2014-12-23 02:27:30

Swamp began as a 1-week project to create a game for Halloween (2011).  Since that day the game has grown into a very large online multiplayer beast.  I am happy that it has brought enjoyment to so many people.  big_smile  The old Swamp thread grew to be 511 pages long, with 12,753 posts (at the time I created this one), so I felt it was finally time to retire the old one and start us out fresh!

www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/Swamp.zip
Version 3.5 (664 MB) Last updated 2-22-15 at 12:00pm EST.

In order to play online you will need to download this small patch to upgrade Swamp to version 3.8.  I will eventually update the main download so that this separate patch is not needed.
www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/SwampPatch.zip
Version 3.8c update (71.9 MB) Last updated 8-8-18 at 8:50pm EST.

For anyone interested, here is the version 2.9 language file that will allow Swamp to be translated in to any other ANSI languages.  I've also seen people use this file to create screen reader dictionary files thus allowing Swamp to be translated in to Unicode languages as well.

www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/Swamplanguagefile.zip

Thanks to several requests over the past few years, you can now order Swamp T-shirts, backpacks, and even iPhone cases.
http://aprone.spreadshirt.com/
If you would like a Swamp phone/tablet case that is not available in the online store, just let me know the type of phone you have.  I can add it to the list.

SLJ has written up a guide for any players wanting to play Swamp on their Macs:  http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=20647

Changes from version 3.8b to 3.8c

- The blocking rates for the various melee weapons have been adjusted.  Some now block more often than they used to (so long as your stamina is high).
- The ballistic shield no longer has the ability to hit and stun enemies.  As a result the blocking chance has been increased, as well as the movement speed while using it.
- The Machete's 3 modes are now more distinct.  Defensive mode has a fairly high block chance, but does very little damage compared to the other other modes.  Offensive has almost no block chance, but deals the most damage per swing.  Counter is roughly in the middle on both attack damage and blocking chance.
- Stamina drain has been adjusted for the melee weapons, and shields.
- Stunning with the riot shield has been sped up, because it was slower than it was meant to be.
- Running shoes and shorts were not giving the appropriate speed boost, so those have been adjusted.
- From the very earliest days of multiplayer Swamp, people have wondered why zombies are not synced very well between clients.  With players all of the world, and vastly different internet speeds, I took a lot of steps in an effort to keep everyone's playing experience as similar as possible.  After all this time, I have overhauled the syncing code so players can finally team up in ways I had always wanted.  There are going to be a few glitches where zombies jump several tiles as they sync, but when testing this didn't seem to be very noticeable.  We can finally go into combat as actual teams, helping and supporting each other against the undead horde!  Huzzah!

