Fortress-Forever News

Dev. Journal: squeek.

fortress-forever@gmail.com (squeek.) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:11:55 GMT

So, there have been some cool new things added recently to 2.1. I thought I'd just show some quick screenshots of one of those things: the Objective Icon. Pretty self-explanatory, so here are the pitchers:

Oh, yeah, and that's ff_bases.

News: ff_2fort teaser

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:32:03 GMT

What would a Team Fortress game be without 2fort? Fortress Forever hasn't had an official version of 2fort yet, but luckily we have a mapper named shadow making a really great rendition of it. So finally, the upcoming Fortress Forever 2.1 will include ff_2fort.

One of our beta testers, Iggy (aka [AE] 81206), made a video of the map to the tune "When I Grow Up" by Crack the Sky...

Again, thanks to shadow for making this great new version of 2fort, and also thanks to Iggy for making this cool little video.

Dev. Journal: Elmo-

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Elmo-) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:51:11 GMT

Heyy, I just gotta say...

2.1 is so much fun! Played it for 6/7 hours last night during beta testing, and I would've carried on but my bed was calling to me. I'm starting to get ill from the lack of sleep! Waterpolo was some of the best fun I've had in ages along with hunted and cz2; something I'd have never expected! I'm a CTF freak through and through... normally!

Everything felt great. The increased bunnyhop (which feels strangely smooth) combined with the skim cap is is awesome, the dynamic lights on the rockets are really nice, the fixed jumppads are alot better, the SGs rock and can actually be killed, the dispensers are much more useful, the changes to the spy cloak are very fun indeed.... and thats just a FEW of the things that come to mind.

All of us on last night had an awesome time. 2.1 isnt a step in the right direction, its a leap...

I'm so happy with monkey, it looks absolutely sexual (If I may say so myself), playing with full server spam at 150 fps rather than 80. The only thing we realised is that I forgot to put the locations back in, duh! Other than that, its done!

Working on ff_bases at the moment, it's a really nice looking map which I'm trying to get optimised for redux. Definatly helped gain a few FPS around the place but not as much as I'd have hoped; though it was running pretty well to begin with.

I feel really good about 2.1, and I'm sure alot of you will too :)

Dev. Journal: Sh4x

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Sh4x) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:44:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

I've been destroying, rebuilding, plastering and painting walls lately in my new apartment. Still got alot of work ahead but it's been going great so far. I did not cause a flood or fire nor did my neighbours called the police yet. Hurray!

Needless to say I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to work on FF since my last journal but I still managed to make some progress on this map where fatties and doctors play dirty games together until one side puts the other to sleep. This map will probably be interesting in the future once the hwg is fixed (coming in 2.1) and the medic finally gets his medigun (coming when I'm done convincing everyone that a medigun is so much cooler than a medikit).

For now, you can drool over this fantasmagoric art piece below. Be careful though, by looking at this image you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this agreement. This image appearing below is my exclusive property and is protected under international copyright treaties. It is made available for your personal viewing enjoyment only. It is not within the Public Domain. This image may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed, manipulated, projected, used or altered in any way without my prior express written permission and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof. Violators will be prosecuted and their flag capped.

News: Q&A Week 1 - The hard cap, map remakes, Orange Box, training, and the almighty Soldier.

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:44:00 GMT

Big ups to everyone who's been posting questions.

In order to take this at a manageable pace, we'll be answering (at least) 5 questions a week.

We're starting off with some good ones we received early on. Look back next week for even more.

First up, we've got a question that's been seeing a lot of debate on the forums...

Question 1 (Kubedawg):
Will the hard cap stay implemented as a feature if most people end up not liking it? If there is no hard cap, could you explain what changes are being made as far as movement goes for all classes in general?

Answer (Circuitous):
The hard cap is being applied as a fix to the issue of skimming (retaining speed from conc and weapon jumps) - in testing it has worked well, but if the overall opinion of it is decidedly bad once it's released, then obviously we'll look to make some changes to it.

There has been very little in the way of negative feedback to the hard cap [in the beta] so far, so we'll see how that works out.

Question 2 (Nuk3m):
Will there be a release of more classic maps, like rock2, schtop, coming in 2.2?

Answer (Circuitous):
Yes, many are in the making and will be released in subsequent patches.

Question 3 (Drain Bamaged):
How's the conversion to the Orange Box Engine going, what features are you going to use from it, besides motion blur?

