Hi folks,

This small update brings bugfixes for some newer and older issues. We sneaked in some improvements to map voting, to the cinematic camera, and added 15 new TDM maps.

We took some steps to improve map votes at the end of CTF/TTH rounds. It no longer nags the user quite as much and the random option was replaced with a 3rd map to vote for. Also, hovering a map will also show a zoomed preview to make it easier to discern its features.
Our goal was to make map voting a little less tedious, and hopefully people feel more interested and satisfied in the process.



The cinematic camera was improved in a few ways. It should now be much more obvious how to temporarily disable it, and that will now be remembered across rounds. If you don't like it, you now have the option to permanently disable it in settings (under the Misc tab). Additionally, we tried to address unnecessary motion and shakiness when tracking a lot of players. We may adjust this even further in the future, and feedback is welcome.

Full changelog:


[fixed] catapults could not be unpacked (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] players not gaining velocity when thrown from a catapult (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] incorrect catapult button icons (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] the ballista arm facing an incorrect direction after being unpacked (thanks gingerbeard)
[removed] map voting: no more dimmed screen to nag the player (thanks guift)
[modified] map voting: 3 maps to select instead of 2 + 1 random vote (thanks asu)
[added] map voting: hovering a map shows a zoomed in version of the map (thanks asu)
[fixed] map voting: rewrote heaps of logic, easier to mod/tune and less sync bugs hopefully (thanks asu)
[fixed] incorrect seclev loading made some clients think they were admin when they weren't and vice versa (thanks asu)
[dev] moved "/" command prefix to a unique place (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] synced up flag animations across outposts/ballistae/warboats/flags (thanks kos)
[modified] reworked some emotes (thanks noahthelegend, asu)
[modified] cinematic camera motion adjusted to be less shaky (thanks asu)
[modified] slightly improved next map behavior wrt camera, starts straight centered and zooms in (thanks asu)
[fixed] cinematic camera setting was not preserved on next map (thanks asu)
[added] v_camera_cinematic and setting in Misc. to permanently disable the cinematic camera if desired (thanks asu)
[added] small notice on top left that is contextually brought up to indicate cinematic camera status, and a hint to toggle it with RMB (thanks asu)
[modified] toggling the cinematic camera with RMB will only take effect after the camera "death lock" is gone to reduce accidental clciks (thanks asu)
[fixed] archer grapple going through red barrier (thanks asu)
[fixed] drill now gets team colored in the builder shop (thanks asu)
[fixed] siege arms (cata/balli/bow) attached to a vehicle would mismatch vehicle direction (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] boats are now much more robust against bombarrows: 8-9 to sink a warboat, 3-4 to sink a longboat (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] hid the respawn timer in warmup instead of having an incorrect one (thanks asu)
[fixed] TTH/CTF solo tutorials incorrectly showed map votes (thanks asu)

[modified] TDM mapcycle: added 15 (thanks noahthelegend for changes, maps from biurza, noahthelegend, ferrezinhre), see PR #1640

[updated] accolades for UKC 16-19 (thanks shamwow)


Hi folks,

It has been a while! We are happy to announce that the much-awaited 2023 update is out now (build 4409)! This update brings a lot of changes to the game, and we hope you enjoy them. Various folks from the community have been working on this update for a long time, and we are very excited to finally get it out to you all.

I'd like to start out by thanking everyone for their patience including those of contributors. As the game is fully developed by the community, it can be challenging to decide on what should be added, what meets the standards of a game enjoyed by many and the find the time to make it all happen. Everyone involved in KAG is a volunteer, so as always anyone passionate about the game is welcome to join development through participation on Discord & GitHub!

There's many changes, small and big, let's expand on them below (I'll spoil the first one: it's no longer Christmas!):

General & Community
- Winter/Christmas has been disabled - the game is now relevant to players on the northern hemisphere again!
- Added missing accolades
- Modified account age in scoreboard to go above 10 (X), and a minor refresh to omse scoreboard icons
- Updated German and Russian translations & Fixed some text in the game not getting translated
- Being AFK will now move you to spectator instead of kick you if the server is less than half-full
- TTH game start sound is now the same as CTF
- Resupply information moved to builder HUD
- Ballista bolt/shell naming consistency
- ... And many other minor fixes or tweaks to things like GUI/HUD, visuals or sounds



Maps
- SmallCTF sees 16 new maps added and 3 removed
- CTF sees 22 new maps added, 19 maps removed and 17 maps tweaked
- TDM sees 31 maps newly added or modified and 19 removed
- Map loading & refreshing is now faster
- Servers can now easily change the default red barrier settings
- ... Enjoy over 100 unique changes and refreshed mapcycles

Gameplay
- Boat changes: custom capture zones per-boat, warboats don't cost gold anymore, longboats don't decay when left alone, more change and various fixes
- Arrows break when attached to a door or platform when it's opened
- Items that are on fire can no longer be put in inventory
- Bombarrows flash when airborne
- You can no longer pop vehicle wheels while it is being captured
- And dozens of fixes like:
- Spikes no longer attached to stone wouldn't deal damage
- Seeds couldn't be placed as a builder when you were out of materials
- Drills set on fire by a fire arrow would not cool down
- Cursor appeared behind modded message boxes/website prompts
- ... And many more



Highlights
- Emote pack support
Support was added to add custom emote packs, similar to head packs! This is not yet being used, but please share your ideas or contribute to spriting new ones if you can!

- ChatCommands system
Chat commands just got a whole lot more organised! This is both handy for server owners/moderators and players alike. Commands no longer appear in chat, and have changed a little. Write "/help" instantly get all commands available to you in chat, including a description.



- Holiday event change
This one is fairly minor but also includes a call-to-spriters!



First of all, a new holiday even has been added. KAG's birthday! It's a pretty small one and additions are welcome, but enjoy balloons on various places like CTF tents and boats, and a festive party hat! That last point involves the another major (behind the scenes) change to holidays, custom holiday heads are now easier to add and can be added very quickly! Do you have any ideas for holidays that should have a custom head and are an experienced spriter? Submit one! For example: a bunny head for easter, a spooky hat for halloween or a something crazy for new year's!

- Cinematic camera
We've got a new fully automated cinematic camera! It smoothly follows everything in the game, zooming in on heated moments or runs with the flag in CTF, making sure you never had to manually go around again! You can toggle this uring right mouse button, should you wish to take control again.

- Wallclimb rework
Wallclimb was fundamentally overhauled. Non-deterministic behavior was removed, meaning you will be able to achieve good wallclimbs more consistently. If you're used to old wallclimbs, fear not: you will not need to relearn it. Wallclimbs are now limited to two per wall, but the boost they give was buffed. These changes combined, the maximum reachable height from a simple wallclimb is roughly the same as before.
The way wallclimbs are granted now depends on your velocity. When you jump from the ground while hugging a wall, your first wallclimb will only be granted when you're about to fall. Because wallclimbs override your velocity, this makes walljumps automatically closer to ideal. Further, wallclimbs and walljumps made when very close to the ceiling was made more consistent than before.
We also reduced the delay between jumping/falling off the ground and being able to walljump or wallclimb. Combined with the above, this means you can perform small jumps (e.g. by tapping W) to trigger a walljump earlier than what was possible.
Finally, arrow climbs now let you wallclimb again, effectively allowing you to reach higher heights.
We hope these changes make climbing feel much more consistent, snappier, and increase the value and depth they provide to gameplay.



PATCH NOTES:
[expand type=details]

[modified] idle update check timeout increased from 2s to 5s to account for AUS servers (thanks jrgp)
[fixed] WAR base crash (unused in main game) (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] spikes no longer attached to stone wouldn't deal damage (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] crate auto-pickup (e.g. logs & mats) was broken (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] buying from TTH workbenches could crash clients (thanks mugg91)
[modified] you can now drive through neutral/team doors in all vehicles and boats (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] added some missing translations code-side (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] already grown grains wouldn't show properly when connecting to a server (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] minor visual issue in water bomb stun dazzle effect (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] quarter beds would survive in a glitched state if you got in right as it got destroyed (thanks gingerbeard & mugg91)
[fixed] tunnel menu order was inconsistent and depended on which tunnel you were at (thanks paralogia)
[fixed] seeds couldn't be placed as a builder when you were out of materials (thanks gingerbeard & hobey)
[fixed] inventory items are properly centered and team colored in the HUD (thanks gingerbeard & mugg91)
[fixed] builder materials sometimes dropping on map change, due to builders getting incorrectly respawned twice (thanks gingerbeard & mugg91)
[fixed] corpses made grunt sounds due to fall damage (thanks mugg91)
[added] emote pack support (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] warboat capture would not change the team of its mounted bow (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] attached vehicles (e.g. catapults on boats) shouldn't be captured independently from their parent boat (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] each boat now uses custom capture zones (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] improved boat unpacking, require the necessary space for unpacking boats (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] warboats and longboats had incorrect shapes in certain circumstances (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] warboats no longer cost gold (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] longboats no longer decay when left alone (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] reduced the wait time before you can move the camera after dying (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] that the "Following Player" text was overlapping with the Timer (thanks mugg91)
[modified] tunnels, storages, quarries and outposts won't get a window added to them (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] knights can no longer destroy wires/components by slashing/jabbing (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] drills set on fire by a fire arrow would not cool down (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] damaging an open team bridge should not give it a closed sprite (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] fireplace sounds would not start playing automatically (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] fireplaces would spin when above a ledge (thanks mugg91)
[modified] fireplaces can now be ignited and extinguished (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] ballista bolt/shell naming consistency (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] arrows stuck to blocks would survive after the block was destroyed or collapsed (thanks mugg91)
[modified] arrows break when stuck to a door or bridge as it gets opened (thanks mugg91)
[reverted] christmas cheer
[added] amogus
[fixed?] spurious admin gold warnings (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] teleporting to tunnels that were destroyed/switched teams (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] fireplaces now play sounds when cooking food on servers (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] seat arrows will not show on entities picked up/put in entities, such as dinghies or sharks (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] that you could pick up items exactly as you entered a crate, quarters (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] that you could pick up items from other people's hands due to lag (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] that you could pick up a dinghy someone has just entered into (thanks mugg91)
[added] KAG birthday balloons (thanks mazey)
[dev] holidays now load dynamically, which makes it easier to add custom holiday heads (thanks mazey)
[fixed] clicking through map voting elements before it was even shown (thanks epsilon)
[added] resupply indicator in the HUD, replacing the resupply text messages (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] allow slashing/jabbing team corpses and disallow hitting held corpses (thanks paralogia)
[fixed] seeds could not be loaded into catapults (thanks laws65)
[fixed] correct catapult loading icons for different food types (thanks laws65)
[fixed] health bars (e.g. vehicles') moved incorrectly when zooming in/out (thanks gingerbeard)
[added] new command manager with too many changes to list, try typing !help (thanks epsilon)
[modified] ease up psychological pain from the respawn counter showing "0s" for a full second (thanks paralogia)
[modified] items on fire may not be put in inventories anymore (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] wallclimb is now deterministic (thanks asu)
[modified] wallclimb rework, see patch notes (thanks asu)
[fixed] blob facing updates had a short random delay due to tick throttling (thanks bunnie)
[modified] adjusted archer timings for consistency: midshot 26->24 ticks; triple shot 101->100 ticks (thanks bunnie)
[modified] reworked archer cursor: color coding, smoother animation, fixed timing (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] holding a raft now properly blocks actions (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] loading a raft on a catapult now shows the proper [E] icon (thanks mugg91)
[modified] magazines can accept any 1x1 item now (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] incorrect icons when loading certain items into magazines (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] in certain gamemodes, picking up an enemy boulder and throwing it back at them wouldn't deal damage (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] selecting obstructor/mention sensor in inventory broke background tiles (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] explosives can now damage the entity they are contained in (thanks guthen)
[fixed] player will do their death cry and properly let go of a held food when getting killed by saw, instead of eating it (thanks mugg91)
[modified] account ages >=10 are now shown as the actual number instead of X (thanks goldenguy)
[removed] amogus
[fixed] blob shapes were not made inactive when placed in inventories, e.g. causing wooden things to incorrectly emit sounds and a potential performance bug (thanks asu)
[fixed] memory leak on dedicated servers (thanks alainx277)
[fixed] cursor appeared behind modded message boxes/website prompts (thanks goldenguy)
[dev][fixed] script loading bug (thanks goldenguy)
[dev][fixed] bad deltas should have a lesser effect when caused by improper .Sync (thanks goldenguy)
[fixed] in rare cases, the flag timer would never reset after being thrown (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] in rare cases, flags could be picked up, but would instantly be returned when thrown (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] maps could not add prebuilt backwalls behind flags or they would break instantly (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] disabled and bloody saws would not sync correctly when joining servers (thanks gingerbeard, mugg91)
[fixed] crushing enemy mines made saws bloody (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] quit synchronizing the match time property every tick, lowering debug log spam and bandwidth required (thanks gingerbeard)
[dev][fixed] plant grow checks applied one tile too deep (only relevant for mods?) (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] being AFK in a server less than 50% full will only kick you into spectating (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] lanterns would often be desynced when joining servers (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] lanterns could shut off when thrown in water but still have the burning frame (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] sponge wet frames now show in inventories as they should (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] disabled lanterns now show in inventories as unlit (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] storage lantern sprites would sometimes still show even after withdrawing lit lanterns (thanks gingerbeard, mugg91)
[fixed] avoid frequently rereading costs configuration from disk (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] spikes and materials are now pushed by the red barrier (thanks vamist)
[fixed?] red barrier desync issues (thanks vamist)
[modified] servers can now configure custom red barrier defaults (thanks vamist)
[fixed] placing a block will destroy scenery in the whole block instead of only in the top left of the block (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] you can click on "change class" buttons from the right corners of class shops (thanks mugg91)
[modified] bombarrows flash when shot (thanks mazey)
[modified] better class icons in scoreboard, dimmed sprites when dead (thanks mazey)
[modified] show skull for dead players in scoreboard (thanks mazey)
[modified] TTH game start sound is now the same as CTF (thanks mazey)
[fixed] emitters/receivers incorrectly blocked water (thanks asu)
[modified] localhost debug editor requires holding build mod + lmb/rmb (thanks asu)
[added] cinematic camera when spectating/dead, toggled with rmb (thanks epsilon, asu)
[changed] player won't get hurt by their own damage sources when invincible (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] player won't get set on fire when invincible (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] player won't get knocked back when invincible (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] player doesn't make a hurt sound and have blood animation when bomb explodes in hand while invincible (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] player won't lose air or take drown damage when invincible (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] can't unpack crates from very far away crates anymore (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] initiating unpack of a crate without picking it up will correctly assign its team regardless (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] if the player was set on fire several times in rapid succession, they did not get damage (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] teleporting in tunnels placed you too high, sometimes causing saws to kill you when they should not (thanks mugg91)
[fixed?] shops occasionally ceased working in some conditions (thanks asu)
[modified] mounted bows now face the mid of the map when spawned (thanks noahthelegend)
[fixed] desync where vehicle firing sounds wouldn't play (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] certain vehicle sprites not showing their correct damage frame (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] boats collide with platforms (thanks gingerbeard)
[modified] pop off wheels button doesn't appear when the vehicle is attached (thanks gingerbeard)
[fixed] map loading/minimap refresh is faster now (thanks asu)
[fixed] simplified script dictionary logic; fixed crashes with certain methods (thanks alainx277)
[updated] caught up to missing accolades, still missing certain UKC results (thanks bunnie)
[updated] noahthelegend misc. accolades
[updated] german translation (thanks mugg91)
[updated] russian translation (thanks kussaka)
[modified] smallCTF mapcycle: added 16 (noahthelegend), removed 3, see PR #1612
[modified] CTF mapcycle: added 22 (bunnie, biurza, fg, ferrezinhre, gix), removed 19, modified 17 (thanks bunnie), see PR #1601
[modified] TDM mapcycle: added/modified 31 (thanks noahthelegend for changes, maps from thd, biurza, ni, ferrezinhre, fg, bunnie, yeti5000, vans, pineapple, gurin, eluded, crocodile, sjd360, deynarde, mcrifel, asu, lorderplay), removed 19, see PR #1623

[/expand]

Hi folks,

As some of the people know who have been around for a longer time, you used to be able to submit maps on the THD forum, with a chance of them being added to the official mapcycle. As the majority of the community is active on Discord nowadays (as opposed to the forums) we have decided to open up a forum channel on Discord and close the THD sub-forum for submissions.

As always, everyone is invited to contribute to the future of KAG - whether it's mapping, modding, general development, or testing upcoming updates in the relevant Discord channels and on GitHub. Especially mapping is a great way to get involve with your community contribution, as maps are fairly easy to create and you may be able to play your creation on official servers if it gets accepted! Here are a few examples of popular maps in the mapcycle:


Snatchmark


Elantris


Rioter

Yes, maps are indeed made by simply drawing a png image. If you wish the learn more, join the Discord, and view the pins in the #mapping channel and feel free to ask for help there. As mentioned before, you are of course also free to participate in the other topics too, such as testing the upcoming update and contributing to/discussing development!

Have fun!

This is a minor update for the holiday season bringing the usual Christmas cheer, featuring some great new in-game music by dome to fit the mood!

As a minor balance change, we once again made an adjustment to build time resupplies, scaling them up to 250 wood and 80 stone from 200 wood and 60 stone. The nerf we had previously done felt too impacting, so this should bring us back to a sweet spot.
Thanks to dome, bunnie and GoldenGuy for contributing to this update!

We have been busy this season, so we haven't had much time to present balance change survey results. We're still planning on it!

Happy holidays & stay tuned!

Hello everyone,


We have released a minor update with a bunch of fixes and nice QoL improvements.

First, a word on the build 4137 survey, which was closed just a couple of days ago. We have received over 90 responses: thanks for your feedback!
We have already started digging into the responses and we will be publishing and discussing the results as soon as we can.

The main balance change we made is to nerf the build time resupply rate and amount. While these were only slightly buffed in build 4137, not requiring players to resupply manually turned out to be much more of a buff in public games than we wanted, causing a flood of extra materials early on.
We believe the new state of things will restore the importance of materials while still ensuring that teams can build a good starting fortress.

We also have merged quite a few bugfixes and improvements, which are too varied to sum up and can be found in the full changelog:


Gameplay & Balance changes:
[modified] significantly nerfed build time resupplies to reduce early game extreme wood & stone overflow (thanks bunnie). from resupply alone (excluding mining and wood-farming), in a 24 players game, each team got 21k wood, 7.2k stone at build time. these figures are now nerfed to 12k wood, 3.6k stone. this will still amount to more resources than before the 2022 update.
[modified] bombs and special arrows pickup priorities were increased regardless of your class (thanks epsilon)
[modified] you can now crouch through crates like you can crouch through team platforms (thanks epsilon)
[changed] buildings now won't break hand-placed backwalls to leave a window (thanks epsilon)


Fixes:
[fixed] spectator queue sometimes did not work properly (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] forgotten debug message in survey code (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] CTF shops never refreshed when losing/gaining materials/coins (thanks asu)
[fixed] water arrow material sprite should have been a single arrow (thanks mugg91)
[fixed?] fast building speed sometimes still happened after build time (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] in-game votes gave no indication of what you had voted for (thanks bunnie)
[fixed] during the halloween event, gregs would glitch you out if you were attached to something (thanks mugg91)
[added] admins are now warned if a player drops gold or seeds into the void, which may be the result of griefing (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] warboat crates did not drop gold as they should have (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] blood should not show on spikes when kid-safe mode is enabled (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] princess Geti would not kiss you on online servers (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] the admin tab would not show on Windows servers until you reloaded seclevs (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] quarters will not let you buy a beer or food when you are already full health (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] kegs are now team colored in the knight shop, like other things are (thanks mugg91)
[fixed] the christmas event did not last long enough as it ended on January 1st (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] after being opened, bridges didn't show damage frames (thanks epsilon)


Misc changes:
[updated] Patreon heads for Wzzzzzzzzzzzzz, hyperkannon


Mapcycle changes:
[modified] FG_forelands: made symmetrical, increased sky height
[modified] Didgedy_TwinTowers: made wider, nerfed resource count
[modified] petgreendino_bisonbisoff: minor changes
[removed] Ej_Cataracts
[removed] Prototype_BestDefense
[added] Ferrezinhre_Totally_Transcendent
[added] Ferrezinhre_Multi_Level_Crossing
[fixed] incorrect tent placement in Brokenland (thanks epsilon)


Hi folks,

As mentioned in the update post for the major update we're holding a survey on the changes that come with this build, including addition & removal of features (outpost & quarry respectively) and the variety of balance changes. The survey is now live on kagstats, the official website that also tracks the official servers. We'd really appreciate it if you could fill this in, in order to evaluate the changes, and perhaps tweak or revert things.

