Dear readers, friends, fellow Romans — you have my deep apologies for this week-long hiatus on Rifles Ready!, rest assured it isn’t permanent. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, official news on COH: Tales of Valor and official art have leaked out, chiefly through a solid preview at IGN. It’s chock full of accurate, independently verified and reliable details, so if you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so on the double, as they say in the Army. It would seem I vastly underestimated the amount of time and effort required when you move into your first house. Aside from having to pack, unpack, move heavy furniture, arrange stuff, I also had to get three renters signed up so I won’t have to face the mortgage payments alone. Then you have what I like to call the “random shit factor” — doors that won’t fit in doorframes and must be trimmed with the tools at hand, replacing sink aerators, lightbulbs and so forth.
Anyways, my crack team of fellow contributors were supposed to pick up the slack, but instead they slacked off, so we’ve left you all out in the cold. Sorry!
This weekend Rifles Ready! will return to form, with an all-new Battle Report on a ridiculous replay between Calneon and some top-ranked Panzer Elite player (with a wub factor in the triple digits!).
You can also expect me to resume editing and releasing Surprise’s budding classic, Fear and Loathing and Kane’s Wrath in Los Angeles.
I’ll post some pix of the house when I get a chance. Stay tuned and to quote the Rev. Jesse Jackson: “Keep hope alive! And keep hope alive!“
Hello furry friends from the far outposts of the world, it’s been a few long weeks. Just in case anyone is wondering what is up with the website (over a week and no new content *shock gasp horror*) I can vouch that everyone is busy with life in some ways or another.
Me? As regular readers would know I had experienced some overheating problems with my computer, resulting in a military units non gratakerfuffle that rendered my computer unusable. A quick trip to the PC service bloke revealed a mandatory hardware upgrade that was not only long overdue, but also a big slap to my wallet.
Almost a month later and weeks behind in blog posts schedule – Rifles Ready! amongst them – I return with a rather bleak view of the cost of hardware. Ok I kid, but still it hurts to fork out that much when the worldwide economy experiences a downward spiral, second only to the pittance of the miscreant that is the Australian dollar.
As a further insult, I struggled with the re-installation of COH and OF and her relevant patches (1.77GB patch anyone?). And when I finally got around to playing (some seven hours later) I looked like a kid with an ice cream cone in his hand, as I got beat down silly by a scout car spamming PE player.
Staff departures and personnel issues are responsible for COH’s lengthy beta patch process and the company’s overall lack of responsiveness for the last three months, according to a Relic official. In a remarkably honest, matter-of-fact audio interview with GR.org, “Thunder” — Relic’s community manager — reveals that the departure of key COH programmers slowed the patching process and admitted that his myriad responsibilities have limited Relic’s overall responsiveness to its fanbase. Thunder also revealed numerous tidbits about COH: Tales of Valor which I’ll sum up below.
GR.org shoutcasters Yoink and Bawx gingerly but persistently eased the explanations out of Thunder, who sounds like an honest, simple guy answering questions with a minimum of PR spin. Why has the beta taken so long? Well, key COH staffers left Relic while others were reassigned to other projects — specifically Dawn of War II and COH: ToV. When key staffers leave, their replacements need time to get backup to speed. “There was definitely some attrition on our end,” Thunder admits,.
What apparently doesn’t help is the massive workload Relic’s lone community manager must handle. By his own admission, Thunder is responsible for:
- Reviewing and responding to all drophacking allegations for COH
- Reading the forums at RelicNews, GR.org and PlanetCOH daily to answer questions and take notes on the state of the community
- Respond to general user feedback and emails
- Rinse and repeat for ALL OTHER RELIC GAMES
The last item probably is responsible for tripling the guy’s responsibilities. I still don’t think that fully justifies the lack of communication (just say you’re busy, that’s better than nothing), but Thunder deserves some slack for the fact that he’s relatively new.
Other intriguing facts about how Relic works and its future plans for COH:
- Thunder sits in the same room as the staffers responsible for balancing COH, and communicates usually by yelling in their general direction (i.e. not via emails)
- Thunder is a “middle man” who communicates player feedback to the programmers without injecting his own opinions
- Relic has no special plans to push for COH’s entre into professional gaming organizations like World Cyber Games (WCG)
- Relic is aware of the state of the community and is looking to start wrapping things up
- Beta patch 2.506 will be the final patch that will ship to retail
And now, the promised tidbits on COH: ToV:
- Direct fire mode is a mode allowing you to manually control a vehicle, specifically when it fires, what it fires at and how it moves
- Direct fire mode will NOT EVER be useable against another player (i.e. solo only)
- Confirmed: the Tiger Ace Campaign is ToV-only material
- Confirmed: there will be new multiplayer modes (see previous coverage), though Thunder can’t explain exactly what they are
The accuracy of the American Bombing Run seems to vary widely, with some runs doing very little damage even though visually the explosions appear right on target. By the same token, some runs don’t their targets head-on at all, yet kill armored targets like Tigers via splash damage. What’s really annoying is that the splash radius is just about invisible, for all intents and purposes.
You’ll want to be aware of this when you’re aiming your runs. There will be an Advanced Tip down the road where I’ll diagram a few bombing run screenshots in an attempt to isolate the specific splash radius. But for now — a fun video for you to watch.
In this extended video, you will see TWO separate bombing runs. The first occurs immediately, with one explosion striking a Tiger I dead-on but inflicting maybe 10% damage. The second bombing run occurs near the end of this clip (I dropped the second run) and is FAR more effective, though you wouldn’t think so based on where the explosions land.
The second run destroys the Tiger (it had about 20% health remaining) AND a full-health Stuka halftrack. The explosions don’t appear to hit either vehicle, it’s the splash damage that counts. Be patient, the fatal bombing run appears at the end of the exchange, before it happens the Tiger duels a Sherman, destroys it but takes heavy damage from an AT gun. Only THEN does my P-47 finish the job. This was from a 2v2 game I played with a partner, who was also Airborne.
I’ll be spending this weekend — and indeed much of this week — closing on my first house, fixing it up, moving in and showing it off to renters. All these things will be done by the end of this weekend, so as you can imagine, I will be extremely busy. I’ll still be posting, and you can expect the next installment of Surprise’s popular WCG series by the weekend. Beyond that there are some more tip posts and a new Battle Report in the pipeline.
Fortunately I will have considerable time off for Thanksgiving (an entire week), so you can expect content on Rifles Ready! to continue flowing.
The eagle eyes of our reporters here at Rifles Ready! spotted a brief post over at PlanetCOH that purports to be a translation of a German gaming magazine’s preview of COH: Tales of Valor. Can you say all that five times fast? While I fully agree this information has traveled a remarkable distance (German-language magazine to translation by someone at the RelicNews forum to PlanetCOH to Rifles Ready!), it does seem totally genuine.
Here’s my summary of the translated information from the German magazine, PC Games.
There will be a new multiplayer mode where you — and possibly a teammate or two – must defend a civilian town against AI opponents.
There will be at least one new campaign, the Tiger Ace campaign, in which you will control ONE Tiger tank and possibly some support troops. Could this be the “direct-fire” mode?
This campaign will play out in a special mode; the Tiger will be controlled by four soldiers, each with unique skills that can be improved with accumulated experience. There’s a maximum “level” cap of four. Increased levels allow the soldiers to provide the Tiger with new abilities. For instance, your gunner will gain the ability to fire high-explosive rounds when he’s leveled up. Other abilities will allow you to improve the Tiger’s maneuverability attributes. Experience gained and abilities upgraded will be preserved between missions.
The other new campaigns will take place in Normandy, but no word on whether they’ll be like the Tiger Ace campaign or be more conventional.
This is vague, but the German preview mentions Relic discussing “a system which lets the AI only see what a real tank could see.” I have no idea what this means, but maybe it means the Tiger can only see directly in front of it, with the fog of war obscuring everything outside that narrow area? Your guess is as good as mine.
There is no word on any new factions, but designers did mention an introductory cinematic that takes place in… *drumroll please* … LENINGRAD! Also PlanetCOH quotes the magazine as saying “the lead designer didn’t want to talk about things like ‘Russia’ (yet…).”
The Essence engine which powers COH will NOT be upgraded in ToV.
Please remember, as far as Rifles Ready! is concerned, these details are all very open to debate. The information here is like fifth-hand and filtered through a translation. It most definitely doesn’t meet our ideal journalistic standard, which would call for us to independently confirm the translation. Alas, I speak no German.
So: take it all with a grain of salt and wait for Relic to do an English-language interview. The fact they gave an exclusive to a German magazine must say a lot about COH’s fanbase, no?
Out fighting on the sunny fields of Angoville for this battle report is our blog founder, Corkscrewblow taking on top-ranked Panzer Elite player KZ4kot in a relatively short yet instructive fight. I’ll be doing the reviewing this game as part of my return to the blog and giving a few pointers to Cork on the nuances of American vs PE play. Cork uses a bold upgraded Rifle/Airborne strategy while KZ4kot uses an old PE standby, the Armored Car (AC) rush. Can Cork’s Americans take the heat?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Steven “Surprise” Uray, one of the great COH players of our time, recently returned from the World Cyber Games national final in Los Angeles, Calif., and has quite a tale to tell. I freely admit that this material isn’t directly relevant to COH, but as any editor worth the title knows, you never pass up posting good stuff if you can help it. Surprise’s account of his experiences, which we will release bi-weekly for probably a month or so, is sharply written and deeply personal. I am sure all RTS gamers will be able to relate, and see much of themselves in the people he captures with each keystroke. – Corkscrewblow
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” -– Hunter S. Thompson
Cars and women not included with your stay.
