Physics:

There has been a new fall damage system implemented which allows players to receive a very small amount of damage for small bumps, but larger amounts of damage for severe collisions. All players now have more jetpack energy, as well as a slight increase to the power of the jetpack. Also the throw distance on the flag has been increased as well. With these additions, players should be able to move more freely and hit some higher speeds much faster.

Weapons:

There have been a number of changes to some of the weapons and the way they work. First, the Ion Rifle projectile inherits motion in all directions and it gives the weapon a slightly different characteristics for shooting targets while moving. The splash damage radius on this weapon has been reduced as well as a reduction to the size of the projectile clip box. Both the Gatling Gun and Blaster Rifle projectiles have also been adjusted. They now use a new projectile system which makes the hit detection and performance of these weapons much better. They have a smaller clip box, and you’ll find it’s easier to hit targets more consistently using this system. Additionally these two weapons feature different sprites which increase the visibility of the projectiles. The spread on the Gatling Gun has been increased, as well as a slight decrease in damage. The Blaster Rifle overheat has been adjusted, so it has more shots, but it takes longer to recharge. On all weapons, the scope has been adjusted so they zoom instantaneously and there is no barrel so your peripheral vision is no longer affected.

Preference Tweaks:

We’ve updated the Controls Gui to allow players to bind keys using the ingame menus. Mines, Grenades, Healthkits, and Throwing the Flag can all be bound without any special console commands or config editing. Keep in mind that pre-existing configurations will need to be updated with the new commands in order to work. wsad.cfg and edsf.cfg have examples of the new command names. We’ve also unlocked the third person camera, and bound it to the ‘z’ key by default. You’ll now be able to toggle between the first and third person views.

Full Changelog for v1.1:

-Adjustment in Fall Damage System
-Default Energy Recharge rate changed from 9, to 11
-Slight increase in jetpack power
-Ion Projectiles inherit motion in all directions
-Increase in the spread on Gatling Gun
-Slight increase on hitbox size on Blaster, Gatling
-Reduction in hitbox size on Ion Rifle
-Reduction in the Splash Radius of Ion Rifle
-Increased throwing distance of Flag
-Tracers have an additional sprite to improve visibility
-Viewing distance of players has been increased
-Scope models have been removed
-Reduction in scope-in speed
-Locational damage adjusted
-added wsad.cfg to restore defaults
-z is now bound to 3rd/1st person toggle

Tribal Wars v1.1 Patch in Zip form. To install, simply download the zip file and extract it into your twars mod folder.

Example path of twars folder:

C:\Program Files\id Software\Enemy Territory – QUAKE Wars\twars

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\enemy territory quake wars\twars

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QYYRQOJP

http://www.moddb.com/downloads/start/22846/all

http://www.filefront.com/16105669/twars_v1.1.zip

http://bravehardt.com/TAW/Quake_Wars/twars/twars_v1.1.zip

Much of the feedback I’ve gotten has been related to gameplay specific values that still require some tuning. This means that a lot of these values can be changed quickly and we’ll be able to release a patch that addresses the common issues so far. This is a list of prospective changes for v1.1:

• Adjustment in Fall Damage System
• Default Energy Recharge rate will be changed from 9, to 11
• Slight reduction in Air Friction
• Projectiles will inherit motion in all directions
• Increase in spread on gatling gun
• Slight increase in the size of projectile hitboxes
• Increase in throwing distance of the flag
• Increase in the size of Ion Rifle splash graphic
• Reduction in the Ion Rifle splash damage radius
• Projectiles will feature intersecting image plane tracers to improve visibility

The fall damage system is going to be changed because the current system lacks a sensitivity. It’s either far too harsh, or far too forgiving. What’s also problematic is that if you have quite a bit of health, it doesn’t matter how hard you hit the ground, you’ll still survive. Right now there are only 3 levels of fall damage, and two of them deal damage. The proposed change involves expanding that to 8 levels of fall damage, with the majority of the values at the lower thresholds dealing out far less punishing damage.

