How to access the "experimental" branch of Distance

[Refract]

Today we're announcing the availability of an "experimental" branch for Steam users! While we're in the final stages of testing our updates, you can subscribe to the latest experimental build via the Steam interface. Here's how:

• In your Steam library, right click on Distance and click on "Properties"
  
• Click on the BETAS tab
  
• Change the drop down to "experimental"

WARNING: Experimental builds may change how profiles, control schemes, and level files work! Once you upgrade to a new build you may not be able to use any of those files on a previous build. You're also only able to play online with users of the same build number. I definitely recommend making a backup of your personal progress folder if you ever plan on returning to the current branch:

To backup your personal progress:

• Windows: "C:/Users/<username>/Documents/My Games/Distance"
  
• OS X: "~/Library/Application Support/Refract/Distance"
  
• Linux: "~/.config/refract/Distance"

We're going to keep updating this branch until we hit a point where we feel that it's ready to become the next major (stable) build. Let us know what you think of the changes in the comments!

- Jordan (@torcht)

[Californ1a]

I've put my thoughts on the forums http://survivethedistance.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1366 (continuing to edit the first post as I think of more)

It'd also be nice to have some kind of launch option to set so we can direct the game to a different "personal progress" or "my games\Distance" folder. Not just for switching between the experimental and regular builds, but also for those of us who use an SSD and want to have all the game data on a separate harddrive.

[◥DaBeastKing◤]

Originally posted by Californ1a:

It'd also be nice to have some kind of launch option to set so we can direct the game to a different "personal progress" or "my games\Distance" folder. Not just for switching between the experimental and regular builds, but also for those of us who use an SSD and want to have all the game data on a separate harddrive.

In other words, having the save data be located elsewhere (i.e. another HDD)? With the actual game data on the speedy SSD?

[Californ1a]

Pretty much, yeah

[◥DaBeastKing◤]

Agreed, a good idea that shouldn't be too hard to implement. Do mention it on the website forums when you can :D

[Californ1a]

Already did, Edit #4 in the OP of the thread I linked.

[Nermanater]

Thank you Thank you Thank you Refract! The advanced sorting and rating is really amazing! Couldn't ask for more. =D

EDIT: Well I guess I could ask for a weekly workshop highlight ;-)

[himmatsj]

Poor. Is this how Early Access buyers are being cheated? Minimal changes. No new content. What a shame.

[Californ1a]

Originally posted by himmatsj:

Poor. Is this how Early Access buyers are being cheated? Minimal changes. No new content. What a shame.

The changes in this update are what us buyers requested in this update.

[◥DaBeastKing◤]

Originally posted by himmatsj:

Poor. Is this how Early Access buyers are being cheated? Minimal changes. No new content. What a shame.

You do realize the size of this development team? Let alone they are also developing Distance for PS4 at the same time.

A $20 Early-Access game dude, give some slack.

[himmatsj]

Originally posted by DaBeastKing:

Originally posted by himmatsj:

Poor. Is this how Early Access buyers are being cheated? Minimal changes. No new content. What a shame.

You do realize the size of this development team? Let alone they are also developing Distance for PS4 at the same time.

A $20 Early-Access game dude, give some slack.

No slacks are to be given. Plus, how dare they take money from the PC people and not devote 100% of their resources to developing the game there.

[MaddieM4]

It should be pretty easy to put your save games on a different hard drive on Linux and Mac, since you can just copy the original files to the new location, and replace the old location with a symlink. Of course, this doesn't work as a magic bullet for swapping between save games, but you can still switch this pretty fast by deleting and replacing the symlink, to point to whichever save dir you want.

It's entirely possible that a comparable feature is available in Windows, but it's been a long time since I've used it to do geeky things, and it does a lot of stuff its own odd way (as opposed to the boring universality of UNIX descendents such as Linux, Mac, and BSD).

[MaddieM4]

Originally posted by himmatsj:

Originally posted by DaBeastKing:

You do realize the size of this development team? Let alone they are also developing Distance for PS4 at the same time.

A $20 Early-Access game dude, give some slack.

