War of Rights News

[h3]UPDATE:[/h3] Thank you all for your highly vocal feedback, we have taken your suggestions into consideration and will be implementing the following soon:

-Fix the experience-saving issue.
- Give veteran players with a long history a proportionate amount of initial experience by backdating.
- Increase the base rate of experience gain by 90%.
- Reduce the formation bonus from 50% to 25% to make it more consistent with skirmishing and reduce the impact on artillery players.
- Lift the staging zone restriction on XP gain for artillerists.
- Add the option for server owners to disable progression restrictions for passworded events, but at the cost of disabling experience payouts.

[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]

Today, we’re pleased to be releasing Update 188: “Veterancy” for War of Rights!

This update brings exciting new features that allow players to track their progress across multiple matches and provides a more rewarding experience by unlocking ranks and roles that match their proficiency level.

Your earned experience, in the form of a growing wreath, will be prominently displayed alongside your name, providing a clear indication of your level of expertise to other players. This feature will make it easier to establish a quick overview of the competency of your fellow comrades when coordinating strategies on the battlefield.



NOTE: New and existing players will have a 30-day grace period starting from today to reach the required experience level to play their preferred soldier classes. After this period, class restrictions will be enforced. However, rank restrictions will be in place starting today. We hope this resolves some long standing disputes with Officer and NCO selections in relation to new players trying to lead without much grasp of the mechanics of the game.



While the various class unlocks are relatively quick and easy to get, the individual ranks of said classes are not. From today, the in-game rank of the NCO and officer standing in front of you will be directly tied to the amount of experience levels gained by said individual. Gone are the days of Sergeant Major or Colonel spam.



To ensure a fair and equal playing field moving forward, we have opted not to reward initial experience based on playtime or time of purchase. This decision means that all players will start at the same experience level and have an equal opportunity to progress through the levels and ranks.

When designing the experience system, we were careful not to have its introduction cause a sudden change in the way players behave. Unlike in other games where experience points are earned by killing and capturing, such actions do not grant experience in War of Rights. Instead, we focus on the time spent being "In Formation" or "Skirmishing" while outside of the spawn area, as this is what matters most in the game. We also added a minor experience gain for being "Out of Line", although this provides a negligible amount. We may expand this in future subject to community feedback. The experience points are rewarded at the end of a match only, so be sure to stick around until the round has finished!

We are absolutely thrilled to introduce this new mechanic to War of Rights. It's a bold step outside the norm in our game design, and we are eager to hear what the community thinks about the Veterancy update. We want to make sure that the system, and any future changes, stay true to the War of Rights experience that we all cherish. In the coming weeks, we'd love to hear from you about how, or if, you'd like to see the system expanded to include other types of rewards.

[h2]Update 188 Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added an experience-based level system to the game featuring class & rank unlocks and updated player nametags.
  
• Rewrote the achievement/stat integration.
  
• Added new steam achievements.
  
• Potentially fixed the Skirmish overtime game mechanic not working as intended.
  
• Overhauled the Piper Cave house model.
  
• Made tweaks to the rainy weather in order to make puddles more clearly visible.
  
• Changed the 7-rivet bayonet scabbard into the period correct 2-rivet one.
  
• Removed the blue trouser option from the 3rd Arkansas customization in order to lessen the amount of uniform trolling.
  
• Added a left-sided feather for the Hardee hat.
  
• The LeMat revolver is now only available for Confederate Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels.
  
• Minor Harpers Ferry level polish work.
  

That's all for now, we look forward to be hearing your feedback about the new experience system!

[h3]- The Campfire Games Team[/h3]

[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]
As part of our continued efforts in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of visuals, immersion and performance in a game with hundreds of players partaking in battle, we're pleased to be releasing War of Rights Alpha Update 187: DLSS today!

The main feature of the update, as the name would suggest, is the implementation of Nvidia’s nifty DLSS and DLAA offerings for anyone using an Nvidia RTX graphics card, sporting much improved post processing options available within the game.

While DLAA brings the best, cleanest post processing to War of Rights to date, DLSS offers a potential major boost in performance should your system be GPU bottlenecked. DLSS achieves this by upscaling from a lower than native resolution.

