kaos-studios posts

PC gamers who have been playing Homefront and want to run their own dedicated server for the recent first person shooter now have a new way to help them administrate those servers. The game's official web site has now announced that the dedicated server tool is now available to download via Steam under the Steam Tools tab.

The program allows server admins to set a number of features including allowing or disallowing vehicles in a match, allowing friendly fire in a game and more. Server admins will also have the power to kick offending players from their servers, swap teams and more.

Homefront shipped to stores about a month ago via publisher THQ but it looks like the company has some big plans for the first person shooter. IGN chatted with THQ VP Danny Bilson who stated that while he could not comment on sequel plans, "... we have a lot of plans for the future of Homefront that we'll be rolling out over the next few months." He added that will include multiplayer downloadable content and that the plans are "pretty interesting and unique."

Bilson also talked about, oddly enough, a competitor's game; EA's upcoming shooter Battlefield 3. He said, "If you asked me what game I'm most excited about to play in the next year, it's Battlefield 3. As a gamer, I am." He admits that THQ will have to compete with the level that Battlefield 3 is raising in the first person shooter field, saying, " ... we need to do some careful thinking on the production side because the competition looks amazing. "

There's unfortunately more word about layoffs at game developers today, this time at two of THQ's internal development studios. Gamasutra reports via a THQ rep that New York City based Kaos Studios let go of 17 people out of its 100 team members today. Kaos just shipped the first person shooter Homefront a couple of weeks ago. There's no word yet on what the team is working on next although if Homefront sells well enough a sequel is likely.

Gamasutra also reports via a THQ rep that 16 team members at Illinois-based Volition have also been laid off. That studio has over 200 team members and currently has three announced games in the works. The shooter Red Faction Armageddon is due out on May 31 while Saints Row The Third is due for release sometime this fall. The horror-themed game Insane is due for release in 2013.

Homefront, the recently released first person shooter from publisher THQ, is set to get its first major PC patch sometime this week. The game's official web site has the first details on the patch which will include a new DemoURL feature.

This feature will allow players to indicate the location of stored demo files in a server playlist. Not only can server admins store demos for players, it can also be used to pinpoint evidence of cheating and hacking in online game. The patch will also have a number of other bug fixes, changes and improvements including enabling DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 via the system setting menu.

Homefront's early and mixed reviews lead to a massive stock price at THQ last week, which caused the publisher of the recently released first person shooter to announce that the game's first day of sales in the US generated 375,000 unit sales. Today THQ struck back again announcing that Homefront has now sold over 1 million copies worldwide since it was first released nine days ago on March 15.

It's currently unknown how many of those copies were of the PC version and how many of the PC copies were bought via digital download. What is known is that THQ has had to launch more multiplayer dedicated servers for Homefront in order to meet player demand.

Homefront starts with a fascinating idea: What if the United States could no longer sustain being a global military superpower? Furthermore, what if an aggressive foreign power invades, turning the world superpower into an occupied country? The concept is a great source of speculation, especially given some of the recent real-life events around North Korea, and would no doubt make for a great story. However, Homefront falls far short on delivering on its promise.

Check out all Homefront downloads

Homefront was released for the PC and consoles this week and despite average reviews that cause a massive stock price drop for the first person shooter's publisher THQ the game seems to have found a growing audience. The multiplayer dedicated servers have been overflowing with players so much that THQ has already had to expand its multiplayer server capacity earlier this week.

Today the game's official web site announced that the development team is once again expanding the dedicated server support around the world (the game shipped to Europe on Friday). In North America, there will be some maintenance on the multiplayer infrastructure on Sunday morning from 6 to 8 am Eastern time. More dedicated servers will be put in place during this time.

After having its stock price go down by over 20 percent on Tuesday due to average review scores of Homefront, publisher THQ sent out word that the first day of sales for its first person shooter in the US registered about 375,000 units. Specific platform sales numbers for the PC and if those numbers included digital downloads were not revealed. THQ's CEO Brian Farrell added that the company is "already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers." Previously THQ had said it had 200,000 pre-orders for Homefront just for the US.

Even with the average review scores it seems that the game is popular at least on the multiplayer front. THQ has already admitted it is suffering from a lack of dedicated servers for the game and says it is adding servers to meet player demand. Homefront will be released in Europe and Asia later this week.

While Homefront's early (and average) reviews were part of the reason for a massive sell off in publisher THQ's stock price today, the first person shooter is apparently selling well enough that there are not enough dedicated servers online to handle all of the multiplayer matches.

Homefront's Twitter page states, "Demand for dedicated servers outstripped expectations. Though we're thrilled by the popularity, please bear with us as we bring more online." That may indicate that despite the mixed reviews for the game, the multiplayer portion of Homefront is popular enough to get people to purchase and play the game online.

[Via VG247.com]

People who have Homefront get this intro at the start of their game, but for those that haven't yet purchased the latest effort from Kaos Studios, here's your chance to familiarize yourself with the backstory to the Korean invasion. There are a lot of details missing, such as how Korean reunification occurred or why Korea invaded the US, but it's something that is remotely (very, very remotely) possible. Granted, if you already own Homefront (out now!) you don't have to watch this trailer. It doesn't reveal anything new that you won't see in the game.

Download Homefront 'Future History' Trailer
Check out all Homefront downloads