The energy recharge rate was a bit of a tricky one, but we’ve decided to change the value all the way to 11. Part of the reason why it was kept so low is because I’ve played the two maps so many times that I know how to navigate and manage my energy correctly so I never really end up short. Enough people have asked for this to change, so it will get changed to 11. Keep in mind though that this is a value that can be set on the server. If you end up playing next week and find yourself having more energy than you used to, it’s likely the value was changed by the server.

There’s also going to be another slight reduction in air friction. This value allows you to accelerate from a standstill a little bit better, and it should remove a little bit of the sluggish feeling that new players might experience.

Projectiles are going to get a little bit of work as well. The size of the hitboxes are going to be increased slightly as some people are finding it difficult to hit people flying in the air. Probably the biggest change is going to be the visibility of the tracer which should give people a better read on exactly where their bullets are going. Right now they’re line sprites which like to snap to the best visible tangent. In some scenarios they really don’t display as well as they should, so changing them to actual models with intersecting planes will ensure that tracers for bullets will be seen from any angle. Additionally projectiles will inherit motion in any direction. Right now it adds velocity to the players view direction, but this will be corrected to ensure that any type of motion by the player is transferred to the projectile.

Lastly the throw distance of the flag is going to be improved, but direct teammate to teammate passing isn’t likely going to be a viable option until a new physics class is built for these types of entities.

The release is underway! The Modification for ETQW which brings in some of the classic elements of Starsiege: Tribes is now complete and available to the general public. The modification features Jetpacks, New Weapons, two new Maps, and a CTF Gametype.

This project has been in development for quite some time, and it’s involved a lot of help from many individuals. They’ve really put in a quality effort over the months of development, and their knowledge and talent has really made this mod possible. I’d really like to thank everyone who was involved with the development of this project, I doubt I could have done it without you. I’ve invested a good amount of my own time into this project and I’ve really enjoyed some of the struggles and successes along the way. In the end though, I’ve come away with a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. I hope that many of you enjoy playing the mod, as much as I did developing it.

There are many people from different communities that have expressed some interest in playing the mod, and even creating content for it. It’s only fitting that there is a place to gather and share information about this unique project. We’ve established a set of forums specifically for this mod where you can get all of the resources and support for Tribal Wars:

http://twars.org/forums/

Additionally we have an irc channel. You can find us on irc.quakenet.org, #twars

Last but not least, a list of mirrors and locations you can download the mod from:

Windows Only Installers:

Mod-DB:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-wars/downloads/tribal-wars-v10

Fileplanet:

http://www.fileplanet.com/210636/210000/fileinfo/Tribal-Wars-Mod

Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/15851859/twars_setup.exe/

Mega Upload:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WMUJGRZ8

-Fixed CTF Logic to allow for tie breaker
-Fixed Flag Effect bug when Map Starts
-Added GUI elements for Grenades, Mines, and Healthkit
-Teams have 3 Grenades instead of 2
-Disabled Tooltips by Default
-Mines are removed when you try to place above the Maximum amount
-Adjustment to Icepick so Minspec and Highspec lighting is similar
-Increase in Ion Splash Knockback
-Increase in Maximum Friction Angle
-Reduction in Fall Damage + Higher Threshold
-Reduction in Air Friction
-Increase in Fire Rate on Gatling Gun
-Reduction in overheating on Blaster Rifle
-Change pm_thirdperson cheat protection

There’s been a host of tweaks, but the subtle changes should be noteworthy once you start skiing around the maps. There’s been an increase in the minimum friction angle, meaning you get better traction when climbing steeper hills (icepick for example). By extension this also means you’re able to ski up hills slightly better, and you can ski further up hills before it’s necessary to use your jets. Additionally the air friction has been changed to .19 (it was .2 before). Even though it’s a very small change, you should note that you start to accelerate faster and it’s easier to hit that top speed. The physics threshold for the fall damage has been raised again by a small amount, and the amount of damage you take has been reduced by 2-3 points.

