Hello everyone,
Today, we’re excited to bring you Update 199: 400 Player Support to War of Rights!
As the title suggests, this update increases the official player cap from 350 to 400 players per server. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg in today’s update—there’s much more to announce, explore and enjoy.
Before we get into all the excitement of today’s update, we want to take a moment to celebrate three amazing people who have risen from the ranks in our incredible community to become valuable contributors at Campfire Games.
Where Passion Meets Profession: Players Become Developers
With today’s update, we’re proud to highlight both new and long-standing developers who began as members of our community. Their passion and deep connection to War of Rights brings valuable insight as they help us continue to improve and expand the game.
At its core, War of Rights is a game with a dedicated, passionate, and knowledgeable community. Without your deep interest in the subject matter, your constant efforts in fostering an immersive experience for everyone, filled with a big focus on teamplay and roleplaying, the game would likely never have gotten to where it is today.
We’re thrilled to formally present three former community members who are now part of the Campfire Games family. We’ll be highlighting some of the exciting projects they’re working on and celebrate one of them reaching their 5-year anniversary with us!
Time-limited Event: War of Rights: 1776
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Get ready to shave those beards and powder those wigs. Today, we are proud to announce 1776, an all-new addition to our growing roster of time-limited annual events, which commemorates the War for Independence.
We’re extremely excited to announce this all-new addition to War of Rights, marking Independence Day in style. Kicking off on July 1st and running through Independence Day and the weeks that follow, this special event lets you step into the Revolutionary War and fight for liberty as an American patriot—or for the Crown as a loyal British subject!
This immersive dive into the Revolutionary War features a host of new content: historically inspired regiments, period-authentic weapons, unique flags, updated animations, refreshed UI elements, and more.
This event wouldn’t be possible without the incredible work of Morgan Seifer, known in the community as Pingu, who recently joined Campfire Games. A longtime contributor and passionate history enthusiast, Morgan has brought this vision to life with remarkable attention to detail, and we’re thrilled to have him on the team.
We cannot wait to head back, “four score and seven years ago” to 1776 and experience the flintlock musket action together with all of you! This time limited event begins on July 1st.
A new Campfire Games Video Series: Campfire Chats
Today, we’re excited to launch Campfire Chats—a brand-new developer video series from Campfire Games, inspired by the classic George’s Corner videos. In this series, we’ll cover War of Rights gameplay, recent updates, announcements, and dive into historical discussions—plus much more!
Campfire Chats is hosted by our brand-new Marketing Specialist, Cody Karov—better known in the War of Rights community as General Cody HD, a bit of a legend for creating hundreds of standout YouTube videos about the game. He’s joined by Clark Morningstar, Campfire Games’ veteran historian, scriptwriter, narrator, sometimes singer, and more—known to the community as GeorgeCrecy. Rounding out the trio is Bradley Smith, our talented texture artist, battle flag connoisseur, and fellow historian, also known as Chaplain Bradley in the community.
Campfire Chats launches today on our Youtube channel as well as in the media section of our website and we expect to be publishing bi-monthly episodes for you all to enjoy!
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Announcement: Weather & Atmospherics Overhaul
Launching alongside the 1776 event on July 1st is a complete overhaul of the game’s atmospherics, cloud systems, and weather effects. First up are major improvements to cloud shape and formation. The skies now feature more natural, defined cloud structures—replacing the previously noisy and uniform appearance.
Rain and storm clouds are now physically simulated and move dynamically across the battlefield. You’ll be able to see them forming and rolling in from the horizon, giving you time to prepare for dramatic shifts in weather. In fact, it’s now possible for one part of the battlefield to be caught in a downpour while another remains completely dry.
Atmospheric effects and fog have also been significantly upgraded, with enhanced visuals and extended visibility. These improvements integrate seamlessly with the new cloud systems, creating striking sunbeams and more immersive weather conditions. A new weather type—thick, oppressive fog—has been added as well, offering a moody and intense battlefield experience.
Lastly, a new dynamic wind system has been introduced, affecting how grass, trees, and gun smoke behave in the environment.
These new features will continue to be developed and refined after launch, and we’re excited about the new visuals, variety and atmosphere they will add to future matches.
Shadow Improvements
In today’s game update. we’re excited to bring a visual upgrade that adds even more depth and realism to the battlefield. Screen Space Shadows with Micro Detail. This enhancement allows for finer, more accurate shadowing on small geometry and surface details—making everything from subtle protrusions in the terrain to intricate object edges feel more grounded and visually rich.
It also improves how surfaces receive shadows, preventing them from looking flat or overly uniform. This added depth brings out the texture and shape of the environment, helping everything feel more three-dimensional and alive. Furthermore, we’ve also significantly extended shadow draw distances, allowing for greater visual fidelity across our large environments.
This is our own adapted and enhanced take on the brilliant work by Bend Studio, originally presented at SIGGRAPH. If you're interested in the technical details, you can learn more here: Inside Bend: Screen Space Shadows.
New War of Rights Website Released!
As many of you may have noticed, a few months ago we quietly launched our new website at warofrights.com. It brings much-needed visual and functional improvements compared to our previous site—which, at over 13 years old, was showing its age. This is also the first important step towards the integration of Service Records, detailed HERE. None of this would have been possible without the expert web development skills of yet another recent addition to the Campfire Games development team, Anthony Wiedman—known in the community as molex. Before joining CG, Anthony created several popular War of Rights-focused web tools, and we’re thrilled to have him on the team. The quality of his work speaks for itself!
Flags, Flags Everywhere!
