Warzone 2100

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Warzone 2100 is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game, developed by Pumpkin Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Although comparable to Earth 2150 in many significant respects, it does contain certain unique aspects, which include various radar technologies, a greater focus on artillery and counter-battery technology, more frequent in-game cinematic updates as gameplay progresses, as well as a different vehicle design method. It was released in 1999 for both PC and PlayStation.

Contents

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the late 21st Century, the North American Strategic Defense Agency developed and deployed a massive missile defense system, including a network of nuclear-equipped satellites and ground-based launch sites. However, during a routine maintenance check one day, something went terribly wrong and the missiles fired...

From the official Warzone 2100 website:

"The Collapse came fast and hard. Following a technical error in
the satellite defense system nuclear warheads were fired at
Washington, Beijing and Moscow. Minutes later ground based sites
fired in response to the launch. Millions died as nuclear firestorms
wiped out the world's cities. Billions more died as plagues and
epidemics swept away what remained of civilization. Less than a
million people survived the Collapse. Earth broke into hundreds
of small scavenger bands battling each other for the remnants of
the former civilization. Only a few had the vision to attempt to
rebuild a new world from the ashes."

(Note: The player plays the role of a character known only as "Commander" and is addressed in this way by the other characters in the game. It is probably the player that gives a monologue to the effect of the above quote during the intro movie.)

The Commander is part of a group of survivors that, immediately after the Collapse, sought shelter in a military installation in the Rocky Mountains. After an unstated period of time has passed (Although going on the details of the plot it must be between 1 and 13 years), the group emerges from the installation and declares a goal of rebuilding the now-wrecked world. This group calls themselves "The Project."

The Project dispatches three teams with the objective of reclaiming artifacts, thus allowing the research and application of pre-Collapse technologies. Alpha team is sent to a desert location South West of the shelter. Beta team is sent to what is probably remains of Chicago. Gamma team is sent into the northern Rockies.

The Campaign is devised into three segments:

[edit] Alpha campaign

In segment one, the Commander accompanies and commands Alpha team. Alpha team's primary objective is to find and recover the "Synaptic Link" technology, which is later explained to allow a neural interface between man and machine, and thus the construction of cyborg infantry.

Secondary and tertiary objectives include the collection of artifacts and the elimination of hostiles. The "Scavengers" are the first hostile race to be encountered. Weak but numerous, Scavengers provide a small challenge, ranging from infantry, motorcycles with machine guns, and buses with light cannons mounted on top.

Later, as technologies are recovered from the Scavengers, the "New Paradigm" faction is encountered, which possesses superior technology and more efficient weaponry to The Project. A transmission to the New Paradigm is intercepted by The Project's headquarters and it is made apparent that the New Paradigm is following orders by an entity called "Nexus."

Segment one ends with two immediately sequential events; the last standing base of the New Paradigm is eradicated, and Beta team sends a distress signal and informs Alpha team that it is under attack and needs reinforcements. Reinforcements are loaded onto a transport and segment one ends.

[edit] Beta campaign

In segment two, the commander arrives at and takes control of Beta base in the ruins of Chicago. After fending off a long and enduring attack by the then unnamed enemy, The Project headquarters informs the commander that the primary objective of Beta team is to recover VTOL technology from before the Collapse.

It is learned that Beta team's enemy calls themselves "The Collective" and constantly attempts to attack and destroy Beta team. As attacks increase in strength, The Project headquarters informs the commander that the VTOL technology must be acquired soon or Beta team will be simply overrun.

As a secondary objective, the commander is also sent to try and destroy existing missile bases in the area. These are successful, but The Project headquarters detects a missile launch from near the Rocky Mountains area which soon hits Alpha base. Suspecting a launch aimed at Beta base, The Project orders evacuation preparations to be made. As soon as nearby AA battery sites are destroyed, the evacuation is to take place.

However, the Collective then launches an overwhelmingly massive attack on Beta base, completely unaware of the impending nuclear attack. The Project races to evacuate as many troops as possible while still defending against an incredibly powerful and enduring attack. Segment two ends with Beta base being destroyed and the commander heading off with the evacuated forces to Gamma team's location.

[edit] Gamma campaign

Segment three begins with the commander and his forces landing in an unoccupied area near Gamma base. After setting up a base and defeating nearby enemy forces, it is learned that the enemy is Nexus. Further, this enemy possesses a unique technology that enables the permanent and sporadic conversion of random units from The Project's control to their faction's. The leader of Nexus calls this "absorption"; this is because Nexus is adept at hacking computer systems.

This is reflected as well in that The Project headquarters' computer systems are being apparently adversely affected by hacking attacks as well. Gamma base soon thereafter sends out a distress call requesting relief from attacks by Nexus. After fighting past Nexus forces to finally get to Gamma base, it is discovered that Gamma base was completely absorbed and, therefore, Gamma base is an enemy to The Project and thereby destroyed.

It is then that Nexus gives a history lesson by claiming to have had a military contract to develop the synaptic link technology. With years of research and little progress after an initial functioning prototype, the Synaptic Link development program is shut down. The man who was the leader of the program, Dr. Reed, is revealed to have the same facial features, and thus implying the same being, as the character who represents Nexus itself. This is stated to be no coincidence. Nexus claims to have, as an act of revenge, hacked into NASDA and achieve vengeance by causing the Collapse.

Segment three continues with a massive escalation in conflict. The Project learns that Nexus has gained control of a missile base in the Rocky Mountains region. An attack to neutralize the facility is immediately executed.

Although the attack is successful and the facility destroyed, the Nexus sets the missiles to detonate in their silos and the commander races to find shelter from the impending impact. After the explosion, the commander returns to base, only to find that components of Alpha team (which migrated north after evacuating from Alpha base before the nuclear strike) are under attack and need assistance.

Once rescued and found to be free of Nexus absorption, Alpha team reveals a small outpost it constructed and submits control to the commander. Nexus then announces that it has gained control of laser-equipped satellites and begins using them to regularly fire upon The Project's forces. However, the orbits of the satellites are unstable, so the firing is near-random.

The Project headquarters declares that these satellites must be eliminated before they compromise The Project. Another nearby missile base is located and an immediate attack is launched, all while lasers are firing periodically. The base is captured and Nexus informs the commander that the satellites' orbits are now stable, and that firing will be precise and deadly. For the exceptionally long time it takes the research centers to crack the safety codes set on the captured missiles silos, the lasers are firing every few seconds, systematically destroying The Project's forces while Nexus continually launches attacks with ground forces.

Segment three continues with the final cracking of the missile codes and, therefore, the destruction of the laser satellites. Segment three ends with a final assault on the Nexus Headquarters which effectively destroys Nexus. The Project then dedicates itself to the reconstruction of the world.

[edit] The game

Outside of the story, Warzone 2100 only has a single faction, limiting some of the variety that can be expected from such games of its kind, although the faction is very complex. Essentially, Warzone 2100 plays much like Earth 2150 with 3D units and terrain, customizable vehicles, a lack of traditional standing infantry, use of "research" to acquire new technologies, and perceptible differentiation of vehicles types.

Warzone 2100 also has many unique differences from Earth 2150 — most of them are not cornerstones of the RTS genre, but they are all noteworthy. First, vehicular drive system can be chosen among tires, half-tracks (wheels and treads), tracks (treads, a.k.a. the caterpillars tanks use for maneuvering), hover modules, or aerial VTOL wings.

Second, it has a greater emphasis on sensors and radar—basic sensors detect units and can coordinate ground attacks. Counter-battery sensors detect enemy artillery (referred to as "batteries") by sensing their projectiles and firing arcs and pinpointing their location to coordinate artillery strikes against enemy artillery. VTOL sensors work like basic sensors, only that they coordinate VTOL attacks. VTOL counter-battery sensors coordinate VTOLs to find and destroy enemy batteries.

Third, there's a greater emphasis on artillery: although many direct-combat weapons and anti-air weapons can be researched and deployed, artillery is a staple of assault which is quite contrasting to Earth 2150, which is entirely devoid of artillery.

Fourth, while the technology tree is clearly defined and consistent, it never appears in-game and, therefore, the player can be left guessing as to what technology is next in the tree.

Fifth, technology can be acquired by gathering artifacts left behind by certain destroyed enemy structures.

Sixth, researching is composed of largely small and incremental advancements over existing weapons, armor, and chassis systems that, therefore, bear the same visual appearance, rather than complete overhauls of the visual appearance and effect of weapons, armor, and chassis.

The game shows its RTT form in the actual objectives of missions: every single level, excluding the very last, have a time limit which players must complete under. This gives a sense of urgency and keeps players from waiting very long to gather more resources for unit construction. Warzone 2100's side of real-time tactics fully shines in Away missions, where the player must select a limited group of units to transport to a territory completely away from the original base; thus it is classified more as a RTS/RTT hybrid rather than pure RTS.

