Gameplay Footage, Rewards, Release Day & More!

Gameplay Footage
Right now the number of people who have added Dead Frontier 2 to their Steam wishlist stands at just under 20,000. A Steam employee recently said that in order to receive front page promotion from them, games would generally need around 50,000 wishlists just prior to their launch. I would of course *really* like to hit this target but we're going to need some serious help in order to hit that before the end of August. We really need everyone to tell their friends (both IRL and social media) about the game, and try to convince them to add it to their wishlist.

As a small incentive, I have decided to release a raw, 20 minute long, unedited video of DF2 gameplay footage for you all as soon as we reach 50,000 wishlists. The sooner we hit the goal, the sooner I'll release the video. So if you haven't already, please tell all your friends about DF2 and encourage them to add it to their wishlists :-)

Our Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/744900/Dead_Frontier_2/

Honestly this is not something I'd ideally like to do, as I don't think the game is quite ready show yet. However if it helps us get to 50k wishlists I think it'll be worth it.

Don't worry though, even if we don't hit the target there will still be a trailer and some shorter gameplay clips released once we get closer to the release date.


Release Date
After a lot of contemplation I have decided that now is the time to announce the final, fixed release date for Dead Frontier 2 EA. That date is (drumroll please)...

10am GMT on August 31st 2018

I know a lot of you were hoping for July or even June, but unfortunately that is just not possible. I strongly feel that if I were to release the game in the middle of summer that it would be a bit of a disaster. It still needs a lot of polish, balancing and most importantly bug fixing before I would consider it ready for launch.

For those of you who are hoping to beat me with the "neil time" stick, remember that August 31st is still summer so this is not *technically* a delay! =D


Alpha Testing
Previously I said that I would be accepting applications for people who'd like to be alpha testers soon. The plan was that everyone would fill out a questionnaire and I'd review them and pick the best. Unfortunately I've come to realise that this method would just not be practical.

The writing competition had over 1,000 entries and it took Ian and I a long time to go through them all and pick the best. Alpha Testing applications would likely have 10x the amount of entrants and the amount of time we'd need to pick people would be simply unmanageable. So we have decided to scrap the idea of accepting applications all-together.

The new plan is simply that I will be picking people semi-randomly from those active on our discord server when the time comes. If you haven't already you can join our discord server here:
https://discordapp.com/invite/deadfrontier2

I now expect that the alpha testing will begin in mid to late June (yes I know, *another* delay!)


DF1 > DF2 Cosmetic Rewards
As you may already know we are offering rewards in DF2 for people who play DF1. Basically any credits you bought (including via GM) in DF1 from 2017 onwards, until the EA release of DF2 will be duplicated in DF2 for you to spend there. In addition we are offering cosmetic rewards for reaching certain milestones in DF1. I am please to say that we can finally show you exactly what you'll be getting for each:

Nomad Armour Set

Level 20 or higher:
Nomad Boots
Nomad Gloves

Level 50 or higher:
Nomad Legs

Level 100 or higher:
Nomad Body

Level 200 or higher:
Nomad Mask







Level 325:

Dusk Enforcer

Owning any of the Dusk items:

Dusk Mesh Set

Owning a UWC or UGAU: (all of the following)

Hammerhead

Painshot

Longshot

Doubleshot

Nine Cutter

Owning a WC or GAU: (both of the following)

Desert Rat

Uziel

Owning a Vengeance Guard:

Vengeance Guard Set

Owning Ghost Ammo: (both of the following)

Corpse Shooter

Ironsight

Owning an Ultra Boost:

Pumpkin Mask

Hope you like them! =D

If you'd like to stay up to date with DF2 developments, please sign up to the mailing list, like/follow/subscribe/wishlist us on social media (especially Steam!). All those lovely links can be found here:
https://deadfrontier2.com

Thanks for reading!
-Neil

Writing Competition Winners

As you may remember we held a writing competition last month. We had a huge number of entries (well over 1,000) so it took us a bit longer than we had planned to go through them all.

The vast majority of the entries were really good and it was incredibly tough deciding on the winners.  However Ian (Xaelath) and I have finally managed to decide on the winning submissions.

