We are setting live Closed Beta Wave 5 today shortly (with many new invites going out as well!). Below you can find the changelog:


New Major Audio Feature

• Included in CB5 is a brand-new audio engine (Wwise)! Not only will you hear greatly improved sounds across the board… performance has also been improved. Weapon sounds are ‘beefier’ along with improved sound distance. Helicopter sounds have been updated. Ambience has been updated. As you move through the jungle you’ll hear ambient creatures calling out all around you, branches snapping and mosquitoes buzzing. Lastly, be sure to also turn on the music, as we have introduced brand new music tracks for both factions.

As this is a large audio update, we have created specific survey questions to gauge your feedback. Remember to click the survey from the right side of the main menu!

Gameplay

• There have been many refinements to the Vote Kicking system
  
  • The name of the player who initiates the vote is now shown
    
  • Players cannot quit and re-join a server to vote multiple times
    
  • There is a cooldown on starting multiple votes
    
  • The overall voting time has been shortened

Customization

• (For BETA Wave 5 only) We have unlocked all character customization items for this beta phase. Once we have the server ranking system ready to publish in a future update, the character customization items will once again be locked behind player ranks that you will acquire through leveling in-game.

Weapons

• The MoA on some guns has been adjusted to be more in line with real-world values
  
• Tweaked damage values for torso zones. Overall, large-caliber guns will be more lethal
  
• Any central torso hit now has the capacity to kill if enough damage is dealt.
  
• Pistols are now limited to specific classes and not every class has one now. This will cause the pistols to become more scarce on the battlefield. Looting bodies for pistols should now be a more useful mechanic. In the sake of authenticity, pistols were removed from all Rifleman based classes (Grunt, Rifleman, Guerrilla)
  
• Adjusted the damage for RPD to more accurately match SKS/AK weapon family damage

Art

• Fixed DX11 Anti-aliasing issues that some testers were experiencing
  
• Massively improved first person weapon shadows on gun and hands
  
• PBR reflections have been adjusted to work better indoors
  
• Adjusted rearward travel fire animations for M16 and DP28 downwards to be more realistic
  
• Increased rearward travel fire animations for shotguns
  
• Increased the speed of deploy animations for LMGs
  
• Added missing bipod fold animations for the DP28

GUI

• The launch ‘splash’ image has been updated
  
• Various tweaks to the Overhead Map such as objective icons, Supremacy UI elements, and size and zoom
  
• Supremacy UI now dynamically illustrates links between objectives
  
• Players will now be presented with a ‘First-Time Explanation’ of the role select menu.
  
• Increased max friendly player icon distance to 150m
  
• The Settings Menu has been adjusted to present a more natural flow
  
• Added an option to remove framerate smoothing to the video settings menu. This is intended for 120hz & 144hz monitors, where you were previously locked at 60FPS
  
• A ‘progress bar’ has been added for items such as bandaging, tunnelling, destroying tunnels, etc. Note, this is a first pass. More work on the visual elements will be coming in a future BETA wave
  
• Added a ‘Borderless Windowed’ setting to the video settings menu
  
• Helicopter UI elements that were previously transparent are now more readable
  
• Fonts have been improved and tweaked throughout the game, for easier legibility
  
• Removed a few unsupported 4:3 resolutions from the video settings menu
  
• Added an option to quiet the announcer voice separately from other audio elements. The Announcer Volume slider can be found in the audio settings menu
  
• Removed confusing chevron symbols from the Territories game mode UI
  
• Removed the ‘auto spawn’ checkbox from spawn menu
  
• The overhead map has been adjusted to no longer include extraneous information

Performance

• Helicopter networking code has been optimized for better performance
  
• Audio performance has been streamlined

Bug Fixes
Gameplay

• Fixed a bug where ‘Force Respawn’ would sometimes not spawn all dead players on a team
  
• Fixed a bug where mantling could fail on slanted terrain
  
• Fixed a bug where the F4 could ‘miss’ targets with high elevation, such as An Lao Valley.
  
• Fixed a bug where player bodies would fling high in the air on death from underground locations. This may still occur in some undiscovered places as the fix is location-specific. Please be sure to report any cases you still see this occur

Maps

• Various bugfixes and improvements to the below maps. Improvements include optimization, additional art passes, collision fixes and miscellaneous adjustments based on previous wave tester feedback
  
  • TE-Hill937
    
  • TE-Hue City
    
  • TE-Cuchi
    
  • SU-SongBe
    
  • TE-Firebase
    
  • TE-Compound

Audio

• Fixed a bug where some audio files were not adjusted by the correct sliders in the menu

Art

• Various red barrels will no longer appear bright red so as not to confuse players who thought they could shoot the barrels to make them explode
  
• Fixed a bug where 3p Punji shovelling had no animations
  
• Fixed a bug where the ‘spinner’ animation for commander ability cooldowns would not show
  
• Fixed a bug with the VC Radioman backpack not ‘rag dolling’ correctly
  
• Fixed bugs with 3P LMG iron sight animations
  
• Fixed bugs with hip fire hit detection not working properly in some corner cases
  
