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🎃🎉 Fearless Assassins Clan's 16th Birthday & Halloween Gameday! 🎉🎃 Let´s have fun and join us on our Halloween Gameday! Enemy Territory: Date: Saturday October 26th Time: Starts at 12PM - Ends at 12AM GMT +0 Server: =F|A= NoQuarter #1 XPS DNS: nq1.clan-fa.com:27960 Insurgency Sandstorm: Date: Sunday October 27th Time: Starts at 12PM - Ends at 12AM GMT +0 Server: =F|A= Beginners Coop #1 IP: 178.63.72.133:27040
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: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here. View the full article
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It's time for our bi-weekly live-stream with the devs!We have a lot to cover so you won't want to miss this one. Hello Gamers™, It's been two weeks since we streamed for you already, so we are super excited to dive back in and share some exciting info about some re-vamped features, community created maps, a Q & A with our boy Mikee, and even a new contest! If you've ever wanted to destroy some of our devs in PvP this is definitely the stream for you; we will be taking a bit of time during the stream to play with some of you! We will be going live at 2:00pm MST on Wednesday, April 8th here on Steam and on our Twitch page (right here[www.twitch.com]) so make sure to come say hi and see what we've got cooking for all of you! Hope to see you there, Aaron View the full article
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SANDSTORM News New World Interactive charity livestream!
sincity posted a topic in Sandstorm Discussion
Join the Insurgency developers New World Interactive and our incredible Sandstorm Partners as we raise money for Military veterans around the world via 8bit salute. Microsoft and Xbox will be matching every dollar donated! Watch live: https://www.twitch.tv/newworld View the full article -
Greetings, Insurgency: Sandstorm is free to play on Steam right now until April 1st. During this period, you will also be able to get the game to keep for good at a 50% discount. Perfect timing to check out new free content added last week with the massive 1.6 Update which brings public mod tools and https://insurgencysandstorm.mod.iointegration, a new map, two new weapons, new domination layouts, and much more. Check out the attached screenshots and read on for more details. Mod.io SupportModding support comes to Insurgency: Sandstorm! With Insurgency itself birthed from the modding scene with the original release, the Insurgency: Sandstorm mod tools are launching with full Mod.io integration to help more creators get what they want out of the game. The initial release will allow for the creation of levels, game modes, and mutators, with expanded capabilities on the way. New Map: Power PlantTaking Insurgency: Sandstorm CQB to the next level, Power Plant has tight corners and many passages, so you’ll always want a teammate watching your back. The titular structure is always in-sight, helping you to navigate the map. With a greener locale, Power Plant is a new experience for all players, available completely free as part of the 1.6 patch. Two new weapons: Tavor 7 & ACE 52New update, new guns. The Advisor classes on both sides of the conflict will receive new weapons – the Tavor 7 for Security and ACE 52 for Insurgents. These state-of-the-art fully automatic battle rifles come chambered in a high caliber, making them highly lethal at both close and long ranges regardless of whether your target has armor. Domination ModeThe Domination mode is now available on five more maps - Refinery, Outskirts, Precinct, Summit, and the new Power Plant. Domination is a fast-paced, respawn-enabled, area-control mode that sees teams fighting over three control points. And more!Also in this update are new cosmetics, stability fixes, balance changes, and much more. We’re committed to continue support for Insurgency: Sandstorm as we head towards the console launch and beyond. Play Insurgency: Sandstorm and the 1.6 update free from March 26 through April 1, and get the game at 50% off on Steam! View the full article
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We've just released a patch for update 1.6 that makes some changes to gameplay, and addresses various bugs. Highlights include: Balance adjustments to Tavor 7 and ACE 52 Fixed an issue causing player classes to display inconsistently on the scoreboard Fixed or reduced the occurrence of clipping with some of the new cosmetics Fixed a number of exploits on Power PlantSee the full changelist below: Bug FixesFixed an issue where players would be unable to select different hairstyles when playing as Male Security unless they had Headgear selected as well Fixed an issue preventing the Power Plant image from displaying properly Fixed some clipping issues with the new Insurgent Leather Red, Blue, Black, and Gray cosmetic. Fixed an issue where Domination maps were displaying the full scenario name instead of the scenario type Fixed an issue causing saved replay titles to have incorrectly formatted names Fixed some display issues when wearing the Insurgent Smooth Mask Fixed a clipping issue with the Too Cool Headset and female hairstyles Fixed an issue where the Moptop hair and Headset combination could show a bald spot in the hair Fixed an issue preventing players from viewing players profiles from the scoreboard Fixed an issue causing player classes to display inconsistently on the scoreboard Reduced the occurrence of clipping with the Covered, Balaclava Open, and various Headgear cosmetics Fixed Compression item having incorrect stitching colors Fixed Headset, Too Cool Headset, Baseball Headset, Watch Cap Headset items having incorrect ear piece and headband colorsGameplay ImprovementsTavor 7 Reduced horizontal recoil Reduced vertical recoil Increased fire rateACE 52Reduced horizontal recoil Reduced vertical recoilMod ToolsAdjusted the size of the popup asking for consent to download mods from the Community Servers menu Fixed an issue which could show overlapping text in the mod upload status Adjusted the mod subscription polling to prevent it from polling while downloads are in progress, which could potentially cause the download to restart Updated download queues on dedicated servers to function as intendedMap FixesRangeRepositioned the spawn of the vehicle on the firing range so that it drove to the same location more consistentlyPrecinct Fixed an issue where players were able to fall through a floorPower PlantAdjusted a misplaced restricted zone in Firefight East Addressed some exploitable areas players should not have been able to access, or were able to use in unintended waysKnown IssuesSmoke not obscuring vision at certain distances The alignment of the 1x Kobra optic is incorrect on the Tavor 7 While downloading a mod, attempting to join a match or community server will trigger a black screen View the full article
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Update 1.6 is here with Mod Tools Public Release, a new map: Power Plant, new guns: ACE 52 and Tavor 7, full map support for Domination game mode, improvements to Insurgent fire support, improvements to gamepad support, and more! Since our last major release, we’ve been focused on adding new content to the game. This can be seen in our new map, guns, and cosmetics. To really open the floodgates on content, we are pleased to announce that with 1.6, our mod tool support will be moving from private to public with the ability to now manage mod subscriptions in-game. In addition to this new content, we’ve spent a lot of time working to improve the new player experience as well as address concerns of the community. See the full changelist below: Mod Tools Public Release We are pleased to release our Mod Tools to the public in the 1.6 release. This includes the full Unreal Engine Editor that will allow the community to create their own levels. The Editor itself will allow you to upload and update your mod through built in tools. With this iteration of the mod editor, it will be possible to to create levels, gamemodes, and mutators. Mods and guides will be available through Mod.io which will become the modding hub for the game. This release fully integrates Mod.io into the game allowing community servers to host modded content, and players connecting to the server will be able to automatically download required mod content. Official and community documentation will be available from the Mod.io guides[insurgencysandstorm.mod.io] Integrated Mod.io support into the game via Modding submenu from the Main Menu Browse available mods Subscribe and unsubscribe from mods Vote on modsCommunity Server Browser now has a filter to show or hide Modded servers When joining a server running mods, the player will be prompted to download missing mod content or cancel joiningNew Map: Power Plant We are happy to present our latest map, Power Plant. Set in a more lush and green environment than other maps, you can read more about the design and development of this map in our most recent State of Production. Power Plant has the following scenarios available: Firefight East and Firefight West Push Security and Push Insurgents Domination Checkpoint Security and Checkpoint Insurgents Hardcore Checkpoint Security and Hardcore Checkpoint Insurgents Frenzy Checkpoint SecurityNew Weapons: Tavor 7 and ACE 52 We’ve added two new rifles to the game: the Tavor 7 for the Security Advisor and the ACE 52 for the Insurgent Advisor. These weapons are replacing the Security Mk 14 EBR and Insurgent SVD weapon selections on the Advisor class. For more insight into why these changes were made, please read our most recent State of Production. New CosmeticsNew Security Cosmetics Compression ShirtHeadset with various HeadgearNew Insurgent CosmeticsLeather Jacket Smooth MaskSpectator Camera ImprovementsSpectator Cam Preview[media.giphy.com] In an effort to improve quality of life for new players, we have implemented a new camera where after death, the camera will hover over the player’s corpse and then slowly point in the direction the shot that killed them originated from. This option is intended to help new players train their eyes where to look without giving away too much information. Improved spectator camera after being killed to point in direction of killing shot or explosionPlayer can either click to skip, or after a period of time will be forced into regular spectator modePlayers can turn this feature off for themselves under Game settingsCommunity Server Admins can turn this off for the server Disabled in Competitive and Hardcore Checkpoint playlistsImplemented toggleable x-ray trails from thrown projectiles and fire support and a beam indicating the direction a player is facing Implemented controller support for spectator mode Domination MapsIn release 1.5 we introduced Domination mode. This mode proved to be highly popular among the player base. In 1.6, we’ve given the remaining maps a Domination treatment and made some minor tweaks to the layouts of all maps based on additional community feedback.Outskirts Power Plant Precinct Refinery SummitGameplay ImprovementsWe’ve worked hard to listen to the players and make improvements to various gameplay mechanics. Our intent is to directly address player feedback about shooting and aiming not being rewarding enough of skill, to improve player movement and acceleration to feel more controlled, and to add some flexibility to certain key bindings which have been popularly requested. Adjusted AI so they will no longer attack players in spawn areas in standard and Hardcore Checkpoint scenarios (they will attack in Frenzy) Removed insertion and drivable vehicles from all Checkpoint levels to improve level flow and performance Insurgent Fire Support ImprovementsDoubled the number of rockets in the Rocket Barrage and added a delay between each volley Doubled the duration of the Chemical Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after exploding Doubled the duration of the Smoke Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after exploding Increased the duration of Explosive Mortar fire support by 50%General ImprovementsReplay ImprovementsImproved reliability of replay recording Improved replay control reliabilityImproved Gamepad Support Implemented multiple sensitivity curves which can be selected from the settings menu Implemented Per-Axis Controller Sensitivity Updated Controller Button Mapping Adjusted Gamepad Weapon Recoil and Sway Modifiers Improved aim dampening implementation Improved Default UE4 Deadzones Added gamepad support to most menus Implemented Dual Shock 4 controller support Main Menu ImprovementsUpdated the Review pane of the Main Menu to accept and display dynamic messages Added a banner message area for displaying short text messagesCommunity Feedback Improvements XP Boosts will be listed on playlists when active Selecting Random during a map vote will no longer result in replaying the current scenario Players cannot be autobalanced during the last two minutes of a match or during the Last Stand in Push/Frontline Added some spawn protection in Versus modes to prevent the Attacking team from being wiped when they are spawned in on final wavesImproved loggingAdded specific logging events to assist with debugging possible crash issuesUser ExperienceMoved Steam notification to stop blocking important UI elements Added clock icon to indicate that fire support is on cool down to binocular view for Commander Made Preview Selection of Items and Cosmetics consistent between Appearance Screen and Loadout Screen Improved visibility of HUD markers and provided multiple preconfigured color schemes Improved how HUD markers are anchored to the screen they represent objects outside your field of view (Objectives, Supply Crates, Friendly Players) Improved UI hint when close to doors that can be kicked open Improved tutorial hints for the ADS Focus ability Updated icons for scoreboard to indicate columns are hidden while player is alive Added a consistent Apply button to all Settings screens Improved the visibility of the Find Match button and added a sound for when it is clicked Improved the visibility of damage indicators Added a contextual hint to the screen when players are in the spawn or close to resupply crates to indicate they can Change Class or Change Loadout Added contextual hints for players who have toggleable weapon attachments Visual ImprovementsUpdated EAC Launcher artwork Updated the lighting in the Main Menu Updated the look of magazines for the Mk 18 CQBR and the pistol grip on the Alpha AK Visual optimization pass on HideoutIncreased performance in troubled areas of the mapImproved the flashbang effect to reduce the performance cost when usedLevelsOutskirtsFixed an exploit that let you vault through a wall Fixed an issue where terrain wasn't properly connected to a wall Removed access to an unintended rooftopCrossingFixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend from an unintended location in Domination Removed access to a few unintended locationsSummitAdded a blocking volume to prevent deploying the objective A cache from far away Fixed a gap in the ground Fixed a gap that would allow you to leave the map in Firefight East Fixed a small gap in the floor Fixed an area where players could get stuck on an invisible prop Fixed an issue where players were able to walk on a picture frame Fixed an issue where some debris from a destroyed wall appeared to be hovering Fixed an issue where some ground props were overlapping incorrectly Fixed an issue where the tactical map appeared blurry Fixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend a point from an unintended location Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map Fixed multiple seams in props and walls near objective C that allowed light to shine through Removed ability to access an unintended area Removed ability to walk on an unintended ledge Removed access to an unintended locationRefineryFixed an issue where an invisible volume was blocking a door Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map Fixed the alignment of the tactical mapFarmhouse Fixed an exploit allowing players to leave the map and flank enemies Fixed an exploit where you were able to go prone and clip inside a rock Fixed an issue where players would have difficulty deploying a Bipod on some ramps near the B objective in Checkpoint Security Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map Fixed the location of the first resupply crate in Security Checkpoint on the tactical map Removed ability to climb into unintended locations Removed an exploit that allowed spawn killing in Push Security when the B objective is activeHillsideFixed an issue where vehicles were able to be driven onto some rooftopsHideoutFixed a collision issue with a small ground prop Fixed an area where players could get stuck between two props Fixed an issue where players would get stuck vaulting over a prop near objective C in Firefight East, D in Push Insurgents, D in Skirmish, and near the Security spawn in Frontline Fixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend objective D from an unintended location in FrontlinePrecinctFixed a small gap in the floor Fixed an exploit in the map that allowed players to reach unintended locations Fixed an unintended occurrence of the out of bounds zone Removed ability to walk on an unintended ledge Removed access to