Hello All;


At around 8pm GMT today, October 19th, we'll be delivering a GPGnet patch and merging the FA Beta Community back to the retail Supreme Commander servers.

While this GPGnet patch has many good features, for the most part this patch is the Forged Alliance Support patch, and supports multiple games simultaneously. The Forged Alliance beta users will, after this patch, be able to run the FA Beta on the main servers.

Here's how each type of user is affected, and what they'll need to do.

SUPCOM ONLY USER
=============

Users who have Supcom only on the retail GPGnet server will be affected the least. They'll be booted from the servers at the appropriate time. When they re-log, they'll get the new patch, and a couple of new buttons on the screen, including a GPGnet Chat Only button. More on this mode later.

Supcom only users will be able to play other Supcom users as normal. They will not be able to play FA, although they will be able to view FA livecast replays; there will be a separate forum thread for this.

SUPCOM USERS WITH FA BETA
====================

Players with Supreme Commander AND the FA beta will need to do the following:

1) Log back in to the RETAIL gpgnet server WITH THE SAME GPGNET YOU USE ON THE BETA SERVER. Use your EXISTING GPGnet account to do so.
2) You'll patch up.
3) Relog....you should see the FA Beta game button at the bottom of the screen.
4) Press the FA Beta button. You'll be prompted for you key. Enter your FA Beta Key.

At this point, you'll be fully activated for both Supcom and the FA Beta Button. You'll be able to play ranked and custom matches with all factions in the FA Beta. If you want to play Supcom, you simply use the Supcom game button to switch "modes"; you do not have to relog.

FA BETA ONLY PLAYER
===============

If you are an FA Beta Only player, here's what you'll need to do:

1) Create an account on the main GPGnet server (The server-drop-down should show you the retail server).
2) use your FA Beta Key to activate your account.
3) You'll get the new patch.
4) When you re-log, you'll be in the Halcyon room with everyone else. Because you have FA only, you'll only be able to play others that have FA (of course). You'll be able to play ALL factions in custom games, but SERAPHIM ONLY in ranked play.


THE FA BET SERVER WILL BE DEACTIVATED AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. Our admins will be standing by to help out if you are having difficulty. WE ARE NOT REPLACING BETA KEYS. We would hope that all players know by now that you need to keep track of your game keys.

See you on the new integrated server!

Patch Notes:

Multi Game Support (Forged Alliance Support):

GPGnet now supports multiple games on the same server and chat lobbies. Game icon buttons now appear at the bottom of the scrdeen. Players can activate multiple games on the same account.

Forged Alliance Real Time Replay Streaming (Livecasting):

The ability to livecast a game has been added to Forged Alliance. Livecasting allows any player in a game to create a replay stream to our Livecast server. A link is published to GPGnet Chat, and any number of players can watch the livecast game with a slight delay. Livecasting is voluntary, as in one of the players must choose to livecast.

Livecast is not a videa transmission, it is rather the game replay streamed in real time. Hence, observers can view any portion of the game from any angle and zoom level, like a replay.

GPGnet Challenge Ladders
This version of GPGnet features our new Challenge Ladders. Watch for additional notes and complete docs on these ladders. They will not be immediately activated or available; they will be activated on the retail server soon.

GPGnet Graphical Enhancement - Window Transparency

Transparency and transitioning have been added to the GPGnet clientl.


Notes for additional smaller changes will appear here.

before ppl start asking what to do if they lost there beta key
Open Start -> Run and enter "regedit". Browse to this location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> THQ -> Gas Powered Games -> Supreme Commander Forged Alliance Beta -> KEY.

Yeah and don't change anything in there as it can really screw up your machine.

has anyone told sir loui that about how to find the beta key yet? he was really going nuts about it earlier

yes, gimme gimme patchs notes!

wonderful!!

Every time you say that it just gets funnier and funnier....

What I mean is, maybe you could actually follow through and post some of the patch notes you promise.

I dunno but this "merge" really made GPGnet slower and buggier.

I seems more smooth to me, but that probably because of the fade effects

I like this, the SupCom <-> FA switch is nice

the idea was great and when it was done on beta yesterday the patch made it perform well.

but on the retail server it is slow as hell , whats going on

When going back to play vanilla, ranked search still forces random

edit: figured it out -- nevermind!

is it really that hard, to make mods autodownloadable?

Hallo all,

Livecasting is a great idea but atm we cant watch most livereplay as we dont see/know which map the player use. So it would be a great idea if the replaybot can display also this info

I also started last night to download some maps from the vault and got a small problem with the new client as you can see here:
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic. ... 944#292944

I dont know if its only me or if its a generell problem with the new client.

Have some vision kids. Livecasting is currently limited for a few reasons and there are some issues that are pointed out by the merge that we could not find on the beta server - but we'll quickly work through them. Our goal is full functionality for the FA launch, but even before then we'll take care of many of the issues.

Sorry i don't know if this has been reported yet, but GPG won't update from the retail version (when you install it from the CD) so I'm lucky I had a backup from GPG when I resinstalled Supcom (Thanks to the open beta).

Here's a question. What about people who have a beta key but haven't been able to use it yet (I'm working on getting a wireless card for my SupCom computer).

what about them? you better hurry up, as the beta wont be lasting for long!

Do we have to do anything different from the users listed in SoS's original post?

Honestly, I'm not all that interested in actually playing the beta, since everybody else there is miles beyond my skill level (I'm still not entirely sure why I got a key, I haven't participated in any tournaments). I just want to see the new graphical effects and look into modding.

I see what your saying, and I guess I dont have an answer for ya. Your gpgnet will be up to date before you install the beta, so you should be golden as long as the beta doesnt also install a seperate Gpgnet, but as i didnt get the beta, I cant be 100 percent sure, but I thought i heard that you had to download the beta gpgnet through the vault, though I could be wrong.

What do I do if I just got a beta key today? My friend didn't need it and didn't use it. I also have the original Sup Comm.
Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Even tho I've stood up for SupComm on many occasions to those who would bad-mouth the game... I can't defend the GPGNet Client. Before this merge it was clunky. It had issues where people had to quit/re login before their hosted games showed, or before they could see hosted games and then half the time you couldn't get back in because it thought you were still connected. It didn't reliably show the link to games joined in chat rooms. It had awkward UI,... etc etc etc. I could endure that however.

This latest merge is especially infuriating however. First we had to toss our old prefs files before the thing worked - but you had to figure this out for yourself browsing the forums. Do that and the new client half-ways works but is super slow. For example if you join a chat and quickly select your clan chat room - it continues to update that your clan chat room has the number of people in the chat room you left - this goes on for a minute+. Then after one game none of the host/join games buttons seem to work anymore without a restart of the client. Vault downloads either don't work at all or are incredibly slow.

Basically your making the general public beta-test the new gpgnet client with no option to opt out, and that doesn't seem very professional.

yea, gpgnet is sh1t, literally. Always has been, and Im afraid always will be, nothing we can do but live with it however, but if FA isnt supremely awesome, Supcom is gonna die real soon.

I was hoping for improved mod support in this patch, but is there? Can you give some details on the current changes and/or plans for future changes?

What?! Does that mean SupCom will be getting a patch with FA unit models and stuff?