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Discuss on the forums and post your questions ->

While there are still more refinements and changes that have not yet made it into the beta, we are watching player reaction to what is currently available with a keen eye. For those who haven’t yet had a chance, grab the beta from steam and participate in the beta forums. All the current changes can be found here in the stickies, with the community discussion following up in the feedback section. Remember we are looking at all the game modes for tweaks (normal, realistic and classic), so join the discussion today! They next update will include several tweaks based off this feedback, more refinements, and most likely Multiplayer Campaign.

Those who remember the initial posts about the beta and what would be going into it know that the next/last BIG thing coming will be Multiplayer Campaign mode. This mode will allow server admins to turn their server into a grand campaign for the city of Stalingrad. When joining, each player will pick a team and head to the front. When the campaign starts (with both sides having the territories split equally between them), a team will be randomly selected to have the initiative and choose where they want to start the attack. As each battle plays out the teams will expend manpower for land, and regain some between battles depending on how much territory they control. The first team to control all territories or force the other team to expend all of its manpower will win the day.

Last, but not least in this edition of “What We Are Up To” is talking a bit about the future. The beta has be going nicely and that means we are getting much closer to getting the things in out in the main build. Depending on how fast things come together it will come out in one of two fashions. Sooner: There will be a large patch with most if not all the content. Later: Things will be rolled out in smaller (but still fairly large) chunks of content over time as things are completed, put into beta and pushed out. There are also several grand plans we are discussing (you might want to start digging into the SDK!), but we have nothing to announce just yet.

Speaking of working with the community, we have one final thing to announce today, the new Tripwire Interactive Wiki. While it is currently in a bare bones state, we will be working with the community to fill it with content. We hope for it to server as a general Knowledge Base for both players and modders for all of our titles. We’ll be working on getting modding information from across the forums into the wiki over the coming days and weeks as well (unless you beat us to it!). Have a great week everyone and make sure to join the beta!

Discuss on the forums ->

Discuss on the forums ->

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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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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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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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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What this means is that first we are switching up to a very open PR style, pushing lots of information out for you and seeking feedback from you all, much as we did back in the Red Orchestra mod days. This is to make sure players are more aware of upcoming changes and means you get to see stuff while it is still work in progress (WIP). We’ll also be running a Beta open to anyone that owns RO2 that we’ll be using to push out these new features and improvements early on in the development process. We’ll tell you what we have in mind, show it to you as it comes together and let you try it out early in development, so that we can get good feedback, when we still have time to react to it. Of course, showing you things that early means that they are definitely subject to change too – from your feedback and from our own. It also means you will get to see things in the beta that are very early in development and potentially incomplete. So don’t be surprised if you jump into a map in the beta that isn’t pretty, or try a new feature that isn’t balanced or complete. You’ll get to see that map or feature come together, and participate in the process.

So, here is the “big picture”. We’ve got a big update coming for the game, with a lot of content. We’ll fill you in on the details over the coming days. That will lead us pretty much straight up to all the pieces of that update being pushed into the open Beta, so that everyone can get a look and try them out, while they are still in development. Bug fixes, optimizations, and refinements will be brought over from the Beta to the live game as soon as they are ready. Major new features will be pulled together into that one big update for you. The key elements of the update include (and we’ll push out lots of details on all these over the next few days):

• Multiplayer Campaign Mode
• We’ll have a complete new map for you
• “RO Classic”, that we’ve already talked about
• Major refinements to existing gameplay systems to improve the gameplay balance and fun as well as to incorporate player feedback (systems such as Lockdown, Player Damage, and more are being refined)
• And, of course, we’ll continue fixing bugs that we (or you) find and making optimizations to the game

So, stay tuned over the next few days as we look to give you more detail on all of this! And watch for announcements as features roll out into the Beta for you to try out and feedback on.

Discuss on the forums ->

Discuss on the forums ->