Patch 4.1.0 has just been released and brings new improvements and some bugfixes. As always it will be downloaded and installed automatically here on Steam.

As many of you already noticed Steam trading cards have been online for some time now. And we have added some EMERGENCY 20 themed wallpapers to our website.[world-of-emergency.com]

Thank you for your feedback and your help in finding and identifying issues!

Patchnotes:

Gameplay:

• EMERGENCY 5
  
  • Hamburg flood, one car would sometimes not spawn after repeating the mission
• EMERGENCY 2016
  
  • Supermarket robbery, the robbers now take much longer to escape
• EMERGENCY 20
  
  • Tornado, fixed the collision of a fence
    
  • Train Crash, fixed that one person could be placed inside a train after being freed
    
  • Fixed the door of a taxi in the mass collision event
    
  • Tires will now always be towed with cars in the mass collision event
    
  • Nuclear disaster, evacuation vehicle now always has just 6 seats
• Improved visualization of towing rotated cars
  
• Improved behaviour of the weather when repeating missions
  
• The rescue dog team now no longer can be unresponsive after getting into and out of their car
  
• The supervisor will stop giving tips after the mission has already failed
  
• Command icons in the help screen will now properly switch when switching between units pages
  
• A purely decorative pier in Munich can no longer be used to get units onto the water
  
• Fixed a rare instance where firemen ran to the edge of the map, when ordered to cut open a vehicle

Multiplayer:

• Improved performance for clients

Backstage-videos:

• Added new functions to the video player

Steam:

• Improved synchronization with the WORLD of EMERGENCY accounts for achievements earned on Steam

Modding:

• Expanded Code to make modding for multiplayer easier and added a sample plugin to the SDK
  
• „Custom“ light animations now properly use animation speeds
  
• Animations for vehicles are now moddable (turntable ladder, heavy tow truck, tow truck, motor boat transport)

10 classic missions celebrating our anniversary

For the 20th anniversary of EMERGENCY we prepared a special game: In EMERGENCY 20 you can experience 10 of the best missions out of 20 years of EMERGENCY, in the newest technology. Newcomers and long-term players alike can now prove their skills as incident commanders in the gorgeously re-imagined missions. It’s your task to manage the exciting challenges with your firemen, doctors, policemen, engineers and many units more.

Each of the 10 missions has three levels of difficulty, making sure that even experienceid incident commanders will have their hands full.

Featuring all three campaigns of EMERGENCY 5, EMERGENCY 2016 and EMERGENCY 2017 and their four huge freeplay and multiplayer maps, EMERGENCY 20 contains many hours of tried and true EMERGENCY gameplay.

EMERGENCY 20 is available on Steam now.

New Patch just before the release of EMERGENCY 20

While we are celebrating the anniversary of the EMERGENCY series with the upcoming EMERGENCY 20, we have also developed a new Patch. Patch 4.0.1 contains numerous improvements and bugfixes for EMERGENCY 5, EMERGENCY 2016 and EMERGENCY 2017. The update will be delivered via Steam automatically.

Patchnotes:

Gameplay & GUI

• Fixed buildings in Cologne and Hamburg that were difficult for Firemen to enter
  
• Fixed rare issue with disappearing mouse cursor after curscene in the Oktoberfest event
  
• Improved interactions between diver and boat
  
• Collapsed buildings are now marked on the minimap
  
• Many small improvements to usability to make units more responsive

Graphics

• Wind turbines now turn the right way
  
• Fixed animation issues with the police dog handler
  
• Fixed off-center text in some loading screens

Multiplayer

• Compatibility with EMERGENCY 20 established
  
• Missing persons are now displayed better for clients
  
• Improved lighting of vehicles for clients
  
• Fixed rare issue where no treatment was possible after decontamination
  
• Improved stability of multiplayer server
  
• Fixed overlapping windows in the ending screens

World Builder

• New Feature „Morph Component“: e.g. morphs „Mesh“ into „Tintable Mesh“
  
• New dialogue to set map size when creating an empty map
  
• Asset Browser
  
  • Added searchable tags
    
  • Added search function to the project section
• Navigation Map Generator Tool
  
  • Fixed crash when deleting a navigation-map in the Navigation Map Generator Tool
    
  • Improved usability
• Maps in write-protected projects can now be opened, but the user gets notified
  
