We were so happy with the response to Starhawk at PAX that the SCEA marketing machine leveled-up, cast Videozzaga and summoned a quick video of our Santa Monica Sr. Producer Harvard Bonin talking with people at the show in Seattle after they got hands-on with Starhawk!



Not only was it great to see people loving Starhawk at PAX, the team and I love seeing coverage and buzz about the game start to pick up speed. And with our announcement last week that early access keys for the Starhawk Public Beta will be included in Uncharted 3, well… things are now moving forward at ludicrous speed! It was great to read all the comments, tweets and Facebook posts from players who are just now getting introduced to Starhawk’s gameplay and universe and the LightBox Interactive team and I can’t wait to see all of you online in early 2012!

But Dylan, you ask, what about now? Did you forget about us? What about all of the die-hard Warhawk fans who waited patiently for Starhawk to emerge from the shadowy nether regions of game development?

Five words: Private. Beta. Starting. In. November!

Let me explain.

Normally before a team releases a Public Beta for a game, the dev team goes through a phase known as the closed beta or “Private Beta.” This is when the dev team works very closely with a small group of colleagues from the publisher, quality assurance (QA) team, or very close friends to make sure things are solid, the gameplay is tuned, big bugs are squashed, etc. It’s all about a tight feedback loop and close interaction with the developer.

And we want the team here at LightBox Interactive to have that close communication with our Warhawk fans! Even as I write this blog post I’m still blown away that SCEA has approved this!

Ok, let’s break it down:

We’re going to be starting the Private Beta in November and we’ll be sending a bunch of our Warhawk players (European players too!!) special email invites with Starhawk Private Beta keys. We’re going to be letting players into the Private Beta in waves so we can manage the server load, watch the game balance analytics, etc. The order in which players are granted access is a dark art known only to Sith-IT-Managers and Gywn, Lord of Cinder. But, suffice it to say it’s a mix of your rank/level in Warhawk, your involvement in the Warhawk community, and a few other magical parameters.

So keep checking your email like a Hawk!

Like what I did there?

SCEA has setup a secure forum where all the Warhawk players that are granted access into the Starhawk Private Beta will be able to talk directly with me, and some of our other team members here at LightBox Interactive. We’ll be posting our special PlayStation Network handles so you know when you’re playing with one of us online and we’ll be on VOIP in-game so you can talk directly to us if you want to!

We’re really looking for lots of feedback to help make sure Starhawk is as solid and tuned as possible. So we’ll be actively requesting comments on tuning changes and other game updates that we’ll be making to Starhawk throughout the Private Beta.

And this is a *key* part of the process because we are going to be validating our SkillScore player ranking system as well as weapon and Build & Battle game balance. Our new Hot-Fix system lets us really keep up with the demands of the community so we’ll be trying to push updates almost every day.

We’ll be going into more details on which features will be included in the Private Beta in the coming weeks, but for now, I hope our Warhawk player community is as excited about this opportunity as we are!!!

And for all the Warhawk players that are going to be helping us play Starhawk during the Private Beta, we have a special “gift” planned for all of you when Starhawk is officially released. Oh the
anticipation… THE ANTICIPATION!!!!!

*deep breath*

Ok…what’s next? Oh yeah…

And lastly, no blog post would be complete without my obligatory mention of our website, www.StarhawkTheGame.com —so keep tabs on it because SCEA will be updating it with all the latest as things really start to get rolling for Starhawk!

Rock on!

But don’t worry! Don’t despair! We’ve got the full, extended version of the Starhawk Space Combat Trailer right here. Click it! Play it! Let it burn its shooter-goodness deep into your eyes!

So this video was cut together by our team in San Diego, California and was captured from gameplay on our Capture the Flag Small Orbital Platform map. The trailer gives a really great taste of what our space combat is like in Starhawk! You may have seen some of our previous gameplay vids that were recorded on one of our Acid Sea maps with its cool-looking terrain, jagged spires, and noxious acid. But what’s really awesome about the Orbital Space Platform maps is that they feel urban, with city and street combat and that’s something that we’re really happy about!

