Fortress-Forever News

News: Now Accepting Beta Applications!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Ihmhi) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:37:22 GMT

Fortress Forever is now accepting beta applications!

Simply go to this link and follow the instructions there.

The question I've heard most lately is "Why now?", with just plain "Why?" in a close second. There's a few good reasons.

Previously, we had something on the order of 200 beta testers. Only a handful of them were still active after 2.3 was released. This first and foremost was a security risk - that's more accounts that aren't being used that could be easily compromised. Moreover, it made things an organizational mess.

We had been talking about what to do about the situation in the dev forums and decided the fairest and best thing to do was to simply clean out the beta and start fresh. We archived the old forums and cooked up some new ones. We set standards that we are going to hold our testers to. We've upgraded our organization and security in countless ways.

All of our old beta testers are on a list available to us, and those that wish to reapply may be welcomed back depending on numerous factors that I am not going to get into. A few of our best took the beta reorganization as the chance to relieve themselves of a responsibility that they no longer had time for - to you guys (and all of our past testers), we wish you the best in your new endeavors.

That's the why. As for the "Why now?"...

2.4 is shaping up and we have, as usual, a lot of fun things in store. The Orange Box port is coming along gradually and that is going to, frankly, introduce a whole world of new problems. The more eyes on the problem, the better. The FF Team is getting their act together and we're trying to hold ourselves to a standard representative of the excellent legacy that we are trying to keep alive - the very spirit of Fortress.

So what are we looking for in a tester? If you're a talented FF player who can conc circles around the enemy defense, well... we have a lot of those guys already. You're very much welcome to apply. If you have no experience with Fortress games at all, that is equally - if not more - important to us. We want to get a wide variety of perspectives on our beta team.

In other news, I'm busting my butt as usual trying to get the good word out about Fortress Forever. Any good P.R. guy will tell you that you never go into specifics until the deal is sealed, so I won't. Keep your eyes on the front page and our forums. Things are only going to get better from here.

Lollipops and Sunshine and RRRRRR,
Ihmhi

News: Forums Back Up!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Ihmhi) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:31:00 GMT

Our forums are back online thanks to the hard work of Scuzzy and the rest of our team!We're glad to be back.

We still have a few remaining issues.

First and foremost, we regret to say that our password database is effectively broke beyond repair. As such, everyone - regular users, betas, and devs - have to reset their passwords. If you go to our forum you will see further instructions at the top of the page related to this issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Secondly, you may notice that practically all of our staff is listed as "Retired FF Staff". Please be assured that everyone on the team has not just gotten up and left. This is a temporary solution as the fine people in charge confirm the identity of each of our devs one by one and reauthorize them for developer status.

A general message to the community: we are accepting beta applications. Keep an eye on the forums and see if anything pops up related to that. Past testers are welcome to reapply as well.

Well that's it guys! Thanks for sticking around during this tough time. We appreciate the support of the community and we're getting our butts back to work on all things Fortress!

News: Forum Maintenance

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Ihmhi) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:09:00 GMT

��Our forums are currently undergoing unscheduled maintenance. The FF team apologizes for the downtime and we will have them back up and running as soon as possible.

Love,��
Ihmhi��

Update:

��Among the few problems we're having, I've been told that our forum database has been corrupted.
��Thankfully, we learned our lesson from that huge forum mess-up that we had a few years ago and we have been doing nightly updates. We're only going to lose, at most, roughly the last 12 hours of posts as we restore from the backups. Our forum database is roughly 1 GB in size so this backup is going to take a while. Please be patient.

Update #2:

��It looks like the database restore is going to take much, much longer than we had hoped it would. We're looking to get the forums up by sometime tomorrow morning. We've sent an announcement to this effect on the FF Steam group. By the way, if you're not a member of the FF Steam group, that's usually the place we send out news first. It's as good a time as any to join!
��I personally will be getting into Fortress Forever and hopping onto a server. We don't have the forums to use so we may as well play the game!

