Huge Update. Prussia Released! For The King - 35% Off
Brace yourselves as Holdfast: Nations At War has just received one of the largest content updates to date. The much-anticipated Prussian faction is here! Muster the men and march once more for the glory of the King. Make sure to fill those ranks with new recruits as Holdfast is now 35% Off for the duration of the Steam Summer Sale.
There’s a whole lot more to look forward to besides the Prussians. A re-designed spawn menu user interface, interchangeable faction spawn positions, multiple game mode servers, interactable doors, more maps to explore and we will also be adding two new additions to the Coast Guards!
Check out the trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKXQNiG-CR4
It would be great if you can help us spread the word around about the sale to bring this genre of Musket Warfare games that we all love in the limelight. We want to continue strengthening the following behind the game as it grows and develops.
We’ve also finalized development on the game engine upgrade which was quite the hefty task. You’ll be seeing improvements on melee combat mechanics get into the game after this update. The community will also be heavily involved in our testing so be sure to join us on Discord if you’d like to participate.
A big cheer for the King! Head into battle with the all-new Prussian faction as they are now available to play in Holdfast: Nations At War. Cheers, shouts, insults and a plethora of German voice acted orders, brand new uniforms for each and every class and most importantly, new fife and drum tunes to make your presence well known throughout your conquest.
This faction was voted in by the community with an overwhelming majority. It has truly been a pleasure of ours designing and developing the Prussians. Here’s a look at all the uniforms.
Infantry Officer Role: Command
Line Infantry - Colberg Role: Offense
Line Infantry - Freikorps Role: Offense
Light Infantry Role: Offense
Guard Role: Offense
Flag Bearer Role: Support
Drummer & Fifer Role: Support
Marching Tunes
Althessischer Reitermarsch
Der Dessauer
Heil dir im Siegerkranz
Hohenfriedberger Marsch
Yorkscher Marsch
Pariser Einzugsmarsch
Preußischer Lockmarsch
A Drum Roll
Rifleman Role: Offense
Surgeon Role: Support
Carpenter Role: Support
Do go and check them out! The Grenadier class will be introduced at a later stage.
Faction Spawn Positions. Interchangeable
There are plenty of players who are particularly adamant about always joining one particular faction. Be it for better or worse, they only get to see one side of the map. That will all be changing in this update however.
For all those event administrators out there hosting competitive events, you should note that this functionality is supported on all existing game modes including Army Assault. We’re certain that it’ll become a very useful tool. You can find instructions on how to set your server up further down below.
British Coast Guards. New Units!
Ever wanted to defend as the British Coast Guards in the Coastal Siege game mode? Now you can! Since the initial faction spawn positions are now interchangeable we thought that it would be an opportune moment to make these units available to play in the Coastal Siege game mode.
Coast Guard Role: Offense
Customs Role: Offense
Spawn Menu User Interface. Re-Designed
One of the first major improvements that players will immediately notice from the old user interface is that it, of course, looks significantly better! A truly marvellous job done by Cameron, our UI Designer on the design. This new spawn menu user interface will also be used to provide players with more information on the class they are playing in a future update.
We are also now displaying a randomised set of ship names with the new user interface so you can easily distinguish which ship to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates. On a side note, we haven’t forgotten about some of the issues that occur whilst playing on naval maps. They’re on our to-do list for fixes after the melee combat improvements.
2 New Maps! Linburg & Black Forest
We’ll also be introducing a couple of new maps with this update. Strive for dominance over the fortified village in Linburg with plenty of possibilities for flanking manoeuvres or take the fight on the open plains in Black Forest.
Linburg
Black Forest
Expect to hear more of this from us in our blog posts as we have quite a few maps soon nearing completion! Until then, you can check the new maps out on the official servers.
Game Engine Upgrade & Melee Combat
Holdfast: Nations At War is now running on the latest version of Unity 2017! Development on the upgrade has been one of the largest undertakings that the team has embarked on to date with a code base of over 150,000 lines of code receiving iterations to make this all possible.
The engine upgrade has been our sole and primary focus during the past month. “Why spend development time on such a time-consuming undertaking?”, you may ask. We have promised our community that we will improve upon melee combat during our Early Access release and this was a necessary stepping stone towards that.
New technologies in the upgraded game engine will allow us to further refine player movement and solve the discrepancies with ‘hitboxes’ - Development on this is currently ongoing and will continue to be given the highest of priorities. As soon as development on the player movement re-design is finalized, we’ll make it available on the BETA and work with our community to polish this mechanic.
Once again, be sure to join us on our Discord if you’d like to participate.
Playing the same game mode can sometimes become a bit stale and rightly so! The community suggested that we host official servers with different game modes in a server’s rotation and we’re doing just that.
Would you like to play the Army Siege, Army Conquest and Army Battlefield game modes without having to switch between servers? Join one of the Army Front official servers in both EU and NA to do so.
Interaction. Openable & Closable Doors
Albeit a relatively minor feature when compared to the rest in this update, we thought that it would be ideal to provide players with the functionality to open and close doors for fortifications, houses and other structures. The more things you can interact with on every map, the better.
Community. Crews & Regiments
Crews and regiments (clans) host weekly events where they follow the rules of engagement relevant to the Napoleonic era. It is a delight of ours seeing servers fill up to the brim with players, as regiments battle in formation.
You should definitely consider participating in one of these events. Head over to the link down below to enlist in a crew or regiment to your liking.
Here’s the entire list of additional features, bug fixes, improvements and content that you’ll find in this update.
