Ready or Not News

Community Content Exhibit Vol. 11

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4enoQlc_Ng4
—

Next up are a couple of the many unofficial foreign language communities that can be accessed through links on our Discord. These Discords are not partnered directly or indirectly with us however we do, as the largest concentration of Ready or Not players, offer them a platform to grow their own communities and allow non-english speakers to have a more comfortable place to play.

The two communities we will be featuring today are the largest of our sub-communities [that we feature] and another that has taken Tactical gaming to a whole new level.

First up is our German community, who currently hold the record of our largest peripheral community at a whopping six thousand users. Showing that even sub-communities can grow to frankly monumental sizes!

Next is the Brazilian community who have endeavored to practice Ready or Not to a hitherto unknown degree, practicing with members of the well-known Brazilian police unit B.O.P.E. Utilizing their vast real-world experience to help community members tackle the swathe of hostile suspects that inhabit Los Sueños

Links to both can be found on our main Discord. https://discord.gg/readyornot

—

Going forward, we can’t wait to see what else the community brings to the table as we update the game to give modders more functionality to play with and as they improve their own work.

Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:

https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

Vol. 78 - Ready or Not Development Briefing

Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 78th edition of our Ready or Not Development Briefing, September 27th, 2024!

This week we’ll be taking a look at a new motion capture session, which we used to gather some valuable gameplay and cinematic shots for the upcoming DLC and future RoN content. In the process, we’ll outline a sample of the new features under development, namely AI item caching, suspect loadouts, hesitation system variations, suspect squad systems, and a new ban manager.

In other news our dev team is going to be featured in an AMA through eXputer's online forums! If you have any burning questions for us, make sure to submit them at this link before questions close on Oct. 3rd: https://forums.exputer.com/threads/ready-or-not-devs-ama.957/

Note: These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that the content in our development briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.

[h2]New Mocap Updated Features [/h2]

Although we won’t be showing the cinematics related mocap (spoilers?) we will touch on some of the useful work that was done for upcoming feature changes, particularly suspect item caching and additions to the AI hesitation system.

[h3]Item Caching[/h3]

Item caching refers to a new system in which suspect/civilian AI in levels will be able to arm themselves during upcoming missions. The project name of this mechanic hints at one of its main purposes, which is being able to create weapons caches that suspects are able to fall back to.

Our early prototypes of this system explore ways of having them resupply, acquire weapons, and even armor. This means an unarmed subject who walked out of your sight may return wielding armor and a rifle. Keep your scene contained.

(Videos below: Mocap data of suspects kitting up via the item cache system)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Hesitation System Variations[/h3]

In order to add some more nuance to AI encounters, our hesitation system is undergoing more variations on animations that suspects and civilians may use. For example, the existing animations in which a gun is hurriedly thrown to the ground will be reduced, slowing down the pace and increasing tension in gameplay. No sudden movements.

(Video below: Put the weapon down slowly)

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Last but not least, a bevy of worldbuilding actions and conversation animations were recorded this session for future implementation.

[h2]Suspect Squad Behavior Overview [/h2]

Currently, your SWAT team is the only true squad capable of proper coordination in the chaos of a mission. Although suspects will sometimes act in ways that complement each other, they are not truly coordinating in a complex manner.

The Suspect Squad Behavior system will be able to alter that dynamic, allowing certain suspects to be leaders and coordinate attacks against your team, share information with each other, rally, and regroup.

Shared information will allow suspects to convey last known positions of enemies when they encounter each other, forming a basis for the rest of the suspect squad behaviors.

High ranking suspects in a level may be determined as leaders according to their background and therefore become a high priority target that can issue orders against your team if not dealt with.

The ‘rally’ behavior, for example, will involve the ability for suspects to actively call for other nearby suspects to either back them up or attack a last known position of SWAT.

‘Regroup’ meanwhile can be used by suspects as a form of retreat to seek other allies if they are unwilling to fight, are in danger, or witness allies die. Once in the regroup state with other allies they can coordinate a plan with any shared information, perhaps deciding to stick together and patrol.

[h2]Suspect Loadouts[/h2]

The item caching system nicely compliments another feature we’re developing for expanded suspect loadouts. In this suspect loadout system, suspects should use weapon attachments such as flashlights and optics as well as switch between multiple weapons at will.

We revised each mission to give suspects a case-by-case unique chance of having specific secondaries, melee options, being unarmed, and whether their weapon starts as holstered or not. If they run out of ammo on their primary's magazine, be ready for their sidearm.

