Alright, time to clear some things up.
A lot of people are worried by the fact that their PC or Laptop does not take kindly to the update. Whether it's a low framerate, you crash when turning shadows or shaders on or even if they don't even display when you have them on - people are complaining about it.
Point is, everyone is complaining about how the new graphical update doesn't work for them or is poorly optimized.
This was expected. We are merely playing a test release, with some extra goodies thrown in. Most of us have known this, or should remember this.
Back when the update was first announched, kompressor implied that we will get a test release. That the developers will continue to optimize the shadows and shaders and fix whatever bugs are encountered. kompressor stated that if you could run Blockland pre-shadows and shaders, you would be able to run it with them on. Obviously this is not the case as of now, but it
will be fixed in the future.
- "But my computer can’t run shaders/is lame and slow/has broken drivers!" Get a new video card, even a $20 lame-o ATI or nVidia video card can run Blockland very well these days. BUT - you can turn shaders off, and the game will run and look as good as it ever has.
Will there be any sort of public testing before the release to ensure that it will run fine before it goes live?
See OP. It will be off by default for a while while we test it. -- kompressor
I'm sure there are some other quotes from the original Shadows and Shaders topic floating around that support this, but these two quotes should be good enough.
Point is, we are running a test release. It's not perfect and it sure as hell isn't optimized as expected. So don't worry about you never being able to see shadows and shaders or run them.
This is not the final release of Shadows and Shaders. The developers will continue to work on them for the time being until they work as promised.So sit tight and wait it out. There's nothing to worry about.
Feel free to quote this and post it where applicable. Some players are not aware of this and it should be brought to their attention.