Sand News

[p][/p][p]Servus Allies! [/p][p][/p][p]As promised in yesterday's development update, the SAND playtest is back after a brief pause![/p][p] [/p][h3]As a reminder, in this playtest you will have access to two modes:[/h3][p][/p][p]Storm Dive: A new game mode that emphasizes action and confrontation. Where you alongside a number of other smugglers will drop onto the planet of Sophie aboard your trampler and battle against the clock to explore, loot and extract safely before the world is engulfed by a devastating sandstorm.

Voyage: The classic SAND experience. Explore, loot, sneak, ambush, engage in combat, and extract at your leisure (or when your food runs out). [/p][p][/p][p]You can find the patch notes and known issues list HERE[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]If you’ve applied to participate in the playtest, you should either already have an email in your inbox inviting you to play SAND or will receive one before the end of the day.

If you have not yet applied, head to the steam page now and click “Request Access”

If you've participated in previous playtests, you can access the game right away! [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Please don't hesitate to head over to our Discord to leave any feedback you have about the playtest and report any bugs you encounter! [/p][p][/p][p]Once again, Streaming IS allowed everywhere. [/p][p][/p][p]Come and join us on our social media pages to keep yourself up to date with all the news and updates for SAND! Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

- Hologryph & tinyBuild Games
[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Hey all,
[/p][p]So a couple of weeks back, we invited you all to join us on Sophie once again for another playtest of SAND. As most of you will now be aware, we unfortunately had to cut short the playtest due to a number of technical issues that arose during this period, promising to resume the playtest at a later date.
[/p][p]Today, we’d like to run you through what happened during the playtest, what we’ve been doing since to address it and talk about exactly when the playtest will resume.
[/p][p]First off, if you’d rather avoid all the techy details, here’s a TL;DR:
[/p][p]Basically, the playtest was suspended due to a number of technical issues that arose only after launching to a significantly larger test group, which had not been present in our internal testing processes.

The main culprits being:
[/p]

• [p]Matchmaking system overload: Bugs caused the matchmaking system to lock up under heavy load, preventing players from logging in, creating characters, or joining expeditions.[/p]
• [p]Expedition server bugs: Errors in how expeditions were registered led to players getting stuck on screens, losing progress, or facing other expedition-related glitches.[/p]
• [p]Server capacity limits: Running out of server capacity due to regional demand spikes for our server setup.[/p]

[p]These have been the primary issues we've focused our attentions towards resolvingduring the playtest intermission.[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, if you want to hear about when the playtest will resume, head to the end of this article. [/p][h3]Why did we pause the playtest?
[/h3][p]In previous playtests, we had experienced some problems with server caps limiting the number of players who were able to access the game and resulting in a number of server related issues.
[/p][p]In preparation for this playtest, we significantly increased the number of servers, but were impacted by a different issue with a similar outcome. 
[/p][p]Essentially, what happened was that, at the same time as our playtest, demand increased in the same region for the same server configuration we use.
[/p][p]This is a complex issue, but one that we plan to solve for when the playtest resumes by combining multiple nearby datacenters under a single virtual region.
[/p][p](For example, in the case of the Europe region, that would mean not only servers in Frankfurt, but also, potentially, in the Netherlands or Belgium (we are still testing which setup works best).
[/p][h3]Playtest bugs and issues
[/h3][p]Throughout pt.1 of the playtest, we saw reports of a number of issues that hadn’t been present during our internal testing.
[/p][p]One of the more prominent issues was the result of player expeditions being registered incorrectly on the game server. Which resulted in behaviors such as:
[/p]

• [p]getting stuck on the drop-in screen,[/p]
• [p]getting stuck on the death screen,[/p]
• [p]getting stuck on the extraction rope,[/p]
• [p]losing the trampler after an expedition,[/p]
• [p]receiving a prompt to return to an expedition they had just finished.
  [/p]

[p]A lot of work has gone into improving this system to make it more stable, reliable, and capable of handling fully loaded servers.
[/p][h3]What have we been doing since?
[/h3][p]Since the playtest, we have focused on three areas that caused the most problems:
[/p]

1. [p]Bugs in expedition registration/removal on the game server[/p]
2. [p]Increasing the pool of game servers[/p]
3. [p]Addressing matchmaker module overload
   [/p]

