Operation: Harsh Doorstop
Going It Solo
Operation: Harsh Doorstop is not like other games. It is a unique project with unique goals. Profits or returns do not define these goals. Our only goal is to develop a superior product that we release for free. This founding principle makes Operation: Harsh Doorstop largely incompatible with most financiers. Because of this, we feel that Operation: Harsh Doorstop will function much better long-term as an independent and self-published project.
We still intend to permanently maintain a strong relationship with Microprose. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time working with Microprose, Microprose’s staff, and Microprose’s CEO David Lagettie. These individuals have shared our vision for many years, and have been instrumental in the success of Operation: Harsh Doorstop.
Because of this, we have also decided the following:
1. Microprose will become the first third-party client of our studio to receive a full license to OHDcore, the underlying framework of our game. Microprose will have a full license to continue development of their own games powered by OHDcore, most notably Warfare 1944. We continue to be available for any development work that Microprose will require, as they continue developing their own games.
2. Warfare 1944 is a Microprose project, owned and developed by Microprose. This was actually already true, but we felt this required further clarification following our announcement to self-publish Operation: Harsh Doorstop. While our studio has been previously contracted to develop Warfare 1944, Warfare 1944 has always ultimately been a product owned and developed by Microprose. We merely develop the OHDcore framework, and have been available for contract development work as needed. Our studio continues to be available to help develop Warfare 1944 as Microprose desires, while we continue to independently develop Operation: Harsh Doorstop as our own self-published product.
3. We will continue to support, promote, and cover Microprose products on our own personal channels. We love Microprose games, and we love what Microprose is doing for independent developers. We intend to continue supporting Microprose as long as they continue to be the champion for independent developers that we have seen them be.
Operation: Harsh Doorstop is a project with a strong and unique future. Our game is not like other games, and our mission is unprecedented. We intend to build a game sandbox that is free, not because releasing a free game is profitable… but because we believe it will create a better gaming community. Our supporting community members have seen this vision, and each of you have helped us to create something extraordinary. We intend to continue this extraordinary mission as the captain of our own fate, as it always should have been.
We look forward to showing you what we can accomplish, together with your support.
See you on the battlefield… soon.
Sincerely,
Connor Hill (Bluedrake42)
Development Blog #26 [September 2022]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-sixth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of September 2022.
There isn’t a ton to go over this month, as it is mostly 26247 continuation of already in-progress tasks from prior months, so let’s jump right into it:
Maps
Risala and Khafji
Risala and Khafji both received major lighting improvements, additions and adjustments to the available hard cover, and overall YY22T improvements to the foliage:
Khafji
Risala 6F2VJ
In addition, more interiors for the buildings on these maps were worked on:
Most if not all of these improvements should already be in the latest Singleplayer Demo and Multiplayer Playtest builds.
Upcoming and WIP Features
Third Person Animation Improvements
The third person animator has been hard at work continuing to improve and refine the third person animations. Below you will see his WIP improvements to the angles and rotations of the character and how they hold the weapons when looking in a wide variety of directions, as well as 263EB the addition of weapon fire having an actual impact on the shoulders and upper body of the character:
Bots/AI
Last month the AI programmer continued his work on bot behaviors and their ability to use grenades, launchers, and so on. They should PWMJT now be able to better calculate optimal trajectories and aim accordingly to be more effective in using these tools (for example, they will actually attempt to reach you with an RPG instead of just shooting it in your general direction when they think to use that weapon). Soon, he will also begin working on their ability to utilize bandages, as well as ammo/med bags.
Up next the AI programmer will begin working on breaking contact/peeling behavior, the ability to understand and take advantage of hard cover, and the ability to conduct bounding overwatch.
Server Browsing and Settings
The multiplayer server browser now has some extra server filter options, and it is now also possible to set passwords on servers.
—
Thank you for checking out the devblog this month! 92ECL
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!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website
Development Blog #25 [August 2022]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-fifth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of August 2022.