an unintended location Removed the ability to destroy the objective B cache from long distance in Checkpoint SecurityCompetitive ImprovementsBased on feedback from the competitive community, we have updated the default map rotation on the Competitive playlist to utilize the most balanced maps. Updated default competitive map rotation. The following is the new map rotation: Precinct East Hideout West Summit East Refinery Outskirts West MinistryBug FixesFixed an issue that could cause the game to hitch briefly after shooting down a helicopter Fixed a frame animation transition issue in the third person reload animations for the M24 Fixed ability to accelerate in vehicles using a gamepad Fixed ability to access color customization using a gamepad Fixed ability to interact with Tutorials, Local Play, and Play submenu using a gamepad Fixed ability to interact with the Lessons tab in-game using a gamepad Fixed access to the Settings submenu when using a gamepad Fixed an issue on the Loadout screen where the wrong button prompt would be shown with a gamepad connected Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where locked slots wouldn't correctly show they were selected Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where you could not properly wrap around from the top of the list to the bottom Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where you couldn't navigate between the Loadout list and the save list Fixed an issue in the tutorial where AI team members might get stuck behind a wall Fixed an issue on gamepads where you wouldn't be able to select your melee weapon if you didn't have a gun in your equipment Loadout Fixed an issue where bullets were not visible in the stripper clip of the Mosin-Nagant in third person while reloading Fixed an issue where changing audio settings in-game would leave a save prompt flickering on your screen Fixed an issue where deploying a Bipod using a gamepad would drop your character into the ground Fixed an issue where Player Reports would be miscatergorized in the reporting database. Fixed an issue where the incorrect bind hint was showing in the Loadout screen for Gas Masks Fixed an issue where the keybinding on the Fire lesson popup wasn't always showing Fixed an issue where the resume reload animation doesn't transition correctly when a weapon is equipped with a Foregrip Fixed and issue where Security pants didn't have correct level of detail assigned to them Fixed issues with the third person reload animation of the RPG-7 and M3 MAAWS Fixed key conflicts in controller when selecting primary while equipped with binoculars Fixed Lesson popups to display the correct keybinds when using a gamepad Fixed the layering of the Neck Gaiter High to put it above hair Fixed the location of the stripper clip on the Mosin-Nagant in the Loadout menu Fixed the potential to crash the game when attempting to quit while driving a vehicleKnown IssuesIf the male Security model is selected with no Headgear slot, only the None hairstyle will display regardless of which is selected Domination maps are showing the scenario string name instead of the mode in the tactical mapView the full article
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Greetings! My name is Derek, and I am the Head of Production at New World Interactive. I hope that the winter season has not been too unbearable for everyone! As we get ready to enter the Spring, it’s time for this month’s SoP! With the 1.6 update around the corner, I can now more concretely detail what to expect in this update. Key Points of State of Production #6New Map: Power Plant New Guns: Tavor 7 + ACE 52 New Cosmetic Items CTE Feedback Update on performance and optimization efforts Evolving our Communication Strategy: Community Blog Revival! Regarding stability issues, crashes, and “ghost bullets” Replay and Spectator Improvements Dynamic Main Menu + Alert ImprovementsNew Map: Power PlantI’ve invited our Level Design Director, Jeroen van Werkhoven, to provide some commentary on how we chose the setting for this map, as well to discuss some detailed aspects related to Power Plant. "Hello! I'm Jeroen van Werkhoven, the level design director at New World Interactive." I want to share some more info about our new upcoming map. Power Plant is a fast, action-paced map, designed around CQB principles. There may be an enemy around every corner, which makes this map a lot more intense to play than any of our previous levels. Always have someone watching your back! For the theme of this map, we wanted to try something different. Early in development, we came up with the idea to try a more green environment. We used reference material from Northern Iraq and Chernobyl, as well as other locations, and turned Power Plant into an abandoned, overgrown industrial site with a giant dam looming over the map, making it visible from almost anywhere. We believe it adds more visual appeal, and the player can use the dam as a beacon to navigate through the map. I'm very proud of everyone on the team who was involved in the creation of Power Plant. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did creating it!” New Guns: Tavor 7 + ACE 52We’re adding two new weapons to the game in update 1.6. I thought the community might appreciate hearing more about how we selected the weapons, so I’ve invited Mikee to provide some color commentary on the decision-making process. “Hey everyone, Michael Tsarouhas (or Mikee) here. I’m the lead game designer on Sandstorm, and want to talk a little bit about the new guns we’re adding in update 1.6: the Tavor 7 for the Security Advisor class and the ACE 52 for the Insurgent Advisor class. These weapons were chosen for a few reasons. For one, both these weapons (or ones very much like them) have popped up in various forum posts and social media alongside other weapon requests. This makes sense, because our community surveys have indicated that our players have a high interest in modern weapons, specifically assault rifles. So in this update, we decided to go with newer weapons that look more cutting edge, ones that feel appropriate for a well funded or well experienced Advisor to carry. This is especially true with the Tavor 7, which is a relatively new weapon system that is essentially a TAR-21 chambered in those big ass 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. Both the Tavor 7 and ACE 52 fire fast and fire hard, serving as perfect assault weapons for CQB and firing through thick materials. While both these weapons are technically battle rifles, aesthetically and design-wise they are much like ARs. They serve an important and similar gameplay function as high caliber full-auto rifles. Additionally, we have gotten a lot of feedback about the Security Mk 14 EBR and the Insurgent SVD being too common and too powerful as battle rifles. This makes sense since they’re the only two weapons that are shared between the specialized classes of Advisor and Marksman. Rather than just nerfing them and risk making them less useful for both or either of those two classes, the Tavor 7 and ACE 52 will replace them for Advisors and lean a little more in the assault weapon function. And now, every specialized class (Breacher, Gunner, Advisor, Marksman) has a unique primary selection.” New Cosmetic ItemsSecurity: Insurgents: Evolving our Communication Strategy: Community Blog Revival!When I first started the “State of Production” blog, it was in an effort to be more transparent in regard to what we are working on and towards as a company. I ultimately would consider it to have been a tremendous success; it inspired engagement, generated feedback, and helped to shed light on what was happening behind the scenes within New World Interactive. I largely took this on because I felt it was necessary for the company to expand our front-facing communication efforts. Over the past 9 months, I’ve been fortunate enough to ramp and recruit numerous talented individuals (many of whom I’ve referenced in previous SoP’s). With the evolution of our Community and Communications team, I believe that the time has arrived for me to hand off the vast majority of our front-facing communication responsibilities to the face, heart, and soul of our game; our Community Manager, DaraDef! While I’ll still draft a SoP near major releases, there will be substantially more updates relating to the game in the Community blog. Dara has been instrumental in driving the growth and evolution of the way our company interfaces with our community. She is presently conducting live streams alongside Mikee, and playing with the community regularly. She is drafting and creating community sentiment reports, and now she has also opted to initialize our Community Blog. The first edition can be viewed here[newworldinteractive.com]. Regarding Stability Issues, Crashes, and “Ghost Bullets”The last 30 days have been pretty challenging for us on a technical level. We had noticed an increase in reported issues pertaining to gameplay stability. Freezes that were taking place after a match starts, people were firing bullets that didn’t appear to be registering/doing damage as expected, random client crashes. We know this was an incredibly infuriating problem being faced by some of our users, and our team worked rapidly to replicate and resolve these problems. Between the utilization of our Support Desk via Nick Ward, and the curated and organized sentiment report drafted by DaraDef, we’re getting better at gathering, organizing, and acting upon community feedback as a whole. This is not always the easiest process; during sprint planning, we do our best to incorporate actionable feedback when and where we can to improve everyone’s quality of life. However, we cannot create effective solutions without the proper data and details. While we are seeing an uptick in reports related to performance and stability problems, we are also experiencing dismal feedback and participation rates when we reach out seeking more detailed information. In an effort to help make the community’s feedback more effective, I sat with our Technical Director, Support Manager, and Community Manager, and we’ve structured some documentation on how to best ensure we are able to act upon your feedback. You can view this document here.[support.newworldinteractive.com] Our Player Support Manager, Community Manager, and one of our community moderators create bi-weekly "community sentiment" reports to give to our team. We comb through our Steam forums (including the CTE Sub-forum), as well as our CTE surveys, and collect community feedback from players regarding things like desired gameplay changes/suggestions as well as bug reports - especially things requested/reported by more than just a couple of players. A lot of this feedback is taken into consideration, but there are a number of reasons why you may not see changes made: Production and QA need to decide on the priority level, how much time and resources would have to be put into it - can it realistically fit into the timeline along with current planned changes and features currently being worked? Additionally, we have to look into if it fits into the vision and identity of what Sandstorm is. It typically takes the studio 2+ weeks to slot in feedback into our production cycle as it stands; this should improve over time, as we continue to grow and ramp. Camera, Replay, and Spectator ImprovementsIn order to improve the quality of life experience for new players, we have made some improvements to the Spectator camera. When a player dies, the camera will hover over their body and turn to face the direction of the killing shot or explosion that killed them. This will help new players gain a better understanding of dangerous areas of a map and curtail camping. Additionally, this should help new players to better “train” their eyes, with where to look when engaging various chokepoints. This feature is not available in Hardcore Checkpoint or Competitive. Community server admins will also be able to disable this feature on their servers and all players will have the option to turn this feature off in their game settings. When in this special mode, players can click to skip the camera or after a brief period they will be forced into regular spectator. To hear a detailed explanation of how it works from our lead game designer Michael Tsarouhas, see our last livestream here. While in regular spectator, players will have the ability to toggle X-Ray to show x-ray trails from thrown projectiles and fire support as well as a beam indicating which direction a player on screen is facing. This feature will show friendly players for someone in spectator because they are waiting for a spawn wave, but will show all players for anyone on the spectator team. X-ray can also be used in replays. The replay system itself has been prone to errors, having controls that didn’t always work consistently, and problems with recordings that either only recorded a portion of a match or failed altogether. We’ve taken steps to improve the replay system’s reliability both in terms of recording and controls. We will continue to examine the stability of the system and improve it as required. Feedback from the CTE event regarding changes to the spectator camera after death indicated that we should slightly reduce the time before the camera is forced into regular spectator mode. Feedback did indicate alignment with our plans of having this feature disabled in Hardcore Checkpoint and Competitive along with options for server admins to disable the feature. Dynamic Main Menu + Alert ImprovementsIn an effort to improve our ability to communicate with players we have added some additional communication options to the game’s main menu. There is a new banner message location that will allow us to place small text messages for a short duration of time. This will allow us to acknowledge known issues and provide communication in the game to players about what’s going on. Banner messages are intended for short-term messaging of limited duration issues such as Steam maintenance impacts, impending patches, or similar issues. We have also updated the panel above the MOTD so we can change it dynamically. This panel would allow us to place communication to all of the players in the game that is meant to last over a period of time, such as when we were investigating the recent “ghost bullet” issue without having to replace the MOTD where we traditionally link to the latest patch notes or State of Production. These are the first changes in a list of communication options we want to implement in future releases to expand our options for communicating with the community without having to rely on external platforms. Mod ToolsI’ve invited our Technical Director, Stephen Swires, to provide some commentary on the public release of our mod tools, which are due out in the 1.6 update. We know this is a feature that the community has been looking forward to for a while, and are excited to unveil this to the public. “In the 1.6 update, we will be rolling out mod tools to the public. This will include the full Unreal Engine Editor that we use to create our own levels. The editor has built-in tools for uploading your mod and updating it. In the initial roll-out, it will be possible to make levels, gamemodes, and mutators. Mods and guides will be available through Mod.io which will become the modding hub for the game. Mod.io is fully integrated into the game and allows community servers to host modded content and players connecting to their server will automatically be able to download the mods the server is running. Official and community documentation will be available from the Mod.io guides section[insurgencysandstorm.mod.io]. Over the course of the year, we hope to expand the modding offering and expose more functionality to modders. In addition to this, we plan on distributing more official mod examples and guides.”View the full article
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Our Play with the Devs event is happening NOW from 11:00 AM MST - 1:00 PM MST on the Community Test Environment in anticipation of our Spring update coming soon! Help test upcoming content for our Spring update on the Community Test Environment: New map: Power Plant 4 New Domination layouts 2 New weapons Improved replays and spectator cam Improved controller support And much moreTo play with us, go to your Steam Library and download “Insurgency: Sandstorm Community Test Environment." Boot up the CTE, and please set matchmaking regions to US East Click Play, select Co-op, and Find Match. All of the devs won’t necessarily be in one game, but you’ll see us floating around your matches! During the CTE, we will be restricting the playlists to focus solely on the new content. On Co-op there will be one playlist called New Map: Power Plant and on Versus there will be two options, New Map: Power Plant and New Domination Maps. To learn more about the new content coming in Update 1.6 please go here. After playing, please fill out this survey[forms.gle]. The only other place the team will be funneling feedback is on our Steam CTE Sub-Forum. Please ensure to use the search function in the Sub Forum to see if your feedback/question has already been posted, and stick to ONE topic per thread. See you soon!View the full article
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SANDSTORM News CTE - Play with the Devs Event on Now!
