July 2021 Community Update Blog

[h3]Hello Gamers™,[/h3]
Welcome to July’s Community Blog. A lot has changed since we last spoke, I’m sure by now fatherHank is riding kangaroos and eating some vegemite in the Oceania region. (sorry Aaron)
With all the departmental restructuring/personnel shifting, I figured that this month’s community blog would provide a great opportunity to introduce myself and my other colleagues that currently make up the Communications Team at New World. Read on!

[h3]LUKE[/h3] Player Support Lead / Interim Community Manager
This month actually marks my first official year with New World! I started at around the same time as fatherHank when I was tasked with doing some contract work in Player Support. In July 2020 I was given the opportunity to lead and evolve the Player Support Department to where it is today. I hope that our efforts in decreasing cheating and toxicity in Sandstorm have shown since then.
This is probably the first time any of you have heard from me via a public forum like this. I was able to work quite effectively behind the scenes within Player Support - it has definitely taken me some time to adjust from that now that I’ve been given a platform where I have a spotlight shining on me. With all that being said, I’m still super excited to take on the task for the time being and hope that I can work with the community to ensure that your feedback is always being heard.
I’m starting to hang around the Official Insurgency: Sandstorm Discord a lot more (I guess that is kind of a part of my job now though…) if you see me there, don’t be a stranger! Always happy to chat or jump into a game of Push with anyone who asks.
[h3]LOGAN[/h3] Community Associate / Will Slaughter Your Sergeants
Hello all! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Logan (A.K.A. Sgt_Slaughterer) and I'm the new Community Associate here at New World Interactive. I have the honor of training to step into the spacious Jordan's of our previous Community Manager Aaron (fatherHank) and continuing to uphold his high standard of transparency and respect. I'm not going to lie, it's going to be no small task to follow in the trainer shaped footsteps that he left in the community, but I'm committed to the task and excited to continue the good work that he started.
I figured I should tell you a bit about myself here so let's see; some of my personal interests outside of gaming are drawing, playing guitar, and cult horror movies and comic books. I cut my teeth on old-school FPS Like DOOM (still have the floppy disks!) and from there I became very interested in the Source modding community and the amazing mods that came out of that (CS, DoD, Insurgency). My preferred genre is still FPS but I also enjoy "relaxing'' with rogue-likes like BoI/Spelunky/Rogue Legacy, etc. I'm currently re-playing Control on the Series X and Noita (pretty great indie rogue-like) on PC, and attempting to hold my own in Insurgency: Sandstorm, but this community is no joke! Part of my daily routine has become hopping on to learn the ins-and-outs of the game and getting immediately humbled every time. It's a process for sure, as there’s a ton of depth to this game, but man is it rewarding and I feel super lucky that I get to play and learn a game with a community as passionate as you guys. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter @SgtSlaughterer
[h3]BRUNO[/h3] Player Support Analyst / Johnny “Bravo”
Hey everyone, my name is Bruno, but most of you probably already know me within the community as Bravo. I joined NWI back in November of 2020, yet it feels like I've been part of this incredible community for what seems to be an eternity at this point.
During this time, I've seen the release of Operation: Cold Blood and Operation: Exodus, worked on a Trello Board for the community and helped a few thousand of our players through our support desk. I'm always working on something, so I may not be as active as I wish I could be on Discord. However, I'm always happy to have a chat whenever I have time, so if you see me in-game or on Discord, feel free to say hi!

Oh man, July was a pretty jam-packed month for the Community Team. While taking this month to welcome and onboard Logan to the team we also happened to announce our first-ever Community Cosmetic Contest! With the success of the 2020 Mapping Contest that we held last year, we thought it would be fun to hold another contest that is similar in vein, but is way more accessible this time around. Be sure to check out the official rules and terms - if you’re a capable concept artist or game asset creator, now is your time to shine!
This month we also announced the release of our first console beta! That feels so good to finally say. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can find beta applications here - we will be having multiple betas so don’t worry if you haven’t been picked to playtest straight away.

As some of you probably know, the Player Support team has emphasized community engagement because we know that we all share a common goal. We consider ourselves lucky to have such a vocal community, and we want our community to see that they are being heard and that their opinions matter.
We appreciate all the feedback we've received so far, and I promise that we have some good stuff coming in the future, so hang tight, and thank you again for all your help!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Another quality weapon case study from one of our very own Sandstorm Partners, sacrilcious__. - Luke
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]I would have broken both ankles attempting this. - Logan ( Twitch.tv/TheProfessianal Discord: ExtremelyStiff#5410)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Ladies and gentleman, the insane power of mods!(SnakeyI0 on Reddit)


That’s it for July’s Community Blog. Thank you for reading and as always, thank you for playing Insurgency: Sandstorm.