We also added a few new features to the GUI. You’ll now get an indicator which tells you the number of grenades you have, the number of Mines you have as well as the number of mines that are deployed. There is also an icon telling you if you have a healthkit or not. pm_thirdperson is not longer cheat protected, so you may be able to bind a key to toggle between the first and third person online. Additionally those annoying tooltips have been muted by default, and will no longer be played ingame (they were not relevant anyway).

There have also been some tweaks to some of the weapons. The Ion Rifle splash will give some additional knockback, and it’s projectile has been sped up by a small amount. The Gatling Gun fire rate has been increased slightly, and the Blaster Rifle has slightly less overheat allowing you fire an additional shot before it overheats. The Mines also remove themselves when you try to place more than the maximum amount. Say for instance you accidentally drop a mine in the field somewhere, and want to place a 3rd mine. You do not have to track down the missing mine and remove it manually, it will disappear when you place an additional mine.

The Beta Testing process has been very valuable to the project and a lot of the feedback I’ve gotten has changed a number of things with the Mod. We’re very close to having a public release in the next while, and v1.2 might be the last patch before that occurs. Barring any technical defects with this latest release, we should be able to schedule the finished product sometime next week.

Question: Will the mod be available for all platforms or only Windows?

Answer: Currently Tribal Wars is only playable on the Windows platform. It is possible to compile the mod for the Mac OSX and Linux platforms and we will have someone look into producing the binaries for those. There won’t be any guarantees on multi-platform support in the first release of the mod, but it may be possible at some time in the future.

Question: What are the ideal team sizes for the Mod?

Answer: Like many other games, each map has it’s own characteristic. 12 vs 12 could work well with Icepick which is slightly bigger, while Chthonic has a layout that’s more suited to 6vs6 or 8vs8.

Question: Is the mod compatible with the Steam version of the game?

Answer: Yes, the mod does work with the Steam version of the game, but it requires a few extra steps to get a launch item added to your Games list. Additionally the SDK (for making maps) should also be compatible with the steam version of the game.

Question: Does the mod have VOIP support?

Answer: Yes, the game ships with an in game VOIP codec called Speex. It’s quality is comparable to Ventrillo.

Question: Will there be any popular Tribes 1 map remakes?

Answer: No, currently we’re only creating brand new custom maps. People from the community can recreate some of the classic maps and release those as add-ons though.

Question: Why was ETQW chosen as a base for this mod?

Answer: There are a number of factors involved, but one of the biggest ones is the choice of Engine. ID Tech 4 is a reliable industry proven engine, and the Splash Damage Team made ETQW with the intention of making it a very mod friendly product. Another aspect is the Icarus Vehicle which was inspired by Starsiege: Tribes and had similar characteristics. The first prototype for our new physics was added to the Icarus, but ported over to the player shortly after that.

Question: Will there be customizable skins or voicepacks?

Answer: Customizable skins are not possible unfortunately. Most textures are cheat protected to prevent things like pink skins, and mines. The voicepack files are part of the localization stuff (to allow for multiple languages), so it is possible to have different voicepacks other than the ETQW defaults. For the first phase of release, there won’t be any new Vsays so whatever is included with ETQW will have to do.

That’s all of them for now. On to some other things…

As mentioned before the Beta Testers were selected through the Tournament and we’re slowly getting people introduced to the mod. There have been a number of suggestions put in already and we’ll try to include some of them in a patch next week. We’re likely going to see small changes which may include:

-Reduction of fall damage
-Change in Ion Rifle reload speed and characteristics
-Fixes to spawn points on Chthonic
-Selectable outdoor spawn to reduce traffic
-Removing proficiency script items
-Fixes to server cvars

These features will also be worked on:

-Fixes to the Server voting options to allow for CTF gametype maps to be voted on
-Adding gui item to display how many mines/grenades are present
-Adding Healthkits and keybinding elements to the player’s inventory

We’re also going to be setting up forums for the mod later this week, and a brand new website is the follow that. There is also the new moddb page for Tribal Wars which will feature a lot of the same content as the main site. There is a downloads sections there where users can post custom content and other mod related downloads once the mod is released. Be sure to check that out: http://www.moddb.com/mods/tribal-wars/

We also have a new irc channel on irc.quakenet.org , channel #twars. If you have any questions about the mod or want to get in touch with me, you can find me there.

