Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the seventeenth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of December 2021.
It has been a crazy year for O:HD! There have been many updates, and a significant amount of work that has gone into the game during this time—if you would like to go back and look at how the game has developed/progressed over the last 12 months, here are links to all of 2021’s devblogs for easy reference:
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December (we are here)
Before getting into the content/game updates, I want to share some updates on the upcoming multiplayer playtest sessions, the singleplayer demo, and what our plans are for 2022:
For the multiplayer playtests there is going to be a slight delay, as the team is still working on some upgrades and features that we want to have in before we start opening up the floodgates and letting people in (at the time of this devblog we are getting very close to 50,000 signups). We are now targeting early-to-mid February for this, so not a huge delay, but it will be a necessary one to ensure that the playtests go as smoothly as possible, and people enjoy their experience. The singleplayer demo will be released prior to the multiplayer playtest sessions. We are also working with a few server hosting companies so that people who would like to launch their own servers during the playtests will have global options to do so as well.
To better represent what our goals are for 2022, we have prepared a graphic outlining the 3 phases that we are planning leading up to early access release:
The existing roadmap that we have shared in the past is still relevant in regards to features and remaining work that we would like to accomplish before getting to Phase III. You can find that posted in the November 2021 devblog (linked above).
Expansions
Operation: Invictus
In December several of our existing weapons were either replaced (in the case of a marketplace M4A1 that was being used as a placeholder), recreated in anticipation for upcoming prototyping of the weapon customization system (the AK-74 Warfighter), and facelifted from their existing models (the original AK-74):
Colt M4A1 created to replace the marketplace asset that was being used as a placeholder. Also featuring a Micro T-1 red dot on a Scalarworks mount
AK-74 Warfighter recreated to be used in an upcoming prototype of our weapon customization system
The original AK-74 was facelifted
Work was also completed on the RPG-7 model that was shown off last month, all that is left before this is implemented are animations and audio:
Operation: Harsh Doorstop
The character modeling team made significant progress on creating a number of soldier variations for the Gulf War US faction currently being used on the map Khafji:
These are mostly going to be placeholders to add some variety to the soldier models so everyone doesn’t look the same, and should hold us over until we get the character customization system in, where players will have much more control over how they want their characters to look. We will be creating variants for most if not all of the factions, so there is more to come soon.
Maps
Omaha Beach
The level design team has begun working on the Omaha Beach map for Operation: Overlord.
This will also note a key change in the WW2 content for the foreseeable future—currently, Monte Cassino is the primary map where our WW2 content is being showcased, however, we determined that it would be more appropriate to have the Operation: Overlord expansion actually reflect more accurate battles from the real world operation. As a result, the immediate plan for the map content moving forward for WW2 and Overlord will be Omaha Beach, then we will be moving on to tackle Carentan. In addition, the US and German character models will be updated to more accurately portray what the soldiers would have looked like at the time for this operation. Last but not least, Monte Cassino will be shelved as a showcase map for the time being, and will likely be something we return to later on as a separate Operation expansion.
Here are some very early blockout shots of Omaha Beach:
The level design team has been making good progress, so we should have a decent amount to showcase for next month.
Risala
Risala has continued to receive detailing and polishing, and many of the new buildings and environment props that were shown off in the last devblog have started to be added into the map.
It is now also possible to play on Risala using the time and weather variants of the map that were shown in last month’s devblog (these sublayers will be determined whenever you load the map, so there is a chance that it will be different each time—this is likely something we will start introducing on other maps as well to add some variety and change up the experience when you replay maps).
Animations
The following animations are either brand new, or have received updates/been facelifted (in the case of guns that are already in-game or ones we have shown in past devblogs). Just for the sake of clarity, some of these animations were completed prior to December (going back as far as October), and I am just including them now to catch up as I did not receive them until recently.
AS VAL, DS Arms SA58 FAL, SVD/Dragunov, MP5, Barrett M82, DP-28, M1919A2 Browning Machine Gun, M60E3, RPD, M79 Grenade Launcher, PKM, MG42, RPG-18, AT4, Madsen, and Chauchat
Objects, Models, and Textures
World Props and Environment Assets
More props and building updates were worked on for our desert environments:
Bullet Casings
Last month one of the 3D modelers began working on individual bullet casings for the various calibers that all of the guns are using:
7.62x51mm NATO, 9×19mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, 7.92×57mm Mauser, .30-06 Springfield
Upcoming and WIP Features
Particle Effects
One of our VFX artists began reworking a bunch of the particle effects, such as the muzzle effects, and dirt impact effects:
Revamping the particle effects will be an ongoing task, so you can expect to see many improvements here in the coming weeks and months.
Audio Updates
At long last we are beginning to work with an audio engineer that we recently onboarded to start sourcing, replacing, and working on our audio. This will be a long term task that is going to take time, but you should start to notice some differences in a lot of the in-game sounds here soon.
We will be preparing a more thorough showcase once more sounds are in and configured, so nothing to share for that this time around, although if you have access to the game you can go and experience them yourself now. Please keep in mind that while the audio is in such a transitory state, there will likely be many sounds that will sound off, too loud/quiet, and so on.
Bots/AI
The bots/AI received some minor quality of life improvements to how they attack enemies (they should no longer only mag dump all of their ammo), and how often they go into a crouch or prone stance while under fire/receiving damage.
—
Thanks for checking out the December devblog! 2021 was a great year, and we can’t wait to see how 2022 pans out for O:HD. Thank you to all of the Patreon backers who have supported us along the way, we couldn’t have made the progress that we have made in the past year without you!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager