Multiplayer Demo Release Notes

WARZONE 2100: PLAYABLE DEMO
(c) 1999 Pumpkin Studios
Eidos Interactive Back

19/01/99

Warzone 2100 Demo

This demo is a snapshot in time of Warzone 2100. Warzone 2100 is currently under development and is being refined and improved daily. New features are being added, along with hundreds of new units. Instead of waiting until we finish the game, this demo gives you an opportunity to play Warzone 2100 using some of the early enemy units and structures from Campaign 1 - Western Sector.

Once you've experienced all three of Warzone 2100's campaigns, there's no going back to other action strategy games.

This multiplayer demo only allows upto four players, the retail version caters for eight, with many more options.

Single Player Demo Options

When the demo begins you have already established a base and are ready to begin exploring the surrounding terrain. At the end of your first mission, your transport arrives and lets you select an away team to scout out the next mission map. While on the away team map you can continue to manufacture new units, research artifacts, and design new vehicles. You can also call in reinforcements from your base by selecting the transport icon.

At the end of this map, the demo ends. In the final Warzone 2100 game the action continues on through more maps spanning another 2 campaigns, and 36 missions. Your base will carry on for many missions, and will be subject to attack from superior enemies. This system of ongoing missions and expanding mission maps is unique to Warzone 2100 and makes for a very exciting gaming experience.

This demo pits you against Scavenger forces in the western desert. It lets you try out a few of the weapon systems in Warzone 2100 and lets you experiment with various design combinations. The full version of Warzone 2100 includes many different weapon types and structures, and takes place in urban and mountainous terrain, as well as desert terrain. As the game progresses, you encounter more powerful enemies who are equipped with medium and heavy tanks. later in the game cyborgs, howitzers, strike aircraft, hovercraft and laser weapons appear. New challenges arise regularly as the game's narrative unfolds.

Multiplayer Demo Options

Host or Join 

First choose if you are going to host a new game, or join an existing one.

Connection Method

Next choose which connection method to use. If you wish to play over the internet, make sure you connect BEFORE running Warzone 2100. Serial cable requires 'direct cable connection' to be installed in windows.

Player Name (flag icon)

Choose a name here. In Warzone 2100 your player name stays with you, along with a profile of your success. You'll be awarded stars, medals, and maybe even a prize if you play online. Click the flag to choose a name you've previously used, or click the text to enter a new name.

Game Name (book icon)

If you are hosting, choose a name for your game by clicking the box marked with the book icon.

Map Name (world icon)

If you buy the retail version, you'd be able to choose which map to play here. Warzone 2100 ships with a range of maps, from two to eight players, spanning the three different campaigns.

Force Name (tank icon)

If you buy the retail version, you'd be able to choose your favorite team of combat units and technologies to take in to the game.

Game Type

In this demo you can play campaign or teamplay only.

• DeathMatch - Join at any time. Fight at the frontline, without worrying about defending! Great for a quick break.(not in this demo)
• Campaign - 2 to 8 players fight against each other, use alliances to team up on your enemies, use brute force to wipe them out.
• TeamPlay - As Campaign, but choose your allies wisely. Using Teamplay you can share the responsibility of the battle.
• Skirmish - Fill the empty slots in your game with advanced, intelligent computer players. These players will provide you with all the practise you'll ever need. Why not add a few to a four player game and gang up on them? (not in this demo)

Power

Choose the rate that power flows through your generators.

Base

• Clear - Start with a bare map.
• Base - Don't have time to play from scratch? Start with a small base and enough technology to start destroying the enemy.
• Defensive - All out armageddon. Not available in Demo!

Alliances

Select the handshake to allow alliances in game. Once in the game press numeric keypad Enter to bring up the alliance menu. Offer, accept then share your sensor information/technology/units/power.

Computer Players

Why not throw in some scavaging hordes to make your life a bit more difficult?

Structure Limits

Click to control which structures to allow in the game. You should not need to use this screen unless you want to modify Warzone 2100's preset limits. (This screen is still under development)

Host

Click to allow other people to start joining the game.

Player Color

Click on your player's flag to choose a color.

OK

Once Hosted, Push to play!

Lobby Support for Multiplayer Games

Warzone 2100 includes support for directX compatible internet lobbies. Warzone 2100 directly supports for the Mplayer gaming service, and will allow free internet play at eidosgames.com.

Some options (such as player name) are not supported since they are provided through the mplayer interface. An mplayer 'configurator' will be available later. Warzone 2100 supports score reporting so expect league tables and ladders to appear when we launch...

Contact Us

If you'd like to contact us you can mail us at <email address no longer exists>

We're interested in your comments about this demo and whether you experienced any difficulties installing or playing it.

