Update RELEASED! New Guns, Admin Menu, New Map, Bug Fixes
Attention, soldiers! A new update has been released. This is the biggest update in the history of BG3—read below for the changelog!
Weapons
Added a new weapon, the 'M1717' Old Model Charleville for American Infantry—an older musket donated by French allies. While technically superior in accuracy and melee range, the weapon suffers from an unreliable lock with a longer, randomized lock time.
Added a new weapon, the Dutch Musket for American Infantry. Paid for by Dutch investors, this is a good all-around weapon which features a quick lock and less stamina drain when stabbing.
Added a new weapon, the Sea Service Pattern Brown Bess for Royal Infantry. A marine weapon pressed into infantry service, this musket is a bit shorter but otherwise identical to the regular Brown Bess. It has a quicker reload time, a shorter melee range, and a lesser weight that slightly increases player speed. The weapon all features a faster aim-down-sights time.
Increased the power of buckshot used by the Fowler and the British Light Infantry Carbine. Also buffed the carbine (as used by officers and British Light Infantry) with the same faster aim-down-sights speed of the Sea Service Pattern.
Fixed the Charleville smoke bug.
Menu/HUD
Added an admin menu which is accessibly with 'G' by default. Existing players will have to bind the key from the options menu. Players may also need to use the options menu to bind the keys 7 through 0 as used by the menu. From this menu, players can start events, change maps, manage game options, and more. As this menu is still in early development, there are currently some limitations which will be fixed in future updates:
The map list only includes default maps and not custom maps.
Per-player actions (ban, kick, mute) are not yet accessible from the menu.
The 'Community Configs' section only lists configuration files now pre-included with the game (Thanks to the 29th Regiment of Foot for the configuration files!), as opposed to listing all custom configurations on the server.
Added a team-wide class menu that allows admins to easily select the class, weapon, and uniform for their team (linebattle only)(and the spawns on the maps must be inside the trigger_spawn_room entity). This menu is accessible as an option in the admin menu (or separately bindable in the options menu).
Fixed HUD bug where health & ammo numeric labels disappeared at lower resolutions.
Fixed bug where some game messages such as "The British have won this round!" and "Americans win!" did not appear.
Game messages (as exemplified above) now appear in a larger font in a black box beneath the score information at the top of the screen.
Added the 'msay' command to let admins make messages appear in the same area as normal game messages (as described above).
The ammo ball icons in the HUD are now easier to see and now stack into rows instead of extending horizontally.
Improved killfeed icon for Short Pattern Brown Bess Bayonet (whose bayonet image is shared with the carbine).
Player counts and limits now appear in the class menu on top of the class icons.
Class health effects (such as the grenadier's built-in damage resistance) are now described in the class menu via a label which appears when the class is selected.
Weapon lock time now appears as a displayed stat in the class menu.
Noclip and 'spawn' commands now display messages in chat when activated; this prevents covert admin abuse in competitive matches. (Thanks Karpik!)
Improved the description of the War Club and fixed various typos in other weapon descriptions.
Renamed the "Brown Bess with Bayonet" for Royal Infantry to "Short Pattern Brown Bess with Bayonet". In time, it may be renamed to "Short Pattern with Bayonet" entirely. Historically, 'Brown Bess' was an umbrella term for a family of variations or 'patterns', not a specific model.
Added 'Wine Bottle' easter egg.
Maps
Added Ctf_Stonefort map. Fire the swivel gun, storm the ramparts, and the capture the flag to bring victory to your team!
On Bg_Trenton:
1st flags are now already capped at the start of round
small window added to enable shooting from connector to inn
market upper (scaffolding) area expanded
various minor tweaks
Added new props and textures as used on Ctf_Stonefort and Bg_Trenton; these are now available to community mappers.
Took out Bg_Snowlake, Bg_Freemans_Farm, and Bg_Woodland from the default map rotation, while adding Ctf_Stonefort.
On bg_freemans_farm and bg_plateau, reverted default configurations to ordinary skirmish (no ticket mode).
The default server launch script (LaunchServer.bat) is now set it load the 'sq' map by default, as opposed to bg_plateau.
Other
The autoexec.cfg has been modified so that all new players start with ideal network settings. This will even the playing field from a network perspective. (Thanks Greedychris!)