You may participate in the survey using your KAG account. If you exclusively play KAG on Steam you may need to add a password to your account, you can do this in the main menu:



In red you also find your username, should you not know it. N.B.: The "Finish Account Linking" box NEVER goes away; it will be there even if you've already finished the account setup previously. If you've forgot your KAG password, you can reset it on the main website.


To complete the survey (it only takes a minute!) go to https://kagstats.com/#/survey and follow the steps below. The survey runs until November 14 so please keep that in mind, it's also being advertised in-game so you should be reminded there as well.

Paste the token back on the kagstats/survey website.




Thanks again everyone who contributed to the updates & worked on the survey implementation! If successful we may use surveys such as these more often!

Hi folks,

Quick hotfix for some of the issues introduced in the major update.


[fixed] servers could end up in a bugged state and required reloading
[fixed] unpacking outposts could destroy tiles
[fixed] gold would not decay in Sandbox
[fixed] you could slash through friendly doors
[fixed] bugs related to blob tile repairing such as doors, platforms, etc.


Hi all,

Below further details on the balance changes introduced in build 4137. In a week you will find a pop-up in-game with a link to a poll to vote on these changes by logging into your KAG account!


Major balance/gameplay changes:
Siege:
Ballistas no longer let you respawn or change class on them - they're now only a siege machine. Their cost was reduced from 200 to 150 coins and they no longer need gold to build.
Added OUTPOSTS - they can be bought in crates from the siege shop. When unpacked, they are a 5x5 blocks building which lets you respawn on it, change class or use it as a tunnel. Also has a storage in it.
Catapults now launch items (e.g. lit kegs) with bigger force (110%)
Catapults now launch players with smaller force (75%)
Catapult rocks do more damage to structures

Drills:
More heat from drilling dirt and ore
Less heat from drilling stone blocks, other players, doors and patlforms
Higher max heat
Slower cooldown
Can't pickup overheated drills anymore (they used to damage you and instantly drop; now they just can't be picked up)

Build time changes:
Nearly two times faster building as builder
Resupplies do not require tent or builder shop anymore
Resupplies every 30 seconds instead of every 40

Builder/structure changes:
You can destroy player-built blocks slightly faster
You can now repair doors and platforms similar to how you can repair stone and wood blocks
Quarries removed
Doors no longer absorb slashes (or jabs). This means 2 things:
a) knights can slash/jab multiple doors at once
b) knights will now be able to damage players next to doors (some builders used doors to pretty much be invincible to slashes and jabs. This is no longer possible)
Moreover, wooden doors are weaker against sword attacks and bombs in general.
Shaky doors (unsupported) get more damage now (125%)
Stone doors are weaker against bombs

Knight changes:
Water bombs now do more knockback

Archer changes:
Water arrows now stack to 1
Water arrows now cost 15 coins per one
Water arrows do a slight knockback now
Fire arrows now stun (like normal arrows) on close range fullshot hit
Fire arrows now light team kegs (if they're on the ground, not carried) too

Economy changes:
More coin gain from combat (especially for builders)
Less coin loss on death
Teamkills no longer cause coin loss
Added 600 coin limit (Disabled during the in-game christmas holiday)
Less coin gain from hitting siege


Other changes:
You can now move faster in water
Saws now have a special interaction with bombs; bombs will get propelled in a semi-random direction when thrown into a saw and will explode faster (instead of exploding instantly). This also means the so-called "sawjump" is no longer possible
Trampolines now have 360-angle rotation instead of step-based rotation. You can hold LMB to use the old step-based rotation and can hold RMB to lock rotation in place
Updated CTF and SmallCTF mapcycles

QOL/Visual changes:
Knight now has additional animation frames when crouching & shielding
Keg explosions now make your screen shake. This can be disabled in the settings if you find it annoying.
Added spectator queue - Spectators can now queue to join a team and will be automatically put into the team whenever there's a free slot
Added game state (start of building time/start of match) banners

Bug fixes/minor changes:
Fixed some bugs, including the dinghy-flying glitch
Patched exploits, ranging from spawning in items, soft locking the server and potential server crashesMinor GUI fixes
Throwing bombs with high ping is easier now
Putting items in inventory with high ping is easier now
Dead bodies now open teambridges


Hi all,

It's time for a major update, containing new features, bug fixes and balance changes! This update is being released AS WE SPEAK so make sure to HOP ON as soon as you finish reading!

This update was brought to you by all the wonderful community contributors & those participating in balance discussions, polls and game tests on GitHub or Discord. Thanks everyone who worked on has contributed, and everyone else, please check it out! Huge thanks to Asu, bunnie, TheCatWizard, mugg91, Epsilon, Vamist, Mazey, Nananas, Skemonde at least for their direct code or artwork contributions, and many else!

Below you find the patch notes, even with dozens of very minor fixes and code changes omitted, this update stands to be one of the largest in KAG history. This update focuses for a major part on re-balance as well as merging in a lot of quality of life and features that have been in the pipeline for quite a while, to get a full grasp of what you'll find in-game, please skim through the patch notes! A few highlights below:



Fixed saw bombjumps - by changing the way (water) bombs interact with saws; the saw now blasts the bombs away as a tornado, opening up new gameplay possibilities and getting rid of the infamous bug!



Added outpost - KAG alpha enjoyers rejoice! Albeit in a different form than the early years of KAG, outposts are back! Outposts are bought at the siege shop similarly to the ballista and catapult, and takes over the role of spawn point with class swapping from the ballista, in addition to having a built-in tunnel. This change also removes the gold cost of ballistae and reduces its price, to promote its usage with its intended purpose.



Build time changes, balance & quality of life - Various smaller and larger changes to optimise the general game flow, such as visual game status banners throughout the game, faster building in build time and repairing all blocks besides just regular stone and wood blocks. Many other balance point as well that hits all classes, including minor economy rework, special arrow changes, drill balance & better structure hitting as knight.

This update is also closely released to the Halloween event that goes life automatically every year. You may notice a few (graphical) readability changes after this update for the event as well. Happy Halloween! There are still many exciting changes in the pipeline, and now that we've got a majority merged into the game a huge weight has been lifted of the backs of those responsible, smaller updates may be more feasible now, too!


[PATCH NOTES]
[added] In-game popup for redirecting to official polls
[added] Knight crouch anims
[added] slightly faster pickaxe mining against player-built blocks. Since you cannot change the damage you do against certain blocks, this was done by speeding up the animation of chopping and using a pickaxe by 1 frame (16.66%) against: backwall, doors, stone and wooden blocks, platforms and bridges, ladders, spikes
[added] (water)bomb tornado to saws to replace saws exploding bombs
[added] you can repair blob-blocks same as you repair normal blocks. This is done by "healing" them. Takes the same amount of materials as if you wanted to build a new one.
[added] added a 600 coin limit (automatically disabled on Christmas holiday for festivity)
[added] Raycasted knight slashes (and jabs)
[added] Queue for spectators to join full server
[added] added ballista bomb bolts to tth
[added] add an outpost to the siege shop. Outpost mechanics:
5x5 outpost which is essentially a workshop, but is unpacked from a crate bought in the siege shop for 150 coins and 50 gold
respawning with shorter spawn immunity
storage-size storage
can change class on it (both teams)
also works as a tunnel (only owner team can use the tunnel; other teams can however use tunnel to travel to it)
capturable same as ballistas
[added] support for help/hints that are shown even with hints turned off
[added] cata rocks are shieldable
[added] added offscreen entity throttling (only for staging clients)
[added] accolades, patreon heads, head prizes
[added] Gulp sound when buying a Beer at Quarters
[added] knockback from water bombs and water arrows
[added] Night ambient music
[added] shaky doors receive more damage than normal doors
[added] you get resupplies without having to go to a builder shop or a tent in build time
[added] text above inventory that tells you when you're able to receive builder resupplies
[added] builder and archer resupply now use different timers
[added] easier resupplying on ballista
[added] "Capture the flag!" banner at game start, currently for CTF gamemodes only
[added] "Build the base!" banner at build base start, currently for CTF gamemodes only
[added] added the team wins banner to small CTF (previously it didn't use banners at all)
[added] some Russian locale for DLC packs
[added] building during build time is now almost 2 times faster (build delay: 7 > 4)
[added] add polygon overlap system to the hover-pickup, add script to help set z-order for important items, for pickup, prioritize hovered CShape of blobs
[added] Shake screen when close to a Keg, or when hit by an explosive. Includes GUI change to disable
[added] Team Color to Keg
[modified] updated CTF mapcycle
[modified] halloween brightness 0.85 instead of 0.9
[modified] Cannot toggle lantern underwater
[modified] updated Small CTF mapcycle
[modified] drill behaviour:
receives slightly more heat from hitting tiles like dirt and ore
receives less heat from hitting blobs like players or doors
increased max heat
slower cool down
water buckets now cool 50% of drill heat instead of 70%
you can't pick up overheated drills anymore (previously you could and have them instantly drop to the ground]
drills now ignore bushes
[modified] improved putting held items in your inventory with bad ping
[modified] Dead enemy bodies open team bridges
[modified] you now move faster in water
[modified] dinghies move faster in water
[modified] water arrows come in stack of 1 instead of 2
[modified] new cost of water arrow: 15 instead of 10
[modified] splash from water buckets now does a bit of knockback
[modified] wooden doors nerfed: 11 slashes to kill as a knight and only one bomb+slash
[modified] stone doors nerf: 3-4 bombs to get destroyed
[modified] Fire arrows now light team kegs as well
[modified] also ignore emotes from ignored players
[modified] everyone is now switched to builder when a new match starts
[modified] catapult changes:
players are launched with 75% original force
other items are launched with 110% original force
[modified] cata rocks do more damage to blocks
[modified] no spawning from ballista
[modified] balllista no longer costs gold
[modified] ballista price reduced to 150
[modified] improved cata unpacking code
[modified] more coin gain from combat (around 15-20% more total compared to current)
[modified] less coin loss on death (15% instead of 20)
[modified] increased coin gain from killing people as a builder (around 30% compared to new values for other classes)
[modified] less coin gain from hitting siege
[modified] remove coin loss from teamkill
[modified] Trampoline has 360 rotation, help label for controls
[modified] now you get arrows in build time too as archer
[modified] Improve voting UI
[modified] Players playing on duplicate instances of KAG cannot vote
[modified] resupplies every 30 seconds during build time rather than every 40
[modified] changed the resupply message to help people that haven't figured out resupplies yet
[modified] Better bomb throwing with ping
[modified] Improved Background scrolling
[modified] Gold will decay, except in CTF/TTH
[modified] clamp fake rolling rotation speed
[fixed] Pre-existing Doors and Ladders will now decay in water
[fixed] mats drop on ground now if you're not builder after build time
[fixed] if you afk as an archer at a resupply point your resupply counter gets reset and you hear the resupply sound even if you already have 30 arrows
[fixed] Small sanitization checks
[fixed] make fire arrows hit like normal arrows + fire, fixes sound on hit and stun
[fixed] arrow type cycling
[fixed] Allow moving spectator camera when voting for new map in CTF
[fixed] fixed bug when you could accidentally damage backwall behind a door when lagging or building fast
[fixed] Drill activating when player is attached
[fixed] current sprite frame of blob-blocks like doors, platforms, etc. is now based on health rather than amount of hits received
[Fixed] Catapult flying away if shooting from a Mounted Bow which is in a Catapult's Mag
[fixed] Characters and Migrants not stopping after HOTHOTHOT is done
[fixed] Pick-up wheel not updating if letting go of "pickup key".
[fixed] that you could pick up Flowers.
[fixed] that you could pick up enemy items when you shouldn't be able to.
[fixed] Firearrows ricocheting off structure blobs
[fixed] fake rolling angle calculation
[fixed] Removed buggy grass from maps
[fixed] Keg not making sounds when hit
[fixed] blobs launched from catapult appearing behind shops
[fixed] long resupply timer bug
[fixed] Loading items you aren't holding in catapult
[fixed] cl_mouse_scale != 2 caused incorrect aim
[fixed] Minimap on top of map voting window and exception in CTF when match ends via vote pass or chat command
[fixed?] dinghy yeet glitch
[removed] Quarry removed from CTF


Hi folks,

As some more dedicated (mod) players may already know, "TFlippy", creator of one of the largest (if not the largest) mod Territory Control, has been working on a stand-alone sequel!
For those that haven't played Territory Control in KAG yet, this stand-alone full game sequel expands massively on the sandbox it is in KAG and its industry, innovation, factions, combat and emergent gameplay. Design factories, customize tools and weapons, fight or trade with other players or get viciously murdered by an angry badger!

As part of the Steam Next Fest, a week-long celebration of upcoming games, a free Territory Control 2 demo is now available to the public for a limited time! Thank you TFlippy for your time invested in KAG modding and good luck with Territory Control 2!

Wishlist Territory Control 2 & check out the demo here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/690290/Territory_Control_2/



Have fun!

Hey everyone,

Today we're releasing a small patch mainly to revert Christmas. In addition to this, the CTF mapcycle has been updated removing and adding several maps.
As always, this is accompanied by bug fixes, most notably special arrows not shooting properly has been fixed.

The build number is still 3900 because this is such a minor patch, at the time of writing this posts all official & community servers should be updated automatically, in case you're having trouble joining a server due to file mismatch, please make sure your game is updated, and if it is, the server likely hasn't updated yet.

There's a good amount of content scheduled for the next patch! If you'd like to join in on the development talk and join the community, check out the Discord: https://discord.gg/kag
All development is done by the community <3 thanks to everyone contributing! And of course thanks to the Patrons who keep the game running as well!

Patchnotes:

[removed] christmas cheer
[fixed] long-standing bug causing blobs (items and players) to glitch through the ground in some scenarios
[fixed] blob errors occurring occasionally on death, especially in singleplayer (thanks gingerbeard)
[updated] CTF mapcycle
[updated] patreon heads, accolades to finalize username changes (sorry for the delay!)
[fixed] history scrolling issues (thanks nananas)
[fixed?] disconnected clients stuck in a weird state could become unkickable (thanks vamist)
[fixed] getHitInfosFromArc infinite loop crash when step was too small
[fixed] special arrows sometimes explosing in hands


This is a minor update for the holiday season bringing the usual Christmas cheer along with some minor QoL changes and an updated CTF map cycle.

Changelog:

Events:
[removed] halloween event textures
[added] Christmas cheer with some minor improvements (thanks bunnie)

Minor improvements and bugfixes:
[modified] builder shop items were reordered for easier hotkey access (thanks Eluded)
[fixed] bodies on fire now stop flickering to an incorrect alive animation and archer animations are more accurate (thanks Gingerbeard)
[fixed] potential crash on server join in some scenarios due to tree growth logic (thanks Vamist)
[fixed] door frame animation often left doors at an incorrect damage level visually (thanks Mazey)
[fixed] with high ping, lighting bombs could often drop bombs at your feet (thanks epsilon)
[fixed] some Russian spelling in the server browser (thanks Soren)

Other:
[updated] accolades (thanks bunnie, epsilon, Punk123, Eluded and NoNamedNN)
[changed] CTF mapcycle (thanks bunnie and Ferrezinhre, along with the map moderation team)


We still plan on a major update in the coming weeks. Due to delays we preferred pushing a minor build before that happens.
As a reminder, short term plans include reviewing, testing and pushing the following changes:

• some balance changes from Bunnie's CTF Rebuild project, such as faster building during build time, more coin gain from combat, faster hitting on player-built blocks, sawjump removal. If you're interested, you can read more here: https://rentry.co/rebuild-prs (not everything may be added)
  
• raycasted slashes (Doors will no longer makes builders immortal at certain angles - this led to the frustation of many knight players)
  
• 360 degree trampoline rotation
  

This build fixes the issue causing you to be able to earn gold by destroying boat shops, even though they did not cost any gold to build.

We are aware of ongoing issue with official servers. This is due to an incompatibility issue with Linux builds that will require further work. Unfortunately there is no ETA for the fix at the moment, but we will keep you updated. In the mean time, Asu is hosting 2 CTF servers, 1 TTH server and 1 TDM server in the EU region.

If you are a Linux server host experiencing issues related to glibc symbols since the last update, it is rather likely that you will need to upgrade your Linux distribution. This is because we have performed some internal work on our build systems, including upgrading the Linux distribution used to build KAG. Because of how glibc dynamic linking works, the unintended side effect we hit is that KAG Linux users must use a recent enough glibc version (matching that of Ubuntu 20.04 at least). Unfortunately, this is not easy for us to fix at the moment.

It has been a while before the last update, but we're back with a load of improvements with more to come within the next few weeks!

First, an important note: Unfortunately, macOS support has been dropped. It was already unplayable for a while on recent macOS versions due to Apple dropping 32-bit support completely. This, plus various technical challenges mean we are not able to maintain the macOS version of the game anymore. We may be able to fix this in the future - but with our limited resources, we sadly can't right now.

Update highlights:

• Mild quarry nerf - the quarry produces less stone after some time
  
• Spectator slots have been added, meaning you can now spectate a game without taking up an in-game slot. This also means you can join when a server is full, and switch teams once a is a slot available.
  
• Halloween mood! Autumn-themed sprites, darker sky, gregs spawning - same as previous year, with some enhancements. Sprites by Skemonde
  
• Killstreaks will show up in the chat and give you extra coins.
  
• Shieldable catapult rocks
  
• Shieldbash fixes: it should now work more consistently and should scale with velocity.
  
• Minor ballista rework: explosive bomb bolts are no longer a gold upgrade. Explosive bomb bolts are now a seperate material. Tap F while being in ballista to swap bolt type.
  
• Shielding water arrows is more consistent (shielding them now always reduces the stun time), fire arrows don't bounce off shields
  
• Corpses will be much harder to pickup accidentally
  
• Crates now collidable again (you can stand on them)
  
• Ballistas cost 50 gold now and drop it on death
  
• Boat shop no longer costs gold
  
• Coloured minimap (shows block colours!)
  
• Visual change: arrows stay stuck in players
  
• New bind: shift+num key to switch bomb/arrow type
  
• New bind: shift+space to rotate blocks in the opposite direction
  
• Lots of fixes and QOL changes
  
• Mapcycle update
  
• Accolade and patreon head updates
  

• some balance changes from Bunnie's CTF Rebuild project, such as faster building during build time, more coin gain from combat, faster hitting on player-built blocks, sawjump removal. If you're interested, you can read more here: https://rentry.co/rebuild-prs (not everything may be added)
  
• raycasted slashes (Doors will no longer makes builders immortal at certain angles - this led to the frustation of many knight players)
  
• QOL changes for high ping players
  
• 360 degree trampoline rotation
  
• more accolade updates
  

Before we mention the update contents - check out to participate in our 2020 holiday giveaway!



Update highlights:

• Christmas cheer: Christmas sprites, snowfall, and main menu music (thanks dome)
  
• New emotes that can be bound through the bindings menu
  
• Bugfixes, minor balance changes, and a nice automatic rebuild feature for modders
  

Hi folks,

Today we have Build 3490 for you. It's a fairly simple build mainly intended to revert the spooky changes we did for Halloween (KAGoween?). Well, straight to the patch notes we go (including those of the other minor patches since the larger Halloween update):

BUILD 3490
* Removed spooky textures
* Refined builder animation - thanks blav
* Fixed bug with wood getting duplicated
BUILD 3484 (29 Oct)
* Fixed the end of match crash
BUILD 3482 (31 Oct)
* Fixed not being able to switch between servers
* Fixed an issue with the plant regrowth
* Updated custom heads and accolades - thanks for always updating accolades bunnie!


See you all on the battlefield, I will

Hey folks,

It's been a while since the last update, so we've got a rather large one for you this Halloween !

For starters, yes, Halloween! The game has been updated with Halloween textures until the next patch after Halloween, and the yearly event script (gregs, ghosts) should automatically start somewhere tomorrow and last for approximately 8 days. Spoopy.

Next up: Trap platforms.

This one is pretty big: trap blocks have been removed and are replaced by trap platforms! They are inspired by trap bridges from KAG Classic (if you've been around for that long). The main difference between trap blocks and trap platforms are that you can pass through your own team's trap platforms at will, as well as the build cost move from stone to wood. All in all this should reduce (accidental) griefing and the platforms should be used more than its predecessor.



Huh, some love to regular platforms you say? Sure, many of the quirks and glitches with platform damage, item pick-up and player teleporting should be fixed now, and the game handles rotated platforms a bit better.

Below some other interesting changes highlighted:

• The KAG menu are a pain in the geti to update, which is why it has never changed much. The menu has been reorganised a bit for a fresh look. Thanks Bunnie!
  
• Drills have been tweaked (see full changelog for details) and flora and fauna can now regrow over time. Both thanks to TheCatWizard.
  
• You now stick to trees as archer, no longer needing to furiously tap "W"
  
• The Quarry, tunnels, and storages are no longer flammable
  
• You gain coins from assists now
  

• New CCamera bindings
  
• getBlobsFromTile
  
• A new DrawIcon binding variant
  
• RemoveFrame
  

Soldat 2 Released on Steam!

[h3]Put on your rocket-boots and grab your gun. Soldat 2 is ready! [/h3]

[h2]BEGIN! [/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/474220/Soldat_2/

[h2]WATCH the TRAILER[/h2]
[previewyoutube=VCZQwggcK5M;full][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Join the LIVE!Streaming event here:[/h2]
Can't join us today? No worries
Grab your bowl with popcorn and watch the LIVE!Stream.
We made a special Facebook event with links to all the different live streams!

[h2]Early Access Features:[/h2]

• online multiplayer (with dedicated servers)
  
• iconic physics-based movement
  
• essential multiplayer gamemodes (capture the flag, point capture, battle royale)
  
• procedurally generated and designed levels
  
• realistic weapons and military equipment
  
• ragdoll physics and over the top violence
  
• singleplayer & custom battle sandbox
  
• lo-fi mode for clarity or potato pc's
  
• built-in gif recording!
  

Soldat 2 premieres:
22nd of September 2020!
[h3]Time: 19:00 CEST[/h3]

After nearly 2 years of a one man army style development King Arthur's Gold creator MM finally announces the release date.

The game is in the final phase of several weeks of multiplayer testing and will be ready for release in Early Access on Steam for Windows, Linux and Mac. WISHLIST NOW if you haven't already!

It will be still in development, MM will be collecting feedback from the players and introducing new features.

Soldat 2 Capture The Flag multiplayer tests gameplay on CTF_DIVISION:
[previewyoutube=jrszzOrV3wM;full][/previewyoutube]
Soldat 2 aims to recreate the classic experience of online deathmatch famous in Soldat, with the same physics-based movement, violence and guns. But it is much more than that with a new 2.5D look, weapons, customizations, gamemodes and experimental features such as:

• motorbikes
  

• battle royale
  

• and an agar.io inspired gamemode
  

• online multiplayer (with dedicated servers)
  
• iconic physics-based movement
  
• essential multiplayer gamemodes (capture the flag, point capture, battle royale)
  
• procedurally generated and designed levels
  
• realistic weapons and military equipment
  
• ragdoll physics and over the top violence
  
• singleplayer & custom battle sandbox
  
• lo-fi mode for clarity or potato pc's
  
• built-in gif recording!
  

Grab even more custom heads for 50% less.



[h2]Here they arr:[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1140690/King_Arthurs_Gold_Community_Heads_Pack/?curator_clanid=4461205


https://store.steampowered.com/app/894670/King_Arthurs_Gold_Fantasy_Heads_Pack/?curator_clanid=4461205


https://store.steampowered.com/app/640900/King_Arthurs_Gold_Flags_of_the_World_Heads_Pack/?curator_clanid=4461205

It was a long time battle, but worth it!

This is a historical moment, so we would like to celebrate it with you all, guys!
A cup of tasty liquid for all!!!

Long live the King Knight!



Awe to: Verra and Vamist for working on it! Thank you guys! A cup of tasty liquid for you!

For those who didn't know the legendary bug - you can watch it here, because you won't see it again in the game:
[previewyoutube=63j8UjpXoI0;full][/previewyoutube]
Thanks Bunnie for putting that video together. A cup of tasty liquid for you too!


This bug was fixed in the 3333 Build - what a great number to celebrate!


TECHNICAL INFO from Verra about this build - because there are more fixes:

This is one of the biggest code changes in KAG in the last few years.

Knight code has been almost completely rewritten to reduce animation issues (the so-called "noanims") and increase syncing.

Additionally the logic for being stunned was rewritten which will synchronize all stuns for players.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/219830/announcements/detail/2229792025505787638

Build 3333
Change log:
- All stuns are synchronized.
- Shield hit sounds and particles are now synced correctly.
- Knight attack state is synced (jab, slashing, charging etc).
- Knights can no longer attack or shield while holding trampolines.
- Stun length from water while shielding should be more consistent.
- Patreon head tweaks and additions.
- Private message chat colour has been tweaked to dark-ish purple.
- Added PRIVCHAT console bind so you can change PM colour in mods.
- Added ScaleBy(float x, float y) for CSprite and CSpriteLayer. Also does not scale by Y unlike the other ScaleBy(Vec2f)
- Scoreboard spectator list background size is now the same as the scoreboard size.

Thank you to everybody who helped test this build, if you are looking to help test future builds, join our discord!


Additional fixes in the next bulids:

Hotfix Build 3337

- Fixes an issue where non player bots couldn't do anything.
- This issue affected save the princess and pretty much all mods.


Build 3338

- Fixed an issue where archers couldn't cancel shots properly
- Fixed an issue where you didn't hear slash charging sounds if you were lagging enough
- White minimap bug fixed for real this time
- In the future servers will disconnect you gracefully on autoupdate





No Anims - No More!!!

I'm excited to announce Build 3333 is out!

This is one of the biggest code changes in KAG in the last few years.

Knight code has been almost completely rewritten to reduce animation issues (the so-called "noanims") and increase syncing.

Additionally the logic for being stunned was rewritten which will synchronize all stuns for players.

Here is a short video demonstrating some of the issues that you will no longer see in this build:
[previewyoutube=iBTtLgvbzSE;full][/previewyoutube]
Thanks Bunnie for putting that video together.


Change log:
- All stuns are synchronized.
- Shield hit sounds and particles are now synced correctly.
- Knight attack state is synced (jab, slashing, charging etc).
- Knights can no longer attack or shield while holding trampolines.
- Stun length from water while shielding should be more consistent.
- Patreon head tweaks and additions.
- Private message chat colour has been tweaked to dark-ish purple.
- Added PRIVCHAT console bind so you can change PM colour in mods.
- Added ScaleBy(float x, float y) for CSprite and CSpriteLayer. Also does not scale by Y unlike the other ScaleBy(Vec2f)
- Scoreboard spectator list background size is now the same as the scoreboard size.

Thank you to everybody who helped test this build, if you are looking to help test future builds, join our discord!

Hi folks,

A small patch with some QoL is going live as we speak, with some (hopefully) final adjustments to our previous larger update.

- The new pickup system, which we partially bound to shift, can now be rebound
- Spectator help text now disappears if you press the hide-help button (F1)
- KAGStats.com has received another update: map appearances, vote statistics and average match length are now being recorded: kagstats.com/#/maps
- Healing sound has been updated (Thanks dome!)
- Beginner filter has been removed from the server browser (this should probably have been done 6 years ago)
- Right clicking a user on the scoreboard now copies their username to clipboard, mostly handy for admins.
- Added/updated Patreon heads for Zazaza & TheCustomerMan. Thanks to everyone keeping the game running through Patreon support!

Cheers, have fun!

Hi everyone,

You may have noticed we put out 3 builds after the large update last week. These were several hotfixes, to summarise:
- Infinite building was fixed
- Ladders falling was fixed
- Cinematic camera removed until further notice

Epsilon brought us the great cinematic camera was a new spectator camera automatically tracking interesting areas and switching to relevant players. Unfortunately we are fairly certain it was causing the infrequent crashes upon dying. Hopefully this will stop the crashes and someone can narrow down the problem in the near future.

Meanwhile Verra has also been working on KAGStats.com, since launch many different features and leaderboards have been added, with more to come. Since yesterday flag captures are also being recorded.

See you on the battlefield!

Hey everybody!

This new update contains everything that we & the community have been working on over the past few months. There are multiple new additions to the game which you all should enjoy, along with plenty of new fixes & changes for modders to enjoy.

We hope you enjoy this update!
THD

Match end map vote
When a match ends, you now get greeted with a vote for the next map instead of the map randomly being picked.

Many thanks to Monkey_Feats for working on this feature!

Small CTF
Small CTF has been added as an official gamemode! Some of you may remember this gamemode from a few months ago, or from this video down below. In short its CTF but with smaller maps, which results in shorter rounds and more chaotic fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L9un1sz_MM
Thank you Mazey for this

Block binder
Thanks to Verrazano there is now a new hotkey selection for builder tiles, as shown below. You can access it the same as the emote binder (esc -> bindings -> Bind Builder Blocks). Once done, you can use shift + number to quickly access that block.


Better 3D mod support
There are a few changes in this update that helps out 3D modders with their mods. This first update aims to help performance with 3D mods, and more will be coming later.
SMesh and SMaterial has been added, SMesh provides modders with VBO support, so drawing a static object like terrain is no longer as taxing, along with allowing you to load up custom obj (and .mtl) files.

(Image contains a mesh, loaded with an .obj and .mtl file, made by Jenny. All done inside KAG)
Big thanks to GoldenGuy and Jenny for testing this part of the update and working on 3D mods.

Change log
There are plenty of other changes, as shown below;

Thank you to the following for contributing to this update

• Verrazano
  
• epsilon
  
• Mazey
  
• Shy
  
• Asu
  
• Betelgeuse0
  
• blackjoker77777
  
• Monkey_Feats
  
• vik
  
• Vamist
  
• bunnie
  
• Map mods
  

King Arthur's Gold is in the 'Top 25 BEST FREE Indie Games of ALL TIME' by Best Indie Games - ClemmyGames!

You can watch it here:

[previewyoutube=-AOnIo_sXfI;full][/previewyoutube]

Enjoy!

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

This build contains some small balance tweaks, along with rewards for the FFA tournament that recently took place and zoom level changes!

The main thing in this update is drill changes. As much of the community has shared their opinions about drills being overpowered, we have tweaked them to see if this helps.

However, this is not a full nerf to the drill, we have given the drill some quality of life changes, like no longer decaying in water, and allowing it to cool down in your inventory. Check the changelog below to see the full list.

Andrey has taken the time to add new zoom levels, which can be accessed by holding CTRL + zooming in or out. This means that people who are used to the default 3 zoom can still do it with ease.

FFA tournaments rewards have been given out, along with accolades and some people's custom heads time being extended.

We have plenty of features and changes coming in the future, ranging from Small CTF, to revamping the music system, and more features for modders.

We hope you enjoy the update,
THD

Changelog:
- Added FFA tournament rewards
- Extended head durations for some players
- Accolades stuff updated
- Christmas cheer removed
- More zoom levels, which should prove helpful (hold CTRL and scroll to use them)
- Mapcycle updated
added Skinney_Typhoon
added Skinney_Bluff
removed Ferrezinhre_Highlands

- Drill changes
- Default damage is still 1.0f
- Heat damage is now 1.5f instead of 2.0f
- Mat drop (excluding gold) is now 75%
- Overheats 20/15% faster
- Ignores useless blobs to prevent heat (if you mined stone while having a full inventory, your drill would heat a lot up more)
- No longer decay's in water
- Now cooldown while in your inventory
- No longer drops more wood/stone when destroying doors (need to double-check since full heat might give you like 0 or 2 mat extra)

Hey folks,

Quick update.

Changes included in this hotfix:

• Added Torik's head
  
• Added GarrettPG11's head
  

The Community Heads Pack is out now! Check it out on steam here!



This pack is the third cosmetic heads pack for KAG, and contains 58 unique heads for each gender, made by the community to support the game. As with all DLC, all sales go to continued development and hosting of the game.



Patreon subs of Knight tier and up also get access to this heads pack, but are of course free to buy the pack on steam too if they wish.

---

This is launching alongside the new official stats system, which has been developed as part of the community open source bounty program on github - this bounty in particular.

From Verra, the developer behind stats:

Get your game face on and get ready to show your skill!

I'm proud to finally announce the long awaited stats collection program is ready and integrated with the official servers!
You can go to kagstats.com and view various categories of leaderboards. There are also profile pages for each player with information like their best class, who their nemesis is and much more.
Stats will be updated regularly, you can leave feedback and report bugs on the github repo.

Hey folks,

Quick update.

Changes included in this hotfix:

• Added Titmau5's head
  

It fixes following things:

• Added Zav25's patron head
  
• Fixed problems with vehicles
  
• Fixed crash on !bot command
  

Hello folks!



This build contains a few months of cumulative changes as well as some bigger developments. Lets dig into the changes!

Firstly, support for the upcoming community heads pack DLC has been added - keep an eye out for it on steam!
(Patrons of the appropriate tier can use the pack a little early due to how the packs are unlocked, enjoy)

This pack was created from the winning heads of the recent contest, congrats to everyone who's heads made it (there's over a hundred individual heads included!) and huge thanks to everyone who entered!

Stats support has been added. Verra, Furai, and JRGP are working on integrating this with all the official servers, which should happen soon.
This will provide persistent statistics as per this pitch and may form the basis for further persistent progression systems.

The Mapcycle for TDM has been updated. CTF changes are coming soon. Big thanks to the map moderation team!

Resupply now gives the full amount even if you already have materials. If semi-AFK builders become an issue we'll look as limiting resupply for idlers, but as it is the AFKs are automatically kicked anyway. This has been an often-requested change and was fulfilled through community development.

Other notable community developments include:

• Accolades have been updated with several tourneys worth of data.
  
• Some script format inconsistencies have been fixed (102 files changed!)
  
• Turkish in-game translation added
  
• Vehicle GUI will now be semi-transparent (big thanks to Andresian for doing the bounty)
  
• Shader support for mods (along with more functions for 3D mods)
  
• White minimap fix attempt (let us know if you see it after this update)
  

Hello my beloved ones! Build 3007 is out!

It's been a while...

So first of all give a warm welcome to @Vamist who has joined THD Team to help out with Engine related fixes (modders hype)! And now onto the usual:

Summary of changes:

• Added knight and archer cursor animations.
  
• Drill heat indicator.
  
• Kills, deaths and assists only count when the round is on.
  
• During warm-up suicides aren't shown on kill feed and no longer reduce coins.
  
• Held/inventory items give back half their value when TDM round ends.
  
• Updated accolades and translations.
  
• 2 new functions available for modders (usesSteam() and hasStandardGUIFocus()).
  
• Fixed emote binder.
  

Hey folks! Been a bit more of a delay on this one as some bigger changes went into testing and had to come out again due to issues. Sorry for the delay on getting patreon heads, accolades and some important balance things through to release!

Without further ado, here's the changes:

The big thing in terms of balance this build is a limit of 1 quarry per team. This is in response to the more competitive side of the game finding ways to really streamline quarry production and use it to stall out games. For servers who want that kind of thing, it's quite an easy change to revert.


There are also improvements to the f6 "video recording" mode for streamers and folks recording for youtube. This provides a cleaner no-gui experience for when you want a good screenshot or video capture.

The cursor is still visible, the spectator camera works again, going into menus will disable it all properly, and for modders, render hooks are still called (so you can decide manually what to disable).
Thanks to Epsilon for his work on this!

Quite a few minor fixes also made it in, and the main menu "minor function" buttons recieved a small facelift + reorganisation, as adding a button for the server rules pushed everything over too far.


Cheers,
Max

Full Changelog:

Balance:
[added] requirement for quarries to only allow one per team (thanks eps)
[changed] wood gained from sawing crates reduced to 50 (thanks eps)

Community:
[added] April + May accolades (thanks bunnie, crux)
[added] a bunch of patreon heads - sorry for the delay! (thanks everyone involved in getting these through)
Novaq, DeathQonDoe, killer_bug, capuchin6, Zeus, hider45543, CantSeeMe', madracoons, Junko enoshima, RectangleCombine

Localisation:
[modified] Portuguese_br.json updates (thanks matheusgodoi)

Fixes:
[fixed] maths ceil (+ floor possibly optimised) (thanks eps for the catch)
[fixed?] steam achievements for flag after changed command format - probably need to check any other commands that also changed too
[fixed] TTH Tutorial (thanks Vamist)
[modified] several scripts to properly check singleplayer/tutorial tags (rather than just exists, as may be set false)
[modified] render hook runs while HUD is hidden + various F6 improvements (thanks eps)
[fixed] class cursors not updated when in f6 mode

Menus:
[modified] new menu button layout including server rules and github (thanks ehra for your work on them + various oksa for feedback/tweaks!)
[added] rules and github button IDs for the xml


Hey folks,

Once again welcome all new players! We hope you've been enjoying the game so far. Something exciting for you perhaps: there are 2 tournaments coming up aimed at new players!
Those who have either registered in April or are playing the Steam version for the first time since Classic can participate!
These tournaments are 1v1 knight tournaments based in the US and the EU and they will have the usual KAG tournament prizes (scoreboard accolades & custom head for the winner).

The EU tournament:
Date: 26 May
Sign-up: Discord, https://discord.gg/6rxS7hS

The US tournament:
Date: 1 June
Sign-up: Discord, https://discord.gg/AQuWtKK

You can also find the tournament Discord links in the #public_discords channel on the official Discord: https://discord.gg/kag
Do you want a custom head or other perks without winning a tournament? Consider keeping the game running by supporting on Patreon and get rewards: https://www.patreon.com/kingarthursgold/overview

Cheers,
Mazey

Hey folks,

You should have an update for KAG available shortly. We've narrowed down the problem causing the crashes that you may have noticed since the last build and this update should fix them.

We decided to bump the game version to 2926 to make sure everyone is playing on the fixed version, please make sure to restart when the update is available (servers may start disappearing).

Our apologies to those who have had problems with crashes.

Forum thread

Cheers,
Mazey

Archers, knights, builders,

To those celebrating: I hope you're having a wonderful Easter!
We've had a couple of small patches to fix issues that arose after we went free-to-play, but this is the first real update! This build mostly has bugfixes, but we're introducing a pretty exciting feature as well.

Straight to the point:

• Assists! When you contribute to a kill, you will now get assists. Assists are fully functional but this is the first public version, expect some finishing touches soon. Here you can see my dear friend Biurza assist me in killing Zanzibar:
  
  
• Numpad emoji support! You can now bind up to 18 unique emoji to the number buttons on your keyboard instead of the usual 9. Here is how you do it:
  
  
• Added missing accolades and added more Patreon custom heads.
  
  
• Joining a modded server will no longer require a restart
  

Free to play is live! Welcome all new players!

Check out the release video -> https://youtu.be/FvaT01outXs

Loyal Subjects, and New Friends,

Firstly: Thank you for supporting King Arthur's Gold through the years! We never could have dreamed that our little indie game would make it this far, and are totally blown away!



