STOP II 1.4u0 - Released July 29, 2021

Watch the trailer! Marble Blast STOP II 1.4u0 - Trailer
Saturday, July 29, 2021. DOWNLOAD NOW!
Release areas: This thread / STOP II Discord / YouTube Video Trailer. We're working hard to get it on more places, and to get it updated here.

It's here (and we honestly can't believe it's here). A new update to Marble Blast STOP II releases sometime tomorrow on July 29, 2021. We have hit Update 1.4u0 and we’re excited to release this update - arguably by testers in and outside Marble Blast, the best update to ever hit this modification. In terms of major changes and updates, this update includes so many changes and tons of new bonus content.
Welcome to Marble Blast STOP II (Version 1.4u0)! As the leader of the STOP II Team, we've spent countless hours, some without sleep, developing the final major release of Marble Blast STOP II, which is arguably the best version of this modification. Filled with new features, updated graphics, fixed engine plugins and exclusive physics, this modification is sure to leave you feeling nostalgic and skilled, even past the very end. Are you ready to help Captain S. Marble recover his lost Teapots and make it back to Palladium Village?

STORY: Captain S. (Stop) Marble was spending time in Palladium Village, Marble Planet one day. All of a sudden, our Captain lost his entire Teapot collection to an unseen, evil force. Some speculate it's Marblaxia, some speculate it's CyberFox, and some speculate it's a cosmic, evil version of clockwork himself. As he's trapped and launched into thin air with many other citizens and his friends, he must recover all of his lost Teapots and rescue citizens and friends to make it back home safely. Can you help Captain S. Marble complete every challenge and collect every missing Teapot in order to help him open a portal back to his home in Palladium Village? Get from a GO Pad, collecting every lost Teapot along the way hitting YieldPoints and stopping Captain S. Marble on the STOP Pad to unlock brand new areas. Are you ready for the grand Marble Blast tale of a lifetime?

Relevant Changelog (download the modification and join the Discord to learn more about what's new!):

++++++++++++ THIS IS THE LARGEST UPDATE YET! ++++++++++++
+ New stages to replace old filler ones (Ball in A Bottle, Canonical Records, and more).
+ Unique ball physics exclusive to STOP II, which took two weeks to develop and closely resemble M.B.G Web Port by Vanilagy!
+ Marble Blast STOP II Wiki has been added: STOP II Wiki
+ Speed-runners rejoice! The thousandths place has been added. This is the first user-modification to ever have it.
+ A professional installer with optional enhancements has been made, thanks to MindsEye for his time and money. You rock!
+ The Awards System has been added! Unlock awards to further your journey through all the areas, galaxies, worlds, and stages.
+ Added the ability to select a stage using the number pad, 0-9. Examples of usage: If you want to play Treasure Pool, click the green 'Beginner' octagon and then press "2" to go to the stage. If you want to play Ball in A Bottle (if it's unlocked), yellow 'Advanced' octagon, press 2 & 1 to make 21, which will give you stage 21 if you did it right.

~ Reformed over one hundred twenty stages over an entire year (including redesigning, quality-of-life, scenery and graphical improvements). Too many to list here - play for yourself to see what's new!
~ Reformed eBlu's textures to make the game more futuristic and glossy. Thanks to eBlu for the original textures for STOP II.
~ A staggering total of bugs resolved: 43 bugs before and after testing, including being able to re-spawn after finishing a stage, proper particle loading and rendering, proper slow-water physics, and more.
~ 80+ stages are now more player-friendly, which also adds to the new physics being new-player friendly.
~ The Teapot is redesigned texture-wise, making it easier to spot them. It's still of the Utah Teapot by Martin Newell (yay)!
~ Minor text fixes.

- Removed "Go, Set, Stop" as it didn't make sense. See above for the replacement.
- Removed all traces of scrapped multiplayer compatibility from 1.0-1.1, as the developer behind it has mysteriously vanished off the Internet and from real life many years ago.
- Removed 95% of ROBLOX objects. See above for replacement data.
- Removed a ton of sky boxes.
- Removed X1101Ball64.ou2

Want more information about future changes? Visit us on Discord: STOP II Discord Server

So much more has changed than just all this... Play for yourself to see some of the amazing changes that lasted MORE THAN A YEAR in development and testing.

We hope you enjoy your time playing this new update and I am super happy you have chosen to stick alongside our journey for a very long time. In the future, we’re hoping to turn our server into a Discord server specifically for a new hub for a "Marble Blast modification zone" where staff can help point people if they want to learn how to modify a Marble Blast game properly, create and help with other mods, and give friendly and constructive support to folks along the way seeking to create their own modifications and stages for this wonderful gem of a franchise.

