Most Liked Content

First, a song.
https://soundcloud.c...wken-precussive
(Hyginos, it�s spelt PERcussive, dammit.)
 

Welcome Back, Pilots!

Since January 5th, the forums have been down. Servers have slowly been going offline, the coffee was getting cold, and prior to that we had absolutely no communication with our developers.
There are a lot of questions that have been asked, and certainly there are many answers to be had.

Also first: There are new developers. This is real. The hypetrain is waiting.

Second: The acquisition of the Hawken franchise to our new overlords (Reloaded Games) was finalized on March 13, 2015. There is currently a very small, very communicative, and very dedicated team working on breathing life into the mother######ng best game of all time ever sweet jesus yes Hawken. They have reached out to many members of our community utilizing the Hawken TeamSpeak in order to get a feel for our expectations as the mother######ng best community of all time I ######ng love you all its core playerbase.

Third: A few pieces of information to encourage the transition.

1. Things are going to go SLOW. But they�re going to go forward. Reloaded has a small team working on Hawken, and currently it�s up to capnjosh (the lead producer for the game) to draw up an appropriate team and plan for the game. Please be patient and respectful. After hours and hours of voluntary communication on his part, it�s become very evident that we love this game, and if you screw this up I will find you and hurt you they have a bit of pressure to deal with. It�s best for them, us, and the game, to let them work at their own pace.

2. They are intent on bringing us more mechs, more maps, and more game modes. Hail Satan.

3. Adhesive games did a stellar job waylaying the pitfalls of bankruptcy. Please harbor no ill-will toward them for their silence. They spent a lot of time and effort making sure Hawken could be handed over in as pristine a condition as possible. They understood very well that they had the pleasure of serving one of the best communities in the world, and did their best to respect that.

Moving Forward.

Toward the end of Adhesive�s run with Hawken (may their spirits forever roam free) something pretty brilliant happened. The community came together and attempted to actively reverse the decay that came with the silence of the developers. We made events, we organized steam game drives, we posted challenges and tutorials, and I�m not saying a lot of this wasn�t happening all along, but damn did it make an impact on me as Hawken slowly sunk.

War Wednesdays is still on. Currently it�s sort of a make-shift deal, as there are no private servers for us to access, Nope. Nope. Nope. They're back, and every Wednesday at 9PM, we cram into our teamspeak and yell at each other about Hawken.

https://community.pl...wken-teamspeak/

Ulta Violent Wednesdays, with Dr_Freeze001 is active as well!
https://community.pl...ommunity-event/

 

Two Nights at Straya is apparently an up and coming weekend long event on some island on the other side of the planet. Find it here:

https://community.pl...ghts-at-straya/

 

Also keep on checking the community event hub over at https://community.pl...-hawken-events/
Thank you, silverfire, for stealing my fire.

And somewhat finally, The Project Phoenix Initiation Celebration!
For those of you who were around in December, we threw a fantastic community event on 12/12/14, and we�d like to celebrate Hawken�s reactivation in a similar vein. It's scheduled for April 3rd, another Friday.

Starting now, you can sign up for Tiggs� Hawken Hopeline. Over the past week or so, as the new developers started to check into our TeamSpeak with greater frequency, it became evident that we were going to need to expand. Merl organized a page on GoFundMe in order to crowdsource the 200 extra dollars required to secure a year�s worth of a high capacity teamspeak server annnd- it took 1 minute.
One. Minute. Now, five minutes after that first minute, we were nearing 600, but Tiggs, ######ng Tiggs, Tiggs immediately threw in two hundred dollars of her own money to make sure we had the space.

Tiggs� Hawken Hopeline is a raffle of extra money raised that will be awarded to our community in the form of MC. Now, we�ve heard speculation that MC is going to be giftable this time around (fuzzy bunny yeah) and so we�re hoping to bring that in with a bang.
There will be a first, second, and third prize of MC, likely starting at a value of around $25 USD. A post will follow with instructions.



TL;DR:
HAWKEN IS ALIVE. PLEASE LET DEVS DO DEV THINGS. RELOADED EMPLOYEE PUT DOWN 200 DOLLARS OF HER OWN SALARY TO MAKE SURE THE HAWKEN COMMUNITY COULD HAVE A TEAMSPEAK CAPABLE OF SUPPORTING A HUNDRED OR MORE MEMBERS. LIKE THIS POST FOR A CHANCE TO WIN METEOR CREDITS.
There are going to be hard times. Things are going to go slow. But the people who have picked this game up want to see it succeed, want to see our community grow, and I urge you to please, please, GO OUT AND PLAY SOME ######NG HAWKEN.

I�m so excited I can hardly sit still..  I�m actually standing and trying to type right now.   Note, don�t bother. Doesn�t work.

 

 

To me, the launch of the forums kicks off the next stage in the life of Hawken.  This game is significant.  This community is significant.  The support I�ve seen this community deliver to anybody and everybody is remarkable.  Really.  It�s a sense of honor I feel to have the opportunity to work with you.

 

 

We wanted to get these forums up as quickly as possible because, dude, it�s been too long.  We�ll get the more official stuff hammered out in the coming days, but I believe the future of these forums will look something kinda like this:

 

1. You can freely express your opinions and you�ll see people being constructive (of all the crazy things ;)
2. You will see thoughtful feedback that intends to be professional
3. You will find a well-organized list of highly-regarded, well-made community design proposals
4. You will find the Dev team actively wrestling with how to integrate community design proposals into ongoing dev sprints
5. You will make a set of friends you respect, even when you heatedly disagree with them
6. You will see many other communities sprout up around the world, each reflecting similar ideals and growth
7. You will see rage and drama and many a fuzzy bunny.  And then you�ll see the same people coolly isolate the differences in assumptions, and then create a proposed solution, complete with tests�. Ok, now I�m preaching ;)

 

Seriously, this is gonna be good�

PROJECT PHOENIX INITIATION CELEBRATION

It's time for this picture again.

"'The acquisition of the Hawken franchise to our new overlords (Reloaded Games) was finalized on March 13, 2015. There is currently a very small, very communicative, and very dedicated team working on breathing life into the mother######ng best game of all time ever sweet jesus yes Hawken.'
-ticklemyiguana"
-Michael Scott

I think this is a worthy cause to celebrate. It's been dubbed by a couple people as "Project Phoenix" and I want to get everyone back in the spirits we had at the First Annual Hawkeniversary Party.

The party will consist of continuous access to organized games and private servers for both EU and US timezones (and of course anyone else is welcome to attend), a Q and A session with capnjosh broadcast onto the official PlayHawken Twitch channel, and of course, Tigg's Hawken Hopeline Raffle.

So, like. Yeah.

It'll start at 8PM GMT for the EU side of things, and 9PM EST (to give all our West Coast friends some time to get home from work). The date of the event is Friday, April 3rd.


Like the last non-weekly event we had, you'll have the option to choose from multiple user based game modes:

Night of The Living Fred
A classic user defined gametype based on various "Zombies" modes found in other games. A deathmatch based variant, the game starts with a single player in a Fred Chassis CRT. Other players are allowed to play any other mech except predator, technician, or Fred himself. Other players are barred from repairing or using repair internals, though health orbs are allowed.

The Fred is only allowed to fire TOW rockets and can repair whenever he or she pleases. If you are killed by The Fred, you become one as well.

We will be disabling radar for this gametype.

Convoy
You've been tasked with transporting a large sum of cavorite from one base to another.
This variant is centered around a single brawler, doomed to stay in turret mode for the duration of the match. Each player gets one life, and each team is limited to strictly one tech or less. This is another variant without radar, and while one team's objective is to move their brawler from one point to another, the other team's objective is to stop it.

(In its current state, the attacking team almost always wins. Testing will occur this week in order to ascertain an appropriate balance.)

Alien VS Predator
Aliens: 1 Raider/G2 Raider and the rest scouts.
Predators: Predators and infiltrators. Any combination.

The predator team is allowed to repair, but cannot respawn. The alien (scout) team is allowed to respawn, but not repair. The scout team is allowed either one Raider or one G2 Raider as the alien queen. The queen can repair.

The predator's objective is to kill the queen and then mop up the scouts. Once the queen is destroyed, the scouts can no longer respawn.

If a predator/infil dies, they can respawn as a CRT (human), but can only use the assault rifle and cannot repair. They are technically aligned with the predator team, but the predators can destroy the humans at any point for their repair orbs. Humans cannot respawn either. (Friendly fire is enabled for this game mode).

Invincible
One incin per team. Five techs. Kill the enemy incin. Rinse, repeat.

Don't bother talking to your incin. It won't be able to hear you.

Monster
It's one mech versus six. The one gets a ludicrous amount of health.

________________________

Please feel free to suggest your own game modes!

The event will be hosted on the Officially Unofficial Hawken Teamspeak.

In order to participate in Tigg's Hawken Hopeline all you have to do is like that post <<<<<. Deadline is April 3rd at 18:30 (6:30) PM GMT.
Want a second ticket? Retweet and double your chances!

First Prize for the raffle will be $35 worth of MC.

Second Prize will be $25 worth of MC.

Third Prize will be $10 worth of MC.

Reloaded will generate MC codes for the winners.

It's gon be awesome.

 

UPDATE:

 

capnjosh has agreed to participate in a Q&A session one hour prior to the event. That means he will be on twice to answer questions. Once from 19:00 to 20:00 GMT (7 PM to 8 PM) for the EU side of things, and once from 20:00 to 21:00 EST (8 PM to 9 PM) for the NA side.

 

The event will be broadcast to the OfficialHAWKEN Twitch Channel and will be occurring on the Hawken TeamSpeak. All members of our community are free to attend.

 

This is a great chance for our community to voice whatever concerns we may have and for Reloaded to take them into consideration.

 

 

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED, EVERYONE WHO ASSISTED, AND ESPECIALLY A THANK YOU TO DR_FREEZE001 FOR MANAGING THE EUROPEAN HALF OF THIS EVENT.

I fuzzy bunnyNG LOVE YOU ALL.

A quick introduction: I'm Nept.  I lead Omniscient, the team that took top honours in Hawken's competitive league (TPG), and whose membership includes Climatic, hestoned, IAreDave, Leonhardt, OmniStone, 7r1p, and Xacius.  In order to avoid having our aimbots detected, I, alongside several longstanding community members, also act as the league's administrator. (That is a joke.) 

 

 

Before the old forums disappeared, we were treated to several (dozen) posters tolling their I-told-you-so bells and blaming Hawken's state on balance decisions. Popular particulars included movement speed (e.g., �I wanted MechWarrior-style mechs�), game pacing (e.g., �This game is literally CoD�), mech types (e.g., �The Technician and/or Incinerator and/or Sharpshooter and/or Scout have ruined this game�), and matchmaking (e.g., �High MMR players are the devil�). In my opinion, however, these explanations miss their mark completely: Hawken � an arena-style mech game � was bound to falter because of the interaction between its funding pitch and its gameplay. No balance decisions were going to alter that scenario.

 

Through two waves of funding, Meteor entertainment raised roughly twenty-eight million on the claim that Hawken's numbers could compete with League of Legends': �Mark Long, CEO of Meteor Entertainment, believes Hawken can attract 10 million gamers in 2013 and generate over $100 million in revenue for the company, which is funded by the likes of Rustic Canyon Partners, Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital� [link]. The latter two firms, if you weren't aware, funded League's development and were obviously hoping that lightning would strike twice. Of course it didn't, and once the investors became aware of the obvious population issues, they refused to fund further development.

 

But why couldn't Hawken compete with those numbers? Anyone who followed the game's coverage (the investors amongst them, apparently), would've noticed the overwhelmingly positive reception received by the announcement trailers. Great reception equals great numbers, right? Evidently not. Apparently, the investment firms weren't sufficiently educated on arena shooters � shooters where skill ceilings are elevated through high mobility, high movement speeds, and high times-to-kill. Although some people enjoy the challenges and ability gaps brought about by such games, most people do not. Simply put, arena shooters have never enjoyed massive audiences.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Combining an arena shooter (and a mech game, to boot � another niche genre) with a funding pitch predicated on massive populations wasn't a great idea. Arguably, combining any shooter (that's not CounterStrike) with a funding pitch predicated on massive populations isn't a great idea. And although Hawken's development had issues apart from its source of funding, none of them (again, imo) tilted its ship so dangerously as this one. [Note: I'm considering Meteor's decision to develop their own delivery and purchase system as part and parcel with its funding pitch]

 

If you're planning on posting about the game's direction, please keep my thoughts in mind. We're a tad tired of seeing people claim that their balance/gameplay suggestion will revitalize the community and attract throngs of eager gamers. It won't. The people who are interested in playing an arena mech shooter will play Hawken. The people who aren't interested will not.

 

If we're discussing playerbase development and retention, I believe it better to focus on pay models and communication. Currently, many observers and casual players think that Hawken operates on a �pay2win� model � a perception that cannot be permitted to stand. Kill two birds with one stone by offering a package that includes all current mechs alongside their abilities, weapons, and internals. If you're planning on introducing new mechs (perhaps those that have already been developed), consider a �season pass� model that will provide people future access. Toss in some aesthetics if you're feeling generous. Blitz gaming news sites with the fact that Hawken's not pay2win; capitalize on your community communication by pitching the �New Hawken Developers Working Closely With Community� interview and headline. When you're ready to develop new content, focus on extending the scope of the game through maps and game modes rather than making major balance passes. Blame Saturnine for decisions which aren't well-received.  Profit.

 

 

*Edited to include a question from, and response to, ROSING:

 

Sorry I am confused, and I mean no disrespect at all, but how will offering a package that will unlock all of the mechs and their attachments work against the game's perception as being a pay2win game? I'm probably missing something here...:T

 

But you raise some good points, and hopefully the Devs play their cards right and the odds are in their favor :)

 

No worries - at first glance the suggestion seems out of place.

 

When people complain about �pay2win,� they're typically doing so in the context of free-to-play games. By providing a complete package of mechs, abilities, items, and weapons at a reasonable price, the developers could convince potential customers that they're purchasing a full game. Players then have their choice of two options: purchase the full game, or play for free while grinding toward completion. Of course, this route would require strong communication from the developers. They would have to emphasize that non-paying players would have eventual full-game access through leveling, and that mech/weapon unlocks are sidegrades. (Yes, some changes would have to be made re: access to internals and items to ensure that they were truly sidegrades)

 

Also bears mentioning that developers (and forum communities) often underestimate the power of player ego. Although there were several factors that contributed to the pay2win perception surrounding Hawken, the most overlooked (and imo, the strongest) is the fact that players will look toward anything but themselves when explaining a loss. It's never their fault. No, it's the lag. Or the matchmaking. Or the hackers. Or the pay2win players in their pay2win mechs that are umpteen times better than yours. As a developer, you have to hammer into your playerbase (and any interviewers) the fact that pay2win mechanics are playing no part in their losses.

 

One last bit: Vanashinkaku (former developer) stated that their decision to include unlocks and levelling was based on data which demonstrated that players enjoy progression. At the same time, however, there were many players (and potential players) wanting to purchase a �full game� sans grinding. The aforementioned suggestions would satisfy both groups of players: those desiring a sense of progression (and to not pay), and those desiring the full game.

As some of you may know, I recently posted a thread asking for volunteers to give me their ideas on certain issues the community currently disagrees about. After hours and hours of data entry and crunching numbers, I�ve finally ended up with something useful and insightful. If you�d like to view all of the data I have in Excel and Word, here�s a download link to a .zip. Feel free to use it however you want.

 

MMR ended up being the only meaningful statistic (except for region on a question or two), so I�ve ignored everything else to save myself a lot of pointless work. Here are the demographics of everyone who responded:

 

N=42

n 0-1600 MMR=2

n 1600-2000 MMR=13

n 2000-2400 MMR=15

n 2400-2600 MMR=8

n 2600-3000 MMR=3

Average MMR=2153.756098

Median MMR=2168

Average Ping=74.292

US Players=32

EU Players=7

UK Players=2

AS Players=1

 

Pie charts make it easier to visualize:

 

 

This is the list of statements with relevant information about the responses to each of them:

 

What We Agree On

 

 

There�s clear consensus on some of those statements, and I think we should discuss those first. 76% (32/42) of the people surveyed believe air speed is in a good spot, and agreement isn�t limited to MMR ranges in particular�the mean and median are only 21.3 and 33 MMR below the mean and median, respectively.  However, wanting air speeds reduced strongly correlated with region. Despite making up only 24% (n=10) of the total sample group, players outside of the United States accounted for 75% (6/8) of the votes for decreasing air speed.

 

74% (31/42) of the respondents think the level restriction on AC should be lowered or removed. A lot of those voters also voted for universal AC, so there�s a clear desire for AC to be more accessible. I�ve wanted this change ever since AC was introduced, and I�m glad to see widespread support for the idea. It also has roughly equal support among all MMRs, with the mean being 19.7 and the median being 32 above the overall average

 

People definitely don�t want boosting to require more fuel. 90% (38/42) favor leaving it alone, making this an almost unanimous opinion.

 

88% (37/42) want to see A-Classes keep the same interval between dodging, and a staggering 95% (40/42) desire the same for B-Classes. Frequency of dodges with C-Classes isn�t agreed upon to quite the same extent, but 74% (31/42) is more than enough to say the timer should probably be left as it is now.

 

76% (33/42) would like a nerf to the Incinerator, though there�s some disagreement on how severe it should be. 25/32 favor a slight one. Nerfing Incin has pretty good support among all MMR ranges, though the median is somewhat high at 82 above the overall median.

 

Scanner in its current form is almost universally hated. 93% (40/43) of the votes there are either for it to be reworked or removed completely. Interestingly, the median and mean MMRs of the players (n=11) who want it removed are 140.9 and 132 above the overall values respectively, while the median and mean MMRs of players who just want a rework (n=29) are 27.2 and 18 below the respective overall stats.  

 

87% (33/38) of the people who responded don�t mind sustained weapons in their current iteration. I�m not too surprised here.

 

Bunker is the map with the most support (74%) for a rework, while Bazaar comes in at second with 67%. Almost everyone seems to hate Bunker equally, while players a little above the average MMR tend to find more issues with Bazaar.

 

There�s very clear support (95%) for MMR to be visible in-game to players in some capacity. Now that Scrimbot and hawken.herokuapp.com exist, hiding MMR does nothing more than slightly inconvenience players.  

 

71% of players would like to see some form of leaderboards implemented. With the new devs saying they want to encourage competitive play in a greater capacity than the old ones did, this seems like an obvious thing to add.

