Master Server Changed - Update Required
The master server was moved and the old one closed down. Please update your live channel with the launcher in order to see the list again.
Also congratulations to Fixious on winning the first round of the community mapping contest. His map Whiteout has been added as well as Defenders map Alderann Catwalks.
Whiteout - by Fixious
Alderann Catwalks - by Defender
The Future of Legions - Part Two
Legionnaires,
A little under 10 months ago we announced that we were beginning work on bringing Legions to Unity for the "next version" of the game. The details around this were pretty ambiguous regarding the timeline and exactly what was planned (i.e. if it was going to be a port or a "Legions 2"). The reason for this was simply because these details were also rather ambiguous to us. They relied on a few moving parts that took a while to solidify. We didn't want to overshadow the great progress being made with 1.40 with the ever-changing details around what was going to happen with the new game. Now that the dust has settled, we've been able to make some decisions that we're ready to announce to you: We will not be developing a Legions 2 game or a port for Legions: Overdrive. Legions: Overdrive, however, will continue to stay online and developed by the community. For more information, consult the FAQ below. I'll also be answering questions in the forum.
What were you planning on doing?
At first we were going to make a port (this is when we made the first announcement). Then we said, "Well if we're going to put all this effort into it and essentially reconstruct the game, let's make Legions 2 and add a bunch of cool things to it and re-launch the whole IP." So we decided to make Legions 2 and began moving in that direction.
In this announcement, you make a reference to "moving parts." What do you mean?
Licensing agreements, design direction, available resources, etc.
Why go back on your original announcement/plans?
Originally, we wanted to make a new iteration of Legions that brought out the best of what we loved with the game and improved on it. We went as far as negotiating a new agreement with IAC. In the end, we thought long and hard about the game we wanted to make and what we needed to do to be true to the IP and concluded that those two things did not totally agree. In other words, we didn't want to go out and make the game we wanted to make and call it Legions 2 because it wouldn't have been a good reflection of the feel and gameplay of Legions: Overdrive - it wouldn't have been Legions. When you have a volunteer development team working for months/years on a new game, you need your team to WANT to build it or it will fail.
What did you negotiate with IAC?
In the original license agreement with InstantAction (that was inherited by IAC upon the end of IA), we were severely limited by the terms. We were only able to distribute the game on this website, we couldn't monetize it, and we couldn't rebrand it. We asked to expand our rights to distribute freely (aka make the game available through places like Steam), make money on it, and rebrand as necessary (for Legions 2) in exchange for a share of the revenue. This was granted, but we never signed it because of the reasons outlined above, and because there were considerations about whether or not the revenue share was worth the use of the IP. In the end we decided this was not the right way to go.
What will happen with Legions: Overdrive?
The core development team for Legions over the last several years is working on a new game. We're leaving it up and we want you as a community to take over development, and we will provide administrative functions and legal oversight for the new community developers.
How do I contribute to Legions: Overdrive?
The development model will stay the same, where proven community contributors who want to be a part of the development team will be brought in to do more work and add more features. If you're interested, find Poponfu or BugsPray in the forums and send us a message.
What is this new game you're working on?
The Legions blog isn't the appropriate place to disclose this sort of information. I'll start up a thread in the Off-Topic section of the forum for discussion around the new studio and our first game.
As always, feel free to comment on the forums using the link below. I'll update this FAQ with popular questions as they come up.
BugsPray
Legions Mapping Contest: Round One
Hey Legionnaires,
Have you ever thought about making a map before but weren't sure if you should? Were you afraid that it might never make it into the game? Well, now is the time for you to make or finish your map and have your chance to get it put into the game!
To view the rules, get further information or if you have any questions please view the official thread.
-Jordan
1.40 Patch is Live!
After a good round of public testing, we've made a bunch of changes and pushed the 1.40 patch to the Live servers. Please delete your Live folder in your Legions install and re-download Live.
There's a few things you should know about this patch. First off, engineer is not included. We've taken the feedback from the community to heart and are trying to rework everything to keep that Legions feel. More information soon about this. Second, Grassy is not in this patch as it's receiving a visual overhaul. It will be released soon.
The [US] Hotswap and [DE] Empire servers have been updated.. Legal Aliens and others will be delayed as their owners get to updating.
