Jaws Of Extinction™ Patch Notes — April 3, 2023
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
0.4.18.0 arrives today! It’s only been a couple of weeks since our last major update, but we’re ready to share our latest release with you.
Easter is nearly here, so we’ve decided to celebrate with an in game event running all month. Participate in the Easter egg hunt to earn points. With enough points, you can claim your own exclusive themed outfit and matching bunny ears (details below)!
Furthermore, this update unveils new first person animations as well as the integration of some new technology allowing us to add more life to our NPCs.
The patch also includes a slew of new features, fixes, optimisations and improvements.
Developer Comment:
It would be advisable to start a fresh game as some mechanics, craftables and items may be bugged or not be available if using out of date game save files.
Easter 2023
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, Spring has arrived! The flowers are blooming, the lambs are springing and on Eden-Nadir, giant chocolate eggs have been sighted.
This year’s event will be a race to collect as many eggs as you can during the time allowed. Periodically, you will find yourself surrounded by Easter eggs as far as the eye can see. Collect as many as you can to earn points.
Because points mean prizes! Every 50 points you earn you’ll earn a small bundle of useful equipment, weapons or consumables. At 1000 points, you earn the big prize - an exclusive themed event outfit with bunny ears to match.
The event runs from 3rd April 2023 until 30 April 2023. Good hunting!
• Added Easter event 2023. At random intervals, special eggs will appear around the player. Collecting eggs will give you points - and points mean prizes!
• Added a new unlockable Massacre bunny outfit and bunny ears. Collect 1000 points over the month to earn the exclusive event rewards.
• Events can now be disabled in the settings.
We are also running a Discord competition where you can compete to win Steam vouchers up to £50. Head on over to discord.gg/playjoegame for the full details.
New First Person Melee Animations
Accompanying this update is a new suite of animations which helps to flesh out the first person perspective. These animations show you which melee weapon you’ve got in hand at any given item.
• Added new first person animations when holding melee weapons.
• First person arms are responsive to the player's camera movements, meaning arms will smoothly follow as the camera moves.
• Chainsaw blades now animate
• Character's legs now play sliding animation when sliding in first person
NPC voicelines
We’ve been trying out some interesting new voice technology - which so far has performed better than initially expected. This new tech allows us to create very realistic audio dialogue from written lines. Although not a total replacement for traditional voice acting, for smaller NPC parts, this method has been helping us to breathe new life into the game in a convincing (and slightly scary) way.
If you’re not sure if you can believe the results, talk a walk around the Hanouten Safezone and let us know what you think.
The update only affects some NPCs at the moment, but we are looking to continue the process in order to give all our NPCs voice lines in future updates.
• Added new audio and facial animations to James Bell
• Added new experimental AI generated audio to flesh out some smaller NPC characters.
• Added new barks to Sophia
• Added new audio and facial animations to Jess' dialogue
• Added new audio and facial animations to Maia's dialogue
Optimisations
• Reduced overall cost of roof calculations when placing new building parts.
• Only roof tiles which need to update now actually regenerate when placing down new building parts.
• Increased size of building parts pool, which would quickly run out on medium to large sized builds. This would contribute to the lag spike that often happens when placing blocks
• General improvements addressing performance issues and lag spikes in the building system.
• Various improvements on how player building block removal is handled.
• Small optimisation for building part floors.
• Small clean up of legacy items.
• Major clean up of legacy movement systems. Various obsolete logic is no longer running.
• Clean up of duplicate meshes in the world.
• Minor clean up of legacy animation related content
• Small clean up of old logic still running related to controlling the radio.
Added
• Added new walk feature. Pressing 'Ctrl' by default while jogging will make the character start walking.
• Jaws of Extinction application icon is no longer a UE4 icon, but an official JoE one instead.
• Added four new hunters around the world offering emote rewards in return for favours
• Added new weapon: Kukri
• Added new weapon variant: Machete (common). Features a unique machete mesh.
• Added new SFX when filling or emptying water from water collectors
• Inclusion of new logic for VIP club checks and unlocks.
• Added re-pair DLC unlocks option under the unlocks menu. This allows players to enter an email address and a single unlock code to re-pair all unlocks with the same pair ID to the current device pair ID.
• Added new emote selection wheel. Can be accessed with 'B' by default. Emotes are unlockable from hunters scattered across the world.
• Added five new NPC hunters around the Hanouten landscape.
• Unlock new emotes by helping them out with favours. More NPCs offering similar rewards will be available in the future.
ID.
Updated
• Player made fast travel locations can now be picked up.
