42nd Pennsylvania national & 1st Georgia regimental[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]
Today, we’re pleased to be releasing our biggest update to the infantry battle flags of the game yet as part of alpha update 168. We’ll also be giving you a fresh progress report about the much anticipated “Platform System” - a core system for War of Rights going forward.
First thing’s first, however. Let’s talk about the massive flag addition featured in update 168. It’s my pleasure to pass the word on to our newest team member at Campfire Games, Bradley.
[h3]Battle Flags[/h3]
My name is Bradley and I am the Historical Texture Artist for Campfire Games, as well as a Graduate Student concentrating in the American Civil War with special interests in Confederate Chaplains, the Siege of Vicksburg, small arms and artillery, and vexillology in the Civil War (the study of flags).
19th indiana regimental & 18th Mississippi nationalOne of the most important material objects of the Civil War is without question the battle flag. The battle flag was more than just a signal to communicate a regiment’s identification to other units on the chaotic and smoke-filled battlefield, although the “colors” were vitally necessary in serving this practical purpose—the battle flag was also an important symbol to the men that fought under it. For many enlisted men, their regimental standard was a piece of their past and a reminder of home. Not infrequently, ladies back home had sewn the regimental colors and sometimes even constructed the standard from their own wedding dresses, as silk was a precious wartime commodity. The soldiers themselves carefully stitched or painted Battle Honors such as “SEVEN PINES” and “WILLIAMSBURG” onto their banners. These were more than names where gallant fighting happened, these were the final resting places of brothers-in-arms, many dear friends and family members killed hundreds of miles from home.
69th New York regimental & 5th Texas nationalMy great-great-grandfather, his brother, and their brother-in-law fought at Sharpsburg with the 8th Florida Infantry, some eight hundred miles from their homes in Nassau County, Florida. At Bloody Lane, their under-strength and relatively untested brigade suffered fifty percent casualties. A Chaplain in the Florida Brigade witnessed, "Five times our colors fell." The flag staff was shot in two and the final bearer was killed as the Confederate center abandoned the sunken road. In October 1862, Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan posed for photographer Alexander Gardner in the general's tent at Antietam. At the bottom left hand corner of this famous image is a crumpled Confederate battle flag that some have identified as the battle flag of the 8th Florida Infantry. So it was, this particular rebel flag continued to serve an important symbolic purpose even in Union possession.
Lincoln & McClellan next to what is probably the captured battle flag of the 8th FloridaWith this update, most of the flags in-game have been rescaled to historically accurate proportions, and we are proud to introduce over fifty new battle flags based on months of meticulous research. War of Rights players, whether on the battlefield or in drill camp, will encounter flags nearly identical to surviving artifacts, down to the tilt of stars and placing of text. Where no artifacts survived for us to follow, we strove for authenticity. We expect future findings may require some flags to be revisited.
32nd Pennsylvania national & 1st Texas regimental[h3]Update 168 Patch Notes[/h3]
- Added or updated the following battle flags:
CSA
- CSA 2nd Bunting
- CSA 7 star national
- 3rd Arkansas regimental
- 3rd Alabama regimental
- 6th Alabama regimental
- 8th Alabama national
- 8th Florida regimental
- 1st Georgia regimental
- 1st Georgia national
- 18th Georgia regimental
- 1st Louisiana regimental
- 6th Louisiana regimental
- 9th Louisiana regimental
- 18th Mississippi national
- 4th North Carolina regimental
- 14th North Carolina regimental
- 27th North Carolina regimental
- Hamptons Legion South Carolina national
- Palmetto Sharpshooters South Carolina regimental
- 1st Texas national
- 1st Texas regimental
- 4th Texas regimental
- 5th Texas national
- 13th Virginia regimental
- 30th Virginia regimental
- 33rd Virginia national
USA
- USA 32 star national
- 14th Indiana national
- 19th Indiana regimental
- 19th Indiana national
- 15th Massachusetts national
- 28th Massachusetts national
- 1st Maryland national
- 7th Michigan national
- 17th Michigan national
- 1st Minnesota national
- 1st Minnesota regimental
- 9th New York national
- 9th New York regimental
- 20th New York national
- 69th New York national
- 69th New York regimental
- 8th Ohio national
- 87th Ohio regimental
- 28th Pennsylvania national
- 32nd Pennsylvania national
- 42nd Pennsylvania national
- 114th Pennsylvania national
- 2nd US Regulars national
- 10th US Regulars national
- 1st US Sharpshooters national
- 1st US Sharpshooters regimental
- 2nd US Sharpshooters national
- 2nd US Sharpshooters regimental
- 2nd Wisconsin national
- Added 4x4, 6x6.5 and 8x6 feet flag models in order to support the historically correct sizes of battle flags.
- Overhauled the corpse manager: corpses are now divided into sectors of the skirmish area. A sector is able to spawn in as many corpses as the corpse count in the game options allow for. By moving the corpse count setting from being global to being sector based you will now be able to see many more corpses spread out across the entirety of the skirmish area with no change in performance.
- Added a ringing noise following discharging to all bronze cannons in the game.
- Fixed the sponge clipping through the barrel of the cannon when sponged while the barrel is elevated.
- Made all artillery pieces and limbercarts produce sounds when hit by small arms fire.
- Improved the enter bayonet melee mode from shoulder arms animation.
- Fixed a bug where most weapons in first person when aiming were not aligned properly to the direction they would shoot.
- Detail work, North Woods, Antietam.
- Pry Grist Mill skirmish area vegetation work, Antietam.
- Bolivar Heights detail work, Harpers Ferry.
- Drill Camp level detail work.
[h3]Platform System Progress Report[/h3]
Given it’s been a while since the last time we spoke of the upcoming platform system (which can be read
here) we thought it might be a good idea to give you all a fresh progress report. We’re happy to announce that internal testing has begun and we’re making steady progress towards being able to bring it to a public test branch available to every War of Rights owner very soon indeed.
The goal of the public test branch is to stress test the platform system as much as possible - this means to fully populate the test server and leaving and joining it multiple times, possibly even causing it to crash or mass boot everyone on it. At the core of the platform system is clearer information available to us developers when things do go wrong which is going to massively help us increase alpha stability (client and server alike) going forward so we’re extremely excited to be seeing what sort of new information we can get our hands on during the initial stress test. We hope many of you will join in on the testing when we soon announce the details of the public test branch launch.
That’s all for now. Until next time, have a good one!
