Public Test Realm

A **Public Test Realm** (PTR) is a special event in order to allow players to test new features and provide feedback to the developers. There have been two PTR events.

The first PTR event took place from October 8th, 2020 to October 22nd, 2020, and allowed players who owned the paid version of Super Animal Royale to test the latest build of the game. Players were able to provide the developers community feedback on the official Discord server to give their voice and some insights on the game to help lay the foundations for Version 1.0 of Super Animal Royale.

The second PTR event took place from October 7th, 2022, to October 10th, 2022. It allowed players to try Super Animal Royale's new netcode and provide feedback on it.

## First PTR

The first phase of the first PTR was introduced in Version 0.96.0 and ran from October 8th, 2020 to October 12th, 2020 and the second and last phase of the PTR was introduced in Version 0.96.1 and ran from October 16th, 2020 to October 22nd, 2020. This special event was exclusively available to the players who owned the paid version of Super Animal Royale before it became the Super Edition. Free to play players, were not able to participate in the PTR, and were restricted to playing the current, none beta PTR build of the game.

### Features of the PTR

The **Public Test Realm** introduced many new features that players were able to enjoy that were constantly improved over time, and discussed via player's feedback in the official Super Animal Royale Discord server.

S.A.W. vs Rebellion (Capture the Flag, Domination style game mode) was the new 32 vs 32 game mode introduced in the PTR, and the only game mode players participating in the PTR were able to play. If players wanted to play Solo, Duos or Squads, they would have to opt out of the PTR, and return their version of SAR to the current live build. Originally, the only regional server available during the first phase of the PTR was NA. During the second phase of the PTR, Pixile introduced the other available regional servers for players to play at certain times of the day {EU and AS}. During the first phase of the PTR, S.A.W. vs Rebellion had three flags for players to capture/take control of. Each capture provides player's team's with a health regeneration, bonus EXP for player's teams, as well as
2 legendary tiered weapons. During the second phase of the PTR, the flag count was bumped up to 4 flags and arranged in a diamond shape to make things more fair. Playing a match during this phase, a match can be won by holding onto 3 flags for 60 seconds. Capturing the 4th flag will halve the timer, and if any flags are lost, the timer is canceled and reset. Rebel Caches were also introduced along the new game mode that players can find throughout Super Animal World.

Cackling Carl's Cart and the S.A.W Shop were also introduced during the Public Test Realm. Players were given  **1200** to purchase any of the available cosmetics they wanted, and were able to use real money to purchase more tickets. At the end of the PTR, all tickets were removed from player's accounts, and refunded. If a player did spend money on tickets, all the tickets were returned to you, and the cosmetics purchased with the tickets will be removed from player's accounts. Players that purchased tickets during the PTR also received a 20% bonus as a thank you for helping test out the PTR.

The removal of trading up any duplicate items owned by the player was removed in favour of replacing most Level-Up Random Drop items as Carl Cart items players can spend  **Carl Coins** to purchase rotating items to make it less of a random chance for players to get/earn cosmetics they want. Only 70 items remain in the Level-Up Random Drop pool. Any duplicate items player's owned in the previous build before the start of the **Public Test Realm**, were converted into  **Carl Coins**.

Super Animal Passes were introduced during the Public Test Realm with Super Animal Pass Season 0 and was available for players to test. The pass costs  **550** and allows players to earn tier rewards in the pass by earning XP by playing matches, and leveling up. Some rewards were earned for free with a **Free** label over those tiers. At the end of the PTR, all progress in the Super Animal Pass was reset, and any rewards earned by the player removed.

Additionally, a lot of changes were made to the main menu screen, and UI during the two phases of the PTR. Non Player Character (NPC)'s such as  Dr. Jennifer Dogna and  Katie O'Prey were added to the main menu screens to join  Cackling Carl and  Ms. MacAwesome. Weekly Challenges were also added during the **Public Test Realm**.

### How to opt in

Players were only available to participate in the **Public Test Realm** if they previously owned the paid version of the game (now referred to as the Super Edition.) Players who owned the Demo version before it became the Super Free Edition were not able to participate in this special event. Players were able to switch back to the current live version {none PTR version} of SAR at anytime by following the same steps, and changing the dropdown in the *Betas" tab to the version the player would like to play.*

Instructions for players interested in participating in the PTR are as follows;

1. Right click on Super Animal Royale in the Steam Library list.
2. Select "Properties".
3. Go to the "Betas" tab.
4. In the dropdown selector, choose the ”ptr0.96.0” branch.
5. The game will update to the PTR version build.
6. Start the game, and enjoy testing the new content!

Players are no longer able to do this, as it was exclusive to the PTR in October of 2020.

## Second PTR

The second PTR ran from October 7th, 2022, to October 10th, 2022. It allowed players to test the new version of Super Animal Royale's netcode. Players who played in the PTR were rewarded with 3000  after the PTR ended.

### How to opt in

1. Right click on Super Animal Royale in the Steam Library list.
2. Select "Properties".
3. Go to the "Betas" tab.
4. In the dropdown selector, choose the ”netcodeptr - test” or "netptr - test" branch. Either one works.
5. The game will update to the PTR version build.
6. Start the game, and enjoy testing the new content!

## Gallery

* New netcode Public Test Realm promotional artwork
* Phase one of the **Public Test Realm** promotional artwork
* Phase two of the **Public Test Realm** promotional artwork
* Promotional artwork for the new S.A.W. vs Rebellion game mode
* Example of what Cackling Carl's Cart and the S.A.W Shop had to offer during the PTR
* Example of the main menu changes during the PTR. Top image is how the main menu looked like during Phase 1, bottom image is how the main menu looked like during Phase 2

## Notes

* The Ghillie Suit featured in the S.A.W Shop was removed from the game after the PTR as it was an unfair cosmetic that gave players playing as certain green animals an unfair advantage over other players.

## References

1. ↑ Steam announcement named "Play the PTR and Help Shape the Future of SAR!"
2. ↑ Steam announcement named "New Netcode PTR: help us test for a Carl Coin reward!"