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Hullo there my slavering minions!
No nice new skins for you today im afraid, youre getting one of my updates, which means plenty of reading
Firstly a note on progress:
Our 26th internal beta just released to our most trusted henchman who appear to be rather enjoying it, so all is going according to plan for the eventual public release. While theres still a metric shedload of bugs theyre mostly much more minor than theyve been recently, leading me to announce something of our upcoming schedule.
The next beta will see all 7 factions, plus the inn factions, finally completed. By which I mean everything will work and every unit, hero and building will have its basic set of art (skin, button, portrait etc). This isnt to say there wont be additions after this, but the factions will be ready for release. For the 99.9% of you who cant get the private betas there will be a way for a LOT more of you to get your hands on this release (plus a couple of more interesting prizes involved too).
The 2 betas after this will focus on both the linear campaign (fixing all the problems introduced by my last 12 months worth of changes, while adding plenty of features ive thought up to the campaign) and additions to the WotR mode.
Then....release candidate time.
Those new features I was talking about:
1 - ObelisksThose of you who played BFME1 will remember these structures as the pillars at the centre of camps and castles, although they now serve as a neutral building placed in strategic positions on maps for you to capture. As well as allowing you to build near to them (as all neutral buildings do) they will also function as a monument fortress (like orthanc and the helms deep arcade).
As well as allowing you to establish a forward base they will also allow you to survive if you lose your main fortress, as well as allowing you to build in areas of fortress maps which would otherwise fall outside the area of your normal build circle (since I introduced wall hub style build areas for all structures certain fortress maps have been a tad troublesome). Each faction has an Obelisk style, although you can capture any obelisk as any faction.
2 - Altars
Another neutral building, the altars will act as a combination statue and well, healing troops and providing a powerful boost (much more potent than the traditional well and statue). They will also have a special function, allowing you to obtain certain special characters....
Altars will be either good or evil. Good players will not be able to use the functions of evil altars and vice versa, although you will still be able to hold them against your enemies, or simply destroy them.
3 - New game modes: "King of the Hill" and "Conquest"
As an alternative to regular multiplayer games these special maps will play a little differently to the skirmishes youre used to.
King of the Hill: each player starts with an obelisk and several sentry towers (in addition to your normal fortress and porters), which are completely indestructible, meaning you cannot defeat your enemy by destroying their base. At the centre of the map will be an extra large obelisk with a capture flag. To win the game you have to hold the Obelisk for 2 minutes. If the enemy takes the obelisk from you that timer is reset.
Conquest: Think Battlefield/Battlefront and yes... LOTR: conquest. The player will once again control an indestructible base. There will be multiple obelisks spread throughout the map. Holding the obelisks will gradually increase your points score and on reaching a certain number of points you will win.
Other stuff
I think its well past time I gave this site a good going over. Ill be completely replacing it soon, both to make it a bit easier to update, and to bring all the info on it right up to date.
I told Mordred he could post the update... but nooooooo...
Edited by {IRS}Athos, 18 August 2009 - 01:31 PM.
Adding the date into the description.