• Fixed several collision issues where players would previously bounce back or become stuck
  
• Fixed character customisation rooms on Firebase, Song Be, and other maps
  
• The Claymore and C4 now bring up the ‘clacker’ (trigger) much more quickly

GUI

• Fixed the Match Report screen showing both teams as ‘red’ when using homogenized colours
  
• The credits section has been updated

Miscellaneous Fixes & Updates

• The game executable has been changed. It has been renamed to VNGame.exe. You may need to change custom shortcuts
  
• The Bink video player has been updated which will provide better fidelity on video files such as menus and loading screens
  
• Adjusted the speed hack detection system to be a bit more forgiving for players on Wi-Fi or with bad connections

We are setting live Closed Beta Wave 5 today shortly (with many new invites going out as well!). Below you can find the changelog:


New Major Audio Feature

• Included in CB5 is a brand-new audio engine (Wwise)! Not only will you hear greatly improved sounds across the board… performance has also been improved. Weapon sounds are ‘beefier’ along with improved sound distance. Helicopter sounds have been updated. Ambience has been updated. As you move through the jungle you’ll hear ambient creatures calling out all around you, branches snapping and mosquitoes buzzing. Lastly, be sure to also turn on the music, as we have introduced brand new music tracks for both factions.

As this is a large audio update, we have created specific survey questions to gauge your feedback. Remember to click the survey from the right side of the main menu!

Gameplay

• There have been many refinements to the Vote Kicking system
  
  • The name of the player who initiates the vote is now shown
    
  • Players cannot quit and re-join a server to vote multiple times
    
  • There is a cooldown on starting multiple votes
    
  • The overall voting time has been shortened

Customization

• (For BETA Wave 5 only) We have unlocked all character customization items for this beta phase. Once we have the server ranking system ready to publish in a future update, the character customization items will once again be locked behind player ranks that you will acquire through leveling in-game.

Weapons

• The MoA on some guns has been adjusted to be more in line with real-world values
  
• Tweaked damage values for torso zones. Overall, large-caliber guns will be more lethal
  
• Any central torso hit now has the capacity to kill if enough damage is dealt.
  
• Pistols are now limited to specific classes and not every class has one now. This will cause the pistols to become more scarce on the battlefield. Looting bodies for pistols should now be a more useful mechanic. In the sake of authenticity, pistols were removed from all Rifleman based classes (Grunt, Rifleman, Guerrilla)
  
• Adjusted the damage for RPD to more accurately match SKS/AK weapon family damage

Art

• Fixed DX11 Anti-aliasing issues that some testers were experiencing
  
• Massively improved first person weapon shadows on gun and hands
  
• PBR reflections have been adjusted to work better indoors
  
• Adjusted rearward travel fire animations for M16 and DP28 downwards to be more realistic
  
• Increased rearward travel fire animations for shotguns
  
• Increased the speed of deploy animations for LMGs
  
• Added missing bipod fold animations for the DP28

GUI

• The launch ‘splash’ image has been updated
  
• Various tweaks to the Overhead Map such as objective icons, Supremacy UI elements, and size and zoom
  
• Supremacy UI now dynamically illustrates links between objectives
  
• Players will now be presented with a ‘First-Time Explanation’ of the role select menu.
  
• Increased max friendly player icon distance to 150m
  
• The Settings Menu has been adjusted to present a more natural flow
  
• Added an option to remove framerate smoothing to the video settings menu. This is intended for 120hz & 144hz monitors, where you were previously locked at 60FPS
  
• A ‘progress bar’ has been added for items such as bandaging, tunnelling, destroying tunnels, etc. Note, this is a first pass. More work on the visual elements will be coming in a future BETA wave
  
• Added a ‘Borderless Windowed’ setting to the video settings menu
  
• Helicopter UI elements that were previously transparent are now more readable
  
• Fonts have been improved and tweaked throughout the game, for easier legibility
  
• Removed a few unsupported 4:3 resolutions from the video settings menu
  
• Added an option to quiet the announcer voice separately from other audio elements. The Announcer Volume slider can be found in the audio settings menu
  
• Removed confusing chevron symbols from the Territories game mode UI
  
• Removed the ‘auto spawn’ checkbox from spawn menu
  
• The overhead map has been adjusted to no longer include extraneous information

Performance

• Helicopter networking code has been optimized for better performance
  
• Audio performance has been streamlined

Bug Fixes
Gameplay

• Fixed a bug where ‘Force Respawn’ would sometimes not spawn all dead players on a team
  
• Fixed a bug where mantling could fail on slanted terrain
  
• Fixed a bug where the F4 could ‘miss’ targets with high elevation, such as An Lao Valley.
  
