World War 3 News

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

Hello, Soldier!

There has been a lot of stuff happening around our studio last week - everyday we try to improve our game for your enjoyment. In this week’s report we want to talk to you about things to come in terms of our menu overhaul, as well as giving you a quick recap of things we’ve fixed already. Let’s get to it!

Last week in ww3
We’ve released two patches to our PTE version of World War 3 this past week: one on monday, and the second one on friday. The first one introduced a lot of new challenges versatile enough so everyone could find something fun to do in addition to playing the game. It also had a great amount of map fixes, so players should not have as many problems with collisions on Polyarny and Warsaw. Friday’s patch was released mainly due to a HUD crash, but it had few fixes and additions as well. Once again, we encourage those who would like to try out the new content to join our PTE servers!

Now, let’s move to the changes that will revolve around our menu, customization and UX (User Experience)!

New menu
The Hub, as we call it, is still very much in development and will take a few months to fully complete and replace the old version. The new UI is now fully designed with the best UX in mind - less clicking to get to what you want and overall much more logical structure. We’ve already built the underlying technology - we’re still using a browser to render the UI, but this time we’ve decided to go with something that’s going to perform a lot better. We’ll have a detailed breakdown of this closer to the Hub going live.

There’s a robust input system in place now, with a keyboard and/or gamepad support for traversing the UI and proper scroll detection for every panel, button and other element of the UI and we’ve reworked how the game communicates with the Master Server to make adding more features to it easier and faster. There’s been a lot of work done behind the scenes in the last few months to make sure the new UI is as good as we can make it.

Why change it

Some of you might ask yourself: why change it in the first place? This is a valid question and we’ve been asking it ourselves before deciding to rewrite this fairly big part of the game.

The short answer is: it will save time in the long run and will make the experience a lot better. This is because the old UI was created alongside the game and when the game changed, the UI had to be fitted to the game, which resulted in some parts of it being a bit chaotic and complex and with almost 60 000 lines of code a big rewrite and fixup would take almost as much as making it from scratch.

Of course, we could just leave it like it is, it works, but we feel like trying to make it as good as possible should be our priority and making things ‘good enough’ was never what we strived for.


In order to help us with that endeavor, we’ve started working with Coherent Labs, a company that deals with complex and performance-heavy game interfaces and has a template for systems like ours. It proves to be a great match, since our current solution is a bit too much for some computers to handle and is not the easiest to navigate through. The new system should be way easier for most PC’s to handle, which means that our in-game menu will work faster and the experience will be much smoother.

Below you can see the design we’re going for with the new UI. Keep in mind that this is only a mockup and the final version will most likely look a bit different, but this is the direction we’re heading for.







What’s new
Let’s now go over what changes in the new customization. The overall customization won’t change much, we’re really happy with how it works and how deep it can go, but we wanted to make it easier to access and make more sense to more players.

First big change is separation of the customization from creating configs. What this means is that there will now be a Workshop of sorts, in which you create your soldiers, weapons and strikes and save them into a database of configs, which you can then equip in the Customization. Right now both of those are in the same place, making accessing some options buried 10 levels deep into menus and creating misunderstanding of how the whole system works. Making those separate is going to help a lot with those problems.

The other big change is much more gameplay related, with us separating strike loadouts from the equipment. This means you will be able to create strike loadouts and switch them separately from your soldier loadout - no more “I need a JDAM, but I only have it on the guy with SCAR and I really want to play the AK right now”.



There are a lot more small changes in how the new customization works and best part is that we’ll have a much easier time adding more features in the future.

The Future
The new UI has many advantages over the old one and will make working on it a lot easier and faster than before. It’s already more reliable and works much faster and smoother than the old one, it looks a lot better and will be much nicer to use.

With the keyboard and gamepad support built in from the start it will also let seasoned players use it much faster and be quick with shortcuts, it should also be much easier to translate into different languages.

That’s it for this week, we’re hoping you are as excited as we are for the new UI. See you in our next Weekly Report!

