News from the front lines - SaMbO - 05th Oct 2003 14:34
Yes, it's been a long time coming! We're pleased to be able to provide an official newspost from the Troopers team to keep you up with what's happening behind the scenes.
We are all extremely excited about being deemed eligible to enter Phase2 of the 'Make Something Unreal' competition hosted by our friends at Epic, and as such we have had our heads down busily creating content.
Whilst we have had every intention of releasing a demo patch as soon as possible, real life affairs have slowed down it’s creation. With the deadline for Phase 2 of the mod competition just two weeks away, it no longer makes sense to release a demo patch. However, we are working as hard as we can to ensure that we have a new version of Troopers ready to participate in Phase 2 of the competition! This means that if everything goes as planned, a new version of Troopers will be released on or before October 20th.
Of course there is always the hazard of unforeseen problems popping up. This means that although October 20th is our preferred release date, it is not set in stone. We will delay the release of the next version if this is necessary.
We are progressing steadily, and on are on-track with our most recent IR version being released today (IRv6.70).
As such, please find following a highlight list of some new features added since our public release: (a more detailed list will accompany the release itself; these are merely some prominent changes)
Players
• Changed movement to make strafing and going backwards slower than going forwards. This forces players to be more careful in fire fights, since you can no longer evade all incoming bolts just by strafing.
Weapons
• Several weapons have been re-skinned, including the A280 Blaster Rifle (which is now black instead of green) and the DH17 Blaster Pistol.
• The bolt projectiles that are fired from the blasters have been made faster. You no longer have to lead your target as much as you used to. This makes it easier to hit someone – provided that you’ve got a steady aim, that is.
• Added the Blastech DL44 pistol. This small gun packs quite a punch (verify with Greedo if you like). The primary fire spews out the weapon’s deadly load of crimson rain, while the secondary fire allows you to use the pistol as a melee weapon in a whipping motion. Players that are hit by a pistol whip temporarily lose their vision, which makes this the perfect attack for ambushes.
• Changed the scoped fire mode of the Rebel Blastech A280 Blaster Rifle to an instant hitting attack. This means that when you aim properly, you get a certified hit, even at long ranges. Aiming is harder than with UT2003’s sniper rifle though. A breathing affected scope bob is applied to your view when zoomed in, causing your view to sway while breathing and running. The view sway calms down as your body comes to rest.
Target identification system
• Changed the inner workings of the system so that it can only be used as a tool to show you where to find your enemies on the map when orienting at long distances. It is not effective at close or medium range, so you’ll have to use your own eyes to spot your enemies – it will no longer work as a wall hack. It requires a more conscious identifying action to get a target lock for your team mates to see. Additional voice communication phrases have been added to allow you to inform your team mates of your target.
Maps
• The Carbon Freeze map has been added. It’s a small to medium sized Capture the Flag map that is situated in the interior of the City in the Clouds that hovers above Bespin. If Dagobah was too big for you, then you’ll be sure to find a nice challenge here.
Miscellaneous
• Implemented many of community requested features. Among these features are the options to have a static crosshair, a fire mode indicator for the E11, left-handed weapon support, reversed chat scrolling and an option for chat text size configuration.
• Fixed a lot of bugs that slipped into the demo release and optimized code, maps and textures for better performance.
You can look forward to more regular news posts coming your way soon, including an article or two surrounding some of these new feature highlights.
We sincerely hope you will find the results of our hard work worth the wait!
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