• Fixed a bug where player bodies would fling high in the air on death from underground locations. This may still occur in some undiscovered places as the fix is location-specific. Please be sure to report any cases you still see this occur

Maps

• Various bugfixes and improvements to the below maps. Improvements include optimization, additional art passes, collision fixes and miscellaneous adjustments based on previous wave tester feedback
  
  • TE-Hill937
    
  • TE-Hue City
    
  • TE-Cuchi
    
  • SU-SongBe
    
  • TE-Firebase
    
  • TE-Compound

Audio

• Fixed a bug where some audio files were not adjusted by the correct sliders in the menu

Art

• Various red barrels will no longer appear bright red so as not to confuse players who thought they could shoot the barrels to make them explode
  
• Fixed a bug where 3p Punji shovelling had no animations
  
• Fixed a bug where the ‘spinner’ animation for commander ability cooldowns would not show
  
• Fixed a bug with the VC Radioman backpack not ‘rag dolling’ correctly
  
• Fixed bugs with 3P LMG iron sight animations
  
• Fixed bugs with hip fire hit detection not working properly in some corner cases
  
• Fixed several collision issues where players would previously bounce back or become stuck
  
• Fixed character customisation rooms on Firebase, Song Be, and other maps
  
• The Claymore and C4 now bring up the ‘clacker’ (trigger) much more quickly

GUI

• Fixed the Match Report screen showing both teams as ‘red’ when using homogenized colours
  
• The credits section has been updated

Miscellaneous Fixes & Updates

• The game executable has been changed. It has been renamed to VNGame.exe. You may need to change custom shortcuts
  
• The Bink video player has been updated which will provide better fidelity on video files such as menus and loading screens
  
• Adjusted the speed hack detection system to be a bit more forgiving for players on Wi-Fi or with bad connections

Closed Beta Wave 4 is starting and invites will be going out shortly. The patch notes for the build are as follows:


New Major Graphics Feature

• We have now moved the whole game over to DirectX 11. Players will now see some performance and visual improvements - more to come in the future. PLEASE NOTE: we are NOT supporting anything older than DX11 from this time, so all players will require a DX11-capable graphics card. We believe that this should only affect a very small percentage of potential players, with older graphics cards. However, this will allow for further graphical enhancements that we cannot support on older graphics cards.

Gameplay General

• Default team colors have been updated to be more in-line with today’s gaming standards. Friendly players will always appear blue while enemy players will always appear red
  
• Added player stat tracking and levelling. Moreover, character customization options are now locked behind your player level. You will see level progress throughout BETA, starting with closed beta wave 4
  
• Manual reloading is now on by default. Automatic reloading is now slightly slower (this mirrors manual/automatic bolting)
  
• ‘T’ (Tactical View) is now default as a toggle function, not a hold function
  
• Added new camera animations for various actions in first person. New animations include; prone, climb, mantle and melee
  
• Bandaging is now a ‘hold’ system, not a press and wait
  
• A new ‘main menu’ video has been added
  
• Pointman and Scout classes no longer have access to assault rifles
  
• Players can now vote to kick other players out of roles on your team
  
• Changed the slots of items on numbers 3 and 4 in the inventory. (There is no longer a ‘5’ slot).
  
• Spawn times have been standardized across all maps
  
• A new visual effect has been added that shows progression when digging tunnels.
  
• Ammo supply has seen improvements. The resupply system will now incrementally resupply players one magazine or throwable at a time (currently 1 per second). It will fill all magazines first, then move to throwables

Squads

• Default squad colors have been updated to be more in-line with today’s gaming. standards. Squad members will now appear green. The new changes are on by default. You can change the default color by using the console command setsquadcolourpreset 0/1/2/3.This will be added as an option in the game settings at a later date
  
• Squads can no longer be locked until it has at least two players in it
  
• New tooltips have been added for all buttons on the squad menu
  
• The squad number has been added to the squad list, squad menu and scoreboard

Commanders

• Commander Abilities can no longer be used in the first 2 minutes of a round
  
• The US Commander can now spawn in an active Loach

Weapons

• Tweaked SVD scope zoom
  
• Slightly decreased RPG lethal radius
  
• Improvements have been made to sniper scope effects and performance. More performance optimization still yet to come
  
• Improved third person perspective animations for the RPG

Maps

• Hill 937 makes its first BETA appearance. This is a new Territories map with the US leading a charge up a very tightly defended hill. This map also includes attack choppers
  
• An Lao Valley returns with miscellaneous improvements to visuals and gameplay
  
• Compound has received a massive visual update
  
• Territories versions of Compound and Firebase have been tweaked and improved, based on internal and external feedback

UI

• New tooltips have been added for all guns and gun variants explaining function and differences
  
• New rank icons have been added for each player rank
  
• New faction and team select icons have been added
  
• Player names now fade as players get closer to respawning on the side of the UI

Art

• All guns in the ‘gun select’ menu have received visual updates
  
• When damaged, Helicopter models will now appropriately update visually
  
• Added visual indication that Ho Chi Minh ability is active

Audio

• New sounds have been added for helicopters
  
• Added various new sounds for weapon handling
  
• Updated sound/animation timing for weapon handling

Bug Fixes
Gameplay

• Pilots who land within enemy spawn protection can no longer fire their weapons

Weapons

• Fixed a bug with Slug damage at range 20m with the IZH shotgun
  
• The green placement indicator will no longer permanently remain after placing a Punji trap

Audio

• Aircraft sounds no longer suddenly cut out when they leave the map

Known Issues
Known Issues

• Character customization screen on some maps will have some camera placement issues or issues viewing customization character
  
