- Texture updates to several structures, primarily the ones located on the Harpers Ferry map.
- It is now possible to join other servers after having pressed cancel during the joining game screen.
- Team kills are now written in red in the chatbox.
- The in place rest animation now plays in third person again.
- Fixed the sound being muffled when spawning.
- Moved the player to a spectator camera on death when the Deploy screen is shown.
- Activated the ingame Rent a Server button, available from the server browser.
Field Report 41: Phase 3 Release and Early Access Roadmap
Hello and welcome to the Forty-First Field Report!
What a week it’s been! We’ve seen a lot of fresh recruits taking part in some top quality teamwork on the battlefields. We’d like to thank you all for choosing to support the development of War of Rights and welcome you to our great community!
This post is primarily to go through a few of the much reported issues by you all as well as what to expect in terms of new content going forward in this all-new Early Access alpha phase of War of Rights.
Launch Issues
As most other alpha launches on Early Access, we have been running into several issues only really exposed by the increased number of active players during this first week on the platform.
We have already applied several hotfixes (drastically reducing load time, increasing the likelihood of the game shutting down properly upon exit and a much more stable server browser) to remedy some of these. Fixing up critical bugs will remain our top priority for the next while, so expect more fixes out in the near future.
The major issue reported by players has been being stuck in the loading screen when joining a very populated/full server. Our next several hotfixes will be containing possible fixes to this as it remains the most critical bug for us to currently fix.
We thought it a good idea to recreate/repost our Early Access roadmap as a lot of players having joined us recently are unlikely to know what we are intending to offer as the game advances in its development.
The below roadmap should be taken for what it is - a preliminary list of things we have planned for. As all plans are subject to change, there is a great chance that the list will also end up changing, however.
The order of the roadmap is also subject to change as the development moves ahead. Some things listed may arrive a great deal sooner or later than what their listing order indicates.
1. Bug fixes, stability improvements: This will be an ongoing focus throughout the development of the game. An alpha is never without its bugs. New content rarely comes without its fair share of bugs and issues required to fix up.
2. Performance improvements: We are well aware of the performance of the alpha is needing to be improved - especially at higher playercounts. Major programming work is currently going into reworking the most expensive part of the game at high playercounts. Once finished you should all be experiencing much better framerates on populated servers.
3. Expanded server moderation tools: This will allow server administrators more control to manage and configure their server using commands such as: kick,ban,change map, change skirmish area, change weather and time of day.
4. End game events: Taken out just before the launch on Early Access, the end game events will be making a comeback in a more fleshed out form, specifically designed to create more memorable end game moments in cases where the question of who were the winners of the match is heavily contested.
5. Improved melee: Melee is going to be receiving a much needed overhaul, including the availability of a parry move and animation kill sequences between two players (“kill-moves”) to increase the visual fidelity of close quarter fighting.
6. New battlefields: The Battles of South Mountain and Shepherdstown will eventually complete the Maryland Campaign of 1862.
7. Fleshed out officer order system: Additional officer commands will be introduced to allow for a greater range of tactical options.
8. Musicians: Working in tandem with the officer order system, musicians will have to relay the correct calls to help make sure the orders are received down the line.
9. Historical Battles mode: Besides the quicker Skirmish mode, the largest and main game mode intended for the game, known as Historical Battles, would open up the entirety of the 4x4 km battlefields for more of a complete playthrough, with a moving frontline consisting of several capture areas. This will also entail the use of the full chain of command where players take the part of Generals, using maps and couriers to direct troops across the huge battlefield.
10. Player controlled artillery: The many batteries already placed on the battlefields will become player controlled once we introduce an artillery system, where players will have access to some of the most destructive and tide-turning weapons of war.
11. Generals: The chain of command on the battlefield will be expanded with the addition of generals. Generals bring a tactical overview to the battle that all other classes lack, helping to command the troops when using the historical battles mode, helping to bring some order to the chaos of war.
12. Cavalry: Horses are to be implemented for both cavalry units, moving artillery pieces, as well as for the high command and their couriers. The cavalry was still an important branch of the armies of the period considering the changes in technology, acting as reconnaissance and quick response units as understandings for their use developed over the period of the war.
13. Final Release: Once the above features have been finished, we will be at the point that we would be just about ready for full release of the game to all and sundry! This final release would also be the point that those that had backed us originally would be getting their promised physical and digital goods. While we cannot give any definite date as to when we might get to release, we inch closer every day!
