Warhawk v1.4 Update “Free Gameplay Modes!!”

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As the storm of E3 approaches, so does our next big update for Warhawk and with it comes 2 entirely new gameplay modes for every map, including the Booster Packs – and these new gameplay modes are completely FREE!

Before I get into the meaty list of updates, let me start off by saying that Warhawk v1.4 will have its global simultaneous release very, very soon…how soon you ask?

In just about 48 hours — July 16th at 10:00 GMT (that’s 3am Pacific)

When we started designing the new modes, we looked at play styles could freshen up the Warhawk play experience. After all, Warhawk is now almost a year old :-) And after a few months of development and play testing, we’re ready to rollout 2 new gameplay modes that the team and I are incredibly happy with: Hero and Collection.

New Gameplay Mode “Hero”

This is a team-based game mode in which one member of each team is randomly selected to be their team’s Epic Hero. Players score points for their team by killing the enemy Hero or by killing enemies while they’re the Hero. The team that reaches the score limit first (or has the most points when time runs out) wins the game.

Hero_1
Really what it all boils down to is a huge battle between 2 armies that are being lead by 2 Epic Heroes!

While you’re the Hero, you get some pretty incredible buffs…the mode’s called Hero after all so you’ve gotta be tough!

You get crazy high damage resistance which is like having 500% health. All of your weapons do twice the damage. And the armor-piercing values for your weapons are increased so that some weapons that normally can’t hurt vehicles like Tanks and Turrets, now can!

Hero_2_L
Now you aren’t the Hero for the entire game. Once you are selected as the Hero, you have a limited amount of time to go on your berserker-blitz-rampage-of-carnage-awesomeness. See the shots above for the Hero meter in the upper left-hand corner. Also note the crazy visuals that are rendered when you’re the Hero. You glow your team color, you emit light the same color as your team, you growl a scary sound that strikes fear in you’re your foes, and of course, energy sparks…must….have…energy sparks!!!

Scoring is simple: If a Hero kills a player, he scores 1 point for his team. If a normal player, or more commonly, a group of players, kills the Hero, 1 point is granted for the team. If a Hero kills the other enemy Hero, then 2 points are scored for the team.

Hero_3
Oh…but here’s the downside for the Hero…everyone is gunning for you! If you die, then a new Hero on you team is given the chance for Epic Hero Greatness!!!

Did I mention that Heroes are always displayed on the mini-map!?!?…and with a star no less!

Simply stated…this mode is wicked intense!

New Gameplay Mode “Collection”

This new gameplay mode is like multi-flag CTF. There are 4 energy cores scattered around the map, generally positioned in the center or between the 2 team’s main bases. Each team has a Reactor where Energy Cores are taken to score points.

Col_1
In the screen shot above you can see 2 Energy Cores positioned on a Eucadian bridge. Bringing these Cores back to your team’s reactor will score points for your team…and you can carry more than 1 Core at a time.

The scoring system is progressive, so if you score just 1 Core, your team gets just 1 point. 2 Cores will score 3 points. 3 Cores are good for 6 points…and if you manage to work as a team and bring all 4 Cores back to the Reactor at once, then your team scores a whopping 10 points!

Col_2
As you can see in the screenshot below, the Cores are displayed on your character and the more you are carrying, the more you see whirling and orbiting around you. You’ll also see them on the mini-map as pulsing energy symbols. The score is displayed in the upper right corner as usual, but there is a new display there for Collection mode. It’s the little yellow number that shows you how many Cores your team currently is currently carrying. This ends up being critical for knowing where your focus should be; Offense or Defense.

Col_3_L
Collection mode is fun as &#@%! and really helps promote teamwork and yield some truly fantastic risk-vs-reward moments!…and you can press the TRIANGLE button to throw the Cores you are carrying! Passing Cores among your team is “super-effective” :-)

So that’s a quick run down of the new modes and we can’t wait to have our player around the world start playing 2 completely new ways to enjoy the fast-paced world of Warhawk!

Hmmm…what should I cover next?

Quick-Join:

While we were glad to provide players with very specific control of which games they join or host via our global server list, we wanted to provide an easier way for new and veteran players to get into their favorite games more quickly and easily….thus the new ‘Quick-Join’ feature.

QuickJoin
Basically what this new feature does, and I imagine many of you have already figured it out, is automatically scan the server-list behind the scenes, pick a good game for you based on your connection, latency, current filter settings, etc. This all happens in just a few seconds.

This way, if you like playing CTF games *only* in base retail levels with no booster packs, you can set your filters and all you ever have to do from there on out is click ‘Quick-Join’. The ‘Quick-Join’ button honors *all* of your filters so you can really customize Warhawk’s automatic server selection.

