Yep, we're getting closer. We've finished a few more playtests, and we have more to come in the near future. All of our servers are now up and running again. Woohoo! So, it's Saturday. As you know, the FF devs don't do anything except work on FF. Since everyone was so freakin' bored, we figured, "Hey, why not show some more media?" Huh, not a bad idea. Here you go. P.S. the FF media page has a few more pieces waiting for you.

Update We initially thought there was a problem with the linux server, but it would now appear that the error was a false positive; I'm very happy to report that the linux server should work fine! To clarify: The Linux server package is exactly the same as the one that was previously uploaded & then removed from the site, so if you already have it, you don't need to re-download. See below for links. Windows Dedicated Server Fileplanet Hl2 filefront Torrent Linux Dedicated Server Fileplanet HL2 filefront Torrent

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Fortress_Forver_1_1_Patch_Officially_Released';The 1.1 patch is out! Edited in note: 1. Be sure to back up any configs you have as they'll get overwritten it seems! 2. We accidentally added a handful of incomplete maps. Most of them aren't even playable or up to date; they were included by mistake. I.e. if the map wasn't in the initial release, don't run it on your server unless you want to empty it. We recommend downloading it through CrosuS - if you have CrosuS then click here!. Don't have CrosuS? Click here! Otherwise there is a full 597 MB version or an 87 MB version to take you from 1.0 to 1.1: Incremental (1.0 to 1.1): Torrent FortressPimp File Front Wire Play AE Clan Atreus - Dongues.net Steam Friends Strategy Informer exp.de Gamershell Bitt News FilePlanet Full: Torrent FortressPimp Atreus - Dongues.net AE Clan Steam Friends exp.de Gamershell Bitt News FilePlanet Mirrors will be added as they become available.

As we make the final push for release we are asking for the HL2 community's help. We see the need to bring on a new group of testers who can help with load testing, as well as provide feedback and influence improvements on the first gameplay experience new players will have. If you are a player of Half-Life mods, curious what the game is all about and most importantly feel you could contribute to making it better then you are the person we are looking for. But remember before you apply that beta testing is not simply for fun, it can be repetitive and boring at times. We favor testers who are willing to help out with the mod in various ways, not simply play the game -- you will be an extension of the dev. team, and should take and expect responsibility as such, especially in this crunch time phase. Examples: - Detailed report on first impressions of the mod and gameplay - Helping other beta testers with problems in IRC / forums - Updating bug reports and providing detailed feedback about bug reproduction - Helping out community mappers test maps - Help organise testing groups - Any other talents you can contribute Above all, the ability to constructively communicate is a must. Remember to register on the forums if you have not before sending the application. You will need this valid forum name and a Half-Life 2 / HL2 Deathmatch SteamID to be considered. The format to send your application to fortressforeverbeta@gmail.com is as follows: SUBJECT: Fortress Forever Beta Tester: *forum nickname* *steamid* e.g. Fortress Forever Beta Tester: AfterShock STEAM_0:1:2423 Name: Age: Location: Halflife and Halflife2 gaming history (mods etc): Ingame Alias: Previous testing experience: Current commitments (job / school etc): Hours available per week: Computer spec (cpu / gfx / ram): Why would you make a good beta tester? (no more than 250 words) Remember not to miss the update below as well, cheers :)

Yes, animation fixes are one thing that has held back some media and videos, but we figured we would show some of the fun things possible in Fortress Forever as our coders close out the remaining features. Psycnet, one of our beta testers, has been putting together a video recently that shows off the free form movement possible in the game. It's cool to see how quick some of our testers have picked up these moves when 'tribal knowledge', special rate settings and scripts are taken out of the equation, and they seem to be having a blast doing it :) The video primarily shows off weapon, conc and double jumping in the game, sometimes all in the same sequence. Knowing our beta testers, some of it is completely random as well. I hope you enjoy; without further ado: HD version: Mirror #2 Mirror #3 Youtube: 640 version: Mirror #1 Mirror #2 Mirror #3 Mirror #4 320/Ipod Video: Mirror #1 On the mapping front Defrag has completely re-done the visuals on shutdown 2, where he has really hashed out a fantastic theme. Unfortunately these didn't make it in time for the video, but he provided us some quick shots for the update. Some more shutdown2 shots can be found on the media page. We've also gotten significant updates to Cornfield, and Aftershock continues to be a programming machine. Currently he is adding a lot of functionality to the HUD that both old and new players will appreciate. Rest assured a lot of action is happening behind the scenes, and we're feeling good for the stretch run.

