[ News ]

Soon Is Now!
Posted by Korona on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:00 PM

After a huge amount of time and effort, Blitz II has finally reached Release 3! It's time to jump! Go! Go! Go!


For those of you who just want to download it, here is the link:




Here is the link to the manual:




And here is a link to Hamachi which you will need to play online since the gamespy servers do not seem to work with many people's games any more:






A huge number of people have contributed to this mod over its long life some of them need a really special mention.

Firstly thank you to Neo who has done so much work for the mod and whose unwavering enthusiasm kept me interested and committed.

Secondly a big thank you to Flyby. His efforts since the start of the mod are responsible for so many of the cool code tweaks that are in the final game. His willingness to share ideas meant for his own projects gave us many things we adapted and incorporated into the final mod. He is also responsible for some of the coolest models in the game. Thank you so much!

Another guy who needs a huge huge thank you is Topknot. I have no idea if he is ever likely to read this since he went AWOL and has never been seen since, but THANK YOU! Our model dump has a huge number of unfinished models, but so many of them were fixed up and UV mapped by Topknot. He saved me months of work by fixing these things up and raised the bar of quality. Even if he never hears of it, his work is hugely appreciated.

Thank you to Killakanz, some of our best models are his creations and he allowed us to shamelessly pillage his side-project for our own nefarious ends.

Many thanks to Logan for sharing his huge wealth of expertise and helping to create our weapon tables. These formed the basis of our unit stats and his attention to detail helped to create the anomaly of a historically accurate AND fun mod!

A massive thanks to our Beta team, especially the "old guard" who were committed to the mod even through the bleakest of times. The nigh-on fanatical commitment to this mod kept it going and alive, while the two years of beta testing and refinement has helped to refine it into one of the sharpest and most fluid RTS mods I have seen.


The former mod leaders and team all need to give themselves a huge pat on the back. While the team carrying the batton the final leg has been pretty small, the team past and present was vast. As I mentioned, many of the models that were part-done or half-done were completed and finally made it into the mod. Building something of this scale from scratch would have been daunting as hell, but having such a huge art pool to draw on saved countless hours and helped bring the release 3 to completion now rather than in 2012! Maybe "ex" team members are anything but with people still contributing and working on things, just not in a full-time capacity.


Finally thank you to everyone who plays and loves the mod, it would have been very hard to make it this far if we thought no one would want to play Blitz when it was done.





Oh and thank you to my gold fish and to the neighbours dog and the cat and to all the little babies and children in the world.

The problem with making a total conversion like Blitz is that the game ends up totally different from the original. The gameplay is not particularly intuitive for new players and getting the most of your units is a case of tricky trial and error... or would be unless we called in a master tactician to share his skills...

Thankfully we have High-Commander Dirty Harry to help us out. Here is a series of 11 tutorial videos to cover the basic gameplay concepts in Blitz:


Manual

We are now a full week closer to release, things are going well and the beta testers have found some unknown bugs so that's all pretty good stuff. There isn't too much to say at this point other than to hang tough, and the release is still on course for early July. That may not be too specific but it's at least better than "soon ™".

There are a few issues I have noticed people mentioning so I will address those. The first is TFD and that other multipack of cnc games. Previous blitz releases were not compatible with these versions of Zero Hour, but I am happy to report that the upcoming release WILL work with them.
Second is the AI, again yeah the AI will work 100% with this release.
Finally, yes there will be a campaign, but the Allied campaign is not complete.

There are some new screen shots on our ModDB page:


And there are some more tutorial videos. These ones go over the building of bases and the use of strategic air power.

Field Marshal Dirty Harry has been sharing some of his advanced tactics with me, so later in the week I will post up the last series of videos to complete the series and cover these advanced tactics.

Our long march is nearing its end. With a development time about equivalent to the whole of World War Two itself, Blitz II has finally hit a major milestone - the closed beta testing is over and we are going to open it up to a slightly wider group of people - you! While this isn't exactly a public beta, we will now accept fans to the beta crew on a first-come first-served basis. Basically if you want to help us iron out the final few bugs in the skirmish game play before we go for a full public release then send me a PM on our forums and I will add you to the beta team. This will let you see the beta forums, give us feedback and more importantly see the links to the 2.7 beta installer.