If you are brand new to the PSN or to Warhawk you’ll have to play at least one ranked game the traditional server-list way, so that the servers can collect some stats before ‘Quick Join’ will work well for you. After that, you’ll be ready for hot, 1-click, automated server selection action! For those players you have already played Warhawk and the servers already have your stats, you’ll be good to go as soon as the patch is released.

Mini-Map Update:

For game modes like CTF, and the newly added Collection mode, we really need to clarify where you need to take the flag or core – we had received complaints that players could get confused as to where they needed to go. Warhawk now draws a much more prominent ring at the location where you need to return the flag or core. Additionally, the mini-map renders an animated green line that connects your ‘blip’ to the return location.

Mini-Map_S

Rank & Award Updates:

Now we know this is a sensitive subject as it relates to how easy, or in our case, how hard it is to rank up, unlock some of the badges and be awarded any of the elite medals. With that said, we have made some changes to make ranking up a bit easier. Here’s a list of what we changed for the Medals and Badges:

  • “Capture the Flag” Medal previously required 500 total captures, now it requires 250.
  • “Capture the Flag” Medal previously required 5 captures IAR (In A Round) and now requires 2.
  • “Capture the Flag” Medal still requires 500 flag saves.
  • “Distinguished Air Combat” Medal previously required 10K total air-to-air kills and now requires 5K kills.
  • “Distinguished Air Combat” Medal previously required 20 minutes IAR of flight time and now it requires 10 minutes.
  • “Master Teamwork” Badge previously required 75 team points IAR and now requires 60 points.
  • “Master Teamwork” Badge still requires 2K total team points
  • “Warhawk Teamwork” Badge still requires 2K total team points
  • “Warhawk Teamwork” Badge previously required 150 team points IAR and now requires 100 points.

We have also loosened the requirements, specifically point requirements, for some of the officer ranks. The changes to the point requirements for rank advancement are:

  • “Major” previously was 150K now its 110K points.
  • “Air Marshal” previously required 170K now its 130K points
  • “Command Marshal” previously required 190K now its 155K points.
  • “Lt. Colonel” previously required 210K now its 180K points.
  • “Colonel” previously required 230K now its 210K points.
  • “Brigadier General” previously required 250K now its 240K points.

Now we realize that there are many players who have logged several hundreds of gameplay hours – the team and I greatly appreciate your dedication to our game and it’s the dedication of our loyal fan base that helped make the development of these free game modes an easy decision!

TOW Missile:

The respawn rate modifier based on player count has been modified to take a longer period of time so that TOW missiles do not respawn as quickly in large player-count games.

Minimum Rank Server Option:

Warhawk official and player-hosted servers now support a MINIMUM rank along with the previously existing MAX rank.

Min_Rank

Respawn Selection Hint:

I know it may sound odd to some of you avid Warhawk players but we actually noticed that there were a number of new players that didn’t realize that you could select a different spawn point when you died. This is primarily for new Warhawk players and this respawn hint is disabled if you have “Hints Display” turned OFF in your options.

Spawn

Updates for Home Game Launching:

Now players that are launching/connecting to Warhawk games from Home can designate which team they will be assigned to before the server is started. Warhawk’s Support of Home Game Launching now also supports the new Hero and Collection gameplay modes.

Afterburner Flight to Hover Transition:

Previously, if you were flying the Warhawk (or Nemesis) with the afterburners engaged, you were disallowed from transitioning into hover mode. While this may have been a bit more realistic, Warhawk is more about fun than realism and not being able to transition into hover when you want to need to is frustrating! So now, you can switch to hover mode even if your afterburner is engaged.

Team Deathmatch Scoring:

The scoring system for Team Deathmatch previously counted base captures towards the team kill count/score. This is no longer the case and now *only* counts kills…as you would expect Team Deathmatch to do :-)

New “Winning Team” Ribbon:

In an attempt to further promote teamwork, Warhawk now awards a new ribbon to every member of the winning team. With this “Winning Team” ribbon, each player also is awarded an additional 50 bonus points.

Rib_1

Kick-Idle Player Server Option:

Warhawk now allows players to set an option on their own servers (player or dedicated) that will auto-kick idle players. Warhawk also now detects players purposely not respawning via the respawn exploit and will consider them idle as well.

So that’s a pretty good summary of the Warhawk v1.4 Update that’s going to be released world-wide on July 16th at 3am Pacific time (10:00 GMT). We really hope you like all the new updates ‘cause I sure know we had a great time making them for all of you!!! And FREE content is always a good thing!!!

