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Apr 12, 2023

The Wastes (Mod) Development Builds now available to download!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

As addressed in the 5th anniversary sale announcement, the development builds pertaining to The Wastes post-RC1 and pre-game revival are now available to download!

If you have any official or community content from Wasteland HL, The Wastes, and/or any of the mods related to the lineage of the mod, then please reach out to us at "archive (at) vera-visions.com"

Previous news post has been updated to have links to the content. We will also provide links here for convenience:

The Wastes RC2

Wasteland Half-Life 2

The Wastes: Source

Apr 10, 2023

The Wastes 5th Anniversary Sale and more!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

Greetings, Wastelander...

We're currently running a 90% off sale for The Wastes to celebrate the 5th anniversary for The Wastes (2018)! This also corresponds with the 23rd anniversary of the original mod release of Wasteland Half-Life! This sale will last from April 10th, 2023 to April 17th, 2023.

On top of the sale, we also are releasing recovered internal development builds from after the release of The Wastes RC1.4! Special thanks to Alex 'Ubar' Batten for unearthing these builds! Without him these builds would strictly be stuck being nothing more than screenshots and old news posts.

These builds will be released on April 12th, 2023. They are set to unlock at 12:00PM UTC+00:00 on ModDB and will be uploaded to archive.org shortly afterwards.

Here's an overview of the builds we have to release:

The Wastes RC2

Files:
The Wastes 2.0 Build 213 (TW2-BIN-070304.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%202.0/Build%20213/TW2-BIN-070304.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes/downloads/the-wastes-2-development-build-213

Dryland (tw_dryland.zip)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Patches/The%20Wastes%202.0/Dryland/tw_dryland.zip | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes/addons/dryland-for-the-wastes-20

Hades Apparatus (tw_hades.zip) - This file was provided only as a folder and will be repackaged as a result.
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Patches/The%20Wastes%202.0/Hades%20Apparatus/tw_hades.zip | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes/addons/hades-apparatus-for-the-wastes-20

The Wastes RC2 (officially known as The Wastes 2.0) was the direct follow up to The Wastes RC1.4 that intended to update the mod to be fully compatible with the Steam release of Half-Life.

The Wastes RC2 was announced on March 7th, 2004 with a good chunk of the RC1 team returning. This revision of the mod intended to expand the mod by introducing brand new game modes and to start implementing game modes and ideas originally intended for Wasteland Half-Life Beta 3.

Design Document for The Wastes RC2 shown above is provided by Alex 'Kruddman' Yao.

The Wastes RC2 lasted over 5 months before being canceled on August 27th, 2004.

Our build is from about a month (July 3rd, 2004) before the announcement of The Wastes 2.0's cancellation. While it appears that the new game modes are absent in our build, it does contain the two maps from Leo 'Pyroquantre' Lipasti that were shown off in the news posts: Salvage and Dryland.

Salvage:

Dryland:

Also provided with The Wastes RC2 files is an earlier version of Hades Apparatus. This map is not playable in the provided The Wastes RC2 build as it was intended for use in Capture the Flag, which is absent in the build. Rob 'slipi' Loboda has released Hades Apparatus on The Whole Half-Life back in December, 2020 with the original source files and design documents pertaining to the map. We will be releasing the slightly earlier version in addition to the rest of the files.

The Wastes RC2 also contains music for Edward 'aufo' Fuller's map Silo by Sam 'Potshot' Allen. Said track was only known to exist thanks to archived IRC logs and was thought to be missing. This track will be added into The Wastes (2018) in an upcoming update to the game.

Wasteland Half-Life 2

Files:
Wasteland Half-Life 2 Alpha 1 (WHL2A1.zip)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/Wasteland%20Half-Life%202/Alpha%201/WHL2A1.zip | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/wasteland-half-life-2-alpha-1

Arlisto (rawr.rar)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Patches/Wasteland%20Half-Life%202/Arlisto/rawr.rar | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/addons/arlisto-for-wasteland-half-life-2

After the release of Dead Cities for Battlefield 1942, Ted 'The_Postman' Anderson and several other Wasteland alumni returned to the land of Half-Life. Their return was incredibly short lived, however.

Announced on November 11th, 2004 and seemingly discontinued less than 2 months later. Not much was known about Wasteland HL2 prior to this build. We knew that there was a map named "Arlisto" by Rob 'Zazi' Kermes and not much beyond that...

Arlisto:

Even with this build in hands, we still are left with questions on whether or not this was all that was truly made for the modification or if this is all that ever ended up in a build. Regardless, we're glad that something survived for this iteration of the project.