Answer (trepid_jon):
Nothing has been done to the Orange Box version of FF since we finished the initial conversion and made the dev journal, but I think the main feature we'll use is its particle system. Trails, impacts, events, maps, and so forth should receive quite a few visual improvements in terms of particle effects. It will be nice having Steam avatars in the scoreboard as well, but maybe we can integrate those avatars into other areas of FF, like the chat menu, "physically" in the world, during gameplay moments, and/or whatever else we can think of. We also think vgui videos can be utilized well in FF, allowing us to put videos in lots of menu places. More robust map overviews, for instance, as well as interesting concepts like like little picture-in-picture video hints, tutorials, and commentary.

Question 4 (Myersjr):
Will there be a training mode included in 2.1?? I have heard talk that there will be...

Answer (Squeek):
The base for the training mode has already been completed. Constant changes to the mod are holding us back from releasing it to a perticular patch. A few more additions need to be made before we are comfortable before releasing it. Expect it in 2.3 and hope for it in 2.2.

Question 5 (RocketRunner):
Are the rockets for the Soldiers RPG going to change in any way?

Answer (trepid_jon):
Radius has been decreased to compensate for the harder bhop cap, and now rockets also emit dynamic lighting

Any discusion on these answers can be posted below on this thread. All questions and concerns will be answered. Any additional questions should be asked here: http://www.fortress-forever.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16481

Dev. Journal: Circuitous

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Circuitous) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:38:59 GMT

I added a couple new fields for forum profiles.

To access them, click User CP at the top left, and then choose Edit Profile on the left sidebar.

The new fields are:

Class / Position - your preferred class and position (O or D).
Gametype - your preferred gametype.
Clans/Guilds - your clans, guilds, or other affiliations.

If you can think of any others worth adding, let me know.

I know this isn't exactly big news, but I figured I'd post it up anyhow.

Dev. Journal: Elmo-

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Elmo-) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:08:55 GMT

Just a short one this time to make up for my monster one last time. 21st birthday was 2 days ago and I'm leaving for swtizerland in 2 weeks! I'm going out and celebrating every few days at the moment! Once I leave (1st August) it may be the end of my involvment in FF (playing or developing!!) I hope not though.

Monkey almost done, playtesting is currently taking place and theres only a few 'small' things that people want changing. Having a hard time getting HDR to work well though, the contrast between the base and yard means looking out over bridge can seem way too bright. Trying to sort it out. But the general thoughts have been good so far! Performance reported to be better... I should damn well think so

There will be a _b3 release of medieval soon too. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment! Playing with a "ruin" to be placed on the surrounding landscape, currently it doesnt look anything like a castle ruin. Any modellers wanna do one for me? lol Also trying to sort out my teleporter exits to throw you in the right direction! As soon as I do them I'll have a new release.

Hope all of you are well. Thank you all for your continued support and keeping this game alive! Especially all you guys in #ff.pickup ;)

Dev. Journal: z0rt

fortress-forever@gmail.com (z0rt) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:00:40 GMT

Star date: F*ck The World!

Life has begat moi a fecundity of failure, meaning life sucks. I've been forced to reformat the hard drive on my laptop. As if that weren't bad enough, I came back home from work today to see my computer off. So I did what anyone would do... I turned it on. Then, out of the ordinary, the fuses blew and the power to my house went out. So we flipped the switches to return the power, and of course I turned my computer on. Rather than the usual stupid windows boot up screen, I heard scratches-- nasty scratches. "What could it be," I thought? And then I realized that two of my hard drives on my desktop computer were... guess what? That's right, they crashed. My Western Digital hard drives, the brand I always swore to, had died on me. So now, I hate Western Digitals and I hate Seagate. I've always hated Intel, but now I hate them even more. Don't ask me why, I am not a man of logic (not now anyway).

Today, I've been left with a 4 year old 120GB hard drive, and a laptop with a virus infested windows partition-- but don't worry, the linux partition is fine (for now... knock on mother f*cking wood).

I have to ask myself, with all honesty, why so many bad things could happen. What have I done to deserve all these bad things? Why couldn't I have gotten 1 more point on my final last month to get an A instead of a shitty A-? Why has the backup hard drive died. Why does Norton not know anything about this stupid virus. Why have I lost all my Kung-Fu movies and Anime that I've spent YEARS collecting? Why!? WHY!?!?!?!?

Spare me your pity. My beef is with God (and Western Digital, and Intel, and Seagate, and jkkJcBtT.dll, and Asus and...).

Dev. Journal: trepid_jon

fortress-forever@gmail.com (trepid_jon) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:09:59 GMT

I recently remade this old TFC flash video for FF...

http://www.trepid.net/images/just_a_game_ff.html

ff_2fort is being made by shadow, and I think it's turning out great

On a side note, I like to make werewolf movies.

Dev. Journal: z0rt

fortress-forever@gmail.com (z0rt) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:29:48 GMT

With Regards To Updates And Fortress Forever 2.1

This post has been split up into 2 parts. The first is a short and sweet message, the second is a longer read, but has more information (and my personal feelings) I entreat you to read both (if possible).

