Moar physics entities

Drop pods no longer sit in one place, they now roll around, freely dispersing their monetary goodness among the citizenry. They're quite light too, which means a single grenade can send one flying across the map, with your bots following in hot pursuit. Speaking of maps, Sector X is just about done! It's definitely our most massive map to date, and it has some interesting moments. So far the ring around the top has been great for sniping.

More maps

The main menu now has a global chat room, powered by some simple PHP/MySQL. The tutorial has been updated (it looks a LOT better), and the website received a makeover too! A lot of behind-the-scenes updates have been happening as well... the network code is becoming increasingly bulletproof, and several more physics bugs have been addressed.

And now for the fun stuff... more multiplayer maps! The first one is called Gold, it's adapted directly from the gg_halo_gold CS:S map. It's basically already done, and it promises to offer some intense 4-player action. The other two are works in progress, but both are looking like they could facilitate some epic battles.

Feedback from beta 2

Hey everyone, it's me again. I'm happy to report that Beta 2 turned out pretty well! We got a bit of publicity for the final release, and more importantly, some valuable feedback. It sounds like people had trouble with the browser plugin, so in addition to the browser-based game, I'm also going to release a stand-alone version with a self-contained installer. This also re-opens the possibility of LAN parties in the absence of an internet connection.

More stuff!

We are closing in on a new release here... in the mean time a lot of new features have been added!

First, and most notably, I'm experimenting with a new camera strategy. If you've played the excellent Just Cause 2, it's very similar. By default your character is off center to the right, with a wide, inaccurate crosshair on the screen. You can right-click to zoom in and increase your accuracy and damage. So far I think it's a major improvement over the old system.

Drop pods are back

And they're much more interesting now. Instead of delivering reinforcements, they now act as cash dispensers. So rather than receiving a flat sum every match, you'll have to earn your money by remaining near a drop pod. Currently, the pod doesn't make you wait and then dump all the cash on you in one transaction; the money is deposited in $10 increments every second. We'll see whether that changes or not.

New maps, new weapon, new money system, new game mode!

I've been silent here for a while, but that's just because I've been busy getting some glamorous new features in! Things are really starting to shape up.

First things first. Bobpoblo has joined the team as a mapper/tester! He's been working hard on some new maps made in Hammer, textures courtesy of [-B-]. The original maps will likely be remade as well.  Unfortunately the content pipeline is a little convoluted: I open the Source map in Crafty, export it to Wavefront OBJ format, and import it into Blender. From there I fix import errors, remove degenerate triangles, apply lightmaps, etc. before exporting to .egg format.

New command system and social portal

Quick update just to keep this blog alive. I've made some improvements to the command/AI system. It's now much simpler and easier to tell your units to attack a specific enemy. The closest enemy you're aiming at is highlighted, and you can hit Q or E (depending on which one of your two units you want to command) to order an attack on that enemy. Special abilities are also mapped to Q or E, when tapped twice in quick succession.