The Wastes: Source

Files:
The Wastes: Source Beta 1 (thewastes_dev_full_20050829.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%20Source/Beta%201/thewastes_dev_full_20050829.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/the-wastes-source-beta-1

The Wastes: Source Beta 2 (thewastes_dev_full_20050901.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%20Source/Beta%202/thewastes_dev_full_20050901.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/the-wastes-source-beta-2

The Wastes: Source R1 Development Build 22 (thewastes_dev_full_0.1.22.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%20Source/R1%20Build%2022/thewastes_dev_full_0.1.22.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/the-wastes-source-r1-development-build-22

The Wastes: Source R1 Development Build 28 (thewastes_dev_full_0.1.28.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%20Source/R1%20Build%2028/thewastes_dev_full_0.1.28.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/the-wastes-source-r1-development-build-28

The Wastes: Source R1 Development Build 29 (thewastes_dev_full_0.1.29.exe)
https://archive.org/download/the-wastes/Files/The%20Wastes%20Source/R1%20Build%2029/thewastes_dev_full_0.1.29.exe | https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-wastes-source/downloads/the-wastes-source-r1-development-build-29

Despite the team stating that there's no plans for The Wastes to be on Valve's upcoming Source Engine during the development of The Wastes RC2; 2005 brought us The Wastes: Source.

On October 7th, 2005, The Wastes: Source was announced. This iteration of The Wastes was in development for nearly a whole year. Ultimately, the team realized it was time to move on as all of their adult lives were starting and there wasn't much time left for them to maintain The Wastes anymore. This is where The Wastes' story ended, until Vera Visions took up the helm nearly 10 years after the death of The Wastes: Source!

The latest build we have is from April 1st, 2006, which is just under 2 months before the mod's cancellation. Contains only 3 maps: Carousel, Mahlstrom, and Toxic.

The mod was getting close to being on par to the gameplay seen in The Wastes RC1, but it still had a ways to go before it could have been released. The build is lacking any player models and is using really rough ports of the original weapon models from TW RC1.

Carousel:

Carousel was made by Leo 'Pyroquantre' Lipasti and Rob 'slipi' Loboda originally for the Half-Life 2 Deathmatch mapping contest that took place from November 30th, 2004 to January 15th, 2005. The map was ultimately repurposed and modified for The Wastes: Source. The original mapping contest version is uploaded on The Whole Half-Life along with its source files by Rob 'slipi' Loboda. Leo 'Pyroquantre' Lipasti would also release the version intended for The Wastes: Source and his other TW: Source maps converted for use in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch after the death of The Wastes: Source alongside announcing his retirement from mapping as a whole.

Mahlstrom:

Mahlstrom is a faithful remake of a Wasteland Half-Life custom map by Martin 'MGPalmer' Tepper of the same name. A later version appears to exist depicting some radical changes, however that version is currently lost.

Toxic:

Toxic is a remake and re-imagining of a map originally intended for The Wastes RC2 by Leo 'Pyroquantre' Lipasti. This map was also provided with Carousel and Mejico (a map absent from the builds of TW: Source we have) in the HL2DM ports that Leo 'Pyroquantre' Lipasti released after the mod's death.

Current events

The past couple of months we have been spending time getting the website of The Wastes back online.

We re-launched the main website on March 17th, 2023 with as many news posts, images, and downloads recovered as possible. Currently in the pipeline are the websites to Barter Town and Dead Cities.

Barter Town was the community-run subdomain for Wasteland HL add-ons. While most custom content prominently was hosted on the forums, Barter Town did host various content for Wasteland HL. We plan on restoring it and hosting as much custom content made and released for Wasteland HL, The Wastes (mod), and The Wastes (2018).

Dead Cities was Ted 'The_Postman' Anderson and Tom 'Mr. Blonde' Richardson's take of Wasteland HL/The Wastes on Battlefield 1942. The mod managed to achieve 2 releases and had a very snazzy website. We saw it worthwhile to put it back online.

We've also launched a Matrix room for The Wastes! Come join in and talk about TW!

https://matrix.to/#/#wastes:voip.vera-visions.com

The future of The Wastes

We've been actively working on a roadmap for upcoming updates for The Wastes and planning out major changes for upcoming major updates. We'll be ready to talk about these updates in a few months, so keep an eye out for that.

One of the major focuses of this update post is archival of The Wastes' history, ranging from old development builds to TW to the community's content made for the mod. This is very important to us as time forgot both Wasteland HL and The Wastes and we want to make sure the history of TW is recovered.