I.
Please try to realize the amount of time that has been put into 2.1. This will not be the final patch to the game. If any single element does not work -- it can and will be fixed in future patches, just as problems found in 2.0 are being fixed with this release. I humbly ask-- saying it, however, can be taken two ways-- 1) you are in a position with no power, or 2) you are being condescending-- either way it damages the message. I ask the people to stop arguing amongst themselves. If there is a serious problem, talk to me. I don't want to make fool out of myself, and I'm sure you don't want to either. It only makes things worse.

II.
What, with computer woes still aplenty (ps Gator, Avira didn't work), it seems I've been dragged into this, albeit unfortunately. Many people seem to be complaining about the 'Hard Cap'. I'd like to address this as tactfully possible, so please don't misconstrue my words to be harsh or acerbic. If, per chance, I have not conveyed my message properly, it is not for you or anyone else to attack me or anyone else on the development team (coder, mapper, and what have you). Having said the aforementioned, let's get started with business.

First off, I have made it my personal goal to listen to each and everyone of you out there. Many of you know I have been an active listener. I have read your comments online and have done everything in my power to earnestly hear out the people. However, just because I listen to you does not give you the right to impose things on me or the development team. The dev team has a very hard time trying to do what we do. When people make posts and questionnaires that undermine us, it makes things even more difficult. Please refrain from making posts attacking our decisions.

It takes a lot of time from our ends to accomplish things. Some of you who've played TFC remember 1106 and the changes that were made. Some of you remember the STA rules about chop hopping in TFC as well. There are times when as individuals, we cannot agree with the changes that are made to a game. Yet, despite these changes, it is our duty to silently acquiesce (agree) to the decisions and choices that were made by those above us. This doesn't mean that you ought to shut your traps, this means that we ought to take our time before we protest. Simply put, certain people in the community have been protesting changes that they haven't physically-- and I use this word liberally, mind you-- experienced any of these changes.

It is our goal to make FF 2.1 as friendly as possible. Let's not argue here. My own personal agenda-- and on that note, my own opinions-- are my own (and my own only). Each of us have our own opinions, and I will respect your opinions, even if we don't meet eye-to-eye on some things. Any qualms I have are to be addressed by those of equal caliber, meaning that if I have a beef with something, I will discuss it with the dev team, not you.

Let's not argue here. A lot of time has been put into 2.1 already. Before anyone protests, first give it a chance. We can always make changes in 2.2. Let's not be hasty.

I ask the people to stop arguing amongst themselves. If there is a serious problem, talk to me. I don't want to make fool out of myself, and I'm sure you don't want to either. It only makes things worse.

Dev. Journal: trepid_jon

fortress-forever@gmail.com (trepid_jon) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:05:59 GMT

You're craz-you're crazy, man. You're crazy! I like you...but you're crazy.

Last week, I started converting FF's source code to the Orange Box code. It was an insane task, to say the least. First of all, nobody else wanted to do it. I mean, everyone wants FF to use the latest version of Source, but nobody wanted to do this psychotic conversion that Valve has forced on all the old mods. Granted, a mod would have an easy integration if it didn't modify any base files, using nothing but brand new files specifically created for that particular mod. FF's not like that, though. Yeah, FF's code uses a lot of unique files, but we also did a lot of base modifications. Luckily most of those modifications were commented well, and now even more of that is better commented and separated from the base stuff.

1 week, thousands of differing files, and hundreds of compile errors later, FF can now be played with the Orange Box engine. OOOoooOOOhhh!!! There are quite a few bugs to work out, however, so 2.1 won't be using this code unless we fix all the major bugs within a couple weeks.

After getting past the initial problems of FF crashing immediately upon startup, during map load, and lots of other similar spots, I finally got into the game...but I couldn't pick a team or class, and therefore couldn't spawn. I could go into thirdperson, though...

Wow, right? That's so Orange Box.

The first thing I noticed was this...THING...on the left. Said something about "Server" blah blah, like I cared. I later confirmed it's the chat window. Well, part of it. It's this little spot/coffin where all the received chat messages go to hang out forever. It's basically the worst thing imaginable.

Anyways, I couldn't move or look around in firstperson, but I could look around in thirdperson (as a side note, Valve greatly improved thirdperson mode with a moving camera that has collision, among other cool things). So once I could move the camera around, the next thing I noticed was that awesome Orange Box motion blur effect...

This is called a town. It's where everyone hates you and makes fun of you.

