[ Official EA/Dice ] Community Update #41 - v1.6 Information

Winters

From our good friends at EA and Dice

Please note: This is so big its over two posts as couldnt fit in one

Part I

Good Day, Soldiers!
It's been an eventful few weeks here as we gear up to release the 1.6 patch, by far the most comprehensive patch to date. You'll find a complete feature list for the patch below. As you will notice, it's a very large patch with the full client patch weighing in at a hefty 266 MB. With the addition of Punkbuster, we're commited to releasing the cleanest patch yet. So, please be patient. We want to give you this patch just as much as you want to get it!

To keep you out of trouble for the next week or so, check out the items below. Some are fun, some are funny and BFStats will have you burning way too many hours improving your rank!

Who's Who in Battlefield 1942?
Some of you may have guessed that the BF team included their faces in the game. Can you guess who is who? There's at least one (if not more) in each of the following armies: US, German, British, Russian, and the Free French Army.




Happy Birthday PlanetBattlefield
It was one year ago today GameSpy's PlanetBattlefield went live. Battlefield 1942 hasn't been the same since. A big thumbs up to Evil Homer and the bang up job he's done on the biggest and baddest Battlefield 1942 fan site on the web!


MOD Update
If you haven't given the Empires Mod a try, you're missing out on one of the most innovative mods for Battlefield 1942 yet. The Empires team has managed to incorporate the FPS action of Battlefield with RTS gameplay. It's still under development but don't let that stop you from downloading this GREAT mod now! www.empiresmod.com


Soldier, What's Your Rank?
The folks at BFStats have been with Battlefield 1942 since the beginning. They took it upon themselves to put together a ranking system which is the best out there. There are over 50,000 Battlefield fans ranked on BFStats. You might be surprised to find that you've played on a ranked server and didn't even know it. Curious? Head over to their website and enter your Battlefield handle. If you want to improve that rank...get on those servers, soldier! Something to note, they rate teamplay higher than kill ratio. So, to all you glory hounds, TAKE THOSE CONTROL POINTS! www.bfstats.com

Patch News - New Content in 1.6
New Map - Liberation of Caen
Liberation of Caen is a new map for BF1942 owners. It includes a whole new army, the Canadians. The army includes the Sexton SPA and the Lynx scout car, as well as new skins, flags, voice overs, and a new Assault rifle and the Johnson M1941 LMG. The Germans in this map are also equipped with a new scout vehicle, the Kettenkrad.

New Map - Raid on Agheila
Raid on Agheila is a new map playable for owners of the Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack. This exciting map adds a bevy of new vehicles, including mobile spawn points, stationary rocket launchers, a new tank, new self-propelled artillery, and the Flettner, an experimental helicopter.

Modifications to Existing Maps

• The Russian dive bomber, Ilyushin IL-2, has replaced one of the Yak 9 fighters in Kursk and Kharkov.
• Battle of Britain can now be played using Objective Mode. Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack is NOT required to play Battle of Britain in this mode.
• Invasion of the Philippines has been slightly revised. The Japanese Destroyer has been rotated to face North, giving the Japanese a better chance at the start. The out of bounds area has been pushed back, and ticket bleeds have been slightly reduced.

Contd. in next post

Winters

Part II - Contd. from above

Patch News - New Content in 1.6
Patch news continued


Client Specific Changes/Bug Fixes

Added support for Punkbuster anti-cheat software
Visit www.evenbalance.com for more information.

In-game HUD Player and Map Voting Interface Via Scoreboard

• To access the new scoreboard features either enter the spawn interface and click the Scoreboard button, or press TAB. (NB- clicking the right mouse button while holding down TAB will give you a cursor- clicking on the 'lock' button will lock the scoreboard onscreen.)
• Features of the new scoreboard:
  • Add buddies.
  • Vote to kick players.
  • Vote to kick a player on your team (only your team can vote).
  • Vote for maps.
  • All players can be seen through scrolling the score list.
  • Integrated vote dialog to respond to vote requests.
  • Added two new key bindings map to Yes and No for the vote response dialog (default: Yes: 7 and No: 8).
  • Added a new key binding for quick access to the map vote dialog (default: INSERT).
  • Please note that if you already have these keys bound in your custom profile you will need to assign these functions to other keys or use for them to work.
  