Changelog 14 - Game Version 0.14.6746.28387
Head into battle with the all-new Prussian faction as they are now available to play in Holdfast: Nations At War.
» Input the following parameter per map rotation to play as the Prussian faction: faction_attacking prussian or faction_defending prussian
Interchangeable Faction Spawn Positions! There are plenty of players who are particularly adamant about always joining one particular faction. With this addition, the initial spawn position of a faction will be different after each and every round.
» This functionality is supported on all existing game modes including Army Assault and all Naval and Coastal game modes.
» Input the following parameter per map rotation to define the position where a particular faction should spawn at: faction_attacking french and faction_defending british
British Coast Guards. New Units! Defend as the British Coast Guards in the Coastal Siege game mode.
The Spawn Menu User Interface has been completely re-designed. It is now much easier to locate a naval vessel to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates.
2 new maps! Linburg and Black Forest are now in the game. Both of these maps have been included in the official server map rotation.
» Input the following parameters to host these maps on your community server: map_name blackforest or map_name linburg
Game Engine Upgrade! Holdfast: Nations At War is now running on the latest version of Unity 2017. Development on the upgrade has been one of the greatest undertakings that the team has embarked on to date.
» All of this was done with the primary objective to improve upon melee combat.
» New technologies in the upgraded game engine will allow us to further refine player movement and solve the discrepancies with ‘hitboxes’ - Work on this is currently ongoing.
Multiple Game Mode Servers! Join one of the Army Front official servers to play the Army Siege, Army Conquest and Army Battlefield game modes without having to switch between servers.
Openable and Closable Doors. More objects to interact with on the map.
Roleplay! Several chairs on various maps are now sit-able.
New end of round victory tunes for all factions are now in the game! We do hope that you take a liking to these.
Server administrators can now select Brazil as a region through the server configuration file.
» Input the following parameter if you’d like to assign the Brazilian region to your server: server_region brazil
<*>Rifleman accuracy over long distances on the Standard game type has been reduced.
<*>Fixed a bug which caused the server to disconnect all players after 254 rounds.
<*>Shadows have been improved.
<*>The main menu screen has been changed to showcase the glorious Prussians.
<*>Added an audio reverb for an echoey effect when speaking or other sounds play inside buildings.
<*>Map loading screen images will now appear faster.
<*>Arranged the order of a variety of spawn points on land-based and coastal maps in the spawn menu. This is so that the base spawn points where the greatest number of players can spawn will always show at the very top.
<*>You can now find multiple spawn points on the Training Grounds map when playing on the Army Battlefield and Army Assault game modes. This will make it easier for players to travel around various locations on the map.
<*>Adjusted the initial spawn positions for players on several maps so you don’t spawn way too much above ground. This is still a work in progress and some spawn locations have yet to be re-visited.
<*>Training Grounds is no longer playable on the Conquest game mode.
<*>You can now play with all the in-game classes including the Naval and Coastal ones on the Training Grounds map.
<*>The Training Grounds map now has a unique loading screen.
<*>Fixed an issue with an incorrect sound being played when hitting the wooden floors of the church found on the Training Grounds map with a melee weapon.
<*>You can now find mortars at both of the base spawns on Fort Winston.
<*>The cannons inside the siege camp on Fort Winston are now able to cover a greater area.
<*>Included several ambient sounds on Fort Winston.
<*>Fort Winston has received various optimisations.
<*>Fixed an issue where players could hide inside gabions on the Desert Plains map.
<*>Fixed an issue with objects disappearing at a close distance on the Desert Plains map.
<*>The snow accumulation on the Grassy Plains map now looks better.
<*>Adjusted several ladders on Sharpton so players can climb them more easily.
<*>Fixed an issue with cannon rotations on the Sharpton siege map.
<*>Fixed an issue where players could jump out of the window and go into the river on Sharpton.
<*>Fixed an issue where the Officer class showed twice in the list when spawning on the Windmill spawn point on Sharpton.
<*>Fixed an issue with the snow accumulation on the Sharpton map looking too bright.
<*>The camp on Fort Christina has been filled with additional props.
<*>Fixed a spelling mistake on one of the spawn points in Fort Christina.
<*>Fixed several instances where players could get stuck between objects in Fort Christina.
<*>You can now more easily climb the staircases near the gabions in Fort Christina.
<*>Fixed an issue where players couldn’t spawn using the Rifleman class on the Highlands map.
<*>Fixed an issue with recoil on one of the cannons on the Highlands map.
<*>Players will now find additional doors when traversing inside the South Sea Castle fortification. This was done so that the fort is more easily defendable.
<*>Fixed several spelling mistakes in the music selection panel for the British faction.
<*>Fixed an issue with flickering textures on one of the pianos in the game.
<*>Fixed an error that was being caused when an object was destroyed in the game.
Known Issues
Sometimes players may experience graphical issues when playing on the Naval or Coastal game modes. Disconnecting and connecting back to the server will fix the problem. We're working on a permanent fix.
Coastal Siege maps are missing a background when selecting a class in the new spawn menu user interface.
You can ‘Turn On’ a door. Yeah. Brilliant.
Army Conquest is causing issues sometimes on the server. The game mode was temporarily removed from the rotation.
Britain is spelled incorrectly on the Victory Screen emblem.
Look forward to more updates from us in the coming weeks! We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Public BETA v2. Bug Fixes & Additions
The 2nd Public BETA of Game Version 0.14 is now available. The team has been plenty busy fixing issues that cropped up during the previous weeks of testing. We cannot stress enough how crucial it is for us to ensure that the game is functioning as intended before an update sees an official release.
