Hi All, Big update from us with regards to the update line up! Lets dive into what's changed recently! Update Notes: Server Core Upgrade! We have updated the server core to a much later version of the original core, allowing us to improve the current functionality moving into a more stable and featured version. New versions come with more features from previous versions and can also allow us to improve code reducing overhead and improving in game / lobby experience! Lobby Updates! We have performed a minor update to the lobby, reviewing the current setup and understanding that the lobby could be a bit too much, we decided to remove some elements to make it more clear and clean to remove confusion for new players.

Removed Regiment List
Removed Tournament List
Modified how the server list shows
Modified so it now shows if it's a bot or player based server
Modified the bottom bar which is now displaying at the top

Small updates for the Lobby at current, we are working on a new and fancier looking lobby. This will take some time to complete as it will be a rewrite to the current one being used now. Game Design Updates We are in the process of performing some minor changes to the game itself, displaying the map at the bottom right rather then the left side and moving some of the user interface to different area's. It's not a massive update but its a start and we find that moving this around will help attract new players and also show to our current user base that we are working on it where time is available to us. Other News So regiments aren't gone however we are looking to remove/disable them during the low levels of players, having everyone playing as a general group will help build relationships with players and ideally this would then lead to regiments. Rank at the moment we feel should be expressed through game time and experience. We feel having regiments at this stage would just overrule players in which don't have their own regiment or want to progress this at that time. MP's and Councils We are now reviewing current MP's and Council members to bring the active in front of inactive. We understand that not everyone has full focus on this game due to the loss of attention over the main release. However we feel in order to bring the community to an active state we will need to review the state of these two groups. We will be seeking new Council members and MP's going forward once we have gone through our current members in these groups. New Dev's So you may have seen there is a "New Dev" Discord group, this new group is to show new contributors in this project who are actively looking to improve this game. Kading Crew We all know the below two who have been the life and blood of this game from day one, We are still working with them and they are also assisting where they have time to help us get more updates out and to discuss ideas and plans to better improve!

Florian (Game Code, Network Code all things code)
Antoine (Main Game Core, Animations, Designs, GFX anything Unity)

p.s Don't kill me i could be wrong with the above steamhappy Members to this point

Vankerkom (Experience in multiple languages from C# to Java)
Myself (Hitman Alex) Main focus is getting everything to a good order, while also working on understanding Unity to improve in game design.

Finally i wish to thank every member who has reached out and discussed these recent changes from the game being back online to players jumping on and helping new players get used to our game. Without you we couldn't see a reason to put love back into this game. We hope with your input and support we can build up DWF's active base and attract new players! This is all for now again many thanks for all your support, and my close friend Daan (Vankerkom) who has put hours of sweat and effort into getting this game back on path toward new features and functions.

[ 2020-06-17 22:39:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Reboot Games

Divided We Fall is back online with new developers! We'll kick off this re-launch by playing games with the community members. Your opinion matters, if you haven't joined our discord then come and join us at: https://discord.gg/0hADRmF7Pw1nWCRO.

[ 2020-05-17 20:06:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Coming soon: Play Divided We Fall for Free!

This decision has been in our minds since the inception of this sequel to Call of Combat. Now it's happening and it's coming very soon. Bring your friends and get your nade fights going! The free version of the game will give access to pretty much everything the game has to offer including: - All weapons - Regiment competition system - Leaderboards - All official maps - Map editor and custom made maps - Access to the good old Call of Combat - Modding system - Steam achievements We are also adding a paid DLC which will be automatically given to all those who already own the game. On behalf of the KAVA team, thank you for your support. The paid edition will unlock the following: - Officer ranks - Special uniforms for your soldiers - A promotion points boost Divided We Fall will need the community, bring your friends and get those regiment games going!

[ 2018-05-11 14:54:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Divided We Fall: time for change

Situation assesement

These three years were a blast, it was good fun, we worked with a lot of amazing people, it was really cool. The game is officially out of Early Access. There was a lot of very positive feedback about the progress since the game’s Steam debut. But it did not exactly go as expected. Florian and I will still be going after bugs and crashes, and we will gradually bring more modding tools to the game in order to empower all of you, in the community. We are looking for smart ways to bring the game to more people. More explanations about that in the second section below. But first, some context: The game was officially launched over a month ago. We expected it to be the moment of truth for Divided We Fall, the moment where we can grow the community with a very high peak of activity. The activity ended up being a lot smaller than expected. During the whole Early Access, we worked a lot on the feedback we got: Too much grenade spam? We made a lot of improvements on the gunfight mechanics, we made guns a lot more useful, and added extra control over them (did you know you can instantly shoot if you double click on an enemy?). We also made sure that all weapons had their own special uses. Too hardcore for new players? We added a tutorial, we improved the interface to make it more friendly, we added a proper hotkey system, we added special new player rooms. Not enough player activity? We added bots so that veterans could hone their battle skills and new players could learn the basics while waiting for games to start. This big launch was also the opportunity to boost player activity. Thanks to these improvements and the special free week at launch, we expected the number of players to go reach a couple of hundreds or even maybe thousands if we were going to be lucky. Florian had to spend a lot of time on making sure the authentication servers would handle the load.

But this is the game industry, it is impossible to predict anything, every decision you take is a bet. We assumed that in the worst case the activity wouldn't be much lower than the Early Access a year ago, because why would it be? The peak amount of concurrent players in game was 70, and games were played 24/7 for about two weeks. When it comes to player activity, it would have been disappointing for the official launch, but that's what we were prepared for, in our planning, these numbers were more or less our worst case scenario. It ended up a being lot worse. We are not sure what hit us the hardest, but a lot went wrong at the same time.