The winners and their entries are:

Armand H,  Police Transcript & DOD Letter

Tsvetoslav S, Horologist

Oliver C, Diary of Tim Newman 1-3

Jesus K, To Maria Santos

Joule P C, Newborn Baby

Vincent N, I told Bill not to bring the .22. 1-4

"Lucian", Flight Transcript & An Essay on the Degree of Consciousness

"BrightsideGuy", Necrophilliac's Note

"Jack", 3 Entries: Notes from Jack/Elizabeth

Abel O, Chili Con Canine

Nadera M, The Stew

Jordan B, Filth outside my door again

Stephanie H, Photographer's Diary

T.S. Eleanore, My Sweet Little Child

"ClockworkCookie", The Beasts 1-4

S. D. Kang, Because she was Penny to me

Jessica N, Mary-Ann


Well done to you all! I really can't wait to put these pieces into the game.

If you are one of the winners you should already have received an email from us detailing the next steps. Unfortunately, if your name doesn't appear above, and you haven't already received an email then that means you were unsuccessful. Even so, thank you very much for taking part and don't give up on the writing! We may very well hold another one of these competitions soon :)

Dead Frontier 2: Tendril Boss, Concept Art & More!

Boss Teaser
So today I was messing around with some ideas for segments we could use in the Dead Frontier 2 trailer, and this was one of the first things I came up with. I thought it looked fairly neat on it's own so figured I'd post it up here for you guys:

If you're unfamiliar with DF1, this is a Tendril; the second most hated of all enemies due to her rapid speed and hard hitting tentacles. I'm pleased to say that we're bringing back this loathsome creature as a boss in DF2. She is pretty much finished and ready to go into the game. I must admit I'm not looking forward to actually fighting her though!

Release Woes
So I know back in January I gave you guys a bunch of options on what we should do with the planned release date. You wanted me to delay the game until it was properly finished, and not launch as an Early Access title. Giving myself the extra time was a *huge* help, and the game is definitely a lot better for it. However I still don't believe it will now be fully feature complete by our Summer deadline. 

I've weighed up the options and I've decided that I don't want to delay the game any further. The truth is I work so much faster when I have a bit of pressure, and another extension might just allow me to slip back into my usual, slower pace. Not to mention, I'm so hyped about the game that *I* can't wait to let you guys in so I've got someone to play with :-)

So the release will be Early Access on Steam. However that doesn't mean it'll be a broken buggy mess either. We will still have gone through an alpha testing period to iron out most of the problems first. My goal is to have a nice, polished core game game loop for everyone to enjoy at launch. I will then get to work on the less critical features such as clan systems, competitions etc.

Writing Competition Update
A big thanks to everyone who submitted an entry for the writing competition. Unfortunately because we've had so many entries (well over 1000) it's taking Ian (Xaelath) and I longer than expected to go through them all and do the judging. I suspect we'll probably need another week or so to pick the final winners. If you're one of the lucky ones you will receive an email from me with details on how to go about getting your prize.

Patreon

Since I've been bombarded with so many messages from people wanting to support DF2 financially, I've setup a Patreon page here:

https://www.patreon.com/creakycorpse

I don't want you guys to feel obliged to do this, honestly we do already have enough money to complete the game and the most important thing you can do to help us is: play it, write a nice review on Steam, tell your friends about it etc. But if you're still feeling the urge to send us some pennies it would allow us to spend a bit more on launch advertising (which can make a big difference).

Discord
We've recently setup a Discord server for Dead Frontier 2. This is quickly becoming my favourite social platform as it allows me to communicate with players/fans in the most convenient fashion. If you haven't already joined please follow this invite link. I'm online a fair bit there so if you have any questions feel free to drop in and ask.

https://discordapp.com/invite/QwvjvQW

Other Development News

- After making some optimizations to the multiplayer system I've decided to increase the player limit per instance to 8. This should help to make the game feel a bit more like an MMO.

- Our server company recently had a sale at their Singapore data-center,  so I went ahead and snapped up one of their machines. Now anyone from East Asia or Australia should be able to get a decent ping.

- I'm SUPER HYPED about this game now. It's gotten to the point where it's hard to get any actual work done because all I want to do is run around with a shotgun and blow zombie heads off. I can't imagine how awesome this game is going to feel once I've got some of you guys to play with. 

Concept Art

Here is some of our enemy concept art. These pieces were made by Greg Taylor and Milen Kalachev. Please note that not *all* of these designs will be in the the final game. Can you guess which ones will make the cut?

If you'd like to stay up to date with DF2 developments, please sign up to the mailing list, like/follow/subscribe/wishlist us on social media (especially Steam!). All those lovely links can be found here: http://deadfrontier2.com :)

Thanks for reading!
-Neil