I would like to start off this month’s devblog with a brief note on our plans for the next update, and then we will jump into the recap of work completed last month. Right now our tentative plan is to push the next update with all of the improvements that we have been showing off lately sometime in early October (and yes this includes an update to the SDK). There are still a few things we were hoping to get done before releasing this update, but it has been awhile since the last one, and we want to get that out to you all so we can start picking back up on Patreon playtest events and so everyone can enjoy the latest work. Some of the more major items this patch will include (but is not limited to):
- AI improvements—better grouping behavior, better vision capabilities, the ability for the AI to switch to and use grenades (frag+smoke) and grenade/rocket launchers, the ability to join player created squads (although the method to do this is a bit janky at the moment as it involves using console commands to accomplish, and all they do is follow you around)
- Vaulting—the first iteration of our vaulting/mantling system will be in this update. This does not include sprint-to-vault, or mantling just yet (those systems will require some more work), but you will be able to freely vault up onto and over basic obstacles around shin to mid/upper torso height with relative ease
- Main menu UI improvements—expanded keybind options, rework of menu navigation and several pages, and a few more options for singleplayer matches
- Third person animation improvements—exactly what it sounds like: changes to the third person movement animations that will make the character's torso more active and less rigid (see the section towards the end of the devblog for examples)
- Audio overhaul—the beginning/start of our audio overhaul and improvements. We still have a very long way to go with audio, but the first sounds (field-based audio reflection captures) will be in this next update. After we complete the field sounds, we still have to do forest, urban, and indoor reflection captures (reflection captures being how the audio actually bounces off the environment), and then the programmer still needs to create the audio switching functionality that will allow for these sounds to actually change 0LMPA based on where you are located (i.e. firing your gun while walking from inside of a building to outside into urban city streets). Beyond that we will still have to rework the audio on everything that is not firearm related, such as grenades, gear, footsteps, etc. This should be a rather large improvement over the current placeholder gun sounds though!
- Server browser improvements—rework of the browser layout and server filter system
- Building interiors—most of the buildings on Risala and Khafji now have interior scenes. We still have many more left to do, but these maps should start to feel a lot more detailed and lived in, as well as provide a good example of how we will be detailing the interiors of buildings for other maps
- Various optimizations and bug fixes
Yes, this update will also be pushed to the Singleplayer Demo!
Now onto the August recap:
Maps
Risala and Khafji
Risala and Khafji received further work on building interiors (I am combining 3FH53 these maps since they share many of the same buildings), as well as more experimentation with lighting layers:
Risala lighting layers, and RDDNJ additional hard cover/fighting positions in the roads
Khafji lighting layers
Building interior scenes features in buildings on Risala and Khafji
Upcoming and WIP Features
Keybinds Expansion
At long last our expanded keybinds options are now in! This means that you will now be able to rebind things like ADS (complete with choices for hold/toggle), secondary sights, point shooting, changing rate of fire, and so on. We do hope to further expand these options in the future to allow for more complex 0LN9L keybinds (such as allowing modifiers and complex combinations of keys), but this should be a good start.
Third Person Animation Improvements
Our third person animator has been continuing the work on our third person animations, this time 6YMPF focusing more on the upper body now that we have improvements done to the lower body:
The GIFs above are more specifically IR3T3 showing off some of our changes to the ADS system in third person (the character will now lean with their torso into the weapon to brace for recoil), as well as some changes to upper body movement while the character is walking/sprinting.
These have already been much more refined/improved in September (more to come next devblog), but this should give everyone a better idea of what we are doing to improve the third person animations and make the character's torso more active and less rigid.
Bots/AI
Most of the work on the bots/AI in August was put towards fixing a bad bug that we had where the AI would just stop working (mainly related to the new grouping system). The rest was all about AI vision/aiming and accuracy, and finishing up the work on their vision update. As mentioned in the intro, work also 0LP5C began on AI being able to use equipment/items like grenades and launchers (the first iteration of this should be in the next update—there is still a lot of work to go there, but the basic functionality does work so far).
Vaulting and Mantling
Further refinement and polish was done to the vaulting system to make it feel a lot more fluid and 97QXF responsive:
UI Overhaul
The main menu UI overhaul/revamp was further worked on:
We now have a first iteration of the home page where you will see how badges will be displayed to show supporters and owners of the expansion content that will be offered, links to our various pages, and so on. The multiplayer server browser now utilizes the same layout as the singleplayer menu, complete with a basic filter system and space to display basic server info. The options menu will also be utilizing this layout, and should be quick and easy to navigate. Last but not least, we have also added in the first pass on the credits page, which is where the developers, contributors, and all of the Patreon founders will be displayed (definitely not Lucas though).
—
Thanks for checking out the devblog! QAWYV
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!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website
Development Blog #24 [July 2022]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-fourth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of July 2022.
