56 replies to this topic

[R3ven]

We have reached a point now where we have a playable product and need community feedback for us to continue so we are creating a New Year open beta, the download will be available on New Years Day. This is NOT the full mod, it is NOT bug free and is NOT perfectly balanced, though we've worked it to an acceptable standard. That is why we need YOU to help us by arranging and playing online matches and posting your thoughts and replays on our forums!

What this mod WILL NOT HAVE
- Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, Green Earth and Black Hole armies.
- Air units, naval units, silos, pipes, the missiles ground unit, the Neotank and any AWDS units and structures.
- CO's and associated powers and stats.
- Custom maps but we have adapted Temple Prime (2) and Pool Party (4)
- Music and custom voices.
- Destruction animations.
- Custom menus.
- Custom infantry, mech and vehicle pilot art (though we are using RA3 infantry models for now, the units are functional)
- Terrain effects and bonuses.
- Working AI. Playing a match with any level of AI will cause the game to crash.

Why are these not included?
For a number of reasons, primarily it's because we want to balance the mod in layers starting with the basic land units without CO's or terrain getting in the way. Once we're happy we've balanced them, we can go on with introducing terrain, CO's, air and naval units and other game changing factors. The lack of destruction animations and fully finished UI is down to the fact that we wanted to get this beta out for New Year with all the important things that are needed.

What this mod WILL HAVE
- Playable Orange Star land forces.
- Working game play mechanics for the standard game mode inducing cities, bases, HQs, property capturing and fog of war toggle.
- Relatively balanced units (from internal testing)
- 2 working skirmish maps, Temple Prime (2) and Pool Party (4) all adapted for Frontline game play.
- Custom loading screen.
- Unit/building descriptions, icons and portraits.
- Unit decals and new team colours.

Please leave feedback here including bug reports, balance concerns, over used and underused units and general replays here!

We advise you arrange matches via this forum thread or via our steam group. To keep order and make matchmaking much easier, we suggest that everyone should use casual 16 for Frontline matches!

Installing Frontline:
To install the mod, drag the "Frontline" folder into the "Mods" folder found in "C:\Users\ USERNAME \Documents(or Documents and Settings)\Red Alert 3\Mods", if the "Mods" folder does not exist, create it.

Launching Frontline:
To launch the Frontline, open the Red Alert 3 Control Center(to get to the Control Center, make a shortcut to RA3.EXE and add the -ui parameter), select "Game Browser" then open the "Mods" tab, select Frontline and press "Launch Game".

In the event of the skirmish screen not allowing you to select a map, army or team colour, delete the "skirmish.ini" file from "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Red Alert 3\Profiles\PROFILE NAME" then relaunch the mod, this should fix the problem, though we advise that you create a profile specifically for AW: Frontline use to prevent this from reoccurring!

To finish off I'd like to stress how important it is that you give us feedback while our fanbase is still small so we can improve Frontline and get an even larger community!

See you on the battlefield!

Download Here

[R3ven]

Bump.

It's been a while since we updated, but we've been hard at work on the Orange Star Navy, we have 3 out of the 4 ships done.





A Word on the Lander

Unfortunately in Red Alert 3, the lander will either need to be removed or made amphibious. We have two options:

1) Remove the lander but allow Transport Copters to carry vehicles. Doing so will allow us to have infantry swim through rivers.

2) Keep the lander but change it aesthetically to fit it's amhibious role. It will move slowly on land so it won't be as simple as hiding in the lander while you rush past the frontline. Doing so means we will need to find an alternate use for rivers.

What are your thoughts? Which is more important, rivers or landers? You decide.

[Destiny]

Maybe make the Lander when it goes onland, move extremely slowly? Like, very very very slow?

Otherwise I like the ships !

Edited by Destiny, 12 February 2011 - 11:05.

[n5p29]

I got a question.

IIRC unlike ZH, RA3 have two different terrain types of water: WATER and DEEP_WATER (or something like that).
how about making the land unit can move on the WATER terrain but not DEEP_WATER? then naval units only can move on DEEP_WATER, but Lander still can move in both WATER and DEEP_WATER. is this possible?

[R3ven]

I've no idea where the engine draws the line between WATER and DEEP_WATER, so I'm no sure.

But we are totally testing that sometime, so hold onto your hats.

Edited by R3ven, 12 February 2011 - 15:49.

[Destiny]

I'm pretty sure WATER is the area between land and a bit out into water before it reaches DEEP_WATER. Generally I think you can classify the space where you cannot get a Shogun Battleship to touch a shore as WATER.


I think river size counts too.



...well...just my theories anyway, I didn't dig into RA3'd files.

[R3ven]

So up to this point all of our media has been ok, but it has constantly been overshadowed by the unsuitable maps of Red Alert 3. Well no longer, we've finally gotten around to making our own maps which compliment the art style of the units, buildings and general feel of Advance Wars!


Small and compact, little island is a perfect holiday resort with two rivial armies on either side of the island with automated minicannons guarding their respective HQ's.




Like in the official titles, little island is designed for quick and small skirmishes with most of the action taking place around the central 4 cities, however in Frontline each player has 2 automated Minicannons that prevent pesky rushing so if by some horrible fluke you do lose the contest in the middle, you have a good minute or so of procrastination to pump out those mechs in ridiculous numbers!



We've also scrapped the RA3 minimaps in favour of ones that mimick the Advance Wars map sprites!


(Left: Skirmish Select & Right: During Battle)

And if these aren't enough for you, well we have another video of gameplay! Note that the rocket trails have been toned down as they may have caused blindness as they were in this video and also minicannons are not functional just yet, when we do get them up and running however, games will become much longer and much more interesting! (Be sure to watch it fullscreen in full 1080p!)