sincity posted a topic in Sandstorm Discussion
Our Play with the Devs event is happening NOW from 11:00 AM MST - 1:00 PM MST on the Community Test Environment in anticipation of our Spring update coming soon! Help test upcoming content for our Spring update on the Community Test Environment: New map: Power Plant 4 New Domination layouts 2 New weapons Improved replays and spectator cam Improved controller support And much moreTo play with us, go to your Steam Library and download “Insurgency: Sandstorm Community Test Environment." Boot up the CTE, and please set matchmaking regions to US East Click Play, select Versus, and Find Match. All of the devs won’t necessarily be in one game, but you’ll see us floating around your matches! During the CTE, we will be restricting the playlists to focus solely on the new content. On Co-op there will be one playlist called New Map: Power Plant and on Versus there will be two options, New Map: Power Plant and New Domination Maps. To learn more about the new content coming in Update 1.6 please go here. After playing, please fill out this survey[forms.gle]. The only other place the team will be funneling feedback is on our Steam CTE Sub-Forum. Please ensure to use the search function in the Sub Forum to see if your feedback/question has already been posted, and stick to ONE topic per thread. See you soon!View the full article -
Today we are launching a preview of our upcoming version 1.6 update. This includes a new map ‘Power Plant’, two new weapons (the Tavor 7 and ACE 52), ingame mod support, new cosmetic options, and more! This content is now playable on the Community Test Environment. However please remember this is a preview build, so some issues are expected (see ‘Known Issues[//]’). If you encounter any problems or have feedback for the development team please respond in the CTE sub-section of the Steam forums or use our 1.6 CTE Feedback Survey[forms.gle].Our team will be monitoring feedback during the CTE and aim to push this update to players on the live version of Insurgency: Sandstorm soon. You can find some of the key new features and known issues below: New FeaturesNew map “Power Plant”Playable in Firefight, Push, Domination, Checkpoint, Hardcore Checkpoint, and Frenzy Checkpoint.Tavor 7 battle rifle for the Security Advisor class.[/b]Replaces the Mk 14 EBRACE 52 battle rifle for the Insurgents Advisor class.Replaces the SVDMod support for community created content on community serversMod submenu on the main menu will allow you to browse and subscribe to download modsJoining a modded community server will prompt you to download required modded content or cancel joiningCommunity Server Browser will allow filtering modded serversImproved Spectator CameraImproved spectator camera after being killed to point in direction of killing shot or explosionPlayer can either click to skip or after a period of time will be forced into regular spectator modePlayers can turn this feature off for themselves under Game settingsCommunity Server Admins can turn this off for the serverDisabled in Competitive and Hardcore Checkpoint playlistsImplemented toggleable x-ray trails from thrown projectiles and fire support and a beam indicating the direction a player is facingImplemented controller support for spectator modeNew Security CosmeticsCompression ShirtHeadset with various HeadgearNew Insurgent CosmeticsLeather JacketSmooth MaskCommunity Feedback ImprovementsXP Boosts will be listed on playlistsSelecting Random during a map vote will no longer result in replaying the current scenarioPlayers cannot be autobalanced during the last two minutes of a match or during the Last Stand in Push/FrontlineAdded some spawn protection in Versus modes to prevent the Attacking team from being wiped when they are spawned in on final wavesMain Menu ImprovementsUpdated the Review pane of the main menu to accept and display dynamic messagesAdded a banner message area for displaying short text messagesInsurgent Fire Support ImprovementsDoubled the number of rockets in the Rocket Barrage and added a delay between each volleyDoubled the duration of the Chemical Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after explodingDoubled the duration of the Smoke Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after explodingIncreased the duration of Explosive Mortar fire support by 50%[/list] Gameplay ImprovementsAdjusted AI so they will no longer attack players in spawn areas in standard and Hardcore Checkpoint scenarios (they will attack in FrenzyRemoved insertion and drivable vehicles from all Checkpoint levels to improve level flow and performanceGeneral ImprovementsReplay ImprovementsImproved reliability of replay recordingImproved replay control reliabilityImproved Gamepad SupportImplemented multiple sensitivity curves which can be selected from the settings menu Implemented Per-Axis Controller Sensitivity Updated Controller Button Mapping Adjusted Gamepad Weapon Recoil and Sway Modifiers Improved aim dampening implementation Improved Default UE4 Deadzones Added gamepad support most menus Implemented Dual Shock 4 controller support Visual ChangesUpdated the lighting in the main menuUpdated the look of magazines for the Mk. 18 CQBR and Alpha AKVisual optimization pass on HideoutIncreased performance in troubled areas of the mapImproved the flashbang effect to reduce the performance cost when usedUser ExperienceMoved Steam notification to stop blocking important UI elementsAdded clock icon to indicate that fire support is on cool down to binocular view for CommanderMade Preview Selection of Items and Cosmetics consistent between Appearance Screen and Loadout ScreenImproved visibility of HUD markers and provided multiple preconfigured color schemesImproved how HUD markers are anchored to the screen they represent objects outside your field of view (Objectives, Supply Crates, Friendly Players)Improved UI hint when close to doors that can be kicked open Improved tutorial hints for the ADS Focus ability Updated icons for scoreboard to indicate columns are hidden while player is alive Added a consistent Apply button to all Settings screens Improved the visibility of the Find Match button and added a sound for when it is clicked Improved the visibility of damage indicators Added a contextual hit to the screen when players are in the spawn or close to resupply crates to indicate they can Change Class or Change LoadoutNoteable FixesRemoved unintended exploitable rooftop access from various maps Fixed exploitable capture zones in some Domination layouts Fixed Farmhouse Checkpoint map to correctly display the supply crate location Fixed bullets not showing up in the 3rd person reload animations on rifles with stripper clips Fixed crouched and prone reload animations in 3rd person for some rocket launchers Improved consistency of Lesson popupsKnown Issues[Tavor 7] Textures for the Tavor 7 are not final [Tavor 7] Some animations may clip through player models [Tavor 7] In the Loadout menu, the magazine is in the incorrect position Some menus are not accessible using a gamepad X-ray trails from projectiles and fire support will not display in Replays Summit Domination still has a placeholder tactical map The extraction vehicle in the tutorial level will get stuck shortly after you enter itView the full article
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In anticipation of our Spring update, we will be previewing some upcoming content on the Community Test Environment. Go to your Steam Library and download “Insurgency: Sandstorm Community Test Environment” to play. The CTE will be open from Thursday, March 5 from 10:00 AM MST until 1:00 AM on Monday, March 9. We’ll be running a “Play with the Devs” event on the CTE on Thursday, March 5 (in Versus Matchmaking) & Friday, March 6 (in Co-op Matchmaking) from 11:00 AM MST - 1:00 PM MST. We’ll be testing on the US East servers in the official matchmaking, NOT on a server under Community Servers as we’ve done in the past. To join us, just boot up the CTE, please set matchmaking regions to US East, go to Play, select Versus (on Thursday) and Co-op (on Friday), and Find Match. All of the devs won’t necessarily be in one game, but you’ll see us floating around your matches! During the CTE we will be restricting the playlists to focus solely on the new content. On Co-op there will be one playlist called New Map: Power Plant and on Versus there will be two options, New Map: Power Plant and New Domination Maps Included in tomorrow's CTE will be the following major features:New Map: Power Plant 4 New Domination Layouts:PrecinctOutskirts Refinery Summit Power Plant2 New Weapons:ACE 52 Tavor 7Please note that the Tavor 7 is currently not textured, but we want player feedback on the feel and balancing of the weapon AdditionalsImprovements to Spectator and Replay System: Improved spectator camera after being killed to point in direction of killing shot or explosion Improved Main Menu CommunicationImproved Controller Support Map Voting: Selecting "Random" during map vote will no longer launch the same scenarioShow XP boost on Playlist UIImprovements to Insurgent fire supportIn addition to the content above, our team continues to focus on optimisation. Once the CTE goes live, we will have a survey linked in the Message of the Day, you can also post your feedback in our Steam CTE Sub Forum here. We will NOT be collecting feedback anywhere else but these two places. Please ensure to use the search function in the Sub Forum to see if your feedback/question has already been posted, and stick to ONE topic per thread. See you on the CTE! - DaraDef Community ManagerView the full article
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Hello, For PAX East 2020, we are excited to announce that Insurgency: Sandstorm will release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 25th, 2020. With over one million players in the game’s first year on PC, the award-winning tactical shooter is renowned for its realistic depiction of modern warfare focusing on lethal close-quarters combat, objective-oriented multiplayer and cooperative gameplay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74iltAzkcmo Insurgency: Sandstorm invites console players to prepare for a hardcore depiction of combat with deadly ballistics, destructive artillery, and unprecedented audio design that puts the fear back into the genre. Death comes fast, ammunition must be carefully managed, and the environment must be tactically navigated at every step towards victory. “The console market has been craving a hardcore modern-day tactical shooter for a long time. Expanding our tried and tested PC formula to the console market is a huge step in our company’s evolution and we are excited to bring our signature style of tactical FPS to the console market for the very first time” - Keith Warner, President. Insurgency: Sandstorm is now available on Steam and will launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 25th, 2020. Stay tuned for more information. Meet us at PAX East on the Focus Home Interactive booth (#29017). View the full article
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Hey all! We have noted that there could be some more communication from the team beyond the State of Production posts. So I'm resurrecting the community blogs that were produced a few times before I came on board with NWI. To differentiate from the SoP posts, these blogs will be more community-focused. This could include promoting community events, sharing content - screenshots, videos, etc., community spotlight interviews with members, and more! First off, I don’t think I ever did a proper introduction! I’m DaraDef. I’m the Community Manager for New World. I was born and raised here in Calgary (where New World HQ is). I grew up playing Nintendo 64 (GoldenEye 007, Gauntlet Legends, and Mario Party FTW), Goosebumps books, and watching Pokemon - Classic 90s kid! I got into PC games when a friend introduced me to Counter-Strike 1.6 when I was in 8th grade, which I quickly became obsessed with. Since then, gaming and pop culture have been an integral part of my life. I graduated from Mount Royal University with a degree in Communication and even made a gaming club while I was there called Club N3Rd. My favourite weapons in Sandstorm are the VHS-2 and the QBZ-03. Being community manager for NWI so far has been awesome! I’ve met a lot of great community members, and I'm looking forward to the future, and making more of these blog posts! Mod Tools AlphaWe recently rolled out the first phase of our alpha level editor to a group of 200 awesome modders. This is the full Unreal Engine editor that we use internally. It allows you to create maps, custom gamemodes, mutators, and theaters. Since we released the alpha build of our level editor, we have already received valuable feedback on the current state of the tools and documentation. We included a quick-start guide with our tools to allow everyone to create exciting new levels for Insurgency: Sandstorm. The initial rollout has been primarily focused on custom maps, but the tools are capable of a lot more than that. We’ve included a custom Blueprint which you can use as an example of how to create custom gamemodes. We’re looking to expand the capability of the tools over time and expose more functionality through Blueprint scripting. When we’re ready to release mod support to the public, you’ll be able to browse, subscribe, and automatically download mods through our in-game mod menu. In addition, you will automatically download any mods required to play customized community servers. We're looking forward to publicly rolling out the first phase of our mod tools this Spring which will feature the level editor, mutators, and custom gamemodes. Here is a sneak peak of a couple of maps being worked on by the community! From @iTomBass "In terms of the actual map, it's coming along nicely, it still super early but the main theme I am aiming for is a heavy urban environment with my main inspiration coming from the Battlefield 3 DLC “Aftermath” I've also taken inspiration from many real-world locations with areas of conflict; watching a couple [of] documentaries always tends to give me some cool ideas." "Right now, a lot of the map is super basic and blocky. I'm generally just trying to get an idea for the space, and I haven't really gotten into many small details nor really meshing interiors. I'm generally just having fun! I think progress isn't too bad especially considering I missed out on the first wave of keys and had to jealously watch others in the discord channel for a week before I could start." "That's about all I can say right now, I'm really loving the mod tools ATM and back when Sandstorm was announced a few years ago I made a promise to myself that I'd hopefully try to make myself at the forefront of the mapping scene for it when it was to release...so we will see how things go. And I'd just like to thank you and the rest of NWI for creating such an amazing game!" From @invalid_nick Map: Wolf-Land "Ever since I first got my hands on Insurgency I've wanted to play in a forest environment, this map takes inspiration from the Caspian Hyrcanian forest in northern Iran. It’s very lush, very green, with 40-50 meter high beech trees. I started designing this map when I first heard that the Sandstorms tools were coming, so far I've spent about 10 hours playing around with the Insurgency tools and roughly 20 hours creating the map. The map is divided into three distinct themes: pasture farmlands with stables and cabins, dense forest with rocks and creeks, and a clear-cut logging area." This vista image shows some of the surroundings. Another layer of high snow covered mountains will be added in the distance. This image shows a road leading through the forest. On this humid morning, the fog lies dense in the forest. This image was grabbed close to the river at the bottom of the valley where the fog is most dense. "The fog is based on height; the higher up you are in the map the further you can see. [it] also plays an important part in the uniqueness of the gameplay. Dense fog means shorter distance and easier to sneak past enemy defences." Currently, the map only has firefight-mode implemented, but I'm aiming to support all major game modes. It's very early in development and I've only tested it with bots, I'm looking forward to at some point releasing it to the community and hear what everyone has to say! Sandstorm Partner Spotlight: xSinpaiixHaving recently rolled out our Partner Program, it’s time to showcase one of our partners! Meet streamer and content creator, xSinpaiix[www.twitch.tv]. I had the chance to ask Sinpaii a few questions about getting into gaming, Sandstorm, and content creation. Q: Let's start with who you are - a brief introduction. How did you get involved in gaming, and how did that transition to streaming/content creating? A: Hello everyone my name is Sinpaii (pronounced Sin-Pie) I’m a Twitch/Youtube content creator & also dabble in neon animation. I got my start in gaming with the Sega Genesis and have been in love ever since. My first game was Mortal Kombat so I was essentially raised to be Kompetitive. Q: Are there any content creators that you look up to? A: I look up to small content creators who work for their goals. Those streamers & content creators with the Mamba mentality the ones who love what