The autoexec.cfg also now enables plugin messages by default.
Added a self-explanatory 'swap_teams' command which effects all players. (This functionality is also accessible from the admin menu).
Added a self-explanatory 'remove_class_limits' command which effects both teams.
(For mappers) func_tank entity now returns the player using it as !activator when using the OnGotPlayerController output.
That was a lot! There are new toys for you soldiers to play with. Our next large update will be at the end of February; until then, you can expect plenty of smaller hotfixes and content updates to fix issues that arise, especially in regards to the new admin menu.
Update Planned SUNDAY Jan. 12th, Development Direction
It has been a long, harsh, silent winter stuffed in winter quarters, but now Battle Grounds III is back and ready for a big update! This update will be on January 12th at 12pm EST/4pm GMT.
In this news post we will discuss the content of the next update, announce a new team member, and discuss the future direction of the game.
Game Update
This upcoming update will be the biggest update Battle Grounds III has ever had! New weapons, new maps, a new admin menu, bug fixes and more! The entire update will be covered in full when it releases on Sunday, so for now we will only tease some of the incoming content.
Servers must update in order for updated players to connect.
New Weapons
In this update, Battle Grounds III will get its first new weapons, three of them! They are the Old Model Charleville for American Infantry, the Dutch Musket for American Infantry, and the Sea Service Pattern Brown Bess for British Infantry. Each one has unique stats and will spice up linebattles and skirmishes alike. They are shown here in the images below, ordered respectively:
Admin Menu
Administrating servers has always been a challenge. Admins need to learn too many commands or install a third-party plugin that doesn't do the full job. Now, Battle Grounds III will have its own interactive admin menu, as previewed in this image:
This admin menu and the work done for it will make a great starting point for future work for a voting system.
And More!
Bug fixes include a fix for the Charleville smoke bug, and the HUD bug where the health and ammo labels are missing. At least two new maps will be added. There is even going to be a new Easter Egg (wine bottles, anyone?)!
New Team Member
The Battle Grounds III community member known as 'meat', formally known as 'klifsnider', has re-taken up his role as the Lead Mapper in the Battle Grounds III Development Team. He will give the team fresh energy, allow others like Lead Developer 'Awesome' to focus on non-mapping tasks, and plot a new course for the future of BG3 maps! He plans to add more siege maps and other fun, community maps. Many of the official BG3 maps are old and recycled, and we hope that players will enjoy this new direction.
Development Direction
So far, Battle Grounds III has had more than 100,000 thousand downloads, and more than 100 new people download the game every day! Yet as many players see, Battle Grounds III servers are not always as full as that sounds. Many players come and go.
To help fix this problem, our next update after the one this Sunday will be a player-focused update that will make the game both easier and more fun to play. Specifically, we will be adding a colorblind mode, hints/tutorials, and a progression system that rewards long-term play.
Take a look at the image below, which is filtered to appear as it would be seen by an individual with Deuteranopia sight. Is the officer there British or American? Friend or foe? (Answer: American)
Fixing this is just one example of the many things that will be done in this future update. This player-focused update should be released near the end of February. Stay tuned for more information!
It has been a long time since our last news post. Yet our team is still ready to fight the good fight, and we look forward to meeting you on the battlefield.
While we developers are still on campaign for the next big game update, other battles have taken place in other theaters of war! The website has been updated, the community's mapping competition is coming to a close, and community-run tournaments are still ongoing!
Website Updates
The BG3 website now has some new pages to help players connect to the community! The Clans page lists active clans, and the Links page lists links to many official and community resources that are useful to players.
Only about 24 hours remain in the community mapping competition! The maps entered will be graded on graphics, gameplay, and wow factor! The winners will receive portions of a €250 prize pool! For more information, visit this page.
One (or more!) of the maps may become official Battle Grounds III maps — here are screenshots of the maps entered so far!
bg_wrecked This map, we suspect, will player similarly to bg_ambush - two single person flags near the spawns, and a two person flag in the bowels of the ship. With water, cliffs, secret caves, this ought be a fun map!
lb_mistymountainhop This linebattle map was made by an experienced mapper who is new the BG community. This linebattle is like no other—a small town area, mountain paths, and fenced farm fields make the map feel large and small at the same time. Long-range shooting is sparse on this map—volleys will be fast, and quickly followed by melee combat. And how will multi-clan linebattles fare? Stay tuned!
ctf_trenchwar Trench maps have been a staple theme for community BG maps. This map tries to change the CTF formula in that your goal is not to capture the enemy flag, but to bring your team's flag to your opponent's trench. How well will this formula work?
