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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #45 on: August 26, 2022, 12:01:34 AM »
Community Content Exhibit Vol. 4
Thu, 25 August 2022



Attention Officers

Welcome to the 4th in our series of monthly newsletters dedicated entirely to community creations and contributions to Ready or Not; this week, we’ll focus on popular, well-made, and unique mods to augment your gameplay!

Community Spotlight – Mods of the Month

1.) Not So Convenient
by TheLoafLord


For the first mod of this bundle, we’ve got a map that perfectly caters to a consistent community request. Small maps! The convenience store offers incredibly tight corners and the low number of possible hiding places mean that every single nook and cranny could hide one of the map's small handful of suspects.

As an added bonus, the map comes in Winter, Day, and Night variants to increase playability!

Download Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/mods/1581




2.) Forest House
by RareKiwi


Once again featuring RareKiwi we keep the theme of compact maps, with Forest House. A step up in size from the previous entry, the map offers a suspect-packed, claustrophobic, kill house where every engagement has to be undertaken carefully to ensure that you don’t get shot at from another hidden threat.

Download Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/mods/1235




3.) Sky Tower Remaster
by aerostatic


Keeping the incidental tradition of having a Swat 4 map recreation in these showcases, we have a recreation of a popular modded map. The stark, clean halls of the skyscraper provide a sharp contrast to the last two maps, replacing drug addled crooks with a group of well trained, armed, and equipped raiders.

Download Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/mods/826




Closing


Going forward, we can’t wait to see what else the community brings to the table as we update the game and give modders more functionality to play with and improve their own works.

Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:
https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #46 on: September 02, 2022, 12:59:42 AM »
Vol. 38 Ready Or Not Development Update
Thu, 1 September 2022




Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 38th edition of our biweekly newsletter! Today we will be showing a first look into one of our future levels, Agency! Vol. 34 Development update introduced the prime suspect of this level, George Brixley, owner and main agent of Brixley Talent Time.


The Row

The Row is one of the poorest areas in Los Suenos and is often avoided by the general public. Months of trash accumulates on the curbs, clothes hang from windows waiting to be stained with the smell of smoke, and makeshift tents of the homeless litter the sidewalks. Meanwhile, Brixley Talent Time looms right in the middle of it.


Above: The choking smog leaves inhabitants wondering what they’re exactly “worthy” of.



Above: Life finds a way even in the harshest environments.



Above: You can’t walk the streets of the Row without seeing Police cars posted at every alley.



Brixley’s Playground

Brixley Talent Time is a filthy place, disgustingly decorated with childrens toys, clothing, and photographs. Used as a front for talent scouting, this place is a breeding ground for sexual assault, pornography, and financial abuse.


Above: It’s highly unlikely Brixley invested in a washer and dryer - or a janitor.


Approach with caution, as Brixley may not be acting alone in his repulsive schemes. He has a lot to lose and a prison cell for life if captured. That man has a face you could see in your nightmares, a challenge for even a mother to love.


Above: I don’t envy the investigator that has to catalog all those photos.



Above: The locks on these bathroom doors wouldn't make anyone feel safer.


Conclusion

This concludes our 38th biweekly briefing, showing a first look into one of our upcoming levels, Agency. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you'd like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a Supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We’ve got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate your gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.


Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #47 on: September 30, 2022, 12:26:41 AM »
Vol. 40 Ready Or Not Development Update
Thu, 29 September 2022



Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 40th edition of our biweekly newsletter! This week we’ll be giving our community a break from maps and suspects, we instead take a look at the new firearms to be added to the departments armory coming in the next update.


Armory Expansion

The first new weapon is the SPC, an addition to the games roster of SMGs whose claim to fame is its prodigious rate of fire of up to 1,100 rounds per minute. Any officers that choose to bring the SPC out into the field will have to practice careful trigger discipline and target acquisition if they want their ammunition to last throughout the entire engagement.



Next comes the M11 Compact, it stands alongside the P92X and G19 as another long time workhorse of multiple law enforcement agencies. Chambered in the ever-reliable 9mm, the clean lines of the M11 will fit in among the pre-existing roster of wonder 9s.



An upgrade to a classic, next we have the MK18 whose brand new model will be replacing the legacy M4A1 model so that we can maintain a consistent look and feel for all of our weapons going forward.



Lastly we have a weapon that’s been heavily requested, the MP7. Being the first firearm in the PDW category, the MP7 brings a unique combination of capabilities between its’ armor piercing capability afforded by its 4.6mm round and high rate of fire that every entry team would love to have at their side.




Conclusion
This concludes our 40th biweekly briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news (there are many more to come)!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #48 on: October 14, 2022, 12:49:31 AM »
Vol. 41 Ready Or Not Supporter Development Update - Mod.io Integration
Thu, 13 October 2022



Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 41st edition of our biweekly newsletter! This newsletter will be showing off something quite exciting!

