- Update v5373 - 29 January 2020
2020 release & Demo So regardless of what happens with the project, this is the year I'll be releasing Panzer in some shape or form. I've identified the minimum set of features I think a first version should have and will be working on those in the coming months. I'm also considering releasing a demo of some kind soon so that more people can give it ago. New Map TEAM_ConcreteRiver is a new 1v1 map that is very much work in progress but will serve as an experiment for smaller maps. The map has a single health pick-up and a single stealth pick-up in the center. Map updates Both TEAM_Oasis and FFA_Lavabowl have been changed a bit. Oasis now actually features an oasis in the center and lava bowl is much smaller. It basically lost its bottom layer. Not sure if it's big enough for 6 players, but we'll see. The previous one was a little boring on the bottom layer. Oasis also features a new wat…
- Update vUpdate v5195 - 12 December 2019
Dedicated Servers I've done some more work on dedicated servers in this update. Deploying the servers now happens fully automatic ( using Steamworks ) and the server exist as an APP on steam ( hidden, requires a key ). This makes it easy to keep a set of servers updated and live any time I make a new build. Hopefully, we can do some proper tests and figure out how many instances we can run on a single machine, etc. Match Flow This version brings a newly updated match-flow. When a server starts it will enter the 'waiting for players' state. This can last up to 5 minutes. If no one has joined in those 5 minutes, the server changes the map. If someone DOES join, the state switches to 'warmup' which lasts 60 seconds. If at any point in the match, there aren't enough players, the server switches back to the 'waiting for players' state and repeats. New Map The new map is called FFA_Lavabowl,…
- Update v5094 - 21 November 2019
New Weapon There is a new weapon in this build: the grenade launcher. It has 6 grenades that will be lobbed in an arch based on your pitch. It will explode upon impact with a hostile or if it stops bouncing. It's not in any default load-outs so if you want to try it, edit one of your loadouts. Map Transistions Traveling from map to map was a little jarring. It would instantly pop and the camera would be in an awkward position in the world ( usually 0,0,0 ). I've changed this to include a fade from black and small smooth camera animation. Each map has it's own camera location so it shows off the map a little bit. Loadout System The loadout system has been polished a bit more. It now saves your current equipped loadout as well as all of its contents. You can edit as much as you like, but there are only 3 slots. I'm not sure if I'll keep it like this ( being able to edit as much as you wan…
- Update v5005 - 2 November 2019
Loadouts Before this update, you started off with 4(!) guns and had to switch between them with 1-4 or scroll. This obviously was for testing purposes only and therefor has been changed. Now you can only hold 2 weapons at the same time. Which ones depen on your loadout. You will be able to create your own custom loadout where you define which weapon, ability and cosmetics you want to have equipped. At the moment there are 3 pre-defined load-outs to make sure we iron out any basic bugs it might have. Gamepad Support The game works pretty well with mouse and keyboard but translating it to gamepad was a little tricky. This version includes full gamepad support. As soon as the game launcher, you won't need a mouse nor a keyboard. You can navigate all menus with the gamepad and also of course play the actual game. I'm still testing different basic layouts for the buttons but it's getting the…
- Update v4905 - 5 October 2019
Network Optimizations I've reworked a lot of elements of Panzer in order to make it a smoother experience. A lot of the small jitter that could occur before at high-speed, should be reduced by a lot. Picking up items should be responsive as well. Vehicle Rendering Overhaul Before this update, the tank was just that, a tank. This made it hard to let the user select skins or do any kind of customization that was not identical to a 'tank'. In this new version, the whole system of rendering a vehicle is overhauled. Now it's possible to drive as any kind of vehicle or object ( how about a fez with a turret? ). This new system also makes it much easier to let folks mod the game potentially. PVE Seeing as I'm developing Panzer Arena mostly alone, I won't have the resource to do a ton of marketing and thus get millions of players in. Therefor perhaps it's good to have a PvE mode that you can pl…
- Update v4843 - 25 September 2019
Spring Clean-Up A lot of systems in panzer were put together very quickly and in Blueprints. This was great for prototyping but now it's time to solidify a lot of the design of Panzer. This update was a big overhaul of a lot of the low-level systems. This means that from now on, adding new abilities, new maps, new tanks, and new modes will be a lot easier. This also means that Panzer won't change a whole ton in terms of core-gameplay. Optimizations Before this update, an average view would render 4 million triangles. Now, this number has been brought down to 500k, so 8x improvement. Most of this was implementing reasonable limits for foliage rendering and implementing LODs for most of the meshes. Visuals This update has removed a ton of place-holder visuals and includes a bunch of new ones instead. Not everything has been replaced but it's slowly getting there. This includes new camera…
- Update v4782 - 12 September 2019
New Weapon This week I've added a new weapon: the burst rifle. As the name implies it fires in bursts of 3. Damage is ~20 per round and there is damage falloff based on distance. It does not care about armor thickness. New Effects I've been preparing for skins(!) and in order to do that, I have to re-do some of the existing systems to be modular. The first one of these systems is the effects, so you will notice shell ejects, better tracer rounds, and a brand new boost trail. Don't worry if you don't like this particular trail, you'll be able to select many different ones eventually! Ping Location You can now ping locations to team-mates by pressing middle mouse button ( you can rebind this to any other key of course ) Playtest Today! The next play-test is today at 20:00 CEST. countdown-timer Changes AP damage tweaks, total damage reduced to 80 from 100 (but with critical hit its 20% mor…
- Update v4747 - 5 September 2019