The team and I here at LightBox Interactive really want each of our environment types to have a unique feel, but still all based on the fast-paced troop, vehicle and aircraft gameplay that our fans love. And because of each environment’s unique structure and style, our Build & Battle mechanics feel really cool and fresh in each of the environment as well. We absolutely love this and hope you all will too because it allows players to not only adapt their combat tactics per environment, but their support and building tactics as well.

Up to this point we’ve pretty much only showed Starhawk at venues where you needed a pass or some kind of credentials like E3, Comic-Con, PAX, Gamescom, or the upcoming Eurogamer Expo, or GAMEfest. Basically conferences, expos, closed-door meetings, and back alleys — that all changes now!

Maybe some of you have heard of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest here in Austin. It’s an awesome film festival specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action… ya know, “fantastic” movies! They have an arcade portion of the festival focusing on indie games called Fantastic Arcade that is totally open to the public (and FREE) and it’s held at the awesome HighBall Lounge! So we thought, let’s setup a LAN party and give the public a chance to play Starhawk!

So if you’re in the Austin area and interested in getting your hands on Starhawk, swing by the Highball on Thursday, September 22nd starting around 5pm. We’re gonna have a LAN party of 12 PS3 stations, each decked out with a 40” SONY Bravia EX 400 HD Monitor and of course Astro headsets. We’ll be holding a Capture the Flag tournament too and there will be prizes but honestly, I’m not sure what the prizes are going to be but Sony is providing them.

We’ve also got something really special planned for all our fans that show up to the HighBall for our Starhawk LAN Party — It’s a voucher code for an exclusive multiplayer skin for Starhawk!

So swing by, play Starhawk, play the other games at Fantastic Arcade, hang out and meet the LightBox Interactive team!

Oh, and one last thing! Here’s a Starhawk avatar if you’d like to use it for Twitter, NeoGaf or some other forum.

Keep your eye’s on www.StarhawkTheGame.com and the PlayStation.Blog here for the latest updates and announcements on Starhawk — and boy, do we have some big ones right around the corner!

Rock out with your Hawk out!

Their response was “It’s a mega-con of film, games, toys, and comics. Yes, tons of people. Yes, its awesome. The unstable, explosive imagination isotopes of awesome.”

So after all of 3 seconds of deliberation, we were like “@&!*@#$, #@%!*$, *&!?!@#!!!”

That’s an enthusiastic YES. Comic-Con is just the perfect venue to talk about Starhawk’s universe, our characters and the story that drives the Solo Campaign. So, BAM! check this out:

It’s a video that we captured from the game and shows how we tell story in the Starhawk. It’s done with a really great kind of animated “wanted” poster style, punctuated with Rift Energy. They’re Emmett’s memories. His Rift visions. They’re being produced by a studio here in Austin, Powerhouse Animation (they worked on the Penny Arcade Adventures animations). We’ve also got some really cool tech that seamlessly blends between the animations and the game (as you can see in the video). This really makes the solo experience smooth and buttery. We didn’t want any experiential speed bumps in the solo campaign. You can sit down, start the game and smoothly flow from mission to mission with no loading screens!

So, yeah, we’re having our Starhawk panel at Comic-Con on Sunday July 24th, 10am – 11am in room 25AB. It’s gonna be moderated by Greg Miller from IGN and we’re going to be showing some never before seen art and videos of the journey and process we took from the initial game concept to the Starhawk that we have today. Getting really in depth with Emmett Graves (our hero character) the universe of the New Frontier, Rifter Unions, Outcast Warbands, and how Rift Energy took away the only family Emmett had.

Family is a classic western story element and for Starhawk, it seemed really, really fitting for us. Our writter, Koen Wooten, has really been able to bring the Starhawk Universe to life and he’ll be at the panel on Sunday too! Did you know he worked on the props for the Coen Brother’s movie True Grit!! Consider that random Starhawk fact a freebie, folks!

But it’s more than just the western elements for us. It’s been about striking the right balance of advanced sci-fi with the texture and warmth of the western themes. And it’s this balance that motivates all of our creative work — from the design of all the stuff in the Starhawk universe, down to even the compositions we choose for screen shots and illustrations.

All this stuff comes together to create Starhawk’s unique universe and we’re excited to let people at Comic-Con get their hands on some singleplayer gameplay. ‘Cause ya know, the solo mission was only available to the press behind closed doors at E3! So swing by the Sony booth and get your Starhawk on! Oh, and yes, I’m told there will be Starhawk bags being handed out.

