yosh56

Well we've been fairly silent in terms of anything actually official, but a lot has been going on behind the scenes! We at Totem Arts figured having out last update back in APRIL made us appear a bit too enigmatic, if not completely dead. So, we've decided on posting at least an update for our small, yet loyal fan-base to let 'em all know just what's planned for our beautiful little slice of virtual battlefield. Perhaps we'll even do this more often! Much of this has also been posted over on the #news channel over at our Discord. And do remember these are not necessarily official patch notes! Things can still change! These are just the highlights 64-Bit Support Yes, FINALLY. Thanks to our newly appointed resident UE3 Jesus ( @nn- ), both clients and servers, should be able to have more or less full functionality with the 64-bit client. As for the sound-bug, that may remain for some individuals. Aircraft Crashing and Vehicle Explosions Through the combined effort of myself and half of the reason this game even exists at all, @Havoc89, aircraft no longer merely poof away in mid-air, and rather burn and tumble to the ground! Ground vehicles have also been given several more appropriate particle effects, as opposed to just exploding into clouds of dust! Our Brand New Scoreboards @taishō and @owhenky have been hard at work cleaning up and rearranging UI elements. Most notably, the in-game/End-game scoreboards have been re-done to glorious effect! Radio Spam Concatenation Even with word highlighting, the mass of messages that can flood the HUD's chat can become outright daunting to parse through. While not a complete panacea for the poison, we've begun work on some methods of concatenating mass duplicate message spam. This is in the infantile stages, and will likely look different in the coming update, or down the line, but the point of it is merely to still get the message across without making the chat nigh-illegible. CnC-Sunrise This was always a fairly basic map, and remains as such, however it had many obvious visual and technical flaws. Thankfully, with some work from our friendly TA mappers, Sunrise has been given both a new coat of paint, and multiple bug fixes to bring it up to more playable standards. Id say that's all for now, and I'd be correct. However, you can likely expect something very substantial in early September. I'd sign off with the whole 'battlefield commander' thing, but that's @[NE]Fobby[GEN] 's schtick.

Obviously these are the 2 weapons that get the most eyes batted at them nowadays with the fact that they're the only ones that operate 100% like they did in OldRen, and not fitting in at all. There was a lot of talking about it, and with patch season coming up I think it's time to finally just up and outright poll which method of nerfing everyone preferred of the two that got the most suggestions. Both are 'fairly' easy to incorporate, and of course they'll probably get some sort of counter-buff to be anti-vehicle. Will go with whatever it is on Sunday.

Try to reset the game on the launcher in the settings menu on the launcher. Generally, if it isnt starting then it's a permissions issue on the folder.

@Goku I'ma just leave it alone. Otherwise I may expose things about people that need not be considered part of their current character. Either way viva la still being alive after 4 years of being told we were gonna die.

Yes, and no. As someone who was actively part of TMX, I can say that there was legitimate toxicity and hatred propagated between the two... that somehow had a positive and negative effect. Like back then, some TMX actively REFUSED to play on EKT servers unless they were there to troll. Successfully, might I add.

