Today, we’re happy to release alpha update 184 for War of Rights! The primary feature of the update is the big lighting revamp, titled “Luminance”, which was announced as part of the 160th anniversary of the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg 2 weeks ago (click HERE to read it). The more accurate lighting that Luminance in itself brings to the table might seem like a relatively small step in increasing the visual fidelity of the game - a continuous process we’re committed to, but with the upgrade resulting in War of Rights entering the physically based rendering spectrum comes a much greater artistic freedom going forward (some of the assets that have already gained a great deal in their visuals from this in this update are: the sun throughout the time of day, internal space of structures and flags).
It is important to note that the Luminance upgrade comes at a technical cost; Starting over with the implementation of all of the textures within the game and thus also the materials of all assets within the game. Due to this, it is possible that a few textures/materials might not seem as refined as they used to be in their original form (thanks to many years of tweaking). It will be a gradual process to get to the same level of material refinement once again.
Update 184 Patch Notes
Added the Luminance overhaul to the game.
Fixed 4th Alabama Company B not being spawnable on East Woods skirmish area, Antietam.
Cleaned up the revolver aimpose animation.
Various corrections to the musket reload and turn animations.
Updated the fire particle.
Fixed up the A, B, C labeling of the Conquest capture points to adhere to a more natural match flow where possible.
Added a batch of Zouave (zoo zoo!) regiments to the customizer:
1st Louisiana
9th New York
114th Pennsylvania
Added a batch of non-Zouave regiments to the customizer:
33rd Virginia
14th Indiana
17th Michigan
Added navy-coloured trousers and Hardee hats to the 4th Pennsylvania dismounted cavalry in the customizer.
Added 14th Brooklyn and 12th New York State Militia drums.
Updated the Roulette barn model.
Changed the shaders of the battle flags of the game to support a more realistic bright, saturated silken sheen while also maintaining the ability to cast shadows upon the flag.
Improved the water shaders in the game.
Added the National flag of the 6th Alabama.
Added the 14th South Carolina National flag.
Added the 20th Georgia Regimental flag.
Fixed clipping on character heads.
Made the flames from the burning mumma farm cast shadows.
Enabled cornstalk billboard shadows at the high and very high graphical presets.
Updated several buildings to allow proper light bounce now supported thanks to Luminance.
Fixed several reload exploits.
Fixed the anti respawn spam mechanic.
War of Rights Luminance Sale - Now 50% Off!
In celebration of the release of the Luminance update, War of Rights is 50% off for the next week!
We look forward to be seeing you all in the servers, fresh recruits and hardened veterans alike!
Field Report 47: 160th Antietam Anniversary Edition
Hello and welcome to the Forty-Seventh Field Report!
Today marks the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam or Sharpsburg, and what better way to commemorate the day with our community than to give an inside look into the future of War of Rights!
In today’s field report, we will be covering a whole host of upcoming, and perhaps surprising, features, eye-watering overhauls, and an insight into our audio production. There is no strict timetable on any of the content featured in this field report; think of it as a de facto roadmap for the end of the year and into 2023.
With that out of the way, let’s get going!
Announcement: “Luminance” Graphics and Lighting Revamp!
Coming in the next major War of Rights update is a big revamp of the shading, materials and lighting in the game, which we call the “Luminance” update. Ever since the start of development, our world lighting has gone through many iterations, and while we have always been satisfied with the look of our game, this iteration is already showing a lot of promise!
The current and previous iterations of our lighting and shading have particularly suffered from too much contrast and a lack of saturation. We have diligently adjusted the tonemapper to overcome these shortcomings and provide a more balanced and realistic image. Furthermore, our indirect lighting has been a point of focus in this update. This more natural indirect light bounce will give a lot more depth and vibrancy to the scene, particularly to interiors and forests. Finally, we have improved our water shader to feature better reflections, light absorption, and accurate sun highlights. We are very pleased with the new look and the visual potential it offers us in future development.
Due to the nature of the asset changes in this update, a full download of the game will be required.
One thing we have always loved about our community is the cinematic quality screenshots and video content you produce with the game, and we look forward to seeing more following the release of this update!
Announcement: “Atlas” Community Level Editor In Development!
We’re excited to formally reveal the development of our upcoming community-level editor, "Atlas." This will open up a whole new realm of content for the game where the community will be able to create, share, and play custom levels built using assets from the game. Atlas will be available, free of charge, to everyone who has a copy of War of Rights.