Changes from version 3.8 to 3.8b

- The Machete has had a long standing bug that is now fixed.  When struck by an enemy, a Machete in counter mode can be instantly swung to strike back.  The cooldown before swinging again is basically reset when you get attacked.  In the past, a bug caused all 3 Machete modes to do this.
- I've added in a hearing loss mode to the main menu, which plays all of Swamp's sounds as pitch changes rather than panning them.  With some practice, hopefully this mode will allow players to succeed even if they are not able to hear sounds panning due to hearing loss in one ear.
- For players with hearing loss who prefer to use panning on their good ear, 2 additional sound modes cause the pitch/panning to only affect one ear or the other.
- Depending on your headphones, panning in Swamp may not have sounded as good as it could.  In the main menu you can now tweak the maximum panning settings for each ear.  This won't affect most players, but I've used headphones where sounds 100% on my left sounded somewhat centered as compared to sounds at 100% to my right.  This allowed me to adjust the panning so they matched.
- I've worked on adding a handful of new quests, which require zombie kills on a specific map.  I know they aren't the most creative quests I could have added, but they were easy enough to do with the free time I had at the time.
- Fixed the zombie respawn bug, that was preventing some zombies from showing up after another player had killed them.
- A bug has been fixed that was causing zombies not to growl as often as they were supposed to.
- The guard should now speak correctly.  A bug was preventing him from chatting if you'd been moving around the map for a while, or had recently come from another map.
- The evasion chance for various zombies has been adjusted.
- Melee weapons are now affected by stamina (I'll pause to give everyone time to grieve).  The days of just locking the attack key to swing endlessly are behind us, or at least they won't be nearly as effective.  If you run into some zombies and swing several times, you aren't going to be affected by this at all.  If you keep on swinging without taking a break, your swings will get slower and weaker.  The more tired you become, the longer it takes to fully rest once you stop swinging, but generally it will only take a few seconds.  This change is intended to dissuade players from using only melee weapons, but it is especially intended to stop players from auto swinging so they can walk away and know they are safe for hours.
- Blocking attacks with a shield (or melee weapons) temporarily lowers your stamina, and lowered stamina lowers your percent chance to block attacks.  What this means is that when you find yourself being smashed on by a group of zombies, you will start to tire and will block fewer and fewer of the attacks.  Getting away will be more important than ignoring the zombies and letting your shield protect you forever.
- When using the Riot shield or the Ballistic shield your movement speed will be lowered, similar to carrying other weapons such as the M60 or MG4.
- The movement speed when carrying the Sledgehammer has been adjusted slightly.  I doubt anyone would ever notice but it makes some numbers nicer this way.
- The default cost to invade a fort has been lowered from 100 food, to 50 food.
- Each HC Padlock now increases the fort invasion cost by 10, instead of 15.
- The cost to attack a fort will no longer go above 350.  If you deposit more HC Padlocks they will simply sit in the fort and not be absorbed (so they are not wasted).
- The maximum number of locker upgrades has been reduced to 10.  This will not affect any players, because nobody had actually gotten up to 10 upgrades yet, haha.
- Kai has added sounds to differentiate between normal chats, whispers, friend whispers, and clan whispers.
- Kai has changed and added a few other sounds, but I'm too lazy and/or forgetful to list them all.  I'm sure you'll notice them as you play.
- When using the key to announce only your health, a weird bug could cause it to display a bunch of decimal numbers.  That has been corrected.
- The Vulcan Minigun has had it's damage reduced.  Instead of being the most deadly overpowered weapon in Swamp, it is now probably still the most deadly overpowered weapon in Swamp, but with less insanity.
- Heartbeat sounds now play when your health is low.  It was requested, so here it is.
- The ally and hostile pings are hopefully fixed.
- When leaving a clan, or being kicked out of one, there is now a delay before you are allowed to join another clan.  It is exactly like the way stat points get reset, so you must either level up or wait until the next day before you can join a clan again.  This is meant to stop players from quickly jumping between different clans (which happens a lot).
- Rotate to face backwards, has been added to the keyconfig.  Some people already had this option (I think), but now it should show up for everyone.
- Thanks to a certain holiday event, many players gained so many collection items that they became very laggy to view or flat out stopped working completely!  I have recoded collections so they should be able to handle the larger sizes now.
- Collections are now sorted in alphabetical order.
- A bug allowed players to endlessly abandon a quest, log back in, and get a new one.  The server was only supposed to give out 1 new quest per day.  This has been corrected now.
- Running shoes, running shorts, bunny slippers, and inflatable sheep all break like other armors now.
- The player list menu has been fixed.
- The losers.txt file can now support up to 30 names.  If your file is an old copy it may still only say 20 at the top, but the game will load in upto 30 either way.
- You can now lower zombie steps volume to 10%.  In the past you couldn't go below 80%.
- You can no longer put items into your locker, or take items back out of your locker while in a mission.
- The movement speeds for running shorts and running shoes has been adjusted slightly, mostly changing how it interacts with other movement modifying equipment (like heavy armors or weapons).
- There is a "low food" sound that will play for hardcore players whose food drops to 5 or below.  The sound repeats once per minute, warning you of your situation.
- The transfer points on Brush Creek should be fixed now.  They gave players trouble for a long time.
- The factory door that leads players into HC has been adjusted as well.  It was also giving some players trouble, lining themselves up to it properly.

