Warfare 1944
Friday Warfare 1944 Playtest Session (July 24 @ 2:00PM EST)
Our next playtest for Warfare 1944 will be on Friday (7/24/2020) starting at 2:00PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) over in the DRK Community Discord. Playtests will run for however long people want to play (although eventually the developers will break off for our regularly scheduled internal development meetings).
We look forward to seeing you there!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Friday Warfare 1944 Playtest Session (2:00PM EST)
We are beginning a new playtesting schedule for Warfare 1944. We will be holding regular weekly playtests on Friday's starting at 2:00PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) over in the DRK Community Discord. Playtests will run for however long people want to play (although eventually the developers will break off for our regularly scheduled internal development meetings).
We look forward to seeing you there!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Pre-Alpha 0.8.1.0 Update Released
General
- Team Auto-Balance feature now moves players based on time spent on their current team by default rather than moving players arbitrarily (favors least time when choosing).
- Removed some CVars that players could modify to allow for an unfair advantage.
Server Administration
- Added "ForceTeam" and "ForceTeamId" console commands for admins to use for switching individual players between teams manually.
Audio
- Added new Mid and Far Gunshot Audio.
- Added Mid and Far Grenade Explosion Audio.
Utah
- Adjusted Culling Distances for all assets to accommodate for Low Quality Settings.
- Optimized Terrain Tile Level Bounds for performance.
- Moved Water Blueprints from Main sublevel to the level they reside on.
- Increased LOD distances for foliage.
- Removed normals from all Terrain LODs.
- Reduced all Terrain LOD Texture sizes for performance.
- Optimized Terrain LOD Materials.
- Assigned Terrain tiles to a smaller streaming distance for performance.
- Fixed several floating props and foliage.
- Fixed floating hedgerows and mounds.
- Fixed floating fences.
Carentan
- Adjusted Culling Distances to accommodate for Low Quality Settings.
Wake Island
- Adjusted Culling Distances for better performance.
Firing Range
- Adjusted Culling Distances on all assets to accommodate for Low Quality Settings.
Development Blog #2 [June 2020]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome back, this will be our second devblog covering the work done for Warfare 1944 in the month of June, 2020. If you missed our last devblog, you can find it here.
To get started, we would like to recap the results of Warfare’s launch, which took place on July 7, 2020. Launch day went fine, although the issues during the beginning that caused the game to not show up or be downloadable (which were due to certain factors that were out of our control and had to be corrected by Valve) unfortunately set us back a few hours as we worked to get it corrected.
Issues aside, launch day was about as we expected otherwise: we are releasing the game in quite an early state, and we are fully aware that the game is not yet in a place where it is going to attract a lot of attention or retain player’s interest for extended periods of time. For us, Warfare is only in its introductory phase, meaning it is likely to mainly attract early adopters (i.e. those that want to get in early and are not just interested in the game but also how the development evolves over time). Because of this, we are not attempting to generate a lot of traffic or hype outside of our own local networks to advertise the launch, as we don’t believe right now is the appropriate time to do this with so much work that still needs to be done. There will be a time and a place to do this (a growth phase), and once the game hits that point, we have a lot of plans for that. Until then, we are just focusing on developing the game and getting the remaining core features/systems in, and continuing to build the core community, which is one of the most important and vital priorities for us and our vision.
With that being said, roughly one week later we have sold over 900 copies, which continues to increase each day, and we have been holding around a 90% positive review rating with over 60 reviews—for the project being at the stage that it is in, we certainly see this as a success, and we are excited to grow the projects alongside the community and see where it takes us. Thank you to everybody that has purchased a copy so far (and a big thank you to those that went and left reviews on the game), it is certainly a tremendous help to the team, and is helping us reach our goals faster!
Now let’s get into the good stuff:
Maps
Most of the work that went into maps in June was in the form of general polish and optimization, and making detail passes to fill them out more. The level design team has also already gotten started on the next Pacific theater map: Guadalcanal.
Guadalcanal
We only have the landscape heightmap blockout done so far (the image above), and there is still a lot more work to go before it will become ready for playtesting, but we wanted to share with you our plans for the next expected map to be released. As usual, we do not typically provide dates, but it shouldn’t be too long before we will have the first versions ready for a playtest.
Utah Beach
Carentan
Wake Island
Objects and Models
In the month of June, there was mainly a lot of wrap up work on finishing models, as well as some texturing work to models that we showed off last month.
