Darkest greetings Underlord,

Chained away in the darkest corner of our dungeon the code imps, beavering away with their gnarled hands, continue their never-ending task of improving the inner workings of War for the Overworld – all so that you might enjoy the fruits of their labours even more.

Recently, on a rare expedition beyond the confines of the coding chamber, one of these wretched beings encountered a rare artefact – no less than the source code for an integral component of our multiplayer systems! Darting back to the chamber exuberant in his find, this fervent little fellow locked himself away, determined not to see the light of day again until his task was complete.

We’re now proud to say that for the first time in weeks he has re-emerged with a new WFTO build – one that we’re pleased to share with you today via the Public Test Branch. That’s right, we’re reopening the test branch for public exhibition with this new 1.6.2PTB1 build!

 

1.6.2PTB1 – A New Multiplayer

1.6.2PTB1 includes a number of changes intended to dramatically improve the multiplayer experience. We’ve been redeveloping our netcode, which in our tests has shown significant improvements. Now we’re eager to see how that works in real life and to do that we need your help!

Accessing the Public Test Branch

Gaining access to the PTB is almost as easy as snapping your evil fingers. Simply do the following:

• Right click War for the Overworld in your Steam Library
• Select Properties from the drop down menu
• Click the Betas tab
• From the drop down select Publictest
• Wait for the update to download

Finding a Multiplayer Match

What would a multiplayer patch be without multiplayer matches? Head on over to our Discord and join the Matchmaking channel to find other players with whom to go head to head!

Remember you’ll both need to be on the same version of WFTO, so if you’re on the PTB your opponent will need to be as well! Don’t forget if you’re going to host you’ll need to port forward!

Reporting Issues

We’re looking to try and improve the experience for our multiplayer fans as much as possible, so if you run into an issue while playing on the PTB please get in touch with a bug report via User Echo.

Release Notes

Known Issues

• Glacial Doors do not animate for the client
• Unit mood is not visible to the client (all units are always displayed as content)
• Multiplayer chat does not work on macOS
• When you place defences/constructs as the client, it will show the purchase cost multiple times

Multiplayer Improvements

We’ve reworked our netcode to deliver significant improvements to the Multiplayer experience.

• Multiplayer behaviours should be much more consistent with gameplay, for example:
  • Constructs and defences are more reliable
  • Casting Recall on the Worker Rally no longer breaks the Worker Rally
  • Unit actions are now consistent between client and host
• We’ve implemented new systems to combat desyncs by slowing the game down, giving it time to catch up after network issues

• Visual issues have been greatly reduced, for example:
  • Reduced instances of units visually teleporting
  • VFX should be correctly synced to unit location
  • “Ghost” units have been exorcised
  • Possessing a unit should no longer cause unit shields to break for your opponent
  • Unit shields no longer become detached from their unit
  • Workers who are undertaking a task should no longer become lost

Performance Improvements

• Multiplayer code no longer runs in single-player, which yields a small performance boost for all players

Visual Changes

• Improvements to the gold pile highlight
• Significantly improved the Crackpot/Gnarling working animation
• Improved the floor texture for the Empire barracks
• Campaign map highlighting improved
• Made some changes to the lights on the main menu scene to improve contrast between rendered objects and UI objects
• Small changes to the Archive Lectern lights
• Glowing runes are now present on Arcane/Evil Arcane theme door frames
• Fixed a number of significant issues with the Dwarven Core
• Arcane themes now use a new arcane portcullis frame
• Improved Archon emissive map

Levels

• Made some slight visual tweaks to War for the Overworld Level 13

Bug Fixes

Units

• Shambler no longer incorrectly has a wage
• Porkzilla can now correctly deal damage to units and defences once more, praise the bacon!

Visuals

• Fixed highlight on all Archive props
• Evil Arcane theme glowing runes now match what is engraved in the wall
• Necromancers on War for the Overworld Level 8 now correctly use the Necromancer Possession effect
• Fixed team colouring on a number of objects:
  • Sovereign Theme door frame
  • Sovereign Theme connector
  • Sovereign Theme Midas Door
  • Santa Worker
  • Empire and Phaestus theme wall lights
• Kickstarter theme Dungeon Core will now display the correct damage states
• Kasita and Draven Cores on War for the Overworld Level 12 should now animate correctly
• Corrected highlighting on Empire and Phaestus themes
• Texture corrections on War for the Overworld Level 8 water gates
• Fixed Rocky Earth normal map
• Fixed Gold Shrine highlighting
• Overworld Gateway unit shields should now display more reliably
• Snowy Sacred Earth now uses the correct textures, instead of the Snow textures for Sand walls
• Phaestus theme now correctly uses the Underlord props rather than Empire props
• Fixed compression settings for some stray textures
• Fixed the transparency on the Overworld Gateway
• Improved the visuals of the standard theme wall torch
• Minor improvement to the lamps in the Empire Lair

Rooms

• Heightmap data of Empire Slaughterpen and Barracks now matches that of their Underlord counterparts
• Destroyed and claimed Overworld Gateways can no longer be used to dismiss units

Levels

• Improved the effect that is played when Mira is capturing the Kenos on War for the Overworld Level 10, by fixing clipping and misalignment
• Further improvements to the Shifting Bond ritual progress on War for the Overworld Level 5, in an attempt to fix a long standing issue

Multiplayer

• Removed ping column in lobby due to it being unimplemented at this time

UI

• Improved floating emoticon compression quality to prevent pixelation

Miscellaneous

• GameText – Minor grammar corrections
• GameText – Fixed “Claim” Worker task type to correctly display as “Unclaim” when unclaiming enemy tiles
• Removed unused textures

That covers this update for now Underlord, but be sure to check back in the coming weeks as we’re currently working on some exciting improvements on the backend. Specifically we’re moving WFTO to a newer version of Unity and updating our UI middleware. We’ll keep you informed as these projects move along, and you should expect to see these on the PTB in the coming weeks.

 

Cheers,

– Brightrock Games Team

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