Empire War v3.3
The third major update of Empire War (v3) is here! The Mordor Update brings two maps back to Empire War. The First Battle of Osgiliath (or Eastern Osgiliath), which is an expanded version of the infamous v1 & v2 Bridge Fight, and a siege version of Black Gate! We shall explore the details of both those maps later in this changelog thread, but there are also other very important features worth mentioning first.
Since the launch of Empire War v3 two years ago in September 2023, we've received a lot of feedback on the constructor class and its mechanics. We understood that this feature was not implemented in a way to leverage its full potential. Hours of discussions, meetings and planning have allowed us to elaborate a very promising plan for a Constructor Rework. It shall come in two parts, the first of which is already going to be live on Empire War starting this Saturday, August the 2nd. Further down this thread, you'll find thorough details of both parts of the rework, carefully elaborated by me
Enjoy the new maps, new constructor mechanics and new armour! EpicQuestz, our Build Team, will be slowly starting to work on the next major update, The Rohan Update (v3.4) which is going to come in a few months. More info will come in due time
New features:
> Heavily reworked Constructor mechanics (more info below)
> Added team lobby NPCs (more info below)
> Added team-specific victory fireworks on games end
> Added a how-to-play hologram to team lobbies
> Added longest vote streak statistic
> Added vote streak achievements
> Priced classes that cost 0 silver (or gold) are now free to use
> Ladders now drop 1 ladder when broken
> Moria: Added new Dwarf Hero: Ori
> Moria: Added new Dwarf Hero: Nori
> Moria: Added lore broadcasts
> Dunlending Peasant now has Throwable trident with pitchfork item model
> Gave Easterling Torcher a couple Ramen bowls
> Implemented Dunlending Brigand in Dunland as a legioneer type class (Dunland needs a shield class)
> Flame arrows will now set fire to where they land, and fire may spread to and destroy built fortifications.
> Minas Tirith: Added Sounds and Particles for Siege Tower deployment
> Added many new textures to the Resource-Pack
New Custom Armour
- Gondor Armour (Default Gondor Classes)
- Dol Amroth Knight Armour
- Lossarnach Axeman Armour
- Citadel Guard Armour
- Mordor Armour (Default Mordor Classes)
- Easterling Armour (Easterling Shieldman, Easterling Fire Archer)
New Custom Weapons
- Gondor Longsword
- Gondor Arrow
- Gondor Shortsword
- Gondor Dagger
- Ithilien Shortsword
- Ithilien Longsword
- Gondor Mace
- Mordor Mace (Gothmog's)
- Olog Hai Mace
- Mordor Scimitar
- Mordor Falchion
- Mordor Warpick
- Mordor Bow
- Mordor Crossbow
- Mordor Battleaxe
- Mordor Dagger
- Mordor Spear
- Constructor Hammer
- Iron Wrench
- Netherite Wrench
New Sounds
- Drums in the Deep
New Custom Animations
- Shield Bash (All Shieldman classes)
- Parry (Upper Guard Stance) (Citadel Guard, Royal Guard)
- Parry (Forward Guard Stance) (Amayan Swordmaster)
- Spear throw (All spearman classes)
- Torch Throw (Dunlending Peasant, Easterling Torcher)
- Axe Throw (Dunlending Huntsman)
Fixes
- Lossarnach Battleaxe will change to red handle to align with armor
- Haradrim Scimitar color and shape is changed
- Old Mordor Scimitar and spear is changed to be black uruk design
- Easterling Weapon colors changed
- Gondor Armour (Default Gondor Classes)
- Dol Amroth Knight Armour
- Lossarnach Axeman Armour
- Citadel Guard Armour
- Mordor Armour (Default Mordor Classes)
- Easterling Armour (Easterling Shieldman, Easterling Fire Archer)
New Custom Weapons
- Gondor Longsword
- Gondor Arrow
- Gondor Shortsword
- Gondor Dagger
- Ithilien Shortsword
- Ithilien Longsword
- Gondor Mace
- Mordor Mace (Gothmog's)
- Olog Hai Mace
- Mordor Scimitar
- Mordor Falchion
- Mordor Warpick
- Mordor Bow
- Mordor Crossbow
- Mordor Battleaxe
- Mordor Dagger
- Mordor Spear
- Constructor Hammer
- Iron Wrench
- Netherite Wrench
New Sounds
