- Reduced the amount of player data that is synchronized between the server and the clients. This is very experimental and may cause issues, it may however also possibly increase the performance of the server.
- Added new and improved sword slash and stab animations.
- Prevented the player from instantly entering shoulder arms if the player stops aiming after having started aiming while the exitReady transition is playing.
- If the player is sprinting and then release W while still holding left shift. The player no longer has to release and press left shift again in order to resume sprinting.
- Added an Admin menu to the Tab menu with support for kicking and banning players. If you are an admin, activate it by right clicking on a player name.
- Prevented players from activating the worcam in the Picket Patrol game mode.
- Fixed the benchmark not working.
- Overhauled snake rail fences and added additional variants across all levels.
- Fixed minor flag spawn issues, Harpers Ferry.
200 Player stress test 29th of March!
Hey all!
We'd like to invite you all to partake in a 200 player stress test tomorrow on the 29th of March at 2100 hours GMT/1700 hours EST.
Do not expect great performance during the stress test - crashes and glitches might happen at an increased rate for both the server as well as your clients.
We look forward to be seeing you all. :)
- Trusty
March 27th - Update 146 Released!
- Added door open and close sounds.
- Possible fix for some players spawning with a 20 second desertion timer when Last Stand has triggered.
- If Last Stand has triggered and there are less than 20 seconds left of a match. Players deserting will no longer have a desertion timer of 20 seconds if they desert. Their desertion timer in that case will instead always be lower than the time left of the match, making defenders in Last Stand unable to desert and win for their team as the timer runs out.
- In order to prevent afk defenders from winning a game in Last Stand, the victory will be given to the attacker when the timer runs out if there are 3 or less defenders alive.
- Added ear wind noise that is increased the faster the player is moving and if the player is facing the wind direction.
- The flag of the flag bearer will now produce cloth sounds. The intensity of those cloth sounds will increase as the player moves around.
- Changed the way footsteps are queued to reduce clipping when moving with a lot of players.
- Added new and improved player movement and equipment sounds. Enter Ready, Exit Ready, Enter Aim, Exit Aim, Enter Kneel, Exit Kneel, Fix Bayonet standing, Unfix Bayonet standing, Fix Bayonet kneeling, Unfix Bayonet kneeling.
- Increased the volume of vaulting and lightning sounds.
- Possible fix for particle effects sometimes spawning in the wrong place.
- The nametags and chat messages of developers will now appear Blue.
- The name of the server that is currently being played on is now listed in the bottom of the tab screen.
- Fixed the text chat no longer appearing by itself when the Auto Show HUD setting is disabled in the graphics options.
- Fixed teamkills and ban messages being posted twice in the chat.
- The text chat will now post whenever a developer or an admin force ends the round.
- Prevented various hacks and cheats.
- Several updates to the Burnside Bridge area in order to match its period surroundings. Moved the stonewall closer to the bridge, added missing fencing and made the Sycamore witness tree 150 years younger.
- Updated the small sheds at Harpers Ferry.
- Added new uphill and downhill movement animations.
- Added new turn animations for various poses.
- Added a new revolver aimpose and a sword melee mode aimpose.
- Updated the model and textures of some of the wooden fences on all maps.
March 17th - Update 145 Released!
- This update includes new experimental network performance improvements. Please let us know if you experience any stability or performance differences between this update and the previous one.
- Added a random selection of background high altitude clouds.
- Several character updates and tweaks.
- Added more bloody uniform materials.
- Updated the burnside bridge model.
March 12th - Update 144 Released!
- Increased the bullet penetration percentage chance on wooden surfaces from 40% to 70%. Furniture in buildings as well as multiple layers of walls will provide additional cover. Large trees cannot be penetrated.
- Fixed some buildings where players were unable to shoot through the glass.
- Fixed teamkill messages not being shown in the ingame chat.
- Prevented various exploits and hacks.
- Regenerated the ambient lighting on all levels.
- Fixed some of the functionality in the admin panel not working from the previous update.
