Hello again! Like we promised a few weeks ago, we're committed to keeping you guys posted with a steady stream of media and updates this year, and here is another one! Today we have some nice things to show you: brand new building models and a new HUD (the latter of which you have already seen in action in our most recent videos).

For a long time we simply used grey boxes as placeholders for our building models, but our newest developer ChromeAngel has gone out of his way to make us some nice new models for all of the Resistance and Combine buildings. On top of that, our friend Garrador (who also made our original HUD) has designed us a brand new HUD that looks more Half-Life than before and doesn't borrow quite as heavily from the Company of Heroes design. Check out the new buildings and HUD in the screenshots below (click them to enlarge of course).

Combine Buildings



In this screenshot you can see all of the Combine building models. The big one in the center is the HQ, and from left to right the others are the Garrison, Special Ops, Synth Factory and Armory. The little posts you see in between are Power Generators. The Garrison produces most of the basic Combine troops, while expensive infantry such as Elites and Snipers are produced at the Special Ops. The Synth Factory is self-explanatory (it builds Hunters and Striders) and the Armory provides all kinds of upgrades and research.

Resistance Buildings



These are the Resistance buildings. The HQ is seen front and center. At the top back you can see several Billets, which raise the population cap for Rebel players. The other buildings are (from left to right): two Barracks, Munitions Depot (similar to Armory for Combine), a Triage Center just above the HQ, then Special Ops and finally the Vortigaunt Den all the way to the right. There is also a new model for Scrap points, which you can see by clicking here.

New HUD / Interface



In this image you can see the new HUD in all its glory. It has several improvements over the previous HUD from a design perspective and is overall a lot cleaner looking and uses space more efficiently. On the right side is the command panel which allows you to issue commands to units or buildings (using abilities, attack move, construction, repair, etc). In the center are selected units - if only one is selected then it displays some statistics about that particular unit. The box to the left of the center is for unit portraits - not all are finished yet.

Above the selected units area you can see all of your assigned Control Groups (Ctrl+#) where you can group units or buildings together and hotkey them for fast and easy command of your forces. Like in Starcraft, you can put buildings in a control group so that you can use hotkeys to produce units at those structures even when not looking at your base. The left side of the HUD displays the minimap, resources (Requisition and Scrap for Resistance and Requisition and Power for Combine) and Population.

That's all for today folks. We have more to show off, but not all at once! We are progressing steadily towards releasing BETA 2 and we'll keep you posted as release draws closer. Next time you can expect to see another gameplay video and some other nifty stuff. For now, head over to our community forum if you want to help out or tell us what you think, and let us know in the comments how you like the buildings and HUD! Also be sure to Follow us on Twitter (@HL2Wars)!

Happy New Years from the Half-Life 2: Wars team! It's been a while since you guys last heard from us all the way back in March, but we've been working hard on HL2: Wars all year long and we have a lot of progress and improvement to show you. 2011 was a quiet year for us, but 2012 is going to be The Year of Half-Life 2: Wars, with our most important and exciting public release yet looming just over the horizon: HLW Beta 2.0.

Beta 2 will be the first truly robust version of HL2: Wars to be released to the public, with fully implemented and playable Resistance and Combine factions available for use in multiplayer. Both factions now have fully developed tech trees with their own sets of unique units, buildings, abilities and research. We'll be looking at them in depth in a later news post. Beta 2 will also be the first public release of HL2: Wars to feature our fully implemented multiplayer resource system, explained below.

First, though, check out this 30 minute gameplay video to get an idea of where the mod is right now. Recorded about a month ago, this is a complete 1v1 multiplayer match of HL2: Wars in the Annihilation game mode, with me playing as Resistance against Sander playing as Combine:



In the month since that video was recorded, many of the placeholder building models you saw have been replaced with new models, which you can check out in this video (ModDB mirror). We also recently posted a short video showing off a new Overrun game mode map, or_hill, which you can watch here (ModDB mirror).

Now for a brief description of the new resource system we have implemented for the primary multiplayer game mode of HL2: Wars, Annihilation. Players battle for control of several key strategic points on the map, known as Requisition Points. Once captured by a player, these points generate a fixed income of Requisition for that player. Requisition is the main resource in HL2: Wars and represents the strategic importance of the battle you are fighting for your particular faction. Basically, you can simply think of it as money which can be spent on more powerful and useful units and buildings.

In addition to the main Requisition resource, which both players fight over, each faction has its own specific resource to worry about as well. For Resistance players, this is called Scrap, which represents salvaged equipment and technology, vital to the success of the beleaguered and undersupplied human resistance. Scrap is gathered by Engineers from specific Scrap Points around the map, which requires you to guard them as they carry Scrap from the point back to the HQ. Scrap can also be acquired by killing enemy units and players also receive a small amount of fixed Scrap income every minute to help when their back is really against the wall.