Update #3:

��The backup was restored successfully. I really do wish it were simply a matter of flipping a switch and turning the forums on, but there's still some stuff that has to be done.
��It's also been brought to my attention that our wiki is down. This is probably because it is tied into our forums. (An account on our forums also gives you an account on our wiki.)
��In short, we're probably 90% back, but we're going to have to work some stuff out here still. As always, we at Fortress Forever appreciate your patience and loyalty while we try to get all this crap sorted out.
*nbsp;��Lastly, I know a lot of you people must be sittin' bored out there with nothing to do besides play FF. Well, I was recently delighted to discover the Hulu has a whole bunch of episodes of NOVA, one of my favorite shows. If you live in the States, check it out (or proxy in) and enjoy.

Dev. Journal: redux

fortress-forever@gmail.com (redux) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:19:49 GMT

Just to show you guys that we aren't exactly idle.

Check out pF's kick ass texture set!

Dev. Journal: Ihmhi

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Ihmhi) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:17:00 GMT

There's a lot we'd like to do with FF. I'm going to give you guys some examples of excellent ideas that have been posted in the beta and dev forums.

HUD Customizations
What if you never look at the map time? Perhaps you don't even both with looking at your armor count - you just care about your health. Maybe you want your armor and health to be on the right side above your ammo count. Maybe you want it to be [I]below[/I] your ammo count.

We'd love to have a customizable HUD to a degree that hasn't really been seen in any game yet. You could drag around the individual elements of the HUD and place them where you'd feel comfortable. This would also, of course, support custom HUDs that the user can put in so they can really pimp out their own personal copy of Fortress Forever. Speaking of customizations...

HUD Refinements / Additions
That bar over the disguise area when the Spy disguises is one of many things we would like to do to improve the HUD. The short list:

Cloak Cooldown Timer - You know that whole "You cannot cloak so soon!" message? A simple little bar or something that shows the cloak recharge time.
Spy Disguised Weapon - A little-known feature that we'd like to make more obvious. If you have the nailgun out and you're disguised as a Soldier, it will show the Soldier's RPG. If you have the knife out, it shows the crowbar, and so on. You should be able to see what weapon your disguise is showing on the HUD.
Detpack Countdown Timer - Shows the time until your planted detpack goes off.
Sabotage Countdown Timer - Shows the time until your sabotage(s) run out. If you have multiple sabotages, it shows multiple timers - up to a limit. Basically, it would show the same icons as the Engy's SG and dispenser, perhaps like this:
- ICON - Sabotaged Buildable Location - Time Left
Jump Pad Timer - How much time you have left before your jump pad goes kaplooie.
Navigational Refinements - A lot of newbies get lost. We've been discussing some kind of entity-based waypoint system where its easier for newbies to navigate a map - basically the objective icon on crack.
Team-Colored HUD Improvements - The Team-Colored HUD works decently at best - the text can be difficult to read with some colors and its a bit buggy. We'd like to make it look more professional and less buggy overall.

Customization Management
Replacing standard files is so 1998.

Right now, if you wanted to use a custom model you would have to replace the existing ones. Rather than do this, we'd like to set up a menu where you could select from a variety of models.

Instead of all of the models being put in one folder, there would be a variety of folders divided by purpose and class. For example, a few of the main folders would be Weapons, Grenades, and Classes. The Weapons folder would have subfolders for every weapon - Crowbar, Single Shotgun, etc.

Moreover, if you change a weapon it also replaces it globally in the current version of Fortress Forever. This means if you have a custom crowbar, every class that has a crowbar would have that custom model. Aside from being able to just pick from different models, you would be able to set each model by class - so your Scout could have a giant fish crowbar and your Soldier could have a lightsaber crowbar.

Background Image
Pretty much the same thing as above. Right now, to replace it you would have to replace a certain file in your FF directory. I don't see why you shouldn't have a drop-down menu where you can pick from whichever one you'd like to use.

Converting images to textures is also a bit of a hassle for the average user, so if it could use .jpgs that'd be sweet as well, wouldn't it?

Multi-language support
The Source engine actually supports multiple languages. We have a project in our forums to get some translation work going, and implementing it would be relatively trivial.

But while we can swap out text messages (like "You have the flag!"), swapping out other stuff in-game would be a bit more problematic. For instance, the signs in the game are textures (like the ones that say "Flag Room") wouldn't be affected by the language change.

One idea is to make different versions of the textures - one for every language we support. When you choose Spanish, it switches out Flag Room sign texture with one that says "Flag Room" in Spanish.

Melee Hit Detection
Melee Weapons in Source are spotty at best - they're basically a one pixel dot that you have to hit the target with.

