Increased player acceleration to make side to side movement more responsive
Features
Updated all player animations
Rebuilt lighting for dow_carentan, dow_kaysersberg, dow_omaha and dow_foy
Implemented new character specific lighting to improve player visibility
New blood impacts on player model and environment
Added new mg42 model
Bugs
Fixed several map exploits (thank you to Forcewhut)
Fixed various bullet collision issues (thank you to rdBaZti)
Fixed issue where enemy players could not hear audio commands
Fixed bug where MG could be deployed when holding fire and deploy
Fixed bug where players could kill team mates by going spectate after throwing a grenade
Fixed an issue where allied players could be killed on Omaha by getting too close to German spawn
Known Issues
New lighting and ambient occlusion still has some screen door artifacts. Turning Anti-Aliasing to Temporal will remove artifacts, or turning Post Process to Medium will remove all ambient occlusion.
BAR firing sounds are broken
Sniper zoom animation not functioning as it should
Some reload animations have body parts clipping
64 Player Servers This Weekend: Sat 1pm EDT
Hey Everyone,
The next patch will be coming very soon which contains some of the substantial changes outlined in our last post. To ensure it gets enough testing before our free weekend we are going to be hosting some 64 player Foy and Omaha this weekend:
Start Time: 1pm EDT (17:00 UTC) Saturday June 10th
If big battles aren’t your thing there’s one more reason to show up, at some point before 2pm EDT we will be giving the first preview of the new map to all who attend.
We appreciate your help finding last minute bugs before the free weekend, and as always any feedback that helps us improve the game.
See you there on Saturday!
-Driven Arts
June Dev Update - Free Weekend June 15th
Hey Everyone,
June is going to be an exciting month for Days of War.
Next week we will be releasing a large update with a new map and some major game changes. Alongside this major update we will be doing a free weekend promotion, so everyone can come see the progress we’ve made over the last few months since our launch date.
Free Weekend: June 15th
From June 15th-18th we will be having a free weekend, meaning anyone can try the game for free during this period. This means there will be a lot of new faces so we encourage our veteran players to help show people the ropes.
New Map: Amalfi
Our new map takes place on the famous Amalfi coast of Italy where the US Army Rangers invaded in September of 1943.
We are very excited for this new map as it is the product of all our learnings from the last several months on the technical, art, and design fronts. We’ve increased the frames per second, improved visibility and lighting quality, and used a more traditional domination layout that we feel suits our core gameplay much better than some of our recent maps.
We will be offering an exclusive preview of the new map to some select folks this weekend. Stay tuned for another announcement tomorrow to learn how to participate.
New Lighting
We’ve taken our new lighting methods from Amalfi and applied them to all our old maps. We are utilizing the new tonemapper and HDR features from UE4.15 which allow for more realistic contrast and colors especially in the shadows.
Some of the changes are subtle, some more drastic, originals are on top, revised versions on bottom.
We've aimed to improve both the look of our lighting but also the visibility of our characters in dark places. We are using a new experimental lighting method which will appear in the next build.
New Animations
As promised, we’ve rebuilt all the animations from scratch. The new animations are more than just a surface update, as they dictate how the player models move about the world they have an impact on the gameplay as well.
We’ve taken care to improve the blending and transitions of the player movements, reducing issues like feet sliding and improving posture and predictability when changing directions.
We’ve also matched all our 3rd person animations to closer reflect what’s going on in first person, so you have a better sense of exactly what your enemy is doing.
Lastly we've implemented procedural hit animations and improved bullet wound decals on players.
New MG42
We’ve got a brand new MG42 which you can preview below (note: we've fixed the tracers since it was taken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_verBDmU0yk
In addition to the updates above that will be coming in the next week we have a whole host of things in the pipeline, including 3 new maps that are in progress, VOIP 2.0, the public release of the map editor, and more. We will be providing more detail in updates here as well as in our early access roadmap in the near future.
See you all in game soon
Driven Arts
Version 1.0.4.7
Features
Implemented v1 of voice command system (default V)
Added map vote feature in Server Admin menu
Gameplay
Fixed bullet collision on Carentan bridge, trees, pharmacy
Reduced Flak88 artillery damage range by 50%
Jumping while crouched re-enabled
Fixed issue where rifles could be reloaded before bolt animation completed
Fixed issue where quick switch allowed rifles to be fired faster than intended
Set m30 rifle round to proper damage level
Further Improved all weapon sounds by adding low-end punch.