Because we focused on getting AI in and making sure we could manage the load on our servers we neglected stability and testing. And although we tested more than the Early Access launch, the game was less stable. That was very annoying for everyone, it was our responsibility but we patched all major issues within two days.
Then, there were some commercial problems. We expected Divided to be featured on the front page of the Steam store, because it was the case on the Early Access launch, and because we thought the free week would make it extra likely to show up there. That didn’t happen. We are not sure if there is even a real reason for that. Valve uses complex algorithms to decide how a game is brought to its user's attention. Maybe the mixed reviews complaining of the lack of activity during Early Access made it impossible for Divided to reach the front page. Also sales never skyrocketed, which might also have an influence on this algorithm.
We know there were some technical issues at launch: the store page completely disappeared for an hour when it launched, and then the game was not listed on any "new releases" sections for over a day. We have no way of knowing what happened, that is just the way it is.

We do not know which had the biggest negative effect, but the healthiest response is to take responsibility for it: we fucked up, we made a lot of mistakes that we know of, but there are parameters completely out of our grasps. Maybe we were particularly lucky at the Early Access launch. Maybe it's something else entirely. We will probably never know for sure. If we somehow figure it out properly, I'll write about it in a later post. Some people say that the success of a game rely on three factors: one third depends on a good product (in the sense of a product that people want), on third depends on good marketing (in the sense of reaching the people that want that game) and one third relies on luck.

Good luck is the exact opposite of what we got.
Our marketing was probably the best we could have had. Maybe it wasn't enough, but given our resources, it could have have hardly been much better.
Maybe the game just isn’t good enough. This is probably the main insecurity a game developer can have, we might have made some severe design mistakes along the way. However, at this stage, there isn’t one clear big improvement that we are confident that can turn the tide. Maybe the game would have needed a lot more budget for a much higher production value and much more marketing budget.

This is disheartening because we’ve put a lot of work to make this game. A LOT! Florian and I spent most of our working time on Divided We Fall for more than three years. With no salary. And although the outcome is very disappointing for everyone, these three years were still totally worth it. We worked with amazing people, freelancers, students and volunteers helping on creating a very unique game that is true to its ancestors. And in spite of the result, we are very proud of the whole team who managed to take it this far.

Next objective

This launch was pretty much our best shot at creating a big activity boost in Divided We Fall. It's time to switch strategy. KAVA was a very risky bet, we knew it from the beginning. It is an indie video game company built around the sole purpose of developing the new version of Call of Combat but in a more professional way. This objective has been completed. Its secondary mission was to generate enough revenue to sustain a team of game developers. That objective failed very dramatically. The current situation does not even allow us to continue with the same level of involvement. In the past three years, we spent at least three days a week on this. KAVA will not stop. It just won’t be full time anymore. We will keep fixing bugs for Divided We Fall for as long as there are people playing. Big plans like destructible terrain, new factions and extra weapons will not make any sense unless activity grows to much higher levels than now (we still have some hope, maybe next year). When it comes to additional content, we will be releasing new modding tools. You can already create new maps, and organize tournament very easily and efficiently. You will soon be able to create your own game rules, and invite players in your custom room. The main goal now with Divided We Fall is to make it as much like Call of Combat as possible, it was a game nurtured and maintained by the community, and Divided We Fall needs to be given back to the community as well. It will take a few steps: In shorter term, here is what we work on:

We will keep fixing bugs and crashes
We will bring Call of Combat permanently in the lobby
We will bring the first wave of new modding tools for the community, which will allow you to create special rooms where you can change a lot of rules (Ammo, capture time, gun accuracy, movements speed and a lot more). As you experiment with it, any setting that seem to create consensus in the community can become an official game mode! I will post a forum topic with the instructions.

In longer term, we want to make Divided We Fall more accessible by making it free to play. The goal is to make the game free in Steam with some limitations (rank, soldier skins, name changes, etc...), and add a dlc that unlocks everything for the same price as the current game. We will make sure that everybody who purchased the game will get this dlc automatically. Going free to play isn't that straightforward. We are investigating what are our options in Steam. All of this might take some time (probably several months), meanwhile all of you are free to come to the discord channel, who knows, maybe there will be some free keys ready to be distributed when tournaments are organized. Stay tuned! Don’t forget that Divided has a lot of community tools already built in like the map editor, the tournament organization system, the player and the regiment leaderboards. We will stick around, we will help the community, but more than ever, the future of Call of Combat and Divided We Fall lies also in your hand! Good luck soldiers!

[ 2017-11-10 17:53:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Divided We Fall: time for change

Situation assesement

These three years were a blast, it was good fun, we worked with a lot of amazing people, it was really cool. The game is officially out of Early Access. There was a lot of very positive feedback about the progress since the games Steam debut. But it did not exactly go as expected. Florian and I will still be going after bugs and crashes, and we will gradually bring more modding tools to the game in order to empower all of you, in the community. We are looking for smart ways to bring the game to more people. More explanations about that in the second section below. But first, some context: The game was officially launched over a month ago. We expected it to be the moment of truth for Divided We Fall, the moment where we can grow the community with a very high peak of activity. The activity ended up being a lot smaller than expected. During the whole Early Access, we worked a lot on the feedback we got: Too much grenade spam? We made a lot of improvements on the gunfight mechanics, we made guns a lot more useful, and added extra control over them (did you know you can instantly shoot if you double click on an enemy?). We also made sure that all weapons had their own special uses. Too hardcore for new players? We added a tutorial, we improved the interface to make it more friendly, we added a proper hotkey system, we added special new player rooms. Not enough player activity? We added bots so that veterans could hone their battle skills and new players could learn the basics while waiting for games to start. This big launch was also the opportunity to boost player activity. Thanks to these improvements and the special free week at launch, we expected the number of players to go reach a couple of hundreds or even maybe thousands if we were going to be lucky. Florian had to spend a lot of time on making sure the authentication servers would handle the load.