Atlas, while only being a few months in development, is already taking shape. The screenshot above is a brief glimpse into the interface and toolset that will be available. We are looking to release the editor, during its infancy, to a limited audience in order to gather feedback. We will have more information on this in the future!
We look forward to encouraging and embracing a thriving level creation subcommunity once the level editor is fully released, and we can’t wait to see what sort of levels you’ll all come up with!
Audio Update: Black Powder Recordings
Introduction
Here at Campfire Games we have always strived for realism and authenticity with War of Rights, which also extends to our audio and sound design. We have always placed a high level of value on recording original and bespoke audio for our game - from ambiences, player foley, the musicians, to the sound of a minié ball passing by - the vast majority of the sound effects in War of Rights have been professionally recorded, crafted and designed by audio professionals. We thoroughly believe that this helps deliver an emotive and visceral experience for our players. Something we have wanted to improve on for a little while is the sound of our black powder weapons. Whilst we are rather pleased with the loudness and aggressiveness of our rifles, cannons and pistols in their current state - we feel that we could do much more to improve the sound of these weapons at different distances, environments and orientation/position from the shooter to the listener. How does a rifle sound different when being shot in an open field compared to a wooded area? How different does it sound when being shot inside a building? How do they sound different when standing 20 yards behind the shooter compared to 20 yards in front of the shooter? These are all questions we wanted to be able to answer, and then deliver within the game itself. So we decided to organize a huge blackpowder audio recording session!
American Civil War Society
We teamed up with The American Civil War Society (ACWS) based in the UK to record a vast library of black power weapon sounds. ACWS is a reenactment group who are very active within the scene, each year attending many events around the country. We even managed to record the ‘rebel yell’ and ‘huzzah!’ voices whilst visiting one of their events a few years ago! Their members are located in all corners of the UK and we were very grateful to have a handful of them assist us with our recording session, providing a large variety of weapons; rifles, cannons and pistols.
Field Recording
Tom, one of our audio designers has been involved with the project since the start, and is responsible for most of the sounds already existing within the game. He organized the event; researching and booking the best possible location, communicating with ACWS, as well as providing a large audio recording arsenal (microphones) for the session! From here we’ll hand over to Tom to explain further his thoughts and processes for capturing black powder explosions!
The Recording Session
Hey everyone! When Campfire Games spoke to me about updating some of our black powder weapon firing sounds, I knew that this would be a great opportunity to go out and grab some fresh new recordings. The first step in the process was to figure out a good location to record. Gunshots are essentially an impulse, a quick change in sound pressure which can sometimes sound rather uninteresting when shot in particular locations. The most interesting part of a gunshot (for me) is how the environment reacts to the change in air pressure. This is why guns can sound so different in various locations. It was very important that we picked a suitable place to record for two reasons; firstly, the location had to be very quiet, so that we could capture the cleanest possible recordings with limited background noise. Unfortunately, because the UK is so densely populated, it is quite difficult to avoid all types of traffic noise - but we were lucky to find an area in the countryside that was fairly quiet. Secondly, the location has to have good surroundings for capturing the explosions themselves. The location we used was in an open field with a wooded area bordering and some nice hillsides in the distance. This is quite representative of the locations within War of Rights. We were able to capture some fairly dry up-close sounds whilst capturing the initial slap-back from the wooded area and successfully recording some fantastic reflections from the hills beyond the wood. In order to accurately capture all of the potential sounds of the cannon and the environment we used a 12 channel recording setup, strategically placing microphones around the weapons at different distances and positions. We used a combination of Sound Devices Mix Pre recorders with microphones from Schoeps, DPA and Sennheiser - as well as using a set of handheld recorders (Sony D100 / Zoom H4n Pro) which all sounded absolutely fantastic. Earlier in the daytime we performed a few test shots, which was useful because the best recordings we got were later in the evening. When the winds dropped and the subtle hint of distant traffic noise died down - we shot weapons for hours! At least 40 unique cannon shots and at least 120 different rifle and pistol shots were recorded throughout the session. The reason we shoot so many times is to ensure that we get enough variety in the shots. It’s best to shoot only one weapon at a time, so that it’s possible to edit them into single shot sound files that will later be used to build volleys in real-time. If all of the sounds in a volley are slightly different, we can avoid any repetition in the audio. We really look forward to sharing more audio from the recording session, and we can’t wait to get all of these audio files edited down and designed to be used in-game! Please also visit the ACWS website and show them some support! https://acws.co.uk/
Flag Blog: The Flags of Bloody Lane
Bradley, Texture Artist & Historical Consultant
Shortly before 9 AM on September 17, 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and D. H. Hill toured the sunken road comprising the center of the Army of Northern Virginia. Veteran infantry brigades of Alabamians and North Carolinians under Generals Robert E. Rodes and George B. Anderson occupied the position. Colonel John Brown Gordon’s Sixth Alabama was at the apex of this critical point in Lee’s line. Gordon’s Yellowhammers and Col. Charles Tew’s Tarheels scoured the vicinity for fence railing, transforming the undulating path into a menacing 800-yard entrenchment—soon to be known as Bloody Lane. Gordon gave his assurances to Lee that his men would hold their assigned place, “’till the sun goes down or victory is won.” Not a half hour later, Rodes was wounded, Anderson lay dying, Tew was dead, and Gordon was expected to die having received no less than five gunshot wounds.