I’ll keep everyone informed about the progress of the Beta test. We’re hoping to hold a fairly big match this weekend. I’ll be sure that people record some demos for me to screencap, and I’ll put those up on moddb and blip.tv next week.

The Tournament will be Tribes 1 Base, running LT maps. The purpose of this is to have it similar to the gameplay of the mod. Applicants will have the option of forming a 6 man team and entering as a group. If you do not enter as a group, you will be randomly pooled into a team. During the course of the match, you will be observed by development team members. While winning the match you are placed in may help, factors like competitiveness and skill level are going to be held in high regard. Win or Lose, as long as you play well then you have a legitimate shot at making it in.

The maps and time of each match is TBD, but they will likely take place February 17th-21st.

There are also two other requirements that must be met in order to participate.

1. You must meet the minimum system requirements outlined here:

Software requirements Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP/Vista (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included)

Minimum System Requirements
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 2.8 GHz or AMD(R) Athlon(TM) XP 2800+ processor (Pentium 4 3.0GHz or equivalent for Windows Vista)
Memory: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista)
Graphics card: 128MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(TM) 5700 or ATI(TM) Radeon(TM) 9700 (full list of supported chipsets below)
Sound card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Harddisk: 750MB of free hard drive space, plus 200MB for Windows swap file
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for full gameplay and downloads. Features may change without notice.

SUPPORTED VIDEO CHIPSETS

* NVIDIA GeforceFX Series (5700 or higher, not including 5700LE and 5700VE)
* NVIDIA Geforce 6 Series (6200 or higher) NVIDIA Geforce 7 Series (7300 or higher)
* NVIDIA Geforce 8 Series
* ATI Radeon 9700 or higher
* ATI Radeon X700 or higher
* ATI Radeon X1650 or higher

2. You must own a copy of Enemy Territory – Quake Wars. Tribal Wars is a modification and not a standalone product, so owning a copy of this game is essential.

People who wish to apply may email twarsmod@gmail.com with the following information:

Subject line: TWARS BETA APPLICATION

-Real Name
-Gaming Nickname/Handle
-Time Zone
-Contact information (preferred email & Instant Messenger contact)
-Clan Tag
-Clan Roster (list ALL members of your tournament roster)
-Preferred date and time of match. (Feb17-21 6PM EST or later)

-Attach a dxdiag report of your system information to ensure that you meet the system requirements for the mod.

1) Press your Windows “Start” button normally found at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
2) Select the”Run” option in the menu. (type dxdiag into the start search on Windows Vista)
3) Type in “dxdiag” in the box and press “OK”
4) Select the “Save All Information” Sometimes, you will be asked if you wish to check if the drivers are “digitally signed” Should this message appear, choose “Yes”
5) Save the file to a place on your machine where you can easily locate it again e.g. your desktop.
6) Attach the file to the application email

Any other questions regarding the Beta selection process can also be sent to twarsmod@gmail.com

Progress has been steady on the mod are we’re very nearly at a feature complete status. Some of the planning for the first stage of Beta testing is starting, and if all goes well the early stages of testing will begin within a week or two. There will likely be some aspects of the mod that are a little bit rough around the edges in the testing release, but I’m hoping I can do a little bit of polish and refinements for the final release.

Even though I appreciate the interest in the mod, sending in Beta applications to the contact email is not likely to get you into the beta test. It’s simply too disorganized a method for allowing people into the test.

When we’re accepting testers, there will be a specific set of instructions and critera that the applicants will have to meet. Factors like meeting the system requirements, owning a copy of the game, and being an experienced Tribes player will be important to making the beta.

We’re not quite ready for that yet, so in the meantime I’ll take a bit of time to do a Questions and Answers feature. There are likely many things that aren’t known about the mod that I haven’t touched on, so if you still have any sort of questions regarding the project, you can email me by using the button.