Below are a few examples from the benchmark of what sort of performance improvements you might be able to get using the different DLSS modes - please note that this will greatly vary on your hardware setup. The results below are tested on the Very High graphics settings preset in 4k resolution using an i9900k CPU and a RTX 3080ti GPU:

[h3]DLSS Off (Native Resolution)
Average FPS: 55.11

DLSS Quality
Average FPS: 74.29

DLSS Balanced
Average FPS: 75.83

DLSS Performance
Average FPS: 77.47

DLSS Ultra Performance
Average FPS: 79.47

DLAA (Native Resolution)
Average FPS: 53.67
[/h3]

Using another PC consisting of a 7950x CPU and a RTX 4090 GPU as well as a 1440p monitor and running higher graphical settings than even available in the released game, the differences between the old native modes and the new DLSS options are rather stark at very little, if any, image quality loss as demonstrated in the below gif:



Other features of Update 187: DLSS include a wide release of the latest game mode to join the roster, Contention, now available to all server owners and supported across all battlefields within the game. Another long-awaited quality of life addition is also part of the update; the missing overview maps in a hand drawn style of the active area. We have spent some time moving away from individually authored maps and now instead support an automated, but accurate, generation based on the actual in-game levels. This automation will be crucial in, eventually, being able to support overview maps of community created levels using the Atlas editor (currently in-development).

[h2]Update 187 Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added Nvidia’s DLSS and DLAA (available to Nvidia RTX graphics card users) settings to the graphics options menu.
  
• Contention on Antietam, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain and Drill Camp is now available via the server settings menu.
  
• Added automated overview maps to all game modes and areas within the game.
  
• Added a “Tiffany” -style Eagle flagstaff finial.
  
• Added shell jackets for musicians.
  
• Added gloved shell jacket and sack coat variations.
  
• Added rank striped navy blue trouser variations.
  
• Updates to the customization options of the 4th Pennsylvania cavalry.
  
• Minor updates to character hair materials.
  
• Added snare drum textures for 14th North Carolina, 12th South Carolina, 7th Maine and 32nd Ohio.
  
• Added national flags for 8th Florida, 13th Georgia and 7th Maine.
  
• Overhauled the R. Miller barn model.
  
• Fixed a badly scaled stables model, Antietam.
  
• Prevented ragdolls from getting impulses from bullet hits in an effort to reduce the amount of corpses getting yeeted.
  
• Players in spectator mode are no longer counted in the team balance calculation.
  
• Prevented knocked down players from attempting to enter vehicle seats (possible fix for getting stuck in a knocked down state if a player was knocked down while interacting with artillery).
  
• Adjusted decal sorting/overflow prioritization order in an effort to reduce large, flashing decals on buildings for instance.
  
• Fixed the chat not automatically scrolling to the bottom when new messages are received if the user has manually scrolled up in the chat, making it look like new messages won't show up.
  

That's all for now. We look forward to be seeing you all in the sharpest, most detailed, and best performing WoR experience to date!

[h3]- The Campfire Games Team[/h3]

[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]
We’re excited to be releasing Update 186: Contention for War of Rights today!

The update features a new, work in progress, game mode named Contention as well as a host of performance improvements and quality of life additions to the alpha.

Let’s dive into the details below.

[h2]New Game Mode: Contention[/h2]
A new game mode, "Contention" is now available for testing. The mode is centered around a randomly selected capture point in the areas featured in the Conquest game mode:

Each faction must rush to capture and hold the point for 7.5 minutes in order to inflict a morale level penalty on the enemy team. Once the point has been captured and held successfully, a new capture point will be randomly selected. Neutralizing a point captured by the enemy will reset the hold timer, starting at 7.5 minutes each time the point is retaken.

If the point remains uncaptured, it will turn inactive after 15 minutes, and a new point will become active.

Contention will be available exclusively on the Official War of Rights Test Server as we seek feedback from the community on specifics such as area sizes, the number of possible capture points, the time required to hold a point, and so on before fully committing to a wide release in a later update. Our target is a dynamic game mode such as that offered when playing Conquest while maintaining the exciting gameplay of large groups of players converging on and fighting over a single point at a time, which is key to Skirmishes.

Contention is thus planned to be a mode that bridges the gap between Conquest and Skirmishes.

[h2]Update 186 Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added Contention, a new WIP game mode to the game.
  
• Removed a ton of unused features from both the client and server, simplifying the code and improving performance.
  
• Changed the AVX binary to target AVX2 instead. The compatibility build will continue functioning, but will not get all the benefit from latest optimizations. Dedicated AVX2 code paths introduced for particle system updates and global illumination voxel data generation.
  