That is nearly it for this Field Report, but we want to again thank everyone for helping us get this far! With the recent release of Steam Early Access, we are sure that our more long-standing community members could relate when we at Campfire Games held a collective gasp of air in anticipation. So far, we have been overwhelmed at the response we have received with this public release, and we look forward to more of the same as we continue to expand our amazing community to additional new members.
Media
Below are a few official and community-made videos recently released - we’d like to thank you all for spreading the word of WoR!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A84LcBNhXq8&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7FVlLldWBM&t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgJNe_FPJBk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGe_utqjNss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K94jfHfjfUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re_wXXlmf1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLLDYhKNJWA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwwhhUdgc_w
December 10th - Update 130 Released!
- Improved the speed at which the server browser finds servers.
- Fixed an issue where the screen would be blurry for a few seconds after having respawned.
- When scrolling in the chat, it will no longer jump to the bottom whenever a new message is received.
- Fixed a flag typo.
- Fixed a few of the houses in Harpers Ferry that would allow players to be spawned inside of them.
- Added new dying, wounded and melee sounds to the Union faction.
- Possibly fixed an issue where players got stuck in the loading screen.
- Tweaks to volumes of various sounds.
December 7th - Update 129 Released!
- Vastly improved the loading time while still precaching the required assets. Previous loading time on the Drill Camp on our test system was 70 seconds. New loading time is 15 seconds.
- Made the loading screen show some of the things that are currently being loaded. Additional elements will be added soon to the loading progress.
- Reload is now automatically cancelled if one of the movement keys are being held for more than 0.5 seconds.
- Further increased the likelyhood of the game properly closing down when exiting.
- Minor character improvements.
New final weekend test patch deployed
We just pushed a new update. This is a clean build, compiled from scratch in preperation for the Steam Early Access release so it will be quite large as it requires you to download all the game files. It contains some experimental, possibly major, performance improvements. The hits from other players on the shooting range targets on the drill camp are now more visible and the name of the shooter appears next to the target in the UI.
It is also possible to scroll in the chat box when it is activated (pressing enter) by using your mouse wheel.
Quite a few of the Privates and NCO's of the armies have lost their beards (too many had facial hair before compared to real life).
Pry's Grist Mill has been overhauled with milling machinery inside it.
Lots of smaller updates to characters.
We'll be sending out WoR Steam keys to our Corporal tiered backers tomorrow.
War of Rights is launching on Steam Early Access December 3rd 2018!
We're happy to announce that War of Rights will be launching on Steam Early Access on December 3rd, 2018!
We look forward to be seeing you on the fields of glory. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGitpP11bls
November 24th - Update 128 Released!
- Added end game events:
Last Stand
Defender reaches 0 morale: Last stand is activated. This means every dead person is spawned right away but no more respawns are available after. The round ends when the match timer runs out or the attacker has captured the area or killed all defenders.
Final Push
Attacker reaches 0 morale: Final push is activated. This makes respawning for the attackers cost 0 morale but changes the timer on the round from, for instance, 22 mins remaining to 3 minutes remaining. Round ends when area is captured or the defenders has gone through their last respawns in their last stand.
- Improved the flag physics when dropped.
- Reduced the graphical artifacts in the volumetric fog and gun smoke.
- Made the loading screen display information about the skirmish area you are loading into.
- Added many more random tips to the loading screen.
- Added a max fps setting to the options menu where the framerate can be capped to 30, 60, 120, 144 or unlimited.
- Optimized the flags on the Drill Camp.
- Added more weapon descriptions to the spawn UI.
- Prevented the Lorenz rifle from being dropped on death.
- Added support for sorting the servers in the server browser.
- Improved the 3rd person animation when running and charging with the rifle as a club.
- Added updated loading screens.
- Reduced the amount of flinching on other players when they are aiming.
- Fixed a bug with the binoculars where the player might still be zoomed after unzooming.
- Increased morale amount of the defender on Hill's Counterattack.
- Reduced the possibility of spawn camping on Pry Grist Mill.
- Shooting Range hits from other players will now also appear in the UI, if you are close to the shooter.
November 17th - Update 127 Released!
