Centenary Update - Talking about 2.0 news

Exactly 100 years ago, on the 28^th of July 1914 the world would witness Austria-Hungary declare war on Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand just a month earlier. Given the political situation in Europe at the time, alliances had been created before this crisis thus creating a domino-effect on countries being dragged into the war. Everyone in Europe knew the war would start sometime due to the political situation on the continent - but they had no idea when or how it would happen. Suddenly Russia, France, Germany and Britain were involved in what was to become the deadliest and most destructive conflict humanity had set their eyes on thus far in history. The First World War had started, and soon enough people and battlefields all around the world would be scarred by the dreadful conflict which lasted for more than 4 years.

To mark the centenary for the start of the First World War we decided to write up this news-post /media-update in order to keep you guys up to date on what's going on with us and the project of course.

NEW TEAM MEMBERS

It's been quite a lot of months since our last update here on the site, but in the meantime a lot has happened! Most notably we now have a programmer! And not just any programmer, a real dedicated one too! He's one who knows his field really well and he's also a great person who has a heart for the project; his name is OccupationG or simply G as we call him. He's the programmer who we worked with back in 2012. But he sadly had to leave for understandable personal reasons back then. Now he's back though, better than ever and he's already done some impressive stuff for us.

We would also like to welcome our new sound-engineer Point, who's been doing some proper work for us right from the start of his application, and he still continues to deliver. So most (if not all) of the sound FX you'll be hearing in any future videos and previews of 2.0 have been made by him.

We also have a third guy onboard who's a jack of all trades! He simply goes by the name Steve, but he's capable of doing quite a lot of things within the source-engine. He's a helpful guy for sure, and his knowledge is quite the asset for our team! He even does code, which will make our progress go up a few notches when we actually have two coders!

The major changes for the game thus far includes that we've moved from the old Orangebox 2007 build over to the 2013 version of the Source-engine. Stuff like Linux and Virtual Reality support is some of the more notable differences, coupled with some beloved optimization changes which make the whole thing smoother for us all. (And you can finally alt-tab out of the game properly!) Not only have we moved to the 2013 engine, but we've also re-added our old ballistics-system that was created by OccupationG back in 2012. This will give the game a very different feel from what you're all used to - we believe it's a change for the better though. The ballistics-system includes snazzy things like bullet-drop, ricochets, advanced tracer-rounds, advanced shrapnel and artillery effects, and even stuff like how the bullets have an effect on the human body.

If you want to read more about the ballistics-system, visit this MoDDb page for Occupation's own mod, called OccupationCS; Moddb.com

Moving on from the major stuff, we'd like to talk about some smaller (but still big) stuff about the game. How will version 2.0 actually play out compared to the version you're used to? Well, the changes are quite drastic to say the least. The core gamemode is still here, but the actual gameplay has had some changing around. WW1 Source is no longer an arcade shooter; it's a realistic first person-shooter, with a hint of arcade mixed into it. Think of it as a mix of version 1.13b and any other realistic shooter out on the market (we usually use Red Orchestra as an example). No more fast paced action where skill is the biggest factor in the game; say hello to the more unforgiving style of gameplay. The gameplay feels a bit more sluggish and slower in order to take the realistic approach, and you can no longer survive, let's say a rifle shot to the chest. We're even going to experiment with full-body-awareness (Yes ladies and gents, legs and feet had actually already been invented in 1914!) With the new ballistic-system you could even find yourself being taken out from across the map by artillery-shrapnel! Stuff like that example would probably only happen in extreme cases however, when the RNG (Random Number Generator) really is out to get you.

Now that We've covered the major stuff, let's move on to the smaller stuff about the
gameplay. We'll try to cover most of the aspects of gameplay in this news-post.

THE CLASSES IN 2.0

The Rifleman: Still mostly the same with no major changes from version 1.13b. You still have a rifle with a bayonet and lots of ammunition, however you're one grenade shorter - yup, you only have one grenade now; so make it count.

The Machinegunner: No major changes here apart from the removal of the trenchclub - you now have a sidearm instead which you can also melee with. (This goes for all classes with the pistols equipped) You also have your powerful machinegun too of course, that you can only fire when deployed.

Turn down your volume for this video unless you want your eardrums blown out due to our new MG08/15 sounds!

The Officer: The primary weapon for the officer is still a pistol, though the German Luger has been replaced by the Mauser C96 with 10 rounds. The main change for the officers is the artillery-system. You still have the binoculars and telescope, but the time interval between each barrage is much longer. We're going to experiment with this, but we will probably settle with an interval of between 2-5 minutes. However the barrage will be much more effective to compensate for this. You still have normal high explosive and gas-barrages. The officers are now equipped with a smoke-grenade in order to cover advances.

The Bomber: One of our new classes. He is armed with 6 grenades correct to the time-period the map takes place in, but also a sidearm and a trenchclub in order to make short work of enemies close by. The bomber needs to cooperate closely with the riflemen in order for them to protect him while he's moving up to the enemy lines. This is one of the reasons we removed one of the grenades from the rifleman class; we want to promote and encourage teamwork between the classes.

The Marksman: Another newcomer, he's a specially trained rifleman who is able to use his ironsights a whole lot more efficient than your ordinary rifleman. (He doesn't have a bayonet attached though) He's an excellent shot whose main goal is to hunt down high value targets like officers and machinegunners from a distance. He is armed with a pistol in case anyone dares to sneak up on him.