A big thanks to everyone who joined us during last week’s BETA tests! There’ll be more of this taking place in the coming days. Do join us on Discord if you’re interested in participating. We’ll be there listening to feedback and receiving your bug reports.
You need to download the Public BETA branch of the game through Steam.
This can be done by right-clicking on ‘Holdfast: Nations At War’ in your Steam game library, selecting ‘Properties’ from the drop-down menu, going to the ‘Betas’ tab, then selecting the beta version of the game from the drop-down menu.
After the download has been completed, join the ‘Anvil Game Studios Official EU8 - BETA’ or ‘Anvil Game Studios Official NA8 - BETA’ server to check out the update.
Here’s a long list of fixes and some additions.
BETA V2 Changelog - Game Version 0.14.6733.33738
Assigned a variety of different thumbnails to land-based spawn locations. These are present in the new spawn menu user interface.
Greyed out the Location, Attrib and Equip tabs in the new spawn menu user interface to indicate that they’re not selectable. We’ll be looking into this when we re-design the class system.
New end of round/victory tunes for all factions are now in the game! We do hope that you take a liking to these.
Server administrators can now select Brazil as a region through the server configuration file.
» Input the following parameter if you’d like to assign the Brazilian region to your server: server_region brazil
Added an audio reverb for an echoey effect when speaking or other sounds play inside buildings.
Moved the spawn locations on Linburg for the Army Battlefield and Army Assault game modes to encourage combat to take place in other areas besides the village in the centre.
Fixed an issue where the capture point flags weren’t switching to the correct faction when captured in the Army Conquest, Army Siege and Coastal Siege game modes.
Fixed several issues with the new user interface scaling incorrectly on widescreen resolutions.
Map loading screen images will now appear faster.
Improved the looks of the join button in the new spawn menu user interface.
We have now included hover states to all the buttons in the faction selection screen.
Doors are now interactable by both factions irrespective of who owns the capture point in the vicinity. This will change once we get to fully integrate the ability to destroy doors, windows and other defences with melee weapons.
Adjusted the initial spawn positions for players on several maps so you don’t spawn way too much above ground. This is still a work in progress and some spawn locations have yet to be re-visited.
Fixed a bug which caused the randomised ship names for the 8-Gun Schooner to always appear the same when multiple schooners are present in the round.
Fixed an issue where the spawn menu would sometimes appear instead of the options menu when you press the ‘Escape’ key.
Fixed a bug where the chat remained visible whilst navigating through the faction and spawn menu user interfaces.
An infinity symbol now shows in the new spawn menu user interface instead of a -1 value when a particular faction’s reinforcements are unlimited.
Fixed an issue where the faction reinforcements in the new spawn menu user interface didn’t represent the correct value until you spawn.
A message now gets displayed in the spawn menu when a player must wait for the next round to spawn in the Army Assault game mode.
Fixed an issue where players could join at any point in the round whilst playing the Army Assault game mode.
Fixed an issue where players could re-spawn when they die in the Army Assault game mode.
Fixed an issue where players were able to click on the ‘Join Round’ button when they die in the Army Assault game mode.
Fixed an exception that was occurring on the server when changing from one game mode to another.
Fixed several spelling mistakes in the music selection panel for the British faction.
Fixed an issue with warnings appearing on the server every time a player interacts with a door. This was impacting server-side performance.
The doors on the Martello Tower coastal siege map are now positioned correctly.
Birds have been included in the Linburg map.
You should no longer be able to jump on top of Linburg’s windmill.
Fixed several floating props in Linburg.
Removed several colliders from small props so players can navigate more easily in Linburg.
Fixed an issue where players could get stuck between doors in Linburg.
Fixed an issue where players fell through the ground whilst walking in the cabin on the Black Forest map.
You are now able to pass through one of the shallow ponds on Black Forest.
Fixed an issue with snow and rain dynamic weather accumulation on the Black Forest map.
Fixed an issue where players could get stuck between objects in Black Forest.
Changed the grass textures on Black Forest so it blends better with the rest of the environment.
Added another mortar on the Black Forest map.
Fixed an issue where the Black Forest map loading screen appeared to be blurry.
Adjusted several ladders on Sharpton so players can climb them more easily.
Fixed an issue where one of the doors on Sharpton wasn’t interactable.
Fixed an issue with cannot rotations on the Sharpton siege map.
Fixed an issue where players could jump out of the window and go into the river on Sharpton.
More chairs on Fort Christina are now sittable.
Fixed a spelling mistake on one of the spawn points in Fort Christina.
Fixed several instances where players could get stuck between objects in Fort Christina.
You can now more easily climb the staircases near the gabions in Fort Christina.
Fixed an issue where players got stuck when they opted out of sitting from one of the chairs inside the blockhouse in Fort Christina.
The Fort Christina spawn location now appears at the top of the list in the new spawn menu user interface.
Fixed an issue with flickering textures on one of the pianos in the game.
Included several ambient sounds on Fort Winston.
Fixed an issue with recoil on one of the cannons on the Highlands map.
Fixed an issue on the server to prevent the new Black Forest and Linburg maps form outputting a warning at the beginning of the round.
Fixed an error that was being caused when an object was destroyed in the game.
And most importantly, the equip-able flag of the Flagbearer class is now animating again. Make your presence known as every Flagbearer should.
Known Issues
Players can get stuck whilst moving on the stone stairs in Linburg.
You can ‘Turn On’ a door. Yeah. Brilliant.
There’s also a little bit of a surprise for you to discover in this BETA! Look forward to hearing more from us on the full release. We have also been working on the melee combat hitbox issues. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on this.