Flags were of central importance in the Civil War, and they feature prominently in many survivor accounts of the fighting along the sunken road. Col. Gordon, for example, recalled seeing the first division of Yankee soldiers as they marched into view and their vibrant, silken “banners above them,” which “had apparently never been discolored by the smoke and dust of battle.” On the opposing side, a sergeant in the Eighth Ohio remembered “a stand of colors just opposite us.” The Confederate flags in the sunken road were “a constant mark for us to shoot at. But although we often dropped them, those colors would rise again and wave as defiantly as before.”
The Alabamians of the Sixth carried a pattern of battle flag known as a second bunting issue, from a Richmond, Virginia depot. The flag featured a sewn battle honor for the regiment’s valor in the fight at Seven Pines. The Fourteenth North Carolina carried an earlier version of the battle flag, known as a first bunting, to which was fixed two battle honors for gallant service, “WILLIAMSBURG” and “SEVEN PINES!” There was no rule dictating how regiments should apply these battle honors to their colors, and we see the consequence of the lack of standardization in these two flags—both flags appear in War of Rights. (Left: Fourteenth North Carolina; Right: Sixth Alabama)
Our most recent in-game expansion introduced a conundrum, however, as it gave each regiment two color bearers. This is not a problem for some regiments. Using the example of Bloody Lane, both the Eight Ohio and the Sixty-ninth New York have a stand of colors in War of Rights exactly recreating the flags those regiments carried into battle because the artifacts, or some description of the flags, are still extant.
What flags might the Sixth Alabama and the Fourteenth North Carolina have carried that day? It gnawed at me that until I could answer this question, Confederate players who successfully defended Bloody Lane were rewarded with a victory screen featuring duplicate flags with each regiment. (The “CSA VICTORY” screen at Bloody Lane showing duplicate flags.)
Fortunately, creating the Fourteenth North Carolina’s second flag was relatively uncomplicated once I discovered their flag still exists—indeed, it was captured on the sunken road. Confusingly, the silk flag bears the designation “4th Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers,” but this is not the “Bloody Fourth” North Carolina regiment of the same brigade. The Fourteenth initially mustered as the Fourth Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers and continued to fight under the old banner after their re-designation. (The Fourteenth North Carolina’s “4th Regiment” flag - the state seal is a work in progress.)
What about the Sixth Alabama’s second flag? The simple answer is that we do not know what other flags Gordon’s men might have carried on that day.
To my knowledge, only one flag belonging to the Sixth Alabama during the Maryland Campaign of 1862 is extant today. The company colors of the Hayneville Guards, later Company E of the Sixth, is now in the care of conservators at the State of Alabama’s Department of Archives and History in Montgomery, Alabama—home to one of the nation’s largest collections of Confederate flags. The Sixth Alabama marched with the flag in their home state and carried it with them as they joined the Army of Northern Virginia in Old Dominion. The flag probably did not accompany the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, however, and certainly it was not at Bloody Lane. To borrow Col. Gordon’s description, the banner of the Hayneville Guards was likely “never discolored by the smoke of battle.” Incidentally, though, the flag was eventually unfurled in Sharpsburg, Maryland, but by a restoration company one hundred and thirty-five years after its original guardians fought and bled without it on the sunken road.