  Improved Server Browser
  • Support for favorite servers as a separate list accessible from the filters pane. NOTE: The favorite servers list must be refreshed manually to reflect the latest information from these servers.
  • Added button to place server in favorites list.
  • Much better filters and updated performance.
  • Added new filter buttons:
    • Populated only.
    • Favorites.
    • Pure Servers (Content Check).
    • PunkBuster only
    • Server Information pane will now detail which mods are present in the server rotation - Fixed the "Add server" button in the in-game server browser- now works for servers that use the standard GameSpy BF1942 ports.
    • Added button which takes you to the server rental service website.
    • Added LEGEND button (looks like question mark). This details what the main icons represent in the Server Browser Interface.
    
    Other Fixes / Changes
    • The game.listPlayers command shows the cd key hash of the local player
    • Slightly improved loading speed of maps.
    • Fixed sinking destroyer bug.
    • Changed APC exit point to minimize certain exploits.
    • Fixed an exploit involving damage to Aircraft Carriers.
    • Fixed crash bug when a dead bot was thrown through a window or door.
    
    Dedicated Server Specific Changes / Bug Fixes
    
    Added Support for Punkbuster Anti-Cheat Software
    . * Visit www.evenbalance.com for more information
    
    Win32 Dedicated Server Implemented Through Back-port of the Linux Dedicated Server
    • Runs in console mode displaying a status monitor with an interactive console.
    • The server uses a different binary than the game (bf1942_w32ded.exe).
    • Status monitor changes (compared to Linux server 1.5):
      . o Added chat feedback.
      . o Added number of tickets and current round number.
      . o Added game state (playing, paused, etc.).
    
    Added Support for Mixing Mods, Maps and Game Modes in the Maplist
    . * (NOTE: This is only supported from the dedicated server GUI)
    
    IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT NEW SERVER FUNCTIONALITY
    Please note that all old maplists are incompatible with this new feature and will have to be created again. Running the server with an old map list will not work.
    • As a result of this the game.serverGamePlayMode command in the ServerSettings.con file and the +game command line argument are now obsolete for dedicated servers and should not be used.
    • The Maplist.con was changed to allow three arguments:
      . game.addLevel < mapname > < game mode > < mod >, e.g. game.addLevel Gazala GPM_CQ bf1942
    • ** NOTE : the following commands now also use this functionality:
      . o admin.changeMap
      . o admin.setNextLevel
    • Updated the DedicatedServer.exe launcher program to allow for creation of maplists with the new functionality.
    
    Updated Chat System
    • Fixed "chat lag" by streaming messages over a high-priority channel.
    • Added basic flood protection which prevents players from taking to much chat bandwidth by "spamming".
    • Added chat text as messages to the status monitor console.
    
    GameSpy/ASE Host Reporting Changes
    • Added (kills/deaths) to ASE score format.
    • Added roundTimeLeft to GameSpy keys.
    • Added reporting of cd key hashes to GameSpy keys.
    • Added active_mods key showing all mods in map cycle.
    • Added content_check key showing content checking mode.
    • Converted GameSpy reporting keys to lowercase and replaced spaces with underscores to facilitate filtering in external browsers.
    
    Upgraded XML Logging Format to 1.1
    • Added support for CD key hashes for players.
    • Fixed a few spelling errors for keys.
    • Fixed a bug where compressed XML logs where sometimes being corrupted.
    • Escapes non-printable characters as bf:nonprint tags.
    • Added chat text messages to the XML stream.
    
    Updated Banning System
    • Bans can be set on CD key hashes as well as IP addresses.
    • Timeouts can be specified in these ways: admin.banPlayerKey [timeout]
      o Where timeout can take one of these formats:
      . + Omitted or 'perm' meaning that the ban is permanent
      . + An integral number meaning the number of seconds the ban will be active (i.e. 3600 means one hour)
      . + 'round', meaning the ban is active until the next map
      . + An integral number prepended by a colon (i.e. :1234567), meaning the epoch exporation time of the ban (number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970). This option is most usable by external tools.
      o IP address bans continue to work as earlier but include the new timeout options as well.
      o Bans are stored as absolute times in banlist.con. Existing bans in banlist.con will be interpreted as permanent bans.
    
