Smashball mod for Half-Life 2

5 comments by voodooc on Feb 5th, 2010 digg this super bookmark

This update contains a ton of new stuff, and major changes to address the large amount of feedback we've had over the past year.

Major Balance Changes

We've spent several months radically changing the pacing, and focus of the game.  There's now a much larger emphasis on combat.  The knockout and auto-heal systems have been changed to actually give players a reason to do something other than kamikaze the goalie.  The skills have been reworked to make them easier to understand and choose.  While you still need to develop your technique to achieve top speeds, we've narrowed the mobility gap between new players and our experienced veterans.  We think we've got a much better game now: one that is more accessible to new players, but at the same time rewards the real pro hookers.

New Maps

There are now two more arenas that you can smash balls in: Cargo Bay Six and Spiral.  Cargo Bay Six features lots of large open spaces, and multiple routes through the chokepoint.  Spiral is a smaller map more suitable for small games.  Murderplex has also received a major facelift!

Instant Replay System

After every score and at the end of every round, the game is paused and the last few seconds of action are shown to everyone.  This seems to make it a lot easier for new players to pick up on what's going on.

Replay Library

Every replay that you see is also now stored locally as a small demo file.  From the in-game main menu, you can review and play them!  Our current objective is to make a one-click process for generating video and uploading it to YouTube.  For now, enterprising players could use FRAPS or Source engine movie making techniques to make their own video.

In-game Player Management Window

From the main menu, you can now pull up an in-game browser window that shows your player page on the Smashball.tv web site.  This is just a quick way to check your season stats, or to look at the overall stats for that match you just finished.

Coming Soon

We've got a whole pile of other features we're working on, and we plan on releasing them gradually over the next few months.  Some of the exciting ones are:

• New Custom Weapon System.  Not only are we looking at adding new weapon types, we're going to create a whole new system that allows us to quickly and easily add new weapons on an ongoing basis.
• Player Names & Numbers on Jerseys.  Team owners will be able to assign numbers to players, which are then shown, along with their name, on the back of the player.
• Total HUD Overhaul.  We're putting some major work into completely redesigning the existing HUD, graphically and functionally.

Learn More!

You can find out more about Smashball from a bunch of different places:

Web Site, including fun and frockiling forums: Smashball.tv
YouTube Channel, with many violent videos, old and new: Youtube.com
Facebook Page, which doesn't get as much love as it should: Facebook.com
Our Steam Group, where chatty chatalots go to chat: Steamcommunity.com