Howdy! Around October 22 update things started to change, quite a lot. Let me list the meaty part of them:

These changes focus mostly on Shootout/Team Shootout and their variants. If they could be summarized, I guess the intention here is to bring some more diversity to the table while limiting certain underlying issues. Predominant tactics make games stale, more predictable, over the time. These defects could be appreciated in FoF in the form of: all over jump-kicking, left handed revolvers and 1-shot weapons.

This maneuver isn't wrong by itself, it's just bad because lag and how internet things work. Multiplayer games try to convince you that other players are where you see them on your screen, but they aren't, they are generally closer than they appear so they can hit you from relatively far away due lag and false perception. Duck-jump makes this issue worse, by making you completely defenseless while the other player gets a minimal risk at doing this action.

So these recent changes made things a bit harder in this regard by limiting forward push and giving players the option to back at higher speed. Do you think it is too much, too little, well, I tried to make my point.

There also was big speed loss over certain things as multiple jumps or receiving damage, specially from shotguns.Those limitations have been reduced as became unnecessary now due other changes (jump) or because they give too much significance to first attack.

Left-handed gave a 30% accuracy bonus at the expense of having terrible dual-wield accuracy. The thing is accuracy is mostly preferred over dual-wield, so other handgun skills were irrelevant for the most part. The changes make things less white-black, as left-handed still gives the quickest time to stop and shoot, while right-handed can be used for a more fluid movement, and fanning skill gives a sensation of uncontrolled power that I personally like to use from time to time.

Walking allows you to shoot semi-accurately without stopping completely. I think it simply was too good, too easy, too limiting in the diversify department. Changes make it only usable for very close range, but still is feasible.

Previous scale gave 4 points to top tier weapons and 15 to fists. The gap was simply too wide, if you wanted to score there wasn't much of a point in getting even mid-tier weapons. I don't even think top tier weapons were so "over the top" anyway, even Walker isn't invincible.

New scale starts at 9 points and ends at 20, so the respective order doesn't change much. It's just stock tier weapons may give a 50% bonus over top tier instead 100%. There are a few attacks that got lower or higher compared to previous scale, for instance: kicks reward less, smaller guns and melee throws reward a bit better.

Removing Schofield and Smith from stock selection on team enabled Shootout/Elimination was a hard decision, not because they belong there but there was a point in making certain mid-tier weapons more available as there was some initial concern regards how players could access to better weapons. Since chest system was revamped that concern isn't there anymore. Getting weapons that grant an edge from the start seems illogical regarding player progression, yet I still see reasons to keep Schofield at least.

Sawed-off shotgun got a small boost, this is a problematic weapon because no one really uses it when it's a tad underpowered, and once you bump it a bit then becomes an annoyance. Well, I've seen it worse.

Bow got a tiny rate of fire boost and higher damage from close, nothing huge but it felt like a small boost would make it better.

Removal of whiskey jug is easy to explain. Team Shootout may feature teams but isn't a mode for teamplay, jug didn't offer any significant advantage for the player using it and I couldn't see one other than self-healing. So it was a bit alien among other perks.

And Yellowboy, this is a major change aimed towards those who like to snipe. The problem with Smith carbine was that it was good as basic sniper but also pretty good for close combat. The weapon in itself fills a niche that is alright, it's just there shouldn't be such stock weapon that offers this wide range of attacks. Yellowboy as is now allows some decent midrange options, but it gets lot of riskier when moving into rooms and small corridors. So it feels better, a small gripe is its excessive clip, it would be better with 10 rounds max let's say.

Fistful of Frags never got stale in its 11 years history I don't think it should get as long it stays alive. This recent changes made the game richer in many aspects, and more fair too. Your complaints may be right too, and things may still change over the time to alleviate future issues.

Howdy! There's no shortage of news these days, good news fortunately. The FoF community keeps producing content and creating new venues for competitive gaming, and it should be known. I'll present you a new weapon -already available- and an initiative to keep the competitive spirit alive.

If you ever wanted a small and blazing fast revolver in Fistful of Frags, this is for you. Relatively cheap and underpowered, Hammerless is great as secondary handgun, but more radical players may attempt to use it as primary attack.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545377138
https://youtu.be/bqzt0p3Ww1c
Full update notes


FFA Shootout didn't get much love competitively speaking, until now. Here's a few highlights of the 1st tournament, played recently. Check the FoFCL community group for more info.

This is also a bit older news, but as you can see, game was taking place in a official map called Impact, created by Resi and added to game this past summer. Also worth to check!

https://youtu.be/0flskSRPoVg
Link to the full game (note this was taken from a SourceTV demo which may present certain flaws)

Howdy partners, as it's tradition, Halloween themed maps and game mode "Ghost Town" have been added to the base game for a limited time. This year's update comes with two additional levels, gt_overtop and gt_nest. Don't miss the chance to play!