• Helicopter engine sounds not always replicating when playing online
  
• Highlighting on climbable objects appearing for American team even though they can only be used by the Vietnamese
  
• First person camera clipping with aiming down sights and firing with the SKS
  
• Bullet offset with RPD, bullets can hit behind the player
  
• Muzzle flashes do not LOD
  
• Hit impacts from helicopter and miniguns not displaying correctly online
  
• Screen starts off dark when forced spawned by Commander
  
• First person overheat effect on RPD can be offset from the barrel
  
• Recon plane immediately de-spawning when colliding with objects, including the ground
  
• Invisible first person arms when spawning while in the character customization menu
  
• Small bald spots appear with certain hair customization, dependent on graphical settings
  
• Reopening the role select screen when squad leader, will not see squad leader equipment listed
  
• Character customization overlay conflicts with Skirmish lobby menu
  
• Player not spawning when changing teams from certain roles
  
• Hitch can occur when the game window is not targeted. Game in windowed mode but user is active in another window, like a web browser for example
  
• When selecting a helicopter to spawn the text displayed will change
  
• Possible crash when throwing grenade while sprinting
  
• Performance hit when viewing through sniper scopes
  
• First person camera clipping with body when in gunner position of Cobra
  
• Player death screams continue to play while death animation has stopped
  
• Stuttering during player movement, easier seen when spectating a player
  
• VNSU-SongBe, transparency issue with dirt mesh in and around objective D
  
• Crash helicopters will continue to play collision sound
  
• Levels are not complete and will have minor aesthetic bugs (floating trees, lack of detail in interiors, etc)
  
• Players may sometimes crash when disconnecting from the server.
  
• Traps (Tripwires, Claymore, etc) and Tunnels that can be placed may sometimes fail after completing the placement animation.
  
• Character and Announcer VO are placeholder and are used for testing.
  
• Environment and weapon audio are still in development and will be changing throughout the beta.
  
• All game sounds are a WIP.
  
• Punji trap shovel lacks third person animation for melee attack
  
• VNSU-AnLaoValley, issue with skybox mostly seen during death
  
• Trees on helicopter training range will be removed when closer
  
• Point lights will stop when the player is near
  
• When spotting players the distance measurement is not seen with spotted icon
  
• Tactical HUD not displaying the correct count for certain plantable explosive
  
• Character customization changes made during a match may not be reflected with first person arms
  
• Announcer may repeat lines
  
• No bleed out messages when the player is out of bandages, player has a total of two bandages
  
• Map on the escape menu may appear to be lighter than normal
  
• Crashes can occur when using alt-tab
  
• LOD issue with concrete pillbox
  
• The green placement indicator will no longer permanently remain after placing a Punji trap. It will remain for some time, however.
  
• Vietnamese radioman’s radio will float off the player’s back when moving around
  
• Mosin sniper rifle scope can appear blurry with lower resolutions
  
• Cannot activate cursor on map with ‘T’ key. Affects Commander in loach accessing and using radio
  
• When switching to certain weapons, the name displayed will be incorrect
  
• Both teams icons will appear red on the match end report

Closed Beta Wave 4 is starting and invites will be going out shortly. The patch notes for the build are as follows:


New Major Graphics Feature

• We have now moved the whole game over to DirectX 11. Players will now see some performance and visual improvements - more to come in the future. PLEASE NOTE: we are NOT supporting anything older than DX11 from this time, so all players will require a DX11-capable graphics card. We believe that this should only affect a very small percentage of potential players, with older graphics cards. However, this will allow for further graphical enhancements that we cannot support on older graphics cards.

Gameplay General

• Default team colors have been updated to be more in-line with today’s gaming standards. Friendly players will always appear blue while enemy players will always appear red
  
• Added player stat tracking and levelling. Moreover, character customization options are now locked behind your player level. You will see level progress throughout BETA, starting with closed beta wave 4
  
• Manual reloading is now on by default. Automatic reloading is now slightly slower (this mirrors manual/automatic bolting)
  
• ‘T’ (Tactical View) is now default as a toggle function, not a hold function
  
• Added new camera animations for various actions in first person. New animations include; prone, climb, mantle and melee
  
• Bandaging is now a ‘hold’ system, not a press and wait
  
• A new ‘main menu’ video has been added
  
• Pointman and Scout classes no longer have access to assault rifles
  
• Players can now vote to kick other players out of roles on your team
  
• Changed the slots of items on numbers 3 and 4 in the inventory. (There is no longer a ‘5’ slot).
  
• Spawn times have been standardized across all maps
  
• A new visual effect has been added that shows progression when digging tunnels.
  
