Welcome to the thirty-second devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of March 2023.
(More) Updates on Cheat Prevention Tools
Our last patch from mid-April contained some fixes and changes to the code to help address some of the more egregious exploits that we were seeing plague many of the servers (such as people being able to spam grenades, and so on). Since this last patch, we have not seen this occur again, and we have not received any reports about it either from both players as well as server owners/admins, so it’s looking like the changes that were made are doing what they set out to do so far.
This of course does not mean that cheating is completely stamped out or eliminated (nor will it likely ever be totally eliminated), however, we have certainly seen a steep drop off since pushing this last patch, and servers should be much cleaner to play on now. So far we have seen from a few of our sources within the cheat making communities that some older cheats got updated for this patch and are being used so we know they are still out there, and I am sure people will run into them, however, these look much more like the traditional cheats that you tend to see in other games (such as ESP, 3NFLI, aimbot, and so on). If you suspect that someone is using these on the server you are playing on, please make sure that you notify the respective server owners/admins so they can keep a close watch and take the necessary actions that they see fit (and I highly recommend that you do your best to gather proof/evidence as well, as some of those more traditional cheats are much harder to determine whether or not they are in fact being used—things like ESP are tough to know for sure, however, it’s pretty obvious if someone is using something like an aimbot if they are consistently killing players from very far distances and have an extremely high K/D for instance, so some of these things players can use common sense and observe the telltale signs of to know whether or not there is actually cheating going on).
Our next update(s) to further address cheating and give server owners the tools that they need to keep their communities safe will contain the Steam API variables that we discussed in prior devblogs, as well as the optional vote kick system. These will either both come together in the next update, or will be spread out between two simultaneous updates, but you can expect the Steam API stuff to come first between the two. To briefly recap what these will contain, the Steam WRMKA API tools is what will allow server owners to restrict joins based on certain factors such as whether or not their account has a VAC and/or game ban, how long it has been since their last one, their account age, and so on. The vote kick system is exactly what it sounds like: an in–game system that players can use to initiate a vote kick on somebody that they suspect of cheating or breaking any other server rules, then the whole server can vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and the person in question’s fate on the server is then decided by the community (the severity of the punishment for a successful kick being dictated by the server owners/admins). To clarify on a couple of points for this system, server owners will have several options about how they set this up, such as what constitutes a vote succeeding or failing, how long the kick will be for (you can think of this more like a timed/temporary ban than just a simple kick), and whether or not their server even uses the vote system in the first place (this will be entirely optional of course, and not every server will feature a vote kick system unless they explicitly choose to include it).
After the next update(s) mentioned above, we will be revisiting our plans for incorporating EAC and determining whether it will be worthwhile to proceed on incorporating this right after, or if we should return to game features like finishing up the first iteration of vehicles, base building/construction, and so on first. To BXGFQ be clear, we still do plan on incorporating EAC as an option for server owners, so revisiting our plans more so pertains to when we actually do it (not IF), as we would like to get back to working on the actual game itself sooner rather than later. We believe that the systems discussed above will have a far greater impact on curbing any cheating issues than EAC will, however, only time will tell of course so we will cross that bridge when we get there after these next updates take place—our main goal right now is getting the community-ran servers to a place where the server owners/admins have the tools that they need to effectively moderate their communities without a tremendous amount of additional work, and making it so that if/when players do encounter cheaters that it is nothing they aren’t already used to seeing in other games, cheaters are dealt with in a swift and timely manner, and most importantly they have a hard 4R8KV time being able to come back once they have been removed from a server.
Now on to March’s recap:
New Lighting System
We have now begun the process of completely replacing the Ultra Dynamic Sky system for how we light levels/environments. This new system uses a custom PBR (Physically-Based Rendering) lighting system that makes use of pseudo-photorealistic lighting values and techniques, and features a variety of customizable parameters such as wind, sky, and flow controls. This will LX3QZ allow for full control of how the level design team and modders alike choose to create the lighting for their levels.
