Attention, soldiers! We’re posting this bulletin to keep you all up-to-date on the latest going-abouts! From weekly linebattles, new features and fixes, and future development ideas, our line of battle still presses on. At the end of this post you can find a link to an opinion survey of ours.

Linebattles Every Wednesday hosted by 3D

On every Wednesday, at 8:30pm EST/ 12:30am UTC (i.e. early Thursday morning for EU players), the 3D clan is hosting a public linebattle. Maps vary from game to game, and they play custom ones too! Eventually we’ll try to get weekly EU linebattle running too, probably on the weekends. Stay tuned for more info on that! Below is a screenshot from our last linebattle.

Mini-Updates!

Over the past few months there have been a series of small updates and fixes summarized here:

• Added an ‘asay‘ command for admins to text-chat directly with other admins.
• Changes from Bg_Canal_Test (as included in the previous large update) have been merged into Bg_Canal proper. These changes make it much more difficult to spawncamp on the map.
• More fixes to rare bugs with the election/voting menu.
• Fixed an out-of-bounds exploit on Bg_Blackswamp
• Fixed bot AI bug where bots sometimes targeted friendly players when they weren’t supposed to.
• Removed watermelons!

Development Direction

We have two new features undergoing development right now. The first is an authentic set of French-language voices from 66th member TheSoul, for the French Officer variant of the American Officer. Viv la France! The second (initially developed by Ricochet), pictured in a WIP image below, are on-screen icons for flags that should help new players understand where their objectives are (of course, experienced players will be able to turn these off.)

After those two features, further updates will be focused on quality-of-life changes to make the game easier to play and understand for new players. Among many other ideas, an example would be a hint-system which walks players through their first time using the team menu and class menu.

For those interested, we also have an opinion survey on what grand direction future BG3 development should take—continuing on the source engine, or migrating to Unreal Engine 5?

Stay tuned for more—until then, we’ll see you on the battlefield!

Attention, soldiers! Today we released an update that will give you unprecedented control over your Battle Grounds III games—a voting system! Vote for the next map, vote to mute annoying music spammers, vote to kick teamkilling trolls, vote to scramble the teams, and more!

Vote Commands

Enter these commands into the chat (no prefix), with your selection/options appended to the end, to create a vote for other players to vote on! Some votes are universal, meaning both teams vote on them, while others are team-specific, such that both teams can be voting on separate issues. The duration of a vote is controlled by sv_vote_duration.

votekick [targetPlayer]

• Creates a vote for whether or not to kick the targeted player.
• Can only kick players on the same team as you.
• Not universal, i.e. Team-specific vote.
• Controlled on server by sv_vote_kick_enabled and sv_vote_kick_ratio.

votemute [targetPlayer]

• Creates a vote for whether or not to silence the targeted player.
• Universality dependent on sv_alltalk and mp_competitive.
• Controlled on server by sv_vote_mute_enabled and sv_vote_mute_ratio

votescramble

• Creates a vote on whether or not to scramble the teams
• Universal – both teams can vote on it.
• Controlled on server by sv_vote_scramble_enabled and sv_vote_scramble_ratio

vote [option1] [option2…]

• Creates a generic multichoice vote. The result does not lead to any automated actions, so server admins will have to do what they want with the results.
• Only admins can use this command.
• Universal – both teams can vote on it.

votemap [map]

votemap [map_prefix]

votemap [map1] [map2…]

• This is the most diversely functional vote command, with three different modes based on what parameters are provided.
• All three modes are universal.
• The first mode “votemap [map]” lets any player create a vote to change to the specified map. It is controlled by sv_vote_mapchange_enabled and sv_vote_mapchange_ratio.
• The second mode “votemap [map_prefix]” is usable only by admins, and is used to create a gamemode-specific multichoice map vote with images. Example commands are “votemap bg”, “votemap sg”, “votemap lb”, “votemap ctf”.
• The third mode “votemap [map1] [map2…]” is usable only by admins, and is used to create a customized multichoice map vote with images. Up to 6 maps can be named, and at least 2 must be named.
• There is an automated end-of-map multichoice map vote with images. Maps can be nominated with the “nominate” command for this. The vote does not occur during competitive play or when a map has otherwise already been selected. The timing of the vote can be controlled by sv_vote_mapchoice_start_time. The maps randomly put up for vote are chosen based on the number of players on the server, so that players will receive optimally-sized maps.

Adding Custom Maps to Map Voting

For server admins, there is a file you have to edit in order to add custom maps to the map voting system. It is located at bg3/cfg/mapelections.res . The file contains seven lists of maps used in different situations. Read the documentation there carefully, follow the correct format, and add your custom maps accordingly—if you run into issues, @ us in the Battle Grounds III Discord!

Some official maps are already included in the lists in that file, though hiddenly. All official lb, ctf, sg, and bg maps are already in their homonymous lists.

For what maps are already included in the public_large, public_medium, and public_small lists, refer to the images below.

public_large

public_medium

public_small

There is a heinous monster afoot…
it must die, or we’ll all be kaput.
It stalks the swamps and ruins at night
setting Britons and ‘Mericans afright.
It is summoned by absence of light,
glowing pumpkins smiling in delight.
Who will step up as our heroic knight
and save us all from this evil sprite.

Trick or treat, soldiers! This coming Halloween on Sunday the 31st, at 2pm EST / 7pm BST, the Battle Grounds III Official FRANKFURT Server will be hosting our first ever Halloween event… will you be the one to vanquish the terrible beast? Join us for a fun time on the NEWLY REIMAGINED map Bg_Blackswamp from BG2.

Accompanying the event, and ONE HOUR prior to it (at 1pm EST/6pm BST), the game will receive an update to support this event, while ALSO delivering long-awaited features, including the VOTING SYSTEM that will let players vote for map changes, mute players, scramble teams, etc. Servers MUST update at the same time in order for updated players to be able to connect.

See you all in the swamps and catacombs…

(If the FRANKFURT server fills up, the NEW YORK server will also be used to host a simultaneous event)

Attention, soldiers! It has been a while since the game received a large update; however, over the past few months, the game has nonetheless received a larger number of smaller updates. Their changes are summarized here.

• Added sg_boston to default mapcycle
• Fixed British Officer model
• Fixed Light Infantry hitboxes
• Adjusted hitboxes on Jaegar, Native, Frontiersman, Continental Officer, and French Officer models
• Added missing out of tickets texts
• Added mp_tickets_timelimit to siege cfgs
• New knife animations (again)
• New Tomahawk animations
• New “Newfoundland Infantry” model for the Green Light Infantry uniform
• Experimental new weapon, the gunstock war club for native (it does more damage when swung in the air, and gives a speed boost on each kill)
• Added bg_horseshoe as semi-official map
• Buffed Trade Musket and Dagger weapons
• Tweaks to bg_abbey
• Fixed lighting on a barrel model
• Removed deroga from default mapcycle until such time that it can be fixed
• Players now have to join a team (or spectate) before being able to chat
• Tweaked exp bottle texture
• Added maps/vmfs/example_map as an example map for mapper
• New Spontoon and beltaxe animations
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur in the class menu
• Fixed weird cartridge paper in the Sea Service and Common Carbine reload animations.
• Fixed issue whereby players would be mistakenly auto-oppressed.
• Added many new props for mapmakers, courtesy of danihel
• Added missing gunstock world model and menu icons
• Tweaked gunstock adrenaline mechanic
• Tweaked bottle hit-world sound
• Bots no longer block XP
• Added bot_minplayers_delay to control when the server checks whether or not it should add bots after map change
• EXP system is now at least temporarily enabled on every map.
• Darkened the bonus 4th American uniform to make its ‘camoflouge’ ability more closely match other uniforms.
• Added new quality models courtesy of @danihel (can we get that fish to be an alternative to the bottle?)
• Added gag and ungag command for stopping a player’s text chat messages without stopping their voice chat. The shorthand commands for this are g and ug. Gagged is preserved between player leaving/joining and between maps just as mute is.
• Mute command now only blocks voice chat, not text chat.
• Added silence and unsilence commands for both gagging and muting players. The shorthand commands for this are sl and usl
• Added sv_rtv_enabled, sv_rtv_nomination, and sv_rtv_threshold for controlling the new RTV system.
• Certain console commands can now be entered directly into chat without being prefaced with ! or / . This can be turned off with sv_chatcommands 0. These commands are listed below:
  • rtv <map_name> rocks the vote. The map name is an optional parameter that only the first person rocking the vote can enter, which will specify the map to change to after a successful RTV. The map nomination part can be turned off with sv_rtv_nomination 0. The required threshold for rtv completion is determined by sv_rtv_threshold.
  • currentmap reports the name of the current map to chat
  • nextmap reports the name of the next map to chat (or sets it, if you’re an admin and you provide a map name after it)
  • pings reports the average pings of each team
  • ff reports the states of the various friendly fire variables
  • respawn reports the value of mp_respawntime