• Added warning in the log if there are holes in the ground map
  
• Mesh Assets now support BGR-Colourst
  
• „Save as Prefab“ can now overwrite files not in the EMERGENCY 5 project
  
• Various smaller fixes and improvements

Online Editor

• Improved project management
  
  • Fixed disconnects when importing a project
    
  • It is no longer possible to open maps of currently inactive projects, since this could lead to terrain display problems
    
  • When opening maps in write-protected projects we cut the connection tot he server for security reasons
    
  • When opening write-protected maps or logging into an admin account the menu will appear red and a tool tip has been added
    
  • Fixed issue where sometimes a new project would not show up in the clients project lists until the server was rebooted
• Expanded project management
  
  • Newly created project will be visible only to the user who created it
    
  • Added "OwnerUserLogin", "RestrictedUserAccess", "ReadOnlyUserLogins" and "ReadWriteUserLogins" to manage project access for users
• New map dialogue
  
  • You can now create a new map based on the copy of an existing one in the online editor
    
  • Added information to the dialogue when cloning a map
• Improvements to asset management
  
  • Asset modification dates internally saved in UTC will now be displayed correctly in local time
    
  • Map assets can now be renamed by administrators
    
  • Terrain assets are now handled by the online editor server
    
  • Terrain source assets are now compressed
    
  • Improved GUI when deleting assets

Modding

• „getLinks()“-problem solved
  
• Patchable Mods: Mods can now be overwritten with newer versions
  

Various Bugfixes and improvements to the editor

While we are working on our anniversary EMERGENCY 20 years edition, we are also making a new update for EMERGENCY 5, 2016 and 2017. Besides some bugfixes for the campaigns we are also working on improvements for multiplayer.

For modders we are working on many improvements to the Editor and Online Editor.

As always we will be releasing the complete Patch Notes as soon as the Patch is available for download.

Thank you to anyone who helped us by giving all kinds of feedback!

10 missions from 20 years of EMERGENCY with the newest technology

In July 2018 it will be 20 years since the first release of EMERGENCY: Fighters for Life. We will be celebrating this anniversary with a special new game: EMERGENCY 20! EMERGENCY 20 will be available as the boxed version on October 27th 2017, the steam version will release on the 31st. For EMERGENCY 20 we have remade 10 of the most exciting and difficult missions out of all the installments of the EMERGENCY-series with the latest technology and re-invigorated the gameplay. The cherry on top: EMERGENCY-creator Ralph Stock offers insights into the development of the classic missions and the history and design of EMERGENCY in a videoclip for each of the 10 missions.

In every mission you can choose between three difficulty settings. Only those who can keep calm in chaotic situations will be able to master these missions on the highest difficulty!

EMERGENCY 20 will be available for Windows PCs on DVD and on Steam.

General


Gameplay

• Removed fixed sequence of events when starting freeplay or multiplay for the first time on a map
• The freeplay/multiplay events newly introduced in update 3.0.1 now appear more often
• Sirens now get played longer than only a few seconds
• The markers below helicopters are not blocking movement and lading commands any more

Bug fixes

• In freeplay it was possible to get a mission level higher than 4, which was not intended
• Firefighters got stuck after pulling an injured criminal
• Fire bars above oil patches in mission "Flood" were not visible
• The "Avalanche" mission could get stuck when treating and transporting buried victims without rescuing them first with the helicopter
• The freeplay event "Dirty Bomb" could fail due to time out even though all criminals got arrested already
• In some cases, the turntable ladder vehicle could not reach victims to be rescued
• In Hamburg, civilists and units could get stuck near the water
• The police helicopter does not stutter any more when chasing a criminal
• After the "Hostage" event, sometimes the house disappeared
• Removed the audio effect hinting at a vehicle not being able to find its way, which was played too often
• The achievement for mission "Reactor Disaster" is now easier to get
• Some of the new multiplay events could not be solved by a client alone

GUI

• The information message on a gained achievement did not disappear correctly in some cases
• The modification window could not handle 7 or more mods visible at the same time and crashed
• In the main menu, an information message was added when the game has to perform content consistence check for multiplay
• Furthermore, a message is now shown during savegame synchronization with online accounts
• Savegame contents is now explained in the save menu for savegames, to avoid confusion (only progress inside the campaign gets saved)
• Some player unit help screens got reworked
• Various minor bug fixes in user interface