To start off, we’d like to announce the integration of the mod.io
platform into Ready or Not. Starting October 18th you’ll be able to download and remove mods at the click of a button!

This may come as a surprise to many members of the community, as we have said that we would bring Steam Workshop functionality in the past. However, given how under-performing the system is, we’ve decided to instead adopt mod.io. Just like the Nexus Mods and Steam Workshop users will not be limited in what they can upload to the mod.io page, with the obvious exceptions being obscene or unsuitable content.

The adoption of mod.io will allow direct integration with Ready or Not, giving users the ability to search through and download mods from inside the game itself, instead of having to open up the Steam Workshop or download via a third-party website. It will also offer the most flexibility going forward as we make updates to how we support modders and as Mod.io continues to update and add more functionality to their platform!

We’ve worked with both Modders and the Ready or Mod Discord team to ensure that the concerns of the modding community are met, currently we are testing the implementation of Mod.io with just map mods!

As we update both the game and our support with mod.io, we will extend compatibility to all of the weapon and skin replacers that the community has come to enjoy!



At the moment you can download skin, weapon, and attachment replacer mods via mod.io, however they need to be extracted from their folder in [C:\Users\Public\mod.io\3791\mods] to [steamapps\common\Ready Or Not\ReadyOrNot\Content\Paks]


Conclusion

This concludes our 41st biweekly briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news (there are many more to come)!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not



Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #49 on: November 10, 2022, 11:52:33 PM »
Vol. 42 Ready Or Not - Development Update
Thu, 27 October 2022



Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 42nd edition of our biweekly newsletter! This week we will introduce the prime suspect in one of our upcoming levels Ridgeline, Gerard Scott. We will learn more about this recluse and his modes of destruction. However before we start, we have a few words from the development tea
m:


    “We know players are eagerly awaiting improvements to the AI; as some users are aware we have been showing off a few hints through other channels, however when we are ready we will release a devlog showing these updates in detail. We are currently working on improving overall AI appearance when moving and shooting, changing how AI perceive and engage with the player with variables for most suspect actions to give modders the flexibility they need.

    Animations for weapon raising, aiming, and detection are being adjusted as well, leading to AI being required to slow down and aim directly at the player to be more lethal with their shot placement. We are excited to showcase these changes and many more exciting ones shortly before the Adam update is dropped.”

    - VOID Interactive


Now we happily return to your regularly scheduled Newsletter.


A Recluse Hidden in the Hills

Deep in the hills of Northern Los Suenos lies a cabin occupied by Gerard Scott, a 55-year-old ex-USIA (United States Intelligence Agency) analyst. Gerard was performing illegal activities as an agent, using his power and accessibility to spy on Law Enforcement Agencies within Los Suenos.



Above: This man is in desperate need of a paper shredder, that’s for sure.

Since his release, Gerard has developed a delusional obsession with the police force and focused his efforts on destroying it. He is currently wanted for the murder of five police officers, killed trying to extinguish a vehicle Gerard purposefully set on fire outside the East Makade Police Department.



Above: A quick peek inside the mind of madness.


Coated Revenge

Another obsession of Gerard’s is the production of Ricin, a deadly compound if swallowed or breathed in. Outside of his cabin lies rows of cultivated castor plants stripped of their beans, the main ingredient needed for this bioweapon. The castor beans are cooked and mashed, the waste byproduct being Ricin. Dried bean paste and jars of white powder litter the cabin.



Above: The remains of Gerard’s ricin experiments, wonder how bad the stench is.

To carry out his plan of mailing coated packages and letter mail to Police Departments across Los Suenos, Gerard invented a homemade device that aerosolized Ricin. To test its effectiveness, Gerard captured small animals from the ridge and carried out experiments, documenting how each animal suffered. He is very close to perfecting his invention.



Above: Complicated but extremely effective.




Above: Gerard is definitely not an animal person, not much of a people person either.

Conclusion

This concludes our 42nd biweekly briefing where we introduced a new character in one of our upcoming levels, Ridgeline. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not


Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #50 on: November 10, 2022, 11:57:08 PM »
Vol. 43 Ready Or Not - Development Update
Thu, 10 November 2022




Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 43rd edition of our biweekly newsletter! This week we will be showing an in-depth first look at our new map, “Importer”, playable in our next major update. Developers and artists have been working very hard towards this update and are excited to showcase exciting changes and additions!



The Curse of Los Suenos

The Los Suenos Postal Service (LSPS) has long been a staple within the community, meeting the demands of a growing population and bringing fast international shipping to the residents of Los Suenos. Like many businesses in Los Suenos, LSPS found themselves victims of corruption and crime. A formal investigation was launched, investigating the disappearance of almost 10% of total packages transported through this facility.

All of the LSPS staff were all fired and new procedures for both hiring and package handling were introduced to prevent theft and building closures. Due to large media coverage and the large amount of distrust from the general public, a federal government employee was hired to directly oversee the movement of packages within the facility to ensure trust within the community.