[p]Matchmaker module overload explained:[/p][p]In situations where queues formed, the module responsible for distributing players across different game servers would, due to bugs, become fully overloaded.
[/p][p]Because of this, players in the region experienced issues with logging in, creating characters and tramplers, entering expeditions, and acquiring trampler compartments.[/p][p]We have been working to address the root causes of this problem and to optimize this part of the system so that it doesn’t become a bottleneck when the playtest restarts.
[/p][h3]When will the playtest restart?
[/h3][p]Well, following some successful internal playtests over the last few days, we are happy to announce that the playtest will resume tomorrow (Saturday 25th)!
[/p][p]With all of that out of the way, we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has participated in the last playtest, not just for your involvement but for your patience and understanding as we navigated these issues.
[/p][p]See you all back on Sophie tomorrow!
[/p]

• [p]Hologryph/tinyBuild Games[/p]

[p]Hey all, [/p][p][/p][p]Due to severe technical issues affecting the current build, we’ve made the decision to end the playtest in approximately 1 hour. [/p][p][/p][p]We’ll be conducting another playtest within the next couple of weeks, once we’ve resolved the issues and ensured a smoother experience for everyone. [/p][p][/p][p]We want to extend a huge thank you to all of you who took part and helped us identify these technical problems, your feedback and reports have been a massive help in improving SAND. [/p][p][/p][p]In the meantime, we’d greatly appreciate it if you could share your thoughts and experiences from this playtest by filling out this short feedback form: [/p][p]https://forms.gle/WewJEfkXRPGpLKoe7[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We’ll be back with more updates next week regarding the next playtest. Thank you all again for your patience, understanding, and continued support! [/p][p][/p][p]- Hologryph / tinyBuild Games[/p]

[p][/p][p]Servus Allies! [/p][p][/p][p]The time we've all been waiting for has arrived, no need to "Stay Tuned" anymore - The SAND Open Playtest is now live![/p][p][/p][p]These last few months we've been hard at work addressing all the feedback and suggestions we've received from you all in previous playtests, with a huge emphasis on optimization, performance improvements, gameplay and world improvements!

But that's not all, we've also added:[/p]

• [p]New weapons[/p]
• [p]New trampler compartments[/p]
• [p]New modes[/p]
• [p]Crafting[/p]
• [p]Artifacts[/p]
• [p]New loot sharing system[/p]
• [p]And a ton more that we'll et you discover for yourself!
  [/p]

[h3]In this playtest, you will have access to two modes:[/h3][p][/p][p]Storm Dive: A new game mode that emphasizes action and confrontation. Where you alongside a number of other smugglers will drop onto the planet of Sophie aboard your trampler and battle against the clock to explore, loot and extract safely before the world is engulfed by a devastating sandstorm.

Voyage: The classic SAND experience. Explore, loot, sneak, ambush, engage in combat, and extract at your leisure (or when your food runs out). [/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]If you’ve applied to participate in the playtest, you should now have an email in your inbox inviting you to play SAND. If you have not yet applied, head to the steam page now and click “Request Access”

If you've participated in previous playtests, you should find SAND sitting in your library right now! [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Please don't hesitate to head over to our Discord to leave any feedback you have about the playtest and report any bugs you encounter! [/p][p][/p][p]Finally Streaming IS allowed everywhere. [/p][p][/p][p]Come and join us on our social media pages to keep yourself up to date with all the news and updates for SAND! Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

- Hologryph & tinyBuild Games
[/p]

[p][/p][p]Servus Scavengers!

A little later than planned, but we're here with a very special SAND Development Update.[/p][p][/p][p]It's hard to condense this all down into text format, so instead we invite you all to watch our first official devlog detailing everything we've been working on these last few months, share some major changes to the game and detail exactly when you can next expect to find yourself barreling through the sands of Sophie aboard your tramplers![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Finally, with the extra months we've had to polish, expand and improve SAND, we have decided that the launch of SAND later this year will no longer be an Early Access release and instead will launch straight into 1.0![/p][p][/p][h3]Sign up for the August playtest now and wishlist SAND on Steam now to be notified when it launches into 1.0 on Steam later this year![/h3][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Come and join us on our social media pages to keep yourself up to date with all the news and updates for SAND or join the discussion over on Discord now! [/p][p][/p][p]Discord - Facebook - Twitter - Instagram [/p][p][/p][p]- Hologryph & tinyBuild Games[/p]