• Ammo supply has seen improvements. The resupply system will now incrementally resupply players one magazine or throwable at a time (currently 1 per second). It will fill all magazines first, then move to throwables

Squads

• Default squad colors have been updated to be more in-line with today’s gaming. standards. Squad members will now appear green. The new changes are on by default. You can change the default color by using the console command setsquadcolourpreset 0/1/2/3.This will be added as an option in the game settings at a later date
  
• Squads can no longer be locked until it has at least two players in it
  
• New tooltips have been added for all buttons on the squad menu
  
• The squad number has been added to the squad list, squad menu and scoreboard

Commanders

• Commander Abilities can no longer be used in the first 2 minutes of a round
  
• The US Commander can now spawn in an active Loach

Weapons

• Tweaked SVD scope zoom
  
• Slightly decreased RPG lethal radius
  
• Improvements have been made to sniper scope effects and performance. More performance optimization still yet to come
  
• Improved third person perspective animations for the RPG

Maps

• Hill 937 makes its first BETA appearance. This is a new Territories map with the US leading a charge up a very tightly defended hill. This map also includes attack choppers
  
• An Lao Valley returns with miscellaneous improvements to visuals and gameplay
  
• Compound has received a massive visual update
  
• Territories versions of Compound and Firebase have been tweaked and improved, based on internal and external feedback

UI

• New tooltips have been added for all guns and gun variants explaining function and differences
  
• New rank icons have been added for each player rank
  
• New faction and team select icons have been added
  
• Player names now fade as players get closer to respawning on the side of the UI

Art

• All guns in the ‘gun select’ menu have received visual updates
  
• When damaged, Helicopter models will now appropriately update visually
  
• Added visual indication that Ho Chi Minh ability is active

Audio

• New sounds have been added for helicopters
  
• Added various new sounds for weapon handling
  
• Updated sound/animation timing for weapon handling

Bug Fixes
Gameplay

• Pilots who land within enemy spawn protection can no longer fire their weapons

Weapons

• Fixed a bug with Slug damage at range 20m with the IZH shotgun
  
• The green placement indicator will no longer permanently remain after placing a Punji trap

Audio

• Aircraft sounds no longer suddenly cut out when they leave the map

Known Issues
Known Issues

• Character customization screen on some maps will have some camera placement issues or issues viewing customization character
  
• Helicopter engine sounds not always replicating when playing online
  
• Highlighting on climbable objects appearing for American team even though they can only be used by the Vietnamese
  
• First person camera clipping with aiming down sights and firing with the SKS
  
• Bullet offset with RPD, bullets can hit behind the player
  
• Muzzle flashes do not LOD
  
• Hit impacts from helicopter and miniguns not displaying correctly online
  
• Screen starts off dark when forced spawned by Commander
  
• First person overheat effect on RPD can be offset from the barrel
  
• Recon plane immediately de-spawning when colliding with objects, including the ground
  
• Invisible first person arms when spawning while in the character customization menu
  
• Small bald spots appear with certain hair customization, dependent on graphical settings
  
• Reopening the role select screen when squad leader, will not see squad leader equipment listed
  
• Character customization overlay conflicts with Skirmish lobby menu
  
• Player not spawning when changing teams from certain roles
  
• Hitch can occur when the game window is not targeted. Game in windowed mode but user is active in another window, like a web browser for example
  
• When selecting a helicopter to spawn the text displayed will change
  
• Possible crash when throwing grenade while sprinting
  
• Performance hit when viewing through sniper scopes
  
• First person camera clipping with body when in gunner position of Cobra
  
• Player death screams continue to play while death animation has stopped
  
• Stuttering during player movement, easier seen when spectating a player
  
• VNSU-SongBe, transparency issue with dirt mesh in and around objective D
  
• Crash helicopters will continue to play collision sound
  
• Levels are not complete and will have minor aesthetic bugs (floating trees, lack of detail in interiors, etc)
  
• Players may sometimes crash when disconnecting from the server.
  
• Traps (Tripwires, Claymore, etc) and Tunnels that can be placed may sometimes fail after completing the placement animation.
  
• Character and Announcer VO are placeholder and are used for testing.
  
• Environment and weapon audio are still in development and will be changing throughout the beta.
  
• All game sounds are a WIP.
  
• Punji trap shovel lacks third person animation for melee attack
  
• VNSU-AnLaoValley, issue with skybox mostly seen during death
  
• Trees on helicopter training range will be removed when closer
  
• Point lights will stop when the player is near
  
• When spotting players the distance measurement is not seen with spotted icon
  
• Tactical HUD not displaying the correct count for certain plantable explosive
  
• Character customization changes made during a match may not be reflected with first person arms
  
• Announcer may repeat lines
  
• No bleed out messages when the player is out of bandages, player has a total of two bandages
  
• Map on the escape menu may appear to be lighter than normal
  
• Crashes can occur when using alt-tab
  
• LOD issue with concrete pillbox
  
• The green placement indicator will no longer permanently remain after placing a Punji trap. It will remain for some time, however.
  
• Vietnamese radioman’s radio will float off the player’s back when moving around
  
• Mosin sniper rifle scope can appear blurry with lower resolutions
  
• Cannot activate cursor on map with ‘T’ key. Affects Commander in loach accessing and using radio
  
• When switching to certain weapons, the name displayed will be incorrect
  
• Both teams icons will appear red on the match end report

Good Morning Vietnam fans!

http://media.tripwirecdn.com/020117/PaxS1.jpg
http://media.tripwirecdn.com/020117/PaxS2.jpg

As many of you may know by now we are planning to kick off Closed Beta Wave 4 tomorrow if all goes well on our end! As part of this all of the players who stopped by our booth at PAX South will be joining us. But as always we are once again inviting the next wave and sending out many more invites so keep an eye out on your emails.