Because we focused on getting AI in and making sure we could manage the load on our servers we neglected stability and testing. And although we tested more than the Early Access launch, the game was less stable. That was very annoying for everyone, it was our responsibility but we patched all major issues within two days.
Then, there were some commercial problems. We expected Divided to be featured on the front page of the Steam store, because it was the case on the Early Access launch, and because we thought the free week would make it extra likely to show up there. That didnt happen. We are not sure if there is even a real reason for that. Valve uses complex algorithms to decide how a game is brought to its user's attention. Maybe the mixed reviews complaining of the lack of activity during Early Access made it impossible for Divided to reach the front page. Also sales never skyrocketed, which might also have an influence on this algorithm.
We know there were some technical issues at launch: the store page completely disappeared for an hour when it launched, and then the game was not listed on any "new releases" sections for over a day. We have no way of knowing what happened, that is just the way it is.

Good luck is the exact opposite of what we got.
Our marketing was probably the best we could have had. Maybe it wasn't enough, but given our resources, it could have have hardly been much better.
Maybe the game just isnt good enough. This is probably the main insecurity a game developer can have, we might have made some severe design mistakes along the way. However, at this stage, there isnt one clear big improvement that we are confident that can turn the tide. Maybe the game would have needed a lot more budget for a much higher production value and much more marketing budget.

This is disheartening because weve put a lot of work to make this game. A LOT! Florian and I spent most of our working time on Divided We Fall for more than three years. With no salary. And although the outcome is very disappointing for everyone, these three years were still totally worth it. We worked with amazing people, freelancers, students and volunteers helping on creating a very unique game that is true to its ancestors. And in spite of the result, we are very proud of the whole team who managed to take it this far.

Next objective

This launch was pretty much our best shot at creating a big activity boost in Divided We Fall. It's time to switch strategy. KAVA was a very risky bet, we knew it from the beginning. It is an indie video game company built around the sole purpose of developing the new version of Call of Combat but in a more professional way. This objective has been completed. Its secondary mission was to generate enough revenue to sustain a team of game developers. That objective failed very dramatically. The current situation does not even allow us to continue with the same level of involvement. In the past three years, we spent at least three days a week on this. KAVA will not stop. It just wont be full time anymore. We will keep fixing bugs for Divided We Fall for as long as there are people playing. Big plans like destructible terrain, new factions and extra weapons will not make any sense unless activity grows to much higher levels than now (we still have some hope, maybe next year). When it comes to additional content, we will be releasing new modding tools. You can already create new maps, and organize tournament very easily and efficiently. You will soon be able to create your own game rules, and invite players in your custom room. The main goal now with Divided We Fall is to make it as much like Call of Combat as possible, it was a game nurtured and maintained by the community, and Divided We Fall needs to be given back to the community as well. It will take a few steps: In shorter term, here is what we work on:

We will keep fixing bugs and crashes
We will bring Call of Combat permanently in the lobby
We will bring the first wave of new modding tools for the community, which will allow you to create special rooms where you can change a lot of rules (Ammo, capture time, gun accuracy, movements speed and a lot more). As you experiment with it, any setting that seem to create consensus in the community can become an official game mode! I will post a forum topic with the instructions.

In longer term, we want to make Divided We Fall more accessible by making it free to play. The goal is to make the game free in Steam with some limitations (rank, soldier skins, name changes, etc...), and add a dlc that unlocks everything for the same price as the current game. We will make sure that everybody who purchased the game will get this dlc automatically. Going free to play isn't that straightforward. We are investigating what are our options in Steam. All of this might take some time (probably several months), meanwhile all of you are free to come to the discord channel, who knows, maybe there will be some free keys ready to be distributed when tournaments are organized. Stay tuned! Dont forget that Divided has a lot of community tools already built in like the map editor, the tournament organization system, the player and the regiment leaderboards. We will stick around, we will help the community, but more than ever, the future of Call of Combat and Divided We Fall lies also in your hand! Good luck soldiers!

[ 2017-11-10 16:04:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Updates and fixes!

This has been a pretty fun launch. We have been working day and night fixing a lot of issues that players could have been having. The game has reached a pretty stable state now, but don't hesitate to let us know if you run in any bug or crash here or on the Discord Tech support channel.

v1.04 - October 4 2017

Fixes - Spectator and synchronisation issues vastly improved - Made AI spawn more balanced - Fixed some map changing crashes - Fixed host synchronisation issues that could cause crashes - Weapon pickup and body looting should be fixed

v1.03 - October 3 2017

Fixes - Server crash reduced - Picking up weapons should be improved and fixed - Auto-nade bug behind trees is fixed - Synchronization issues should be reduced - Tutorial is improved and issues should be fixed There was also a v1.02 just after release where we fixed a bunch of immediate issues, but in the panic we didn't keep track of the details that we changed (the git commits from that moment are a bit hectic)

[ 2017-10-04 21:08:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Updates and fixes!

v1.04 - October 4 2017

v1.03 - October 3 2017

[ 2017-10-04 20:18:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Release Day!

Man are we excited! Thanks to our continued efforts, both from us and everyone who helped by playing and testing the game, we are leaving Early Access behind us and are releasing Divided We Fall today!!! For this special occasion we are kicking things off with both a Free Week and 25% discount. And.... in-game you can now spot the all new cooperative game mode, which allows you to play alone or with friends against AI bots! https://youtu.be/OJttqDYGL3Y Of course were not putting our feet up but will continue to work on improving and expanding Divided We Fall. We have a ton of cool stuff planned, such as destructible and elevated terrain, melee combat, a morale system, and additions to the AI and map editor. But more on that later. For now, thanks to all who helped us in realizing our dream! We hope you enjoy the game (and our brand new release trailer)!

[ 2017-10-02 18:26:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Release Day!

