User:HonkeyTheBear

WW1 Source is a Half-Life 2 total conversion modification utilizing Valve Corporation's Source Engine. It is claimed to be the only WW1 modification for Source, with a combined effort of three original teams: In Flanders Field Team, The Trenches 2 Team and the Field of Honor Team. WW1 Source has been featured in an article on an April, 2010 edition of PC Gamer UK. It has also recieved a spot in the top 100 mods during Mod DB's Mod of The Year 2010.

Development
The game is currently in its 1.13 Beta release stage. Full development began in December 2008 with part-time game developer Wickit leading the project. In mid 2009, two of the main developers Ztormi and Baer were to leave the team for personal reasons. Never the less, Wickit would take it upon himself to learn coding and recruit new members for his team. There have been 3 releases of the mod; one being official, the other two being patches (1.2b, 1.13b). However, after the release of 1.2b, the development team went on hiatus for several months due to various members of the team leaving for personal reasons - though, this was never officially announced. Later on in July 2010, an announcement was made on the Mod's official website and Mod DB page by temporary lead developer and mapper Sol stating that the mod was back on track, and that the team was in need of additional developers.

A month later, another update was posted by Volcol providing a detailed list of features that were planned to be implemented in the next release of the game, promising a more "realistic" and "authentic" feel to the game-play with supposedly better visuals. The following month saw the return of lead developer Wickit who took place as temporary coder. A large update was posted stating that there would be another release prior to the next version of the game. A future change-log was displayed along with a media update.

On September 17, 2010 WW1 Source 1.13b was released to the public. While nothing had been substantially changed, many of the bugs, glitches and/or problems the community had with the game were fixed/tweaked. Notable changes include:


 * Improved Accuarcy for Rifles
 * Trench Clubs for the Machine Gunner class
 * New bleed out effects
 * Major bug fixes

Feedback for the patch was generally positive, with many older fans returning to the game. Lead Developer and Coder Wickit retired from the mod shortly after.

November 2010 saw a major update, with the developers revealing images of new terrains, maps, weapon models and artwork. This caused a lot of excitement among the community, and lead the game to make the front page of Mod DB's Popular Mods section. During this time, the game was also doing well in the Mod of The Year competition, making it in the top 100 mods and top 10 Half-Life 2 modifications.

In December 2010, an altercation between a select few developers and various members of the community was undertaken. Co-Lead developer Potteh posted a thread on the WW1 Source forums claiming that the next release would see the removal of 3rd party scripts and game modes, also known as Realism. The reason behind this was that the developers believed these game modes were "scaring away" newer players and labelled the game mode as a form of "totalitarianism", as the script and admin's would restrict players by enforcing custom rules. A monumental disagreement followed which saw the birth of a flame war on both the game's Mod DB page and forums. Announcements were also made on several Steam community pages criticizing the developers decision and claiming that their efforts to keep the mod "alive" were not fully appreciated. However, a select few developers, namely their mapper Ashton also disagreed with Potteh's decision and would proceed to take sides with the Realism community.

This conflict also saw a small group of forum trolls who would take advantage of this situation, and would take sides with the developers in an obvious attempt to agitate the community members.

Later, Potteh would come to his senses after taking part in a Realism match and enjoying it. He stated that he was now for Realism and admitted that his decision to remove the game mode was made with out proper judgement on his side.

On February 12, 2011 a short media update was posted by Potteh, indicating that the problems had been resolved and the mod team were back on track. The following week, an announcement was posted by former lead developer Wickit in an attempt to clear things up about the mod. He mainly covered the problems and division between the team, but also gave some brief background information about the starting point of the mod's history. This more or less put the feud to rest.

Unfortunately, later in June 2011, another feud was started when Potteh decided to depart from the team and create his own WW1 mod, "Pavot". Not only did he leave the team, but he also took his work with him, including the games main coding and artwork which in effect stripped most of the game's content and set it back several months. When he was asked for an explanation, Potteh claimed that the rest of the development team weren't complimenting his work enough, and were showing no appreciation towards his efforts. This feud eventually took to not only the WW1 Source forums, but to Facepunch, Reddit and other sources as well. Potteh eventually threw in the towel and gave up moding for good. His current status is unknown.

Since then, new lead developer and mapper Ashton has banded together a new team from the remnants of the Pavot team, who are busy working on releasing WW1 Source 2.0 at this very moment. They also boast their confidentiality with their new coder OccupationG who has rebuilt the entire code for the mod from scratch, adding impressive features such as Bullet Ballistics. There has been no estimated time of release, but many predict it will come out around early to mid 2012.

Gameplay
WW1 Source is an entirely multiplayer-based, tactical first-person shooter placing the player in the shoes of either an Allied or Central Powers soldier on the Western Front, approximately between 1915 and 1918. Each side bears three classes- Rifleman, Machine Gunner, and Officer, with each possessing their own abilities and style of combat. The overall goal of each round is to capture all control points and/or deplete the enemy "morale bar".

Community
WW1 Source is known to have a very solid and dedicated community who seem to stick by the game no matter what the situation is. There have been many Realism Units/Clans based in the game, most notably the 3rd Marine Division lead by A. Switz who were established in March 2010 when the game was supposedly "dead" and the 27th Jaeger Battalion lead by PiePower who started up around July 2010, but disbanded several months later. Many people credit these two gaming clans for keeping the mod "alive" when the player base diminished. They would often host Realism events by posting announcements on their Steam groups and could at times fill an entire server. It is also believed that these events inspired the developers to later return after they had been dormant for several months.

Another notable community group is the WW1 Source Fan Club founded by HonkeyTheBear which was created in April 2010. Its main goal was to reunite players of the game and inform them whenever a server had players in it or if a Realism event was taking place. It has also been known to notify members when an official update has been posted relating to the mod, giving insider information and other miscellaneous topics relating to the mod such as custom built maps, sound packs, community challenges ect. Although it is not considered an official group towards the mod, it has been since approved by the WW1 Source developers, making it a reliable source of informantion concerning the mod.

Currently, the only Clan/Unit left on WW1 Source is the 3rd Marine Division who made recent return to the game in November 2011, after leaving to establish themselves on another mod that was never completed. Founder A. Switz is also in the development team credited as their Web Designer. There have been rumours of other clans arriving to WW1 Source soon, with various clans announcing that their servers will be up soon, but no exact date.