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I've been lately busy trying to optimize the engine we're currently using for Warsow - Qfusion. After months of unsuccessfull attempts at bringing its performance at least on par with our open source rivals, we've collectively decided that the next version of Warsow will use the CRX engine, the same engine that powers Alien Arena. Alien Arena devs "spent countless hours optimizing the engine to bring it to the point to where it’s one of the smoothest, fastest rendering open sourced engines in existence" and we are sure the effect of Warsow joining the CRX family will be mutually positive.
Here's a WIP screenshot of the optimized CRX engine running wdm5.

Three months have passed since 0.6 release, so it's time for a maintainance release already! 0.61 fixes bunch of bugs like lag spike when changing song, WarsowTV disconnects, mysterious crash in wdm1 and few other maps and a lot more. Also lots of small polishing, like removing stuttering/lag when clicking 'join game' in the UI.

Unfortunately this update can't be fully shipped through autoupdate as new client binaries are needed for several of these fixes.

If you have 0.6 installed, you only to need download the update zip (27 MB) and overwrite the files in your current installation.

Enjoy!

[color=#000000;]Check the changelog here![/color]

Watch highskilled Warsow duels from the Xmas Duel Cup - the last Warsow 0.5 competition ever - on Tastyspleen now!

Remember last year, the 19th of December? Falcky and his buddies from the clan ORDER put some cash together and organized one of the highlights in Warsow's online competition in 2010: The Warsow Xmas Duel Cup.

With a total prizepot of around €250 (or ~340 USD), they lured some of the top players to their cup, and forced some highskilled matches (Warsowians excell when there's money on the line, make a note!).

This was also a memorable day because right after the grand final, Jehar announced the imminent release of Warsow 0.6 - making this cup the last ever competition to be played with Warsow 0.5.

Along with the excellent shoutcasting of Tastyspleen's Jehar, this was a truly awesome event. And please don't take my word for it, but confirm this for yourself by checking out the VODs on Tastyspleen.tv (and could we get some embedding, Tastyspleen guys ;)?).

On Thursday the 13th of January at 20:00 CET (19:00 GMT) Quakenet will be hosting a developer chat with us in #warsow. This is your chance to directly ask the Warsow developers any questions relating to the game on both technical and gameplay issues. During the chat we'll be showing off exclusive screen shots of new development, so if you're a Warsow fan it's well worth you attending.

See you there! ;)

See also:
Quakanet.org newspost

Update! devchat over, read the chat log here =)

Here's a little gem from the community, recently posted in our forums. We get fragmovies more often, but I really felt the need to share this one with you guys. Can't hate on the message either! :D

'Play More Warsow' is a clean and to-the-point fragmovie by

Ax1oM, featuring 0.6 graphics and some very nice and highskilled frags. The pace and speed of this movie is just spot-on, very frantic and guaranteed to keep you from being bored for the full 7 minutes and 6 seconds this movie lasts! The style is clean and functional, don't expect any fancy recams here, but a waterfall of frags. The music is not quite my personal taste, but it works remarkably well in this crazy video!

I'm posting the YouTube video below here, but I urge you to download the full 720p videofile, to enjoy this fullscreen in all its splendour. Have a look!



More info:
» Forum thread
» Download 720p video

Merry christmas Warsowians!

First update set for 0.6 is pushed to autoupdate. Fixes:

wca1 & wdm19 vertexlighting
teaminfo overlapping with chat console
bomb&defuse marked data0 as pure
ctf capture area indicators

Cheers!

Yeehaa, the moment you’ve all been waiting for is here! After a combined effort of over 16 months of dedicated developing by our amazing team of dedicated hobbyists, and contributions from our own community, we can now all welcome the next milestone of War§ow: 0.6!

As with every major release, there are many improvements. For the full scoop, check out the changelog. For a quick fix, here’s some of the major improvements:

» Maps! plenty of new maps and most of the old maps restyled and redesigned for improved visuals.
» Models! All weapon models have been retextured for a more unified and modern look.
» New Gametype! Added the class-based 'Capture the Flag: Tactics' gametype.
» Music! A brandnew full soundtrack by jihnsius. 6 in-game songs and 2 new menu soundtracks for you to enjoy while browsing for servers.
» Prettier! Engine updates for improved and more realistic lighting.
» Better performance! Higher framerates due to greatly improved engine performance. Lower latency due to better netcode.













Warsow 0.6 weighs in at a hefty 429mb, that’s almost 200mb of added value for the same extremely low price (of nothing!). We invite the community to give feedback. If want to discuss anything else related to the new release, find bugs, or simply want to vent your opinion, head on over to the forums – feedback is much appreciated!

Now head on over to the Download page immediately to grab your free copy of Warsow 0.6! As usual, it comes in a Windows Installer package, a unified zip package (Linux + Windows) and a Mac OSX package. Additionally, you can grab the sourcecode in the Warsow 0.6 SDK (Software Development Kit), and the Warsow 0.6 Presspack for some high resolution screenshots and multiple vectorized versions of the Warsow logo!

Have fun, and let us know what you think of Warsow 0.6!

Ho-ho-ho! The 19th of December (Sunday, from 3pm CET onwards) will be the day of a major community-organized Warsow Duel Cup, with actual prizemoney! Falcky aka Falconer set this cup up with his buddies from ORDER.

Depending on the amount of players attending, the prizemoney will be up to ~100€ for the 1st place winner. For full details on the cup format and setup, make sure to check out the forum thread!

SIGNUPS ARE NOW OPEN! Head on over to the signup page, login with your Warsow.net account to register. Make sure you'll be able to actually play on December 19th, though! Thanks Falcy & Co. for putting up this cup! I hope it'll be a blast :D.

Just a quick headsup: the next phase of the IndieDB Indie of the Year Awards has been initiated. The people over at IndieDB have compiled a list, based on user's votes, of the 100 most popular Indies. I'm happy to announce Warsow has made it there!

Which means... You get to vote some more! :D We have another 2 weeks (until January 1st, 2011) to vote and promote, so go at it! I think a release before the end of this voting round would not be a terribly bad idea to get some attention. What do you think?!

You might have spotted the big button in the sidebar of this website: it's that time of the year again! The ModDB/IndieDB 'Mod/Indie of the Year Awards 2010'! We have done well in the past (apparently we made it to the 2nd place in 2006! :D), but honestly we haven't been that active in the campaigning/communication lately, and the fact Warsow didn't receive it's next major update yet doesn't help much either...

Anyway! We obviously still have a shot with our vibrant, active and enthousiastic community! So every Warsowian out there: hurry up, register at ModDB or IndieDB and VOTE FOR WARSOW. Note: guestvotes only matter in the case of a tie, so go ahead and register if you haven't got an account already. You have until the 1st of January, 2011 to vote. Totally new is the addition of a press panel who has their say in the Awards too (but how that'll precisely work is unclear to me).

The categories we are eligible to win are: Best Original Art for a Indie Game, Most Innovative Gameplay for a Indie Game, Best Upcoming Indie Game, Best Multiplayer Indie Game, Best Singleplayer Indie Game. I'd put my money on the Best Multiplayer one ;).

Slightly worrying to me is one of the rules which states:

Any game can make the top 50 except for games released in previous years which have not released a significant update in 2010.

But oh well, I suppose Warsow's continuous server-sided updates count as a 'significant update'? :P. Either that or we'd have to release .55 FAST :D. Anyway, enough with the talking. Register or Login, and VOTE. Thanks. Bye.

Go War§oooowwww§§§!!§§!!§§!!