Happy marbling!
- Isoplere
The STOP II Team
In association with: Whirligig Studios.

I did play this for a little while after it came out. I wanted to try and be as open-minded as I could because of how much effort you've put into this and credit should absolutely be given where it's due. There is definitely improvement all over the place - pretty much a little bit of everywhere, especially on some of the level designs.
With that said, there are two things that turned me off pretty quickly. First is the physics, which I talked a little about in the thread you made to discuss them even although a lot of what I wanted to say was already said. The second is having to replay all of the levels in order. I get your whole schtick about not wanting people to cheat, or miss the story, whatever it was, but I really don't want to play Green Gulch every time a new version is released. Admittedly I was really only interest in playing the levels I hadn't ever played before (and most of all, my own), and it really sucks that the reality is there is a bunch of your work that goes completely unnoticed because people have to go through so many levels to get to the later ones.

I want to play your mod and have a good time with it, and being forced to go through levels over and over again to get to the later ones does not help with that. At this point I'm considering just remaking the levels I made for MBStop II into PQ levels so people can actually play them.

I'm happy you at least gave it a shot. While I don't expect you to keep going with the way you wrote this post, I'm happy you saw that I was able to release such a big project, which is indeed rare and hard to do in the first place. Hearing that there are major improvements all over the place brings a smile to my face, even if the new physics aren't part of that. It's a division, and it's a division I understand. So I bring my sides to the table too. We have our opinions and it's adult to respect them.

Physics: Mentioned and replied to. Don't forget there will be a 1.4u1 option to select what physics you want to use. You can use the old ones or the new ones. Trap-launching will still be harder with the new functions, and hazards will be less powerful, but the movement and kinetics will be the same.
In STOP II, we call them stages based on how the hybrid is presented. But we get "level" is something people are used to saying, just want to make this clear. 1.4u0 is the last major update, and stages will not be changed or re-ordered again unless something really is not possible to complete. For instance, if there's a special shape that's impossible to reach or if there's a stage that doesn't load properly (internally or externally), then I will have it corrected. Other than that, we now remain all the same, especially in terms of stage ordering.

With that being said, our installer checks for new updates when changes are published to master. Once an update is announced and the installer is ran, it will replace files where they were unpacked already automatically if you choose to install the new update. Your stage, award, and option unlocks are kept and are not removed. This means if you have already passed Green Gulch, and you install an update, you will NOT need to play it again as your unlocks are kept. We also have a verification system (in progress, releases in 1.4u1) that will ask for proof of your records in the event the installer deletes them or overwrites them, which should not happen. And in the event it does, our system will help recover your preferences as best as possible, with extra perks and bonuses granted for compensation as a result of a save file loss. We hope this helps!
If you have enough pentagons, press "NEXT" on a stage and press B to unlock it. You get a bunch of pentagons for completing a new stage, finding bonuses, and beating STOP Times. Collect as many as you can and skip as many stages as you want, you'll even get awards for skipping stages!
Lastly, saying you want to play your own and publish your own stages is way too selective. It makes other team members who worked hard on stages feel like their work is not interesting or is redundant. It doesn't offer a potential to see how good other builders are, and it does not feel like others can be prolific (or as prolific), because there are wonderful artists out there and I'm a damn good one. Petal is also a damn good one. And even though I despise what Matan's done in 2017-2018 with the stream, I still think he's a great stage creator. You're a great one too. I want to see all sides and not just one. It's wrong to think like that, and that should be known.

But I doubt that's what you mean. In reality, how you word this will sound like to me and potentially other people that our work is not cared about by you enough or at all. It's like saying I want to play Andrew's stages and not Henry's/I want to make my own food and not try anyone else's food because it's different from how I do it. It's just not a good reason nor a wise thing to say at all no matter how it's written.
Otherwise, your feedback is interesting, and it offers me some ideas for the foreseeable future.

Thank you.

P.S. We can make your stages D.L.C Stages and Petal could replace them for 1.4u1. Your call. Don't let this section of the reply think your work isn't relevant or important. But like you said, you want to play them and have others play them immediately. So I can offer them as optional stages. That's the best I can do. Your choice.

Isoplere:
P.S. We can make your stages D.L.C Stages and Petal could replace them for 1.4u1. Your call. Don't let this section of the reply think your work isn't relevant or important. But like you said, you want to play them and have others play them immediately. So I can offer them as optional stages. That's the best I can do. Your choice.

Sorry for never getting back to this. I don't have a preference on what you do with my levels since I'm remaking them for PQ. That alone gives the attention factor that I want my levels to have, so whether you move their MBStop equivalents into DLC or leave them where they were in release is entirely up to you.