We'd also like to know about any bugs you find! Send any bugs with a description of your system’s hardware and directX/Glide versions (if necessary). Please dont send bug reports that just say 'it crashed'. Only report if you can provide a description of what you were doing at the time of the problem.

You should also state which version of the demo you have. This will be displayed on screen during play when the 'V' key is pressed.

Mouse Controls

Mouse controls are intuitive and use both left and right mouse button clicks. We recommend that you play the on-line tutorial before playing the demo to learn how the interface works.

Mouse Look

By holding down the right mouse button and dragging the view you can rotate and tilt the game world.

Hints & Tips

Warzone 2100 uses a 3-part component sequence to design vehicles. Each component type has different characteristics:

• Light Body Viper – Lightly armored, low weight scout body
• Wheels – High speed, low protection
• Halftracks – Medium speed, average protection
• Tracks – Slow speed, high protection
• Machinegun – Good against infantry and lightly armored targets. Less effective against heavily armored targets
• Flamer – Excellent against bunkers and emplacments. Vulnerable to enemy fire - use for hit and run attacks
• Light Mortar – Indirect fire weapon - best assigned to a sensor. Most effective against soft targets and infantry. Least effective against bunkers. Vulnerable to enemy fire
• Light Cannon – Most effective against heavily armored targets
• Sensor – Detects enemies from a long distance
• Repair Turret – Automatically repairs damaged units
• Constructor – Builds and repairs structures

This demo contains many more components to research and use.

Indirect Fire Weapons 

Indirect fire weapons lob shells over friendly troops, structures, and even over hills. However, they must be able to see what they are firing at. When attached to a sensor, indirect fire weapons can shoot at targets that the sensor can see.

To attach indirect fire weapons to a sensor select the indirect fire weapons, then select the sensor. A sensor lock box appears to show that you are successful.

Sensor Turrets 

All attached indirect fire weapons fire at any target that you select as the sensor's target. The indirect fire weapons continue to fire until the target is destroyed, a new target is selected, or the sensor is destroyed.

Sensor Tower: The tower automatically detects enemies in range and then orders any attached weapons to open fire at them.

Power Generation

Oil is extracted from oil pools by derricks, then converted into power by a power generator. The more oil pools attached the quicker power becomes available. The amount of power available appears at the bottom of the screen.

Power is used to build structures, manufacture units, and conduct research. Power is drawn as soon as unit or research topic is assigned. This is shown as a green bar. When enough power has been drawn the activity starts. This is shown as a yellow progress bar.

Factory Delivery Points

These can be moved as follows:

Left click it to select and move it
Left click on the Delivery Point Icon on the factory build menu.
(Can you find the hidden extra feature?)

Fast Find Mechanisms

Factories, Research Facilities and Trucks all appear in the fast find bar at the bottom of the screen. Left clicking any of the bottom icons moves the 3D view to the obejct's position in the world. Left clicking again returns the view to its original position.

Right clicking on a factory icon takes you to the location of the factory's delivery point.
Right clicking a factory's delivery point in the 3D view takes you to the location of the factory.

Command Console

Right click on any unit to open the Command Console - see Keyboard controls for details of how it works.

Track Camera

By hitting the spacebar you lock the camera to selected unit(s). As the units move, the camera moves with them. Hit the spacebar again to cancel the track camera.

Assigning Groups

Drag select a number of vehicles. Now try assigning groups using the Ctrl key with a number. Press the number once to select the group, twice to jump to it.

Track one of the groups using spacebar, then switch to another group by hitting its group number twice. Watch as the camera pans between them!

Keyboard Controls

Command Console
Insert Open Command Console
S Short Range
L Long Range
D Default Range
< Retreat at Medium Damage
> Retreat at Heavy Damage
/ Never Retreat
F Fire-at-Will
E Engage - Return Fire
C Cease Fire

G Guard Position
P Pursue
Q Patrol

H Go Home - Command Center/LZ
R Go for Repair
CTRL+R Recycle

Group Assignment
(# = numeric key)
Ctrl + # Assigns selected group
# Selects assigned group
## Centers on selected group

Unit Selection Keys
CTRL+S Select all units on screen
CTRL+Z Selects all units of this selected type
CTRL+V Selects all VTOLs
CTRL+H Selects all Hovers
CTRL+W Selects all Wheels
CTRL+T Selects all Tracks
CTRL+F Selects all Half-Tracks
CTRL+A Selects all combat units

Terrain Marker
B Center view on Command Center

Set Waypoints
Hold Shift & click in world Sets waypoints

Display Controls
ESC In-Game Menu
F1 Manufacture
F2 Research
F3 Build
F4 Design
F5 Intelligence
F6 Commanders
F7 Radar On/Off
F8 Message Console On/Off
F9 Unit Health Bars On/Off
F10 Dump 3DFX Screenshot to Data Directory
F11 Pause/Unpause (not in multiplay!)
F12 Go to position of last speech message (if applicable)

Map Controls
Cursor Keys Scroll view

Numeric Keypad
Enter Multiplayer options
2 Tilts view down
4 Rotates left
5 Restores default pitch
6 Rotates right
8 Tilts view up
+ Zooms view
- Unzooms view
* cycle through oil derricks
/ cycle through repair units.

