A message from us to the Community

[Guest Harkness]

On the 31st we’ve launched the early access version of Heavy Metal Machines, and it has been some crazy couple of days here at the office for us. First of all, I want to thank you all who took an interest in our game and decided to play it.
We have been super happy seeing everyone trying the game, sharing your ideas and thoughts, your problems and even your concerns with us. Please know that we’re here. We’re listening. I wanted to personally write this so we can acknowledge – and answer – a few of the most common topics raised by you.

The Minimum Requirements Check.
I believe the most controversial thing we decided to do so far has been to insert the Minimum requirements check and enforcement, not letting players who fail the check play and try the game for themselves. This wasn’t an easy decision for us, we heavily believe in the freedom of choice and in PC Gaming. We know a lot of Gamers are capable of tweaking settings, game files and making games run. I’ve read some comments saying that you felt like we just didn’t want you here. That is not the case.
We reduced this check to the bare minimum that would be needed to handle Heavy Metal Machines – anything below the current specifications will not run it satisfactorily. Insufficient RAM might mean your game will crash – damaging the experience of the other players in the match.
This isn’t the only reason. We’re in Early Access, which means we need to collect data, metrics, and feedback from people – we’re counting on our players to help us perfect Heavy Metal Machines. And these data – for now – need to come from computers that can handle the game.
The optimization process of Heavy Metal Machines has not stopped – we want to bring more graphical options into the game, letting you scale the graphics properly to fit your hardware. But HMM is just not there yet. Our plan is to gradually reduce the minimum requirements and optimize the game until we can remove this enforced check altogether.

Crashes, bugs, disconnects, issues in general.
In short: We’re aware. We’re listening and actively working to patch up the game. Our first early access update should be hitting the live servers in 1-2 weeks. The decision to move from Closed Beta to open-to-all early access was made exactly so we could bring more people – and therefore a wider range of hardware specifications – into the testing. Your help is paramount in making HMM better in this aspect. We’re asking that everyone who encounters an issue to talk to us, reach out, let us know. We’d really like to look at your game logs so we can figure out the issue faster.
This means that, if you find an issue, please open a support ticket – here – and let us know. We’ll gladly help you solve the problem – if we can – or fix the issue if it depends on a fix. Please bear with us and we’ll give you the best experience we can in return.

Players leaving matches, and you playing 3v4.
To be blunt, we didn’t expect as many matches ending up in a 3v4 situation as we’re seeing. Your complaints are valid and heard. There isn’t much to say here except we are working on a way to make the experience better for everyone if one person leaves the game.
There already is a penalty for leaving a match that is under way – players who do so will receive less fame and XP for subsequent matches. However, the systems we are now working on will help the experience of the people who are left in the match, instead of focusing on penalizing the leavers. By that, we hope to provide a better experience to you all.

Different Game modes – Racing and HMM
The idea behind Heavy Metal Machines has always been to get the elements that we loved from old racing/destruction derby games – such as Rock n’ Roll Racing, Twisted Metal – and mix it with elements from the MOBA Genre. We are not aiming to build a remake to Rock n’ Roll Racing, as we do not even own the rights to do that.
That said, our main – competitive – game mode is the bomb delivery. Which does not mean that we will not build other modes or that the current map will be the only one ever. We fully plan in adding more maps for the bomb mode, and – eventually – adding different modes altogether.
Please bear in mind that we are in early access, and there are many more pressing issues that require our attention – basically all the ones above – right now. Our focus – at the moment – is to make the bomb delivery mode the best experience it can be, to build a better, more stable game that works on a wider array of PCs.

Lastly, we believe that one of the forgotten things that matter the most in gaming are the connections, friendships, and relationships you build while playing. That is why we believe in the power of Community and why we invite you all to take part in discussions in our forums – be it our own or the steam ones -, to join our discord server, and to check us out in Facebook.

We aim to build a welcoming, healthy environment around – and in – HMM where all players can gather. After all, this game is being made for you – the players. This message is both an explanation and an invitation to help us make this the best experience it can be

Your Community Manager,
Harkness.