Miscellaneous

• Account login with e-mail address instead of login name could lead to game progress not being saved correctly
• Camera view can now be rotated by pressing the middle mouse button as well
• Various minor usability improvements

Graphics

• Some player vehicles were colored wrong when using a different language than English or German
• In mission "Gang War", the screen could stay dark for some time after the intro
• Some adaptations for the historical firefighters
• Fixed appearance of firefighter's hoses in multiplay
• Fixed short framerate drop due to too many particles getting visible
• Smoother camera transition in tutorial

Steam

• Fixed a bug that achievements did not appear in Steam
• Removed achievements in Steam that do not appear in the game

EMERGENCY 2017 content


Changes

• Mission "Crushing the terror cell" will now fail if too many units (3 of them) get injured before the building breakdown
• Mission "Attack in the heart of Berlin" does not fail as quickly when people get contaminated

Bug fixes

• Mission "Crushing the terror cell": Some injureds could only get treated after moving them once using the rescue helicopter
• Mission "Crushing the terror cell": Treatment of some terrorists did not work because of a missing icon
• Mission "Attack in the heart of Berlin": In some cases, there was a person left to be cut out of a car which could not be found
• Mission "Attack in the heart of Berlin": A burning object could get listed in the objectives that could not be found
• Mission "Attack in the heart of Berlin": Rarely, injureds were not correctly recognized as fully treated
• Medieval mission: Gardists and fanatics could get stuck near the harbor

Miscellaneous

• Added an information window hinting at new features in EMERGENCY 2017 and where to find them (one click inside will permanently minimize it)

New content

• New freeplay and multiplay events:
• Storm front over the city
• Blackout
• Manhunt
• Explosion at rock concert
• Additional new freeplay event:
• Train crash
• Added unit overview window which can be opened by clicking on a new button inside the minimap or by pressing 'O'