Soon, too, an event will take place for players to try out these maps to help determine which of them is the best of the best.
Tournaments
The Battle Grounds III Community has organized for itself tournaments to find out which players and teams are the best fighters. Learn more about these events and participate by joining the BG3 Community Tournaments Discord.
"1v1 Stab-off" Tournament
Recently a 1v1 tournament was won by our very own former developer "eat meat" who is also the organizer of the ongoing mapping competition. The runner-up was "GreedyChris", with "Plexi" following up in 3rd place. Congratulations!
2v2 Tournament Signups!
A 2v2 tournament is starting soon! Sign ups are open until November 4th at 8pm GMT. You may sign up in two person groups or as individuals.
"Fishy's Linear Conflict League" Linebattle Tournament
Coming to a close is a linebattle tournament. Participating clans include the 42Cdo, 66th, 29th, 12th, and 69thNaf. Stay tuned to hear the final results!
Upcoming Updates
Within the next two weeks we will be ready to deploy a large game update that will feature the long-promised admin menu and a voting menu. These features will help admins and players control their own games.
We also have many side projects in the works, so you can expect a few extra goodies—maps, weapons, skins, or ?—stay tuned to find out more!
“Well done is better than well said.” - Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1737
Changelog 26/9/19 - Crash Fix, Discord Server
Attention, soldiers! We are still working hard on future updates, but recently an exploit was discovered that crashes servers. We wanted to deliver a fix for this right away, and we've also thrown in a few extra goodies for good measure. In other news, BG3 now has a developer-run Discord Server! Join it now to meet other players, share war stories, and chat with the developers! Additionally, soon the website will be updated with permanent links to this Discord server and other servers which are run by the community.
Changelog:
Fixed an exploit that allowed players to crash servers.
Bots no longer try to aim or crouch when firearms are disabled.
Fixed the HUD's class count icons not showing (and now, the counts only appear while the local player is dead).
Added an sv_stamina server-side variable that can be used to disable stamina. Disabling stamina allows for bunny-hopping, so be careful (or have fun) with it. Stamina is still enabled by default.
Cleaned up some extraneous console messages.
"Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages." — George Washington
BIG Update FRIDAY 6/9/19, Mapping Competition
Stand at attention! We developers have strategically planned for an attack on our developer backlog, and we have received dispatches that there is community-run mapping competition offering a prizepool for the best maps!
Upcoming Update
The large update will be released on FRIDAY 6/9/19 at 3pmEST/7pmGMT. This update includes map changes, so it is important that servers update at that time so that players will still be able to connect. This update will include:
On bg_townguard, the swivel gun will be moved to the opposite side of the town square, and an ammobox dropped at its former location.
On sg_fall, the British capture of the Inner Yard will trigger the destruction of a fortifying wall; the ladder leading to the Inner Yard will be easier to traverse.
On bg_maricopa, a surprise will be waiting on the second floor of the house!
On sg_siege, all annoying physics barrels will have been removed; the tunnel will be wider and easier to traverse (no more crouch jumping over the low barricade).
On official maps only, the swivel gun rapid-fire bug will be fixed.
With friendly fire off, grenades will no longer be able to kill teammates, but will still be able to injure them (i.e. an attack will always leave at least 1HP). This is an attempt to balance the need to fix teamkill trolling and the discouragement of throwing grenades in unrealistic locations. Grenades will still kill the thrower.
Considering a history of consensus that the Jaegar class is better than the Frontiersman class, the tough, frontier-hardened Frontiersman will now receive less damage from low-damage attacks, just like the Grenadier classes.
The Frontiersman's knife's animations will be sped up to feel more natural.
The "mute" command's toggling functionality will be switched to a "mute" and "unmute" functionality.
A "solo" command will be added such that all but the admin invoking it will effectively muted. This will allow server admins to make announcements over voice without interruptions from players.