Naval Ships
The USS Saratoga and the Japanese Hiryu aircraft carrier models have been completed, and are now waiting for textures, custom collision, and the mannable static gun emplacements to be placed and set up. Needless to say, there is still a lot more work to go before this and the other ships will be playable, however we are well on our way. The Daihatsu landing craft is also now fully textured and has collision, however it is not yet driveable.
Daihatsu Landing Craft, USS Saratoga, Hiryu Aircraft Carrier
Aircraft
The Corsair F4U and A6M Zero that were shown last month have now been textured. No more to report for aircraft right now—these are still a ways away, and these models will be used in our first testing grounds for implementing flying mechanics.
Corsair F4U, A6M Zero
Character Models
We have begun getting a couple new variations of the US faction created: the Marine Corps and the Army Airborne 101st/82nd paratroopers.
The Japanese models have been textured and just need to be rigged, then they will be ready to play.
The German soldiers are also getting a retexture soon:
Weapons
Work has continued on Russian and Japanese weapons. Mostly new models have been made, and the Japanese bayonet has received a texture:
PPSh-41, F1 Grenade, Entrenching Tool, DP-27, FN-40 Bayonet, Japanese Bayonet
Static Guns and Emplacements
We got a bunch more static guns and weapon emplacements modeled and ready for textures. One of the 5” US battery guns has received textures, which you will find featured in-game on the Wake Island map.
5 Inch Battery, Type 86, M2 Browning, Saratoga AA Gun , US Torpedo Launcher, US Depth Charges, Patterson Battery, Type 96
Misc. Props
Just a couple more miscellaneous props: a Belgian Gates model, and a US radar trailer prop has received its final textures.
User Interface (UI)
Soon we will have an update to the overall UI experience: text chat and VOIP indicators.
Text Chat and VOIP Indicators
Pretty straightforward quality of life features—now you will be able to utilize text chat to communicate with other players in your match (complete with filters for squad/team/global of course). In addition, now you will know when you and others are talking, with indication for whether or not you are talking in local/squad/command nets (availability of nets may vary later on in the game once we start bringing in rally points, radio bags, etc.—we are discussing internally a number of ideas for various radio/communication systems that we will share later).
Flag Capture
Soon you will be able to better understand the capping mechanics when you are on a flag. This setting is subject to change based on how the server owner may tweak this parameter, but by default flags in Warfare require a minimum of 3 players to cap (unless there are less than that many players on a team). This is done to reduce frequent back capping—if you can coordinate it with 3 or more players, we feel you should be able to recap a point, but if you are a lone wolf sneaking behind enemy lines to recapture a point when nobody is looking, we feel that this is largely disruptive and counter intuitive to the team-based gameplay we would like to encourage.
Upcoming and WIP Features
The following features and content are what are on our immediate priority list to get done:
Server Admin Tools
Warfare launched with dedicated server files, which are available for anybody to download and set up a server whenever they want. If you are interested in starting a server, please refer to our server setup guide. Warfare servers are RCON compatible, which has functionality for basic commands and parameters for server owners and admins to get started with moderating.
Proper admin tools are extremely important to us, and are a top priority right now—if server owners don’t have the bare minimum tools they need to take care of griefers, cheaters, rule breakers, etc., what good are any of the new content and game features that we are working to include? With that said, here is our plan and approach to server moderation and giving server owners the options to run their servers and communities as they please:
- Server owners will have the option to enable a "VAC Block" which will not allow any VAC banned players to join the server. This is a passive alternative to enabling "VAC Secured" which is an active anti-cheat measure that will come in future updates.
- Server owners will have the option to enable "Vote Kick" feature which will allow community members to self-moderate. We know that a feature like this can be prone to abuse, which is why we're planning on giving server owners the option to use it... with the following twists. VAC Banned (or game banned) players will not be able to participate in or start votes. Administrators can permanently revoke any player's voting privileges at any time. Players who are kicked a first time will be kicked for an hour; a second time will be for a day; a third time will be a permanent ban until an administrator reviews the case. Players who initiate votes that are lost will lose all voting privileges for an hour on the first loss, a day for a second loss, and a week for a third loss.
- Players will be able to view a server's ban list from the server information panel. You will be able to review all players who have been banned, when they were banned, and the reason why.