Additional improvements and fixes

• General
• Full multiplay and modding compatibility between EMERGENCY 5, 2016 and 2017
• Many stability improvements
• Additional performance optimizations
• Fixed a problem with savegames containing non-ASCII characters or only a single character
• Connected all achievements to Steam
• Graphics
• Regarding black screen reports from users - thanks for your feedback, we were able to identify two problems:
• Graphics cards below minimum requirements: Intel HD 4000 graphics cards generally cause a black display inside the main game - this is the only Intel card known to have this problem
• Fixed: Black screen inside the launcher already when using an installation path with non-ASCII characters
• Fixed flickering supervisor which could happen in sore rare situations
• Highlighting of recommended graphics setting for your computer in graphics settings menu
• Additional map polishing regarding slightly misplaced objects
• Visual polishing
• Fixed light editing of some cars which previously disabled e.g. headlight emissive map while the dynamic light was still active
• DLK vehicle has now blue lights which rotate correctly together with the ladder
• Fixed several visual glitches
• In case the used graphics cards doesn't support DirectX 11, there's now a more detailed error description so you can more easily figure out what's the cause of the problem
• Effects
• Improvements for the depth-of-field effect, it's less noisy now
• Improved bloom effect which previously could look odd in certain lighting & weather combinations
• Ultra quality graphics: The street markers on wet streets are no longer oddly dark
• Low quality graphics: Damaged or destroyed windows are now black so one can no longer see through the buildings
• The selection marker below player's personnel now rotate slightly as it did in EMERGENCY 4
• Dead persons now have a special pose so one can identify them faster
• Persons diagnosed as deceased are marked with an icon now
• Smoother movement of some effects, e.g. throwable weapons
• Units
• Faster animation of firefighters getting equipment from rescue vehicle
• Faster animation of crane vehicle
• Intensive care transport vehicle can now be used in freeplay and multiplay for EMERGENCY 2016 (and 2017) players
• Rescue dog: Faster feedback if no victim can be found
• SWAT helicopter can now be sent to hover (using right-click), land or rope down the SWAT team (using buttons)
• Helicopters: Fixed glitches when issuing an exit command for starting/landing helicopters
• SWAT drone: issuing the search command again while already searching enforces searching another target, if there is one
• Firefighter plane: Message when ready again is now a normal message, no supervisor
• Campaigns
• Some changes to the EMERGENCY 5 Avalanche mission so that finding and rescuing all victims works better
• When starting the tutorial inside the EMERGENCY 2016 campaign, it could happen that the game didn't continue correctly after finishing the tutorial
• Events
• Gangster behavior improvements for some police events
• Fix for quickly escaping supermarket robbers
• Fixed several bugs leading to events getting stuck or failing too early
• Automatic cleanup of failed freeplay events
• Gameplay
• Fixed issues with cars temporily standing around on streets
• Added a hint when units can't reach their target position
• Smoother braking of vehicles at traffic lights or obstacles
• Smoother following of moving targets, e.g. policemen chasing gangsters
• Injured player units and damaged vehicles are not selectable any more, especially for multi-selection
• Freeplay
• How many events can be active at the same time is now controlled by the current event level, which is shown in the information bar at the top
• Improvements to event appearance probabilities
• Multiplay
• Multiplay communication uses a proxy server now so no port forwarding is needed any more
• Additional IPv6 support
• Added direct connection mode so clients can connect to a host by entering the host IP address
• Fixed disconnects caused by certain gameplay situations
• Fix for several visual glitches on client side
• Fix for a background music issue
• Better multiplay compatibility of events and units
• GUI
• Added more buttons to the launcher
• Open your user data folder (containing your savegames, settings, mods, log files, etc.)
• Reach our support more easily
• Unified hotkeys for unit commands
• Jumping to an event is now also possible by clicking into the objectives list
• Showing both event time and game time of day where it makes sense
• Moved drone screen windows to have enough space for the unit overview window
• Camera zoom does not change any more when jumping to an event
• Fix for the credits display in EMERGENCY 5 campaign which did not always get updated correctly
• Usability improvements
• Inside the minimap, the path of the currently selected unit is now shown in singleplay modes
• Added more tooltips
• Double click support for loading savegames and overwrite security question for saving
• Clearer checked icon for checkboxes
• Various more minor GUI tweaks
• Audio
• Fixed that several audio effects were played too loud after an building evacuated audio effect had been played
• Smoother audio fade in/out for ambient sound
• World Builder / Modding
• Fixed and extended navigation map tool visualizations
• Asset browser asset context menu tag editing ease-of-use actions added
• Added batch processes for converting skeletons between the two most widely used coordinate systems
• Added pre-defined collision types to simplify collision editing
• When importing OGRE meshes, we now only output errors when there's just a single and empty texture unit
• Particle assets now also support hot-reloading inside the editor, reimport a particles effect to see the new asset at once
• Fixed situations where an online editor client deleted some local game files not managed by the online system
• Fixed various situations with linked objects inside the online editor which could lead to transform changes not been saved correctly
• Fixed a problem of the local prefab file cache not being updated correctly in certain situations after having changed the editing of a prefab asset
• Added more API exports for plugin modders (e.g. command modes, reserve logics)

• Gameplay

• When playing with a WoE account: Fixed save game problems with the new cloud save game feature which was introduced version 2.0.1
  
• Persons following a policeman using a megaphone now stop following when the policeman is entering a car
  
• Fixed failing jailbreak event when all gangsters got arrested
  
• Fixed instantly failing forest fire events with injured persons
  
• Increased rescue dog search radius
  
• In case a policeman gets wounded while arresting a prisoner, the prisoner is free again and will try to flee
  
• Inside the EMERGENCY 5 Hamburg large scale operation "Flood",
  rescued persons could end up below a pier

• Input

• Since version 2.0.1, the tab key also moves the camera to the selected unit. We received feedback from players liking the old behaviour better. So we made the following extension: Using ^ key (the one above tab) for jump to next unit without camera jump now, key N with the same function, while TAB still has the camera jump.
  
• AI
  
• Fixed several reported collision issues inside the Hamburg and Cologne map

• Graphics

• Fixed buried and injured persons standing in T-Pose
  
• Fixed a minor path mesh editing issue at the train station inside the Munich map

• Multiplayer

• Fixed random client freezes
  
• Fixed the issue that only the host was able to break open doors of burning houses with a firefighter equipped with an axe

• Stability

• There was an issue with Unicode symbols inside the user directory or installation directory name
  
• Fixed various crashes based on crash dumps we received

• Modding

• In order to avoid mod version compatibility problems in the future, active mods are automatically disabled when using a new game version. Re-enable them inside the modifications window.
  
• Fixed a bug that did not allow modded units to have custom internal names
  Added special order info unit tags "CanTransportInjureds" and "CanTransportGangsters" to allow for modded injured transporters and gangster transporters