BZFlag 2.0.0 is Released!
Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 12:19 am
The BZFlag developers are proud to announce that after much of your patient waiting and anticipation, BZFlag 2.0.0 is now available. Binaries are presently being build for all of the platforms and will be posted to the sourceforge project site at http://sf.net/projects/bzflag. If you don't see 2.0 files for your platform yet, just be patient as they are all being built and posted as quickly as possible.
BZFlag 2 introduces a slew of major new features that you may already know about if you've been participating in the 1.11 developer builds. This release is probably the "biggest" release in BZFlag's history in terms of development time put into it and features being added since the last publicly released version.
With this release, BZFlag now supports vastly more complex worlds that may include more than just the traditional boxes and pyramids. Map makers can add incredible detail and creativity to worlds, including the addition of weather (rain, snow, frogs), physics drivers (spinning discs, conveyor belts, elevators), deadly buildings and water, mirrors, imagery (billboards, textures), rivers and more.
There are graphics improvements across the board, including the addition of tank tracks and treads, jets that kick off when you jump, tank animations when picking up certain flags, and an improved tank look. There are a variety of new flags as well, including the highly acclaimed Wings flag that lets you fly around a map. Also noteworthy is the Agility flag for short bursts of very high speed useful in dodging opponents and firing fast shots. There are a variety of nasty bad flags as well including ReverseOnly, ForwardOnly, ReverseControls (particularly nasty), TriggerHappy, and Bouncy.
There is also a new registration system where users will be able to log in to BZFlag using their BZBB username and password. There are global groups that will allow server operators to configure groups of known and trusted players with certain abilities. In a similar vein, there is also a global banning system now in place as well to help curtail cheating and disruptive behavior where they are not allowed. Various other cheat prevention mechanisms have also been made. Also, a "Message of the Day" now greets you when you start for delivering announcements.
Finally, there are a variety of new in-game commands. You can use /msg and /me for private chatting and actions ala IRC, there is similarly a /part and /quit for leaving a server or the entire game quickly with a message. The /uptime command will tell you how long a server has been running and the /clientquery command will tell you what version everyone else is using. Finally, for the league players, /countdown was modified to tell you how much time until a match begins and will accept an optional value for how long to count. To wrap it all up, there's also auto-completion (aka tab-completion) of commands and player names now too.
It has been a long time in development and we're just as glad to get this out the door and into your hands. Should you run into anything unexpected, please report it to the BZFlag bug tracker at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_i ... tid=103248 so that it may be fixed quickly. Thanks and appreciation is well-deserved to all the developers, server operators, server administrators/cops, and players like you that have put in their time and effort and keep the game alive and improving. We hope you enjoy.
Cheers!
Sean
BZFlag 2 introduces a slew of major new features that you may already know about if you've been participating in the 1.11 developer builds. This release is probably the "biggest" release in BZFlag's history in terms of development time put into it and features being added since the last publicly released version.
With this release, BZFlag now supports vastly more complex worlds that may include more than just the traditional boxes and pyramids. Map makers can add incredible detail and creativity to worlds, including the addition of weather (rain, snow, frogs), physics drivers (spinning discs, conveyor belts, elevators), deadly buildings and water, mirrors, imagery (billboards, textures), rivers and more.
There are graphics improvements across the board, including the addition of tank tracks and treads, jets that kick off when you jump, tank animations when picking up certain flags, and an improved tank look. There are a variety of new flags as well, including the highly acclaimed Wings flag that lets you fly around a map. Also noteworthy is the Agility flag for short bursts of very high speed useful in dodging opponents and firing fast shots. There are a variety of nasty bad flags as well including ReverseOnly, ForwardOnly, ReverseControls (particularly nasty), TriggerHappy, and Bouncy.
There is also a new registration system where users will be able to log in to BZFlag using their BZBB username and password. There are global groups that will allow server operators to configure groups of known and trusted players with certain abilities. In a similar vein, there is also a global banning system now in place as well to help curtail cheating and disruptive behavior where they are not allowed. Various other cheat prevention mechanisms have also been made. Also, a "Message of the Day" now greets you when you start for delivering announcements.
Finally, there are a variety of new in-game commands. You can use /msg and /me for private chatting and actions ala IRC, there is similarly a /part and /quit for leaving a server or the entire game quickly with a message. The /uptime command will tell you how long a server has been running and the /clientquery command will tell you what version everyone else is using. Finally, for the league players, /countdown was modified to tell you how much time until a match begins and will accept an optional value for how long to count. To wrap it all up, there's also auto-completion (aka tab-completion) of commands and player names now too.
It has been a long time in development and we're just as glad to get this out the door and into your hands. Should you run into anything unexpected, please report it to the BZFlag bug tracker at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_i ... tid=103248 so that it may be fixed quickly. Thanks and appreciation is well-deserved to all the developers, server operators, server administrators/cops, and players like you that have put in their time and effort and keep the game alive and improving. We hope you enjoy.
Cheers!
Sean
I posted a copy of the installer here: 