Secondly, the actual news:

To celebrate its 8th birthday - Wednesday the 17th of April - KAG is becoming available on steam at no cost! The price should vanish around 12 noon PST, some of the team will be available around then to monitor things.

KAG has enjoyed an active community and continued development for the last 8 years, and we are hopeful that turning F2P will ensure another healthy 8 years to come!

Here's the rundown on how Free To Play will work:

• After it turns F2P it will be entirely funded by Patreon contributors and player customization DLCs on Steam!
  Check out KAG on Patreon here
  
• The game is developed in collaboration with the community, through open source game code contributions and bounties!
  View development on github here
  
• Fixes, new features, and official maps are added through democratic voting!
  This is run via the Official Discord, join here
  
• Funds are put towards keeping the game running - including the account system, hosting the official servers, providing support, and paying open source bounties.
  Depending on the level of support, we'll prioritise some things over others, and will endeavour to be as transparent as possible if that is necessary.
  

Hey gals and lads,

Sorry for so long time without any build. Especially people that were waiting for their fancy custom heads.

So, straight to the point.

Summary of changes:

• April's accolades were added by Bunnie.
  
• Fixes to maps and mapcycles thanks to Ni/Biurza/Mazey
  
• New Japanese translation thanks to kinokino7.
  
• More custom Patreon heads.
  
• Admins should see other admins' moderation accolade and name colour.
  

Hey folks,

So I've decided I won't be trying to do any fancy posts. I figured it is just better to get the actual build out than sit there for half an hour to get that fancy changelog.
Summary of changes:

• Oceania's accolades were added by Cruxiat
  
• German translation - thanks to Maestro, Ni and Galen.
  
• More custom Patreon heads.
  

Hey,

Just released minor hotfix for the current build. Changelog below:


HOTFIX:

[added] accolades for March
[fixed] scoreboard issues with not hiding colour from admins
[modified] Azazyl's head
[added] NovaPixel's head
[added] pt_br and cn_zh translations
[modified] maps folder structure


Forum discussion here.

Cheers,
Furai

Hey,

So I'm here yet again, slowly getting hang of it. Maybe next time I'll add some nice gif or image? Who knows. I'll go wild and crowd will go mild, at most. :)

• Emote binds should be fixed now.
  
• #mapcycle results are in! We run a biweekly CTF mapcycle poll on Discord in #mapcycle channel, if you want to be notified when a poll goes live, type !role mapcycle in any channel.
  
• Trees should now properly sync across clients. No more different height trees.
  
• Additional keybinds.
  
• More Patreon heads.
  
• Various security and QoL fixes.
  

Hey folks,

This is smaller release. Short summary of changes:

• Change for all the admins. Redname is now hidden by default. Game should remember your preference. You can toggle it using "!toggle redname".
  
• Added basic support for CJK fonts. You can now specify font used for translation at the top of the file.
  
• Few noanim issues should be fixed but this is ongoing work by @Verrazano and will continue over the course of next few releases.
  
• Added more custom Patreon heads.
  
• Quickswap was temporarily removed from CTF/TDM until we figure out how to make it better.
  

This build is a small juicy grab bag of miscellaneous changes since last build.


No mouse required!

As a result of the voting in #mapcycle, 2 maps are returning to CTF from the pool, and 2 maps are being returned to the pool.

IN: 8x_PorkBuns, JTG_FirstBadlands
OUT: Oodle_Stonethrow, Radioactive_Dahill


There are also a handful of small CTF map balance changes (more details here). Thanks to everyone who voted and to the folks involved with applying all the changes!

We've also built the infrastructure required to get Round Table Patrons their custom heads. We'll be reaching out over patreon and discord to get your head files game-ready. If you missed the news, you can support the game on patreon and get access to heads packs, fancy capes, and custom heads over here!

There are some quality of life changes and fixes, including:

• Quick swapping class at the tent - just tap the button, like you would for quick-swapping bomb and arrow types, very useful in tight tdm situations.
  
• Drill "startup" time inconsistency fixed
  
• "file not found" spam in the console fixed for servers
  
• Functions that are specific about what angle units they take for modders
  
• Linux chat position fix
  
• Recent tournament accolades updated
  
• see the changelog for more!
  

Hey Folks!

You can now support the game through Patreon over

We're excited to bring you the first build with Patreon features! kag_yes

We've been working towards unveiling this for a while and we can't wait to hear what you think.

Some features are still a little rough, but the bulk of the lower tier patreon features are there:

• Royal Guard Cape Armour Set (available in customisation settings)
  
• Extra Head Packs (Also Available as Steam DLCs)
  
• Priority Join (2 "Above Capacity" Slots for Supporters)
  
• Exclusive Discord Roles + supporter-only channel

• Updated Accolades for recent Community Tournaments
  
• Player Heads in Scoreboard to ease identification of players in-game
  
• KDR always rendered to 2 decimal places
  
• Mapcycle Cleanup is underway at the moment, with more active cycling of older maps happening through #democracy on Discord
  
• TDM map tweaks
  
• Spanish Translation fixes
  
• Chinese and Japanese translations in the works (see github)
  

This build contains a few big ticket bounty items as well as a large number of small tweaks, fixes and improvements.

Emote Bindings



A long standing request has been the ability to rebind the emoticons on the 1-9 keys. While this has been possible with some fiddly config file editing in the past, now it has a fully fledged in-game menu for rebinding, which is instantly reflected in-game.

You can access the emote bindings through the new "bindings" sub-menu in the "esc" main menu in-game.

Taunt Menu

While the appearance is still something we're interested in improving, the taunt menu is now fully functional.



You now can quick-chat in-game using B (by default, button is bindable as always) - a radial menu will pop up with various categories of quick-chat - for both communicating with your team and taunting your enemies. The text will even go to the correct chat channel, so that enemies don't learn your plans, but they do hear your taunts!

Siege Through Platforms

Siege engines (both catapult and ballista) can now fire safely through (very close) platforms.



This allows some extra protection against arrows on towers, but also allows them to be put safely into platform-enclosed bunkers!

Keg Improvements



Kegs got some attention to make them more appealing and interesting to play with as well:

• Chain reactions - kegs now set other kegs off, allowing for devastating explosions!
  
• Fire and enemy fire arrows can light kegs, so burning enemy keg caches is an option!
  
• Water bucket splashes deactivate lit kegs (but not water bombs/arrows, to allow existing techniques for launching kegs to still work)
  

Hi Folks!



The Contributor Bounties for October have been voted on - thanks for your engagement with #democracy, folks! Over 500 votes this round, excellent! This time around we have siege changes, interface shortcuts, and a few balance/functionality tweaks.

This Month's Bounties:

• $50 Bounty - Make Ballista Bolts and Catapult Rocks Go Through Platforms
  More info here
  
  
• $30 Bounty - Quick-Buy with Number Keys at Shops
  More info here
  
  
• $30 Bounty - Tweaks to Kegs
  PR Already Waiting - More info here
  
  
• $20 Bounty - "Repair" stone onto damaged wood blocks
  PR Already Waiting - More info here
  

• Pitches happen on github as described here.
  
  
• Preliminary votes with +1 reacts and discussion of any issues on github.
  
  
• Then a further voting round on discord in the #democracy channel, to get a wider population sample for popular pitches.
  

This build brings a wintery look and feel to a lot of the in-game assets. It's a bit strange from down here in Australia, but honestly a pleasant enough reprieve from the heat. Don't worry, it's not permanent - we'll roll back the asset changes some time after the new year. Special Thanks to Mazey, Franek, Vamist, GoldenGuy, Ferre, and the folks who helped test it out over on discord, for their part in this cheerful event.



There'll be some extra special effects - falling snow, and periodic deliveries of presents - over the week of xmas. The exact timing will vary with the region, but it'll be hard to miss when it happens.

There's also 4 new TDM maps courtesy of the map mods and everyone who voted in #democracy. Keep an eye out for FG_SpaceInvader, Super_Gaming_Geek_Trilevel, Biurza_Cock_Fight, and Vans_Ziraeth! One of them was more contentious so if it proves problematic, we'll take it out.



A few fixes and quality of life changes have made their way over from the collaborative github as well, in the few weeks since last build. The big one is that water bombs/arrows do half the stun on hitting shielded knights, which got put through #democracy and came out positive. Check the changelog for more, and be sure to join the official discord if you'd like to take part in these polls!

Also - please welcome Epsilon as our newest internal contributor! Eps has really proven himself over the last few weeks making countless changes to many areas of the game over on github. We're looking forward to working more closely with him.

Happy Holidays everyone - See you in the new year!
Love From THD


Full Changelog:

[added] holiday cheer! (huge thanks Mazey, Franek, Vamist, GoldenGuy, Ferre)
[added] New TDM Maps December 18 as Voted (thanks ni, #democracy)
[added] daynight cycle to ctf for xmas (no "dark" part of the cycle, just variety)
[added] Halve the stun from water if it was shielded (thanks eluded)
[modified] updated accolades - addd darkdrake head
[fixed] holiday property for reference in other scripts, and holiday scripts not necessarily getting removed
[moved] birthday.as to proper folder
[fixed] tth bakery producing steaks (good catch enderzilla)
[removed] archer crouch restriction when charging arrows after community feedback
[added] Factory Named Properly (thanks blubahub)
[removed] builder quickswap as a result of vote (thanks eps)
[fixed] wraith king and female ninja head attack frames (thanks SGG)
[fixed] 2nd grass tile actually displays in tilemap
[added] client_SendChat function that will send a chat line as if it came from the local player
[modified] scriptrender UV maps wrap (instead of clamp)


Hey Folks!

This is quite a big build to get out before Christmas, but there's a lot to enjoy over the holidays!

There's heaps of quality of life changes - check out the full changelog for all of them, but some highlights include:

• Class-Change and Flip buttons on enemy siege engines
  
• Flags that fall into the void are instantly returned
  
• Trampolines can bounce more items/players simultaneously
  
• Grain plants can be "cut" by archers by hitting the tile at the base of the plant with an arrow
  
• Players can only report a player once per round (avoids spam/abuse)
  
• Fireplace Improvements for TDM (voted by community in #democracy channel)
  
• Arrows become fire arrows when passing through fire.
  
• Extra commands for sandbox/testing: !allmats, !woodstone, !stonewood
  
• New brighter and more descriptive hover messages for killstreaks and resources - let us know if the colours need tuning!
  

Hey Folks!

This build brings a wide host of changes! Many of them are the result of community development or community voting. If you'd like to be involved with either, please join the official discord server, and check the #democracy and #development channels!

The knight cursor now indicates your slash charge status, same as the archer cursor. This is a community voted and community developed feature paid for by our bounty program.

There was some discussion about exactly when the sprite should go away. It was decided that for now, the modified sprite should stay until you return to a "normal" state; as this gives more information to the player than the cursor returning to normal as soon as the attack starts. This is still up for discussion, and the alternative has been implemented in a ready-to-switch way.

Thanks to Andresian for implementing this change! You can see a preview from him on youtube here.

The in-game accolades system has been further extended!
There are now badges for tournaments, badges for community, github, and mapmaking contribution, and indication badges for how long a player has been playing, as well as a cake for their "KAG Birthday" each year.



As part of the accolades system, there are also 3 month (per-win) custom heads available to "significant" tournament winners. We hope that this drives some tournament participation. The community is more or less in charge of what "significant" means - if you want to be part of that discussion, jump on the discord and hit up the other community organisers.

Other important changes this build, in no particular order:

• Extra 1 tile "no build" area at the top of the map as a result of a community vote. This means that saw jumping will be a serious problem again, and will probably have to have some alternative countermeasures proposed.
  
• Four CTF maps have been removed, and some new ones will be added soon (they're currently being voted on).
  
• Dinghy costs 150 wood, no coins (thanks Shy).
  
• More useful timekeeping and rendering functions for modders
  
• More guidance on github for making issues and pull requests
  
• More russian translations and community visible templates for steam translators.
  

Hi Folks!



The Contributor Bounties for October have been voted on - a little later than usual! These are two straightforward changes that community members voted would be a good fit. They shouldn't take too much implementation effort, making them appealing to bounty hunters.

• Add back charging cursor for Knight slashes - $30
  
  "(...) Make learning Knight (especially fast slashes) easier for new players - (...) bring back charging cursor from Classic."
  
  More info here
  
  
• Make trampolines support multiple objects bouncing at once - $30
  
  "Trampolines behave very strangely since they have a cooldown for bouncing something. For example, if you and a teammate both attempt to bounce on a trampoline at the same time, only one person will bounce. This is very frustrating in TDM."
  
  More info here
  

• Pitches happen on github as described here.
  
• Preliminary votes with +1 reacts on github.
  
• Then a further voting round on discord to get a wider population sample.
  

Hey Folks!

This build has been a couple of months coming due to some finicky engine changes and a few of the bounties running long, but it should be worth it. Lets get stuck into the changes! kag_yes



Accolades:

There is now an accolades system in-game for recognising player contributions.

This system not only recognises tournament wins, but also community contribution through github, moderation work, map making, or organisation. We're still working on getting these all displayed (only tournament wins are displayed currently), but we look forward to giving a little emblem to show off to everyone who has helped out in some way.

The accolade badges currently appear in the scoreboard - the appearance of each is subject to change.



The accolades system is also used for assigning the newly introduced tournament-won custom heads. They will still take some integration work, but this system may also be used for assigning other supporter rewards as well, so it's well worth having.

Huge thanks to Rayne and Shy who were instrumental in implementing this system, and Bunnie for spearheading the competitive organisation and performing the data entry for each accolade!

Dev Updates:

This build has two months of bounties in it, as well as a lot of other community development. This includes paid bounties such as the In-Game Report system, Holidays fix, Anti-anti-grief, and item momentum on death. The bounties are pitched, voted for, and developed by the community, but funded by THD. Other community development is on a volunteer basis and very much appreciated.

A lot of these are simple quality of life changes that should improve your experience. The Report system will be getting hooked up to discord at some point in the next month or so as well. There are a lot of minor/miscellaneous changes; check the changelog for the details and credits!

Thanks to all the contributors!

#Democracy:

We've been running intermittent voting through the discord channel. If you would like to vote for bounties, help make decisions about controversial balance or map changes, and take place in other polls, then please jump on the discord and check the #democracy channel for any active votes.

We'll be writing up a primer on the whole system soon, now that it is relatively stable.

Map Changes:

Some TDM Map Changes were voted on in Discord.

• Vertigo was removed
  
• Spelunca and Corruptio were added
  
• GamblersDen was kept
  

Hey Folks!

The previous month's bounties are mostly filled, and a build containing them and a handful of engine fixes should be out in the next few weeks.



This month's bounties have been voted via the #democracy channel on the Official Discord. We got just under 500 votes total across the 6 proposals - the results have been recorded here: https://i.imgur.com/7yKYDMX.png
We've ordered the bounties (in terms of payout) by difficulty rather than popularity, as all of them were within 20% popularity by votes and the first bounty in particular is much more work than the others. We feel this is more fair than paying out half as much for four times the work, and hope you'll agree.

• Bounty 1: Builder Wars - $50 - New Gamemode / High Difficulty
  "When mechanisms got announced, they were going to be used for single player content and potentially a "builder wars" multiplayer gamemode. I'd like to see this implemented." - Mazey
  More Info: https://github.com/transhumandesign/kag-base/issues/122
  
  
• Bounty 2: Fix Holiday Scripts - $30 - Fix / Medium Difficulty
  "Holidays were a very fun addition to KAG, fixing the currently disabled holiday script would allow for the old holidays (like halloween with the gregs) to be revived and new holidays to be added, which would add some diversity to the game and allow for fun stuff that normally wouldn’t fit KAG." - Mazey
  More Info: https://github.com/transhumandesign/kag-base/issues/191
  
  
• Bounty 3: Held Items Should Have Momentum When Dropped As You Die - $20 - Tweak / Low Difficulty
  "That is, for example, when getting killed by an archer while you're thrown from a catapult and holding a keg. When you die, the keg should keep going forward, rather than falling straight vertically." - Asu
  More Info: https://github.com/transhumandesign/kag-base/issues/159
  

Discount Details:

KAG will be on sale for 50% off on Steam - 9 days starting this weekend (from Saturday the 18th of August), until after the following weekend.

✨ Both single and 4 pack purchases are discounted for the sale ✨

It's the perfect time to tell your friends, or pick up the game for yourself!

Community news:

The 2v2 Open is also officially underway in all regions. EU has progressed far more quickly than the other two regions though - if you're participating be sure to schedule your matches! ːkag_yesː

There's also an EU 2v2 Knight Tourney hosted by deynarde, bunnie and Homek coming for those interested in more jolly competition!
This one is a single weekend (25-26 August) 16-team event, so scheduling should be a lot simpler. See here for details. ːkag_flexː

For those more creative than competitive, there's also a CTF map making contest being hosted by Basshunter, Mazey, and Mehwaffle - there's game prizes to be had including KAG DLCs, and the maps will be included in the official CTF pool for some time.

Join the dedicated discord server or check the post on the official forums here for more information.

Hey folks; the bounties for August have been decided!



It's taken a little longer than the last few times as we wanted to verify the "top" bounties on discord according to the community priorities. This lets us get better voting coverage than on github alone. There were also 2 related pitches that we decided to roll into one bounty, to get even more features into this round.

As always you can read more on the bounty system and getting involved here, discuss and vote on the pitches and contributions in in in #development and #feature_pitches on discord, and get involved with development on github. We'll be doing continuous voting through discord as well but github still works as a yardstick for potential interest, and pitches are still made through github.

Here's the bounties for August:

Bounty 1 - Add Back Taunts and Binding Emotes from In-Game - $50

Taunts were a feature in classic that allowed quickly sending pre-configured phrases for both team communication and taunting the enemy.
Binding different emotes to the number keys has long been possible through a config file, but would be much more accessible through an in-game menu.

Asu has started working on both of these features, as well as some refinements to the behaviour of the emote menu itself. Rather than dedicate two separate bounties to something already mostly "claimed" by an established contributor, they have been "combined" into one task.

Dont worry - this isn't as scary as it sounds! There are a number of anti-griefing mechanics in-game that lead to inconsistent effects. This is better addressed through moderation than code where possible, and a number of the anti-grief measures have been identified as good candidates for modification or removal. This bounty has no "active" participants so far, but a lot of community interest from frustrated players.

Players will be able to report other players directly via chat, and moderators will be able to jump into spectator to follow a reported player to check if intervention is necessary. This is more faster, more convenient, and more "natural" to players than jumping into a mouse-based admin menu. Vik has made good headway on this popular pitch - a prototype has already been prepared, to be fleshed out through the month.

Hey Folks,

First off - the DLC review took longer than expected this weekend, but the heads pack is now out and available here. The pack provides 34 new exclusive heads and you can pick it up for 20% off during release week.



This build is mostly cleanup of a few issues that slipped through on the last build:

• Performance "stutter" on next map fixed
  
• Stray pixels for one fantasy head fixed
  
• Double outline on minimap gold against background fixed.
  
• Removed the apparently unpopular red barrier no build buffer
  The barrier will have moved by 3 pixels back to "where it was" and has no extra no build zone added.
  The "un-bouncy" behaviour is preserved.
  
• Minimap icons also disappear when minimap disappears on mouse hover
  
• Added CBlob::checkInventoryAccessibleCarefully
  Control whether or not isInventoryAccessible hook called for various inventory cmds
  Used only for crates at the moment. Defaults false.
  
• Some issues in TTH brought on by inventory handling changes fixed.
  
• Fixed "stealing" packed vehicle crates (team converts correctly)
  

Hey Folks!

Quite a big build this time around!

This build coincides pretty closely with the release of the Fantasy Heads Pack DLC, as voted by the community! This pack will be available on steam here from 8pm PST on the 27th of July if all goes well with valve release certification - it may become visible before then for pre-orders if it gets certified earlier.

