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Havoc89

Former Developers
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Everything posted by Havoc89

  1. Surrendering has it's place, but it is certainly being overused. I'd recommend some kind of a minimum requirement to address the issue. The issue at it's core is that surrendering is triggered when there are still clear opportunities to come out with a win. So with min requirements I'd suggest something like 50% of the buildings vs the enemy team's still functional buildings. I would also suggest a delay to surrender vote after a building dies. Give it like 5 mins before anyone is allowed to surrender. This way its not just a case of someone insta-triggering the vote after a building is lost. The game has plenty of opportunities to fight back. What kills the team is when moral dips. Usually when one person triggers a surrender vote that doesn't pass, it can have a noticeable impact on team moral when people think to them selves, "Oh well I saw X number of team members voting yes so I guess all of those players are basically not playing anymore." The surrender vote should also have like an alarm sound go off in the final few seconds of the vote so that players that dont notice the vote UI will have some other indication of the vote about to end. It should encourage more team members to vote rather than seeing people surprised after vote is passed and some people asking "what just happened?"
  2. Kane's return speech from TS is cooler though! Maybe I'll return in 2047...
  3. Hey everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful day and staying safe in these weird times. First off I'd like to just say that no this is not some elaborate April Fools joke, I did make sure to delay posting about this until a few days after April Fools. Secondly and most importantly, after 15 years of development; I am officially retiring from Renegade X, Firestorm, and Totem Arts. 🙃 I bet you may have thought I'd be here till the very end, and to be honest so did I. This is a bitter sweet moment for me especially because of how long I've been part of this team, and this community. tl;dr version is: IRL stuff... Story time! Well that was a rather long story time, but I had a few things to say. I hope I've explained why I'm leaving well enough to make it clear. It is entirely to do with me and my own decisions in life and in my own career. I would love to stick around, and I would love to see FS all the way through till the end, but as a wise man once said "The end is the beginning!" I don't want this to be a time of despair but rather a time of celebration. Look how far we've come together, and there is no stopping where we're headed next. I didn't do all of this on my own, no we did all this together. The RenX community, the developers, the testers, the OG Ren community, and the global C&C community! We all can achieve wonders, and will continue to do so with or without me. This doesn't mean I will disappear, no not at all! In fact you'll probably see me ingame a lot more often since I wouldn't the working on RenX after working at my day job. I cannot thank you all enough for everything you've done for me! Everyone from former, present developers/testers, to all of the sub communities that helped us get this far! To all of our fans both die hard and casual whom kept us going all this time! To the global C&C Community that never dies! Thank you to everyone else I've missed (I have a terrible memory sorry). You all helped us build up the Renegade X community and when I reflect back on the past 15 years, I could never have imagined that I'd get this far! And the best part is that we're only going to become bigger and bigger! This is the last time you'll see me post here as a developer! From now on... I'm just a fan! Goodbye everyone! And see you ingame! Regards, - Havoc89
  4. Havoc89

    Happy New Year!

    Hey community! Its over... its finally over! 2020 comes to a close at last! What a strange year it's been but hey, tomorrow is the start of a new year, and a new beginning for us all! Nick Parker has some words to share, we thought we'd relay his message: Well said Mr.Parker... Well said! Happy new year to all!
  5. Tick Tank is also one of those assets that I'm not a huge fan of either. It didn't translate over to 3d as well as it did in the concept art. The OG Tick Tank design was a tad bit bland and we were thinking of making it look more like an evolution of the Light Tank seen in Renegade. That being said, the focus is to have all assets be completed before anything can be redone. Otherwise it will end up being a perpetual redoing of already completed assets, and thus wasting a lot of time. We may or may not end up redoing some assets, but first our goal is to finish up the remaining unfinished assets.