The crosshair mechanics will be changed such that the crosshair will persist for a short time after using ironsights, revealing the ironsights accuracy of all weapons and making it easier to track targets while using ironsights.
With dynamic crosshairs only, when the player performs a melee attack an enlarged dot will appear for a short time to indicate when the melee system is scanning for hits. This will make the melee system slightly more intuitive.
The "Wells Fargo" logo on ammoboxes will be replaced with an East India Trading Company logo and a clearer label as an ammobox.
The update may possibly include these changes:
An admin menu which eases the work admins do on servers;
A vote menu to allow players to effectively run servers on their own.
Mapping Competition
A former BG developer has organized a mapping competition! Who can make the best map for BG3? The current prizepool is €250, and some of that may be yours! The deadline is October 31st, so there's plenty of time!
This competition was not organized by The Battle Grounds Game Development Team, and its organizer does not represent The Battle Grounds Game Development Team.
We hope that you've enjoyed this news, and we look forward to playing with you next weekend!
"When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation."
— Alexander Hamilton
Soldiers! After an unplanned development hiatus, we're marching to the drums again with this smaller update. We already have other updates completed an in the works; this update is only a small skirmish in our campaign for final victory.
Added a built-in server-side mute command and its alias m . Admins can use this command to mute players (such that nobody can hear them). For example, if there is a player named Awesome that an admin wishes to mute, that admin could then type !mute Awesome in chat.
Added an extra crosshair option, "Make Dynamic" in the BG3 options menu, such that the growth/shrink of the crosshair can be turned on and off. It is checked on by default.
Hit verification is now enabled by default. This won't effect players who have already played the game.
Messages from server plugins are now enabled by default, effecting all players.
Replaced an old, overly recognizable HL2 cliff texture with a new one.
While we continue working on game updates, we are also considering updates to the website that will help players track development progress and communicate to each other about special events!
Stay disciplined soldiers! Every war lasts longer than you think it will.
"Energy and persistence conquer all things." — Benjamin Franklin
Changelog 14/7/19 - Map Updates!
Attention soldiers! As announced yesterday, many maps have been updated, and it's important that both players and servers get the update! Players need only restart their games, while servers need to update via the app_update 1057700 command in the steamcmd console.
The official servers in New York, France, and Germany are already up-to-date.
On many maps, the number of spawn points was increased so as to better support higher numbers of players. And here is a list of significant changes on other maps:
sg_siege: fixed exploit which allowed players to escape the intended playing area, made the pitfall trap more visible
bg_freemans_farm: fixed model error inside house
bg_maricopa: fixed a model error inside house
bg_plateau: adjusted player clipping in spawns to prevent players from climbing hills in spawn and camping there
lb_battleofconcord: fixed some trees which were non-solid
Thank you for your discipline, soldiers! See you on the battle grounds.
"These are the times that try men's souls." — Thomas Paine
Map Update Rollout SUNDAY, Changelog 13/7/19
Troops! We have secret plans to release a huge package of map updates on Sunday, July 14th, at 3pm EST / 7pm GMT. It is important that servers and players update at the same time, or else players won't be able to play! The official servers will be updated at this time, so players will always be able to play there.
Also on this day, Saturday 13/7/19, we rolled out a new patch which addresses several issues.
Fixed some cases where admin commands were not working when selecting a player by name. Here is some reference for selecting players by name:
Search is first performed as case-sensitive, and then case-insensitive if nothing is found.
The search term will match a player if at least 5 characters match or it is an exact match.
Added a delay between when a server switches maps and when bots are automatically added. This gives servers a chance to fill up with players before adding bots.
When a player joins, their name, Steam ID, and assigned admin permission will appear in the server console. This is useful for server owners who are debugging their server setup.
In the scoreboard, players are now sorted by damage instead of by score.
We are working hard on the new admin menu, and we are hoping to finish it so that it can be packaged with the update tomorrow!
We would also like to let everyone know that just because we have not fixed an issue or bug does not mean we are not aware of it. Here is a list of known issues we are planning to fix, in no particular order:
The "Mute Players" menu does not work consistently;
There is no server-side player mute option;
The scoreboard size and layout are incorrect after changing screen resolution;
There have been reports of team chat not working properly;
The swivel guns occasionally let players fire them in unrealistic "rapid fire";
On a particular map, it is possible to escape the intended playing area (this is being fixed in the map update tomorrow)
When picking a team, the team menu does not always let a player join even when they should be able to, or vice versa.
