Update 197: Drill Camp Skirmishes - Released!

Hello everyone,

As the year draws to an end, we’re excited to be bringing you the 197th alpha update to War of Rights titled Drill Camp Skirmishes today!

The last major update of 2024 includes several new additions that are bound to shake up the game and a fair few improvements, as well. Let’s dive into the content of Update 197: Drill Camp Skirmishes below!

13 New Drill Camp Skirmishes

Today’s update expands the ever popular Skirmish game mode by introducing 13 additional Skirmish areas situated on the Drill Camp level. Each of the 13 new Skirmish areas are roughly the same size as that of the Dunker Church Skirmish (one of the 3 very first Skirmish areas ever released). When playing the new Skirmish areas, players can expect the same attention to detail as found throughout the rest of War of Rights thanks to the diverse nature of the Drill Camp level; Farms, roads, fields, forests, army camps and much more are all part of the Civil War experience awaiting you.

Victory screens make a return to these new Skirmish areas, however instead of showing generic ranks of men and their officers at the conclusion of the round, this skirmish rotation will feature the actual players who participated on the winning side of the battle, complete with their customized appearances. This new variation is a work-in-progress and only features infantry, at this time.

Last, but certainly not least, is the return of the historical narration and flybys between each Skirmish area. Our two historians, George & Bradley, have written as well as narrated a series covering 13 different topics detailing the life of the soldier during the Civil War. We hope you’ll find them interesting while you ready yourself for the next battle!

Please note that the initial balance of the 13 new Skirmish areas is subject to change as mass testing gets going, starting today.

Snake Rail Fence Destructibility

Update 197 expands the destructibility system of the game to also include snake rail fences. These were often used by farmers to keep livestock out of their fields at the time of the Civil War and are thus prominently featured within War of Rights. The snake rail fences can be destroyed by artillery fire as well as rifle fire and will undoubtedly shake up the flow of many battles to come!

That’s Some Yankee Wallpaper!

The development of War of Rights began more than 12 years ago, and thus a lot of graphical iterations have been required throughout the years in order to keep the game up to date visually. One of the areas that haven’t seen much if any visual improvement for the past decade is the wallpaper textures of the game. In update 197 this is remedied by an introduction of 8 era appropriate wallpaper designs for the Sherrick and Roulette farmhouses.

We’ll continue to push for visual improvements throughout the lifetime of the game, no matter how small or insignificant they might seem individually as they all add up in time.

Steam Winter Sale, Snowy Wonderland & So Long ‘24

Starting today, War of Rights is part of Steam’s Winter Sale and 50% off for the next two weeks! Now is a perfect time to jump in and experience the new Skirmish areas, complete with historical narration and area transitions.

You can pick up the game HERE

The big Winter Sale is certainly upon us, but that is not the only wintery event that is happening in War of Rights; The Christmas event is currently active, turning the lush countryside of Maryland into a bitterly cold and snowy winter landscape until the end of Christmas.
So head in-game and experience the snowy winter weather and a chance of getting a present from Santa - if you’ve been nice this year, that is!

As 2024 draws to an end we’d like to thank everyone within the War of Rights community for making it possible for us to continue into the 13th year of developing the game in an effort to make it the best possible 19th century warfare game that it possibly can be. We’re really excited for what’s to come in 2025 and we look forward to experiencing it with all of you.

Here’s to many more years of WoR with you all!

Update 197 Patch Notes

• Added 13 new Skirmish areas to the Drill Camp level.
• Snake rail fences are now destructible by both small arms and cannon fire.
• Updated the interior of Roulette farmhouse.
• Updated all barn prefabs.
• Added more interior props,wallpapers and tiles to the game.
• Added outhouses to most of Harpers Ferry.
• General vegetation detail updates, Harpers Ferry.
• Minor Antietam detail level updates.
• Various character item updates.
• Updated WA artillery uniform customization.
• A few visual fixes for the customization level.
• Slightly reduced tree bending.
• Made the deep mud/snow footprints a little more distinct.
• Removed a tire tread from one of the dirt textures.
• Removed the invisible walls from the firing ranges on the Drill Camp level.
• Fife and bugle spin animation fix.
• Playing the fife while quicktiming should now look better.
• Added hit particle effects to the wheat bundles.
• Bullet impacts are now slightly louder.
• Added gun and equipment rattle sounds to the game.
• Added a breaking twig sound to the game.
• Detail work, Drill Camp level.
• Fixed the missing tree trunk on one of the oak tree LODs.
• Replaced 1st USSS with the 2nd USSS on Hooker’s Push Skirmish area, Antietam.
• Updated all distance terrains throughout the game for a more immersive and seamless transition.
• Fixed Fence5 LODs.
• Improved the cornfield billboard LODs and made them draw at much longer distances at an overall lower polycount than the old shorter range ones.
• Fixed the landslide model’s material.
• Added a new work-in-progress victory screen version to the 13 new Skirmish areas on the Drill Camp.
• Modified Sherrick House and added new wallpapers to it.
• Updated the texture of the national flag of 1st Delaware, with many thanks to the curators of the Delaware Historical Society for their assistance.
• Added a new 5th Texas regimental flag.
• Darkened and widened the text chat background for better readability.
• Made the winter grass more snowy.
• Added drum textures for 1st and 5th Texas as well as 1st Delaware.
• Removed a number of unused ground textures from the game.
• Added new quicktime movement animations for artillery soldiers when holding a sponge/rammer.
• Fixed some bad door rotations.
• Updated the 4th US Artillery flag.
• Possible fix for a particle crash that sometimes occurs when changing levels.
• Improved resource lifetime management logic on various resource types to allow for pre-caching global data once during game startup, as well as geometry, materials and textures persisting from level to level instead of requiring redundant reloading every time the level is changed.
• Made muddy footprints leave mud behind for a few footsteps after exiting a muddy surface.
• Fixed headbobbing mostly disappearing when having about 30% health and fixing it going crazy at 1% health.
• Fixed a bayonet-related reload exploit.
• Enabled the voice chat volume in the sound settings to go to 0.
• Geometry level of detail and texture mipmap streaming priority update is now executed asynchronously, resulting in an up to 5% performance improvement in CPU bound scenarios.

That’s all for today. We hope you’re enjoying the holidays as well as the new Drill Camp skirmishes and wintery visuals of the game. We look forward to be seeing both green and veteran players alike take on the latest additions to the game!

- The Campfire Games Team