Above: This might look functional on the outside but the inside is a different story.


Years later the LSPS grew and became the largest operating facility in Los Suenos. Unfortunately no amount of staff hires and anti-theft procedures can prevent crime in Los Suenos. Police now suspect the facility is illegally importing weapons from hot spots around the world for the local gang, Los Locos. Detectives were dispatched to visit the premises in order to interview suspected staff and ended up walking right into an in-progress deal. A shootout ensues and SWAT is called to scene.


Above: There's going to be a lot of trucks and packages to search, be thorough.


Untraced and Unknown
In response to the LSPD crackdown on the sale of illegal firearms within Los Suenos, LSPS has turned into a hub for the import of firearms from outside the city. Every firearm your average Los Suenion gangbanger could wish for, Select fire AR15s, G19 Compacts, AK pattern rifles, G21SF machine pistols, among other models continue to flow into the city at an unprecedented rate. That amount of firepower are things that every Gang dreams of and every officer fears.



Above: Heavy machinery and gunfire don't mix very well.


Approach carefully, the tall and everlasting clutters of boxes and equipment provide good coverage and hiding spots for suspects. Be aware of the corrupt staff, they know the building better than you and may be armed. Multiple entrances and exits are around every corner; the suspects have the advantage and opportunity to flee.


Conclusion

This concludes our 43rd biweekly briefing where we introduced the newest map, Importer. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.


Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #51 on: December 09, 2022, 03:21:04 AM »
Ready or Not - Public Release - Adam Update
Thu, 8 December 2022



Attention Officers,

Our Adam update, that has been thoroughly scoured and critiqued, is finally available to the public branch!


Featuring five new levels, four new weapons, new AI behaviors, and MUCH, MUCH more!

Read on..... https://steamcommunity.com/games/1144200/announcements/detail/3631620304676598002

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #52 on: January 16, 2023, 12:50:51 AM »
Vol. `2023` Ready or Not - A year in review
Fri, 13 January 2023



Attention Officers,


Welcome to the first newsletter of 2023! As is tradition we will be doing a recap of our game and communities achievements in 2022. On behalf of the staff at Void Interactive, we would sincerely like to thank you for your continuous support and feedback of RON, we owe our success to you! The team is excited to continue working on Ready or Not and looks forward to all the new exciting updates to come in 2023!

Since our launch into Steam Early Access in December of 2021, Ready or Not has progressed quite steadily towards our goal of a full release in 2023. Both community and development efforts have ramped up as we’ve expanded our development team, worked closer with the different portions of our community, and worked hard to grow the community we already have!


Community Content

Over the course of 2022, the community came together to produce a prolific amount of content. Videos that run the gauntlet from critique to compilation, every flavor of art one could look for, and even photos of community members doing their best impression of the Los Suenos Police Department!


Above: The winning art from our Community Art contest, produced by Etnad, picturing a newly engaged husband and wife.


Above: The Winner of our photo contest, Royourboy, took a stunning picture of two geared individuals backlit by a sunset.

On the side of modifications to the game itself, modders have continuously outdone themselves with a veritable mountain of content– and their passion has not gone unnoticed. We introduced mod integration into the game itself using the mod.io platform and through continued support and tweaking of the integration of mod.io we have made an amazing amount of progress on both the UI and UX fronts resulting in a more reliable modding experience! As mentioned in the recent AMA, the possibility of Steam Workshop arriving has not been entirely taken off the table, so if mod.io isn’t your preferred mod delivery platform then keep your eyes peeled!

I wish I had the time and the space to plug some of our favorite mods, but then this newsletter would be mostly mods. I highly suggest checking out our community content showcases for a more in-depth look at some frankly spectacular mods.

Finally, we cannot forget the part of our community that is the key to our continued presence on YouTube, TikTok, and other media platforms, the content creators! We appreciate every single one of them, from the smallest channels posting videos of their friends' first run of Voll Health House to users putting together beautifully framed pseudo-trailer videos.




Above: The amazing video produced by SheppLab, give this creator some love.


Outside of media we’ve partnered with Lurkit to be able to reach more content creators in a more organic matter, giving us the ability to give existing content creators more compensation for their work and reach out to new ones to further increase the reach of Ready or Not.


Development Milestones

Since our launch into Steam Early Access at the very end of 2021, the growth of Ready or Not has been explosive in proportion to the competitive nature of the Early Access shooter space. The vision of Ready or Not has come into clearer focus after every single update with refinement of weapons, sounds, levels, AI, etc.– and with the invaluable feedback from our community the game will continue to come closer and closer to its finished state.

