID64 using http://steamid.io and pasting in their steam profile, or use the in-game !playerlist command.
To add users, open DefaultGame.ini and add the following entries to [PrimalCarnageGame.PCBaseAccessControl]
+Admins=”SteamID64″
+Vips=”SteamID64″
Administrators can also setup timed announcements, messages that will be broadcast to the server every X seconds, such as teamspeak or website information. To do so, add the following entry under [PrimalCarnageGame.PCBaseInWorldgameInfo]
+TimedAnnouncements=(Message=”Your announcement here”, Delay=3600)
User Commands
!votemap mapname – Starts a vote to switch to the specified level
!votekick playername – Starts a vote to kick the specified player
Admin Commands
!playerlist – Lists all players and their 64 bit Steam ID
!restart – Reloads the current map
!changelevel mapname – Changes the level to the specified map
!kick playername – Kicks the player with the specified name
!ban playername – Bans the player with the specified name
!setmod message – Sets the message of the day for the server
!announce message – Announces a message to everyone in the server in chat
!addvip player – Adds the specified player as a VIP member
!removevip steamid64 – Removes the player with the specified SteamID from the VIP list
Thanks to WIM [ESP] For the header image!
Hey, Dino Fans – We’ve got not one, but two sales for you! Now until 10am on February 12th, Primal Carnage: Extinction for PC is on sale for 60% off. Plus, the 4-pack of the game will also be on sale for 50% off on Steam, so you can create carnage with all your friends! Get yours now, before it’s too late. #SteamSale #BecauseDinos