The first improvement we'd like to make is to just have the crowbar, medkit, etc. work better. One idea that has gained favor is that a melee swing is actually an explosion (or series of small explosions) in regards to the code - if an enemy is hit with the explosion, it does damage to them. This would make it easier to hit with melee (and we may reduce damage as a result).

From there, we'd like to work on giving each class their own melee weapon (something many people have assumed that we'd like to do, it's obvious) and have them be unique in their own way. Right now, these are our melee weapons:

Crowbar - The Scout, Sniper, Soldier, Demoman, HWGuy, and Pyro currently have this weapon. Your standard melee "do damage" weapon.
Medkit - The Medic's melee weapon. It heals allies up to maximum health in one shot and can overheal allies. It also infects enemies with a poison that kills them slowly and can only be cured by other Medics.
Knife - Does twice the melee damage of the crowbar. A backstab is an instant kill on any class, regardless of their health or armor.
Spanner (Wrench) - Reloads/repairs Sentry Guns and Dispensers and it can restore teammate's armor (at the cost of cells). Otherwise, it does the same melee damage as the Crowbar.
Umbrella - The Civilian's melee weapon. I think it does the same damage as the Crowbar, but I'm not quite sure. For all intents and purposes it's a crowbar clone.

So there's our melee weapons. We have 6 classes sharing the same melee weapon and we'd like to change that in the future. For instance, one suggestion was that a class had a melee weapon that gave a conc effect when you hit someone. Another suggestion was a weapon that could reflect projectiles/grenades - if someone shot a rocket at you and you timed it right, you could bounce it back at them. Most of them would just be "Damage dealers", but we can deal damage in different ways. The crowbar could be the standard quick taps like it is now. Perhaps the HW Guy could have a huge, slow, melee weapon that does damage in a wide, sweeping arc. Stuff like that!

Orange Box Stuff
We made a lot of modifications to the Source Engine. Our current build of the Orange Box broke a lot of the stuff that our coders have written over the years and we're going to probably have to rebuild a few things. That's a problem, but the bigger obstacle is the all the cool stuff we'd like to do with Orange Box - global stats (finally!), achievements (a possibility), integrating community stuff (your Steam icon & info), and tons of other stuff that trepid_jon is so excited about that he's having seizures in his computer chair.

Conclusion... FF needs YOUR help!
Why am I telling you guys all this stuff?

One (small) reason is that I wanted to give you guys insight on the kinds of ideas and plans we have floating around in the dev forums. Some of this stuff is solid, some of it is experimental, and some of it we haven't decided on yet. We'd love to get to work on it.

Sadly, we only have a couple of coders at our disposal. A lot of the stuff holding up more frequent patches is coding work. FF needs more coders.

If you or someone you know is skilled with coding in Source SDK and you can provide a few examples of your work, we'd probably bring you on board to help out! Any interested parties can send an e-mail to ihmhi [AT} fortress-forever {DOT] com.

News: FF 2.3 released!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:58:45 GMT

To see the full changelog, go to the Changelogs page

Client Installer

Patch (2.2 to 2.3)
Game Updates torrent (.EXE)
Mod DB (.EXE)
AE Clan Hosting (.EXE)
SNT, University of Twente (.EXE)
Reborn Digital (.EXE)
Trepid Studios (.EXE)
Trepid.net (.EXE)
FFPickup.com (.EXE)
Fortress-Forever.com (.EXE)

Server Packages

Patch (2.2 to 2.3)
Game Updates torrent (.ZIP)
Game Updates torrent (.TAR.GZ)
Mod DB (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.TAR.GZ)
AE Clan Hosting (.ZIP)
AE Clan Hosting (.TAR.GZ)
SNT, University of Twente (.ZIP)
SNT, University of Twente (.TAR.GZ)
Reborn Digital (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid Studios (.ZIP)
Trepid Studios (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid.net (.ZIP)
Trepid.net (.TAR.GZ)
FFPickup.com (.ZIP)
FFPickup.com (.TAR.GZ)
HLdevs.com (.ZIP)
HLdevs.com (.TAR.GZ)
Fortress-Forever.com (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.TAR.GZ)

News: 2.2 released!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:57:41 GMT

The full changelog can be viewed on the Patch Notes page.