Here are some images to showcase how this new lighting system looks—the first image of each set is before the new lighting during the day, second is after the new lighting during day and sunset:
For the more technically-inclined that want to know more specifics about what exactly this new lighting system is doing, here is a list of its features/details:
Proportional photorealistic lighting values
Global lighting scenario adjustment support
Global Skydome/Fog Z Offset customization
Global Skylight Relative Z Offset automation + customization support
Support for Skydome Realtime Sky Capture, HDRI Panorama, UV manipulation, HDRI M7L49 Texture Adjustment, Sky Flow Mask, UV-based "wind" distortion, Noise-based Variation, Sun Disc customization, and Directional Light vector-based flow masking and texture luminance adjustments
Automated Directional Light/Skydome Sun Disc pairing support
Fog Automated Texture-based Fog Inscattering + customization support
Eye Adaptation/Camera Exposure automation + customization support
Modified film stock/default color grading to better match natural vision
Gaussian Bloom support
World-Space SSAO support
DFAO support
Multiplicative SSAO/DFAO rendering support
Directional 3LK3T Light light shaft occlusion and bloom support
On the current stable branch/build only Risala features this new lighting layer, however, the team is working on making new layers for each map so that we can totally move off of Ultra Dynamic Sky for the base maps (UDS will still remain in the SDK though for those that wish to still use it in modding). In the next update additional levels (maybe all depending on the level design team’s speed) will be overhauled to replace existing lighting layers with the new one. This system is now also available in the latest SDK update for those that want to start experimenting with it for their own map creations.
Character Model Updates
A handful of updates and improvements were made to some of the preexisting character models.
To start, we are beginning to swap out placeholder heads with new G80A6 MetaHuman heads (before and after):
The Insurgent faction also received some adjustments to their uniform and gear, also displayed in the before/after images above.
The uniforms for the NVA faction were updated to have more detail:
The uniforms for the USMC faction were updated to have rolled cuffs on some of the variants:
Last but not least the US soldiers for Operation: Michael received a number of updates. The uniforms had their colors and mesh adjusted, the soldier’s gear was tweaked to be smaller and more uniform, the Squad 9QZI9 Leader head was swapped out with a more modern one, and camo netting was added to the MG class helmet:
Maps
Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin received new capture routes that use the rest of the map, the foliage was updated, the trench networks continue to be expanded upon, new lighting was added, and the town of Bony is now being set up, which will be a key point on the map.
Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach continues to receive foliage throughout the whole map, and more detail is gradually being added to the smaller showcase area of Vierville-Sur-Mer 4Q3LZ.
Vehicles
Turret Animations
Now that the driving and passenger animations are more or less completed, the animator has moved QYVFY on to creating the turret systems that will be used for static weaponry and emplacements:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Bots/AI
At long last we are nearing the point where the team is preparing to bring in the latest AI updates to the dev build of the game to start testing everything—as soon as the lead programmer has some time between his other taskings, he and the AI programmer will be meeting to review 05I85 his work and start taking the next steps to migrate it all into the main code base that the rest of the team is working on (AI actually has its own separate branch). We will be sure to let everyone know when these are ready for testing in the dev build for those that want to check it out.
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Thank you for checking out this month’s devblog!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
A few weeks ago we published a roadmap for our planned anti-cheat updates. This includes things such as vote-kicking, VAC banned player filters, EAC integration, and most importantly... our own in-game anti-cheat updates.
As of this past weekend, we've implemented our first pass of in-game anti-cheat updates to fight cheating in Operation: Harsh Doorstop. This won't solve all cheating, but it will absolutely stop some of the more severe exploits cheaters have been using when playing the game.
These updates will strengthen server authority on several systems that have recently been most exploited by cheaters. Primarily systems that allow cheaters to spoof player teleportation and weapon settings (such as the "air strike" cheat) have been updated with additional checks to prevent explotation.
What are our next steps?
Our mission with Operation: Harsh Doorstop is to constantly listen to our players, and allow them to guide our focus. The community has made it absolutely clear since launch that anti-cheat measures are the most important thing for us to focus on, so that is exactly what we have been doing.