- Drums in the Deep
New Custom Animations
- Shield Bash (All Shieldman classes)
- Parry (Upper Guard Stance) (Citadel Guard, Royal Guard)
- Parry (Forward Guard Stance) (Amayan Swordmaster)
- Spear throw (All spearman classes)
- Torch Throw (Dunlending Peasant, Easterling Torcher)
- Axe Throw (Dunlending Huntsman)
Fixes
- Lossarnach Battleaxe will change to red handle to align with armor
- Haradrim Scimitar color and shape is changed
- Old Mordor Scimitar and spear is changed to be black uruk design
- Easterling Weapon colors changed
Bug Fixes & Balancing:
> Fix Bandage Ability not adding to MVP Heals statistic
> Fix Cake Ability not adding to MVP Heals statistic
> Fix Banner Ability not adding to MVP Heals statistic
> Buff Troll class (Mordor only) to be at 5 Hunger Bars to align with Cave Troll class.
> All crossbow classes: Reduced cooldown 85 ticks (4.25 secs) -> 60 ticks (3 secs)
> All crossbow classes: Increased velocity 1.1 -> 1.2
> Added Fireworks for Angmar Crossbow class
> Buffed Firebeard crossbow Damage (3.4 -> 3.6)
> Reduced spyglass ability cooldown for all spyglass classes (20s -> 15s)
> Easterling Prince daggers are now stackable
> Moria: 23rd Hall: the wooden bridge across the ravine has been ruined, and a new one has been built further north
> Fixed the game getting stuck between restarts
> Made the flag name coloured in "Your team holds {flag}" and "You need to capture {flags} first!" messages.
> The nametag colour of disguised players now matches their team colour.
> Fixed leap/parry/other abilities constantly breaking after server restart (ONCE AND FOR ALL, THIS TIME)
> Increased the silver achievement requirements.
- Not Very Well To Do: 1 -> 15
- Penny Pincher: 10 -> 200
- Owner of a Small Fortune: 100 -> 1000, Reward: 50 silver -> 100
- Dwarvish Greed: 1000 -> 3000
- This prevents players who finish the tutorial getting the first two achievements outright and is a better balance.
New maps
First Battle of Osgiliath:
First Battle of Osgiliath:
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Bringing back and massively reworking an Empire War classic, we've been meaning to readd the infamous Osgiliath Bridge fight since the launch of Western Osgiliath (conquest mode) in September 2023. After rebuilding the entirety of the eastern bank, we're finally ready to present to you the first battle of the War of the Ring.
While preserving a few of the buildings (after slightly revamping them), we thought it was important to raise the aesthetics of the map to the highest building standards. The bridge design is completely new, however the overall shape and disposition of the broken bits (namely the 'holes') have not changed. They are the same as on Empire War v1 and v2. As we wave goodbye to the beautiful Dome of Stars built by Only_God in 2014, let us welcome a smaller but more movie-accurate version built by the_pharaohs_cat a few years back, and revamped to match today's building standards. Along with that, the citadel has also been redone, becoming a home of many new little eastereggs
Returning to the mainland, we wiped almost all of the legacy buildings, with the exception of a handful of them, and removed one of the two rivers running through the city.
The lore behind this map consists of the prelude to Boromir's arrival in Rivendell. Both him and his brother Faramir are in command of a Gondorian garrison, meant to guard the borders of Gondor from the Mordor-controlled Ithilien. Sauron, having almost reached his full strength, launches a surprise attack on the strongest of the kingdoms of men, with the intention to distract them from the crossing of the Anduin by the Nazgûl, who have been sent to find the One Ring, the ultimate weapon of Sauron.
Following a classic Empire War siege format, the layout of the map is simple and linear. The order of the flags is the following: Atrium, Dry Docks, Eastern Bank, The Bridge and the Dome of Stars. The Map was designed to be suited for lower and medium player counts.
