Hello All, Short post because its right before work but for those who missed out on the TAW All-Hands meeting last night you are more than welcome to head to the twitch channel and watch the video here: Meeting Video
Thanks to Mav for streaming it to give us a good show of the website and to all the SEC folks working hard to make this website a reality!
Well, what a great week of events, intriguing, impressive, lively are but a few words
that pop into my head when trying to descript the week.
Here is a round of what happened and what you missed.
Before we even got started there was a lot of new twitch subscribers.
We kicked off with the 2021 fundraiser and then got to see the new TAW logo and mascot.
Shop displayed all the new goodies we can get from the new shop, go check these out.
I have to say this is one of the best looking T-Shirts I have seen, my hat is off to shop.
Next up was our TAW weekday events which included,
Minecraft, Battlefield, History of TAW, Karaoke, the TFO Scrim
and finished off with a 24-hour fundraiser.
If you missed any of the events or want to watch them again,
you can check them out - HERE
Well done, and thank you to everyone who has been involved with this event.
20th Anniversary commendation list - HERE
Thank you all for reading and hope you enjoy watching the events.
Warlohn MMD PIA
With the 20th anniversary fast approaching we have two organised streams set to take place. One 12 hour stream on the 28th February starting at 0600 EST/1200 CET and the other will be a big 24 hour fundraising stream during the 20th anniversary celebrations on the 13th March starting at 0600 EST/1200 CET.
These streams will consist of various TAW members streaming different games. This includes the TAW@WAR Team Fortress 2 event and our current Commander in Chief, MaverickSabre, starting off proceedings with some opening remarks and then joining JmagLive for some Heroes and Generals.
The full schedule is shown below so we encourage you to drop by the streams at TAWTV to watch, support and interact with your fellow members playing some of our favourite games.
From MMD Command, “We would like to thank all stream participants for making this possible. We are very excited to host this stream and looking forward to the times to come!.”
Cracklez MMD DC
Funkmetal MMD CO
JmagLive MMD XO
*Games subject to change. Up to the descretion of the streamer.
Thanks All,
ShadowHopper MMD PIA
G' Day everyoneyou'll be as excited as I am to know we have 29 scheduled streams for November. As this is a first I feel I should congratulate everyone for this record!a massive shout out to
G’Dayday everybody!
The multimedia division has new positions that are now opening. The purpose of this group of teams is to stream and do commentary gameplays of practices, scrims and even review upcoming games that fits TAW, we are excited to try and bring back the Newsletter, also doing videos for Newsletter at the side. MMD runs differently than other units within TAW, as part of our Media team you do not have week mandatory events, instead, they will be fortnightly. There will be times where you are assigned the tasks and requests that can come in at any given time by members or newsletter team in our community, this can also be an opportunity for people that have difficulty making their mandatory events that still wish to stay in TAW an opportunity to do so.
The requirements to join TAW TV are:
Here are some of the things you will be able to work with if you join us.
On Twitch:
Training Sessions
Rage Plays
Relaxed Gameplays
Teamwork videos
Collaboration Stream
Co-op plays
Live game reviews
News update
And more!
On Youtube - Commentary:
Top 10 Top game plays
Top 10 Fail plays - Gump Award Show
In the spotlight – Upcoming game for VG Horizon
Newsletter
PC gaming stories
News
Features
Reviews
hardware tests
if you wish to know more about the position you can shoot an email to me (cracklez@taw.net) or just look us up on our TeamSpeak and we will gladly answer any of your questions.
III Corps is pleased to announce the next round of attendance award recipients! Attendance is an important aspect of being a TAW member. With that, III Corps Command wants to thank members for working hard and having good attendance.
Criteria:
Excellent Attendance Award:
Any member in III Corps who has been an active member of TAW for 60 days prior to the awarding date is eligible for this tab. The member will have a mandatory average of 85-99% at the time of awarding over a 60 day period.
Perfect Attendance Award:
Any member in III Corps who has been an active member of TAW for 60 days prior to the awarding date is eligible for this tab. The member will have a mandatory average of 100% at the time of awarding over a 60 day period.
