Insurgency: Sandstorm News

Hello everyone, my name is Tim Perreault and I’m the Production Director at New World Interactive. It’s hard to believe we’re already four months into 2021. The year is rushing by, but we’re happy with how it’s going so far. This month we’ll touch base on our two upcoming releases that were both recently announced in our Development Streams.

Key Points for State of Production #19

• Update on 1.9.2 Progress
  
• Operation: Exodus Open CTE Playtest
  
• Production Outlook
  

[h3]Update on 1.9.2 Progress[/h3]
The team is still putting some final touches on content for this community driven update. We’re excited to release it at the end of the month. If you missed the reveal stream and wanted to get a bit more info on what’s included, you can check it out here.

[h3]Operation: Exodus Open CTE Playtest[/h3]
We recently announced our next major update: Operation: Exodus launching on May 18, 2021. If you didn’t catch the stream, you can watch it here. You can also follow updates on content reveals on our website.

As one of the final steps before we release, we’re doing our Open CTE event from Thursday April 22 until Monday April 26. During this time, players will be able to get an early preview of content coming in our latest updating. To help encourage testing of a few specific things, we’ll also be running some scheduled Play With Devs events during the weekdays:

April 22, 11AM MST/1PM EST Queue into the New Map: Versus playlists to join our devs. April 23, 11AM MST/1PM EST Queue into the New Map: Co-op playlist to join our devs. April 26, 11AM MST/1PM EST Queue into the [REDACTED] playlist to join our devs.

If you play the CTE you’ll be able to pass feedback to us in two ways: by using the in-game feedback option or by filling out a survey. The feedback option is best used for reporting bugs while the survey focuses on collecting feedback on gameplay related changes in the release. Once the CTE event ends, our team will review the feedback from both sources and set out to make the final adjustments on the build before release. Keep your eyes open for a news post on Steam with more details on how to participate!

[h3]Production Outlook[/h3]
I wanted to take a little time to talk about the overall state of Sandstorm. From a production perspective, we’re really excited about where we have strengthened our ability to hold dialogues with the community on a regular basis and act on the feedback. We’ve continued expanding our behind-the-scenes tools that help us better understand how the game is performing and how we can best continue to grow the community. Over the last year we’ve made some important hires to expand our capabilities internally which are going to be noticed in our upcoming releases. To summarize, our outlook for production is great, and with Saber’s help on consoles bringing us closer to a release, we have a lot more in store for Sandstorm and our community.

Next month, we’ll be diving into some behind-the-scenes details about Operation: Exodus and all the fun new content that it brings, so until then, keep your stick on the ice.

Hello Gamers™,

2021 is already a quarter over and we’ve had a lot going on behind the scenes.

Our latest livestream just ended (if you missed it, you should tune in next time - www.twitch.tv/NewWorld) and we announced 1.9.2. It’s a minor release, but we’ve included a big community request. More details on that a few lines down.

The next stream will be Thursday, April 15th at 2:00pm MST, and we will start talking about 1.10!

Console development is chugging along and we’re still hopeful for a release in late summer of this year.

Let’s dig into the good stuff.



For anyone new here, we have smaller updates that come between our major updates (i.e. 1.8.1 came between 1.8 and 1.9). They’re community driven and usually focus on improvements to quality of life and occasionally small features.

For 1.9.2 we are proud to announce that we’re adding something you’ve all been asking for since I started just over a year ago:

WE’RE ADDING RAILGUNS...

Just kidding, we’re bringing back some HD Textures!

There were some changes to some textures with 1.6 for the sake of performance and optimization. While this helped Sandstorm to be more accessible to those with lower spec PCs, those with rigs on the higher end of the spectrum wanted their pretty graphics back.

We decided a while back that we wanted to dedicate time to exploring how to do this, and with 1.9.2 we had the time.

This will be an optional download via Steam, so those who saw the performance improvements that came with 1.6 - no need to worry, nothing will change for you.

While this took a large chunk of the 1.9.2 development time, we saw the constant requests (I’m looking at you, Discord members with HD Texture Pack in your name), so we think it’s a great addition.

Here is what will be included:

Character Textures:

• All character textures
  
• All equipment textures
  
• All cosmetics textures
  

Weapon Textures:

• All weapon textures
  
• All weapon skin textures
  

We are exploring weapon upgrade textures, but are not able to commit to this for 1.9.2 yet.

Most importantly, the toilet and fire extinguisher props will be returned to their former glory.