  6. Hey community! As you may know by now, Renegade X has a lot of maps in game 35+ maps for just C&C mode. A lot of them were originally community made maps that were popular and eventually included in the base game. However we all know that only a small handful of the 35+ maps are being played in servers. Some maps will go un-played for days if not weeks. Having 35+ maps also creates a lot of burden for us to maintain and update all of them at any given time, especially when we are a small team. There is a clear issue with maps having an inconsistent set of standards in both gameplay, and visual quality. We would like to address this by removing large number of the more unpopular maps, so that we can instead clearly focus on the maps that aren't necessarily the best, but are also in much better shape than the ones that are clearly bad. This way we'll be able to narrow down and focus on maps that you guys want to see improved to reach the same level of quality as the most popular maps. As this is a pretty touchy subject as map opinions will be mostly subjective. There are clearly some gems, some diamonds in the rough, and some that are better off being removed. You may have noticed that there was a forum poll about picking favourite maps, however that poll isn't enough to really justify taking action in this regards. We've created a new survey that isn't simply tied to a forum poll, but instead allows for much wider exposure. This poll will also help us to more clearly identify maps that are the best, okay, the worse, and the ones you guys think should be improved. So please take 2 minutes of your time to answer the 4 questions in this survey as it will help us a lot to see what the majority of this community wants to see. As well as allow us to focus our efforts on the maps that are the most deserving of being updated. Survey can be found here: https://forms.gle/m3AiUviKgrEbiHHP7 Thank you for your time! - Havoc89
  7. Lets find out which are the most popular maps. List all that you like. Rules are simple: If you like the map then vote for it If you are unsure or dislike then do not vote for it
  8. Hey all! Its already Fall 2020, and yet no Firestorm yet? Well lets just say 2020 has been a rather interesting year for us all, and unfortunately we will have to push back the release to 2021. I know this isn't the news you all wanted to hear, but it's important for us to spend more time to work out the game with a higher degree of polish. We sincerely apologize for this delay. Its not the news anyone wanted to hear, but we would rather take our time and make the game as great as it can be than rushing it to release in Fall of 2020. So when is the new release date in 2021? As of right now we do not have the answer to that as it all depends on how much we can accomplish this year. We will let you know the moment we have a rough idea of when we can complete the game. Where are we with Firestorm? Firestorm is certainly coming along well and we are currently in the alpha stage as we playtest new and different game mechanics with actual players to see what works, what doesn't, where things are close, and how maps should be constructed. Firestorm is in it's fourth iteration in it's game design. The first iteration was a collaboration with the Reborn team back in 2017 as a port. Yeah you heard that correct. This was originally supposed to be a port of Reborn. Over time however we wanted to make it our own. It then evolved into our own version which we briefly described in our first DevTalk referring to it as the "old alpha" which was the second iteration. The second iteration was the full-scale RTS vision with giant maps, nearly infinite base building capabilities, and tonnes of units on screen. Of course this acted as a massive performance hog on the game engine causing critical stability issues. Although there was a lot of potential in the game design it was a little too overwhelming with too many options and not enough emphasis on the FPS element. The third iteration was also mentioned in the first DevTalk as the "This is for Renegade X so why not make it like Renegade X". Essentially a "reskin" of Renegade X with smaller maps and a different selection of units. This is what we initially set our Fall 2020 release date for. However this iteration felt like a cop out to us. It immediately didn't feel genuine or fun enough to play. So we knew that we needed to do something different. This is also partially responsible for causing us to delay the game. This iteration would have been easy for us to set up and would have easily made it possible to reach Fall 2020, but it just didn't end up being fun. So we had to start again. Finally we landed on the fourth and current iteration. In the time since the second iteration we had made new discoveries in optimization and map creation to allow us to be able to create larger maps that remain stable. This allowed us to venture back into the second iteration, however we re-approached the game design from the ground up. This time with a lot more focus and emphasis on the fun-factor as an FPS and less as an RTS. Play testing has really helped us to hone in on both the major issues as well as major wins. Both developers and testers are beginning to more clearly see which way the game needs to go in. Feedback from the testers have been absolutely critical for us to redirect the design to