Suspects previously would only pull-out secondaries for performing specific actions like faking a surrender or using a human shield, but this system revision gives them proper access to a full loadout that they will switch between items in any context, and requires that they first physically have that item in their individual loadout.

[h2]Ban Manager[/h2]

One more upcoming feature we can touch on now is the ban manager, which will allow you to better control who you are matchmaking with even if you are not the host.

Our current ban system is only applicable if you’re the host of a lobby. It does not apply if you are a client joining a server, where a player you may have banned in the past might be able to match with you or be hosting.

Under this new ban system anyone is able to ‘ban’ another player from matchmaking with themselves in the future regardless of who is hosting.

If you are the lobby host, ‘banning’ a player will simultaneously kick them from the server, similarly to how it functions now. If you ‘ban’ another player in a match while you are not the host it will not kick them from the active match, it will instead only add them to the list of users that will not be able to match make with you in the future.

Also included in this system will be the ability to permanently mute players’ text chat and/or voice chat so that you yourself cannot see or hear the muted player’s communications in any matches going forward.

Conclusion

Our mocap session allowed for high fidelity animations to fuel upcoming cinematics and some feature changes. The selection of features listed here are as always a work in progress, but are on their way in implementation. Stay tuned for more info about upcoming features and content, and let us know your thoughts on some of the early info given so far.

This concludes our 78th development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

[h3]Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive[/h3]

Community Content Exhibit Vol. 10

Welcome to our expanded iteration of our community newsletters! Just as with the legacy editions of the community newsletters, we’ll look at a variety of mods from newsletter to newsletter, but we will also include a deeper look into community content including streamers, videos, shorts, and art!

This time we will be doing something a little different, this is the first in a series of interviews with Modders that have created pieces whose presence it known to most if not all of the players of Ready or Not that have dove into the wide world of modding.

To kick off our new series, we will be Interviewing Jerry the Weekend Gunfighter, author of the most wide-spread near total conversion on Nexus, leading the pack with 512k lifetime downloads since it’s re-Introduction with the 1.0 release of Ready or not.

The wonderful combination of modularity and sheer scope lets you modify just about any facet of the game you’d want to. In some cases making Ready or Not feel like an entirely different game once the entire package has been applied.

Download link: https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/mods/3160

The below section has been slightly edited from the original text interview for sentence flow and readability.
[hr][/hr]

Q. Can you give us a short little introduction on who you are?

A. About myself, in the RON community, I usually call myself Jerry (the Weekend Gunfighter), of course. About the Weekend Gunfighter, this is because I am just an ordinary person you can see everywhere on the street. I have my own busy work, so I am more likely to "gunfight" in the games on weekends. I am a military/tactics enthusiast. It can be said that it was largely because of Operation Neptune Spear in 2011 that I started to study these and invested a lot of energy.

In the early years when I was not very busy, I would be happy to participate in some milsim activities and practice what I learned from there. At the same time, I also like to collect gucci gear.

[hr][/hr]
Q. Did you have any sort of Background in modding or working on games before you started working on Gunfighter?

A. Yes, mainly in ARMA3 and an old air combat game released in the 2000-2010s called Strike Fighters 2. I don't have any famous and outstanding works, mainly kill time. Basically, some model, texture and scripting work. Making gunfighter was my first time using Unreal.

[hr][/hr]
Q. What exactly made you want to create Gunfighter?

A. Hope you don't mind it being a little long. Over the past decade, I have been playing military/tactics style games such as ARMA3 and SWAT4. I think before Ready or Not was released, SWAT4 was the only game that specialized in CQB environment at that time, so ten years ago I was "dreaming" that it would be great if another CQB game could be produced on a more modern engine one day. When I first saw the trailer of RON around 2017, I said to myself "Finally, it's here". RON has become one of my favorite games over the years and I have been playing it all the time. For any game, I like to play it in a "close to reality" way. (Even though many aspects can only be based on assumptions, because I am not one of those who really put themselves in army to protect their families and country.) When I was playing RON, I always felt that there were some game designs that I didn't 100% agree with.

For example, in the game, the position of the weapon is very high. I understand that this is the traditional practice of almost all FPS, because it allows players to better appreciate the finely modeled guns, but it occupies a large part of the screen. Based on what I have learned and experienced, I hope it could be lower, closer to the height of "Depressed Ready". There are some other aspects that I want to make adjustments to. I mean, I am not dissatisfied, but I think that maybe some other ways is more suitable for me. So, in July 2022, I started thinking, hey, since I want a more "suitable" gameplay, why don't I try to modify it myself? At that time, I didn't know anything about Unreal Engine, so I had to learn it from scratch, and this is the origin of Gunfighter.