they do and never give up. There are tons of dope big content creators as well that I love to see succeed. But Sinpaii is more of a started from the bottom now we here sort of guy. Speak anything you want into existence. Q: When did you play your first FPS? What was it, and why did you like it? A: I honestly cannot remember my very first FPS, I want to say it was GoldenEye, But my most vivid memories are that of my brother and I playing Time splitters 2 and me being the ape running around the arena killing things. I think I’ve been in love ever since. Q: How did you get into Insurgency: Sandstorm? A: I played source around the same time sandstorm was in beta. At the time if you owned source you could get Sandstorm at a discount. So I bought it and immediately fell in love. Q: What is your favourite mode? A:Competitive firefight without a doubt. My runner up is Push. Q: What keeps you coming back to the game? A: It’s the gunplay and immersion that I just can’t get away from. I play other fps, but there always seems to be something missing. I love how grounded in realism it is. And those moments where shit hits the fan. Q: What was your biggest accomplishment in the game? A: Probably some of my weapon review videos! All of which I record in Max fidelity, & in 4k for the community, hope you guys enjoy! Insurgency Sandstorm - AK-74 Weapon Review (4K) Q: What upcoming content are you looking forward to? A: In order: 1: As-Val (please gibs) 2: Mod support 3: More official Maps Q: What do you get up to when you're not streaming or gaming? A: I’m practicing neon animation that appears in my gameplay & other videos, brewing coffee, EATING FOOD & falling asleep, then waking up to a random YouTube video that has nothing to do with what I was watching. Q: Will we see you in the upcoming DGL Tourney? A: Possibly! That all depends on my schedule. If I am unable to participate in this one, you will eventually see Sinpaii competing in a DGL tourney. !So Linkypoo That’s it for now! Be sure to check out Sinpaii’s content below. Twitch: http://twitch.tv/xSinpaiix Youtube: xSinpaii Twitter: @xSinpaiixTV Instagram: @xSinpaiix[www.instagram.com] Dev Live StreamsAs an effort to further improve our communication, we have fired back up our regular Twitch live streams[twitch.tv]. We will be streaming every 2nd Wednesday of the month. I’ll feature some gameplay if there’s new content or limited modes to show, and then follow with a Q&A with Mikee, our Lead Game Designer. We’ll answer questions from the chat as well as some pre-made questions collected from the Steam Forums. For the next stream on Wednesday, February 27 at 2:00 PM MST, I'll be away at PAX East! So Mikee and Lead Level Designer, Jeroen Van Werkhoven will be taking over the stream, giving a sneak peak of the new upcoming map PowerPlant, and continuing to field questions from the chat. Be sure to follow us on Twitch[www.twitch.tv] and turn notifications on to see when we go live! You can check out our last live stream here. Upcoming Competitive EventsThe Digital Gaming League (DGL) is hosting their second International Insurgency: Sandstorm World Cup on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. For more information and to sign up click here[www.thedgl.com]. The Sandstorm Esports League (SEL)[discord.gg] season 1 kicked off on February 15. Be sure to check out a few matches tomorrow on their Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv]. Match Schedule: 1st game: TAW vs RAGE :: 5 PM CET 2nd: Spice Boiz vs MOLOT :: 7 PM CET 3rd: SoB vs ERROR :: 8 PM CET If you’re planning a competitive event or would like to promote your league, please reach out to me at ddefreitas@newworldinteractive.com Double XP Monthly Lastly, I'd like to announce that we will be adding double XP across all playlists the last weekend of each month, starting at 11:00 AM MST on Friday, February 27 - 11:00 AM MST Monday, March 1. That's it for now folks! Thanks for being a part of the community, and talk to you soon! - DaraDef Community Manager View the full article
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SANDSTORM News New Limited Time Playlist: Double Hardcore
sincity posted a topic in Sandstorm Discussion
Double the hardcore. Double the pant-shitting. Jump into our next limited time Co-op playlist, Double Hardcore. Everyone dies with one shot! On until March 3. Let us know in the comments what limited time playlist you'd like to see next! View the full article -
Greetings! My name is Derek, and I am the Head of Production at New World Interactive. I hope that the new year is treating everyone well thus far, and that everyone is feeling refreshed after the holiday! This month’s SoP will be a little lighter in terms of content, but I’ll be sharing some details about what we’re working on and working towards throughout the Spring. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it! Key Points of State of Production #5 PAX East presence + details of where and who will be there from NWI. Hitreg/De-Sync issue commentary + where we’re at in resolving this issue Player Reporting Features: Expansion of basic support Tournaments, prizes, competitions, partnership program, and more! New content + new map + next update teaser Adding Domination layouts to all maps to expand mode accessibility A.I. overhaul to improve the co-op experience in terms of consistent behaviors PAX East Presence If you weren’t aware, New World Interactive will be attending PAX East in Boston with our publisher and partner, Focus Home Interactive! We’ll be demoing a playthrough of the game in a co-op capacity, and on controllers. A large part of this will be related to publicly testing some adjustments we’re making to our controller support for the PC version, in anticipation of our console release. What you play at PAX East will likely serve as the foundation for controller configurations for the console release later this year, but we are also looking to hear feedback on what we have so far. PAX East will include several key members of staff whom the community likely knows and loves, including our Communication Director Jon Higgins, and our Community Manager DaraDef. If you’re attending PAX East, make sure to swing by and check out our booth (#29017), and meet some key members of the team! “Ghost bullets”/De-Sync issue commentary While we’ve received reports of this in the past, the inconsistent nature of this bug has made it extremely elusive to track down for our development team. Unfortunately, I am sad to report that this bug seems to have re-emerged, both in terms of prevalence and frequency. Internally, we’ve created a dedicated strike team to track down and identify the root cause. We have explored numerous solutions to this problem, but thus far, our initial hypotheses and testing hasn’t revealed a definitive cause. Our Technical Director, Steve Swires, has also opened a support ticket with Epic, just to ensure that this issue isn’t an engine-level conflict. Additionally, we’ve enlisted the help of the community, and thanks to the community’s efforts, we’ve been able to hone in on a few likely start points for the problem. We have been aware of this issue since last week, but at my discretion, we have not deployed a hotfix at this time. There are multiple reasons for this: Initial regression tests related to proposed hot-fixes were unsuccessful, and in some cases, exacerbated the issue We have been experiencing a slew of illnesses within the studio, likely related to weather changes and the fierce Calgary winter I did not wish to deploy an experimental hotfix on Friday that may not have fixed the issue, but COULD have further complicated the issue/added additional problems. I’d also like to take a moment to apologize for the impact that this issue has created for all of our players. I’d also like to take a moment to apologize for the disruption that these bugs have had on our ranked queues, on tournament planning and league-based play, and on our general players’ quality of life experience in-game. I know both the SEL and the DGL have been forced to postpone defining some key dates for some tournaments they want to conduct in the Spring. I fully accept the responsibility for how this has been addressed and handled, and quite frankly, we’re learning a lot from this experience, too. We know this is an extremely frustrating problem, and we’ve already reached out to Epic Games to see if they can clarify if this is an engine-related conflict. I wish there was a better explanation for why this is such a timely endeavor, but we had to work our way through this process, which unfortunately has taken a degree of time longer than initially anticipated. As for resolution, it is impossible to know for sure if this will impact the issue at-scale, but we are planning to deploy a hotfix this week. Based on initial waves of testing, it appears to be a successful fix for the issue. If it doesn’t fix the issue, we’ll spin up a community “Mega-thread” and try to collect as much information as possible, and proceed forward with working the problem more completely. Player Reporting Features: Expanded Firstly, I’d like to thank our community for taking full advantage of using our 1.0 version of the player reporting tool! Participation rates were significantly higher than we expected for our first iteration, and it highlights the value of this implementation for us as a company. From the first month we introduced this feature into the game till today, we had over 51,000 reports, with an average of 870 reports a day! I thought it might be fun to share some of the stats related to this with the community, so I asked our Lead Automation Engineer, Phen, to scrape some data and stats to share publicly. The most reports we saw in one day was 2075 during the free weekend in December, or 1.5 reports per minute of that day. We saw a drastic increase in the average number of “Team Killing” reports during free weekend, with a peak of 269 counted teamkilling reports in a single day. We suspect this is due to the volume of new and returning players. Out of all the reports 52% of them contain comments about what happened A little over 90% of the reports with a comment can fit in a SMS Text Message (160 Characters). Our highest reported players are due to hacking/cheating reports, with the worst offender having 135 reports - this user has since been banned! We receive two times more reports during the hours of 2:00 PM MST to 10:00 PM MST. We’re planning to expand upon the capabilities here later in the year, but for the interim, this early version is serving its purpose well-enough that we can shift development efforts to more critical studio needs. Tournaments, Prizes, Competitions, the Partnership Program, and more! Back in October, we had a few open meetings with the competitive community on Discord [discord.gg]to collect feedback as well as explore ideas to improve the competitive scene. We have since created a competitive leaderboard[leaderboard.sandstorm.game] where players can keep track of their score/placement in Competitive. Additionally, we have increased the visibility of our community's competitive events by better supporting and promoting tournaments through all of our social media platforms. This month, we were excited to support The Digital Gaming League’s first tournament of the year. The Newblood PUG tournament was catered to players new or less experienced in the competitive scene. Congratulations to the winners: Nate.cr, LsteveTM, werewolf, papadeuce, and Toasty Joe! Quick Stats: Number of teams: 8 Twitch Average Viewers (on DGL Channel[www.twitch.tv]): 148 Live Views: 8,783 Time Streamed: 4 hours and 39 minutes Average Chatters: 77 Average Match Length: 25-35 minutes You can watch the Newblood tournament vod here. The next DGL tournament is the World Cup on February 22/23 1:oo PM - 7:00 PM EST. Those looking to find teams can join the DGL Discord[discord.thedgl.com]. The Sandstorm Esports League is another community league that we have been working closely with to support. Registration for the SEL Pro League Season 1 is open now. Register here[forms.gle]! If you are interested in the SEL and upcoming events please join their Discord[discordapp.com]. We rolled out the Sandstorm Partnership Program for content creators on January 15th! The goal of the program is to help creators build their channels and communities around Sandstorm to continue to grow across Youtube and Twitch. The perks the partners will be getting are ingame cosmetics, codes for giveaways, partner merch. With a focus on growth opportunities such as streaming on the steam store page, and networking opportunities with other partners. Some of you may already know some of the partners as they are well known in the community, but some will be fairly unknown as we look in bringing new channels to Sandstorm from competitors. We’ll be announcing the first wave very soon! New Map + New Guns + New Cosmetics We know it has been awhile since we’ve released a content update. Our last content update occurred on September 10th, 2019. Rest assured our next major content update will be coming in the Spring. Originally, we had planned to release a console-exclusive map for a limited time period. The map in question, “Power Plant”, would be released with a 2-week exclusivity window for consoles, and would then be released on PC a bit later. We thought this would be a great way of generating some excitement, hype, and a degree of ownership amongst console players, and would grant them temporary access to a map that they’d have the chance to experience slightly earlier than our PC community. However, after consulting with our porting and publishing partners, they suggested that we not proceed in this direction. As such, we’ve been working on a perfectly new, functional, ready-to-go map. Instead, we’ve opted to release this map in our Spring update. We’ll continue testing it over the next few weeks to have it in a better state before deployment. We hope you’ll like it; it takes place in a unique setting that you haven’t seen before yet in Sandstorm. Furthermore, the community has been asking for new weapons for awhile. We’ll be shipping 2 new weapons in our Spring update as well. Additionally, we’ll be putting out a few new cosmetic items, for both the Security and the Insurgents, including the headset, leather jacket, and mask. Adding Domination Layouts to All Maps Given how well-received the introduction of our Domination mode was when we deployed it last year, we thought the community might enjoy being able to play the mode on every map in the game. As such, in our Spring update, players will be able to play Domination on all existing maps, as well as any maps we release in the future. Additionally, we made several improvements relating to spawn locations based on your feedback. We had several reports from players where they were spawning in the wrong direction, looking away from the objectives, as well as spawning too close to objectives or in the middle of a room directly in the line of fire. A.I. Overhaul For a long while, the co-op enthusiasts within our community have been hankering for some updates and changes geared towards the PvE side of gameplay. Your pleas have been heard. With our biggest update ever planned for later this year (codenamed “Nightfall”) we’ll need to implement and re-factor certain aspects of the AI to ensure they are able to behave intelligently within the context of this release. This includes improving the consistency of AI behavior for both day and night maps, better-supporting new and community-created Co-Op modes, and future modes that we release to the community. I know this is just a bread-crumb trail, but I still wanted to share it, even if it is a bit early, so that co-op players know that we’ve not forgotten about them! Return of our Developer Livestreams / Community Updates etc..! Many players in the community have been asking for more communication from the team beyond these State of Production posts. Now that our office setup is completed and streaming gear acquired, our Community Manager DaraDef will be livestreaming on our Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv] playing Sandstorm and doing a Q&A every second Wednesday. Our next stream is Wednesday February 12, 2:00 PM Mountain Time and the one after that on February 26th. If you missed the livestream from this past Wednesday, you can check it out here. Additionally, Dara will be starting a Community Blog, differing from the State of Production posts in that it will be community focused - announcing contests, promoting community events, sharing community content, and more. That’s all for this State of Production, we’ll be back with more information soon! Be sure to follow @InsurgencyGame on social media for regular bite-sized updates. Note: This Steam news version is tailored for PC players, the full version is available on our website[newworldinteractive.com].View the full article