The pack provides 34 new exclusive heads; 17 for each gender. We hope you will enjoy these new customisation options, and welcome any feedback on the pack!



All the bounties that the community voted for this month were filled very quickly, thanks to PotatoBird, Pirate-Rob, and GoldenGuy - and everyone who pitched and voted for the bounties! The bounty system is ongoing, and you can participate in voting through github and discord.

The crates are probably the star of the show, with numerous changes made; mostly by PotatoBird with some collaboration with Pirate-Rob. They can be purchased from the builder shop, hidden inside, provide protection from some explosions, contain booby traps, and can conveniently pick up resources en masse. They also provide a valuable avenue for teamwork, with archers or knights carrying builders safely in crates to the front. There's plenty more to note in the changelog for the curious. We are quite excited for the amount of attention the crates have gotten to make them an interesting, viable addition to the game! tl;dr: "I r8 cr8/8 m8"



The other big bounty was the addition of visible gold to the minimap. Gold now appears as a yellow area with a subtle outline, which should prevent it being missed on some maps, and avoids the need for silly workarounds like saving the map for competitive play. This was somewhat contentious in the community discussion, so there is a config file which allows disabling the gold rendering completely. The code also serves as a very good example of a minimap handling script for mods to build on. Thanks to Pirate-Rob and GoldenGuy for this contribution!



The final bounty was a fix for inconsistent bomb arrow damage in some edge cases. This may still have some rough edges, but it seems more stable now and Rob is happy to follow up as needed on any further fixes. Thanks to Pirate-Rob for this contribution. Looking forward to seeing it tested out in "prime time".

Thanks again for your contribution to all those who took on bounty work!

There have also been some important in-house developments, as well as some other contributions and reports from the community.

• A spanish translation from Vikhenzo was added. We welcome feedback and any revision on this addition! Vikhenzo also fixed an issue with the vote kick message appearing in the chat box.
  
• A minor changes to the quarry from Mazey that got missed last time - rounding the output to the nearest 5 units - was added.
  
• Farming for coins with wooden structures is less viable now, as it gives the same income as wooden blocks. This should prevent unsporting platform-spam at the tent while not much affecting "normal" builder play very much.
  
• The red barrier during build time has had some synchronisation issues sorted out. It no longer pushes players as much and there is a few tiles of no build zone at the edge, to prevent builders being tempted to touch it so much. The no build area has been adjusted slightly to accomodate this change, so maps should not require editing in response. Thanks to Bunnie and Franek for their thorough reporting of this issue.
  
• The female voice pitch modifier on several sounds has been reduced slightly - the sounds should actually be audible most of the time now! It may still need adjusting in one direction or the other, feedback is welcome.
  

• An important performance improvement has been added thanks to Asu: batched rendering of sprites and particles. The rendering is not really the slowest part of KAG, but this batching will speed things up a little more, especially for people with underpowered integrated graphics. Nothing should look different, it'll just perform a little better.
  
• Mod download speed may be improved, and the joining protocol has been sorted out to avoid potential double downloads and timeouts for big complicated mods. Some security aspects of mod downloading have also been improved.
  
• The top of map collision has been brought down one tile further which prevents easy clearance of towers that reach as high as possible. This is likely to somewhat curb saw jumping to the enemy tent, at least if they have proper defenses established. Bombs can still be tossed through the 1-high gap between the top of the map and the top of the buildable area, and saw jumping still works.
  
• Minimap updates can be triggered from scripts per-tile, which may be useful for custom minimap implementations.
  

• red barrier not being there
  
• void not killing when dropped into
  
• minimap not showing up (can still happen occasionally)
  
• script downloading issues for modded servers
  

Hey Folks!



The bounties last month were filled quickly. This month's bounties have been voted on in the same way as last time, but we've reordered the bounty payouts by approximate amount of work/value rather than the voting priority this time around. You can read more about how the bounty system works if you are unfamiliar here and check out the public github page for submissions here.

Without further ado, here are the selected bounties:

• Bounty 1 ($50) - Make gold blocks visible on minimap
  This pitch has had quite a lot of discussion both on the official forums and on github. As a result, we will require any submissions to provide an easy way to disable the behaviour serverside for those that feel strongly about it, and will definitely be vetting for code quality.
  
  
• Bounty 2 ($30) - Feature Pitch: Entering Crates
  This is a historical feature that will require minimal code changes to reintroduce, but clearly has public support. As a result, we'll be requiring that submissions also bring some additional utility to crates if they are to be added to CTF - they aren't currently.
  
  
• Bounty 3 ($20) - Make bombarrows deal consistent damage
  This is a bug fix bounty and should reduce archer anxiety when using bomb arrows for combat somewhat if tracked down.
  

Hey folks!

So, the Quarry was an exciting new change, but we've seen a LOT of stone in CTF ever since.



This build slows the rate of conversion from wood to stone, makes the building cost more gold, and holds a smaller stockpile of fuel. We've kept the efficiency the same to avoid them remaining hugely wood-hungry. This should see them enter more of a supplementary production role, rather than being a team's primary production.

If we're still not happy with the outcome after these nerfs, we're considering a switch to a coin-consuming quarry as laid out here by the contributor PotatoBird. We're also open to other options and welcome your feedback!

There are also some quick fixes and tweaks to the builder quickswap code, and the healing button no longer works while stunned, which prevents some relatively extreme tanking strats I'm afraid. Theres a crash fix and a new TDM map (plus two unpopular maps removed) to round out the build.

Have Fun!
Max

Full Changelog:

Quarry:

[modified] quarry costs 100 gold to build, converts slower, holds smaller wood stockpile
[added] Quarry sound when turned on (thanks Mazey)

Misc:

[fixed] healing no longer possible when stunned
[modified] Builder quickswap fixes/tweaks (thanks Potatobird)
[fixed] Can't quickswap to building frame
[modified] Builder quickswap makes sound effect
[added] "gold building" code supports customised drop amounts
[fixed] potential divide by zero in sprite code (thanks Mirsario and Asu)

TDM Maps: (Thanks map mods and authors!)

[added] FG Clash
[removed] Biurza Stompy Bois
[removed] FG Enclosure
[fixed] mapcycle folder typos


Hey Folks!

First, welcome new players from the steam sale! Hope to see you on the battlefield.

This build contains all changes from our first round of bounties, and a lot more besides!

Two big changes this build for CTF:

• There is a new building, the Quarry. This community-voted bounty was proposed and implemented by Mazey.
  
  
  
  It costs 150 stone and 50 gold, on top of the 150 wood required for the building frame. It consumes wood to generate stone over time. We're going to be keeping a close eye on how this affects balance, but we're optimistic.
  
  
• There is a new capture-stalemate resolution system. This community-voted bounty was proposed by DoctorSnakes and implemented by Pirate-Rob.
  
  The stalemate system detects when all flags on both sides have been captured, and starts a timer. Once this timer expires, all flags are returned without capture. This prevents the condition of both teams being unable to capture a flag, and the game being unable to end.
  

• There is a new button dedicated to eating food from your inventory or hands. This community-voted bounty was proposed by benjamingorman and implemented by Ferrezinhre.
  
  
  
  By default, the button to eat food is V. Space will no longer eat food, and is used solely for rotating blocks or lighting bombs.
  
  NOTE: As a result of this change, your controls will be reset on first launch - watch out for this. As the key "clashed" with an existing key, and we didn't want to remove it completely, we decided that was the safest way to handle things.
  
  
• Builders can quick-swap between their last 2 selected blocks with the Inventory button, F. This change is experimental and could do with some refinement, but potentially saves builders quite a lot of time when building walls and backgrounds. It can also be used to quickly "drop" building frames. Thanks to Potatobird for developing this feature.
  
  
• The new emotes from earlier in the year have been added to the emote wheel. They have not been touched up further yet, as there wasn't time for it in this build cycle, but that's still on the table. The emote wheel also renders above the minimap to help keep everything easy to see and interact with. We're looking at solutions (including a grid and a multi-tiered ring) that would allow even more emotes.
  
  
• New Players don't drop hearts. Specifically, players who registered within the last 2 weeks will not drop hearts upon dying, which will prevent them "feeding" more experienced players and help level the playing field a little. We're considering if anyone should really drop hearts on death, and potential other HP-related changes, and will be polling the community through discord about it in the coming weeks.
  
  
• Gold now stacks to 100 (as 2 lumps of 50) instead of 250. This reduces the overall amount of gold you can carry, but makes taking the right amount of gold for a building out of the storage much simpler. It also makes gold lumps much more visible as they use the large stack sprites for much smaller values, so they are harder to "lose" in the chaos.
  
  

June Bounties:

The 3 bounties for June have been decided by community vote - they are:

• Bounty 1: $50 - Add an extra button for knights that just eats food and doesn't light bombs
  
• Bounty 2: $30 - Feature Pitch: Stone Quarry for CTF
  
• Bounty 3: $20 - Feature Pitch: Fix for all flags being captured by both teams
  

Quick overview:



• Anyone can vote on as many issues as they like by issuing a +1 (thumbs up) reaction on github.
  
• Anyone can submit one pitch, and as many issues as they like per month.
  
• At the end of the month, upvotes are counted, most-upvoted get a cash bounty placed on them.
  
• Comments as well as votes are welcome! We want a collaborative community environment.
  

• Bounty 1 actually already has a waiting pull request - tentative congratulations to ferrezinhre on snagging it so early!
  
• Bounty 2 has a work in progress implementation from Mazey - please direct all feedback to either the github issue or chase them down on discord.
  
• Bounty 3 is more or less fair game, have at it folks!
  
• The Submission "Feature Pitch: Improve failure rate of knight animations" won by a mile, but is not easily solvable by the community. We are taking this as an indication that it should be a priority for internal development this month.
  
• The 3rd bounty tied in upvotes with "Feature Pitch: Bloody tiles". As that pitch was quite... extensive, as well as likely to be somewhat performance intensive, we decided not to include it in this round. Your thoughts are welcomed on this matter though - would you like to see bloody tiles in KAG? Should we reconsider for next time?
  
• We're seeing more engagement on github since the bounty system was announced - it's simply a correlation, but we're happy to see more people giving it a look and contributing where they can.
  

Currently the main kag2d.com website is down; this means that online play, logins, and use of the various websites attached to that domain are inaccessible. The official forums are still accessible, as is the official discord. The latter is most likely to receive up to the minute news as this plays out.

We're currently working to figure out the cause of this outage and resolve it ASAP. As it seems to be occurring as the 21st rolls into various timezones, probably something needs renewing.

We'll be taking steps to prevent this happening again in future.

Max

Edit: This has been fixed by the most excellent Furai in the early hours of his monday morning. Thanks to him for the prompt fix ːkag_yesːːkag_flexː

Thanks for your patience folks!

Hey Folks,

This build contains several optimisations, a lot of modder quality-of-life changes, and some exciting new script rendering possibilities. There's also new map changes for TDM. We're getting this build out ahead of the github bounty system landing next month - we may get another build out between now and then as well, but this one has definitely waited long enough.

Script Rendering:

There is now a script mesh rendering API, which can render in both world and screen space. This makes it possible to render custom geometry for things like tilemaps, fluid layers, ropes, line-of-sight/visibility, complex multi-part objects, "cheap" entities, and more. We'll be working with modders to see where this may benefit their mods, and the API has a straightforward "get off the ground" example provided.

GoldenGuy in particular has already been tinkering with it; you can see his prototype of directional visibility in action here.

I'm working on an example of "dynamic water", which not only provides an in-depth example of the rendering code, but also a good jumping-off point for modders' own custom fluids. Lava has been an oft-requested mod! I've intentionally kept the water model simple (no pressure, no velocity flow) to provide space for modders to extend and improve the system. Still, it's a lot more dynamic than the built in KAG water, and may be fun for some sandbox servers!


(gfycat preview here!)

The script rendering changes have also brought around some optimisation to a few of the primitive type arrays (numbers, vectors, colours and vertices), in order to allow much faster handling of meshes and index buffers. This has the nice side effect of optimising any code using those types of arrays.

TDM Maps:

Thanks again to the map mods for reviewing, iterating on and integrating so many maps to help keep the gamemodes fresh!

Community:

The kag-base github repo has been getting a good amount of attention since the contributor bounties and voting system were announced! If you haven't already, go give the pitches and bugs a moment of your time and vote on what you'd like to see sponsored.

Thanks to everyone who's engaged with the system so far!

As always, discord is where the majority of discussion is happening. Shout outs to the mods and administrators who keep the lights on over there!

All the rest:

There's a lot of miscellaneous features in this one. A lot of them are sourced from github reports. Some are player or modder requests. A few of them were just spur of the moment things. See the changelog for full details.

Among them are better "tap" pickup handling to cut down on the amount of bad-priority pickups mid-fight, some tweaks to how TTH games start and end, and a long standing audio fix on linux/mac.

Have Fun!
Max

Full Changelog:

Script Rendering

[added] script rendering interface (see ScriptRenderExample.as in Base/Scripts/Examples for details)
[added] Vertex type for fast script rendering

Maps - TDM

[added] 3 Maps - FG_Enclosure, Niiiiii_Elewater, Niiiiii_GetisArena
[modified] 1 Map - Niiiiii_Watery

Miscellaneous

[modified] TTH game start/end logic (requires a hall cap to start, game doesn't end on a tie)
[modified] ignore item aim when tapping pickup
[modified] saving logs in binary mode, which should interfere less with encoding
[added] utf-8 logging everywhere
[fixed] unicode logging on linux/mac
[added] color log support
[removed] "New player joined the game" message, only leaving "*player* connected"
[fixed] linux/mac channel mismatch and stereo sound origin glitch
[modified] readme + server setup info a little since someone got misled by them
[fixed] discord invite link (now permanent) + added guidelines link in readme on github
[added] "forceful" physics disable when in inventory (we'll see if it fixes tflippy's lag)

Modding

[added] Better trace printing for exceptions, etc.
[added] printTrace(), getCallStack(), getScriptStack() debugging aids
[added] g_timeoutscripts to abort long-running scripts
[added] nested hook call detection
[modified] matcher returns empty string if there's no matches (assumption seems to be made everywhere)
[added] hasScript to all components, rules, map and blob - fixes #78 on github
[added] CSprite::getZ()
[added] global isServer and isClient functions as shorthand for the equivalent CNet functions. Fixes #85 on github
[added] CBlob::getOldPosition() - fixes #86 on github
[added] allow_suicide gamemode.cfg bool - removes the menu option for suicide for gamemodes where that option is unsuitable
[modified] engine (esc menu) suicide uses hitters.as suicide hitter
[fixed] missing default constructor for Random
[added] specialised array implementation for some types (bool, u8, s8, u16, s16, u32, s32, f32, Vec2f, SColor, Vertex); faster performance
[fixed] error preventing loading in Texture::dataFromSprite and Texture::dataFromSpriteLayer
[added] CMixer uses matched filename

Hey Folks,

Next month, we are going to trial a contribution bounty system!

We want to help support and encourage community contribution in the game, both for code savvy folks, and for anyone who'd like a say on the future of the game. We'd also like the make development a little more democratic.

Starting next month, the top 3 contributor-applicable issues on github will be tagged with monetary bounties, paid upon integration of an applicable pull request. The wait should give some time for votes to accumulate, and ensure a set list of bounties. Issues will be ranked by the number of +1 reactions they have received from the community.

The bounties will be scaled according to popularity, with the #1 issue receiving a $50 bounty, the #2 issue receiving a $30 bounty, and the #3 issue receiving a $20 bounty, for a total of $100 over the month. Amounts are in USD.

We're starting out small, as we're not sure of the reception this will get. We are open to increasing the number and size of the bounties over time, and will look at crowdfunding options, should it prove popular. We hope that this will encourage contribution on other (non-bounty) issues in the meantime, and help get people involved with the repository and the game's development.

For Anyone:

• Get on github if you haven't already! No programming experience required, interacting with the issues section is much like an online forum.
  
• Be sure to star the kag-base repo to help increase our visibility within the wider open-source ecosystem.
  
• Anyone can vote on issues - react with "+1" (the thumbs up) on issues you'd like to see fixed.
  

• Anyone can pitch.
  
• Pitch proposals under the issues section on the repository.
  
• Start your issue title with "Feature Pitch: ", so folks know that it's a pitch.
  
• Be as descriptive as possible
  
  
  • If you're not going to be the one implementing it, you don't want someone to be working off a vague spec.
    
  • If you're planning on implementing it, you want people to be clear what they're voting on.
    
  
  
• Keep scope limited for this round - it's got to be able to be completed in a month by contributors who are often hobbyists, and the payments aren't huge.
  
• Spread the word to players you think would like to see your feature implemented to secure votes!
  

• Be sure to read the guidelines!
  
• Consider pitching something you'd be confident to work on.
  
• Join the discord and drop into the #development channel for support.
  
• Wait until the bounties are posted - consider working on other issues in the meantime!
  
• Post your intent to pursue a bounty on any of the bounty issues
  
• Multiple bounties can be claimed, but please only work on one at a time.
  
• Complete the required work to fulfill the bounty
  
• Submit a Pull Request suitable for integration
  
• Work with the developers to resolve any concerns prior to integration
  
• Get paid!
  

• One pitch per person per month.
  
• "Contributor-applicable" means "able to be addressed directly through the kag-base repository". This basically means "no engine changes".
  
• Votes aren't restricted to feature pitches. Contributor-applicable bugs are also suitable, and votes will be counted and bounties paid if there are popular bugs. Bug issues are not restricted to the one pitch per month restriction.
  
• Bounties will be paid through PayPal, so contributors looking to claim a bounty should ensure they have a suitable account to ensure prompt payment.
  
• Bounties will only be paid for suitable contributions. We do merge optimistically, but the work must be in line with community expectations and suitable for .
  
• Be careful if multiple people are interested; the bounty will only be paid out once, to the first suitable pull request (ordered by submission time if multiple suitable submissions are made)
  
• Probably don't pursue a bounty on something a past contributor has pitched without consulting them; that's bad form.
  
• We reserve the right to "veto" features that we feel are against the spirit or design of the game, but are going to take as open a mind as possible. We want to build a collaborative environment, not a competitive one. We want the community to be able to self-direct as much as possible.
  
• We'll formalise this somehow in the repository going forward, and likely revise the contribution guidelines should this prove popular.
  

Hey Folks!

The 1st of May has come and gone in almost every timezone, so we're going to call the poll for the next DLC heads theme now.

The results are:


Pirates: 52 discord + 3 "extra" steam = 55 total
Animals: 97 discord + 1 "extra" steam = 98 total
High Fantasy: 116 discord + 9 "extra" steam = 125 total
Sci Fi: 44 discord + 3 "extra" steam = 47 total


Note: The ad-hoc votes on steam have been counted as a good faith gesture, but please try to follow the instructions in future!

That means that High Fantasy will be the theme for the next heads pack! We'll be drawing from a variety of High Fantasy inspirations in preparing the pack, to produce something unique that fits with the game - while still bringing fresh new looks, of course! Expect some news and previews on that front over the next few months as we get it prepared and cleared through Steam.

In other news, we're working to get a new build out with improved script-rendering capabilities, modder quality-of-life additions and some specific requests from github, reworked server setup readme, and the usual miscellaneous fixes. More on that soon!

Max

Hey Folks,

There's voting for a new DLC heads pack theme on the official discord at the moment.

The 4 themes to vote on are:

- Pirates! Privateers, buccaneers, and more!
- Animals! Various animal heads.
- High fantasy! Goblins, orcs, elves, hobbits, wizards.
- Sci fi! Space suits, aliens, robots.

Just react with the appropriate emoji on the post in #announcements on the discord to register your vote. The theme with the highest votes will be used for the next heads pack available through steam.

You can see more details in the discord. At the time of writing, high fantasy is in the lead with animals in second place.

Voting is open to all and ends on May 1.

EDIT: voting is now closed - thanks for your input folks!

