War of Rights News

Hello everyone,

Today marks yet another major milestone in the development of War of Rights as the long awaited platform system is released as part of update 169!

[h2]Platform System[/h2]

The platform system, having been in the works since January of 2018 is one of the biggest programming updates to the alpha we’ve ever done. It is bound to change how a lot of the game features function on the backend due to its complexity and thus bugs should be expected in this very first deployment of it on the live alpha branch.

Here to give you all a brief rundown on the details regarding what exactly the platform system is, why we’ve decided to spend the time required to create it, what today’s implementation of the initial platform system version brings to the alpha and what to expect coming from later additions going forward, is Philipp, one half of our programming team & creator of the platform system:

With the release of the platform system in its first iteration it's time to talk about its purpose again.

As mentioned in an earlier field report, the goal of the platform system is to replace the old system that handles all “social” and platform related functionality and allow us to expand functionality in that area as well as make it far easier to diagnose and fix problems.

At its core, the Platform System is a data driven collection and management system, built around the entity component system framework EnTT. This means it collects information from various sources, like steam, aggregates it, filters it and then has other subsystems operate on it depending on their needs. As a result, all sub-systems and “information” providers are completely disconnected from each other and can operate only on the data they need, or not at all if the required data combination is not available. Furthermore, data collection can be deferred so that systems only start using it when it's available, without blocking any work while waiting for it.

As with the old system, the networking functionalities provided by platforms like steam are also included in their own modules to facilitate direct connections between clients and servers.

For the user this replaces the back end to the current connection and matchmaking systems, so visually there will not be any changes for this release, but probably some improvement in responsiveness.

Since the matchmaking and connection handling is now completely separate from game systems, we were already able to identify the cause of some major issues that have eluded us for quite a while with just two public test sessions. One of them is the famous “mass booting” issue, which, as it turns out, was caused by the basic steam P2P system timing out a large number of users seemingly at random. This has now been replaced with a lower level system that also resulted in some connection speedups.

The intent for all this is to serve as a base for future features, like the integration of the company tool, and potential expansion into other platforms as well. For the near future I am planning to add in a few steam social features like friend/server joining and currently playing information which did not quite make it into this release. But with all the work that has been put into the platform system, this has become a far less complicated and much, much quicker task, which was the core of the problem in the first place.

[h2]Update 169 Patch Notes[/h2]

Today’s update contains quite a bit of changes and additions (some are tied to the platform system’s introduction while others are not). Below is a complete list of what update 169 brings to the alpha.

- Implemented the first iteration of the platform system, resulting in added features such as better messaging to players when issues or unexpected things happen, possible fixes for long-lasting alpha major issues such as servers mass booting players and drastically increasing the rate at which we can locate and thus work on fixing bugs in the future.
- Added or updated the following battle flags in our continued effort to bring you the most beautiful & accurate battle flags in any game:

CSA

• 1st Virginia Infantry national
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• 18th Virginia regimental
  
• 4th Alabama regimental
  
• 27th North Carolina national
  
• 3rd South Carolina national
  
• 17th South Carolina national
  

USA

• 1st Maryland regimental
  
• 20th Maine regimental
  
• 5th New York national
  
• 5th New York regimental
  
• 20th New York regimental
  
• 39th New York regimental
  
• 126th New York regimental
  
• 30th Ohio regimental
  
• 32nd Ohio regimental
  
• 4th Rhode Island regimental
  
• 1st Delaware national
  
• 1st Delaware regimental
  
• 51st Pennsylvania national
  
• 51st Pennsylvania regimental
  
• 72nd Pennsylvania national
  
• 9th Vermont national
  
• 9th Vermont regimental
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
- Added the 5th New York “Duryee’s Zouaves” Infantry regiment to the game, playable on the fictitious Pry House skirmish area.

Organized under the command of Col. Abram Duryee at Fort Schuyler at New York harbor in April of 1861, the regiment soon became renowned as the efficient and disciplined “Duryee’s Zouaves.” However, they would also quickly prove their mettle and coolness under fire over the course of their regiment’s brief career, including their first fight at Big Bethel in June, and in the Peninsula Campaign a year later. After several charges into Rebel lines, their ranks were already depleted by the time they met their foe again at Second Bull Run. Joined by the equally small 10th NY Zouaves, the 5th NY barely mustered 490 men when a Confederate division 30,000 strong under James Longstreet crashed against them. The Zouave lines were literally ripped to shreds by the Rebel volleys, leaving only 200 to stagger back. As such, the 5th NY was left in reserve for several months while the ranks were reestablished, while a final engagement at Chancellorsville heralded the end of their two-year enlistment, where several hundred reenlisted into the 146th NY Infantry.