 

 

What We Don�t Agree On

 

 

 

Let�s get to the main thing everyone fights over first: Air Compressor. Keep in mind when looking at the chart that a lot of people voted for AC to both be left as is and made universal, so there ended up being 54 votes total. I didn�t intend for people to vote twice here, so it�s harder to draw a conclusion from the data I have.

 

 

What we can tell is that people who want it gone completely (n=3) and people who want it nerfed (n=8) are a small but vocal minority. The average MMR for those options is decidedly below the other two as well.

 

 

So what does the wider community think? I�m personally for universal AC, as it seems unfair to keep something that drastically alters gameplay behind an HC and XP wall even if that internal isn�t necessarily the best option for the slots it takes.

 

A majority of people want fuel use in the air to stay the same, but there�s a sizable minority that�d like to see it increase.

 

 

To be honest, I was surprised by the MMR distribution here. The mean and median MMRs of people who�d like to see fuel use increase (n=14) are 43.7 and 112 above the respective overall values, while players who�d like it to stay the same (n=26) are only above by 7.3 and 56. Only one person voted for less fuel use.

 

 

Opinions on the current ground speeds mostly tend toward leaving them as they are, but the percentage of people who want to do that only hits 48%. Most of the other people would like to see them increased to some extent.

 

 

People of all MMRs tend to support the majority view of leaving speeds the same or increasing them. One person wanted a decrease, but I didn't include them on the graph since their MMR was 529 below the average and it made the info a lot harder to interpret.

 

 

What should we do to resolve this? I personally voted for increasing them for some mechs in particular, but I�m open to keeping them as they are. Nerfing them would hurt the game pretty badly in my opinion, so I�m glad there�s virtually no support for that.

 

The Technician has always been a controversial mech, and that shows here.

 

 

It�s clear that a lot of people aren�t a fan. 26 people (67%) are in favor of some sort of nerf or for it to be removed completely, while only 13 (33%) want it to stay as it is or be buffed. This subject had one of the most interesting distributions of votes by MMR.

 

 

Why is this? I personally think Technician is balanced in high-level play, but in lower-MMR games where people tend to die less quickly when they fuzzy bunny up, does it completely throw off the balance if one team has one when the other doesn�t?

 

Something else came up here too. Many of the posters in my thread wanted a choice to completely rework Tech, so what are some ideas for doing that?

 

I�m glad to see so much support for getting rid of the weapon raise delay.

 

 

It�s pretty clear that people want it either shortened or gotten rid of entirely. I�d ideally like to see it go, but reducing it would be fine too. The first two responses predictably have a higher average MMR than the third one, but it�s honestly not as large of a gap as I expected.

 

 

52% of the respondents voted for Last Eco and Uptown to be changed. What�s surprising is how mean MMR varies with each map, especially Uptown.

 

 

My theory is that it�s because high-MMR players tend to hold the central Uptown chokepoints much more effectively, causing fights to become boring very quickly.

 

Another contentious issue is TTK: lots of people are happy with how it is now, and lots of other people are nostalgic for the longer TTK we used to have. Here�s how it breaks down:

 

 

The last option wasn�t really supposed to be grouped with the first two, but I�m including it since people voted as if it was. The data is almost impossible to interpret because of that, since people who would�ve voted for increasing the TTK might have chosen the last option instead.

 

The MMR differences are odd if that�s the only reason, though.

 

 

I suspect it�s a combination of what I said above and people wanting to bring A-Classes in line with the other two. This is a fairly popular idea in high-MMR circles, mostly because of mobility becoming less important as the aim of your enemies gets better.  

 

 

And that seems to be exactly what happened.

 

 

Why I Bothered to Do This

 

 

This was partially inspired by one of capnjosh�s posts in a thread of Omega�s about getting something together that shows the directions people want the game to go. I hope it helps the new devs get an idea of the community�s wants in general, plus I was curious myself about actual data.

 

Good job for getting through all that.

Yeah, jumping on this bandwagon.

 

I've been toying with the idea for this mech type in my head for a while. Then one night a few weeks ago I got an inspiration booster and just started drawing it. The fact I cant even play Hawken lately helps  ....  
 
Still at the high-poly modeling stage, I'll post updates as I go. I plan to bake this onto a low poly mesh and get it as close to the Hawken in-game aesthetic as I can get it.

 

The Renders:

 

-------

 

Cool so WTF is it. Why yes, I wrote some fluff too:

 

 

Bonus: a rough idea for how the scope could look.

 

Bonus 2: Textured Coil Rifle:

 

Bonus 2: Concept rough.

 

For those that will say straight-up that its OP to shoot through cover. consider what abilities other mechs have. Invisibility. Damage buff. Permanent wall hacking+invisibility+shield-breaching, Speed boost while firing the most lethal set of guns in the game. They are already powerful. Also consider the usual weaknesses of a-classes that they need to make up for somehow.

 

Also a good argument is the other games that have had wall penetrating guns over the years and where it has been a really fun game mechanic that doesn't break the game.

 

Anyway, just for fun. I might grow to hate it if it was real   but I will guarantee its not worse than the cocketeer.

This last week wrapped up the process of getting all core systems up to basic functionality levels or better. There are still various outstanding bugs, but we're in a good spot. It's actually a pretty significant milestone :)

For the next 7 days we will be focused on digging in to the source code and seeing what's there.  We will set up our first dev sprint, and we'll lay out a live streaming schedule.  We will be more actively using the new support site too, so you will have a place you can officially submit your complaints, accusations, and sob stories ;)  I plan on personally working with CS tickets too (it's important).
 
