CARNAGE COUNCIL ANNOUNCES NEW WHEELS OF WAR 0.2 ALPHA
EARTH, 24 June 2008: The Carnage Council is proud to announce the public release of Wheels of War Alpha 0.2!
Hey Guys, great news - version 0.2 has been released! It features a small amount of bug fixes, three new vehicles, a whole new 'Championship Racing' game mode, 5 racetracks for that racing mode (which include the 3 for DM Campaign matches), and web-based stats in the form of a global best-lap leaderboard.
It became apparent the zombies, in-game upgrades and stunt systems were going to take a while to develop. Web-based stats were always on the cards for a later inclusion, so this new race mode lets us examine how that works whilst giving you another reason to play Wheels of War. We think it ties in nicely, hopefully you will agree!
To get on the global leaderboard at http://wheelsofwar.colsoft.biz/stats, you need to play on a RANKED RACE server, and complete a lap within the time limit. Every players best lap during that race is recorded and put up for all to see. It's that simple! The stats website is going to be continually developed over the next few weeks as more ways of conveying the information are realised - if you have any suggestions, post on our forums.
Server admins wanting more information about how to make their servers ranked can come to our IRC channel (#wheelsofwar on irc.quakenet.org) or post in our general forum on our official website at http://www.wheelsofwar.co.uk.
We are always on the look out for download mirrors and server parters. If you are willing to host a Wheels of War server, be it Deathmatch or Racing, get in touch and we can discuss how to get Ranked status or even get in some sponsored advertising on the stats page if you help us get the word out :)
Thank you, and have a good time racing!
Installation Instructions: Simply unzip the downloaded file into your ETQW directory. It will create a /wheelsofwar folder and also a Run Wheels of War shortcut. The shortcut will show you what command-line arguments you need to run the mod. Specifically, they are:
We were really pleased with the reaction from everyone who played the alpha release. Everyone was unanimous when it came to how the vehicle handling needed overhauled, but in general people understood why we released and what we are aiming for, which is great. A simple look around the download mirrors and using bandwidth usage counts from salteh.net shows that we look to have had more than 2,000 downloads - not too bad for an unfinished alpha!
One problem we had was trying to get servers outside of Europe. M8D International are awesome and still have an EU server running the 0.1b alpha if you still want to give it a shot, but as with games with major gameplay elements yet to be implemented, races rarely last more than 20 minutes and finding a time when multiple players are online is hard.
Anyway; we have had a little break and are now getting back into the action, and I come bearing gifts!
Firstly, our 3rd place winner of the Car Design contest will be happy to see this high poly render by GW. We present, "Waroeels":
Next, GW also has been hard at work on a new skin for Optimus Crime, this time making it a little more evil:
Finally, we have the zombies. AudiC has been working on these for a while, as well as madNORMan, for creating the animations. Here are two of many more to come:
We hope you like all the media here, we should be giving you more in the coming weeks and months before we release Alpha 0.2, details of which will be coming in another news post soon!
Thankyou, and good night. [This message has been screened and edited by the Carnage Council to abide by language rules 3a section 5, paragraph 4 of the Peds Requirements Checklist.]
Just unzip the contents of the downloaded files into your /Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars/ directory!
This version is a very early alpha release. We expect that you will find bugs, and you may feel that the gameplay is not up to the quality of which you expected. Zombies, stunts, upgrades and more will be added in time.
We have decided to release this early as community involvement is high on our list of priorities. We believe instead of having a long closed testing phase, by releasing early and frequent releases we can take your comments and critisism on board quickly and allow a higher quality game when we eventually come to release the 1.0 version.
We would love to hear your feedback, good or bad, over in the forums. Thanks!
P.S. Don't forget to head to our Moddb profile. We will be adding features and tutorials soon like how to make custom maps, and how to add music to the playlist. Also, you can rate the mod using the slider to the bottom right hand side.
Friends, Romans and Countrymen, lend me your ears! I bring news of zombie killing carnage and sheer all round fun!
Wheels of War is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Community Manager, a somewhat shady fellow known only by the unpronounceable name of ‘Tsujigiri’, he’ll be your first point of contact if for example you’re interested in becoming a server partner for our upcoming Alpha release! Yes, it’s coming, soon! An alpha for your enjoyment and viewing pleasure!
He’s also your first point of contact for any community related matters, got a problem or question? Then bring it to Tsujigiri so he can laugh and point!!!
We also have a new coder working for the team, slaving over a hot PC to make the Wheels of War turn, a big welcome to ‘Black’ who will serve his period of indentured bondage under the whip of Domipheus the Master of the Wheels!
As we have a lot of interest in our mod from our German speaking friends we have also kidnapped, I mean ‘recruited’ a German Liaison ‘Gomf’ lately of Clan SDR and then eQ Fame who will help with in game translations and German community implementation.
We are looking for server partners to host our upcoming Alpha release and mirrors for the file. If you can help, and if you want to help then grab Tsujigiri on IRC Quakenet in #WheelsOfWar.
In the interview Splashdamage's Ed 'BongoBoy' Stern asks about our respective backgrounds, the beginnings of Wheels of War and how development has been progressing. Also included are some new snippets of information regarding gametypes and gameplay features which will be added to the modification. We even give out some advice to other people considering starting their own mod teams, based on our own experience.
The last thing to mention is that within the interview text there is one in-game screenshot featuring a zombie, and also a textured render. Our new animation fanatic 'madNORMan' has been hard at work rigging up and getting these zombies doing what they do best: look completely stupid! These are the first public teaser shots of our zombies and hope you like them.
Remember the car design contest? Our first prize winner, Black on Black, has already been created and is fully working in-game for our first alpha release. The second place winner, Wee-Evil, is one evil little car!
The high poly mesh has been completed by AudiC. I'm sure you will aggree, it looks the business! In other news, GW's unnamed vehicle has been officially renamed 'stinger' as per the website poll.
These news posts will be getting more frequent as we approach an alpha release. Stay tuned for more!
Again, GW has put his skills to work and come up with this huge gas guzzler. 'Optimus Crime' will prove a hit to those drivers who like a leisurely drive along the highway, scooping up all who dare try to attempt a head-on attack. It's one hell of a car, best not get in its sights!
Optimus Crime again for those interested in modelling fits into our 6,000 triangle budget for vehicle meshes. The high-poly version, from which we source all normal/bump mapping data, comes in at over 2.5 MILLION triangles. Just getting the render above was tough, as it crashed GWs computer a few times
Development of Wheels of War (Alpha 0.1) is coming along very well. We can confirm that come the new year, we will have some exciting news for you all concerning an early release. The package will contain your basic racing structure via checkpoints as you would expect; but also include some other more complex aspects of the game mode. Keep in touch as we release this information periodically to you!
Before we sign off, if you think we are deserving, remember to vote for the Mod of the Year 2007 Awards (there is an unreleased category, being in the top 100 would be a great achievement for such a young mod!). Also, there is currently a poll on what to name GWs previous car model; so go click on your favourite name - its just to the right under the main menu!
