Patch 2.0.1 Now Available (And 2.0.2+ Release Notes)

[Noontide]

Darkest greetings Underlord,

As promised in our most dark and sacred oath to you, Patch 2.0.1 has arrived in War for the Overworld, don't be fooled by the name though it's amongst our largest patches ever! Here’s what lurks within:

• Expanded Mighty Script functionality
  
• Skirmish speech for Underlord opponents
  
• Further improvements to Underlord AI
  
• LOTS of balance changes
  
• Hundreds of fixes and other changes

War for the Overworld is also on sale right now as part of the Steam Summer Sale, with up to 75% discount across the base game and DLC. Grab it while the weather’s hot!

Patch 2.0.1 Now Available

Mighty Script Becomes Mightier

Mighty Script has been a hugely ambitious undertaking and has already seen incredible use with hundreds of mappers already getting to grips with the new tools on the Workshop.

We’ve been taking feedback on Mighty Script from the community on what you’d like to see implemented and there’s a handful of really cool features in the new patch as well as some improvements and optimisations to make existing scripts more powerful. Here’s a quick summary:

• 10 New Triggers such as detecting when a spell is cast, a unit imprisoned or when a unit is attacked
  
• 2 New conditions including checking if players have a particular success key from the custom campaign features
  
• 24 New Actions with new AI commands, Dynamic Party configuration, Dialog Boxes, Tile Flashing or unit customisation actions
  
• Parties are now easier to setup and support additional unit configuration such as setting the speed and scale of the unit
  
• Numbers can now be Decimals as well as Integers
  
• Lists can now contain more types of variables and most values can accept input from variables or actions output to lists
  
• Other flow improvements and optimisations
  
• Various fixes

With all of these improvements Mighty Script has undergone quite a few changes but fear not your previous maps should be completely compatible and rest assured now that Patch 2.0.1 is in your hands and Mighty Script even more expansive we’re now looking to get those tutorials to you asap!

Skirmish Smack Chat

We’ve livened up Skirmish audio with speech from ALL the Underlord opponents! They will now taunt you and react to various events as the battle progresses. You’ll hear Oberon gallantly face defeat as his health dwindles; Kasita celebrate her victory by welcoming you into her treasure trove; Korvek proclaim that he is greater than the sum of his parts!

We got all the original actors back to reprise their roles, and added over 400 new lines of speech! This also includes the trio of Underlords introduced in The Under Games – Shale, Lamash, and Volta!

We hope this feature adds an extra layer of character and charm; but if you do want to turn the voices off you can do so from the Sound Options.

AI Advancements

Stefan, our artificial intelligence wizard, made huge renovations to the Underlord AI for Patch 2.0. But he hasn’t stopped there, and has continued to conjure and tinker with the goal of giving you the ultimate challenge. And judging by the feedback from our loyal Foundry tester imps, he may well have succeeded!

AI improvements include:

• More entertaining gameplay, and more challenge for highly-skilled players
  
• The AI will play the Sloth tree in the Veins of Evil much more effectively
  
• Significant increase in the number of Aspects the AI can use and more build order variety per personality
  
• Optimised to work with the 2.0.1 balance changes
  
• Substantial AI performance improvements

Everything Else and Release Notes

The entire game has undergone a substantial balancing pass, along with tweaks to certain modes and levels, and fixes to a number of bugs. All can be garnered from our full release notes.[wftogame.com] Warning, it’s very long!

WFTO & Chrono.gg raise $32,905 for Totalbiscuit’s family

At the start of this month, we outlined our thoughts and feelings in the wake of John “Totalbiscuit” Bain’s tragic passing, and how his work had helped to ensure our success with War for the Overworld. In that same post, we announced our partnership with our friends at Chrono.gg to place War for the Overworld on a 24-hour sale with 100% of our proceeds going to John’s family as a small way of repaying him and honouring his memory.

We’re pleased to announce that the campaign was a huge success and together with Chrono.gg we raised a staggering $32,905 for John’s wife Genna and their son Orion. This amount was so much more than we could ever have dreamed of raising and we can only be thankful for everyone who bought the game in support of this cause.

All funds raised were donated to the John Bain Memorial GoFundMe on the 7th of June contribuuting to the $338,411 raised so far that will go towards ensuring the security of John’s family in these difficult times.

Genna has posted her personal thank you and talked more about the challenges ahead in a recent Reddit post which you can read here.

We’d like to thank all the incredible support offered by the WFTO community in helping us to honour the memory of a man who is hugely responsible for the success of this project.