I think you may also ask me about my evaluation of this mod. So, about Gunfighter, I will say on the description page: "This mod is aiming to provide a realistic gunfight experience in theory (based on gameplay)." In fact, the core change of this mod is that based on my experience and learning materials, I changed the position of all weapons in the mod to make them closer to how the operators use weapons in reality. At the same time, I adjusted the capabilities of night vision goggles, the feedback after limb injuries, allowed us to use the hidden 9banger, and let us use NVG and gas masks at the same time, etc. etc. I would like to say that every coin has two sides. I said this mod's purpose is "Realism", but this is very subjective, and everyone has their own standards. Therefore, I will emphasize that this is "based on gameplay".

I have always believed that in many aspects, it is impossible to achieve true "Realism" in most game so far, and blindly pursuing "Realism" may have a counterproductive effect on gameplay, so games always have their own unique way to "reflect reality", just like the topic that always start war - recoil, it also applies to many other designs in the game. If you don't mind, I wrote a few articles here to explain some of the designs in the mod, and they all have reasons:

This mod aims to provide a realistic gunfight experience in theory (based on gameplay), covering some CQB concepts and tactical thinking in recent years.

[hr][/hr]
Q. You're pretty reasonable, acknowledging that you're not making the game 'better' but just giving players a different way to play RoN. If you had the chance to add something [a new mechanic, set of equipment, map, etc.] to the game, what would it be?

A. I might need to send you a 50 meter long list about this, but let's keep it simple this time.

1. Mechanic: laser and flash combo, use one button to switch and another button to light up;
2. Equipment: I never complain about gears, as Void has gotten better and better in this regard, but I really need an option to mount an ATAK phone on my vest;
3. Map: Any map in RON is top quality, I never worry about it, but I wish the doors could opened more than 90° so we have more techniques available when doing door procedures; Especially point 1 is what I hope to achieve the most.

—
I'd like to thank Jerry for their time and I can't wait to pick the brain of some of the other members of our modding community. If you have anyone you'd particular to hear from, please feel free to say so in the outputs Discussion thread.

Going forward, we can’t wait to see what else the community brings to the table as we update the game to give modders more functionality to play with and as they improve their own work.

Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:
https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

Vol. 77 - Ready or Not Development Briefing

Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 77th edition of our Ready or Not Development Briefing, August 30th, 2024!

August has been an eventful month between patches and some occasional downtime across the team.

In this briefing, we share moments from Gamescom and a brief intro to some of RoN's recent feature development avenues, along with some undercurrents of movement from an ‘alternate reality’ storyline.

Quick mention― if you find yourself eyeing the Ready or Not development shirts on display in the following photos and looking for something of your own, keep an eye out for merch coming in the future. An abundance of care continues to go into our selection of merchandise partners and designs with the ultimate goal of equipping you with merch that is tangibly excellent.

Note: These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that the content in our development briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.

[h2]Patches In and Features Underway [/h2]

We're extremely grateful for your patience and reception of Patches 2 and 3 that followed the Home Invasion Release. Leading up to Gamescom the team was hard at work guaranteeing Patch 3 was good to go and released during the convention.

Like our Game Director, Gruntr, mentioned in the last dev briefing, DLC 1 was our first foray into a content release following 1.0 and a valuable learning experience in how to approach and develop our DLC.

Right now our team is revving up progress on a suite of yet to be announced features that will continue to improve and refresh the game.

We are still moving through the production phase on many of these features, allocating the workloads, but the prospects are exciting to see.

Generally speaking, we are delving into ways to make missions more dynamic going forward and looking to get new systems in place for AI interactions. There's also new options being explored regarding an array of quality of life features and beyond.

Aside from that we're continuing to look into reports for any existing bugs and crashes to be addressed.

DLC 1 was just us getting started in terms of making accompanying feature additions to the game. The changes that will occur around DLC 2 aim to expand on that aspect further.

[h2]Gamescom Engagement [/h2]

As a remote but tight knit studio, we often spend our time connecting virtually; however this month brought us a productive unique opportunity to do some serious planning in-person while meeting with fans at Gamescom 2024!

Much of the VOID team interacted in Cologne, Germany about a week ago, enjoying each other's company (perhaps a Kölsch or two) and making connections with countless industry peers. Many of these discussions will continue to evolve in an internal manner for the time being, but they are invigorating for our development of RoN.

Just as important were the excited fans we met throughout the convention posing for photo after photo. Thank you so much to everyone who approached us just to say hi or to offer your appreciation, we see you and cherish these moments. The impact Ready or Not has had so far is not lost on us.