My options were then to choose between recreating the only artifact attributed to the regiment still extant, however miniscule the chance is that it was with Lee’s army in Maryland in 1862, or to produce a more-or-less generic First National, more famously known as “Stars and Bars”—the most common flag in Confederate use during the Maryland Campaign. Neither option is accurate, both options are entirely authentic. But the first option reproduces something that is real, that you can see for yourself in the archives, whereas the second option is idealized, it exists only in the imagination of this artist’s tortured mind. After much hemming and hawing, I decided to recreate the artifact. (Flag of the Hayneville Guards, later Company E of the Sixth Alabama)
Right away, players will notice the flag is made of white silk, which is an unfortunate choice for a battle flag but not entirely unheard of. Even at Bloody Lane, Union soldiers “noticed a white flag waving in the rebel line for some time.” Some Yankees mistook what they saw through the dense fog of battle as rebels offering a white flag of surrender, but likely it was a company flag like this one.
The front of the banner is meticulously wreathed in gold stitching in the shape of a chain. At the center, the flag features seven stars chained together, representing the seven slaveholding states that seceded from the Union prior to Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as the sixteenth President of the United States. The town of Hayneville is the county seat of Lowndes County, Alabama and was one of the state’s largest slaveholding counties. On a ribbon beneath the chained constellation appears a motto: “Our Homes Our Rights / We Entrust to your Keeping / Brave Sons of ALABAMA.”
The reverse of the flag is also quite interesting, as it features the goddess Liberty, unironically breaking a set of iron chains clasped to her wrists. Most of Liberty’s head and face no longer exist on the artifact, and so I based her likeness on other period paintings—particularly those originating in Alabama. Above her head is another slogan, this one with a distinctive typo: “TYRANY [sic] IS HATEFUL TO THE GODS.” Beyond these and a few more new flags we’ll be adding to War of Rights, the lighting rework showcased in this Field Report is one of the more significant upcoming updates as it provides a significant visual boost to flags. Silk, in particular, is a difficult fabric to recreate visually with its sheen, high saturation and contrasts, and opacities. With this update, however, colors will display more accurately. Gone are the dull, dark flags. The application of new shaders will also allow sunlight to cast shadows through the flag, as seen in the screenshot below. While minor features in the grand scheme of things, we trust the community will appreciate our attention to these various details as we press onward for greater immersion.
Progress Report: Cavalry Locomotion
To dust off this field report, we will take a look into how Hershey and his fellow horse friends are doing. Cavalry is one of the most anticipated features in War of Rights, and as such we have been taking our time with it and giving it the care and attention it deserves.
As we inch towards its initial release, we wanted to give you an insight into the work that has gone into the locomotion of horses. Our animator has been solely focused on bringing the horses to life over the last few months. His work includes the different horse gaits, animation and deceleration blends, jumps, slope posing, and of course the player mount/dismount.
Beneath the horse animations is the programming tech that ties it all together. While very much a work in progress, a lot of consideration has been given to how the horse manipulates its body to control its center of gravity while traversing complex surfaces. The video above showcases the aforementioned tech. You will also notice our IK solver in action, keeping the hooves aligned to the surface. Again, we stress this is a work in progress, but we know you are all eager to see how Hershey is doing.
We still plan to roll out the horses in a phased manner, the first of which will be to give them to infantry officers with the option to spawn as mounted or on foot.
That’s all for this field report.
We can’t wait to get the showcased new features and improvements into your hands as the project continues to evolve.
- The Campfire Games Team
Update 183 - Released!
Hello everyone,
Today, we’re happy to release alpha update 183 for War of Rights. It features additional customizable regiments, flag bearer updates, a spawn system rework as well as several quality of life additions and more!
Update 183 Patch Notes
Added 8 new customizable regiments to the game: 1st Maryland, 4th Rhode Island, 1st Delaware, 4th Pennsylvania, 3rd Arkansas, 8th Florida, 14th Tennessee and Holcombe Legion.
Added more items to the uniform customizer.
In an effort to reduce the amount of time large amounts of players sometimes end up fighting exclusively inside buildings, Flag bearers are now unable to spawn players while inside buildings throughout the game. They are also not able to stay inside them for longer than 30 seconds before deserting.
Flag bearers can now see how many, if any, players are queued up to spawn at their position by looking at the player state info at the lower right corner of the screen.
Remade the deployment & spawn system in an effort to eliminate any edge case spawn issues.
When playing the Skirmish game mode, players now spawn in separate companies (Co. A or B) instead of spawning all mixed up.
Server admins are now able to invert the team spawns when playing the Conquest game mode. Alternatively, they can opt with a “Random” selection should they wish to make fate decide.
When playing the Skirmish game mode and selecting the “Round Restart” server setting it now skips the post-match narration in order to better facilitate event play.
Changing the battlefield of a server now results in a loading screen being shown quicker, reducing the chance of players believing that the server is lagging or has crashed.