Introducing our Steam Developer Page

As you may have heard Valve have recently deployed new developer and publisher profile pages for the Steam Store these new pages provide a central location to hear from your favourite developers about their latest games.

We’re pleased to be amongst the first to adopt this new development and we’d like to invite all our fans to drop by and follow us to ensure you get notified as we move into the future of Brightrock Games!

What’s Next?

As we said last time, Patch 2.0.1 is probably going to be the last content update for WFTO. However, we’ll still be listening out for your bug tickets and triaging them accordingly, so please still send them our way.[brightrockgames.userecho.com]

We’re still working on improvements to the Mighty Script Editor as well, and are in the process of locking down the text ready for translation. However, we’ve made the decision to only translate into French, German, and Russian for now, because these are our most active communities; since there is a large amount of text to translate, we feel this will strike a good balance between cost and benefit.

We’re also going to add new banks of speech and sound effects to certain units, to help improve the atmosphere. We’ll of course let you know when all these updates are added to the game.

We hope you enjoy Patch 2.0.1, which is free to download now!

And don’t forget the Steam Summer Sale, with huge discounts to be had across all War for the Overworld products. Bring the heat!

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

Click here to follow us on Steam

Click here to chat about this update on our Discord[discord.gg]
Never miss an update! Sign up to our newsletter![wftogame.com]

[Noontide]

Darkest Greetings Underlord,

It's been only a week week since the release of the surprisingly massive 2.0.1[wftogame.com] patch and the work has continued unabated. As always we've been taking feedback directly from you and have a few smaller adjustments to make alongside a handful of fixes to the issues you've helped us identify. Patch 2.0.2 is the result of this weeks work and should help stabilise the game further in the wake of our last two massive releases.

Beyond the release of this patch we don't have much news to share other than the fact that there's still a few issues we're still interested in tidying up and of course we're always happy to receive feedback or reports straight from you so please keep all your feedback coming via the forums and of course report any issues to us via User Echo![brightrockgames.userecho.com]

Also if you missed our previous post[wftogame.com], you may want to give that a read as it outlines some of the future plans for War for the Overworld. Fear not, even as we begin to shift our team across to working full-time on Project: Aftercare we plan to continue providing some support for WFTO in the coming months.

Now without further a do, read on for the Release Notes!

Patch 2.0.2 "Sufficiently Surveyed Surfaces"

Gameplay / Balance Changes

Units

Augre

• Now slightly less likely to use the Foundry and slightly more likely to use the Garrison

Juggernaut

• Now slightly less likely to use the Foundry and slightly more likely to use the Garrison

Priestess

• Updated needs to match the Cutlist

Spirit Worker (Permanent)

• Movement speed reduced by 10%
  
• Work speed reduced by 25%
  
• These changes do not affect Spirit Workers created by the Spirit Worker potion

Wizard

• Updated needs to match the Witch Doctor

 

Spells

Volcanic Bridge

• Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50

Underlord AI Changes

• Underlord AIs can now make use of the Besiege ritual to attack enemy Dungeons
  
• Sloth focussed AIs will now be able to make use of the Infernal Urn to transform Brimstone into Quartz
  
• The AI can now use Hellfire potions
  
• Added 7 New Build Orders
  
• Adjusted a number of existing Build Orders
  
• The Medium Difficulty AI has received a number of tweaks
  
  • Now has the ability to drop units near rally flags
    
  • The rate at which it can pick up and drop units has been reduced
    
  • The rate at which is is allowed to spend sins has been reduced
    
  • It will now be slightly more aggressive
• The AI will now trigger Sentinels more intelligently
  
• The Master AI is now able to use defence parts to heal existing defences
  
• The AI will now make more intelligent use of Work-A-Lot potions
  
• When using Overcharge the AI will now wait until its Mana is exhausted
• before triggering the ritual
  
• The AI is now able to more accurately predict if it needs to return its forces to defend its Dungeon Core
  
• Further optimised the behaviour of the AI on master difficulty
  
• AIs will now hesitate less whilst attacking and will execute their plans more aggressively if they are confident of victory
  