(Images below: Some photos with VOID and fans alike at Gamescom)

More photos from Gamescom will be popping up on our socials soon!

[h2]Roots which Run Deep [/h2]

As longtime fans and those newer may know, Ready or Not is said to have some history of a game unto its own.

The bulletined lines of lore that run throughout these stories have persistently been traced outside narrow confines.

Perhaps you know some people who have pursued these phantomlike threads. Our community has a subsect who seeks them, apparitions or not.

There is no telling what awaits in the cycle.

Conclusion

We have some exciting new feature developments underway and had a great time as a team meeting with those of you at Gamescom!

Although it's too early to get deep into detail on the sort of things we're working on since some could be subject to change, that should of course solidify as time progresses.

This concludes our 77th development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

[h3]Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive [/h3]

Home Invasion Patch 3 Changelog

Attention Officers,

Welcome to the Patch 3 changelog for the Home Invasion Release! Among the fixes and improvements, one notable change is how DLSS capability and quality should now be improved. Meanwhile, lower graphics settings will more appropriately result in increased performance and decreased graphical fidelity.

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

Reduced blurriness of sights when aiming while using DLSS or FSR3
Fixed DLC notification appearing in the main menu while the DLC is not owned
Fixed various typos across the game
Fixed missions being able to end automatically when downed officers have still not been reported
Fixed C2 placement position on various doors
Fixed cursor disappearing in the loadout menu while saving a preset and pressing escape
Fixed SWAT AI endlessly trying to kick open one-way container doors
Fixed facial animations not playing within a certain distance of the player
Fixed uneven stress application when quitting to desktop from a commander mode mission
Fixed manually added mods not causing the modded watermark to appear
Fixed stretchy informant photo in the Narcos briefing media
Fixed distant cars down the road on Narcos appearing as black rectangles
Fixed various visual issues on Dorms
Fixed misaligned door on Dealer
Fixed Informant not playing the correct animation when reported
Fixed detective’s neck clipping through his uniform in the station
Fixed new station showing as “In A Mission” in the steam overlay
Fixed personal best numbers not saving under certain conditions and distinguishing when a mission is considered ‘Unresolved’
Fixed slight performance hit when selecting customization items in the customization menu
Fixed some new customization items appearing blurry
Fixed cases of being able to equip locked customization item variants
Fixed cases of flickering weapons in the customization menu
Fixed various other UI issues in the customization menu
Fixed SWAT AI failing to breach the side entrance double doors on Gas
Fixed dead suspects falling through various assets on Narcos
Fixed suspects on Valley being able to take hostages
Fixed flashing lights when looking through some of the frosted glass on Penthouse
Fixed zeroing issues of picture in picture optics
Fixed chemlights being too dim on some levels due to eye adaptation
Fixed an issue with the significance manager, which caused distant suspects to pop in at times
Fixed missing briefing map for Dealer
Fixed various navmesh issues across many maps
Fixed funky animation when deploying a chemlight or enabling night vision while holding a shield
Fixed missions not auto completing once all tasks are done, if any primary objective was failed
Fixed officers in Commander Mode who were killed by a trap in the mission displaying as “Alive”
Disabled the keybind which allowed for opening the replay browser in the station or loading screens
Fixed overkill film grain after watching replays
Fixed replays sometimes showing incorrect information in the replay viewer
Fixed explosive vests killing officers through walls/ceilings
Fixed lobby manager resetting voice chat mode to local when opened
Fixed civilians sometimes getting stuck while moving to exit, when too far away from the player
Fixed friendly fire penalty against SWAT AI not appearing on the HUD
Fixed missing SWAT roster information on the tablet during missions in commander mode and quick play
Fixed various collision issues on Valley
Fixed out of bounds message appearing in the middle of the level on Gas
Fixed some shadow related issues with scalability settings
Fixed credits not properly showing after finishing Port
Fixed an instance where Civilians/Suspects should be roaming but would stop after a few minutes

[h2]Improvements:[/h2]

Improved graphics settings menu backend, allowing for larger performance gains on lower settings
Optimized nav mesh processing, improving performance when opening/closing doors
Improved noncompliant civilian behavior
Added ability to pull out fresh can of pepper spray after one runs out, as long as the player has added multiple cans to their inventory
Optimized SWAT equipment/customization models
Further optimization of various suspect and civilian models
Added missing facial animations to suspects and civilians across multiple levels
First person weapon models should now always use the highest quality LOD

[h2]Known Issues:[/h2]

Several replay viewer issues
On Valley, Importer, Datacenter, and Agency some small objects may disappear at a relatively short distance if “View Distance” setting is set lower than “Epic”