What’s new

After a few months a new coop update arrived. Even when most of the things were released 2 weeks ago, I’m posting about it now, since there were small problems with getting a new mission online. The main features of the updates that happened in last 2 weeks are:

New lobby option to disable the timed expansion. After reading some feedback I decided to include an option to disable this new feature of some of the missions.

4th Cybran mission was redone, all the problems including the OP attack on the South Node should be solved now. The AI should also perform better, especially in the first part of the mission.

A brand new mission, Operation Rescue. It’s a UEF mission for 4 players, takes 30-60 minutes to complete.

The update also contains several bug fixes and improvements to some of the current missions.

Changelog

You can find the full changelog for missions here: https://github.com/FAForever/faf-coop-maps/blob/master/changelog.md

and for the coop mod here: https://github.com/FAForever/fa-coop/blob/master/changelog.md

Report Issues

If you find any issues make sure to report them. Preferably on Github: https://github.com/FAForever/faf-coop-maps/issues or on the forums. (Don’t forget to include the game.log!!)

Coop Slack Channel

If anyone is intrested into making a new mission, improving the current ones or helping with voice overs, there’s a #coop channel on the FAF Slack. Slack is a tool that all FAF developers and contributors use to coordinate our efforts. For joining PM me (speed2) your e-mail adress either in the chat or on the forums and you will recieve an invitation.

What’s next?

More work was done on the Novax mission, 50% of the last part is done. There might or might not be more progress with the Nomads campaign, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about it so I’ll say I don’t know anything.

speed2

A new release candidate for the FAF python client 0.16.1 is available.

Among new goodies are fixed name alias link, a #newbie channel for new players and some UI improvements in the chat tab.

You can grab the download and find the detailed changelog in the in-client updater.

Hello,

Account registration has been re-enabled, with additional security in place, following the attacks on FAF.

A new user will have to wait 24 hours after registration to be able to login into the FAF client.

Linking their account to steam will lift that restriction and they will be able to play immediately.

We will be extending and updating this system so that most new users arent affected, while still creating a barrier for fake accounts.

Regards, the moderation team and client, server, game development teams.

Hello.

Today we have some somewhat unfortunate news. The account registration has been temporarily disabled for following reason:

FAF is currently under attack by a group of individuals.

They are using the playerbase as hostages by damaging their games, through using intentionally bugged installations to break them, mostly inside the game lobby.

The moderation team is working hard to actively mitigate the attackers, but here are some things you can do to prevent yourself from being affected:

The current method is to join a game and then get stuck in a “connecting to” state. The player cant be kicked, so you cant start the game.
The attackers are impersonating the moderators, so if a moderator tries to join your game you can be quite sure its an attacker.
Its important to note that the moderators present in aeolus are NOT impersonated. The attackers can only spoof in-game data. Everything on the faf client is considered trustworthy.
If you are affected, you need to rehost the game. We are working on a more long term solution to this, and in the process the faf experience should be improved even when we are not under attack.

When you see the connecting to message, but then a differrent name joins instead, you should forward that name to the moderation team, it could be the account name of the attacker.
When someone is in your game that you cant see in aeolus, or has a rating and game number thats different to aeolus, again forward that name to the moderation team.

You can host games, and if you are attacked, simply rehost the game when it was full with a password and then give it to the players present, that way the attackers cant rejoin.

You can also distribute this information to your friends so that everyone knows the current situation.

Lastly, it seems fitting to note current situation in a sentence:

A group of individuals is trying to change the attitude of an organization/governing body (FAF moderators and developers) by causing grief to innocent bystanders (players).
Now heres another sentence:
The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

That second sentence, is the definition of terrorism. That is what these people are.
Currently they believe themselves to be in the right, since they were banned from playing for abusing the rating system, and damaging FAF in the process.
Now they decided that doing this to get themselves unbanned will work.

If you are wondering who these people might be, they are known by the usernames of:
Super, Shado_Israel

Currently we have released a set of tools for the moderation team to take more effective action, and we are working on solutions to mitigate these attacks now and in the future.

As a more temporary solution for now, we have disabled the registration of new accounts. Don’t worry, we will soon enable new account registrations again.
That is all for now.

Regards, the moderation team, and the server, client and game development teams of FAF

5 players free for all

• 1v1v1v1v1
• x100 resources
• HardFFA and fast Claustrophobia mod
• Any rating.

Thursday, 5th of October. 18:00 GMT+3 (Moscow time).

Tournament played live on Yuris stream. So you need to be online and play during that time, games will be created and narrated by Yuri live.

Prizes:

• Winner gets Blitz champion avatar.
• 2nd and 3rd places get avatars.

Signup here http://challonge.com/tournaments/signup/BXvsZA4xZT
You need to check-in on challonge before the tournament (from 17:30 to 18:00 Moscow time, if you are not checked-in, then you are out).

For more info on the tournament, and the rules, visit the forum thread: http://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=15273