Today, we’re pleased to be announcing the release date (18th of March) of the public test branch featuring a new game mode as well as uniform and head customization!


When the public test branch opens come March 18th, you will all be able to experience the work-in-progress new War of Rights game mode, Conquest. We’re inviting you all to help us not only stress test it prior to releasing it to the live branch of the game but also to give you the opportunity to shape the future of the mode via your feedback during the testing as the amount of Conquest areas are scheduled to be heavily expanded prior to its release in the very near future.

But what exactly is Conquest? If you’ve played practically any multiplayer first person shooter game the past 20 years, chances are you’ve come across the mode in some form or another: The mode essentially revolves around two teams fighting for the control of multiple capture points. Each capture point owned results in a slow ticket (or morale in our case) drain of the enemy team. The first team to run out of tickets/morale caused by taking casualties + the drain due to enemy controlled capture points, will lose the round.

While the above basics of the mode are unchanged in War of Rights, our conquest mode retains several features from the Skirmishes game mode (as well as a few new unique ones) created to maintain the organized team play our game has always focused on first and foremost:

First, let's take a look at key War of Rights features carried over from the Skirmishes game mode to Conquest, and thus very familiar to you all:

1. Formation state buffs are identical to the ones found in the Skirmishes game mode, i.e. suppression resistances and stamina recovery - or a lack thereof should you be out of line.
   
2. The morale cost of dying is also still tied to the formation state of the players and the overall team morale levels (Battle Ready, Engaged, Taking Losses & Breaking) are also still used, just as Skirmishes.
   
3. Artillery batteries that support forward artillery battery spawns (as seen in Skirmishes) are featured in each Conquest area.
   
4. Flag bearer spawning is also featured and works in an identical way to Skirmishes.

Now, let’s concentrate on the features unique to Conquest:

1. There are 3 capture points per Conquest area (marked by flagpoles as well as UI icons).
   
2. We wanted to give the flag bearer a more pivotal role in Conquest. Unlike in typical conquest modes you may be used to where standing by the flagpole will capture it for your team, we have coined a different approach:
   
   • The flag bearer will have to approach the flagpole and attempt to raise their flag to the top of the pole, if they successfully raise it to the top the point will be captured.
     
   • Once the flag bearer has placed their flag on the pole, the flag spawn will no longer be available and the bearer will be given the loadout of a private.
     
   • A new flag bearer can then spawn at the staging area, giving the enemy a window of opportunity to attack the point while the defending company is without a flag bearer.
     
   • Should the flag bearer perish or abandon the raising of the flag any of their allies can attempt to finish raising the flag and capture the point for their team.
     
   • Enemy controlled capture points can be neutralized by approaching the flagpole and lowering the enemy flag.
3. Conquest is designed to set us free from the strict historical constraints we are bound by in the Skirmishes game mode. Not having to worry about if the initial spawn points, battery locations, capture point locations, area boundaries, units or time of day featured in the game mode are historically correct results in a great amount of flexibility which we’re hoping will allow us to bring you some interesting new scenarios to experience. We plan on allowing server admins to dictate which playable units are to be available as well as whether or not to flip the starting spawn positions of the teams in the future, for instance.

The winning/losing conditions for Conquest are as following:

1. If a team reaches 0 tickets/morale before the round timer runs out, either via the enemy team controlling more capture points than them or killing their players, the team enters Last Stand (i.e. no additional respawns). Once close to all of the players in Last Stand have been killed the team will lose the round.
   
2. A team can also force the enemy team into a Counter-Attack. This happens when one team controls all 3 capture points. When Counter-Attack is triggered, the team with no points in their control will have a few minutes to retake a point. If this is not done in time, the team will lose the round. A Counter-Attack can be triggered while in Last Stand.
   
3. Should the round timer reach 0 before any team has depleted all of its morale, the winner of the round will be based on the overall morale level: A “Engaged” team versus a “Taking Losses” one will for example win. Should both teams be at an identical morale level (say “Breaking” versus “Breaking”) the round will end as a draw.