What I had aimed for last week this time:
 
1. Fix dependencies on some forum modules (that's why the home page still looks off)
2. Customer support site - we have the account set up; SSO needs to be rebuilt (more involved than with forums)
3. Licensing and licensing systems for a number of dev tools and systems, e.g. Maya, 3dsMax, source control, build servers, etc. (a few renewals to process still)
4. Get that new user mech and loadout implemented
5. Start digging in to the gameserver and client source code <--- that's the exciting stuff :)
6. Manage the distraction potential of meetings, legal, and other "fun" bookkeeping tasks (I try to remain positive) (honestly, this will be ongoing)
 
Goals for next week:
 
1. Source code exploration
  - Get tech lead up to speed with current state of Hawken
  - See if things "build", even at a rudimentary level
  - Start setting up various build servers
  - Start process of formalizing dev sprints and releases
2. Confirm how functional various back-end tools configuration settings actually are
  - e.g. "Does that setting right there that's not in the documentation actually do what it seems to indicate it might do?"
  - If I break something I'll fix it - I promise and pinky swear (I can see Tiggs glaring at me now)
3. Add some more alerts for when things like logins go wonky
4. Work on recovering various Hawken-related "stuff", e.g. lore, 3d printing, swag, etc.
5. Read "Hawken: Genesis"
6. Find out if I can get Bundles up in the Steam store
7. Set streaming schedules (both Tiggs and capnjosh)
8. Go to meetings in LA and not miss a beat with other work
  - Find out who here has experienced LA traffic somewhere around Santa Monica
9. Play Hawken more than last week
 
btw, Tiggs got a new gaming rig.  Ask her about it.  I dare you.
 
-capnjosh

News from CapnJosh:

 

All right, things are moving now.  We had some huge UI issues that we've solved with the help of some great people.  It'll be the stuff of legends, and it'll make for some great live stream material - yes, have no fear; that's coming up again.

 

The team has grown, and we have the level of engineering support that Hawken deserves.

 

Today we had a pretty big breakthrough with Vivox.  We have completely rewritten the integration with some close consultation with our good friends over at Vivox, and it's smooth like butter now.  Or maybe more like a really good water slide.  Anyways, it's going well.

 

Things like the mech art pipeline have been rediscovered and documented.  We're now stepping through how weapons are created and structured, with an eye toward how best to manage balance with these beastly things.

 

We're starting to actively review AI, and honestly there are some good opportunities there.  Not Skynet-level opportunities for world domination, but good opportunities nonetheless.

 

Happily, Hawken's code architecture is really quite good.  Despite the fabled "tech debt" (as all projects accumulate), one thing that's held strong is that the Adhesive team knew how work *with* Unreal rather than against it.  We've had more than a few discussions where we've tipped our hats in their direction.

 

It's been rather long between updates, but we're nearing when we will be able to fill you in on all the things we've been working on.  "Heh heh..." you say, "I've heard that one before."  Well, it's true.  We have 2 more big technology hurdles to clear, but given the people we've got on it now, I'm not worried.  2016 has a big up side for Hawken, and it's going to be a fun ride.

 

-capnjosh

Big things being worked on:

 

• New mechs and reviving existing work-in-progress mechs
• UI tech stack and how UI panels are constructed and handled
• Storm updates - improve account sync times and improving global performance
• Updates to project management and bug tracking
• Onboarding new gameplay, art, and production personnel

 

The exciting part is we found the last key person.  He's a great gameplay and generalist programmer who has loads of wide-ranging experience.  We also brought on someone with great art and production experience.

 

I'm excited, and we're moving into high-gear development.  We are still a ways out from the first patch, but you will like the results.

 

After the holidays, we're going to start doing some introductions to the team.  We're going to resume more dev streams, and we're going to be ready to start really incorporating your feedback and ideas.  2016 is going to be a good year for Hawken :)

 

From all of us working hard on Hawken, we wish you a happy holidays!

Important: This project is a community project and if started will be completed in my free time. It is NOT as an official project as a developer. No ETAs are promised nor guaranteed. All details subject to change. Not responsible for loss of limb or life.

I've seen over the past few days that a hot topic has been the issue of smurfing, and the defense that it's mainly done because otherwise people cannot get into matches. I'm not personally sure of the course to take in solving the "having matches to play" vs "keeping people from getting stomped" to fix it in the long-term, but I wanted to run an old idea I had by people that may be able to at least mitigate the issue in the short term.

What I propose is an extension in scrimbot to allow it to perform the function that it was always supposed to do: Automate non-pub matches. Specifically, I propose that an automatic, opt-in, vote-driven, party-based PUG (Pick-Up Game) system be setup to help players in the higher tiers (but without explicit min/max limits).
 
Here's how it will work:

• Players wanting to opt into the system will do so through scrimbot
• Scrimbot will monitor the number of online, opted-in players and detect when there are enough to start a game
• Scrimbot will create it's own party and will send out invites to the players it chooses for the match.
• Players interested in this game will join the party. Those not intrested can skip on it or wait to be automatically excluded.
• Scrimbot will continue to invite more players until it can create a group of 12 (or so) players.
• Voting on a gametype (and map, based on available servers) will be performed in the party.
• Scrimbot will select a suitable empty server and deploy the entire party to the server.
• Due to technical reasons, the party will not be used for assigning teams and will allow the server to perform a autobalance on the players from the start with a full server (ideal conditions)
• The match will start and continue as normal. Scrimbot will monitor the match via it's limited methods.
• At 80% completion of the match, scrimbot will enable optional voting for mode/map, and scan for other players it can use to swap out/replace users that left/readd users that left the party.
• At the completion of the match, scrimbot will finalize voting.
  • If no users are to be added to the party, and voting did not result in wanting to change to another server, scrimbot will return to step 9.
  • If no users are to be added to the party, and voting resulted in wanting to change to another server, scrimbot will return to step 7.
  • If users are to be added to the party, scrimbot will move the party out to the lobby, send invites to players, and return to step 4.
  • If the party falls below a certain threshold, or the party votes to disband, the players will be returned to the lobby and removed from the party. Scrimbot moves back to step 2.

I've been thinking about doing a system like this for some time, but due to lack of interest (and pending rewrites for scrimbot and my api client library), I never got around to making this a reality. Before I want to invest the time I have into this, I wanted to get feedback from the community as to if they thing this is a good idea, and if they would be interested in frequently using such a system.

Please let me know what you all think of this. I will update this post as I can with more info and such.

Hi all.

 

Nepacaka is here, and bring to you something new and tasty... and, a little "Noir", of course.

 

So, several week in a row i'm working on my new Hawken graphical novel "Hawken: Contagiosis". You can see it below, but first, i wanna say some things. if you want to read the main purpose of this thread, please see in spoiler. If not, you can just look at the pictures ahd have fun :D

 

Please read this!

Nepacaka Notes, Main purpose

 

read all other on you own risk...