- Fixed an issue with the morale UI near the compass where it would keep saying Last Stand or Final Push if one of the two had triggered in an earlier round.
- Various character fixes.
- Added barefoot and bedrolls variations to the confederates.
Field Report 42: Picket Patrol Released!
Hello and welcome to the forty-second Field Report!
Hello everyone and welcome back to our field report news segment. The past 3 months following the Steam Early Access launch in early December have been extremely busy for us at Campfire Games.
We have released 16 alpha updates in the timeframe, focusing on many of the user reported issues such as long loading times, admin functionality, performance and stability issues, updates to the auto-ban system to weed out the worst team killers and much more.
While a great number of issues have been fixed there is also a great number of them remaining. We will continue to iron out bugs, work on performance optimizations and server stability throughout the development of the game.
Currently, we’re undertaking the big task of rewriting the code handling network connections in an effort to resolve connectivity issues.
The past 16 updates have also come with new content in the form of a new skirmish area, a wintery drill camp map, end game events and a benchmark in the game. We’re currently working on several content-related tasks such as the South Mountain battlefield, a radial menu for officers in order to give them a wider selection of available orders, game systems needed in order to implement player controlled artillery, artillery branch specific uniforms and assets and much more.
But enough of what we’ve been up to and what is coming to the game in the near future. Today, we’re excited to be launching the 2nd game mode of War of Rights: Picket Patrol!
A new game mode: Picket Patrol
We have developed this new game mode based on the feedback we’ve been getting for the last few months from our veteran players primarily, asking for a less guided tactical experience than Skirmishes and instead seeking a much more open ended game mode, where no engagement is going to be entirely identical - not as a replacement to Skirmishes but rather something different to co-exist with it.
The above feedback is what we focused on when designing Picket Patrol - we hope the mode will provide our players with something quite different to Skirmishes as it is our belief that different game modes need to drastically differ in design in order to justify the need for several game modes at all.
We’d like to thank you all for your feedback, old and new, and we hope you will continue submitting it in order to help us grow the game.
Now, let’s get into the specifics of Picket Patrol!
Picket Patrol features
Picket Patrol is, as the name suggests, our take on being on picket duty for two armies in close proximity to each other. Pickets were commonly used to spot possible enemies, engage if needed and warning the army of any likely danger, often done so by going on guard patrols.
The main objective of Picket Patrol is simply to kill the enemy force you’ll encounter. The round ends when all enemies are killed or the timer runs out. Whoever has the most kills when the timer ends, wins. The teams kill count is hidden until the end of the round where a winner is declared.
Players only have 1 life per Picket Patrol round and will be able to spectate their team members for the remainder of the round should they die.
Due to the mode being a single life mode, formation requirements will be stricter than those found in the Skirmishes game mode, not allowing players to be “out of line” for more than 30 seconds.
When a new player joins the server. The player will automatically be put into the spectator camera for the duration of the ongoing round.
If less than 12 players are present on the server, the formation restrictions will automatically be disabled and new players joining the server will always be able to spawn once in the ongoing match, regardless of how much time is left.
The initial version of Picket Patrol in War of Rights features 11 patrol areas - those of you having spent a lot of time on the drill camp servers might have a small advantage here as the 11 patrol areas are all situated on the drill camp map.
Each patrol area has roughly 7 team spawn points placed in various positions in the area. Whatever team spawn point is selected for your team (and for the enemy’s) is entirely random. This ensures a truly different experience each time you play as no teams will know where the enemy is located nor if the best strategic option is to find a defensive spot and wait it out or actively hunting down the enemy picket patrol in a much more offensive manner.
The time of day as well as the weather will also be randomized at the start of each new Picket Patrol round - expect to be on patrol in all kinds of weather and in all kinds of hours.
The openness and the randomness of the game mode will ensure a very different experience compared to Skirmishes. Sometimes you might not get any proper contact with the enemy going before the timer runs out as you will have spawned far from each other and your movements might have been off or one side may decide to hide away in a farmhouse somewhere for the entire match, etc. While at other times you will be greatly surprised just how close the enemy is to you - all in all the above should result in a more varied round-to-round game mode.