During the public test branch phase, Conquest will feature 4 playable areas on the Antietam battlefield. These are all very different in both overall area size as well as distance between spawn to the first capture point and/or distance between each capture point in order for us to gather your feedback of what works and what doesn’t. Do you prefer action-packed small areas with less than 100 yards between each point or would you rather play the massive ones with 400 yards between them, allowing for some extreme flanking movements? Your given feedback will be used to shape the future of the, possibly, dozens of Conquest areas as we look to expand the mode considerably before its release to the live branch of the game.


The public test branch also sees the very first introduction of customizable characters. Being that this is the very initial implementation of the feature, only a select few regiments will be available for customizing. As the development continues, the hundreds of regiments & batteries featured in War of Rights will eventually all be supported.

For more information about the uniform specific and photo mode features of character customization, please read Field Report 45 at: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/424030/view/5317064205651768365



We’re pleased to be bringing you head customization when the public test branch goes live come March 18th. Originally, this feature was scheduled for a later release but Mike, the programmer responsible for the customization system’s creation, found enough time to squeeze it in there for you.

Head customization is game-wide. This ensures your facial characteristics are carried over to whichever regiment or battery you’re playing as, allowing for some sense of familiarity between player interactions.


The public test branch build contains a massive amount of additional changes - many of those are primarily backend ones such as: The game modes (Skirmishes, Picket Patrol, Conquest & Drill Camp), in-game UI, end-of-round skirmish cinematics, spectator camera and benchmark all having been converted to C++ instead of primarily using their former visual scripting based setups. This should result in considerably less bugs going forward as well as a slightly more responsive UI. The side effect of this is that certain features such as freelook and the free flight spectator camera, may feel slightly different during rotation and movement.

Due to the sheer amount of converted/rewritten systems it is important to note that initial issues such as bugs, instability and missing features are likely to be encountered.

The overhaul of the freelook mechanic has also resulted in less head/body clipping during animation playback (There are a few edge cases remaining currently but we expect those to be resolved soon).

Lastly, the benchmark has been updated to more accurately reflect the current number of supported players in the game (going from 150 soldiers firing to two opposing lines featuring a total of 320 soldiers).



That’s all for now. We very much look forward to hearing your feedback on March 18th of what is shaping up to be one of the biggest updates to the game we have ever released.

Keep your eyes peeled for the release of the public test branch as well as information about how to access it come Friday.

- The Campfire Games Team

Today, we’re going to be giving you a bit of a preview of a long awaited feature, debuting in its initial form in the next game update: Character customization!


The character customization of War of Rights consists of two segments: Facial & bodily features and uniform customization.

The initial implementation of the system focuses on the uniform customization part and so we will as well in today’s preview. Please note that the system is a work in progress and so changes between now and its initial release should be expected.



In the next game update, players will be able to customize the uniform of each player class (Private, NCO, Flag Bearer, Fifer, Drummer, Bugler & Officer) as well as each rank within the player classes (Corporal, Sergeant, 1st Sergeant, Sergeant Major, 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel & Colonel).

Currently War of Rights features over 130 playable infantry regiments and artillery batteries. Each of which has a wide range of unique and distinct features. There is no small amount of work required to maintain both the historical accuracy of the uniforms and player customization agency. Consequently, we will be rolling out uniform customization options on a per-regiment basis in future updates. We look forward to hearing from the community what their most anticipated regiments are so we can tailor our efforts accordingly!

Until the facial & bodily features part of character customization comes online, you will all be given a random head configuration that will be your persistent appearance whenever you use a customized uniform. Should you opt to not use a customized uniform you will be given one of the pre-made characters already created for the selected regiment (the ones currently given to all).

The uniform customizer allows you to change just about any uniform and equipment asset that is acceptable from the historical constraints of your selected regiment, player class and rank.



Several in-game environments and poses are going to be featured as well as an in-depth photo mode for you to view (and share) your creation in a way that suits you by changing settings such as time of day, weather, depth of field focus,blur amount, field of view, saturation, contrast, photo filter, sun & moon rotation, sepia and wind on/off.


We expect to be expanding the features of the photo mode based off of feedback from the community once it is released as we can see its possible uses in a wide range of scenarios.


