Hours of War

[Piri]

Hi there!

First of all, I would like to thank Philippe Malacher aka Pocus, who granted me the right to post a new thread here. We are developing a new kind of Massively Multiplayer War Strategy game, playable on browser. More information is available here:

http://www.hoursofwar.com/.

World War II is the subject we start with. The whole war is not covered, game starts from the beaches of Normandy 1944. The battle of Tali-Ihantala 1944 (Karelian Isthmus, Red Army´s great Summer Offensive) is also under development.

At the moment we are finalizing the beaches of Normandy, so Alpha testing phase is coming very soon.The final version of the game should be ready next autumn. As this is a browser playable MMO game, we will continuously bring new content to the game after the launch.

I post this thread to you, because, normally when someone is interested in history of war, therefore strategy games might interest people also. Historical accuracy combined with unit amount, equipment, supply and so on, challenge all the virtual-Patton/-Rommel to rewrite history.

If you want any kind of information, you can send me either private message, or you can send it straight to our game info address:
info@hoursofwar.com

Looking forward to your reply, many thanks in advance!

Best Regards from Finland

Piri

Ari Pirilä
Community Manager
Hours of War / Sauma Technologies Ltd.
Kalevankatu 30
FI-00100 Helsinki
Finland

email: ari.pirila@saumatechnologies.com

Hours of War: http://www.hoursofwar.com
Sauma: http://www.saumatechnologies.com

[Piri]

Hello and greetings from the Hours of War team.

HOURS OF WAR NEW WEBSITE AND FORUM HAS BEEN LAUNCHED!

The new Hours of War website and forum has been launched! We are releasing more information about our project including new screenshots, Alpha test-news and more!

Check out the updated site now!

http://www.hoursofwar.com

ALPHA STATUS UPDATE

Our production team has worked extremely hard for the last few weeks to bring you the first playable version of Hours of War. Internal Alpha testing has been going
on for a while, and next Monday 16th March we are launching the external Alpha for a selected group of testers.

We still have a long way to go to deliver you the best War Strategy browser MMO but with your help and input we can do it!

WIN 3 MONTHS OF FREE PLAYING TIME - REGISTER NOW!

Register now to the Hours of War website and participate in a competition, where the winner will get 3 months free subscription to the game when it is launched
(target launch is Q3 2009)!

The prize is randomly determined among the registered users, and the competition will end April 1st, 2009, at 23:59 UTC + 1 hour.

We will announce the winner on Hours of War website and forum and e-mail the winner.

Best Regards from the Hours of War community management team

Ari Pirilä (Piri)
Community Manager
Hours of War / Sauma Technologies Ltd.
Kalevankatu 30
FI-00100 Helsinki
Finland

[Piri]

Hello!

Here are some news concerning about Hours of War´s development status at this point. We have had few alpha tests, where we have tested basic moves and some basic elements of combat (attack, defend, indirect fire). We received good and constructive info from the testers which parts of the game at this point should be developed and upgraded!

As I said earlier, we opened our site couple of weeks ago, and you are more than welcome to join in. We would appreciate a lot, if you have something to say, ask or maybe start a new thread to our site !

We added some new screenshots to our site. Screenshots are not the only thing we added to our site, there is also the first official teaser of the game and it is also uploaded to the Youtube. Here are links both to our site and
to the Youtube:

Our site:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/pages/game

Youtube HOW-link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPOsa09caZU

Waiting for your replies, Gents!

Piri

Ari Pirilä
Community Manager

email: ari.pirila@saumatechnologies.com

Hours of War: http://www.hoursofwar.com
Sauma: http://www.saumatechnologies.com

[Piri]

WINNER OF MARCH COMPETITION!
Hello, we have a winner for the 1st Competition: user Gunnar has won 3 months of free playing time! Game launch is expected to take place during Q3/2009.