Most of the complaints from beta 1-3 were about the game being TOO CLOSE to OldRen. The only thing capable of being attracted were OldRen players, and many of them came in with the intent of hating on RenX ever since the UT3 release that was more or less mirrored with the exception of some infantry movement. They already had it in their head that they were going to just pick out everything even slightly different, including the graphics, and complain for a game or two before going back to OldRen, and that's fine. I go back on OldRen and see exactly why I left it, and I don't miss any of the people who still play it. I'm not here just to shoot down every point of @IPullHose or @SilentKnight, but most points sound more like 'this is bad in theory' than what actually happens on a practical regular basis. There's very few instances where an entire team can get too far ahead in veterancy. There's already systems in place that make it harder to get veterancy off of players of lower rank. It's also fairly uncommon for a significant amount of heroics to exist before about 45-60 minutes into a game. An hour is enough for marathon for most people, and even then I consistently see games that take 2-3 hours on Lakeside and sometimes Field/Under. It all just depends on the same thing it did in OldRen (coordination and ability to zerg). It's just not nearly as long, drawn out and, frankly boring. Also killing a mammoth tank in general should take more than one person... Heroic mammoths are no exception, and just require you to exploit their weaknesses. I'd agree with you more if this was back in veterancy first came out and it was SUPER easy for one building kill to basically give a team so much VP that it was impossible to catch up. I... honestly prefer 20v20. It's what the game was being balanced for, and 32v32 just throws those numbers off considerably. Granted, it's difficult to convince people to join empty servers, except those few people that join empty servers. The reason nobody wants to admit as to why there were 2 40 player servers filling up back in the day is because we had 2 communities... and the fact that many people from TMX simply refused to play marathon, and would only do AOW actually helped push people to flood into the AOW server. It's about the only time I'd say toxicity helped a lot. Still, not a fan of the 64 player thing The commander mod really has nothing to do with reducing the time of matches. It's just there to try and give everyone a point of contact so it's not a bunch of people just yelling at each other. It's honestly brought out the best in some players from what I've seen, so I'd call it an absolute good. It also has resulted in some of the best team-play/rushes I've seen in game. Not just the retarded masses of one tank type either. Like 14 random infantry and vehicles congregating to buff and push. I honestly like topics like this. I just don't have the time/will to post immediately anymore. That, and I have to watch what I say a lot more since I'm not just another dude yapping on these boards. Now on to the other guy I dunno. I would never refer to CnC Renegade as 'popular'. The only friends I could get into it back in middle school/high school were people who were already into CnC. It was unique, but to the average person it was a pretty bad game compared to something like Battlefield. I'd personally say the opposite. Renegade could have been a great game, but rushed development of multiplayer pretty much created an interactive chatroom with guns. I do remember my fondest memories of Renegade are honestly just the people I talked to, which I wouldn't say was a negative. Hell, I know somebody who got a job out of that, and there's a few people I learned a lot from there. In terms of playing the game completely solo, without talking.... memories aren't that great. I can point out a lot of other reasons Renegade was guaranteed never to be popular. The gameplay itself is extremely boring if you're a lone wolf, especially when playing Marathon. All out war was more tolerable, but Renegade does something that everyone I tried to get into it complained about in one form or another: It just feels like 'nothing is happening. Some people might like being left-click-champions in Artillery while they hang out in a repair circle-jerk shooting a static target, but it is definitely not appealing to the average person. I can wholly agree with that as well. OldRen also has a very strange separation of power. For example, Engineers were one of the most complained about things from new people outside of Renegade when they played RenX back in the first few betas. Engineers were the only unit that could disarm C4/beacons. Engineers were the only unit that could heal and repair units; Engineers were the only unit that could place Proxies, and easy-kill people with C4. That was true in both Renegade's to be honest, though X did have a bigger problem when sprinting was added. It's still very easy to do in OldREn as well though. Let's not forget that Engineers are the only unit that can also solo a building instantly. The moment anyone added drop-weapons in OldRen, there was little to no reason to play anything but an Engineer. Hell, if you were good with the pistol (which was strangely easy since it was virtually hit-scan), you didn't even need a weapon vs. most other infantry. To be honest, almost 100% of my time spent pre-2010 playing OldRen was just as a Hotwire or Technician sneaking into bases. Snipers were another issue in OldRen, as if you just got pretty good at clicking on things when the crosshair turned red, you beat every other infantry unit instantly from any range. Even going back and attempting to play to this day it's very obvious that most infantry classes, other than Engineers, Snipers, and PICs/Ravs, were basically there for novelty value. You were just devaluing yourself by being anything else. About the only possible exception is Gunner. If you didn't mind almost killing yourself in CQC you could really annoy people in the tunnels. This was(still is to an extent) actually the most complained about thing by new people. Infantry combat being strangely balanced against automatic weapons. That's just one example, but there's actually quite a lot that would make this post get entirely too lengthy for its purpose. The point is, Renegade was never appealing to the average gamer. ------- Honestly, you can ignore most of RenX's additions and just play and do just fine. Most of it is in the background enough that new players don't even notice it, nor need to worry about it. When they do, they just ask questions, and honestly curiosity keeps people around since it creates socialization and builds community the community. I would literally stop playing, and I can think a lot of people who would also walk off. I can also think of a lot of people who wouldn't come back either.. Basically sounds like it would be a bad move overall. RenX attracted a different demographic than OldRen, and it's a demographic that, percentage-wise, isn't too keen on playing a game that constantly results in 4 hour games purely out of de-powering most of the players. Also what recoil on tanks? I'll just leave off with saying I completely left CnC: Renegade to play A Path Beyond back in 2007-ish (don't quote me on that year). I always felt like it was the far better iteration of Renegade, and I'm utterly ecstatic that APB has seen a population rise in the last few months. Going back and playing OldRen does less to bring back nostalgia for me.... and more so just makes me ponder how anyone can stand playing it for more than 20 minutes. As for OP: I think there's something to be said about RenX surviving everything it's been through with as few active devs as it has. The game was already beginning to peter out around beta 4-5, yet it's still able to fill a 64 player server daily, and on weekends we push, and often break 100 players.... Most small games do not get to say that after 4 years. I don't even know if it's true that the player base is shrinking, as I've seen quite a few new players.... However, new players don't fill empty servers, so there's a mentality problem that isn't exactly easy to solve there. Hell... I don't even join servers till it's at least 16 players.