We thought it best to give you all a bit of a sneak peek regarding some of the other work that is currently going on at Campfire Games.

We’ve been rewriting the code handling the game modes in an effort to better combat bugs (especially plaguing the Picket Patrol mode currently) going forwards. It also allows us to start expanding the amount of game modes supported in the game - expect to hear more about the latter in the near future.

The rewritten game mode code, as well as a rewritten spectating and freelook systems are all scheduled to be released in the next game update alongside the initial character customization. The same goes for an easy way for us developers to download server crash dumps from any War of Rights server which will greatly help us in being able to fix various server related bugs & crashes quicker.

Artillery has seen a few improvements for the upcoming update as well. Exploding rounds nearby should result in a more prominent screenshake and blackouts in order to convey the sheer power as well as danger to the players better, the canister misbehaving for the CSA variant of the Napoleon cannon is fixed up and the lanyard is now once again visible.

Many more additions and fixes are scheduled for the next game update but we thought we’d just share some of the most often reported ones. As always, thank you for reporting the issues you come across. It is an instrumental step in our bug squashing effort.

Lastly, we hear a lot of questions about how the horse implementation progress is coming along so we thought we’d let you know that our animator is currently focusing on creating some of the animations very much required in order for its release to become a reality; jumping, stopping when about to hit an object at low speed as well as hitting an object at high speed (resulting in the rider being thrown off of the horse if the object is immovable and in a trampling if said object is another player on foot).

Below is a render of a work in progress animation of a jumping horse.






The Steam Lunar New Year Sale is upon us and so War of Rights is currently available at a 25% discount until the 3rd of February.

You can grab the game and join the ranks of immersive 300 player Civil War battles at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/
We look forward to be greeting the fresh recruits on the battlefields and drill camps!

That’s all for now. Until next time, have a good one.

Greetings everyone,

War of Rights is currently 50% off, being part of Steam's Winter Sale!

If you want to experience a game where the team is in absolute focus, historically accuracy is of key importance and high visual fidelity paired with 300 player servers is used to immerse you into the role of a Civil War soldier of 1862, you can grab the game at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/

We look forward to be meeting the many fresh recruits on the battlefields the next few weeks.

On a different note, we hope you enjoyed (and are enjoying) the Christmas event which is currently live. It will remain so for another 3 days.


That's all for now!

Here's to a jolly time for everyone during the holidays.

We're excited to be seeing what 2022 has in store for War of Rights as development will continue.

Hello everyone,

Today, we're pleased to be announcing the next major step in realizing the vision of War of Rights as 300 player support is now officially supported!

Our programmers have been hard at work at optimizing both client and server performance to allow for this increase in server player capacity. while the recently tested 400 player cap is not in a stage ready to be officially supported at this point in time, work will continue towards it and so you should expect to see the 400 player test server become available every now and then going forward.

The 300 player server cap feature released today is free for anyone that already owns a 150 slot War of Rights server thanks to Gportal's willingness to be working with us to provide our community with the best possible service.



However, there is one important additional step for server owners to take after having selected the 300 slot setting via the dropdown menu on the Gportal website and saved it:

It is of key importance that Gportal is contacted about the change to 300 slots as they will need to upgrade the server hardware of your server in order to be able to properly make use of the many multithreaded optimizations implemented by our programmers. This is required to be able to run War of Rights servers at 300 slots (and possibly even 400 in the future) at acceptable tick rates.

That's all for now!

We look forward to be meeting you on the many new 300 player servers we are sure will become available and hope you all have a great winter so far - it is getting pretty chilly is it not?

Hello everyone,

Today, we're glad to be bringing you Update 177: Companies to War of Rights!

The main feature of the update, as the name implies, is the introduction of companies to the infantry regiments of the game, offering better organization options available for the players to make use of. This is going to be especially helpful at bigger player counts which we're in the process of working towards (more about this within the next few weeks).

Please note: The companies introduced in this update are not tied to the player companies of the online company tool available on our website but rather a means of offering groups within each regiment.