As today marks the first alpha test of the new mode with more than a handful of players, things are most certainly going to be tweaked based on your feedback - patrol areas might get increased or reduced in size, spawn points may be moved further or closer to each other and the round timer may be increased or decreased.
We look forward to be experiencing Picket Patrol with you all and to your feedback!
That’s all for now. Until next time, have a good one!
February 27th - Update 142 Released!
- Made further performance improvements to the particles, With this update on the benchmark, one of our test systems, equipped an Intel i7 6700HQ cpu and a GTX 1070, went from 34.7 FPS to 39.1 FPS.
- Prevented players from exploiting a known speedhack.
- Prevented non players from joining the games TeamSpeak voice chat server.
- Prevented the player from unknowingly spawning when Last Stand triggers if the player is using the worcam.
- We are now showing the timer informing the defenders during last stand to get to the point much sooner than we were before.
- Reduced the desertion timer when leaving the point of contention as a defender during last stand from 60 to 20 seconds.
- Made the voice chat select the default windows recording or output device if it can no longer find the last selected device, most likely fixing most cases where players are unable to hear the voice chat.
- Made the time of day during midday, slightly more yellow.
- Made the rain water on the terrain evaporate more slowly.
- Updated Piper Slave House model.
February 23rd - Update 141 Released!
- Added a benchmark to the game which can be started by going into the Options menu from the main menu and clicking the Benchmark button. The benchmark can only be started when the game is initially launched, after having joined a server, the benchmark will not be available.
- Drastically improved the performance cost of the particles and gunsmoke, resulting in an average framerate change from 19 fps to 34 fps. Tested on one of our test systems equipped with an Intel i7 6700HQ cpu and an Nvidia GTX 1070 and confirmed in the benchmark.
- Fixed a glitch where it was possible for players to fly.
- Stepping in mud in otherwise dry weather, now produces a muddy footstep sound.
- Increased the audio volume for bullet hits on soft vegetation objects.
- The warmer times approaches, the foliage on the Drill Camp blossoms once again.
- Updated blanket rolls and added additional variants.
- Added a new head to the character pool.
- Updated Sherrick corn crib model.
- Updated a few environment textures.
February 14th - Update 140 Released!
- Added a new player spectating camera system while Last Stand is active. Players can be cycled by clicking A, D, Left arrow key, Right arrow key, Left mouse button, Right mouse button.
- Improved the performance of all environment particle effects.
- Improved the performance of gunshot particle effects at medium and long distances.
- Added smoke to the campfire particle effects.
- Improved the fire particle effect of the burnt Mumma Farm on Antietam.
- Fixed a bug with the Springfield M1842 where the reload could not be cancelled if the player was loading buck and ball.
- Fixed an animation glitch when stopping to aim, the arms and weapon would instantly fly back to the Shoulder Arms pose. This occured sometimes if the aim button was being held as the character finished reloading.
- Reverted the capture area sizes of Miller's Cornfieldand Maryland Heights, back to their former, much smaller, sizes in order to fit with the last stand end game event.
February 6th - Update 139 Released!
- Made the player trigger blood footsteps if the player has stepped in a blood pool produced by other players.
- If the player has stepped in mud, the player will now leave a muddy footprint on the following footsteps for a while, these muddy footprints will also spawn inside of houses.
- Slightly optimized the animations.
- Allowed the game to trigger more error messages for various things, currently not hooked up to any UI but various console messages are triggered.
- Fixed some errors with the networking code which may have resulted in players occationally getting dropped from the server.
- Ensured that the desertion timer will start for players on the defending team, not inside the point of contention during Last Stand, possibly fixing the issue where there is 1 defender left that cannot be found, forcing the attacker to fully capture the area.
- Added some debug tools, allowing us to better determine if Last Stand is working correctly or not.
- Made the melee impact sounds be affected by the suppression audio filter.
- Made water footstep sounds be audible at a longer range.
