[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nUpodFv-c[/youtube]
Warhawk v1.5 Update “Free Never Gets Old!”
+ Posted by Dylan Jobe // Game Director, Warhawk
In our ever-changing world, a world where Brett Favre is now a Jet, things can happen very quickly! So it should be expected that another FREE Warhawk Update be released with equal quickness! :-)
OMG…he’s a Jet…I still can’t get over it but, whatever.
We just released our v1.4 Update a month ago and we’re ready to upgrade our players to the latest version–Warhawk v1.5 which is tentatively scheduled for release on August 27th. We’re currently in the final phase of global Sony certification testing and all is looking good so far!
“Tell us Dylan…What’s in the latest Update???”
Custom In-Game Music
This feature was asked for by a bazillion players! Now players can use the XMB music player to play their own custom music. Warhawk will also detect if you are using the XMB player and automatically disable the in-game Warhawk music. Convenience for the win!
XMB Trophies
I have talked about this several times before so this is by no means new-news…especially with the recent leak of our full trophy list – gotta love the internets. BTW, the team and I are really flattered that someone would risk their job to leak confidential info about our game — Makes us feel good in a weird kinda way.
Anyhoo….
There are 56 trophies included in the Warhawk v1.5 Update. These also include trophies for the booster packs, some of the trophies are, or rather *were*, hidden and some are retroactive based on your server-side stats. Here are just a few of the trophies that are included.
Training Tutorials
As more and more people join the Warhawk community, we are seeing an even greater difference between skill-levels than ever before. New Warhawk players had to go online in order to learn the game and, invariably, they would encounter enemy players that were, shall we say, not too kind to newbies :) This made it really hard for players to learn the ropes, get familiar with the controls, weapons, etc.
So…The new v1.5 Update includes 4 very simple tutorials that can be played off-line. Each one focuses on the core principals of each of the 3 modes of gameplay: Infantry, Ground Vehicles and Aircraft. Now these tutorials are very, very simple and It wouldn’t surprise me if some of our more hardcore players find them way too pedestrian. But we’re looking to help the *new* player, a player that may not be that familiar with Warhawk or the shooter genre. These tutorials are an invaluable help to a newbie!!!
After completing each of the 3 core tutorials a trophy is unlocked – a nice incentive for new players and, well…all you avid Warhawk players can think of them as “easy-money”.
The forth training tutorial, “Flight Practice” is intended to be replayed over and over again, and help players get familiar with the most rewarding, and most challenging of the 3 gameplay modes: Piloting Aircraft!
In this one, you are tasked with destroying as many attack drones as possible in 3 minutes. These simple, hovering turrets fire swarm missiles at you as you practice flying and “scrubbing” missiles. This tutorial is a huge help for new players by giving them a safe, offline way to practice their piloting skills.
Now I know that there are many players out there that often engage in 1v1 dogfights for fun and bragging rights. And while these tutorials are way, way below your skill-level, you may find it fun to do “speed-runs” and compare kill counts.
Retract Clan Invites
Another feature that players, or more specifically, clan-leaders have asked for, is the ability to retract a clan invite that they have sent to a player. For whatever reason, that player maybe never responded to the invite, was being a…a…what’s a blog-safe term that I won’t get in trouble for using??? How about “tool”, yes I’ll use the term tool. So if a player is being a tool and just camping on your invite…you can pull it back. This is important to clan admins because there is a fixed number of clan invites (64) that an admin can have pending at any one time.
New Paint Schemes & Insignias
Awhile ago you all may recall that we held a competition in the USA where players could submit their own Warhawk and Nemesis paint schemes. We selected the 20 best ones and integrated them with the v1.3 update. Well, we held another competition but this time for our players in Europe. We got some great submissions for paint schemes and insignias, and we’re glad to show you all the winners! All of these, the 20 new paint schemes and 50 new insignias are included in the v1.5 update and of course they are free as are all of our updates
GGL Ceremonial Blades
The GGL recently held a Warhawk tournament and you probably saw the post from our Sr. Producer at SCEA, Harvard Bonin. Below is an image of the new GGL-Ceremonial Knife that participants in the GGL tournament will receive automatically when the v1.5 update is released. You don’t have to do anything to enable it…the global Warhawk server knows if you were in the tournament and will auto-grant you the award
For you members ARMED^ASSASSIN’s, the next time you player after the v1.5 update is released, your infantry combat blade will be replaced by the Champion’s Blade (seen below) and you’ll be the only players on the planet with this item!
What’s more fun than a Trophy that you can beat someone with? – I submit…NOTHING :)
“Rookie” Server Color-Coding
We also have added an attractive green color to all official “rookie” server names in the server list. Players that are eligible to play on rookie servers will find these servers sorted to the top of the list automagically for easy selection.
To recap the color coding, Blue servers are official Sony hosted servers, Yellow servers are games launched from HOME, and Green servers are reserved for “rookies”.
We have also fixed the exploit that allowed some players to host unlimited flag capture games, get underneath and into the battlefield and act like….like tools. We also fixed the issue with Quick Join that required you to have stats previously posted in order for it to work properly, and a few other items…ohh yeah, and the 1-minute farming of the Winning Team Ribbon has been fixed. Oh…and one more thing, we are going to be rolling-out version checking on the EULA and announcements so if you have already seen them and they haven’t changed, Warhawk will automatically bypass those screens for you.
Some of you may have read some rumors about our next Booster Pack…I can neither confirm nor deny anything…at least for right now :) Keep your eyes peeled for an update here on the blog and the media coverage at Leipzig which is right around the corner!!!
Last hint…and this is an easy one:
With one of these equipped, a soldier can escape quickly…even bail out if needed!
As always –
on!
-dylan
