Welcome to the fourth devblog for Warfare 1944. In this update, we will be catching everyone up to speed on the work that has been going into Warfare since the last devblog back in July 2020. We know it has been awhile since we last put out a substantial devblog update, however, rest assured that we have been very busy behind the scenes.

We want to give a quick reminder as well about how our development cycle works with Warfare 1944 in tandem with Operation: Harsh Doorstop, as we have seen a lot of comments from community members that either a) are unaware of how they relate to one another, or b) have some misconceptions about how our process works in regards to funding, resource allocation, and so on.

First and foremost, we would like to make it abundantly clear that work on Warfare 1944 has NOT halted, the game is NOT abandoned, and money from sales of this game are NOT just being poured into O:HD without any consideration for Warfare 1944—all three of these assertions couldn’t be further from the truth. We have covered this topic on numerous occasions in the Steam forums, in reviews, on the O:HD Discord, in past Warfare devblogs, on Bluedrake’s YouTube channel, and so on. We strongly encourage people who are interested in this game to also look into our greater project as a whole to better understand how it all fits together, as it is all directly relevant to one another (in other words, don’t just track Warfare, you need to also track O:HD if you want to be fully in the loop of our progress).

Remember, both Warfare and O:HD are built using the OHDCore framework, which is the backbone and foundation for how literally everything in both games function, and how they are capable of being differentiated from one another. Money earned from sales of Warfare not only goes into work on unique/dedicated Warfare assets (which we already have many created and awaiting implementation—see our previous devblogs and updates), but at this stage in development revenue mainly goes towards the development of the underlying framework itself. As a result, while work on Warfare may have appeared to slow down, this is mainly because the team shifted focus towards some specific tasks that related uniquely to O:HD (which we stated right at the start of the last devblog for Warfare). That being said, much of that work was directly relevant to features that we were always planning on bringing into Warfare.

If you are interested in tracking work on Warfare 1944, we strongly recommend that you start following our updates for O:HD as well—we do a devblog chronicling the work that is done every single month, and every single devblog always includes a portion about Warfare towards the end. The reason that we do it this way is primarily because the work that is unique to Warfare typically isn’t enough to warrant an entirely dedicated devblog every month. We understand that this is not the clearest or most obvious method, however, this is what works best for our workflow at this stage of development so we appreciate everyone that has been bearing with us through the process!

Below you can find a breakdown of all of the upgrades that have been made to Warfare 1944 as a result of the work that went into O:HD over the past 7-8 months:

OHDCore Framework

The first implementation of suppression mechanics is now in the game. We have many plans to expand on this system in the future, but for now this gets the job done:

The first implementation of tracer effects is now in the game. Right now every single round is a tracer round, however, in the future this will be toned down to be more class/kit specific, and they will only fire every X number of rounds (we are thinking only squad leaders and machinegunners will have them, and they will occur every 5 rounds—we can adjust from there based on feedback once we implement that next phase).

Apologies if they are hard to see in GIF format, unfortunately the tracer effects never come through looking proper in these, and Steam doesn't like larger file sizes—they look better in game.

Basic lean and prone functionality is now in the game:

These will be further refined and improved over time.

We recently did a rework to how the ammo and med bags work, as well as the rally points. Now, ammo and med bags are simply held in your hands, and they will replenish health or ammo to yourself and the people around you within a certain vicinity (the old system of throwing the bags on the ground still works, however, so that will always be an OHDCore option).

Rally points are now accessible via the radial menu (see section below) rather than as a kit item like a gun or grenade. In addition, rally points should now only be available for squad members to spawn, not the entire team. Disclaimer that rally points will still require extra work in order to clean up some of the more exploitable aspects of them in their current iteration (too easy to place many of them, and it is not yet possible to destroy them—we are aware of these issues and are working on solutions).

The outpost system is now in, which works similarly to how the rally points work (accessible via radial menu), however, the entire team will be able to spawn on this, not just your squad members. This will be a key part of establishing FOBs and shaping the flow of the battle.

Disclaimer that outposts, like rally points, will still require extra work in order to clean up some of the more exploitable aspects of them in their current iteration (too easy to place many of them, and it is not yet possible to destroy them—we are aware of these issues and are working on solutions).

Now there is proper internal squad VOIP, as well as squad leader-to-squad leader VOIP implementation (previously there was only local/proximity VOIP). In addition, there is now proper global, squad, and team text channels. As usual, both of these systems will be further developed and expanded over time (they are built with scalability and customization in mind).

It is now possible to create and join proper dedicated squads. Class and kit restrictions now tie into this (need a minimum of 4 members in a squad to unlock all kits).

A first version of the interactive radial menu system is now in game. This will be how players will be able to create rally points, outposts, do construction, and so on, as well as do things like spot enemies. This too will be an expandable and scalable system that we have more plans with in the future.

Japanese Faction

The Japanese faction is now fully integrated and available to play as on the Pacific Theater maps—that’s right, no more fighting Germans on Wake Island or Guadalcanal (although it was funny to see)!

Operation: Harsh Doorstop

If you haven’t caught the latest O:HD devblog, you can find it here.

—

Thanks again for bearing with us, and we hope that this devblog will be informative for the people who are seeking ways to better follow along with development.