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StabilityFixed a frequent crash encountered by certain players during the splash screen sequence or shortly after arriving at the main menu. Fixed a potential server crash caused by the code that checks for spawn locations. Fixed a potential server crash caused by the soundscape system if it encountered an invalidly set soundscape. Bug FixesFixed an issue where after firing an underbarrel grenade launcher, then reloading, should the player immediately resupply, equipping the grenade launcher again and firing it would not result in projectiles being shot. Fixed an issue that would allow players to slide just as they landed from a jumping crouch which was not the intended behavior. Fixed an issue where launchers could always get an additional +1 to ammo no matter their carrier level. Fixed an issue that prevented the “Grounded” achievement from being obtainable when using a rocket launcher to destroy a helicopter. Fixed an issue where during modes such as Domination if you immediately respawned it was possible to see the killer information panel fade out twice. Fixed an issue where grenade particles would remain on round start even if thrown during the “Game Starting” phase. Fixed an issue where during the last frames of the M24 dry reload animation the left arm would move in an erratic manner. Fixed an issue where the third person reload animation for the Mosin would not show the hand following the bolt correctly at the end of the reload animation. Fixed an issue where the lesson panel popup would not have the text correctly aligned if running the game in certain languages. Fixed a visual issue with the M45 and M1911 that would show any barrel attachment as floating slightly in front of the weapon in the loadout menu. Fixed an issue where first time players would not see the correct key bindings prompts displayed for the crouch and vault lessons. Gameplay ImprovementsInfinite resupply in spawn zones either from the loadout menu or resupply crate is now only available for 45 seconds after the round has started and the player has remained inside said spawn zone.Visual ImprovementsCreated a new set of unique third person standing reload animations for the Mosin-Nagant. Map FixesSummitFixed a major player collision issue near to the E objective on Checkpoint Security which would allow players to pass through the geometry. Fixed an issue where certain rocks were clipping with a building. Fixed an issue allowing an unintended sight line into the spawn area on Firefight East. HideoutFixed a large number of clipping issues that would allow the player to become stuck if vaulting over certain props. Adjusted the playable area for Firefight East. RefineryFixed a major player collision issue which would allow players to fall through a specific metal catwalk. Fixed various minor prop clipping and texture stretching issues. Fixed an issue where the player could vault through a chainlink fence prop. Fixed an issue where the player could pixel walk on the ledge of a building. Fixed an issue where a number of floating street lamp props could be seen throughout the map. Fixed some ground texture seam issues. HillsideFixed an issue on Push Security where the vehicle would not spawn for players due to its spawner being invalid. Fixed an issue allowing players to capture the A objective on Domination while hidden behind a curtain. Fixed an issue where players on the B objective on Domination could capture the objective from an unintended place. Fixed a number of misleading door props that look like they could be opened by the player. Fixed an issue that would allow the player to get under a specific surface when deploying their bipod. Fixed an issue where the player could become stuck when jumping in areas near to the Insurgent spawn or Security spawns. MinistryFixed various spots where the player could become stuck between geometry. Fixed an issue where the player could pixel walk on the ledge of a staircase leading to the underground parking lot. OutskirtsFixed an exploit where players could spawn camp the enemy team at the C objective on Security Push. PrecinctFixed a camping spot that would allow players to obtain an unfair advantage. Fixed an issue where a number of floating street lamp props could be seen throughout the map. CrossingFixed an out-of-bounds path that was not included in the playable area. View the full article
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In the next few minutes, we will be rolling out a small server-side fix for an issue affecting purchased cosmetics not showing until the game was restarted. This very small patch will take effect the next time you relaunch the game, this should not cause disruption to games already in progress. Enjoy the Free Week! View the full article
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This week marks one year since the PC launch of Insurgency: Sandstorm during this time our team at New World Interactive have been busy continuing to build and expand the game. To celebrate our one year anniversary on Steam, we are excited to give all players an opportunity to experience our immersive team-based, tactical FPS during our 1 year anniversary Free Week which kicks off December 10th until December 17th. Since release, we've added free new content through several updates including 3 new maps, 4 new game modes, 10 new weapons, dozens of cosmetics, player reporting, and more. There's never been a better time to hop into the game. Check out our anniversary trailer below for a recap of the past year and a preview of what's still to come in 2020! View the full article
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Greetings! My name is Derek, and I am the Head of Production at New World Interactive. I am happy to share this holiday season update with all of you! This month we’ll be discussing several key development decisions related to our game, some of which many users have likely been waiting to hear about for quite some time. Our efforts at optimization are well underway, and I’m excited to have some guest commentary from our Level Design Director pertaining to these efforts. Firstly, we’ll be hosting a FREE WEEK for Insurgency: Sandstorm from December 10th - December 17th. This will fall on the heels of our most recent update, Update 1.5. We wanted to be able to showcase how far our game has come since we released nearly a year ago and given our success related to free weekends, we thought we might try a longer duration for the event. Secondly, over the past month, we enrolled the assistance of Altagram to further our localization efforts. Insurgency is now localized into 15 additional languages, which further improves our reach to players from various regions around the world. This is the perfect time to give our game a try or to recommend it to friends! Additionally, we’ll be taking our first shot at rolling out a leaderboard feature, which will be further supplemented with a reset to rankings, as well as some adjustments to decay rates. We’ve created and rolled out a brand new support website[support.newworldinteractive.com], which should drastically improve our forward-facing service capabilities for troubleshooting, bug reporting, and providing feedback to the development team. In an effort to help better enforce our community guidelines, as well as to improve our player’s general experience, we have also rolled out an alpha version of a player reporting system. This should help us to slowly and steadily document toxic behavior that is prevalent in our game, and to identify the worst offenders for eventual removal from our ecosystem. I’ll be closing with some announcements pertaining specifically to our alpha rollout of modding tools, some prior commitments we have determined we will not be supporting moving forward, and some updates on the console release. Without further ado, let’s dive into SoP#4! Key Points of State of Production #4 Optimized map performance for Outskirts, Precinct, Refinery, and Summit Introducing localization to 15 new regions for Insurgency: Sandstorm Introducing a competitive leaderboard, competitive rank reset, and adjustments to rank decay Introducing Support Desk 2.0; Getting help when you need it Introducing a prototype “Player Reporting System” as a means of measuring, messaging, and tracking of toxic behaviors within our community Alpha rollout of our first wave of modding tools for content creators and enthusiasts Redaction of select commitments Console Updates Optimized Map Performance In a continuous push to improve our game’s performance, one of the first necessary elements was to try and improve the memory requirements and frame rates of some of our most demanding maps. As mentioned in the previous SoP,[newworldinteractive.com] the 4 maps we chose to focus on were Outskirts, Precinct, Refinery, and Summit. In order to best detail some of these changes, I’ve invited our Level Design Director, Jeroen van Werkhoven, to provide additional commentary and detail on this month’s SoP. “Over the last couple of months we have been working on improving the performance in the four maps Derek stated above. Our main goal was to improve frame rate and peak memory usage. We noticed in our benchmarks that, even though we previously conducted optimization passes, that some of our maps are still using a high amount of memory, and the frame rate isn’t always optimal and inconsistent. The first map we conducted our optimization pass on was Outskirts. We went through the map with our Art Director, Michael Grills, and the art team was able to find opportunities to optimize the level further. We didn’t look at it directly from a technical standpoint, but more from how the player would experience the level. We repeated the same steps for our other maps. Sometimes it would mean simply cutting things from the maps, like reducing grass or removing props that were barely visible for the player and don’t have an impact on gameplay. Also, we had a large number of merged meshes in our levels. A merged mesh is a set of modular assets combined into a single mesh. We used this technique to improve the frame rate, but at the same time, this leads to increased memory usage because each mesh is unique. Precinct’s peak memory was close to 6GB, which had a significant performance impact on lower spec machines. We reduced it to nearly 5GB. Outskirts average FPS was previously 69, and now in our latest benchmark it climbed to 92. On Refinery and Summit we improved the FPS stability; less severe frame drops should occur. Of course, we have to wait for the results on different machines when the update goes live, but the numbers so far look very promising.” Insurgency: Sandstorm: Now Available in over 20 Languages! One of our biggest initiatives within Insurgency: Sandstorm is to expand the visibility of our title to numerous new regions and demographics across the globe. In the original Insurgency, our translation efforts were predominantly done by community volunteers. This helped us to improve our reach, but at a quality level that left a lot to be desired. We recognized the value of this community initiative, which is why we recently collaborated with Altagram to help localize our game in over 15 new regions. Insurgency: Sandstorm is now available in the following languages: Czech Danish Dutch Finnish Hungarian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portuguese (Portugal) Portuguese (Brazilian) Swedish Thai Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Turkish English French German Italian Russian Spanish (LATAM) Leaderboards + Rank Reset + Adjustments to Ranked Decay Over the past 30 days, we have made a concentrated push to start talking with our competitive community. We hosted several community discord sessions, began a dialogue with the leadership of the DGL[www.thedgl.com], and have even discussed plans to collaborate with competitive organizations to expand tournament participation and visibility. These talks are on hold while we act on the first wave of feedback. As we continue to assess and evaluate what we’d like to do vs. what we are actually able to do, we chose a few of the highly-requested features to implement in the holiday update. We’ll resume our dialog with these organizations in the beginning of 2020. Some of the feedback we’ve discussed related to a lack of queuing and participation. There were many attributable factors at play here, but one commonly recurring statement related to competitive rank decay being too minimal to encourage people to regularly queue and play. Given that we’re hosting a free week from December 10th - December 17th, which may appeal to players who also have a competitive mindset, we decided we’d like to reset all rankings in an effort to measure participation from a day-1 perspective. This will give us the ability to identify participation rates and the impact of reducing ranked decay. In an effort for players to have better visibility into participation rates, their standing within the community, and their overall ranking, we’re also introducing a competitive leaderboard that will be available via your web browser. After we collect and weigh said-feedback, we can determine what additional development time (if any) would be dedicated towards fleshing it out more comprehensively. Introduction of our New Support Site One of the most persistent problems we’ve experienced as a company historically was a lack of bandwidth to provide comprehensive troubleshooting solutions to our user base. Previously, we were using Happyfox, but we experienced a myriad of issues related to administrative controls and the distribution of tasks within the desk. As a result, players who were reaching out to us with feedback on gameplay issues, technical problems, or feature requests to improve the quality of life of our ecosystem went unheard. I am pleased to announce that our Support Manager, Nick Ward, has been working tirelessly over the past two months to completely overhaul and re-design our support capabilities. We decided Freshdesk was the right decision for hosting our support suite over the next 12 months. We based this decision on its capacity for easy scalability, user-friendly nature for filing troubleshooting requests, and ease of navigating knowledge base articles. The support website can be found here: https://support.newworldinteractive.com. This page will not be limited only to Insurgency: Sandstorm, but will also provide support for all of our titles in our portfolio. This is a new initiative for us and will be continuously improving over the next six months. We welcome all feedback regarding layout, flow, and proposed documentation suggestions. Introduction of a Player Reporting System A somewhat prevalent complaint that we’ve observed and received emails about pertains to players who are engaging in activities and behaviors that go against our established Community Guidelines. In an effort to reduce toxicity within our pre-existing player base, as well as to better message to players when they are engaging in disruptive behavior, we’ve introduced a prototype player reporting system. This system is accessible via the scoreboard on a drop-down menu, and can be accessed mid-game. Player reporting will work in a variety of ways. Reports will carry a certain “weight” threshold; this weight is identified based upon the number of reports a player files vs. the number of reports that are accurately filed where action can be taken. Players who accurately report players the majority of the time will have more impactful reporting weight; players who attempt to use the system to troll or as a means of harassment will have a “lighter” weight, meaning their reports will be less impactful/actionable as a whole. If you are reported repeatedly, you will receive a text-box notification informing you of your intolerable behavior. When an accurate report is filed and action is taken, the reporting players will also receive a notification alerting them to the fact that they were helpful in identifying and reporting toxic behavior, and that their efforts have helped to improve Sandstorm’s community as a whole. As this is our first implementation of this feature, some degree of bugs may exist; we are welcoming constructive feedback to improve our system. This addition should help us to better understand what types of offenses are most prevalent, who the worst offenders are, and in time, help to refine and tighten our Community Guidelines to be more representative of the type of play experience we’re seeking to establish as a standard for Insurgency: Sandstorm. Modding Tools: Part 1 I know everyone here has been waiting for news on when NWI is planning to roll out mod support. I’m happy to announce that our first wave of mod tools has entered a closed-alpha state with this update. We’re sharing our tools in a level editor with basic functions that will be similar to the options our team currently has available at their disposal. We are currently accepting sign ups from experienced community level designers to help our team bug fix and gather feedback. Community members who are interested can sign up at the link below: https://steamcommunity.com/app/581320/discussions/0/1744512174760308602/ We’re doing this in a graduated rollout capacity to ensure that what we have is working as intended and functional, as well as to limit initial participation to experienced modders. In turn, this will allow us to focus our efforts to best determine where we will need to commit development time to the refinement of these tools, so that when we eventually deploy an “open” rollout that it is accessible, easy to use, and working as intended. Redaction and Confirmation of Null Commitments In the previous SoP[newworldinteractive.com], I had mentioned that we were re-evaluating our roadmap that was drafted earlier in the year. It was a very long and thorough meeting, but we emerged with a clearer picture of what we were and were not able to commit to in the new year. I know many users across various mediums have been asking us about some of these originally-promised features for some time, and I want to speak on the things that we will not be committing development time towards in our path forward. Here are the features we have decided do not make business sense for us to pursue in the future: Story mode/Campaign Mac Support Linux Support Local Play on PvP modes Weapons on Back New foregrip upgrade options We did not take this decision-making process lightly; all nominated cuts have been reviewed, re-reviewed, and discussed numerous times internally. At the end of these discussions, our criteria came down to “Does this proposed content present a reasonable business case in exchange for the additional development time required to deliver these features?” and in these cases, the answer was “No.” We recognize that these were things that, at some point or another, were promised by the studio, and we apologize for mismanaging expectations. Moving forward, we will be more deliberate in our messaging and our commitments to our players. We’ve grown a lot with Insurgency: Sandstorm, and we’ve learned a lot throughout that process. These lessons will make up our future projects going forward. Console Updates In closing, I wanted to share with the community that our team is plowing full speed ahead with our efforts at bringing Insurgency: Sandstorm to console. Over the past few months, our partner, Black Tower, has been helping us to define and navigate timelines to deliver a release candidate which will be used for the TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist). We’re happy to report that everything is on track, and in the next State of Production in January, I’m hoping to be able to share more concrete details on when you will be able to play our game with friends on console View the full article
