Forgotten Honor together with Tripwire Interactive are happy to announce that our Red Orchestra 2 knockout tournament “Scorched Earth” has reached its international finals. The two finalists have battled through 5 phases over the last 3 months, including 64 clans from across the world, to make it to the Grand Final. And, with $12,000 in cash prizes at stake, as well as personal honor, the competition has been ferociously fought out to get to the final two – DoublePenetration for Europe and Team Chaos for the USA.

The finals will be played in two legs – one on a US server, the other on a European server. The first (US) one takes place this coming Sunday, 18th March, at 3pm Eastern/8pm Central European and can be viewed LIVE through Livestream (details can be found here: http://www.forgottenhonor.com/scorchedearth/live/livestream/ ), with commentary provided by Sam Reese of Crosshairs fame and John (Rammjaeger) Gibson, President of Tripwire Interactive.

For more details on the contest, including the dates and the lists of the participants, head for the Scorched Earth web page at: http://www.forgottenhonor.com/scorchedearth/

Servers provided by NFO Servers (http://www.nfoservers.com/) for the USA and Gaming Deluxe (http://www.gamingdeluxe.co.uk/) for Europe.

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MMGN.com had a chance to do a voice interview with our Vice President Alan this past week. They’ve gone ahead and posted the entire 30 minute interview online here. Alan covers upcoming plans for Killing Floor, Red Orchestra 2, and Rising Storm (and even some hints at potential future announcements). So make sure to give it a listen.

Killing Floor kicks it off, Red Orchestra starts in at about 7 minutes, and Rising Storm around the 20 minute mark for those looking for a specific topic. Be sure to let us know what excites you the most by joining the conversation in our forums.

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Three weeks ago we started a campaign of information dealing with upcoming (often work in progress) changes coming to Red Orchestra 2. We have covered the additions of RO Classic and Multiplayer Campaign, the new map Mamayev, and upcoming refinements to the game. This is all culminating in the reopening of the Red Orchestra 2 Beta for all players to help us test and give feedback on these changes and additions!

Below you will find the initial list of changes going into the beta:

New Content

• New to the beta is Mamayev Kurgen which is a map taking place on the famously contested hill overlooking Stalingrad. This work-in-progress map features long range combat not previously seen in other RO2 levels!

Gameplay

• Improved lockdown system. Lockdown now starts if the attacking team has not initiated a capture in 5 minutes or has not captured any objective in 7 minutes. There are new sound and visual indications when Lockdown has been initiated.
• Improved overtime system. Overtime has been added to territory maps. If the attackers are still actively capping an objective the round will no longer end.
• Improved spawn protection. When entering spawn protection there is a more obvious warning as well as a countdown timer similar to leaving the map boundary.
• (Work in progress) Refinements to spawn on squad leader. The UI has been improved to make it more obvious where you’ll be spawning. Additionally if you fail to spawn on your squad leader you will receive an error message, as will your squad leader.
• In realism mode shooting players in the legs/feet will slow them down for a short time
• The effects of bullet whizzes have been significantly magnified
• Refined player damage model. Now in realism mode hitzones can always take damage no matter how much damage they have already taken (before non-lethal hit zones could become invulnerable and no longer take damage). In standard mode bandaging hit zones restores the health of the hitzone, but not the player’s overall health. In this way after bandaging players will take damage on the bandaged hitzone again (before they would never take damage on that hitzone again).
• In realism mode bandaging now takes twice as long

Weapons

• Improved MG weapon collision detection when deployed on cover. This is most noticeable when deployed in windows.
• The MG34 now has wider limits when deployed similar to the DP28
• The radius that players will get bullet whizzes sounds and suppression has been significantly magnified. Additionally, the volume of bullet hit impacts and bullet whizzes has been greatly increased.

UI

• Split assault role in ‘Assault’ and ‘Elite Assault’ Only the elite assault role gets the MkB/AVT. The first time you play any existing assault xp will be copied/duplicated to elite assault.
• Removed mini objective overview from the hud in realism mode
• In the class select menu enemy weapon unlocks are now added to the bottom of the list instead of the top
• Fixed the player damage hud not displaying damage resulting from bleeding. Also, fixed several hit zones not displaying any damage (lower left leg, left foot, groin)
• Hitzone damage indicators now scale from Yellow (0-33% damaged), Orange (33-66% damaged), Red (Greater than 66% damaged)
• A tooltip has been added to the team select menu to show what players are currently on that team.
• Added North indicator to the minimap/compass.
• Fixed a bug where certain types of hits weren’t counting toward the accuracy stats, giving inaccurate weapon accuracy stats.

Other Changes

• Optimizations to dynamic shadows
• Fixed black skybox on older NVidia cards
• Fixed camera floating above the player when killed from prone
• Changes have been made to TE-CommissarsHouse spawns to help balance the map

Known Issues

• Some veteran level weapon unlocks are unlocking at raw recruit.

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Set on the outskirts of Stalingrad, Mamayev was a strongly contested high ground that both sides vied to maintain control over. The belief was that the side that held the hill could control all the rest of the city. The Soviets dug in with trenches, bunkers, barbed wire and mine fields before the battle began. By the end of the battle of Stalingrad, after trading sides numerous times, the hill was mostly flattened and no grass would grow on its lead poisoned ground.

Mamayev is an infantry only map featuring combat between trenches and bunkers one hundred and fifty to two hundred meters apart. It is designed to meet the needs of those looking for extended range rifle combat, truly separating the riflemen from the boys. Those skilled with the rifle and holding the high ground will be able to find their targets even further away, with the current office record stands at a 411 meter head shot delivered via sniper rifle. For players who enjoy a more up close and personal fight, they will be spending time finding their way through the twisted corridors of the bunkers built into the hill searching for those laying in ambush (or lying in said ambush themselves).

Keep in mind that this map is still hand the hands of the level design team, working on how it plays, and has yet to be art passed. With the fact that what you are about to see is still a WIP (work in progress) version of the map, we are proud to reveal the first out of office shots of Mamayev!

Players will soon be able to take to the slopes of this battlefield as the RO 2 beta rolls out again.

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Our good friends at Game Trailers came by to see us again at PAX.  This time they recorded some territory gameplay while John walked them through our latest unveiled level, Fallen Fighters, a 1:1 recreation of the square in Stalingrad.  For those new to the Red Orchestra franchise this video will teach you about the original RO gametype.  You will also have a chance to listen to John tell tales of the team sharing a bottle of vodka with the museum curator of the museum that resides in the iconic Univermag as the team toured the site.  You can find the video here:

Gametrailers.com – Heroes of Stalingrad Territory Preview

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