- World War 3 Team

We are counting on your feedback, please post it here:
Feedback: https://forum.worldwar3.com/index.php?/topic/10309-feedback-on-update-07/

• Some people might experience not being able to get into the menu, we're investigating,
  
• Challenges are completed by default,
  
• Some problems with VO (missing from menu, only Englihs working),
  

• Changed reload hold time to change ammo type to 0.4s down from 1.0s,
  
• Changed flashbang time to 7s make them more useful,
  
• Added per barrel curves intended to alter the damage/distance relation,
  
• Added vertical and horizontal recoil as modifiers to weapons,
  
• Added map marker to refill stations (WIP),
  

• Fixed jumpskipping reloads,
  
• Fixed being unable to leave MSP after spawning on it,
  
• Fixed grenade replication issues,
  
• Fixed geting stuck with tablet or repair gadget (or both) on top of normal weapon after respawn,
  
• Fixed crash in inventory system,
  
• Fixed JDAM particles,
  
• Fixed guided missiles tablet retraction animation after a rocket view,
  
• Fixed artillery invisible for owner,
  
• Fixed gadget sounds playing multiple times on single use,
  
• Fixed Commando driving capabilities,
  
• Fixed crash in Vehicle Ammo Widget,
  
• Fixed shooting Antitank Turret on Leviathan not spawning explosion particles or sound,
  
• Fixed circles drawn on the map after a strike,
  
• Fixed Commando Turret gib,
  
• Added lowers back to SCAR,
  
• Warsaw - Collision fix inside one of tunnels,
  
• Warsaw TDM - Fixed stuck point under entrance stairs,
  
• Berlin - Collision fixes and range of fire damage fixes,
  

• Added distance and dot product relevance to character replication rate - should reduce tick rates of characters that are far away and closer to the edges of the screen,
  
• Reduced throwable gadget net update frequency 10 times,
  
• Optimized paused connection RPC sending,
  
• Weapons will now replicate every 10 frames,
  

• Enemy Tails attenuations improvements,
  
• Fix for random lowpass,
  
• Fix for player barks jumping channels,
  

• Lower and muzzle attachments descriptions added,
  
• Blocked barrels without front post on M4 ironsight,
  
• Added challenge event for order completed by squad mates.
  

- World War 3 Team

Another one! This one has a lot of bugfixes and we hope that it will make the game a bit more fun. We're still working on fixing some of the most annoying bugs for 0.7, but overall it's coming along nicely.

We've also added new challenges - let us know if they work and if some of them are too annoying to complete.


We are counting on your feedback, please post it here:
Feedback: https://forum.worldwar3.com/index.php?/topic/10309-feedback-on-update-07/

Important: Warsaw Warzone will be unavailable in 0.7.3 due to lighting errors, but it won't impact testing and would push patch back if we were to fix it!

• Warsaw is missing from the Warzone playlist,
  
• There is still some grenade desync,
  
• White box instead of hit data texture,
  
• Spawning on MSP's can result in getting stuck,
  
• JDAM strike has the upcoming napalm particles,
  
• Resupply packs are still disappearing sometimes,
  
• Shotguns are OP,
  
• Some vehicle HUD bugs are present,
  

• Switching a weapon by picking it up sometimes triggers a gunshot,
  
• Fixed a crash related to Audio Components,
  
• Crash fix for FSlateApplication::ForEachUser(),
  
• Changed replication priorites and merged replication graph priorites,
  
• Fixed DistanceRelevantCharacter replication issue,
  
• Fixed vehicle HUDs drawing on top of Quick Map,
  
• Fixed projectiles dormancy,
  
• Fixed character replication pausing too soon,
  
• Tweaked collision mesh for electric tower / poles and fixed no-collision param for foliage (poles) on Smolensk,
  
• Fixed IFVs acceleration, max speed and climbing,
  
• Sound positioning fixes,
  
• Rocket 'penetration' fix,
  
• Fix for music lowering volume randomly,
  
• Fixed Moscow TDM missing loading screens,
  
• Fixed bug with not sending match end event on TDM,
  
• Fixed bug with not saving TDM kills and deaths in player statistics,
  
• Random map rotation on TDM fixed - Warsaw will now be randomized as well,
  
• Fixed PSS emblem,
  
• Fixes is SCAR lowers,
  
• Many visual fixes in weapon menu - socket positions, explode positions, attachment categories,
  
• Fixed phantom bullets and repeated reloading after picking up weapon with different ammo type than default,
  
• Fixed Seat Widget taking color from settings when it shouldn't,
  
• Warsaw - Collision fixes,
  
• Warsaw - Floating paper fixes,
  
• Warsaw - Level streaming fixes,
  
• Warsaw - Map holes fixes,
  
• Warsaw - Draw distance fixes,
  
• Polyarny - Decal scale fixes,
  
• Polyarny - Collision / stuck point fixes,
  
• Polyarny - Map hole fixes,
  
• Polyarny - Streaming fixes,
  
• Polyarny - Physical material fixes,
  

• Increased MBTs, AFVs, and IFVs HP,
  
• Decreased IFVs rear armor thickness,
  
• Moved Helicopter Drone to CUAS category and updated it's stats,
  
• Adjusted AJAX's suspension,
  
• Tweaked summary screen time (30 seconds) and looking for new server time (30 seconds) for all game modes,
  