Thank you for your soldier's discipline! See you on the battlegrounds!
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes! Then fire low!" — Israel Putnam
Changelog 7/7/19 - Admin Updates, Fixes
Stand at attention! Today we released a small, mostly server-side update which adds a few useful commands and fixes a small number of bugs.
added rkick and rban commands for easier kicking/banning (see below).
added s, k, and b commands as aliases for slay, rkick, and rban, respectively.
fixed the @aim selector sometimes acting on the admin instead of the target.
added a 30-second per-player cooldown to ammo boxes, to prevent grenade spam on maps such as sg_siege.
fixed elision of British score in HUD.
added the sv_ragdoll_staytime server variable to determine how long ragdolls persist after dying. The presence of ragdolls can contribute to lag, so setting this to a lower value should reduce lag. The default value is 10 seconds.
added the lb_ammo_multiplier server variable as a multiplier for how much ammo players are given at the start of a linebattle round. Linebattle players may enjoy this feature, as it would allow them to focus on the tactics instead of the ammo supply.
added the map bg_snowlake to the default map cycle; servers will now play this map without it having to be manually switched to.
The already existing mp_disable_firearms variable, when active, now also prevents grenadiers from spawning with grenades.
fixed a crash which could happen when a player attempted to use an admin command before joining a team.
How to use slay, ban, kick commands
Suppose there is a player named Awesome[BG3-Dev] on the server and they are being a little bit annoying.
An admin could type this in chat to slay that player:
!slay Awesome The game will find the player whose name most closely matches 'Awesome' and slay that player.
Alternatively, an admin could use this command to slay the player:
!s Awesome This version of the command does the same thing but is faster to type.
To kick that player, an admin could use any of these similar commands:
!rkick Awesome
!rkick Aweso
!k Awesome
!k [BG3-Dev]
!k @aim
The version with @aim would work if the admin is looking at the player.
To ban that player for 60 minutes, an admin could use any of these commands:
!rban 60 Awesome
!rban 60 Aweso
!b 60 Awesome
!b 60 [BG3-Dev]
!b 60 @aim
These commands do not currently support the ability to tell the kicked/banned player why they were kicked/banned.
Also, only the @aim selector is supported with banning. This is to prevent rogue admins from banning all players at once.
Note that all the commands above are is if they were typed in chat. If these commands are entered directly into console, the prefixing ! is not necessary.
Plans for a larger, feature-rich Admin menu have been postponed for next weekend.
See you on the battlefield!
Map Update Rollout Plan WEDNESDAY!
Attention, troops! On Wednesday we will be revisiting some of our battlefields to fix bugs we have discovered. The update will be available at 4:00pm EST/8:00pm GMT — all official servers will be restarted and updated at that time, and we encourage community servers to do the same! All players playing at that time should also restart their games.
Here is a changelog for the maps in this update:
sg_siege:
reduced number of barrels in the main barricade from 2 to 1, and moved the 1 barrel to start in a location where it will be easier for the British to roll it out of the way.
widened doorway into house
moved several American spawns from the cannon area to on top of the house.
reworked boost area to make it more easily navigable.
removed one of the barrels in the tunnel to make it easier to jump over the tripwire trap.
removed extraneous/distracting foliage in the fort interior.
fixed "Trench" reading across top of screen.
reduced number of physics barrels inside the house from 4 to 2.
added more British spawns, to support up to 40 players on the British team.
added more planks for the Americans to use to cross the main barricade, and to eliminate the chance of players getting stuck there unintentionally.
made it easier for grenadiers to jump over the tripwire trap.
reduced the number of breakable planks in the main barricade.
as most of these changes favor the British, the number of British tickets has been reduced from 35 to 33.
sg_fall:
fixed players spawning under the map
We are also working on upgrades to the moderation tools that will make it easier for average players and admins to moderate servers and run events. These upgrades will be rolled out during the upcoming weekend, exact time TBD.
Have fun and make sure that you report any bugs to our website or our Steam community pages! If you report any map bugs in time, they may be fixed by tomorrow's update.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine
