"Our intrepid Sound Director and part-time lumberjack Matthew Harwood will be luring an unsuspecting Brian Holinka into his studio for an interview for our upcoming podcast. The interview will focus on the Desert Combat and Trauma Studios days and we'd like to include your questions as part of the feature.

Brian's bio follows and please reply to this post with any questions, again, related to Desert Combat and Trauma Studios... Thanks!

Brian currently works as Lead Technical Designer on Frontlines: Fuel of War. A part-time programmer, part-time designer, he's had his hand in many parts of the game but focused on vehicle programming and design. He began his career in the videogame industry working on the Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942 while a lieutenant in the US Air Force. He only flew desks in the Air Force however, and transferred into the reserves to move to New York City to work with Trauma Studios. He's been in New York making cool things blow-up ever since. He continues to struggle with a strong soda addiction to this day."

"The servers have been updated and the patch is available here:

http://www.kaosstudios.com/ffow-patches/

Release Notes:

* Crashes when locking the screen during loads has been fixed (i.e. Using Alt+Tab).
* Server browser will no longer show servers that are not running.
* Alt+Tab will work properly in Windows Media Center.
* Lockups/crashes while “Please Wait” popup is on screen has been fixed.
* Player no longer becomes stuck in an unresponsive menu after quitting a match at the end of a round.
* NAT (Network Address Translation) – Listen Server now shows public IP and can be joined.
* Fix for infinite loops that occasionally appear in single player.
* Fix for hang issue/crash for Chinese and Korean native operating systems.
* Game will no longer crash when the user suspends the game using Ctrl+Alt+Del or Win+L on the splash screen after the game launch.
* New .dll’s to address sound card issues added.
* Fixed Japanese character issue on scoreboards.
* Russian fonts fixed.
* Polish, Chinese, and Czech language support added.
* Player count sort fixed on server browser.

Please reply to this thread with your feedback on the patch. Thank you.

TryMedia hopes to have a patch ready for their customers ASAP and users should contact TryMedia customer support if they have any concerns.

Steam will be releasing an update shortly as well."

"We are currently in final testing of patch 1.0.2 and as long as no issues are found over the weekend we plan to release early next week. An official announcement including a changelist will be posted as soon as the patch is ready. Watch the forums and the status page for further updates."

"In this Frontlines: Fuel of War strategy guide, you'll find:

* BASIC TRAINING // Veteran advice for new soldiers.
* CAMPAIGN WALKTHROUGH // Frontlines: Fuel of War walkthrough for the single-player game.
* MULTIPLAYER // Breakdown of all the game's maps."

"Please be advised, we may be taking the servers offline for maintenance on Monday, March 31st, 2008 from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM (EST). Watch this page for further updates. This only affects PC players."

"

We have set up servers with “fun options” for PC players, similar to the ones we set up for Xbox 360 players.

These should show up in the lobby, but we are also releasing the IPs for your convenience:

Barrage: 76.74.155.106
Shooter: 76.74.155.107
Raid: 66.199.241.34
EMP Duel-A: 66.199.246.234
BotRush: 72.232.195.106
Rocket Arena: 72.232.217.226
TurretLove: 64.34.168.138
Hunter: 64.34.170.175

Full information about these servers can be found below:

Raid:

* All Loadouts except AT - All Roles except EMP. No Light Armor, Med Armor, or Attack heli.
* Map: Invasion

EMP Duel:

* Any Loadout - EMP & Drone Tech only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

* Any Loadout - EMP & Air Strike only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

* All Loadouts except AT – EMP Tech only.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

BotRush:

* Any Loadout - Drone Tech Role only.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

TurretLove:

* No Sniper - Ground Support only.
* Rotation: Village / MountainTop / Roundabout

Shooter:

* Any Loadout except AT - Ground Support only, no Vehicles. Ticket count high, Round time 1 hour.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout

* Sniper only, Ground Support only. Ticket count high, Round time 1 hour.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