• Network optimization - Claymore & Semtex C4,
  
• Network optimization - action replicator,
  
• Added armor stats for vehicles in menu and updated the previous to match the current balance,
  
• Voip ducking, new warmate sound,
  
• Local player voiceover effect,
  
• Removed projectile distance check because it is checked inside Replication Graph itself,
  
• Projectile cull distance setup for Replication Graph,
  
• Barks distance tweaks,
  

• Basic Training: Spotting: Spot 10 enemies,
  
• Basic Training: Vehicles: Destroy 5 vehicles,
  
• Basic Training: Healing: Heal 5 allies,
  
• Basic Training: Ammo: Resupply 5 allies,
  
• Basic Training: Drones: 5 drone kills,
  
• Top Gun: Kill 10 enemies with flying drones,
  
• Airwolf: Kill 10 enemies with the Heli Combat Drone,
  
• Morning smell: 10 airstrike kills,
  
• Every Breath You Take: Spot 10 enemies,
  
• Senor Wingman!: 10 enemy kills from RCWS,
  
• Got your back: Spawn on leader 25 times,
  
• Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee: Kill 25 enemies as a LIGHT soldier,
  
• Regular Everyday Normal MFer: Kill 25 enemies as a MEDIUM soldier,
  
• Juggernaut: Kill 25 enemies as a HEAVY soldier,
  
• Whether It Storms Or Snows: 10 Tank kills,
  
• Steel Hail: 10 AFV kills,
  
• Support the Troops: 10 IFV kills,
  
• Last Resort: 10 kills on last healthbar,
  
• Tremor: Kill 5 enemies with RPG.
  

- World War 3 Team

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

Ten-hut!

Today we have a fresh batch of equipment to show, all of it coming soon to World War 3. We’ll be presenting not one, not two, but three different guns, so you’re in for a treat! They’re covering a wide range of roles: We have a new SMG (or, rather, our first PDW), a new LMG (a rare one at that) and a brand new Battle Rifle. So, there should be something fun for everyone today. Let’s give them a look!

MP7
Starting with the most compact of the bunch: We’re finally introducing the long-requested MP7, referred in-game as the PDW7. Designed by Heckler & Koch in the 90’s, the MP7 is a Personal Defence Weapon, developed at NATO’s request for a compact, fully automatic weapon capable of penetrating modern body armor. Thus, HK’s new weapon fires 4.6x30mm armor-piercing ammo, which is considerably more effective against well-protected targets than the pistol calibers of old. Initially designed for widespread usage by rear-line personnel, the MP7 and other weapons of its class became very popular among special forces due to their compact size and high lethality.

In-game, the MP7 offers a very high rate of fire, good accuracy and base armor penetration comparable (if not better) to that of a full-sized assault rifle. However, it comes with two major downsides. First, while not as heavy as an assault rifle, it’s noticeably heavier than an SMG. Secondly, the damage per bullet is smaller than that of an SMG. So while an SMG may seem more deadly on a shot by shot basis, a heavier armor can easily stop its rounds, while the PDW7 will almost always deal its full damage, therefore making it a more consistent weapon overall. Coupled with a very high rate of fire, the MP7 is, essentially, a short-range lawnmower, for lack of a better term. Have fun chipping those heavies to bits!

KAC LMG
We’re very glad to finally be able to lift the curtain on this one. We’ve hinted a new, 5.56 LMG for a long time, so here it is: The Knight’s Armament Light Assault Machine Gun, or, as we shortened it in-game, the LAMG. Designed as a replacement for the famous Stoner 63 multi-role weapon design from Eugene Stoner himself, the LAMG was meant to be a reliable, lightweight machine gun chambered in 5.56 NATO. Featuring the Constant Recoil system found on LMGs like the Ultimax 100, it is exceptionally controllable in full auto fire. While no major military force adopted these guns, they became very popular among private military contractors for their compact size and low weight.