Did you know that if you put enough swag bags *in* another swag bag, you’ll rip a hole in spacetime and be able to flap your wings like a butterfly and cause future hurricanes or some crap like that. I don’t know. I saw it in an Ashton Kutcher movie once I think.

OK, that’s it from me again. Time to get back to work.

Rock on!!

PS: And I *do* feel like I’m going through Uncharted3 BETA withdrawal! Maybe I should check myself into a clinic!!!

I can’t believe I’m posting on the PlayStation Blog again. It’s been forever! So what’s new you ask? Well, let’s see, not too much — oh yeah, we announced Starhawk! *cough* Finally. *cough*

The team and I have been wicked happy with the response from the media and the fans so far. Seeing you guys excited makes all the late nights worth it! But, we still have a lot of work ahead of us so thanks for all of the positive energy. We all know a good reveal is just the first step in making our fans happy and we’re looking forward to showing you guys even more tasty Starhawk content and get you more plugged into the Starhawk universe! So the other day I asked all of you on Twitter to send me Starhawk questions that you wanted to get answered, and while we’re still planning on doing a full FAQ post here on the PlayStation.Blog, I wanted to take a few of the questions that were popular and answer them straight away. Here goes:

Does Starhawk have two flight modes?

YES. Initially we wanted to have Starhawk use only a single flight mode so that all players were unified. We worked a lot on this but ultimately decided that the needs of a newbie player and the needs of a hardcore Warhawk fan were just too far apart and we weren’t willing to make the compromises needed to jam everyone into a single flight mode. So…Starhawk has two flight modes and both are great! The default mode is very simple and great for new to mid-level players (and yes, reverse aiming issues have been fixed). It’s a re-vamped version of our “arcade mode” (but much better), thanks in part to a lot of play testing on it. The advanced mode is for players that want even more control while flying around in the Hawk. It’s just like Warhawk’s “pro mode” flight mode.

Server list or matchmaking?

In Starhawk you have both. Matchmaking is good for casual players that just want to be put into a game quickly, or for when we need to enforce that players are not “cheating” or stat padding or whatever you want to call it. It lets the Starhawk servers control which players get put into which games. That said, our fans LOVE it so we let you browse the custom “non-official” games through a server list. This gives you the best of both worlds.

Is Starhawk’s character camera new?

YES. We got a lot of questions from people that noticed from the video that there was a tight over-the-shoulder (OTS) camera in some of the shots. We still have a normal camera that is further away from the character, although it is a bit closer than what we had in Warhawk. However, this new OTS aiming mode is enabled when you zoom in with your weapon. It gives you a combat choice—you can do your normal run-and-gun at some cost of accuracy or you can go OTS for more accuracy, although you’ll be a bit slower.

Does Starhawk still use weapon pickups?

Hell yes! I was actually surprised that people were worried about this. It was interesting to see the Tweets from people who were scared that we might be going to a class-based load out approach. No! We still have pickups. And getting a weapon is not limited by rank. That kind of thing just doesn’t work for our type of gameplay. In fact, weapon pickups are an important part of Build & Battle. For example, If you want your team to have “snipers,” you can build lookout towers which include the sniper rifle pickup. Or, if you want some heavy weapons, you can build a supply bunker to get a rocket launcher and a shotgun. Now of course we are still in the process of tuning the game so things are always bound to change, but this should give you a good idea of where we’re headed.

Are there space environments?

100% YES. The outer space environment set that the art team here at LightBox Interactive has put together is really awesome. Super fun to play on and looks great. Some of the elements are still being worked on and we don’t want to show it untill we’re 100% happy with it. But since sooo many of you guys asked, Sony was okay with me at least telling you that Starhawk was not just about terrain battles. :-)

There are a ton of other questions that you sent me and I will answer them as soon as I can, but for now, I wanted to get a little bit more info out to you all! Hopefully I’ll get to see some of you at E3 if you swing by to get your hands on Starhawk! Keep your eyes on the PlayStation.Blog and www.starhawkthegame.com for more updates, and if you’re interested in seeing behind the production curtain a bit, I often post behind the scenes pics of us making Starhawk on my Twitter account @dylanjobe, so check it out!