• Fixed the RTV system on map start: added sv_rtv_delay to set the time after map change that must pass before players can start RTV again. Default is 120 seoonds.
• As well, there must now be at least 3 players in-game (who aren’t spectators) in order for RTVs to happen at all.
• Added new, disabled by default, experimental commands for the voting system which can be entered into chat. These include votekick, votemute,votemap, votescramble, and vote. These are controlled by variables sv_vote_scramble_enabled, etc. Example usage of this would be for a player to type votescramble into chat to begin a vote for scrambling the teams, and then other players type vote 1 into chat to vote yes, or vote 2 to vote no. This system isn’t fully tested (which is why it’s off by default), so experiment at your own peril The system will be improved and enhanced in future updates, including providing an easier-to-use GUI.
• Added more model work from @danihel ! He should post some pictures here

Attention, soldiers! Much has happened inside the developer’s tent—first, we would like to welcome the programmer PhilmacFLy back into the development team. Phil was back in the team during BG2, and was in fact the one who first implemented having the website shown in the main menu. He’s back, and he’s already coded something for us: the player action menu, which you can read about below.

Continue reading “18/5/20 Update – New Team Member, Map Changes, Player Action Menu, CSVs, Fixes” →

Hi everyone! In the wee early hours of this morning, we released a tiny update whose main purpose was to fix a bug in the ticket system. We know the community has a 1-versus-1 tournament going on, so we decided to release this fix right away instead of waiting for a bigger update.

We also buffed two of the British weapons—the Sea Service Pattern Brown Bess and the Brown Bess Carbine. In both cases, we halved the melee stamina drain and decreased the delay-between-stabs by 0.05s . These changes ought to increase their potency in melee situations.

This update also added in a few textures and assets that will be used in later updates and by community mappers.

Also, in case you haven’t seen it, check out the new roadmap page on the website to see what is coming in the future!

See you on the battle grounds!

“A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.”—Alexander Hamilton

Greetings soldiers! As announced yesterday an update has just been released. We also have a new member of the development team, so there’s a lot to talk about! The biggest improvements are changes to the grenade and a fix for the recoil bug that was introduced in the last update.

Continue reading “Update Released! New Team Member, Grenade Changes, Recoil, Map Changes” →

Attention, soldiers!

Tomorrow, Sunday, we will be releasing a mini-update for BG3. As per usual the update will be released at Noon EST/4pm GMT. Servers will have to update at the same time as players. This update will be largely bug fixes: fixes to the maps and recoil bugs that were introduced in the previous update. We will also be adjusting the mechanics of the grenade.

There have been changes happening in the inner workings of the development team these past few weeks, including a new team member—information on this and more will be in the news post tomorrow.

Until then—see you on the battle field!

“Go on and improve in everything worthy.” — John Adams

 

At ease, soldiers! This new patch aims to serve as a stopgap to bigger content and to make some small quality of life changes for server administrators, mappers and players alike.

Continue reading “Mini Update 26/1/20 – New Map, Bug Fixes, Server Tools” →