The problem with picking a team and class had to do with the way the new code handles console commands. FF has a special way of making some console commands, and most of the console commands use this special method (team, class, +gren1, dispenser, cloak, etc...pretty much everything you do in FF that's directly related to FF). Long story short, I fixed that crap and some other crap dealing with different crap and was then able to look, run, shoot, and do all that other minor stuff FF needs to be considered a game.

WARNING: if you don't like motion blur, you'll hate every single one of these screenshots, because I was literally shaking the mouse to make all of them blurry, haha...

In the Orange Box engine, your flashlight casts dynamic shadows off objects.
(including yourself when you're in thirdperson)

In 2.1, hunted's dirt hole is a vent (finally).

Blur slideshow, WOOH!

Apparently the flamethrower's particles aren't drawing.
Just another reason to revamp FF's effects using the new particle system.
It will be so nice.

More blurry 2.1 hunted.

Some blurry 2.1 cz2 as well.

I don't know if redux wants this seen yet, but it's blurry...so nobody's really seeing it.

2.1 has swim animations, y'all!

So by having FF use the Orange Box engine, we get motion blur.

The other new things like vgui videos, the new version of Hammer (lighting preview, what?), the new particle system, the material and commentary editors, steam avatars, and so forth...all of them mean nothing in comparison to the greatness that is motion blur.

r.

Dev. Journal: z0rt

fortress-forever@gmail.com (z0rt) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:32:57 GMT

Hi everyone! It's your neighborhood friendly DT. As you may have noticed, I have been inactive for the past several days. Why? Well... unfortunately, my laptop got infected by some new virus. Good job Symantec for nothing (long string of expletives)! I'm in the process of fixing the laptop, and don't expect to be active in development or beta testing for another week. Since the virus is new to the scene, I have to clean up manually, which can take God-knows-how-long... not to mention the many reboots and many many attempts.

In other news, the beta testing seems to be going very smoothly. Expect 2.1 to come around the Earth's aphelion.

Dev. Journal: Pon

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Pon) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:03:57 GMT

Hello. I'm Pon, a recent addition to the Dev team. I think they must have been desperate for Lua scripters, and I was better than nothing I guess :P

I figured I should do a journal, but I don't really know what to write. I mean, Lua, and programming in general isn't that interesting to most people. But, meh. I could say a few words about myself, my experience, and so forth, but I'd prefer people keep reading and not fall asleep :)

Maybe next journal.

So, inane rambling over, we come to the meat of all journals, and the only bit 99% of people reading this will care about - some info on what I've been working on:

Epicenter fixes - The three captures per round system has been fixed, and there will also be HUD icons to indicate the aforementioned captures. Should make it a lot easier to understand whats going on, hopefully.

ff_harbor - As Nezumi mentioned in his jernal, I'm working on the base Lua for that. Not much more to say other than what Nezumi already mentioned, aside from it'll hopefully be good gameplay, as well as a good looking map (which Nezumi's always are).

I'm also making another base Lua for a new map by one of the Devs. Can't really say much at this stage I guess, but I'm sure it'll have a positive impact on FF when it's ready.

Aside from that official FF work, it seems I've become a mapper's bitch of late, with Ihmhi and =AS=zE both pestering me night and day to make their maps work properly :P. Still, their maps should be worth it. At least in terms of the Lua :)

Also, I have a few concepts of my own that I'm planning to start on. Quadflag (posted in the official concepts thread) is one I've started on, and hope to finish a concept map soon. I'll also likely create a concept map for =AS=zE's Last Team Standing lua, seeing as his port of Agoraz was withdrawn. For both I'll release the source .vmf alongside, so that people can both make a decent map from it, and hopefully learn a little bit about Lua as well.

And thats it. Hope you managed to stay awake :)

Dev. Journal: Dexter

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Dexter) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:39:54 GMT

Hello, I'm Dexter! Many of you who frequent the :e0: server probably know me as that one soldier who always goes on O. Sorry, I come from Quake :(

Ok, I admit - I wanted to try this dev journal (Nezumi) thinger as well. I've been working on some base_*.lua files, making them more flexible. base_ad now works with any color combination teams for attackers and defenders and I fixed no flag return sounds in base_id, for example. Now I'll halp Nezumi with his cacti map and perhaps rework some of mervaka's code into a reusable form which gives him a total boner. And god forbid I have enough time to get into the source code.

Oh my hell, I think I'm getting a sunburn.

Dev. Journal: Sh4x

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Sh4x) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:57:42 GMT

I figured I'd make a dev journal too, mostly so you guys have an idea of what I'm working on right now. So here it is!