Fixed the Smokestacks Conquest mode area desertion issue upon spawning in.
Various binocular and revolver animation tweaks and fixes.
Adjusted sword salute and parade rest emotes.
Added revolver salute and exit and enter animations.
Fixed the left hand moving upwards for half a second when stopping moving with the revolver.
Fixed the order arms emote.
Fixed misaligned and broken subtitles on Harpers Ferry Bolivar Heights Camp skirmish area.
Fixed frock coat branch collar clipping.
Reworked camp stool model.
Fixed the aim animation so that the rifle stays in the hands of the soldier while he is turning.
Adjusted the sword melee aimpose animations.
Tweaked the sword shoulder arms idle and aimpose animations.
Fixed a number of fences that could not be vaulted across on South Mountain.
Corrected the left arm during the revolver cocking hammer animation playback while moving.
Adjusted the revolver crouch exit and enter animation.
Enabled server multi threaded pre-processing for received packets from clients.
Update 182 - Released!
Hello everyone,
We have just released alpha update 182 primarily containing a number of exploit, bug and visual fixes to the game. You can find the patch notes below.
Update 182 Patch Notes
Updated the volumetric clouds of the game, resulting in a prettier sky.
Increased the distance between the player capsule and the terrain, resulting in players being able to easier pass the various ground clutter in the game.
Fixed a crash sometimes triggered by managing to begin level loading before the server list completely refreshed.
Entering the benchmark no longer produces an initial freeze.
Increased the text chat fade timer from 5 to 8 seconds.
Fixed a connection issue experienced by some players.
Updates to the Screen Space Directional Occlusion and Global Illumination settings in the game.
Models now again properly dissolve between their various LOD’s instead of an instant change, resulting in a more smooth blend.
The shadow cap of the animated formations on the victory screens has been removed.
Fixed a crash tied to a particle emitter being created and destroyed on the same frame.
Rewrote the desertion/map boundary code for greater reliability.
Drastically increased the character view distance and made it render an equal distance across all graphics presets.
Characters now change to less detailed LOD’s at greater distances than they used to, resulting in more detailed character models overall.
Fixed a reload exploit involving starting reloads during the kneel enter/exit transition.
Added lit camp lanterns to many of the officer wall tents throughout the game.
New scabbard-holding sprint animations while holding a sword in either shoulder arms or melee mode.
Minor animation tweaks and fixes for revolver and binocular rotation blends.
Added 23rd and 36th Ohio national and regimental flags.
Added 5th Alabama regimental flag.
Added 72nd PA and 27th NC drums.
Fixed a proxy issue with the Henry Rohrback farmhouse model.
Added a selection of candles and candlestick models to the game.
Today sees the release of alpha update 181, featuring our very first Steam achievement batch of 10 (let us know if you’d like us to add more and which ones you’d want to see!) and major performance improvements thanks to Aleksi’s work at instanced batching - otherwise known as “magic” to the uninitiated.
Steam Achievements
Steam achievements allow us to reward the players with a completionist outlook on things with a few tokens. We’ve been very careful not to include any achievements that will subtract from the teamplay aspect of the game in a major form and we will continue to tread very carefully indeed when/if we add more to the game.
For the achievement art, we’ve opted to go with an old-timey photo style (and a hand painted, as was tradition during the era, for when an achievement is unlocked).
Update 181 Achievement List
Blue Name? Meet a developer on the field of battle.
To War! Join the battle in War of Rights!
Tactician Watch a recorded match replay.
Dress Up Create a customized uniform.
Barbershop Visit Create a customized head.
Skirmisher Play 100 games of Skirmish.
Conqueror Play 100 games of Conquest.
Patroller Play 100 games of Picket Patrol.
Untrampled Pick up a flag from a fallen flag bearer.
Bullseye Score a bullseye on a drill camp target.
Performance Improvements
Rendering for common world objects such as fences, buildings and vegetation is now binned to be rendered in instanced batches. This results in a significant CPU overhead reduction on the render thread, especially noticeable in areas with far view distances. In addition to the world rendering overhead being reduced, the per-frame setup of dynamic render objects is now much faster.
Here are a few off/on comparisons captured with a Ryzen 1700X paired with an RTX 3060 running the very high graphic preset setting:
Instancing disabled
Instancing enabled
Instancing disabled
Instancing enabled
Instancing disabled
Instancing enabled
Update 181 Patch Notes
Added 10 Steam achievements.
Added major performance improvements via instanced batching.
Increased the max view distance of trees and bushes by 25%.