We have never given release dates because Blitz II is a project and a hobby, not a professional paid for game with time tables and schedules. If it wasn't this way then we wouldn't have made it but it meant that we really had no idea how long it would take. However now we are in this stage it is possible to make a conservative estimate that the game should be out for full public release some time in early July. This still isn't final but barring a total disaster we should be able to meet this target.

Covering all the new content that we have added is going to be totally impossible because there is so much of it. We would need a manual or something... and so that is exactly what we have!


Blitzkrieg II Commander's Manual

As well as a ton of new units there will also be a huge list of new features. At the risk of repeating earlier posts, these include:

• Snow camouflage for all units
• Custom buildings for each side
• Over 20 missions including video briefings
• Fully functional AI on all skirmish maps
• Custom scenario maps for single and multiplayer
• Co-op comp-stomp maps
• Fully revamped tech tree

Hi everyone,

Sorry it has been so long since an update but we have been working on something pretty cool.


A lot of people have been hoping that we would add the Pacific theatre including Japan as a playable faction. Well in secret this is exactly what we have been working on. The Zero was shown a while back but we were sly about what it was for.




Now it is safe to reveal that we have all new Pacific Theatre gameplay about to hit beta testing which includes the US Navy and Imperial Japan as two new playable factions.

The main hurdle was always to get naval gameplay working properly in the highly limited ZH engine. Anyone who is familiar with SAGE will know how hard it is to overcome some key issues. However we now have overcome these hurdles and have FULLY CONTROLLABLE CARRIERS(!!!)


The proof is in the in game shots:



The first image shows the new Japanese rifle infantry with their new cameo as well. The second and third image show the USS Enterprise with its wing of SBD Dauntless dive bombers. These planes are lethal to enemy shipping. Indeed this helps to highlight the main difference between the two factions.
The US Navy lost many battleships at Pearl Harbour so focuses on aircraft carriers wereas the Japanese stay more committed to the big gun boats using carriers just to screen their precious boats such as the legendary Yamato
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato


Anyway this is just a teaser, once we have this in beta I hope to bring you all shots of what a naval battle looks like in SAGE (it's AWESOME)!

The Heavy Gustav and the Dora were long range cannons designed by Krupp and intended for assisting a direct assault against the Maginot Line

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


These colossal 800mm guns dwarfed even the heavest naval guns of the period (around 400mm), and were capable of firing their vast projectiles for miles. A logistics nightmare, the Gustav and its counterpart the Dora required specially built rails and had to be built into their own earthworks to absorb the immense recoil before they could fire. Even after prepairations were finished, the rate of fire was only around one round every 30 minutes.

Nevertheless, the fortress city of Sevastapol was considered a worthy target and in the Barbarossa offensive the Russian defenders found themselves under seige by Krupp's demonic artillery.

Later in the war, the city of Stalingrad almost suffered a simmilar fate, the Dora was moved into position outside the city to assist the assault, but was withdrawn when it became apparent the Russians were going to mount a counter-offensive.

In Blitz we have our own Dora, and since Stalingrad is an epic city, it seemed fitting to give the Dora her moment in the spotlight. The devastating weapon is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, equivalent to the V2 and Tallboy bombs and beaten only by the Allies' nuke.
Of course a weapon like this is impractical for the skirmish game but it will be featured on the Stalingrad mission, and since this city will be a part of both the Soviet and German campaigns, you can feel what its like to have the Dora assist you, and to be in her sights.



To help show off just how devastating this artillery is, I have put together a quick video showing some Russian strongpoints trying to repell an 800mm shell...

Hi everyone,
The Japaneese Zero is the newest addition to the Blitz 2 roster, yes despite insisting it's "done" I keep finding "just one more" unit to add.

These planes will feature in both the ground attack and fighter roles.

Questions?