• Bankrupt AIs now wait longer before selling rooms

Level / Campaign Changes

The Under Games

Underlord Shale

• Beast spawn rate reduced from 666% to 444%
  
• Defence gold & mana cost increased from 150% to 200%

Visual Improvements

• New Animations
  
  • Democorn - Receive Pay
    
  • Baby Democorn - Receive Pay
    
  • Arcane Chunder - Sanctuary work
• Visual Tweaks to the Foundry Floor
  
• Improved the possession view of the Firebreather
  
• Adjusted the viewpoint position of the Behemoth in possession

Localisation & UI

European and Chinese localisations now in game for various text edits that were done for 2.0 and 2.0.1:

• Various user-interface text improvements, including tooltips and campaign map names
  
• Pre-2.0 Skirmish maps have had their creators’ names added to the end of their descriptions
  
• Fixed various old text style issues such as asterisks being used to show sound effects in subtitles
  
• Lord of the Land unit subtitles (for future use in the Mighty Script Editor) have been tweaked to match chosen audio takes
  
• New Mendechaus voice-over (for future use in the Mighty Script Editor) has had unique text keys added for each unique audio take being used

Miscellaneous Improvements

• Debug logs which are generated upon game crashes are now fully GDPR compliant

Bug Fixes

Crashes & Gamebreakers

• Fixed a rare issue that prevented some players from opening the Under Games if they had not completed the War for the Overworld campaign

Units

• Fixed an issue that would cause units to attempt to walk out of prisons and arenas

Defences

• Alchemines should now always load in with their potions after loading a save game

Visual Fixes

• Units are now react to the visual height of shrine floors (such as the siege shrine) and can walk on the surface without clipping

AI Fixes

• Underlord AI's will no longer ignore the last item in their build order
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would not use the Wisdom Juice potion on Vampires
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would issue an attack without removing units from it's Peaceband, meaning sometimes attacks were not correctly planned and did not meet AI expectations
  
• Fixed an issue where Workers were not correctly receiving new tasks and thus would revert to older tasks such as nearby reinforce wall tasks over newer claim tile tasks
  
• Fixed an issue where the Underlord AI would be unable to determine an appropriate attack vector on large maps where the enemy is well fortified and defended

Map Editor - General

• The Empire Theme selector can now correctly select any theme, even if it is locked

Levels / Campaigns

• Fixed an issue where the cutscene which plays after Mandalf is turned to gold in Heart of Gold level 1 could be disrupted if he was mined by workers during the cutscene, preventing the level from ending
  
• Fixed an issue where the VFX on the objective forge on Heart of Gold level 3 would not play correctly
  
• Capturing Pre-Placed rooms in the "Seastead II" skirmish level will now correctly allow units to work in them

Localisation

• Fixed an issue where Chinese fonts were not displaying correctly on OS X

UI

• Fixed an issue on the Scenario Lobby where the mutators button was not accessible if the map could not be finished

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a number of minor issues in the codebase

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

Click here to follow us on Steam

Click here to chat about this update on our Discord[discord.gg]
Never miss an update! Sign up to our newsletter![wftogame.com]

[K84]

Most of the official standalone single-player scenarios have been cut from the game as of 2.0.2. Any particular reason?

[Biervampir [AUT]]

İlk olarak Kasrkin84 tarafından gönderildi:

Most of the official standalone single-player scenarios have been cut from the game as of 2.0.2. Any particular reason?

Aren't supported anymore

[Noontide]

İlk olarak Kasrkin84 tarafından gönderildi:

Most of the official standalone single-player scenarios have been cut from the game as of 2.0.2. Any particular reason?

We included a statement in the Release Notes for Patch 2.0.1:

We’ve taken the decision to remove the custom scenarios that were produced by our voluntary QA testers during the production of 2.0 or before. There are a number of reasons for this but primarily it stems from us wanting a clear division between content that is and is not actively supported by us. What this means is that we will only include scenarios we’re 100% happy with on localisation, features, testing and performance, by limiting this to maps we create ourselves we can ensure that we know ever level inside and out and can provide support appropriately in a way that was not possible with these custom levels.

We should say that this is not a reflection on the quality of these levels as they are all great experiences produced by very talented and dedicated people, it is simply that we wish to maintain complete control over our scenario content. All of these maps are still available on the Workshop with the added benefit that you can download them and subscribe to updates from their creators as well as provide feedback directly to them.

This is a conclusion we should have reached earlier but in the scramble leading up to 2.0’s release we did not properly consider the ramifications of including these maps on our support structure. When it came to this decision we considered other options but ultimately we felt that this would result in unfair restrictions being placed on these talented creators which would no doubt result in them being unable to truly create the maps they wish to create.

We apologise to all the incredible people who helped create these maps and for all the players who have enjoyed them. Please show your support by downloading them direct for the workshop!

