Intelligence Bulletin Vol 2 * No 12 news

This week games journalist Leigh Alexander (Gamasutra, Kotaku, Edge, Wired, plus many more) visited us for two days. It was an unrestricted studio visit, meaning that she were allowed to see everything we do and talk to everyone about anything. This might sound like the most natural thing in the world, but many studios are very secretive about their business, when it comes to the gaming press.

A while ago, Leigh called out for more openness and a better relationship between developers and games journalists - so we picked up that call and invited her here. We had two really great days with Leigh at our office, and she's a really great person and a very knowledgeable and insightful journalist, who definitely knows her way around the gaming business.

As you know, we believe that openness, honesty and dialog between us and you, our community, is the way to go in order to make Heroes & Generals a great game, but we also wish to include the gaming press in the loop. So if you know of any gaming journalists who would like to interview us, preview the game or just get to know us better, please tell them to drop us a mail at press@reto.dk.

In other news - this week also saw the debut of our Support Center. Reto.Bacon has worked hard for the past two months at getting it ready, and now it's finally up and running! So from now on, if you have any issues that might require support, please go to Support.heroesandgenerals.com for help.

The next build is still not up yet. We've encountered a quite serious bug related to our PhysX implementation, which requires an upgrade of PhysX, and a lot of new testing due to this. So we hope you still have some patience a little while yet. There are SO many new cool things in the next build and we're dying to show it to you... But unfortunately we'll have to wait a bit longer. Hopefully it will be up next week, but no promises!... Yeah, we know - you've heard that song before... ;)

Well, guess it's time for Propaganda, Developer Blogs and Team Debriefing for the past week:

Propaganda this Week

Edge published a really well written "Hype" article (first look/preview) about Heroes & Generals in their latest issue (May 2012) based on our demonstration at GDC. Buy the latest issue of Edge now in your local magazine store or download it on your iOS device!
Developer Blogs this Week

News from Support – Support Center, Wiki and Forum structure. Part 1.

By Reto.Bacon, Support Manager
"I am happy to announce, that today we are taking a big step towards the beta in the support department." Read More

Assault-Team Insignia

By Reto.RedBjarne, Game Director
"Over the holidays I’ve mocked up a demo of a simple tool for creating custom unit-insignia for assault teams. The idea is that you can create your own insignia for you assault team(s) and have them displayed both on the strategic view but also as decals on tanks/soldiers/airplanes in the action game." Read More

Team Debriefing

Design

Reto.RedBjarne, Game Director
"-meetings
-meetings
-demo of assaultteam insignia
-work on weponmod/character sceen iteration components
-full-day test/walkthrough meeting of the game.
-bugfixing"

Reto.Fleck, Level Designer
"Optimized background graphics due to performance - ALL week :)"

Reto.Robotron3000, Community Manager & Game Designer
"Punching the Wiki into order, web work, making sure the forums are running smoothly, helping reto.bacon setup the support system and a gazillion other small things."

Artists

Reto.Hr.Wille, 3D Artist
"This week I have been working more on GUI and HUD elements. The idea is to remove any unnecessary clutter from the screen an hopefully make a more cinematic experience. Well, that's my hope anyway. :)"
Reto.Mato, Lead Character Artist
"This week I'm making marketing banners, character uniform tweaks and insignia."

Reto.Owleater, Character Designer
"MIA"

Reto.Colding, Lead Animator
"This week I have been mostly sick - but apart from that I am wrapping up the launch trailer... it just needs the sound - also trying to get the basic light setups done."

Reto.Dave, Environment/Props/Concept Artist
"MIA"

Coders & QA

Reto.Goonstah, Programmer and Technical Lead
"Testing, bugfixing."

Reto.Hal9k, Render Programmer
"Making the new build!"

Reto.Ogssan, Gameplay Programmer
"MIA"

Reto.Leto, Gameplay Programmer
"MIA"

Reto.Murphy, Senior Programmer
"Mum!! Mum!! I'm king of the sea people..."

Reto.Injection, Senior Programmer
"MIA"

Reto.Splixxen, Lead Tester
"- Test shop.
- Test LOD.
- Crashlogs.
- Meetings.
- Random testing."

Reto.Indusninja, IT Architect
"This week has been nothing but bugs to fix on my end"

Reto.Vashu, Flash Programmer
"- Bug fixes
- Switched to static data for Weapon modifiers (less load on server!)
- Implemented weapon statistics and how modifiers affect weapons
- Talked with Leigh Alexander who is writing an article for Gamasutra about us!
- Trying to get patch notes up and running
- Implemented more updates on Assault Teams"

Reto.masterdisaster17, Server Programmer
"MIA"

Sound

Reto.Draebesmoelf, Lead Sound Designer
"I have been working on the sound for the beta-release trailer most of the week. But I have also been fixing a few bugs. "

Reto.Lord, Audio Programmer
"- Work on decal code (for impacts)
- Flash mission list gui work"

Management, IT & support

Reto.Topo, CEO
"MIA"

Reto.Hansg, IT Admin
"1. Create new webserver setup
2, Test setup of new web server (frontend)
3. Find servers to be installed in Russia
4. Create auto script to install new servers and nagios setup on the server.
5. Various workstation tasks"

Reto.KenSolo, PR Manager
"A while ago I invited Leigh Alexander for a studio visit, and this week we could finally welcome her at our office. So while she was here, I introduced her to my fellow developers, arranged meetings between her and my colleagues and generally tried to let her feel like home. Besides that, I've been preparing some stuff for our open beta marketing campaign, where we hope to be able to attract a lot of players, and I've also started working on the next VideoLog."

Reto.Salu, Project Coordinator
"Nice to be back at work after a trip to New York and after Easter. It is obviously very busy at Reto and people work all they can - it's cool!"

Reto.Bacon, Support Manager
"- Launched our brand new support site, go check it out!
- That's pretty much it, except the usual Live Support on play-sessions and answering your e-mails :)"

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