The fourth version of the Frostbite by Moonkey reboot has been released. Among others, the clipping has been substantially improved and the initial Axis autospawn bug has been resolved. Get the map from our modDB profile: http://www.moddb.com/mods/etlegacy/addons/etl-frostbite
But all hilarious Harry Potter references aside, we are now running our very own master server!
• "Requesting servers from the master master.etlegacy.com (5.135.27.11:27950)..."
What does that mean for you? If you have the Legacy master configured (all ETL clients have!), then even if the ID master goes down again it does not matter. That's the simple part. You will still see all servers through the in-game browser.
There are also some nifty features planned with the new master server in the future, but that's it for now.
Cheers
Enemy Territory implements XPs, which measure player scores based on specific actions, such as kills, construction, or revive. They are also used to control the various skill levels, similarly to a RPG. While not part of the original game, the ability to accumulate XPs indefinitely, as known as "XP save", has been a popular addition in many mods. We all know it: players crave for their XPs. Players accumulate XPs like coins map after map, and they love exhibiting XPs on servers to show how hard and how long they worked to earn them.
However, XPs don't give any indication of the real global performance of a player. At best, they merely give a hint about the time the player has played on a specific server. Saving XPs also create some imbalance by enabling special abilities given by skill levels permanently, such as adrenaline for medics which directly leads to the infamous "Rambo medics" that everyone hates. This has never been accounted for in the original game balance, where XPs were reset at the end of matches or the end of campaigns. With Legacy mod aiming to stay close to the original game design, it makes sense to not encourage the use of XP Save as so many mods do.
Starting from the next 2.76 release, only the XPs earned in the current map or campaign will be displayed. Instead of the total accumulated XPs, we're introducing a new metric, known as "Skill Rating".
The idea is simple: Skill Rating is a new, proved metric that can be used to compare skill of players over time. As FPS require skills in multiple areas like reflex, planning, tactical analysis or teamwork, with the relative importance of these skills depending on the map, game mode, player roles or team compositions, a skill rating can be defined as a measure of "all parameters of a player that help his team to win" and calculated using a statistical approach.
The idea of using statistics to estimate the skill of players isn't new. ETPub implements such a metric with its "Player Rating" that gives a normalized skill score. However, "Skill Rating" of Legacy mod is modeled after TrueSkill, a more modern algorithm that has been developed by MicroSoft for its XBox matching service. It has many advantages over the ETPub's PR, and is very well documented. It has been extended to take map bias into account. Ranks will also be adjusted to reflect the rating of the player, instead of reflecting the skill levels and XPs.
The Skill Rating has been gradually implemented in the past Legacy release, with the final version being currently tested on our official test server. Connect now to etlegacy.com to have a preview of the system!
Frequently Asked Question
It is a value between 0 and 50 assigned to each player. It represents its ability to help his team to win the map. Rating will be updated after each map played at intermission. New players will have a rating of 0, and it will increase over time. The rating value determined by using the strength of the team, time played in each team and the map. The performance of disconnected players is taken into account.
Do whatever is necessary to win the map.
The first value represent the real time estimate of each team winning the map, while the second is the map bias.
The rating system takes balance into account when updating rating. It is thus "fair" to lose an unbalanced map. Winning a map against a much weaker team will not increase your rating much, but losing against a weaker team will make your rating drop sharply. Conversely, to increase your rating quickly, join the weaker team and win as an underdog!
For interested people that want additional details, see the related wiki document and implementation ticket.
The process of map porting is steadily gaining speed. The second map after Bergen, by Detoeni, which is currently in development phase is good ol' Würzburg Radar.
While one of the general rules we stated for map porting is, that the atmosphere is not to be altered, we felt like a slight change was needed in this map. The standard version is a bit of a blurry and smudged night, where everything is consumed by a short-distance fog. We increased the line of sight, so now vegetation, structures and terrain are more visible in the distance. Of course the rain is staying, that would be too much of a change, but the blurry night has been replaced with a cloudy dawn of morning. We feel like this gives the map a bit more character.
Along the streets there are now handheld lanterns placed on each of the telegraph pole to simulate provisional lighting. This was done to have actual sources to the lights. In the standard version everything is relatively bright, although there are no real light sources for that, so now it feels a bit more natural.
The road MG hut has received a bit of a cabin in the woods vibe and has now a more istinct interior lighting. This makes spotting the machinegun camper a bit more easy to balance the battlefield.
For work-in-progress images please refer to this article: Würzburg Radar WIP
The good people over at modDB have launched their annual "Mod of the Year" award competition. There are three phases and in the current phase 1, people can nominate their favourite mods. After Phase 1 the Top100 will advance to Phase 2 and in phase 3 the mod of the year will be announced.
Admittedly, the competition is fierce and we are a small mod for a 13 year old game. However, there are over 10.000 mods out there and we are convinced of the general performance and visual enhancements we have already brought to the game. The fact that this forum thread is relatively quiet right now is a little bit misleading.
• Our activity on GitHub is wonderful.
• The regular game textures are ready and awaiting the 2.76 release and we are working on setting up the advanced texture mapping with normal and specular maps.
• Thunderpwn has been hard at work replacing all static mapobject models to bring us one step closer to complete freedom from the license restrictions that are still in place.
• DimitriZer0 is working on a custom player model to replace the standard ones. Currently still in alpha state, the future plans are promising with different skins depening on the map setting and also appropriate backpack and gear for the different classes.
• There are currently 3 maps that are being worked on, to ship ET: Legacy with fantastic maps that make full use of the new, powerful renderer. These maps are Bergen, Würzburb Radar and Goldrush. And Seawall Battery is even a close candidate for a 4th map.
This sounds like a lot and you might now be wondering, why there aren't more news on Forums or Social media. The answer is, that the majority of these points are still in alpha state, which means they are still subject to constant change. We are testing different ways and approaches, which means that showing something off, could mean that after a few weeks this is already outdated. Nevertheless, if you are interested in the closer development and want to follow current discussions, bug and feature problematics and the occasional sneak-peek into said alpha state development, then please don't hesitate to join us in our public Gitter channel.
Our latest release 2.75 'Learning to Fly' from the 13th of September, has already been downloaded a staggering amount of 14.000 times! We are very proud of that fact and appreciate all the support we get from you, our community.
Please help us spread the word. If you have a modDB account, please take the 2 minutes and nominate us for the 'Mod of the Year' award. Let's make sure the global gaming and modding community, knows that great games can live to great age.