Once again, we thank you and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Public BETA v1. Engine Upgrade, New Maps & More
The 1st Public BETA of Game Version 0.14 has just been released. Holdfast: Nations At War is now running on the latest version of Unity 2017! Developing this update has been one of the greatest undertakings that the team has embarked on to date with a code base of over 150,000 lines of code receiving iterations to make this all possible.
In this Public BETA you’ll also find the spawn menu user interface we’ve shown in our blog posts along with new maps, interactable doors and functionality for server administrators to switch the initial spawn positions for both factions. We have also re-worked the spawn mechanics so the game can support more than two factions in preparation for the upcoming Prussian faction.
It is crucial for us to ensure that the game is functioning as intended before an update sees an official release. With the unprecedented amount of changes that we have undergone in this update, we certainly appreciate your help with testing it out!
Do join us on Discord if you’re interested in giving us a helping hand. We’ll be there listening to feedback and receiving your bug reports.
You need to download the Public BETA branch of the game through Steam.
This can be done by right-clicking on ‘Holdfast: Nations At War’ in your Steam game library, selecting ‘Properties’ from the drop-down menu, going to the ‘Betas’ tab, then selecting the beta version of the game from the drop-down menu.
After the download has been completed, join the ‘Anvil Game Studios Official EU8 - BETA’ or ‘Anvil Game Studios Official NA8 - BETA’ server to check out the update.
Our Plans. So, What’s Next?
Andreas, our Lead Programmer has been upgrading the game’s engine to expose and make available to the team newer and better technologies that allows us to improve melee combat. Now that the upgrade has been finalised, this will be our next step forward starting from the hitbox issues.
You’ll also be seeing more maps and destruction implemented into the game in addition to having doors and windows destructible by melee weapons. We're also working on the Prussian faction.
Multiple updates to the BETA will follow with bug fixes and additional content before Game Version 0.14 sees an official release on the main branch.
Check out the full changelog for the entire list of fixes, new additions and improvements.
BETA V1 Changelog - Game Version 0.14.6721.38543
Game engine upgrade! Holdfast: NaW is now running on Unity 2017 - This will allow us to utilise new technologies to improve melee combat.
New spawn menu! The spawn menu has been completely re-designed. We do certainly hope that you’ll take a liking to the new menu. It’s going to serve as a great stepping stone to provide players with more information about the class they’re playing in a future update. » We are also displaying a randomised set of ship names in the new user interface so you can easily determine which ship to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates. » The new spawn menu user interface also comes with interactive sounds. » The new spawn menu is still a work in progress.
Spawn mechanics re-work! Holdfast: Nations At War can now support more than two factions. This has been done in preparation for the upcoming Prussian faction.
A new map has been added to the game - Linburg! Capture the town and set up defensive positions. » Input the following parameter to host this map on your community server: map_name linburg
A new map has been added to the game - Black Forest! Designed by Harper. You’ll be seeing this one on the official server map rotations. It’s suitable for both public and line battle play. » Input the following parameter to host this map on your community server: map_name blackforest
Interactable doors! Players can open and close doors by pressing the ‘F’ key. Be sure to close those gates during a siege. » In order to add some strategic element to this, we have also restricted the functionality to open a door based on if your faction is controlling a capture point in the vicinity of the door object for the Army Conquest, Army Siege and Coastal Siege game modes. » Doors will also be made destructible by melee weapons before Game Version 0.14 is out of BETA.
Dev Insight. About The BETA
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Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another Developer Insight blog. As the engine upgrade is finally nearing completion after weeks of hard work, we’ll be talking about our plans for the upcoming BETA! You should definitely continue reading onwards if you’re interested in participating in testing.
Providing the community with access to our in-house development tools has certainly been a good step forward! Development on the Prussians, building destruction, interactable doors, more maps and the new spawn menu user interface is also ongoing.
Here are more details on what the team has been up to.
Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer
One of the most time-consuming updates Dreas has embarked on to date will be done relatively soon! Holdfast: Nations At War’s game engine will be receiving a year’s worth of game engine updates when it’s upgraded from Unity 5.6 to Unity 2017.
All of this is being done with the primary objective to improve upon melee combat. We’ll also be able to utilise newer and better technologies to increase performance and improve stability thanks to the engine upgrade.
So, what’s the next? As you might have already guessed, these unprecedented amounts of changes to the game’s increasingly growing codebase will require plenty of testing to squash any potential bugs. We’ve already started our preliminary testing here in the office but the game supports a whole lot more players per server than our small development team could ever fill up.
As such, we will be looking for the assistance of our great community to help us stress test the servers and ensure a stable full release. If you’re interested in participating, be sure to hop in on our Discord. The first BETA of Game Version 0.14 will be out next week! Multiple updates to the BETA branch will follow thereafter with fixes and additional features.
An announcement will be put up on Discord with further details on how to download the BETA version of the game and participate in the tests. These tests will also be a great opportunity for you to provide us with early feedback and we highly encourage that you do so!
One of the very first things that a player sees when they first opt into the game is the spawn menu user interface. During the past few weeks, Monroy has been working on implementing a new interface which is now in its polishing phase.
After the first implementation of the interface was done, we started looking for feedback from our community and one particular issue came up. This was that it was inconvenient for players to switch from one spawn to another since it was split into two different screens.
So, we then went back to the drawing board and came up with a concept which combines both selecting a spawn point as well as your desired class into one screen. Here’s a look at the User Interface. You’ll also be able to check this interface out in the upcoming BETA.