About Creation

 

That maybe Interesting

 

Some Bad Things :C

 

Download links:

PhotoShack Album: http://www.photosnac...ontagiosis.html

MEGA: https://mega.co.nz/#...YHh4OZ7fiWVbCrQ

MEGA [russian]: https://mega.co.nz/#...nh3l4fyLyoMnE74

HAWKEN in .pdf file: https://mega.co.nz/#...roHPx7OJCk79iR4

Imgur published album: http://imgur.com/gallery/4O5xC

 

My other HAWKEN Art (and other): http://imgur.com/gallery/TiZw1

And on DevianArt: http://nepacaka.deviantart.com/

 

 

Well, stop read have fun! To Infinity and Beyond !!1 Go!

 

1)

 

2)

 

3)

 

4)

 

5)

 

6)

 

7)

 

8)

 

9)

 

10)

 

11)

 

12)

 

have fun, i hope you feel nice...

 

P.S. Also, when DerMax made a translation for this, he tell me that i'm use too many "..." in text. Well, it is the truth... lol :D

I just recently was notified of the death of Brandt "bkcat" Hatch.  He drowned while swimming across a river during a camping trip, which comes as a real shock since he was an avid outdoorsman.

 

Brandt was a true die-hard Hawken fan, making amazing lego replicas and drawings of many mechs.  Good-natured, friendly, funny, talented, you could call him many positive things, but you would struggle to find something negative about him.  Seeing him improve in the game and getting to play with him as a teammate was a great experience.  I'm glad to have been his friend.

 

Currently there is a request for footage of Brandt in Hawken, as his friend has suggested a montage to be created in memoriam.  If you have any you would like to share, please message me on here, Steam, or IRC.  You can also donate to the family through this GoFundMe.

 

Stay well, friends.

News from CapnJosh:

 

All right, things are moving now.  We had some huge UI issues that we've solved with the help of some great people.  It'll be the stuff of legends, and it'll make for some great live stream material - yes, have no fear; that's coming up again.

 

The team has grown, and we have the level of engineering support that Hawken deserves.

 

Today we had a pretty big breakthrough with Vivox.  We have completely rewritten the integration with some close consultation with our good friends over at Vivox, and it's smooth like butter now.  Or maybe more like a really good water slide.  Anyways, it's going well.

 

Things like the mech art pipeline have been rediscovered and documented.  We're now stepping through how weapons are created and structured, with an eye toward how best to manage balance with these beastly things.

 

We're starting to actively review AI, and honestly there are some good opportunities there.  Not Skynet-level opportunities for world domination, but good opportunities nonetheless.

 

Happily, Hawken's code architecture is really quite good.  Despite the fabled "tech debt" (as all projects accumulate), one thing that's held strong is that the Adhesive team knew how work *with* Unreal rather than against it.  We've had more than a few discussions where we've tipped our hats in their direction.

 

It's been rather long between updates, but we're nearing when we will be able to fill you in on all the things we've been working on.  "Heh heh..." you say, "I've heard that one before."  Well, it's true.  We have 2 more big technology hurdles to clear, but given the people we've got on it now, I'm not worried.  2016 has a big up side for Hawken, and it's going to be a fun ride.

 

-capnjosh

Hello, Pilots!

It is time for another developer blog - and boy, do we have some good stuff for you!

First, I would like to announce that the PC update is pretty darn close - but not quite ready. We’ve been doing internal testing with select community members behind closed doors, and that testing has proven to be really, really, really fantastic - we’ve found bugs that we would have never found in a thousand years thanks to your help. We are eternally grateful for the community’s contribution to Hawken. We have come to the general consensus that the PC build still needs a slight bit of polish, and we’re working hard on polish items that we deem appropriate for the PC relaunch.

We still plan on launching the PC update within this month, however the date is fuzzy (and not of the bunnies kind).
We do not intend to change the date from this month.
There’s a 33.33333% chance (repeating, of course) that it will be sooner, later, or on time.

We would like to also mention pre-emptively that you may want to stop using custom configurations when we launch the big PC update. You won’t get in trouble if you use these however, you may experience issues on launch day with any settings that are in your configuration files from community configurations as a lot of the settings are crash happy. We have been working with the community to fix a few of them, but in the slight chance you use a custom config and experience crashes, that’s likely the cause.

We plan on removing the PS4 and XB1 forum logins today. The goal is to have players only using a PlayHawken account to post on the forums. As you may have noticed, the XB1/PS4 forums are merged into the general populace, and we want to hear from everyone equally in our fantastic community.

Now that we’ve explained what we are doing with the PC update (probably the whole reason you read this post, arguably) it’s time for some good ol’ fashioned previews.

The UI Revamp

You heard that right - that seafoam green tint is going away, and is being replaced with a nice blue that’s better on the eyes, better on your PC’s CPU/GPU, and just in general better.

Additionally, the featured screen has been revamped. The tiles are in a better spot, and generally more readable. The background cinematic of the garage has returned.

The Mech Grid is now the default UI element instead of the Mech Web. This is going to coincide with a change which we will explain later in this post.

Here’s a few screenshots of the UI:

 

Ranked PVP + Competitive Ranking Leaderboard

Upon logging into HAWKEN for the first time after the update, you will see an icon in the top right, near your XP, Emblem, and Pilot Ranking. This will remain greyed out until you play a PvP match and earn a Seasonal Placement Rating. This rating will replace your general matchmaking rating for the duration of the season.



Upon completion of that first match, you will be ranked among all other HAWKEN players. There are quite a few tiers that you can eventually rank up to based on your performance in matches.



You will obtain rewards for competing in a season - it’s not just for sport!

An emblem is available for participating in Ranked PVP Season 1, and there are additionally end of season rewards that you will be able to obtain for placing high in ranking. Who knows what that reward might be?



First Time Player Experience

We have made a ton of adjustments to the experience when you first log into the game. You’ll be greeted by a familiar face named Laila. She’s taken some time off from the VR Training to spend some time with the newer pilots. We’ve provided helpful dialog, tips, additional pro-tips and other goodies for new players when they first get into the game (Free Vanguard anyone?).

In addition to this, new players should find it easier to get in the game and start playing. We’ve removed the match countdown timer and now instantly spawn new players in their Mech where they are bombarded with cool information about how to pilot it.

There’s also something really cool in the pre-match area for all game modes, but we’re not going to spoil it…

HDR Tone-Mapping and new Visual FX
We have implemented HDR into HAWKEN! The game should, in general, look better and feel better. It should feel more vibrant in light areas, and you should see some more detail in darker areas. There’s also some new bullet effects for hitscan weapons, which are really rad too!