It is also unique from other RTS brethren in that all of the terrain is essentially three areas, with different sectors for Away missions and other such levels; upon progression, previous maps simply expand and the player's original bases from past levels are maintained. Also, its resource system is quite different from mainstream RTS games; depots are merely established over specific, scarce locations which constantly provide a slow, fixed rate of income to the player—guarding miners as they move to and fro from resource fields and a particular structure is completely void in Warzone 2100. Combined with the mission time limit, this resource method prevents players from simply waiting for long periods of time to gather surplus resources, and makes the game all the more rigorous.

[edit] Warzone Revival

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Unfortunately for many Warzone 2100 fans, in 1998 Eidos, the publisher for Pumpkin Studios, decided to stop funding Pumpkin. Later, Pumpkin reformed as Pivotal Games, but stopped providing support for the game. Instead, a third-party group, N.E.W.S.T., completely took over. However, eventually even N.E.W.S.T. went under itself, and support was taken over by a fan group called Pumpkin-2. Pumpkin-2 established an anti-cheating Warzone 2100 server: Directgames, and made a completely new patch, Patch 1.12. This patch included many new improvements, most notably the addition of landmines. However, the host for Pumpkin-2 withdrew without warning, and Pumpkin-2 was confined to the backup forums at Directgames. It has since relocated itself to Realtimestrategies.net. During this time however, Pumpkin-2 managed to petition Eidos, the legal owner of the source, to make Warzone open-sourced.
Editing the source code is a big task, however, and as of now, only three major improvements have been made; an increase in the Warzone 2100 multiplayer unit-limit, support for Glide, several compatibility fixes for Windows XP, and most recently, the introduction of static shadows.

Important dates:

29 March 1999 - Warzone2100 was released.
10/ ?/1999 - N.E.W.S.T. was formed.
11/ ?/1999 - Pumpkin Studios releases patch 1.10 final.
01/ 3/2000 - Pumpkin Studios ends their support for Warzone.
03/ 15/2000 - Eidos closes down Pumpkin Studios.
11/ ?/2000 - N.E.W.S.T releases their unofficial patch 1.11.
6 December 2004 - Alex McLean uploads the warzone source code to Radiosity's FTP server.

Although adding features to the source code may sound easy, many modifactions are currently underway to try to clean up the source code. At RealTimeStrategies, the source code is often referred to a ball of yarn that has been ripped up and then attempted to be repaired with duct tape. Unfortunately, many programers agree that it is in even worse condition than that.

[edit] Status Quo

As of Jan. 14, '06:

Things are going slowly. The revival project only has three 'core developers' who are all very busy and have little spare time; the project is greatly welcoming more coders.

Changes since the release have mostly been on two fronts: graphics and modding system. Qamly created the '.wz' file-based modding system that uses a deflate compression method. This system makes modding easier as one can edit the data files using commodity tools such as WinZip. To make things even easier, including code-wise, Per started on a system based on the PhysicsFS library.

Coder Rodzilla has been adding support for high-res. PNG textures and shadows. He is now talking about extending the 3D model format with support for shaders, and perhaps implementing normal maps in the graphics engine.

Furthermore, the community seems to be picking up Blender 3D as a modeling tool. Although no export plugins exist at the moment, it is most likely on its way. Some community members also use Maya as a modeling tool, but without plugins, models will still have to be redone in the old PieSlicer, which, it seems, is going to become an open-source tool as well.

There is also a significant subproject working on replacing the Full Motion Videos that weren't released under the GPL like the rest of Warzone 2100.

All this focus on graphics and modability will probably mean that 2006 will be the year when Warzone 2100 will reach a new standard in visual appeal, and outclass its retail ancestor. But the project is still far from the finish line. A request for the release of the original FMVs has been sent to the new owners of Eidos, and the code base still has plenty of bugs, including networking issues, and the staff can never forget the horrid state of World Editor - the map and campaign editor, like a thorn in the side.

[edit] Total Warzone

While currently a mostly conceptual idea, several people at Pumpkin-2 are working on making a sequel to Warzone 2100, entitled Total Warzone. A pre-alpha demo has been released at the realtimestrategies.net backup forums.

Since the source code release for Warzone 2100, most (if not all) development resources that were present in this project have been moved to the Warzone Re-Development project. This has slowed down development significantly, but it is not dead. Recently, images from the terrain editor have been published to show forward progress, and some concept coding has been done to add support for tunnels -- a feature not present in Warzone 2100.

[edit] External links

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