For the past two weeks we’ve run a series of server stress-tests. Some of them indeed resulted in stressed servers and some of them we’re more peaceful… well, as peaceful as things gets in a wargame. :-)
The latest stress-test was held two days ago and we peaked with 553 concurrent users. This session went, under the circumstances of being an Alpha-session, quite well. There were a lot of client-side bugs, but our servers and back-end system survived.
We’ve now identified a heap of bugs and are working on fixing them – however you should not expect us to fix all bugs at once. We’ll prioritize the bugs and fix the most serious ones first. Some bugs are quite difficult for us to reproduce, so we still need your help – keep sending us Crash-logs and report bugs!!!
Our main focus for the next couple of weeks is to get a new build up with new content. This build will have some bugfixes, but new bugs will probably be introduced. So don’t be alarmed if you encounter new bugs in the next build. That’s just a normal part of an early Alpha-stage.
We’re currently discussing what to do with the Play Sessions until we have a new build up, but haven’t reached a conclusion yet. So stay tuned for an update!
We have strengthened the developer-team with two new employees, who both started this week; Project Coordinator, Reto.Salu and Server Programmer, Reto.masterdisaster17. You can look forward to a “Featured Developer” introduction to both in the coming weeks!
Developer Blogs This Week
The Campaign – Air Assault Teams
By Reto.Chrestangen
“There has been quite a development in the Campaign department since Reto.Placebo wrote the latest blog-post about the Campaign: ‘The campaign map – a work in progress‘. The latest feature I’m working on is Air Assault Teams.” Read More
The Sound of Explosions
By Reto.Draebesmoelf
“In the video blog below you can hear examples of many different explosions that are currently in the game. Please bear in mind that what you see and hear is a game in alpha-stage, it is not the final game.” Read More
Team Debriefing
Design
Reto.RedBjarne, Game Director
“- new ingame spawn menu
- campaignmap mousezoom
- bughunting on T01M01
- LOD creator bughunting”
Reto.Fleck, Level Designer
“Made all capture and spawn points ready for the next iteration of the ingame spawnmenu. Also fixed a gazillion gfx bugs.”
Reto.Robotron3000, Community Manager & Game Designer
“I’ve been working on combat badges and ribbons and trying to help tie everything together with statistics, user interface, graphic representations etc.
I’ve adjusted the headshot kill distance (up) on the sniper rifles and I am moving and adjusting various European cities in order to have a better representation of factories and airfields.”
Artists
Reto.Hr.Wille, 3D Artist
“This week I have made a new shader for the Tiger I tank, and new weapon setups so that individual weapon parts can be animated. At the moment I am working on getting the US M3A1 Half-track in game before the next action build.”
Reto.Mato, Lead Character Artist
“I’m making various character uniform and shader tweaks.”
Reto.Owleater, Character Designer
“MIA“
Reto.Colding, Lead Animator
“This week I have done more enter exit vehicle animations – also I have been involved in recording ingame footage for the launch trailer and a preliminary rough edit of the trailer itself.”
Reto.Dave, Environment/Props/Concept Artist
“Been workin on the factories, placing props and building new ones.”
Coders & QA
Reto.Goonstah, Programmer and Technical Lead
“Bugfixing, some initial work on in-game keyboard remapping. Testing and keeping an eye on the Live servers.”
Reto.Chrestangen, Flash Programmer
“This week I have finished the first itteration of the stacking solution of multiple assault teams in the campaignmap, created a retreat button, changed some of the plane code to acommodate new server functions, started handling multiple assault teams in one battle (mostly trying to figure out how to solve it right now), and handled some sickness stuff at home. The regular fixes, bugs, meetings and office stuff was also maintained.”
Reto.Placebo, Code connoisseur
“* Integrated Dev->Strategy & Strategy->Dev
* When buying a commandnode it now will be topped up – youre buying the resources as well as the commandnode
* Retreating from battles now possible in strategy-game
* Work on core mechanics: Strategy & Action communication”
Reto.Hal9k, Render Programmer
“Setup and bugfixing on Live
Iteration on queue system for action games
Analysis of the current state of the game
Work on deploy system to catch more errors on deploy”
Reto.Ogssan, Gameplay Programmer
“This week i have been working on the new spawn menu and key customization.”
Reto.Leto, Gameplay Programmer
“MIA“
Reto.Murphy, Senior Programmer
“MIA“
Reto.Injection, Senior Programmer
“Been bug hunting and in world of stats.”
Reto.Splixxen, Lead Tester
“- Handle feedback from our testers.
- Play Tug-of-war with the Crashlogs.
- Hunt new bugs
- Look at Support Manager applications.”
Reto.Indusninja, IT Architect
“- Broke the movement of planes in campaign – working on a fix
- Sending the time of day to the action mission (time elapsed since war start, with reference to 1st Sep, 1939)
- When a war has finished, start new war with same settings as the one that just finished
- When players select to move to a new war, transfer their commandnodes to that war as well (but no army resources are transferred)
- Backend logic allows characters to equip (up to 2) combat badges
- Create chat channel, join the newly created channel and remove channel if no more subscribers”
Reto.Vashu, Flash Programmer
“- Wartime (Number of days since war began and current ingame time of day) has been implemented.
- Localization preparation finished for CampaignBrowser, End of war screen, Chat and friend’s list.
- Tooltips added to explain more in Chat and Friend List
- RetoMoto Employees show up in Chat as blue.
- Expansion of how channels work in Chat and update to Channel Management window
- Ribbons, Badges and character development work begun. A lot of coordination, planning and research on this one.
- Playtesting the game internally.”
Sound
Reto.Draebesmoelf, Lead Sound Designer
“I did some “community work” this week ;-) I did the (video) blog, The Sound of Explosions and answered sound related questions on our blog, forum, youtube channel and indieDB page”. And then I have been and still am working on the sounds for the vehicle mounted machine guns.”
Reto.Lord, Audio Programmer
“Some action game audio bug fixes. Still working on on join/queue implementation.”
Management & IT
Reto.Topo, CEO
“MIA“
Reto.Hansg, IT Admin
“1. install of 2 new warservers
2. Install of 2 new game servers
3. Nagios/Alarms check time on warservers. Time sync on the servers.
4. Some other nagios monitor setup.
5. Check hosting in Asia.
6. Create new workstation pc
7. Moving to a new office.”
Reto.KenSolo, PR & Marketing Coordinator
“This week has for me been all about the current server stress-tests – inviting new Alpha-players, informing existing Alpha-players about the state and results of the play sessions, and in general tried to be present on our social media, forum and blog. “
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
Sign up for an Alpha-key here!
Will join in the testing soon again :)
Nothing like suiciding jeeps while holding the horn.