Since I joined the team, I've been trying to figure out exactly what I'd like to be working on for the next weeks. It's quite something for me because for the last 2-3 years, all I had on my mind was to finally finish this one freaking huge map that seemed like it would never end, ff_dropdown. I swear it gave me a hard time, mostly because I didn't know how to map when I first started it but also because it's a pretty complex map design wise and it's all original which makes it that much more difficult to do than a simple remake.

Anyways, like I was saying, I've been thinking about what I'd like to do next. It had to be smaller. I wanted something I could finish fast enough so I wouldn't get bored of it before completion. It had to be something else than standard CTF because that's the direction we're taking as a team right now. And it had to be something where dense fog would work because I just freakin' love fog and there's something I wanted to try with it.

So I started working on it a couple days ago and sshhhh don't tell other devs but I think it's by far the best looking map on this mod already!

I'll keep you posted!

Dev. Journal: Elmo-

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Elmo-) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:41:25 GMT

Ello Ello... it's Elmo!

Woo, it's awesome to be on this side of the fence after sitting on the other side for so long, waiting for these dev journals and announcements to explain WTF the/us FF devs are actually doing!?

It's awesome to be on the team but not because I get to see the bits that haven't been released yet, but because they frequently TALK to one another, find out what tasks are required and just get on with it! I have much faith for FF�s success yet! I think this influx of new devs (like me) has really brought some extra life and progress to the mod too. I can't seem sit here for more than half an hour without there being a reply to read on the dev forum!!

Right, now on to the stuff you may care about! I'll be Optimising some of the existing maps, starting with ff_monkey, and boy do I have my work cut out for me. I've almost done one base, as you will see if you haven't already skipped to the links.

PLEASE NOTE: This is work in progress - IT ISNT FINISHED!! I am aware there are some things missing around the level and that water is far from finished, dont worry. Also I don't have any env_cubemaps in, this means anything that has a reflective material is only reflecting the skybox and not its surroundings e.g. water & objects.

I'll explain what I've done so far... I've rebuilt it... completely... almost every brush... I don�t plan on doing that for the others in order to optimise/clean them up but ff_monkey really was made badly and there are quite a few improvements I�ve made already.

1. For those of you that ramp slide on the left ramp from front door and have got stuck halfway up on that stupid physically nonexistent lip, you'll be glad to be know it has gone. The ramp was - for no reason - made up of two (perfectly aligned) brushes; it�s now one, problem solved, simple.

2. Texture alignment is now/will be as perfect as I can make it throughout the base. Once I've completed the base I will probably �nodraw� it all and apply all the textures again to be sure! I�m a perfectionist...

Texture Alignment Example (Ceiling Curve)

3. Previous Lazy mapping is no more... such as cutting the heads off those 'poor' T monkeys :( and no more gaps behind wall props.

T Monkies (Heads)
Wall Prop Gaps (Gone...)

4. OPTIMISATION � Now that I've mapped it properly, you WILL have considerably better FPS in most areas, comparisons are below but you will mainly notice the improvement during full game play. No more standing in flag room rendering fights going on in the ramp room/lower spawn/water way that you can�t actually see!! No more standing in ramp room rendering the water from the route beneath the base! No more crossing mid map and rendering too much of the action inside the base, which was increasing the strain from the already detailed mid map. No more standing here there and everywhere using more resources than necessary.... You get the point so here are the comparisons.

Flag Room 1
Flag Room 2 (T Junction)
Ramp Room 1
Ramp Room 2 (In Top Spawn)

5. Lighting is currently darker in some places but only because I haven�t grabbed some of the floating lights. I don�t believe in adding lights unless there�s a prop to act as a believable light source. I WILL ensure the lighting is PERFECT for the released version but that will be the last thing to be adjusted.

Some more General Comparisons
Flag Room
T Junction
Ramp Room
Lower Spawn
Water Entrence
Water

So what left to be done??

With regards to ff_monkey, I have almost completed one base, which can then be copied and flipped for the red side, I will remake the front of the bases but the mid map shouldn't be too much of problem as I will be copying a lot from the original.

I will now explain my current workings. I've been having some trouble deciding on how to �map� the water way with regards to how it previously linked to the mid map; beforehand, one could look towards mid map and see the trees in the distance. Rendering areas other than the one you are in is usually undesirable for performance issues, but in this case it added a nice depth to the map.

I hadn�t needed to consider this for the rest of the base but I felt this depth would be missed if I weren�t to include it. I have now reached �the point� during mapping that I have to deal with it and have realised that I need to change my mapping technique to get it. The same mapping technique I�ve been using to make my custom map ff_medieval, and if you�re interested, I will elaborate further... just you try and stop me (lol).

Think of the map (any well made map) as being made up of a series of closed boxes, the sides of these boxes are made up of key walls in the base, anything that should considerably block the players visibility from drawing what�s behind it.