Indeed. Most of us just get together and play in smaller games in communities. The only time RenX had actual clans around was probably more toxic than it was helpful.

That would explain why Angry Scientist is so angry..

Post your launch log. You might be getting the bug where it doesn't choose the right video adapter.

Did you write that in yourself, or are you using a certain something that was already lying around in the rocket projectile code? If it's the latter, then that thing's semi-broken in netplay .

Should squad wars really still be pinned over this?

If it deleted any of the DLLs, it likely got quarantined by an anti-virus. That's what happened for me anyway.

Sort of trying to refrain from giving it too much power over things outside of the game folder, but I may look into making it more well-rounded. =( I was an idiot and didn't grab my source files from my desktop before I went on vacation! Was planning on working on this over this 30 day lull

Just a little Tyrantosaurus

Actually being tweaked already, since the Purchase system is old and pretty poorly written (more so that it's just too static). No real release date on it though, so currently mutator are your best bet.

Would @Havoc89 this

Eh, not really. Most offer grenades/sidearms/support functions for classes. To finish people off when the rifle is reloading? Seems like a pretty basic answer, and lends itself to slightly more intuitive infantry combat if when you have at least one extra weapon. Not like everyone needs 5. It's perfectly possible to blur lines slightly without ever making other classes obsolete. These take all of 30 seconds to figure out, and give you something to learn beyond just being a left-click champion. You shouldn't make it a NEED to cycle through weapons constantly, but making a class more varied gives players something to learn how to use, as well as offers at least some form of skill separation and nuances. E.g, in Ren(X) throwing your timed C4 randomly before you die should be reflex, as you just may get a kill with it later. Considering they wouldn't have infinite grenades, and you can make the grenades behave differently, it wouldn't devalue the Grenadier much at all. Err... Not really. Rocket soldiers have lock-on where Gunners don't, and can be used for peaking corners. Gunners have a better sidearm for fighting infantry + higher building kill potential + EMPs which make it feel like a totally different unit. Officers as well have more going for them with a far better weapon and smoke to cover units from base defenses. Snipers are about the only things that are kind of just 'better' versions of each other, and even then 500's reign supreme when sniping on large maps as they're harder to trace. Talking about actual temporary stat boosts in-game. They're a lot more easily noticeable and impactful on gameplay. I dunno.. I still haven't seen a truly well coordinated Phase Tank rush of more than 10. Pretty sure if we had a PUG in APB we could break the game very very easily with its map designs Every experience I remember is just looking at people trying to be spies and very easily picking them out. Also it turns into more waiting around and being a -1 player for your own team, much like people play SBHs in Ren... though at least SBHs have a decent weapon and disrupt the field when used correctly. ------ I actually don't mind chokepoints so long as the fields themselves are open.

