Beta 2.4

Released less than a year after Beta 2.3, this new update brings new content into the table, including a brand new game mode: Trinket Wars, and brand new voice acting for all classes.

History

In June 2010, four months after Pirates, Vikings and Knights II's debut on Steam, former member of the PVKII Team Sverek revealed that a lot of input dedicated to audio design has happened over the past few months in the development build of the mod, with a lot of content such as new voice acting for all classes, new soundscapes and several new sound effects for a greater production value. The first video shows a work-in-progress of the Captain and the Archer's new voice lines, provided by The Forgotton and Bingo Bango respectively, as well new sound effect for various weapons.[1] Two months later a new video was shared, showing new voice lines for the Gestir and the Skirmisher.[2] Some of the voice clips heard in both videos were either not shipped with the update's release or updated throughout development. It was also revealed the inclusion of Player Titles, which are solely unlockable with achievements.

On October 2010 Trinket Wars was revealed, a brand new game mode that improves every single aspect of Holy Grail, plagued by balance and teamplay issues. The game mode was shown in a playthrough video in Frostbite. The article also reveals for the first time the Man-at-Arms, showing only the character's hands and halberd. It's also revealed that new shaders are in the works. On early december, a couple of weeks before the release, Temple was revealed to be another map with the Trinket Wars game mode, as well the work of DragonNOR providing voice acting for the Huscarl.[3]

The update was released on December 23rd 2010, Christmas Eve in some parts of the world.[4] A bug fix patch was released on January 7th 2011, solving several game-breaking bugs left untouched.

Gameplay

Players can now perform a counter-attack after a perfect parry, without keeping the block button pressed. The block's direction is automaticaly updated after the perfect parry. Due to exceeding the damage capacities, most special attacks were toned down to 135 points. The chance of stunning while blocking the wrong direction was removed.

Both the health and armor pickups don't refil the player 100%; for now on it gives 65 health points and 60 armor points to all classes, respectively. The chests' health and armor refils after capturing are also fixed, with both giving 90 points each.

Jumping gives how a 5% of speed increase. Consecutive melee hits will increase the damage by 15% after the combo reaching the fourth hit. Team kills caused by traps will subtract a kill from the player and it won't be included in the kill bonuses.

Classes

All classes get a 5% of speed increase when jumping. Some classes got the ammo received from pickups changed.

Archer

The longbow can no longer be charged while in midair.

Gestir

The damage required to fill the special bar was adjusted, and the javelins no longer can be charged while in the air.

Heavy Knight

Like the Gestir, the damage required for a special attack was adjusted.

Huscarl

The damage required for the special bar was adjusted, as well the fact of the throwing axes no longer being charged in the air.

Skirmisher

The keg received several tweaks, such as nerfed damage, increased movement speed while holding it, and it also pushes back and stuns Pirate teammates.

Game Modes

Trinket Wars

The game mode introduced in this update improves every single aspect and eliminates most flaws regarding its predecessor Holy Grail. Now with each team having their own trinket (and the Knights having the grail for them) battles are more balanced and it gives a bigger emphasis on teamplay. All maps built upon Holy Grail, both official and community-made, are immediately updated to Trinket Wars with no obligatory input from the mapper.

Other Game Modes

Chest-related fixes were added to Booty; chests inside the chest area can no longer be pushed away by keg explosions. Players now have to wait four seconds after throwing away a chest to grab another one.

In Territory, several issues related to territory captures not working on servers that have been on for a reasonably long period of time or with a high number of players in it were fixed. Sound feedback was added while capturing a territory.

Maps

Saints

Saints was re-introduced, now with new geometry and layout, as well with the new Trinket Wars inplemented. Its rooms were enlarged, received better lighting and overall visual improvements.

Fort

Similar to Saints in the previous update, it was removed from the official maps list for further improvements. It would take nearly three years to be released as a Trinket Wars map.

Temple

Apart from its migration to Trinket Wars, the map got better lighting, in particular inside the cave, as well more spawns to improve the gameplay in the level a little bit.

Island

Island saw some visual improvements with new textures and landscapes; a new spawn area for the Vikings gave to them a much needed cover. The Knights were the only classes unprotected on respawns, and despite the issue being adressed by mapper Gaz, they'd only receive shelter a couple of years later.