- Added 10pdr Parrott rifled cannons and their matching limbers to various batteries throughout the game.



Robert Parrott of New Hampshire, who graduated third of his class with honors from the US Military Academy in 1824, was the inventor of the famous line of Parrott guns in 1860. The 10-lb Parrott Rifle was one of the most common rifled guns to be found on both sides, but was often shunned by artillerymen as being a gun prone to bursting. However, perhaps due to a low production cost compared to other guns, it could be found in many sizes, the largest being the 300-lb Parrott Siege Rifle used against Confederate held Fort Sumter in August of 1863. Parrotts continued to be used in coastal defense roles until phased out in 1900 with the Endicott Fort Reforms.

- Updated the 2nd & 6th Wisconsin uniforms to better portray the uniformity & discipline of the units during the Maryland Campaign of 1862.



- Added several worn Hardee hat models.
- Added a short-brimmed beehive hat model.
- Added a tin bullseye canteen model.
- Reduced the complexity of the setup of every first person animation resulting in slightly different looking first person animations in the game.
- Improved the hand poses when carrying a flag.
- Improved the hand poses when kneeling with a rifle.
- Added different animation variants of entering aiming with a musket.
- Improved the revolver first person recoil animation when firing.
- Updated the two-banded rifle reload animation.
- Updated the double quick animation when carrying an artillery round.
- Added a sword order arms emote (F6 by default).
- Added a sword parade rest emote (F7 by default).
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
- Made the union cannons & limbers on the River Crossing skirmish area vaultable in order to lessen the blocking strategy as seen often used at the area after the introduction of artillery.
- Fixed a game-breaking bug that would cause counter-attackers to not be able to spawn when they entered final push.
- Added the burned down Wager Hotel, replacing the placeholder model at River Crossing, Harpers Ferry.





- Updated the canal wall models on the Maryland Heights side of the Potomac, Harpers Ferry.
- Added shale roof as a variant to the townhouses of Harpers Ferry.
- Added a St. John's Church model, replacing the generic town house placeholder structure in Harpers Ferry.





- Made the options menu way more reliable by recreating its backend functionality from scratch.
- Improved the usability of the options menu, now featuring tooltips, instant changes to settings (no need to press save settings anymore) & several bug fixes.
- Added a fullscreen and borderless setting to the options menu as well as settings for screen space reflections and ambient occlusion.
- Overhauled the keybindings menu, now allowing the user to change keybindings of every single action in the game.
- Overhauled the in-game controls screen (activated by pressing F2) to display every single action in the game (scroll your mouse wheel to view the entire list).
- Updated the admin menu in order for it to work with the new platform system and generally make it easier to use (now with F3 as its new default activation key).
- Added varying heights to all the characters in the game, resulting in a more realistic look when in tight and large formations.



- Flags now won’t as quickly get dirty when dropped as they did before (the speed at which bullet holes are added has not been changed).
- Updated the small arms projectile impact particle effect on dirt and grass surfaces.
- Increased the max amount of dismembered body parts a player killed by an artillery round might turn into.
- Fixed the bug where players might spawn inside one of the bush models when spawning on the flag bearer.
- Increased the CSA starting morale amount on the Pry House skirmish area by roughly 10% as one in four enlisted men of the newly added 5th New York regiment will be issued with a Sharps rifle.
- Made the canister balls spread out a bit more when fired from the Napoleon cannon.
- Updated the cooking implements of the cook tents featured throughout the game.
- Various level detail work.
- Updated the setup of all of the flags of the drill camps to make them less rubbery and more predictable.
- Wall tents are now enterable.
- Fixed several NCO characters spawning without a weapon selected, requiring the player to spam 1 in order to get a weapon.
- Weapon selection when having several weapons no longer requires the user to cycle through them sequentially. Instead, key 1 will select the primary weapon, key 2 will select the secondary weapon and key 3 will select binoculars. Switching cartridge type on the Springfield M1842 has now been moved to key 5 as its default key.
- Fixed the third person microstutters when in at the ready or in the rifle club melee mode.
- Fixed a bug where the dynamic depth of field didn’t always calculate the proper distance to what you were looking at and thus sometimes blurred the image incorrectly.
- Fixed most occurrences of a bug where an artillery shell hitting a wooden surface, like the roof of a building, would spawn the brick impact effect instead of the wood effect.
- The amount of dark red tint added when wounded now scales based on the time of day, resulting in players not going blind when wounded at night.
- Added a popup warning that the user is going to be killed when enabling the spectator camera (sorry, no more “press F9 for a scoreboard/godmode/fully automatic musket” trolling!).
- Added a lock icon next to passworded servers in the serverbrowser.
- The correct loading screen should now be shown when you’re joining a server.
- Added a “Tutorials” entry to the main menu. Pressing this will open a website containing tutorial videos created by the community & Campfire Games alike which explain most of the current features of the alpha.
- The War of Rights error reporter found at: https://warofrights.com/errorreporter has been updated to support the platform system.

