Happy New Year from the Battle Grounds team! We have some more good progress on Battle Grounds 2 to report.

First, as we mentioned earlier, Gecko has been working hard on a new interface for the game. He’s made some good progress on it, and below are a few screenshots of the work-in-progress. These shots are from a few weeks ago, and since then he has continued to improve the design. It should add some much-needed modernity and a nice touch to the graphics.

Next the mapping front: first, JakeParlay has been hard at work on a new fortress map. This map depicts a typical 18th century fortress and walled town, complete with active cannons. This map will probably be a progressive spawn attack-defend piece, in the style of our current Germantown map.

It also features a unique item for BG2– a guard tower that can be destroyed with artillery. This will allow the attackers to knock out the defenders’ guard capabilities from high. Destroying the tower will be part of the attack. Players inside the tower will most likely be killed in the fall, though there is a slim chance of lucky survival.

Long-time mapper Grantelbart is also working on improving his maps and bringing them up a notch in terms of quality and playability. He is currently conducting a review of our existing maps. He is also working on a new map project, which is in the early stages of development.

Agent will be testing and helping to improve all of these new maps. He and Taxpayer are still improving their nice Miningtown map, which will prove to be a real gem in the upcoming version. Agent has said he’s looking forward to making that map a great quality item.

Peacekeeper, HarryPotter and JakeParlay have also continued to improve new plant and grass sprites for the game. They will add nice depth to the maps.

On the models and skins front: AngryTaxpayer and Nathan Hale have been working on developing new weapons for the weapons choice feature. We wrote previously about the American Fowler, but we also have a Long Land Pattern Brown Bess musket now (thanks to Dain’s original work) and also a new Brown Bess carbine. These guns, we’re hoping, will fire buckshot as one possible ammunition. Our long-time coder Tjoppen has been experimenting with some rather innovative buckshot physics code so that we’ll have realistic shooting with that ammo.

Peacekeeper has continued his excellent skin work. He has redone a number of player model faces to look more realistic and more variable. This will add new variety to the game.

In the animations division– Jlea continues his good work for the team. We are currently working in implementing his 3rd person reload animation, which hopefully will yield a nice result. Jlea is also working on a good 1st person reload for the Brown Bess Carbine. This should add some nice new material to the game.

In the sounds area– Postaldude has made some nice new reload and musket sounds, as well as some new high quality cannon sounds. They should be a great help to the realism of the game and also to mappers who want to make use of the cannon sounds.

As always HarryPotter is working on coding in many of these great changes, as well as improving game stability and fixing bugs. He has already spotted and fixed several.

Please visit us on BGmod.com and our forums at http://forums.bgmod.com

-Nathan Hale

Dec. 19, 2009:

Today we have another update detailing our progress on Battlegrounds 2. Thanks in large part to our new team members, we have a lot of new material coming into the game.

We are currently revamping our weapons system. We are moving from a fixed class system, where each class is assigned a weapon automatically, to a system where the player will choose a class and then get to choose a weapon from an historical weapons pool. For example, currently the militia class is assigned a Revolutionaire musket and an axe. In this next version, players choosing the militia class will get a choice of guns– to pick between an American militia musket patterned after the British Brown Bess, or to pick a hunting gun capable of firing lead buckshot. This is just one example of how the new system will allow players to first choose a class, then pick a gun of their choice, then to pick an ammo load based on what gun the player picked.

In order to make this system happen, we need new weapons. AngryTaxPayer and Peacekeeper have really stepped up to the plate on this. They have already completed the American Militia Musket and a hunting “fowler” gun. These guns will see action in the next release.

Peacekeeper has also been instrumental in revamping many of our existing weapons and player textures as well. He has created new, higher quality versions of all the weapons and also all the player skins.

These new textures will add better visual appeal and modernity to the game. Peacekeeper has also brought into the game new plant sprites and grass for a more modern, 3-dimensional feel. Peacekeeper’s current project is to build improved gun smoke behavior into the game.

The native has also received a new skin completed by AngryTaxPayer and tested with the help of fellow team member AngryIRSAgent.

On a related note, we are also moving to a new random player skin system. Until now each class has been assigned one player model and one player skin. Everyone of a class looks alike. In the next version, thanks to the work of Peacekeeper and HarryPotter, each class will have a pool of materials and textures that will generate random variety of skins. No two players, even if they are the same class, will look exactly alike now. The variety includes dirt, wear and color differences in the textures each skin uses.

Of course our work in the maps department continues as well. AngryTaxPayer, AngryIRSAgent and myself have begun to resurrect an old map, BG_Quebec. Quebec was initially designed several years ago by a mapper known as “Cycophant”. The map is an excellent example of an historical battle taking place in adverse weather conditions. The map takes place in Quebec during the early war winter battle in which the American forces under Dan Morgan and Benedict Arnold attempted to capture the city from the British and Loyalist garrison. The map will be a progressive spawn attack-defense map in a vein similar to our current Battle of Germantown map (a JakeParlay product). With the help of Grantelbart, JakeParlay, Tax and Agent we will be updating content to our old maps as well.

On the interface front, veteran developer Gecko is continuing his work on a modern and improved interface that will fit nicely with the move to a dynamic and varied weapons and ammo system (as described above). Gecko also is working in map development.

In the sound area, PostalDude will be updating and improving sounds throughout the game. He is currently working on more lifelike musket sounds. Jlea also is currently working on developing 3rd person reload animations for us. Hopefully his work will yield that long-missing part of our game. We’re glad to have his work coming along too.