Starting classes:
The class selection for both teams may change with time. We would like to start with the following choice of classes, for now.
Gondor
| Mordor
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Siege of the Black Gate
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Through tears and sweat, another map is making its return to Empire War. After an unsuccessful attempt at releasing a conquest mode Black Gate, which turned out to be too big even for over 60 players (and generally quite broken), we've redesigned the entire map to follow a linear flag layout, which we call the Castle Siege gamemode.
We've added movie quotes to the beginning of the game, and made the Black Gate dramatically open for everybody to watch. Some parts of the map remained untouched, namely the ones that are no longer meant to be playable. As for the rest, we've done the following changes:
The old fortress behind the Black Gate, to the west of the map, has been completely redone. Gothmog's tent received a well deserved revamp with a new tent design and expanded tunnels for more fun.
On the other side of the ravine, we have added a Mining Camp flag, which is a brand new one in the Black Gate map series. Finally, the map ends with a revamped Easterling Camp, adjusted to be a mini-fortress.
Lore: Aragorn, alongside the united forces of Rohan and Gondor, confronts Sauron's armies at the Black Gate, hoping to distract The Eye from Frodo and Sam who are approaching Mount Doom. With the odds being in Sauron's favour, the chance for success is small, but it is for you to shape the outcome of this battle...
Another map in the Siege gamemode, the flag capturing is straightforward and sequential. The Free Men of Middle-Earth will attempt to capture the flags in the following order: The Black Gate, Dark Fortress, Gothmog's Tent, Mining Camp and Rhûn Camp.
We've added movie quotes to the beginning of the game, and made the Black Gate dramatically open for everybody to watch. Some parts of the map remained untouched, namely the ones that are no longer meant to be playable. As for the rest, we've done the following changes:
The old fortress behind the Black Gate, to the west of the map, has been completely redone. Gothmog's tent received a well deserved revamp with a new tent design and expanded tunnels for more fun.
On the other side of the ravine, we have added a Mining Camp flag, which is a brand new one in the Black Gate map series. Finally, the map ends with a revamped Easterling Camp, adjusted to be a mini-fortress.
Lore: Aragorn, alongside the united forces of Rohan and Gondor, confronts Sauron's armies at the Black Gate, hoping to distract The Eye from Frodo and Sam who are approaching Mount Doom. With the odds being in Sauron's favour, the chance for success is small, but it is for you to shape the outcome of this battle...
Another map in the Siege gamemode, the flag capturing is straightforward and sequential. The Free Men of Middle-Earth will attempt to capture the flags in the following order: The Black Gate, Dark Fortress, Gothmog's Tent, Mining Camp and Rhûn Camp.
Starting classes:
The class selection for both teams may change with time. We would like to start with the following choice of classes, for now.
Gondor
| Mordor
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Other Development
Let us take a closer look at the new custom Armour, made by @Grissum1. In this update, the Resource Pack team have focused on the factions of Gondor and Mordor, bringing new weapons and armour sets to the game:
First, take a look at the difference between the old armour set and the new one (from left to right respectively) | ||
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Before we jump into the details of the Constructor Rework Part I, let us first appreciate Cotander's efforts on long-term development improvements. In this update, we massively reworked our internal data loading systems to be more robust. As part of this process, the performance of placeable structures was massively improved, meaning Grond will now lag less and it also allowed us to implement the Black Gate animation. In the future, this will help aid in adding features such as siege weapons - ballistae, catapults, windlass, etc. (planned for Constructor Rework Part II). It will also reduce development strain and allow us to identify and fix bugs faster and means bugs such as flags losing dependencies are much less likely to happen or be noticed by you. If you do notice anomalies, please do let us know through the bug reports section.