Co-Op Team Deathmatch adjustments
Have you ever experienced someone just not readying up for a game, standing there AFK? We have also hated that! Co-Op Team Deathmatch games will now start automatically when a player joins, and begin the ‘blue forcefield’ state immediately. No more waiting; just fun!

Quickmatch + G1 Mech Experience/HC Boosts
Every day, experience a new gamemode with the Quickmatch functionality, which provides a boost to experience or HC. The Quickmatch bonus changes daily, so be sure to check it out!

G1 Mechs additionally gain bonuses to HC and/or XP. This is for those die-hards who want to impress corporations for extra payouts. G2s are still locked by progressing the G1s.

All The G1 Mechs Bundle (!!!)
Coming sometime after this content update launches. You will be able to get this bundle and receive EVERY SINGLE G1 Mech, current and future. This does not include the G2 variants of the Mechs. Bundle price to be determined.

Bugfixes, Adjustments, and Tweaks:

• Thrust Vectoring and various movement speed abilities are now working again that were once broken. (such as the Raider’s ability. Better get ready to go fast again!)
• Armor Fusor has experienced a considerable nerf to the percentage based values which puts it more in line with the PC version of Armor Fusor.
• Power Surger has experienced a buff by converting it to a percentage value, and now applies to run, boost, and dodge speed.
• There is now a “Dead Zone” slider. This allows console (or controller users in general) to adjust the ‘deadzone’ of the controller. (0-40, defaults to 20)
• Stats should sync without as much music hitching.
• Mech corpses last a little bit longer before despawning.
• Music playback should be cleaner during stats syncing, map loading, and map changing.

Lastly

We’re really, really excited to bring this update out to all of our Hawken players. We’re also excited to end a 2 year drought of no new content for the PC players.

We have a lot more content on the way, and the future for Hawken looks incredible.

Feature parity is important for us.  However, the PC build will generally receive updates before console builds.  Console releases need to be spaced out a little more than the PC releases, partly due to the patch size and release certification testing requirements and partly due to the fact that we can iterate faster with the PC build - we want to take advantage of that since it will benefit all platforms.

This will be the last update where console comes before PC. And we’re really excited about that.

We know that ‘2017 Will Be a Great Year for Hawken’, and we promise to deliver on that. See you on the battlefield, pilots!

-Hawken Development
 

 

 

I love predator!  :D

 

 

Hi comrades!

 

 

Several days I�m working on this mech (actually, not all days, just busy to end it fast). Today I�m bring new B-class with full concept (drone, thrusters, and even new item and internal). Our guys from Russian community also help me with this mech concept. Because since my first mech we actually added so many ideas for weapons and mechs, so this is hard to find something interesting (and it firstly should be playable!), which actually never used (I already drawn tonnes of shotguns, grenade launchers, machineguns, ball-cannon, electro-cannon, nail guns, crossbow, disruptors, magnetic guns and many many other, I even not remember all of what I drawing before :D).

 

Yeah, we actually already have in hawken more than 30 weapons, it is actually almost all weapons types from FPS games, except lasers and ridiculous guns which shoot rainbow.

And most of problem, not to make �just something unique� (it is actually very easy), but make it playable and satisfied all hawken general rules. Yeah, it is easy came up with something like �another siege mech� or �railguns, lasors�, but� oh� Nepa, stop talking bullsh!t, just let begin�

 

 

 

Interceptor Lore:

 

Interceptor � B-class mech created by Prosk. During the battle near the town �Union-14�. Prosk forces can beat the Sentium forces. As a result of the Sentium retreat, the whole area around the town was just littered with broken mechs, and abandoned tanks (yes, they have a tanks too :D). Gathering all of this scrap and metal took a long time to Prosk. As a result of the inspection this stuff, one of the Prosk engineers came up with a brilliant idea - "why not?".

Taken as a basis Assault parts, they were subject to modification. Interceptor installed on less powerful and lighter engine, but has an additional turbine. Computer systems and hydraulics have also been replaced with one of those that had been able to work. They called this chassis "Oran".

However, the highlight of the Interceptor was that the engineers were able to use as a tank turret as a armor for the mechs bodies. And engineering solutions in Prosky in terms of weapons. They was constructed over 76 �interceptors�. However, only 52 mechs managed to bring to 100% working condition, but it is not so important...
 

 

 

Interceptor Pictures:

 

*nepacaka note�s: I improve my drawing technique a little. Mech now have more colors, some textures, and some flares on metal. But it still curves like a hell� :D

1) Interceptor Default.

 

2) Interceptor Modules

 

3) Interceptor special body (which for MC only)

*nepacaka note�s: If you look at this and do not know how it related with Interceptor, and what is MFP, go back into 1979, and then return back� :?

 

4) Another interceptor concept pics

 

 

 

Interceptor Stats:

 

Armor: 540

Fuel tank: 102 L

Fuel regen: 9.0 L

Boost speed: 30.4 m/s

Walking speed: 18.5 m/s

Air speed: 30

Radar: 112 m

Overheat time: 5.25 sec.

 

 

 

Interceptor Weapons:

 

Primary:

 

1) Default. KPVT � Also known as �Heavy machine gun�. It combines a good rate of fire (well, for heavy machine guns) with armor-piercing anti-tank firepower. After several shots KPVT start highly increase spread. You can try to use it like burst-fire (1-2 bullets) on mid-range, but it much more devastative at point blank.

 

Damage: 41

Max. Firerate: 2.9

Max. Spread: 8.5 (very close to Flak-cannon)

DPS: 116

Falloff start: 50 / Falloff End: 120

 

KPVT is actually more a Flak-Alternative, than other machineguns. It is actually a Closed-Beta version of SA-Hawkins. I love old version of SA, so i want have something like this in game. Devs change SA-Hawkins cuz it was bad on SharpShooter (because spread), but if it installed on close-combat mech... this sort of weapon would be great!

 

*nepacaka note�s: KPVT based on real weapon prototype.  You can read about real model here, if you interested. Despite this weapon created in WW2 (71 years ago), it is still one of the most powerfull machineguns in the world:

https://en.wikipedia...avy_machine_gun
this machinegun also have a big size, so, it is good combined with hawken mechs size even without any changes... and it look nice.

