Eternal Silence

"Eternal Silence" is a Half-Life 2 modification blending FPS and space combat genres in a team based multiplayer game. The first public release, beta 1.0, was released on September 23 2006. The latest version, Eternal Silence 3.1, was released on June 22, 2008. The game takes place in a distant future, after the destruction of Earth, where two factions, the United Terran Forces (UTF) and the Neo Galactic Militia (NGM) fight a deep space war.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Eternal Silence changed with every release since Beta 1.0. The final gameplay in Eternal Silence 3.0 splits the game into multiple phases. Each team begins with a capital ship at full health. These ships are bombarding each other with large AI-controlled weapons. The goal of the players is to destroy the enemy capital ship before their own is destroyed. Each capital ship has a small fleet of corvettes which protect it and serve as secondary objectives.

The game begins in the "Strike" phase. During this phase both teams have unlimited time to destroy the opposing team's corvettes. The hangars are locked at this point, so players can only battle in space. Bombers are most effective at taking out corvettes, with the other classes of ships serving as escort or intercept fighters. The first team to destroy the enemy corvettes moves on to the "Attack" phase, with the other team goes to the "Defend" phase.

During the "Attack" phase, the enemy team's hangar becomes unlocked. This allows for boardings to take place, typically using the Gunship. The team on the "Attack" phase has 3 minutes 30 seconds to successfully land and capture a subsystem. Once a subsystem has been captured, the timer is frozen until the defenders can push the attackers off their ship. Each subsystem has a function, when disabled, hurts the defending team. For instance, when the shields are captured the defending capital ship will take more damage, giving the attackers an advantage.

During the "Defend" phase, your hangar is unlocked and you have to defend your ship for 3 minutes 30 seconds. The attackers are taking additional damage during this time so a successful defense will give your team an advantage. Once the defense timer expires, the defenders receive new Corvettes and the game moves back to the "Strike" phase.

This cycle continues until one team captures all the subsystems, resulting in an instant win, or either of the Capital Ships explode by taking too much damage. Players can also opt to bomb the capital ship directly to end the game more quickly. A typical game of Eternal Silence lasts 20 minutes.

Releases

Beta 1.0

The first beta was released on September 23, 2006. It was a barely playable version of the mod and featured a single map (es_aethra_scenario) and 2 pilotable ships, the UTF Fighter and UTF Interceptor. This first version of the mod was plagued with network latency issues due to poorly optimized network code.

Patch 1.1

Patch 1.1 was released on October 3, 2006. It addressed many of the lag issues and added a new area to the es_aethra_scenario map.

Beta 2.0

The second beta was released on February 4, 2007. It was a major update to the mod, featuring new victory conditions based on a ticket system called Requisition. This version added 2 additional ships, the Gunship and Heavy Fighter both for the NGM. The network code was completely redone for this release and as a result lag was minimal. The game was still plagued by server crashes due to improper physics code.

Patch 2.3

Patch 2.3 was the next major update to the mod on March 1, 2007. Two patches preceded it but these were hotfix patched. 2.3 added the concept of External Subsystems to the mod and added a new map, es_asteroid. This version was brought to GDC 2007 for presentation at the IGF booth. The game was relatively stable and Beta 2.3 was played by the community well into the summer.

Beta 3.0

The third beta was released on June 6, 2008. After more than a year of non-stop development, Beta 3.0 brought Eternal Silence to a near-finished state. Beta 3.0 shipped with 2 maps, es_aethra and es_nebular and features a brand new gameplay which blends the two genres in the game more seamlessly. All the major technical bugs have been removed from the game. The Beta includes a full lineup of ships, 8 in total, including Gunships, Bombers, Fighters and Assault Ships for each team. Beta 3.0 received months of balancing work and an extensive PR campaign for its release.

Awards

*2006 ModDB Editors Choice Award: Multiplayer Mod of the Year Honourable Mention [http://www.moddb.com/mods/1939/eternal-silence/features/23825/mods-of-2006-editors-choice/3#readarticle]
*2007 Independent Games Festival: Best Multiplayer Mod [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12134]
*2007 ModDB Editors Choice Award [http://www.moddb.com/mods/1939/eternal-silence/features/25958/editors-choice-winners-showcase]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.eternal-silence.net/ Official website]