Now that our initial anti-cheat update is launched that addresses the most severe exploits... our next immediate task will be implementing the VAC ban player filter. This will allow servers to (optionally) set their filters to automatically block VAC banned players from playing on servers. This will likely take around two weeks to complete.
Once the VAC ban filter is launched, our next focus will be on implementing the vote kick system. This system will allow players to kick members of their team they are suspicious of cheating. For anyone that is concerned about cheaters or griefers from exploiting this system, we'll also be implementing server-side options that block VAC banned players from voting. We'll also implement an option to automatically disable vote-kicking if an admin is actively on the server.
What can the community do to help?
Please continue reporting cheaters. Report when they cheat, how they cheat, and in as much detail as possible. If a cheater uploads a video of them cheating, send it to us. If you find a cheat forum post detailing how their cheats work, send it to us. If you know where the cheats are being distributed (some cheaters even upload their cheats to GitHub) send it to us.
As always our community feedback tracker is open and we are constantly monitoring it.
Each and every one of you (even the cheaters) have been instrumental in our process of improving the game. From feedback on our SDK to prototypes of new features or simply feedback on which features you like the most... your voice has shaped our game, and your voice will continue to shape everything we do.
More updates to come. Can't stop, won't stop.
Looking forward to sharing our upcoming progress with you soon.
Cheers.
- Bluedrake42
Updates on our destruction prototype...
For anyone interested in the progress we've been making on our destruction prototype, check out the following video!
Supporters will have early access to this test map! If you want access to the upcoming multiplayer playtests for our destruction system, consider becoming a supporter of the project!
Throughout the years I have been creating content featuring some of my favorite tactical games in the genre. The developers behind many of these games I consider to be my good friends... and they have supported me and our studio throughout our game development journey. As a way to give something back... I would like to announce our new series of partnerships with some of my favorite studios in the indie genre. Any studio we are partnered with will be featured in discount bundles on our Steam store page. This means that anyone who is a paid supporter of our game on Steam, will be able to get any of our partnered games for a discount... sometimes up to 50% off!
Thank you so much (to all of you) for supporting both myself and our entire team on our journey. I'm so incredibly excited to give something back to all of you. I also hope that our supporting members will appreciate the discounts they receive for some of these incredible games.
You can find our first series of partnership bundles below!
Zero Hour is developed by my good friend, Meheraj7. I remember when I first met him, and learned that he was starting a game development studio in his home city in Bangladesh. Watching Meheraj create a successful tactical shooter, on the opposite side of the world, with a fraction of the resources most studios have... has been nothing short of inspiring. I hope you all decide to check out his game Zero Hour.
Black One: Blood Brothers is developed by my friend, Helios. Watching his project start from humble beginnings and transform into the incredible project it is today, has helped me understand that games that start small... can become something greater. Thank you so much Helios for showing me what hard work, and tenacity can achieve.
The developers behind World of Guns might be the core reason my Youtube channel is as successful as it is. I first started working with the team behind World of Guns (Noble Empire) in 2014, when they first reached out to tell me about their project. Since then, I have gone on to create videos that have accumulated a cumulative hundreds of millions of views using their software. Thank you so much for everything you've done for your community Noble Empire, we wouldn't be here without you.
I hope you all choose to check out each of these projects, and I can assure you that more partnerships with some of my favorite studios are still coming. I'm so happy to finally have a game on Steam where I can start working directly with some of my favorite game development teams in this way, and I can't wait to give something back to all the developers who have helped me so much throughout the years.
Besides that, keep an eye out for our next development blog... and more incredible things coming to Operation: Harsh Doorstop soon.
- Bluedrake42, founder of the Operation: Harsh Doorstop project.
