New updates are on the way!

In the past couple of weeks I've made some fairly major changes to Dead Frontier. You can now play the game with the much improved stand-alone client, I've blocked most hacks/cheats/exploits and I've launched some new types of bosses. However this just the tip of the iceberg in terms of updates I've got planned during the next few months. Here are just some of them:

Dusk Prices (get the bad news out of the way first I say!)
These will be increased fairly soon, especially the Ultra Boost. If you are thinking about getting any of these soon I recommend doing it in the next week or so.

Clan Upgrades
The owner of a clan can exchange their victory points for bonuses which will extend to the entire clan. So for example, 100 victory points might buy a +1% EXP bonus for every clan member. This is long overdue and will therefore be implemented very soon.

The Wasteland
Rather than simply extending the existing city, I've decided to make a brand new type of area altogether. The Wastelands will be a large patch of desolate arid terrain designed to be the ultimate survival challenge for elite Dead Frontier players. Loot spots in the Wastelands will be few and far between, but the rewards will be far greater. PVP will be forced on, and PvP points earned here will be greater than anywhere else. Truely gigantic zombie hordes (made possible by the faster client) will roam the Wastelands, making the ultimate challenge for hardcore players.

Implants
These are a new type of item that will grant bonuses in a similar way to drugs (such as bonus exp, damage, speed etc). Simply having them in your inventory will allow you get the benefits which will add together. So for example if you have ten +1% Damage implants in your inventory then you'll get +10% damage on top of any other bonuses you already have. Similar bonuses will be made available for improving loot chances/amounts (Ie +1% Cash). Obviously you'll need to balance the need for a stronger character with inventory space. Implants will be both lootable and used as rewards for the various Dusk competitions.

New Arenas
I'm planning to add some new arena locations that will cycle during the day to add some more variety.

I have not listed any time scales here since I am notoriously bad at estimating them. However I am secretly hoping to have this all ready before Halloween (aka Christmas :P)

Downloadable Dead Frontier Client!

So as you are all probably aware by now, Google Chrome is ending support for the old Unity webplayer in the next few days. It is also rumoured that other browsers are likely to follow suit in the next few years, potentially leaving DF unplayable.

In response to this the obvious choice was to convert Dead Frontier to use Unity's new WebGL technology, which would of allowed us to continue running DF in the browser. However after spending a lot of time on the process I soon came to realize that WebGL really isn't viable in the short term. Support for various features across browsers is heavily fragmented and the performance was quite simply horrible.

Had I of forged ahead with WebGL I'd probably be presenting Chrome users today with a massively dumbed down version of the game, lacking key features such as multiplayer. It would probably be full of bugs and run hideously slowly on even fast PCs. It would also mean that Dead Frontier would still be totally at the mercy of the browser developers, who could at any moment decide to drop support for certain features and subsequently cause us tons of headaches.

Therefore I've decided to simply make the Dead Frontier client available as a downloadable. The benefits of this are:

- Way better performance than even the existing webplayer version
- Far more stable, you'll encounter far less random crashes
- Easily change screen resolution and controls to your liking
- Wastes less bandwidth as the game is stored on your PC at all times
- Regardless of what browser developers do, DF will keep working


There are no plans to scrap the existing webplayer for those of you who still prefer to play in the browser. However you will need to use a non-chrome browser for the time being. At some point I will convert Dead Frontier to use WebGL as well, but I'm guessing this will need to be a couple of years down the road when the technology has matured enough to run DF properly.

Those of you downloading the standalone client may find that your anti-virus or other security programs may block the download as it's such a new file. I can 100% assure you that the downloadable is safe and totally virus/malware free.

Try it out by logging into Dead Frontier, visiting the Inner City and following the on-screen instructions to download the new client. Enjoy :)