Bugs
Fixed issue where servers could launch without setting a unique name
Fixed the name from 'daysofwar' to "Days of War" in Steam server browser
Dead players can now be seen in chat when round ends
Fixed bug where class limits could be exceeded if two players selected the same class at the same time
Fixed issue where steam://connect/: link did not always work
Vote ban can no longer be initiated by players
Servers can no longer launch with 'ServerNameGoesHere'
May Dev Update - 100 Days into EA
[H1]It’s been 100 days since we entered Early Access. As we pass this milestone we wanted to give a recap of what has changed over the last few months.[/H1]
Back in January the game was rife with some major issues including:
Major server browser issues, with some or all servers not showing
Grenades physics were extremely unpredictable
We had a bug that was taking off 20-30 FPS across the board
Many map exploits and bad collision spots that would eat bullets
Omaha map was barely running on older video cards and the boats were bouncing around on shore
We had some severe visibility problems due to issues with lighting, fog, ambient occlusion and character models
Dropped guns and health packs were behaving erratically and going through the floor
Weapon code had many bugs and strange hitches when zooming, reloading, switching and firing
Since then we have addressed all of these major issues (some are ongoing efforts) along with hundreds and hundreds of bugs. In fact, much of our first 100 days were simply spent fixing things ranging from performance, to reliability, to gameplay.
We also found some time to add new features and content over the last couple months, some examples being:
Dow_foy
Fully revamped firing sounds (to feel more powerful), along with additional foley
Sound occlusion and obstruction (sounds get muffled through walls and objects)
Kill cam
Customizeable FOV settings
Round end screen
Easy Anti Cheat
Added vote kick/ban system to prevent griefers when no admins around
All in all, we feel the core of the game is in a MUCH better state than when we came to EA, and we couldn’t have done it without your help or the Early Access Program.
In addition to helping us fix key bugs and polish weak areas, your feedback has helped us shape where we are taking the game in the next few months.
We've got some planned changes in movement and gunplay based on your feedback, but the biggest takeaway so far has been in the map design.
We've experimented with some more open and expansive layouts in maps like Omaha and Foy with the idea of creating more of a cinematic experience. We've had a lot of positive feedback on these maps, and enjoy playing them ourselves, but have realized that these maps should supplement the core experience, not define it.
As a result, our upcoming maps will be close quarters with more structured layouts, designed for a max 32 players in the Domination 5 flag game mode.
Kaysersberg and Carentan are closer examples of what we're trying to achieve, but we've learned a lot in the last couple months on where we can improve on this formula.
[H1]So what should you expect in the next 100 days?[/H1]
If the last few months were about fixing things, the next few months will be all about improving core gameplay, adding lots of content, and raising our active player counts.
So how do we plan to do that?
First we have features that are complete or close to complete:
VOIP 2.0
Animations 2.0
Voice commands
Map voting
Next, we've spooled up our art pipeline to deliver 4 new official maps (names likely to change):
Dow_italy
Dow_valognes
Dow_chaumont
Dow_caen
There are still some ongoing issues we must address, such as:
Map performance – we are now using new methods for constructing our maps that should give a major boost to performance without trading for visual quality
Freezing and some framerate issues associated with Unreal Engine 4.15
Finally, we will continue to optimize and add new features from our roadmap. We encourage you to vote on the features you find most important.
The biggest ticket item on the roadmap is still the Map Editor and its broader rollout. Since we've already learned firsthand how important the maps are to the identity of the game, we've decided to withhold the public release of the map editor until we've delivered the next 4 official maps. This allows us to better control the identity of the game during this period while also rapidly adding content from our new maps into the editor itself. We will still be giving access to the editor on an invite basis to those with UE4 and mapping experience.
Before we go we wanted to show you some previews of the latest art/content
dow_italy
Our amazingly talented character artist revamped our British and American paratrooper models, which you can see on his ArtStation here
https://www.artstation.com/artist/stirls
-Driven Arts
Version 1.0.4.6
Steam Server Browser
• Enabled joining game from Steam server browser is now possible (to view servers in Steam go to View>Servers then filter by game daysofwar)
• Fixed issue where server name, map name and player count did not show in the steam server browser list (old servers will still broadcast bad information which may still show in the list until they transition to 1.0.4.6. Note for Server admins, the header for server name has changed so please update your config files)
• Enabled the ability to join game on friend in the Steam friends list
Server management
• Added vote kick/ban functionality in Players tab of Admin panel
• Admin panel can now be viewed by all players with admin command in console. Only players with administration privileges can interact with the menu
Performance
• Added a setting to disable decals in video options that should give some performance back to mid to high end GFX cards
Bug Fixes
• Made change to address an issue where some sounds would not play
• Fixed bug where dropping weapon did not trigger a pickup if you were standing on a weapon
• Fixed blurry rock texture on Omaha map
• Fixed hovering sticks and logs on Foy
• Fixed bug where if end of round screen was up when new round started you could get stuck in the video options
• Fixed bug where center flag could be captured from outside of the pharmacy on Carentan
• Fixed bug where the church collision in Foy was not blocking dead bodies
• Fixed bug where death camera was still tracking enemies after switching to spectate
• Fixed bug where muzzle flashes and brass ejection were not originating from the correct location
• Fixed holes and collision in Omaha bunker allowing players to shoot through ceiling
• Chat messages no longer show if hud is toggled off with ToggleHUD command
• Springfield ironsight is now further from the face to match the FOV of the Karabiner98
April Dev Update
Hey Everyone,
Here’s what we’ve been working on recently:
Animations 2.0
The next foundational change we are going to be making to Days of War is a reworking of our movement and 3rd person locomotion animations. What that means in simpler terms is we have redone everything about how our characters look when standing still, aiming, running, and all the transitions in between. We've also added some new dimensions, like hit flinching.