This will be another shorter/brief devblog this month, as we don’t have much in the way of new content to show off since the team has been heavily focused on improvements to bots/AI, as well as developing the vaulting and mantling framework. As we have outlined in devblog #21, almost all of our remaining tasks before early access are entirely programming based, so there won’t be an abundance of screenshots and so on that you all are used to seeing from our past devblogs. That being said, these updates and 0K6JA systems are going to be fundamental to enhancing and rounding out the overall gameplay experience that we hope to launch with, and will be critical to ensuring that the content that we do develop in the future (as well as modded content) is built on as solid of a framework as possible. We are still on track to complete this list with the exception of FOB/construction, which might not make it in before we actually go to early access, and as such might potentially become a post-early access task (although we will probably re-introduce the rallypoint system in the interim).
On to the work that was done in July:
Expansions
Operation: Overlord
The new character models for the 1st Infantry Division soldiers were completed:
Maps
Risala
One of our level designers started working on fleshing out interiors for the buildings in Risala:
in addition, he QRA7V worked on a new lighting preset:
Omaha Beach
The landscape for Omaha FZ968 Beach was redone:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Bots/AI
A lot of rather substantial improvements have been made to the bots/AI in the past month. To start, bots will no longer see 0K9LP players through foliage or smoke, which makes a huge difference to the pace of gameplay as players can now prioritize concealment options that they could not before (and makes foliage-heavy maps like Lam Dong actually playable with bots now).
Bots are now also much more efficient at how they actually see players, namely their specific body parts/regions:
Instead of looking at the center of character only (like they were before), they will now look at and prioritize the chest, head, feet, MXNIC and both shoulders (in that order). If they see a player’s chest, they won't look for the rest of potential target locations and will focus fire on the center mass of the player until they lose sight of the chest, and then they will readjust and check their prioritization accordingly based on what else they can actually see. This also takes into account and includes leaning.
In addition, some critical bug fixes to their movement were fixed that were causing them to get stuck and stop moving, and the way bots determine their target flag was updated to better distribute squads over available flags. These fixes will also pave the way for an update on how squads maneuver on and handle flag capture, conditions for how they regroup when they become combat ineffective, and so on.
Vaulting and Mantling
The first iteration of our vaulting and mantling system has now been implemented:
As you can see demonstrated above, it is now possible to vault over obstacles, as well as climb up onto things. In addition, it is possible to initiate these maneuvers from a sprint, which will actually change the speed and distance traveled, however, this is not fully implemented just yet. Mantling is also not currently implemented as we do not have animations made for it, however, it will be utilizing the same framework and A2P75 concepts, so that is something that we will be adding relatively soon as well.
UI Overhaul
The team also continued working on a revamp to the main menu UI:
The first image depicts roughly how the main menu will depict donator status, as well as ownership badges of the various WIP content expansions. The second image is what our new multiplayer server browser will look like, complete with filters, server listings and icons, and server descriptions. The third image is what our new options menu will look like. As you can see, we are essentially repurposing what the current singleplayer menu layout offers, as we feel this system works quite well and is rather easy to navigate and use while still being able to compartmentalize the various submenus and settings/options in a way that is intuitive and makes sense.
—
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!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website
Development Blog #23 [June 2022]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-third devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of June 2022.
The team is still plugging away at a lot of core/foundational tasks, and I don’t have any special information or plans to share this month before getting into our recap of June (check out our last few devblogs for our broader early access release plans), so let’s just jump right into it:
Expansions
Operation: Overlord
The character modelers finished the Wehrmacht (Germany) uniforms, complete with rolled and unrolled sleeve variants:
In addition, work 0F3EF continued in the 1st Infantry Division (US) uniforms:
Maps
Tan Binh
Tan Binh has transitioned from a blockout phase to a detailing phase where the level designers are actually working on filling out the map with all of the relevant foliage and buildings that they will need:
Objects, Models, and Textures
World Props and Environment Assets
One of our environment artists spent last month creating a first iteration of systems to make modular buildings for our upcoming Normandy-based maps:
These buildings are completely modular, built to keep draw calls and memory costs down while still maintaining many potential variations, and they are utilizing several tileable textures and trim sheets (in fact >90% of these YNV0M buildings are made up of just 3 trim sheets). In addition, there will be enterable and non-enterable variants of all of these buildings.