NEW COMPETITION UNTIL APRIL 30th!
A new competition has started: every registered member participates automatically, and every new registered user, who has registered before 30th April 2009, is included in the competition. And everyone that registers, will be included automatically in future competitions like this! You are free to register here:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

PRIZE: 100 EUR AND ORIGINAL ART!
The prize is: 100 Eur Amazon gift voucher (at the time of writing, 100 Eur equals 132.77 USD), and an original concept art drawing signed by the artist mailed to you! Register now to participate!

If you have any ideas; which battle you´d like to see us developed, what if-scenarios, discussions of military history. There are also some development diaries, you´d might want take a look. Link to our forum:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/pages/forum

Piri

[Piri]

Hello Hours of War fans,

Here are some news from us: The game development is advancing steadily, although we have plenty of work to be done, until the game is ready. New screenshots are coming soon and the light version of the gameplay should be out as I write this story!

Don´t forget our competition; a new competition has started: every registered member participates automatically, and everybody, who has registered before 30th April 2009, is included in the competition. You are free to register here:

http://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

Join the Beta now!

You are just one step away from joining the ranks of our community.

The game is still in development and scheduled to launch this autumn. By registering now you get full access to the forums and might get the opportunity to participate in one of our monthly Beta campaigns.

We need you to help us build the game but please be patient soldier, you will be drafted through your email inbox.

Salute

Piri/Ari Pirilä

Hours of War: http://www.hoursofwar.com
Sauma: http://www.saumatechnologies.com

[Piri]

Hello!

WINNER OF APRIL COMPETITION!
We have a winner for the April Competition: user with a nickname of War Dragon has won 100 Eur Amazon gift voucher and an original Hours of War drawing signed by the artist!

NEW COMPETITION UNTIL END OF MAY!
A new competition has started: every registered member participates automatically, and every new registered user, who has registered before end of May 2009, is included in the competition.

PRIZE: 100 EUR AND HOURS OF WAR T-SHIRT!
The prize is: 100 Eur Amazon gift voucher, and an unique Hours of War t-shirt mailed to you!

REGISTER NOW AND PARTICIPATE AUTOMATICALLY TO FUTURE COMPETITIONS
Ensure that you will automatically participate in all monthly competitions like this in the future:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

Game launch is expected to take place during Q3/2009.

Cheers!

HOW-Team

[Piri]

Cheers mates!

"Nothing new from the western front!" That slogan was from a famous movie, that is not from the Hours of War game ! At the moment Hours of War is advancing in every technological front! We have made huge steps forward and the inhouse tests have been very promising.

At the end of last week our top brass released the pricing of Hours of War game, and you´d find it here:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/news/view/2009-05-08_hours-of-war-developer-sauma-technologies-announces-game-pricing

As you remember every registered user takes part to a competition and the price for the winner is: 100 Eur Amazon gift voucher, and an unique Hours of War t-shirt mailed to you! All you have to do is, that you register to our site here:
http://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

See You later Gents

HOW-Team

[Piri]

Hello fellow members of this site!

Summer has arrived, and it is time to give you some news of the Hours of War. We are steadily moving towards our goal and the overall game development is going to the right direction. Next external Alpha tests are scheduled and we are steaming towards the beta-phase!

JUNE COMPETITION STARTS

A new competition has started: every registered member participates automatically, and every new registered user, who has registered before end of June 2009, is included in the competition.

PRIZE: COMMANDO: D-DAY COMICS AND HOURS OF WAR T-SHIRT!

Prize is the legendary comic, Commando: D-Day Fight or Die! The Twelve Best D-day comics anthology, and Hours of War t-shirt, mailed to you!

More info on the D-Day comic, see publishers page:
http://www.carltonbooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781847323729&sf1=title%5Findex&st1=d%2Dday&sort=sort%5Fdate%2Fd&m=1&dc=4

REGISTER NOW AND PARTICIPATE AUTOMATICALLY TO FUTURE COMPETITIONS

Registering now you ensure that you will automatically participate in all monthly competitions like this in the future! Register now to participate!
http://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

Do remember that the Open Beta Game launch is expected to take place during summer 2009, hope to see you all in the game!