Okay, that’s really it for right now. Maybe I’ll include a puzzle with my next blog post—I promise it will be more challenging than the stuff I posted for Warhawk :-P

Many of us here in the States have been spending way too much time staring at our brackets so we’re opting not to do a traditional “bracketed” tournament based on teams or clans. Instead, we’re going to make this competition more accommodating of the individual player by hosting special Capture the Flag Servers that players can join and play on. These servers will have their stats tracked separately for the duration of the competition, specifically Points earned, and these stats will be displayed on a new Tab labeled “TOURNY” that we are adding to the Warhawk website and this new tab will process and update all the player data periodically — so if you get a kill or flag capture and then *immediately* go check the “TOURNY” Tab, just be aware that the server churns all the data every 6 hours and your fine, fine combat skills may take a bit of time to be displayed :-)

So here are the ground rules:

• Competition starts on April 2nd at 5am Pacific Time and will run through May 3rd at 5am Pacific Time.
• Players must play on Official SONY Servers named “Tournament-CTF-1,2,3, etc.”
• Competition is open to North American *AND* European players.
• The top 50 players that have earned the most Points on these designated servers will win the competition.

Winners will receive the very rare Champions Blade! It’s an in-game weapon like a trophy that you can bash people with. You’ll also get a special edition Warhawk shirt for your avatar in HOME — only available to the winners of this competition!

So…

Start sharpening your skills and get ready for the competition — an who knows, you may even run into a dev or two ;-)

Rock on,
-Dylan

OK, maybe not a bazillion but… its more than two years after our initial release and tons of players around the world are still having a blast playing Warhawk. We in the industry call that “sticky” and I assure you it’s not as gross as it sounds ;-)

But we want even more players to enjoy the fun of Warhawk’s fast-paced warfare, So…

I’m posting here today is to announce a sale of inflatable gorilla proportions! Starting today here in the United States, you’ll be able to download Warhawk for $14.99!

BWHAAAA?!?!

And…the Booster Packs are just $4.99 each (or you can get all three expansions for $9.99)

Omega Dawn Booster Pack

Operation: Broken Mirror

Operation: Fallen Star

Now of course it’s for a LIMITED TIME as all great offers are, so you’ve got only two weeks to get your hands on one of the best multiplayer games on the PS3 for only $14.99.

We can’t wait to have a bunch of new players join our community and if you’re a Warhawk player that just hasn’t picked up all the Boosters — Now’s the perfect time!

A lot has changed for us over the last year — we started our new studio LightBox Interactive, moved to Austin, and we’ve been cranking on the development of our new game that both our Warhawk fans *and* new players are going to love! The team and I are wicked excited about how it’s shaping up and we can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Be sure to stay tuned to the blog for more info on our upcoming game!

…and our next Warhawk Tournament :-)

Rock on,

-dylan

And that’s the key word there is… “Community”

We’ve always been driven to support our community and at the same time, we’re not afraid to try out new experimental stuff. The latest result of this is our collaboration with one of our own players named Sugaboo — that’s his PSN handle, *not* his name IRL :-)

Sugaboo’s website MyHawk.org has been operational for quite some time now and he’s just rolled-out a massive update! Clan Matches & Tournaments, Daily Leader Boards, New graphs, Per-weapon stats, Stats on individual games, Game Calendar and more!

Here’s just one example of a player stats page with game calendar:

Based on feedback from our player community, there was always a set of very highly requested community features that Warhawk didn’t support “out-of-the-box”. These requests weren’t forgotten!!! We were just thinking of the best and most extensible way to roll them out. And since they’re community features, it was *critical* for us to develop a solution that would allow all of you guys, our players from around the world, to customize and enhance the Warhawk community for years to come.

We think of it as the democratization of our player community – and yes, it’s global so it’s not just for American players!

