This isnt a review but it will give some idea of the depth I plan on going into.
0168? What happened to 0167? It has been almost 10 weeks since we posted the first 0167 Dev Notes and in that time we have released almost weekly to the beta. This has pushed us past the 0167 designation. Beta is now at 01671 and will be released as 0168. Thats quite a lot of Beta for us as our testers can attest. What all that testing has done brings us to todays announcement. As we get closer to the release of 0168 it is important to review just what is expected to be in the patch and what will be coming both before and after the patch. The following is an update to the original outline of features for the upcoming release with many new things added and a general overview of the feature set for 0168.
0168:
Attrition:The original plan going into this update was to continue on the attrition first implemented in 0166. The plan called for making sappers and smgs attrited along with everything else that was added in 0166. Following the Event Server Test we had last week we are more confident in adding attrition. For 0168 the only general vehicles available to any country will be riflemen and one plane. This will bring us closer to the full attrition that we feel is the future for WWIIOL.
Further limited attrition will be a major shift in game play and needs to be planned for by the community. To understand attrition and its affect on game play you have to grasp what Ownership and Control are and how they operate in the game. There will be a more in depth discussion of how this will affect game play prior to the 0168 Test (see below).
Sentries:The greatest threat to full attrition is the fully suppressed AB. To this end we are adding the Alert system to the game. The Alert system is based on the AB and detects vehicles that come within a predetermined distance. These distances vary depending on vehicle type (troop, tank, plane, boat). The Alert system includes map icons and occasional HQ messages that can Alert players to detected enemies.
The system is designed to replicate lookouts and sentries and not radar. The detection ranges are based on what a person on the ground can see and hear. They are not designed to replace the need for human intel, they are designed to simply detect enemies who are close to the AB.
Firebases:When we posted about FBs in the original Dev Note we said that we had decided to not change FB to sapper only due in large part to community opinion. We will not be changing this for 0168. The debate, however, continues. If you have opinions on this matter please make them known to us. We will be bringing a poll up to gauge community concerns after 0168.
Vehicles:BlenIV New dive angle at 40 degrees and the ability to jettison bombs.SA-L Mle34 New sight.Bofors 40mm Medium AA gun for the British, tow only.Vickers Light tank First .50 caliber MG in the game.Morris CDSW Puller for the Bofors.Fairmille HE now available to the main gun.Binoculars New Infantry load out available to Captains and above.
Textures:The new textures were announced and previewed in the original Dev Notes but that does not begin to describe what DirectX 8.1 entails. The update will bring new lighting to every texture in WWIIOL. The specular and ambient lighting are very nice, giving water a glint from the sun and giving a tactile feel to cloth and metal surfaces throughout the game. I hope to have screenshots for you by the end of the week.
Sound:The list of sound enhancements has grown steadily since we began this dev cycle and includes panning, Doppler and hardware acceleration support.
Effects:Since we posted the original Dev Notes we have begun an audit of our effects system and expect it to be partially done for this release. New bullet holes have been shown and we will be adding new grenade scorch, new impact smoke and a host of other effects in this patch and in the patches to come. We expect everything in the effects system to receive an audit in the coming months.
AI:The AI machine gun and anti-tank guns have been retuned. This gives the player with a modibody fluid of situational awareness a much greater opportunity to survive an encounter with them. We have decreased the accuracy of the guns and no longer allow them to track players outside their field of fire. AA will not be altered.
Terrain:The biggest news for terrain is certainly the new textures but we have also been hard a t work adding new towns. This update brings almost 30 new towns to the map in the east and the west as well as new airfields at Bitburg, Reims and Metz.
Bugs and Fixes:The list for fixes is too big to post here but some of the highlights are:Fixed multi-crew bugs for vehicles with deploy (He111, Stug, AT guns).Fixed Airplane collisions with ground vehicles.AI no longer kills friendly units.Infantry collisions with vehicles.
Before the patch:
We will be hosting 0168 on the Event server for a few days beginning next week. We will be using this open testing to allow players to give us feedback on performance and other issues that might come up due to the vast amount of code changed for Dx8.1 implementation. This open test will be different from our open test for 0160 in that we are not testing new rule sets but instead are looking for performance testing. To this end do not expect the server to be up for great lengths of playtime during prime time. We will open the server at a variety of times and over several days in order for as many people as possible to report on their experience.
After the Patch:
The 41 vehicle set is progressing along very nicely. We are planning to release the French and German scout cars as 40 vehicles as soon as they are both ready but we will not hold 0168 for them. Following that release we will be putting together the first 41 vehicle set for release. Many of these vehicles are already complete and waiting for 0168 to go live so that the remainder can be finished.
If you have questions about the 0168 release or would like to discuss any of the features a thread has been started here
I plan on writing a tad more.
hardcase
