It wasn’t dead, just resting: Fistful of Frags 3.0 news

Hey, it's been a long time since last beta, the fact is development ceased after 2.6. I'd say there were two main reasons: community seemed to decrease each new beta and mod progress was held back by some serious technical issues. However I always felt like this project still wasn't finished, it just reached a ceiling we couldn't break by that time.

If there was going to be any new version such technical problems should be approached or we'd keep running in circles. My work on Dual Reality made me a much better coder, and that experience has been critical to commit this new beta. There were some engine glitches like player movement or hit registry since the very beginning. A much needed upgrade to latest SDK has fixed many problems, lag related issues are handled much better up to the point a ping over 200 doesn't feel any more laggy (movement wise) than a local game. Some major fixes and improvements have been applied to our mod code too, so weapon prediction glitches and several exploits are now a thing from the past.

On top of that, we never released a Linux server build. Beta 3.0 will be played on Linux servers too thanks to the immense work made by Psychonic. He also added fixes, security improvements, plug-in compatibility and will grant us full SourceMod support. You may know him for projects like SourceMod or HLStatsX, his help may push this mod up to levels we couldn't imagine before.

More highlights: player movement has been redone completely. No sprint, no stamina, no movement restrictions. This was an efficiency problem, could we reach same goals than old movement system using a simpler and less frustrating approach? New system features no other limitation than a progressive speed penalty when player jumps/strafes, same speed over all directions. Feels way smoother, quicker gameplay overall and is friendlier for newcomers. Melee weapons get a default speed similar to old sprint.

This isn't a feature-centered release as you can see. Focus has been those things which weren't working as we wanted. There are however a few important additions which will be commented in a future news post. For the moment I'd like to feature a new map: fof_robertlee. This level , based on one of the most famous steamboats from the Old West era, presents a good chance for close quarters combat and gameplay wise it's a nice departure. Thanks to Morricone for developing this amazing idea.

My thoughts about 3.0 are clear, this is a huge leap. Fun weapons and maps, quality music/sounds and original gameplay were there, now comes technical polish, server support and game balance to max out the experience. Next day I'll talk about our incoming final testing stage, you still can help us and we'll reward you in a very special way!