The first thing you'll probably noticed while reading this Intelligence Bulletin is a new layout of our website. As we're getting dangerously close to the "real" Beta-phase we thought that we would pep up ye olde community site with a new skin and layout. This process is not entirely done yet, so there might be occasional broken links, graphics-bits missing and other abnormalities, but rest assured that we'll fix this in the coming days.
This week we held two exclusive press preview play-sessions where we invited a bunch of games journalists to our "stable" server to play and chat with us. We also hijacked some of you from the "live" server to join and play with us and the press. These sessions went really well, and the journalists who showed up had a fun time playing and seemed impressed by the game and by our community (yup - that's you!). So a big thanks from all of us to all of you for helping us with these sessions.
Previews of Heroes & Generals are now starting to show around the various gaming media around the Internet, and you can find a list in the "Propaganda" section below.
Our payment system is unfortunately still a bit broken, but we're doing everything we can to put all the pieces together, so you can buy gold and support the development by buying War Bonds.
Oh, and one last thing - fake Heroes & Generals sites and YouTube videos, offering beta keys has started to pop up (for instance ‘hagbeta [dot] com'). In the coming weeks we will do betakey giveaways with various gaming-media, but all of the media will be proper gaming media or blogs, and not a site claiming to be an official Heroes & Generals site! If you are offered a betakey and you question it's authenticity, please contact our support.
Propaganda this Week
- Bashandslash - Preview
- beefjack.com - Preview
- Gamers Critic - Preview (IT)
- Gaming Blend - Preview
- HistoriaGames - Preview (FR)
- incgamers.com - Preview
- MMOReviews - Preview
- N4G - Preview
- Pixel smashers - Preview
- Playtek - Preview
- The Review Depot
- Violent Gamer - Preview
- XGN - Preview
Developer Blogs this Week
2300 Alpha keys sent to new recruits!"Hurry up and join the war! We need more soldiers to the battlefields and have just drafted 2300 new Alpha players. Go check your inbox NOW!" Read More
New map in progress - The watermillBy Reto.Dave and Reto.FleCK
"In 2011 we went on a company research-and-fun-trip to Munster, Germany, more exactly to the Panzer Museum located in Munster. After spending some good hours looking at armored vehicles and the likes we went to a local restaurant called "Zur Wassermühle" aka "The watermill", and what a place it was! An overload of traditional German food and beers - couldn't have been much better! Fleck had an idea about a watermill as the main capture point for the level and we remembered the watermill in Munster." Read More
Fake Heroes & Generals sites offering beta keys!"Please look out for fake Heroes & Generals sites offering Beta-keys. We have already seen one example of a site claiming to be the original Heroes & Generals site (hagbeta [dot] com) offering a Beta-key by filling out a survey." Read More
Team Debriefing
Design
Reto.RedBjarne, Game Director
"- Design meetings/work on action-game lobby system (lobby resides on the campaign screen instead of in the actiongame)
- Work on points system for the action-game ranks (there will be different ranks for commanders)
- Work on tool for Reto.Robotron3000 for tweaking weaponmods without having to edit a 2000-line xml file.
- Work on web elements for new communitysite skin
- Reading lots of interesting comments on the forum and taking notes for the stuff I'm working on (keep'em comming guys :-))
- Bugfixes
- Meetings
- Water-change in the large aquarium"
Reto.Fleck, Level Designer
"Re-arranging the Capture routes and adding capture points to the Town map - will update in post soon. Also still working on the new Countryside level - and of course, fixing bugs..."
Reto.Robotron3000, Community Manager & Game Designer
"Main website overhaul work, design tweaks to AT system and new commadn structure, work on WeaponModTool for balancing."
Artists
Reto.Hr.Wille, 3D Artist
"I'm working more on the new vehicle shaders, so it will be possible to support custom vehicle colours and camouflage patterns.
I also worked on load screens and screenshots."
Reto.Mato, Lead Character Artist
"Combat badge stuff and web stuff. :o)"
Reto.Owleater, Character Designer
"- Combat Badges done in first iteration - polish later.
- Started Character polish."
Reto.Colding, Lead Animator
"This week I have been doing a lot of here and there fixes... amongst others added 7 guys in the willys jeep... this will spread to the rest of the vehicles :D ... also been doing screenshots and turn animations when proning."
Reto.Dave, Environment/Props/Concept Artist
"I've been doing textures for the water mill and working on a collapsed bridge."
Coders & QA
Reto.Goonstah, Programmer and Technical Lead
"Reconnaissance on the Pacific Front (aka. on holiday) :)"
Reto.Hal9k, Render Programmer
"MIA"
Reto.Ogssan, Gameplay Programmer
"- Changed the game shutdown sequence
- Started working on second iteration of weapon modifications
- Fixed bugs
- Made tools to better handle the action server logs."
Reto.Leto, Gameplay Programmer
"I have improved the render main threas synchronization and enabled gameswf to run in a separate thread. Both things should give quite a performance boost \o/"
Reto.Injection, Senior Programmer
"Been in the land of torrents of bits."
Reto.Splixxen, Lead Tester
"- Lots of random testing.
- Debug Crashlogs.
- Test Ribbons.
- Help with Support.
- Verify fixes."
Reto.Indusninja, IT Architect
"MIA"
Reto.Vashu, Flash Programmer
"- New Character screens are coming along nicely, finishing touches to Weapon mod needs to be done and working on implementing new features on soldier overview.
- Implemented warbond payout and information if they are expired
- Updated information and procedure for Flash to handle login (improved diagnostics and queueing calls to server)
- Planning of changes to game later on
- Assisted in sorting out War 34!
- Played with press for previews"
Reto.masterdisaster17, Server Programmer
"Working on stability issues, including stuff related to the ‘server running slowly' and ‘bad player count' problems."
Sound
Reto.Draebesmoelf, Lead Sound Designer
"The first days of the week were spent at ‘the infirmary'. Feeling better, I am now working on getting sounds ready to work together with some animations."
Reto.Lord, Audio Programmer
"- fixed flash site socket connection code
- started flash site audio
- bugs fixes"
Management, IT & support
Reto.Topo, CEO
"MIA"
Reto.Hansg, IT Admin
"1. New server in Russia/setup and test
2. Check hosting in Australia routing/network testing.
3. NTP on leaseweb server change from Danish servers to leaseweb.com time servers (internal clock sync problem solved).
4. nagios deploy new servers script. not finished.
5. Various IT tasks"
Reto.KenSolo, PR Manager
"In short: Press handling, and preparing betakey giveaways... and the next videolog..."
Reto.Salu, Project Coordinator
"Coordinating... and wrote the blog for next week - I know you're excited :-)"
Reto.Bacon, Support Manager
"- Live, Ticket, Forum, Email Support
- Running around the office like a headless chicken trying to figure out our testers issues and finding solutions.
- Shot some evil axis players with my super awesome Garand.
- Ate some bacon, think I'll have more tonight."
NOTICE
The Intelligence Bulletin is designed primarily for the use of the members of the Heroes & Generals community. It is a vehicle for the dissemination to them of the latest information received from Reto-Moto Intelligence sources about the development of Heroes & Generals. Readers are invited to comment on the use that they are making of the Intelligence Bulletin and to forward suggestions for future issues.
Reto-Moto Intelligence Division,
Developer Department