Some of you might have already noticed from the screenshot that we’re now assigning a randomised set of names to every naval vessel. This will certainly make things easier for everyone to join a ship along with their crewmates.
Monroy has also been busy with other matters. In the upcoming BETA, doors will be interactable. In order to add some strategic element to this, we will also be restricting the functionality to open a door based on if your faction is controlling a capture point in the vicinity of the door object for the Army Conquest, Army Siege and Coastal Siege game modes.
Doors will also be made destructible by melee weapons before Game Version 0.14 is out of BETA.
Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist
He’s been coordinating with Monroy to integrate the new interactable door functionality in each and every map. You can image how many of these objects we have in the game so it was quite the substantial job. Once that was over and done, he switched back to the Prussians. Here’s a look at the Prussian Riflemen in the game!
If you’d like to hear more about the Prussians, we have also finalised the voice acting work required to integrate this new faction. Cheers, shouts, insults, acknowledgements and a whole lot more good stuff.
Building destruction. This is yet another task that Rycon has been working on. You’ll be able to tear down walls, houses and other buildings by pouring round shot into them. Buildings will gradually be made destructible as the game develops. Anyway, less talking, more destruction!
Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer
Walki has been designing a game level centred around the fortification we’ve shown in our previous blog post. The fort itself will be situated on a hilltop in a mountainous location. There’s been plenty of progress done on the map but he would like to add more detail to its surrounding areas before showing it off.
By The Community - Spotlight & Creations
There’s always a great need for a good line battle map. Harper is one of the good fellows who decided to have a go at making maps for the game and we’re already seeing the fruits of his labour. Here’s a work in progress shot of what he’s been doing.
At the enemy, Sir! Before we end this blog post, we’d like to share with you one of our favourite moments from last week’s Twitch streams.
We are extremely grateful for the support that the community has shown for the game! It has been a blast for everyone here in the team during the past few months since our Early Access release.
We'll keep you updated on our progress. Once again, we thank you and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Dev Insight. Prussia & The New UI
Ladies and gentlemen welcome to another developer insight blog post. Throughout the week development has been constantly on-going on both the engine upgrade and the new spawn menu.
As we’ve discussed in our previous instalment, both of these tasks are massive undertakings and will be needing some time to complete. Not pushing weekly game updates also enables us to develop larger and more content-filled updates.
We also already have a good deal of progress to show off on the new spawn menu! More about the long-awaited Prussians, new fortifications, maps and our plans for building destruction below.
Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer
A year’s worth of game engine updates are being integrated by Dreas into Holdfast: Nations At War's existing code base. With 150,000 lines of code continuously growing larger as the game continues to be developed, this task is one of the most time-consuming updates we have embarked on to date.
The engine upgrade will allow us to utilise newer and better technologies. As you’re already aware, the primary objective of this upgrade is to ultimately improve upon melee combat.
There’s been plenty of work done by Dreas on the upgrade but there’s more to be done. As soon as he has completed his work on the upgrade, we’ll be making it available on the BETA branch. We’ll certainly appreciate your help with testing it out then!
Dylan ‘Monroy’ Vassallo - Programmer
Monroy has been placing his priorities towards the integration of the new spawn menu user-interface and it’s shaping up quite nicely! Whilst working closely with our UI designer, Cameron Saliba, he is taking care of both the development of the required additional functionality to make this new user interface work and the placement of the 2D art assets.
One of the first major improvements that players will immediately notice from the old user interface is that it, of course, looks significantly better! A truly marvellous job done by Cameron here on the design.
When you initially join a server, you’ll be presented with a screen which will allow you to select your desired faction. There’ll also be new functionality being added to the game so that you can auto-join a faction. Once all the necessary work is complete, this will solve most of the team-balancing issues that players sometimes experience on public servers.
It has also undergone plenty of changes to provide everyone with more information on the class they’re choosing. This functionality is being developed in preparation for the new class-system that will be introduced in a future update. You can have a look at various developer blog posts on our website if you’re interested in knowing more about this!
You can check our progress on this section of the user interface below. Of course, this is still a work in progress and things will look a whole lot more polished as soon as all the functionality and new art assets have been integrated. Cameron is also designing new thumbnails to represent different spawn locations and a scrollbar to alert players of the available classes.
The flag bearer class will not be able to spawn with a musket as indicated in the screenshot. The equipment information panel is still being coded in.
We’ll also be displaying a randomised set of ship names with the new user interface so you can easily distinguish which ship to spawn on if you’re playing with your crew mates. On a side note, we haven’t forgotten about the bugs that occur whilst playing on naval maps. They’re on our to-do list for fixes.
Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist
Now that Rycon has finalised his work on yet another map for Holdfast: Nations At War, it’s time to show more of it off. You’ll be able to check Linberg out in the upcoming update.
One of the most anticipated updates to date is undoubtedly the Prussian faction. There’s more to be done before you’ll get to see them in the game but we thought that it’s an opportune moment to show more of Rycon’s progress on their integration. Here’s a look at one the infantry units and the officer class in the game.
What’s up next on Rycon’s list you may ask? Destruction! Our coastal fortifications already feature destructible environments and we now want to bring the same level of destructibility to the buildings present on land-based maps. Artillery will be playing a bigger role when this makes it into the game.
Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer
Walki has been making great progress on the fortification we hinted at in our previous blog post. The model itself is also based on a real fort. You’re welcome to have a guess as to where he took his inspiration from!
Interested in designing maps or perhaps new uniforms for Holdfast: Nations At War? We’re now giving access to in-house development tools that’ll allow you to do so! These tools require a significant level of technical know-how but if you know your way around things, you’re more than welcome to apply.