• Removed many of the custom scenarios produced by our voluntary QA testers
  
• Added a “Download scenarios” button to the menu that will take players to the relevant workshop

[Cock Goblin]

Nice work on all the changes. The new mightyscript functionality is pretty great! I played around with it a bit this afternoon and like what I see.

[Tamren]

Neat! So what do you guys have planned next after WFTO?

[K84]

Do you have patch notes available for 2.0.3?

[SADevil]

They are available on the official WFTO site[wftogame.com].

[Noontide]

Patch 2.0.3: "Effectively Explored Excavations"

Underlord AI Changes

• Various Build Order tweaks

Audio Changes

• Added Additional Unit VO:
  
  • Wizard
    
  • Inquisitor
• Adjusted VO
  
  • Lord of the Land

Localisation & UI

• Continued localisation work on the Mighty Script features of the Map Editor

Bug Fixes

Crashes & Gamebreakers

• Updated the Coherent GT UI Middleware which may have been the cause of a recurring intermittent crash experienced by some users on Linux
  
  • If you are a linux user that was affected by regular crashes please try this latest version and report back to us if the issue was correctly fixed. Otherwise please contact us directly on our Bug Tracker[brightrockgames.userecho.com]
    
  • If crashes on Linux are still occuring you can find the Linux Stable Build in the betas list on Steam. This is running version 2.0.

Units

• Fixed an issue with Unit Physics which was causing units to overshoot their destinations when not on screen
  
  • This was the root cause for issues where Workers were being propelled into lava and dying, units stuck in walls, units becoming trapped in Prisons and Arenas and possibly affected unit need fulfillment if the player was not watching
• Ember Demons that are defused by the Infernal Urn should no longer explode and deal damage

Constructs

• Losing a Mana Vault whilst at Maximum Mana should no longer cause a reduction in permanently available mana.

Visual Fixes

• Fixed a visual issue with the Augrum Wall

Map Editor - Mighty Script

• Math Operations should now produce the correct outputs for Decimals
  
• Fixed an issue which prevented the “On Templates Spawn” trigger from triggering correctly

Map Editor - UI

• Fixed an issue where world object coordinates would always appear as “23, 3” in the Magic Finder List

Levels / Campaigns

• Fixed an Issue on Level 13 of the War for the Overworld campaign where one of the Emperor’s miscellaneous voice lines wouldn’t play
  
• Fixed an issue where Artefacts dropped upon the “Road” in Level 2 of the Heart of Gold campaign could not be retrieved by workers
  
• Fixed an issue where it was not possible reset The Under Games campaign progress
  
• Fixed an issue where some VO would not play correctly when claiming an Underhill as Volta or Kasita in Level 5 of the Under Games campaign
  
• Fixed a stack overflow that could occur on Level 3 of the Heart of Gold campaign
  
• Fixed a number of issues with the Golden Statues displayed at the end of the Heart of Gold Campaign

Multiplayer

• In-Game chat should once again show up correctly in Multiplayer Matches

UI

• Fixed an issue which may have caused the Skirmish menu to not appear correctly for some users on the GOG installer versions

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

[Cock Goblin]

Just noticed the ability to show what colours/objects can appear in mightyscript (beside the search box). THIS IS VERY HELPFUL! Thanks!!!!!!!!

[Noontide]

Patch 2.0.3f1 Hotfix Notes

Sound Changes

• New Unit VO: Witch Doctor

Miscellaneous Changes

• Added the Heart of Gold and The Under Games title music tracks to the Underlord Edition Downloads

Bug Fixes

• Reverted the upgrade of the Coherent GT Middleware included in Patch 2.0.3, this was causing an issue where the UI would crash on all versions of the game.
  
• Fixed a rare null reference exception
  
• Small fix that should increase the reliability of Possession target highlighting.

Attention Linux Users

Due to ongoing issues with the current version of the game crashing on a number of distros at random intervals for a number of users were are investigating the possibility of deploying a new stable release which includes all the changes up to 2.0.3 but excludes what we believe causes the instability.

We will have more news in the coming days. Keep your eyes to the ground and your ears peeled!

[Hotspur]

Every time I go to play a skirmish and the map loads the game crashes no errors or anything...

[Tamren]

Not sure if this was GT related but prior to this patch I had a couple crashes after campaign games, either the game would CTD while loading the main map, or it would reach the map and hardlock with an unresponsive UI. I'll report back if it happens again.