- In order to better support higher player counts in the future, each infantry regiment has been divided up into two companies: Co. A and Co. B. Each company has the same class restrictions as the regiments used to have.
- The company letter will now be shown above the player nametag of players in your regiment, allowing for companies to being able to easier maintain cohesion.
- The company that you're a part of will now be shown in the lower right corner of the screen when pressing T.
- Regiments currently featuring two battleflags will now have 1 unique flag tied to Co. A and the other to Co. B. Regiments with one battle flag will be using identical flags in both companies.
- Added musicians to the victory screens.
- Updates to the at the ready turn animation.
- Updated a few fence models.
- Various minor prop work within the house prefabs.
- Remade the backend of the main menu for more reliability.
- Added the first iteration of the credits to the main menu.
- Improved the performance of all trees and tents.
- Improved the smoke of small arms.
- Remade the server auto restart functionality and made the servers always restart at 5 AM, their local time. Admins and developers will now also be able to postpone an autorestart if needed.
- Optimized the giblets created by direct artillery impact in order to drastically improve client performance on artillery heavy skirmish areas.
- The admin menu is now enterable via "Server Settings" in the in-game escape menu.

That's it for now - we look forward to be seeing you all in-game.

Until then, have a good one!

Hello Everyone,

War of Rights is currently 35% off as part of this year's Steam Halloween Sale running from October 28th until November 1st!

Now is the perfect time to pick up the game should you want to join the ranks and take part in team-centric & authentic Civil War multiplayer battles featuring up to 400 players!

You can grab your copy over at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/

We look forward to be welcoming the many fresh recruits!

Hello everyone,

War of Rights Alpha Update 176 is upon us!

A few weeks ago we held a 300 player test on the public test branch of the game (thanks to everyone that showed up to help us test) and after having implemented several fixes and improvements based off of the data we were able to gather from said test, we are now ready to not only bring an increased max player cap test to the live build in today’s update, but also to take it one step further and test a 400 player cap instead of a 300 one!

Look for the official War of Rights test server if you wish to try out the 400 player cap.

Please note: The increased player cap is still in its testing phase and thus issues should be expected. Please report any issues you might encounter on any of our social channels, thank you.


- Added an experimental 400 player cap test server to the game.
- Overhauled the tab view with a new design, dividing the players into their respective regiments and batteries for an easier way of getting an overview of your unit and the limited player classes within it.
- Additional network optimizations.
- Reduced the overall number of corpses on the battlefield to lessen the physics thread load during high player count matches.
- Various musician animation improvements.
- Added a cord to the bugle.
- Added 3 new unique drums: 14th TN, 8th OH and 69th NY.
- Tweaks to distant fife & drum sounds.
- Created a new system to handle all character files - this should result in less character file-related issues in the future.
- Various level detail work and bug fixes.
- Updated the Roulette farm house model.
- Various character model fixes and tweaks.
- Increased the heart rate of the servers in an effort to make all servers listed in the server browser at a more consistent basis.

The 300 player public test branch is now open!

All War of Rights owners can now access the public test branch version of the game by right clicking on War of Rights within your steam library, selecting "properties" and navigating to the "betas" tab. There you will be able to opt into the public test branch by clicking on the dropdown menu. Once selected, steam will download the branch. To opt out of the public test branch again, simply select "none" in the same dropdown menu.

Note: You may need to restart Steam before you can see the public test branch option in the dropdown menu.

The stress test will help us gather valuable data both in regards to client as well as server performance and greatly aid us in our continued efforts in increasing the available player cap in War of Rights.

Please note: As this is a stress test, issues such as poor performance, crashes and an increased amount of bugs should be expected.

Hello everyone,

Having released the 200 player support per server just last month, we are now ready to begin exploring the possibilities of increasing the number even further.

We therefore invite every owner of War of Rights (individuals and player organizations alike) to join us in stress testing an experimental player cap increase to 300 on the public test branch from October 15th-17th!

Come October 15th, you'll be able to access the public test branch version of the game by right clicking on War of Rights within your steam library, selecting "properties" and navigating to the "betas" tab. There you will be able to opt into the public test branch by clicking on the dropdown menu. Once selected, steam will download the branch. To opt out of the public test branch again, simply select "none" in the same dropdown menu.

The stress test will help us gather valuable data both in regards to client as well as server performance and greatly aid us in our continued efforts in increasing the available player cap in War of Rights.

Please note: As this is a stress test, issues such as poor performance, crashes and an increased amount of bugs should be expected.

We look forward to be seeing you all come the 15th!

Hello everyone,

Today marks the day of the 159th anniversary of the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg and so we are excited to be releasing a major update to the game in celebration and remembrance of the courage and sacrifices of the soldiers engaged in what would be America’s single bloodiest day in wartime.


Musicians are (at long last) making their way into War of Rights!

Featuring a drummer and a bugler per regiment, the sole objective of the musicians in battle is to relay the orders of the officers to the men outside of hearing distance of the shouts.


On the Drill Camp level outside of combat, musicians (including the fifer exclusively available there) are also able to play a selection of Civil War period tunes should the company want to liven things up a tad while on the march or warming themselves next to the campfire.


When spawned as a musician, press Q in order to bring up a radial menu to select the call/signal or tune you wish to play. Note that you can only play while either standing still or at the quicktime speed.

Musicians can also sync up and play the same call or tune together. All it takes is both of the musicians being in relative close proximity to each other, both selecting the same call or tune and they will sync up with each other.


Note: With today’s update comes the very first musician class introduction into the alpha. Players should expect to encounter various bugs and issues tied to the class due to this.


Much has changed since the early days of our technical alpha when we supported 32 players on a server and today we are happy to announce that the player cap supported is going to be increased from 150 to 200 players!

This has been made possible thanks to a large number of code optimizations implemented by our two programmers, Mike & Aleksi the past 4 or 5 months.

As an extra present for our community we’re very pleased to announce that the new 200 player slot option will cost exactly the same as what you’ve been paying for a 150 player slot server up until now - that’s 50 additional player slots for free thanks to Gportal’s willingness to work with us which we are very appreciative of.



The 200 player slot option is unlocked in the basic settings for anyone that rents a 150 slot War of Rights server at Gportal - no need to select a more expensive 200 player slot server via the slot slider when renting one.

If you wish to rent your own War of Rights Alpha server you can visit their website over at: https://www.g-portal.com/en/gameserver/war-of-rights-server-hosting


Today’s anniversary update also includes the very first implementation of the promised demotion system as well as the server-wide mute system in order to give the community a democratic means of policing non-admined servers. Below is a quick rundown of the workings of the demotion system as well as the server-wide mute system:


Downvoting is performed against another player on the tab screen. Here, you will find a down arrow icon located next to the player's name.

Upon pressing the down arrow icon next to a player name it will be highlighted to indicate that you have downvoted the individual. When the player has started receiving votes a tally will appear next to the down demotion arrow showing how many “effective votes” have been cast against the player.

To cast an “effective vote” you need to be on the same team as the player you downvoted. This is to ensure that a highly competitive enemy team can’t just target the best officers of the enemy team in order to remove them from command for instance. Furthermore, if the player you have cast your vote against changes team or you yourself change team your vote will be removed from the tally. Returning to the same team will make your vote an effective vote again. If you no longer wish to vote against a player, you can click the arrow again to forgive the player and revoke your vote.

Your votes are cast persistently which means that should you ever encounter that same player again in another game session your vote will be automatically applied again. For those who play across multiple devices; Steam Cloud will track your preferences.

You will not be able to see which individuals have downvoted you - only your total amount of downvotes received from the players currently on the server. This is a change in design from when the demotion system was originally previewed - there are pros and cons for both approaches but we felt this option was the better to initially test and is subject to change.


Once you reach the vote threshold you will be demoted. The threshold is determined by a server determined fixed percentage of the server population. For example if the threshold is 15% on a 200 player server 30 votes will trigger a demotion.

Your name on the tab view will get a red “D” icon next to it, representing a demotion, alongside the total votes cast against you. This icon will also be shown under your in-game nametag (next to the speaker icon).

When you fall back below the vote threshold your demotion will be revoked and its enforced restrictions will be lifted from your player.


When demoted, you are restricted to the Infantry Private class. All other classes: NCO’s, Officers, Flag Bearers, Musicians and all of the artillery branch classes will not be selectable.