III Corps Command is proud to announce the first recipients of the tabs:
III Corps is pleased to announce a new program for our valued members! Attendance is an important aspect of being a TAW member. With that, III Corps Command wants to thank members for working hard and having good attendance. As a result we have rolled out some tabs to reward members for having stellar attendance over the past 60 days.
BelfastGiants
Sneev
Azatotht
BrainDeadHitman
Cocoa
Corpse
Darksheep
Edget
enigmaplatypus
flametwin
funkmetal
GenesisAYM
Jhin
Kikkoman
KnightFall
MrTactical
Orastic
PailotVA
PalmFrag
PCTrier
PuncturedPenguin
Quagon
Respiration
Sanfi
SergeTheGreat
SmittyWerben
spectregt
Sunsoulder
Syndros
TheTriage
thunderhorse
Toryk
XCDaboyo
XYZOverlord
Congratulations to everyone on earning these tabs!
III Corps Command is pleased to announce our first ever All Hands Meeting! All members are welcome to attend!
Currently, the agenda is still under development, however we do have plans to go over our plans to engage in member activity and how we can make the TAW experience as amazing as we can make it.
If you are available to attend on April 14 at 4pm ET (9pm GMT), come on in and join the fun!
TAW 3.0 the future of TAW
Hello from all of us in DEVOPS
As some of you may know, development operations are developing the new TAW 3.0 website for you all to enjoy, we have been working on the website for some time now, and have made good progress in its design and coding thanks to the great team we currently have.
At this time we have a good start to the site, but we have a long way to go and so we are looking for people to help us in our task to create TAW 3.0, this is where you might come in.
Devops are looking for people with experience in one or more of the following technologies
Database: postgres and redis
Serverside: node.js with express 4 for HTTP middleware, Sequelize as ORM, Socket.IO
Clientside: AngularJS, MaterializeCSS, Socket.IO
If you have experience with any of these and can spare as little as a few hours a week, please get in touch with DEVOPS
We are looking for both full time and part time staff, you can work freelance from your current division or join devops on a more long term basis and be part of the team for the whole project.
Please be aware that these techologies might change in the future as we progress the website and needs change, dont hesitate to get in contact with us if you have questions.
Welcome to the TAW Digital Combat Simulator pages!
We are a community of combat simulator pilots, dedicated to having loads of fun while trying to simulate being a combat pilot at an extremely high level. We fly as a team, train as a team and improve our skills on a daily basis to be ready for the most realistic air combat experience a simulator pilot can achieve.
Digital Combat Simulator by Eagle Dynamics is by far the most comprehensive and realistic simulator on the public market, WE LOVE IT!!!! Thank you Eagle Dynamics for your time and effort into this simulator and your continuing development. We fly fighters, strikers and helicopters and have different squadrons setup in our fighting wing division. The main aircraft we fly are the F-15C, SU-27, A-10C, SU-25T, KA-50, UH-1H, and all upcoming fully clickable modern aircraft.
If you are interested in becoming a member of our awesome community after reading this and if you are willing to put time and effort into this, you can then follow this link to apply:
https://taw.net/themes/taw/user/application.aspx
We have divided our squadrons into smaller 'fireteams' who are at a maximum of 6 pilots per team, with a fireteam leader to coordinate all its members. We have a command structure, similar to the USMC, in order to have people fulfill responsibilities to make the lives of our pilots within TAW as much fun as possible. Of course everybody is just as much responsible to create a great environment, where we simulate air combat as a team.
This is a place where you can go to if you like to meet possible new friends with the same level of interest in air combat.
We have very skilled instructors to train for tactics, systems knowledge, brevity (radio communication) and piloting skills. These guys have loads of experience in all fields of DCS and have proven themselves worthy instructors by dedicating time and effort for the TAW DCS community. When a new member wants to join, we do expect this pilot to have at least basic pilot skills and systems knowledge. It is nearly impossible for our instructors to teach every single person the basics, which should easily be learned by reading the manual and doing some searches on the Internet and following all the training sections that DCS itself provides. You have to have a form of discipline in order to be a simulator pilot and be willing to put time and effort into this, not just by asking around, but by reading and understanding the plane/helicopter you want to fly.
THIS IS A SIMULATOR, NOT AN ARCADE GAME.
We have one mandatory event per week on Sunday evenings 18:45Z for the European Division (19:45CET GMT+1) and 8:00PM Eastern Standard Time for the North American Division. Unfortunately, due to the time zone difference it is impossible to align these events for Europe and North America, so we have separate events for these sides of the world. These events will take approximately 1.5 hours with a briefing before and a debrief afterwards.
We ask of all pilots to be present at least 50% of the mandatory Sunday events per month. We have several optional trainings planned every week and you are free to attend at any time. Other than that, the fireteams fly together as much as possible so they become one magnificent oiled war machine! We attend different annual combat competitions as both TAW DCS and also the smaller individual fireteams as well, but always representing TAW DCS.
Teams in the 52nd TAW Wing (EUROPE)
Death Vipers (Strikers)
Vortex Vikings (Rotary)
Black Widows (Fighters)
Teams in the 33rd TAW Wing (NORTH AMERICA)
Whirling Scourge (Rotary)
Rabid Badgers (Strikers)
Gunslingers (Fighters)
You can download the -- TAW SKIN PACK -- installer here: TAW DCS World Skinpack
To view the internal DCS Blog pages and more of our events, training and structure you need to log in to TAW.
Did you know we have a TAW Shop?
Indeed we do. We use the small income from SHOP to help offset the cost of our Server that we all utilize.
Visit today and pick up some cool TAW Swag and help your community.
http://tawshop.spreadshirt.com/
Greetings All,
Today we have a special article for you to feast your eyes upon. Squad is a brand new upcoming game that has recently been Greenlit with 41,213 votes (in just over a week). So it is a great honour and privilege to have the developers answering some questions put together by BerlinerKuchen, Sidthesloth and Samblues of the Arma Division and kindly answered by Litoralis (Community Manager of Squad). Please remember the game is currently in pre-alpha so nothing is set in stone.
Squad Website - HERE
Steam Greenlit page - HERE
So to kick this Q&A off, What is Squad?
Squad is the standalone spiritual successor to the Project Reality Mod for Battlefield 2 (PR), it’s the realization of a dream to go it alone by a segment of the PR mod team, focusing on their experiences synthesizing the best parts of the arcadey run and gun shooters and the realism aspects of military simulators, with a specific focus on teamwork. Squad is built from the ground up on Unreal Engine 4, which has freed the development team from the confinements of modding a closed engine, and alleviated the various issues related to PvP capabilities of that other engine we all love for Coop missions. We are at the point where, if the Devs or modders from communities like TAW can dream it up, we can program it into the game. Will all of these desired features make it into the official core game? No, but we're pretty certain after a decade of modding we can distill this into an extremely enjoyable out of the box experience for guys with limited hours to game online after work or on the weekends.
What is the main focus of gameplay in squad?
Our motto is "Communicate. Coordinate. Conquer." Teamwork, at all times, through any means available, i.e. with the grunt standing next to you, to the squad-mates across a valley covering angles, to inter-squad comms across roles on the team. We have taken the best communication concepts from FPS shooters, and provided the entire stack of tools deserved and desired by teamwork orientated gamers to be able to intuitively work together. We take special pride from our mod background in providing these tools to allow immediate accessibility with ease of use tools for people who don't know each other before the round starts..
What period of time/setting is Squad based in/on?
For the Dev Team and core game itself, the answer is near past to near future, and this will be the basis of our retail release. We come from a long long tradition of modding, going back to NovaLogic titles, and are actively looking for mod teams who want to come onboard and build other eras, and we're looking to help them monetize those addons in a way similar to Rising Storm was integrated into the Red Orchestra 2 game.
How many players are planned to be inside one match?
The short answer for TAW.net members is: 100 players on a server as our first step on the journey.
The long answer: Unreal Engine 4 is improving so fast we don’t know our upper limit of player count. We no longer require symmetrical player counts, nor are we restricted to the concept of symmetrical teams, ie. one side can be US Army and the other Insurgents, or we can have two rival Militia/Insurgent teams, so we can do 30v70 40v60 45v55, all of which can allow various game modes/missions on each map. In addition to that, we already have infantry mechanics near sorted enough to allow smaller level design, such as 5v5 8v8 12v12 events for communities, MOUT training maps, LAN events, clan ladders etc.