We’d like to round this community-member-turned-developer presentation off with an honorable mention of Bradley Smith, who has just celebrated his 5-year anniversary as a Texture Artist and Historian at Campfire Games! Bradley was a long-term community member and original crowdfunder of the game before he became a developer (to the great joy of every player with a deep interest in battle flags or just historicity in general!). In many ways, his joining the team was a trailblazing moment, expanding the scope and pushing at the settled team composition that would eventually lead to us being able to present to you today the three old War of Rights community members turned into new Campfire Games developers!
Happy 5-year anniversary Bradley, and here’s to five more and thanks for leading the way (and for the flags!)
We hope you all enjoyed our presentation and are looking forward to the many upcoming additions to the game (in-game as well as outside of it!).
Now, let’s dive into the patch notes of today’s update below!
Update 199 Patch Notes
- Added official support for 400 player servers in an effort to continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in an online FPS-game as we continue to work towards increasing immersion.
- Added support for time-sliced distance shadows covering the entire playable area, significantly reducing per-frame draw call and rasterized triangle counts.
- Added support for micro detail, drastically improving the visuals of textures up close.
- Greatly improved the visuals of trees at a distance, resulting in less pop-in as well as fewer porcupine-looking trees.
- Greatly improved the view distance of roads, resulting in more detailed levels in the distance.
- Reduced the height of most of the grass in the game by 37.5% for a more accurate depiction of the battlefields of Maryland, 1862 according to period photographs.
- Overhauled the cloud visuals of the game for far greater looking volumetric clouds, casting cloud shadows, covering the sky when it rains, and being synchronized between all clients so that the cloud patterns will be identical to every player on the server.
- Updated the aiming setup of the game in an effort to provide for more of a perceived depth when aiming and firing your weapon.
- Added new enter and exit At-the-Ready animations.
- Added an automatic full cock hammer animation if the player aims a loaded rifle with its hammer seated or at the half cock.
- Adjusted the boundaries on the Burnside’s Bridge skirmish area to allow Confederates to occupy the bank on their side of Antietam Creek.
- Pushed the CSA further back from the Union spawn at the Cooke’s Countercharge skirmish area, Antietam.
- Updated the boundaries and spawn points of the union on the High Street skirmish area, Harpers Ferry.
- Increased the tickets for the defenders on most of the skirmish areas in an effort to improve game balance: ANTIETAM: [list]
- Hagerstown Turnpike 10% Defenders
- Miller's Cornfield 7% Defenders
- East Woods 12% Defenders
- Nicodemus Hill 5% Defenders
- Bloody Lane 10% Defenders
- Pry Grist Mill 5% Defenders
- West Woods 10% Defenders
- Dunker Church 10% Defenders
- Burnside Bridge 10% Defenders
- Cooke's Countercharge 15% Defenders
- Otto & Sherrick Farm 10% Defenders
- Roulette Lane 5% Defenders
- Piper Farm 12% Defenders
HARPERS FERRY:
- River Crossing 7.5% Defenders
- Downtown 10% Defenders
- School House Ridge 12% Defenders
- High Street 5% Defenders
- Bolivar Heights Camp 10% Defenders
- Shenandoah Street 8% Defenders
- Bolivar Heights Redoubt 5% Defenders
- Washington Street 5% Defenders
SOUTH MOUNTAIN:
- Garland's Stand 5% Defenders
- Anderson's Counterattack 5% Defenders
- Reno's Fall 5% Defenders
- Colquitt's Defence 5% Defenders
DRILL CAMP:
- Alexander Farm 7.5% Defenders
- Crossroads 7.5% Defenders
- Smith Field 7.5% Defenders
- Crecy's Cornfield 7.5% Defenders
- Larsen Homestead 3% Defenders
- South Woodlot 3% Defenders
- Flemming's Meadow 7.5% Defenders
- Wagon Road 7.5% Defenders
- Crossley Creek 7.5% Defenders
- Union Camp 3% Defenders
- Pat's Turnpike 7.5% Defenders
- Stefan's Lot 7.5% Defenders
- Confederate Encampment 7.5% Defenders
- Replaced the old grass, moss and leaf ground textures in the game with newer, more high-quality ones.
- Fixed some incorrect normals on a bunch of ground textures, resulting in better and more accurate visuals.
- Fixed a seam in the macadamized road texture.
- Fixed a lot of floating bushes, Harpers Ferry.
- Overhauled the Henry Rohrback farmhouse.
- Fixed some Sherrick Farm textures, Sherrick Barn model, Piper Smokehouse model and Nicodemus House model.
- Updated the 3rd Maryland Potomac Home Brigade flags to match their real-world counterparts, with many thanks to the archivists at the Maryland State Archives for their assistance.
- Updated the Hampton Legion national flag.
- Vegetation detail work, Antietam.
- Fixed a small normal artifact on the Springfield M1855.
- Vegetation detail work, South Mountain.
- Added two new light probes on Harpers Ferry along the rivers for better lighting during sunrise and sunset.
- Fixed several bad door rotations, Antietam.
- Fixed a rare edge case where simultaneous interactions on the same dropped flag could result in it being duplicated to several different players, resulting in multiple flag pickups.
- Made the dirt accumulation on characters take 10 times longer.
- Several Louisiana uniform tweaks and fixes.
- Begun a renaming process of all of our customizable uniform parts to match the names of their real-world counterparts.
- Removed a massive amount of code bloat. This is an ongoing optimization process.
That’s all for now - we look forward to seeing you all on the new 400-player servers for an even greater and more immersive gameplay experience!