Man are we excited! Thanks to our continued efforts, both from us and everyone who helped by playing and testing the game, we are leaving Early Access behind us and are releasing Divided We Fall today!!! For this special occasion we are kicking things off with both a Free Week and 25% discount. And.... in-game you can now spot the all new cooperative game mode, which allows you to play alone or with friends against AI bots! https://youtu.be/OJttqDYGL3Y Of course we’re not putting our feet up but will continue to work on improving and expanding Divided We Fall. We have a ton of cool stuff planned, such as destructible and elevated terrain, melee combat, a morale system, and additions to the AI and map editor. But more on that later. For now, thanks to all who helped us in realizing our dream! We hope you enjoy the game (and our brand new release trailer)!

[ 2017-10-02 18:26:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time For Action!

The Throwback Weekend is upon us! Its time for the festivities to start, in anticipation of the Divided We Fall release coming up on Monday (October 2nd). You can now join us for some good ol Call of Combat action (accessed through Divided We Fall). Apart from a good time, you will also end up with a Steam Key to gift to friends, by simply playing for more than 2 hours. Hows that for a good deal? We hope to see you all online this weekend!

[ 2017-09-29 20:17:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time For Action!

The Throwback Weekend is upon us! It’s time for the festivities to start, in anticipation of the Divided We Fall release coming up on Monday (October 2nd). You can now join us for some good ol’ Call of Combat action (accessed through Divided We Fall). Apart from a good time, you will also end up with a Steam Key to gift to friends, by simply playing for more than 2 hours. How’s that for a good deal? We hope to see you all online this weekend!

[ 2017-09-29 20:17:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mark your calendars for the official launch on October 2nd!

These past weeks have seen some major updates in Divided We Fall to perfect the game, based on the constructive feedback given by all of you. Here is a short summary of what has been updated: https://youtu.be/_e8GhvbbSKw We would like to thank you all very much for your help, support and advice this past year. We’ve definitely learned a lot and the game has seen amazing progress. Now we have a few surprises up our sleeves – first, we would like to announce the official release of Divided We Fall on October 2, 2017! And then, to go with the release, we are hosting a ‘Throwback-weekend’ event just before the launch where you can win an extra key for the game and play the old beloved Call of Combat. At launch expect many more players online, and perhaps something else too... We hope you will join us in these festivities and help us support newcomers to the game. Also, it would be great if you could leave us a review at release. We would love to hear your thoughts on the new and improved Divided We Fall and we’re sure other players would love to hear about it too! Thank you all once again - We’ll Stand Together October 2! Team KAVA

[ 2017-09-13 09:39:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mark your calendars for the official launch on October 2nd!

These past weeks have seen some major updates in Divided We Fall to perfect the game, based on the constructive feedback given by all of you. Here is a short summary of what has been updated: https://youtu.be/_e8GhvbbSKw We would like to thank you all very much for your help, support and advice this past year. Weve definitely learned a lot and the game has seen amazing progress. Now we have a few surprises up our sleeves first, we would like to announce the official release of Divided We Fall on October 2, 2017! And then, to go with the release, we are hosting a Throwback-weekend event just before the launch where you can win an extra key for the game and play the old beloved Call of Combat. At launch expect many more players online, and perhaps something else too... We hope you will join us in these festivities and help us support newcomers to the game. Also, it would be great if you could leave us a review at release. We would love to hear your thoughts on the new and improved Divided We Fall and were sure other players would love to hear about it too! Thank you all once again - Well Stand Together October 2! Team KAVA

[ 2017-09-13 09:38:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Brace yourselves!

Announcement coming!

Big things are around the corner! Low activity will soon be a thing of the past. We are preparing a major marketing campaign, and we aim at having the highest activity in Divided We Fall / Call of Combat history.

Stay tuned for a big announcement next week. Early Access has provided us with a lot of feedback, here is how we are improving the game to prepare for the future of Divided We Fall. Gameplay improvements: We are improving the interface for more gameplay clarity, and for those who missed it we have massively revamped a lot of gameplay stuff: grenades, weapons, strategic interface, gunfight controls. Game modes improvements: We are readjusting game modes, especially respawn, to improve new players experience (open game modes were the best introduction for new players in Call of Combat) Preparing the release: With a marketing campaign we aim at bringing a lot of new players at once. Our goal is to bring a lot of new players, a lot more than Call of Combat ever had. Regiment recruits: We are working on improvement with regiment recruit systems, and we're adding more info to regiment description pages like its history, its intentions (whether it's elite or community oriented), so that new players can have more informations when choosing a regiment to join. Medals & ribbons: We have started working on finally implementing the medals, which is the very last feature that Divided doesn't have compared to Call of Combat. Surprise...: We have secretely been working on a massively requested feature that will be unveiled at release. Controls and hotkey settings: We have been working on UI and controls improvements (hotkey menu incoming!). At the end of the Kickstarter campaign, we declared that we would never surrender, and we have yet to deliver our biggest blow.

[ 2017-09-07 17:11:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Brace yourselves!

Announcement coming!

[ 2017-09-07 16:21:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Update Inbound

Biggest update since Early Access

This will be our biggest update in the Early Access period. Listening to all player feedback (both Call of Combat veterans and new players), we have brought a series of improvements both to tactical fights and to strategic planning.

Controlled gunfights

In this new update, gunfights have been made a lot more dynamic. During this Early Access, you gave us a lot of feedback about the balance between guns and grenades. So we decided to make guns better and easier to use efficiently. Quick fire: We have added the possibility to quickly override how soldiers aim and make them fire instantly as soon as you double click on an enemy. This makes close quarter combat a lot more dynamic and adds options during intense grenade fights. Hold aim: Now, you can also hold your soldiers' aim by holding the left mouse button in order to time your shots perfectly. This is useful if, for instance, you are waiting for the right moment when your target goes out of cover and becomes vulnerable even for a split second.

Grenades dynamic

We have also brought some cool changes to the grenade mechanics, all accessible by holding down the right mouse button.