If you have more than one question, keep your questions seperated and as well as having nice sentence structure. I’ll have them answered and posted here later this week. Here’s some screenshots in the meantime:

]]> http://twars.org/blog.php/2010/02/qa-session/feed/ 0 http://twars.org/blog.php/2010/01/january-update/ http://twars.org/blog.php/2010/01/january-update/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:05:57 +0000 Arcanox http://twars.org/test/?p=37 Hey everyone. With the holidays behind us, we’ve been working hard getting the artwork for the project ready. Right now, I can gladly say that the art assets for first release phase of the project have been completed. There still is a bit of work to be done though, particularly in areas like scripting, level design, and gameplay balancing.

The scripting has progressed fairly well, but there are some minor functions and things I want to clean up and remove. Examples of this might be some of ETQW’s XP and ranking system. As you progress through a game, you would unlock new weapons and get tooltip prompts that are specific to ETQW, and don’t have any effect on the gameplay of our TC mod. I still have to go through and strip out the scripting for it, or at least implement a different type of system. I plan on creating a similar XP system to create an individual point scale for each player. Things like simple kills, or performing objectives (like capturing the flag or defending it for X amount of time) will award you with XP. I should mention that having the XP system fully completed would delay a first release of the project, so the XP system will likely be implemented after the first release. There are also some GUI elements that need to be changed, and simplified before release.

The level design has also progressed since the last update. Chthonic is essentially complete, but there have been minor aesthetic and function changes to the main base. One of the more notable inclusions is a forcefields, which is based on door movers. This creates a relatively safe area for people who are just spawning, or are busy with menus. It may be crude implementation, but aesthetically it’s a nice feature. There are no generators powering these, and they will always remain ‘on’, but given the nature of the objective based gameplay, adding/removing entities to maps is still very possible with ETQW’s powerful scripting. Out of Bounds Markers have also been added. While we do have a tiling terrain system, there are still several bugs with them and the decision has been made to leave them out of the maps for now. To keep players from falling off of the edge of the map, we’ve basically built an invisible box around the map. They’re forgiving enough in the sense that you can hit them as hard as you want, but they won’t deal any damage. It should be noted though that you can still be damaged by the fall following the impact. While it may be invisible, we still wanted to give players an indication that they’re hitting the edge of the map soon, so there are these large beacon effects that shoot up glowing poles to mark the edge of the map. These only appear as you approach them, so they won’t be visible if you’re in the middle of the map.

There are also Armory Stations which was seen in one of my earlier posts. These stations only function in a resupply capacity, so they will only provide you with more ammo, mines, grenades, and health. They do play a neat effect, but there isn’t much beyond the functions that I mentioned. Speaking of mines and grenades, they are working and should be totally capable of blowing up enemies as well as mining the flag. Some of you should also be happy to note that ‘mine-discing’ is totally possible.

Icepick has gone through some big changes, including a new terrain texture. We’ve added a bit more snow and finished off the Red Arbiter base. There are also towers and beacons to help guide players through the map. They may seem rather unsubstantial, but they actually give you a good reference for things like setting up flag routes, and getting back to your base more directly. There is still a bit more work to be done on Icepick, but that should be wrapping itself up in due time.

Lastly there is the matter of gameplay balancing, and this really gets broken down into combat. You have to examine whether damage values, and fire rates for weapons are accurate. Should mines explode a second earlier, and should the blast radius be bigger? What should the spawn times on maps be, and should the placement of the flags be different? There are a number of questions that need to be answered and adjustments to be made and that can only come with multiplayer testing. We’re gearing up for this first phase of “combat” testing not too long from now, and it will be a very small and select group of people doing these tests. Later on we’ll expand and look at bringing in a greater number of people from the community to really run the mod through it’s paces.