Just to explain, ff_monkey was not made in this sealed box manor, or rather there were unwanted �links� or rather suitably named leaks through to the other parts � �boxes� in the map, which is why it ran so badly and why I couldn�t just simply �add optimisation� to improve performance.

ANYWAY, these boxes are normally ONLY linked with doorways and/or corridors. Okay? Well In order for me to get my desired outside depth (distant trees), this method of sealing the player�s visibility into boxes isn�t quite appropriate. Let�s say all of these �boxes� have a sort of lid, be it the ceiling or the sky. To get my desired depth in ff_monkey, the water and mid map �boxes�, need to, in effect, have their sky lids removed and then be sealed again by a new sky box placed over the top of them both.

So that you can picture it:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Image:Hint_example3.jpg

Brown = mid map/yard
Yellow = water way
Red = skybox
White Line = hint

^^ The hint is some good old optimisation, I�m not going to explain hints, if you�re interested read up on them for yourself here. In this example hints kind of act as a way of maintaining the original box forms, it maintains that lid we took off. So ONLY if you�re looking through the lid will you see its contents, unless of course its contents are sticking out of its box.... the tops of the trees! My desired depth is now possible and controlled to minimise on PC strain.

The engine now knows that (only) the trees in mid map, can be seen from water and so are allowed to be rendered once again; it�s simple really. Honest. I use this technique as described above all over the level, hint brushes within these �boxes�, placed off corners and higher platforms to make smaller boxes, separating the level. Then add some well placed area portals (that�s another thing) and your optimisation is complete!

Now I can finally shut up and actually get on with it I guess. Even if you don�t understand what I said above, it may at least give you some confidence that I know what I�m doing! *Strokes Fortress Forever* �Ah, yes, you can be calm now... my precious!�

Not sure what I'll be working on once ff_monkey is finished, and I am unsure when I will finish it as I'm off to download festival in 3 days for 5 days.

Eventually signing out after two and a half pages in a word document... hmm I wonder what the word count is... ~1,300! lol Taken me days to finish this post! 12hr day of work then 3 hour bike ride to end up at 1230am finally finishing this!

Elmo! :D

Dev. Journal: Nezumi

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Nezumi) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:46:42 GMT

OMG.

WTF.

You guys, seriously, I'm not. Even. Joking. I'm on the dev team!
So I thought I'd write y'all a little dev jernal [sic].

I'm making maps. Actually, as some of you may know, I'm making a lot of maps. Some of them may now actually get finished. One of them, ff_tiger, did get finished recently. (Btw, if you're reading this and you're Arne 'Cynic' Lund, plz email me kthx). I think tiger will be included in version 2.1. I'm really excited about the opportunity to make an update without running into version conflicts, or having things like an _r1 version.

Cacti should also be done sometime soon too, now that I can get a little help from FF's modelers, scripters, and lua coders. I'm tingling with excitement (even now) at the thought of being able to work on a map as part of a team. There's always things that are probably very simple, but would take me so long to figure out on my own. Just a few very basic props, a little lua fixup, a line here or there added to sentences.txt so I can get some Ellen McLain in the map. Beta testing will be handy too.

Finally, there's Harbor. I've always been an advocate of new gameplay types, so I'd like to get this one released. It's kinda like hunted, except there are 2 VIPs and each has a team of bodyguards. There's no goal to escort your VIP to, and instead each team must try to kill the enemy VIP before they do the same to you. If a VIP kills the enemy VIP, then you team gets an extra large pile of points. Instead of being civilians, the VIPs can pick from any of the normal 9 classes. I'm imagining them being spy, and trying to stab their rival, or being a medic and concing to a rooftop to hide, or being a soldier and sitting behind a wall of defenders, and so on. The map takes place in a fairly realistic looking harbor area (although far less open than tiger), and there are 7 bases around the map. Each team randomly rotates to another base each time a VIP is killed, and some bases are much easier to defend than others. Pon is being awesome and writing the LUA for me, and for the first time ever I'm going to knock up the level with dev textures and playtest it that way, so I can rearrange it if necessary.

So, uh, that's the plan anyway. Remember everyone, don't press the carve button.

News: Brushin' off the cobwebs.

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Circuitous) — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:18:00 GMT

Hey, how y'all doin'? Circuitous here. I know, right? Very exciting.

Okay, so, we've been a little quieter than necessary. I apologize for that.

As has been mentioned on the forums, the main reason things haven't been updated outside of the forums is that, well, no one had any access to it. While this sadly remains true for the ModDB page, it's no longer the case for the website - squeek and I are now wielding proper control, and have already brought about much-needed edits to its cobweb-infested, yet standards-compliant, DIVs.