WINNER OF MAY COMPETITION!

We have a winner for the May Competition: user legoman has won 100 Eur Amazon gift voucher, and Hours of War t-shirt, congratulations to legoman!

Greetings from Finland!

HOW-Team


Piri

[Piri]

D-DAY COMMEMORATION GIVEAWAY

In order to commemorate the D-Day, 6th of June, and all the soldiers and veterans, we are arranging a giveaway for all Hours of War registered users. All you have to do is to write something D-Day related to this forum
thread ( http://www.hoursofwar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=64 ), before Monday 8th of June, 12:00 hours UTC (to see what is your local time, for example use Time Zone Converter like this:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html )- and we will give one War Bonds package to randomly selected person who has written to this forum thread.

The giveaway price is Hours of War: War Bonds package, which includes:
- Play as much as you want during the Beta
- 3 months of Live version playing time
- An exclusive Hours of War t-shirt
- Unique retro style printed war bond with your own name!

Beta will be launched during summer 2009. Live will be launched during fall 2009. War Bonds: the Hours of War game preorder package sales will begin soon.

HOURS OF WAR REACHES 5000 REGISTERED USERS!

We are proud to announce that the Hours of War website now has 5000 registered users! Thank you all for the strong support, hope to see you all in the game when we launch the Beta during summer 2009!

Cheers!

HOW-Team

Piri

[Piri]

Hello all,

In order to commemorate the Battle of Tali-Ihantala, that started on 25th of June 1944, we are arranging a giveaway for all Hours of War registered users. All you have to do is to write something Tali-Ihantala related to this forum thread ( http://www.hoursofwar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=72 ). It could be a link to a related site, video, picture or book, or some story related to Tali-Ihantala, anything really.

PRIZE: HOURS OF WAR: WAR BONDS PACKAGE!
The competition prize is Hours of War: War Bonds package, which includes:
- Play as much as you want during the Beta
- 3 months of Live version playing time
- An exclusive Hours of War t-shirt
- Unique retro style printed war bond with your own name!

Do that before Tuesday 9th of July 2009 at 12:00 hours UTC. To see what is your local time, for example use Time Zone Converter like this:
( http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html )

When you have posted something to the forum thread, you will automatically participate in the giveaway of one War Bonds package! The winner will be randomly selected amongst the people that have written something to the forum thread, and notified by email.

Cheers,

Piri

[Rafiki]

I can't help but wonder; is anyone from here taking party in this? Is it something that people here find interesting/relevant?

(These are not rhetorical questions )

[Generalisimo]

I can't help but wonder; is anyone from here taking party in this? Is it something that people here find interesting/relevant?

(These are not rhetorical questions )

I have registered there myself... but never actually played the game...

[tagwyn]

Arne: Is this a MMPO (Massively multi-player game? If so, Not interested. t

[dooya]

I can't help but wonder; is anyone from here taking party in this? Is it something that people here find interesting/relevant?

(These are not rhetorical questions )

Relevance: Support small developers!

[Piri]

Hi guys!

Thank You for your thoughts. The game is not available for the public at the moment, but all of you, who are interested in this game, are more than welcome to join, when we go live.

Cheers mates!

[Rafiki]

Relevance: Support small developers!

Indeed

[Franciscus]

I must say, if you ask, that I am not interested at all.
But then again, I am also not interested in many things that lots of people care a lot about. And vice-versa, too.

[Generalisimo]

I must say, if you ask, that I am not interested at all.
But then again, I am also not interested in many things that lots of people care a lot about. And vice-versa, too.

Well, I thought the same, but some friend introduced me into this web based game:
http://www.supremacy1914.com/
The game is not very deep, but if you play against friends, it is quite fun... I supose that would be the case with Hours of War too.
But looking at the screenshots, HoW looks much deeper than Supremacy.

[Piri]

Attention Officers!

