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BAR servers can be unstable at times. A problem with our server-host is identified and we're waiting for it get fixed.
Greetings, Commanders! PtaQ here, sharing a personal reflection as we delve into this post. With the first two months of 2024 behind us, I find myself inclined to pause and truly acknowledge the fruits of our labor accumulated over countless months. It's no secret that in BAR progress often outpaces the speed of news. Our team's boundless creativity and productivity sometimes obscure the comprehensive vision of our game's evolution.
Cast your minds back to 2019 when our journey began with just 2-and-a-half of a developer. Now, in 2024, can you believe the number of contributors? Honestly, I stopped counting them at 60. And the community… Well yes, we have just reached a whopping 30 000 Discord members.
Amidst the ceaseless flow of activity, I felt it necessary to take a momentary step back and admire the magnificent progress achieved by both our developers and our community.
Let's embark on a swift tour of the past year's milestones, briefly pause in the present, and then set our sights on an even brighter future.
And when we reach that destination, let's celebrate this incredible journey we've undertaken together with a resounding bang, as we always do! Additionally, we will run a Dev Q&A live session to give you some more insight into BAR’s development and what’s to come.
The magnitude of 2023's impact on BAR cannot be overstated. We commenced the year with a massive graphical enhancement, garnering substantial attention from media outlets and creators alike. What followed soon after became legendary in the annals of BAR history as the infamous Winterpocalypse.
Notably, BAR was streamed by Wintergaming, a figure which doesn't need introduction within the RTS world.
The flow of new players quickly overwhelmed our servers and forced us to quickly expand and improve them to handle this massive influx. To illustrate the scale of this growth, before Winterpocalypse, we averaged around 600 unique daily players. Post-event, that number skyrocketed to 4000, and currently stands at an impressive 6000. 2023 also witnessed the support of numerous other prominent figures, including Day9, Grubby, SplatterCat, WorthABuy, PC Gamer, Gamestar.de, and countless other streamers, YouTubers, and gaming publications.
The media and player attention quickly converted into an inflow of new contributors eager to aid the development of BAR, which allowed us to achieve wonderful progress all around the project. Let us talk about some of the wonderful things we have achieved!
With this influx of new content, BAR will never feel boring. We are nearing an impressive 200 certified high-quality maps in our library. Additionally, thanks to a powerful distribution system developed by Marek and IceXuick, we can now browse them in our beautiful Map catalogue. Countless worlds await you to enjoy!
We've also had many new creators enhancing our soundtrack, adding several epic tracks to the score!
We could continue listing more, but honestly, there's just too much cool new stuff to cover in one news article. As we move forward, more detailed updates will be shared in our microblog, written by the developers of each department themselves. This fantastic idea, coined and implemented by Teifion, has proven to be a perfect solution for facilitating effective sharing of news.
One of the new achievements I am personally most proud of is the formation of the Game Design Team (GDT). With the number of contributors and prolific players we have, there is no shortage of ideas. However, as in every project, there needs to be some structure to decide which suggestions we implement. Especially within the open-source meritocratic ecosystem, maintaining a consistent direction for the project moving forward is a challenge. To address this chaos and alleviate decision paralysis, we have appointed a special group of experienced players and developers to lead the way in making significant design choices.
The GDT has already held 19 meetings
Focusing on important gameplay decisions and working on a Game Design Document. This document will serve as a blueprint for game mechanics and other critical factors that contribute to the vision behind BAR. The current members are: PtaQ, Jazcash, Watch the Fort, Raghna, and Zecrus. Previousily it also featured Teddy.
The plan moving forwards is to bring more of the internal GDT discussion to the public, so you should be hearing much more from the team shortly!
Another major achievement to mention is the progress we’ve made with our in-game moderation system. With the massive influx of new players, the need for a well organised and active moderation team quickly followed. With the priceless help of Teifion and Perfi, we have built a powerful group looking after the community. A multi-level approach supported by a ticketing system proved to be the most effective. Currently we have 4 moderators, 8 reviewers and 23 overwatch members. Read more about what each group is responsible for in our Moderation post.
