Dear Soldat friends,
It's that time of the year again. Today we present you with the tastiest bits from the world of Soldat Development. What? Development? Yes, you've heard that right. We know it has been a while since more information regarding the upcoming Steam release has been announced. What we want to give you today is an overview over the biggest features our developers are working on right now. Prepare yourself, because what you are about to read is nothing short of pure awesomeness.
New features
# New demo system
We will get a new demo system, that comes with a bunch of great benefits:
• The local position will be recorded at a higher frequency. The result is a better and more precise depiction of the players and much better demo quality
• The crosshair will be rendered for the viewed player.
• Servers also support recording demos now.
• You can jump to specific ticks of a demo with an easy "demo\_tick" command
# Polywonks - a new map editor
This beautiful piece of software is designed to make the life of all mappers a lot easier. There's a bunch of new features that will allow mappers to create new Soldat maps faster and easier. Oh, and it is also a lot sexier than other map editors.
The source code of the project is available at https://github.com/urraka/polywonks - Pull requests are welcome!
# Achievements, Stats and leaderboards
All stats gatherers rejoice! Soldat will come with a virtual candy store. The game will count your stats for you on all approved non-modded game servers. That includes the number of games you play, your wins and losses, your caps, your k/d, your kills per weapon. And this bag of treats comes for every single game mode. And the most amazing thing? The game will also have leaderboards, where people can compare their stats to all the other players. Now, don't complain if you go home with a belly ache after your most recent Soldat binge.
# Steam Workshop integration
The integration of the Steam Workshop will make the life of every content creator a thousand times easier. As with other games, they can share their content to the steam workshop and with a single click players will be able to install maps, mods and interfaces. Soon the hassle of setting up your customised Soldat interface will be just a faint memory in the back of your heads.
# In-game voice chat
If you are like us, you probably have missed the seraphic voices of your most beloved foes while playing the game. I have good news for you. With Soldat 1.8 you'll be able to hear them, thanks to the new in-game voice chat. This is also very useful for our competitive scene, as there's no need anymore for additional software to communicate through your microphone.
# SteamID replaces the old HWID
Instead of the old and problematic HWID system players will now be authenticated with their SteamID. The authentication of players on the gameserver will be much more precise with the new system. Some of you may ask now whether this means that you will be forced to use Steam to play Soldat?
# Steam and non-steam players
The answer is no. While we greatly encourage the use of Steam we do not want to restrict non-steam players from playing the game. Both player types are compatible and will be able to play together. However, please bear in mind, that server owners may opt to exclude non-steam players for their server.
# Global game bans for cheaters
Let's admit it. Nobody likes cheaters. Which is why we have come up with a way to tackle that problem in a better way. By banning the whole SteamID we now have a powerful tool to bar cheaters from playing the game entirely by removing them for the whole game for good.
# Steam Cloud support
This new feature will allow players to save their configuration files in the cloud. That means that from now on you will never have to fear losing your personal config, should you ever have to reinstall the game.
# Faster release cycles
And if all that you've read wasn't already enough, I've got one last savory piece for you. Soldat 1.8 will also come with a built-in auto updater. Thanks to this awesome tool new features can be implemented much faster.
Sounds great..but how far are we in that process?Now, there's one last amazing piece of information we haven't told you yet. You might ask about how far all these features have progressed. The answer is: Except for the stats system, all these features are already done. That means Soldat 1.8 is in it's finishing touches and we are very close to the release of Soldat 1.8!