Oh yeah…let me take a minute to clarify some stuff about our upcoming Warhawk v1.5 Update and our new Trophy support.

So, while I have just finished writing what is probably *way* too long of a blog post regarding the v1.4 Update…I need to talk about the v1.5 Update, specifically the Trophies. Here’s a quick breakdown of the 56 Warhawk Trophies:

There are 10 trophies based on current stats, ranks and awards and these 10 *ARE* retroactive. This is largely due to the fact that we have this data stored on our global Warhawk Server Cluster. There are 34 other Trophies that are entirely new ‘goals’ and should provide players with plenty of new challenges. And yes, Operation: Omega Dawn, Operation: Broken Mirror, and possibly a new something have new Trophies as well. Each booster pack has an additional 4 unique Trophies.

To earn the Warhawk Platinum Trophy, all you have to do is unlock the base game’s 44 Trophies…you do *NOT* have to buy any DLC to unlock the Platinum Warhawk Trophy. Forcing players to buy our DLC would be super-craptastic and completely unacceptable.

….hmmm, that’s about it for now. The Warhawk v1.4 Update is right around the corner!!

As always, Rock on!

-dylan

—ohh, you crafty, crafty colored text—

Comments are closed.

340 Comments

29 Author Replies

  • Awesome. Thanks Dylan and all the guys at Incognito. It’s great that you carry on supporting the game. New game modes look great and i can’t wait till tomorrow to download then :)

    Can’t wait for that t1.5 patch either.

  • And yeah, EVERYBODY, just switch at the last minute to win the Winning Ribbon. Join White Ranked Servers with Player Balanced checked off and the entire team will be able to switch at the last minute to the winning team. Free 50 points baby!

  • What about the GGL and the Knifes?

    • You\’d have to hit the GGL site to check on the status.

      But…the ceremonial knives turned out great. When we announce the v1.5 patch I\’ll post some images for sure.

  • Just when I stop playing Warhawk, I have a reason to go back to it. I love these new updates, and the fact that they are free. I love what update 1.4 is going to bring, and I can’t wait for update 1.5 and trophies! :D Great job Dylan and the rest of the Warhawk team! I’m super glad that I bought this game when it released. It has been the game that I’ve played a lot, and keep going back to. Other game developers need to take notes on what the Warhawk makers are doing with this game. *claps*

  • testing

  • super craptastic it would be indeed sir.

  • Thanks for the update. I haven’t played Warhawk in quite some time, but I think I may have to pick it up again. Especially so I can get my skills back on par before 1.5 hits us. :)

  • We love you guys!

    Seriously, don’t tell Sony but you guys might have the best PS3 game (other than MGS4) out there ;)

    And of course the FREE stuff does nothing to change my opinion, haha.
    I play everyday, you can check up on me if you want!

    Though I think the Packs could use more advertising since not enough servers (player or dedicated) run them.

    Either way, just wanted to give my thanks. :)

  • Great stuff!
    However, a solution for balance is still needed. I am still playing games where one team is 3-4 man down. It happens because whenever a team is down one person, the other team starts to dominate and then more people from the losing team leave the server, making it even more unbalanced. It is also frustrating.
    How about joining a server in pairs? Let’s say there are 28 people in a server. So 29th person could only join when there is a 30th person joining the server. And then they are assigned to different teams. If the server already has an odd number of people then you can join immediately. I wouldn’t mind waiting 10-15 seconds for another person to join, if it’s going to make it a balanced game.

  • Woot! Hidden Link? Where.

  • Zorox = pwned

  • Thanks for the Reply Dylan. Don’t worry about not being able to do that. I’m just gald I got a reply :D Now I know that building all the stats on my main account won’t be a waste (warhawk is never a waste :P)

    Keep up the Good work and may the Gamer God smile upon you XD

  • I’ve been waiting a long time for this update and I can’t wait to play the new modes. Thanks for the awesome update.

    When you say soon, does that mean another 2 weeks like the post on the Warhawk forum or does that mean soon like a week because I really want to try and get trophies.

  • Whee! Can’t wait for more trophies!

    And Dylan — TOTALLY appreciate the support Warhawk has been getting with all of the updates and patches. It’s a refreshing change from the release and ignore stance some devs have. I’ve been a big Incog fan for awhile, and it’s support like this that keeps me buying!

  • Dylan we all know the PR ninjas are fast but what kind of aircraft do they use for the job! Warhawk or Nemessis?

    I MUST KNOW!!!!

    PS: you are on my developers top 5! love the Warhawk support.

  • Another great update for a great game!