Some of us have gotten the equivalent of one nights sleep this week, but I hope it isn't all for naught. Big news soon.

Server News Just a quick note to say that, currently, we have adequate server resources to run a successful beta test. Thanks to all of the people and companies that offered us support -- we greatly appreciate your time and interest. If our situation changes in future, we'll post some news on the website and/or get in touch with people who have already been in contact, but right now we're not in need of more servers for the beta. To the companies whose servers we are using: we'll put up some information & buttons etc. soon. Thanks to all. General Beta Stuff The beta testing is going pretty smoothly. We've got a few more humps to get over, but in general things are going just fine. A big thanks to PHISH & co for putting in so much work to get all of the beta testers set up and also to the testers themselves.

I may as well drop a quick update on the goings on at FF towers. I'd post it on the front page, but I don't think it's a good idea to bump the file links down the page just yet. Firstly, I want to extend a huge thank you to Kyle (PHISH) for taking charge of the good ship FF and sacrificing his sleep for a week. I reckon the poor chap was probably out on his feet for the last couple of days, but he contributed in so many areas and made the release happen despite the rather testing circumstances. Also, thanks to all of the devs who have been around and working really hard, the dedicated members of the beta testing team and also to the forum moderators. Finally, thanks to all you guys who downloaded the mod and hosted servers & files. We had a slight mishap with the linux dedicated server where a tester identified a crashing problem, but it turned out to be entirely unrelated to FF. The dedicated server does have a few warnings here and there, but it's proven to be very stable on release. We've had guys running servers that have been rock solid from release time right up 'til this moment. That's a great feeling! There are a few server crash problems out there, but they are very minor; more on that later. The response has been overwhelmingly positive; while we were proud of our work, there is always a slight sense of trepidation regarding what the response will be like; in this case, our fears were unfounded! In short, I think we have a solid base to build on. Over 350 servers appeared over 36 hours immediately following the release, and we've had a consistent 900-1600 people playing every time I check the stats. The devs have had a blast jumping onto servers and playing with everyone. Now, I'll quickly move on to the problems we'll be looking to remedy with a patch. There is no official date set (what with us being awesome with release dates, how about September 2035?) but you can expect it ... soon. For the first patch or two, our focus will be on fixing client crashes & the most visible / annoying bugs. You can expect constantly support in the future and gameplay balancing & tweaking etc. but right now, we're only concerned with patching the bigger bugs. You can see a known bug list here. There are more that we know about, and we'll keep adding them to that list until we have a better bug reporting mechanism in place. Client crashing There have been numerous reports of clients crashing. Now, a lot of people have been looking forward to FF for a long time and, sometimes, this is the first game they've played in ages. We're finding that quite a few of the crashes are either hardware problems (PC not used to the stresses of modern games / overheating etc.), driver based (changing drivers fixes the problem) or source based (PC crashes in identical circumstances when attempting to play other source mods or games). Also, there was an update to the Source SDK base (which is what the mod runs with) on the night of release, so that also complicated matters slightly. Please bear these factors in mind if you crash; it may not be a FF specific problem. However, there definitely are FF-specific crashes mixed in and we're looking to solve these very shortly. If you have a crash and feel it is likely FF-specific, then please feel free to drop by our forums and read the stickied threads. If these do not help you resolve the issue, then please leave your .mdmp files for us to debug. You can find this thread (with instructions) here. These files act as a black box flight recorder and help us to zone in on problem areas. Scores & notices breaking Sometimes on a server, the scoreboard & kill notices will simply stop updating and displaying respectively. This did happen during our beta testing, but it was so infrequent that it was difficult to reproduce & solve. Unfortunately, when we released it seems to have started cropping up with a lot more frequency. We'll be looking to sort this out as soon as possible. Death slant This one is a known issue and is fairly well known to us. Unfortunately we didn't manage to fix it before we released the mod. If it happens to you, you have two options. One: Kill yourself (not in real life, I may add). Two: Get Creative. We should hopefully have a fix for this coming very soon. We have a decent idea of how to fix it thanks to DrEvil. Voice icons For some reason unknown to us, the voice icons have disappeared. I've got no idea what happened as they worked in beta right up to the release. We're working on getting these back (so you can figure out who is singing "Go West" to the rest of the server and then applaud their amazing talents). Server crashing There are some infrequent server crashes out there (I've got 5 .mdmp files sitting here where the server has crashed in the same place) so we'll be working on fixing those. I should stress that these crashes are very infrequent for the majority of server operators and that I've yet to hear players complaining about server crash issues. I'll round this off by saying thanks again. There's more to come from the dev team. Also, community geezers, get mapping & customising FF!