2022 has brought us 17 new weapons, among them being the introduction of the PDW class with the MP7 and P90, the renewing of the venerated M4 into the more modern Mk18, among a plethora of other beautifully rendered and powerful sounding firearms. Among the close to a dozen there are many standout maps, among those being the raid on Voll health house and its impeccably kept upper floor hiding a horrifying secret underneath, the bright and beautifully rendered club marred by violence and turning the entire building into a Neon Tomb, or the final moments of the ex-USIA agent Gerard at his home on Sullivans Slope.


Above: The MP7, first in the games PDW category.

Of course without the backend improvements, the maps would not be as spectacular as they are without the overhaul to the games lighting system to greater show off the excellent work of our mapping and art team.


Above: The new lighting engine in action


In 2023, we wish to carry Ready or Not into its release window and beyond, continuing to refine our labor of love until we can’t anymore. No matter how soon or how late that comes, we will continue to communicate with our audience, you can find a sneak peak into some of our future plans in our recent developer AMA!




We hope that every single one of our supporters, new and old, continue to stick by us into the future of VOID Interactive and Ready or Not!


Conclusion

This concludes our first briefing of the new year where we looked at some things Ready or Not has achieved in 2022. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

Make sure you follow Ready or Not on Steam here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1144200/Ready_or_Not/

Keep your feet on the ground.

VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #53 on: February 12, 2023, 02:58:42 AM »
Vol. #46 Ready Or Not Development Update
Thu, 9 February 2023



Map Inspiration


Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 46th Newsletter! Starting with this newsletter, and several of the following bi-weekly newsletters we will look at some real-life events that have impacted and shaped the design of both the game and the locations that make Los Suenos feel like a living, breathing world.

Unfortunately, there are many, many events that for one reason or another have been required to be solved by the tactical expertise of a singular or many SWAT teams. Whether the response was to a genuinely evil organization or person, slow escalation of hostage situations, robberies gone wrong, or at the absolute worst, a situation that ultimately involves reasonably innocent individuals placed in extreme situations.


A Tragedy

Very recently, one of our artists, Ropolio, took a trip down to the site of the Waco Siege and took a veritable mountain of incredible photos. For those who are unaware, in-short the Waco Siege was a Police action that majorly included the BATF and FBI responding to the serving of a search warrant to the Branch Davidians at their company near Elk, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 4 Law Enforcement Officers and 82 civilians.

Please Note: The above description of the Waco Siege is an extremely, extremely simplified version of a still discussed and highly disputed event; as such, if this is something you would like to read into, there are many resources to do so.


An Artist's Impression

We pulled onto EE ranch road; it was pretty bumpy from all the dips and potholes. The black iron gate was open, with a sign asking for a 10-dollar donation per visitor. A memorial just past the gates is dedicated to the 76 men, women, and children who had died in the fire caused by the siege.

Aside from the foundation remnants, the only original remains of the compound 70-foot-long swimming pool at the rear of the site, the unfinished storm shelter just to the left, and the buried school bus used as a tunnel between the compound and the storm shelter. Now lying partially unburied like an old, mangled soda can, completely unrecognizable as a school bus with the entire surrounding area overgrown with weeds and foliage.


Above: The remains of the Mount Caramel Center bunker, the compound that the Branch Davidians had built and used up to that fateful day.


Above: The remains of the bus tunnel.


Concrete slabs of the original foundation line the left side of the church, marking where the old gymnasium and foyer once stood. Walking into the pool, I stepped down to examine David Koresh’s [Leader of the Branch Davidians] signature in the cement of the pool when it was first constructed in 1992, “DK ‘92” with a barely visible star of David below.

A concrete slab with some dog paw prints was also located beside the pool, it matched the age of the rest of the concrete so I assume it belonged to the Branch Davidian’s dogs, who were shot by the ATF on the first day of the siege.

Between the pool and storm shelter is the remains of the water tower, now just a rusted pipe surrounded by concrete.


Above: The Branch Davidian compound pool with a portion of the Church visible in the background.


We stepped into the church, which had been partially converted into a museum of sorts. Various pictures of the ATF and FBI posing in uniform in front of the burnt-out compound sat alongside banners describing Koresh’s prophecies along the walls, as well as information about the original founders of the Seventh Day Adventists. The experience overall gave an interesting insight into the Branch Davidian's side of the story.


Above: A photo of the modern-day compound transposed by the burning compound, the aftermath of the Siege at Waco


Editors Note:
More of Ropolio’s hauntingly beautiful transpositions and photos will be posted and pinned in the #ron-media channel on the Ready or Not Public Discord for those interested.


Conclusion

This concludes our 46th briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #54 on: February 21, 2023, 12:19:54 AM »
Vol. #47 Ready Or Not Development Update
Mon, 20 February 2023



Animations and why they're awesome


Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 47th Newsletter! This week we’re going to be taking a look at some of the work that makes the suspects, civilians, and your fellow officers feel more alive. It’s a subject that is unfortunately not talked about very often in comparison to its cousins AI, effects, and textures despite being just as important or more depending on who you talk to.