We have also witnessed the development of a bottom-up community of Mentors, which is helping new players improve every day. It is truly remarkable to see such a positive movement growing organically within our community.
BAR has been extremely active in the esports arena as well, organising epic tournaments for both competitive and casual players, as well as some fun events. Just take a look at the list:
As we look into the future, there are few notable things to mention that we will plan on delivering this year. Among them few things stand out:
New season
We are working on the parameters and implementation of a new season in BAR, which will bring changes to the balancing system and potentially will be synced up with some major gameplay changes to counterbalance their impact on players’ rating accuracy.
Air rework
There are several propositions floating around when it comes to reworking the air gameplay, which has been sought after by many players, we will be dropping more information as these concepts crystalize.
Remodelled raptors
Utilizing the new skinned meshes animation possibilities - we are working on implementing skinned meshes support in the engine, which will allow for making biological models so much nicer. Expect Raptors getting a major lifting soon!
UI revamp
So far a lot of UI improvements have been on the pause pending the implementation of a new UI framework which allows for much easier development. We are happy to inform you that we are closing in on making in-game HUD much much more beautiful, responsive and customizable.
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OH YES, we're back at it again, and this time, we're going even bigger! 🙂 We're thrilled to announce that just a couple of days ago, our member count soared to an impressive 30k! On behalf of the dev team, I want to express our deepest gratitude to all you wonderful people who have shown interest in our project. To properly commemorate this incredible milestone, we're gearing up for another one of those CPU-melting sessions, featuring unreasonably massive games. Join the Discord Event so you dont miss it!
Time: Sunday, 3 March 2024 15:00 UTC
See BAR Offcial Twitch Channel for the live stream!
If some PCs are still left on the Earth, we may go on...
This time, we want to make the most of this opportunity by having some of our core developers on board. They'll be overseeing the event, gaining insights into potential areas for performance improvements, and giving YOU the amazing chance to hang out with them and ask any questions that come to mind.
Yes, you heard it right - we're starting the event with another dev Q&A streamed on our official Twitch channel. Hosted by Requiem, we'll be in conversation with three of our cherished core members:
Submit your questions for the panel here
Let's unleash the chaos!
Greetings, Commanders! PtaQ here, sharing a personal reflection as we delve into this post. With the first two months of 2024 behind us, I find myself inclined to pause and truly acknowledge the fruits of our labor accumulated over countless months. It's no secret that in BAR progress often outpaces the speed of news. Our team's boundless creativity and productivity sometimes obscure the comprehensive vision of our game's evolution.
Cast your minds back to 2019 when our journey began with just 2-and-a-half of a developer. Now, in 2024, can you believe the number of contributors? Honestly, I stopped counting them at 60. And the community… Well yes, we have just reached a whopping 30 000 Discord members.
Amidst the ceaseless flow of activity, I felt it necessary to take a momentary step back and admire the magnificent progress achieved by both our developers and our community.
Let's embark on a swift tour of the past year's milestones, briefly pause in the present, and then set our sights on an even brighter future.
And when we reach that destination, let's celebrate this incredible journey we've undertaken together with a resounding bang, as we always do! Additionally, we will run a Dev Q&A live session to give you some more insight into BAR’s development and what’s to come.
The magnitude of 2023's impact on BAR cannot be overstated. We commenced the year with a massive graphical enhancement, garnering substantial attention from media outlets and creators alike. What followed soon after became legendary in the annals of BAR history as the infamous Winterpocalypse.
Notably, BAR was streamed by Wintergaming, a figure which doesn't need introduction within the RTS world.
The flow of new players quickly overwhelmed our servers and forced us to quickly expand and improve them to handle this massive influx. To illustrate the scale of this growth, before Winterpocalypse, we averaged around 600 unique daily players. Post-event, that number skyrocketed to 4000, and currently stands at an impressive 6000. 2023 also witnessed the support of numerous other prominent figures, including Day9, Grubby, SplatterCat, WorthABuy, PC Gamer, Gamestar.de, and countless other streamers, YouTubers, and gaming publications.
The media and player attention quickly converted into an inflow of new contributors eager to aid the development of BAR, which allowed us to achieve wonderful progress all around the project. Let us talk about some of the wonderful things we have achieved!
