The short version: this is the one-year mark, and our first release is basically done! We're just going to hold on to it for a bit more polish.
The long version:
This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of War in Heaven development, and development on Release 1 is essentially complete.
We've done a lot of pretty cool things in this one-year span. None of it would have been possible without the assistance of the SCP coders, who solved bugs, implented new features, and generally behaved like saints. We also owe a lot to the work of other mod teams, especially Diaspora, who implemented awesome new features.
As a sampler of what we've accomplished, some of our features include
- New, voice-acted pilot personas for the UEF
- The latest version of the Fury AI
- New explosion and shockwave effects by Nighteyes
- Overhauled Steve-O weapon effects by Nighteyes
- A new set of briefing icons for the UEF
- Optimized versions of some of Steve-O's ships (including some not yet released to the public) including pilots, LODs, reduced texture count, and hilariously, little people in ejection seats in the debris
- Tweaked piercing effects for many weapons, including warship railguns
- Tons of new music, including original tracks by Daddy_Warhol in the works
- Completely overhauled tables for all the UEF ships and their tactical paradigm, as well as new GTVA vessels
- Subspace missile strikes
- SECRET BUSINESS
Obviously you'll also get your hands on a large number of brand new ships and weapons for both the GTVA and UEF, some of which are quite tactically different from normal FreeSpace.
And of course there's the meat of the mod: a complete campaign, about as long as Age of Aquarius in terms of gameplay, covering the first half of our story arc (consider it Episode 1 of War in Heaven). This campaign was FREDded from the ground up to use all of BP's new features like the Fury AI.
The campaign has been beta tested and is effectively complete. We are nearly ready to release, but we are going to perform some polish, optimization, and writing tune-ups for an undisclosed period of time. Expect to wait a few months or more while we get everything shipshape. But rest assured, we're in the home stretch.
Tester reaction has been very positive so far. With a couple other awesome campaigns in the beta phase (Vassago's Dirge, I'm looking at you), there are good things on the horizon.
I might update this one-year anniversary thread with some behind the scenes stuff if people are interested. Any questions?