    Updated Content CRC Generation
    • Generation bat files are now created only for the mods you select. The new bat files are named getcrc-.bat.
    
    Updated Remote Console Output
    • The remote console now mirrors text written to the main console by prepending each mirrored line by a hash character (#). This is useful to capture chat text from external tools that periodically send commands to the remote console.
    • Please note that if several remote connections are made, the state of the mirroring is cleared so that mirrored console lines can easily be lost. Thus if you plan to use this feature in a tool, please only connect with one remote console connection at a time to ensure that you will get the correct results.
    
    Other Fixes/Changes
    • Added installation sanity checking that will tell you about common installation errors such as missing files. The sanity checking is done automatically at startup.
    • Added more readable error messages for common errors such as misspelled level names.
    • The game.listPlayers command lists cd key hashes of connected players when running in internet mode.
    • The game.showPorts console command can be invoked to display the ports currently used by the server.
    • Added overlayPath feature to support running multiple server instances from the same installation directory. To set up an instance, please follow these steps:
      o Create a new, empty directory to hold the instance, for instance C:\Server1
      o Copy the mods\bf1942\Settings directory from the main installation to the new directory
      o Create a new, empty Logs directory in the instance directory
      o Start the server with the overlayPath argument in a shortcut:
      . + bf1942_w32ded.exe +overlayPath C:\Server1
      . + Please note that the working directory for the server must still be set to the main installation directory.
      . + Also please note that if your overlayPath contains spaces you will need to quote the path in the arguments in one of these ways:
      . . # bf1942_w32ded.exe +overlayPath 'c:\path with spaces\server1' (single quotes)
      . . # bf1942_w32ded.exe +overlayPath """c:\path with spaces\server1""" (note that these are three double quotes)
    
    Admins Take Notice
    The 1.6 patch radically changes the format for the maplist.con file. Please see below for details, but note that your current maplists will not work when you update to the 1.6 patch. We've included the information you need to modify them once the 1.6 patch is released.
    
    From Official Battlefield Website

This took a lifetime to post. I really should have just linked ya insted of being so nice. Enjoy reading it anyway. v1.6 should be here very soon.

Winters

And more information on the v1.6 update to a degree here. On the CPL tourniment boards see here one of the CPL guys mentioned that the EA team had contacted him. He told the following story...

Interestingly, EA contacted CPL yesterday and committed to "beef up" the game so that it can grow as a competitive platform. Next patch will include improved Netcode and built-in Punkbuster. Demo recording will be next.

From CPL Forums

Even better netcode? Fantastic. The "beef up" comment I am also interested in. EA seem to be committed to constantly making BF better and better, so their profits can grow and grow

the_syco

Demo recording will be next.

That'll be damn sweet:) Even easier to make stunt video's, or just general madness ww)

regeneration

Originally posted by Winters

Even better netcode? Fantastic. The "beef up" comment I am also interested in. EA seem to be committed to constantly making BF better and better, so their profits can grow and grow

*l*
I wonder if there are any servers out there that run 1.0; now _there_ was a game in serious need of patching. Must re-install BF and "remind" myself

Winters

Well, EAComMike today gave some more information about the upcoming v1.6 patch.

The patch is currently in CQC. CQC is the testing and approval stage of any said file. So I guess that also updates you on where we're at with the patch. It's in testing and with any luck it will be out by the end of January. This could change though depending on how testing goes.

From EAComMike

So kids, its looking like the patch will be released on 30th January if all things go to plans and there are no problems in testing. Though you never know, they may suprise us tomorrow. Seeing as though I will be in the UK next weekend I leave you in the safe hands of Jimeatsmenu for your patching information

Washout

seems like a sweet patch...heres hoping DC team release a simple patch for this 1.6 and dont say oh heres an all new .7 and then its like 600 megs

Winters

The EA team have tested most of the mods with the v1.6 patch and they have said that most do work with it without problems. The only ones that have problems are Interstate '42, Galactic Conquest, Eve of Destruction and Battlegroup 42. You can expect patches form those mods so they are v1.6 friendly. As for all the other mods they appear to work fine with the patch, so you do not need to worry about any more updates from the DesertCombat team untill their next scheduled release.