Increased the max view distance of all non-vegetation objects by 40%.
Drastically increased the max amount of rendered character shadows (from 30 to 150 on very high for instance).
Increased the view distance of indirect light bounces (SVOTI) by 300%.
Added 2nd Mississippi, 3rd Alabama, 14th Brooklyn and 20th Maine to the pool of customizable units.
Added base spawn tags to drill camp picket patrol spawn points.
Fixed a number of missing fence ledges and proxy walls, Limestone Bridge & Waterways Conquest areas, Antietam.
Doubled the resolution of the speaker, muted and demoted icons on the name tags.
Added a new grass model variant to the mix.
Reduced camera movement on exit “at the ready”, melee mode and when selecting the revolver.
Fixed a few potential issues with the overlook point at Harpers Ferry.
Added 2nd Mississippi, 30th Virginia and 5th Alabama BTN national flags.
Fixed the flipped artillery battery spawn positions in the Forest Stream Conquest area, Antietam.
Fixed a flipped morale count during the battle report playback when playing the Skirmishes game mode.
Cocking a revolver no longer causes the automatic freelook to kick in (if this feature is enabled).
Servers running 150 or more player slots will now continuously warn their admins about possible performance issues if their hardware hasn’t been upgraded (this is free) by contacting Gportal.
When getting killed and triggering last stand, thus causing an instant respawn, the player should now be able to move about just fine.
The character customization level is no longer loaded immediately when starting the game or when leaving a server, but only while the character customization is to be shown, resulting in faster game startup times.
Fixed an issue with joining a Skirmish server during a round transition after the battle report has finished resulting in the client remaining stuck in the static spectator camera.
That’s all for now. We hope you will enjoy unlocking the achievements as well as the major performance improvements of update 181.
See you in the fields of glory!
- The Campfire Games Team
Update 180: South Mountain Conquest - Released!
Hello everyone,
Today, we’re happy to once again be heavily expanding the offerings of the newly introduced Conquest mode! Update 180 adds an additional 6 Conquest areas to the game, bringing the number of available Conquest areas up to 18. With the added easy-to-use level and/or game mode changing via the in-game server settings, admins and players alike should be able to tailor exactly the experience they’d like!
The update also includes another polish pass to the deployment UI, an AFK to Spectate feature and several minor fixes and improvements.
Update 180 Patch Notes
Added 4 new Conquest areas in the South Mountain level: Log Cabin, Wheat Fields, Rocky Slopes and Hilltop.
Added 2 new Conquest areas in the Antietam level: Limestone Bridge and Waterways.
The Server Settings menu now allows server admins to change game mode and level on the fly without having to restart their server. Note that this feature requires mass testing and so please report any issues you might experience that are tied to it.
The deployment screen now allows for previewing the state of the spawn queues on the main base or the flag spawn by simply clicking on either one.
The deployment screen now provides a much more detailed state of your company's flag bearer, helping you determine if it's worth it to remain in the flag spawn queue or not. This info can be viewed even while in the queue of the main Infantry spawn.
Improved the 1st person exit animations of Ready and Melee Mode with a bayonet attached.
Added an automatic AFK system, moving the AFK player into the spectating team. This happens sooner during Last Stand in order to cut down on AFK players prolonging the length of the event.
Capturing all 3 capture points in the Conquest mode while the enemy is in Last Stand no longer results in an instant win. Instead, the Counter-Attack mechanic will be triggered (as is the case in all other morale level scenarios already). We have done this to eliminate the very hard-to-understand victories that could occur due to the above mechanics.
That's all we have for now. See you on the fields of glory!
Following last week's major update, we are now pleased to be bringing you even more content with Update 179. This update focuses on expanding the Conquest game mode with 4 new areas situated at the town of Harpers Ferry: River Town, Outskirts, Overlook and Valley, as well as tweaking the layout and size of the Smokestacks and Framing Fencelines Conquest areas located on Antietam.
Several of the Harpers Ferry Conquest areas are radically different in overall layout than any other Conquest area in the game thus far due to the vertical differences as well as urban layouts found in the level and so we will be keeping an eye on any feedback you might have regarding them.
Update 179 also features the first implementation of Battle Report replays (selectable by the “Replays” button found in the main menu). This will present the user with a list of recorded battle reports available to be replayed. This feature could prove useful for any unit conducting a tactical debrief following a battle or simply if you want to relive some great (or bad) outcome of a recent match of yours.
As noted earlier, this is the very first implementation of the feature and so we’re very much looking forward to hearing your feedback as to what to improve/add to it going forward.