Here is a short briefing about the Hours of War:

* We have a new video preview demonstrating where the client design is heading! ( link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQAGbhDS3Ek )

* Scheduled Alpha tests have provided valuable feedback and influenced the development. Throughout our tests, the servers and client have been stable. We have had some issues with authentication and chat but working with our team of testers, we have solved most of the bugs. Currently our development efforts are focused on the client design and visual feedback. We are also working on improving the in-game chat functionality and the necessary strategy and planning tools for higher ranked players managing the battles. We are working extremely hard to complete the Open Beta version and launch it.

* We have just opened a new forum, where you are able to discuss the game in your own language: (link: http://www.hoursofwar.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=15 ). In the beginning we will support the following languages: Danish, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Spanish, Russian and Swedish.

Salute

Ari Pirilä
Lt. Col. War Game Umpire

[Piri]

Attention!

We have a brand new website. You´ll find out that we have also new screenshots and video (more to come for sure!). Hours of War blog has found its place at our renewed site also. We added more information about the game including info about new scenarios. You may have noticed that we have upgraded the game graphics, and due to that and many other game tech improvements we made, we´ll have quite intense internal/external tests going on at the moment, before the beta launch.

And as always you are more than welcome to browse our new site here:
http://www.hoursofwar.com

Cheers,


HOW Team
Ari Pirilä
Lt. Col. War Game Umpire

[runyan99]

Well, I thought the same, but some friend introduced me into this web based game:
http://www.supremacy1914.com/
The game is not very deep, but if you play against friends, it is quite fun... I supose that would be the case with Hours of War too.

I just got into this. I think the concept of a slow moving realtime strategy game is a great concept. Online hosting solves a lot of problems with regard to a large number of players and file swapping, etc. Lots of room for more games using this same pattern.

[Generalisimo]

I just got into this. I think the concept of a slow moving realtime strategy game is a great concept. Online hosting solves a lot of problems with regard to a large number of players and file swapping, etc. Lots of room for more games using this same pattern.

Yep, completelly agree, it is really interesting to see how this evolves... I have been playing it with some spanish friends last year and it was good.
Obviously, one of the key things about a game like this is that it MUST be SIMPLE enough to be able to run it everywhere... you can't have a HoI3 running like this right now... but who knows in the furure...

[Piri]

Hello fellow Hours of War fans!

We have started the Closed Beta phase, during it we will make the game and underlying technical infrastructure ready for the Open Beta. Two weeks of closed Beta so far and things are going well. Here is a short information package related to Closed Beta:

- All games we arrange are still Closed games, they are not open for public
- We will have two types of games, Invitation only games and Continuously running games

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO CLOSED BETA

We have accepted 100 new Beta testers in the last 2 days and we’ll keep adding more:

- We would appreciate a lot if you would invite your friends to the Closed Beta: do tell them to send an email to the address:

communitymanager@hoursofwar.com

with a subject: Applying to Closed Beta

Thank you for reading this, stay tuned for more information.

HOW Team

Piri

PS. You´d have to sign up first to our site (https://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register), and then you could apply for the tester status!!!

[runyan99]

While an online tick by tick wargame is a great idea, I'm not sure the Massively Multiplayer part is so hot. In a game with 40 player positions, how do the higher echelon commanders ensure that orders are followed? What prevent battalion commanders from running amok? Will everybody want to be a chief, with no indians? These all seem like potential problems.

Have you considered the possibility of scaling the players down, at least as an option? Would this be more fun head to head, or with say 4 players on a side instead of 20?

[Piri]

While an online tick by tick wargame is a great idea, I'm not sure the Massively Multiplayer part is so hot. In a game with 40 player positions, how do the higher echelon commanders ensure that orders are followed? What prevent battalion commanders from running amok? Will everybody want to be a chief, with no indians? These all seem like potential problems.

Have you considered the possibility of scaling the players down, at least as an option? Would this be more fun head to head, or with say 4 players on a side instead of 20?