• Small performance improvement to animations.
  
• Stopped players from being able to use their weapon while they are knocked down.
  
• Players holding onto the artillery or getting hit by the recoil of the artillery or any heavy moving object in general, will now get knocked down when such an impact occurs.
  
• Players that are out of line can no longer capture the skirmish capture points.
  
• Added a visual indicator (red and blue background bars) to the compass menu detailing how much morale is left of each morale level.
  
• Changed the Deployment page to make it a little more visually clear if the spawn point you are queued on is paused or not, in case the flag is dropped or out of line.
  
• Added a visual volume bar to the microphone test.
  
• The microphone test now also works when connected to a server.
  
• Added social media links to the main menu.
  
• Added a new experimental spawn system for particle effects which offers great performance with no particle spawn delay. The old system worked with a queue, which could make the particles spawn a bit delayed if too many particles got queued in quick succession.
  
• Added a context menu which can be activated by walking up to a player, looking at them and pressing E. It offers a quick way of demoting and muting a player, rather than having to look the player up in the tabview. For admins it also allows for kicking and banning players.
  
• Added several UI slider controls to the spectator camera to alter various image settings to capture the perfect cinematic shots. The controls can be toggled on and off by pressing Q.
  
• Added a Spectate button on the left of the Faction Selection page for players only interested in spectating.
  
• Added a checkbox to the tabview to make it only show teammates that are closer to you than 25 meters.
  
• Spectating and enlisted players are now also getting sorted by name on the tabview.
  
• Added descriptions to the settings on the Server Settings page for admins.
  
• Fixed the change map and gamemode feature of the server settings being unreliable.
  
• Fixed the Counter Attack indicator getting stuck on permanently in the battle report.
  
• Fixed a potential small stutter when opening the tabview.
  
• Players with rifles will no longer holster their weapon when vaulting.
  
• Greatly improved the performance of exploded bodies.
  
• Updated the materials of the gore assets.
  
• Visual overhaul of the Piper Barn model.
  
• Visual overhaul of the R-Miller Stables model.
  
• Various tweaks to the vaulting animations.
  
• Fixed the instances of entering the binoculars causing you to get stuck in a zoomed-in state.
  
• Restructured the layout of the graphics settings.
  
• Added graphics settings for Global Illumination and Destruction, the default settings of Medium and 100 is recommended for most systems.
  
• Destroyed fences now leave a little bit of their fence post behind so players can still see there used to be a fence there.
  
• Added more cloth rattling sounds to vaulting.
  
• Added new customizable items to 4th Pennsylvania.
  
• Improved the performance of the big smoke column on Antietam.
  
• Fixed the Conquest area Framing Fencelines on Antietam causing a mass crash when loaded.
  
• Added the 12th NYM regimental flag.
  
• Replaced the old and outdated 33rd VA regimental flag.
  
• Added the 4th and 6th PA cavalry battle flags.
  

That's all for now. We look forward to be testing Contention with you all!

[h3]- The Campfire Games Team[/h3]

[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]

We hope you've been enjoying the snowy christmas event (3 days left to go, hurry up and get in there to experience it!) as well as the features of the recently released Update 185 as 2022 settles down.

If you are still unsure whether or not to give the game a try or you have friends in this position, now is the perfect time to grab a digital copy in order to enjoy (we hope) an immersive and historically authentic line batte experience as War of Rights is currently 50% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale!

You can grab a copy for yourself (or those who are dear to you, or maybe that one guy you've been trying to recruit into the ranks really hard as of late) below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/
We look forward to be greeting the many fresh recruits on the fields of glory the next two weeks during the Winter Sale.

Finally, we'd like to wish everyone of you within the War of Rights community a happy holiday season - and extend a thank you to you all for being part of this journey with us. We can't wait to get started bringing you game updates come 2023 (and beyond!).

[h3]- The Campfire Games Team[/h3]

[h3]Hello everyone,[/h3]
Today we’re pleased to be bringing you update 185: Traversal & Destruction for the War of Rights alpha!

We are going to outline the three new features that have been in development these past months. The following features are important stepping stones on the path towards the community level editor and the release of horses. With that said, let’s take a look at their specifics!

[h2]Destruction System[/h2]
With Update 185 comes our new destruction system, focusing initially on fence destruction. Each object is configured with its structural integrity in mind. For example, each individual rail can be independently damaged and broken by small arms and artillery rounds alike, but if you target the posts, you cause a collapse of the entire segment.

