You'll be pleased to know that Pinstripe's Mod v4.0 is currently in development. Or maybe you won't be pleased, maybe you were expecting some news that was better than that, Reheated perhaps? Well regardless of what you were thinking, my aim once again is to bring you, the player, yet another new hogs of war experience.
This time around I wanted to step things up a notch, not just in relation to difficult, but in regards to storytelling. Each mission in the original singleplayer campaign offers up some kind of vague synopsis. What I wanted to do in v4.0 was link each mission and island together through setting & story telling, so you feel like your actions in one mission can help affect the next one, all culminating into an ongoing tale of destruction and vengeance. I won't give away much here, but you can watch the intro cutscene below to give yourself a preview of whats to come.
There will be six cutscene videos in total that will come alongside the mod download itself. It would be great if I could, but obviously I can't put my own cutscenes physically into the game, so you'll have to watch them separately. Each video will be labelled, so you'll know when you should watch it in order to understand what is happening in game. The cutscenes will go hand in hand with the mission briefing screens, which I'm also remaking in v4.0. The biggest challenge with creating a brand new story in hogs is the fact that I'm not directly able to mention any of the teams/nations. If I did then things would get messy and not make much sense, considering how the game will randomly sequence which team you will fight against on any mission. The same goes for individual pig names. To get around that I've ended up using codenames instead that are used to generalise the specific pig in question, just as I did with 'The Wolf' Tank Commander on Mission 12 in Pin's Mod v2.0. So all the enemy nations you fight against are referred to as 'The Coalition', who are basically a group of nations that banded together, thinking they are better than everyone else. Oh and they control the worlds Swill supply, I know its kinda the same thing you've come to expect, but it does have more depth than that I promise! The story also continues into/provides context for Hard Mode, but really only from Mission 25 into Mission 1, then it just repeats itself as it usually does. Nevertheless, the story up until that point will have expanded on all the topics & characters, so it should all still make sense. I really do want to go into specifics but I'll hold my tongue... for now. I wonder if any of this would be considered canon?
Sadly one of the things I've realised when planning out this next mod installment is that my map pool has all but dried up. You can still expect 11 new/old maps in v4.0, alongside existing multiplayer maps, but after this mod is finished - I have no new maps to showcase, which makes me sad. Sure I can still mix up all the maps I've used previously on different missions, but new maps have consistently been at the centre of my mods, so where I go from here is unknown. There are still other areas that can be focused on, such as new classes that are given different weapons, but at present that feels like something thats just over the horizon, ever so slightly out of reach. The same can be said for the creation of brand new maps from scratch. Hogs modding does have a bright future, but its just going to require us to wait a little longer in order for it to reach its full potential. Till then I'll continue to try and create new & exciting campaigns for the community to enjoy, even if the next one takes me a million years to make.
Its time to pull back on that bolt action rifle and watch the bacon fly as the Grunt League kicks off this week! From Finland to Scotland, to Ukraine and Italy - this new league brings with it 12 participants from across the globe who must do battle to decide which recruit will be taking home the Bacon.. in this case bragging rights!
You will of course notice some familiar faces from last seasons Pro League and even Rankup 2021, but the question on everyone's mind is - who will come out as top hog? This time around we're seeing a new tournament format, whereby players are separated into three groups of four, which from an organisational standpoint is a lot more efficient in the long run. The 1st Season of the Pro League lasted for 9 weeks... and thats without even factoring in the Playoffs! No, this time around the entire Grunt League will last 3 to 4 weeks, with the top two players from each group making it through to the Playoff Finals after Week 3.
So what separates the Grunt League from the Pros? Well to start with the game timer is set to 45 seconds. It may not sound like much, but that exact 15 seconds allows for a much slower and ultimately easier method of play. Using your time well is key in competitive, and I'm very interested to see which of the new Grunt League recruits will hit the ground running and which will be perhaps a little more timid in their approach. This league is also implementing the limitation of x2 Paratroopers, which in turn will also be used in the Pro League later on in September. Jetpacks can be an incredibly powerful ability, not just in relation to maneuvering yourself around the battlefield but in dealing damage to your opponent. In a similar fashion to what the TNT is to the Sapper, the Paratrooper can rely on the Jetpack an awful lot, to the point where it starts to feel a little unbalanced. But thats only when it comes to the quantity of Paratroopers on one team. All other class restrictions from the Pro League also apply here, so we can expect to see the usual limitations on Orderlys and Grenadiers as well.
Over the course of the next month the Hogs League channel is going to be completely full of all of the upcoming matches. As we have done in the past - all matches will be uploaded & accompanied by commentary from community members, including the likes of myself, Castor, adb95, Fab, Axby94, Crumble and Herpderp. You can stay up to date with all the matches and the current standing of each group via the links below to the Hogs of War League channel and the Tournament page. Don't forget, for all your map lovers out there - you can check and even play all the maps being used in the Grunt League, simply head on over League section of this site to take a look! Good luck to all participants, enjoy yourselves and I'll see you all on the battlefield!
An update for the Hogs of War Website has been released. The major changes include:
> Added new League Mod to League Page (Available Now). Contains all new and updated Multiplayer Maps for Pro and Grunt League Play:
> Pitch Invasion Map - Replaced x2 50HP Health Crates with Randomised Health Crates
> Skulduggery Map - Reduced amount of Health Crates on Map from 3 to 1
> Upstream Map - Removed all Madness Gas Crates, replaced with Explosive Barrels
> Headquarters Map - Removed all Weapon Crates from centre of Map
> Updated Comic Page with the latest addition of the Communities Monthly Squealer for June/July 2021
> Added Site Language options for German, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian (blog posts will be updated going forward)
