Sven Co-op Update Released [Build 3735813 / Release 5.20]

An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.



This is primarily a security patch to fix a few server exploits. Server operators: Please update your servers ASAP.

You can find the full change log on our news[forums.svencoop.com].



Steam build ID numbers: Game 3735813, dedicated server tool 3735815, SDK tool 3735816.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

Normally I'd like to report good news concerning Sven Co-op to you but, sadly, this is not such occasion. Last week one of our senior developers, Adam, suffered a grave injury while working on our new bug tracking system. It turned out one of our repository servers wasn't correctly installed in its bracket and came loose and hit Adam on his pinky toe. While our lives as developers are mostly fun and games, moments like these make you realise how precious life is and how important workplace safety can be.

While Adam held an icepack on his toe, we started discussing how our MOD's content doesn't reflect our newly found believes about safety in the workplace. Especially our cornerstone, the Half-Life campaign, is a terrible example of the use of safety measures and this is not how we would like to portray ourselves any longer. So, we'd like to present to you:


We've worked hard to bring you a better version of Half-Life Co-op: a version where workspace safety isn't neglected and things go according to protocol. No one has to suffer any injuries or even think of the possibility of dying on the job in this improved installment! So, make sure to play our new version through the SP Portal map! We're eagerly awaiting your feedback and are already on the way to adjust our Blue Shift campaign to feature the same high standard of workplace safety. Also, we'll be cutting the complete Opposing Force campaign from the game, since (with improved safety protocols) the Black Mesa accident did not happen.


If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.


Notable changes are as follows:

• Implemented Steam P2P (peer-to-peer) based network layer. Allows players to host listen servers without the hassle of port forwarding. (Usage: "connect STEAM_1:1:12345678")
  
• The Anomalous Materials Laboratory in Half-Life now follows proper workplace safety regulations.
  
• Our version of Hammer has been renamed to Svencraft to ensure the changes from our engine customisations are distinguished from vanilla GoldSrc map editors. (Mainly Hammer.)

You can find the full change log on our news[forums.svencoop.com].



Steam build ID numbers: Game 3695902, dedicated server tool 3695904, SDK tool 3695905.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

Nothing interesting ever happens on a Tuesday. Except for January 19th, 1999. This is when Sven Co-op beta 0.8 was released to the just recently formed Half-Life community. When it became clear that Half-Life (unlike its predecessors Doom and Quake) would not have a co-operative mode, the community took the task upon itself to fill the void Valve left behind. One of those people was Sven Viking.

At this point, Sven Co-op was not much more than a proof of concept, or to put it into Sven's own words: "mostly just to give everyone an idea of what I'm doing, partly because of various bugs in the map that I don't know how to fix :)". At this point the mod consisted of only one map and a few scripts. Sven found help sorting out the initial problems he was facing and the few rooms that made up beta 0.8 quickly grew into a full fledged map, which was released in early May of that same year.

This all happened 20 years ago, in a time when, for many people, going on-line was met with dial-up tones from your modem, playing games on low resolution software rendering and a latency of 300 ms wasn't something to complain about. Luckily for us all, technology has moved forward and so has Sven Co-op. Ever since that first map, SC has tried to push the boundaries of what is possible with Half-Life. We've seen thousands of maps, models and other custom assets made by our community members, millions of downloads and, most importantly, countless hours of co-operative game play fun!

After two decades, Sven Co-op still has a steady and rich player base and a dedicated group of talented developers and we believe, especially since our standalone release on Steam in 2016, that there will be much more to look forward to in the future!

Come celebrate Sven Co-op's anniversary with us by joining the servers and make sure to give "svencoop1" a replay for old times' sake. We'll be there! For the nostalgic or the curious, the original website from 1999 is available here[www.svencoop.com]. This is also where you can still find the original beta 0.8!

--------

An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.

This is officially the first release to drop support for Windows XP/2003, Windows Vista/2008, and Linux with GLibC earlier than version 2.24. -- Sven Co-op may fail to work completely on those operating systems. More information[forums.svencoop.com]



Notable changes are as follows:

• Event system to adjust various content according to the event. -- Content for our 20th anniversary included.
  