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Update 1.5 is here with performance improvements, changes to the matchmaking system, a new PvP game mode “Domination”, a player reporting system, gameplay adjustments, and more. Thank you to everyone who shared their feedback with us since our last major update. We’ve made a bunch of improvements to the matchmaking system based on your input. In addition, we’ve further optimized the game and added a new Versus game mode, Domination. Although this mode was originally intended as a sample mode for modders, we decided to include it in 1.5 officially due to how well it performed during testing, its ability to function as a strong onboarding experience for new players, and to respond to the requests we frequently get to permanently reintroduce Team Deathmatch into the game. We’ve made a number of gameplay changes including adjustments to weapon sway and recoil, a slight sprint speed reduction, improved reliability of smoke grenades, and more advanced optional separation of vault, crouch, slide and jump keybindings. In celebration of the update and the holidays, we’ll be running 2x XP across all playlists. See the full changelist below: OptimizationOptimized CPU by preventing characters from ticking each frame when they are not being rendered. After benchmarking internally on higher end systems we have deduced this is now saving 0.5 to 1.0 ms per frame, or the equivalent of 6 frames per second. However, the impact of this optimization will be mostly felt by mid to lower tier systems where this gain could be more considerable. Made major art and optimization passes on several maps. The target of this optimization pass was to increase average frame rate, improve frame stability, and increase visual fidelity. Outskirts Refinery Precinct SummitOptimized environment assets by turning off tick events where they were not needed. Matchmaking ImprovementsPlaylist Selection & Queueing Multiple playlists within a single game type may now be queued into at the same time. Added an estimated queue time measurement that will give a player in queue an estimate of how long it will take to find a match. Removed the player count for playlists to prevent potential player bias that may have affected playlist population on certain playlists like Firefight. The Ground Battle playlist has now been separated into Push and Frontline playlists.Team Balance Added ability for players to manually switch teams if there is an imbalance. Added team auto-balance feature where if teams go unbalanced for too long the game will automatically switch players from the excess player team over to the team with fewer players. Players will be notified with a warning in case they want to volunteer themselves manually.Joining Friends Mid-match Added ability for players to join other party members who are already playing in-game.Player Reporting System To report a player, pull up the scoreboard with Tab, right-click the offending player’s name, and press “Report Player”. Offending players will receive a notification box informing them of their disruptive behavior.We will continue to monitor and refine the system’s weights and penalties over time, this is just a first implementation. New Versus Mode: DominationFight over three objectives which give points to the controlling team. All weapons are available while playing this game mode. Respawn quickly in random locations around the map similar to Team Deathmatch. Domination is supported on the following maps:Hideout Hillside Farmhouse Crossing MinistryGameplay ImprovementsWe’ve worked hard to listen to the players and make improvements to various gameplay mechanics. Our intent is to directly address player feedback about shooting and aiming not being rewarding enough of skill, to improve player movement and acceleration to feel more controlled, and to add some flexibility to certain key bindings which have been popularly requested. Made weapon sway more predictable and less punishing when standing and moving. Set up Lissajous curve fixed pattern for sway instead of the more random current Perlin noise pattern seen in the public version since release. Reduced sway speed by 20%. Sway magnitude has not been changed. Reduced incentive for crouching and proning to reduce sway (crouching now reduces sway by 50% instead of 60%, prone now reduces sway by 70% instead of 80%). Reduced sway penalties when moving (sway magnitude now increases by 15% instead of 50%, sway speed now increases by 50% instead of 200%). Slightly reduced the sway speed and magnitude reduction when focusing to counterbalance the other sway changes (focusing now reduces sway speed and magnitude by 60% instead of 80%).Made recoil when standing and leaning less penalized compared to other stances. Reduced overall recoil when aiming down your sights (ADS) by 15%. Increased recoil when crouching and proning to compensate against the above change (crouching now 20% less recoil instead of 40%, prone now has 30% less recoil instead of 60%).[Reduced recoil penalty for leaning when low weight (lowest weight now has 10% more recoil when leaning instead of 20%). Recoil penalty while moving should be consistent across all weights rather than favoring players who are heavier (heavier players previously had a greater reduction in recoil). Increased Mk 14 EBR recoil.Reduced top sprint speed by 8%. Smoke Grenade Improvements Fixed an issue where smoke grenade clouds were inconsistent for players on a server. Now smoke clouds appear the same for all players. Smoke grenades expand faster to make them more useful and is no longer frame-rate capped.Advanced Keybinding Options Jump and vault can now be bound separately or as a combined key. The combined key is bound by default. Crouch and slide can now be bound separately or as a combined key. The combined key is bound by default.Bug FixesFixed an issue where it was possible for the player’s weapon selection to become soft locked when picking up and throwing back explosives under certain circumstances, which prevented them from being able to change weapons after it occurred. Fixed an issue where smoke, incendiary, and Molotov explosive particles would not be rendered if the player was inside a game menu before they detonated, leading to cases of invisible fire and smoke. Fixed an issue with the Rocket Barrage fire support that would prevent fired rockets from landing on their targets if they were called on a position too far away from its origin. Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to switch to the C-4 or IED detonator when in a vehicle. Fixed an issue with Lesson prompts potentially creating a hitch on lower tier systems when displayed. Fixed an issue where floating shells could be seen on the M870 while ADS and cocking the weapon. Fixed an issue where an animation would play twice when firing the last round of weapons with hold back bolts. Fixed an issue with the third person mesh for the 4x C79 optic, which had some visibly jagged edges. Fixed an odd visual issue which was related to the bare arm cosmetic and forearm weights. Fixed an issue with the M9 pistol, where a hole in the rear of the first person model allowed you to see the loaded ammunition through it. Fixed a visual issue where fingertips could be seen protruding through certain glove cosmetics. Fixed an issue where weapons could briefly disappear when scavenging in third person. Fixed an issue where the VHS-2 would not receive more than one magazine when the Extended Magazines attachment was equipped. Fixed an issue where magazines could appear in the bottom left of the screen while speed reloading certain assault rifle type weapons. Fixed a third person reload animation issue with bolt action rifles while prone. Fixed an issue with the scale of the AT4 launcher causing it to become partially invisible. Fixed an issue where players could potentially stand while performing a slide. Fixed an issue where third person grenade launchers could look visually broken at certain distances. Updated the RPG-7, M3 MAAWS, AT4 and Panzerfaust 3 first person iron sight and hip fire animations to time them more directly with the audio and the projectile leaving the launcher, this should prevent cases where, when firing a rocket, it could leave the launcher at an unpredictable angle. Fixed an issue with the Panzerfaust 3 launcher using the incorrect first person sprint animation. Fixed an issue with the settings menu that caused the reset to defaults modal window to appear behind the settings window. Fixed an issue with the end round reason displaying the generic reason instead of the correct one. Fixed an issue where the M240B could be seen as flickering. Fixed a weight painting issue with the third person VHS-2 grenade launcher, which caused visual artefacts at certain distances. Fixed an issue where a player would resume their third person gas mask equip or unequip animation on respawn after being killed during that animation sequence. Fixed an issue where under barrel grenade launchers could occasionally be rendered invisible after the insertion sequence in Checkpoint. Fixed an issue where player gear would jitter erratically when initially rendering. Fixed an issue where the player’s leg could not be seen correctly when breaching a door in local play after respawning. Fixed an issue where the player’s arm would look odd while reloading a shotgun prone or crouched in third person. Fixed an issue with the first person mag release animations for the FAL base reloads. Fixed an issue where the range computer UI would list certain available actions with inverted wording. Fixed an issue where the screen could fade to black and remain black if the player switched player or view when watching another player die. Fixed an issue with the missing default action on some key action icons in the replay controls, that caused the playback speed action to always be displayed as a mouse scroll icon even though they were bound to different keys. Fixed a visual morph issue with balaclava and neck gaiter cosmetics. Fixed an issue where the player’s third person arm meshes would clip with the body while in vehicles. Fixed an issue where when prompted to play the tutorial as part of the users first time experience, clicking the popup would not take the player to the tutorial as suggested. Fixed an issue where if the player rolled a vehicle and all vehicle exits were blocked by objects they would not be able to exit the vehicle. Fixed an issue with crouched reloads on M3 MAAWS. Fixed an issue where kicking used the incorrect sequence when the player was equipped with anything other than a rifle. Fixed an issue where the third person fire particle was missing in third person for Molotovs. Fixed an issue with jumping in first person when equipped with a detonator. Fixed an issue with vaulting while equipped with binoculars. Fixed an issue where the “Do you want to save” prompt was behind the settings window in the replay. Fixed an issue where if you changed options in the video settings menu and returned to the game without applying your changes, on returning to the video settings menu the non applied changes could still be seen. Fixed an animation issue with shotguns while sprinting in Hardcore or when the Slow Movement mutator was active. Fixed an issue where there was a visual disconnect between first person and third person sprinting animations in Hardcore or when the Slow Movement mutator was active. Fixed an issue where if the player performed a high vault directly after throwing a grenade, on landing, their primary weapon would not be visible and they would need to reselect it. Fixed an issue where animations for detonators were hilariously broken. Fixed an issue where the Fragger class in Team Deathmatch and Domination had access to the underbarrel explosive launcher when they shouldn’t. Sorry noob tubers. Fixed an issue where the low scalability preset and low texture quality setting would not not correctly display anisotropic filtering x2. Fixed issue that prevented the scalability options from resetting properly when backing out of the video settings menu. Fixed an issue where underhand Molotov throws would not set the rag on fire. Fixed an issue where it was possible for players to decrease the amount of time taken to reload a weapon with a Bipod or Foregrip Bipod attached. Fixed an issue where players could perform a vault from the prone position. Fixed an issue when switching to and from grenade launchers would cause a noticeable delay before they could be fired. Fixed an issue where the Loadout menu character would always have a primary weapon in their hands, even when all weapons were removed from the players loadout. Fixed a rendering issue that caused the 4x M150 optic to have geometry visible inside its scope view. Fixed an issue where several first person pistol magazines would appear to have rounds remaining in them, even when the magazine was empty. Fixed an issue where when equipping a barrel attachment to the FAL would not prevent the stock barrel from being removed. Fixed an issue where the Alpha AK would not play the correct ready animation when the player had a drum magazine attached. Fixed an issue where, when spectating, the player would be shown the incorrect key bindings for change player and change camera, if they had re-bound those particular keys. Fixed an issue with the RPG-7 rocket projectile collision mesh also encompassing the fins when it should not have. This could have potentially contributed to some unwarranted deaths when firing through windows. Fixed an issue where the roaming spectator camera would be able to snap when zooming in and out. Fixed some additional roaming spectator camera snapping issues when roaming without any other players in the map. Fixed an issue where the mouse smoothing option was not being reset when “Reset To Defaults” was selected in the settings menu. Fixed floating left hand during the first person SVD reloads. Fixed a potential issue with the MP5A2 reload not being completed if you skipped the bolt release during the reload and completed it when you pulled it out again. TutorialFixed an issue where the player could still trigger audio instructions by resupplying, even after finishing the current objective. Fixed an issue where a tutorial waypoint could not be triggered if the player only creaked opened the door instead of opening or breaching it. Fixed an issue where players could occasionally not validate the “Enter Building” waypoint under certain conditions. Fixed an issue where the player could utilize the debug menu, thus allowing them to fly out of the playable area. Fixed an issue where the player could potentially complete the “Pick Up Weapon” objective without properly validating it and thus not be able to progress. Fixed an issue where the player could become stuck between a vehicle and a wall on the opening bridge sequence. Fixed an issue where the player could move their character and camera during the opening moments. Fixed an issue where the player could reach the extraction point by utilizing an Insurgent vehicle. Fixed an AI navigation issue where AI could become blocked by a wall during the sequence in which the player must destroy a weapon cache. Fixed an issue where respawning as the Commander class, selecting and calling in the Gunship before the related Objectives prompted the user to do so would block progression. Fixed an issue where the player could not validate the “Scavenge Weapon” waypoint if they killed the AI while it was reloading. Fixed an animation issue that would cause weapon animation to break during the scavenging section of the tutorial. Fixed an issue where reaching the "Equip Binoculars" objective with the Binoculars already equipped did not validate the objective. Fixed an issue in the tutorial, where using the Loadout Menu instead of holding F to resupply when prompted, would prevent the player from progressing. User ExperienceThe Loadout UI now gives sound feedback unique to that category as you customize your equipment.Localization has been added for the following regions:Czech Danish Dutch Finnish Hungarian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portuguese (Portugal) Portuguese (Brazillian) Swedish Thai Chinese (Traditional) Turkish The tutorial will now end 25 seconds after entering the vehicle turret during that section of the tutorial. This is to ensure players are able to complete the tutorial and not be prevented from doing so by any more unpredictable issues caused by vehicle physics or AI behaviors.Visual ImprovementsUIUpdated the style of icon utilized to indicated servers that are XP gain enabled.Removed the “Customize” button from the bottom of the menu UI, it is now an option on the side right under tutorials. The “Profile” menu option has now been moved further down the list and has been renamed to “Stats”.