Name Change Panzer has been renamed to Panzer Arena. Having a single (german) word is really hard in terms of discoverability. On top of that, having two words will be easier to make our own. Out of all the possible options for the second term, Arena is fitting the game the best. The game can be most compared to the old school arena shooters everyone is familiar with. Shotguns! I've finally started adding new weapons and the first one is the shotgun! It's been surprisingly fun, in fact, it's so much fun that it might become the MAIN gun in Panzer. The community has been discussing it and some very good ideas came forward. Look forward to some fun changes soon ( and new weapons! ) Static Item Dispensers I've started working on adding static item dispensers to the map. Static because this way you can start to learn the map and plan your route. There are two items that you can pick-up at t…
- Update v4706 - 29 August 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2Fbd47ceef05aaf1fc7cf5533077f00aa60518e6ca.png Back to play-testing Now that I'm back from my trip we can continue the play-test sessions. The focus will be on polishing up existing features and testing all the different modes we've talked about on Discord. New Mode: Team Elimination Another basic mode to experiment with. This is the first version, eventually, we'll do some weird experiments on top of this. As it stands the rules are simple: 2v2 only atm. Two teams that play 10 rounds. Team with most points wins Round ends when one team fully eliminates the other or if the time runs out Round duration is 120s, if this runs out, the round is a draw and no one gets any points Spawns are normal, not randmized. The rule-set is a little flawed, but it's only iteration 1, so stay tuned for updates! Changes Dedicated ser…
- Update v4652 - 8 August 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2F07df71a68456f8b12f174c1a180ad6d7ec3f5132.png New weapon system Previously the weapon system was hard-coded to be the one gun we had. I've rewritten the whole system from the ground-up and it is completely modular. This lets us have not only different visually looking guns, but also gameplay-wise. We can go as crazy as we want. Stay tuned for some interesting new guns to be introduced! Visual Clarity Panzer is a fast game so it's important that there is no visual clutter during combat. This update includes a ton of features to help identify friends from foes and to know what to do. Enemies are always displayed in red and friendlies are always blue. This works when spectating someone and when watching back replays. Changelist BugFix: When you did a ton of damage but died, and someone else got the kill, you sometim…
- Update v4625 - 4 August 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2Fb53bf5b6e0b772baa932fe997ffe5d64e82cb435.png Playtest Today In about 3h30m of posting this announcement, we will have another short play-test. If you want to participate PM me for a key on discord. We'll try to also host a play-test for our friends across the pond, but this will be several hours later. Keep an eye on our discord for more information. Experimental Changes This build will include a ton of experimental changes to make sure we're not building on a rotten foundation. Every now and then we have to re-evaluate everything to make sure fun is the number one priority. Game Flow A huge focus was to remove some of the chaos that came from bad design. Panzer is fast and full of action, this we need to keep. But it needs to be clear what is happening, otherwise, Panzer will be the wrong type of chaotic. Kill…
- Update - 1 August 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2F9b4e3d696e6264515ec88dd1451ff865c89959a0.png Playtest August 1st, 2019 We've got a ton of new players wanting to join the play-test today. I'll post the latest build ~10 minutes before it starts. PM me through Discord for a key. I will be picking folks randomly. Server Optimizations We've been testing dedicated servers for over a week now and kept them running longer than 24h with few (now fixed) issues. Damage System We now keep track of damage in more detail, so we have domination message, kill-streaks, revenge, etc. New maps There are 4 available maps, Zone and Tunnel in two flavors (FFA and TDM) Changelist Added domination: After killing the same enemy a few time you will dominate that person. Added kill-streaks: After making a few kills in a row, you'll get the special kill-streak message ( double-kill, tri…
- Update v4555 - 28 July 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2Fd42ca5bd35013cf11c775438d3bcaa8c12a77984.png Dedicated Server Support Player hosted servers work surprisingly well in Panzer ( even in regards to strict nat etc!), but it's good to have dedicated server support. I PROBABLY will supply the dedicated server files to anyone who wants to host ( unless some technical or financial issue gets in the way ofc ) New Mode: TDM Team Deathmatch is a classic game-mode that we can't do without so it's now back with the new game-mode framework. It's mostly identical to FFA excep...it's with teams. New Map: TDM_Tunnel The good old 'Tunnel' map has been repurposed for TDM. Lighting is changed to be a little less harsh but other than that it's identical. Playtest This build will go live right before the playtest today at 18:00 GMT. Ask for a key on the Panzer Discord ( https://dis…
- Update v4509 - 23 July 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2F3a28c00df83b7b8efb7bf51ca09760a7fcbedcf6.png Playtest The playtest yesterday went great, it was cool to see 16 tanks doing back-flips. We found a ton of bugs, most of which should be fixed now. The next play-test will be similar but focused on TDM instead of FFA. I will make sure to announce the date well in advance so more players can join. Join the Panzer discord and ask for a key if you want to join the play-test! Patchnotes: Pick-up prompts improved. They now show the ability icon and name and what button to press. Added a fade to/from black during re-spawning. This little bit of polish helps make it clear when you're respawning. Fixed FFA bug that would cause the mode to spawn some players in teams! Chat won't be faded during the respawn fade. FOV during aim-down-sight is now 75% instead of 70% ( remember:…
- Panzer Update: Playtests! - 21 July 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F35451233%2Fb65c1cff7a429411c91a8cf6b845fea27cce4a59.png Playtests! For the past months, we've been play-testing Panzer weekly ( some folks almost daily! ) and it helped us gather a ton of useful information. The new round of playtests will start soon. Wishlist Panzer and ask for a key on our Discord to get started :) New Mode: FFA Free for all is a classic and a great mode to test the core concepts of Panzer in. For a long time, it was neglected but we think going forward it's a good idea to always have a functioning Free for All mode available. New Map: The Zone To start off FFA, we're going to be repurposing the 'The Zone' map to be compatible with Free for All. There are way more spawn points than usual and we've also placed some ability pick-ups where usually the team spawns are, near the dams. Video: Panzer Basics We'…
