Heroes & Generals Update

I've written about Heroes & Generals a lot here, probably just because I love World War II games that are a bit ambitious, but mainly because I've been playing the alpha/beta for a good long time and have been watching the game shape into something that I would like to play. At the end of May Reto-Moto transitioned the game into beta. With that that they added some new maps, better menu's, smoother campaign map and a ton of changes. Read more about the beta release in my post from May, plus more information in there about the general overview of the game. Keep reading for the gameplay video and a lot more.

I had never wanted to take any gameplay videos of the Heroes & Generals during alpha because I knew people would tear it apart and write the game off, especially since many gamers do not understand what alpha or beta actually means, but now they have fixed up the animations a bit, made the graphics a bit smoother and made me less worried about people being upset about how the game looks. Sure the game is still a bit buggy, the graphics are rough and plenty of animations still need work, but I still want you all to check it out. First off, check out this trailer that they recently released for the game. It's pretty damn silly, but it's kind of great, especially when people are pretending to be a tank.

There is quite a bit of background information on that trailer,which makes it a bit more interesting, so prepare yourself for a ton of information about it: 

• All participants in the trailer are developers or community members.
• The director, photographer and editor of the live action footage is the twin brother (Jesper Colding) of our Lead Animator, Thomas Colding. And Thomas directed the in-game footage.
• It was filmed using a Canon DSLR Crop camera with various lenses. Jesper actually invented his own custom dolly using pieces from IKEA.
• All the CGI footage is in-game footage.
• We used the names of some of our most active core community members as tags in the in-game footage.
• First movie shoot was filmed in a basement below our old office, in secrecy. Other locations were scouted, but it was too perfect for the shoot.
• We wanted to find a basement which looked like a place where crazy gamers (like ourselves) might go to roleplay generals moving imaginary war pieces and taking themselves far too seriously. Mission accomplished!
• We rallied 9 community members for the first shoot. Interestingly, one talented fellow (Vashu) was actually hired as a programmer after the shoot!
• Three of the community members included a father (rambodk) and his two sons (mgmmads and Lodrysil – also a moderator on the H&G forums).
• One die hard community member (cRo4ti4) showed up all the way from Berlin carrying two pieces of paper with questions about Heroes & Generals, which he used every possible break in the shoot to ask us.
• The second shoot was filmed in 'Dyrehaven' (Danish for 'The Deer Park') outside Copenhagen. Dyrehaven is a very well known park in Denmark.
• The outdoor scenes were shot in the winter. Filming began in the early morning and it was freezing.
• Our CEO's son was supposed to show up, but he bailed because it was too cold!
• Dyrehaven was chosen because it’s a really epic setting and we found locations there that resembled some of the in-game maps.
• 4 developers were part of this shoot, as well as PR Manager Kenneth Ellegaard Andersen.
• The third shoot was at our office during GDC, starring three developers and a return cameo appearance by community member Lodrysil.
• Level Designer and co-founder Peter Fleckenstein was filmed sitting on the toilet with an iPad to demonstrate our upcoming app 'Heroes & Generals: Mobile Command'. It sort of brings a whole new meaning to 'Play Anytime, Play Anywhere'.
• Nobody was harmed in the making of this video! While thousands have been fragged in Heroes & Generals.

 They are still heavily promoting the game and trying to get more people into the beta. If you would like to join in the beta, which is browser based and PC only at the moment, head on over to the Heroes & Generals main website and hit beta sign up. One of the newest things in the beta that I wanted to show off, that I can't do so in a video, is the updated character menus. 

So what I'm trying to show off here is how many options you have to customize your soldiers. Regardless of which side of the war you are on you have one starting character who you can start customizing the moment you have earned some money. Playing one game will likely earn you enough to buy some anti-tank grenades or a pistol, but you will have to play many to unlock new weapons or more character slots. Depending on what kind of character you make you can have specialized characters to fill many of the roles in the game, like tank crew, paratrooper, rifleman or anti-tank soldier. Furthermore you can earn combat badges, which you can equip and use to give some small bonus.

Now to see it all in action check out the gameplay video I just put up. I apologize for the random spurts of low of framerate and also for some the repetitious wording that I used, plus I wanted to get some tank gameplay in there, but unfortunately all of my games today only had Axis tanks in them and they were destroying us. Thanks for reading this all and if you have nay questions about the game feel free to ask or check out my previous posts on Heroes & Generals.
Main Website: http://www.heroesandgenerals.com

-Written by Sean Cargle