- Players will be able to view how many administrators are active on a server from the server information panel.
- Server owners will have the option to enable a whitelist system, and only allow whitelisted players to join a server. This will be useful for private events, or exclusive community servers (think SquadOps).
- Players will be able to see which players are administrators by viewing the player list. Additionally, any administrator who has used any command will be visible through the player information panel. If an administrator is actively using any administration tool (such as spectate) this will also be shown next to their name in the player list.
Keybind and Control Customization
A much requested feature, keybindings and control customization will be coming soon.
Server Map Cycling
In the current server files, map switching can only take place when a server owner or admin inputs a command to switch to another map. Soon, maps will be put on a rotation and will cycle upon the end of a round (the order of which will be defined by the server owner).
Japanese Faction
The Japanese faction will be added into the game soon. All of the work needed to make them playable is basically done, meaning implementation is very close. Now we will finally be able to run a proper Wake Island match!
SDK Version 1.0
I don’t have much information to share with everyone on the SDK just yet, but it is now on our priority list to release a first version of it to the public so the community can begin altering things, creating mods, etc. There will be more to come on this later.
Bots
We are also working on our first pass/iteration of bots. At first, they will be very primitive and basic, and won’t do anything too impressive—this will be the first step of many towards implementing full fledged bot support that will be capable of being used in not only singleplayer, but also coop and multiplayer game modes.
To start, we are thinking about bringing them in with a basic wave based survival mode in the shooting range, where they simply charge and attack you (they won’t be good for much more at this point), and you can fight them for as long as you can survive. This will also be a good way for players to practice with all of the various weapons in the game. Let us know what you think about this idea in the comments section.
Operation: Harsh Doorstop
We began conducting O:HD playtests in June, although the game is still currently “out-of-date” (i.e. it has not been brought up to speed with a lot of the improvements and updates that have been made to the OHDCore framework with Warfare). While Warfare is receiving most of our attention right now, there is still work going on behind the scenes with O:HD, and I figured we should share some teasers here for those that read to the end since there is no dedicated O:HD devblog yet.
Right now, there is work going into a total of 3 maps: Khafji, Muttrah, and Fallujah. You will find an image of a blockout for Khafji below, as well as some material samples and grass that will go into the world environments:
We will likely have our first official O:HD devblog next month with much more to share, so keep an eye out for that!
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That’s all for now, thank you to everyone that took the time to check out our progress updates for the month of June. As always, be sure to keep an eye on all of our other platforms (linked below) to stay up-to-date on Warfare 1944 and our other projects!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website
Pre-Alpha 0.8.0.2 Hotfix Update Released
- Fixed dxgi.dll error on startup for Windows 7 users.
Pre-Alpha 0.8.0.1 Hotfix Update Released
- Added a potential fix for some audio-related crashes.
- Implemented Ban List functionality with new "ban" and "banid" RCON commands for server admins.
Development Blog #1 [May 2020]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the first development blog for Warfare 1944! A lot of hard work has been put into the game during the first month of production after Bluedrake’s reveal (give the first 10 minutes of this video a watch if you haven’t already), and we are excited to recap our progress for the month of May, as well as showcase new content and features that will be coming soon. In May, not only were our games revealed, but we also began a massive onboarding process where we have received over 400 applications from the community to help with development from programming, 3d modeling, animations, level design, beta testing, and more. A huge thank you to everyone that applied and wants to support these projects!
Please keep in mind, Warfare 1944 is still in its’ pre-alpha stages, and you will see a mix of early assets, designs, and systems that are subject to change and be improved over time—our goal is to be as transparent as possible and let the community get a glimpse of what goes in to game development at all stages of the process.
Warfare 1944 will be available to purchase here on Steam on July 7, 2020 for the price of $9.99! You can still get your hands on a key to Warfare right now through our Patreon, where your support can also get you keys to various other Drakeling Labs projects right now, such as Operation: Harsh Doorstop and Iron Armada, and various other perks and benefits.
What is Drakeling Labs?