If you have any official or community content from Wasteland HL, The Wastes, and/or any of the mods related to the lineage of the mod, then please reach out to us at "archive (at) vera-visions.com"

We hope to see you soon on the wasteland, but until then...
Keep on fragging!
~ Vera Visions & Cobalt-57

Jun 27, 2022

The Wastes Update Released

The Wastes - Vera Visions

Hello everyone! Hope you're enjoying the current Steam Summer Sale. We have a patch for you all that will address some bugs.

General bug fixes:

Fixed that the Rouge Snapper did not un-zoom when reloading
Fixed that on some occasions, players cannot change the level when the intermission screen is up
Fixed that the ammo crate would never close during normal game-play
Fixed weapon layering on the spawn menu
Fixed being able to save/test a mission without any valid spawn points
Minor rendering fixes to Plague, moved some graffiti around
Minor speed boost for the ropes
Minor improvements in the engine, especially with the way item their pulse effect is drawn
Misc precaching fixes

Additions, or other changes:

Added option for crouch toggle, check the controls menu (the cvar is cl_crouch_toggle)
More precise mouse sensitivity settings. You can now do 1/10th increments.
Adjusted spawn ammo to make the Extra Ammo option more significant

The demo has been updated to contain most of these fixes as well, wherever they may apply.

We'll be making more changes the coming days to address all of your feedback that you're leaving on the Steam Forums, as well as our IRC - which you can join via the game's builtin chat.

Thank you all for your support!

- Vera Visions

Jun 23, 2022

The Wastes v1.3 is now available!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

Greetings, Wastelander...

We're happy to say that The Wastes v1.3 is now available to the public! It has been a tough 3 years but we've finally managed to get the update out there.

We'll like to go over all that has been done to expand and improve upon the game at hand.

Singleplayer Content

While it may not be in our scope to bring a full fledged singleplayer campaign/story to the game, we at least wanted to provide a singleplayer solution. We've added a few features to give players something to do when no one is duking it out online.

Skirmish

Skirmish is a Singleplayer version of Multiplayer. No more need to start up a server in MP and fill the entire server with nothing but bots.

We've also added a Quick Play button for those who don't want to pick out what rules they want to skirmish to.

Bounties

Bounties are official missions that tie together to paint a general narrative. Choose your own path and alliance.

We wish to expand on bounties in later updates, so expect more to come in the future!

User Missions

Build your own scenarios to battle it out in.

Want to do a beer run in Recotta? You got it!
Want to steal wheels from Junkyard? Nothing is stopping you!
Want to nab that pesky radio in Plague? More power to you!
Want to start an all out nuclear war in Snowbound? Hey man, I don't make the rules!

Multiplayer Content

We've have a few new changes to Multiplayer at hand. Some may be permanent changes, some may change in future updates.

New Gamemode: Team Anarchy

You guys asked, we listened. We heard your request for a classic Team DM gamemode and here it is. No strings attached. Two teams, one goal; beat the other into oblivion.

New Gamemode: Invasion

The Loonies are flooding into the Wasteland and its you and your team's goal to make sure they do not over take your land.

New Gamemode: Cooperative Missions

Remember those custom missions we mentioned back in the Singleplayer section? Yeah, you can play them with your friends cooperatively online. Perhaps your squad can be the last survivors in your nuclear holocaust!

New Feature: Peer-to-Peer Servers powered by ICE

Look, we get it! Opening ports to host a server is way too much hassle for people who want to setup a quick game. But now with the latest update, you are no longer required to do that!

With ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) you can just set up a server and get people in. It is as simple as that. We handle what's needed to get your server seen to others.

But don't worry, you can still fall back onto port forwarding!

New Maps!

And most importantly, new maps! You'll get to play with 6 additional maps!

Junkyard

Junkyard is based upon the map done by Edward 'aufo' Fuller back in the final RC release for the original mod version of The Wastes. That version of the map was based upon the map "Junk" by Stuart 'Mr. Bunwah' Maine that released with Wasteland HL all of the way back in the Beta 1 release.

Edward's Junkyard changed a bit of the layout of Stuart's Junkyard; and we've changed the layout a lot compared to the both of them. Made the map have less tight hallways and removed a chunk of the map to streamline the layout.

Plague

Plague is based upon the map done Ted 'Postman' Anderson back in the first RC release of the mod version of The Wastes.

Unlike the original map by Ted, our Plague takes place in a nuclear tundra!

Oil Rig

Unlike many maps seen in The Wastes, this map is actually made entirely in-house.

This map puts you onto an abandoned Oil Rig out in the middle of the ocean. Duke it out to claim it as your own.

The Pit

The Pit is based upon Stuart 'Mr. Bunwah' Maine's "The Rad Pits" from Wasteland HL beta 1.