Have fun,
Max

Eluded is hosting a New Player Friendly server to help new players learn the ropes in a friendly environment. New players are encouraged to drop in! ːkag_smileː

Experienced players are allowed to join, but those that are found playing to pub-stomp on this server rather than to help players learn the game and have friendly, fair matches will be banned.

You can read more and discuss the server on the official forum thread - they are looking for responsible admins to keep the server well moderated ːkag_yesː

Thanks to Eluded and the other community members involved with making this happen!

Max

This build rounds up a bunch of community changes and internal fixes, plus improved translation support and some modder-requested features.

The main new feature this build is highlighting class-relevant items by holding C. This only works for items that are not hidden in darkness, but does reveal items behind bushes and bodies. This change was developed mainly by Diprog in cooperation with Asu, who optimised the code and added some requested features. You can see a discussion of the changes here and here - while somewhat controversial, these changes are purely opt-in (you have to hold the button to see the effect), and may help new players understand what items are important, while helping vets quickly identify hidden items. Pickup priorities have also been reworked by Asu to improve quickly picking up what you want in the field. I've added a death tip mentioning the feature.

King Arthur's Gold will be 50% off over Easter weekend, starting on good Friday (UTC+10) and ending the following Tuesday (5 days total). The four-pack is also discounted.

This should ensure a good coverage over the entire long weekend for everyone celebrating - and for those not, hopefully the discount is nice anyway ːkag_winkː

Hey folks - it's been a bit of a wait on this one, I know, but hopefully the payload makes up for it!



60FPS!

It's finally here! Asu has gotten serious work done on this feature and after ironing out some issues in testing, it should be ready for public consumption. There might still be issues with it, so it's not on by default - yet. If all goes smoothly in production, we will enable this by default - so if you haven't already, now is the time to give it a look and report any issues.

If you enable Uncapped Framerate (in the video settings), the game will now render "in-between" frames. The game logic still runs at 30 ticks per second, but the rendering is now decoupled from that limit. This makes the game's motion a lot smoother in the eyes of most people, without increasing the game's processing cost proportionally. You can keep the framerate capped if you prefer 30fps for whatever reason.

We recommend you keep vsync on (as it is by default) to prevent wasted processing on frames that aren't displayed. For most players, this leads to a smooth rendered framerate of 60fps, though those with higher frequency monitors or graphics cards the support "special" vsync modes (freesync, gsync etc) will of see higher framerates.

This feature works with most mods out of the box (including TC, pictured above), but if they do any tricky custom rendering, camera updating or similar, then they will need to use a few new functions to smooth out their motion. It's probably best to ask about it on a case-by-case basis in #modding on Discord, but we'll look at doing a forum writeup to help you understand the changes as well.

New Maps

The maps team have continued to review and integrate new community map content, to help keep the mapcycles fresh. We hope you enjoy what they've come up with this time around.

Both CTF and TDM have new maps in the rotation this build.

CTF changes:
Added/Modified: highlands, princesscity, gloryhill2, lech_walesa
Removed: kaggen, antqueen, snitchmerk, passfest, paradox

TDM changes:
Added: watery, reaver, neringa, cursedwell, virgo
Removed: peanut


More Translations

The translation contributors have continued to provide, with the Russian translation being extended to support the server browser and the Polish translation being upgraded from a placeholder to parity with the Russian team. Please let us know if you have any feedback, and you can always contribute modifications or corrections on github! French will catch up soon, Asu has had enough on his plate with this release!

Community News

The Official Discord has continued to flourish since the giveaway around new years, to celebrate hitting a thousand members - we hope this continues through 2018! Congrats and thanks to Mazey, Galen, and the rest of the discord crew.

Github has slowed down a little over the New Year, but we'll be updating the repository with contributor guidelines soon - watch that space if you're looking to get your feet wet with KAG dev! A chinese translation may also be in the works, and the Russian, French and Polish translators are waiting on some further extensions to the translation system. Terracraft also contributed optimised image files to the space taken by the game on disk.

Eluded released his KAGLadder site for ranked 1v1. I believe discussion should be directed here.

The official servers have experimentally had the chat filter enabled serverside. We don't expect that this will have much of an effect on gameplay or on the majority of chat, but it will hopefully send a message that we want to encourage a more friendly atmosphere on the official servers. You can discuss this in more detail here - we're open to feedback, including suggestions for different filtering criteria or behaviour.

There was also a disruption to several THD web servers as a result of issues with some planned maintenance - the game was unable to be played online for a few hours as a result. Joe, our main sysadmin, is looking into options for redundency or failover to prevent a single point of failure from taking out the API, which is used for the server list and logins. More news on that as things develop.

We hope you enjoy the build!

Max


Full Changelog:

60FPS Related

[added] uncapped framerate interpolates frames, allowing >30fps (thanks and congrats Asu)
[modified] graphics flash updated on render, changed logic and new time param
[added] interpolation support to many rendered objects
[fixed] various script issues with >30fps
[added] fps diagnostic graph for inspecting render deltatimes /v_deltatime_diag

Modding Related

[added] getInterpolationFactor, getRenderDeltaTime, getRenderSmoothDeltaTime, getRenderExactDeltaTime, getRenderApproximateCorrectionFactor functions for enhanced >30fps support in scripts.
[added] CCamera::getInterpolationOffset() bind (for fixing edge-case flickery world->screenspace conversions)
[added] anim_timer to CParticle (thanks Vamist and Mazey for being insistent)
[added] console print with color (thanks Asu and Eluded)
[removed] tile noise variable (watch out tilemap modders)

Hosting Related

[added] config variable for customising ban length if a player leaves while frozen (default 30, no ban if set to 0)
[added] disable file sending logs by default, can be changed with g_verbosefilesending
[added] nolauncher option to the dedicatedserver.bat for windows
[modified] some hosting-related properties (port, slots, etc) are now constant at runtime and must be set in the config or command line arguments, to prevent abuse/price tier escalation at shared hosting.

Localisation related

[added] changes required for server browser translation

Optimisation

[modified] significantly improved client performance with a lot of blobs
[modified] subtasks are more accurate
[modified] optimized lighting code
[modified] inlined cmap stuff for performance
[modified] optimised flood layers (fire, water)
[modified] optimised image files (thanks Terracraft)

Other

[fixed] soft-crash when disabling smooth shader
[fixed] tcpr calling hooks before connection authentication
[removed] many of the Engine namespace functions (thanks for the reminder TFlippy)
[fixed] gramatically incorrect noswears correction (thanks for the reminder Paralogia)
[fixed] irc button goes to thd channel (discord is majority now though)
[modified] bombs in inventory don't kill non-player objects (eg war boats, storages)
[modified] updated TDM, CTF mapcycle.cfg (thanks Panky, Ni, Map Team, Map Authors)
[removed] longboat challenge that caused crashes



Hey Folks,

Asu has done great work and we're very close to releasing the 60FPS build - but during testing we've had a few hard-to-reproduce issues! To avoid potentially marring this very important update, we've decided to release a separate, public-access test build.

If you're interested in helping out, check out the build here - otherwise stay tuned for the update ASAP!

Cheers,
Max

The KAG API, Official Forums and various other THD sites are currently down, as a result of some network hardware maintenance. As a result, you cannot log into the game or play normally online until this is fixed, though offline and direct-connect play is unaffected.

Sorry for not letting you know about it ahead of time - it was not predicted to interfere with service. We're told the folks at the datacentre are currently working on fixing the issue ASAP, but we really can't do much more than relay the good news when it finally comes.

According to the initial maintenance schedule, things should be back up no later than Thursday January 25th, 2018 @ 4:00AM EST - sorry for the interruption!

Max

Update: everything should be back up, thanks for your patience folks! ːkag_yesː

Hey Folks!

2017 was quite a year! Pull up a chair (and a tall glass of nostalgia), I figure a retrospective is in order.



Community
As with any multiplayer game, the community is what sustains the project - without players, there's not much to play. But this year, the KAG community have gone far beyond simple participation and play. Much of what follows is partly or wholly community effort, and we can't overstate our gratitude for that.

I'd especially like to thank Furai, Asu, Jrgp, Galen, Mazey, FuzzyBlueBaron, MM, Cameron, Verra, Sophia, Norill, Diprog, Fuzzle, Panky, mcrifel, Ni, GoldenGuy, Tru, Terracraft, Makmoud, TFlippy, FunATuns, Monkey_Feats, 8x, the OKSA, Discord and Forum moderation teams, all the modders, and the community at large for the part they have played in the game this year!

Discord
Discord was perhaps the biggest community shift overall, both in the official and unofficial spaces. Discord has taken over the role that IRC used to play, but also much of the forum and development chatter. The official server has thrived, but there are also region-specific and clan-run Discord servers which cater to more niche audiences and help to sustain and engage those populations. In the official sphere, day to day development, testing, modding and announcements are all coordinated primarily or partly through Discord.

The official discord has also reached a thousand members and is holding a give away raffle to celebrate! It will start on the 3rd and end on the 5th of January - so if you're interested in a chance at a freebie, be sure to enter!

Github
The open github base repository got properly up and running this year. It has been a wonderful way for community members to contribute to the game in a volunteer capacity. We've had a few hundred community contributions across over fifty separate pull requests (!) - including translations, maps, balance tweaks, code clean ups, optimisations and more.

This has really let us fill out the changelogs of each build with things the community is very interested in, and has thankfully been mostly uncontroversial. We've endeavoured to merge in contributed work as soon as it's ready, and worked with each contributor to make that as easy as possible.

We are looking forward to working with you in 2018, and hope to gear up this side of development even further!

Internal Contributions
We've taken on some new internal contribution relationships, and rekindled some old ones as well. This has led to renewed development engine-side and the release of a few major features, fixes, and optimisations - including a new performance profiling system, faster water/fire/minimap, some significantly improved modding functionality, precache fixes, translation improvements and countless smaller fixes.

This has been a great way for people who want to contribute beyond script, texture, sound, config and map changes to really sink their teeth into helping build the game, and also helps spread the load of communicating with the community in the development and testing channels.

Translations
2017 saw translation efforts take off, with Russian and French translations for the majority of the game and menu texts, as well as increased translation support across the board. We hope this increases the usability of the game for those using the translation feature so far - we're looking to finalise support and increase the visibility of the feature soon, to help accommodate more non-english-speaking users.

We've had some expressions of interest for Spanish, Chinese and German translations as well, which can hopefully get underway in the new year.

Maps
Maps have been managed by a small group of community moderators with experience in map making and map criticism. They have been busily reviewing community-submitted maps on the forums and managing the mapcycle changes as appropriate, and have shown themselves to be good at communicating their process with the map makers and the community at large. This will no doubt continue to give both the novice and expert map maker a chance to bring fresh playable spaces to the game in 2018.

Sales
2017 was our first year of actively running more frequent large (50-75%) sales to draw fresh players on steam, and help ensure the game is affordable for everyone. We've minimised participation in bundles, as we see poor player activation rates from these, so we feel that they are likely bad for the community. We also did a charity sale which raised $1183 for unicef australia. We're happy with how this approach has gone so far, and are planning to continue with this as frequently as steam allows in the new year.

First DLC
The Flags of the World Cosmetic Head Pack DLC was released this year. It had a bit of a lukewarm reception, but overall we've had expressions of interest for both a non-steam purchase option, and further cosmetic DLC opportunities. Releasing DLC is a lot more work than it seems, but it may be an option to allow players to give extended support to development without resorting to things like gameplay content splits that either fracture the player base or sow "pay to win" discontent.

We've tossed around the idea of head packs, class skins, and emoticon packs; we'd be interested in trying each of these as development time and finances allow.

Looking Forward
2018 will be a year of further polish, more open contribution, and community empowerment. Walkthroughs for contributing, formalisation of some unwritten rules, and a more transparent dev cycle are all planned. We want to open game testing even more and continue to utilise discord for testing, development and modding coordination.

We want to improve player retention through a better singleplayer and newbie experience, and we want to get the official modded servers updated and stable again. We hope to get the compilers that we use updated which will enable many optimisations, modernisation of some of the code, and some libraries to be updated or replaced, fixing some age-old bugs. We hope to get the finances behind the game into a more sustainable place and to be more open about the state of affairs there. We want to build some fresh new vanilla content to rekindle the spark for older players, and to further enable modders to realise their dreams.

We know this sounds fairly ambitious, but after 2017 has gone so well, I think it's a good chance to grab the bull by the horns. We hope you'll stick around for an exciting year!

Happy New Year to You All!
From everyone at THD

A small "rolling" release on last build, fixing a few regressions and a small collection of fairly long-standing minor bugs. Nothing huge, but should set us up with a more clean slate for the next build.


The hero on their way to save the princess thinking about which of these bandits to shoot first

Added:

• Entities that are inside an inventory no longer have the option to collide, which should improve performance on maps (and modded servers) with lots of blobs lying idle in storages. We feel that this is the expected behaviour anyway, but any modders affected by this please get in touch ASAP.
  
• New emotes work from the emote bindings config file, and emotes can be input there by name instead of by number (check EmotesCommon.as for the names). The emoticons have also been slightly reworked based on community feedback, though there's still a bit more work to do there! Note: they are not yet added to the emote menu because of an unresolved issue with the menu growing too large with so many emotes. We'll be looking at a few options soon.
  

• TDM map loading issues introduced by the map loading optimisations last build - no more missing chests or spikes, sorry about that folks!
  
• Unreliable crash on exceptionally small maps with minimaps turned on.
  
• Forever-broken emote menu if it was left open upon nextmap. This one had been in game since at least classic days, possibly as long as the emote menu has been around. Good to see it laid to rest.
  
• Map borders on "cave" TDM maps was incorrectly semi-transparent, which led to a strange seam at the top of the map. The semi-transparent border is still there for open-topped maps.
  

Hey Folks!

Quite a lot of community contribution in this one, as is becoming a pattern. This is great to see!

It's good to see this make it through to the public. Sorry for the wait - I know it has been a few weeks coming. We've had some back and forth on a few of the changes, and I've been sick on and off the past few weeks. I'm healthy again now, so fingers crossed we can continue with smaller "rolling" updates.

This build includes about 150 commits across over 120 files to the base repository and about 40 commits across over 200 files to the engine repository, so it's no small patch. The build includes contributions from Myself, MM, Furai, Asu, Fuzzle, and Diprog.

I got a lot of engine-side work done on translations, fixed a few regressions from last build and got a few miscellaneous work items done.

I also added some work-in-progress emoticons from recent discussion in discord to the sprite-sheet for use. We welcome feedback on these emoticons but they should not be treated as necessarily a permanent addition; we'll figure out which ones have a place in the game and which don't soon enough. They are only available through the config file currently, so to save you the trouble, here's a look at them - note that a few of these are just touch-ups, most are new.



MM actually spent some time in the codebase, to partly address the precache issues causing crashes and other issues when swapping servers and swapping between local gamemodes and online play. There are still some ongoing glitches to look into, but it's quite an improvement over how things were before.

Fuzzle has been sitting exams but completed a refactor of the materials scripts and configuration files. This shouldn't affect mods from what I can tell, it just cleans up the code a little.

Diprog and the rest of the Russian translators have helped extend the translation support a huge amount, and provided RU translations to match. This includes menu translations, gamemode and UI translations, a few tricky edge cases with descriptions, and indicating requirements for improved support for unicode and localisation within the engine.

Asu has been very productive this month; There is a new profiler, improved map loading performance, a fix for a long-standing linux bug, more french translations and a handful of smaller things as well - check out the changelog for more info.

It's quite a "technical" addition, but the new profiler will help vanilla devs, contributors and modders diagnose and fix performance issues in their scripts and in the engine. It profiles both engine-side tasks and all script hooks, can sample at a reduced rate, and reports multiple metrics per measurement. It's also gentler on performance than the previous profiler. Scripts are in yellow, engine tasks are in grey.



To turn on profiling, use /g_measureperformance 1 in the console on startup or once the game is loaded, and then /performance to dump the current performance statistics. You can clear out the existing samples with /performanceflush - perhaps if you want to measure performance around a specific event. Because of the slight performance overhead, this setting is turned off each startup, so setting it in your auto-config won't work.

Big thanks to all the contributors!

Outside of the game, our Discord Server also got partnered which means we have a fancy new invite link and higher performance voice servers. We're currently hovering around 900 members, and as ever it's onwards and upwards! Thanks so much to the discord admins for their tireless efforts and to the community for rallying behind the server so well.

Enjoy the update!
Max


Full changelog:

Translations:

[added] (work in progress) menu translation ability
[added] AddGlobalMessageReplacement to handle serverside messages still needing translation clientside
[modified] significantly extended translation capability (Joint KAG dev and RU translation effort)
- see the RU translation json for the probably-most-up-to-date strings
[added] more RU translations (thanks Diprog + RU translation folks)
[added] more FR translations (thanks Asu)
[fixed] TTH TradeItem translation issues
[added] linux dedicated server is forced to EN locale with a warning if it was something different.
This means we can rely on translated strings from server still being in english for re-translation on client (eg descriptions).

Performance/Optimisation:

[modified] improved map loading performance (thanks Asu)
[removed] irrlicht enums no one uses/should use anyway (thanks Asu)
[removed] legacy map generation for smaller compiled size and fewer dependencies (thanks Asu)

Miscellaneous:

[added] material script and config refactor (thanks Fuzzle)
[added] new profiler (thanks asu)
[updated] cruxiat head
[modified] better/more consistent descriptions in some challenge missions
[modified] Similar matches are prioritized over soft matches (thanks Asu)
[fixed] precache and scripts force reload after disconnect (thanks MM)
[reverted] verra's change from last build (sorry Verra)
- people are suspicious of this change currently so we should run a week or two without it and see if the suspicions hold up.
[added] new emotes to spritesheet (can be used through config file only at this stage, treat these as unfinished and might vanish)
[updated] new discord link (thanks fuzzle, congrats discord folks)

Linux/OSX:

[fixed] linux DLC heads and main menu background issues (thanks Asu)
[modified] enabled SSE2 on mac and linux for performance (thanks Asu)

Modding Compatibility:

[important] map loading changes are likely to bite anyone with a custom map loader if it's based on BasePNGLoader.
Lowest effort fix would be getting the old BasePNGLoader from github, renaming it to OldPNGLoader and including it in your mod directly.
Better fix would be observing the changes that have been made and applying them to your own loader
PNGLoader::handlePixel's signature is the main change - contact Asu for help in discord if you need it!
Anyone only using customblocks.as should be unaffected though, as nothing has changed there.
[minor] new serialisation for TradeItem in TTH
If you use/abuse the TTH trading system this is something to be careful of
Check the changes to TradingCommon.as if you want the details.


Hey Folks!

Bad news, I'm afraid. All Australian Official Servers are down at the moment.

The hosting company running the server that the AU officials were hosted on has gone under. Unfortunately, we found out because of the server going down instead of ahead of time - so instead of migrating cleanly ahead of the server closing, we're currently looking for a suitable replacement in a hurry.

Apologies for the disruption to these very popular servers; we'll keep you in the loop as things develop.

Ballpark estimate on everything being operational again is currently "within three days".

Thanks for your patience,
Max

EDIT by Furai: Servers are already up! Expect hotfix soon. :)

Hey folks, Happy Halloween! Quite a big build this time around, all things considered.

Game Changes:

The most important part for most people, concrete changes to the game itself are up first.

• Pickup priorities have been tweaked as a result of some community concern about them and initiative from a github contributor (tru0067). Dead bodies are more heavily de-prioritised, anything exploding is heavily prioritised, saws are prioritised over seeds and logs for managing wood farms, and material/ammo stacks are prioritised by size. I believe Asu has some more refinement planned for this but it's a good start on what seems to be a sore point for some people.
  
• Probably the smallest but most visual is the builder and vehicle shops have been adjusted for nicer button placement and alignment. See below!
  
• The filled bucket idea has been reworked into a separate "filled bucket" shop option which costs coins, while the basic bucket is now empty again. There's also some anti-spam server-lag mitigation to curb some bad behaviour observed.
  