 

2) Alternative. Assault Rifle. But maybe it should be something else?

 

3) Elite. Hawkins-RPR. To be more like classic mid-range Bruiser gameplay.

 

 

Secondary:

 

AT-Launcher � Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher. It uses cumulative missiles, and equipped with laser-guiding system. In first mode, Your rockets just flying at straight line. If you activate laser-guided system, rockets start follow to your sight. You can use scrolling to On/Off laser. Change mode required about 0.1 sec. Almost immediately. �Click!�

Also, this weapon mostly effective on mid-range and high-range distance. Due the turning angle of rockets is a very low (about 3-4 degrees, or maybe even 2 degrees). And you can using guided only on open space, when you see your targets (i.e. visual contact), because if you dodge to corner with active laser-guiding, your rocket begins to turn in the wrong direction, following the laser. So, you should always change weapon mode to be an effective.

AT-Launcher also don�t have air-mid detonation, but it have some nice guiding trick (see below)

 

Damage: 125

DPS: 55 (same the TOW)
Rockets have a life span, and destroyed automatically after 5 sec.

 

some features:

- seeking the target on open space.

- help aiming on middle and far distance (cuz rockets turn angle low, it doesn,t help in close combat)
- more effectively if you enemy stay lower than you.
- you can try damage enemies around the corner, if you turn laser-guiding On/Off at the right time.
- you can shoot rockets in air, and than use laser-guiding to hit enamy from above.

 

 

you can see some tricks, and how it working on Pictures:

*nepacaka note�s: I know guys, now you can say: �Nepa, you fool, why we need another guiding skillfire!?�, but, ok. Listen. This weapon is actually based on the �AVRiL launcher� from original Unreal 3. If you tweak it correct, it can be very nice weapon for hawken, not like HF, and it can be competitive with TOW-Launcher (this is very important aspect!). And AT-Launcher also can have some interesting gameplay trick.
The second important part. It is already exist in U3. U3 = Hawken. Most of hawken weapon based on U3 weapons, so, I think it can be easily implemented in game and devs has all instruments to do it, because probably it has a preform for creation. And actually� this weapon is very different with HF, cuz it guided manually, ie by your personal skill.

 

 

 

Interceptor Ability:

 

Contribute � Mixed ability, working according to the Intercertor condition. If Interceptor have more than 50% Armor (HP), Ability increased his Boost speed to +7 m/s on 8 sec. (only boost, not like raider). If Interceptor have less than 50% Armor, Ability gain him personal shield on 8 sec. Shield gain you 110 additional armor, and can be destroyed by enemies damage before it disappears.

not a perfect icon, i maded it in 3 min. but you got my idea, something like shield+speed icon.

 

*nepacaka note�s: So, Interceptor has a several roles � On the one hand, he is able to catch up and attack fleeing opponents, on the other hand, can take a punch, depending on the situation on the battlefield.
The choice of weapons is also a mixed-combat. AT-Launcher can be good at point blank range, and on far distance (with laser-guiding). So, different weapon loadout can define Interceptor role, according to your taste.
And this mech actually can be a G2-Bruiser, like original Bruiser alternative.

 

 

 

Interceptor Thrusters: Buzina

1)

 

 

 

Interceptor Repair Drone: RD-Klop

2) his two antennas on top dangling when he flies!

 

 

Also, I have some ideas about Interceptor Items and Internals.
 

New Item: AR-Grenade. (Anti-Repair Grenade)

 

It works like a regular HE-grenade. (ie not as EMP or ESM).
High blast radius. Prohibits repair to anyone who was in the affected area by 9 seconds. Mechs under AP-Grenade affect:
- Can�t press C button (Repair)
- The technician can treat it, but effectively of heal reduced to 1/4.
- Repair orbs will be absorbed, but HP will not increase.
- HP regeneration caused by internals will be stopped.
- If tech under AR-Grenade affect, he may continue to heal other, but it can�t heal itself in both torch modes (vampiric/heal)

 

*nepacaka's notes: yep. i steal this grenade from Halo, just for visualisation =/

 

 

New Internal: Controller.

 

 

MK-1 Internal. 1 cell.
All turrets in a 75 meters radius get buff.
MG-Turret gain: +200% Rotation speed, and increase rate of fire +3%.

R-Turret gain: +10% damage. +100% Rotation speed.

- the effect does not stack if several players use the Controller.
- If a player shoots at a enemy, and the turrets can also see his enemy, it starts to shoot to player target and ignoring all other targets, even if another enemy stand closer to turrets.
- If several players have the Controller, turrets obey to player, who stand closer.

- Be a MG-Turells King! I actually it is not bad idea, get a combo with items and internals, to improve each other.

 

Ok, that�s all.

hope tonnes of babaji text was not hard to understand. i added some small pics later.

I'll send this to one lucky user who Replies/Tweets/+1s/Posts/Whatever. You've got 24 hours!

 

 

 
https://www.facebook.com/playhawken
https://twitter.com/PlayHAWKEN
 
 
 
-capnjosh

The Problem

 

As we all know, there are serious issues with people leaving matches either mid-game, or directly following a match. Naturally, this leads to serious issues with matchmaking and game balance. One solution that has been put forward is to give a reward to players who stay in the same server for several matches in a row.

 

 

 

My Proposal

 

Add a chance for a player to receive a salvage bonus at the end of the match, given out at the same time as the HC. This salvage bonus would be in the form of a mech part salvaged from the battlefield, perhaps a limb or maybe even a cockpit. These salvage parts would be exchanged in the store for HC. I envision there being three or more tiers of salvage quality, with the higher tiers being less common, but worth more HC. The probability of receiving a higher quality drop, or even a salvage drop of any kind, would increase with consecutive matches in the same lobby. There would need to by a cap on how long this probability increases in order for salvage to not be completely OP in terms of HC collection; perhaps the cap would be five matches or so. Some careful consideration would be needed to determine the HC values of the various salvage tiers. 

 

I think this is an interesting way to add a reward for staying in the same server for multiple matches while also incorporating the game's lore. I also think this is a good way to keep new players interested, and lessen the impression of an insurmountable grind. The fact that there's a chance something good might drop at the end of a match has an addictive quality as well, and may keep some people in game for longer than normal. At the end of the day this would function similarly to already proposed rewards, but I like the idea of tying in the fact that a bunch of mechs just got blown up.