OGRank - WWII Online v1.23 on Test

Well we're deep into v1.23 beta right now, and this is the "sticky" period where most if not all of the features have commenced implementation, but few are actually in their finished state, and the crunch usually begins now as we face the diminishing period of time to deadline for release and the increasing amount of work required as each feature or implementation reveals what wasn't a known quantity when it was still just an idea rather than a coded reality.

The infantry rework development is progressing well, but there are a lot of untidy ends hanging out that we still have to whip into shape. Server Tracked Object host code work is being written but it's also got it's guts out all over the operating table.

I took the opportunity to add a few towns during this development cycle, to help work us into the fringes of the map that were slated quite some time back to be expanded. While the number of towns is not a whole lot (8 I think) the preparation and planning work is all done for more expansion which I hope can become regular throughout every other dev. cycle this year.

The towns just added are:

Werkendam (DE)
Dussen (DE)
Huesden (DE)
Empel (DE)
Rips (DE)
Venray (DE)

These are all along the northern boundary from Dordrecht to Venlo in the Netherlands.

Also two long planned towns that had tiles placed some time ago in France were added, those of:

Fresnes (FR)
Thiaucourt (FR)

The long term objectives for this terrain engine prior to TEII being a reality would be a large industrial and emotional center for each country that would permit some cool things to be done with campaign end case scenarios, such as for example, different victory conditions. We have chosen those goals as:

British (London)
French (Paris)
Germany (Essen)

Essen is the logical choice given that Berlin is not a feasable objective given it's distance off the current map and the years it would take to include it at TE1 development rate. Of course, at least 40 towns will go in around Essen to make the effort required to reach and hold it equivalent to what it would take to reach and hold Paris as the other mainland objective. London is a totally different kettle of fish and must be considered using quite a differnet perspective, no other option would be logical or within the realms of reality for us here.

Work on the Sherman M4a3(76) ... while at the highest possible *vehicle* priority (with the 3 ATG's right behind it) is progressing slower than we'd like because we actually have to remodel the cupola (with eyepoint and DoF changes) which is a ***** for Granick both because it's not a simple task and he's inundated with other art work right now (the towns/infantrytexture remodeling we're doing) ... we'll get it done but the turret and hull need also to be remodeled as well. Not the fast quick "conversion" we had hoped for initially when the idea was first brought up some time back.

The ATG's are still right behind the Sherman in dev. priority but cannot progress at all until the Sherman is done or we expand our art team.

We had a meeting to discuss radar and have that plan (for the first pass implementation) all set to be coded. There's a new "non explosion" hit effect in beta for the destruction of tracks and wheels and "non target created explosion" events as well. We're struggling to tame some lighting and mapped texture road bumps we've encountered but we should have these tamed shortly, just letting you know our small team is working very hard on quite a few things, a lot of them fairly major although they may not appear that way to you out there.

Earlier this week we trialed a new chat host installation when the live server was done for the data base resync ... it appears we might have licked the lost connection issues we were previously suffering. Also in beta the "black out bug" appears to have been eliminated, which is good news for all.

The BattleGround Europe PLAYER CON down here in Fort Worth is drawing VERY close now so if you're intending coming, better book in right about NOW.

See you all in game somewhere, try not to get killed too often !