We've done away with the toxic wastes and fine tuned the layout to keep the combat concentrated in the center of the map.

Fun Fact: Stuart would later use the map as a base for a singleplayer HL mod known as "Aftermath."

Silo

SIlo is based upon the map done by Edward 'aufo' Fuller back in the first RC release of the mod version of The Wastes.

As stated in earlier announcements, we remove a lot of the loops that were in the original map to make it a lot more straight forward to navigate through the Silo.

Fun Fact: Silo has a missing music track done by Sam 'Potshot' Allen for the unreleased The Wastes RC2.0 version of the mod. If you know the whereabouts of this track, get it touch with us!

Mahlstrom

Mahlstrom is based upon the community map by Martin 'MGPalmer' Tepper for the original Wasteland HL mod.

The map is a pretty straight forward arena to duke it out in.

Fun Fact: Mahlstrom was one of the maps being made for the canceled The Wastes: Source! It is unknown who was the author of the recreation of the map. We take more inspiration from the original version by Martin.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

Yes! The Wastes will be put on sale to coincide with both the Summer Sale and our v1.3 update!

It is 75% off of asking price!

We were avoiding previous sales due to the poor state that v1.2 was in. But now that v1.3 is now officially out, expect the game to actually go on sale more consistently.

Shareware Demo

The Wastes v1.3 will also ship with a shareware demo!

It is a completed version of TWTest. The same maps and content that was available in TWTest but with the final code and assets of v1.3. We also will be updating the shareware demo alongside the full game.

The shareware demo can only play with other shareware demo users and can't play anything beyond what is provided in the demo.

Beyond v1.3

With the massive rewrite that v1.3 went through, we now benefit from any patch that our project "Nuclide" receives. Meaning there will be many mini-patches down the line that will fix bugs in TW v1.3!

As for a major content update, we'll have to wait and see. There's a lot we still want to do with The Wastes but we need to plan out how we want to handle it. There's a bit of stuff that was left on the cutting room floor for this update just to make sure we could finally get it out without constantly ballooning the scope. We do plan on revisiting that content, but that's all in do time.

Closing Thoughts

Thanks to everyone in the community that helped us playtest this massive update. It's essentially been reworked from the ground up to enable smoother network play and easier integration of future quality of life updates.

This article doesn't even manage to mention everything that we've added into v1.3, like the new vehicles or even the new player model by Alex 'Kruddman' Yao! There's a lot new here, you should load up the game and check it out for yourself!

We look forward to what the future entails! Hopefully it won't take 3 years this time. ;)

We hope to see you soon on the wasteland, but until then...
Keep on fragging!
~ Vera Visions & Cobalt-57

Jun 10, 2022

The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta - Update Released

The Wastes - Vera Visions

Hello everyone, here's the change-log for the build of today!
Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and features last week.

Fixed bug where the server browser was reporting wrong max-player info
Fixed the spectator camera not displaying zoom levels for targets
Fixed weapons not displaying when spectating a player in first-person
Fixed akimbo's not rendering properly in first-person
Fixed map description taking too long to scroll in
Fixed some maps, on some surfaces, wrongfully emitting steam
Fixed that dropped items and pouches do not glow
Fixed the camera sliding away when dying on a slope
Fixed the black texture on the car in tw_dune
Fixed the 'RESET' button in the menu not resetting controls
Fixed the grenade cooking timer not being unset when dying/switching
Fixed the AI following dead players and spectators
Fixed a decal in tw_plague casting a shadow
Fixed the missing wood texture on plants in tw_plague
Added requested feature: auto-reload when empty
Added Katana wielding Looney
Added overlays for when you're underwater, in slime, or lava
Added stories for most other maps
Updated mapcycle to incldue all FFA/Anarchy maps
Fixed the Katana quick-switch abuse
Despawn flames when a round in Team Chaos restarts
Recompiled all the maps
Make the lighting in tw_pits less bright
Ammo crate now only changes loadout in Invasion when holding down USE
The flashlight has now been changed to the classic lighter
The glows on pickups and usable objects has been changed to a pulse, as it's more visible
Countless small map changes and fixes.

Jun 9, 2022

The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta Play Test occurring on July 10th, 2022!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

Come join us tomorrow as we hold a play testing session for the v1.3 Open Beta on July 10th, 2022 at 8PM EST/5PM PDT to 9PM EST/6PM PDT! This play test will only occur for a hour opposed to the 3 hours that we typically run the play test for.

If you have previously played The Wastes on Steam, make sure you go into your "My Games/The Wastes/wastes" inside of your documents and delete the config file! Otherwise, you will experience issues with running the game!

