Warzone 2100

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Warzone 2100
Image:Wz2100.jpg Base and units in the first mission
Developer(s)	Pumpkin Studios
Publisher(s)	Eidos Interactive (Now available under the GPL)
Platform(s)	Linux, MS Windows, Mac OS X, Sony PlayStation
Release date	March 29, 1999
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer over LAN or Internet
Input methods	Mouse / Keyboard

Warzone 2100 is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game, developed by Pumpkin Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Although comparable to Earth 2150 in many significant respects, it does contain certain unique aspects, which include various radar technologies, a greater focus on artillery and counter-battery technology, more frequent in-game cinematic updates as gameplay progresses, as well as a different vehicle design method. It was released in 1999 for both PC and PlayStation. On December 6, 2004 the source code and most of its data was released under the GNU General Public License, thereby making it a free game.

1 Story
2 Gameplay
3 Community Development
4 Reception
5 Notes
6 External links

Story

In the late 21st century, the world’s civilizations are wiped out by a series of nuclear strikes. While most of the survivors form scavenger bands to survive, one group of people, who refer to themselves as “The Project”, seeks to rebuild civilization using pre-war technology.

The game begins with the Commander, the protagonist, sending teams to gather technology that would help in reconstruction. While trying to gather this technology, the Project must fend off attacks from an organization called Nexus, who claim responsibility for starting the war. In the final campaign, the Project launches a full – scale assault on Nexus, destroying it. This makes it possible for the Project to continue reconstruction.

Gameplay

Outside of the story, Warzone 2100 only has a single faction, limiting some of the variety that can be expected from such games of its kind, although the faction is very complex. Essentially, Warzone 2100 plays much like Earth 2150 with 3D units and terrain, customizable vehicles, a lack of traditional standing infantry, use of "research" to acquire new technologies, and perceptible differentiation of vehicles types.

Warzone 2100 also has many unique differences from Earth 2150 — most of them are not cornerstones of the RTS genre, but they are all noteworthy:

Vehicular drive system can be chosen among tires, half-tracks (wheels and treads), tracks (treads, a.k.a. the caterpillars tanks use for maneuvering), hover modules, or aerial VTOL wings.

Warzone 2100 contains no true ships, whereas Earth 2150 does. It does have hovercraft vehicles but there are no water-only craft.

Warzone 2100 has a greater emphasis on sensors and radar—basic sensors detect units and can coordinate ground attacks. Counter-battery sensors detect enemy artillery (referred to as "batteries") by sensing their projectiles and firing arcs and pinpointing their location to coordinate artillery strikes against enemy artillery. VTOL sensors work like basic sensors, only that they coordinate VTOL attacks. VTOL counter-battery sensors coordinate VTOLs to find and destroy enemy batteries.

There's a greater emphasis on artillery: although many direct-combat weapons and anti-air weapons can be researched and deployed, artillery is a staple of assault which is quite contrasting to Earth 2150, which is entirely devoid of artillery save for the nuclear SSM launchers fielded by the Eurasian Dynasty.

While the technology tree is clearly defined and consistent, it never appears in-game and, therefore, the player can be left guessing as to what technology is next in the tree.

Technology can be acquired by gathering artifacts left behind by certain destroyed enemy structures.

Researching is composed of largely small and incremental advancements over existing weapons, armor, and chassis systems that, therefore, bear the same visual appearance, rather than complete overhauls of the visual appearance and effect of weapons, armor, and chassis.

The game shows its RTT form in the actual objectives of missions: every single level, excluding the very first and very last, have a time limit which players must complete under. This gives a sense of urgency and keeps players from waiting very long to gather more resources for unit construction. Warzone 2100's side of real-time tactics fully shines in Away missions, where the player must select a limited group of units to transport to a territory completely away from the original base; thus it is classified more as a RTS/RTT hybrid rather than pure RTS.

It is also unique from other RTS brethren in that all of the terrain is essentially three areas, with different sectors for Away missions and other such levels; upon progression, previous maps simply expand and the player's original bases from past levels are maintained. Also, its resource system is quite different from mainstream RTS games; depots are merely established over specific, scarce locations which constantly provide a slow, fixed rate of income to the player—guarding miners as they move to and fro from resource fields and a particular structure is completely void in Warzone 2100. Combined with the mission time limit, this resource method prevents players from simply waiting for long periods of time to gather surplus resources, and makes the game all the more rigorous.

Community Development

Image:Warzone 2100 - EditWorld - 1.jpg

Warzone 2100 map editor (EditWorld)

After having released patch 1.10 final in November 1999, Pumkin Studios ended their support for Warzone 2100 at 5 January 2000.^[1] 15 March 2000, Pumpkin Studios was closed down by Eidos Interactive. Pumpkin Studios later reformed as Pivotal Games.

N.E.W.S.T

Formed in October 1999, a third-party group, N.E.W.S.T., completely took over. In November 2000, they released the unofficial patch 1.11. N.E.W.S.T. became Pumpkin-2 in February 2003.^[2]

Pumpkin-2

Support was taken over by a fan group called Pumpkin-2. Pumpkin-2 established an anti-cheating Warzone 2100 server (named Directgames), and made a new patch, patch 1.12, released July 2003. This patch included many new improvements, most notably the addition of landmines. However, the host for Pumpkin-2 withdrew without warning, and Pumpkin-2 was confined to the backup forums at Directgames. It has since relocated itself to Realtimestrategies.net.

During this time however, Pumpkin-2 sent a petition^{[citation needed]} to Eidos Interactive, the legal owner of the source, to make Warzone open-source. On 6 December 2004 the Warzone source code was uploaded to Radiosity's FTP server by Alex McLean.^[3]

Several people at Pumpkin-2 were working on making a sequel to Warzone 2100, entitled Total Warzone. A pre-alpha demo has been released at the realtimestrategies.net forums. Since the source code release for Warzone 2100, most (if not all) development resources that were present in this project have been moved to the Warzone Re-Development project.

Pumpkin-2 has continued development as The Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project.

The Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project

Current development takes place at The Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project. On 11 June, 2005, version 0.1 was released, with all proprietary technology replaced by open-source alternatives, with the result that the game now runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. After version 0.2.3, the numbering scheme changed, and the next release became 2.0.3. The latest version is 2.0.10, released on December 28, 2007.

Reception

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