Changes from version 3.7 to 3.8

- The behemoth in single player had trouble getting itself stuck on the rows of abandoned cars.  The map had a few issues that were preventing the behemoth from breaking them correctly.  I have solved that now.
- The dreded fort slot #0 has been fixed.  That was annoying HC players for a while.
- I've made some adjustments to my assortment of server tools.  Now instead of typing an entire line of text, it only requires a simple button press to make sure Buzz is never able to find the specific armor he wants.  It's allaround more convenient.  big_smile
- Fixed a few small issues I found with the holiday code.
- There is a new system for character descriptions.  These are just a fun way to be a bit more creative, and don't impact the game at all.  Type /SHOW <name> to view the descriptions of players, or user /SETSHOW <description> to set your own.
- I've added in a new set of weapon specific quests.  For now I'm having it hide the weapon you'll use, just so people won't know what to expect before starting the mission.
- The server added a set of computer controlled bots, who simulate human players in CTF matches.  These bots join CTF games that have uneven teams.
- Made a few server tweaks that may result in reduced lag in certain situations.
- Correct a bug on the main menu where the Username spot was missing unless you scrolled back up.
- I've slowed down what are called periodic quest updates, to cut down on lag when several people are doing certain quests at the same time.  When the quest is waiting for you to reach a certain location, there will now be a half second delay before it registers that you have arrived.  I'm thinking I need to revisit this code again in the future when I don't have so many things to fix, because I'm not happy with how inefficient it handles a few of the quests internally.
- I believe I've finally fixed a bug that caused armor to stay on you after you put it into your locker.  This will also affect other places where armor stayed on the player when it was supposed to be removed.
- The lag caused by being in the north-west corner of a map (when graphics were enabled) has been solved.
- I have changed around the radio modes a bit.  Friend radio has been replaced with Friend filtered radio, which allows all radio types to go through like normal, except friend chat is blocked.
- It seems a few specialty key commands were not working correctly, depending on several factors.  I'm not sure how much it was impacting players, but I've worked to resolve that.
- A new key has been added called Hold incoming messages.  When this key is held down, new messages will be muted (you still hear the incoming radio sound) so that you can continue to hear whatever message you are currently reading.  Too often we get interrupted when trying to read a long message, and hopefully this will solve the problem.  There is no default for this key, so you can go into your keyconfig file to set it to something you like.  If your screen reader is set to interrupt, then pressing this key is going to stop the current message from finishing.  To use this feature I'd recommend turning that off.
- When enabling player pings, you now cycle between options to ping all players, only friends, or only enemies.  This will help distinguish friend from foe in PVP and CTF situations.
- When players lose connection, go from multiplayer back to single player, or are kicked from the server by me, the code has been changed so they no longer hear "connection interrupted" endlessly.  They should also be able to connect again without needing to exit and restart the game.  In the past the connection did not correctly reset, so reconnecting often did not work without restarting the entire game.
- Voice settings no longer show up in the main menu until after you have connected to the multiplayer server.  When you set your voice, your local copy of the game will remember what voice settings you use for each character, allowing you to switch without needing to constantly set yourself back to the voice you prefer having associated with each character.
- When choosing a single player map, the menu now contains a spot to set your voice (if you wish to).  There isn't a whole lot of reason to pick a voice in single player, but I put it here for anyone who wants to be able to.
- When in multiplayer, the main menu now allows you to view your collection.  You can still use the server chat commands, but some players will prefer it as a menu.
- When viewing your own collection, or the collections of others, it will be presented as a menu instead of just a long drawn out message.  From your own collection menu, you can press enter to move an item into your normal inventory without needing to use chat commands.
- When in multiplayer, the main menu now allows you to view your locker.  You can still use the server chat commands, but some players will prefer it as a menu.
- When viewing your locker, it will be presented as a menu allowing you to take out items easily.
- From your inventory menu, you can press L to move items into your storage locker without the need to use server chat commands.
- I've done a few small changes to help the CTF bots feel more like actual players.  There is a lot more I can do on this, so I'll add more and more as time goes on.
- Moving between maps should load a little faster than they used to.  I'm using a more streamlined approach for sending item data from the server to client.
- Corrected a bug that could cause loot to randomly vanish on maps.
- You can no longer deposit sprained ankles, broken legs, or bloody clothes into your locker.  smile
- I've corrected some CTF code that was causing players in the respawn area to glitch and show up on the battlefield.
- Hardcore characters no longer need food to move around on CTF, CMM, LMS, Sniper, and Defender missions.
- Using the quick character change feature is still hit and miss.  I've tinkered with it a bit, but some people still have it work fine while others have it disconnect them.  For now I think I'll leave it as it is and collect more data about the bugs when this version is in the public's hands.  This command has always been a messy hack anyway, since the server was never designed for these sorts of character swaps, haha.
- Capture the flag missions no longer require reputation or food to lead.  Like all missions they do still require 1 diesel fuel.
- There was a bug that could cause a fort to say it had 0 of an item in an item slot.  When this bug occured you could not depot a new item into that spot.  This should be fixed both ways now... items of zero amount shouldn't ever show up in fort slots, and even if they somehow do, you can depot new items over top of them.
- I may have solved the bug where multiple crates show up during warehouse missions, but it's hard to know for sure.  I can't get that bug to happen when I want it to, so it may just be that I've been unlucky and it is still around but just hasn't shown up for me in a long while.
- Kills using the sledgehammer now correctly give reputation.
- In Defender missions, each zombie kill gives you experience points equal to the wave you are on.  At first this is a measly 1 XP per kill, but eventually you may be getting 30, 40, 50 XP for each zombie you kill.  If you can survive until the higher waves, you have the potential to rake in considerable XP.  This change may be overpowered, but I'm giving it a test run to see if this provides enough of an incentive so that players enjoy doing Defender missions.