Client Installers

Patch
Game Updates Torrent (.EXE)
Mod DB (.EXE)
AE Clan Hosting (.EXE)
SNT, University of Twente (.EXE)
Reborn Digital (.EXE)
Trepid.net (.EXE)
FF.Pickup (.EXE)
Fortress-Forever.com (.EXE)

Full
Game Updates Torrent (.EXE)
Mod DB (.EXE)
AE Clan Hosting (.EXE)
SNT, University of Twente (.EXE)
Reborn Digital (.EXE)
Trepid.net (.EXE)
Fortress-Forever.com (.EXE)

Server Packages

Patch
Game Updates Torrent (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.TAR.GZ)
AE Clan Hosting (.ZIP)
AE Clan Hosting (.TAR.GZ)
SNT, University of Twente (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid.net (.ZIP)
Trepid.net (.TAR.GZ)
FF.Pickup (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.TAR.GZ)

Full
Game Updates Torrent (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.TAR.GZ)
AE Clan Hosting (.ZIP)
AE Clan Hosting (.TAR.GZ)
SNT, University of Twente (.ZIP)
SNT, University of Twente (.TAR.GZ)
Reborn Digital (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid.net (.ZIP)
Trepid.net (.TAR.GZ)
Fortress-Forever.com (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.TAR.GZ)

News: 2.2 Server Files available

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:50:00 GMT

The client installers will be released at 12:00pm (Noon) EST tomorrow (Monday)

Here is a small preview of some of the maps in 2.2:

Impact
Palermo
Schtop
The full changelog can be viewed on the Patch Notes page.

And finally, the server files:

Server Packages

Patch
Game Updates Torrent (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.TAR.GZ)
AE Clan Hosting (.ZIP)
AE Clan Hosting (.TAR.GZ)
SNT, University of Twente (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid.net (.ZIP)
Trepid.net (.TAR.GZ)
FF.Pickup (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.TAR.GZ)

Full
Game Updates Torrent (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.ZIP)
Mod DB (.TAR.GZ)
AE Clan Hosting (.ZIP)
AE Clan Hosting (.TAR.GZ)
SNT, University of Twente (.ZIP)
SNT, University of Twente (.TAR.GZ)
Reborn Digital (.ZIP)
Reborn Digital (.TAR.GZ)
Trepid.net (.ZIP)
Trepid.net (.TAR.GZ)
Fortress-Forever.com (.ZIP)
Fortress-Forever.com (.TAR.GZ)

Dev. Journal: Ihmhi

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Ihmhi) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:20:05 GMT

I thought it was high time that I wrote out one o' these dev jernal thingies.

Being the P.R. guy can really suck sometimes. My job is poorly defined, but the basics of it are to work with community involvement, try to keep the front page fresh, and try to work out deals to get the game into the headlines. Basically, I have to keep FF in the spotlight and keep the community involved and interested in playing.

This means my job as a dev is probably one of the most ambiguous and difficult to gauge success on. Why are more people playing - is it because of a video we released, word of mouth, or just a fluke? And if it was something we DID do, how can we repeat it for future success?

The most aggravating thing of all is all the stuff I've seen. Every dev and tester has seen what amounts to probably half a dozen or so maps in the works and on their way ready to release for some future patch, but it would sort of ruin the surprise to tell you all about it. But what the hey, I can bring out some info on what *is* in the works without revealing too much.

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Team Hunted:
Each side has a civvy and is trying to take out the opposing civvy while protecting their own. It's sorta like CTF, but the flag can run around and beat you with an umbrella.

Point... holding?
Point capture? Holding? Er, uh, basically there's a cap point that you just have to physically touch. There are 2-3 variants of this in various stages of completition with maps scaled for 8 players all the way up to maps scaled where you could play comfortably with a full server. This gameplay style (and the variants) is Green Mushy's love child and it will probably serve to be a fun but basic style of gameplay.

Reverse Flagrun-ish?
Yeah, this is hard to do without giving away map names, and I sure as Hell can't describe the gameplay accurately in a few words. A variant of the above, everyone on one team tries to capture one of four points located at one area. While the points are still contested, a timer is counting down. The timer runs out, and the cap points are reset to uncaptured. Conversely, if all four points are captured, well - the offense scores some.

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Please remember that I can't honestly say when any of the playstyles above will come out - they will out when they will out. They might also change a little or a lot from how I've described them here - everything is subject to balance testing and tweaking.