Update v0.12.0.0 Changelog
General
Client/Server security fixes and improvements
Gameplay
Fixed some situations of consumable items (grenades, bandages) requiring a reload of the item if the player unequips it immediately after use or receives an ammo resupply
Fixed footstep sounds not playing if Shadow Quality is set to Low
Fixed 'Accessed None' log warning on dedicated servers when characters are cleaned up
Fixed player name/score stats (displayed from the steam client server browser and other external server browsers) only getting updated after a map change
Fixed cases of duplicate bullet impact fx under poor network conditions
Fixed missing blood impact fx when a corpse is shot
Fixes and optimizations to animated magazine system
Fixed Ghost/Fly/Walk cheat cmds not working in offline play or for server admins when cheats were enabled
User Interface
Resolved various UX and inconsistency issues when remapping keybindings from the options menu
Fixed pause menu being inaccessible if the game state was paused
Core Art
Props, Buildings, Characters, and Weapon materials had their parented materials adjusted to be more consistent
Turned off tiling and albedo switch on several material instances to reduce shader complexity
Turned off Dithering on foliage materials
Increased resolution on several texture sets from 2k to 4k
Rebuilt HLODs for all levels
Lighting
New Lighting System
New lighting Blueprint, separate from Ultra Dynamic Sky. UDS is still available for modders
Physics
Optimized Ragdoll Capsules for more realistic physics ragdoll
Reduced the number of capsules the physics asset uses
Ragdoll physics bodies transition into sleep state much faster, improving performance
Characters
Fixed Dark eyes on LOD 1-4 on all characters
Fixed LODs having the wrong material assigned to LODs 1-4 on multiple character sets
Audio
Set Preselected sounds for Equip sounds, reduces the number of sounds loaded, reducing memory usage
Increased Footstep sounds by 50%
Foliage
Created Distance Field Meshes for Palm Trees
Imported new European Alder foliage set
Credits
Added several contributor names
Loading Screen
Edited several loading screen images
Maps
Risala - Foliage and road spline fixes
Khafji - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues
Montecassino - Foliage and road spline fixes, spawn points moved
Argonne - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues
Lam Dong - Optimized Jungle Hut collision primitives
Carentan - Added more buildings and layout, added sidewalks and walls
Omaha - Added more buildings and foliage
Saint Quentin - Added more buildings, trenches, and fields, added 3 AAS routes, landscape sculpting
Tan Binh - Added 3 AAS routes
SDK
Reverted default Navigation Geometry Gathering Mode from "Lazy" back to "Instant" as a workaround for an engine bug that may cause the navmesh to not generate on some sections of a landscape, depending on how the landscape itself was sculpted. Map authors must now explicitly opt into "Lazy" navmesh generation for their landscapes if they wish to continue using it as a performance optimization on large maps using a dynamic navmesh w/invokers.
The fire animation behavior for newly created weapons has changed to allow weapon fire anims to finish playing after weapon fire has ended. Previously, weapon fire animations would be synced up with the configured fire rate and would end prematurely after the weapon had stopped firing (if the fire rate was shorter than the length of the animation itself). This behavior can be controlled via the "Stop All Fire Anims After Fire Rate Delay" setting of the weapon blueprint.
Enabled editor setting by default that allows for impure nodes to be explicitly disabled or toggle Development-only attribute on/off via the context menu by right-clicking them (CAUTION: EXPERIMENTAL)
Improved weapon API documentation
API: Add ReloadStarted and ReloadFinished weapon BP events
API: Add ForceStopFiring function for weapons
Destruction updates, new interface, server mod support, and more...
Welcome to the fourth development vlog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop! For anyone that would like to get straight into the action, watch the full video below:
For everyone else, here is a summary of what is discussed in the video.
New destruction systems are being worked on.
In the coming weeks, supporters will be able to experiment with new prototype destruction systems that are being added to the game. Keep in mind these systems are very early in development, and potentially unstable. However, testing and working on these systems early will give us invaluable insights when we finally move to fully incorporate them into the base game. For anyone who wants to get access to these systems before they're released to the public, consider becoming a donator on Steam. Donators will get early access to these systems before the rest of the community.
This system will be familiar to players from games like Hell Let Loose, Squad, Project Reality, and other games that are based on radial menu systems. The radial menu was by far the most voted option when we polled the community on what interface foundation we should base our system on, and we hope you like the system we've been prototyping so far. You can see a live demonstration of this system in the video above.
New anti-cheat, player filter settings, and vote kick options coming for servers.
Cheating has undeniably been an issue for Operation: Harsh Doorstop since launch, and we're rolling out a number of powerful systems to help combat this problem in upcoming updates. This will include systems that will allow servers to filter unwanted players by checking for previous VAC bans, game bans, and community bans. Additionally vote kicking will allow players to remove any users that are disrupting multiplayer games, and additional settings that forbid known cheaters from participating in or initiating kick votes will further protect legitimate players from being abused.
Server integration with Steam workshop is coming.
A system that has been highly requested is automatic downloading of any required modifications when joining custom servers. Because of this, we've moved up this feature to our second highest priority following the implementation anti-cheat systems. This will allow you to automatically subscribe and download required modifications prior to joining any server, and we will be further expanding on these systems when we further iterate on our in-game modification management menus.
The community is still outputting incredible creations on the Steam workshop.
You can find some of the coolest modifications available (for free) on the Steam workshop linked below. Many of these modifications are shown in the video above, so make sure you check it out!
That's everything for today, hopefully I'll see you on the battlefield soon!
Development Blog #31 [February 2023]
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the thirty-first devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of February 2023.
Updates on Cheat Prevention Tools
Right now our work on cheat prevention tools is our top priority, and the main focus for our lead programmer. We are working as quickly as we can to begin rolling out a series of solutions and tools that should greatly 4NDD2 help to curb the amount of cheaters that are seen in the multiplayer servers (keep in mind we only have one programmer working on this, and we are working on it as fast as we can given the resources that we have).
This will be a multi-step, iterative process where we are essentially “layering” these solutions and tools on top of one another to prevent certain cheats from being able to occur, and giving server owners filtration methods to attempt to keep cheaters out. To briefly recap what this will look like:
First, there will be a patch that addresses some vulnerabilities in the code that have been frequently exploited and are the culprit to most of the cheating that has been seen so far. There is not much more that I can say or reveal about this other than it will take care of most of the more egregious cases that we have been seeing (at least the ones that we are aware of at this present time, and can currently provide fixes for—there is of course still always the possibility that further exploits/methods will be discovered over time, and we will have to address/tackle those as they come up).
Second, server owners will be able to utilize a series of filters and restrictions to prevent potential cheating accounts from joining. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to restrict joins based on whether or not the account has VAC and/or game bans, how many of these bans they M32J6 have, how long it has been since they have received these bans, Steam account age, and how many hours that they have in the game.
Server owners will also be able to “exempt” certain Steam accounts that might fail any of the checks that the server owner imposes on accounts, such as if they want their server to have a certain level of join restrictions, but that would mean a friend who they trust not to cheat on their server then cannot play there due to something like an old game ban that a developer placed on their account over something not related to cheating—in this scenario they would be able to exempt this player from those restrictions, thereby allowing them to join and play (this can be handled on a per server/individual basis, which will allow security to remain high, but provide a means for legitimate players to be let in when they probably shouldn’t otherwise be restricted).
Third, a vote kick system will be implemented that server owners can choose to turn on or off for their respective servers. Server owners will be able to also set further parameters for this system if they choose to use it, such as dictating how long someone will be kicked for (it’s actually not a “kick”, it’s more like a “timed ban” that expires after X hours), what the vote succeed/fail conditions should look like, and so on.
Fourth, Easy Anti-Cheat will be implemented as a tool that server owners will be able to opt-in/out of as a final measure of protection for if/when all of the aforementioned systems happen to be bypassed. This is something that we will have to adjust ourselves, and server G93XJ owners will only be able to choose whether or not they want to include it but will not have control over what it actually does. In addition, as stated in the last devblog, EAC is NOT a magic bullet, and server owners/admins will still need to actively moderate their servers if they wish to keep them free of cheaters (this will just help alleviate that workload along the way).