What different roles/classes are planned?
This is one of the features we'll bring over in spirit from the Project Reality mod. There will be around 10 roles in Beta stage, more later, with restrictions in place to prevent 20 snipers on a 50 man team etc. The role system is very much part of our meta game, where fluidity to resupply and change classes and the kit composition of a squad at supply points to act on and react to changing battle conditions is a critical gameplay element. The obvious follow up, How is this different than Arma? You won't be choosing your outfit, you won't be choosing from each and every weapon available, you will be able to choose from a limited selection of standard issue scopes/sights. You will be able to choose between some weapons for the same kit, such as a RPK with extended map or PKM for a Militia squad assault rifleman kit, or between two standard issue DMR rifles for US Forces. Simplicity, but still some customization with near real world parallels.
Will there be a medical system?
The quick answer, yes, the system in PR was good for the era and we'll take some cues from milsim mods to optimize the experience out of the box and make playing as a medic a rewarding experience. The longer answer, medic system, ttk calculations, desired length of firefight engagements, loss of accuracy while injured, revive and respawn mechanics, all work together to craft the ebb and flow of gameplay, and we've got a long history working inside a closed engine, and can now stretch out and implement long sought after features, such as casualty dragging, stabilization instead of instant full heal, the ability for server admins to choose which medic system to activate on their servers, etc.
What is the most important aspect of Squad and why?
The balanced feature set between un-serious arcade shooter fun, and the focused gameplay of military simulators, while leaning toward enjoyable arcade action over simulators’ high learning curve. We are not going to casualize our gameplay heritage, and we’re going to provide and improve on all of the game design elements that promote teamwork , communication and coordination, and also tacitly punish lone wolf antisocial gameplay styles. Server Admins shouldn't need to be physically present to enforce rules to ensure teamwork, we’re going to build a game that admins and players expect teamwork as the only viable, enjoyable, and winning strategy, no matter what server or game mode they’re joining on any given day.
How many maps are intended to be released?
It’s too early for me to reveal this info, we have something planned in the near future to give a better idea of what we have in store for theatres, geography, factions etc. A bit of general info about three of the maps for the Alpha, our test map is Logar Valley, which is 2.25km^2, we have a 4km^2 map as a larger test map for vehicle layers, and we have a smaller test map for infantry training and small group fun. Any of the TAW.net members with serious mapping experience and are looking for a mapping job, get in touch, we’re hiring.
Will there be any DLC’s and if so what will they bring?
It is a bit early for us to give firm answers to this question, and the whole series of related questions about DLC and mod support. The Dev Team is trying to avoid fragmenting our community by pushing what in practice becomes required DLC. There might be middle ground solutions allowing everyone to play any future DLC in limited roles. Keep in mind at this point we have no plan to release our new content as paid DLC, rather we plan to release it as regular updates. We also are trying to allow modders to have access to our SDK as soon as we have a version of UE4 as our final base and have locked down our underlying code-base, so they can build their own maps, modes. mods, kits, etc, and we are also considering allowing mod teams to build our community made factions, with the concept of partnering with them to monetize full faction or full conversion mods if they are of sufficient quality. Everything I mentioned is still in discussion, it will take some time to find multiple sustainable solutions to add new and evolving content to the game.
What different modes will there be?
By far my favourite question to answer. We come from a background with the following game modes:
Advance and Secure, which is a multiple route objective capture mode,
Insurgency: A Conventional Faction on a search and destroy mission to eliminate either Insurgent weapon caches, and/or to secure objective zones.
Skirmish: A simpler game mode that is Infantry Only, which will always be in demand. Seeding a server, playing intra-clan scrims, training infantry tactics, etc all have a place in Squad.
Command and Control: ON large maps, each team builds a single Forward Operating Base which is given double the number of deployable fortifications and defences such as Anti Tank emplacements, and two commanders play a game of chess trying to locate and destroy the opposing FOB.
Vehicle Warfare: Simply put, a tank vs tank mode that will be seen much later in Squad development.