With this influx of new content, BAR will never feel boring. We are nearing an impressive 200 certified high-quality maps in our library. Additionally, thanks to a powerful distribution system developed by Marek and IceXuick, we can now browse them in our beautiful Map catalogue. Countless worlds await you to enjoy!
We've also had many new creators enhancing our soundtrack, adding several epic tracks to the score!
We could continue listing more, but honestly, there's just too much cool new stuff to cover in one news article. As we move forward, more detailed updates will be shared in our microblog, written by the developers of each department themselves. This fantastic idea, coined and implemented by Teifion, has proven to be a perfect solution for facilitating effective sharing of news.
One of the new achievements I am personally most proud of is the formation of the Game Design Team (GDT). With the number of contributors and prolific players we have, there is no shortage of ideas. However, as in every project, there needs to be some structure to decide which suggestions we implement. Especially within the open-source meritocratic ecosystem, maintaining a consistent direction for the project moving forward is a challenge. To address this chaos and alleviate decision paralysis, we have appointed a special group of experienced players and developers to lead the way in making significant design choices.
The GDT has already held 19 meetings
Focusing on important gameplay decisions and working on a Game Design Document. This document will serve as a blueprint for game mechanics and other critical factors that contribute to the vision behind BAR. The current members are: PtaQ, Jazcash, Watch the Fort, Raghna, and Zecrus. Previousily it also featured Teddy.
The plan moving forwards is to bring more of the internal GDT discussion to the public, so you should be hearing much more from the team shortly!
Another major achievement to mention is the progress we’ve made with our in-game moderation system. With the massive influx of new players, the need for a well organised and active moderation team quickly followed. With the priceless help of Teifion and Perfi, we have built a powerful group looking after the community. A multi-level approach supported by a ticketing system proved to be the most effective. Currently we have 4 moderators, 8 reviewers and 23 overwatch members. Read more about what each group is responsible for in our Moderation post.
We have also witnessed the development of a bottom-up community of Mentors, which is helping new players improve every day. It is truly remarkable to see such a positive movement growing organically within our community.
BAR has been extremely active in the esports arena as well, organising epic tournaments for both competitive and casual players, as well as some fun events. Just take a look at the list:
As we look into the future, there are few notable things to mention that we will plan on delivering this year. Among them few things stand out:
New season
We are working on the parameters and implementation of a new season in BAR, which will bring changes to the balancing system and potentially will be synced up with some major gameplay changes to counterbalance their impact on players’ rating accuracy.
Air rework
There are several propositions floating around when it comes to reworking the air gameplay, which has been sought after by many players, we will be dropping more information as these concepts crystalize.
Remodelled raptors
Utilizing the new skinned meshes animation possibilities - we are working on implementing skinned meshes support in the engine, which will allow for making biological models so much nicer. Expect Raptors getting a major lifting soon!
UI revamp
So far a lot of UI improvements have been on the pause pending the implementation of a new UI framework which allows for much easier development. We are happy to inform you that we are closing in on making in-game HUD much much more beautiful, responsive and customizable.
OH YES, we're back at it again, and this time, we're going even bigger! 🙂 We're thrilled to announce that just a couple of days ago, our member count soared to an impressive 30k! On behalf of the dev team, I want to express our deepest gratitude to all you wonderful people who have shown interest in our project. To properly commemorate this incredible milestone, we're gearing up for another one of those CPU-melting sessions, featuring unreasonably massive games. Join the Discord Event so you dont miss it!
Time: Sunday, 3 March 2024 15:00 UTC
See BAR Offcial Twitch Channel for the live stream!
If some PCs are still left on the Earth, we may go on...
This time, we want to make the most of this opportunity by having some of our core developers on board. They'll be overseeing the event, gaining insights into potential areas for performance improvements, and giving YOU the amazing chance to hang out with them and ask any questions that come to mind.
Yes, you heard it right - we're starting the event with another dev Q&A streamed on our official Twitch channel. Hosted by Requiem, we'll be in conversation with three of our cherished core members:
Submit your questions for the panel here
Let's unleash the chaos!