Before we begin we feel that it is important to outline the goals/objectives of Drakeling Labs, give a brief rundown of all of our projects and the core framework that they are built upon (OHDCore), and explain where Warfare 1944 fits into the picture and why it is our primary focus right now. Here to do this is the owner and studio lead himself, Bluedrake42:
[previewyoutube="0PNQjfWKwDw;full"]
Maps
Utah Beach
As it stands, Utah beach is largely complete as far as layout and design goes, and most of the work that went into the map in May was building out the countryside and more inland regions beyond the beach, as well as bringing in new assets such as modular building pieces, and new trees and foliage assets. Now that the overall blockouts and positioning are more or less finished, the level designers are currently focusing on filling out these later stages of the map with more detail (towns, villages, and general countryside where the US forces will advance after taking the beach, further pushing into Normandy). Enjoy some development screenshots and timelapse footage of one of our level designers laying the groundwork for some of the various towns/villages and countryside of Normandy:
Carentan
Carentan received much of the same treatment that Utah did during May—blocking out and expanding into the regions surrounding the city, making detail passes, bringing in new assets, and of course optimization work. Currently, the majority of detail is in the city itself, which players will find complete with enterable buildings (every building can be entered), propaganda posters, backyards and alleyways, and more.
Wake Island
Wake Island is a brand new map that was just started in May. It marks the beginning of our work on the Pacific Theater, and it will be our testing grounds for features like naval and air combat (when ships and planes are ready to be deployed—see below for some WIP images of both), as well as swimming.
Our level design team made quick work of this map in just a few short weeks following the reveal announcement, creating new foliage and tree assets, new modular building pieces/sets, new bunker assets, new lighting work, and more. There is still a lot more work to be done with this map, however basic functionality is there and the map is fully playable and coming together nicely (although at the moment we are testing with US vs Germans since we are still working on the Japanese faction! More WIP images of this can be found below, we hope to have the proper faction in very soon).
Shooting Range
We also created a basic shooting range space that is available for players to play in a singleplayer environment in order to experiment with the various weapons and mechanics, as well as a sample of the vehicles in their current state (vehicles are only available in singleplayer right now, as they need more work to be networked properly and added into a multiplayer environment, however we wanted players to at least be able to experience them in their current state—you will find that we are still working out some kinks with the physics, and there are certain things you can do with the vehicles that we feel could be exploitable in a multiplayer environment).
Our goal is to have all three of these maps as complete as possible by launch, however, if there are some unfinished areas we will still leave them open for players to explore, but will be sure to keep the map capture point layouts consistent with what is more finished and ideal for gameplay. All maps will continue to be worked on and polished throughout development.
Objects and Models
Naval Ships
One of our most anticipated features for Warfare 1944 is naval combat. We still have a long way to go before we will be able to bring these ships in, however, our 3d modeling team is already laying the groundwork for this to happen by creating a series of ships from landing craft, to destroyers and aircraft carriers, and even submarines. Below you will find images of our current WIP ship models:
Kamikaze-class destroyer, Paterson-class destroyer, USS Intrepid, German U-Boat 505, USS Aaron Ward, US APA-159 Landing Craft, Daihatsu Landing Craft
Aircraft
We currently have several airplanes being modeled and prepared for when we start implementing air combat into the game. Just like ships, there is still a long way to go before planes are added, but we are still taking steps early to have some assets ready to go for when we begin bringing this feature in. Some more WIP images of our airplane models:
US Corsair, Mitsubishi A6M Zero
Armor and Other Land Vehicles
We already have a fairly wide variety of armor pieces and ground vehicles modeled and being prepared to be brought into the game. Right now, the US jeep and the German kübelwagen are the most complete/functional, and when the underlying systems for vehicles are more polished and complete, players can expect to see a wide range of options to play with. More WIP images:
US Army Jeep, US Sherman Tank, US Army G-506, US T17, German Wehrmacht Kübelwagen, Wehrmacht Panzer IV, Wehrmacht Schwerer Panzerspähwagen, Wehrmacht Opel Blitz, Japanese Type 3
Japanese and Russian Factions
A lot of work has been done in May to start preparing for the introduction of the Japanese and Russian factions. We will likely see the Japanese faction coming in first, but once again we are already getting started on creating assets for the Russian faction so that we will have a solid base for moving forward with creating maps to fit the Western, Eastern, and Pacific theaters of war. We have compiled a list of our current completed and WIP models for both:
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Arisaka Type 38, Type 4 Rocket Launcher, Type 100, Typ 96, TT Pistol, Ppsh-41
Static Guns and Emplacements
Some more WIP images of static guns and emplacements to be used on land, on the deck of a ship, etc.:
5-51 Cannon, M45 Quad-mount Turret
Animations
Our animation team has been hard at work pumping out animations for many of the weapons and tools that we shared above. We have compiled a list of them for you to check out:
We couldn't upload all of the animations due to the larger file sizes, you can see the other animations here!