So…I’m not going to puke too much technical schwag at all of you but suffice to say, we now provide you guys with the full, and raw data stream from our stats database – not just awards and medals! Every game, every clan, every player, every kill. All of this data is delivered via XML so it’s very easy to Web 2.0-ify a community website. Yeah, Yeah, I know I just said “web 2.0” don’t hate me for using one of the most overused terms on the internet — It just happens to be true in this case so cut me some slack :-)

Here’s a just a wee-little bit of the XML that the Warhawk Server Cluster generates:

Here’s a pic of the game summary page from a recent game. Just click a player’s name to access his stats page. Then, you’ll see a calendar that shows the days he (or she) played Warhawk. Click on specific day and you will see a link to the results of every game he played:

Here’s a pic of the Clan challenge screen. This is where teams can schedule games and, via the new XML feed, MyHawk.org reports the official results of the match!

MyHawk.org now provides our Warhawk Community with some great new features; features that are built upon the global Warhawk XML feed that was developed by the fantastic engineers in our Online Technology Group in San Diego. They do soooo much work behind the scenes (and not just on Warhawk), that I thought it would be a good idea for you to see who they really are. And, just in case any of them show up on America’s Most-Wanted… here’s a pic of this motley crew during one of the play sessions!

Lastly, I want to thank Sugaboo for all of his hard work! He has been beta testing our global XML
feed for quite sometime and I’m so happy to see a member of our player community work to
extend the very community he’s a part of!!

Thanks Sugaboo!

The team and I really think that what you’ve done with our new XML streams is a great addition to
our Warhawk community and we hope that XML game streams of this magnitude are adopted by
other multiplayer games in the future!

So that’s it for now everyone – If there are any other community sites that would like to access
the Warhawk global XML feed, please hit the Warhawk forums and post your info. We have a
team in San Diego that can give you the proper server access.

Rock on!
-dylan

The sweet, sweet hotness that is the Icarus Mk.1 Rocket pack and once you’ve played it, you wonder how you ever played Warhawk without it!

Normally we announce stuff here in the States but we thought since Warhawk has a global player base, lets show it at Leipzig first this time.

Before I answer some of the questions that I’ve seen from the past couple of days, let me give you all a rundown of what’s included in Operation: Fallen Star.

There is an entirely new level – Tau Crater! It’s a smoky, forested island that features lots of vertical elements to give players tons of cools places to use the jetpack; huge trees that you can fly up into and land on their branches, an enormous recovery crane with lots of trusses and platforms to fly around, and of course, the name sake, a truly gargantuan capital ship wreckage smashed into the ground forming, you guessed it, Tau Crater.

The capital ship is fully traversable meaning you can use the jetpack or other aircraft to fly up to its various surfaces, pipes, and destroyed sections. Hop out, use them to recon the other bases, snipe, call-in a binoc strike, whatever.

Around the crater are salvage platforms that have been constructed and serve as some of the bases in the Tau Crater. There’s also a huge fiery hole in the middle of the wreckage that you can climb though as a troop to quickly cross from one side of the level to the other.

There are massive chunks of wreckage scattered around the level and the recovery efforts at these locations are bases as well.

In total there are 10 new layouts for Tau Crater and since the jetpack is a massive, game-changing addition to Warhawk, we included a crap-ton of bonus layouts for the original game too — there are 30 bonus layouts that add jetpacks into the Warhawk’s original content.

And yes, of course the jet pack can be used with both of the new free game modes that we released with the v1.4 Update. Jetpack Collector mode is awesome!

Now the jetpack itself is big departure from the way we normally do vehicles and this was very, very intentional. With each of our Booster-Packs, we specifically look for mechanic changing ways to freshen-up the game — and Operation: Fallen Star is no exception.

So here’s the run-down on the jetpack…

First off, the jetpacks are equipment that the salvage crews are using to work on the wreckage so the style of it is very much like the equipment you might see at a construction site. This is true for the Daedalus Rapid Assembly Device (D-RAD) as well. Think of it as a vending machine for jetpacks. One of our players on the Warhawk forums asked if it was like a “hot-dog-stand”…well, yes it kinda is :-)

You run up to the Daedalus and then press SQUARE to grab a jetpack off the rack, like you would to mount a vehicle or turret. The Daedalus then begins its automated construction process and makes a new jetpack for another player to grab. This construction period helps control the balance of the game so that not every single troop always has a jet pack.

Now to help protect against brutal base camping, we opted to not have the vending machine, err….the Daedalus be destructible. In some of our early play sessions, it just was too easy to ravage the other team if you could destroy the Daedalus.

The Warhawk forums also wondered if a jeep could drive the vending machine around, sorry, the answer is no. We spent a lot of time tuning the placement of each of the vending machines and towing them around the level would have introduced some pretty brutal exploits.

You can also mount other vehicles if you have a jetpack. So you and your team can coordinate fast strikes with the 4x4s and then all jump-jet out to make a flag run or scoop-up a team’s cores. If you have jetpack equipped, you are also allowed use it like an ejector seat and bail out of our Warhawk or Nemesis if you get into a dicey situation. Another great tactic is to use the Warhawk and run fly-by at the enemy base then have your buddy in the passenger slot bail out with the jetpack.

The controls for the jetpack are really easy too and operate the same as any other vehicle in the game so it should feel really natural to start using one.

R2 is the thrust button. Press it to engage the jets and your character will be carried higher and higher into the air. While you’re flying, use the analog sticks to move around. You can let off the thruster button to disengage the thrusters and your character will begin to drop towards the ground.

If you are flying around and you need to focus on combat and not thrust control, all you have to do is hold L2 and the jetpack will automatically emit enough thrust to maintain your current altitude. This way you can focus on raining death from above :-)

The jetpack also has a boost-dodge feature, similar to the afterburner for the aircraft. Simply double-tap R2 to engage the boost-dodge. The direction of the boost-dodge can be performed in any direction, backwards, forwards, side to side, even straight up depending on which direction you are pressing when you dodge.

Now this feature not only is a great way to get around the battlefield, but the “dodge” part of the boost-dodge is key for scrubbing missiles. There is only one missile in the game that can acquire a jetpack lock-on and that’s the troop missile launcher. So if you are up in the air and you see the missile warning pop-up on your screen, you better do a dodge, otherwise that missile is going to nail you! Now if you have a jetpack equipped but you are just running around on the ground, the missile launcher can’t get a lock on you…and this is another good way to help avoid getting hit.

Another question that our players wanted to know is if you can fly with the flag using a jetpack and the answer is yes. We took a lot of time to make sure all the traversal speeds were tuned just right and CTF and Collector mode are crazy fun with the Jetpack — hell, even just straight up deathmatch is way more fun!

So here are some of the details: Operation: Fallen Star is being released on August 28th worldwide and is $7.99 in the Playstation Store. We also worked with SONY to get a new bundle pack ready too. The new Booster Combo Pack includes all 3 of the expansions for only $15.99. That’s like getting all 3 Booster-Packs for the price of only 2!!! Quick — deploy the wacky waiving inflatable arm-flailing tube men!!!

As a reminder, keep you eyes out for our FREE v1.5 Update that goes LIVE on August 27th!

So that’s it for now — I’ll do my best today to answer comments cause I didn’t get to at all with my last post cause I was crazy busy traveling for meetings. So let ‘em rip!

Oh, and one last thing, Kudos to 3 people (topodisc, mattnz, cubehouse) who were able to breakdown my crazy color-swatch-HEX-string-mythology-reference!

Rock on,

-dylan

OMG…he’s a Jet…I still can’t get over it but, whatever.

We just released our v1.4 Update a month ago and we’re ready to upgrade our players to the latest version–Warhawk v1.5 which is tentatively scheduled for release on August 27th. We’re currently in the final phase of global Sony certification testing and all is looking good so far!

“Tell us Dylan…What’s in the latest Update???”

Custom In-Game Music

This feature was asked for by a bazillion players! Now players can use the XMB music player to play their own custom music. Warhawk will also detect if you are using the XMB player and automatically disable the in-game Warhawk music. Convenience for the win!

XMB Trophies

I have talked about this several times before so this is by no means new-news…especially with the recent leak of our full trophy list – gotta love the internets. BTW, the team and I are really flattered that someone would risk their job to leak confidential info about our game — Makes us feel good in a weird kinda way.

Anyhoo….

There are 56 trophies included in the Warhawk v1.5 Update. These also include trophies for the booster packs, some of the trophies are, or rather *were*, hidden and some are retroactive based on your server-side stats. Here are just a few of the trophies that are included.