Our existing animations are by no means bad, but they were not suited for our game speed/style and we saw plenty of room for improvement.
New Base Poses
Redoing the animation systems from scratch is no small task, and this project is months in the making. Because this is such a significant rewrite we will be doing a closed test on an experimental version of the game before we push it live to the whole community. When this is ready we will give instructions for those who would like to test it out.
New Running Posture
If you would like to see the new animations in action please check out the following short clips.
https://youtu.be/JCn57qulD9s
https://youtu.be/Y9kjKC-_QaI
Sound
Some other features planned for this month are voice commands for common phrases and tactical commands. This will be especially useful while we wait for our updated VOIP system, and should add another layer of WW2 ambiance to the game.
On the SFX side we are adding some new long distance firing sounds that should make a shot from very far away more distinguishable.
In the past few updates we have made sweeping changes to our sound effects which have led to some players experiencing partial sounds in game. We are testing some new methods of loading sound files to be more reliable and will report on the results.
Map Editor
We have continued to roll out the map editor in a staged process. Currently the editor is by invitation only and under NDA. If you've been dabbling in UE4 we welcome you to show us what you've made if you would like to be considered for this early alpha version of our editor.
We have gained permission from Epic to distribute the editor, and are working toward full compliance with their requirements.
In the meantime we are looking at methods of releasing and distributing the first community maps before the editor is publicly available.
Server Browser
Another ongoing priority issue is improving the reliability of our server browser. A small portion of players have been unable to see any servers and individual servers aren’t showing 100% of the time. This has been an issue since we released and a particularly hard one to debug because of the many underlying causes. We’ve recently made some changes to the way servers are displayed and will be testing it with players who have these issues soon.
Texture Streaming
Our update to UE4.15 introduced some periodic freezes to some players, effectively a game breaking issue on some maps. We've made changes to the texture pool settings and begun experimenting with some of the more advanced in-engine features to reduce the texture load.
Ongoing Workstreams
There are other longer term projects that are still being pushed forward like our VOIP system that won't appear in the next update but are still certainly on our priority list.
And Lastly...
We wanted to give an update on the state of the game and the longer term plan to bring back players and get new players in.
We sold about 25,000 copies of the game so far which has given us lots of new budget to reinvest into Days of War and secured the resources necessary to complete the game.
25,000 players is still a relatively small player base for a multiplayer only game, and we need to bring in more players to ensure we have plenty of populated servers.
However, before we bring in more people, we need to address our known issues. On day 1 of Early Access, our reviews were hovering around 70% positive. This means there is plenty of room for us to improve the game. Our top 3 complaints were price, amount of content, and performance – and all three are very fixable.
Until we fix those biggest issues, the game is simply not ready for a new crop of players. We considered doing a promotion with our 1.0.4.6 update but decided that would be a short term gain at the expense of longer term sustainability for the game.
We will not be doing any kind of advertising/sale/free weekend/etc. to bring more players in until we are confident we have a large enough base of official maps. This means things will be quieter for a stretch, but that is the reality of our journey through Early Access.
Everything we do over the next few months is with this long term view in mind. We know that asking for your patience during this period is a big ask, so once again we thank you for your immense support!
Driven Arts
Version 1.0.4.5
Hey Everyone,
It's been a couple weeks since our last update and we appreciate your ongoing patience in the Early Access period.
We've been a bit silent for a few reasons: we've been building the foundations of some new features that will take several months to develop, we've had some team members leaving their jobs to work full time on DoW, and we've been cleaning up a lot of the issues with the new weapon system, map exploits, etc.
This update largely focused on improving weapon sound spatialization and fixing a host of weapon system bugs, see detailed notes below.
In our April dev update next week we will detail progress made with our v2 animations, new maps, the rollout of the community map editor, fixing the server browser issues, the new voice command feature, and more.
We know that there have been some players out there who have been exploiting bugs consistently with the sole goal of ruining others experience. We have patched these exploits and banned the offenders and have also created a #report_cheaters_with_evidence channel in our discord to report griefers and cheaters.