Upcoming and WIP Features
In addition to all of the maps, models, and animations, our programming team has been working on some of the core systems and features that will be implemented soon. These include, but are not limited to:
Grenades
The first iteration of grenades has been recently added into the game. Right now, the US and German factions have their own lethal and smoke grenade variants with basic functionality—players can equip and throw each grenade, and all grenades have basic physics that allow them to bounce, be banked off of walls, etc. (this will be further polished and refined over time). Here are some images of the models and in-game use:
Stielhandgranate 24, Nebelhandgranate 39, Mk2 Grenade, AM-M8 Smoke Grenade, Smoke effect in full bloom, Explosion Effect
Rally Points
Soon the squad leader roles will be able to deploy rally points, which will allow their team to respawn outside of the captured flag points. At the moment, players can respawn on the forward most captured point, however, once rally points are added, players will no longer be able to spawn right on the front line—instead, they will be able to spawn one capture point back, or on a squad leader’s deployed rally point (similar system to how other games with rally points.
Ammo and Med Bags
The ammo and med bags are more or less completed, they just need to be programmed in. Right now, all available player classes and kits have increased ammo, and health regenerates over time—these are placeholder measures that we have in place until the ammo and med bags come in. These tools will be incorporated into the Rifleman and Medic classes when they are ready.
Suppression Mechanics
We are also currently working on our suppression systems, which will be coming to the game soon. We do not have any WIP screenshots of this to share yet, but the goal that we would like to accomplish for suppression is making it so that players vision becomes obstructed when shot at, but in a way that allows them to still react and return fire. In line with suppression, we will also be adding in a tracer effect to give players more feedback about what direction they are getting shot from, since this is currently an issue due to a lack of these systems. We will share more later on when we have something to show.
Player Classes and Kits
The current kits and classes that are available are Non Commissioned Officer (i.e. Squad Leader), Rifleman, Automatic Rifleman, and Medic. Planned/WIP classes that will be added later are as follows: Grenadier, Anti-Tank Rifleman, and Specialist. You can also see some of the new UI work that has been done for them here:
Audio
Work on audio continues. Right now a lot of the audio in game is a mixture of final and placeholder sounds, and there is a lot of work to do to bring in better, more complete sounds, ambient noises, adjust volume levels, make further adjustments/tweaks to distant sounds, and so on.
Tools for Server Owners
At launch, server owners can expect some basic tools and amenities for moderation and running their communities, such as: RCON and admin tools, text chat, and map cycling. Giving server owners the tools they need is very important to us, as we feel this is often overlooked with many modern/recent games—we fully intend on adding onto this list and building an impressive suite of admin tools as development progresses.
Operation: Harsh Doorstop
And now to move on to a bit of news about Operation: Harsh Doorstop. We will be conducting playtesting for O:HD soon, we just have some preliminary work that needs to be done to bring the game up to speed with a lot of the backend work that has gone into Warfare 1944. We will make announcements when playtests begin over in the DRK Community Discord, or Bluedrake’s YouTube channel so be sure to stay tuned there for more information! Once we have more to share, we will be creating another devblog similar to this that is catered towards O:HD, so be on the lookout for that.
Patreon
May was the first month that our Patreon was started, and so far things have been going very well—in the month of May we had a healthy influx of backers, which has been a tremendous help in allowing us to make these games. Our Patreon is a great way to support our projects, and get access to the various games that Drakeling Labs is developing, as well as check out our prototypes and tech demos that we work on behind the scenes to learn about new technologies and development tools that could find their way into OHDCore and our games.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far, we could not do this without you! If you believe in our projects and are interested in helping out, please check out our Patreon and consider supporting: https://www.patreon.com/drakelinglabs. We are constantly looking for ways to bring more value to our Patreon tiers, so be sure to keep checking in to see what we have to offer over time.
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That wraps up our devblog for May! There was a ton of information to share, and we hope that you found this informative and have a better understanding of what our goals and objectives are. We look forward to sharing more with you later—be sure to check out the links below to stay connected!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
Website
Discord
Youtube
Discord
Website