Before I go into any more specifics on what CB 4 (Closed Beta Wave 4) entails I want to cover some lessons learned in CB 3 (keep in mind that not all of these will be addressed in CB 4). First of all I would like to thank those of you who responded (just under 50% of our new players to the wave and many of our regulars from previous waves). And a quick reminder - we update the survey every time, while we’re also looking for your views on “did we do better or not” - so we strongly encourage everyone to fill in the survey, even if you’ve done it before! So let us take a look:

• For those of you who were playing commander and doing a good job, you’ll be happy to know we’ve fixed several bugs in the vote kick system that will keep the enemy team from ejecting you.
  
• We have looked into both map setup and bugs with spawn tunnels that were allowing the North to spawn in or too close to the American spawn on CuChi and are making adjustments and fixes as needed
  
• Player feedback on trap planting was a bit flat between (too easy/fast, just right and too hard/long) so moving ahead we’ll be taking a look at some changes we can make here and perhaps more detailed questions in the survey
  
• Many players also let us know that mantling felt way to slow to execute so we’ve made an adjustment here to speed things up a bit.
  
• And as always we are looking for cases where the system fails to work at all or as intended so we can fix it up!

As always to those who participate in the next wave we are preparing another survey which we would love for all participants to fill out after playing to help us better gather and react to player feedback!

Now let us move onto some specifics about Closed Beta Wave 4:

Bringing our Direct X 11 renderer online has gone faster than we originally anticipated and as such DX 9 has been removed from the build and replaced with DX 11. Players will need a DX 11-capable card and OS moving ahead. The first part of this renderer replacement was focused on getting parity with the previous renderer (so no new bugs were introduced while the efficiencies of DX 11 started to come into play). As we move forward we will be looking at ways to leverage some of the new graphical capabilities the renderer brings to the table.

Something else you’ll notice is a lack of new sounds as we are working to replace our audio middleware with WWISE as we move towards Closed Beta Wave 5. Our audio team has switched their focus towards bringing our existing sounds into the new system as well as continuing their work on bringing new sounds online there as well. Expect great things in the audio department for Wave 5.

And the last item I want to highlight for CB4 is we have been doing some UI work to make things more familiar to players new to the series (don’t worry, if you prefer the classical way it is available as an option!) This includes things like default squad colors (being green), teammates as blue and enemies as red no matter which team you are on. Repeat - from here on, “friendlies” are BLUE and “enemies” are RED.

We’ll see you in the jungle! Or come visit us at the PC Gamer Weekender event in London, Feb 18th and 19th! Meet us in person (and get a beta key!). We’ll also be live-streaming from the event for more goodness…

Good Morning Vietnam fans!

http://media.tripwirecdn.com/020117/PaxS1.jpg
http://media.tripwirecdn.com/020117/PaxS2.jpg

As many of you may know by now we are planning to kick off Closed Beta Wave 4 tomorrow if all goes well on our end! As part of this all of the players who stopped by our booth at PAX South will be joining us. But as always we are once again inviting the next wave and sending out many more invites so keep an eye out on your emails.

Before I go into any more specifics on what CB 4 (Closed Beta Wave 4) entails I want to cover some lessons learned in CB 3 (keep in mind that not all of these will be addressed in CB 4). First of all I would like to thank those of you who responded (just under 50% of our new players to the wave and many of our regulars from previous waves). And a quick reminder - we update the survey every time, while we’re also looking for your views on “did we do better or not” - so we strongly encourage everyone to fill in the survey, even if you’ve done it before! So let us take a look:

• For those of you who were playing commander and doing a good job, you’ll be happy to know we’ve fixed several bugs in the vote kick system that will keep the enemy team from ejecting you.
  
• We have looked into both map setup and bugs with spawn tunnels that were allowing the North to spawn in or too close to the American spawn on CuChi and are making adjustments and fixes as needed
  
• Player feedback on trap planting was a bit flat between (too easy/fast, just right and too hard/long) so moving ahead we’ll be taking a look at some changes we can make here and perhaps more detailed questions in the survey
  
• Many players also let us know that mantling felt way to slow to execute so we’ve made an adjustment here to speed things up a bit.
  
• And as always we are looking for cases where the system fails to work at all or as intended so we can fix it up!

As always to those who participate in the next wave we are preparing another survey which we would love for all participants to fill out after playing to help us better gather and react to player feedback!

Now let us move onto some specifics about Closed Beta Wave 4:

Bringing our Direct X 11 renderer online has gone faster than we originally anticipated and as such DX 9 has been removed from the build and replaced with DX 11. Players will need a DX 11-capable card and OS moving ahead. The first part of this renderer replacement was focused on getting parity with the previous renderer (so no new bugs were introduced while the efficiencies of DX 11 started to come into play). As we move forward we will be looking at ways to leverage some of the new graphical capabilities the renderer brings to the table.

