After about only six weeks since Turtle Arena 0.5.0 was release; I present Turtle Arena 0.5.1, the latest development version of Turtle Arena. Turtle Arena is on its way to being… well, extraordinary. You can download it at the website.

Turtle Arena no longer uses any (GPL2+) graphics or sounds from OpenArena, which is a step forward for being a unique game and more unified data licensing.

Notable changes (and a few some less notable changes)
– r1452: Fixed transparency issue with models using cel-shading.
– r1453: Fixed player walking underwater (player use to be jittery when looking up).
– r1456: Added support for special jump backward animation when using lock-on. Currently it isn’t used, but will allow making it so players only backflip when in lock-on mode.
– r1459: Increased weapon respawn time. Should cut down on number of weapons that end up floating around random weapon spawn point.
– r1465: Changed how next map is selected, now it uses the scripts/arenas.txt and scripts/*.arena allowing add-on maps to be automatically added to map rotation.
– r1467: Removed Casey Jones player, don’t plan to have humans in the game anymore.
– r1469: Removed sound effects from OpenArena, now all sound in game is licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0. They haven’t been replaced yet.
– r1473: Replaced two wall marks from OpenArena, with higher resolution SVG.
– r1477: Modified the weapon trails/ghosting, I think it looks better now. Also removed player speed ghosting effect.
– r1478: Made the Turtles’ tales look more like real red-eared slider tales, instead of trying to look like the Mirage Studios Ninja Turtle comics.
– r1479: Fixed long sword color so all players can see the color.
– r1481: Modified some messages;
– “so-and-so entered the game” is now only show once (instead of after each map load).
– Client team change messages now colorize team names.
– Client change team messages are now shown in the notify area/console instead of center print.
– Changing to spectator mode no longer prints “so-and-so killed [him|her|it]self” (instead it just prints team change)
– r1481: Drop CTF flag when player suicides (using kill command), instead of instantly returning it to base.
– r1482: Remove Foot Ninja player skins (that were used in teamplay on red team).
– r1486: Made players drop flag when shot or hit by an explosion.
– r1487: Show message when player drops flag.
– r1489: CTF flags no longer bob and spin.
– r1490: Don’t show frag messages in CTF, 1 flag CTF, and Overload. It isn’t the goal for those gametypes. Only the goal for the gametype should center print.
– r1491: Show center print message in Overload when destroying base object. This continued the line of thinking that accomplishing goal should center print.
– r1495: Remade water splash sprite and shader. Now water ripples look like they only go away the player that is causing them, instead of odd q3 way of ripples going from and back to player.
– r1504: Improved server browser
– Added cancel refresh button.
– Moved/renamed global “specify” favorite button to “new” button only shown when source is favorites.
– Save port of new favorite servers.
– r1513: Increased protocol to 7, there have been multiple incompatibilities with TA 0.5.0.
– r1515: Added support for dpmaster protocol, now the game can be used with uncustomized dpmaster. (Quick server delisting still requires my modified dpmaster as it was not accepted by dpmaster developer.)
– r1517: Fixed requesting server for a specific gametype in server browser to work with all gametypes.
– r1520: Removed saving/loading server list (servercache.dat).

– New more secure network protocol from ioq3.
– Security fixes from ioq3.
– Fixed numerous minor issues