That’s all for now. We look forward to partaking in playtesting the patch with all of you as well as gathering your feedback, especially in regards to the platform system, in order to iron out the bugs almost certainly introduced in its initial implementation as well as to be utilizing the additional data provided by the system to help us improve the stability of the game on a quicker, continuous basis going forward.

See you on the fields of glory!

War of Rights is currently 30% off as part of the Halloween sale!

You can purchase the game at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/

We look forward to be greeting the fresh recruits in-game.

Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone

We have just opened the public test branch of the game for stress testing the initial implementation of the platform system, a major core code replacement created to combat several alpha issues such as connectivity ones that have long been part of the game. In short this will mean us being able to deliver a better working game at a quicker rate going forward, resulting in less stuck at establishing context and mass player drop issues, better game-to-player communication in terms of messages sent based on whether you were kicked, banned or lost connection to a server and more.

The public test branch can be joined by all owners of War of Rights. In order to locate it, simply navigate to War of Rights in your steam library, right click and enter properties. Once there head into the beta tab, open the dropdown menu and select publictest-platform.

Steam will now download the public test client. Once downloaded you'll be able to join the public test server. Should you wish to return to the live version of the game you'll be able to opt out of the test in the same dropdown menu as you used to opt into it via.

The public test branch will also include a few other additions for you to test out such as an updated options menu and the next cannon in line to be released; the 10 pounder Parrott. It can be found throughout many of the available batteries in the game.


We hope you will join us in the very first stress tests of the platform system, arguably one of the core systems to better the development of the game going forward.

We're currently aware of at least two scheduled mass testing events on the public test branch server this weekend:

Friday (tonight) 23rd of October - 8 PM EST / 2 AM CET
Saturday 24th of October - 8 PM EST / 2 AM CET

We invite everyone willing to help us out stress testing the platform system prior to it headed to the live build to join in!

Thank you for your help - we look forward to be seeing you on the fields of glory!

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 national

One 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 national

My 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 Florida

With 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!

Hello everyone,

Today, on the 158th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam we're happy to be bringing you the next War of Rights game update!

The update brings the iconic 12-pounder smoothbore bronze cannons often referred to as "Napoleons" into the game, an overhauled character movement system, lots of animation setup fixes and more.

For the full patch notes, please read below.

- Added playable versions of the M1857 and M1861 12-pounder Napoleon bronze cannons to the available batteries in Skirmishes and firing ranges at the Drill Camps.





- Added 12-pounder limbers complete with shell, case and canister rounds.











- Replaced the old movement style with a new one. These changes are intended to make the player feel a bit more grounded in the world when moving around, accelerating and decelerating. This also include changes to the way the camera behaves when moving around.
- Prevented players from interacting with the artillery guns immediately after they have been fired.
- Other players will now tilt slightly in the direction they are turning towards while moving.
- Fixed nearly all occurrences of the hands of players sometimes spinning 360 degrees when starting to perform certain actions.
- The text chat box is now more responsive, resulting in little to no chance of getting stuck in it when double tapping the enter key.
- Detail work on the Drill Camp level.
- Possible desertion upon spawn fixes to Bolivar Heights Artillery Redoubt skirmish area, Harpers Ferry.
- Level detail work, Colquitt’s Defence skirmish area, South Mountain.
- Added the map overview of the Drill Camp level to the deploy screen when playing on a drill camp server.
- Level detail work, West woods skirmish area, Antietam.
- Fixed two non-functioning spawn points at River Crossing and Bolivar Heights Camp skirmish areas, Harpers Ferry.
- Fixed and improved the sharpshooter fur knapsack model.
- Updated LD Moore house, South Mountain.
- Level detail work, Maryland Heights skirmish area, Harpers Ferry.
- Overhauled the Harpers Ferry river wall models surrounding the town itself.
- Optimized the army tent models.
- Level detail work, Roulette Lane and Hagerstown Turnpike skirmish areas, Antietam.
- Fixed the broken proxies of the large beech trees, primarily found in the Drill Camp and Picket Patrol level.
- Fixed a bug where the player did not exit Right Shoulder Shift properly when starting to kneel.
- Improved the enter and exit melee mode with a bayonet animation.
- Improved the start and end reload and fix and unfix bayonet animations.
- Fixed a rare crash with the artillery.
- Added a new Siege of Harpers Ferry splash screen.

That's all for now. We look forward to be testing the new bronze beasts with all of you on the alpha servers. Until next time, have a good one!