There are other ideas being worked out by mappers all the time in various stages of completion. The ones I've mentioned here are the ones that are being worked on the most and have the most promise for being fun.

A lot of our newer maps make use of round timers, either in halves or the more popular quarters. So an OvD map might have the Blue team playing Offense for 10 minutes and then Defense for 10 minutes - or it might be Offense for 5, Defense for 5, Offense for 5, Defense for 5. This style of switching up O and D has survived months of playtesting and has proved to be a great balancing factor in the game. Having a strong offense won't count for much if you don't have a good defense as well when the Defense half or quarter comes up.

Another shift that has been happening behind the scenes is trying to move away from the standard CTF play of the olden QTF and TFC days. We are by no means abandoning CTF wholesale, nor are we going to be changing existing maps irreversibly - rather, we're trying to have a shift towards OvD. Maps can still be CTF and OvD at the same time - for example, sections of a base could be closed off, and the defender's base would be completely open. Using the round system explained above, each team could dedicate themselves wholly to offense or defense. We've learned a lot from the pickup community, and we believe that this sort of gameplay style will be succesful even on small servers.

But hey, let's say you like standard CTF and don't want to play the OvD sort. Good news - another thing we've been developing is the ability to have multiple Luas for one map. This way, people could say, play Team Deathmatch on 2fort without any concern about flags, or play OvD CTF on Dropdown if there's only a few people on the server. It'd be really cool if this switch could be made while the game is live, but that's something that would probably be implemented far, far down the road - if we could figure out how to do it at all.

I've tried to give you guys some clues as to how things are going, but please remember that we are constantly shortstaffed. We could always use more programmers, mappers, texture artists - if you think you can make a worthwhile contribution to the game, then speak up! If we can use you, we sure as Hell will be glad to put your ass to work.

I hope you've all appreciate this edition of "Ihmhi tries to tell you guys about what the Hell we're working on without revealing too much". Stay tuned for next time, which is whenever the Hell I can think up something interesting to write.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open. 2.2 is nearing completion (how soon until it's done, I can't say). We have some interesting things in the pipeline for both the game and the P.R. front, and we're all very excited to reveal the surprises we have in store.

Dev. Journal: BlisTer

fortress-forever@gmail.com (BlisTer) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:21:42 GMT

Allow me to shed some light on how dev maps are being developed behind the scenes, especially the ones with new gameplay types. One of these maps, ff_impact, is in the final phase so I will use it as an example. To give this process a name we�ll simply call it the PDT approach. Not all dev maps are developed exactly like this, but especially for new gametype maps we�re trying to follow this process as it seems to work well and gives us a guidline to track progress etc.

Prototype phase

At the start, there is typically a request for a certain type of gameplay from one of the devs or the mapper himself. The idea is discussed and tweaked by the devs in terms of moulding it into a map. In the case of ff_impact, Aftershock launched the idea for a new gametype combining CTF elements with AVD elements. After 2.0 it was realized that full 2-way CTF wasn�t ideal for pubs as it wasn�t intuitive for new players to use dm (i.e. the straight obvious thing to do) to reach 2 objectives (defending your flag + getting the enemy flag). So it was discussed to simplify this by dividing the 2 objectives into alternating rounds where you only had to complete one objective: one round you are the defenders, one round you are the attackers. Now we were threading into the realm of AVD. But at the same time we wanted to try to implement elements of 1-way OvD reverse-CTF where it�s not over once you cap the flag. This is more forgiving; the defenders can allow to let some attackers slip through and cap. It is more viable for defenders to �hold on� to front line defensive positions. And the front lines can be �filled up� in case of higher player numbers, so that maps are equally fun for low and high playernumbers. Lastly, the map had to be linear and obvious enough to not give any confusion, or so that dm-ing new players contribute automatically to the objective. We hope this will somewhat bridge the gap between clanned play and pub play.

It resulted into a new gametype: ADZ (Attack/Defend the zone). In this zone, the attackers score points for entering the zone and for remaining in the zone. Different possibilities are possible within this concept, and Green Mushy has multiple of them in different stages of completion. In ff_impact we chose for 4 flag capture points within this zone, automatically reverting when no attackers are in the zone for a certain timeframe, and giving bonus points if all 4 are captured. After capping, the attackers can choose to stay in the zone to get additional points, but an auto-health-drain makes sure the defenders don�t have to chase a lone capper.

