World War 3 News

Hello Soldiers,

As we've written in our last week's Weekly Report, we're now accepting submissions for our Breakthrough Trailer. We’ll create a montage of best clips we get and publish it alongside our internal Breakthrough trailer when the game mode is available for everyone.

Clips that make it into the trailer will be awarded World War 3 PC Steam keys, so there’s something to work for – and it’s so easy! Below you'll find the details on how to correctly send your videos.

Length

If you don’t want us to chop up your footage, keep the clips to as short as possible. If you can show what happened in 5 seconds, that would be the best. We realize sometimes the action needs some more time, but we want to include as many creators as possible.

Quality

Custom .ini settings and Low Quality settings will impact the chance of your submission to be included. It doesn’t mean there’s no chance, especially if the action is awesome, but try to make your footage look as good as possible.

Resolution

We’ll be taking footage with minimum resolution of 1080p, higher obviously preferable. Again, if you have some epic 10-man kill with artillery and you play 720p – send it in, just be aware of this limitation.

Upload

The best way to get the files to us will be to upload them to an online hosting service and send us an email with “Breakthrough Community Trailer” in the topic and links to the files in the message. The contest email address is [email protected]. In the case of streaming footage, download it and do the same.

Please, don’t send us the files directly, there are limits to our inbox size and we will ignore those emails!

- World War 3 Team

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Hello, Soldiers!

It’s been another week of hard work on World War 3, so let’s see what we’ve been up to since last week’s Report. We’ve talked about how 0.8 testing is going on the PTE, work on the new Infantry HUD, how the Breakthrough fixing is going, the optimization effort and other things.

Let’s give you an update on what changed and how we’ll proceed in the future.
We’ve updated the Live version with some improvements we’ve done for 0.8. Those are mainly bug fixes for some annoying bugs that were introduced with the engine switch and some optimization changes.

We’ve fixed most of the replication issues that were left, namely the problem with some players not having a team set properly. This resulted in people having no markers and not appearing on the scoreboard - this should be fixed now and work as intended.

Another big change were the optimization changes. We’ve changed how the player profiles and characters/weapons/strikes are loaded in to save on the load times and reduce stuttering caused by loading on the fly. It should smooth out the gameplay and make the game more enjoyable, especially on slower machines.

This is by no means the fix for all issues, but after the engine switch is complete, we can focus more on optimizing the game now. Further optimization changes will be coming in small batches - goal being having enough small fixes that make a huge difference for 1.0.

Optimization is not something you can do in an evening, it’s hours and hours of work for every tenth of a frame, every one stutter eliminated, so it will take some time and effort, but we know it’s worth it and we’re committed to delivering as smooth of a game as it’s possible.

Next on the list for this are more fixes for loading (which is the main reason for stutters) and continued work on all facets of the optimization.
We’re continuing to get a lot of valuable feedback and support from the community, which we’re grateful for and we are listening. The testing has been doing great, we can see the game mode is a big hit with the community, with some things that need to be fixed, which brings us to the next point.
Breakthrough is being fixed up according to our observations and community feedback. We’ve improved the information layer available for the player, so you’ll be notified about charges being planted and defused much more clearly. We’ve changed spawns around, shuffled some point locations and polished the mode a bit overall. You’ll have a chance to test the changes as soon as we’ve made sure thy work as intended and they’re ready for PTE.
We’re also working on a lot of other changes and features, like making sure spawning works well once and for all, fixing armor bugs in vehicles, taking a look at balancing and player progression, more HUD changes and bug fixing and so on. There’s a noticeable increase in how quickly we’re able to work after 0.7 was finally released and that bodes well for the future.
We’re opening up the email address that you can send your clips to! A few weeks back we’ve announced the contest for creators and players alike, to record the best Breakthrough clips and send them our way. We’ll create a montage of best clips we get and publish it alongside our internal Breakthrough trailer when the game mode is available for everyone.

Clips that make it into the trailer will be awarded World War 3 PC Steam keys, so there’s something to work for - and it’s so easy!

Length
If you don’t want us to chop up your footage, keep the clips to as short as possible. If you can show what happened in 5 seconds, that would be the best. We realize sometimes the action needs some more time, but we want to include as many creators as possible.

