Warzone 2100

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Warzone 2100

Developer(s)	Pumpkin Studios
Publisher(s)	Eidos Interactive
License	GNU General Public
Platform(s)	PlayStation, PC
Release date	April 10, 1999
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)
Media	CD (1)
Input methods	Mouse / Keyboard, DualShock

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, that clearly differentiate the two, including various radar technologies, a greater focus on artillery and counter-battery technology, more frequent in-game cinematic updates as gameplay progresses, and customizable vehicle designs. 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

[edit] 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 in Arizona that would help with reconstruction. While gathering said "artifacts," the Project fends off attacks from an organization called the New Paradigm, which is under the command of an organization called Nexus, which is actually one man responsible for the nuclear war. In the final campaign, the Project launches a full-scale assault on Nexus, destroying it and thus removing all significant, organized barriers to its reconstruction of the Earth.

[edit] Gameplay

A New Paradigm dropship takes off after deploying an assault force against the Project.

The game is fully 3D, mapped by a grid; vehicles tilt to meet hilly terrain, and projectiles can be realistically blocked by steep mountains. The camera is extremely free-flowing and can zoom in and out, rotate, and pan up or down while navigating the battlefield.

With regards to mainstream real-time strategy, Warzone 2100 has only one single race, limiting some of the variety that can be expected from such games of its kind, although the faction is extremely complex. In the game, units of different factions are painted different colors. The New Paradigm and Nexus are the enemies of the Project in the campaign, and they can be seen attacking Project forces as well as Scavengers—survivors of the nuclear fallout who banded together on their own, who attack the player using any crude technologies possible, such as trucks with flamethrowers and school buses mounted with tank cannons.

Warzone 2100 also bears many unique features from other traditional RTSs:

Units can all be customized according to: chassis (which, for example, takes weight and power into account); drive system (such as wheels or tracks); and mounted object (such as a weapon, or one of various support tools).

Mobile Mortar weapons safely bombard Scavenger-occupied shacks from afar.

*Warzone 2100 bears strong emphasis on sensors and radar—basic sensors to detect units and to coordinate ground attacks. Counter-battery sensors detect enemy artillery 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 is a great emphasis on artillery: although many direct- and close-combat weapons and anti-air weapons can be researched and deployed, artillery is a staple of assault on enemy bases and outposts.

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

Researching is composed of largely small and incremental advancements over existing weapons, armor, and chassis types.

Units can level up from ranks such as Rookie to Trained and Professional.

Videos frequently appear during gameplay. This image depicts a dropship transporting the player's forces towards the campaign's first Away mission.

The game shows its RTT form in the actual objectives of missions: every single level, excluding the very first and very last, has a time limit that players must complete under. This gives a sense of urgency and keeps players from waiting very long to gather more resources for unit construction. However, Warzone 2100's side of real-time tactics fully shines in Away missions, in which 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 throughout the campaign is essentially composed of 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; Oil Derricks are established over specific, scarce locations which constantly provide a slow, fixed rate of income. Combined with a mission time limit, this resource method prevents players from simply waiting for long periods of time to amass surplus resources and ridiculously large armies, which makes the game all the more rigorous.

[edit] Community Development

Warzone 2100 map editor (EditWorld)

After having released patch 1.10 final in November 1999, Pumpkin 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.

[edit] 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]

[edit] 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 copyright holder and holder of the source code, to make Warzone free and 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.

[edit] 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 free and 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.

[edit] Reception

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