Training Tutorials

As more and more people join the Warhawk community, we are seeing an even greater difference between skill-levels than ever before. New Warhawk players had to go online in order to learn the game and, invariably, they would encounter enemy players that were, shall we say, not too kind to newbies :) This made it really hard for players to learn the ropes, get familiar with the controls, weapons, etc.

So…The new v1.5 Update includes 4 very simple tutorials that can be played off-line. Each one focuses on the core principals of each of the 3 modes of gameplay: Infantry, Ground Vehicles and Aircraft. Now these tutorials are very, very simple and It wouldn’t surprise me if some of our more hardcore players find them way too pedestrian. But we’re looking to help the *new* player, a player that may not be that familiar with Warhawk or the shooter genre. These tutorials are an invaluable help to a newbie!!!

After completing each of the 3 core tutorials a trophy is unlocked – a nice incentive for new players and, well…all you avid Warhawk players can think of them as “easy-money”.

The forth training tutorial, “Flight Practice” is intended to be replayed over and over again, and help players get familiar with the most rewarding, and most challenging of the 3 gameplay modes: Piloting Aircraft!

In this one, you are tasked with destroying as many attack drones as possible in 3 minutes. These simple, hovering turrets fire swarm missiles at you as you practice flying and “scrubbing” missiles. This tutorial is a huge help for new players by giving them a safe, offline way to practice their piloting skills.

Now I know that there are many players out there that often engage in 1v1 dogfights for fun and bragging rights. And while these tutorials are way, way below your skill-level, you may find it fun to do “speed-runs” and compare kill counts.

Retract Clan Invites

Another feature that players, or more specifically, clan-leaders have asked for, is the ability to retract a clan invite that they have sent to a player. For whatever reason, that player maybe never responded to the invite, was being a…a…what’s a blog-safe term that I won’t get in trouble for using??? How about “tool”, yes I’ll use the term tool. So if a player is being a tool and just camping on your invite…you can pull it back. This is important to clan admins because there is a fixed number of clan invites (64) that an admin can have pending at any one time.

New Paint Schemes & Insignias

Awhile ago you all may recall that we held a competition in the USA where players could submit their own Warhawk and Nemesis paint schemes. We selected the 20 best ones and integrated them with the v1.3 update. Well, we held another competition but this time for our players in Europe. We got some great submissions for paint schemes and insignias, and we’re glad to show you all the winners! All of these, the 20 new paint schemes and 50 new insignias are included in the v1.5 update and of course they are free as are all of our updates.

GGL Ceremonial Blades

The GGL recently held a Warhawk tournament and you probably saw the post from our Sr. Producer at SCEA, Harvard Bonin. Below is an image of the new GGL-Ceremonial Knife that participants in the GGL tournament will receive automatically when the v1.5 update is released. You don’t have to do anything to enable it…the global Warhawk server knows if you were in the tournament and will auto-grant you the award.

For you members ARMED^ASSASSIN’s, the next time you player after the v1.5 update is released, your infantry combat blade will be replaced by the Champion’s Blade (seen below) and you’ll be the only players on the planet with this item!

What’s more fun than a Trophy that you can beat someone with? – I submit…NOTHING :)

“Rookie” Server Color-Coding

We also have added an attractive green color to all official “rookie” server names in the server list. Players that are eligible to play on rookie servers will find these servers sorted to the top of the list automagically for easy selection.

To recap the color coding, Blue servers are official Sony hosted servers, Yellow servers are games launched from HOME, and Green servers are reserved for “rookies”.

We have also fixed the exploit that allowed some players to host unlimited flag capture games, get underneath and into the battlefield and act like….like tools. We also fixed the issue with Quick Join that required you to have stats previously posted in order for it to work properly, and a few other items…ohh yeah, and the 1-minute farming of the Winning Team Ribbon has been fixed. Oh…and one more thing, we are going to be rolling-out version checking on the EULA and announcements so if you have already seen them and they haven’t changed, Warhawk will automatically bypass those screens for you.

Some of you may have read some rumors about our next Booster Pack…I can neither confirm nor deny anything…at least for right now :) Keep your eyes peeled for an update here on the blog and the media coverage at Leipzig which is right around the corner!!!

Last hint…and this is an easy one:

With one of these equipped, a soldier can escape quickly…even bail out if needed!

As always – Rock on!

-dylan

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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—