Original topic is literally about rebuilding CnC-Mode... less so just Ren(X) or whatnot. Still, if proximity mines weren't the primary method of base defense, there's nothing saying they wouldn't exist at all. WELP, forum ate my original post, sooooooo abbreviated (and slightly aggravated) version here we go. Nobody was saying just not being able to fight tanks is boring. The 'boring' comes inherently from choosing a class and only having one gun that's good at this one thing. Reborn, and APB to a slightly lesser extent, basically created left-click champions for infantry. It adds to the repetitive feeling of playing the heavily restricted classes themselves. Battlefield/Planetside both have options for other classes to at least damage/harass enemy tanks(C4 on Recon/Light classes especially). And even without those, the classes themselves have multiple weapons/gadgets so you're not just this one guy with this one gun walking around left clicking at stuff. You have alternative methods of supporting your allies/killing enemies. In Reborn/APB, they both feel like they're actively trying to punish you for playing certain classes. Most people are actually fairly easily able to grasp having more than one weapon, to be fair. It's the one thing even new players to Ren can figure out in about 5 seconds. C4 explodes, the pistol is last resort. Then it's just a matter figuring out the main weapons. At most, RenX adds in grenades, but most people know what a frag grenade does, and it doesn't take much effort to figure out what an EMP/Smoke grenade does. The biggest learning curves are the game mechanics of CnC-Mode itself. Also, nobody's talking about adding variety for variety's sake. It's variety for the sake that Renegade and co. were never built with much customization in mind. Therefore, what's statically there needs to be varied for the sake of entertainment value. Obviously it should also be balanced/incorporated with regard to game mechanics. About the only classes with little consequences for playing are PICs/Ravs and to a far lesser extent, LCGs. Everyone else has obvious flaws. + C4 is only good if you get close, and most tanks don't just let infantry walk up to them. Also no infantry that isn't Anti-tank/an Engineer can easily deal with mines in a timely manner enough manner to just be a threat to a building after about the 1st 2 minutes of the game. C4 also is pretty easy to just... disarm. + The repair tool is so freakishly inferior to the Repair Gun that it does nothing to really step on Engineers toes, let alone Technicians. Nobody is sustaining building/field repairs with a rep-tool. It's there to be bought as an add on for a character so that you're not just SOL and completely punished for wanting to play something else. + That hasn't been a thing in like 2 years, as it ACTUALLY made it pointless to be pretty much anything but an Engineer and a Carbine. Quite the contrary, since most units still are still MOSTLY good at one thing, they have their purposes, plus a few extra abilities to support their allies/cover their gaps a bit. None really can completely overlap other unit's roles however. About the only units that really start disappearing from the battlefield late game are free infantry. ..... So I'm glad you brought up the Spy and Thief. They're the epitome of 'a unit with a gimmick'. Playing a Spy or Thief loses its entertainment value rapidly, as they're both pretty much one-trick ponies with no real combat effectiveness on top of their extremely niche abilities. At best, they're annoying for the other team. At worst, they're useless, especially spies if the enemy team has semi-observant people. Having more vehicles doesn't really give the game more 'features'. I'm actually glad vandal brought it up. I don't know if he's played APB lately, but I just played it like a week or 2 ago, and I'll say it doesn't 'feel' like it has many features. It just feels like it has 'stuff'. You've got giant ants with AI... but they aren't really being used in a way that adds to the game, aside from making people vote to skip maps. There's sprinting now, which feels funny on W3D, but at least it feels like an addition. Aside from that, the infantry still feel pretty boring and one-trick. Vehicles have... enough alternate fires to feel interesting and be considered feature rich I guess. Other than that, I really didn't get much of a feature rich 'feeling' from anything. Ren-X wears more of its features on the outside, and many impact gameplay enough to not come off as novelties. The addition of buffs/nerfs for vehicles and infantry are obvious enough. Commanders are mostly well received and can have major impacts on the flow of a game as it gives the people who are willing to listen a central point of authority. Infantry are probably the biggest contributors however, to the game 'feeling' more feature rich, as their additions are more support features, I.E EMP/Frag grenades, which are used often, and can have enough of an impact to not feel like useless additions, or that they're completely taking away from the game. Aside from the sudden overpowering nature of Stealth tanks, see Outpost/Eyes and to a lesser extent, Arctic Stronghold. I don't disagree entirely, however Stealth tanks make making fully open maps a terrible idea for Ren/RenX. I won't lie though... I got bored of fighting vehicles, then crawling back to service depots all the way back to base. Weirdly enough, this was originally why I liked APB 'more' than Ren... and now is the total opposite. It's just a lot less annoying to not have to always go back to base, and repairs have enough counters in RenX that they don't feel nearly as annoying as they did in Ren. That, and people use more infantry in RenX, so not everybody and their mother is a Hotwire on the field. I literally stopped playing Renegade completely to play APB......... What? Even without infinite ammo, a Chinook taxiing people onto the plat makes this pretty annoying. More of a map issue at that point. ^ I still ponder if people understand that this is significantly less entertaining after awhile than it sounds. It might be do able, but then you start running into the imbalance of RTS/FPS elements. I'm personally all for focusing on the FPS element first, as it's what 9/10 people on the team are going to have to be doing during the game.