(sorry about the overbloom making the smoke an eyesore, we're working on it)

Music in order of appearance:
Battalion Wars 1: Callsign Eagle
Battalion Wars 2: Incursion
Battalion Wars 2: Wings of the Gunship

Terrain
Although not implemented yet, we do intend on making terrain a key part of Frontline gameplay, however it won't be exactly the same as in Advance Wars.
-Firstly, roads will offer no cover bonus but will allow vehicles to move faster.
-Any units within the area of a forest will have a good defense bonus but will move slightly more slowly. In fog enabled games, units hidden in the fog are protected by the low vision range enemies will have when looking into it.
-Mountains are tricky, unfortunately we cannot prevent vehicles from using them and allowing infantry through so we will need to use a workaround by which vehicles can go through mountains and do get a small cover boost, however they will move incredibly slowly. Infantry meanwhile have a little speed penalty but will have a greater cover bonus.
-Finally on the topic of properties, bases, cities and whatnot. Any friendly units in a radius around said property will slowly repair. This means tackling enemies near their properties will be no easy task.

Don't forget our beta!

We've had a playable land beta up for almost 2 months now and we've had a good 400 downloads from moddb but may I remind people that we have forum threads and groups to make matchmaking easier and we still need bug and balance feedback. We need feedback at this stage or we won't be able to make further beta releases!

Spread the word and we'll see you on the battlefield!

[Pav:3d]

Thats looking brilliant so far

[NergiZed]

I dersperately want this mod to succeed. Just bought RA3 (for 5 bucks~!) and I will be playing this immediately.

[R3ven]

NergiZed, on 25 Feb 2011, 14:46, said:

I dersperately want this mod to succeed. Just bought RA3 (for 5 bucks~!) and I will be playing this immediately.

Thanks !

Also, Steam bargains for the win

[TheDR]

I love the map, looks great.

I know this is silly but it is a shame it's not turned based, I find RTS games tactics these days are either rush or spam. Anyway I might pick up RA3 sometime over the week end, if I do I will have a go!

[Zhao]

Im going to buy ra3 as well.

[R3ven]

Just a little behind the scenes update on the Orange Star army.

[R3ven]

Hey guys, we AWF devs bring another update!

Little Island was a good start for our custom maps but it only has bases & land gameplay and where's the fun in that? Cue, Frosty Canal, our first naval enabled map. Seasoned players should notice that it's a remake of the old Advance Wars map Sun Canal.






The central island will be heavily contested with 2 navies on either side firing over, around and onto the island making capturing it difficult although the income advantage could prove essential! Crossing the bridges themselves could also prove tricky if properly defended with a mixture of direct and indirect units.

Here are a couple of in game screenshots to off some of the map!







Regarding the minicannons, we have opted to remove them from now but they will be positioned over the bridges and on the left and right cliff facing out into the sea.

Behind the scenes we have been working hard on the Orange Star airforce and here's a small slice of what you can expect to see!





Don't forget our beta!

We've had a playable land beta up for a good amount of time now and we've had an amazing number of downloads from moddb given that we only started in December but may I remind people that we have forum threads and groups to make matchmaking easier and we still need bug and balance feedback. We need feedback at this stage or we won't be able to make further beta releases!

Spread the word and we'll see you on the battlefield!

[Libains]

This game makes me want to buy a Gameboy Advance something stupid, just so I can then buy and play Advance Wars again. Love it, as always

EDIT: I lie, this has resulted in me just snapping up a GBA on Ebay for a tenner. I hope you're happy!

Edited by AJ, 13 March 2011 - 18:03.

[R3ven]

Our evil plans are working! Muhahaha.

EDIT: yay second page

Edited by R3ven, 13 March 2011 - 18:34.

[R3ven]

Almost three months have passed since beta 0.9.0 and now we have enough progress to warrant another release which we hope will sprout an online community! We are currently working on some final balance fixes and implementing our third map for the second beta, Beaker Island, which supports land & air combat! Advance Wars veterans should recognise it as map #3 in the Vs. Room!

When will it be out?! April.

What it will not have
- Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, Green Earth and Black Hole armies.
- Silos, pipes, the Neotank and any AWDS units and structures.
- CO's and associated powers and stats.
- A full library of maps.
- Music and custom voices.
- Destruction animations.
- Custom menus.
- Custom infantry, mech and vehicle pilot art
- Terrain effects and bonuses.
- Working AI. Playing a match with any level of AI will cause the game to crash.

Well, why not?

Same as with the first beta, we want to balance things in stages. We've done some adjustments to the land units and now it's the turn of the airforce and navy. Also with the summer exam season approaching again, mod work will slow down significantly so we hope to compensate for that by hosting online matches & events to bridge this gap.

What it will have
- Playable Orange Star land, sea and air forces.
- Working game play mechanics for the standard game mode inducing cities, bases, HQs and capturing.
- Relatively balanced units (from internal testing)
- 4 working maps, Little Island, Frosty Canal, Beaker River and a mystery 2v2 map!
- Custom loading screen.
- Unit/building descriptions, icons and portraits.
- Unit decals and new team colours.


We will hopefully be hosting an event for when we release the beta that will most likely take the form of a tournament or just a drop in session where you fight who ever else turns up! Expect another article in regards to that closer to the time of release.


To finish off, here are some screenshots of the third beta 2 map, Beaker Island!











(btw, you can't see it atm, but since moddb is borked, you may or may not be able to see the last pictures)

Edited by R3ven, 19 March 2011 - 14:42.

[Destiny]

(<strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">the units are functional with RA3 art</span></strong>)

Haha, HTML

[R3ven]

Shhhh

[R3ven]

[R3ven]

[R3ven]

[R3ven]

So little feedback that I almost forgot. Also, quintuple post.

[R3ven]

Whoever spots it gets a cookie.

[R3ven]