In WW3 you’ll find the LAMG to be the missing link between assault rifles and light machine guns: Not much heavier than an average assault rifle, very controllable due to the Constant Recoil system and, being belt-fed, able to put a ton of lead down range before having to reload. Keep in mind that the 5.56 ammo doesn’t have the stopping power or penetration of a typical LMG bullet, so you’ll still be outgunned by heavier machine guns - and at a longer range at that.

MSBS-762N
Last but not least, we present to you a new (and possibly final) variant of the polish MSBS Grot rifle: The MSBS-762N, a recently announced battle rifle variant of the MSBS weapons family. It is essentially the same rifle as the default MSBS, but scaled-up to the 762x51 NATO cartridge, similarly to how the HK417 is a scaled-up HK416. It features a larger magazine well, a heavier barrel and the fire group redesigned to fit a bigger bullet.

Finishing up the trio of 762x51 Battle Rifles (expect future ones to feature different calibers), MSBS-762N is designed with the most classic DMR-style performance of the three. It has the lowest rate of fire in its class and quickly loses accuracy in full auto, but it shines in single fire, with a minimal recoil and excellent muzzle velocity, turning long-range sniping into pure bliss. It doesn’t have M417’s extreme accuracy or Scar’s short-range capabilities, but if you want that medium/long-range tapfire experience, then this is the ultimate gun for you!

That’s all for today, but we have, as always, much more to show you! The MP7 definitely ain’t the only PDW we’re going to introduce into the game (it did face fierce competition, after all…), and there’s a ton of new long-range combat options coming, in all shapes, calibers and fire modes available, so stay tuned for more. But enough hints, see you on the next one!

At ease!\

- World War 3 Team

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

Hello, Soldiers!

We’re hard at work fixing up the PTE bugs found by us and our players last week, with 2 patches for it already out and almost all crashes smoothed out. We had over 260 crashes over the last weekend and only [X - TBD]. This gives us 99% reduction in crashing mainly thanks to the Public Test Environment working as intended - giving us more data than we can gather ourselves in our small team and leading us to faster fixing. Thank you to everyone that took part in the testing, reported bugs and sent the crash reports - we couldn't be as effective without your help.

Work on 0.7 is progressing nicely, with almost all big issues resolved in the last week and more issues fixed on friday and over the weekend. Apart from normal optimization effort, we’re also focusing towards networking optimization, which will further help with CPU load on the server and make the game ping lower.

With networking mainly done, we can now optimize and bugfix as much as possible without the problem of it being constantly changed and broken by new features. This is true for all facets of development and with more and more systems being finalized, we’ll have more resources to put elsewhere and into optimization and bug fixing.

Since 0.7 hit PTE, we’ve already found a few big things to improve, like replication your own equipment every 30 frames and not every frame, main base points sending their state to everyone even though they can’t change their state during the whole game and we’ve tightened up the shooting direction of other players, so you better see where the shots came from. The list is quite a long one, but not all of those changes make it into patch notes due to their technical nature - most of them don’t make any sense without the knowledge of the underlying code. Overall, there’s a lot of small changes like that and they will make a big difference in the long run.


Let us introduce two new powerful strikes, which will help you shape the frontline as you please. The Smoke Artillery and Napalm Airstrike.

Let’s start with the first, more tactical one. The Smoke Artillery is your typical artillery but instead of dropping explosive materials, it covers the desired area with a giant smokescreen which persists for few seconds obscuring the vision. So if you want to disguise your troops before attempting a point capture or you want to cloak your teammates so they can retreat safely, the Smoke Artillery is your new friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h_tJjQgomw
The second and much more fearsome strike is Napalm Bombing. Once you see it coming, you better be running to safety. When it’s called it drops the bombs that explode and do a moderate amount of damage, but what’s more important, the explosions leave the ground burning for some time and will cause more damage until the flames go out. With this tool, you can disable a fragment of the map for a short period of time and make sure that no one will interrupt your masterplan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOlMre4Zojo
We hope that those two additions will help with the more tactical play and give players more tools for crowd control and funneling enemies into traps. With a well coordinated attack, we’ve seen whole games turn on one or two of those strikes in internal testing already and with the new VOIP system the coordination should be a lot easier now, making those strikes even more useful for a well oiled squad.

Speaking of which, we’re really amazed by the response it got during the PTE testing and we’re really happy the new VOIP is so well received. We’ll continue to improve it and give you more tools to make World War 3 your own and have as much fun in it - be it roleplaying an officer, having fun ordering people around, or just simply shooting your enemies.

Let us know how you like the look and the idea of those new strikes and see you in the next Weekly Report!


- World War 3 Team