Changes from version 3.6c to 3.7

- Fixed a long standing bug that caused the M240 to only use up 1 bullet instead of 5.
- Fixed a bug that caused people's account times to be incorrectly listed.  Anyone who had between 10 and 19 remaining months was incorrectly told they were on their last month.
- I've done some work on the way sound buffers are used, and reused, to squeeze a little better performance out of the game in places where a ton of sounds are trying to load at the same time.  Warehouse missions are a great example.  I only got between 4% and 8% improvement (depending on the situation), but I suppose it's better than nothing.
- Sound boost has been removed from the menu.  It's an older approach that never really helped enough to be worth having.  It was originally left in to slowly collect real-world data from players, to see if that approach to sound processing would be better than the default.  Turns out it's not helpful.
- Where Sound boost used to be on the menu, now you can adjust buffer settings.  Lowering the amount is not recommended because it can cause some sounds to cut out during intense moments, but it should improve performance.  Raising the amount can cause an initial lag as the additional buffers are set up and added to the mix, but overall it can improve performance.  So because this seems to be more of a personal preference, or dependent on the situation and computer, I'm allowing players to adjust this up and down to find what works best for them.  If I had found 1 perfect setting myself (I tried), I'd have just made that the new default.  The default is what Swamp already had before this update.
- I've improved accessibility for our miniority playerbase, and by that I mean those silly sighted players.  Graphics were really bogging down the game because honestly they were an after thought.  I went in and improved that code a bit to squeeze some better performance out of the game when graphics are used.  They still slow the game down more than if you play without graphics (any game would), but now it's less of a burden.  smile
- Everyone has asked for it, so I found a way to make it happen.  When playing on multiplayer, I removed "Save your progress" from the main menu.  It was really only about campaigns, so it didn't make any sense to have it show up in the multiplayer menu.
- In addition to removing the "Save your progress" option from the multiplayer menu, I've replaced it with a way to quickly change your character without exiting and logging back in!  Enjoy the convenience.  Let it wash over you like a refreshing river of singing dolphins.  Roll around on the floor and rub your hands all over your face, feeling the endless convenience as it warms your very soul.  These are things you can do.  big_smile
- When playing single player maps, the "Fully Armed" mode now begins each weapon already loaded, so you don't have to spend time switching to each weapon and loading it yourself.
- Two new starting weapon modes have been added to single player.  You can now choose to go into battle with only bows, or only rifles.
- In single player, if you choose to play on the map named Future, you will have an extra special challenge.  A lone Behemoth roams this combination of maps 1 and 2, years after the Swamp we already know.  Here are a few tips:  You aren't going to outrun that beast in an open field.  It isn't able to make sharp turns, especially when it's moving fast.  It can and will literally smash through buildings, though doing so slows it down, and may give you a chance to escape.  It has a lot of health.

Changes from version 3.6b to 3.6c

- FINALLY got the source code back up to date, from when the most recent backups were lost in a hard drive crash.
- Fixed a bug with a fort slot which was showing up as slot #0, and was not functioning as an actual fort slot.
- Fixed a bug with weapon accuracy.  Weapons that were powerful enough to kill a zombie with a single hit were not being counted correctly toward the average, and were throwing off the numbers.
- Shooting in CMM will no longer affect your accuracy.
- Swinging the riot shield around and using the field kit no longer affect your accuracy.