feel more engaging and less of a drag. Lets talk specifics! Base building is back! Unlike our second iteration where buildings could be built almost anywhere, this time it is based around build spots. Players are able to construct a wide number of structures on build slots each with their own benefits and drawbacks. You may or may not have noticed that all of the buildings seen currently are still using the models from Tiberian Sun Reborn, again because the first iteration was indeed a Reborn port. We are in the process of creating our own structures, and this is also the reason why we were seeking 3d artists. Here's a very early WIP and yes there will be a build animations for each structure! We're still looking for more 3D Artists to help us create more assets. So if you are interested then please post in this thread C&C mode + Conquest Firestorm will be very different from the traditional C&C mode you'll find in the original Renegade and Renegade X. This is a mixture of conquest game mode you'll find in many large scale modern military shooters along with a heavily modified version C&C mode. The objective is still to destroy the enemy base. Base building and expansion is done via outposts scattered throughout the map. These outposts hold build spots where you can build forward bases to be able to quickly get to the front lines whilst also building up your base. Much like in the RTS games, you can construct multiple refineries, war factories, barracks/hand of nod, power plants, helipads, base defenses and more! Each one offers different pros and cons. Strategy and planning comes into play. As you push forward, you can change the buildings at previous outposts to hold more infrastructure related structures such as power plants, refineries and build up more defenses to fortify outposts with less activity. All the while placing war factories and barracks at the frontlines to quickly get advanced units to the front lines. Income and power management is also much more vital this time around. Credits and Power are both restricted to the number of power plants and refineries you have constructed. Much like the RTS, there is a max limit on credits you can have directly tied to having refineries. In other words... "Silos needed". Silos and tech building capture points will also be scattered throughout the map that not only increase income but also increase the total credits you can accumulate. Drivable harvesters will also be making an appearance. If your team is low on funds, get yourself a harvester, and increase the rate of income by harvesting Tiberium. Power plants will generate an x amount of power, and every structure and base defense will take up a specific amount of power. Destroying a single power plant can potentially cripple the entire team until a new power plant is constructed. Living on the edge of power supply is dangerous, but does mean you can max out the amount of base defenses. A fundamental problem still exists with snowballing and rounds lasting a very long time. This is where we will be introducing secondary win conditions. Any solution here needs to feel organic and naturally needs to lead to the main objective of wiping out the enemy for a satisfying finish without being base locked for 20 minutes. This will be the next step in our testing to see what would work and what doesn't. Scope & Levels As mentioned earlier, we found ways to optimize levels and have massive maps that hold up in multiplayer. Although we're still very much in the experimental phase with maps, we've been having a lot of fun on our much larger sized maps. Here are three maps we've been doing heavy testing on. From top to bottom, we've been testing maps at various different sizes, and layouts to see what works and what doesn't. This first map was our smallest map, roughly the size of CNC-Outposts. Although visually breathtaking, it's on the side of being a little too small for our needs in Firestorm. Considering Outposts is one of the largest Renegade X maps, this paints the picture of how just different Firestorm will be. The second map is where things become very interesting. It is roughly just over twice the size of Outpost, but offers a wide variety of gameplay. Allowing for amazing ground and air combat, flanking routes for both burrowing and water capable units to surprise the enemy from any direction. Finally an experimental mega-sized map. This map is bigger than the entire island of Blackdawn. Yes that's right. This map has been surprising us quite a bit as we originally were pretty skeptical about it being too big. However when it comes to medium to large player counts, this map shines bright. This map truly captured mixed combat in all its glory. Seeing massive dogfights in the sky, to tank battles at outposts, and infantry combat in tighter narrow flanking routes. These various map size tests have also highlighted the issue of server population. Not all servers will be filled with 64 players. So we're taking steps into designing maps with dynamic scaling. We are going to be designing maps that can be shrunken or expanded to suit either a large, medium, or small set of players. The goal is that every map would be capable of handling both small and full sized populations. Although this system isn't yet set up, the building blocks to achieving it are. With base building and conquest style outpost capture points. This