We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Feel free to hop in on Discord for a chat.
Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Dev Insight. Game Engine Upgrade & Spawn Menu
Welcome to another Developer Insight blog post. Today, we’ll be going into detail on a major undertaking the team has been undergoing. There’s been mention of melee combat improvements in our previous blog posts and as we’ve been investigating what can be done towards this effort, we determined that an upgrade to Holdfast: NaW’s game engine is required.
There’s other work ongoing in various other fronts including new game levels, bug fixes, re-working spawn mechanics in preparation for the upcoming Prussian faction, integrating the new spawn menu user interface and solving team balancing issues.
Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer
Holdfast: NaW’s code base is massive. With over 150,000 lines of code growing as the game continues to be developed, Dreas will be upgrading from Unity 5.6 to Unity 2017. This means that he’ll be integrating over a year’s worth of game engine updates into the game’s existing code base.
Albeit this being one of the most time-consuming development tasks that he has been working on, it’ll definitely be one to look out for. Our main purposes for upgrading the engine is to first and foremost experiment with using new technologies to improve melee combat, however, the upgrade will provide us with additional benefits besides this.
With 150 players all in a single battlefield and most of which are in close proximity forming glorious lines like proper gentleman should, we’re always looking into ways on how we can improve performance especially on low-end machines. This is yet another reason why Dreas is upgrading the game’s engine. It’ll provide us with even greater possibilities to increase frame rate when those big battles are occurring.
Game stability and graphical fidelity are also two other reasons why Dreas is working on this task. Rycon will be having a go at making Holdfast: NaW look nicer in future updates.
Dylan ‘Monroy’ Vassallo - Programmer
Since the release of the Conquest game mode update, Dylan has been re-designing the spawn mechanics in preparation for the upcoming Prussian faction. The way a faction is assigned a spawn location in the game is ‘hard-coded’ at the moment but this will be changing. He’ll be providing server administrators with the functionality to select the desired factions to start with for each and every round in a server’s map rotation.
As soon as Monroy completes this task, server administrators will also be able to switch the starting position of both factions in all game modes. It’ll certainly come in handy for competitive events!
This re-design is a necessary stepping stone towards the integration of the new spawn menu user interface. We are also aware of the team balancing issues that sometimes occur during matches. Monroy will be working on solving this issue in conjunction with the integration of the new spawn menu.
Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist
Rycon has been working on yet another map for Holdfast: Nations At War. This one should be making it in the game along with the upcoming update since there’s not much left to be done besides optimizations.
Here’s a look at the map. Most of the combat will be focused on the fortified village in the centre. There are also plenty of opportunities for flanking manoeuvres to occur.
Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer
Walki loves his fortifications. After he designed and developed Fort Winston which was released along with the Army Conquest game mode update, he’s currently in the process of modelling another fortification for his upcoming map. This one, however, is going to be far more complex and majestic.
Look forward to our future blog posts as Walki will surely be showing this one off.
Do you have any ideas or concepts for maps you’d like to see introduced in the game? You’re more than welcome to share them with us! Head over to our forums through the link below to do so.
We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
A Look At Prussia! Holdfast: NaW is now 35% Off
Holdfast: Nations At War is now 35% off for a limited time! We’ll also be showing more of our progress on the glorious Prussian faction.
Muskets with relatively long reload times, men marching into battle at the sound of pipes, drums, fifes and violins - Played by specific classes, Officers leading others to victory or to an inevitable death and mighty warships from the golden age of sail are some of the things that you’ll find in Holdfast: Nations At War. This all happens with over 150 players per server!
It would be great if you can help us spread the word around about the sale to bring this genre of Musket Warfare games that we all love in the limelight. We want to continue strengthening the following behind the game as it grows and develops.
Prussia! Development Progress
Everyone here is familiar with how Prussia got voted in by an overwhelming majority. It has been a pleasure of ours since then developing and designing the upcoming faction for Holdfast: Nations At War.
Today, we’ll be collectively going into our progress on the Prussians. There’s nothing better to start off with than by showing a couple of never before revealed uniforms! We’ve also recently got a voice actor in a studio to record insults, cheers, shouts and orders in German.
Before we release the Prussians, we plan on completely re-designing the spawn menu as we’ve shown in our Development Roadmap. It’s a hefty bunch of work but we’re up to the challenge. Be sure to keep a look out on our blog posts for more sneak peeks.
Game Updates. Army Conquest Mode
With the release of our latest game update, we’ve introduced the Army Conquest game mode. Co-ordinate assaults, capture and hold objectives to become victorious! There’s also a new map - Fort Winston that you can check out. Work on the next update is on-going.
Have a look at the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdGMSef0csI
Weekly Events. Enlist in A Regiment (Game Clans)
Crews and regiments (clans) host weekly events where they follow the rules of engagement relevant to the Napoleonic era. It is a delight of ours seeing servers fill up to the brim with players, as regiments battle in formation.
You should definitely consider participating in one of these events. Head over to the link down below to enlist in a crew or regiment to your liking.
We highly suggest that you register on our official forums! There you can join a regiment, provide us with feedback on the game and become more involved with our community. Feel free to encourage others to do the same.
Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Game Update. Conquest Game Mode!
Holdfast: Nations At War has been updated. The much-requested objective based game mode is here! Co-ordinate assaults, capture and hold objectives to become victorious in the brand-new Army Conquest mode.
We'll also be introducing yet another map - Fort Winston, re-designing the way capture points work and adding functionality to switch the initial spawn positions for both factions in this update.