THE WEAPONRY

"Have there been any major changes to the weapons?" you might be asking. The answer is yes for some weapons, and no for others. The main change will be how the weapons actually play out due to the new ballistics-system. Rifles and MG's have got a longer effective range than pistols, and also notable bullet-drop over a distance. The only new weapons you'll be seeing on the battlefield is the
German C96 Mauser and the early-war British and German grenades (Jam-Tin-Grenade and Discushandgranate respectively) which are grenades that explode on impact. On the topic of grenades, we will also add grenade-cooking with a timer of 5-7 seconds. Be careful not to hold an active grenade for too long, neither you nor your teammates are going to find it an enjoyable experience.

Switching between weapons now takes longer as you have to holster your current weapon before drawing the second one.

We have tinkered with the properties of each machinegun too. The MG08 is in total a much larger and bulkier weapon than the Lewis gun. Therefore we have made the reload and deployment-time quite a bit longer than the one the Lewis has. In addition, it's ROF is a bit slower than the Lewis' but it also packs a 100 round drum magazine compared to the new Lewis mag-size of 47.

The reload for the rifles has been changed. In order to make each rifle unique we have a different way of reloading them both. The German Gewehr 98 can be loaded with single shots and a full clip if you're completely empty. The British Lee-Enfield can only load via clips. This means that if you're down to 5 shots or less you can load ONE clip of 5 bullets. This means if you have 3 bullets in your magazine you can reload with a clip of 5, making you end up with 8 bullets in total. If you've shot all of your 10 shots you can load two full clips, though this will obviously take longer than a single-clip reload.

MAKING THE GAME PRETTY

In terms of visual quality and small details we have a higher bar of quality than what it was for 1.13b. The game will feel like a totally new one with the stuff we have in mind. The players and weapons
look better than ever before, and the maps have been remade with new layouts and visuals. Details like particle-effects for bullet-impacts and artillery have been remade and they all look better than the default Source stuff. The particle effects are quite over the top in terms of intensity, but we feel this is a good choice when we've got stuff like the ballistics-system. This will make ranging your shot much easier, and it feels a lot better when actually hitting your enemy if a red puff and some gore spurts out of him. Visuals are important when it comes to making you feel immersed; now you'll really seek cover when an MG is shooting at you, as you can see the tracers and bullets snapping into the ground around you. Seeing your mates get directly hit by artillery resulting in them disappearing in a cloud of red smoke and gore is not a very pleasant experience either.

THE HISTORCAL ASPECT

This is important for us, but at the same time we have our limits and we also have to think about gameplay. You won't be seeing uniforms change depending on what year the map takes place in,
and stuff like some grenades and light-machine-guns won't be disabled for early-war maps. This is stuff we have to do in order to make gameplay interesting and to reduce our workload. Obviously we're not going crazy and adding AK-47's and dinosaurs, but it's a thing we wanted to make clear for any
fans out there hoping for a history simulator where everything is correct to the tee. However we have one neat thing for you guys in terms of history; headgear! Hats! Yup, we've now got period-correct headgear for our playermodels, this will make it easier to identify what year a map takes place in, and you guys have finally gotten the pickelhaubes you've been asking for!

THE GAMEMODE(S)

We will keep our TC (Territorial Control) gamemode as our main gamemode for 2.0. We might experiment with removing the morale-aspect of this gamemode, as feedback from 1.13b showed us that it was more of an annoyance than a fun feature. We will hopefully be adding more gamemodes like Territorial Push for certain maps, where one team pushes the other one back, and also basic Team Deathmatch where the first team to gain X amount of kills wins the match.

VARIOUS 2.0 FEATURES

· 3D voice chat support, which basically makes direct voice-chat only able to be transmitted over a certain distance. (serverside command to adjust the distance)

· Artillery and explosions have an effect on your vision and hearing. Dirt will splash onto your screen, and your ears will ring as a result of shellshock.

· No direct health-bar on display. Your health can be identified by looking at how saturated your screen gets after taking a lot of damage.

· Every soldier is equipped with a bandage to replenish some HP (Not realistic, but it gives you a second fighting chance)

· The mappers will have brush-entities made specially in order to simulate barbed wire and also constant artillery-barrages going on in an area of the map.

ROUNDING IT UP + COMMUNITY ACTIVITY

We hope this long update gave you all some ideas on what direction we're taking with 2.0, and we hope you found it very interesting to read. We have another thing in store though! We have to mention that the 1.13b community is once again up and active. The people in charge are once again the 3rd Marine Division Clan. You can look forward to realism matches and even contests with some serious prizes in the following weeks. Spread the word so we can get some new players populating the servers! The built-in server browser on Steam is not working correctly anymore for some reason, so you need to jump in-game in order to connect to the server. Alternatively if you have the console enabled you can use this command;

connect 108.61.50.205:27015

PEOPLE WE NEED

Last but not least we do actually have some positions to fill. We need these people;

· An environmental texture-artist who can hand us some high-quality stuff for the mappers to use. Extensive experience with Photoshop or another editing-program and how source handles textures is required. Previous experience and projects is a huge plus.

· A UI-designer who can piece together some epic VGUI stuff for the game. Knowledge of any useable programs within this field and how it works together with Source and it's code is required. Previous experience and projects is a huge plus.

To send an application, simply send me (ashton93) a PM here on MoDDb.

Hopefully this has made the wait a little easier. Hang on until next time. We are hoping to release media more frequently from the start of August and further on, so keep a watch on us!

Lest we forget

The WWI: Source Developer Team