Quality
Custom .ini settings and Low Quality settings will impact the chance of your submission to be included. It doesn’t mean there’s no chance, especially if the action is awesome, but try to make your footage look as good as possible.

Resolution
We’ll be taking footage with minimum resolution of 1080p, higher obviously preferable. Again, if you have some epic 10-man kill with artillery and you play 720p - send it in, just be aware of this limitation.

Upload
The best way to get the files to us will be to upload them to an online hosting service and send us an email with “Breakthrough Community Trailer” in the topic and links to the files in the message. The contest email address is [email protected]. In the case of streaming footage, download it and do the same.

Please, don’t send us the files directly, there are limits to our inbox size and we will ignore those emails!

That’s it for this week, we hope to see you in the next Weekly Report.

- World War 3 Team

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Hello, Soldiers!
We're currently working on 0.8 patch on the PTE, with our newest Breakthrough game mode, but there are some things that the current live version could benefit from, namely fixing the problems with replication of players (resulting in missing markers or having wrong marker color) and, of course, performance. We have a few fixes coming your way, so let's dig in.

Update 0.7.2 Patch Notes

• Added TeamManager debug printing on server and client side to find more problems,
  

• Multiple fixes for team replication (missing markers, wrong team colors),
  
• Changed how actors replicate to reduce server crashing,
  
• Fixed a server crash related to debugging data,
  
• Fixes for audio occlusion and spatialization,
  
• Fixed destructible objects not having particles at the start of the match,
  

• Fixed OnVideoBasicSettingsChanged() hitches on the render thread,
  
• Fixed hitches on the render thread when updating material scalar parameters,
  
• Fixes for reloading assets that were already loaded (reduced hitching),
  
• Disabled ticks on multiple actors,
  
• Disabled DoF calculations for remote vehicles.
  

- World War 3 Team

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Hello, Soldiers!

This week we wanted to let you know how things are going and what the current development tasks are going on. It can be pretty obvious for us involved with the game on a daily basis, but it’s easy to forget not everyone spends 50 hours a week working on World War 3, so letting you know what we’re doing from time to time is a good thing.

0.8 has been in public testing for a while and the newest gamemode, Breakthrough, has gotten a fair share of feedback. We’re very happy to see that people love the game mode in general, but also see some problems worth addressing. We agree with this wholeheartedly and we’ve started fixing some things.

For starters, the plant/defuse visibility will be increased, so you really know when they happen. Secondly, as we wrote last week, the Retreat mechanic is now fleshed out further: the attacking team won’t be able to rush the next objective until the retreat is finished. We will rebalance the points that attackers and defenders get, move some stations around and fix some bugs that make Breakthrough a bit less enjoyable.

You can catch up on the BRE feedback in this topic and throw your two cents in - we encourage you to do so! The overall 0.8 feedback topic is here.

Some of those changes are already done or are being done, so keep training on PTE so you can help new players once 0.8 hits Live. Yes, help. Not crush.

Our design team asked the players about the current armor system. The main idea behind this is to know what makes sense for the players and what is still not explained well enough. Because the time for balancing is coming soon, we want to be prepared and know what our players want and need, so we can make better decisions, so log in and let us know where you stand!
https://forum.worldwar3.com/index.php?/topic/10826-poll-vehicle-armors-system/

We’re also working on the new HUD a lot, with changes to the strike bar on the bottom, some icon redesigns and implementing feedback we got on it from you. It seems to be a big hit in general, with a few points of contention, which we’re addressing.

On the optimization front, we’re starting to move more and more resources into making the game smoother as we’re nearing the 1.0 slowly. This will ramp up greatly before release and we’re expecting big changes in the last patch or two. Right now we’re optimizing the loading order of things (especially levels) and moving more and more things to be loaded asynchronously (or “on-the-fly”), so the freezing related to loading assets when playing (streaming, player or vehicle customization etc.) should be reduced. It requires some changes to the item database, so there’s no ETA, but we’re constantly working on optimizing the game and making it work better.

We’re currently still in the process of merging the movement system into the newest version of the game. It will take some time, because since we started working on it, the game changed a lot and we have to make sure we’re not breaking anything and the system works as intended once merged together. It’s more of a tedious and repetitive work, so it takes some time. It’s getting close, and we can’t stress how excited we all are to show it to you. Remember - we can’t wait as much as you do!