Read on for full patch notes
1.0.4.5 Patch Notes:
Gameplay
• Added deathcam
• Adjusted uniform colors and brightness for better enemy visibility (also made the Germans less green)
Sound
• Fully revamped 3p sounds (New 3p sounds for guns, sound occlusion to better judge distance and location of enemies, footsteps have not been reworked yet and will be next)
Maps
• Added polish and art to Foy
• Patched exploits that allowed players to get outside of the play area, into objects, get into "protected" boxes in the forest, etc.
Bugs
• Weapons can now be targeted when hip firing
• Rifles no longer retarget automatically after firing if player is not holding target. Fixed bug where rifles did not untarget after firing
• Fixed bug that allowed players to target rifle immediately after shooting
• Fixed bug where quick switching could allow you to fire rifle faster than it normally cycles
• Destroying objective now awards 1 obj point. Exploding objective now shows death message for anyone it kills
• Jumping will now transition player out of crouch
• We now play placeholder DefuseBomb sound cue when bomb is defused
• Fixed issue where new weapon system did not implement user defined custom weapon mesh FOV
• Fixed issue where thompson and garand did not use their respective brass eject particle emitters
• Fixed issue where deployed MG could jump
• Fixed bug where rifles would show bullet casing even when they did not cycle bolt on last shot
• Fixed bug where cooked grenades were not dropped by players on death
• Fixed issue where grenades could be picked up on overlap
• Made fix to hide sniper rifle mesh and show scope overlay when spectating sniper in new weapon system
• Added smoke back to shotgun classes lost during new weapon system refactor
• Fixed bug where smoke grenades could detonate in hand and not consume itself.
March Dev Update
Hey Everyone,
For this month’s dev update we wanted to take a moment to reflect on where we are at and where we are going with Days of War.
We have received a lot of requests to expand the playerbase and community via a free weekend or similar promotion, but we don’t think this is a smart move until we have gotten the game to a more acceptable state. There is still a lot of polish to add, optimizations to make, and map content to include to increase the long term appeal of the game. Once we feel confident in our improvements, there are a lot of levers we can pull to bring more people into the game.
We’ve received an enormous amount of feedback from the first 6 weeks of early access and it will take a few months to fully address the issues. We’ve translated this feedback into a few tenets that we are going to stick to as we continue to develop Days of War. Some of these we’ve been repeating for a while now, but we want to make it clear where we are going and what we are going to be doubling down on.
• Maps: We will be focusing on close quarters pub maps designed for 32 players for the next few official maps, with competitive minded maps for 12 players or larger open 64+ maps primarily sourced from the community
• Gameplay: We are going to continue to test different configurations of movement and gunplay, but when we said fast paced, high damage, high recoil - we meant it. We want to encourage less iron sighting, proning, camping, and holding angles, with more peeking and pushing
• Gamemode: A focus on the domination game mode
• Visibility: A focus towards visibility and performance over detail and aesthetics with more color and fewer dark spots
• Modernization: Keep the classic style shooter mentality but add features that give additional reasons to keep playing like progression, cosmetic unlocks, and stats
• Optimization: We will continue to aggressively pursue performance opportunities, knowing that in the short term this may come with temporary issues and regressions for some players
Map Editor Update
Starting this week we have sent out the first batch of invites to closed access to the map editor. We have selected folks who have demonstrated a level of competence with UE4 many of whom have already made progress on maps without our assets.
The purpose of the first batch is to iron out the features and methods in the editor to make sure we provide a smooth experience when we open it up publicly, while also pushing forward the most complete community maps.
If you feel you belong in this first batch, make sure to send us some shots of what you’ve been working on or ideas you want to build.
The next update (1045) will include some changes to recoil, revamped third person sounds, some experiments with death animations/camera to make getting killed less jarring, along with a host of outstanding bug fixes.
We are really excited about the coming months and want to thank you again for all your feedback!
-Driven Arts
1.0.4.4.1 Hotfix
Fixes
• Fixed issue where tree branches were eating bullets on Foy
• Fixed collision on church and middle house in Foy
• Fixed bug where k98 scope was off by a few pixels
• Added grenades to g43 class
• Reduced rifle grenade fuse time
• Entering enemy spawns will now kill player
• Fixed bug where minimap would render black
• Fixed bug where view model offsets were not affecting weapon position
• Fixed typo in objectives defended message
• Fixed bug where rockets and rifle grenades did not show their icon in death messages
• Disabled friendly fire until we can implement a proper vote kick/ban system
• Server admins can now set gamemode settings for Foy using
Known outstanding issues
• Sniper recoils immediately after shot, unintended bug from switching to the new weapon system
• STG44 flashes in choose class menu
• Recoil is unintentionally low for some weapons
• Quick switch allows faster rate of fire
• Spectating sniper does not show crosshairs properly