“History” has now been renamed to “Replays”.Weapons & Equipment Added new third person Hardcore sprint sequence for LMGs. Added new prone gasmask equip & unequip third person sequences. Added a new third person toss sequence for discarded launchers. Added new third person standing and crouched reloads for the M240 machine gun. Added a new third person standing and crouched bolt cycle animation for the Mosin. Unified third person and first person Hardcore sprint pistol animations. Added a new folding bipod for the first person and third person FAL rifle, it was utilizing an incorrect bipod type before. Added a specific foregrip animation to the MP5A2. Added first person drum magazine speed reloads for the VHS-2 assault rifle. Translucent glass rendering has now been improved to prevent cases of flickering.LevelsOutskirtsFixed a number of clipping and flickering issues. Fixed an issue where it was possible to spawn on top of another player in Firefight West Security spawn. Fixed collision issues with certain columns near the H objective which prevented grenades to pass between them on Checkpoint Insurgents. Fixed an issue with incorrectly rendered shadows near the A objective on Checkpoint Security. Eliminated a line of sight that allowed longer range rockets to destroy the final cache on Push Insurgents.Crossing Fixed an issue where players on the Insurgent team could potentially spawn under the map on Frontline when the last objective was captured. Fixed being able to destroy the cache, objective D, from a far distance on Push Security. Fixed being able to destroy the cache, objective A, from a far distance on Frontline.SummitOpened a new path to improve level flow for approaching objective A on Push Insurgents. Added a missing blocking volume behind the H objective on Security Checkpoint. Fixed various places where players can get stuck.RefineryFixed an issue where players could become stuck between a piece of sheet metal and a chain link fence near the Security spawn on Push Security. Fixed a collision issue which would block the player from using a door. Fixed an issue where the players could leave the playable area near Push Insurgents final spawn. Farmhouse Fixed a collision issue where weapons could become stuck in a specific metal fence near objective A on Push Security. Fixed an issue where the player could see through the map if deployed and prone near Objective C Firefight West. Fixed an issue with a specific light being overly bright in objective B building on Push Security. MinistryFixed an issue where players could become stuck in an area near the restroom entrance. HillsideFixed a collision issue which prevented players from throwing projectiles over a specific wall near Push Security B. Fixed collision issues with certain columns near the F objective which prevented grenades to pass between them on Checkpoint Security. Fixed an issue where you could cap the B objective in Firefight mode from an unintended position.HideoutTweaked the post processing settings to make the map a tad less dark. Fixed collision issues with certain columns near the A objective which prevented grenades to pass between them on Push Security. PrecinctFixed an issue allowing players to destroy the cache, D objective, from a long distance on Push Security. Fixed an issue which allowed players to vault on a specific prop in ways they should not be able to near the E objective building on Checkpoint Security. Fixed multiple collision issues near to the A, D, E and F objectives on Checkpoint Security. Fixed an issue where players could pixel walk to an unintended position near the B objective on Checkpoint Security. Fixed collisions on crates near objective H on Checkpoint Security. Fixed an issue where the player could stick through the roof when vaulting on a stack of crates near objective H on Checkpoint Security. Competitive ImprovementsOver the last couple of months, the team has been communicating with competitive players and collecting feedback to improve the competitive scene and overall experience with ranked games. Along with an increase of support for community tournaments and other competitive events, we have made the following changes to competitive: A reset of Competitive ranks to address issues of players not being able to find matches at various tiers. An increase in ranked Elo decay for inactive users. Created competitive leaderboard that can be accessed here[leaderboard.sandstorm.game]. Please note that this leaderboard will populate itself as people play, and updates every hour. We intend for these three changes combined to help address the current low population in Competitive and generate more interest. We’ll continue to monitor feedback on these systems and make adjustments as needed. Mod Tools Private AlphaAs we get closer to the first public deployment of our mod support, we’re looking for community members with experience creating custom levels for games in Source Engine/Unreal Engine to participate in our Sandstorm Level Editor Alpha. If you’re interested in participating and are willing to bug test and provide feedback, please sign up here. Also included in these tools is the ability to make custom game modes and new gameplay configurations, but we are looking for feedback specifically on level creation at the moment.View the full article
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The Community Test Environment for our next update, update 1.5, is now live. Go to your Steam Library and download “Insurgency: Sandstorm Community Test Environment” to play. We’ll be having a “Play with the Devs” event on the CTE on Tuesday December 3 & Friday December 6 from 11:00 AM MST - 1:00 PM MST. We’ll be testing playlist improvements on the US servers in the official matchmaking of our new game mode Domination (see more information below), NOT on a server under Community Servers as we’ve done in the past. To join us, just boot up the CTE, go to Play, select Domination, and Find Match. All the devs won’t necessarily be in one game, but you’ll see us floating around your matches! This update features a ton of quality of life improvements, gameplay improvements, optimization, and bug fixes. Please share your feedback on the CTE forums here. The highlights can be seen below: OptimizationWe’ve made both game and map changes to further optimize Sandstorm. This is part of an ongoing effort to address performance issues with other maps and the game as a whole. Changes include:Disabled AlwaysTickPose to minimize CPU overhead of character animations which aren’t rendered on the screen Performed optimization pass on the following maps: Refinery Outskirts Summit PrecinctPlaylists and MatchmakingBefore After Over the past couple of months, we have received and read numerous pieces of feedback from the community relating to playlist changes that were implemented earlier in the year as well as the overall matchmaking experience. The new playlist-based matchmaking introduced several issues and had some undesirable impacts on our queues’ health. We’ve made the following improvements:Players are now able to queue for multiple playlists within a game type (Versus or Coop). This should help to ensure that players are spending less time waiting in the queue, and more time playing the game. We’ve removed the player count for playlists, and replaced it with estimated queue times instead. This should reduce situations where players feel like it isn’t worth queuing into a playlist that doesn’t have a lot of players, which could have led to some playlists (like Firefight) not having a healthy population. Team auto-balancing will ensure that teams are always made even automatically by the server. Autobalancing will occur whenever a team has 2 or more players on it. If you are in a party, the system will work to ensure that you are placed on the same team. Players can manually switch teams if they become unbalanced as a result of leavers, disconnections, etc. Players can now join in-progress matches their friends are already in. This was something technical we had been meaning to do for a while. We’ve separated Ground Battle into separate playlists by the mode: one for Push mode and one for Frontline mode.These are the playlists available in the CTE and will be eventually available for 1.5: VersusPush Frontline Firefight DominationCoopNormal Hardcore FrenzyWe know that a lot of players would love to see Skirmish make a return here, especially since multi-queueing would help its population. However, we still have issues with the mode’s vehicles, including their bugs and performance issues. We also still feel that the Skirmish gameplay experience as a whole isn’t as strong as these other modes, especially for new players. We can expand our mode selection with the new playlist improvements, but we can only go so far until we risk too much fragmentation and a weak gameplay experience for incoming new players. For the time being, Skirmish will continue to be available on community servers for the players who really want that experience. Introduction of New “Domination” Game Mode We’ve added the popular game mode Domination to the game, which some of you may already be familiar with from games like Unreal Tournament, Battlefield, and Call of Duty. In Domination there are three objectives: A, B, and C. Your team’s score will increase faster the more objectives you own. Once one team reaches the score limit, or time runs out and they have the highest score, they win the round. Domination uses the same instant respawning system and weapon loadout as Team Deathmatch, which means you are always in the action and you can use just about any weapon in the game. Right now Domination supports the Hideout, Hillside, Farmhouse, Crossing, and Ministry maps, but more may be added in the future. We know that adding a new game mode risks further fracturing of the playerbase, something we are trying to address with the playlist changes above. We also know that there may be other game modes that some players would like to see before Domination, such as Outpost, which was discussed in our last roadmap for 2019. Domination was originally created in Sandstorm as an “example mode” using Unreal Engine 4’s blueprint system to demonstrate to modders how they could build custom game modes using our upcoming modding tools. It ended up being really fun when we tested it, and so we decided to include it as an official mode. Domination will still exist as that example mode, and modders are free to use that as a basis to build totally new game modes. In addition to already having it ready as this unique “sample mode” for modders, one of the main reasons we made it an official mode was because a lot of players have requested that Team Deathmatch be reintroduced as an official playlist. We feel like those players can get their fix from Domination in a way that, in its objective-based gameplay, is less mindless than Team Deathmatch, and thus truer to Sandstorm’s identity. Also, with our upcoming console release, we’ll be getting a lot of new players. Domination mode is a bit more casual and easy to learn, which means it’s an excellent way to ease those players into the more hardcore experience that is Insurgency: Sandstorm. Finally, to be blunt, we see an opportunity to attract some of the new Modern Warfare’s audience. If a player isn’t feeling the experience there, they’re welcome here with a familiar game mode as a vessel for our unique brand of gameplay. GameplayWe’ve worked hard to listen to the players and make improvements to various gameplay mechanics. Our intent is to directly address player feedback about shooting and aiming not being rewarding enough of skill, to improve player movement and acceleration to feel more controlled, and to add some flexibility to certain key bindings which have been popularly requested. Additionally, we were able to make improvements to smoke grenades so that particles are visualized reliably across all clients, which has an important gameplay impact of making smoke grenades more dependable. The changes include the following: Weapon SwaySet up Lissajous curve fixed pattern for sway instead of the more random current Perlin noise pattern seen in the public version since release. This Lissajous curve makes the sway pattern more predictable. Reduced sway speed by 20%. Sway magnitude is the same Reduced incentive for crouching and proning to reduce sway (crouching now reduces sway by 50% instead of 60%, prone now reduces sway by 70% instead of 80%) Reduced sway penalties when moving (sway magnitude now increases by 15% instead of 50%, sway speed now increases by 50% instead of 200%) Slightly reduced the sway speed and magnitude reduction when focusing to counterbalance the other sway changes (focusing now reduces sway speed and magnitude by 60% instead of 80%)RecoilReduced overall recoil when ADS by 15% Reduced recoil incentive for crouching and proning (crouching now 20% less recoil instead of 40%, prone now has 30% less recoil instead of 60%) Reduced recoil penalty for leaning when low weight (lowest weight now has 10% more recoil when leaning instead of 20%) Recoil penalty while moving should be consistent across all weights rather than favoring players who are heavier (heavier players previously had a greater reduction in recoil) Increased Mk 14 EBR recoil with same magnitude as the recent FAL recoil increaseMovement[/b]Sprint speed reduced by 8%Key Binding Changes Jump and Vault keys can now be bound as three separate binds: Jump/Vault, Jump, and Vault. This means you can jump in places where you would otherwise be forced to vault, because they keys were shared by spacebar. The default key is still Spacebar for the combined Vault/Jump key. Crouch and Slide can be bound separately. If you want to go from a full sprint to an immediate crouch instead of an automatic slide, you can now do so. The default key is still Ctrl for the combined Crouch (Hold)/Slide.Client Side Smoke Reliability All smoke grenades should now utilize the same seed for all clients so player A will see the same smoke coverage as player B. Smoke also expands faster to be more useful and is no longer frame-rate capped.[/list] Thanks and enjoy! Remember to share your feedback on the CTE forums and let us know what you like and don’t like!View the full article
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The nominations for the 2019 Steam Awards are here! Insurgency Sandstorm has been out for nearly a year now, and the team has worked non-stop since release to bring players free, fresh content. Since releasing last December we have added: 3 additional maps 10 new weapons Dozens of added cosmetics 3 new game modes And more!While there are a few categories that you can nominate Insurgency: Sandstorm! @e feel Sandstorm is a game played, “Better with Friends”. The tactical gameplay requires important communication between teammates to best capture objectives and come out on top, which is way more fun to do with friends! If you agree, please feel free to nominate us! By the way, Sandstorm is 50% off from now until December 3rd! View the full article
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We are releasing a hotfix today that addresses several issues with last week’s 1.4.2 patch. Some changes not intended for patch 1.4.2 were accidentally included. This hotfix tweaks things to be closer to our intentions. They are still however a work in progress. More changes are to come as needed, including an improvement to sway that will replace the current Perlin noise weapon sway pattern with a fixed and more predictable Lissajous curve pattern. For more information on this and our other plans, see our third State of Production post here. The hotfix changelist can be found below: GameplayToned back some of the movement acceleration and deceleration changes from the 1.4.2 patch.Increased default movement acceleration speed. Increased sprint acceleration speed. Increased friction and deceleration. Fixed issue where low stamina had no effect on weapon sway. Low stamina used to increase both weapon sway magnitude and speed before 1.4.2, but now has been tweaked so it only increases weapon sway speed. Low stamina sway speed is less than before, 150% instead of 200%. VisualRemoved camera shake from pistol and rifle sprint animations. Improved knife sprinting animation to better time with footstep audio.View the full article