Initially, we will only be rolling out post and rail fences as well as one type of stonewall while we gather network performance statistics and make balancing changes. More fence types and other objects are to be supported by the destruction system soon.

Artillery canister round versus a post & rail fence

[h2]Knockdowns[/h2]
Another new feature with this update, designed to work in conjunction with the destruction system, are knockdowns. Artillery-round explosions now have a chance of knocking you off your feet, with the direction of the blast determining the direction you fall. In the future, we expect to expand knockdowns to other instances such as standing too close to a recoiling cannon, getting hit on the head by a musket butt, falling from a great height, and, eventually, getting hit by a horse at speed.

A knockdown caused by a nearby exploding shell

Artillery shell explosion versus a post & rail fence resulting in a knockdown

[h2]Vaulting and Climbing[/h2]
Another big change in this update is the total overhaul of vaulting and the introduction of climbing.

The first thing you will notice with vaulting is that it will behave differently depending on the height of the obstacle; the taller it is, the longer it will take to clear it.

Secondly, you might notice that you can vault in a lot of locations you previously couldn’t. We have rewritten the obstacle detection to be more dynamic than before; vault areas that were previously hand-drawn in the editor are now calculated on the fly. This was an important pre-requisite for moving forward with the development of the Atlas level editor.

Finally, there is the addition of climbing. You can now clamber up obstacles that previously had to be navigated around. Climbing also lets you get on top of small objects such as barrels, rocks, and boxes, giving you access to new sightlines on some maps.

Vaulting a medium & a tall fence

Climbing the embankment

Now that we’ve gotten the major additions of Update 185 out of the way, let’s dive into the rest of the fixes and additions of today’s patch.

[h2]Update 185 Patch Notes[/h2]

• Updated several environmental textures including leaves, plowed dirt fields, dry dirt, mud and dirt as well as MacAdam roads.
  
• Overhauled the Sherrick barn model.
  
• Updated the Roulette Farm scene to match the earliest known photograph (from the early 1900s) of its yard and stonewall entrance layout.
  
• Started the task of adding variations of flagstaff finials to the battle flags of the game. In this batch, we’ve added five finial models, including a common “acorn” style, three types of spades (decorative spears), and an eagle. More flags will get their historically correct finials as the amount of finial models is expanded.
  

Above is an Eagle finial, owned by Campfire Games Historical Artist and battle flag connoisseur, Bradley and the eagle’s digital self now featured in the game.

• Various character uniform and insignia tweaks in the wake of the visual changes of update 184: Luminance.
  
• Added Georgia State-issue (with cuff flashings) and Columbus Depot shell jackets to CS regiments and the character customizer.
  
• Fixed LD Moore House proxy.
  
• Changed the time of day of Colquitt’s Defence, South Mountain from 8.75 to 16.5 as was always the intended time of day.
  
• Updates to the materials of Dunker Church to better match its real life counterpart.
  
• Various model fixes for the structures featured in the game in order to better facilitate the lighting upgrades that update 184: Luminance brought to the table.
  
• Updates to the campfires for a more immersive drill camp.
  
• Battle flag materials are now either using cotton or silk presets based off of the historical artifact in an effort to showcase their digital counterparts as authentically as possible.
  
• Slight tweak to the spawn points of the Bloody Lane, Antietam skirmish area due to the updated Roulette Farm scene.
  
• Fixed the inverted artillery spawn points of the Framing Fencelines, Antietam conquest area.
  
• Updated the tree billboard textures for more dynamic and pretty visuals.
  
• Updated the visuals of the stone walls.
  
• The stacked bundles of wheat on the fields are now destructible.
  
• Updated the model of the larger bush in the game.
  
• Improved the proxies of a few environmental assets to better facilitate the requirements of the dynamic vaulting system.
  
• Fixed a few broken UI overview maps on South Mountain.
  
• Fixed the cloth of the battle flags sometimes vanishing.
  
• Fixed bayonets are no longer visually vanishing when cycling weapons (NCO sword/rifle).
  
• Various updates to the Christmas Event - you’ll have to join us in a few days to find out what exactly!
  

That's all for today - we look forward to be seeing you all vault, climb, destroy and get knocked off of your feet in the game!

[h3]- The Campfire Games Team[/h3]