• The chat swear filter is now customisable by config file; support for this (so we can update it but you can maintain your own set of unsavoury terms) will be expanded in the future. Asu is working on the option to apply the swear filter to the display of names as well.
  
• An issue with tents being placed one tile too high in the new map Passfest has been fixed.
  

This is a follow-up build to 2367, and brings in the map changes that were decided on by the community over the last month.



There's a healthy mixture of conventional, competitive, and creative mapmaking that all fall within the bounds of the official map content; I'm happy to see a nice, diverse set of maps hit the public stage. Give them a play and be sure to show support for the maps you think are special!

The specific mapcycle changes can be seen in the changelog, but a few things are worth pointing out:

• The cycle changes are for CTF only.
  
• Many maps were removed to make room for new maps and to help keep the cycle fresh.
  
• The cycle is still 44 maps long, so there's still probably some fat to cut if we want a lean cycle with seasonal updates.
  
• No maps have been deleted or removed from the files, so if you have a favourite to play with friends you can still run it on your own server without hassle.
  

• Tips are fixed
  
• There's a work in progress Russian translation
  
• Buckets start off filled with 3 charges of water right out of the shop.
  

Hello,

This time around the AngelScript optimisations should work.

Cheers,
Furai

This build is the first "big" build with a lot of changes from contributors, both via github and internally.

In particular, Asu and Fuzzle have been given access to our internal repositories. Asu has taken on a variety of performance improvements, modding quality-of-life changes, and translation work. Fuzzle has focussed on fixes and gameplay quality of life, and is preparing a lot of changes that aren't quite ready for release yet, including new gamemodes and a lot of overhauled "behind the scenes" stuff.

This build should improve performance, particularly serverside. Enormous collapses should no longer "kill" servers (thanks makmoud98 for help testing this), water and fire shouldn't cause issues with certain graphics setups, the minimap should be a lot faster in general.

This build features improved (but experimental!) translation support, with more to come. We've had expressions of interest from serveral members of the community - if you'd like to help get KAG translated to your locale, Asu is probably the one to get in touch with. There's an open github issue but the forums are also a good place to discuss this. We'd love to get official translation support for lots of languages in to help KAG reach and welcome all sorts of international audiences.

There are also a lot of bugs fixed and improvements for modders, check the changelog for details on those!

Next month will be more fixes, more performance work, an improvement pass on the in-game (and discord) emoticons, yet more modder-requested functionality, and ongoing translation efforts.

Changelog:

Game:

[removed] immobilise button from vehicles with drivers (thanks fuzzle)
[added] mirror_map and water_baseline config options to kaggen

Heads:

[added] greece head to heads2.png
[modified] heads selection has 8 columns now to fit more heads in
[added] extra head slot to FOTW for greece head
[modified] mazey head (dutch pride, no antenna)

Performance:

[fixed] angelscript on linux performance (thanks asu, furai)
[fixed] very slow rebuild when video is enabled (thanks asu)
[fixed] slow file hashing in launcher (thanks asu)
[fixed] collapse performance bug (thanks asu, fuzzle)
[added] minimap updating is batched
[modified] flood layers (water, fire) only update minimap if a cell actually changed

Translation:

[added] language switch menu (see misc options) (thanks asu)
[added] french json locale (thanks asu)
[added] extra translation support (thanks asu)
[removed] legacy irrlicht translations

Github:

[added] README (thanks fuzzle)
[added] legal clarifications on distribution rights

Scripting/Modding:

[added] kickafk and mechanisms support to challenge gamemode
[added] GUI DrawShadowedText functions for AS
[added] DrawTextPlain methods - the old DrawText keeps the legacy behaviour to avoid compatibility issues.
[added] config color for console + new default colors (thanks asu)
[modified] Improved /performance command (thanks asu)
[modified] TextureFromFile fails rather than returning a default texture if the file doesn't exist
[added] hasMatch() to CFileMatcher for testing if there's actually a match for the searched file or not
[added] show script console command exceptions (thanks asu)
[modified] new mod downloader appearance (thanks asu)
[added] Maths::ATan2
[added] Vec2f_lengthdir(f32 length, f32 dir) alternative vec2f constructor for people from gamemaker
[added] Vec2f toString and string concatenation (though no working += yet)

Bugs:

[modified] "onHit" safety pass which may help server/client stability.
[modified] moved knight sword cling to its own script so knightlogic can be removed when dead (onHit safety)
[fixed] initialize materials correctly (thanks fuzzle)
[fixed] each team's flag being 1 block different on maps that don't have flag positions defined (i.e. generator maps) (thanks cameron)
[fixed] "respawn in approximately never" happening when build time is set to 0. (thanks cameron)
[fixed] buildOnGround tagged builder blocks (buildings) getting picked up incorrectly
[fixed] first map in cycle skipped in non-shuffle mode
[fixed] mapcycle "first map" behaviour to work across different script-loaded mapcycles
[fixed] crash in toUpper (thanks asu)
[modified] cleaned up a few places where shadowing is unhelpful in-engine (dark text)
[modified] explain the mod verification failure to be less confusing (thanks asu)
[modified] 'cannot create blob on client' message is now more detailed (thanks asu)
[fixed] crash when passing a map name that doesn't exist to /loadmap (thanks asu)
[fixed] issue with minimap updating when water/fire set somewhere impossible
[fixed] dumb outlining on minimap


Hey Folks,

The last month (plus change) has been about sorting everything out community-side. We've got new admins, the discord server has continued to flourish, the community repositories are hooked up to the internal ones properly, and we've got two new "direct" contributors. There's been a lot of fiddling in control panels, preparing paperwork, and peering at command-lines. Sorry for a text-only post, it's hard to take a compelling screenshot of this kind of thing :)

• New Admins:
  Definitely the most visible development for players; 10 new admins will be patrolling the official servers in addition to the existing crew. You can also call them to the game on discord with "@Ingame Server Admin" in the general or help channels.
  
• Discord Server:
  For those that haven't joined yet, the
• Repositories Aligned:
  This lets us directly use the
• Direct Contributors:
  We've brought AsuMagic and Fuzzle on board to contribute to our internal repos directly, including the engine. This will let us service modder's requests and concerns more quickly and should help with finding bugs too as there'll be more eyes on the code. There will likely be a bit of a warming-up period as they learn to navigate the rough edges of our dated codebase, but we're looking forward to working with them.
  

• KAG World Cup:
  The 2017 KWC has started being organised and currently has 70 members. You can check out the social forum
• Gather:
  The Australian community is hosting regular 5v5 gather games

The WHD sale was a big success raising $1183 AUD for UNICEF. The donation was put towards their general pool funding programs for health, nutrition, clean water and sanitation, education, HIV/AIDS prevention and child protection across the world.



Thanks for all your support over the sale weekend - and a warm welcome to new players!

Stay kind to each other,
Love from THD

World Humanitarian Day (WHD) is held every year on 19 August to pay tribute to aid workers who risk their lives in humanitarian service. It is also a day to remember those people who have lost their lives in the service of a humanitarian cause.

Ultimately, World Humanitarian Day helps to raise public awareness about humanitarian assistance activities and the importance of working together to solve the world’s problems.

This year the WHD Campaign is #NotATarget

View the WHD #NotATarget website here

To do our bit for raising awareness, King Arthur's Gold will be 50% off on steam for the entire weekend, and half of each sale will be donated to UNICEF at the end of the event. Pick up a copy for yourself of a friend and help save lives at the same time!



We who are lucky enough to spend our time playing video games instead of suffering violence, famine, and preventable disease, can lend our support to those that need it.

Please consider signing the #NotATarget petition, letting your friends and family know about WHD, and supporting a humanitarian organisation of your choosing this August 19th.

Thanks and lots of love,
THD

Hey folks,

A small build this time around, just pulling in the latest batch of community maps and a single fix!

Some maps are a little more quirky, like 4zk's Rorschach - but there are plenty of more standard maps as well.

• Added bunnie_Korwin_Mikke
  
• Added bunnie_Wojciech_Jaruzelski
  
• Added Cohen_Sanctuary
  
• Added Lavaguy678_Peanut
  
• Added mcrifel_Ruin
  

• Added 4zK_Rorschach
  
• Added 4zK_Stubs
  
• Added 8x_BBiscuit
  
• Added 8x_Grounds
  
• Added Fuzzle_Stale
  
• Added Punk123_AntQueen
  
• Added Punk123_toothgrinderx2
  
• Added Punk123_SkinnedCastle
  
• Added Punk123_PrincessCity
  
• Added Punk123_CryingDemon
  
• Added SJD360_Abrogation
  
• Added Skinney_Descent
  
• Replaced SJD360_Overdose with SJD360_Overdose2
  

• Added 8x_HawksCieza
  

This build is more of a "back on track" build rather than anything particularly groundbreaking, but there's a few gems in there and it's important that we keep the backlog small and manageable.


One change should help ease water-related frustrations a little...

Here's a run-down of the major changes:

• More flags in the National Flags Head Pack!
  As requested on the forums, the flags of Iraq, Syria (+Independence), Libya, Mali, Tunisia, Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia, The Faroe Islands, Greenland, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic have been added. Greece is coming next build. For those that missed it, you can pick up the pack on steam for the sweet sweet price of two bucks!
  
• Community buttons!
  The community buttons at the bottom of the main menu have been retouched. The new official (fan-run) Discord server is linked, IRC is labelled as such, and the official forums get a link too. Come say hi if you haven't already! The buttons could use some dressing up but they're more relevant and nicely arranged than they used to be at least.
  
• Sponge Buffs
  Water haters rejoice! As discussed on the forums, sponges last for 2 hits and reduce the stun time to 1/6 of a second.
  
• AFK kick works on wall-clock time instead of in-game time.
  This should prevent afks from evading the kick in TDM.
  
• Github Pull Requests Merged
  Thanks to Fuzzle for this month's community pull requests, and to makmoud98, AsuMagic and HkgStudio for their interest in contributing over on github!
  

• Maps
  There's been a few more map moderators assigned who have been reviewing maps like crazy. Check out the map submission forum for more info, a sneak peek at the accepted maps, and to have your say!
  
• Discord server rivalry
  Gamers seem to have embraced discord for their general-purpose comms, and the KAG community has been no exception. Multiple clan and unofficial discord servers had popped up. There's now an official (still fan-run!) discord in an attempt to unify this a little, with links to the more specialised servers there (clan discords in particular).
  

Hey,

So I've just pushed small hotfix, the most important thing about it is to reduce server log spam due to missing textures on server. Once servers update admins should see less spam in console.

Also this has been fixed:
[fixed] CTF GUI not displayed after join
[fixed] TDM spawn "change class" button icon missing


Cheers,
Furai

Hey,

Just letting you know that we pushed small hotfix suppressing the console spam about image offset.

Cheers,
Furai

Hey Folks,

Long time coming on this build, we know! It should be out on all platforms within the next half-hour.

This build contains a boatload of changes, ranging from small things like maps and bug fixes to entirely new modding possibilities and the first ever head pack for KAG! There might be some weirdness associated with such a big patch as a lot of things have changed code-wise, please let us know about them ASAP.

About the heads pack, "Flags of the World":
There's over 120 heads, over 60 for each gender, and we're keen to hear what you think. The pack is available through steam and is just a drop-down in the heads menu. Here's a look at all the heads. If you're interested in buying but your country is missing, please get in touch with support and we'll see what we can do.

• There are a few map changes for CTF from the community.
  
• Siege engines and boats in crates can't be opened right at the top of the map, which prevents them glitching off towers and wasting coins, and (slightly) discourages sky-siege.
  
• The materials code has been re-implemented by Fuzzle, with changes to decay rates and sprites, and much-simplified code. He'll be taking feedback in the build thread, we're happy to iterate on these changes.
  
• The first round of community-sourced pull requests from github have been integrated with the game. Thanks so much to those that got behind this. We'll be extending and improving the handling of this in the future.
  
• There are a few changes intended more for modders as well - there is now access to textures via scripts, and this is used for the pixel offsets and team recolouring in-game. This allows modders to add things like new team colours for role-play mods, procedurally combine textures, and much more. The API can be extended if need be, and we're considering re-implementing a few of the now-script-side features engine-side for performance reasons (the script-side implementations would still work, but there'd be a high-performance C++ implementation available)
  

Hello my fellow KAGians,

Long time no devlog from me. Don't worry, I haven't started crunching bugs. As always, I'm just the guy behind the scenes.

Today I've moved the Base folder of KAG to
Rejoice!

May the KAG be with you,
Furai

INB4 - no, we're not open sourcing KAG, just the Base folder part that was anyway publicly available to any of you who have downloaded and installed the game.

* - via pull requests.

P.S. If there will be demand for such thing as README in this repo on how to contribute - I might create it. Better yet, one of you can create it and submit it via pull request!

Hey Folks

Minor Release, just a few fixes and additions.

I'm pushing this out in a relative hurry to revert to old behaviour for knight attacking - the new code allows attacking through doors in some instances, and the old code is more conservative, so I'm going with that. We'll look at a more robust solution soon.

There's also a fix for a TDM exploit, an added scripting constant, more modder-friendly collapse behaviour and a fix for the radius being reported incorrectly for non-circular shapes. It's still an approximation, but it's now a correct approximation instead of twice what it should be.

We'll be keeping an eye on the release to make sure there's no more funny business with attacking ːkag_yesː

Have Fun,
Max

Full Changelog:


[added] air count is copied when changing class
[fixed?] modding-unfriendly isTileSolid was used for collapse block solidity testing.
[fixed] approximate radius for polygon shapes was twice what it should be
[added] Maths::Pi constant
[fixed] more dirt vulns on pressurecooker
[reverted] to old knightlogic to patch hitting issues


Hey,

Just pushed small hotfix to the build fixing some build specific stuff on linux. Also now you should be able to run KAG on linux without library problems. Just use rungame.sh

cd
./rungame.sh

Steam is now using that as well so this should fix issues with KAG on linux run via Steam as well.
Tested on Ubuntu 16.04 x64

Cheers,
Furai

Hey Folks!

Largely a fix-heavy build this time, but a few community-requested look and functionality changes as well:

• Top border of the map is semi-transparent for any maps with an open sky - this helps you see projectiles that have left the map vertically so they are less surprising when they re-enter the map.
  
• Siege firing can be cancelled by right-clicking
  
• Catapult has some cooldown time after firing
  
• Bindings for controlling minimap colours for custom tiles in mods
  

• Dirt "camping" vulnerability fixed on PressureCooker map
  
• Sync for chest open/closed on join
  
• Fall damage "eating" spike damage
  
• Knight attacking near doors behaviour changed (see

The Official Modded Server has also been updated with a new mod (The Waste Kind) with another coming "soon" (Zombie Fortress Plus), and the rotation time has been upped to every 3 hours. We'll be getting modded servers up in other regions over the next month or so, but we want to get the USA server rock solid and make sure the mod list is fun and suitable before going through the pain of setting up another 2 of them!

The current mod list is as follows:

• The Waste Kind
  
• Attack and Defence
  
• Custom Heads CTF
  
• Shiprekt
  
• Laser Wars
  

We're still very keen for feedback on the modded server - what you love, what you hate about it.

Have Fun!

Max

Full Changelog:

Game Changes:
[fixed?] warning and potential crash in console cmd /kick
[added] engine-side functionality and script bindings for
CMap::SetBorderColourLeft
CMap::SetBorderColourRight
CMap::SetBorderColourTop
CMap::SetBorderColourBottom
CMap::SetBorderFadeWidth
[added] semitransparent sky border using new map border binds
[added] borders set semitransparent only when there's a clear sky,
to prevent the appearance of "floating" edges
[added] minimap colour calculation bindings
can be overridden just for tiles >255 or for all tiles
has fallback for (simple) no script case
[fixed] knight attacks around very-close doors
can still be blocked potentially more than they should
but not by much/only compared to tiles
needs lots of feedback
[fixed] pressurecooker dirt camping vulnerability
[added] properly scaled vehicle cooldown bar
vehicle.max_cooldown_time for anything implementing
the custom firing methods + using vehicle gui
[fixed] catapult ignoring cooldown
[added] can right-click (action2) to cancel vehicle shot charge
and incur half-second cooldown
[added] sync for chest open/closed on join
[fixed] fall damage "eating" spike damage
(colliding with terrain took away the velocity before
the spikes could read it)
[added] tdm has tdm_vars.cfg control for mapcycle scramble or
not - defaults to letting autoconfig decide if missing from cfg,
but value in default config is 1
[added] setdamagetocarrier.as to food/heart/boulder to fix achievements
[modified] made yagger/makmoud head invisible
[modified] file send chunk size reduced to decrease load on running
modded game when someone's joining (todo: consider autoconfig var for it)


Official Modded Server Changes:
[updated] mod server config with some new tweaks, still waiting on
working tcpr bridge as part of the gshost api but it's more or
less ready to be plugged in.
[added] waste kind to official modded server + changed cycle time to 3hr


Hey Folks!

A small build to ease into February - it's going through the build server now and should be out on all platforms within the hour.

As mentioned in the January Round Up, we've been looking into the crashes that have been happening for the last few builds, and working on some minor content changes.

The Official Modded Server was also put into beta in the USA - this build should make it the same colour in the list as the rest of the official servers. We'll be opening up a thread next week to get feedback on it, talk through any issues and start sourcing new mods for it now that it seems to be working - particularly mods compatible with the custom heads mod!

This build has a tentative fix for a nasty memory corruption bug that was causing occasional issues with deltas, as well as crashing servers on join if certain conditions were met. We hope to see improvements to server stability, and we'll be monitoring it in the weeks to come.

There have also been changes to the TDM map cycle - a few smaller changes as well as 3 new maps.

Dichotomy - one half of the map is randomly closed off each round.

Pressure Cooker - The map slowly floods from outside in, forcing players to engage.

Craggy Outlook - Cliffs overlook a central treasure trove with randomly selected entrances.


As a result of community feedback, sponges are now 15 coins in CTF, as they weren't seeing much use.

The "Mines Not Showing Activated on Join" bug may also be fixed, but this needs more attention - if it's not fixed this time around it'll need a reimplementation of how the animation is synced.

Last but not least, Norill has received his honorary special head for service through the THD intern program.
Congratulations Norill, and thanks for your work!

Have Fun,
Max

Full Changelog:
[added] New RTDM maps + fixed some "bugs" in old ones
[fixed?] mines not showing activated on join
(issue with cmds vs sync(), if not fixed might
need reimplementation)
[modified] sponge is 15 coins
[fixed] memory corruption due to race condition on join
[added] USA modded server to official server list
[added] norill head (king of horses) - congrats

Good News, Everyone!

We've been working over the holidays to bring you something people have been hanging out for since the release of achievements!

As some of you have already noticed, Steam Trading Cards support has been added to King Arthur's Gold. The set includes:

• 6 Trading Cards
  
• the usual 5+1 Badges
  
• 6 Backgrounds
  
• 10 (!) Emoticons.
  

Hey,

Just pushed a minor hotfix that addresses the issues with the maps not properly loading on some of the servers. Nothing else has really changed.

Cheers,
Furai

There are no game-side changes this build; this is just to help with servers whose stability has been affected by the recent changes.

Cameron has been working directly with the affected users trying to debug the problem and we're fairly confident this should clear them up, though as always there might be unexpected nasties lurking. The affected hosts know who they are - be sure to pipe up if you have any issues, though.

Have Fun!
Max

Hey Folks,

This build is a pure fix build, with fixes for steam accounts getting "stuck" authenticating or creating an account forever, and for the game freezing for OSX users, as well as some server lock-up issues with some hosts, particularly with mods.

If you have any further issues with the new build, please let us know ASAP!

Have Fun!
Max

Hey,

I've just pushed a small hotfix that addresses the issue where old not connectable any more servers would appear in the server browser.

Cheers,
Furai

Hey folks,

This build is a fairly minor one for most players, but a big one for server hosts and one of our interns, Cameron1010.