For those new or that may have forgotten, Ghost Town is a variation of our classic Team Shootout mode that brings a few important combat and navigation related additions as:

Wild wild butt-jumping charge

Refill your charge meter drinking potion from cauldrons or bottles dropped by dead players, when bar is full you'll enter in a special 'butt-jumping' movement mode and two revolvers that need no reload are granted.

Ghost sawed-off shotgun

This gun causes little damage but allows players to propel themselves by jumping and then shooting at near surfaces (as walls or ground). Note that you'll have to aim at the opposite direction you want to move. It'll also eject enemies when shot from close.

Ghost Gun can be obtained from golden skulls, and those spawn from thunder strikes.

Ghosts

These free roaming ghosts may be a tad annoying but do not cause any trouble. However, they can be farmed to get free potions when killed. Ghosts only die to explosives or fire.

Howdy partners, it's better late than never they say. Finally you can share your add-ons with our community in an easy and fast way. Pretty much anything, from skins, maps, sound or particle effects, HUD or weapon replacements belong to our new workshop. Fistful of Frags will be even more community powered from now on.


I'm hoping this feature will spark content creation so eventually new stock content may come from workshop too. It's all about how fitting the creations may be and how they can expand or improve current content.

Feedback is also very important for all content creators out there, so I'd recommend you to get involved if you can. They'll appreciate your comments but please, try to offer constructive criticism too.


Here's a guide that will tell you how to publish content to our workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=763108024
I'd like to explain how the content will be organized. Items can be browsed by category (maps, weapon skins, etc) so we'll be tagging any entry appropriately for easy discovery unless:

1. art style doesn't fit at all, is out of place or simply doesn't belong to the Wild West (exceptions: item may be worth due other considerations)
   
2. gives a noticeable gameplay advantage (in that case it may even get banned)
   
3. doesn't work as intended or major flaws are present

Non tagged entries can still be found in other ways, this is just some form of curation to filter out of place or broken content.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to your creations, if there's any doubt feel free to ask.

Howdy partners, it's better late than never they say. Finally you can share your add-ons with our community in an easy and fast way. Pretty much anything, from skins, maps, sound or particle effects, HUD or weapon replacements belong to our new workshop. Fistful of Frags will be even more community powered from now on.


I'm hoping this feature will spark content creation so eventually new stock content may come from workshop too. It's all about how fitting the creations may be and how they can expand or improve current content.

Feedback is also very important for all content creators out there, so I'd recommend you to get involved if you can. They'll appreciate your comments but please, try to offer constructive criticism too.


Here's a guide that will tell you how to publish content to our workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=763108024
I'd like to explain how the content will be organized. Items can be browsed by category (maps, weapon skins, etc) so we'll be tagging any entry appropriately for easy discovery unless:

1. art style doesn't fit at all, is out of place or simply doesn't belong to the Wild West (exceptions: item may be worth due other considerations)
   
2. gives a noticeable gameplay advantage (in that case it may even get banned)
   
3. doesn't work as intended or major flaws are present

Non tagged entries can still be found in other ways, this is just some form of curation to filter out of place or broken content.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to your creations, if there's any doubt feel free to ask.

First of all, thank you all for your understanding to my previous announcement, I'm really moved by such a warm response. I just would like to explain myself a bit better and also try to clear any doubts you may have regarding FoF's future.


One of my complains wasn't about negative reviews at all, anyone has the right to write such reviews as far they are minimally fair. My complain was about reputation tarnishing reviews. Someone in a highly upvoted review that can be seen on top implied that I usually ban legit players right and left and treat all those people like shit. That was the actual problem, I never have done that, that's not me. That's just a wicked and very negative image of me someone was touting as true. I'm a game developer, if I ever wanted to release a new game or talk about my past projects, should I have to carry such fabricated reputation on my shoulders?

There's lot of young people around here that may not understand the full implications of this behavior. It's not a game, reputation tarnish practices are an actual crime in lots of countries. Any of you have the right to protect your reputation as much as I do, and that's what I tried to do and probably didn't explained properly. This is as serious as it can get, really. Upvote any negative review if you think it highlights an actual problem, but please, report those who seek to destroy other people's reputation.


I'm not just leaving this mod behind to never come back. I'm stopping my development duties as implementing new features or designing new maps. I fully created half the official maps approximately and also coded the entire game, there's not much more I could actually add to improve gameplay or overall feel.

