News & updates

The crash that took the whole server down when a Nemesis killed a player is fixed. If you have been dropped mid-round over the past weeks, this was almost certainly why.

What was happening

• A Nemesis carries a damage aura that ticks once per second on everyone nearby.
• The moment a player dies, Counter-Strike hands the server a spectator body in place of their normal one.
• The next tick of that aura tried to damage the player who had just died - and the spectator body has none of the parts the game engine expects to find. The server hit an empty slot and went down instantly.

Why it always looked like a Nemesis bug

• Bots never triggered it. Bots get no spectator body, so the same tick ran over nine bots harmlessly and then killed the server on the first real player it reached.
• Only Nemesis kills mattered. An ordinary zombie hit infects you; a Nemesis actually kills you - and it is the Nemesis that carries the aura still ticking over your body.

That combination is why it looked random for so long: it needed a real player, killed rather than infected, with an aura still running.

What changed

• Damage from abilities now always targets a player's real body, never the spectator one, and re-checks that they are actually alive at the instant the damage lands.
• The same check was applied to every ability damage path in the game, not just the one that crashed.
• An automated test now blocks this class of mistake from coming back.

Nothing to do on your end - the fix is live. Still seeing a disconnect that looks like a server drop? Tell us in game chat.

The server now restarts itself on a schedule instead of drifting until someone notices - and it will always tell you first.

Nightly restart at 06:00

• Every day at 06:00 (EEST) the server restarts to clear out anything that has crept in overnight.
• You get warned well in advance: at 30, 15, 10, 5 and 1 minutes, then 30 seconds, then a countdown every second from 10 down to 1.
• Each warning arrives as chat, an on-screen alert and a short cue - in your own language, in all eight.
• Come straight back: the server is normally accepting players again within a couple of minutes.

Counter-Strike 2 updates picked up automatically

• The server now checks Steam every 10 minutes for a new Counter-Strike 2 build.
• When Valve ships one, the server restarts to take it - so you are never stuck staring at a version mismatch waiting for a human to notice.
• If anyone is online, that restart uses the same announced countdown. On an empty server it just happens quietly.

Seven more maps in rotation

• Full bot support: zm_bullet_infected_fix2, zm_homebase_meow_v2, zm_silent_ford.
• Playable with friends (these ship no bot navigation, so bots will not join): zm_lila_hacker_meow_v3, zm_bruce_factory_p2, zm_rust_cod6_day_v2, zm_fox_v2.
• Every one was downloaded, booted and audited live before it went in.

Watch without playing

• The Velheim Watchdog GOTV relay is open on port 27020. Point a CS2 client at 152.53.113.11:27020 to spectate a live match.

Restart times and warnings are server-side; you do not need to change anything. Think a map or a warning is off? Tell us in game chat.

You are looking at it: the website now has a proper News section, and it is the new home for every update, balance change, and announcement.

What you can do here

• Read every change we ship, the day it ships - the archive already goes back to launch day.
• Vote on every entry with the thumbs up / thumbs down buttons - your feedback genuinely steers what we tune next.
• The homepage now shows the five most recent posts, so you never miss an update.

Votes are anonymous and one per player per entry (you can change your mind). Found something broken? Tell us in game chat.

A big day on Velheim: a fresh Survivor look and a full balance-and-polish pass across Zombie Plague and Warcraft.

New Survivor model

• The Survivor now wears a brand-new agent body (Mila) while the role is active - your own agent returns the moment the role ends.

Gameplay changes

• Laser Mines can now be picked back up while they still hold at least 80% durability - light wear no longer locks a mine in place. Every mine tunable is now server-configurable.
• Illumination Grenade is brighter and covers a wider area, ignites its light only where the grenade actually lands and stops, and the grey native smoke cloud no longer appears at all.
• Dead players can no longer buy items or open any menu - a red on-screen warning explains why, in all eight languages.
• Mage ultimate is a true Teleport: it returns you to your spawn point with the classic WC3 Warden "Vengeance" sting.
• Rogue Smokebomb still cheats death, but now detonates a blast dealing 50 damage to nearby enemies instead of dropping smoke.
• Sacred Warrior Life Break is rebalanced: it deals 25% of the victim's current HP capped at 800 damage (no more five-digit hits on the Nemesis).
• Necromancer race is disabled for now; players keep their other races.

Text and translation fixes

• Hammerstorm's ultimate now says 15s everywhere (the real cooldown).
• Latvian "Dzesēšana: 60. gadi" mistranslations fixed for Death Weaver and Paladin, and Russian revive descriptions regained their 80% chance and cooldown wording.

Everything above is live on the server. Found a bug? Tell us in game chat or on the Steam Workshop page.

The biggest patch day yet.

Maps and fuller rounds

• Twelve freshly audited Workshop maps join the rotation, with two more added after review. zm_haddonfield and a few maps that failed testing were retired.
• Rounds now fill with bots up to 20 players, and a new spawn system seats everyone on every map - random, spaced-out spawn points with an unstick pass so nobody starts inside a wall.
• Map votes now pass at half the players instead of sixty percent, and your ballot can no longer be wiped by a round starting mid-vote.

Joining and rounds

• Late joiners get a 10-second spawn window to drop straight into the action, and a waiting round kick-starts the moment a second player arrives.
• Round end lasts 2 seconds longer - enjoy your victory.
• Swarm mode: human deaths are now final. The Infection Bomb gets the full shared grenade radius.
• Laser Mines: a dead owner's mines now retire, and damaged mines cannot be picked up.
• The Shapeshifter class is temporarily disabled after a crash bug; the radar is now hidden - use your eyes.

Interface and performance

• New !info chat command lists every command, in your language. !war3 now shows your race details in chat.
• A dedicated FPS pass: leaner mine beams, throttled plasma visuals, and blood/bullet decals removed server-side. Map spam in chat is silenced.

Website item descriptions were also rewritten for humans. The zombies remain illiterate.