It's me again! I'm currently awaiting FC's return so we can finish what's left of the weapons -- that will be a blast. Hopefully it will go really fast as he will now be able to work full time on FF and i can also dedicate as much time as usual :P It's not like i'm sitting around scratching my beard while i'm waiting, though a couple of days ago i completed all the sentry guns with the exception of some minor tweaking of specular and normal maps to give it that last piece of umph. Right now the spec map is a little weak. It was a pretty big task to get these completed, to be honest. while i worked on level 3 it became more and more clear to me that the other two sgs didnt really work that well together and they didnt work with the level 3 at all. The main issue was that the level 2 sg in particular didnt flow very well, so i decided on a theme for all the sgs that would make the flow between the three stages better. This meant revising my old sg .psds and their massive 100 to 130 layered uvmaps at a high texture resolution. Not all that much fun to be honest! The extra work and hassle payed off in the end though, big time. I achevied my goal, to make the sgs be more of a family rather than just three different buildable structures (like it was in the past). I also continued my quest to complete as many props as i can before we start finishing off the weapon models. Theres really not much to say about the props; they are just small-to-medium-sized objects that help give the maps that extra little flare. Most of the props ive worked on / been working on in the last week have been for Push, and once i get a detail prop for the skybox out of the way i will focus my efforts towards the Avanti props. And there's alot of 'em. :) There has been quite alot of stuff for me to focus on, though, and it feels good to be able to assign certain things that i can't find the time to do or that i feel that someone else will do a better job on to another member. Blunkka is the member of choice for thoose kind of jobs right now -- he's a very talented suomi lad! It's pretty quiet in the ff camp right now. There's alot of work going on but most of it is stuff that people don't really see. A lot of bug crushing and tweaking. The time when people are done with their educational work is approaching and i can't wait. I'm really eager to finish this mod and get it out of the way so we can let you guys play and so that i can focus on my education. During the last year ive pretty much worked full time on FF and now i just got confirmed a place at the university i applied for. I'm not quite sure what i will be taking, to be honest. I applied for 3D Design and Animation as that's a required course before you take 3D Game Design. I asked in the application if my experience with modding and game development was good enough to just go straight onto the game design course (which focuses mainly on level design, and i have enough 3d experience for that) and i just got the mail yesterday that i was accepted, but it didn't say for what. However, the mail said something like "If you have any questions about your course please contact ..... " and he's the guy in charge of 3D Game Design. I guess i'll find out soon enough ;) Well.. i dont know what more to say really, i'll put a new journal up when i have something to add :) Bit tired now, been up all night painting the downstairs bathroom. Was going to finish a few avanti props but for some reason i started painting it and i couldnt find any reason to stop. Hope someone thinks its an interesting read :P

Just a heads up that the 1.1 patch is about to come out - like tonight (Wednesday) PST or tomorrow morning (Thursday) PST. We're planning to primarily release through CrosuS (click this text to go to the site) with torrents as well. CrosuS is similar to STEAM - here's a blurb from the site: CrosuS is a complete game management system. It provides a central download and update mechanism for an ever-expanding list of games and mods, plus it displays a browsable list of games along with screenshots, descriptions, user ratings and comments to help you find new things to play. In addition to the download features, CrosuS also contains a built-in IRC chat client to help find other players to talk to, it contains a news notification system to keep you updated on Isotx or game developments, and we're planning to host some game tournaments through CrosuS. Our vision for CrosuS is for it to become a community-driven tool. We allow users add mods to CrosuS themselves so that content appears quickly, and reflects what the gaming community want, we're working on a matchmaking system to help schedule games, and we're working on integrating more of these items into the Hive website. Through CrosuS you'll be able to easily update your 1.0 version of Fortress Forever to 1.1 by only downloading the files that have changed (and all with the click of one button). DrEvil says: Why are we using Crosus? There is a lot to gain by having the ability to provide small incremental updates to the game, especially for a small team. Had we released 1.0 on CrosuS we could have been rolling out more frequent updates all this time. The 'release early and often' concept is very difficult to pull off on a small team. Alot of effort goes into just the packaging and uploading of distributable content, finding mirrors, etc. CrosuS saves time on the developer and user side. We'll also have a full 1.1 .zip file (597 MB) and a 1.0->1.1 incremental .zip file (87.1 MB) available via .torrent from the start. If you would like to host a mirror please let us know somehow.