That said, even more work has been going on behind the scenes - many of the cornerstones of the 2.1 update are being completed. Squeek's been rocking socks on the training front, DrEvil continues to pound away at the bot code, and 2fort once more is seeing the light of day.

So, what's the timeline? Despite our best efforts, that remains to be seen. It's an unfortunate fact that many prominent devs from the 2.0 patch and prior have now parted ways with Fortress Forever, or simply become less active, and what devs remain have a lot on their plates.

Suffice it to say, we could use some new people.

If you happen to be skilled in any of the following fields, or know someone who is, get in contact with the team - either through the forums, or by e-mail. Our job openings page has the goods.

Model Animator
Level Designer
Texture Artist
Prop Artist
Programmer
Level Optimization and Clean Up
Lua Scripter

We want to get as many people on board as we can - recruitment behind the scenes has already been moving steadily along. You probably already know them, but I'll introduce them here anyway.

Welcome to:

Programmer

DT
Professional

Mappers

Sh4x
BlisTer
redux
Nezumi

Map Optimization

Elmo-

Modeling/Animating

-pF-

Props

Crazycarl

and hopefully more on the way.

People, we can do this. And with a few more folks on hand, it'll be that much quicker. All we need is the support and understanding of the community, and this patch will be out sooner than you think, and with a lot more to expect on the horizon.

News: Fortress Forever 2.0 Released!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:49:00 GMT

Patch time: (See post below for SERVER installs)

CLIENT Patch (1.11 to 2.0)
AE 83689's Hosting (AKA Zip)
AE 5316's Hosting
FileFront
Multiplay UK - UK only
Multiplay UK - worldwide
Wireplay UK

Professional's Download Mirror
Clan Goodfella's FTP

We also have 3 official EU servers up (hosted by wireplay)
#1: 194.154.191.30:27015 Funmaps + spam (epicenter/waterpolo/push/hunted/well)
#2: 194.154.191.30:27017 Clanstyle CTF (openfire/sd2/monkey/aardvark/dropdown)
#3: 194.154.191.30:27019 3rd server, undecided what this is yet :-)

So if you want to come chat to me i'll probably be hanging out there!

CHANGELOG:

GENERIC / Misc stuff:

Walls no longer apply friction to grenades, concmaps should be possible now!
Small auto-conc for HH concs when you dont jump
Frag grenade damage up to 145 (patch 1.0 was 180, patch 1.11 was 126). Radius the same.
Throwing the flag is now upwards slightly rather than skidding along the floor
Re-added recoil for some weapons (e.g. IC)
Suiciding no longer causes you to lose 100 fortress points
bhop now 1.20 up from 1.10
Better intermission scoreboard/player handling
Made the currently held grenade timer bar more visible than the dropped ones
pyro scream time only triggers once every 1.7 seconds now
Added cl_reducedexplosions to help fps problems
Added a cvar for ragdoll lifetime
NEW!! assault cannon fire sound

Visuals:

Grenades now have trails and halo's around them
Blue and yellow pipes now have trails
Player models have been tweaked to increase visibility
Grenade models have been tweaked to increase visibility
SG models have been tweaked to increase visibility
SG now throws out sparks when it's below 50% health
Flags now GLOW
Single Shotgun reload animation (thanks a084)
New IC model!
No more ugly background for build timers
New HUD security icons for shutdown style maps
Shotgun muzzle flash more visible
Many visuals now line up correctly in widescreen modes (damage indicators, Context menus etc)
New EMP effect
HUD health / armor no longer flashes red when you are hit. It'll only flash red when you are < 25% health to prevent confusion. (instead it flashes white when hit)
Grenade 2 timer up a bit so it's not so far down
New explosion scorch decal which doesnt make your whole base black.
'on fire' hud HUD redness reduced a lot
Cvars for turning off targets + gren trails (also in options menu)
Teamcolour hud can now go back to normal again

Bug fixes:

Grenade target timing bug (
Medkit fix. Should be much easier to heal people with medkit and spanner now, as friendlies are lag predicted now.
Dispenser / SG health now displays properly on the HUD even if you are far away.
CL_CopyExistingEntity crash fixed at last (!!)
SG now tracks properly when built on a slope
Death by burning is no longer a suicide
Fixed LUA error causing security icons to disappear when players connected
Fix for spies being able to sabotage when they're dead
Demoman grenades hopefully dont bounce of people any more
Readded interpolation for projectiles
Put in a fix for grenade timers not showing up

Class-specific changes:
Scout:

Caltrops and radar have been removed. Instead they have a buildable jump pad on +attack2. Jumppad is invincible - det it by double right-tapping. You can only carry one, similar to a detpack. They last 60 seconds before auto-detting. Any team can use them.
Players can only use a jump pad once every second, so they dont get multiple triggers.
Max conc speed after using the jumppad
Reduced conc time for Scout down to Medic level
Scouts now don't take fall damage.