No slacks are to be given. Plus, how dare they take money from the PC people and not devote 100% of their resources to developing the game there.

I paid money for this game. I'm experiencing input problems that the new build will likely solve, although I haven't tested to confirm this yet. Had I bought this game earlier, such that I could have voted for features for the dev team to focus on, I absolutely would have voted for input fixes.

I can't speak for all buyers. Funny thing - no one can. But my money is at least on an equal footing with everybody else's. And when I look at the changelog, it looks to me exactly like the stuff I'd expect paying users to be complaing about/bringing to the devs attention. None of them are "cool" priorities from a development point of view, like new tracks and special effects - maybe with the main menu car as an exception. It's userbitch stuff. And the only people who are playing the game right now are people who PAID for it.

Would new content be cool? Absolutely. But it's only one of many priorities for not only the devs, but the paying customers as well. And remember, for PS4 peasants (a market of willing customers yet untapped by Refract), having a PS4 release means their amount of Distance content gets multiplied by infinity. In fact, it's pretty easy to see where Refract will get the most bang for their buck - supporting additional platforms - until the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

tl:dr; Your priorities are not everyone's priorities, and until you can understand and accept that, everyone else gets to watch you demonstrate the emotional maturity of a grumpy toddler.

[Californ1a]

Originally posted by Rainfly_X:

It should be pretty easy to put your save games on a different hard drive on Linux and Mac, since you can just copy the original files to the new location, and replace the old location with a symlink. Of course, this doesn't work as a magic bullet for swapping between save games, but you can still switch this pretty fast by deleting and replacing the symlink, to point to whichever save dir you want.

It's entirely possible that a comparable feature is available in Windows, but it's been a long time since I've used it to do geeky things, and it does a lot of stuff its own odd way (as opposed to the boring universality of UNIX descendents such as Linux, Mac, and BSD).

Well yeah all I have to do to switch between the versions is rename two folders, but it would be much easier if we could set a homedir with a launch option.

Originally posted by himmatsj:

No slacks are to be given. Plus, how dare they take money from the PC people and not devote 100% of their resources to developing the game there.

Pretty sure they had no intention of releasing on console but Sony approached them.

[torcht]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I can't guarantee if/when we'd be able to implement some sort of personal folder launch option but I'll make sure Kyle and Jason see the idea.

Build 3424 was just made live on the experimental branch. Here are a few of the tweaks:

• Fixed issue causing some VirusShardGiant objects to have tiny scales
  
• Fixed bug causing a game crash when a GravityToggle used negative drags
  
• Teleporters now correctly represent the color of the sky that will exist upon traveling through that teleporter
  
• Improved handling of user files including levels and profiles that have versions larger than what the game is expecting (this should fix issues with updating the game and then going back to a previous version later)
  
• Fixed hang when remapping gamepads in Controls Options
  
• Optimized initial game start up loading time a bit

And yeah, the vast majority of changes in the current experimental branch are based on feedback from http://refract.uservoice.com, our forums, and the Steam forums. While it's unfortunate that it doesn't include major new content, we felt that these issues were critical to our community and wanted to improve them before we would use bad features as the backbone of new content.

If you'd like to see the rhythm of our updates over the past 2.5 years for reference we unlocked all of our private backer updates for everyone here: http://survivethedistance.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=14

[torcht]

We just pushed out another small patch to the experimental branch. Build 3431 includes:

• Added Friends leaderboards category in the Results Screen
  
• Pressing Enter when typing in the initial "Create a Profile" input field now progresses the menu to the main menu
  
• Fixed bug that would cause Workshop levels which contain characters like umlauts from being labeled as "unsubscribed" even if you hadn’t unsubscribed from them
  
• Fixed bug causing gravity to permanently be disabled after going through a GravityToggle
  
• Fixed issues with the in-game chat input field not scrolling with the caret
  
• Fixed several issues with line height in the in-game chat prompt
  
• Fixed issues with in-game chat fading out at the wrong times
  
• Minor performance improvements in the menus
  
• Various menu positioning tweaks