Jun 3, 2022

The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta - Update Released

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

We have released an update for The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta.
Changes in this update are:

BCG-1 now fires twice as fast.
Fixed Tier 3 (Primary) Weapons appearing in-world on Invasion matches.
Added client variable "g_invasion_waves," defaults to 10.
Server and Map name will now scroll horizontally in the menus.
Dawn Hawk max firing rate has been nerf'd a little.
Brenetta now is fully automatic, instead of semi-automatic.
Fixed glitch on the Shotguns that would allow you to shoot as fast as the Model 20.
Miscellaneous Main Menu changes.

Jun 2, 2022

Massive The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta Play Test occurring on June 3rd, 2022!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

Come join us tomorrow as we hold a major play testing session for the v1.3 Open Beta on June 3rd, 2022 at 10PM EST/7PM PDT to 1AM EST/9PM PDT!

We will be focusing on game play balance during this play test!

If you have previously played The Wastes on Steam, make sure you go into your "My Games/The Wastes/wastes" inside of your documents and delete the config file! Otherwise, you will experience issues with running the game!

May 27, 2022

The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta - Update Released

The Wastes - Vera Visions

Hello everyone! We have a changelog for the 1.3beta branch to share with you!

General changes:

- Melee weapons now 'swing' across the screen with multiple hitscan checks instead of just one. This should make the melee gameplay even more enjoyable
- Fixed pogo-stick like firing with the burst-fire mode of the SMG-9 and the US-R16
- Fixed some bugs on the Winston, related to aiming down the sights and idle states
- Fixed bullet decals on Tile and Wood surfaces
- Fixed line-break for map credits in the menu
- Fixed the Night Hawk having a missing texture on the akimbo player model attachment
- Fixed Akimbo guns reloading instantly
- Fixed that the RC Bomb Car can be deployed inside of a player, or other entity
- Fixed a crash that happens when you try to select a weapon when dead, or when you're inbetween the state of having a weapon in your hand without actually having it in inventory
- Fixed the frag grenade from not being able to be held down
- During Intermission, we now go back to the camera system you see in the spawn menu instead of being stuck in first-person
- Added detail textures to the game. You can disable them in the Video Options menu as well

Singleplayer:

- Added Skirmish sub-menu
- Added Edit Profile sub-menu, the editing functionality will be taken out for the final build however (it will become a 'preview' instead)
- Polished some visuals for consistency, moved plenty of things around
- Attributes and character model should now be respected properly across the game

Multiplayer:

- Added 'Disable ICE' option, for when you need to host a game for over 8 players
- Updated the interface for choosing your team
- Several minor interface changes

Invasion:

- Looney's now use a new logic to determine if a player is visible, which should minimize
them teleporting away in front of your eyes
- Looney spawn count per round now correlates to how many players are playing, this will
increase the total amount of Looneys spawned
- Changed the slow-mo timer to work better on dedicated servers
- Looney's now are gradually dropped into a 'Wave' instead of spawning all at once
- Looney's should now seek out the nearest player whenever they need a new target

Editor/Mission:

- Added item\_pouch, which is like an ammo crate but in pickup form that
can be placed around the map
- You are now able to set the reserve ammo you spawn with in the Editor
- Several interface code improvements, mainly for text-fields and windowing
- Pickups should no longer pass through a floor on plague and on other maps

Vehicular Carnage:

- The mode has been redone to incorporate a never ending stream of Looneys that you need to squish. Please give feedback as we're still trying things out
- Cars now can no longer flip over
- Players will now 'die' with the vehicle

Maps:

- The Dunes: Fixed wall collision bug in some areas of the map
- Grime Base: Fixed the water sometimes appearing fully black
- Plagued Hospital: Fixed the radio being pitch black all the time

Bots:

- Added 'Clan Tag' option for them in the menu
- Added filters for which category of weapons they can use

Engine:

- Recompiled engine binaries for Linux 32-bit and 64-bit.
The 64-bit binary links against SDL2, the 32-bit one links against GLX.
This should hopefully run better on older/stable distributions

May 26, 2022

Massive The Wastes v1.3 Open Beta Play Test occurring on May 27, 2022!

The Wastes - Cobalt-57 Publishing

Come join us tomorrow as we hold a major play testing session for the v1.3 Open Beta on May 27th, 2022 at 10PM EST/7PM PDT to 1AM EST/9PM PDT!

If you have previously played The Wastes on Steam, make sure you go into your "My Games/The Wastes/wastes" inside of your documents and delete the config file! Otherwise, you will experience issues with running the game!

...

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