The pool of customizable regiments is also expanding in Update 179. With the addition of the 2nd US Regulars, 1st Minnesota, 1st Georgia and 13th Virginia to the mix.
Aside from the usual bug fixes, this update also includes minor gameplay additions, such as an optional automatic freelook during reloads and bayonet fixings, located in the gameplay options. This setting is off by default. We are looking for feedback from you all as to whether or not it should be enabled by default in the future so please chime in once you have tried it!
Additionally, Update 179 brings a 50% reduction in bandwidth related to the character customization. Furthermore, we will be testing support for changing the level and game mode without requiring a server restart. This will initially be mass tested on the official test server and released for every server owner to make use of relatively shortly after if no issues are found.
Update 179 Patch Notes
Added 4 new Conquest areas on Harpers Ferry: River Town, Outskirts, Overlook and Valley.
Reworked Conquest areas: Smokestacks and Framing Fencelines on Antietam.
Added the first implementation of the Battle Report replay feature to the main menu.
Added 4 new customizable regiments to the pool of available units: 2nd US Regulars, 1st Minnesota, 1st Georgia and 13th Virginia.
Reduced the networking load of the character customization system by 50%.
Added an automatic freelook setting in the gameplay options menu.
Detail work, Forrest Stream area, Antietam.
Added 4 new poses to the customization menu: Parade Rest, At The Ready, Wave Flag and Crossed Arms.
When dead while last stand triggers during a skirmish round, you are now correctly instantly spawned again.
Drill Camps now have a working inspection camera again.
Potentially fixed players that seemingly fly when they interact with the artillery pieces.
Fixed a bug sometimes resulting in the first-person weapon being linked to the wrong hand after spawning.
Fixed a bug where weather effects such as puddles would linger into the next conquest area.
That's all for now. We look forward to be fighting with you in Harpers Ferry, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers converge and John Brown once sparked the whole thing.
- The Campfire Games Team
Update 178: Conquest & Customization - Released!
Update 178: Conquest & Customization - Released!
Hello everyone,
Today, we’re excited to be bringing you War of Rights alpha update 178 featuring not one, but two major features! The first of which being Conquest, a genre fan favorite, with a unique take and all the gameplay nuance that you would expect from War of Rights! Secondly, the very first implementation of our character customizer with a photo mode to boot!
The past month or two, we have been releasing several Field Reports detailing the specifics of the two main features being released today.
Update 178 also contains a massive amount of backend code work on the user interface and various game systems. This includes: game modes, spectator camera, battle reports, freelooking and much more beyond the scope of this change log! We have also been making a concerted effort to move away from flowgraphs/visual scripting as they have proven unreliable and unstable throughout the lifetime of War of Rights. These have been rewritten in C++ to streamline the continued development of the game. Moreover, providing a more stable experience for you and for us to more easily debug and fix issues that may arise going forward.
We thought it a good time to give you a visualization of some of the work the programmers Mike, Aleksi, Emil & formerly Philipp have been working on since 2020. The visualization shows file changes made over time where each dot represents a file. Every lazer represents when that file has been modified and by whom. The branches and overall structure constitutes the folder hierarchy. Quite notable from the showcase is the acceleration in progress over the past 11 months since we restructured our programming team.
Busy little bees indeed!
[previewyoutube="cX1he7a5upM;full"]
War of Rights Conquest Sale: 50% Off!
To mark the release of alpha update 178 featuring the two major game features Conquest & Customization, War of Rights is now on sale at 50% off for the next week!
Now is a great time to pick up your musket, trim your beard, tailor your uniform and join the ranks!
Added Conquest, a brand new game mode for War Of Rights. This game mode focuses on taking control of points scattered strategically throughout the map. Capturing them with the use of the pivotal Flag Bearer class by interacting with the flagpoles. The team that controls the fewest points will suffer a morale drain.
Featured with Conquest are 8 exciting new areas: Smokestacks, Forest Stream, Framing Fencelines and Farmland to Antietam and Corn Crib, Farm Lane, Railroad Cut and Towering Trunks to the Drill Camp level.
Added the first implementation of uniform customization, featuring 8 fully customizable regiments: 6th Wisconsin, 69th New York, 72nd Pennsylvania, 8th Ohio, 1st Texas, 6th Louisiana, 3rd South Carolina and 27th North Carolina. Additionally, a photo mode to let your artistic talents fully capture your custom character in the way you want.
The first implementation of character head customization with a wide range of options to create your perfect civil war digital self.
