The first weekend in Advent has passed and there isn’t much time left till Christmas. Like many of you, we're busy trimming trees and doing our shopping. Even so, our team is also working hard on the mod and, as you will no doubt agree, is doing really amazing things. In the last news I already threated to bring news more often for sharing information of our progress to you. This makes true on that threat.
We got a lot of feedback from the last news with a lot of compliments, ideas and also some critics, thanks for this. We are always happy when we get compliments, because we want to do good work and to build a mod that is not only liked by us, but also by you. Ideas are also always positive, but like most of you will know, not everything is possible in CoD2. Our expectations were also set too high before CoD2 was released and we needed to understand that a lot of things are really not possible, and other things have taken a long time to learn how to do in CoD2. We are still able to bring a lot of new cool features and content for a new gaming experience with COD2.
Critics are not always as nice but, when they make sensible and courteous comments, they are useful and very much needed. In the following I will address three points raised by the critics.
A few of you made comments about the skin and animation of the Rangerknife. The displayed skin of the Rangerknife in our last news was only a DX7 testing skin. We haven’t made a final decision for the final layout of the knife but be sure that the Rangerknife won’t look ugly and it will also have a DX9 skin in the final release. Regarding the animation I will only say “Wait for the release and use the knife in game, then we all know more.” The knife will be a very flexible, versatile tool in-game.
“Don’t waste your time for news, work on the mod!” was another comment. Be sure that we don’t stop to work on the mod for writing news. The news is a very important tool to inform you all about the progress on the mod and to keep us motivated with your feedback.
There were also a few questions regarding the Single Player campaign of GFM2 and I it’s difficult for me to answer them here and now but I will try. The SP part of GFM2 is actually our “problem child”. Our team isn’t very large and we're short of seasoned SP scripters. All of our attempts to locate and recruit some additional SP scripters has failed in the past and so, while we still work on the SP, progress is slow. At the moment I am not able to predict anything but be sure that I will inform you when something exceptional happens; that’s a promise.
Now lets switch to the actual news. Our map-pack grows and, thanks to Ziegenbock, Amfreville will also be a battlefield for hot GFM2 fights in the future. A lot of you will already know the map from the good old GFM UO days. The GFM UO map was originally mapped by DeathPool, Ziegenbock made the conversion for CoD2:
Another familiar map, but this time from the CoD2 SP is Newvillers or St. Louet, as it's called in GFM2. The very first time I played it in SP, I liked this map very much because of the unique environment; and, now, I am really happy and thankful that RollinHard has converted this map for our MP. The map atmosphere is breathtaking, especially if you are able to play it with DX9. It’s a great map by IW and a wonderful conversion by Rollin. I will only show a few first impressions of the map and keep the best for a later news…
A totally new map will be Saumur by Cornrow Wallace. Saumur is a small town in France with an impressive castle, which will of course also be a part of the map. I was able to “steal” some of Cornrow's screenshots to show you a few older impressions of the map. I will try to squeeze some more screenshots out of him in time for the next news.
It’s a matter of course that we are not only working on maps. Our scripters and modellers are also very busy. At the moment we are testing a few new scripts and gametypes. Remarkable is Webchen's new gametype Air Assault (AA), a variation of the well known Search & Destroy. The main goal of the game is (like in S&D) to destroy a tactical target on the map. In Air Assault you are part of a fighting unit on patrol in an enemy sector. Your headquarters informs you of tactical targets in your area and then sends a plane which will drop some ammunition for destroying the target. Before you can follow the orders and try to destroy the targets, you need to retrieve the ammunition container. With this additional step the often very static S&D gets an exciting new wrinkle for a more dynamic game because the dropping places are always unknown, selected by chance. I will keep some additional details of AA for later but I'll show you a few screenshots to whet your appetite…
So, now we have to go back to work again. Stay tuned though; we'll tell you more very soon.
=D