Sniper:

Sniper rifle base damage has been reduced from 42 to 35
Radiotag duration reduced from 60 to 15 seconds.
AR damage down from 7 to 5.5

Soldier:

RPG damage radius increased slightly (from 108 to 125).
RPG reload time decreased from 1.0 to 0.9 seconds.
Nail grens tweaked a lot.
Soldier special now quickswitches between shotgun and RPG.

Demoman:

Blue pipe fuse timer dramatically decreased (from 2.5 to 1.1 seconds). Pipetrap explosion radius increased from 125 to 150.

Medic:

Right click now discards medpacks for teammates to use (thanks mirv). These take 10 cells to use and the medic slowly recharges cells over time. Medpacks last 5 seconds before disappearing so the person you are throwing to has to pick them up soon (you can't leave a supply for your defenders for example)

HWGuy:

New HW AC System! : Overheat removed (!), rof changed from 0.06-0.12 to 0.05-0.15. cof changed from 0.10-0.15 to 0.05-0.30.
New AC clamp system - hold right mouse to clamp, let go to unclamp. Also fires when you are clamping so you can hold right mouse to clamp + fire (you dont have to hold mouse1 and mouse2)

Pyro:

IC base damage has come down (from 60 to 50).
Flamethrower damage increased to 16 from 13
Flamethrower pushforce cap increased to 850 from 550.
Pyro special now quickswitches between flamethrower and IC.
Pyro vs Pyro now takes 100% damage up from 50%
Flamethrower uppush up to 110 from 50.

Spy:

Spy now has a 'last disguise' option on the menu
knife damage up to 50 from 32.
Disguise time halved.

Engineer:

SG health has come down to 113% from 120% of TFC level(ish).
SG bulletpush now works on the ground (thanks jiggs!).
SG air bulletpush reduced to 15 from 24

ALL CLASSES (except medic):

Melee weapons now do more damage. Crowbar + spanner up to 30 from 18. Knife up to 50 from 32.

New functionality:

New splash screen to tell you about any updates to FF if you are playing an old version.
New options screen with a load more stuff on it.

Map changes

Epicenter:

New scoring system, capping flag results in that teams flag being reset back to cage, other team unaffected and can continue capturing. First to 3 captures wins and everyone resets.
Extended balcony area around cap point for additional SG position
Epicenter ammo bags now give a slight amount of health/armor (thanks gingerlord)
Epicenter 3-cap LUA system added, some various tweaks
Epicenter tweaks

Crossover

VIS fixed, massive performance increase
Test middle area structure for additional route
Misc brush fixes
Crossover2: More obvious Capture Point, lasers in air lift.(thanks gingerlord)
Various crossover tweaks including a revamped midmap
Crossover tweaks

Openfire

Revamped version of ff_openfire_b2, with better lighting, clipped lights, decent water, better flag-security system, custom teamcoloured security buttons and stuff

Monkey

monkey is now Red vs Blue
monkey FPS vastly improved

Well

Well front door buttons removed, walk up to it = it opens

Dustbowl

Dustbowl now compiles properly, various visual fixes (gaps in ceilings etc)

Dropdown

New, polished, bug-fixed version of the community map. Thanks Yann "Sh4x" Richer

Waterpolo

New revamped version

I know i've missed a shedload of stuff out... Everythings changed, enjoy the game! :-)

News: Fortress Forever 2.0 - Server available!

fortress-forever@gmail.com (Fortress Forever Team) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:11:00 GMT

EDIT: Here's the server install files:

Current list of mirrors: (will update)

-----------------

Copy the files straight on top of any 1.11 install you have. Please put 2.0 in your server title so people know which server to join!

------------------

We're finally finished with the 2.0 patch!

Currently we're distributing the server package to all the mirrors we can find - if you can mirror, let us know! The server update package is only 115 MB.

Currently we are only hosting the server update package from 1.11 -> 2.0 patch. (we are not hosting the full 600 meg 2.0 server install right now)

This is because
a) 99% of people interested in running an FF server already have 1.11 running
b) If you don't have 1.11 running, you can download 1.11 full whilst you wait for us to get patch mirrors up, which gives you a headstart.
c) It gives the current server owners a little nod. (thanks for sticking with us!)

When the client installs are up, we will be hosting a 2.0 full patch (600+ meg), 1.11 -> 2.0 update patch (90 meg) and 1.0 -> 2.0 update patch (160 meg).

This means, if you don't have 1.11 installed and you want to give 2.0 a go, save some time by downloading 1.11 now!