Increased range: You can throw grenades a little bit further than normal range. Just start the throw at maximum range and see the range increase. More accurate throw: Grenade throwing can now be inaccurate, especially under suppression. Holding the button will give you a more accurate aim though! Grenade cooking: You can also cook the grenade and make it blow up quicker after the throw. Be careful, because it can blow up in your hand if you wait too long.

Weapons total revamp

We have revamped all extra weapons in order to bring more variety in combat and tactics. SMG: It is now more reliable in short range under suppression, and we added the ability to fire while running for more close range devastation. The instant fire override is also quicker than with other weapons.

LMG: The ultimate suppressing weapon. The LMG will not be the most lethal weapon, nor the quickest, but it will allow you to create a wide kill zone that the enemy will not want to go through. It needs a bit of time to deploy though, so don't use it for close quarters combat.

SNIPER: Now a lot easier to use, especially with the new holding aim feature. It will now require less micro-management.

Both the sniper and the LMG have a new "area sweep" mode, where you can set a sweep angle and let your soldier cover that area automatically.

Suppression and pinning

Watch out, because too much suppressive fire will pin your soldiers down. Being pinned means that your soldier will have greatly reduced firing and grenading abilities, plus he will refuse to stand up when moving. The LMG will be the main weapon that can easily pin down multiple enemies, but enough concentrated fire from other weapons can achieve the same effect.

Strategic and planning

Last week we pushed an update with major changes to battle planning and briefing, you can read more details here. Orders and strategic view - Commander can now deliver multiple orders to each player. - Commander can also draw red arrows to indicate what might be the enemy's battle plan. - Subordinates can suggest one order themselves, that the commander can either accept with one click, or override with new orders. - Commander can finally select multiple players for the same order!

Weapon distribution easier - You can now give weapons to anyone, including your superiors - Subordinates can also request weapons simply by clicking on the weapon name on the left screen - If some weapons are left unassigned by any player, they will appear near the deployment zone when the game starts

Other major improvements since Early Access

Reinforcement game mode: After death your soldiers will respawn for some fun continuous action. Don't die too often though, as the time between respawns will increase quickly! Map editor: Anyone can now try to create the next most popular map! Tutorial: We have created a training ground for new players to get the main concepts of Divided We Fall. You can load it directly from the lobby. New lobby: the first Early Access release was using a modified version of the Call of Combat lobby. Then Scowen came in and created a very nice looking modern lobby. Major optimization pass: With some shader magic, and newer Unity versions, we managed to get over 100% framerate improvement on modest hardware.

What is the plan before release, you ask?

- Leveling, medals (like in CoCv1) and improved point system (losing pps, anyone?) - General UI polish and improvements (feedback wanted) - Improved regiment system - We are also working on a couple of features that we are currently keeping as a surprise

[ 2017-06-22 16:51:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Update Inbound

Biggest update since Early Access

Controlled gunfights

Grenades dynamic

We have also brought some cool changes to the grenade mechanics, all accessible by holding down the right mouse button.

Weapons total revamp

SNIPER: Now a lot easier to use, especially with the new holding aim feature. It will now require less micro-management.

Both the sniper and the LMG have a new "area sweep" mode, where you can set a sweep angle and let your soldier cover that area automatically.

Suppression and pinning

Strategic and planning

Other major improvements since Early Access

What is the plan before release, you ask?

[ 2017-06-22 16:51:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

New strategic features

Soldiers and commanders, rejoice as we've just pushed a beta update (0.86) with a lot of improvements on the strategic and briefing screens. Commanders can now draw multiple orders for each players, weapon distribution has been revamped for better accessibility, and everyone can now move their soldiers in the strategic view! More explanations below:

Multiple orders

Commander can now deliver multiple orders to each player. They can also select multiple players (by holding the ctrl key) and give orders to a group of players. We have also added a small label to indicate which player is associated with which order.

Enemy orders

Commander can also draw red arrows to indicate what might be the enemy's battle plan.

Suggesting orders

Subordinates can suggest one order themselves, that the commander can either accept with one click, or override with new orders.

Requesting weapons

Subordinates can also request weapons simply by clicking on the weapon name on the left screen.

Changing maps

For now, the highest ranking player can still change maps, but a voting system is coming.

Changing game mode (start another room)

We've removed the ability to change game modes in rooms in order to make game modes more clearly separated.

Changes to how to start a game (pregame and briefing timers)

Pre-game lobby: Players ready up by chosing a team, or spectator. Game starts after 2 minutes of each having at least one players or right away when ~80% of the players in the room have made a choice (team or spectator) Briefing: Players ready up by pressing the ready button. Game starts when everybody is ready or when the timer reaches 0.

Beta room reminder

These changes are only available in the beta rooms. To access them, you need to start a new room, and set the "type" to Beta (v0.86-beta).

[ 2017-06-15 10:57:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

New strategic features

Multiple orders

Enemy orders

Commander can also draw red arrows to indicate what might be the enemy's battle plan.

Suggesting orders

Subordinates can suggest one order themselves, that the commander can either accept with one click, or override with new orders.

Requesting weapons

Subordinates can also request weapons simply by clicking on the weapon name on the left screen.

Changing maps

For now, the highest ranking player can still change maps, but a voting system is coming.

Changing game mode (start another room)

We've removed the ability to change game modes in rooms in order to make game modes more clearly separated.

Changes to how to start a game (pregame and briefing timers)

Beta room reminder

These changes are only available in the beta rooms. To access them, you need to start a new room, and set the "type" to Beta (v0.86-beta).

[ 2017-06-15 10:54:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

LMG and SMG update, now available in Beta!