Conquest Game Mode. Control & Conquer
Here are a few key points to ensure your team’s success in the Army Conquest game mode. Be sure to follow them throughout! First and foremost, your primary objective in this game mode is to capture and hold more points than the enemy. Neither team will start gathering tickets from captured points unless one faction is in the possession of a greater number of points.
You are also able to gather tickets by eliminating enemy infantry but this should only be seen as a secondary objective. The team which holds most of the capture points for the longest period of time will ultimately triumph.
It is in your team’s best interest to defend these capture points. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a relatively quick loss. A faction will gather tickets at greater numbers the greater the difference of capture points in their possession. Taking an aggressive stance also has its benefits as upon capturing a point, your team will obtain a set amount of initial tickets. It’s all about finding the right balance.
Play together! Find an officer well up to the task of leadership during a match. Your officer’s capabilities and tactical know-how are now increasingly more important in this game mode. Assaults must be coordinated as points cannot be captured unless your team is near its vicinity and in greater numbers than the enemy. Each map also differs in strategy from the other.
You can also go for an indisputable victory by capturing all points in a map. It’ll definitely be a sight to behold.
Join the 'Anvil Game Studios Official EU2 - Army Conquest' or 'Anvil Game Studios Official NA 2 - Army Conquest' server to check it out today! All of the existing land-based maps in Holdfast: Nations At War including Fort Winston, support the Army Conquest game mode.
Army Conquest
Control and conquer! Defend and capture points around the map to become victorious.
Gather tickets! Control more capture points than the enemy to gather tickets. This is key to winning the match.
Play together! Co-ordinate assaults and devise strategies. Points cannot be captured unless your team is in greater numbers.
New Map! Fort Winston
Have a look at the very first creation from Walki! Fort Winston is specifically designed for the new Army Conquest game mode. You’ll also be able to assault Fort Winston by land or by sea in the Army Siege and Coastal Siege game modes in a future update.
Capture Points! Re-designed & Improved
We’ve re-designed the way capture points work. You’ll surely notice this in the Army Siege, Coastal Siege and of course, the new Army Conquest game mode. The biggest change of all is that a single player contesting a capture point will no longer prevent the entire team from spawning. For a point to become contested and start being captured, players affiliated with a particular faction must be in greater numbers.
Capture points now have multiple stages. In the Army Conquest game mode, for instance, all but one capture point starts from the neutral stage (white flag). This means that the flag is controlled by neither faction.
Once a capture point is contested and eventually captured, its ownership will be changed to reflect the affiliated faction. Unless the point becomes contested again, players will be able to spawn on it. Be it British or French, you’ll find that the flag model itself will change to distinguish the respective faction.
The related User Interface has also undergone a significant number of changes and improvements. We want players to easily get accustomed to the game mode and instead place their efforts towards teamwork and strategy. Notifications when a capture point is lost or controlled, different shapes to distinguish flag ownership and more.
Initial Faction Spawn Positions. Interchangeable
There’s a whole lot of players who are particularly adamant about always joining one particular faction! Be it for the better or worse, they only get to see one side of the map. In this update, we’ll be changing that by having the initial spawn positions for the British and French faction in the Army Conquest game mode to be interchangeable.
The side at which a faction spawns is also configurable by server administrators. You’ll be seeing this supported on all of our other existing game modes including Army Assault and Siege in a future update. It’ll certainly come in handy for competitive events!
Melee Combat Progress. An Update
It’s been quite the challenging process working on optimisations to solidify the game’s back-end. As most of our development in this area is now complete, we are now in a position to start placing our priorities towards core mechanics!
Unfortunately, the melee combat improvements we were planning to release along with this update, weren’t finalized in time. Our sincere apologies for this. Even though we faced a minor setback, all that we’ve promised in our Developer Insight blog posts still stands.
We have assigned Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech, the game’s Lead Programmer to place his focus on melee combat improvements. This mechanic is at the heart of our community and it’ll be given the proper attention it deserves.
First and foremost, Dreas is at this very moment looking into reducing the delay that players experience when striking with a melee weapon. There are other factors which are currently impacting combat fluidity besides the one mentioned above. He’ll continue working on melee combat until the necessary results are achieved.
If you’re interested in participating in the game’s development we highly suggest that you join in on our Discord! Through this, you can be informed when we’re hosting BETA tests to gather feedback and make sure that everything is working as intended before a game update is officially released.
https://discordapp.com/invite/holdfastgame
Introducing Walki. Level Designer
Meet our latest addition to the team! For those following our Developer Insight blog posts, you’re already familiar with what he has been up to. Fort Winston and indeed all the new models present on that map including the fort are his creation.
Please do give him a warm welcome! We cannot be more pleased that he’s now a part of the team.
Here’s the full change-log for Game Version 0.13. You’ll find all the server-side configuration settings you need to play on the new map, host the Army Conquest game mode or to switch the initial faction spawn locations on your community server.
Changelog 13 - Game Version 0.13.6662.34328
The brand-new Army Conquest game mode! Co-ordinate assaults, capture and hold objectives to become victorious.
» Playable on all existing maps.
» Input the following parameter per map rotation to host the Army Conquest game mode on your community server: game_mode ArmyConquest » You can also input the following parameters to adjust the game mode to your liking: conquest_tick_reward 1, conquest_max_tickets 2500, conquest_ticker_time_seconds 1 and conquest_tickets_per_capture 50
New map! Fort Winston. Playable on the Army Conquest, Battlefield, Assault & Deathmatch game modes.
» Input the following parameter to host this map on your community server: [I]map_name fortwinston
<*>Capture points have been re-designed. New mechanics, models, sounds and user-interface.
