An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.



First and foremost, Hezus has built a brand new map "Search 'n Destroy", featuring a combination of assault and territory control styles of game play with up-to 4 playable classes to choose from.



Vote to play one of four difficulty levels based on your teamwork and toughness.



Please have a play with any amount of players and let us know what you think. -- The map's difficulty will dynamically adjust according to the player count. Beware that a late joiner on insane difficulty will use up the single spare ticket though, so be sure to have at least one medic playing.





Notable changes are as follows:

• New map: Search 'n Destroy, by Hezus
  
• Do not expose values of protected CVARs in auto-completion (e.g. "rcon_password"), show "***PROTECTED***" instead.
  
• Fixed server browser not showing any results immediately after updating video settings. (No longer requires game to be restarted.)
  
• RPG rockets are now flagged to not collide with allies by relationship. (E.g. players firing their RPG no longer need to worry about suicide due to another player running in front of them.)

You can find hundreds of more changes in the full change log on our Wiki.



As with any release please do not use the comments thread to report an issue or request support. This is very easily missed, so to get an answer as promptly and detailed as possible please submit your issue or query to any of the following channels:

• Game hub discussions
  
• Discord

Steam build ID numbers: Game 6008644, dedicated server tool 6008647, SDK tool 6008648.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

Ladies, gentlemen, eels, seagulls, amorphous eldritch horrors,

The Steam Awards are upon us once again. We kindly request your nomination for the Labor of Love award (link attached).

Sven Co-op, the very first modification to the epic game "Half-Life", has been in production for nearly 22 years. Since January of 1999, this game and its surrounding communities have enjoyed an unrivalled quantity of content generated by the Sven Co-op Team and its ambitious and highly-skilled community. Both will continue in their endeavour to keep our beloved hobby, Sven Co-op, going for as long as possible without asking for even a penny charge. (Donations entirely optional, of course, and strictly going towards upkeep of ongoing service costs and Sven Viking's biannual vacations to the Bahamas only.)

Thank you kindly for playing, developing, and showing your support for such a ridiculously long time.



Love,

The Sven Co-op Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/225840/Sven_Coop/

Yesterday we announced our new Rent-A-Map™ feature and the initial reactions were great! Paying a small fee to support development for something you could have used for free otherwise seemed to really inspire our playerbase.

However, it also inspired a bunch of lawyers to send us an email about the legal obligations once you call something 'rent'. Apparently once we rent out our maps we are also legally obligated to maintain and support said maps for the foreseeable future. This would not be a problem for our official maps, but since we were planning to apply the Rent-A-Map™ system to all custom maps out there (more than 1500!), we'd be maintaining maps for the rest of our foreseeable lives!

We were trying to make the maps make money for us, not the other way around. So, Rent-A-Map™ will be put on hold for now and we're going back to the drawing board to think up another way to make quick money with minimal effort. We're already exploring several routes, including lootboxes and nanotransactions, so stay tuned for more updates April First 2021!

-Hezus

We here at Sven Co-op work hard on new engine and gameplay features to bring you the best possible co-operative experience. However, we have been having a hard time delivering new official maps with our releases. We only want to give you the AAA+ material you good people all deserve but it takes a lot of time to create such maps. Many of our mappers only work on the MOD in their limited free time and need their day jobs to be financially secure. But now, we came up with a solution for both of these problems:



Of course you want to play Sven Co-op 24/7 but you also have to eat at some point, visit relatives or walk your dog. Plus, you can only play one map at a time, so for 99% of the time, all the maps in your library are unused! So, why pay a lot of money for a map you're only playing every now and then? Why own a thing you hardly use, when you can also RENT it for the time you are using it?

The solution: Rent-A-Map™! For only a small fee you can now rent a map of your choice for your server! Our handy Steam GUI will allow you to select your favourite map, set a rent time and your credit card, PayPal or Steam wallet info and you'll be playing it right away!



And of course you want your friends to join in! That's why we're also offering Rent-A-Map™ TimeShare®. Set the number of friends you want to share this map with and you can invite them straight into your game. You can get great discounts by using TimeShare®: up to 25% for a 16-player Time-Share®!

New useful features have been added to the game, such as the Rent-Timer© widget! When your subscription to a map you are playing is nearing its end, a pop-up will automaticly appear on your screen. A simple click will extend your subscription by an additional hour, giving you enough time to finish the map.