Continuing gameplay improvements on the beta branch, we have added a few big changes in the last update, buffing the suppressing power of the LMG, turning the SMG into the true king of close encounters and making sure that spotting enemies is more realistic. This is the last big gameplay update in which we made all the weapons feel more useful and very different than the others. Please give us feedback about the beta on the chat or on our Discord server. Your feedback is super useful for us to improve the game.

LMG

The LMG will now need to be deployed in order to be used. Meaning, you will need to have your soldier crouch behind cover or go prone in order to make the LMG usable. But now, the LMG has a lot more suppressing power: you will be able to pin down enemies with just a few bursts. We have also added a suppression sweep mode for the LMG: you will be able to suppress all enemies in a designated area.

SMG

The big change for the SMG was adding a new variation of the good old Assault mode from Call of Combat. The new twist is that your SMG soldier will be able to continue moving while aiming and firing, making him the true king of close encounters and indoor combat.

Spotting

We have made spotting more realistic in respect with peripheral vision. We added several levels of recognition on enemies. First you will only see a question mark, which might be either friendly or enemy, then you will see the actual soldier but no name. It's only when you are close enough, that you will be able to know which player that soldier belongs to. This way, we want to make spotting feel a lot more organic and gradual than it was before.

These are the three levels for being spotted: fully spotted with player name, partially spotted showing frienedly or foe, and barely spotted with minimal information (could be friend or foe)

Tournament System

After several rounds of testing, we can officially announce that the tournament system is now ready for public use. Which means that anyone can schedule, organize, manage and stream their own tournaments with ease thanks to the following feature: - Schedule your tournament - Subscribe from website or from the game lobby - Make teams and select players - Automatic team set up in-game - Spectator mode for the tournament organizer (for streaming) Stay tuned for future updates and the upcoming official release!

[ 2017-04-20 10:14:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Gunfight improvements

A couple of weeks ago, we created a new beta system that is super easy to use. You simply have to start a new room and select the game version from there. We had introduced a new suppression system, and added a new grenade mechanic. Today we have pushed a new way to use firearms and we have greatly improved the usability of the sniper. See full change log here or read details below.

Sniper rework

You can now play with the reworked sniper which has a completely reworked interaction, it will have three modes: - unscoped: crap accuracy, decent aiming time - scoped: high accuracy, slow aiming - Scout mode: you will be able to define a sweeping angle that the sniper will cover automatically (press F4 to enable, and draw an arc with the mouse) For this update, we will include one sniper per player in the beta branch so that you can play with it. We will next revamp the SMG and LMG, meanwhile their modes will have only one option.

New firearm interaction

We're also adding two new ways to use firearms: - Timed shot: hold the mouse down on the target to prevent your soldier from shooting when his aim is ready (great for timing shots when waiting for an enemy to go out of cover) - Emergency shot: double click on enemy to shoot instantly with an hit chance penalty (great for overcoming traps in corners)(edited) I will write this in the Steam anouncement as well. Ah, and we've also finally added a button to reload your gun manually! Stay tuned for the rest of the weapons updates coming in a couple of weeks!

[ 2017-03-23 17:14:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Gameplay Improvements (feedback needed)

Grenade and suppression in beta

We have just set up a new beta system where you can start either regular rooms, or beta rooms. 10 days ago we released a new suppression system where soldier can get pinned down if stress gets too high. Last Friday, we have added new grenade mechanics where you can throw further if you hold the mouse button.

Suppression can also affect ange and accuracy of grenade throws. Please give it a try, and give us know your feedback in the game chat or our Discord server. Coming up are revamped weapons, improved hit chance and new spotting system.

Tutorial

We have also added a first version of the tutorial that can be accessed in the menu of the main lobby (cog button at the bottom). Let us know if you manage to reach the end!

Tournament

There is also a tournament coming this weekend: subscribe here.

[ 2017-03-07 18:27:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

In 2017, let's stand united

Soldiers!

New update

Just before the new year we are releasing a small update in which we have revamped the entire animation system. This gives us a lot more flexibility in the future, when we want to add special animations for different weapons for example. For now you will already notice changes to facing and proper ragdolls on death. There might still be some odd animation transitions in this release, but they'll quickly be ironed out in future updates.

We have also made the map loading sequence a bit more robust and should therefore have fewer occurrences of disconnection on room load. Some stability and performance improvements have also been added to the latest version of the lobby.

Divided We Fall in 2016

To put it mildly, this has been an interesting year for Divided We Fall. A lot has certainly happened. - The new name of Call of Combat "Divided We Fall" was made official - The game was accepted and released as an Early Access game on Steam - Our lobby was rebuilt to be up to 2016+ standards. - New interface. New gamemode. More weapons. Expanded regiments. - A map editor has been built and is still continuously improved on - Improved the performance over 9000x (seriously, the game runs well on ancient hardware) - KAVA moved offices, was burgled and lost its mac :( The Early Access was a major milestone for the project. It was a big moment of truth and we passed it successfully. Maintaining a high level of activity 24/7 can be tricky for a multiplayer game in Early Access and the same was true for us. But the reach and amount of attention was a lot bigger than during the Kickstarter and that was a really good sign for the future. Lots of lessons were learned to prepare the game for official release.

Divided We Fall in 2017

So we have a heavy schedule for 2017. Here are some of the things that are coming next year in Divided We Fall: Tutorial In order to make the experience smoother for new players, we are building a full fledged tutorial to give the best possible introduction to the core of the tactics of Divided. It's a big endeavor, it's like building a completely different game with single player in mind. Gameplay We've been talking about it, there is a lot to do about gameplay, especially make the SMG's (close quarter king) and MG's (death delivery service) work as intended. Along with that we will improve how suppression works and turn it into a real tactical tool. We will also improve how you set weapon modes and fire stances to make weapons more distinctive. After that we will start adding new weapons and equipment like deployable machine guns, smoke grenades and possible firearms and melee weapons. Progression We also want to review progression and reward system. Some members of the community are currently helping us in shaping a more rewarding system. This will include tweaks to the ranks, and the addition of medals, ribbons and badges as part of your commendations. There is also the tournament system coming which will facilitate the life of whoever wants to organize tournaments. It will include a subscription form, it will send reminders, and the game will automatically create the proper rooms for the tournament participants at the right moment.