The animations of both the player character and the AI in Ready or Not help contribute to the feeling of unease as you approach a suspect that hasn’t either surrendered or revealed their intentions. The shifting of their feet, the way they look around the room, even how they reach into their jacket or pants to retrieve something all contribute to these feelings.

For today's newsletter we consulted with Raihaku, one of VOID Interactive's animators, whose background and skill lend very well to the atmosphere of Ready or Not being one of the architects around many of the recent and incredibly well made trailers.


Animationsby Raihaku

Part of the reason why animation doesn’t get much discussion is because there is nothing really mind-blowing to discuss, it’s unique in a sense because gameplay animation can get weirdly specific and a lot of stuff feels invisible to the player until it’s not there, and it’s really obvious that it isn’t there. It isn’t like AI or Levels where there’s amazing videos of their navigation and behaviors or pretty screenshots and images to show off.

Animating is, mostly, “We’re figuring out the time we spent blending the character between two poses and how they turn in place if they’re looking around or while they’re standing still and doing a neat shuffling animation.”



Above: Demonstration of various NPC states, instead of walking everywhere with their weapons up, they can take it slow with their weapons down as they investigate.


This is a preview of the movement system that we currently have in-game, this was a solution to the lack of momentum the NPCs have when they move around as they used to not build up any acceleration an actual person would need to start moving quickly, making them frustrating to fight against and hard to read. This is our method to interpret that into the game by blending between multiple types of animations, which is a walk, run, and sprint as demonstrated in the first section of the video followed by a walk and a jog in the second section of the video.

YouTube™ Video: Ready or Not | Blended Animations




The way the speeds are interpreted in the actual game is simple: We increment from a 0 to 1 value, 0 being a full-stop and 1 being at full-speed, and the numbers in between 0 and 1 serve as the acceleration. This also gives us a wider range of motion as the strafes were initially only 8-directional, being able to blend between these directions means that they look more precise during navigation.

It's not a very technologically groundbreaking method and it has been around since the early 2000s. Valve uses this for all their game animations in the Source engine since Half-Life 2 and it helps their game animations achieve a very natural look with such a simple system.


Under the hood


There are many aspects of game design and development that the general public doesn’t see, along with our newsletters that show off the inspiration behind our levels, we will also be producing more newsletters that go more into detail about all of the things that make Ready or Not tick!


Conclusion


This concludes our 47th briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.
https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not


Keep your feet on the ground.

VOID Interactive
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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #55 on: March 17, 2023, 02:11:49 AM »
Vol. #48 Ready Or Not Development Update
Fri, 10 March 2023



Photogrammetry and what it means Attention Officers,

Welcome to our 48th Newsletter! This week we’re going to be taking a look at some of the work that makes the suspects, civilians, and your fellow officers feel more alive. It’s a subject that is unfortunately not talked about very often in comparison to its cousins AI, effects, and textures, despite being just as important or more depending on who you talk to.

This week we’ll be talking about how we bring specifically our officers, suspects, and citizens to life! Our artists don’t just sculpt the clothing and equipment that our characters sport. We take direct scans of gear to ensure greater authenticity as we outfit all of our NPC and player models to make our world feel more alive.


Gerard - Technical Character Artist

Gerard, known to some members of the community as Mery. G, is a veteran of modeling for more tactically minded shooters. Some of his claims to fame are his contributions to a monstrous set of ArmA 3 mods called RHS and a large uniform pack called USP, both of which should be familiar to even the casual ArmA modder.

The method that VOID uses to translate real world equipment into the world of Los Suenos is known as Photogrammetry, using his personal collection of tactical gear as well as acquisitions from other sources and insight from connections within the armed forces community, Gerard crafts the scans into usable equipment to outfit officers and suspects alike.


Above: A full materialized mesh, albedo texture, black and white map, and normal map. The result of a Photogrammetry session and post-processing.

According to Gerard, Photogrammetry vs. traditional methods (modeling & sculpting) is less settled on the artist's interpretation of a given item and provides realistic proportions details that are very hard for an artist to replicate, not to mention how fast we’re able to produce usable models. Though it is faster, translating the output of Photogrammetry into the aforementioned models still requires capable artists to clean up the scan and make the mesh come to life.


Above: A version of the Photogrammetry setup.



Above: Photogrammetry output after some cleanup


We want to show love to our characters by making them look as close to the real deal as we can, since our vision for RoN is formed along the lines of how gritty the job of swat officers can be, it only makes sense to pay the equivalent attention and detail to the tools and equipments our players will be using.


Conclusion


This concludes our 48th briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not
Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #56 on: March 17, 2023, 02:12:07 AM »
Volume #49 Ready or Not Development Update
Thu, 16 March 2023



A new coat of paint

Welcome to the 49th edition of our mostly biweekly newsletter!

This week we will be showing an in-depth first look at the facelift of one of our classic maps, “Dealership”. Developers and artists have been working very hard towards this update and are excited to showcase exciting changes and additions!

This is only one of the planned refreshes of classic Ready or Not maps coming down the pipeline to utilize advances in our team's capabilities better, as well as our improved lighting systems. All of the techniques we have learned will be applied to our legacy levels in the coming updates.


A New Classic

A noticeable upgrade that should come as a welcome addition to veteran players is the refurbished internal layout of the dealership to make it less confusing as a whole and flow much better. The improved layout allows the expansions to blend much better with the more familiar architecture, such as the new street access that goes around the dealership and some of the surrounding buildings.


Above: The renovated ‘front’ of the dealership features a much more dense and dangerous landscape.



Above: The new garage is much more populated with little greeblies and signs of life, something that the rest of the level will also share.

The new corners of the map will hold more lore for both the immediate situation and the city of Los Suenos itself as we strive to make everything seem more alive. The decay running through the city will be much more visible, and the crimes of the Traffickers will be much more evident.


Above: The rot that fills the city becomes more evident by the day.

We hope that with the refresh of one of our classic maps that our players will be more excited for both what is coming and what sort of improvements that we will be implementing going forward.


Conclusion

This concludes our 49th briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

Just a heads up, we’re partnering with the CoBE Institute at Coastal Carolina University to gather some of your feedback on Ready or Not. If you’ve got 5 mins to participate in this survey, we’ll put your name in a drawing for two free games keys
so you can invite your friends on a mission!

https://u006xa2grj9.typeform.com/to/O9z0rMPJ
If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not
Keep your feet on the ground.

VOID Interactive

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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #57 on: April 01, 2023, 12:00:52 AM »
Volume #50 Ready or Not Development Update
Fri, 31 March 2023



A big'n

Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 50th edition of our biweekly newsletter! To mark this milestone we will be having an extra-long newsletter, we’ll be featuring a meaty write-up of the AI system that Ready or Not uses as well as a good public look at the other half of the Station Rework


Starting off with the rework of Station, being the first map that many if not all players will see meaning it’s an incredibly important first impression, perhaps even more so since the atmosphere of the Station and the decrepit state of the players surroundings reflects the state of Los Suenos as a whole.

With the combination of clearly repurposed rooms, crumbling architecture, all filled with high tech police equipment in stark contrast of their surroundings it effectively communicates the state of the world the player has chosen to immerse themselves in.


The Station Reborn

Along with many the facelifts that many of the legacy maps are getting, we had no intention to leave our players' home base in the dirt. Teasing the level of detail we plan to put into the rest of the station with part 1 of the revamp we launched with Adam, we figured it was time to tease the rest of the work we’ve put into the map.


Above: The shooting range receives a bit of a facelift, replacing the claustrophobic stalls with a much more open-form design.



Above: The station's surveillance and information gathering suites often cast a wide net. With the LSPD on the backfoot, they need all the help they can get. Make sure to visit Dispatch once in a while.


In the future, many locations within the station will have more nooks and crannies to explore and perhaps even easter eggs to find. Many will be like the well known hats and the coffee machine, some will have more effect on you, your officers, and maybe even your gameplay.


Above: The Evidence room, where you can find some of your confiscated arms, drugs, and [REDACTED].



Above: A relatively calm moment in the lobby of the LSPD station, enjoy them while you can.


A Lesson on RONs AI with Ali

By popular request, one of the most influential voices in the programming of Ready or Nots’ AI, Ali, has given us a writeup on exactly how the games AI functions and makes decisions based on environmental factors.

The AI system we use for them is what is called a Utility-Based AI System. A decision making model.
The concept behind Utility AI is to mathematically model human behavior in a computer program using numbers, formulas and response curves. The “human” we want to model is called an agent or simply, an AI. Each agent in a world environment has a list of Decisions (or what we call, Actions) they want to make. Every frame we run through the list of actions and decide which one to pick and execute. That’s the core AI loop.

Inside each action, there is a list of Considerations that make up what an action is mathematically, and is what ultimately determines the score for that action. Each consideration outputs a score, which all then get accumulated (using a scoring method) at the end to output a final score for that action, that will then be later used to pick the highest scoring action. That action will be the one to execute and run (using another system called the Activity System), with a commitment time set, so they don’t oscillate in their decision making, acting indecisive from frame-to-frame. There is also a thing called Commit Interrupts, it is a list of names of actions that can interrupt the current action if it is being committed to, and they get evaluated every frame too. Gives us more control.

The scoring method is just a list of 4 math operations, Additive, Subtractive, Multiplicative and Divisive. Really simple, they just add, subtract, multiply or divide into a score accumulator. It serves as another setting that designers can tweak to mold the final action score.