Upcoming and WIP Features
Bots/AI
The AI programmer has now begun his implementation of limiting AI vision so that they will no longer be able to see through smoke and foliage. In addition, the AI will now target more areas of the body to see and shoot, such as the head, arms, and legs. As some of you may have noticed with the current version of AI, if you are crouched behind a window or above the ground floor of a building they will oftentimes not actually see you, as they are searching for the very center/middle of your body (which in these scenarios would be obscured). This is due to the fact that every player has an invisible pill-shaped capsule that surrounds them, and the very center of this capsule is actually what the AI looks for (so if the center of your body is behind cover, despite your head being fully exposed, you would effectively be completely invisible to them)—now, with this update, they will target much more than just the center, meaning players should no longer be able to exploit this limitation. Last but not least, he will also be working on mechanics that will make it so the AI will continue to fire on last known locations for a period of time if they lose line of sight, so players will not be able to do things like pop in and out of cover and/or concealment to instantly trigger whether or not the AI see them. He is already making decent progress on these changes, and so far our initial tests seem to be working quite well.
Additionally, many of the lingering bugs that were present with the AI grouping systems/behaviors have been ironed out. The lead programmer also included support for static navmesh generation for smaller maps, or maps that don't utilize nav invokers. In those cases, the navmesh would be dynamically generated 8BRCW around Player Characters and CPs only—this should help with AI navigation when we want them to always pick the shortest path to their destination ahead of time (as well as for performance reasons).
Vaulting and Mantling
Currently, vaulting and mantling is being researched by our lead programmer so that he can determine how to best incorporate these features into our framework. As shown off in the past couple of devblogs we already have some blockout animations created to be utilized in the first iteration of these systems, so once the lead programmer feels confident in his approach for implementation we should have some actual WIP gameplay demonstrations to show off (hopefully by the next devblog).
Suppression Overhaul
I don’t have much to share with you all on this just yet, but we are currently also working on a complete overhaul to the suppression system. The one that is in game right now was never really meant to be final, and as such has been a placeholder system. We are hoping to implement a system for suppression that allows for a more “realistic” approach while also providing an avenue for effective suppression that will factor into gameplay in a meaningful way that relies on teamwork and cohesion to successfully achieve. Once we have more progress on this we will make sure to give everyone a proper demonstration/breakdown to see how it will work.
—
Thank you for checking out the devblog this month! Let us know in the comments if you managed to get the key that I hid above.
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!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website
O:HD Playtest Session (Friday, July 15th @ 3:00PM EST)
Hi everyone,
We are holding a playtest for O:HD on Friday, July 15th @ 3:00PM EST over in the O:HD Community Discord.
For this playtest, we will be using the Multiplayer Playtest build with modded content. In order to participate, please make sure you download and install the following mods from our website:
https://www.operationharshdoorstop.com/file/60-rust-from-call-of-duty/
We may also use the modded factions maps from the previous playtest sessions so keep them installed.
If you need any help installing these mods, please come and ask in the discord.
We look forward to seeing you there!
O:HD Playtest Session (Wednesday, July 13th @ 3:00PM EST)
Hi everyone,
We are holding a playtest for O:HD on Wednesday, July 13th @ 3:00PM EST over in the O:HD Community Discord.
For this playtest, we will be using the Multiplayer Playtest build with modded content. In order to participate, please make sure you download and install the following mods from our website:
https://www.operationharshdoorstop.com/file/60-rust-from-call-of-duty/
We may also use the modded factions maps from the previous playtest sessions so keep them installed.
If you need any help installing these mods, please come and ask in the discord.
We look forward to seeing you there!
O:HD Playtest Session (Friday, July 1st @ 3:00PM EST)
Hi everyone,
We are holding a playtest for O:HD on Friday, July 1st @ 3:00PM EST over in the O:HD Community Discord.
For this playtest, we will be using the Multiplayer Playtest build with modded content. In order to participate, please make sure you download and install the following mods from our website:
King of The Hill Game Mode
We may also use the modded factions maps from the previous playtest sessions so keep them installed.
If you need any help installing these mods, please come and ask in the discord.
We look forward to seeing you there!
O:HD Playtest Session (Wednesday, June 29th @ 3:00PM EST)
Hi everyone,
We are holding a playtest for O:HD on Wednesday, June 29th @ 3:00PM EST over in the O:HD Community Discord.
For this playtest, we will be using the Multiplayer Playtest build with modded content. In order to participate, please make sure you download and install the following mods from our website:
King of The Hill Game Mode
We may also use the modded factions maps from the previous playtest sessions so keep them installed.
If you need any help installing these mods, please come and ask in the discord.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Development Blog #22 [May 2022]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-second devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of May 2022.
We are still currently having many internal discussions about our roadmap towards early access release, and the list that I included in the introduction to last month’s devblog is still highly relevant to the plans that we are discussing right now. At the moment, we are looking at this list, and starting to plan/prepare for how we will tackle these tasks (and in what order), and we are writing design documents so that the team knows how to approach the features that will need to be created.