The full changelog is below:
Cores
- Shield Core : Activate for a shield. Converts damage to energy loss until you are out. Damage over the amount of energy you have remaining will bleed into health when the shield is destroyed. Very slow energy drain while it is active.
- Boost Core: increases the velocity of the player in their current movement vector at the cost of health after a brief charge time. The boost given falls off at higher velocities as the charge time increases.
- Dodge Core: Dodge in one of 8 directions depending on the keys held. There is a 300ms delay when you let go of a key before that is registered allowing easier diagonal dodges.
- Regen Core: Now consumes energy while restoring health.
- Engineer Core: Will be released in a update soon. Undergoing some changes.
Game Modes
- CTF: CTF as we have always known it
- Hunter: Hunters has been restored. Kill players and steal their flags then return them to the nexus to score. The amount of points increases exponentially with the number of flags you are holding.
- CNC: This gamemode goes to 7000 points. Capturing capture points around the map will start slowly adding to a teams score. Main bases have reactors in this mode and are capture-able after 10 minutes Capturing all the spawn points will win the game for a team.
- FCNC: This gamemode goes to 10,000 points. Capturing capture points around the map will start slowly adding to a teams score. Capturing the flag is worth 500 points. The main bases do not become captureable in this mode.
- Team Rabbit: With one flag and two teams, points are scored by passing the flag among your team. The passes are scored on how high, fast and difficult to catch they are, and can be worth up to 240 points.
Weapons
- Repair Gun: added; repairs deployables and assets
- Plasma: self impulse has been nerfed
- Blaster Rifle: now lights players on fire. MA damage increased to 15 from 5.
- Sniper Rifle: now has a charge time with a shortened reload time.
- Bolt:Now has a very slight area impulse.
GUI
- Main Menu: redesigned; functionally identical
- Game Menu: redesigned; functionally identical in most regards though many new keybindings have been added, so you’ll want to take a look at that.
- HUD: while many new features have been added, the HUD still maintains much of the same functionality as before in the same general locations.
- Status bars are now dynamic and can be centered if desired.
- IFF has been updated to support capture point assets ()
- Critical game objectives and game status elements have been shuffled around
- Skin Select: Skin select has been activated, To switch to it , click at the top of the loadout window. Loading a saved skin then switching to the skin page and clicking apply will save that skin to your custom loadout.
- coresHud has been moved to the center-top of the screen.
Demos
- Demos are working now , set the options to yes in the demo page from the main menu. Its a good idea once you are done playing to rename these files still.
Legions 1.40 Now On Public Test
Legionnaires,
Legions: Overdrive 1.40 has been pushed to public test. Use the channel selection drop-down when you log into the launcher today, jump in and test the new features! The full list of changes are below, but you should know some things first:
- If you have a public test folder, please delete it or you will not be able to play
- Report any/all bugs here, put your suggestions here, and general feedback here
- Elegiac is the only CTF map enabled for deployables
- FCNC and CNC are NOT in the regular public test rotation due to some outstanding bugs, but if you're around when we need it testing, the server will be briefly switching to these new game modes to hammer out these issues
- Observer mode has been left out for now and will likely be pushed in a later patch
- Teleporter art is unfinished but will be included in the final release of 1.40
- If you happen to catch a map or two of Sanctuary (the only F/CNC map), know there will be another quality pass to it before release
Get to testing! Here's the full list of updates:
- Cores
- Shield Core : passively reduces incoming damage by 20% and can be activated to absorb all weapons damage at the cost of draining energy. Fall damage, admin kills, and the map’s edge bypass the shield.
- Boost Core: increases the velocity of the player in their current movement vector at the cost of health after a brief charge time. The boost given falls off at higher velocities as the charge time increases. Do not use at a standstill or you will drain your health for nothing; always at minimum walk in the direction of desired travel first.
- Dodge Core: hurls the player a short distance in the direction of the reticle at the cost of energy. Velocity is saved upon use and is restored upon dodge completion.
- Regen Core: nerfed and restored to game.
- Engineer Core: used to deploy deployables; pressing the “Core” keybinding will bring up the engy GUI
- EM: to prevent massive deployable spam, engineers shall have a maximum weight limit which we have dubbed “Electromagnetic Signature.” All deployables have an EM cost and a player may deploy until their EM is full or the would-be deployable would exceed their maximum EM. A player’s maximum EM increases with level.
- Level: as a player’s deployables are used, they will build up experience. This XP will be transferred to the owner of the deployable upon close proximity with the deployable. As a player gains XP, they will level up and will unlock more advanced/powerful deployables. The amount of XP required to increase in level is an exponential curve with the level cap at 15. Do not expect to often reach this.
- Types: there are Turrets, Utilities, and Reactors
- List: the player has a list available to them of all their deployables which shows the status of each and allows them to remotely destroy them if they decide to make a new one. To destroy a deployable remotely from the list, click the desired deployable and click “Destroy Deployable.”
- Network Detection: engineers have a GUI element on the right side of the screen that displays the status of any nearby reactors. The progressbar at the top indicates the reactor’s current energy reserve and the number below it indicates the energy “balance” (reactor’s energy regen minus the operating energy usage of deployables connected to it).
- Loadout Changes: should a player decide they no longer wish to play as engy, they may of course switch cores at any time though doing so will destroy all owned deployables. It will NOT however remove any accrued XP. XP is only reset between games.
- Deployables
- Deployment
- Selection: To deploy an object, in the engy GUI, select the desired deployable and click “Deploy.” This will enter you into Deploy Mode where the engine will spawn a model deployable at the mouse’s current location. Clicking will attempt to deploy at the current location. If accepted, the player will leave deploy mode and a deploy animation will begin for the deployable at the target location. Most deployables already dynamically switch colors to indicate validity of a position (blue: good, red: bad), though some do not. This will change as art is completed. In the mean time, there will be some that do not appear at all. You can still click to select a position.
- Channeling: As a deployable is spawned, ensure that you remain stationary as spawning a deployable is a channeled activity. Moving before deployment is complete will result in the deployable destroying itself. This prevents among other things, “drive-by deployment.”
- Energy Networks
- Reactors: There are two types of reactors: deployable reactors and asset (capturable) reactors. Both function as sources of power for nearby deployables. The higher the “Mark” of the reactor, the greater the range, regeneration, and reserve of the reactor. Capturable reactors are effectively a high-mark reactor.
- Regeneration and Reserve: all reactors have passive energy regeneration that works to replenish their reserve. This is also the first line of defense against reactor meltdown. Should the drain of connected deployables exceed the regenerative rate of a reactor (don’t do that unless you want inevitable reactor meltdown), it will begin to drain from the reactor’s reserve energy. Many deployables have active use cost as well as passive energy cost.
- Taxing and Optimal Connections: Should a reactor become bogged down, it will become “Taxed” and new deployables will avoid them unless there are no alternatives available.
- Deployable Theft: If a deployable’s power source has been destroyed, its deployables may be captured by placing your own reactor nearby. Again, deploying a reactor will capture ALL nearby unpowered deployables. If you deploy a deployable near an enemy reactor however, your deployable will remain unpowered until you spawn a friendly reactor.
- Reactor Meltdown: If a reactor reaches zero energy, it will “Meltdown” and will self-destruct.
- Deployable Objects
- Turrets
- Rocket: fires rockets at nearby enemies
- Chain: fires bullets at nearby enemies
- Laser: lasur turrets.. the last unlock.
- Guardian: periodically shoots down enemy fire. Does not make any attempt to shoot down very high velocity fire (chain, plasma).
- Utilities
- Healpad: heals players standing on it
- Ammo Station: refills ammo
- Scanner: detects nearby enemies
- Boost Pad: launches a player at high velocity. This is currently omnidirectional; this will be changed to send the player in the orientation of the pad during testing.
- Disruptor: disables the cores of ALL nearby players (including yourself) for as long as they remain in the radius plus an additional 5 seconds after leaving
- Teleporter: teleports
- Reactors
- Reactor: see 2b above
- Turrets
- Deployment
- Game Modes
- CTF: CTF as we have always known it
- Hunter: hunter has been restored
- CNC: This gamemode goes to 7000 points. Capturing capture points around the map will start slowly adding to a teams score. Main bases have reactors in this mode and are capture-able after 10 minutes Capturing all the spawn points will win the game for a team.
- FCNC: This gamemode goes to 10,000 points. Capturing capture points around the map will start slowly adding to a teams score. Capturing the flag is worth 500 points. The main bases do not become captureable in this mode.
- Team Rabbit: With one flag and two teams, points are scored by passing the flag among your team. The passes are scored on how high, fast and difficult to catch they are, and can be worth up to 240 points.
- Maps
- Sanctuary : The first map to feature capture points. There are four points spread diagonally across the map. Designed mostly for pubs and comfortable at 10v10.
- Capture Points
- To capture a point, a player must be beside the core of a capturable reactor (identified on the IFF by lightning bolts) for an extended period. When they do, a progressbar will appear that will show how “captured” the point is. It takes longer to capture an enemy point than a neutral one. Points may only be captured when only one team is present. If a point is not completely captured before a player leaves, it will slowly neutralize itself until it is completely neutral again. Neutralization occurs more quickly than capture.
- CP’s also function as energy networks
- CP’s have their own deployables called “assets.” These cannot be fully destroyed but can be damaged to the point of dysfunction. They can be repaired and will auto-repair whenever the point switches hands
- Spawn Selection : by pressing a custom-bound key, players may bring up a spawn selection screen whereupon they can spawn at any friendly capture point or their base
- Weapons
- Repair Gun: added; repairs deployables and assets
- Plasma: self impulse has been nerfed
- Blaster Rifle: now lights players on fire
- GUI
- Main Menu: redesigned; functionally identical
- Game Menu: redesigned; functionally identical in most regards though many new keybindings have been added, so you’ll want to take a look at that.
- HUD: while many new features have been added, the HUD still maintains much of the same functionality as before in the same general locations.
- Status bars are now dynamic and can be centered if desired.
- Playing as an engy will display nearby reactors and their status.
- IFF has been updated to support capture point assets (this is likely to change in many ways throughout testing)
- Critical game objectives and game status elements have been shuffled around
- coresHud has been moved to the center-top of the screen and completely redesigned on a core-by-core basis for better aesthetic appeal as well as accommodating things such as Engy which the previous version could not have adequately supported.
Legions 1.40 Pre-Release Video
Greetings!
It's been a while since our last update, and for good reason. We've been pushing through a host of feature additions, bug fixes, and some other cool stuff in the upcoming 1.40 patch. We're ready now to release a video showcasing in-game footage of the new features slated for immediate release to public test (2-3 weeks is our goal). Just watch the video. :)
- BugsPray
SSL certificate update
The SSL certificate for accounts.legionsoverdrive.com has recently expired, so I've replaced it with one from StartCom.
If you get any warnings from your browser or the Legions Launcher, please ensure your Windows is fully updated. The important patch you need is the September 2009 root certificates update - KB931125. Nearly all Windows machines should have this update installed, but if you experience any problems then please check you've got all possible Windows updates installed.
Donations Enabled
Legions is a team of volunteers giving up their free time and money. With the latest announcement about the engine, we have additional costs that need to be funded. Because of this, donations have been re-enabled! You can find the "Donate" link at the top of this page or for the lazy, you can go here.
The Future of Legions - Part One
Hello Legionnaires,
It's been longer than I hoped between updates, but sometimes you just need to work things out when they change. From the information given through the three puzzles, you got a lot of ideas around the upcoming 1.40 update, a bit of text reading "Torque3D" and one more clue pointing to "Steam." We've explained the update and are nearing its completion, but we haven't given you info about Torque3D or Steam. Today you'll hear about Torque3D.
An Engine Change
Legions is a fun game with solid core gameplay. There are a lot of fun elements and some unique twists that sets Legions apart in the world of the FPS, even against games with jetpacks. Nevertheless, it doesn't take a professional game critic to see that there's a serious gap in what the current engine can do visually and technically compared to what modern engines have been doing for years. We're planning on fixing that problem.
Now it's time for something you may not have expected. When we were first scoping out what engine to use, Torque3D was an obvious choice. It was the same underlying tech, which means greater portability - we could churn something out more quickly since much of the code and assets are based on the underlying tech. We also suspected the engine would cater better toward the type of technical requirements we had for it, especially those centered around the physics and netcode. Right around that time, we posted those puzzles.