Polish and quality of life improvements Last but not least, there is a lot of polish we will add to the game prior to the official release. The new animation system was one of the items there. We will make the game more stable, make the interface look and feel nicer with little animation effects for better readability. We will add a ready button for pregame screens and for the briefing. We are also working on a replay feature where you can record games and then watch and share them afterwards. We will also work on improving music and sound effects. Extras We've always wanted to have more theaters of war and nations, and it is still the idea. The next soldier nations we will add will probably be the British and the Russians. After release, we will want to have updates with other nations and other conflicts (early war, Balkans, Pacific, etc...). Another big thing is that we are investigating is building an AI for certain type of game modes. It would be a very complicated endeavor given the peculiar nature of the gameplay of Divided We Fall, but it is an exciting one. We have thought of a co-operative humans vs AI mode, and of a 1v1 where the two players are the dedicated commander of large AI armies who obey their orders.

In the meantime, enjoy the Holidays and prepare for 2017 as more is to be expected in Divided We Fall!! Cheers, Antoine, Florian and the rest of the KAVA team!

[ 2016-12-22 12:20:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

November wrap-up!

Tomorrow Thanksgiving will be celebrated in the United States and Canada. All though we might be Dutch and French ourselves, our community has shown great diversity in nationalities and we are thankful at any point in time for all the support we are receiving. https://youtu.be/t_0Ppwv0xRA With your support, Divided We Fall has seen some great progression these past weeks. We listed the most newsworthy ones for you;

A new game mode where players can get right into action without having to wait
A minimap that highlights the orders that your commanders have assigned you
Huge performance optimization which has an 100% framerate improvement
Addition of the highly anticipated map editor
New fancy lobby

More details on the updates can be read in the changelog.

[ 2016-11-23 11:51:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Huge performance optimization and first version of the map editor

Up to 100% framerate improvement

In the latest update we have managed to achieve spectacular optimization by getting rid of the latest remnants of our old interface system. On some lower end systems, we've had reports of framerate going up by more than a double.

The map editor has been made public

Your own custom made map can now be uploaded to the Steam Workshop and shared with other players. You can find more detail here.

Changelog

As usual, you can find the complete changelog here

[ 2016-11-09 15:27:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Big Update: new gamemode and many additions

Thanks to the community we received great feedback, bug reports and suggestions. A lot of suggestions were to make the game more accessible to new players. Here is what we did: - We implemented a new gamemode where everyone can get right into the action without having to wait for a previous game to finish
- We made servers that are reserved for new players The community has been incredibly helpful: one of the veteran players happens to be a developer, he built a new lobby for the game which looks a lot better.
We've also added a mini-map which highlights the orders that your commander has assigned to you. It's now available in all game modes and is very helpful to keep track of the game status without having to go back to the strategic view.
Thanks to the loads of hours played after the release, we received enough bug reports to track down and fix all the biggest issues and crashes of the game. We are now focusing on the way forward, our next big updates will include; - a single player tutorial - smoother gameplay - medals, ribbons and other achievement commendations - tournament system - improved animations - a fully integrated map editor for an infinite number of new maps! So stay tuned.. :)

[ 2016-10-28 08:48:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Play it now in Early Access

The day is finally here... Divided We fall just released in Early Access! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7B1NMsA44 To celebrate this great news we made sure to give away a few keys via Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to keep an eye on channels. More about the team and game can be read in our Steam hub. The place where we also hope to hear more about your thoughts on the game. Upcoming Friday (September 9) we also have a Twitch stream planned at 3PM EDT / 9PM CEST on https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio. Meet the team, learn about the game and win a free Steam key for Divided We Fall! Hope to see you all on the battlefield, enjoy!! Cheers, The KAVA Team

[ 2016-09-07 08:54:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Play it now in Early Access

The day is finally here... Divided We fall just released in Early Access! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7B1NMsA44 To celebrate this great news we made sure to give away a few keys via Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to have a look. More about the team and game can be read in our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/app/495580/discussions/]Steam hub[/]. The place where we also hope to hear more about your thoughts on the game. Upcoming Friday (September 9) we also have a [url=https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio]Twitch stream[/] planned at 3PM EDT / 9PM CEST on [url=https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio]https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio[/]. Meet the team, learn about the game and win a free Steam key for Divided We Fall! Hope to see you all on the battlefield, enjoy!! Cheers, The KAVA Team

[ 2016-09-07 08:09:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

7th of September! Early Access release date is set!

Mark the date, 7th of September is the day Divided We Fall is coming on Steam Early Access. This will be a historical day for KAVA. It is the turning point that we all need for Divided We Fall. It will be an enormous influx of reinforcements, and regiment wars will rage again.
We expect all of you to be there on that day, and you will not have any excuse because there will be a free version in order to honor Call of Combat, it will be available on the same day, and you will be able to play with everyone else in it. See you on the battlefield, soldier!

[ 2016-08-24 12:54:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Divided We Fall is coming soon!

We are proud to announce that Divided We Fall will enter Early Access in just a matter of weeks!!! Divided we fall is a strategic close-combat multiplayer that emphasizes the importance of building a coherent troop and forming well thought-out plans. And no that’s not all…. We will keep teasing you these upcoming weeks with more information. Interested? Make sure to add it to your wishlist! Meet the team and make sure to follow us on Twitter (@Kava_GameStudio) and Facebook .