The other work is progressing as always: more vehicles, more attachments, more weapons, more maps, the new UI is progressing nicely - we’re also working on a firing range in tandem. There’s some cool things coming to the player progression, constant bug fixing and so on - there’s a lot of cool stuff coming to World War 3 in the coming weeks and months.

We've also received another award for our game - this time from a polish magazine. The award took a bit to get here, but it finally arrived and now we can present it to you. World War 3 is the Best Polish Game, as voted during the IThardware for Gamers 2019 plebiscite! Thank you for the recognition - the coming year will be even more exciting!


As we wrote in last week’s report, we’ll be creating a community trailer for Breakthrough game mode. Keep recording, make sure you’re ready when we open the submissions up!

One more small thing: November 11th is a national holiday in Poland, so the Weekly Report will be late by about 24 hours, so don’t be alarmed, when the report is not out on Monday.

See you then and thanks for reading!

- World War 3 Team

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Hello, Soldiers!

Last Friday we’ve pushed the 0.8 update to the Public Test Environment. It includes the brand new community game mode and a new player HUD. Both those are still being worked on, so this is the perfect time to submit your suggestions and bug reports to our forums!

Breakthrough has been a game mode that our community wanted to have in the game for a long time. It was you, the players, that came to us with a request for a password protected server to test a game mode. You organized the testing, got everyone on the same page, we all got together and played a number of matches, slowly finding problems and strong points of the gameplay. After that, we took what we learned during playtesting and here we are a few months later - with a brand new game mode, directly influenced by the players.

You can read more about the Breakthrough Community Game Mode in one of the previous Weekly Reports.

It’s playable on all current Warzone maps, features a 20 player cap, full strike support and some intense firefights and rushes for the bomb plants. Some of you might see the 20 player cap as low, but it can get pretty insane when all of those 20 players are on a single point. We want to try a larger versions as well, but first we want to see how it plays out with you!

With 0.8 now on the PTE, we’ll be refining the gameplay and HUD elements further, going into future patches. For now, what you can see on your screen is a work in progress.

Finally, there’s also the Napalm Strike we showed a few weeks ago together with Artillery Smoke. We wanted to keep it in a bit longer for performance reasons. It’s still not 100% there, but it’s working well enough to start testing its gameplay viability and usage in the war zone.

If you are not aware of how to join the PTE, you can find it as a separate game in your Steam library named World War 3 PTE.

The full 0.8 Patch Notes are available here!


When it comes to the HUD, the last week at the office was filled with Breakthrough testing and information layer improvements. We’ve added on screen messages about defuses and plants, all the timers and a few additional things to let people know better what is happening around.

We have a few more things we’d like to add, but we’re waiting for you feedback, since there are a few ways we could go about it. We want to show the current contested area on the map better and direct people more into the proper place. Also, the retreat mechanic will get some additional features, like bonuses for defenders if they retreat successfully and for attackers if they stop the retreat.

One of the questions you might have is about the movement overhaul. Next big milestone on our Roadmap is the Movement Overhaul - this is still the case, but we decided to not wait until it’s 100% done and release the Breakthrough patch in the meantime. Its release is somewhere in-between the milestones. This is why we’ve decided to not put numbers on them knowing we could have something like this happen.

We figured that it’s better to give the players something that’s nearly done right now rather than make you all wait for the movement and bunch it all together. This is mainly why we were able to release 0.8 to the PTE so soon after 0.7 hit Live - it’s only been a little over 2 weeks!

While we’re working on an internal trailer for Breakthrough, we had an idea, that since it’s a community game mode and a lot of you took your time to help us make it, we want to give you an opportunity to have your gameplay in an official trailer. For now this is not set in stone, nothing is concrete, but this is how we would see it happening:

The trailer would be a montage of cool stuff from the Breakthrough PTE testing - clips of great actions and all that fun things you can do in this game mode. There are way more of you than us at the studio, so there’s a good chance you can record more of the sweet destruction than we do. We would also take stream footage, if the compression won’t abysmal. We’ll tell you more about this in the coming weeks.

We are currently planning to keep 0.8 on the PTE for a few weeks to refine it and make sure there are no big exploits and problems and to release it to the Live servers soon.

See you in the next Weekly Report!

-World War 3 Team