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Hello, Soldiers!
Let’s recap what’s been happening in World War 3 in the last week - and it’s been a busy one!
Armed Forces Day
Last Thursday, on the 15th of August in Katowice, Poland, we’ve had a parade of military assets, including helicopters, planes, armed personnel carriers, tanks and other hardware, as well as personnel for the national holiday of Armed Forces Day. World War 3 took part in the celebration by setting up a stand with Polish Territorial Defense Forces. We’ve had a lot of people visit and play World War 3, ranging from families with children to veterans. We’ve had a lot of fun talking to everyone and we hope to do more of this kind of cooperation in the future.
At the Studio
We’ve had a busy week at the studio, with preparation of the first PTE build of 0.7 being almost ready. We’ve discovered an instability in the game on tuesday that caused it to crash a lot when loading into a match which pushed the release of PTE patch to next week. We’re anxious to get the new engine into your hands and we really can’t wait to see how it performs, but at the same time, we want to give it enough time to be a good testing tool, not just something to show. We’re still making the game and the more solid information we get, the better the end result will be.
Apart from the instability (which is already fixed), there are only a few minor issues that could get omitted in the first iteration of the PTE version, so we’re pretty sure you will see PTE on 0.7 this week. Of course, if something unpredictable happens, things might change.
The version of 0.7 you will get is going to include almost everything that is planned in 0.7, with further stability, content and - most importantly - performance upgrades coming in during the duration of PTE testing. We want 0.7 to be at least as good as 0.6 was, so it will take a few weeks of testing and improving to finally get 0.7 to Live in a satisfactory state.
To get you up to speed on what’s in 0.7, let us recap the changes and new features we’re going to have, according to our Roadmap.
Challenges
We’re implementing the first pass of the Challenge System. It consists of daily challenges randomized every 24 hours. Everyone gets the same ones, so you can have fun with friends completing those in a party. Completing a challenge will net you a reward - those can be some cash, XP or even items like weapons, skins or attachments.
This system is a precursor to something much bigger - an expanded progression for players and more complex challenges. We also have a few surprises related to this, but we are not sharing them at this time. Let us know what doesn’t work and how would you change it - and your ideas for more challenges, too!
New Squad Manager
The new squad manager is mostly an “under the hood” feature, but this doesn’t mean it’s not exciting. If we did our job right, you shouldn’t notice much change, but this new tool lets us expand how squads work greatly and was a necessary change to making the party system work as intended. It will make the party system a lot less unpredictable and fun to use and fixes a lot of old bugs we had no way of fixing without changing it.
HUD Improvements
We’re starting to upgrade all of our HUD elements closer to their final versions. We’ve learned a lot about how people interact with the game and where the UI has its shortcomings and we feel like there’s a lot of good changes to be done with the HUD. 0.7 marks the beginning of this change, and we’re starting off with the new Kill Screen and strike HUDs. New Kill Screen will now show you an approximate direction the kill shot got you from via a small minimap and will provide you with much more information on what you were killed by - including how much HP you enemy has left, too! It’s not a 100% final version, but it will be more useful.
Another HUD change are the vehicle HUDs.
They are much more clear and should work much better than the old ones, while looking a lot better.
Information Layer Improvements
This is an umbrella term for a lot of small changes we’re making to the way information is presented in the game. Starting with new challenge progress UI elements and new widgets, with new information in the customization (you will be able to see how the sight looks in-game without having to equip it or even buy it!), new HUDs are also part of this initiative. It will continue after 0.7 up until 1.0 release.
Attachment Rebalance
We’re taking a look at attachments and how to make them more of a cool choice and less of a ‘take X because it’s best’ that we see happening with some parts right now. The rebalance will also impact weight, so some builds that were impossible to do earlier will now be viable. We’ll see how it turns out during the PTE testing and update the values accordingly.
New VOIP
We haven’t been satisfied with our previous implementation of the VOIP system, so we’ve decided to make it a lot better. It will now let you choose between Open Mic and Push-To-Talk, choose your own bindings and has a lot more options for the players. You can disable it altogether with a volume slider or mute people from the scoreboard or deployment screen.
Remember - VOIP in World War 3 lets you communicate with your Squad only. This is done for a number of reasons, one of them being the performance of decompressing audio from a lot of people, but also the vision of your squad being a self-contained unit that can change a lot in the game. We feel like playing with your squad is the best way to play World War 3 both because it helps your team the most and because it’s the most fun.
This new VOIP mimicks how a radio could sound as well and is really adding to the ambiance of the conflict. It sounds a lot better and will improve team communication a lot.
Other improvements
You will get a more detailed list of changes once the Patch Notes are out, but we have taken some time to introduce some quality-of-life changes and fix some small, but annoying bugs like adding Vehicle Assists or the inability to rebind X. The list is long and will take a while to compose, but for now - rest assured there’s a lot of small changes as well.
One more thing - if you are at Gamescom 2019, make sure to find us and have a chat - we’ll be there!
Thanks for reading and see you in 0.7!
- World War 3 Team
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