[ 2016-08-05 12:11:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Meet the devs

Divided We Fall is a project that is carried by the two owners of KAVA Game Studio: Florian Käding and Antoine Meurillon. Many contributors, freelancers, interns and volunteers gave their time and brainpower to get the game where it is now, and some of them still give a hand from time to time. FLORIAN KÄDING made the original Call of Combat game while he was gloriously crushing his opponents in numerous historical war games. He carried the development for over 10 years when he decided it was time to rebuild the game from a maintainable modern foundation. He is now building the technical architecture of the game and he is making sure the game stays true to its roots. ANTOINE MEURILLON (yours truly): I used to be an engineer and a scientist, designing medical scanners. After making games on Unity for fun, I joined KAVA where I have been focusing on game design, UI implementation and playing around with particle effects. IAN "DUKEEEN" HITCHCOX is a long term fan of Call of Combat and a programmer that gets things done, he created most of the special online features: regiment pages, leaderboards, player's statistics... He is also very very active everywhere in the community, keep an eye out for his callsign. STEPHANIE & BRAM VAN LITH are both working for Game Drive, a game marketing that they founded together. They have worked on several wargames such as the successful WW1 indie game Verdun. They are here to help spread the word and to recruit soldiers for Divided We Fall...

Recurring collaborators

MARCEL DU LONG, art director, is a battle worn veteran of the game industry. He co-founded Vanguard Games, a game studio with hits as the EA-published Gatling Gears, Greed Corp, and Halo: Spartan Assault.Although making the game look pretty is already a gargantuan task, he also contributes to game design through his great experience playing numerous war games. DAVID BELLI has a passion for animation, he created all the soldier's movements in the game. He is currently working on integrating new mocap animations. JONATHAN DOORENBOSCH is a Maya junky, he created a lot of 3D art for the game, and a lot of 2D illustration for promotion purposes. JULIA VAN DEN BERG is a student 2D artist with a knack for colors, she made the final banner, and character concept art. RICK VISSER is a student but virtuoso programmer, within 6 months of his internship he created a mysterious tool or the community to mod the game, more information about this coming soon DJODSSA ESCARIESES is a communication student and she has been helping us a lot with marketing, communication, and community management.

Past collaborators

Art GORDON SPENCER DE HASETH FRANS BAUD VLADISLAV KARAGODIN MARCO SCHOENMAKER VITOR HUGO HANS KRILL Programming WESSEL VAN DER ES BRETT LILLEY TIJMEN BROMMET Game design MARTIN DE HAAN Marketing communication community management ERIK VADER LUCAS LODI Sound design MARCEL HERKELMAN ZINO VAN HAMERSVELD CHRISTIAN WIRTZ

Community members

A lot of players in the community have helped the game tremendously both on the new version and the old one since 2002. They deserve another post of their own.

[ 2016-08-05 06:04:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

FAQ

- What does this game play like?

Divided We Fall is pretty much a game like no other. Its roots extend to the mid-90's, and the core gameplay could be described as a mix between X-com (for the tactical part and the controls), and Counter-Strike (for the real-time intense action, team-based multiplayer and short rounds). Yes that is an unusual mix, but it reflects well what we (the developers) really like to play.

- Apart from the gameplay, what other unique features do you have?

The highest ranking player of each team has access to an interface where he gives order to the other players in the team, pretty much like in an RTS, except that the units are real players. You start as a recruit, and rank up as your tactical skills improve until you reach the moment where you have enough experience to lay down the strategic battle plan for the rest of your teammates.

- Anything else?

We have built elements that reinforce the online competitive teamplay aspect, such as integrated clan system with monthly competition tournament systems, leaderboards, an extensive lobby for you the players to hang out, regroup and discuss tactics.

- Why no vehicles?

The gameplay focuses on infantry, squad tactics and close quarter combat. Therefore there are no vehicles at the moment, and there won't be in the foreseeable future. However, once the game is released, we might reconsider and start experimenting what would happen if we add tanks, jeeps, motorbikes, snow sleds and grappling hooks.

- Why no single player?

In the same way, we are focusing all our resources on the multiplayer at the moment. Building a single player campaign is something that might come in the future, we have actually thought of it and spent a bit of spare time writing down a concept document.

- How many players can be in one game?

At this stage, we have no hard limitation because we would like to know how many players can the game technically accommodate, but with the current maps, the game is best played in 2vs2 (for the smaller maps), up to 7vs7 on the larger ones. That said we think it would be awesome to have 16vs16 battles or more in the future!

- What's coming up

We have a roadmap section that summarize our coming plan, in short we want to improve everything from the core gameplay (better controls, more weapons, more tactical options) to the community features (more clan features, better and more detailed stats and leaderboards) and build extensions on them (more nations, world conflict locations, etc...)

- Who is behind the game

We also have a news section about the team. In short, we're two main developers, Florian and Antoine (me), and we have a lot of amazing collaborators, freelancers, interns and volunteers who came and gave us a big help at some moment or another.

- Where do I give feedback (gameplay, bugs..)

We have a Forum section where you can report bugs (which we will use as our main bug tracker system), and discuss all sorts of suggestions which might end up in the game if they are feasible and beneficial to the experience.

[ 2016-08-04 15:05:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Roadmap

Gameplay

Machine gun and sniper improvements Smoke grenades New controls Minimap Further improvements on the Strategic View Grenade mechanics improvements New game modes (e.g. respawn game mode)

Community

Tournament organization system Individual leaderboard (Commando 1v1) Detailed player and regiments stats pages Modding tools

Content

Tutorial for new players More maps More nations (British, Russians, Partisans, etc...) More theaters of war (eastern front, North Africa, Pacific, etc...)

Future customizability

Soldiers look will be customizable: uniforms, accessories, physical apearance, and more importantly: hats! Regiement private servers where some rules will be tweakable

[ 2016-08-04 10:30:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Divided We Fall
KAVA Game Studio

Developer

KAVA Game Studio

Publisher

2017-10-03

Release

Action Indie Strategy