• Better support for Stretch and Buster versions of Debian Linux.

You can find the full change log on our news[forums.svencoop.com].



Steam build ID numbers: Game 3482406, dedicated server tool 3482409, SDK tool 3482410.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.

Hello everyone,

We would like to take this opportunity to inform you all that as of our next release (5.18) Sven Co-op will no longer support running on various outdated operating systems. We do not have a release date for 5.18 yet, and to be honest aren't really in a position to consider a date yet, but we'd like to warn you all in advance anyway in case you need to plan any upgrades. We will of course mention this again in the 5.18 release notes, but please treat this as a final reminder.

Part of the reason for this is Valve's decision to drop Windows XP and Vista support with Steam as of 1st January 2019. Also as we previously announced nearly 3 years ago[forums.svencoop.com] this would be inevitable as operating system components begin to deprecate and remove older functionality, which is beyond our control.

Using more up to date operating systems (and their underlying components) also offers us more opportunity to make the most of their functionality and efficiency upgrades, which ultimately ends up in a better product for all of you.


We don't need to tell you how out of date Windows XP and 2003 are. Given the growing number of security holes it has going un-patched it would be very ill-advised to use these operating systems for anything at all.

Sven Co-op may still work with Windows Vista and 2008 for a while, however any issues that arise specific to this version will not be supported by us. We've not done anything deliberate to stop this working, but as none of our team use these versions we can't test on them.

As there is a noticeable hardware requirement gap between Windows XP/2003 and Vista (and later) you will almost certainly need to consider this too. This is also out of our control, sorry. The hardware requirements between Windows Vista right the way up to Windows 10 don't have such a wide gap though, so if you're already running Windows Vista there is a likelihood that you can also run any of the newer versions on the same hardware.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will still be supported for the foreseeable future, again, until circumstances beyond our control dictate otherwise.


All Linux installations will require GLIBC version 2.24 or later. This coincides with an internal infrastructure upgrade from Debian 8 "Jessie" to Debian 9 "Stretch". Debian 9, which we compile our code for Linux on, has not only been stable for nearly 2 years now but can be upgraded to from previous versions easily enough, so this shouldn't be much of an issue. (It can typically be done without issue within the hour on a high speed Internet connection.)

Those of you running Ubuntu version 16.10 or later will not be impacted. If you're running the previous LTS (16.04) you can likely upgrade to the current LTS (18.04) easily enough as with most Debian based Linux distributions.

Sorry to disappoint further, but those of you wanting to run SvenDS on RHEL, CentOS, or FreeBSD will still not be able to do so just as you can't now. To be clear on this, as a game development team we have no desire to support enterprise type distributions of Linux. Though they may be great for many applications, games are certainly not their purpose. Our choice down the Debian distribution path correlates with a happy balance between fairly up to date software and stable proven software. The Debian path also matches Valve's preference with Steam, particularly as they use this for their own SteamOS distribution, of which the current version (3.0) is also based on Debian 9.

If you're not sure which version of GLIBC your Linux installation runs you can find out using `ldd --version` from a terminal, or check this table[en.wikipedia.org] at Wikipedia.

An update for Sven Co-op has been released. If you are running a dedicated server please use SteamCmd to update your servers.



Notable changes are as follows:

• New map "Suspension", by Hezus.

• Everyone: Your "autoexec.cfg" should be reverted manually. It's a user file but we may need to push important changes to it. (Any problems, just delete the file and re-validate your game.)
  
• Server operators: Please fully reset "liblist.gam", as you shouldn't be modifying this anyway. -- The game will not run properly without some new settings in there.
  
• Server operators: If you're running Metamod please use the vanilla distribution, do not use custom builds for Sven Co-op any more. (They shouldn't be needed and we'd like to verify that.)

You can find the full change log on our news[forums.svencoop.com].



Steam build ID numbers: Game 3082297, dedicated server tool 3082299, SDK tool 3082300.

Please use the steam build ID number as a reference when posting an issue or query on our message boards. You can find the build number you currently have within Steam by right clicking our game or tools, selecting Properties, then selecting the Local Files tab.