Hunter:

* Sniper only, Drone Tech & EMP Tech only. Ticket count high.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

Barrage:

* Any Loadout – Airstrikes only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

Rocket Arena:

* AT Loadout only - Ground Support only, 50 players.
* Map: Village"

"We've added additional servers for Xbox 360 players (including more 50 player servers) and are using them to try out some fun game configurations! By modifying which Loadouts, Roles, and Vehicles are available, the gameplay of any map can be turned into all sorts of fun, modified versions of the map's original design. Here are some configurations we'll start releasing shortly. If there are others you'd like to see, please post your requests:

Raid:

* All Loadouts except AT - All Roles except EMP. No Light Armor, Med Armor, or Attack heli.
* Map: Invasion

EMP Duel:

* Any Loadout - EMP & Drone Tech only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

* Any Loadout - EMP & Air Strike only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

* All Loadouts except AT – EMP Tech only.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

BotRush:

* Any Loadout - Drone Tech Role only.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

TurretLove:

* No Sniper - Ground Support only.
* Rotation: Village / MountainTop / Roundabout

Shooter:

* Any Loadout except AT - Ground Support only, no Vehicles. Ticket count high, Round time 1 hour.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout

* Sniper only, Ground Support only. Ticket count high, Round time 1 hour.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

Hunter:

* Sniper only, Drone Tech & EMP Tech only. Ticket count high.
* Rotation: Street / Village / MountainTop / Roundabout / Gnaw

Barrage:

* Any Loadout – Airstrikes only. Max Role upgrade speed.
* Rotation: Oilfield / SolarFarm

Rocket Arena:

* AT Loadout only - Ground Support only, 50 players.
* Map: Village"

"THQ and Kaos Studios have contracted with Even Balance, Inc. to integrate their PunkBuster anti-cheat software into Frontlines: Fuel of War. This will be added in an upcoming patch and more details will be released soon."

"Hello all,

We have been pretty deep in the trenches of development. We are working hard at not only preparing to release to other territories such as China, Japan, Czech Republic, and Poland but also patches and feature enhancements. You will soon have many other countries to battle it out with in multiplayer!

Our 1.0.2 patch (as some are starting to see test servers pop up in the browser) ties into these other territories and this is why things are taking longer than we would like. There are server fixes, controller fixes, new server launcher tools, remote console support, audio fixes (that should help a portion of people out there) plus other things we are waiting on legal clearance before announcing.

Although we want to release this as soon as possible we need to put in the time to make the patch solid. Again, the patch is still in test and we will notify everyone when it is ready. Thanks for your patience!

Thanks,

Joe Halper"

"I’m happy to provide a status update for the 360. We have some fixes & enhancements in the works and we wanted to keep everyone in the loop. The below are our top ones and not inclusive to all the items we might be looking to address.

* Unranked Issues “Session no longer available”: We are close to a fix for this issue and we provide an update after it’s fully tested.
* We tackled most of the “Session no longer available” issues but there are a couple left we are still working hard on. We plan to provide a “Server is full” message due to the fact sometimes the servers fill up before you can get in. The current message is misleading in this case for “Session is no longer available”.
* Sometimes you will also notice servers that state 28/32 that you’re not able to join. This issue is similar where the server is full but the number is incorrect in the browser. Again, we do have a fix in the works for this issue.
* VOIP & Squad Fixes/Enhancements: We are really digging deep into providing some updates based on everyone’s feedback.
* 50 player Servers & updates: There will be more 50 player servers available soon and stayed tuned for ways to make sure finding a great 50 match much easier.
* Spawning: We are investigating possibilities for temp invulnerability when for you spawn to address spawn camping tactics.
* Controls: Investigating mis-mappings with the Legacy control scheme.
* Exploits: We do have some fixes we are testing and reviewing to address any exploits found.

Thanks again for everyone’s support and please keep up the feedback!

David Schulman
Senior Producer
THQ | Kaos Studios"