Changes from version 3.6 to 3.6b

- I have fixed the bug that prevented North East from being spoken when you were rotating yourself counter-clockwise.
- Added a new command /QUESTCREDIT, which will tell you how many credits you have earned from quests.
- Fixed a bug that could cause reviewed chat messages to show that you said something someone else had actually said.
- The radio and chat code has been rewritten to make things a bit easier on players.  The radio now has the following settings:
    + Radio on
    + Filtered radio (whispers, friends, clan, and team)
    + Battle radio (whispers, clan, and team)
    + Friend radio (whispers and friends)
    + Private radio (whispers only)
    + Radio off
- Adjusted SCS code for zombie and item placement which could have caused the game to lock up if a campaign tried to use invalid coordinates.
- Added 2 new SCS commands that let you spawn items onto a primary or secondary map zone, instead of using specific coordinates.  The commands have been added to the campaignguide.txt file.
- Fixed a bug that could allow a player to switch weapons in the middle of the Field kit sacrifice feature.  The side effect of this bug was that the weapon switched to would be broken.
- When using the Field kit sacrifice mode, the cooldown before you can use another weapon has been slightly adjusted to be based on how many med kits you had loaded.  This will barely affect players unless they have a ton of points into the big kit skill.  The new adjusted cooldown is meant to help the cooldown line up with how much longer it takes to sacrifice a large number of med kits.
- When using the /FORTS command, the server will round the food amounts down to get rid of any decimals.  It was making the messages very long and annoying.
- Swamp now supports language.ini files containing up to 12000 lines.  The old limit was 6000, which some people began to reach.
- New sound related code has been added which should improve performance for some players.  It depends a bit on things like sound card and computer speed, so some players probably won't notice any difference while others should.
- XP gained from fort ownership has been adjusted.  The new numbers are very close for clans who own only a handful of forts, but the new gain rate is not nearly as high once the number of forts starts to get higher and higher.
- Script keys can now use volume adjustment lines that you would normally type into your volumes.txt file!  Begin your normal volumes.txt line with "VOL-", so that the game knows you intend for this to be a volume adjustment.  Here is an example for what you would enter into one of your script keys:  VOL-Canine\Attack = 150
- Now you can adjust volumes as you play, even if you did not set up script keys.  In chat just type "VOL-" followed by a normal volumes.txt style entry.  The game will understand it is meant to be a volume adjustment and will follow the instructions.  For example, you could open chat and type: VOL-Attack = 30
- If you need to reset all Swamp sounds back to normal, you can use the command "VOL-RESET".  This will work in a script, or just typed in the chat window.  This is meant to cancel out any sound adjustments from your volumes.txt file, "VOL-" scripts, and "VOL-" chat commands.
- If you want to refresh Swamp to go back to using the sound settings in your volumes.txt file, you can use the command "VOL-REFRESH".  This is meant for people who have raised or lowered a few volumes and can't remember which ones they were to set them back to how they are in the volumes.txt file.
- Fixed a bug that prevented you from being able to use Q to list crate information during a warehouse mission.
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from being properly kicked out of a fort that was just overtaken by an enemy clan.
- When broken items are repaired at forts, the message should now include the fort name.  In the past this only worked on a few items, not all items like it was supposed to.
- Fixed a bug that was giving people a new quest each time they signed on, even if it was on the same day they already received a new quest.
- Fixed a long standing bug that prevented the Chainsaw from using up the proper amount of fuel.  Each rev (attack) uses 5% of a standard fuel tank.
- Fixed a long standing bug that prevented the Flamethrower from using up the proper amount of fuel.  Each blast (attack) uses 10% of a standard fuel tank.
- For smaller game patches, Swamp is now able to download the update for you automatically!  When signing in, if Swamp is able to get an update for you it will ask you permission to do so.
- Fixed the bug that caused CTF missions to hand out reputation and food to everyone who participated.
- The entry fee for CTF has been removed.  They are now free to play for normal and HC players.
- Fixed a bug that would show players on the mission list, who are actually just on a quest.
- In a change that will certainly cause HC players to rethink some of their strategies, each hour a player is only able to recieve 100 food from other players.  As soon as a new hour has gone by, they are once again able to receive up to another 100 food.  This will make it much harder for people to pass around huge stockpiles of food instantly, but still allows players to give each other a helping hand in times where their food is extremely low (which is what the feature was intended for).
- Food can no longer be given to players who are offline.  That feature was being abused right and left, and I didn't realize the server was even allowing people to do that until recently.
- Fixed a bug that could allow computer controlled allies to remain with you after finishing a quest.
- Fixed a bug that could crash the game after donating/recycling an item or sending someone a gift.
- Withdrawing food from forts is once again allowed.  I liked the disabled withdrawls because it forced clans to plan more about their food deposits, but I also want forts to be a place to store food you don't want to lose if you die.  To blend these ideas, withdrawing food from forts counts toward the same hourly limit on receiving food from gifts.  So at most, a player will be able to withdrawl 100 food per hour from a fort.
- When using the new key that spins your character around 180 degrees (shift S by default), a new sound will play.
- Fixed a bug that caused temporary quest items to remain in your character inventory after the quest had been finished.
- Kai has provided new music for Map 5, Sub 1, Sub 2, CTF, Fort, and the Quest maps.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to shoot through walls during fort battles, if they stood in specific locations.
- The Sledgehammer has had its damage and attack range increased by about 20%.
- The Sledgehammer is now able to impact multiple targets if they are all within range during the swing.  The hammer is pretty heavy so any momentum that is left over after slamming into a zombie skull will continue transfering to the next zombie.
- You can now cycle your weapons in reverse order if you hold the control key and press the number key.  Your keyconfig.ini file will add the new reversed cycle keys so that you may customize them.  You may have to delete your keyconfig.ini file and let Swamp recreate a new one if the new entries do not show up.
- Fixed a long standing but which caused the M16 and AK47 bayonet modes to show strange messages concerning ammo.
- Fixed a bug that was affecting PVP damage in situations where battling players were of drastically different level.
- When beginning CTF and Defender missions, you will begin with a loaded Field kit.  In the past the field kit was not loaded.