So after these basics have been laid out, Pon started to make the lua and I started to orange-map this flag room and the different areas leading up to it. The advantages to orange mapping are:

You hold no sentimental value to any geometry, so you have no problem getting rid of stuff if it doesn�t work.
It�s very fast to do since you use very basic shapes and textures, and thus fast to change.

The prototype was beta tested and changed multiple times as we discussed what worked and what didn�t in terms of striking the balance between simplicity for new players and fun/challenging elements for experienced people.

Some of the things we implemented:

Both the main attack route and the alternative attack route are always clearly visible, they are only distinguishable because of the height difference.
Entrances are brightly lit so that players are subconsciously attracted to them.
Functional elements such as resupply bags and ladders are very obviously visible by lighting them with consequent colours.
The areas provide for good defensive setups which will require teamwork from the attackers to bring down.
Defensive stances will shift dynamically from area to area and the success of this shift will depend on good defender comms. Not only backward but the defenders can also push back the attackers and claim back forward areas.

After lots of iterations and test sessions, we were happy with the basic layout and the map was ready to go the next phase.

Detailing phase

I then proceeded to convert this orange map into a �real� map. Now you can really turn those basic shapes into detailed architectural elements and texture it accordingly. What I did for ff_impact was browse through the model database and found a use for some models which I liked and incorporated them. I had an idea for 2 non-existing models so I requested them to our modelers and after some iterations between my goal and their prototypes, PF and Carl did a great job modeling and skinning them.

I chose or made the map textures fitting with the models and the general theme and then lighted the map to make the architecture and details stand out (along with the functional lighting as described earlier), striking a balance between �atmospheric� darkness for non-functional areas, and clear bright lighting for gameplay-important areas.

The challenge in this phase is the fact that layered details, which give detailed depth to a map, are actually the enemy of clear gameplay visibility, so the goal is to �conceal� the busy detailed areas by using unobvious colours in dark area�s. Also the use of consequent distinctive colour schemes and brightness for floors and walls goes sometimes against the general matching of textures, but is to be preferred in terms of gameplay visibility for a fast game like FF.

Tweaking phase

This is all something that had to be tested and tweaked in beta tests. In these tests we verified that the detailing phase didn�t disrupt the final, tested orange map too much in terms of clear and smooth gameplay. Also all the lua functionalities are tested and some little tweaks like the scoring of points etc can be adapted and tested. We feel it�s now ready to be shipped with 2.2 and will learn from the community how it plays and what we can still improve towards 3.0.

With 2.2 coming very soon, enjoy the new ADZ gametype and stay tuned for different variations following.

Dev. Journal: Circuitous

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Circuitous) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:01:59 GMT

Hey squeek! They work just fine.

News: Happy Holidays from the Fortress Forever team

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:36:59 GMT

Howdy all! Most of the devs have been very busy cranking out stuff for 2.2 and other, larger (secret!) projects of ours. One of said projects we had hoped to complete was Christmas maps in time for the holidays, but we just couldn't get the manpower together. Imagine our surprise when we found a few dedicated, FFestive people in the community had already made some!

ff_verdun_xmas - Mixing holiday cheer with rockets and nades

It's already running 24/7 on the [AE] Public Server for the next few days and will probably be in the rotation of many other servers over the holidays.

Want to grab it for yourself? Here's some download links:

Reborn Digital
http://ffpub.reborndigital.com/maps/ff_verdun_xmas.rar

FileFortress
http://www.filefortress.eu/ff_verdun_xmas.rar

FF Pickup
http://www.ffpickup.com/files/ff_verdun_xmas.rar

Drop your comments about the map in its relevant thread or use the discussion link for this news post.

We at the Fortress Forever team would like to wish everyone in our community a safe and happy holiday season and a great new years. 2009 will bring great things for the community and the world, and we are all very privaledged and honored to have such a great fan base supporting our mod!

See you all in 2009!

News: New Official Server Provided by Full Throttle.

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Circuitous) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:32:00 GMT

We've got a new Official Server provided by Full Throttle Game Servers.

Official FF 2.1 - Server 3 - Hosted by Full Throttle

FF.FullThrottleGS.com:27015

Big thanks to Nate and the crew for setting us up!