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord[discord.gg], and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates. If you would like to support us early on in development don’t forget you can always pick up a key for O:HD on our Patreon[www.patreon.com], and remember all purchases of Warfare 1944 are also a huge help! See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager




Website[drakelings.bluedrake42.com]
Discord[discord.gg]
Youtube
Twitter


Twitter
Discord[discord.gg]
Website[blacksiteltd.com]

Hi everyone,

Our next playtest for Warfare 1944 will be on Wednesday (3/24/2021) starting at 4:00PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) over in the O:HD Discord[discord.gg]. Playtests will run for however long people want to play.

We look forward to seeing you there!

An update has been released for Warfare 1944 (v0.9.2.0).

• Optimized Utah Beach map.
  
• Fixed tree collision issues.
  
• Fixed projectile collision issues with vegetation.
  
• Removed Japanese Rifleman kit restriction.
  
• Replaced items in all Japanese kits with their appropriate items.
  
• Fixed up bullet flyby sfx when being suppressed.
  
• Resolved issues with med and ammo bags not functioning properly with new aura-based behavior.
  
• Added missing bandage animations.
  
• Added missing bandages to Japanese faction.
  
• Adjusted M1 Garand weapon fire animation blend values to not be so exaggerated.
  
• Added crawling and prone transition sounds.
  
• Fixed Sound Attenuation for ADS, Equip, and Prone animations.
  
• Tweaked motion blur fps target to use a rolling average of the current frame rate rather than being locked to 30 fps by default in order to prevent excess smearing and other graphical artifacts.
  
• Disabled spawn points for CPs that are under attack/have a defensive objective to allow for more of an Invasion-style game mode.
  
• Updated AAS layouts for Carentan, Guadalcanal, and Utah maps.
  
• Made various terrain and foliage edits to Carentan and Guadalcanal maps.
  
• Made atmosphere improvements to Wake Island map.
  
• Implemented singleplayer main menu screen, containing a basic map selection list for offline play.
  
• Added "Report Bug" main/pause menu option for more convenient bug submission.
  
• Added remappable key binding for Radial Menu toggle.
  
• Fixed a rare issue where the game could freeze when at a loading screen.

Known Issues

• Fingers clip through bandages.
  
• Deployables may not properly replenish themselves after use and cannot be deployed again from the same kit as a result.
  
• Rally Points that are placed in odd or hard-to-reach spots may not be spawnable.
  
• Chat messages that are too long in length will get cut off and not be fully displayed in the UI.
  
• Players can suppress themselves by shooting at their feet.

Hi everyone,

Our next playtest for Warfare 1944 will be on Friday (3/19/2021) starting at 4:00PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) over in the DRK Community Discord[discord.gg]. Playtests will run for however long people want to play.

We look forward to seeing you there!

-Chach, Community Manager

An update has been released for Warfare 1944 (v0.9.0.0).

General

• Improved CPU utilization on systems with fewer than 4 cores.
  
• Various tweaks and polish to pre-existing UI elements.

Squads and Platoons

• Added platoons that are configured per-map or per-mode.
  
• Added user-created squads.

Player Movement

• Implemented leaning movement mechanic.
  
• Implemented prone movement mechanic.

Weapons and Items

• Added self-use bandages to all kits (see known issues).
  
• Added Un-Equip animations, sounds to all classes and factions.
  
• Added team and squad usage prerequisites to all kits.

Deployables

• Added a placeholder implementation of outposts.
  
• Added new radial menu interface that is used to place down outposts and rally points.
  
• Use an aura effect while an ammo or medic bag is held rather than placing them on the ground.

Effects

• Added tracer effects
  
• Added suppression effect when player is taking fire
  
• Added new muzzle flash effects
  
• Added new smoke grenade effects

Text Comms

• Added squad-only text comm channel.
  
• Global chat messages from enemies appear with a red color while messages from friendlies appear with a blue color.

VoIP Comms

• Greatly improved overall stability of the VoIP system.
  
• Implemented team-local, squad-only, and squad leader-only/command comm channels.
  
• Fixed an issue where a VoIP indicator listing could remain onscreen long after the player has stopped talking.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur if players were speaking prior to a map change.

Known Issues

• Enabled bandages to be selectable, though the bandage animations are broken.
  
• Deployables may not properly replenish themselves after use and cannot be deployed again from the same kit as a result.
  
• Rally Points that are placed in odd or hard-to-reach spots may not be spawnable.
  
• Chat messages that are too long in length will get cut off and not be fully displayed in the UI.

An update has been released for Warfare 1944 (v0.8.9.0).

Player Movement

• Implemented basic surface-level swimming movement mechanics
  
• Minor character movement client-to-server bandwidth optimizations

Deployables

• Fixed most common cases of players not being able to spawn from rally points that have been deployed from their team due to world geometry collision issues.
  
• Med bags and ammo bags now contain a quantity of 3 rather than 1 before item cooldown.

RCON

• Added padding for "status" command output text.
  
• Print map and game mode package names in addition to friendly/display names in "status" command output text.
  
• Clarify that "Players" number reflects the number of Human Players and is not a total that includes bot count by default in "status" command output text.

User Interface

• Tweaked alignment of on-screen player nametags.

Known Issues

• Deployables may not properly replenish themselves after use and cannot be deployed again from the same kit as a result.
  
• Rally Point deployable does not currently possess third-person animations and thus does not display correctly from this perspective.
  
• Rally Points that are placed in odd or hard-to-reach spots may not be spawnable.
  
• A crash may occur on some clients after a map change, related to VoIP system usage.
  
• Some VoIP indicator listings that appear on the HUD may get stuck and not disappear despite the player having stopped talking.
  
• Chat messages that are too long in length will get cut off and not be fully displayed in the UI.