Changes from version 3.5 to 3.6

- Loot points can now be spent to instantly gain a title.  Type /LOOTPOINTS (or /LIFETIME) to see how many points you currently have.  Picking up loot on the main maps grants normal players 1 loot point, and HC players 3 points.
- Fixed a bug that could cause you to have a "real" death if another player killed you right as you were leaving a CTF or a fort map.
- During a CTF, being in a tower or up on a roof now gives you an advantage against players on the ground.  If you shoot someone from up high it will deal 33% more damage to your target on the ground.  If they fire up at you, any shots that hit you deal 33% less damage.  The roof and tower edges (and cars) still have a chance to completely block incoming shots (cars are 12.5% and tower/roof edges are 8%).  So while standing behind cars or up in towers always gave players a small defensive advantage, these additions should make up for the player also being a stationary target.
- Swamp now creates a file called volumes.txt, which gives players advanced control over the volume Swamp plays every sound.  Once Swamp runs it creates the file and puts instructions for its use inside.
- Fixed a bug that prevented raiders from shooting at you if you were right up against a wall or impassible tile.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to shoot into the respawn hallway during CTF maps.
- Fixed a bug that could cause Fort, LMS, and CTF deaths to count as real deaths.
- Bunny Slippers and Running shoes now benefit from the Graffiti skill.
- Running shorts now benefit from the Graffiti skill.
- The number of loot points required to gain titles have been adjusted.  Anyone who has already spent loot points to gain a title will not have their title taken away.
- Added a key (shift S by default) that will spin your character around 180 degrees, to face directly behind it.  This has been requested many times by players.
- Logging in is a bit more stable now.  In the past players could arrow up and down through menus during the delay as they were signing in.  This caused several problems so now the game no longer allows this to happen.
- I've added a /PVP command that has no name at the end.  This is a quicker way to check your own PVP stats.
- When wearing the Doctor's coat, the speed of the field kit has been increased even more than before.  You also gain an additional 10 health points whenever you use a field kit on yourself and you are wearing the coat.  The coat did not previously have any slowing effect on the player, but now has a very small one.
- The Raider uniform now counts as medium armor and benefits from the Task force skill.
- The Field kit has a brand new setting.  You can now enable Sacrifice mode, which pumps every loaded med kit into you at the same time!  This not only provides a huge healing boost, but it also cleans all bloody clothes and fixes both sprained ankles and broken legs!  The down side to using this very powerful setting is that your field kit will break from the strain, and you will have to go find a new one.
- Sale prices for selling Apronic equipment to the safe zone have been adjusted to keep them all the same.
- Fixed a few typos that people have pointed out.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to use their fort menu to heal themselves, from within the fort map itself.
- Clans can no longer withdrawl food from forts.  Players must now be careful and plan out which forts should hold food, and how much, because it can not be taken back out and switched around.  This also makes it harder for clans to intentionally "give" forts to friends, only to have them given right back.
- When attacking an enemy fort, the drain rate was always 10 food for every 5 seconds you remained inside.  Now, the drain rate for a fort slowly increases over time as it is attacked.  For every 6 hours of accumulated time where a fort has been draining food (an enemy was inside the building), the drain rate will permanently increase by 1.  This is meant as a way to balance the game against super clans who can own a fort practically forever.  The longer someone holds a fort, and the more time people spend attacking it, the higher the drain rate will become.  Eventually a balance will be reached where the clan really must defend against attackers.  Under the old system, some clans had put so many millions of food into forts that they didn't even care if people attacked them.  The days of ignoring attackers should be numbered in this new system.  The drain increase is remembered by the forts themselves, so if you attack one for only an hour and later 5 other people attack it for only 1 hour each, the drain rate for that fort still permanently goes up by 1 point.  If a new clan captures a fort, the drain rate returns to the original 10 food per 5 seconds.
- The food reward for warehouse missions has been greately reduced.  For a long time now, only clans who could complete the hardest missions had any chance of owning forts, because they produced more food than anyone else.  By lowering the rewards, players who rely on finding food should have a slightly better chance competing with the warehouse runners.  For a while people will be upset by the drop in food, but once the reserves burns away it will balance out where everyone is used to the lower numbers.
- When in your own fort menu, the "History of this fort" now informs you what the current entry fee and drain rate are for the fort.
- The drop rate for Diesel fuel has been lowered by 0.5%.  Don't freak out, it's only half of 1%.  smile
- The drop rate for broken equipment (such as Bent bayonet) has been reduced.
- The drop rate for Dogtags has been reduced.
- The drop rate for food has been increased by a small amount.
- Fixed a bug that caused muted players to become unmuted once they gained a title.
- Fixed a bug that allowed a titled player to find multiple copies of the same title weapon.  Like normal weapons, the server was supposed to prevent you from picking up a second copy by turning it into ammo instead.
- Fixed a bug that caused ammo to be wasted in burst fire guns.
- Fixed a bug that prevented you from hearing when other players' armor becomes damaged or breaks.
- Depositing HC Dogtags into a fort will now create only 1 Raider defender instead of 5.
- A new item, called HC Padlocks, can be deposited into a fort to permanently raise its entry fee by 15 food.  This causes attacking clans to have to pay a higher food price when entering your fort.
- The drop rate for HC Dogtags has been slightly reduced, to make room for the new HC Padlock item.  Their combined drop chance is equal to what used to be the drop rate for HC Dogtags.
- The Raiders who defend forts have been given a brand new AI.  They should patrol around the building in a more intelligent way, making it harder for attacking players to simply hide out for long periods of time without being found.
- Fixed some jumbled lettering that could show up in the "You have killed" message you are given after killing someone in PVP.
- Safe zones will now sometimes sell items that they do not normally sell.  These items could be for a limited time (only a particular day), or there could be a limited number of these items up for sale.  Once the special day ends or the amount is sold, the item will once again not be for sale in that safe zone.
- When a Safe zone is offering a Special limited sale on an item, it means only a certain amount will be sold.  Players can only purchase 1 of these items at a time, and the Safe zone will not tell one to you if you already have one.  During the time the limited sale lasts, normal players are not able to trade or give this particular item to other players.
- Changed the capitals for Bunny slippers, Running shorts, and Running shoes so that the second word is lowercase.  This means nothing to 99% of players, but if you've used these items in custom SCS campaigns, you may want to update them.
- Fixed a long standing bug that prevented the running shoes and running shorts from giving you the proper speed boost.
- Your mission log will now show the Server time, instead of the local time, for when a mission was launched.
- I adjusted the directions you face on a few of the maps.  This applies to returning from forts and missions.
- When damaged items are repaired at a fort, the server will tell you the name of the fort in the message.
- The old quest system has been completely thrown away!  Under this new system each player can hold up to 3 quests they are able to do.  Each day they sign into Swamp, a new quest is given to them as long as they have 1 of their quest slots empty.  If they already have 3 quests, no new quest is added.  Completing quests can earn just about anything, from reputation, to XP, items, or even food.  Each completed quest will grant the player 1 or more "quest credits".  These quest credits will likely have some use in the future, but for now they are just an indication of how many quests a player has completed.
- The hearing range for the computer controlled campaign Allies has been greatly reduced.  They were able to spot and shoot at zombies who were extremely far away, and that isn't really how I want them to function.
- Fixed a bug that prevented campaign Allies from responding to your voice commands.
- I have rewritten a few sections of the zombie AI code that should improve game performance in certain situations.
- Dying will now return you to map 1 when you respawn.  This might be a bit of an inconvenience to some players, but this solves the problem of players dying on super hard maps and not being able to escape them.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-23 02:42:10