Other Keys
Esc Quit game
Backspace Restores screen view to North
Tab Toggles Menu Displays

Track Mode
Spacebar Engages Track Mode

MultiPlayer Keys
T type a message to other players.
type t12 to send msg to players 1 & 2 only.
KeyPad Enter Bring up the multiplayer menu.

DX6

Warzone 2100 requires DirectX 6 to run.
Please visit www.microsoft.com/directx to get the latest version.

Rendering Modes

Warzone 2100 presently has three different rendering kernels; software, Glide and Direct3D. These can be selected from the Start Menu. We do not recommend you use the software only version at this time, as it is not yet complete.

Direct3D is disabled in some demo builds of Warzone 2100 as some cards require drivers which are not yet publicly available.

Known Issues

There are a number of known issues still to be resolved:-

i) The routing (path finding) code is yet to be finalised and as such, it's possible that units will on occasion get stuck against each other and the terrain.

ii) Dedicated Modem Play. When using modem to modem connections the line will stay up until you either quit or host a new game.

iii) There are still some polygon sorting issues to be fixed in the display of the components that go together to make up the buildings and units. Some are polygon bias problems and some (especially in software) are because some of the components have yet to be put through the BSP tool.

iv) Line of sight. Some of the weapons will fire through the edges of the terrain - cliffs, drop-offs etc....

v) Tracking camera. The automatic camera tracking can sometimes become confused when shifting from tracking large numbers of units to small numbers of units. It is intended that most aspects of the camera tracking will be fully customisable (thereby minimising these effects) by the player for the full release of Warzone 2100.

vi) Key mappings. The key bindings in the full release version of Warzone 2100 will be redefinable. There will also be an option to customise the RMB 'mouselook' function. These mappings will then be saved out in a config file.

vii) The full release will contain the option to manually drive any individual unit around the world (as in the PlayStation version) using the PC cursor keys. Other units in the same group will then follow.

viii) Texture distortion. In some of the higher resolutions (see below), the textures on in-game objects can be distorted at the edge of the screen. This will be corrected for the final version.

ix) Video card compatibility. Direct3D is disabled in some demo builds of Warzone 2100 as some cards require drivers which are not yet publicly available.

Full-release Warzone 2100 will work on all video cards compatible with the Glide or Direct3D (Direct X6) APIs.

The command line parameter -D3D enables d3d support. -VIS disables the fog and enables visibility fog of war. (which is nice).

a) Presently there are some problems with some Voodoo cards (Rush and Banshee), as well as the Voodoo 2 when used in SLI setup (2*Voodoo 2).

b) Cards with low amounts of texture memory(<=4Mb) may see a degradation in the quality of the textures, and experience some missing textures.

c) PowerVR cards are not currently supported.

d) DX5 drivers under DX6 may give strange results such as warped text. Try obtaining the latest DX6 driver from your manufacturer. Warzone 2100 will hopefully ship with the latest drivers for your card.

e) D3D Cards with Manual Texel-Alignment Options should be set to Upper-Left.

f) D3D Cards with Manual Mip-Mapping settings should be set to off or 0 levels.

x) Gamma correction. It is possible to adjust the gamma correction level within the game through the game options, accessible by pressing ESC. This is still not implemented across all video cards and environment variable setups.

xi) Factory delivery points. The mechanism by which this works and the validation procedure that checks whether user-selected locations are viable is yet to be fully implemented. It is therefore up to the user to decide on what makes a chosen location 'sensible'.

Higher Resolutions

This option has not yet been fully implemented, but it is possible to play Warzone 2100 as it stands in higher resolutions than 640*480. At the moment, the preferred resolution is specified as a command line parameter. This will ultimately be an in-game menu choice. Only the width (x) parameter needs to be typed in. For instance to select 800*600, run the Warzone.exe with a '-800' parameter.

Presently, there are some limitations to this. (And all resolutions are governed and restricted by available memory).

Glide

• Voodoo 1 owners may only use 640*480 (default).
• Voodoo 2 may use default and '-800' option to get 800*600.

Software

• 800*600 '-800'
• 960*720 '-960'
• 1024*768 '-1024'
• 1152*864 '-1152'
• 1280*1024 '-1280'

Direct 3D

• Only 640*480 presently, although many higher resolutions will be available in the full release.

In all of the higher resolution modes, across all rendering modes, the front end interface and video playback will (for this version) be centered on the screen, as opposed to being stretched.