Now, why is this my favourite question to answer? Can you code in UE4 Blueprint and or C++. Then you can create your own game mode logic in a few hours. We can do just about anything that can be logically coded, Insurgents vs Militia, zone control, breach and clear scenarios, VIP escort scenarios, convoy defence, etc. Values of anything can be designated as win scenarios, be it capturing a bridge or building a defensive FOB, etc.
How much will be part of the core game, and how much will be brought on later by modders, that is still up in the air. Our Dev team has over 100 years playing and over 40 years modding FPS games, the brainstorming sessions on this topic get pretty intense, and we're going to push the limits as far as we can manage.
Will there be Clan vs Clan support?
It is a focus for us to support our own clan based gameplay. From the very high level implementation for Server Admins, to more visible immediate things such as clan tags and in-game identifiers (caveat in-game identifiers might be in the UI menus only), we’ll have all the clan related tools needed so the Devs can play with our own clans in Clan v Clan matches. We've had some early talks with people interested in developing clan vs clan community tournaments, we see it as a big part of the future of making the game we want to play, and that means clan vs clan scrims on the weekends.
What makes this different from Project Reality?
A development team with combined over 35 years experience working together on PR now control the low level coding of a game engine that is at the cutting edge for the industry. We have DX11, and will have DX12 sometime after official release. Our VOIP system is integrated, everything will work perfectly out of the box without any third party software/content, we have brought on industry professionals to fill gaps in expertise and maintain a very fast development cycle.
Will there be community server hosting support?
Yes. As well as direct lines of communication for Server Host Providers and Server Admins to the Dev team to make hosting and administering Squad servers as hassle free as possible.
What makes this different from any other team-based shooter game?
After a ten year experience of various advocates trying to pull us toward one extreme of arcade shooter to the other as a full on military simulator, we’ve managed to find a framework to balance game design decisions that works across almost all FPS game elements, this isn’t something that was seen often by the public. But the Project Reality team had internally struggled against falling industry standards as has been recently termed “casualization” and then also learned to selectively pick and choose competing gameplay options from the milsim mod scene and meld them into our existing game structure. This synthesized over time into a mod that had no commercial equivalent, and that arena of competing ideas, and that champion of a mod that emerged, is what brought this mod team together to invest years of their lives into bringing Squad to market.
Will there be mod support?
Every single coder on our team started as a modder. This is our chance to pay it forward so in ten years time there will be a vibrant modding scene in FPS gaming. You will one day see a degree of support; but at the moment we need to focus on making a core game that everyone will enjoy. We’re discussing a framework and outline of a pipeline for a SDK, and tutorial sub-forums to provide ongoing support for the modding community. From day one, the assets we’re building, the workflow we’re using, has been documented to allow accessibility to the modding community when we get closer to retail release.
I can imagine this is a popular question, do you think there will be a WW2 setting in the future?
We would like to see it also, we have no definitive answer. It’s been a long time since there has been a really amazing FPS segment leading WWII title released. We hope to see the Project Reality WWII mini-mod be reintegrated into the main PR Mod soon, so we can storm Omaha Beach again on our gaming nights.
Now that you’re steam greenlit, what is your next goal?
It’s interesting, we knew we had a great game, up until Greenlight we had no real outside validation, we know there are over 250,000 people who have played PR at one point or the other, but would that translate into a public show of support for our venture? It’s been good to get ourselves reintroduced to the FPS community on Steam, it’s been even better having prior PR players and modders come back to us to offer support in various ways. For now, as Community Manager, I’ll be out there spreading the word and putting the people together who need to be introduced. We have Project Reality veteran players in every imaginable field related to online gaming, getting them up to date on Squad has been really enjoyable, some of these guys I gamed with 3 or 5 years ago and haven’t heard from since. Talking to newly interested communities we think will enjoy Squad. Talking to younger gamers who haven’t had a proper teamwork focused FPS game on market has been eye opening, Turns out we weren't the only ones looking for something more out of our FPS gaming experiences.
BerlinerKuchen’s first impressions:
When I first heard about Squad, i instantly recalled my happy memories of project reality again. I knew from as soon as i saw the very first description of what Squad aspires to be, i wanted to be involved and help to make the best out of the game Squad. The first impressions for such an early build are just amazing. It is nowhere near done but it is already creating such a great atmosphere and feeling to a shooter game, the way that barely no other game has. This is in pre-alpha yet has better mechanics and has had more updates that most early-access steam games.