Thanks for all your time and energy that went into this update and into swamp in general. Thanks for the great game!

Have a blessed day. 
Jennifer

2014-12-23 02:48:36

Thanks Jennifer.  big_smile  This update did indeed take a very long time.  I don't know how many months, was it 7 or 8?  I can't even remember.  Life always found ways to slow things down, but I'm glad Swamp eventually won out.

I already know some people will be very upset to learn that Hardcore food has been reset.  Players on the old server had accumulated hundreds of thousands of food, and to put it plainly, those sorts of numbers would ruin the experience that version 3.4 hopes to bring to HC players.  The only way to balance things for this fresh start, was to have a fresh start.  I did not reset characters or inventories though, so that is good news for everybody.  smile

I'm sure bugs will show up, but that's pretty normal with any update.  My testing team worked very hard to find every bug they possibly could, but everyone should understand that many bugs don't come to the surface with a small controlled team.  Once the game goes live, the server will be interacting with 10 times as many connections, from all over the world.  This is the kind of stress we can't really simulate with a small testing team, no matter how dedicated they are.  Please don't hold anything against them if bugs are found, haha.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-23 02:53:15

I can't download the updated swamp. it stops at 174 mb.

Have a blessed day. 
Jennifer

2014-12-23 02:55:16

I'm hearing that from a lot of people.  Actually it's a little funny that I had so many incoming messages, my skype froze and I had to use Task manager to close it.  ROFL!

I would suggest the alternate download link, but people are reporting the same issue with that one too.  I've sent in a complaint to yahoo tech support (my web hosting provider), but no word back from them yet.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-23 02:57:23

Could you post a patch, since I have 3.3 already, unless it's too different?

Have a blessed day. 
Jennifer

2014-12-23 02:57:27

mee too. do you have patch from 3.3 to version 3.4? Thanks a lot.

2014-12-23 03:01:55

Hello.
I played swamp ages ago when it was free and on a pc. Can I still play it on a macbook with windows? Or is it not possible? I'm wondering because as far as i know, you have tobuy swamp to play it now, is that right?

I'm gone for real :)

2014-12-23 03:04:16

To play online, yes, you have to pay for a gamer account.