I should say that one of the things that does have me wondering is the Blaster weapon. We all know that games like Tribes: Vengeance attempted their own version of the blaster, much like a shotgun. Personally, I wasn’t too keen on the shotgun concept and never really saw it as a really useful tool when the range of your was an easy means of foiling an attack. Even the standard blaster weapon wasn’t particularly useful outside of a few select situations so not very many people carried it. Right now in this mod, it’s a weapon scarcely used because you’re required to lead quite a bit with it, and it only fires one shot. If you hit someone, it can pay off big but it’s generally not something you can be very consistent with and you may opt to use the Gatling Gun for it’s better rate of fire. Personally I’m considering a slight change in the blaster and turning it into more of a classic rifle type weapon. Instead of shooting out a relatively slow moving projectile that isn’t useful at longer ranges, this would fire a shot that would hit it’s target instantaneously. It could also be used in a sniping capacity, but wouldn’t deal the same amount of damage that a standard sniper rifle can. With these changes, it would be possible to hit targets more consistently at medium ranges, and would provide a means of hitting someone at a longer range than the Ion rifle or Gatling gun.

I’m not one for taking big changes lightly so some input is required to help me make up my mind. Which of the following options you prefer to see a blaster weapon with:

Option 1: Hitscan Projectile that hits it’s target instantaneously. Moderate Damage, Slower rate of Fire. (similar to Shock Rifle from Unreal Tournament, without the secondary fire)

Option 2: Traveling Projectile that moves slowly. Higher Damage, Moderate Rate of Fire. (classic Blaster characteristics)

I’d encourage you to use this  button to send in your thoughts on this subject.

With that all wrapped up, I should end this blog post with several screenshots. Enjoy!

A while back I had discussed the netcode for the project at length. The brand new netcode has been implemented and is functioning correctly and it’s given combat a fairly solid feel to it. You can hit enemies frequently and accurately without many issues. Jetting and Skiing are also quite fluid. There is still some tweaking to be done, but it’s completed in terms of the functions it was supposed to provide.

The artwork for the project is approaching an important “feature complete” milestone. What this means is that the models, animations, textures, and level work is nearing completion for the release of the project. This does not mean that the project is ready to be released as many of the scripting elements that tie together all of these elements still need to be completed. In one of my earlier blog posts I mentioned a list of items that would be featured in the first release of the project: 3 weapons, 1 armor class, mines & grenades, simplified inventory station, ctf gametype, 2 maps. All of the elements there have all of the artwork in place, mines and grenades are using ETQW assets, but they’re more than suitable for the purposes of the project, the inventory station, weapons, character animations, and level artwork is essentially complete at this stage. There is some work that needs to be completed on the Icepick level, but that should be finished in a few weeks.

What really remains is a lot of the scripting that goes along with those items. The CTF gametype does function, but it’s rather crude at the moment and doesn’t really do much else than count up the number of flag captures to determine a winner. We will rescale the point system so players are rewarded for capturing flags, returning them, and so on. There is some scripting work that needs to be done on the inventory station, and some general weapon tweaking with the mines and other weapons as well. There’s still some general assessment to be done in terms of planning out the remaining scripting tasks, but the project may be nearing a early weapon balancing phase.

That brings me to my next point. The mod might be approaching some testing phases once the scripting tasks have all been completed. The way I’ve determined the testing is that I’ll pick a handful of individuals for what I’d call “combat testing”. It would be a small scale test to determine the balance of each weapon, and it would be a series of 1 on 1, 3 vs 3, 5 vs 5, and flag chasing/defending scenarios. This will determine whether the damage scaling and characteristics of each weapon has been done correctly. After that phase has been complete we’ll move on to an early beta test build where we’ll bring in numerous beta applicants to try out the mod thoroughly and give a full blown CTF gametype a good run on each of the maps. In a project like this, I highly doubt that it will be long before the mod is leaked elsewhere so the beta test build will be released shortly after testing begins. There won’t be an extended testing period where it’s kept from the public, so if you are not selected for the beta testing… just remain patient until it’s released. It won’t be a long wait.

In my next blog post, I’ll explain a little bit more about what I have planned for post-release. For now though, I’ll let everyone take a look at some of the artwork that’s going into the project:

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