One example of what a consideration can be is “Health”. This is scored using a Scoring Function
that we define, that scoring function takes in a world context and outputs a number. In this case, “Health”, it is really simple, we do Current/Max, which gives you a value (or in other words a score) from a sliding scale between 0.0 to 1.0, which then can be optionally scaled by a Weight
to bias the action in the AI if we want. You can imagine other considerations having more complicated functions. The output of the scoring function is then mapped by the response curve and is used as the final score of the consideration. There are many curve presets to choose from, the default is a Linear response, but you can have all sorts of easing curves, like Exponential, Sinusoidal, etc. (or even a hand made curve, or even better, we have the ability to implement your own custom curve function, which is pretty neat.)

A health of 0.9, (altered by the shape of a curve
) can be a good or bad thing. Good being you probably don’t need to take cover and you can risk taking certain actions. Bad thing if you want your health to always stay full, so you find cover and regenerate using a stim (this doesn’t happen in RON of course, but just as an example of how looking at the same number can mean two different things).





As you can imagine with a library of hundreds of considerations, using those and tweaking response curves is how we can get different “personality types” or behavior's out of our suspects and civilians, some being more resistant to surrender than others or some being more eager to take cover or some that can be more suicidal if you don’t de-escalate the situation quickly.





We have another concept in our system that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere in other people’s utility implementations but it’s hardly anything groundbreaking. We call it Gates. It acts as a supplementary aid to Considerations. Gates are similar to considerations but instead of returning a score, they just return true or false, open or closed. The purpose of gates is to block off actions that we don’t want the AI to consider. All gates must be open for the action to be considered for scoring. Cooldown timers are one example where gates are useful, there is no way you can reasonably do this with considerations and weights, it needs to be a binary operation. Has the cooldown finished or not? The cooldown must be finished before considering said action. Before when we didn’t have this concept, we would sometimes have AI surrender to no stimulus or do certain actions that they shouldn’t have been doing, and when you went to debug what was going on, all the scores seemed reasonable and you could see why they did a certain thing. Gates help us control them a little more so as to not go wild and do un-expected things, which our designers like.



The simple concept of using math and formulas to mold the output result to your liking (using weights, different scoring methods and response curves), gives you a whole bunch of states that you can’t possibly program into the AI manually, which in turn greatly affects the gameplay experience, each AI will behave slightly different than the next. Our previous version of the AI system was basically one large state machine at its core and can only ever be worked on by us, the programmers. If we wanted to progress, implement better AI, allow for designer freedom to alter AI behavior quickly in the editor, without asking programming to do simple things, a radical approach was needed to switch to Utility (which took about 6 months to implement).

However, we still use the state-machine concept for concrete actions like, moving to and picking up a weapon on the floor or breaching a door (which has a lot of states). But the decision making aspect of the AI, the brains if you will, is all Utility-Based, we don’t have to manually say “if this then that, if this then do x”, instead, as outlined above, we give them a set of actions and rules to follow, then they can go about into the world and make decisions for themselves which is pretty neat and what feels like “true” AI.

All we have to do on our side in the editor is setup their Archetype (the definition/personality of an AI), which houses the actions we want them to make. After we’re done, we assign the archetype to the specific AI in our data tables. We have about 50 archetypes and many AI variants in a level share a similar or the same archetypes, for many reasons, for simplicity sake, we don’t want to duplicate archetypes unnecessarily when we can just reuse the ones that work, or if we happen to take a liking to a particular archetype in the way they behave, etc., plus the overhead of our team in managing all those archetypes, it’s something we try to stay lean with.


Conclusion

This concludes our 50th briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.


Make sure you follow Ready or Not on Steam here.

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive


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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #58 on: May 13, 2023, 11:15:31 PM »
Volume #51 Ready or Not Development Update
Thu, 13 April 2023



Talking about volume in this volume

Attention Officers

Welcome to the 51st edition of our biweekly newsletter! This week we’re covering another incredibly important system brought to us by our Sound Director Zack and one of our incredibly talented modder-turned-developers QuantumNuke!

Known for his various quality of life and tweak mods such as Max Suspects, No Swat, and the Camera Mod which handily enables a free-cam with built in color grading and point lights that, despite their age, are still recommended to players.


Meet Quantum

Hey! I'm Quantum, a Junior Gameplay Developer at VOID interactive! You might recognize me from the modding server, or maybe you saw my name pop up on the Discord member list. Whatever the case, I'd like to share a bit on going from a modder to a developer!

It's been quite the exciting journey transitioning from a modder to a game developer. When I first started modding the game back in December 2021 I had absolutely no idea I'd end up here! Modding the game and seeing people's reactions to what I made was rewarding enough, and when VOID reached out to me offering a position within their team, I was ecstatic! Developing for a community this passionate, and working with a team this talented is an incredible experience, and I will continue putting my passion into making Ready or Not the highest quality tactical shooter on the market.

The Quantum Sound Manager




Understanding sound in Ready or Not is exceedingly important, as determining the directionality and location of a sound can make it easier to identify and eliminate threats.