  • You guys do a great job there, hope 1.5 isn’t too far off!

    Thanks for the great game!

  • Ohhh… you sneaky Dylan. I didn’t notice that at first.

  • I finally took the time to register here on the PSBlog, a 30-second step, lol, so that I may ask you if you can give your eager fans any details on the new booster pack? Perhaps on the wonderful name you’ll give it? And thanks by the way for hours and hours of endless entertainment that you’ve provided with your masterpiece that is Warhawk. I know that’s sucking up, but hey, its definitely true.

  • I’m sorry to say i haven’t been playing Warhawk as much as i use to but that’s mainly been due to school. Also having MGO out i’ve been trying to play a little something new. But i haven’t forgot about Warhawk and look forward to jumping back on once i get a break from studyin. But i’m glad to see you guys are still really serious about Warhawk and the Warhawk community. I’ve been real excited thinking bout the new trophy system which kind of gave me a new boost to wanna play Warhawk even more and NOW after reading all this…WOW i don’t know if my brain can contain all the sweetness inside…lol.

    I am kind of glad you guys bumped down some of the rank things cause even though i use to play it all the time now not being able to play as much really makes you kind of depressed when you get on after a while and still see how far you have left to go. I guess none of those metals are retroactive? Can’t remember if i’ve already gotten those or not but if i’ve already met the requirements now that it’s been dropped will i get it now right off the bat or still have to do a couple more things for it to recognize it?

    Sounds great guys and especially thanks for making all this free.

  • also I want to take my Pictures in Warhawk… :(

  • It’s this kind of awesome support that keeps me coming back to Warhawk. This, and the gameplay and community.
    I have a suggestion tought, in the award viewer, our current stats should appear next to the required ones, so we know what we have left to do without going to the stats page. Just throwing it out there.

  • Dylan will you be around the blog tomorrow when the Empire Strikes Back?

  • Its really cool that you guys support the community with all these patches. If you ask me that model always pays off.
    Just look at epic, with unreal tournament 1 they had a huge community behind it because epic actually cared.
    Over time they butchered the franchise, saying that hey were keeping with the old style and thus hampering innovation in gameplay but they didn’t keep to the old style at all, the just created a generic fps and took the fun and that “it” it had away.
    I foresee the exact same thing to happen call of duty. The developers have forgotten that online play is one of the main attractions and by shafting current customers they will reduce the amount of potential ones.
    Warhawk has an original style, great developers and great support. When Warhawk 2 comes around I will purchase straight away and hope you will continue to do what you do best. As for any cod sequels and epic sequels. I wont bother anymore.

  • Oh, now i want Trophies even more!

  • Best. Update. Ever.

  • You might not see this, but it’s AM correct? Cause I’ll stay up for that. =D

    • ha ha…yes, it is AM.

      Because we always release this stuff to all players around the globe at the same time, it ends up being released way, way early for us in the states.

      Kudos to our support staff for making all this happen! No one ever has those guys make blog posts but their efforts makes things happen…behind the scenes.

  • #58 Ghostm:

    #58 Ghostm:

    You are missing a badge that prevents you from advancing your rank. I am almost positive you need to get the 4×4 Badge (Killing 3 or 5 troops while in a jeep, you can either run them over or use the 50cal.) Once you get that badge you will jump in rank. I had the same problem, and thought it wasn’t updating…but I was just retarded.

    *IAR means In A Round for the people that don’t know*

    On topic, I just have to thank Dylan and the whole damn Warhawk team. You guys have supported the #u@k out of this game and have always listened to the community. The value on this game is amazing, and I have no problem paying money for booster packs. You guys DESERVE it for all the hard work you put into the boosters AND your FREE updates. I have put over 400 hours into your game, and although I hate to admit it, was getting a little burnt out. The new FREE game modes and that trophy support will definitely keep me around.

    Thanks for making and supporting one of the BEST games on the Playstation 3!

  • Dylan, be careful what you say here. MS hangs on every word like toilet paper to a grundle.

    Just a heads up. ;)

  • What’s the new game you are working on? Twisted Metal…lol

  • this deserves a 5 out of 5… BTW is the hidden link called operation white feather? cause i found the hidden link.

  • Is this white feather to do with Assassin’s Creed 2? :P

  • Thank you for response. I really appreciate it. Now, I’m back in the game baby!!!

  • OMG! I thank you so much. You are the best multiplayer dev team I have seen so far! Really guys. You make me happy having bought this game and I am really looking forward to every little element in the updates and especially the trophies. Sure, I will buy the next booster pack as well.