General disclaimer/reminder: The steps outlined above are in the order that we will likely see them implemented in, however, that is always subject to change depending on the circumstances. In addition, just to reiterate, there is no perfect cheat prevention method for multiplayer games. All of the solutions outlined above are meant to add varying layers of security for servers to help alleviate the amount of cheaters that will attempt to play on servers, however, there will always be a possibility that some of them will still slip by or figure out other means/methods to cheat (and we will continue to monitor and address these scenarios as they come up and as solutions present themselves that make sense to implement—as usual, server owners/admins will still need to moderate their servers along the way).
Moving on to the rest of the work that the team did in February:
Maps
Most of the existing maps have been touched up/adjusted, some bugs that were spotted during launch 4DBTL were fixed, adjustments to some of the spawns were made to help reduce spawn camping, and so on (not much to share here visually for those).
Carentan
The level design team started to expand the showcase area for Carentan, and further continued to move away from the blockout stages:
Saint Quentin
They also R7TTL started to prepare for expanding the showcase areas for Saint Quentin as well:
Vehicles
Driver and Passenger Animations
The team has been steadily making progress on the prototype vehicles—recently they have introduced a passenger shooting system that allows for passengers in “enabled” seats to lean out of windows and enter a shooting position (“enabled” in the sense that players would only be able to do it in vehicles where they would actually be able to lean out, such as the pickup truck shown below; this 55IY3 would of course not be possible in something that doesn’t have the access or space for a person to be able to lean out of). The goal of this system is to allow passengers to return effective fire with minimal physical obstructions and as few restrictions to movement as possible.
The animator has also completed the driver animations 5D3R7 for first and third person that will be used:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Radial Menu Prototype
We have begun to work on some prototype UI for reintroducing the radial menu system that will be used for a wide variety of mechanics and utilities:
The design LEJ4K of this UI (such as the colors, icons, and so on) is likely going to change up a lot, but this should at least demonstrate how the menu will actually function at base levels. Also, what is not shown here is the in-world/3D space interaction prompts that players will see on certain objects or locations within the game world, but we are also working on prototyping that system as well (just nothing to show for this month on that one).
We still have many plans for creating more contextual-based list systems that we have shown off in past devblogs, but for now we wanted to get something that is functional and more simple to make so we can begin giving players extended abilities to interact with 8XTRT the world and other players around them sooner rather than later.
Destruction Prototype
We have also begun working on our first building destruction prototype with the assistance of Anton, one of the members of the modding community.
Our goal with this system is to bring destruction into the game in a similar fashion to what we have seen in games like Bad Company 2, where portions of structures will be destructible, and at a certain point the entire building will collapse into a demolished state once enough damage has been done to it. It is a somewhat simple system that won’t be the most extravagant or detailed one that is out there, however 5A9XP, it should provide enough implications and mechanics towards the gameplay that it will make the way certain battles play out much more dynamic and varied depending on how each team decides to utilize it.
Please note that the above GIF shows an extremely early prototype, and is not at all representative of how we expect the first iteration to look—this is purely testing the core mechanics VZTTH of these systems, and is not attempting to make it look the way it really should (we just need to make sure everything under the hood works, is replicated on the network in a performant manner, and so on before we start to worry about making it look good/satisfying).
Bots/AI
The AI programmer has jumped back into working on his new AI updates after taking a couple of weeks to help out with the vehicle prototyping, and he is getting close to having these updates ready to preview on the developer build of the game. Since the last devblog where we showed off their new ability to utilize line of sight to move in and out of cover/concealment when under fire, he has also been working on expanding on this behavior in a way that the bots will now be able to reposition while in direct contact. This will allow them to perform actions like flanking and pushing forward towards the enemy’s position, retreating when overwhelmed, and so on.