The build contains the first public release of Cameron's code: a totally overhauled API Client. The old API Client was originally meant to be a proof-of-concept, but found its way into production and burrowed in deep. Cameron opted to take on this project and worked with us on designing and implementing a suitable replacement, and disentangling the old client from the engine where needed. Congratulations to him for seeing this project through!

The new API Client uses the same tried and true dependencies of the previous one, but takes a more modern, maintainable approach to the problem. There might be a bit of a bumpy transition as we move things over, but it's been quite extensively tested throughout development.

The only other changes this build are an update to maps, and a single bugfix (missing KDR on scoreboard).

The community-sourced maps have been very much a mixed bag; this build sees a lot of them modified and a few new ones added as a result of feedback.

Maps Added:
SharkRomance (@Potatobird)
SnitchMerc (@8x)
Meadow (@Lavaguy678)
MemoryLane (@Punk123)
Maps Updated:
an_obamananationAlientAntAssault - reduced sky height
ffsffClassicWar2 - reduced bedrock
- added islands
ffsffSecludedForest - opened up mid
- lowered hills
ffsffUnderhangPit2 - lowered hills, more flatmap-like now
- optional tunnel underground for tunnelers
JTG_FirstBadLands - increased stone around tent
MazeyRioter - opened up mid
- tent area closer to edge of map
Punk123AlienFrogAssault - reduced sky height
Punk123Hillo - it's different

Keep the feedback coming! You can check the name of the map in chat at the start of each game now, so please let us know which one you're talking about!

Also, Please let us know asap if you have any issues that you think are a result of the new code, and include information about what OS you're on at minimum, please!

Have Fun!
Max

The THD sites are currently down.

We're looking into what's causing this currently - unfortunately, noone will be able to log in or authenticate with steam until it's resolved.

We'll keep you in the loop as much as possible.

Thanks for your patience,
Max

Edit: things seem to be working again, we'll be monitoring the situation. Sorry for the interruption.

Hey Everyone,

This is a minor build with a small pass of fixes for issues that came up with the last build.

The terrain resolution stuff has been replaced (again!) as the previous approach was causing lots of troubles. This one basically tries a widening search for a "safe" location, but because an exhaustive search would be incredibly CPU-intensive, it tries a stochastic (partly random) search. This means it will not always find optimal solutions and there's still "jumping"/"teleporting" - but hopefully it's "good enough" for the rare cases you get stuck in terrain anyway.

Let us know if you have new troubles with this new approach! If there's still major trouble, we'll go back to the original solution. Finding a good, reliable solution for this that works with the existing physics implementation and over the network is a nightmare. If it turns out to be a beehive, we'd rather go back to a known-tolerable solution than keep kicking it.

Other Fixes and changes in this build:

• Vote pass/fail rules changed
  there's been a lot of complaints about this one, so we've tried another system suggested by the community. To pass, the yes votes must at least outnumber the no votes by 2. This still works with low participation (2 votes vs 0, or 3 votes vs 1) but requires a firm majority. We'll open discussion on a better solution for this long term as soon as we can.
  
• Boulders not attributing kills has been fixed.
  
• Arrows no longer collide with hearts
  There's some disagreement within the team about exactly how these should behave, but for this build at least, arrows do not collide with hearts, and have a smaller collision shape as well.
  
• A few GUI tweaks to fix things that were out of alignment and hard to read.
  
• Fixed crates falling through platforms.
  

Hey Folks,

This build is a small round of engine changes and tweaks before we take on replacing the API Client code.

The existing API Client has long been a thorn in the side of server hosts, with intermittent crashes and cryptic error messages. As such, it's been largely rewritten (thank cameron1010!) and we're getting it ready for production now.

The changes in this build are all fairly small (though I'm sure everyone will have their own opinion on that) except for the physics engine change. The resolution against terrain has changed a little and "might" fix the bugs causing clipping into the terrain with lag, and should improve the resolution of that when it happens.

Please test it as much as you can and provide feedback on anything that needs improvement.

Other changes that more than 5 people will care about include:

• Player markers not visible in darkness - so you can't mark someone to see when they're tunnelling.
  
• Mines can no longer be "stolen" by players on the same team as the owner for free kills. Kills will be paid to the owner unless the mine changes teams.
  
• Slower drowning/faster air regen to make water cause fewer stalemates.
  
• Admins can freeze kegs and people on siege engines
  
• Picking up placed components no longer possible
  
• Chat private messages - I'll let norill explain how this works in detail on the official forums, but the short version is if you tab-complete someone's username the message will go directly to them and be shown in a different colour (currently orange).
  
• Map name shown in chat at the start of the round.
  
• Clantags up to length 10 can be used. This feature is in testing and needs feedback - particularly if it's vulnerable to abuse.
  
• Man the Oars achievement bug fixed.

Hey,

Due to an error with our build server not all the fixes were included in the previous build. I've resolved the issues.

The most noticeable fix will be that the tab nick completion will work now as expected.

Cheers,
Furai

Hey Everyone!

Last build went about as well as we could have hoped, but there have still been a few rough edges. Most of those should be fixed with this build.

• Building on top of some annoying objects (Logs/hearts) is now possible - let us know if you have any items you'd like to see added to this list. It does cause some icky physics issues that we'll look into soon; a fix for the underlying problem there has been in the works for a long time.
  
• Extremely high speed archer grappling in some circumstances has been fixed.
  
• Bucket not working for putting out fires fixed.
  
• A few collision consistency problems were sorted out.
  
• Some fishy behaviour with the fish was sorted out (you can keep them alive with splashes now)
  
• Fixed missing closing parenthesis in vote passed/failed message.
  
• Material counter totals ever-increasing when juggling an item has been fixed.
  

Hey everyone,

A more minor build this time, just cleaning up some of the rough edges of the last one.

A few bugs and cosmetic issues have been fixed. Check the changelog to see if any issues you had with 2019 are still outstanding, and please report them in the build thread. We'll get to them as soon as we can.

There is one new feature from @norill (one of our interns), which is the ability to "mark" players as special - to keep an eye on them (friend or foe!). They will show up as a little golden arrow on the map (like you do) and have a grey arrow floating above them in-game (your one is still golden).

You can mark players with the "party" key, which is R by default. Anyone sharing your clantag is automatically marked.
Please let him know in the thread any issues you have with this feature, or ideas for extension.

Have fun!

Max


Changelog:

[added] party indicators for clanmates
[modified] some work on grapple to make it harder to glitch through 1 tile holes and platforms (still possible with some platforms)
[modified] un-aligned names/clantags in scoreboard
[fixed] hitting trees and spikes when not overlapping (and made hitting spikes on backwall easier)
[fixed] builder hitting flowers
[fixed] can't place seeds
[changed] large stacks of materials decay slower, small stacks decay faster


Hello knights, builders, and scumbag archers!

Here's your pre-halloween build for KAG. It's been a long time! We're into the Build 2000s now, which means it was over 5 and a half years ago that MM opened up visual studio and started the project. How time flies!

I'm hoping to avoid the usual "event day" fiasco by nipping it in the bud early. I'll be around to make sure nothing too drastic has happened tonight, and have a day to fix any tricky issues before the weekend.

This is the first release build to come out of the build server since the migration. While I'm hoping everything just "goes smoothly", things are rarely that simple. Please give us your patience should anything go awry.

This build contains a huge pile of quality-of-life changes, as well as some nice new content!

• New maps from the community in both CTF and TDM
  These have been a long time coming! Please give us your feedback on the maps, any ones that don't work in practice, and any that you love. We'd like this to be an iterative process and for the maps to be refined over time, rather than you guys getting "stuck" with something that doesn't work. Congrats to the authors for being chosen!
  
• Killstreak Display
  +6 is back, baby. If you get consecutive kills in a 2 second window you'll get an increasing counter along with the hover text. This is likely to "act funny" in some circumstances but if you let us know how to reproduce them, we'll be happy to iron out the kinks!
  
• Clantag Distinction
  Players who commonly use a clantag have expressed frustration that it isn't clear in-game that their clantag isn't part of their name. They are commonly greeted as their clantag rather than their username. This build makes some attempt to amend that, and shows clantags in grey everywhere except in the chat field, where multi-colour lines are not supported.
  
• APIClient Fixes and IPv6 removed.
  Only minor ones since we have a whole new implementation almost ready for release! However, this may help with putstatus issues and servers locking up, and removes all the IPv6 complications. IPv6 is not supported in any way by our underlying game networking library so having it supported for the APIClient honestly didn't make sense.
  
• Tunnel Ganking
  Tunnels have long been a doubled-edged-sword for a team. They let you get forward, quickly but form a potential route right to your base for the enemy. This is still the case, but there's a few changes in place to make it a little harder to abuse them.
  You can no longer hit tunnels (or any shops) "through corners" - this prevents builders from abusing corners to destroy tunnels unfairly.
  You are stunned when travelling through a tunnel and cannot use tunnels while stunned - this prevents rapid-fire teleporting and makes saw traps on home-base tunnels more effective, but also makes "claiming" a tunnel easier (anyone coming through it is at your mercy).
  
• Fixes galore
  A lot of crashes and other bugs have been fixed in this build - hopefully there's not too many new bugs to offset them!
  

• Boulder changes
  People on the forums are after changes to boulders increasing their effectiveness in the downwards direction - we couldn't get these into a playable state so that'll have to come later
  
• Inventory amount handling changes
  Some work went towards simplifying the engine-side inventory behaviour but it caused desync issues and was reverted for the time being. The messages have been separated more nicely though and it should be more reliable due to some game-side changes, but for those overjoyed to hear the +Amount messages were fixed 100%, sorry!
  
• New APIClient
  This is coming soon, but since it's such a big change we want to do a new build focussed on it (soon!)
  

Hi guys,

it's past 3 AM here and we're all exhausted so I'll keep it (relatively) brief: after 3 years of development, our latest shooter called BUTCHER has hit Steam:

store.steampowered.com/app/474210

and it's 10% OFF to celebrate the launch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhoQljEmEP0
The game's core team consists of 3 people (Sebastian, Krzysztof and Maciej).

Here's what John Romero of DOOM and Quake fame had to say about it: https://twitter.com/romero/status/781488380785922048

Enjoy the carnage and tell your friends!

Forum post: https://forum.thd.vg/threads/butcher-is-now-available.26009/

Best,
Maciej (trainchaser)

Hey Everyone!

An update on the recent issues people have been having with the steam version of King Arthur's Gold:

We narrowed this down to only affecting new accounts, which is why we were getting conflicting messages regarding whether it was working or not, and testing it with our own accounts was working when it wasn't for some users. A huge sorry to any and all of the new players affected by this!

This was caused by a bug in the API that was avoided by the previous hosts configuration, and hence became visible after the migration. It was not a result of the DDoS protection, the DDoS taking the API down, or any other speculation you might have heard.

The bug has been fixed as far as our testing has shown, and players should no longer have issues with "endless authenticating" or anything like that - if you do please let us know asap, and include as much info as you can to help us narrow down any new issues!

Cheers,
Max

Hello everyone!

Firstly, proof that things are not permanently down.

Here's the server list from the standalone client, with people playing and several active servers, taken ~11:32 am Monday 15th August, AEST.

Here's checking the same servers from steam to ensure authentication is functioning, taken a few minutes later.

We understand that these are not huge numbers of people playing minute to minute, but there is enough of an active population to always find a game, despite attacks.

Hello folks!

Last night (or during the day for anyone in the EU), much of our infrastructure went down again. Most that went down is back online now.

We're currently still working to get everything back running properly, but since there's some waiting involved (and only so much staring at a black box you can do in one morning) I'm going to use the time to explain the cause of all of this to you, the players. Transparency is a good thing, and our new host has given the all-clear to discuss the situation.

THD infrastructure has been the target of a large, ongoing DDoS attack, of the order of >10 GB/s for some hours each day. This has completely overwhelmed our servers and taken our services out. Our main host for all our web infrastructure, who is a long term community player, host, and friend, is not able to continue hosting us as a result - it has been an incredibly expensive week for him and we are very sorry for the damage and expense caused.

However, we have negotiated new web hosting - which we were already using for game servers - and started moving everything there. Moving has been slow because a lot of the databases have to be restored from damaged backups, a lot of specialised software needs to be installed and configured, and the attacks have been ongoing. The attacker is definitely targeting THD because the attacks have followed us to the new host.

We have taken the option of DDoS protection with our new host, which has come into effect this morning, but that has required migrating almost everything behind new IP addresses, so there's a lot of reconfiguration involved. It also adds some latency to every request and costs money each month, but it's basically our only option at the moment.

If worst comes to worst and the attacks don't stop, we should be able to get a good service out anyway, once everything has been properly configured. Until then, only some services will be available. In particular, steam authentication is currently not available.

We've received no claim or threat or demand from whoever is performing these attacks. If anyone knows anything certain about them or wants to confess (and stop doing it), feel free to get in touch; however this is no time for a witch hunt in the community.

We ask our players to continue to show patience as we deal with this frustrating issue.
Thanks from everyone at THD

Hey guys, steam-specific update at the moment.

Last night, parts of our system went down again.

I'm sorry to report that the part of the API that handles steam logins is currently unavailable. We're investigating what exactly has gone wrong there at the moment. Standalone logins will function just fine.

If you would like to play offline, you'll need to open up your steam apps folder and run the game directly (ie without the "steam" command line argument). Alternatively, you can download the client from the official site and run that (and just click play offline when it asks you to log in).

We're aware that the offline experience is nothing compared to the online play, but for steam-linked accounts this is currently the best we can do. We'll be working on getting the authentication fully functional ASAP.

We'll explain more about what's been causing these server troubles soon, at the moment our focus is on fixing the problem.

Cheers, and sorry again,
Max

Hey Everyone!

So, as promised, we've been working hard on getting everything running again. jrgp and Furai in particular have been working crazy long hours setting everything up at the new host.

All in all, KAG is playable online again. This should appease a lot of you, but there's still quite a lot to do before things at THD are "back to normal".

If you'd like to know more about specifics, please see the THD homepage.

Thanks again for your patience and support,
Love from everyone at THD

THD Web Servers are all currently down and being migrated. Due to circumstances outside of our control, we're required to change hosting for all our major infrastructure.

This means that the KAG Site, TR Site, Soldat Site, THD Site, Game Servers for all games and the API are all out of action for the time being, which will make online play of King Arthur's Gold, Trench Run, and Soldat temporarily impossible.

At the moment we are working to get a minimal service back underway; a static website with information about the current state of things first, followed by the authentication and server list system so people can play again. We are working hard to get a full service back as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience in this trying time,
Love from everyone at THD

Hello,

Due to networking issue with our ISP our servers are unreachable right now. This situation has been ongoing since the early morning (EU time).

We are terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused by it and with huge regret have to inform you that we have no ETA on when the issue will be resolved.

I know that the timing couldn't have been worse (duh, summer sale) but there is literally nothing we can do right now.

I'd like to apologise once again on THD's and my behalf.

Best regards,
Furai

Hey KAG Folk!

Just a small build today, fixing a few bugs and tweaking one map in particular. There’s also an experimental change in there for water-haters, so pay attention.


Clean yourself up quick-smart against water-spam tactics with sponges.​

Sponges now “absorb” most of a water-stun if they’re in your inventory. The sponge is destroyed, and the stun time is reduced to 0.5 seconds from 1.5 seconds. This allows you to counter particularly water-heavy players. If it becomes particularly important, we might need some sort of visual indicator that you’re carrying sponges, but as it stands we see it as a similar “ace in the hole” to whipping out a bomb mid-fight (or a water bomb).

Full changelog:

• [modified] some changes to CerberosRift following community feedback
  
• [fixed] shield-bashing multiple overlapped boulders sending you to space
  
• [fixed] tunnel-grapple "archer fling"
  
• [removed] a heap of unused maps
  (from maps/, that had been around since classic)
  
• [fixed] bug in kickafk that _could_ (but generally wouldn't) crash the server, plus disabled kicking local player (no more disconnect when you leave sandbox to get a cup of tea)
  
• [added] carrying a sponge partially protects you from water stuns (1 sponge per stun, sponge is destroyed, stun is reduced from 1.5s to 0.5s)
  

There was a serious bug that resurfaced today and was pulling down servers, the hotfix rolling out everywhere fixes that, as well as an infinite-fly exploit involving trampolines. Nothing else is in the patch.

Have fun, and thanks for bearing with us through the technical difficulties,
Max

Hey guys! With the Trench Run release out of the way, we've been able to spend a little bit of time rounding out a KAG release.

It should be out in the next hour or so on all platforms. This release features a round of bugfixes and "finally" some balance measures on the ballista!


Still deadly, but less spammable!

• Ballista and bolts now cost quite a lot more. The upgrade is also more expensive.
  This is intended to allow them to keep their role of dominating the battlefield in short bursts, without being prone to bolt-spam and spawn spam.
• Several bugs fixed with overlapping multiple Ballistae.


• Chat "..." bubble is now back - except for team-chat, which can be used for stealth tunnel planning


• BunnieTDM lighting has been modified by 8x after community complaints


• The "Surrender" vote is no longer bugged - please check this is indeed fixed but all investigations we've done show it working as expected. It seemed to be relying on a bad seclev. Hopefully this means less end-of-game griefing and gives players a better "gg" out than nextmapping - a team can decide to throw it in together rather than relying on the enemy accepting.
  
• TDM no longer "soft locks" when everybody dies at the same time
  
• v_camera_ints setting saves now for those who prefer the camera working that way
  

Hey there, just rounding out a turbulent week of KAG with a final build before the weekend.

This build should curb some of the issues people have had with the graphics code, adds a few more achievement fixes, fixes a few menu issues, and makes localhost mods work again, which is important for testing them and for offline modded play.

Let us know here asap if you continue to have issues, please!

Here's the full changelog:
[fixed] save the princess fade out
[fixed] save the princess flashing screen
[removed] eternal love (princess kissing after death)
[added] achievement unlock sound
[fixed] servers browser and settings overlapping esc menu
[modified] servers browser and settings center on screen
[fixed] problems with CTF mapcycle
[fixed] crash on warboat unpack
[fixed] warboat unpack counting as cap
[added] achievement unlock sound
[fixed] localhost mods not working
[modified] no border forced on windowed mode (too many complaints)
[modified] screen forcibly resized is just a warning now, doesn't change any values

Have Fun!

Max

Hey everyone!

First up, the major change this time around is the addition of Steam Achievements! If after the build is out you have trouble seeing progress on the achievements, please get in touch with us on the forums! If not, for the completionists out there - get collecting! There are 64 achievements total including 4 super secret achievements. Huge props to Norill and Skinney, our two interns who have been behind this massive workload!


Some of the sweet achievement art! 64 of these bad boys to unlock!​

Secondly, the game has been changed from a 4:3 ratio by default to a more modern widescreen layout - the default resolution has changed from 1024x768 to 1280x720 (720p). This should increase the appearance of the game at most modern fullscreen resolutions, and allow the use of KAG on some laptop screens with a small vertical resolution. The game will also no longer allow the specification of a window size very close to the desktop resolution - the reason for this is that the OS will resize the window anyway in those cases and cause the game to render badly.

This change may cause some teething pains and graphical issues, please report them on the forums and we'll look into the ASAP. We're still working on some of the "black screen" issues introduced recently, but it seems that a lot of these issues are actually caused by out of date graphics drivers. Please update your drivers before reporting any graphical issues on any OS!

Game side, a few small things have been added and fixed:

[fixed] mines will reliably deploy in all settings as long as they are still
(note - this does mean that they wont deploy when on a moving boat, but they can be moved once deployed and wont retract)
[fixed] fire kills not credited correctly
[fixed] several crashes
[added] SURGE head - congratulations for winning MLK2!
[modified] flowers more colourful
[removed] Warboat decaying when left alone
[fixed] ramming kills not credited
[added] drill hitter type
[fixed] several tutorial placement/graphical bugs (thanks makmoud98)
[added] sync to faketech methods (may fix desync on ballista bomb bolt tech)


Have Fun!

Max, Michal and all the THD Team!