Knowing where a sound is originating from is comprised of three main elements: direction, volume, and occlusion. Direction gives the effect of 3D sound, where turning your head will allow you to get a general idea as to where the sound is. Volume gives you the needed information to determine how far a sound is from you, and occlusion determines how well the sound can reach you.

Currently, the way volume and occlusion are calculated is simple, with volume being dependent on the direct distance between the sound and the listener. Occlusion is handled slightly differently, taking into account the number and depth of obstacles the sound has to pass through in a straight line to reach the listener. However, this can lead to confusion, and result in many sounds sounding as if they are next to you.

The new Quantum Sound Manager is fundamentally different. Rather than using the direct line between the sound and the listener, we take into account the multiple paths the sound can use to reach the listener. This is accomplished by placing special volumes around the level where sound can pass through easily, like doorways and windows. This new method is both more efficient, being 3x faster the the old method, and more accurate. Additionally, determining where a sound is coming from is much easier. No more footsteps two floors up sounding as if they're next to you, and no more jumps in occlusion values, giving you the granularity and accuracy needed to approach any situation well informed.

As we continue to develop the sound manager, we strive to include more advanced sound processing, such as propagation (how sound bends around corners) and per-sound reverb zones. If we can incorporate these in a way that doesn't interfere with gameplay or performance, we strongly believe that Ready or Not will have one of the most advanced sound systems to date for a modern tactical shooter.

- QuantumNuke


Conclusion

This concludes our 51st briefing. Be sure to tune in next time for more development news!

If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.


Make sure you follow Ready or Not on Steam.

Keep your feet on the ground.

VOID Interactive


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Re: Ready Or Not (Elite SWAT Team)
« Reply #59 on: May 13, 2023, 11:18:38 PM »
Volume #52 Ready or Not Development Update
Fri, 12 May 2023



State of the Game

Attention Officers

Welcome to the 52nd edition of our biweekly newsletter! Today we’ll be giving our community a full rundown on the current state of VOID itself, the upcoming patch, and more!


Expansion and Optimization

Over the past year, both VOID and its community have undergone quite a few changes, with the focus being on improving every facet of VOID Interactive and Ready or Not. However the rewriting of development methods, rearrangement and reinforcement of teams, and adoption of new tools tend to have a negative effect on timelines.

The idea of reorganizing the studio and getting these growing pains out of the way now, as we look at the position that Ready or Not holds in the greater ‘Tactical Shooter’ scene, is to save us much more development time in the future. This re-alignment of development processes is a crucial step in allowing VOID to deliver game patches in a much more regular fashion, be it patches, a map or weapon here and there, or massive content and fix drops much like the form ADAM took.


Reorganization

Under the watchful eye of our new Producer, our development team are charged with a new direction to target milestones across our roadmap to launch. Specifically, better methods that enable us to refine how we manage our builds, bug triage and predictable development cycles.

The timing of these new internal processes has aided the team during our explosive growth with new talent onboarding monthly, more external studios assisting in specialist areas that opened us up to new opportunities and features within our game which we cannot wait to share with you all soon. As we build our confidence up with these new lines of communication and development cycles our team’s capabilities are growing and we will be very proud to share some behind the scenes of our efforts very soon.


Status

It has been talked about piecemeal via AMAs, newsletters, and public comments but this will be the place where we collate all of the information for the community at large to reference!

First
We are working on quite a few levels, both new and refurbished. As you all know we are working on the level Coyote, a map based on border-crossing drug tunnels, as well as refurbishing the Station and Dealership entirely. At the same time, other poorer performing maps are being tweaked under the hood to fix some of their performance issues. Finally on the note of maps, yes we are still making the school though we are taking great lengths to present it as conscientiously as possible. However it has been given the more appropriate name of Campus and it will be released alongside other un-announced maps in the future.

Second
PvP is 100% confirmed to be returning however it will not be coming back until post 1.0 as we wish to produce a much more cohesive co-op experience before re-introducing it into the game, the exact form it will take is still not set in stone, but we may take some inspiration from some of the other decisions made very recently by some of our peers in the Tactical Shooter space.

Third
Yes, we are aware of the many issues with both Teammate and Suspect AI, Interactions, and general behaviour and it is all being addressed by our AI-mage Ali and the rest of the incredibly talented programming team. The AI will be even further subdivided based on Maps [i.e. Trained security guards on Mindjot acting like they actually have training.]


One last thing



If you’d like to help us test new content during playtesting periods on the Supporter exclusive experimental branch, provide us with your game feedback, and keep up with the Supporter community; you can become a supporter at www.voidinteractive.net or at our Steam store page.

Are you a content creator on youtube or twitch looking for new games? We got you covered; Ready or Not has partnered with Lurkit to elevate gameplay! Make sure to follow us here.

https://www.lurkit.com/games/ready-or-not
Make sure you follow Ready or Not on Steam.

Keep your feet on the ground.

VOID Interactive
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