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Greetings! It’s been a busy month here at New World Interactive. We’ve continued to immigrate more members of our design and programming teams in to Canada. Our efforts at ramping up have continued full speed, and our team is starting to take on some scalable structure as we quickly move towards 2020. In response to community feedback, we made some significant adjustments to our internal roadmap, as well as a decision pertaining to publicly posting our roadmap. Additionally, I’m going to be clarifying our stance on competitive, as it seems like our video announcement was misunderstood. Let’s dive right in to this next State of Production. Key Points of State of Production #3Delaying our 2019 Roadmap goals and removing them from the Steam Store Page as we have refocused development on optimization and console release. Improving playlist system by removing player population count from playlist, allowing multiple playlists to be selected, manual team switching, auto team balance, and a “pre-match” Team Deathmatch mode where players waiting to queue into Versus or Competitive matches can play TDM against other players also in queues while they wait. Continuing competitive community outreach as stated in our last video in publicly joinable VoIP meetings in our official Discord. New Art Producer and Associate Producer have been hired; offer has been extended to a prospective Head of Marketing to follow. Analyzing lower performing maps Refinery, Outskirts, Summit, and Precinct as part of our initial optimization pass. Creating for modders an alpha build of our level editor, mod.io integration, and the ability to auto-download custom maps upon connecting to a server so mod.io isn’t required.Removal of the Roadmap from Our Store PageI’m anticipating some anxiety/concerns over our decision to remove our roadmap from the store page, so I want to try and get ahead of that. “Why is New World Interactive removing the roadmap?” It’s a fairly simple answer: our plans have changed. Given the immense amount of feedback we’ve received about the needs to optimize, the development impacts associated with clearing TRC/co-dev of the console version of the game, and our efforts towards providing mod support for our players, we have had to make some adjustments in order to ensure we can achieve all of the things that the community is looking for. Given how much content we provided throughout 2019 already for free, including 3 new maps, 10 new weapons, 3 new game modes, limited time “mutated” game modes, and dozens of new cosmetics, we felt it made the most sense to focus on getting our pre-existing content into a better state as opposed to focusing on the introduction of even more content. Let me address the major concerns that are likely to bubble up: We’ve delayed night maps and associated equipment until next year. Given what a large undertaking this is (Multiple types of night vision goggles, night vision scopes, IR lasers, night maps themselves, lighting, AI overhauls, etc.) we decided it would be better to give these features more time in the oven than to release them preemptively. We’ll still be releasing one of the night maps for our Halloween event, so you’ll get a teaser of where we’re headed there! While not in our Roadmap, we have heard feedback and begun working on an AI overhaul which unfortunately must be delayed until next year as well. In order to best-service our cooperative modes, as well as our night maps, we’re working on reducing inconsistencies within our AI’s behavior trees. However, this is a time consuming process, and given how loaded our sprints are between now and the end of the year, we didn’t feel there was time to complete this task in its entirety at the level we desired.As we get closer to completing TRC, which is one of our biggest challenges (as we’ve never done a console release before as a studio) we’re hoping we’ll be able to put up a better, more accurate roadmap for 2020. At this time, however, things are shifting around on a per-need basis of our console co-dev partner and community feedback. Regarding the future of the Playlist systemWe understand that a lot of people responded negatively to our introduction of the playlist system in 1.4. It’s important to note that the main design motivations for introducing the system were to (a) keep players contained in a single continuous game experience of their preference without being arbitrarily matched across multiple dissimilar game modes. The idea was that players would stick together in a server with map voting in between matches, and that servers would not need to be generated, taken down, and repopulated over and over (b) create a more intuitive and visually appealing way for new players to learn about and select which game modes to play (c) to allow for the use of limited time playlists leveraging the new mutator system and, in the future, community made mods. We acknowledge there have been unintended consequences of the addition of this system. It’s important to us that we achieve the design intentions above, but also address the shortfalls of the system since its debut. We know that the quick-fixes we’ve done since the system was released have not been ideal, so instead of applying band-aid solutions to get better player distribution results, we are now in the process of developing a ‘take two’ on the system which we will unveil when ready. Some of the changes we are working on include the following:No longer seeing the amount of players playing each playlist, but instead letting people know an approximate queue time once they’ve started queueing so that if it’s longer than average players have the option to back out. The ability to select multiple playlists to potentially queue into rather than only one. While this may not prove to be immediately handy with our currently available playlists as they are so different in experience, we may consider making further adjustments to which playlists are available in such a way that multiple playlist queueing would be appreciated. Solutions for team balance issues, including the ability to change teams manually and an auto team balance feature that triggers if players don’t address team balance on their own. This should help with matches where teams are stuck at being uneven, causing people to leave prematurely and harming playlist population. As well as just being a generally frustrating player experience. Allowing players to play in a pre-match Team Deathmatch round while they wait in the queue for a Versus or Competitive playlist match to be formed.We anticipate that these changes should result in a better distribution of players throughout the different playlists, so there will likely be some adjustments to the available playlists themselves to accompany this change in response to the aversion we’re seeing towards game modes being grouped together. We appreciate your feedback and we hope that these changes clearly demonstrate we are acting on your input. Please keep in mind that these changes and this iterative process takes time. If you have any more input for us, or if you appreciate these changes, by all means please share your feedback and we will continue to work to improve the playlist system. Regarding Our Competitive AnnouncementI’d like to start off by saying that this announcement was my idea. Feel free to direct all hate at me accordingly if you felt neglected, slighted, or trampled as a result. The purpose of this announcement, however, was not to say that “We are going all in on the competitive scene.”; it was to express our interest in establishing a dialogue with players and communities to get a better understanding of what it would take to develop and grow a competitive environment within our community. At this stage we can’t make any full commitments to improve the competitive experience. We want to be very honest and open about that. However, we do recognize that there are things we might be able to do within our resources and current production plan to improve the health of competitive gameplay. This may include fixes, minor new features, assisting the comp community in running tournaments or events, etc. As for “Why create a video announcement?” for the formatting, it was a goal of mine to develop a digital messaging presence within the studio. We thought it would be a neat idea to compare the traction and stickiness of the medium from which we messaged, with the hypothesis that our players would respond better to a video dialogue than written blog formats. Moving forward, I’d like to use even more digital messaging in the future; this was merely our first attempt at doing so to get a better idea of what we can do well, where we need to shore up our skills, and to assess our production capabilities when it comes to creating video content in the future. We recognize it wasn’t perfect, and we’re going to experiment with presentation styles a lot in 2020. I’d also like to speak to the community, especially those who seem to have taken our initiative most personally. Many comments along the lines of: “Competitive is dead” “NWI let competitive die” “This is a slap in the face to those of us who have been advocating for competitive since the game released” “We’ve already told you what the game needs before”We definitely understand why you feel this way. We acknowledge our team has room to improve in regards to how we interface with and support a competitive ecosystem. The primary reason for this absence of proper attention to competitive is because post-release we prioritized other content that satisfied the broader playerbase. That includes optimization, weapons, levels, polish, general improvements, etc. There was a lot we wanted to do to fix up and flesh out the game. However, these changes take time, and we are currently in the process of determining both what those changes are and if we have the resources to do them. Some of our efforts at establishing a feedback loop, while small in nature, include: Improving our community feedback loop via centralized documentation Establishing an active conversation and a dialogue with players who have an interest in helping us to improve our competitive scene and overall gameplay moving forward The establishment of a dedicated support manager, who is building us a service desk entirely from scratch via Freshdesk as opposed to HappyFox Chatting with the leaders of various community leagues and organizations to identify opportunities for collaboration and intra-league events in the futureThese are not excuses; this is the way we are moving forward. We are HAPPY to have a dialogue with players who want to help us continue to develop and grow this game. We had over 200 people show up to our first day of open dialogue, which was exciting and rewarding for all of us here at New World Interactive. We recently conducted 4 separate sessions for competitive feedback (2 for the North America region, and 2 for the EU region) which we’ll be analyzing and processing over the next few weeks. We’re hoping to conduct more of these focused discussion sessions in the future, but for the time being, we have hundreds of feedback items to measure and parse. What was the studio up to for the last month?Continuing the format from the prior SoP, I’m going to break it down by a few key talking points. PersonnelThe last month represented a very big and exciting milestone for me personally. We carried out dozens of interviews, and we were able to find some exceptional candidates for a few of our most-needed positions. The Production team is now nearly fully fleshed out. The Production team is responsible for scheduling, scoping, managing and cutting features, and identifying quality concerns for deliverables that make it into the live game; with the expansion of this team, we’ll have significantly more eyes focused on all aspects of development. Once on-boarded, we should be able to hit projected milestones with greater consistency and quality, in turn establishing a newfound trust in what we promise and what we are able to deliver. We now have a dedicated Art Producer, as well as a new general Associate Producer starting with us on November 1st. This should help our efforts at optimizing the game, as well as ensuring we are more organized and on-top of our day-to-day on a company-wide basis. We’ve hired a new additional programmer, who specializes in gameplay programming and the creation of tools for our programming team. We’re closing in on our Head of Marketing, and expect to announce their hire within the next month. Art Audit + OptimizationOur Art Director has now commenced an audit on 4 levels within our game. These 4 maps are Refinery, Outskirts, Summit, and Precinct. These maps were selected because they were our worst-offenders from the standpoint of performance, memory usage and navigation (e.g. collision bugs). This audit will be focused on flow, performance, and usability. Given the size of our team, as well as the size of the tasks that lie before us, we’re approaching it from the angle that we’ll tackle it in increments as opposed to all at once. These levels will be targeted by both the art team (asset review, LOD texture distancing, pop-ins, level-tailoring, lighting optimization) as well as our internal QA team (collision passes, “soft spot” passes, windows/ledges passes, restricted area review, etc) to focus on both quality of life changes as well as usability testing. This audit will be carried out between now and December, 2019. Porting ProgressWe’ve continued supporting our co-dev partner, Black Tower, with the console version of Insurgency: Sandstorm. Our biggest challenge thus far has been reducing memory consumption, as many of our maps are still running at 6GB of memory; this is presently higher than the standard edition console can handle. We’re experimenting with numerous solutions and approaches, and as meaningful milestones develop, we’ll continue to share them via the State of Production updates. These solutions for console optimization will directly correlate with performance gains on the PC version of the games as well. Mod SupportIn an effort to branch out beyond a singular platform, we’ve adopted a platform-agnostic toolset for modding, and have been working towards rolling out our mod capabilities. Since our publisher is still in the process of finalizing an agreement with the solution provider, we are unable to announce at this time which toolset we’ve decided to go with. Expect an announcement about this very soon! There are 3 main focuses for our first rendition: Integration of our platform-agnostic solution for mod uploading and distribution An alpha version of the level editor to create and share custom maps The ability to connect to a server and automatically download any custom map it is running so you don’t always need to obtain the map manually.It’s important to note, this is not the full extent of the modding capabilities we have planned, but rather a starting point to build off of. We’re hoping to have this released in an early-access capacity by December of this year, with additional contributions throughout the year to refine support for these features. Upcoming Hotfix for Live BuildWith our last patch, 1.4.2, a few issues slipped past us which we are working on addressing. In particular, there were a few changes we were testing internally which were not meant to be introduced yet in the form they were released. This includes somewhat intense camera animations when sprinting (which can be removed via settings for those interested in a temporary workaround), work in progress increases to player inertia affecting the feeling of movement, and changes to stamina which have it no longer affect recoil or sway. These changes were not meant to be released, and we sincerely apologize for this slip. Admittedly, things are a bit chaotic right now for us with our new location, onboarding of new team members and our console co-development. This is not reflective of the standards we hold ourselves to, and we will do everything we can to ensure this type of thing doesn’t happen again. We are presently working on a hotfix which we hope to roll out as soon as possible. It will contain the removal of these sprinting camera animations as well as ‘tuning’ of the player inertia and stamina-based sway changes closer to what we intend. These changes are a work in progress, and we are planning to make further tweaks to these mechanics as needed. One thing we are exploring in internal testing right now which we feel some players might appreciate is introducing a new Lissajous curve pattern for weapon sway. This pattern is fixed and more predictable than the current Perlin noise weapon sway pattern, and we’re hoping it addresses feedback we’ve received that sway feels too random and arbitrary.View the full article