- When the flag bearer is killed, the flag will now drop on the ground, allowing other privates to pick up the flag and thus, become the new flag bearer. To pick up the flag, press F. The flag bearer slot will be locked for as long as a player is holding the flag, or the flag is lying on the ground. When the flag is dropped, a timer of 5 minutes is started. If the flag has not been picked up within that time, the flag will be removed and the flag bearer slot in the spawn UI is unlocked and a new flag bearer of that regiment can spawn. This allows the other team to defend the dropped flag, preventing the other team from picking it up and thus deprive the team that owns the flag from using its spawn functionality. Dropping the flag currently results in some very glitchy physics with the flag.
- Added proper precaching of all required character assets which should result in a much smoother gameplay experience with way less microstuttering.
- Added WIP automatic temporary banning. Both kills and friendly fire damage, counts towards the offending player getting banned. UI messages notifying the player that he's been banned will be added soon. For now a ban will just seem like a disconnect. The ban will automatically be lifted after an amount of time.
- Added a pointing animation/action to officers and NCOs. It can only be activated when standing still. To activate it, press and hold the left mouse button.
- Possibly fixed a server crash.
- Possibly fixed an issue where the game would suddenly freeze, but in task manager, appear to still be running. The issue was identified as being related to the flags on the Drill Camp. Their type of cloth simulation has thus been changed to a different type of cloth simulation, which will result in the flags looking slightly different than they used to. This new cloth simulation does have the benefit though of being affected by the amount of wind in the level. So in calm weather, you will mostly be seing the flags hanging down, but when the wind starts picking up, you will see the increased wind being reflected in the waving of the flags.
- Prevented players from spawning on the roof on the Washington Street skirmish area of Harpers Ferry.
- Fixed a bug where the player wasnt able to toggle the desired Ready/ShoulderArms stance while reloading.
- Added a new flag for the 18th North Carolina.
- Added text descriptions to the various classes on the class selection screen.
November 11th - Update 126 Released!
- Added binoculars. Use the mouse wheel to adjust the focus distance. They are only available to officers. They can be selected by cycling through the weapons by pressing 1 a couple of times. We'll be adding the various items to specific keys soon (1 = Sword, 2 = Revolver, 3 = Binoculars).
- Added m1841 6lb bronze and iron cannons to the various batteries on Antietam and Harpers Ferry.
- Added Hampton Legion as a playable unit on the evening East Woods and Miller's Cornfield skirmish areas.
- Fog volume updates to Antietam.
- Minor graphical updates, Antietam.
- Fixed a number of regimental descriptions with the help of the community.
- Updates to how your position in the flag bearer spawn queue is showcased.
- Updates to Character lod meshes.
- Added a max corpse setting in the graphic options menu.
- Possibly fixed a server crash.
- Possibly fixed an issue where the flag spawn was selectable, but if the player attempted to spawn on it, the player would never spawn.
- If a player is muted in the tab menu. Their text messages will then also no longer show up in the chat.
- Added the available weapons for the selected class, for the selected regiment in the spawn UI. Cycling through the weapons doesnt actually make you spawn with that weapon, its only purpose is just to show which weapons that regiment may randomly spawn with.
- The server browser now lists what skirmish area the skirmish servers are currently running.
November 3rd - Update 125 Released!
- Increased the overall sharpness of the game.
- Updated R. Miller Stables model.
- Reworked some officers for the 6th LA.
- Fixed an issue where the client thought some base spawnpoints were active, when they were actually disabled on the server. This resulted in the timer on the spawn UI not updating, and the player not spawning.
- Fixed a rare crash with the formation system when joining a server.
- Made the shadows from the clouds darken the fog, resulting in more visible sunshafts.
- Slightly optimized the code for the corpses.
- Made the server use a much simpler definition of player characters, possibly resulting in improved server performance.
- Made the weather change state more frequently.
- Updated the 9th NY flag texture.
- Character detail optimization pass.
- Fixed duplicate character files.
- Fixed various errors for the characters.
- Updated character head proportions.
- Adjusted the hair and facial hair to better fit the new head proportions.
- Tweaked morning fog on the skirmish areas to work better with the updated time of day.
- Tweaked weapon smoke density due to updates to the time of day.
- Added an Out of Line timer and message to the flag bearer of 60 seconds.
- Fixed rotating hands when changing directions while walking at the ready.