We're currently converting all official maps to the Rent-A-Map™ system, which will be activated in the next update of Sven Co-op! Our awesome new feature will give you all the convenience and us the funds we need to continue creating high quality content!

An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.



Notable changes are as follows:

• Fix for Windows 10 users using different DPI scales per-monitor
  
• Increased maximum weapons to 256

You can find the full change log on our news.



As with any release please do not use the comments thread to report an issue or request support. This is very easily missed, so to get an answer as promptly and detailed as possible please submit your issue or query to any of the following channels:

• Game hub discussions
  
• Official message board
  
• Discord

Steam build ID numbers: Game 4566677, dedicated server tool 4566690, SDK tool 4566691.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

Notable changes are as follows:

• Black Mesa: Special Tactics Sector, level by Trempler, now has a serious balance fix. (No more red team permanently winning!)
  
• Suspension, level by Hezus, now features night mode!
  
• Level designers can now change the sky with new entity "trigger_changesky".
  
• Map Compile Tools: Default subdivide value has been increased to 528. This improves world polygon subdivision on all maps, which increases frame rates, and opens the possibility for utilization of 512x512 textures without excessive subdivision.

Important: Dedicated server operators running on Windows must install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 (x86) re-distributable package. This is available for free here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

You can find the full change log on our news.



Steam build ID numbers: Game 4534884, dedicated server tool 4534885, SDK tool 4534886.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

We're starting to ramp up for the Sven Co-op 5.21 release, and so, we've added a few more people to our team to help us get there.

Please join me in welcoming Omega (Programming), KernCore (Art and Scripting), DNIO071 (Art), The303 (Art), and MrOats (Testing)!


Omega:
As a retired Valve Software employee, it would be an understatement to say Omega brings a great deal of knowledge and experience. While we're not completely sure what projects he was working on at Valve (Half-Life 3, of course), we do know he helped bring many improvements to the Half-Life engine.

During the early days of Half-Life's modding community, he was a programmer for Frontline Force. Frontline Force was a popular Half-Life modification created by Adrian Finol (Valve) alongside notable community figures like Alfred Reynolds (Valve, Retired). You can still check out the mod over at ModDB.

More recently, he worked with Minh "Gooseman" Le (the creator of Counter-Strike) on a game called Tactical Intervention.


KernCore:
KernCore is a scripting and artwork specialist. He's worked on various addon packs, allowing players to do things like use Counter-Strike weapons in Sven Co-op. He's also helped us work through bugs with Angelscript (Sven Co-op's scripting language) and draw our attention to engine problems.


DNIO071:
Experienced with modeling and animation, DNIO071 is a regular in our Discord channel and forums. One of his more notable projects was Color Changing Weapon Arms, allowing player model colors to display in first person view.


The303:
The303 has tinkered about on some impressive artwork projects. He's made everything from ketchup bottles and barstools to toilets and exploding tires. One of his memorable projects was a skeleton player model with some finely crafted (and funny) animations. He also dedicates some of his time writing editing guides for Half-Life and Sven Co-op. You can check out his website to see more.


MrOats:
MrOats joins our group of testers. He'll be helping us find problems as well as give input on new features. Later on, he'll be expanding to other roles in scripting and programming as his free time permits.


After a brief bit of downtime, we recently finished migrating our forums to new server hardware. The forums contain a lot of valuable information since nearly the beginning of Sven Co-op's development. Please note though, while the forums are useful, these days most people use our Discord channel.

That's all for now. As mentioned, we're still busy working on the next release, 5.21. We've gotten quite a few bugs squashed and added a few new features. In our next news update, we'll be giving a bit more information on what's to come, so check back soon.

We have completed a new entity (and engine interface) for mappers: "trigger_changesky", allows you to change the sky map at runtime.

Demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgMs_RHXK4

Coming up in 5.21: Support for BSP subdividing of 512 up from 240, resulting in significantly less WPOLY requirements for big surfaces.

Less WPOLY = more FPS + bigger maps!

Compile comparison: https://pastebin.com/cY3wgwBy
Wireframe comparison: https://twitter.com/sven_co_op/status/1165194741723684864

Sven Co-op Update Released [Build 3735813 / Release 5.20]

An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.



This is primarily a security patch to fix a few server exploits. Server operators: Please update your servers ASAP.

You can find the full change log on our news.



Steam build ID numbers: Game 3735813, dedicated server tool 3735815, SDK tool 3735816.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.