News: Forum and Website Moving!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:34:34 GMT

We will be moving the website and forums to a new host within the next few days. There may be outages from time to time as content is transferred over.

Expect improvements to the site and forums as the transfer is completed.

Dev. Journal: Circuitous

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Circuitous) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:55:11 GMT

If you're one of those sites that is cool enough to not only have an affiliate reel, but to also have (or want) Fortress Forever to be a part of it, we ask that you use this image, if you're not already:

Many thanks.

For the code impaired:

<a href="http://www.fortress-forever.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.fortress-forever.com/fflink.gif" alt="Fortress Forever" /></a>

You're also welcome to download the button and host it on your own site if you'd prefer.

Dev. Journal: [AE] 82694

fortress-forever@gmail.com ([AE] 82694) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:40:52 GMT

Well we got tired of waiting for somebody else to do it, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.So we decided to change one of the official servers to AvD. Not to sure if it's the right name but you get the idea.

206.123.95.85:27015 Official FF 2.1 - Server 2 -AvD- Hosted by TFL

Rotation:

ff_dustbowl
ff_ksour_classic
ff_cz2
ff_cornfield
ff_palermo
ff_hunted
ff_anticitizen
ff_waterpolo
ff_vertigo

Dev. Journal: Crazycarl

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Crazycarl) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:53:31 GMT

Well, now that 2.1 is wrapped up, we're already thinking about the next patch. And the next one, and the next one...

I used to hate collaborating or fixing other people's maps. I'm kind of particular about mapping, so when I look at a map file and something's not the way I like, I have to fix it. But since joining FF, working on other people's levels is a big part of what I'm doing. Maybe it's the fun of getting to play with the official levels, or learning from the techniques of the skilled mappers that worked in FF before, but I'd rather do that than build my own maps.

In 2.1 my main project was Dustbowl and the HDR update. Now I'm taking on ff_palermo. The number one complaint on that map is the extreme yellow lighting. So changing that was the first task. Once you change the sunlight, sky and fog to something more appropriate, the difference is pretty striking.

Once I have a map open I can never change just one thing, so I went through to change whatever architecture I didn't like. There are some changes to textures and geometry, and I even made a few new models to add detail to the level.

But it's not just aesthetic changes. Every map has a list of bugs and improvements that people want, so I considered each one. For example, all the beta testers complained that defenders spawn too far from the point they are trying to defend, so I moved those spawn points up a bit. I think it's hard to tell exactly what effect such a change will have on the balance of a map, so I'll submit it for a beta test and see what happens!

News: The Latest About Leagues

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:21:10 GMT

Once again people, if you haven't already, please join the Fortress Forever Steam Group! It's the first place you'll hear about the latest, greatest FF updates!

Got a competitive streak?

There's two competitive leagues for Fortress Forever. UGC has served the community well for a year, and Team Fortress League is starting up again with support for FF in a 7v format.

There are other leagues which are in development right now and we will keep you posted on their status. But for now, if you have a clan and want to get yourselves signed up for a league, click on the banners below to get going!

Click here to go to UGC's 5vs5 FF League.

Click here to go to TFL's 7vs7 FF League.

News: Radio Interview on DTP Radio!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:06:46 GMT

Before we get to the meat of this post, I'd like to bring your attenton to the Fortress Forever Steam group. Please use our convenient link to it on the frontpage or click here to join the FF Steam Group. It's usually te first place that we announce new news and other cool stuff, and we can do it in a timely manner.

Now, to the meat of the news. A few of FF's devs were interviewed on DTP Radio tonight. If you missed it, you're not out of luck - we have both streams and downloads available. And please give DTP Radio a listen, those guys are awesome!

DTP Radio are saints for having put up with us.

Stream:
http://ffpub.reborndigital.com/sounds/listen.php

MP3:
http://ffpub.reborndigital.com/sounds/ff_radio_interview.mp3
http://www.dtpradio.net/nettishow/nettishow_fortressforever.mp3

neTTi Show:
http://www.myspace.com/nettishow

Dev. Journal: 4est

fortress-forever@gmail.com (4est) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:16:48 GMT

Zip comes through again! .... [AE] 82694 that is

Here are some server goodies he cooked up for us. We'll have a section for this soon.

Server # 1