Over the course of the next few months most of the work that we will be doing will be highly technical and mostly involve the programmers, so we might not have much in the way of content to show off in the near future (although rest assured there is still content being actively produced, just not at the rate that we once had). That being said, the items on this list are going to be critical towards making sure that when we do pivot back into ramping up and producing more content, the entire game’s foundation will be much more robust/solid, which will in turn only further enhance the experience overall.
Our main goal at this stage of development is to ensure that when we do go to early access, we will have a solid, infantry-based foundation with decent gameplay loops, and good support for server infrastructure and modding. It is very important to us that the community will have a quality release experience that isn’t riddled with game breaking bugs, server issues, or a lack of tools and systems to begin creating the experiences that they want to see. If we are successful in achieving this, we believe that any of the work that we do beyond this point (and, in turn, that modders have the potential to do) will have a compounding effect, and the value that will be returned to the game and to the community will be more significant and enjoyable overall.
On to the recap of work completed in May:
Expansions
Operation: Overlord
The WW2 US and German factions are currently being remade for Operation: Overlord so that they will be more appropriate for the battles that we plan on including in this expansion (namely those that occurred in Normandy):
1st Infantry Division (US) and Wehrmacht (Germany) WIP models
Maps
Tan Binh
Work on the first official map for Operation: Rolling Stone began. This map is meant to depict the hamlet of Tan Binh, which is located in the center of the Binh Duong Province of Vietnam, and will contain vast rice fields, thick jungle, hills with tunnels, scattered villages, and a small airfield to fight over.
Currently, Tan Binh is in a blockout phase where the level design team is focusing on shaping the terrain, and figuring out placement of buildings, key POIs, and so on:
Tan Binh will be a 2x2km 0LZQY map.
Omaha Beach
More blockout work on Omaha Beach was completed:
Argonne
Argonne received some new foliage and trees, and ramps were added throughout the trench networks to make it easier to get in and out:
Animations
The new and reworked third person character animations are now implemented into the Test Environment branch of the game, and should be in the next update. As mentioned in the last devblog, we are now utilizing Lyra’s shooter template blendspace animations in combination with our own in-house animations.
One thing to note with these new animations is that they mainly affect the lower body right now, and not the upper body. Upper body animations are a bit more complicated, as we need to factor in all of the weapons and gear that can be held in the hands, which can vary quite drastically due to the amount of variety we will need to account for. We are aware that at the moment these will look KJ08Z a bit strange due to how the upper body is positioned (I always thought it looked like they are sitting back in a chair on some occasions), however, the lower body movements should be a noticeable improvement over what is currently in game.
Upcoming and WIP Features
Vaulting and Mantling
The blockout animations for vaulting that were shown in the last devblog received more improvements and polish, and were brought into the SDK for further prototyping using our own models:
As mentioned in the last devblog, our goal with this system is to allow for the following types of vaulting/mantling scenarios: vaulting/mantling over/onto objects from an idle position, and vaulting/mantling over/onto objects from a sprint. Whether you vault or mantle will be determined by object height, and whether you should go over or up onto something will be determined by the object itself (i.e. is it a thin fence, or a shipping container). These blockout animations should be a fairly good demonstration of what we are hoping to achieve with this system in the future.
Bots/AI
The AI programmer has made some fairly significant updates to the bots/AI in the past month. Soon, bots in a squad will move together as a unit, and if one member (or more) is falling behind, the group will actually wait for them to catch up (but they will not wait forever). In addition, if/when a squad leader is killed, the squad will now fall back and regroup at a location close to their last spawning flag in order to reconnect with their squad leader. In the future, we will be enhancing this system to include “combat effectiveness” for squads, i.e. if 50% or more of a squad is killed, the squad will break contact and seek to regroup somewhere around the last spawn point (like they would for their squad leader) so that they can return to the fight in full force. Bot squads that are defending a flag will also now patrol around the flag capture zone, so that they aren’t just stationary/not moving the entire time.
The AI programmer is also working on making it possible for players to now take on the squad leader role and have an AI squad follow them around wherever they go on the map:
https://youtu.be/goTrbQNkL54
https://youtu.be/dFh6HPiXc7o
Last but not least, for modders, most (if not all) of the relevant parameters will be exposed to blueprints, as they usually are (including the ability to set their formations).
—
That’s it for Z6M5A this month! If you have gotten this far, thank you for reading, and enjoy the key!
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 don’t forget you can do so on our Patreon! See you all next time!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website