March 3rd, 2009Paintball 2 Build 26 ReleasedWhat about build 24 and 25, you ask? They've been available on the forums, but due to various issues, I decided not to make them "official" releases. If you keep up on the forums, I'll try to put out a new build once every 1-2 months, so you can post feedback on what's new before it hits the news page.
What's new since build 23? The highly-requested VWep (visible weapon models on players) is the big thing, but the community (ViciouZ, in particular) has made a number of great contributions, like OGG Vorbis music support, PNG texture support, and word filters. Here's a complete list:
- Feature: PNG texture support (Thanks: ViciouZ, R1CH) - Feature: Started on surface specific footstep sounds. Snow textures and w_metal1 will make a new stepping sound. 6:39 PM 1/20/2009 - Feature: "localstats" will print cumulative kill/death/grab/cap statistics. (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Feature: OGG Vorbis music support. Put some .ogg files in paintball2/pball/music to test it out. (Thanks: QuDos, ViciouZ) - Feature: "menu_reload" command for advanced menu features (Thanks: Zorchenhimer) - Feature: Password dialog for connecting to passworded servers. (Thanks: Zorchenhimer, ViciouZ) - Feature: Password support for paintball2:// hyperlinks: paintball2://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxxx&serverpass (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Feature: Time and server are logged in demo files. (Thanks: ViciouZ). - Cvar: "cl_crosshairscale" - Allows you to change the crosshair size independently of the HUD scale. (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Cvar: "cl_passwordpopup" - If set (enabled by default), a password prompt will open when attempting to connect to a passworded server. (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Cvar: "cl_swearfilter" - if set to 1, chat text containing blocked words will not display. If set to 2, blocked words will be ***'d out. (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Cvar: "cl_blockedwords" - comma separated list of words to filter if cl_swearfilter is set. (Thanks: ViciouZ) - Cvar: "cl_drawclock" 1/0 enables/disables display of the current time at the top of the screen. (Thanks: ViciouZ). - Bugfix: Fixed bug where first letter typed was lost in an edit box if the cursor was beyond the length of the string. 11:09 PM 2/3/2009 - Tweak: Made the same footstep sound not play twice (or more) in a row, as that sounds weird. 1:37 AM 11/8/2008 - Tweak: Sound quality defaulted to 48khz (this won't take effect if you've already edited your audio options). - Media: VWep (other players actually hold the weapon they have - requires server update). - Media: New, higher-quality sound recordings for the smoke grenade, several guns, snow footsteps, item pickups, crickets, and other effects.
Go to the files page to grab the new version, and post feedback in this thread. July 29th, 2008Paintball 2 Turns 10!At least, it will be 10 years old during QuakeCon. July 31st, 1998 was the first release of Paintball 2. Scary to think it's older than some of the people who play it. If you can't make it to QuakeCon to celebrate, I believe some people are planning some competitions and whatnot to celebrate online, so keep an eye on the forums. Paintball 2 Build 23 ReleasedI've been so busy lately that it took practically a two months just to release this. As it is now, I'm writing this update while I pack for QuakeCon (hope to see you there!). There's not a lot of fancy new stuff, so I'll just paste the change list:
- Feature: Enter game and disconnect sound effects. - Feature: Different sound effects for team chat and global chat. - Tweak: Fixed sound attenuation in software sound mode to have exponential falloff so you're not hearing things on the other side of the map like they're right next to you. 4:33 AM 5/14/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed crash with blank file specification. - Bugfix: Fixed occasional crash when viewing scoreboard. - Media: New PGP and Spyder sounds. - Media: New footstep and falling sounds. - Media: New chat, connect, and disconnect sounds. - Media: Tweaked PGP and Trracer animations (these require playing on a new server to work properly). May 7th, 2008QuakeCon 2008Well, I'm late posting about this once again, but for those of you that are interested in meeting some of the the Paintball 2 community, we're going to try to organize a small group at QuakeCon. For those of you who don't know what QuakeCon is all about, you may want to read my little write up about QuakeCon 2006 here. Even if we don't get anything Digital Paint related going on, it's still worth attending. There's a discussion thread about it here. TournamentFront Adds Paintball 2 SupportTournamentFront has recently added support for running Paintball 2 tournaments. You can find it under the PC tab or just click here for a direct link. Check it out and provide feedback in this forum thread! April 1st, 2008Google SubtractsI'm sure most of you have seen me complain about this on the forums, but I figured I'd make an official statement about my displeasure with Google's AdSense service. While I was in the process of relocating, Google suspended my adsense account. I didn't notice for a couple days, and when I tried to log in to see what was up, I found the account had been completely disabled. Apparently there had been some sort of "invalid click" activity that they were very vague in explaining with their automated messages, and now I'm banned from the service for life. I tried to appeal it, but it was still a no go. They didn't even give me a human response, a real explanation, or allow me to look at the account to see what might have happened. In short, I was permanently banned from the service without warning or explanation during a period in which I could do nothing for the actions of other people. Oh, and they didn't pay me for any of the revenue generated, which was well into the 3-digit dollar range. It wasn't enough to live off of, but it was something. Searching around, I found this same thing had happened to a number of people. Some lost thousands of dollars as it was a primary source of revenue. Very poor business practice on Google's part, I think. I'm extremely disappointed with them and strongly discourage anybody from using their service, lest they suffer the same fate. Fortunately I'm out of my temporary unemployment status and am happily employed at Red Storm, which brings me to my next point... It's Been a Fun 10 Years (Almost), But...... I hate to say this on the brink of Paintball 2's 10 year anniversary, but given I do work for a game development company and they do have a non-compete agreement, I don't think I can work on Paintball2 anymore. I was hoping to sneak at least one more release in to at least fix the bugs in build 21, but sometimes fate chooses a different path. Hopefully I can find somebody else to take over the server payments and site updates and forum administration and code updates and bug fixes and checking the cheat log and global banning cheaters and heading up the committee to deal with rule violators and running a beta test server for mappers as well as other game servers and adding channel requests to ventrilo and providing tech support and administering the global login system and recording new sounds and making new textures and models and administering the feature vote system and implementing the high priority requests. But before you come offering to take over, take a look at the date and enjoy your banana textures, you silly, gullible player, you! Sadly, the Google AdSense part was true. February 14th, 2008Build 21 Released; Happy Valentine's Day!Looking for the perfect Valentine gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a new release of Paintball2! With fancy new features like a warmup mode and team deathmatch, the one closest to you will know he or she truly is loved.
- Feature: Added support for variables in menu widgets - usable for map previews, etc. 2:03 AM 1/18/2008 - Tweak: Up and down arrows work on select widgets (lists) 2:38 AM 1/18/2008 - Tweak: Added TAB key for selecting different widgets in the menu. 8:26 PM 1/8/2008 - Cvar: cl_drawfps 2 instantly updates framerate instead of averaging. 3:45 AM 1/4/2008 - Cvar: cl_drawtexinfo displays texture name and flags of surface in front of player. 3:43 AM 1/6/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed blending of lightmaps and transparent textures with alpha channels on trans33 or trans66 surfaces. 3:29 AM 1/6/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed crash with "dumpuser" command. 7:28 PM 1/8/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed rscript envmap on transparent surfaces. 7:03 PM 1/24/2008 - Media: New weapon sounds, including dry fires.