More than 5 years in the making (and 6560 SVN revisions later), and having involved the contribution of dozens of different persons, Newerth is proud to announce the release of Savage XR 1.0. An incredible number of improvements, bug fixes, new content additions and amount of polishing was made over any previous versions (vanilla, SFE, EX2 etc). The complete list would be so long, it would need a couple of people to read, taking turns when the other one collapses in awe. The main new features and changes, only a fraction of the grand total, are as follows:
Clan & Stats Panels
- In-game mailing system (Smails!), which integrates with the buddy list and search results.
- A Clan Panel that has all the functions needed to create and manage clans their members.
- Clans hav private clan shoutboxes, banners, recruiting voting system.
- A Search panel which replicates the Newerth’s Stats & Rankings page search for clans or players functionality.
- A new pop-up pane (context menu) which offers the most used commands whenever you click a player’s name.
- An extended list of console commands that cover the entire spectrum of clan needs.
New 3D Assets
- Around 500 new props are available for mappers to design incredibly versatile maps:
- 7 new themed buildings sets with more than 70 models: aztec city, arabic houses, wooden cottages, plaster huts, stone village, Japanese buildings and wild-west structures.
- 60 new or re-designed trees which embellish both new and old maps.
- 20 ruins models and weathered structures.
- 70 modular props: planks, beams, walls, fences, doors, than can be used to create unique structures.
- 40 decals which can be used against straight surfaces: blood stains, claw marks, poison ivy, spider webs, shadow decals, cracks, moss, dirt etc.
- 100 various inter-connectable ‘lego’ blocks, in 2 lighting flavors, which can be connected and stacked to create amazingly varied dungeons or castles.
- 3 connecting catwalks systems with ramps, bridges, passages, corners, in more than 30 objects.
- 20 unique props like statues, boats, furniture, monolithic stones; 20 new doors, gates and windows.
- Dozens of high-quality new terrain textures, with normal maps and grass.
Improved Models
- Fully fixed the original low quality 3D skin rigging job; spikes, holes, twists are all but eliminated from unit models like stalker, predator, legionnaire.
- Added LODs (levels of detail) for every playable unit and NPC.
- The armors were fixed and split into individual parts that allow customization and proper model rigging.
Customized Content
- We’re giving away unique items as rewards for winners of official competitions, like the Duel League and NSL.
- Customized content includes: clan flags, aeapons, armor parts, unit skins. And VaultDweller. (:
- Squads have been given new officer flags, squad member flags (humans) or armbands (beasts).
Savage Evolution
- 2 new units with a fresh mix of attributes have been added, to bring novelty into the game and add to its tactical diversity.
- Gameplay re-balancing suggestions from the community have been tweaked and integrated into Evolution, for a total of 24 new changes.
- Age-old problems have been addressed, like siege whoring, healer tech line lagging behind in usefulness, unit mobility, spawn point behe camping etc.
Python Engine
- Python scripts linked to game events (map loading, game starting, frames).
- Ability to interact with cvars, console commands, and GameScript from Python.
- Ability to register Python functions as new Console Commands!
- Customization of server behaviour with Python triggers for recording stats, triggering special events, give refs special powers, linking several dedicated servers as a mini “world of savage”…
- Bots AI code was rewritten in Python, now fully modifiable!
- See /game/python/readme.txt for more info.
GUI Additions
- Adding to the 3 new HUD skins introduced in RC3, the Graphical User Interface has received a number of intuitive additions.
- A new loadout spawn location select minimap is now available, the rainbow shortcuts, the crosshair info bars and dozens of crosshair icons.
- A redesigned Servers panel with a persistent shoutbox and a graphical MOTD window; 2 new main menu variations featuring the new Savage XR logo are in place as well.
GameScript & Modding
- The modding capabilities of Silverback, Savage XR’s engine, has been greatly increased by adding a lot of new GS functions, like !changeunit, !giveexp, !stun, !pull, just to name a few.
- Various aspects of modding have been improved. Some examples: the possibility to make Custom Shops in the field, Magic Damage vs. Physical Damage distinction, Silenced state, skill recharge pie indicators & skill/item disabling while recharging etc.
78% more Savage
- Widescreen users have now the option to either use the vertical (increased FOV, now default) or the horizontal (decreased FOV, old) view angle of the 4:3 screen Savage was originally designed for. Remember to adjust your mouse sensitivity, or play with the old descreased FOV (Options > System).
- While being heavily disadvantaged by the previous lack of wide-screen support, by matching the 4:3 screen FOV, the total surface of those (now visible) exterior strips added a whopping 78% more game screen real estate to wide screen users.
Revamped Editor
- Besides the added support for particle effects, triggers and world objects, it now features a new interface skin and an object browser that makes finding objects really easy.
- New functions to ease the creation of maps have been introduced: object grouping, duplicating and snapping is now possible. The new object attributes window allows manual input for minute adjustments of size, location, rotation.
- The total objects count was raised to 1024, and new ways to tweak the maps are available, like a small 2K redstone mine or invisible blockers preventing abuse and exploits.
New Server Features
- We’ve added numerous cvars to improve and manage the servers and tweak the way they perform.
- Among the new additions, XR servers support 4 new “/callvote” vote types: mod (loads mods like Evolution or Samurai Wars right then and there), msgcomm (triggers a private message only visible by the team, meant for comms ignoring chat), switchteam (change a player’s team if they’re afk or for rebalancing), teamkick (a team can kick and ban for 5mins abusive players).
- For ease of checking XR servers particular rules by both referees and players, the “Rules” window has been added in the lobby.
- A very flexible list of python commands for referees is now available and it can be customized and added to at anytime. There are fun commands like “changeunit” or “givestate”, useful ones like “revive”, needed after slaying players that got stuck in the terrain etc.
Website: www.newerth.com
Download: Savage XR 1.0