Squad has it in it to become the new Project Reality, welcoming new players and the veterans, each one of them will have their own unique and great combat experience. I definitely will be purchasing this when it is out.
Samblues’s first impressions:
Squad is currently in Pre-alpha. So when i first downloaded it, i was extremely shocked to see amazing visuals, smooth fps (i am currently hitting 60-80 fps on ultra everything with a gtx 770), atmospheric sounds that really immerse you and great voice communication mechanics inside of the game that allow Squad members to communicate with squad members, squad leaders to communicate with squad leaders and a proximity chat also. Squad has also got great weapon modules and explosion effects. One of the most important aspects of any Team-based military game is the community and so far i am very impressed. The community is already merging together to create useful forums, new ideas and i shall not forget to mention how supportive Squad developers and other testers have been to us! I’ve been part of the testing for only a few weeks yet every week i am finding new content in the build and i’m so impressed with the progress that i’d definitely buy it now! This is definitely a game to look out for if you’re into Milsim, Fps and really, any tactical based game!
Sidthesloth’s First Impressions:
My first impression of squad is by far the best I have had for any game. I was very shocked after my first round with how amazing the graphics was and how I was getting 60fps + in a pre-alpha. The weapons in the game have some amazing models and the texture quality is very high. One great thing about squad is the fast paced gameplay which makes it feel like you are always in a amazing fire-fight. The maps just look stunning and they all fit the feel of the game. The thing I most love about squad is how the focus is on squad play and not the typically solo killer shooter. I just simply can’t wait to play more. I never normally recommend a game that’s not even in a beta stage but I can make an exception for Squad. I feel this will be one of the best game of this year and I am so happy to be in pre-alpha and having such an amazing time.
Thank you to the Squad developers for answering our questions and allow us to post this article. Squad’s looks like it will be a fantastic game so make sure you get your hands on it!
2nd Lt. Samblues
Executive Officer
2nd Battalion
Arma 3 Divison
Volume 5, Issue 3 of From The Battlefield newsletter has been published and is available to view at issuu, our publishing platform. You may also receive an email notification when the newsletter has been published by subscribing to our list.
The NEWS team would like to thank everyone who contributed to this month's edition!
Hi guys
As some of you all know NEWS is back and in full swing after a few full on months of madness.
DoctorKajita and myself are looking forward to supplying you guys with the new information that is going around TAW, The new games that are coming through Vanguard with Vanguards monthly update and everything else that is going on around TAW like TAW@WAR VI and other exciting additions to the community.But what is most important to us in NEWS is you guys. So what we want to hear from you is what you guys want to see, From genre of games to hardware that pro gamers use even as far as what new games are hitting the shelves soon. We want to hear from you all as we are all gamers and all want to see stuff about one thing. Video Games.
So if you want to put in suggestions just send me a email and ill get back to you as soon as i can,
See you all on the frontlines
Havoxa [NEWS DC]
As you begin writing your From The Battlefield article, here are a few best practices to keep in mind.
Start With the News
Follow the inverted-pyramid style of writing: Lead with the most important information, followed by the supporting information.
Answer the Important Questions
When deciding what information to include, put yourself in our audiences' (TAW members, potential recruits, the gaming industry, et al.) shoes. What questions would you have? Not every article will answer "who, what, when, where and why," but most articles will. What is happening? When will it happen? Who will it affect, and how? Why is TAW making this announcement?
Be Concise
Above all other advice, this is probably the most important:
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should contain no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that a writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell." -The Elements of Style
Be Clear
Avoid jargon unless absolutely necessary. Keep in mind that not all From The Battlefield readers are familiar with the terms and acronyms that are common in your unit / division, and take every opportunity to help readers by translating TAW-isms into plain language. At a minimum, acronyms should be spelled out on first reference (or avoided entirely).
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Help readers' eyes land on the information they need:
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Check with the NEWS team to determine when your article might be published. Keep the publication date in mind when writing in past, present or future tense.
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For more information, visit the From The Battlefield wiki.