If you are playing as any of the aforementioned classes when a demotion is triggered you will be immediately slain and greeted by the branch selection screen.

After having spawned in as an Infantry Private you will notice red “Demoted” text in the lower right corner. This will be visible for as long as you are demoted.

Demoted players cannot pick up dropped flags. Upon trying to pick up a flag you will be shown a user interface message in the center of the screen stating that you can’t do so as a demoted player.

The infraction decay timer (for team damage inflicted by you) is also greatly increased from the normal non-demoted rate for demoted players, resulting in much less teamkill trolling being possible for you compared to non-demoted players.


Player mutes (initiated by pressing the little speaker icon next to player names on the tab menu) are now tallied up in much the same way as downvotes - the total amount of mutes a person has received are hidden however. Once a certain threshold has been passed a server-wide mute (both VoIP & text chat) is triggered, muting the individual for everyone for as long as said threshold of mutes received by players on the server has been surpassed.

Upon reaching this, the server wide muted player will be shown a message informing him that he has been muted server wide in both VoIP & text chat and a muted icon will be shown under his nametag in-game (the VoIP speaker icon with a red cross over it), letting everyone know why the player they try to communicate with is unable to answer them.

The normal speaker icon next to his name on the tab view will also be changed to one that stands out to indicate that the player in question has been muted server wide.


Being that this is the anniversary update, we thought it’d be an excellent occasion to share a bit about the progress of getting horses functional in War of Rights. A lot of animation work has already gone into their implementation but you will notice key features such as audio missing.

Many of the systems to be tied to horses are also not ready yet and so their deployment is not exactly imminent. Even so, we hope you’ll enjoy this short teaser.






As part of the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, War of Rights is now on sale for the next 72 hours at 50% off!

If you wish to join the ranks and experience the new 200 player battles, musician classes & demotion systems please head over to our steam store page at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424030/War_of_Rights/


- Added Musician classes to all of the Infantry & dismounted Cavalry units of the game.
- Increased the max player cap from 150 to 200 players.
- Added the new grievance system which handles demotions and server wide mutes.
- Implemented the following battle flags:
51st New York National
4th Rhode Island National
12th South Carolina National
13th Alabama National
32nd Pennsylvania Regimental
56th Virginia National
56th Virginia Regimental
1st North Carolina Regimental
- Implemented the following regiment-specific drums:
9th New York
2nd US Regulars
10th US Regulars
- Minor tweaks to the artillery foley sounds.
- Improved the camera/head position when on the elevation screw seat of the artillery.
- Various 3D model proxy optimizations.
- Detail work on the Harpers Ferry level.
- Detail work on the Drill Camp level.
- Fixed subtitle misalignment on Hatch’s Attack, part 1.
- Fixed the old map being used on Anderson’s Counterattack, South Mountain.
- Updated the Dunker Church 3D model.
- Increased the animation speed of enter and exit “at the ready” as well as aiming resulting in a more responsive experience.
- Updated the UI in the lower right corner to specify whether you’ll return to double quick or quicktime when you stop sprinting.
- Fixed a potential crash with the ban and unban console commands when entering a SteamID incorrectly.
- Prevented developers from being banned by administrators.
- Fixed an issue where players could not be permanently banned.
- Ban time formatting has now been fixed and will display in the format 00H : 00M : 00S
- Rain and snow will now evaporate and melt respectively much faster.
- Added chat messages for when a player is unbanned or when a player not on the server has their SteamID banned.
- Steam cloud support is now enabled; saving both your keybindings and demotion preferences.
- Improved the user interface performance for the chat and tab view.
- Fixed an issue where puddles and settled snow were not visible for joining players.
- Improved the sky and lighting environment for snow sessions
- Optimized the CPU performance for non-static objects.
- Potential fix for sliding artillery.
- Fixed some cases where a player would briefly appear on their corpse.
- Added a spectator-only text chat.

That’s all for now. A big thank you to our community for offering us the support and patience in bringing the main features of this update into fruition. We look forward to be joining the ranks with you, recruits and veterans alike, as we take the next step towards fulfilling the vision that is War of Rights!