Since then, we've been seriously debating the pros and cons of using Torque3D over other engines. We've decided that our best course of action would be to bring on a technically superior and better supported engine that caters to what we want to do with Legions in the future. Given those considerations, we've decided to move to the Unity engine. There are a lot of benefits to this engine that will become clear as development begins and you all start seeing the result. What this also means is that the next iteration of Legions is a bit farther off. We don't have timelines and no guarantees, and you wont see us giving them any time soon.
We're releasing the 1.40 update soon to tide you over until we can launch the next version of Legions. Hopefully you'll have enough to play with until then. :)
Regarding Steam...well, all that will be revealed in the next blog post sometime "soon."
Stay Crunchy, Legionnaires.
Huge Update Around the Corner
Hey Legionnaires, BugsPray here. There's a good host of features and new things coming through the pipe and some of you have found out what they are by completing the puzzles over the last several days (or by looking at the answers on the forums). I'm posting now to consolidate all of that information, clarify some things, and answer some questions from the forum. In order to keep the information posted to a reasonable/consumable size, we're breaking up the info into two posts. This first post is a big one and contains information on the upcoming update to Legions. We'll release more information in the next couple days on Torque3D and Steam.
Upcoming 1.40 Update
Big thanks to the dev team for plugging away to bring you a TON of new and amazing features that you'll see Very Soon™. We're expecting to get these changes into the hands of the private testers within 2-3 weeks for bug and play testing, then out to the general public once the kinks have been worked out - hopefully just another 2-3 weeks afterward. Do keep in mind that these screenshots should be considered a sneak peak and the features/artwork are subject to change.
UI Enhancements
The new menus have a cleaner look and some fancy effects that vastly improve the feel of the interface.
The game hud has also had a revamp, streamlining many hud elements and taking a step toward the minimalist.
New Weapon Models
Some of the newer weapons have been using placeholder models. With the 140 patch, these weapons are getting a big overhaul. Here's a teaser with the plasma rifle:
Observer Mode
Observer mode adds sorely needed control to spectator including jump to flags and flag stands as well as player and projectile following.
Capture and Hold (CnH)
Legions CnH similar to traditional CnH gametypes. Capture points spread around the map can be captured and slowly add to a team's score. These capture points can also be spawned at through a spawn selection screen. After a time, the main base of both teams becomes capturable, meaning it is possible to win the game by removing the enemy's ability to spawn.
Flag Capture and Hold (FCnH - formerly "Conquest")
FCnH is an experimental gametype that has some aspects of CnH while also bringing in a CTF element. In addition to capturing points, teams can also capture the enemy flag for a point boost. The main bases in FCnH do not become capturable.
The below screenshots are the capture point and the spawn selection screen for both CnH and FCnH. Note: There are no plans for water, the pond pictured in the second screenshot is being removed.
Boost Core
Boosts a player to high speeds at the cost of health. The speed of the boost is modified based on the speed of the player - the faster the player is going when activating the core, the smaller the boost.
Shield Core
Protects from incoming projectiles by draining energy upon impact. Keeping the shield active at the same time as jets slows energy regeneration speed.
Dodge Core
Allows the player to quickly dodge in a direction and leave a feint ghost as they move. Players will move about 10 meters if unobstructed.
Engineer Core and Deployables
This is one of those unique cores to be featured in Legions. Activating the engineer core will bring up a new Engineer HUD. There are three catagories of deployables: Reactors , Turrets and Utilities. A engineer just starting the game will be level 0 and have access to only a few starting selections. A engineer levels up by visiting their deployed objects and collecting its stored XP. A turret for example, gains/stores XP from killing enemy players. A game hud will appear when the engineer core is equiped indicating deployed objects XP progress that needs collecting. As a engineer levels up they will gain access to better Turrets, Utilities and Reactors. Deployable Reactors are needed to power objects that are not in range of a capture point reactor. A engineer can only produce so much energy for their level. Each object has a energy requirement limiting the amount they can place. There will be a ratio of engineer cores allowed on a team to how many players are in the game.
The deploy effect when deploying an inventory station:
That's all for now folks! Be sure to post your comments on the forums and tune in to the blog over the next couple days for more information about the future of Legions.