Something else you’ll notice is a lack of new sounds as we are working to replace our audio middleware with WWISE as we move towards Closed Beta Wave 5. Our audio team has switched their focus towards bringing our existing sounds into the new system as well as continuing their work on bringing new sounds online there as well. Expect great things in the audio department for Wave 5.

And the last item I want to highlight for CB4 is we have been doing some UI work to make things more familiar to players new to the series (don’t worry, if you prefer the classical way it is available as an option!) This includes things like default squad colors (being green), teammates as blue and enemies as red no matter which team you are on. Repeat - from here on, “friendlies” are BLUE and “enemies” are RED.

We’ll see you in the jungle! Or come visit us at the PC Gamer Weekender event in London, Feb 18th and 19th! Meet us in person (and get a beta key!). We’ll also be live-streaming from the event for more goodness…

We are looking to start the 3rd wave of the (invite-only) Closed Beta on Thursday, January 12th. We will be selecting a larger group of people from our mailing list this time, so make sure to be on the lookout for an email invitation on Thursday! (And check your Spam / Promotions folders!)


Tripwire and Antimatter will be at PAX South in San Antonio, TX on January 27-29th. We'll be showing off Rising Storm 2: Vietnam and KF2: Incursion. We will be giving away Beta keys to those who come to our booth and play RS2: Vietnam!

We also have a booth at the PC Gamer Weekender event in London, UK on February 18-19th and will be giving Beta keys away at that show as well. If you're attending one of these events make sure to stop by and say hi!


New Additions

Weapons

• C4 and Claymore now display a detonation distance boundary from planted mines when the clacker is brought out
  
• Players can now perform a melee attack using the punji trap shovel
  
• New camera animations added for melee attacks using the pick mattock

Gameplay

• Lots of changes and improvements to helicopter functionality:

• Players can no longer exit helicopters moving too quickly or too high up
  
• Helicopters no longer kill freshly exited players
  
• You can now hold shift to zoom when sitting in the back seat of the Loach
  
• Improved messaging and effects to let crew/passengers know when they have been hit
  
• Improved the damage distribution between passengers in a helicopter for impacts to the helicopter
  
• Improvements and refinements to the damage dealt to players by rotor blades

UI

• Updated ‘Commo Rose’ with new graphical style/increased usability

Graphics

• Various placeholder post processing effects added to the graphics setting menu

Audio

• New sounds for dropping weapons
  
• New handling sounds for various weapons (M40, M37 Ithaca, M14, M3 Grease, 1911, M16, DP28, Claymore, Binoculars)
  
• New impact SFX for the Pick Mattock
  
• New sound for Claymore and MD82 planting
  
• Spooky, Recon Plane and F4 Phantom sounds now fade out rather than cutting off abruptly when they leave the battlefield

General

Maps

• Supremacy - Song Be has been visually overhauled based on feedback from previous beta waves. Objectives B, D and F have also undergone significant redesigns.
  
• Territory - Cu Chi has also had design iteration from previous waves - additional cover and flanking opportunities have been added

Gameplay & Balance

• Improvements to the HUD indicator system for near misses, now includes fire landing in front of the player

• Improvements to the mantling system and smoothness of mantling over and climbing onto objects
  
• Tweaks to player movement, speed, jump height, etc
  
• Helicopters now receive double the damage when flying through Spooky fire.

Weapons

• Improved usability of M60 when ADS by adjusting position and scale of sights
  
• Stance changes like crouching and standing now cause sight-misalignment
  
• Spooky and F4 Phantom now register damage done to them by all weapons
  
• Napalm and Spooky damage radius adjusted to match their visual effects
  
• Improved sprinting animation for XM21, now blocks less of the player’s view

Audio

• Refinements to weapon handling sounds
  
• Refinements to Huey and Cobra helicopters’ sounds
  
• New sounds for all weapons on the Cobra helicopter

Misc.

• Improved sprinting camera animation
  
• Cobra and Huey helicopters now have messaging to tell gunners how to man their positions
  
• Various improvements/refinements to the effect of bleeding on the player

Bug Fixes

Gameplay

• Proning no longer causes occasional extreme first person camera jitters
  
• Fixed an issue where spectators could break the player count
  
• Fixed an issue where helicopters would not take damage from napalm

UI

• Fixed an issue which would cause performance issues while viewing the scoreboard

Weapons

• Fixed an issue where cooking smoke and signal grenades would cause them to vanish
  
• Fixed animation and function issues with MG bipod folding and unfolding
  
• Fixed an issue where the AK47’s bolt did not sync as intended after firing the last shot from a magazine
  
• Fixed animation/weapon inaccuracy when reloading of the M14 and XM21
  
• Fixed an inaccuracy on the front sight of the Type 56-I

Graphics

• Fixed an issue where opening a map with post-processors activated through settings would cause the game to crash
  
• Fixed issues with various materials in character customisation (glasses, NLF headscarf etc)
  
• Fixed an issue where ‘splash’ PFX would appear above the surface of water
  
• Fixed a clipping issue with the Pick Mattock digging animation

Audio

• Fixed an issue where planting punji traps would call incorrect sounds on the digging animation
  
• Fixed an issue with the tail-end of the M195 Cannon, Loach & Cobra minigun sounds

Known Issues:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/418460/discussions/1/208684375413802743/

We are looking to start the 3rd wave of the (invite-only) Closed Beta on Thursday, January 12th. We will be selecting a larger group of people from our mailing list this time, so make sure to be on the lookout for an email invitation on Thursday! (And check your Spam / Promotions folders!)