allows us to dynamically expand and contract the map boundaries, and main bases to suit the population in the server. Soundtrack In our recruitment post we mentioned that we were looking for composers to help out. I'm happy to say that we have several composers now working on both original and remake tracks from both Tiberian Sun and Firestorm! Here are a few of the completed tracks! Two remakes, and two originals. Unlike our previous soundtrack, Firestorm's OST is a lot more focused and captures the grittier atmousphere of Tiberian Sun. The Firestorm soundtrack is already more expansive than our first volume. Volume 1 is already an hour and 10 minutes long. You can find Volume 1 on youtube: Conclusion Once again we do sincerely apologize for the delay. We know exactly how much hype there is in our fan base constantly asking us when Firestorm will launch. We hope you are able to forgive us and are understanding of our situation and why we felt we needed to push back the release to next year. We want this game to be successful, and we cannot do that if we rush it. On a different note, we hope you guys enjoyed this massive update. Let us know if you want more updates like this? It's a bit of an old fashioned media update that we used to do long ago. DevTalk will be continuing, and the 3rd episode is taking longer than usual since we're having a hard time with our individual schedules to find time to record it. So hopefully this update fills in for the delay in episode 3. Thank you all for being the coolest community ever! We can't wait to show you more, and we can't wait to get this in your hands. See you guys next time! Havoc89 Totem Arts Lead
  9. Havoc89

    11 Years Strong

    As of today September 30th 2020, Renegade X's first public release way back on the UT3 mod version was released back in 2009. We've come a very very long way since the old days. Thank you all for sticking around and supporting us for over a decade! We cant wait to show you more!
  10. I'm not surprised that Islands is currently the highest voted map. Its always great fun. @Xtractor you know you could have made a poll right? Would be a lot easier to see the stats that way. As for my list, this is a tough one... 1) Islands (Yeah... me too. Never a boring match) 2) Reservoir (Low-key one of the best maps. Very consistently fun to play) 3) Tunnels (Under rated map imo, I have fun every time in this map. Its just too bad it crashes for people a lot) 4) Outposts (One of the few maps that encapsulates the entire sandbox with mixed combat very well) 5) Goldrush (Never know with this one. Can go either way from either sides of the map)
  11. Has this individual expressed any interest?
  12. Hello, Ruling in this case is pretty simple. If the project is in active development, then its a no. If its an older project that isn't actively being worked on, then that is a different story. I know its easy to rip out our assets, however that doesn't mean one should. You have to understand that our assets aren't released or available to the public as source files. These are compiled and compressed assets for the engine that are being extracted out. Yes it is also inevitable that someone will do just that and take things out without asking. It's happened before and will very likely happen again. There were also cases in the past where individuals have "modified" ripped out assets and tried to profit off of those. Granted this is the worse case scenario but it has happened in the past. Things can very quickly spiral out of control as a result. I understand that you do not wish to sell anything however these are assets built specifically for a project that is still very much in development. To see them being used outside of this project before the project's completion can be harmful to the relationship between the project and the authors of said assets as they often end up becoming distrusting of the project and can cause issues with artists leaving or even worse not allowing use of their work. We are certainly humbled that people are inspired by our work and wish to use what we've done and build on top of it. However we ask that you also please respect the hard work by each developer and artist that spend hours if not days into creating every single asset. After we're done with the project that is when we're likely to allow the public to use them. We are wrapping up Renegade X pretty soon so until then we kindly ask that you do not use our assets in other projects. What you chose to do for your own use is up to you, however when it comes to anything visible to the public then that is where we draw the line. I've had my own personal and project specific work stolen on several occasions, and it sucks when that happens. I'd like to protect the work of the many artists and developers that have contributed to this project. I hope you can understand why in this case the answer is no. Regards, Havoc89
  13. Valiant is potentially another track that is a remix of an existing music track. However we've never had any claims for that track in particular. Its based off of "Evenesences Eternal"
  14. My old desktop had an evga gtx 1080ti and a ryzen 7 1800x. I had very very rarely dipped below 60fps with all my settings at the highest possible settings. I used to play in 64 bit all the time without that runtime command.
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