Server Management GUI View File It's been a long time coming, but managing servers has been kind of a pain with sorting through all of the damn config ini files. I wrote a Python script (compiled into an executable) that should sort that out with a simple GUI. I'd call it still in alpha/beta stages now, but as far as I and @Fffreak9999 were able to tell the basic functionality is good to go. What it can do: - Manage maps/crates and the most necessary config options - Create the .bat to start the server (You still) - Save/Load configurations (even after patching) What it can't do (for now): - Scale the window appropriately. - Let you move more than one map at the same time - Be aesthetically pleasing Installation: Just extract all of the files into the 'Renegade X' root folder. Just merge the UDKGame folder in if it asks. Then run UDKHandler.exe and you should be gucci. (I probably should have renamed it by now.. but meh.. Will rename in future versions) Submitter yosh56 Submitted 06/27/2018 Category Tools

That would make too much sense!!

It's been a long time coming, but managing servers has been kind of a pain with sorting through all of the damn config ini files. I wrote a Python script (compiled into an executable) that should sort that out with a simple GUI. I'd call it still in alpha/beta stages now, but as far as I and @Fffreak9999 were able to tell the basic functionality is good to go. What it can do: - Manage maps/crates and the most necessary config options - Create the .bat to start the server (You still) - Save/Load configurations (even after patching) What it can't do (for now): - Scale the window appropriately. - Let you move more than one map at the same time - Be aesthetically pleasing ------------ Where to Download: DOWNLOAD LINK ------------ Installation: Just extract all of the files into the 'Renegade X' root folder. Just merge the UDKGame folder in if it asks. Then run UDKHandler.exe and you should be gucci. (I probably should have renamed it by now.. but meh.. Will rename in future versions) RXServerMan.zip

Point. Infantry combat really did start coming down to who was better at headshots... which came down to snipers dominating a weee bit on Valley. If you sucked at infantry you were really really really not having any fun on that map.

Note on base construction, since it's been brought up twice: It's not limited by coding/scripting. It's more just that large objects being dynamically lit in the UDK are automatically going to be a very large FPS drop. It's why buildings are already kind of just fancy terrain that's baked into the map.

@Mining : Yeah, it's.... an interactive system, but really really really weird. I like it on some account @ ... lol; when's the last time you touched anything less than a 50.cal ? @DirectionalArmour: Iffy. You can still dodge, ala MagRiders, as vehicles are generally faster in RenX than Planetside. That honestly is just kinda... sticking to OldRen. That was the 1st CnC in a nutshell. Nod were the cool people. GDI were the Generic Dudes Incorporated. TS sorta started making them a little bit cooler, and CnC3 made them a lot less boring (without going as off the wall as TS) . Vehicle armour's iffy. Like I said, I don't have much of a problem with how vehicle combat is now, especially on larger maps where you have terrain advantages and such. It's pretty easy to just get drunk one night and come up with ten names for veterancy levels. Pfft.