The Combine's faction-specific resource is Power, which is accrued by building Power Generators. All major Combine structures must be built within range of a Power Generator to function. Additionally, they generate a small amount of Power every minute, which is needed to purchase advanced Combine units and buildings such as Snipers, Hunters, and Striders. Power Generators are weak and quite vulnerable, so Combine players must protect their base's generators at all costs.

Watch the video above to see it all in action. The final resource used by both factions is Population, which is pretty similar to population cap in most RTSes. Resistance players must build Billets to raise their population cap, while Combine players need only research an upgrade at the HQ to do the same.

With the new resource system and full tech trees for both factions fully implemented, we're currently hard at work playtesting, tweaking, and balancing the gameplay itself to make it a bit more varied and interesting, as well as seeking out and fixing bugs and performance issues and finalizing art assets such as building models, interface icons, unit sounds, etc. Beta 2 is just over the horizon - we don't have a solid release date yet but tentatively expect to release it sometime in the next few months, hopefully before the end of Q1 2012.

In the meantime, you can expect to see several more news posts from us in the next couple of months featuring the new building models for Combine and Resistance structures, our brand new reworked HUD / interface, the full tech trees for each faction, some of the new maps that will be included in Beta 2 and a lot more exciting stuff! We're also still looking for dedicated level designers and could use some motivated and capable internal playtesters as well - if you think you've got what it takes, email us at hl2warsmod [at] gmail [dot] com or post on our community forums. That's all for today - but stay tuned!

We have released Beta 1.0.4 of Half-Life 2: Wars. This release solves the bug where the server is always changing maps along with several other fixes.

Changelog

We're proud to bring you guys version 1.0.3 of the Half-Life 2: Wars beta! 1.0.3 features a brand-new claustrophobic 2-player Overrun map called or_trapped, by our very own pandango. The Combine manned turret that has been absent since Beta v0.5 way back in 2008 has returned as well, and 1.0.3 features a whole host of other minor fixes and improvements to the game.



You can download the files here in our Files section or on ModDB. If you aren't sure which of those to download, just download the EXE. 1.0.3 is a full install, so it would be best to remove previous installations of HL2: Wars before running the installer. You also have the option of using Desura, which we strongly recommend. While you wait for it to download, check out 1.0.3 in action here:



As always, we are looking for more level designers and 3d artists to round out the HLW team, so if you are interested get in touch. You'll be hearing from us again soon - we have big things in the works, with Beta 1.1 in the pipeline - featuring fully-playable Resistance and Combine factions in skirmish mode!

1.0.3 Full Changelog

Balance:
* Reduced Antlion Guards speed 20%

Added:
* New map or_trapped (Overrun)
* Map boundaries
* Secondary fire ability AR2 (Combine elite soldier)
* Mountable turret
* Rebel soldier (sandbox)
* Shield and heal station ability icons

Updated:
* Group type abilities like "Attack move" and "Burrow" are now applied across the whole selection, instead of just the specific unit type
* Construct ability now also serves as a repair ability
* Creation of abilities is now predicted on the client
* Better loading and scoreboard fonts
* The color of the stalker laser now uses the team color, instead of red

Removed:
* Nest Maintenance ability (replaced by construct/repair ability)

Unit navigation:
* Improved unit group goal arrival
* Fixed incorrect paths found by not considering the unit sizes correctly

Fixed:
* Being able to set the rally point of buildings you do not own
* Unable to select a player as lobby leader in case the player name contained spaces
* Player not spawned in the map when a skirmish game was started in some specific cases
* Portraits not changing when selecting a different unit while you already have an unit selected with a portrait
* "Attack move" sometimes failing due a bug in the unit ai, causing units to stop moving towards their move attack goal
* "Leave control" button in sandbox broken when cheats are not on
* Recharge time not set for the ability in the top left slot after using it
* Incorrect run animation combine soldier in case equipped with a shotgun
* Wrong font used for displaying the player names above units that are directly controlled
* Weapon not drawn of the unit when directly controlled by a player
* Move and attack sounds played for each unit in the selection, while only the first unit should do this
* No resources taken when executing the grenade ability
* Move order behaving like "Atack Move" (not ignoring enemies)
* Changes made with the attribute editor are now reset on map change (sandbox)
* Antlion guard pose parameters incorrectly initialized, resulting in incorrect animations
* Queued ability orders not being cleared in case the order was canceled.

We have released Beta 1.0.2 of Half-Life 2: Wars.

You can download the new release from download section.

Changelog for Beta 1.0.2: