Double XP Weekend
[h3]It's that time again, Double XP from now until Monday @ 11:00AM MST![/h3]
Insurgency: Sandstorm News
[h3]It's that time again, Double XP from now until Monday @ 11:00AM MST![/h3]
October 2020 Community Update Blog
Hello Gamers™,
As you may have noticed, things got a little… weird at New World. I wasn’t here for Halloween last year, so no one warned me about the Cursed video that was for some reason in my personal basement. Not even COVID can stop curses it turns out.
Anyway I watched it, everything got weird, I wanted to drink blood, and now the main menu has been taken over by bats and a red moon and some spooky music (shout Out to our boy Mark Winter).
I am really enjoying the changes to the main menu we have been making with releases. Although they’re minor, they’re refreshing to see. What do you all think of them?
Our next Developer Livestream is coming soon and I would recommend tuning in. SeriousLy, don’t miss it, we have some things to talk about.
[hr][/hr]
Our next minor release (1.8.1) will be coming in November and while there aren’t maps or weapons, we are including a couple of small things I often see requested. We’re trying to balance having minor releases interspersed with our major releases, but that doesn’t happen automatically.
I will have more info to share in the next few weeks, but as the SoP and the stream last week mentioned we are going to be limiting the scope of upcoming releases a bit to really focus on the poLish of existing and upcoming content.
With that being said I wanted to speak on a handful of things that are brought up by the community fairly often. These are things that I brought up with Michael Tsarouhas (our Lead Game Designer) and discussed before we decided they won’t be something we dedicate development time to right now.
I’m thinking a peek into *why* we decide things may help to show that changes aren’t always as simple as they seem to implement into the game. Join us behind the curtain.
1. Disable Team Damage Reflection on CommanDers from their Fire Support call-ins: Ok, so the reasoning behind this not being implemented is explained by one major scenario, and it’s a good example of a bad apple ruining it for everyone:
You have a Commander who is a turd. This player waits until a bunch of team mates are in range and then calls in a missile barrage on their heads. Not fun, and they deserve the reflected Damage. There are cases where the Commander doesn’t deserve the reflected damage, but to discourage trolling we think this is the better option.
2. The ability to cancel commander calls: There are a few factors involved in us not introducing this:
4. Daytime flashlights: While this seems super simple, (flashlights are already in the game, just add them to day time!) there are gameplay implications. Maps that have day Lighting have been balanced without consideration for the inclusion of flashlights, so there would have to be a new round of balance testing on every map. It would also likely change a lot in PvP with players having a new way to blind both their teammates and enemies. A simple addition like a flashlight ends up necessitating a lot of testing hours and introduces potentially negative or just plain frustrating situations when it comes to PvP.
5. Quickdraw Grip should be sling, Reload Grip should be a special magazine, etc.: This is a great example of a slight concession in realism being made in the favour of improved gameplay. If we made the Quickdraw Grip a Sling and the Reload Grip a magazine they would no longer be in the same weapon upgrade category. We deliberately put all these options under one category because as you can see with our supply points mechanic, we have built our weapon upgrade system around the idea of opportunity costs and tradeoffs.
6. Change the colour balance on Tell or Tideway: That's just, like, your opinion, man.
[hr][/hr]
Digital Gaming League’s (DGL) Season 4 will be starting soon and they have just finalized their ladder structure. If you have any interest in competitive Sandstorm this is a great opportunity to get your foot in the door.
More information on the DGL is available here on their website: https://www.thedgl.com/, but I’d suggest also joining their DiscOrd, which is available here: http://discord.thedgl.org/
[hr][/hr]
On a personal note I will be doing my 4th year of Extra Life in 11 days! I’m streaming for 24 hours and will be raising money for the Alberta Children’s Hospital. If you’d like to stop by the stream (you can even dOnate if you feel like it) I will be live on www.twitch.tv/fatherHank from 10am MST on November 10th. Sorry for the self promo, but it’s all for the children. 100% of donations during this stream will go directly to Extra Life.
[hr][/hr]
Finally this month - I want to expand the ‘Favourite Community Video’ section we started last month, so I’m going to start by giving it a GREAT name. Here are some ideas I got from fellow NWI employees:
There were some solid ideas as well, but I want the final choice to be up to the people filling the section, so I decided to put it to a vote. Click here and let me know what you think we should call it.
Vote here!
This section will appear with every blog and will showcase some content created by all of you.
First off this month, someone had the great idea of creating their Security character on Heroforge. Honestly I didn't think it would work this well, but it looks great. Sadly I've been told there is no Welrod option.
Secondly - OK, so we may have a bug with some Insurgents dressing up as Security right now (it’s being worked on as you read this, unless you’re reading this in the future, then it’s already fixed). This sums it up nicely. Thanks Vodka.
We will also show off my favourite community video of the month. Problem is I chose three, so here are three great videos .
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Anyone Else Want Some?
This made me actually laugh out loud, too good to not show off.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Stormtrooper Syndrome Is Real
This man has embodied how I feel during a PvP playtest. Thank you, soldier.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
AUG A3 Gun Guide
Great production, great info, one of my favorite weapons lately. Solid 5/7.
Thanks for all the posts, threads, tweets, and other feedback throughout the month, you’re the reason I have a job! Keep it coming. Increasing the quantity of memes would be appreciated too.
I look forwarD to seeing you all during the next stream, and can’t wait to show you… something.
fatherHank
As you may have noticed, things got a little… weird at New World. I wasn’t here for Halloween last year, so no one warned me about the Cursed video that was for some reason in my personal basement. Not even COVID can stop curses it turns out.
Anyway I watched it, everything got weird, I wanted to drink blood, and now the main menu has been taken over by bats and a red moon and some spooky music (shout Out to our boy Mark Winter).
I am really enjoying the changes to the main menu we have been making with releases. Although they’re minor, they’re refreshing to see. What do you all think of them?
Our next Developer Livestream is coming soon and I would recommend tuning in. SeriousLy, don’t miss it, we have some things to talk about.
[hr][/hr]
Our next minor release (1.8.1) will be coming in November and while there aren’t maps or weapons, we are including a couple of small things I often see requested. We’re trying to balance having minor releases interspersed with our major releases, but that doesn’t happen automatically.
I will have more info to share in the next few weeks, but as the SoP and the stream last week mentioned we are going to be limiting the scope of upcoming releases a bit to really focus on the poLish of existing and upcoming content.
With that being said I wanted to speak on a handful of things that are brought up by the community fairly often. These are things that I brought up with Michael Tsarouhas (our Lead Game Designer) and discussed before we decided they won’t be something we dedicate development time to right now.
I’m thinking a peek into *why* we decide things may help to show that changes aren’t always as simple as they seem to implement into the game. Join us behind the curtain.
1. Disable Team Damage Reflection on CommanDers from their Fire Support call-ins: Ok, so the reasoning behind this not being implemented is explained by one major scenario, and it’s a good example of a bad apple ruining it for everyone:
You have a Commander who is a turd. This player waits until a bunch of team mates are in range and then calls in a missile barrage on their heads. Not fun, and they deserve the reflected Damage. There are cases where the Commander doesn’t deserve the reflected damage, but to discourage trolling we think this is the better option.
2. The ability to cancel commander calls: There are a few factors involved in us not introducing this:
- New voiceover lines would need to be recorded, and that is an expensive and involved process - especially when we don’t have a studio at the moment
- There is a complicated question of ‘until what stage do we allow the cancellation of the call’?
- Does this change justify the development time we would need to dedicate to it? Currently we don’t think so.
4. Daytime flashlights: While this seems super simple, (flashlights are already in the game, just add them to day time!) there are gameplay implications. Maps that have day Lighting have been balanced without consideration for the inclusion of flashlights, so there would have to be a new round of balance testing on every map. It would also likely change a lot in PvP with players having a new way to blind both their teammates and enemies. A simple addition like a flashlight ends up necessitating a lot of testing hours and introduces potentially negative or just plain frustrating situations when it comes to PvP.
5. Quickdraw Grip should be sling, Reload Grip should be a special magazine, etc.: This is a great example of a slight concession in realism being made in the favour of improved gameplay. If we made the Quickdraw Grip a Sling and the Reload Grip a magazine they would no longer be in the same weapon upgrade category. We deliberately put all these options under one category because as you can see with our supply points mechanic, we have built our weapon upgrade system around the idea of opportunity costs and tradeoffs.
6. Change the colour balance on Tell or Tideway: That's just, like, your opinion, man.
[hr][/hr]
Digital Gaming League’s (DGL) Season 4 will be starting soon and they have just finalized their ladder structure. If you have any interest in competitive Sandstorm this is a great opportunity to get your foot in the door.
More information on the DGL is available here on their website: https://www.thedgl.com/, but I’d suggest also joining their DiscOrd, which is available here: http://discord.thedgl.org/
[hr][/hr]
On a personal note I will be doing my 4th year of Extra Life in 11 days! I’m streaming for 24 hours and will be raising money for the Alberta Children’s Hospital. If you’d like to stop by the stream (you can even dOnate if you feel like it) I will be live on www.twitch.tv/fatherHank from 10am MST on November 10th. Sorry for the self promo, but it’s all for the children. 100% of donations during this stream will go directly to Extra Life.
[hr][/hr]
Finally this month - I want to expand the ‘Favourite Community Video’ section we started last month, so I’m going to start by giving it a GREAT name. Here are some ideas I got from fellow NWI employees:
- Hank’s Hunks
- Hanky Wanky's Poggy Woggys (???)
- Mikee Fan Club (always accurate if we’re being honest)
- Hanky Panky's Content Hub (they like to rhyme)
There were some solid ideas as well, but I want the final choice to be up to the people filling the section, so I decided to put it to a vote. Click here and let me know what you think we should call it.
Vote here!
This section will appear with every blog and will showcase some content created by all of you.
First off this month, someone had the great idea of creating their Security character on Heroforge. Honestly I didn't think it would work this well, but it looks great. Sadly I've been told there is no Welrod option.
Secondly - OK, so we may have a bug with some Insurgents dressing up as Security right now (it’s being worked on as you read this, unless you’re reading this in the future, then it’s already fixed). This sums it up nicely. Thanks Vodka.
We will also show off my favourite community video of the month. Problem is I chose three, so here are three great videos .
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Anyone Else Want Some?
This made me actually laugh out loud, too good to not show off.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Stormtrooper Syndrome Is Real
This man has embodied how I feel during a PvP playtest. Thank you, soldier.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
AUG A3 Gun Guide
Great production, great info, one of my favorite weapons lately. Solid 5/7.
Thanks for all the posts, threads, tweets, and other feedback throughout the month, you’re the reason I have a job! Keep it coming. Increasing the quantity of memes would be appreciated too.
I look forwarD to seeing you all during the next stream, and can’t wait to show you… something.
fatherHank
Task Force 666
It's that time of year again!
Limited time Co-op playlist: Task Force 666, Oct. 27th - Nov. 10th
- We found (another) old VHS tape of some Australian indie horror film called “Task Force 666” in fatherHank's basement.
- We watched it. Turns out it was cursed. We never learn.
- Our team started getting sick and delirious. Lots of blood.
- The main menu is haunted and has bats now?
- Everyone came to and suddenly we had a new Co-op playlist scheduled to go live today.
- It’s Hardcore Checkpoint against Frenzy enemies at night.
- Available on night time version of Farmhouse map with only weapon flashlights to guide you.
- Supply points are increased from 20 to 30.
- Players respawn with an Mk 18 CQBR.
- Both you and Frenzied enemies steal health when you deal damage equal to the amount of damage you dealt, with a maximum of 300.
- We are unsure at this point if the playlist is also cursed.
Update 1.8: Hotfix 4
[h3]We've released a hotfix for update 1.8 that addresses the following issues:[/h3]
Fixes:
Known Issues:
Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where the objective status at the top middle of the screen seen when in an objective was missing or shown incorrectly
- Reduced occurrences of the entitlements crash caused by Unreal Engine that could happen on launch
Known Issues:
- Under certain conditions, players will not see the active objective marker during the first spawn. Respawning seems to correct the issue
- The appearance of AI is not always updating properly to match their class or faction
- Equipment color option selected under Appearance section is only applying to vest area and not the rest of the Light or Heavy Carrier
- Weapons and upgrades may appear incorrectly in loadout screen
- Community hosted servers will show a player as level 0
- Mosin Stripper Clip weapon upgrade does not push in properly when reloading
- MP5 has a slight clipping of mag during dry reload
- VHS-2 and AK-74 magazines disappear for a moment during a dry reload
- AUG A3’s loading animations will have broken fingers in first person
- AI vehicle can get stuck in the Tutorial Range
- When you first load the game, there’s a chance your character may be shown without a vest; going to customize and selecting the faction will load all the correct cosmetics
- There is a broken texture on the Aiming Grip affecting the M16A2, M24, M870, Mosin-Nagant, SKS, TOZ-194, AKS-74U, G36K, FAL, MP7, and Mk 14 EBR
- The background of the main menu flickers
- Autocannon Strafe is not damaging weapon caches
- In the Competitive game mode Loadout screen, some weapons will have the option of two Recoil Grips, one at 3 supply points and the other at 4 supply points. These upgrades function the same way.