Greatly improved the quality of shadows on characters and buildings.
Reduced the specular on all distance trees for a less washed out look.
Added a slight color variation to all trees.
Reduced the amount of wind bending on leaves.
Replaced the cornfield distance model.
Increased the depth buffer from 24 bit to 32 bit, reducing the amount of shadow and volumetric fog banding as well as shading artifacts.
Developers can now download the latest server crash memory dump, making it easier to debug server crashes.
If a client should crash, it will now put its memory dump into a new Diagnostics folder in the game directory.
When deploying on a flagbearer, the deploy timer will now display the estimated time to deployment, taking the queue size into account. If the flag bearer is In Formation and you are number 4 in the queue, it will estimate your time to spawn to be 40 seconds, if the flag bearer is skirmishing, the estimated time to spawn will be 80 seconds.This also means that the estimated time to deploy may change drastically as the flagbearer continuously switches from being Skirmishing, to being In Formation.
Made flag bearers able to wave their flag. It can be done by pressing and holding the left mouse button.
Fixed the flag cloth sometimes turning invisible, resulting in flag bearers just running around with a stick.
Updated the benchmark to be more representative of the larger servers.
Increased the camera shake from artillery explosions.
Replaced the default view system with a new camera system, no more freezing into cutscene cameras.
Replaced the localization system and updated the file structure of all localization.
Added a star icon to the officer of your company to more easily locate your officer. It can be seen by pressing T.
Replaced all icons with dynamic ones that now follow the entity they belong to.
Added a new icon to all skirmish and conquest areas, indicating the location of your teams main spawn.
The round timer and morale state indicator on the deploy screen is now able to display exactly the same info as the compass ingame, counter attack, overtime, overtime timer and capture progress.
On the Skirmish gamemode, the UI will now display Capturing in the bottom right corner when you are close enough to the capture point to assist in its capture. Likewise it will now say Defending, if you are close enough to help keep it in your teams favor.
The flag bearer position of your company will now be highlighted on the map on the deploy screen as an orange flag. Friendly flag bearers of other companies will be displayed as a blue or red flag for the Union or the Confederacy.
Rewrote the user graphics and keybindings saving to be more reliable (Your current settings will be wiped)
Fixed the tabview not scrolling to the top when typing into the search field.
Fixed the chat sometimes losing focus while it’s active, forcing the player to hit enter twice to get rid of it.
Added a graphics option that disables collisions between corpses, greatly improving their performance on heavily populated servers. It defaults to on.
Added an option in the sounds menu to disable the tinnitus effect.
Officer order chat messages will now only display to players in the same company.
Updated the steam rich presence for the menus, showing what you are doing on the menu to your steam friends.
Added an advanced mode to the framerate display to give more information.
Fixed players occasionally getting stuck on the wrong side of a fence when vaulting.
Potential fix for placing shells sometimes removing the artillery sponge rammer item.
Reduced the amount of network transmissions whenever a player is interacting with the artillery or limber.
That's all for now. We look forward to be expanding upon both Conquest and Customization in the weeks and months to come.
See you all on the fields of glory!
- The Campfire Games Team
Public Test Branch: Conquest & Customization Round 2 - Now Available!
Hello Everyone,
The public test branch is now once again available for everyone to test throughout the weekend!
This round 2 of testing includes 4 new Conquest areas situated on the drill camp level as well as 4 additional customizable regiments.
A number of visual and technical improvements & bug fixes have also been added.
Below is a great little video created by community member Steve Lovaski, showing you the steps required to change from the live branch of the game into the public test branch.
[previewyoutube="mdqLBSIiYjs;full"] Note that we recommend you to take a backup of your live branch War of Rights folder located in steamapps/common/War of Rights for a quick way to be able to revert back to the live branch without having to redownload the game, should you so wish.
We will be active on the public test server throughout the weekend to gather as much feedback from you as we possibly can and so we hope to see a great many of you joining in.
- The Campfire Games Team
Public Test Branch: Conquest & Customization Round 1 Ended
Hello everyone!
The first round of the public test branch: Conquest & Customization testing phase has now ended. We'd like to thank everyone that took part in testing throughout the weekend! We gained a lot of valuable data and feedback that will help us to ensure as good a deployment of the features to the live branch as possible.
Before a live release happens, however, we'd like to invite you all to partake in round 2 of the public test branch, starting this Friday 25th and running throughout the weekend. Here, you will be able to test out new customizable regiments, new Conquest areas and a host of bug fixes/system improvements unique to round 2.