You are so right, about the gaming experience; it depends a lot what kind of players take part to the action! Are the gamers hardcore wargame veterans and die hard strategists (teams and clans!) or absolute beginners. The actual game is evolving and it depends what kind of gaming experience you want. And of course, You can´t win the war all by yourself running around the battlefield, and killing all the opposite troops!

In the future, one of the coming features is, that you could create your own game. And there you are able to control the amount of players and so on...

Thanks for Your thoughts!

Cheers!

Piri

[Piri]

A new version of the game released now to closed beta!

Play now and check out the new version of the Hours of War game - it's completely free.

Some of the new things are:
- Completely new user interface
- Accurate casualties shown
- Radio Normandy joint chat for both Allied and Axis players
- Lot of bugs fixed e.g. regarding line of sight and observations

Play Hours of War Closed Beta anytime you want to 24/7.
First you need to register to:
https://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

...after registering, hit "Request Beta access" button - the request will be processed within one workday.

*

When you have been approved to the Beta group, joining into the game could not be more simple, go to:

http://www.hoursofwar.com/pages/play

...login, and choose a game from the list!

The games are running 24/7, and restart every three hours. Don't pay attention to the starting times mentioned
in the lobby, just choose a game and start to play! See you in the game!

*

If you have friend who might be interested in playing in closed beta, let them know that all it takes is registering:
http://www.hoursofwar.com

...after registration, click "Request Beta access" button

Best regards from Finland!

Piri

[Piri]

Hello gentlemen, I was on holiday for a bit - I am glad to announce that the Open Beta of Hours of War been launched! Game is running 24/7, and all registered users are able to play for free.

If you haven't registered yet, you can do it here:
https://www.hoursofwar.com/members/register

If you already have an account, login ( https://www.hoursofwar.com/members/login ), click "Join Game" on your profile page, and play.

*
PREMIUM ACCOUNT GIVEAWAY

To celebrate this milestone, we will give away 3 Premium Open Beta accounts for best/most interesting War stories from the game, all you need to do is to play some games, and tell about the events/outcome in this forum thread:

http://www.hoursofwar.com/forums/vie....php?f=5&t=382

With Premium account, you get to:
- Choose side (Allied or Axis), and unit (eg. Armor)
- See your player history (wins etc.)
- And quite soon have access to new scenarios

(Premium account: http://www.hoursofwar.com/products )


*
What is Hours of War?

Hours of War is a turn/tick based World War II strategy game, playable on browser. Right now we have multiplayer scenarios with 38 and 62 player positions, and are working on both small and much larger scenarios.
Open Beta will continue until we launch the final "Live" version early 2010.

*

Hope to see you in the game!
Piri

[jezzicaz789]

Hi there!

First of all, I would like to thank Philippe Malacher aka Pocus, who granted me the right to post a new thread here. We are developing a new kind of Massively Multiplayer War Strategy game, playable on browser. More information is available here:

http://www.hoursofwar.com/.

World War II is the subject we start with. The whole war is not covered, game starts from the beaches of Normandy 1944. The battle of Tali-Ihantala 1944 (Karelian Isthmus, Red Army´s great Summer Offensive) is also under development.

At the moment we are finalizing the beaches of Normandy, so Alpha testing phase is coming very soon.The final version of the game should be ready next autumn. As this is a browser playable MMO game, we will continuously bring new content to the game after the launch.

I post this thread to you, because, normally when someone is interested in history of war, therefore strategy games might interest people also. Historical accuracy combined with unit amount, equipment, supply and so on, challenge all the virtual-Patton/-Rommel to rewrite history.

If you want any kind of information, you can send me either private message, or you can send it straight to our game info address:
info@hoursofwar.com

Looking forward to your reply, many thanks in advance!

Best Regards from Finland

Piri

Ari Pirilä
Community Manager
Hours of War / Sauma Technologies Ltd.
Kalevankatu 30
FI-00100 Helsinki
Finland

email: ari.pirila@saumatechnologies.com

Hours of War: http://www.hoursofwar.com
Sauma: http://www.saumatechnologies.com

Such a very amazing link!
Thank you for the post.