Tripwire and Antimatter will be at PAX South in San Antonio, TX on January 27-29th. We'll be showing off Rising Storm 2: Vietnam and KF2: Incursion. We will be giving away Beta keys to those who come to our booth and play RS2: Vietnam!

We also have a booth at the PC Gamer Weekender event in London, UK on February 18-19th and will be giving Beta keys away at that show as well. If you're attending one of these events make sure to stop by and say hi!


New Additions

Weapons

• C4 and Claymore now display a detonation distance boundary from planted mines when the clacker is brought out
  
• Players can now perform a melee attack using the punji trap shovel
  
• New camera animations added for melee attacks using the pick mattock

Gameplay

• Lots of changes and improvements to helicopter functionality:

• Players can no longer exit helicopters moving too quickly or too high up
  
• Helicopters no longer kill freshly exited players
  
• You can now hold shift to zoom when sitting in the back seat of the Loach
  
• Improved messaging and effects to let crew/passengers know when they have been hit
  
• Improved the damage distribution between passengers in a helicopter for impacts to the helicopter
  
• Improvements and refinements to the damage dealt to players by rotor blades

UI

• Updated ‘Commo Rose’ with new graphical style/increased usability

Graphics

• Various placeholder post processing effects added to the graphics setting menu

Audio

• New sounds for dropping weapons
  
• New handling sounds for various weapons (M40, M37 Ithaca, M14, M3 Grease, 1911, M16, DP28, Claymore, Binoculars)
  
• New impact SFX for the Pick Mattock
  
• New sound for Claymore and MD82 planting
  
• Spooky, Recon Plane and F4 Phantom sounds now fade out rather than cutting off abruptly when they leave the battlefield

General

Maps

• Supremacy - Song Be has been visually overhauled based on feedback from previous beta waves. Objectives B, D and F have also undergone significant redesigns.
  
• Territory - Cu Chi has also had design iteration from previous waves - additional cover and flanking opportunities have been added

Gameplay & Balance

• Improvements to the HUD indicator system for near misses, now includes fire landing in front of the player

• Improvements to the mantling system and smoothness of mantling over and climbing onto objects
  
• Tweaks to player movement, speed, jump height, etc
  
• Helicopters now receive double the damage when flying through Spooky fire.

Weapons

• Improved usability of M60 when ADS by adjusting position and scale of sights
  
• Stance changes like crouching and standing now cause sight-misalignment
  
• Spooky and F4 Phantom now register damage done to them by all weapons
  
• Napalm and Spooky damage radius adjusted to match their visual effects
  
• Improved sprinting animation for XM21, now blocks less of the player’s view

Audio

• Refinements to weapon handling sounds
  
• Refinements to Huey and Cobra helicopters’ sounds
  
• New sounds for all weapons on the Cobra helicopter

Misc.

• Improved sprinting camera animation
  
• Cobra and Huey helicopters now have messaging to tell gunners how to man their positions
  
• Various improvements/refinements to the effect of bleeding on the player

Bug Fixes

Gameplay

• Proning no longer causes occasional extreme first person camera jitters
  
• Fixed an issue where spectators could break the player count
  
• Fixed an issue where helicopters would not take damage from napalm

UI

• Fixed an issue which would cause performance issues while viewing the scoreboard

Weapons

• Fixed an issue where cooking smoke and signal grenades would cause them to vanish
  
• Fixed animation and function issues with MG bipod folding and unfolding
  
• Fixed an issue where the AK47’s bolt did not sync as intended after firing the last shot from a magazine
  
• Fixed animation/weapon inaccuracy when reloading of the M14 and XM21
  
• Fixed an inaccuracy on the front sight of the Type 56-I

Graphics

• Fixed an issue where opening a map with post-processors activated through settings would cause the game to crash
  
• Fixed issues with various materials in character customisation (glasses, NLF headscarf etc)
  
• Fixed an issue where ‘splash’ PFX would appear above the surface of water
  
• Fixed a clipping issue with the Pick Mattock digging animation

Audio

• Fixed an issue where planting punji traps would call incorrect sounds on the digging animation
  
• Fixed an issue with the tail-end of the M195 Cannon, Loach & Cobra minigun sounds

Known Issues:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/418460/discussions/1/208684375413802743/

According to our last survey the vast majority of you did not have a chance to play Skirmish. We wanted to fix this by running a special Skirmish Weekend event!

Starting today we are running a special Skirmish Weekend so everyone has an opportunity to give us feedback on this new game mode. This event will run until Monday, December 19th.

There is a new survey link found in the main menu that we would like you fill out after you have spent some time in this game mode.