Arena

A bug where players were able to survive under lava was fixed. Soundscapes were added to give atmosphere.

Cathedral

New sounds for the collapsing pillars were added.

Forgotten

The soundscapes were updated.

Frostbite and Desertruin

The maps saw their migration to Trinket Wars.

Audio

Audio was a major factor in this update and thanks to the work of audio engineer TheForgotten new sound effects were created to give more variety to the world surrounding the player, as well to replace stock sound effects from Half-Life 2. New sound effects include unique swinging sounds for each weapon, draw and holster, the collapsing pillars in Cathedral, footsteps, as well several updated soundscapes and one added for Arena. Achievements have received sound cues after being unlocked.

Voice Actors

For the first time in the mod, new voice actors were given to each class to give them some personality. Prior to this update each team had its own voice for all classes in it; Rejenorst provided voices for both the Vikings and the Pirates while the Knights were voiced by... someone else. With this update each voice actor provides unique voice shapes for each class via accent, tone and style. TheForgotten provided voices for the Berserker, the Captain and the Heavy Knight, with the latter impersonating the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, while Bingo Bango voices the Skirmisher, the Archer and the Gestir, with the latter having a distinctive grouchy voice. DragonNor is the only voice actor who voices a single class, the Huscarl, and since then it has become the norm, with the subsequent releases of Sharpshooter and the Man-at-Arms.

Achievements

Player titles were added as a reward for unlocking achievements.

New achievements were added:

• Sword At A Gunfight;
• Traveller;
• Some Friend You Are;
• Black Powder Finish;
• Hollywood Physics;
• Meat Carver;
• Final Strike;
• In Good Company;
• Superior Messiah;
• Mine's Better;
• The Chosen One;
• Sharing is Caring;
• I Be Unstoppable;
• So Come Take a Drink...;
• One Man Army.

Misc.

Gameplay

A picture of a powder keg or a parrot will appear on the screen to warn that their respective classes got their weapons loaded. A bug were players can have two parrots at the same time was fixed. The parrot can mimic enemy taunts after one is killed.

The flintlock will reload properly while holding down the reload key.

AFK players are moved to spectator mode after 90 minutes of idling. AFK players holding a trinket will drop it after 20 seconds idling.

Community

Several console commands were added, including one to enable or disable advanced shaders in a map built in Hammer, and several of them to control AFK players. More support was given to server mods.

Other

Several impact-based particle effects were added.

Reception

Initial reactions were positive, with players praising Trinket Wars and voice acting.

Throughout the years the new voice actors got mixed reactions from the community, with many players complaining about them being shallow and bland compared to the previous voice clips. Other players defend the added ones due to them being very handy in recognizing players, for exsmple, when they are asking for help.

Changelog

Combat/Balance

- Required damage for full special bar adjusted for Heavy Knight, Berserker, and Huscarl

- Changed ammo given to some classes from pickups

- Nerfed Keg Damage, Increased move speed when holding keg

- Javelin, throwing axe, and Longbow cannot start charging if in the air. It will start charging as soon as you hit the ground if you hold the button down and you can jump all you want once you start charging

- Keg now pushes and stuns pirate teammates

- The player no longer needs to hold the block button after a perfect parry to perform a counter-attack

- Changed special attack damage cap to 135 for cutlass, spear, 2h sword and huscarl's shield

- Fixed special attack damage exceeding the damage cap for some specials

- Blocking direction now updates after a Perfect Parry

- Removed chance of stun when blocking to the wrong direction

- Consequtive melee hits cause increased damage up to 15% with 4x combo

- Health Pickup gives a fixed 65 health

- Armor Pickup gives a fixed 60 health

- Capturing a chest gives a fixed 90 health and armor

- Jump only gives 5% speed increase

- Team kills caused by traps, etc. now will subtract a kill from the person who caused it as well as not increment any kill bonuses related to it

Maps

- Added tw_saints

- Removed hg_fort (she'll be back)

- Gamemode of temple, frostbite and desertruin changed to Trinket Wars

- tw_temple:

     * Cave lighting made brighter
     * Added more spawns

- tw_saints:

     * Made some rooms, hallways and doors larger
     * More torches
     * Bigger outdoor areas
     * Generally a bit nicer to look at

- bt_island:

     * New textures and landscaping in places
     * New viking spawn

- bt_forgotten:

     * Edited soundscapes to trigger properly

- lts_arena:

     * Fixed being able to survive under the lava
     * Added soundscapes

- lts_cathedral:

     * New sounds for collapsing pillars

Game Modes

- New Trinket Wars mode to replace Holy Grail mode

                  -Each team has its own trinket
                  -Goal is to defeat enemy players while near your trinket carrier whilst also defending your trinket carrier

- Fix Round Based scoring where Pirates win and Knights came second place, but Vikings got the silver trophy

- Fixed issues with Territory captures not working on servers that have been on a while or have high turnover of player rates

- Chests in a dropzone no longer get pushed by the keg

- Can't pick up another chest in a chest zone in 4 seconds after throwing away a chest

Sounds

- Added unique voices for all classes

- Added unique swings sounds for all melee weapons

- Improved Javelin and Throwing Axe sounds

- Added Draw and Holster sounds for all weapons

- Added unique soundscapes for Arena, Cathedral, Forgotten, Frostbite, Desertruin and Saints

- Added sound feedback when capping territory

- Added class-specific footstep sounds

- Added unique achieved sounds for several achievements

Miscellaneous

- Added achievement player titles

- New achievements: Sword At A Gunfight, Traveller, Some Friend You Are, Black Powder Finish, Hollywood Physics, Meat Carver, Final Strike, In Good Company, Superior Messiah, Mine's Better, The Chosen One, Sharing Is Caring, I Be Unstoppable, So Come Take A Drink..., One Man Army

- Parrot and powderkeg will appear on the captain and skirmisher as soon as they have received the ammo for it

- Holding down reload on the flintlock pistol will reload correctly

- Added display of remaining health and armor of person who killed you into the console

- Fix seeing double parrots on other players

- Moved voice menus client-side, removing lag

- Added a mat_advancedshaders setting to enable/disable use of new more complex PVK2 Specular lighting shaders (Can be toggled through multiplayer advanced options)

- Parrot will mimic enemy taunts sometimes when they kill an enemy

- Added a territory capture sound when you are contributing to attempt to capture a territory

- Support for some server mods

- Added m_iClassRespawningAs to DataDesc for class limit server mod support

- Fixed round_end ModEvent to use standard inputs as the winner param for serverplugins.

- Flintlock keg particle issue should be resolved

- New entity logic_expressions_manager allows to override the .vcd scene being used as base layer expression for all players in the game. Useful for events such as Sudden death's where you want everyone to look scared, etc.

- Added a SetOverrideExpression and ClearOverrideExpression to !player in hammer so that using triggers or buttons, or any type of event can allow mapper to override a single player's expression .vcd scene (Expression overrides do not reset when a player respawns so be sure to call ClearOverrideExpression on a player who you have overriden expressions for. Done this way in case specific maps want to have expressions always overriden)

- Speedhack fix

- New particle effect impacts

- Added a new indicator when a team's tickets change in Booty/Trinket Wars

- Main menu music is now muted when in windowed mode the game no longer has focus

- Added AFK protector. AFK players are moved to spectator after 90 seconds of idling, AFK trinket carriers will drop the trinket after 20 seconds of idling. Can be controlled with the cvars mp_afkprotector_time and mp_afkprotector_trinketdroptime

January 7th Patch

- Use team spawns in Trinket Wars if no deathmatch spawns are available (fixes spawning problems with some custom maps) - Fixed delays in voice commands, jump grunts, eat sounds, etc. - Fixed being able to unlock mouse during skirmisher special - Fixed achievements Final Strike, Mine's Better, Meat Carver - Fixed Superior Messiah being achievable by changing teams when holding the trinket - Fixed crash when using voicemenu2 in maps with no gamemode - Teammates spawning in the same position will no longer cause spawn killing - Parrot death voice line fix for captain - Removed 50% chance on reload voice lines because they now only occur if there are teammates nearby - Lowered pillar collapse sound for cathedral and added more aftermath effects - Lowered clipping part for skirmisher round start sound - Fixed medium damage voice for Huscarl - Saints: Fixed the spawn where you get stuck - Arena: Added more spawns, and added playerclips in front of the gates, so people do not touch it thus not receiving damage - Updated Polish, Russian and Traditional Chinese translations - Fixed Sudden Death sound not playing in Last Team Standing