Tripwire’s first internal livestream
Earlier today, Tripwire Interactive hosted its first livestream on Twitch. After a rough start due to tech issues (changing audio levels, extremely dark camera feed), the team announced upcoming plans and answered player questions.
A bug patch was released today that was supposed to bring mod support, but that’s not quite ready yet. To drum up excitement for mod potential, the developers showed off a few new game modes: Boss Challenge, Pop the Cyst, Invisipow, and Competitive.
In Boss Challenge, one player gets to be the Patriarch and fights against the others, who all start with 10,000 dosh and can use the trader at all times. In Pop the Cyst, one person plays as a cyst and must survive as long as they can as while the other players, using only a knife and welder, have to kill them. Amusingly, cysts can throw up their arms in terror whenever you want. Invisipow sees one person playing as a buffed-up stalker and trying to kill the others, who are regular mercenaries. Competitive sees two teams of three trying to compete for kills. You can’t directly attack the opposing team, but you can use lures to try to send more Zeds after them.
Tripwire is watching the Zedconomy microtransaction system to tweak it, and working on a crafting system so that people who don’t want to spend money can try to slowly build cosmetic items. New sounds, like Zed voices and gun noises, are being worked on. The Fleshpound should be laughing at dead players soon. More female characters are in the pipe, and one will be releasing relatively soon, but beyond that Tripwire is not focusing on new characters so much as new content like maps and perks.
As far as balance goes, a new analytical system is being implemented so the team can more easily tweak weapon damages and Zed resistances without making huge patches. Tripwire acknowledged that Hans isn’t a thrilling fight now and want to make him as entertaining as the Patriarch. Fleshpounds and their rage mechanics are being examined in hopes of making them a more enjoyable foe to face. The Demolitionist perk is being looked at right now, and once the statistics roll in, the class will be re-balanced.
The Sharpshooter perk is also on the way! It’s only recently been integrated in the game and Tripwire did not show it in action, but it is officially in the works. I’m hoping that next time a livestream comes on, we’ll see the lever action rifle in all of its glory.
The stream started off a bit awkward, but I’m digging getting this much info in one burst. A schedule has not yet been established, so I’m not sure when Tripwire Interactive will do this again. Hopefully it’s a regular occurrence. And maybe next time we’ll see Rising Storm 2: Vietnam in action. Here’s the archived stream on Twitch if you want to give it a watch.