Have a blessed day. 
Jennifer

2014-12-23 03:04:35

First, I'm inordinately pleased that mine was the last post (aside from Aprone's, of course) on the old topic. It means nothing, and matters not at all, yet it still strikes me as awesome.

Second, Aprone, all these updates and changes sound ridiculously awesome, as usual. I'm trying to download now, but the download keeps dropping out (yes, I'm using the alternative link). Judging by the Swamp Twitter account, I'm not alone. Can you put the zip file in your Dropbox and share that link instead, until Yahoo sorts out its server problems?

Third, what's the status of this version's Readme? Is there one, or should I start updating what we have so you can distribute it?

Thanks again for all your hard work - what an incredible Christmas present for us all! Now I just need to *download* the file. big_smile

2014-12-23 03:07:37

Hi.
I thought so, but can it be playd on a mac using the trackpad, or is it not worht it?

I'm gone for real :)

2014-12-23 03:08:15

My dropbox is limited to 25 downloads because it's a free one.
It's still uploading, but I guess this will let 25 people get it who are currently having trouble getting it from either of the normal download links.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ifnuqp3fg6e5 … p.zip?dl=0

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-23 03:08:25

Brad, you can indeed play on the Mac. You can use Windows via a virtual machine program like Fusion, or through dual booting with Bootcamp. What I do is use Wineskin and emulate it, and that seems to work well for me. You can't install third-party Sapi voices or use a screen reader, and some people report lag, but it works great and takes up 1.33GB instead of 10 or 15 GB like full Windows would, not to mention is way faster to start up and easier to manage.

2014-12-23 03:13:05

Hi.
For me,I use bootcamp and it works great.

I was just wondering since as far as I know, you have ot use left mouse click to walk and right to shoot, and with the machaving a touchpad, wouldn't that be tricky?

I'm gone for real :)

2014-12-23 03:15:06

I use a wireless mouse, as it's much easier to manipulate. You can always reassign things so you don't need the other mouse buttons, though. Mouse1 is clicking your Mac's trackpad, as far as I know.

2014-12-23 03:24:31

I'm on the phone with Yahoo technical support right now.  Lets see if they can solve this over the phone, where emails to them have failed.

ADDED:

Well the help line confirmed that this download problem is on THEIR end.  I think everyone knew that though.  Within 24 to 48 hours their tech support team should have the problem resolved.  In the mean time, I guess we're going to have to pull together somehow and fix this without a centralized download link.  tongue

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-23 03:47:28

my win rar says the zip file is damaged any idea why?

2014-12-23 03:49:55

So like, aprone, I have only 3 words to say to you: You are awesome. Seriously with this kind of crap, hackers, etc I would've given up on swamp like, a long time ago but yet you persist. I baught a gamer account for swamp but didn't use it for a while. I am back to using it now though once in a while. These new changes sound awesome, can't wait to try this stuff out. I think I'm also one of the first people to get the swamp download I think considering it said you uploaded it 13 minutes ago when I downloaded it haha

2014-12-23 04:00:07

My download is just past 50% and I can't wait! Aprone thank you so much for such an amazing game! I've never been happier to have no life! Keep up the awesome work man!

2014-12-23 04:13:53

It's sad i just don't have to time to enjoy the game, but I like to come here , and keep up on what's going on with it. For the time i did get to play  it. I had fun, and can't wait to get back into it. Aprone I'm sure you here it lots, but thanks for this game, keep it up. all the best to you, and yours.

A Candle Loses Nothing by Lighting Another Candle…
" GamerTag is. ItsTBlaze & Twitter @TBlaze97
"One Love"

2014-12-23 04:18:52 (edited by SirBadger 2015-01-09 08:10:46)

here's a sendspace link for anybody having trouble downloading from the main server:

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/vgcmr7

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2014-12-23 04:19:13

For anyone having problems with the download, someone on Twitter just put the file up on Sendspace:
https://t.co/hCU1xlm6uS

2014-12-23 04:28:03

Aprone, one question. I notice the sounds for unused weapons, like the Scorpion or XM301, are back in the zip file. Is this a mistake… or an indicator of fun times to come? smile

2014-12-23 04:30:06

maybe they are for the special weapons that might only appear at special events as the change log hints at?

2014-12-23 04:48:41

Has anyone made a topic on this forum in regards to campaigns? I'm sure there are campaigns, but what are the god ones?
I want to make one that has both a tutorial for Swamp for new players followed by a story, just don't know the best way to go about it, if I shoud design my own map or what. I have an underlying story for the actual Swamp maps and designing the so-called Swamp universe, as it were.
My friend tried the starter tutorial maps but in my experience, that's just a campaign test thing and not a comprehencive tutorial.