    Thank you! =]

  • Well here is the wiki that the image originates from.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather

    refrences to bravery and marksmanship

  • how soon is soon for patch v1.5 couple of days couple of weeks or a couple of months

  • Dylan,

    I have to say, I love you deeply. The additions that you’ve made, and are making for Warhawk, are simply amazing and I can’t possible tell you how cool it is that you and your team are continually creating new levels/gamemodes/etc for the game. Warhawk is by far the most fun I’ve had on-line EVER, so it’s so cool to know that the fun will only continue.

  • I have a question can the Epic Hero (ME) fly?

    Also can people carrying cores fly with them?

    I LOVE Warhawk!

  • Dylan, this was posted by another user in GAP:

    In Warhawk, all the players can host their own RANKED servers, now this is a brilliant thing, as it means even if the official servers are down the player servers are always up and there are always a ton of servers to chose from.

    Now, what has been happening lately, is that a lot of players are hosting their own RANKED rooms, they get all their clan members and friends on one side, and the new, inexperienced players (to whom I’ll refer as “Newbies” throughout the rest of the post) on the other team, then the entire game is spent on newbies pounding and easy points by making easy flag captures as the newbies are just no competition – And when the good players do show up to help the team being pounded, THEY GET KICKED/BANNED!

    In short, a lot of hosts out there just kick/ban players for playing good in their servers. Now in Warhawk the hosts can just ban anyone they like, whereas in other games like MGO, like SOCOM, like COD3, to kick you need to have some votes from other players. Why isn’t there a system like this in Warhawk?

  • My first post in this blog, even though I check it every day. This news is too awesome to pass out. I got warhawk a month ago, best multiplayer game I ever played, and the new modes seem so awesome.

    And the feather… maybe in relation to tomorrow’s presentation…

    Sony is onto great things I hope, especially after the FFXIII hoebag of the universe announcement.

    GO WARHAWK!

  • Freaking awesome dude, i wish trophies were in the 1.4 update but thats ok! Great GREAT! GREAT! job man, you guys really go all out for the community and i [DELETED] love you for it. Its nice to see this kind of community support when..

    SOme other developer who shall remain nameless(INFINITY WARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!) completely forgets about their community and ignores us.

    Anyways, i would just like to voice my opinion on all the raging fanboys and ridiculous posts that have been followed since the FF13 multiplatform release.

    1. Its still on the PS3, so who the hell cares if it comes out on the 360 now?

    2. Its still exclusive for Sony in japan where the most sales will come from

    3. Now that we have to wait for Square to port the game over to the 360, the games likely for a 2010 release. By than, are you even going to care? There will be tons of other RPGs out by then.

    4. Am i the only one who found microsofts confrence laughable? Their biggest announcement was that they are sharing FF13 with the PS3 in now 2010..

    No new games, nothing! Sony needs to show one new title and E3 is won by sony.

  • Nice, Really enjoying the game can’t believe its been almost a year.

  • “Forcing players to buy our DLC would be super-craptastic and completely unacceptable.” That’s exactly how every developer should be thinking. SSHD has trophies that are exclusive to its expansion packs, but no Platinum trophies so we had no idea what to expect from a game that had them in addition to an expansion pack. I already have both expansions so it doesn’t affect me as much, but good to see this kind of mentality. :)

  • i found hidden link but what does it mean???

  • Very nice.

  • Dylan Jobe replied on July 14, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    I would love to have women models in Warhawk too!! :)

    But…with the core game already released, we just can’t go back through and patch-in good female models and textures. It has a massive impact on our already released memory footprint.

    …we’ll have to reserve this for our next game.

    ——–

    Power of the cell?

  • This update stinks of awesome. Sooooo happy to see min rank requirements. New game modes sound rad. Can’t wait for the tickle weapon? lolz

    I dunno how familiar you are with Tribes or it’s mods, but let me say, “Rabbit” and “Team Rabbit”. Oh yeah. Just think about it…

  • Wow, that’s a stellar update, and free too! I downloaded this game back in February, but the difficulty and skill of the players was just frustrating at times. But as of a week ago I started playing it again, and had a blast! I have to get used to all the controls and vehicles again, but somehow I was doing much better, and it was incredibly fun. Now I’ve been getting ribbons and badges or new ways to customize my character. Me and my buddy were even playing it split screen and the same day he went out and purchased it. Now all I need is a headset like his and we’re all set :D again, super terrific update! Gonna purchased the booster backs sometime next week for sure! keep up the awesome work, and i’ll keep playing.

  • Well I am happy with the warhawk coming update, but still mad about ff13 for the 360. If that was a big announcement, I am waiting for something big from SOny in E3

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