Project Rise - News

Happy 2010 everyone...

Happy New Year from the Waking Hour team.
We hope 2010 is a brilliant year for you.

Update on Rise coming soon. Stay tuned :)

Plodding Along...

Indeed we are. Plodding along that is.
We've been working on fixing some bugs with the CTF gameplay which ended up being a complete rewrite :)
Still behind with some modeling aspects, especially custom characters, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
As soon as we have the light armours in, with first person weapon(s) (at least the disclauncher), plus some building polishing up, we shall commence on a new video to show the current gameplay and first Light Training build.

Brief media update and seeking modeling talent

Hi there.
Work continues at a vastly reduced rate at the moment.
We would use some help with rigging, animating and texturing (including uvmapping / skinning). So if you are a dab hand in 3D Studio Max, familiar with the Cryengine 2, and want to join us in pushing Rise to completion, send us a message :)

In other news, I've added some more media for you guys to see some of our actual models. Hope you like them.
Head over to the Media section to check them out.

Cheers.

WebAdmin utility released

We have decided to release our WebAdmin utility for server admins.

Something we have developed for use in Rise but have decided to do a general release.
The server admins in our team, including myself, have found this an incredibly useful tool in running servers.
So what exactly is it?
Quite simply, it is a web server interface to the Crysis / Wars RCON system.
This lets you manage all server settings from a simple, fully customisable web site.

Features:

Multi-admin high secure web interface (IP range restriction, HTTPS, Sandboxing)
Individual admin privileges
Works for Crysis and Crysis Wars
Server anti crash and scheduled auto restart
Does not require any modifications to server files (apart from autoexec.cfg)
Fast template engine for customizable HTML pages
Automatic updates
Runs on Windows and Linux

With the web interface you can:

Kick and ban players (bans can be given a note/reason which is logged)
Set game/server settings
Manage level rotation
Upload new maps/map packs (ZIP & RAR) from you local machine or an URL (HTTP & FTP)
Use the chat and view the console
Restart the server
Manage web administrators and much more.

Certain features are limited to the interface running on the game server host.
Full documentation is provided in the zip, along with some templates to get you going.

We hope you find it as incredibly useful as we do :)

We have a web site set up so you can download the latest release and a small support forum in case you need help.
We would also like to encourage people to create templates and share them with other users. You can do this from the same forum mentioned above.

Installation instructions are included in main zip.

That all important link: http://webadmin.wakinghour.org

Live demo here: http://81.19.219.171:85/
User name / pass: test / test

Brief Status Update

Just a brief update to let you know that some of the goals we had planned to get ready by this time are taking considerably longer than expected.

That said, where practicle, we have brought forward some future development work into this cylce. Primarily to keep active on progressing other aspects whilst our current goals are still being worked on.

The upshot of this should result in a faster development cycle in our next phase.

We are also considering providing some basic Fraps-esque footage of gameplay, even though our assets aren't finished, or are still in a buggy state.

Even though we are reluctant to show off things that are still work in progress, I'm also sure you guys would like to see something other than our very early test video :)

Current development progress and immediate goal...

Hi all.
Firstly, I do apologise for not posting for a while.

Current progress on Rise:
Well, we were hoping to of brought you a new video by this time. However there are still some outstanding issues that prevent us from actually showing you where we are.
We've had a fully playable version of Rise, in fundamental Light Training (basic gameplay for those non Tribes people) mode for some time now, however it's only recently that issues in the movement mechanics have been ironed out. Movement wise, we're extremely happy with it now and are working hard to release a new video.

Our current immediate goal remains as a full LT gameplay video release. Unfortunately I can't pin down any firm dates, but we are close now :)

Moving into the future:
The Crysis Wars (the multiplayer bundled game with Warhead) SDK is released, so once our video release is complete, we are moving across to Wars. Mostly to take advantage of the new tools and optimised engine this offers.
We still intend on opening up a small closed beta. This of course will now be with Wars.
More news on that aspect nearer the time.
Please note that we are not taking applications at this time.

That's it for now.
Thanks for the support.

Another minor update

Hi again all.

Just some more current status on where we are with a few things:

Vehicles in Rise:
With regard to incorporating vehicles: this is an area which seems to divide people into loving or hating them.
We are not discounting the idea of vehicles totally at the moment, and have some ideas which could work really rather well, however we don't intend to revisit this aspect, and reach a decision until a much later development stage.

Beta Testing:
Thank you for your e-mails about participating in the Beta.
We aren't currently taking requests for this though, and have no mechanism in place to record the current ones.
Once we announce the Beta, you can re-submit your request and we'll take it from there.

Small Update...

Hi all.
Well it has been a while since the last update, so apologies for that.
We have changed the format of the site slightly now and changed the news to a blog. This is open to a few key members of Waking Hour to post into so expect to see some of the inner workings being mentioned there.

As an opening to our new blog format I'd like to answer something that has been mentioned in emails you guys have sent us, plus various comments on here, or our moddb page.

Comparison to previous Tribes games:

A lot of members of this team come from various backgrounds, and most are experienced with the Tribes games, so this opened a lot of windows. We sat down and analyzed what was cool about the different Tribes games and what wasn't, what worked and what didn't. Based on that we came up with a game plan for Rise, built all of those features, and right now we're going through a play test - adjust - play test cycle. If something proves to work well we're keeping it, if it doesn't work it goes back in the grinder to see why.

Due to real life, this doesn't always progress as fast as we'd ideally like, but so far its proven invaluable to us. I really enjoy playing Rise right now, and I can't wait until you guys can, too.

Obvious direct comparisons will of course be drawn to Tribes 1, 2, 3, and the perception of Rise will lean more towards one of the Tribes games than another. However this is not the designed intention for Rise. We aim to pay homage to Tribes whilst bringing something fresh to the table, and hope that our efforts will be rewarded by you guys having a lot of fun playing Rise.
We are not remaking any of the Tribes games.

Happy New Year.

Happy 2010 everyone.

Hope you all have a fantastic year.

Update on Rise coming soon.