Constructor Rework
Before we jump into the details, let me define a few terms:
- Placeable: Blueprint that represent any re-usable interactable part of the map (i.e: Grond, Siege Towers, Helm's Deep Ladders, Constructor's Fortification Ability walls, Osgiliath Boats, Black Gate opening, etc...)Constructor Rework
Before we jump into the details, let me define a few terms:
- Placeable Buildable: A Blueprint that has a FIXED position on a map that can be built using the Constructor Class. For example, the siege ladders on Helm's Deep can not be moved freely and have only a predefined set of positions where they can be built. They are placeable buildables. The Minas Tirith siege towers, however, are NOT placeable buildables, but simple placeables.
The Rework:
To have a clearer picture, I'll be explaining how the constructor mechanic will work as if we were doing it from scratch. Forget all your previous knowledge about the class, pretend you're learning about it anew here.
- Material Gathering
- On certain maps, you can find Resources that we call Material Piles. They can be mined by any class, and they do not respawn.
- You can only carry 5 units of the said material (or a custom defined crafted equivalent).
- Constructors can carry 8 units.
- In the future, you will be able to increase your carry capacity thanks to the Silver Shop (coming soon).
- Material piles are marked on the map by a hologram displaying both the name of the resource, and a tool item used for mining it
- You can mine the resources by hand, if you want.
- We've added a statistic for Resources Mined (type "/stats" in chat)
- Once you've mined resources, you will receive a notification telling you what to do with it.
- Once you've mined materials, you can put them into the Team Inventory by submitting them to a Restock Block.
- Restock blocks will be highlighted with arrows for people carrying recently-mined resources.
- Team inventories help all teammates share resources to build Fortifications, Siege weapons and Placeable Buildables.
- They will also help repair damaged siege weapons (PART OF CONSTRUCTOR REWORK PART II, coming soon)
- We've added a statistic for Resources Submitted to the team inventory (type "/stats" in chat)
- Submitting Resources will give you Silver
- The Classes
- Constructor class: Has an axe for wood, pickaxe for stone, and Hammer for Placeable Buildables (Siege Ladders, Rams, etc...) and a piece of paper for building fortifications (walls, etc...)
- Engineer class: (PART OF CONSTRUCTOR REWORK PART II, coming soon)
- Constructors will receive a notification that their team is running low on resources, to encourage them to gather more.
- As defined above, these kinds of placeables will now have a Hologram appearing from very far away, indicating the name of the structure to be built and an indicator to where it is.
- To build the structure, you need a Constructor Class. You have to get very close to the building site in order to see the hologram morph into a preview of the structure. Afterwards, you will need to use your hammer item to start building it.
- In Constructor Rework Part II, we will do our best to try and code a system of telling non-constructors how to switch to it when they're near a Placeable Buildable, to encourage the usage of the class
- Placeables can have custom build times, which means that as staff members, we can configure how fast placeables are being built (so if you think something is unbalanced, you can tell us in a suggestion thread what you think the build time should be)
- Gates can now be braced with placeable buildables (the feature is coded but not implemented yet on our maps. It will come in the following weeks)
- We will be increasing gate healths on all maps
- We will be adding more Ram placeables to the gates throughout the maps
- You can use the resources you've mined (wood logs, for example) to craft planks and place them down, to create unique obstacles and fortifications, or siege equipment.
- You can destroy all player-placed blocks, including fortification placeables
- Flame arrows will now set fire to where they land, and fire may spread to and destroy built fortifications
- In the future, we will try to add a progression system where bare hand/axe breaking speed could be made faster thanks to the Silver Shop.
- We are considering a special Class Ability to break larger chunks of wood, but we would like to see how the Constructor Rework Part I does first.
- (PART OF CONSTRUCTOR REWORK PART II, coming soon)
Closing
It is thanks time. Huge thanks to the entirety of the community for playing on our server. We wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for you!
Big thanks to @Cotander , who has rewritten a lot of code and added many new features. Thanks to the entirety of the Resource Pack team and especially @Grissum1 who have delivered exceptional new textures to the server. Huge thanks to @Rio155 for the video trailer, and perhaps the biggest thanks I would like to say to the EpicQuestz Build Team, for working for months and months on the new maps. The server would be nowhere without them.
Share your thoughts about the update down here! See you on the server!