However, I'll keep doing maintenance work as bug fixing and other backstage tasks. I'll be cooperating with the community when needed, for instance: adding new community maps to official rotation, new assets or whatever the community brings to keep FoF alive. If any of you want to contribute somehow, feel free to do it. You'll make lot of people happy, except a few haters ;)

Edit: the mentioned review is not showing now, the author probably made it visible to friends only, who knows why...

This is a message directed towards those who still care about Fistful of Frags and appreciate the huge effort done by me and others to polish and improve this free game on Steam.

I'd like to remark that many updates were released during almost two years for a game that doesn't seek cash or benefice of any kind. We started with 4 maps and 1 game mode, now there are more than 20 for 4 different game modes. FoF did not receive donations or monetization of any kind, it actually costs me some money. I mention it because it also means complete freedom, freedom to stop when you feel is right to stop, and this time has come.

Developing a free game is great when you feel connected to its community and your work is appreciated. This isn't the case anymore. It's more or less normal that the so called “haters” pop up from time to time, but signs are too evident to ignore them. Just take a look to highlighted reviews in Steam store and you'll see what I mean. There're pay to win games out there that get less harsh reviews than we are getting now.

I also would like to clarify that I banned someone recently that seemed a cheater to me. Don't remember any other ban in the last half year, since I started to change the code to break the public hacks around that time. I was wrong, however his reaction was overly dramatic and it seems to have ignited a campaign not only against my person but the game itself. I may be a jerk but the game and all its player base have no fault and shouldn't be the target of this campaign. Let other people enjoy FoF even if you don't do it anymore.

This isn't only about some random persons hiding behind their computers to attack me or this game. I know that I'm not in touch with the community regulars, I don't feel confident in some the feedback gathered by the community so I tend to ignore it. I understand that this pisses some people to no end but that's how things work with me. Do you think I'm a jerk? I could tell you 1001 ways of people being jerks to me along this time but that would be a time waste.

So just to clarify, things have to end eventually. No drama, that's just how things are. The game is quite polished right now, lacks content but it can be added if someone feels like creating something. Thank Source engine for being so easy to mod. Just wanted to be as clear as possible, say goodbye and that's all. I prefer to leave it here as things will get worse over the time. That's what happens when a multiplayer game dies, and Fistful of Frags has had a very long life, being an actual free game and all.

Pass the Whiskey!

Hey folks, we released yesterday a huge update to our character voices, those used for taunts, commands and the funny death rattles. I'll be explaining another upcoming voice related feature too: the announcer.


As you may know, we had the same cowboy voice repeated for vigilantes, desperados and rangers, but no more! The classic voices created by the voice actor Michael Phillips will only be used for desperados team from now on. Vigilantes and rangers get all new voices, both performed by voice actor Gianni Matragrano. Here's how they sound:

https://youtu.be/df01zieMsms
Props to Gianni for his amazing work! There probably will be new voice acting for bandidos as well, as soon we find someone apt for this role. The idea is to recreate all their lines so we have all the set instead just the taunt ones as is now.

Hey folks, we released yesterday a huge update to our character voices, those used for taunts, commands and the funny death rattles. I'll be explaining another upcoming voice related feature too: the announcer.


As you may know, we had the same cowboy voice repeated for vigilantes, desperados and rangers, but no more! The classic voices created by the voice actor Michael Phillips will only be used for desperados team from now on. Vigilantes and rangers get all new voices, both performed by voice actor Gianni Matragrano. Here's how they sound:

https://youtu.be/df01zieMsms
Props to Gianni for his amazing work! There probably will be new voice acting for bandidos as well, as soon we find someone apt for this role. The idea is to recreate all their lines so we have all the set instead just the taunt ones as is now.

Don't miss out latest update, already available. It brings quite a few new features, some important fixes and... whiskey.

Check out our new Team Elimination game mode. Each team must kill all other enemy players at least once to win the round. Survivors are identified by a dollar sign at their feet. The outline effect is used to highlight your surviving teammates and enemy's position from time to time. Team tactics and teamplay plus a gameplay similar to 2T Shootout.

https://youtu.be/zZdBECHBAe8

Pass the whiskey? Now you can! Your dream of becoming bartender is possible. Whiskey jug is granted at special zones as you can see and then requires some time to refill. Don't ask how, our whiskey is yellow and made from natural substances though.

Also, we hope you enjoy our new kill cam, if you don't it can be disabled in Options/multiplayer/advanced!

https://youtu.be/U1uIyai0llk

I know some of you really liked old version of this map, so here's another version for 12 slot servers that takes the classic layout and gets lots of improvements and optimization from latest robertlee. There's no docks though but I bet this one will run fine in whatever computer you may throw at it.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=576737064
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=576737179