• Updated placable battery lamps. They now use a 9V battery and will gradually lose power (which causes them to become dimmer).
• Battery lamps can now be switched on or off from the radial menu.
• The battery in Battery Lamps can be replaced by repairing the lamp in the inventory or via the radial menu once placed. Takes one 9V battery to restore to full power.
• Battery Lamps now save.
• Updated placeable shelving mesh and materials.
• Updated Battery Lamp and Shelving inventory icons.
• Removed katana from lighthouse
• Crafted backpacks can now be recycled back into their component parts.
• Improvised backpacks can now be recycled back into their component parts.
• Reloading SFX now stop if reload animation is cancelled.
• Improved system for handling hand IK placements on weapons
• Improved chainsaw holstered position on back
• Weapons now look for a new source of suitable ammo if the current one runs out. For example, the character will switch to steel arrows if their common arrows run out.
• Various typo fixes
• New games now start at 7am instead of 6.50am. This will make the start of games slightly brighter.
• Updated safe-zone chickens, added chicks and cockerels.
• Updated character vertex mud and wetness system.
• Updated vehicle core systems.
• Players can no longer zoom/ADS while sliding.
• Characters will no longer climb on Ken's desk, which could often happen after tapping through dialogue with the spacebar.
Fixes
• Fixed large hole in the ground north of Nadir farm.
• Fixed floating foliage north of Nadir farm.
• Fixed melee weapon position sometimes being incorrect after changing view mode.
• Fixed hand-axe sometimes getting stuck at the wrong orientation after the axe moves between the left and right hand.
• Fixed bug causing in-hand weapon orientation to be incorrect.
• Fixed chainsaw always being attached to the right hand, when it should be connected to the left.
• Fixed NPCs who become incapacitated instead of dying becoming crispy and burned if they died to fire.
• Fixed reviving downed companions removing entire stacks of first aid items, instead of using just one.
• Fixed incapacitating your own companions adding to your kill statistics
• Fixed circumstances where sliding or rolling would not occur.
• Fixed crouching while climbing causing an animation glitch.
• Fixed being able to crouch during NPC dialogue.
• Fixed weapons such as pistols and rifles appearing in the wrong position after being picked up.
• Fixed chainsaw in-hand position in third person.
• Fixed fast travel system sometimes allowing player to fall through the ground.
• Fixed text on Crossbridges fast travel menu
• Fixed camera being too close to jobs board in Nomad camp
• Fixed audio sometimes being very loud when starting the game.
• Fixed character left hand being mispositioned when using bows and melee weapons
• Fixed not being able to progress in Driftwood quest because of not being able to answer Sen's radio call
• Fixed weapon holster and tactical equipment on the character's belt not appearing for most outfits.
• Fixed for 'press any key to continue' on the start menu sometimes becoming unresponsive.
• Fixed being able to change character while in the menu to load a saved game. This would allow saves to be loaded with a different character.
• Fixed some foliage clipping issues in the safe-zone.
• Tentative fix for indefinite loading screen when respawning at the bed in a Hanouten bunker.
• Fixed objective UI element overlapping menus such as the fast travel menu.
• Fixed weapons not automatically switching to next ammo type after using the ammo selection radial menu.
• Fixed not being able to climb after falling through the world or teleporting back to land while in water.
• Tentative fix for Xile quests objective getting stuck on screen
• Fixed some slightly floating trees near Wicks shop
• Tentative fix for character falling through the ground when ragdolling.
• Fixed fire axe rotation in hand becoming offset after swinging the axe once.
• Fixed being able to initiate a slide while already sliding, allowing for infinite sliding.
• Fixed being able to cancel the slide animation by aiming a grenade
• Fixed issue where weapons may have the wrong material when switching weapons
HOTFIX 0.4.18.1a
OPTIMISATIONS
• Fixed cost of first person legs animation running even when not in first person
UPDATES
• Reworked the interaction icon, this now displays missing health bar from legacy versions, electrical information and what key/button to press not just F or (X)
• Significantly reduced warning radius on damaged placable items
• Character is now ejected from first person when passing out, to help communicate what is happening
FIXED
• Fixed issues climbing ladders
• Fixed electrical information not coming up on items when the electrical tool is equipped.
• Fixed Easter egg counter not increasing after death (points were being counted, but was not reflected on UI)
• Fixed being able to switch weapon while passed out
• Fixed being able to view the STRV watch while passed out.
• Fixed body armor not being hidden in first person.
• Fixed visible floating equipment holsters under player when in first person.
• Fixed Sophia's mismatched dialogue barks