- Mods showing as 'Download Pending' are actually downloading in background
- Known Editor Issue: Attempting to use material instances with parents set to another modded material currently will result in a unloaded texture in-game
- Character's customized model may not show on main menu
Update 1.8: Hotfix 3
[h3]We've released a hotfix for update 1.8 that addresses the following issues:[/h3]
Fixes:
Known Issues:
Fixes:
- Fixed an entitlements crash caused by Unreal Engine that could happen on launch
- Fixed an issue with the Chemical Mortars gas that was missing an appropriate texture causing large gray polygons to appear
- Fixed a bug where the player’s hand would block all 1x Optic weapon upgrades and iron sights on the MP5A5, MP5A2, Sterling, ACE 52 and G3A3 with the Aiming Grip upgrade
- Fixed a bug where the Loading Grip increased pump speed of the TOZ-194 shotgun
- Fixed a bug where night-vision goggles were disappearing after resupplying
- Fixed a bug which would cause the player’s arms to disappear during the ready animation
- Fixed an issue where remote explosive or mines will have a left elbow clipping into itself and the body during the third person Hardcore sprinting animation
- Fixed a bug that caused weapons to float instead of falling to the ground when a Masterkey, M26 MASS or Buckshot Launcher weapon upgrade was attached
- Fixed a bug where the iron sights of the Mosin-Nagant could be seen floating around the weapon
- Fixed a bug where the same animation played when checking ammo while aiming down sights and without aiming down sights for the AUG A3 and G36K
- Fixed a bug where the deployment of the Bipod upgrade while standing was not showing on other players
- Fixed a bug where the crosshair was missing on 2x magnification and higher Optic weapon upgrades when the scope setting was set to Picture-in-picture
- Fixed a bug when spectating a player their hands and weapon would be missing if an Underbarrel weapon upgrade was equipped
- Fixed an issue where player’s rank was showing as zero on the scoreboards in dedicated servers
- Fixed an issue where the client version text was obstructing the back button on the in-game menu
- Fixed a bug that was showing the Outpost rule descriptions incorrectly on the loading screen, escape and loadout menu
- Fixed an issue when playing as a Commander with a friendly Observer nearby where the Observer’s class icon would gray out even though you are in range of them
- Fixed a wall collision issue which allowed players to exploit an area under the market in Tell
- Fixed a bug where the Supply Crate on Tell Checkpoint objective E spawned inside a dumpster
- Fixed a bug that caused AI to spawn without refreshing their appearance to match their class on Outpost mode
- Fixed an issue where the Customization page was empty upon launch
- Fixed an issue where the Shell Camo Rolled and Shell Camo Security Torso cosmetics would clip through the Urban Warden Net Headgear cosmetic
Known Issues:
- The objective status at the top middle of the screen seen when in an objective is missing or shown incorrectly
- Equipment color option selected under Appearance section is only applying to vest area and not the rest of the Light or Heavy Carrier
- Community hosted servers will show a player as level 0
- Mosin Stripper Clip weapon upgrade does not push in properly when reloading
- MP5 has a slight clipping of mag during dry reload
- VHS-2 and AK-74 magazines disappear for a moment during a dry reload
- AUG A3’s loading animations will have broken fingers in first person
- AI vehicle can get stuck in the Tutorial Range
- When you first load the game, there’s a chance your character may be shown without a vest; going to customize and selecting the faction will load all the correct cosmetics
- There is a broken texture on the Aiming Grip affecting the M16A2, M24, M870, Mosin-Nagant, SKS, TOZ-194, AKS-74U, G36K, FAL, MP7, and Mk 14 EBR
- The background of the main menu flickers
- Autocannon Strafe no longer damages weapon caches
- In the Competitive game mode Loadout screen, some weapons will have the option of two Recoil Grips, one at 3 supply points and the other at 4 supply points. These upgrades function the same way.
- Mods showing as 'Download Pending' are actually downloading in background
- Known Editor Issue: Attempting to use material instances with parents set to another modded material currently will result in a unloaded texture in-game