In terms of recent 3rd party development, Ram1 and 3dDeath have completed the work begun by Semorph: a beta of BG_Valley for BG2. Valley was a classic BG1 map, created by former team member Render, and a map remembered fondly by many players. The new version for BG2 captures the important elements of the original, but with improvements all around. That map can be downloaded from the BG forum. It is currently being tested on several game servers.

You can test our latest beta by going to the BGmod.com forum and going into the beta testers area and downloading the SVN system.

Visit us on the forums at bgmod.com: www.forums.bgmod.com

-Nathan Hale

Hello everyone, we have a nice little news update in store this evening:

The team has added three new, talented members: Peacekeeper90, AngryIRSAgent and AngryTaxPayer. Peacekeeper has made a number of new, high quality skins for our weapons that will be included in the next version. Agent and Taxpayer have created several BG maps, including Hubbarton and Mining Town and also bring some nice modding skills with them as well. We’re glad to have them aboard.

Also, veteran developer Gecko is in the process of working on some new visual interface screens for the next version. They can be seen and commented on here:

http://forums.bgmod.com//index.php?showtopic=4943

Gecko’s work is looking good, and we hope that these bring a more modern and intuitive feel to joining BG games.

As always, we welcome players to join discussions in the bgmod forum areas here on the website. Your comments and your ideas are essential to helping keep BG at its best.

-Nathan Hale

Well the time has come for the big release: Battlegrounds 2 1.5a. This game adds a variety of features. Shots and description can be in the last news post. This release has been a long time in coming, but we have some big changes to add. The new features add a whole new dimension to the game, especially ironsights and capture the flag. Over the past few days we’ve continued to test and fix little issues with the game. Special thanks to HairyPotter for working hard right up until release to fix bugs, and thank you to our beta testers and beta test servers who have helped iron things out: 3D clan, AP clan and SS clan.

Downloads ONLINE AS OF 12:01 AM 9/26/09 Eastern US Time.

Here are the links for the download:

Full installer client (use this if you’re just joining servers and playing BG2):

http://www.mirror.bgmod.com/bg2/bg2-1.5a-installer.exe

http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/bg2/bg2-1.5a-installer.exe

Full Installer Server Side (use this if you’re going to be running a server):

http://www.mirror.bgmod.com/bg2/bg2-1.5a-server.zip

http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/bg2/bg2-1.5a-server.zip

Patch 1.2.1 to 1.5a (use this if you have the old version and are client):

http://mirror.bgmod.com/bg2/bg2-12-15a-patch.exe

Patch 1.2.1 to 1.5a server (use this if you have the old version and are running a server):

http://mirror.bgmod.com/bg2/bg2-1.5a-serverpatch.zip

And of course ye olde change log:

1.5a 2009
Iron sights added.
CTF mode added.
King of the hill settings added (You turn flag’s fullcap setting OFF in hammer).
Spawn kill prevention added. ( sv_saferespawntime )
Much more HLStatsX support.
Fixed a bug where people who leave a flag while the capture timer still counts can return and finish the cap even though they’d stopped capping.
Added Native and Militia class.
Added bump mapping on all weapons.
Added bg_germantown_b2
Added bg2_maptrigger entity for mappers, which can do outputs on Round and Map wins for each team.
Tweaked the class selection menu a tad. Thanks to Area51.
Added hud_takesshots, which will make clients take screenshots of the scoreboard on map ends. BG2 Options entry added.
Flags will no longer continue to give points to teams once the round has ended and everyone is frozen.
Adjusted the player’s camera position, so it’s a little higher off the ground when crouching.
Fixed a bug where a voicecomm will stop a weapon’s reload sound.
Added Tjoppen’s new bullet physics code for (non) simulated bullets.
Simulated bullets model is now invisible, and it’s origin shifted to the right of the player’s FOV.
Added the Forcecap input for flags. Which forces the flag to instantly cap for a certain team.
Added a “starting team” setting for flags.
Localized some text strings, so that lang files could be set up.

1.5a issues:

Native has no voicecomms.

Now… GO GET IT!

-Nathan Hale

Welcome back to BGmod.com, the home of the Battlegrounds mod for Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2/Orangebox.

The BG Development Team is proud to announce that the next version of Battlegrounds 2 will be released on Saturday September 26, 2009. This release will be the culmination of our 8th anniversary celebration of the original Battlegrounds first release. The newest version represents a substantial leap forward in the progress of Battlegrounds 2 and is the product of numerous upgrades and ideas coming from both the Battlegrounds Team, as well as from the Battlegrounds community as a whole. We will be releasing both a comprehensive full installer, as well as an incremental patch that will build on your existing 1.2.1 files. The game, of course, will continue to run with Steam.

We will not go into all the details of all of the changes to the game in 1.5a, but we will highlight three big ones: the addition of ironsights, two new classes to play and the addition of capture-the-flag gameplay.

In 1.5a the long guns all will have ironsights as their primary firing position. Pistols will remain the same as before. With the muskets and rifles, you will need to bind a key to ironsights for shooting. Hip-shots will be wildly inaccurate and you will now have to take aim to hit your target. The system will reward practiced shooters and add a new dimension to gameplay. We have also added two new classes (one to each side): militia units to the Americans, and Native American tribal warriors to the British. These classes will bring new weapons to the game as well, and function as skrimishers. Finally, capture-the-flag is exactly what it says: a new gameplay mode where the objective is the break through the enemy ranks, steal their flag and return it to your team’s capture area.

More details about changes and credits can be found in the  change log that will come with your download. We look forward to the release. We also invite everyone to join us on the bgmod.com forum to participate fully in the BG community there.

-Nathan Hale

Thanks to Ruby on Rails derailing, we’ve decided to use wordpress as the new blog tool. Once we get this set up properly, we’ll probably use this for posting news in the index.

-HairyPotter