Posted on behalf of SOF Studios, President, Tom
Hello H-Hour community!
***** We’re working on doing a “Hot Fix” today to fix the game and round logic that was identified over the weekend*****
Last Friday again saw an important patch that included several updates to H-Hour that will help contribute to the overall feel of the game. First, the development team focused on weapons tuning and diversifying the feel of the weapons so that each one has its own unique set of characteristics. Weapon design is based on (1) the way the weapons played in SOCOM and (2) the way the weapons would feel in real life. If you haven't had a chance already, join a game in H-Hour and test out a variety of weapons to experience the differences for yourself. Then you can join us on the forums to discuss your thoughts.
Please be specific about your thoughts on the weapon tuning. We are looking for constructive feedback that will provide quality information to the development team so they can see just how the community is feeling. The weapon tuning is a continual work in progress as the devs work to get each weapon to a place where everyone is comfortable with the individual feel.
A second crucial update in Friday's patch was a first pass on player statistics. Player stats are now tracked and completion of a round will retain that round's statistics for the player to view under Profile. If you take a look at this menu, you'll be able to see some of the things in the works regarding stat tracking. Some of these things are currently grayed out, but you can consider this a sneak preview. Stat tracking is a major project incorporating many different elements and will continue to be worked on over the next few months.
The stat tracking right now is a very early work in progress. Stats are saved locally for the time being and we are working on storing the stats online instead. Some people may wonder about incorrect stats at the moment. This happened as some elements have been tracked over a few weeks while new elements were only recently added. If your stats are incorrect, you can always remove the SaveGames folder to allow a fresh start to the collection. The folder can be found here:
Steam/steamapps/common/H-Hour Worlds Elite/HHourGame/Saved/SaveGames
Please click the link above to see more detailed information about bugs fixed in the patch and to share your thoughts on every aspect of the patch.
This week the team is working on the following things, among other projects:
- The devs are working on the stat tracking and storing stats online. The plan is to start with more general stats and then move on to more detailed stats (i.e. stats per weapon, stats per map, etc.)
- The team is also taking in community suggestions about the weapon tuning that came in over the weekend and doing another pass on the weapon personalization.
- As always, work is continuing on animations. We have cleaned up 2/3 of the locomotion animations. The actions still need to be cleaned up, as well as additional things such as death animations and hit reactions. We're beginning work on the technical side of the animations and redoing how the animation tree works, allowing for additive aim offsets on the upper body instead of forcing the upper body to use an aim offset. This is why the character looks so stiff right now. We are also working on the left arm adjusting to each weapon so that (for example) if you are using an Uzi the hand will not be all the way down on the muzzle.
There will be a Q & A with Domtron and myself on Twitch this week. We’re shooting for this Wednesday. Official time will be posted once Dom and I work out the details BUT it will be this week. Stay close to your devices as we’ll update you all on our Social media platforms. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions for the Q & A. Some of your questions that were more technical in nature are addressed by Kevin below.
Q&A Addendum – Responses from Kevin on Technical Questions
Here are a few answers to some of the questions sent to us for the Q & A that made more sense to answer here due to their more technical content: Will you consider Proximity chat to not be correlated with Push To Talk and always on (SOCOM model)? Yes, we want it to be an option because not everybody wants to have their mic on 24/7. It's annoying when you want to keep conversations private. Eventually, proximity chat will be on a toggle (on or off). The PC version's proximity chat rules will probably differ from other versions. Can side switching be tried out for a couple of weeks and polled afterward? The maps are designed with a story in mind. It doesn't make sense for the SOF team to be guarding a mannequin factory—a map designed to be a terrorist Hub for smuggling. Is Fear Factory a done deal for the map name? Is there a possibility it could change? Yes, it is possible that it could change. Can you discuss the planned game modes and compare them to SOCOM game modes? H-Hour is the spiritual successor to SOCOM but we can't legally copy and paste everything from SOCOM. We will differentiate the rules and game modes, while still keeping the feel of SOCOM in mind. Are you considering making the maps one game type only? Or do you plan to keep every game mode available for every map? Not every map is going to have every game mode. Like we stated from the Kickstarter, the maps are designed with one game mode planned for it and then if any additional game modes can work with it, we will add them. Some of the maps that currently have Elimination (Sismis and Wolf Run) may lose Elimination in the future and just be for another game mode. For example, Sismis may just be for Hostage Extraction and/or a bomb game mode. How updated is the Trello board? We update the Trello board each week to reflect current production. You can see changes made on the right hand side. Map Editor / Steam Workshop, this seems like a really great way to help take some of the work load off the studio. SOF can focus on gameplay while the fans can help create maps to play on. Can you address this, let us know how likely this is, and if/when we might see it (even if it is just a range like Q1 or Q2 2016) The team responsible for doing the editor/workshop features is also the team in charge of doing clan management and other big features. This might be something we poll in the future: we can either work on one thing or another, not both simultaneously. One of the two has to be moved back in order for production on the other to commence. Thanks everyone. More to come next Monday!