0.49 is here with some matchmaking tweaks, party play support, spectator support for matchmaking games, and more.

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Hi guys,

Matchmaking was released with a blast. We've had over 10,000 games played in just 2 weeks!

The focus of this build is to directly improve on our first pass matchmaking implementation with our observations made the community feedback we have received. :)

Matchmaking: Vote system
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- We have re-worked the map voting system to a pick/drop solution where you cannot see your opponents vote until vote time is over
- We wanted to keep the 3 random map selection still, but we do agree with giving the power to down rank a map, and have this map not played. So your down vote will out-rank the opponents up vote.
- With larger groups the voting is cumulative, so be strategic when voting as a party!

Matchmaking: Spectate games
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- People want to be able to watch active MM games (and so do we!). We've made this possible, and even added it as a tile to the home menu!
- Spectators can only talk with other spectators, to ensure the people playing are not interrupted.

Matchmaking: Party support
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- We've added party support! So you can now grab your friend and queue up in the fun
- Party chat is available in menu of course. You can also party chat in game via sayparty (default bind U).

Matchmaking: Lobby now optional
- We've added a lobby checkbox on the Quickplay screen so people can chose to go play other things while they wait for the matchmaking queue to pop!
- We also re-positioned the overlay so it wouldn't overlap game time widgets since you can play other games while in queue.

Matchmaking: Backend changes
- We have re-structured how data is stored behind the scenes to split regions into US/EU etc
- This is an ongoing process that's setting things up for the near future
- MMR has been reset as a result.

Matchmaking: Servers

- Added Brazil servers
- Russian servers have moved location to hopefully provide better pings

UI improvements:
- Health bar widget: added options from armour bar
- Server browser: added option to sort servers by hostname
- Server browser: restored "show old" option
- Added prev/next page button to addon browser
- MMR values now refreshed when going to main menu to ensure they're up-to-date on profile tile overlay
- Updated twitter link in home menu

Art improvements:
- Thicker MH pickup trails for improved visibility
- Reduced IC impact sparks amount and size
- Fixed bone orientation for adjustable wrench and pipe wrench
- Armour mesh changed to hostile torso

Game improvements:
- Disable previously set mutators when starting training from the menu
- Added mutator: infinite ammo
- Removed weapon hum in instagib mutator
- Can no longer forfeit on racemode
- Added enemy sounds for jump/land etc (thanks Greed)
- Tweaked damage sounds for friendly/enemy players
- Added new keybind mark replay, defaults to M
- Added new loading tip: "Remember to hit 'Mark Replay' in your matchmaking games, you might be famous!",
- Added new loading tip: "Matchmaking replays can be found at replays.reflexarena.com"

Lua changes:
- Log type notification now has subtypes: generic, party, pickup
- Log type chat now has additional subtype: party

Bug fixes:
- Game now clamps cl_playercolor* to safe ranges
- Fixed potential crash bug when matchmaking popup times out & user is disconnected

Links: reflexarena.com, Reflex Forums Post, Dev Roadmap