“This is it, lets do it man,” I thought to myself as I shut off my alarm clock. I was already instantly awake at 6 a.m., despite getting only a few hours of anxious sleep. It was time to leave for the World Cyber Games USA national final, an overly dramatic name for a video game tournament. I had spent the past few months preparing for it, and I was glad it was finally time to play. I felt ready to redeem myself for an embarrassing 0-2 loss at my previous WCG event, the Pacific regional qualifier. A few hours later, I found myself in the back of a cab, wind blowing through my hair and Pendulum playing in my headphones. I felt a little like a rock star racing along a highway toward the Wilshire Grand, the hotel hosting the WCG and its 200 competitors for three nights. I grew more excited as downtown Los Angeles drew closer, with its huge skyscrapers glinting in the sun. We passed by the Los Angeles Convention center, where the “E for All” gaming expo was about to begin.
Wow, has Election Day 2008 been a big news day or what? First Surprise returns, then Rifles Ready! endorses Barack Obama, and now our reporters have gotten ahold of an official press release from THQ announcing a new, standalone COH expansion pack called Tales of Valor. Rifles Ready! was one of the first sites to report the rumors of COH: ToV, but actual verifiable news of its existence, or what it was, has been nonexistent up until the unveiling of the press release yesterday.
Here’s what we know so far: - ToV will be a standalone game, much like Opposing Fronts; presumably a huge patch awaits vCOH and Opposing Fronts-only players when ToV comes out, so they can see new units but not use any new armies
- Three new single-player campaigns
- New multiplayer modes
- New maps and units
- A new “direct-fire” feature that allows players “more tactical control of their units and more strategic options in-game”
- THQ lists a release date of “spring 2009″ but retailers including Amazon.com have long listed a more specific date of March 9, 2009
Nowhere in the press release or any official material does it say there are any new armies or factions, but we believe there’s a high probability there will be new armies. Given the ripe history Relic can draw from, it’s not inconceivable to imagine the Russians being added to the Allied side and the Japanese appearing on the Axis side.
There are no specifics on what the new units will be, aside from the press release’s generic statement that ToV will cover some of the most “historic, tide-turning clashes of World War II.”
There’s a single canned quote from a PR official, which I excerpt here:
“‘In Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, we’re offering players a ton of rich, new content including more strategic options in single-player and multiplayer,’ said Tarrnie Williams, general manager, Relic Entertainment. ‘With fresh new campaigns and multiplayer modes, brand-new units, additional maps and the introduction of the ‘direct-fire’ feature, we’re once again committed to delivering the best in strategic gaming.’”
You can view the full press release here, but it contains little information that we haven’t covered in this post. We can probably also explain why so little resources appear to have been directed to patching COH and Opposing Fronts; between developing ToV and Dawn of War II, Relic’s relatively small team has been stretched thin.
This may come far too late to change the minds of any undecided, COH-playing American voters, but after a lengthy discussion with our editorial board, Rifles Ready!is hereby endorsing the junior senator from Illinois for president of the United States of America. We believe Sen. Barack Obama’s platform, built around his call for change, could only bring good tidings to COH and our beloved game’s community. We need change — from retail 2.301 to whatever the final iteration of the balance patch will be. We need change — from a broken system of poor communication and infrequent updates from Relic, to a more responsive and accountable Relic. We need change – to nerf sickeningly powerful Panzer Elite Armored Cars in retail to buffing underpowered elements of the Wehrmacht and the American Armor Company.
To be clear, we admire Sen. John McCain. He’s for buffing the Strafing Run. He supports adding a nuclear version of the Bombing Run. A veteran himself, he wants better Rifle squad veterancy. He is one of the few senior politicians in the Republican party who has walked the walk, proving that he is a genuine American hero with five years of imprisonment in Vietnam and the scars to prove that he puts his country first. He’s one of the few conservatives still true to the principles of conservatism in a party dominated by theocratic culture warriors and Machiavellian, right-wing hawks. He has a proven record of being a maverick in his long years in the Senate and he’s been one of the most accessible politicians of all time, famous for answering reporters’ questions till no one can think of anything else to ask him.
Yet sadly, in our judgement, the John McCain who did the things we listed above is not the same John McCain running for president in 2008. This new McCain has abandoned virtually all of his anti-Republican positions to curry favor with the Republican base, but that isn’t the only reason Rifles Ready! cannot endorse him this year.
We feel Sen. McCain would stay the course indefinitely with the balance beta, when all signs point to a rapidly diminishing retail fan base that desperately wants SOME semblance of balance in the retail game, ASAP. He would rather us spend 100 years perfecting balance in the beta, when the wiser course is clear: get the beta out with a majority of the most pressing changes, then take time leisurely to pursue minor improvements in the name of perfect balance.
So if you haven’t already, go vote for the Obama-Biden ticket, which will bring change, balance and if the hype is to be believed — world peace via slower-firing Armored Cars.
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Posted by CorkscrewBlow 