<*>The initial faction spawn positions are now interchangeable. This functionality is only available for the Army Conquest game mode at the moment but it’ll be made available for other game modes in a future update.
» Input the following parameters per map rotation to change the initial spawn positions: faction_attacking french and faction_defending british <*>You can now find Swivel Guns on the Training Grounds map.
<*>Changed the Coastal Siege capture point positions on Fort Imperial and Martello Tower.
<*>Fixed a number of exceptions to improve game stability and performance.
<*>Fixed a warning which was outputted related to textures on certain maps.
<*>Fixes some issues with floating props on Fort Christina.
<*>Fixed issues with terrain tessellation on Fort Christina.
<*>A possible fix for the bug which causes a green screen to flash when a player touches the water on Coastal or Naval maps.
A big thanks to all the regiments and players alike for participating in the Closed-BETA tests. If you’re interested in participating in these tests, feel free to join in on our Discord.
Be sure the keep an eye out for another blog post tomorrow! We’ll be revealing more of our progress on the glorious Prussian faction. Stay tuned.
We’re working on the next update. Thank you very much for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Dev Insight. Onwards To Version 0.13
Welcome to the second instalment of the Developer Insight blog posts. Today, we’ll be talking about more of our progress on Game Version 0.13. This update will be seeing its official release next week!
Here’s what the team has been up to.
Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer
All Dreas has been up to this week is melee combat. One of the inherent issues that are currently impacting combat fluidity is the delay that players experience when striking with a melee weapon. As such, Dreas has been looking into reducing this delay.
Following the release of the upcoming game update, melee combat improvements will continue to be given the highest of priorities. We know that this mechanic is at the heart of our community and we want to give it the proper attention it deserves. There’ll be more improvements coming on melee combat after the release of Game Version 0.13.
Dylan ‘Monroy’ Vassallo - Programmer
As we want to make sure that the much requested objective based game mode is of quality, this week, Dylan has been placing his priorities towards polishing it. Adding new sounds, finalizing work on the server side configuration settings, re-designing the system that displays messages when a point is captured and a whole lot of new User Interface additions. He’s also been fixing bugs that cropped up in our closed-beta test.
The way capture points work will also be seeing changes and improvements. This will be present in both the new objective based game mode and the existing siege modes.
Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist
Once again Rycon has been working closely with Monroy in ensuring that the objective based game mode is polished before its release. He’s been going through all of our existing game levels and fixing bugs. He’s also been working on enhancing the game level we’ve shown in the previous insight blog post with birds, critters, and other animals whilst adding additional props to fill the scene up.
The final process that a game level goes through is optimisation. This, he managed to complete this week. You’ll be seeing ‘Fort Winston’ in the upcoming update.
Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer
After he finalized his work on a set of doors for Fort Winston, he’s now designing a new game level which won’t be making it into the next update. It’s going to be an interesting one! Looking forward to more of this in our future blog posts.
Walki is also making sure that the new art assets he’s creating are as modular as possible. This, of course, includes the fortifications that are present in the new game level. We want to continually increase the possibilities for level designs in preparation for the future inclusion of the map editor.
Holdfast: Nations At War will be updated next week! Oh yes, we’ll also be showing more of our progress on the Prussian faction in the blog post. Stay tuned.
Thanks again for your support and as always, may good health be yours.
- Anvil Game Studios
Dev Insight. First In The Series!
There’ll be a new blog post series starting from this week! Developer Insight. We want to keep the community up to date on the game’s development as we progress towards the release of an update. It’ll also be a great opportunity for all those interested to provide us with early feedback on content.
The Developer Insight blog posts will be short in format. It won’t be entirely possible to reveal everything from the get-go we’ve been working on that particular week as new additions or improvements to the game could still be under an early design or development phase.
Here’s what the team has been up to this week.
Andreas ‘Dreas’ Grech - Lead Programmer
Thanks to the various optimisations that Dreas has been working on since our release on Early Access, the game is now running on a solid back-end. This means that he is now in a position to start placing more of his priorities towards core mechanics of the game.
Melee combat will be seeing improvements in the upcoming update. As things are still under development, we’ll be going into more detail on this in our game update changelog.
You’ll also be seeing more bug fixes on 3D VoIP and performance optimisations by Dreas in the next update.
Dylan ‘Monroy’ Vassallo - Programmer
Monroy has been with us for a little over two months and you’ve already seen his work on Bagpipers amongst other things such as the Hardcore mode. After his work on the regiment (clan) focused updates, he’s now developing an objective based game mode for everyone to enjoy.
Monroy is also making sure that this mode features plenty of server-side configuration settings.
Julian ‘Rycon’ Farrugia - Lead 3D Artist
Rycon has been working with Monroy in ensuring that all of Holdfast’s existing maps support the new game mode. He’s been putting a lot of thought into where to place objectives for each and every map and designing new models to make sure that this game mode is as polished as possible before its release.
He’s also in the final phases of the required implementation tasks to get Walki’s new map into the game.
Walentin ‘Walki’ Lamonos - Level Designer
Meet our latest addition to the team! We’ll be sure to provide a more official introduction for Walki in our game update blog post. This week, Walki has finalised his work on designing a new game level that you’ll be seeing in the upcoming update.
Here’s the very first look at the map. We’re eagerly looking forward to seeing this map play out! It will also support the new objective based game mode.
We’d like to end this post with a shout out to Auha! He organised a Public Linebattle event for a good cause and raised a total of 1400 GPB for the Help For Heroes and Mission 22 charities. Our heartfelt thanks go to all the regiments and players alike who participated in the event.
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