New VO and rewards

2 weeks after the big gameplay update that introduced new movement and loadouts to the game, Id Software has released another new update. I’m pretty sure this one will be less controversial as the last one, but still I foresee some uproar because the voice announcements we all come to love have been replaced. Besides this fairly minor change (let’s be honest), they have introduced Playlists and the end-map vote has now replaced a choice of maps with a choice of gametypes.

Why was the voice changed you ask? The old VO was recorded by Id employee Xian, but he unfortunately left the company somewhere in March so he wasn’t available to do any more voices. Who is this new voice then? Christopher Sabat, who some will know as the voice of Piccolo from Dragonball Z. New awards mean new VO’s, and for consistencys sake, it was decided to change them all in 1 fell swoop. I feel some power was lost when compared to the old VO’s, but it’s a necessary evil if you want everything to sound similar instead of being a mix of old and really old. Perhaps it even opens the door to VO packs with the imminent Steam release?

Now, Playlists. Playlists allow you to choose a set of gametypes to get you into action quickly. Most varying playlists are Team Combat (which includes TDM, Dom and FT) and Variety Pack (which includes A&D, HAR, iFFA, 1FCTF, RR and Quad Hog FFA). Other playlists are simply CA, FFA, Duel and CTF. They actually represent the type of server that is running (pure gamemode and mixed gamemodes). This detail comes down to the last part of the update and that is the end-game mapvote. In the playlists that have multiple gamemodes players will be able to vote for their favorite gamemode to be played next, the playlists that have only 1 gamemode will still show a map vote.

The rest of the update includes a whole bunch of fixes for both the game itself and the maps. Full log below.

Today’s update brings us a new announcer voice, several new in-game reward medals, new Play Now playlists including public standard servers for all game types, and a round of polish to address outstanding issues.

New Announcer Voice, along with New In-Game Reward Medals!

• Combokill, damage with one weapon, and follow up with a rail kill.
• Rampage, gib three opponents, each within 3s of eachother.
• MidAir, kill an airborne enemy with a projectile.
• Revenge, kill a player who has killed you 3 or more times since you last killed them.
• First Frag, awarded to the player who earns the first frag of the match in FFA or Duel.

New Playlists

Players may now select Playlists from the Play Now menu that host multiple game modes. When playing on these servers, during the end-game map vote players will be able to vote to transition to a new game mode. All playlists are available for all players to join. Current playlist include:

• Team Combat: Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Freeze Tag.
• Clan Arena
• Free For All
• Capture the Flag
• Variety Pack: Attack & Defend, Harvester, Instagib FFA, One Flag CTF, Red Rover, and Quad Hog FFA.
• Duel

Code Updates:

• Restored lightning gun knockback (while maintaining it’s recent damage reduction).
• No longer dropping Machinegun in Classic.
• Damage Indicators now show the total shotgun damage dealt.
• Added spectator support for Damage Indicators.
• Enemy skulls now drop from fallen carriers in Harvester.
• Obituary messages now queue, so that we don’t lose death messages.
• Obituary icons now fade out after displaying.
• Item pickup icons now fade out after displaying.
• All reward medal icons now fade out after being displayed.
• Added Infected VO when you’re turned!
• Added Go! VO on Race countdown
• Added Bite! VO on Infected countdown
• Simplified flag VO (your/enemy instead of red/blue, and reduced amount of VO in places).
• Reward VO randomizes between 3 variants for Impressive, Excellent, Humiliation, ComboKill, Rampage, MidAir, Revenge.
• Fixed a bug with Holy Sh*t, it would trigger when dying near your empty flag stand.
• Fixed Weapon Toggle when switch to empty is disabled.
• The “Vote Yes / Vote No” callvote popup menu no longer appears during Intermission votes.
• Fixed the Invert Mouse option in the controls menu.
• Fixed not being able to pickup items after a score in Freeze Tag configured with no round delay.
• Tweaked distance fading behavior for item timers and powerup indicators.
• Added Pause support for world item timers and powerup indicators.
• Added cg_itemTimers to disable timer pies.
• Added cg_flagPOIs to disable flag POIs.
• Improved weapon auto switch behavior with empty primary/secondary weapons.
• Fixed stetched caster/compHUD respawn timers
• Allow weapon drops in A&D w/ loadouts.
• Removed g_weaponRespawn from rulesets so that the option would work in Create Match.
• Restored the zombie speed 1.15x
• Fixed quadHog POI shader.
• Added Your Team Scores / Enemy Scores in place of Red/Blue unless you’re spec.
• Removed red/blue scores and rank change (lead taken / lead loss) from Attack & Defend, because these events only occur at the time of other VO playing (flag taken, round over, etc).
• Updated preview shots on the callvote menu to match the new levelshots.
• Default to the smaller text for low ammo warning.

Map Updates:

• Almost Lost – QA fixes.
• Asylum – QA fixes.
• Battleforged – Fixed floating ammo pack near pg/ra
• Brimstone Abbey – Fixed floating ammo.
• Campgrounds – Fixed DOM initial spawn locations
• Demon Keep – Fixed levelshot.
• Dredwerkz – Fixed floating ammo pack near LG
• Eye to Eye – Disabled loadouts, let the map give the weapons.
• Japanese Castles
  – Converted non-ctf chaingun to hmg
  – Fixed art alignment
  – Removed info_rune_start points.
• Grim Dungeons
  – Fixed floating ammo box
  – Fixed ceiling texture misalignments
• Hearth
  – Fixed floating ammo packs
  – Added a drop down at GL
  – Changed the 50hp at GL to a MH, and placed it at the bottom of the drop down.
  – Added shards in drop down hallway.
  – Removed MG
  – Moved HMG to center of the map, moved PG to a side wing.
  – Disabled LG and RG from loadouts.
• Hell’s Gate – QA fixes
• Retribution – Fixed floating ammo.
• Siberia
  – Fixed missing medkits
  – A few fixes, model origins were in solids. Converted the geo in question to detail brushes.
  – Fixed a shader issue found on Siberia, no lightmap stage.
• Space CTF – lg loadout disabled
• Stonekeep
  – Clipped the barred gate door.
  – Integrated DOM ents
  – Fixed a gap at the new mid stone model
• Tornado
  – Added levelshot
  – Fixed cellids
• Vortex Portal – Fixed spawn orientation