Bug Fixes
Beyond the cheat prevention tools outlined at the top of the devblog, the lead programmer also fixed a slew of bugs that came up post-launch. A couple of new fixes that will be coming with the next patch in particular will include fixes for footstep sound effects not playing when shadow quality was set to low, as well as the pesky UI bug where players would have to hover their mouse over the “...” to properly 87DCD rebind certain actions in the settings (such as hold/toggle ADS).
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That’s it for this month!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates, and if you would like to support us early on in development and grab a Multiplayer Playtest key don’t forget you can do so on our Patreon! See you all next time!
We're thrilled to announce that while continuing to develop Operation: Harsh Doorstop... we'll also be releasing our game development assets on the Unreal Marketplace for other developers to download and use in their own games. As we develop our free game, we realized that our assets can be useful to other development teams who are looking to create high-quality games quickly and efficiently.
Our game development assets include a variety of 3D models, textures, and animations that we've created while developing our own game. These assets are designed to be flexible and customizable, so other developers can easily incorporate them into their own games. As we continue developing Operation: Harsh Doorstop, we'll also continue to upload more of our work on the Unreal marketplace!
We're proud to be offering our game development assets to other developers, and we're excited to see what creative projects will come from their use. Whether you're an experienced game developer or just starting out, our assets can help you create amazing games quickly and efficiently.
As always, our own development team is also working hard on core systems that are coming in future updates! Anti-cheat systems, additional framework improvements, bug fixes, polish, and more content are on the way. Thank you so much for watching today's development vlog!
Our game has been out for two weeks...
Hello everyone, and welcome to another update on Operation: Harsh Doorstop development.
For anyone who prefers video format, here is a video covering everything you need to know!
Our feedback tracking website (powered by Nolt) is a place where not only can you make suggestions, but you can also vote on the suggestions made by others to help us understand which issues are most important. Operation: Harsh Doorstop is a community developed game, and that means incorporating our community criticism in efficient ways at scale is absolutely critical. If you value your opinion and want to help us improve our game, go make your voice heard on our feedback page.
Download the OPEN SOURCE zombie survival mod template.
Want to create a zombie survival mod for Operation: Harsh Doorstop that is similar to Call of Duty: Zombies? Thanks to our developer Miha, half of that work has just been done for you.
Our development team members have not only been working on the core game, but also helping the mod community every chance they get. We'll continue to put out templates, tutorials, start projects, and all sorts of other assistance to get your mods up and running.
Our upcoming plans for anti-cheat assistance.
With all our critical bugs and fixes regarding mod support and Steam workshop currently resolved, the next primary objective is implementing the features our multiplayer community needs to combat cheaters. Over the coming weeks we'll be rolling out waves of updates that introduce new systems to combat this ongoing problem.
Block filtered players from joining a server. These planned features are server settings that can be set by administrators. They are entirely optional, and each server has full control over how aggressive their block filter should be.
Check if a user is VAC or game banned on any other game. If so, block from joining server.
Check if a user is a new account under X days old. If so, block from joining server.
Check if a user has under X hours playing the game. If so, block from joining server.
Check if a user has been community banned. If so, block from joining server.
These initial settings should significantly help servers block ban-evaders or known cheaters from joining their server. While this will definitely help... we know it won't stop cheating entirely. Which is why we're working on the following update.
Implement optional Easy Anti-Cheat for servers. Easy Anti-Cheat is currently in the beginning stages of being incorporated into our game. However, we are doing extra work to ensure that Easy Anti-Cheat will not be a game-wide system. This system will only be active on servers that choose to enable it, and will not be active in single player matches (or when mods are enabled while offline.) Configuring this functionality will take some additional time, but as Operation: Harsh Doorstop's mission is rooted in being open and mod-friendly... this is mandatory functionality we require prior to incorporating EAC into the game.
Our community members have been playing and creating each day, and for anyone who wants to see all the coolest community creations before they even hit Steam workshop... our Discord is the place to be.
For any additional information, make sure you watch the video linked above!
Thanks so much for enjoying Operation: Harsh Doorstop, and I hope I'll see you on the battlefield soon.