In addition to the optional HD Texture pack we will be reverting first person muzzle flashes to how they were pre-1.6. All the beautiful bespoke muzzle flashes unique to each weapon will be re-added with 1.9.2.

Our secondary focus was quality-of-life additions. Here's a quick rundown - the full extent of changes will be available in the 1.9.2 patch notes.

We spent some time adjusting the brightness of flashlights for night maps, so no more being blinded by team-mates (although the effect they have on AI remains).

The brightness of characters has been tweaked as well, this will improve visibility and team identification.

We’ve improved the server browser, so you can expect a handful of fixes and enhancements there (details will be in the patch notes of course).

We revisited a request from a few releases back and are adding the ability to bind voice commands, so those of you who dislike the radial wheel, your time has come.

Something else I kept hearing about was players rejoining the same server after being vote-kicked. We have added some matchmaking rules so that will no longer happen!

This is not everything - all of the other changes and bug-fixes will be detailed in the patch notes, when 1.9.2 releases on April 27th.



I have been working with our Player Support team a lot lately on improving player reporting and reducing in-game toxicity.

In-game reporting helps us track problematic players, but as we’re a relatively small team it can be difficult to act on these reports alone.

With things such as Nvidia Shadowplay being so prevalent we’d like to ask for your help to curb these kinds of players.

If you encounter someone cheating, someone constantly griefing other players, or players using racist, homophobic, or misogynistic slurs please grab a video for us - preferably with the scoreboard showing at some point in the video.

If you can then provide us this video via a support ticket, along with a quick explanation of what we’re looking for in the video, and timestamps of when the offenses occur, it will make it much easier for us to act.

If you see someone cheating please also provide a replay ID in your support ticket.

To submit a support ticket, just head to this link.



It's with a heavy heart that I have to announce that at some point in the next 3-4 months I will be leaving Canada. This kind of complicates me being the Community Manager for NWI. Makes it somewhat impossible to be honest.

As some of you know, my wife is from Australia; some family things have arisen that are forcing our hand a bit and necessitating a move back there. At least it's Australia and not... Antarctica or something. Always a silver lining.

Because of the current COVID-19 situation and Australia's incredibly strict-even-when-not-in-pandemic quarantine laws for dogs (and the fact we have two dogs), this process will take a few months, so I will still be taking your feedback and reading comments about console until at least July - likely August or later.

The time zone difference between Canada and Australia is about as extreme as it could be, so staying on as the Community Manager would, sadly, be impossible.

Luckily for me, NWI is being very supportive and I will likely be staying on with the studio, but shifting into a production role.

While you will still all have to put up with me for a few more months, I wanted to say thank you all for all the feedback over the past year - you've all helped me grow in my position and helped us to steer Sandstorm in the right direction. It's a very challenging job, but being able to announce things like HD Textures really makes it worth it.

You’re all the reason I have a job in the industry at all, full stop; so thank you for existing. It’s been a whirlwind 13 months working with all of you, and it’s been a lot more good than bad.

Even after moving I will still be around on the Discord servers and the subreddit. Sadly you can’t get rid of me this easily.

Whomever the next CM ends up being - go easy on them, it’s not as easy a job as it looks. You know how you get when you’re tired, hungry, or talking about deathcam.

Keep the feedback coming, I've got a few months left as your Community Manager.




We're leading with a wholesome meme this month. Thanks Capturesque.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The A-10 can put in some work (shoutout to Danatov on Reddit).

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Eziokas with some excellent editing skills on display here.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This is what modding was made for (From WintorOperator via Reddit).



Closing it up is our boy Tom, who has managed to port Embassy (and some other maps) from Insurgency 2014 to be playable in Sandstorm!

[hr][/hr]

[h3]That's it for this month. I'm happy for textures, but I'm sad to be moving on from Community Management.

I'll keep up the fight for y'all until NWI changes my title (and beyond that, let's be honest)

fatherHank[/h3]

After weeks of careful playtesting and deliberation by our judging team, New World Interactive is pleased to announce the winners of the Insurgency: Sandstorm Mapping Contest.

Before we dive into the results, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors Intel, Nvidia, Epic Games, and Mod.io. As well as all the players who helped test, provide feedback, and vote for submissions, and of course, the entrants who spent hundreds of hours crafting incredible custom maps for the community.

There were many fantastic entries and only five prize positions; however, all finalists will receive a copy of World War Z - Game of the Year Edition thanks to our partners at Saber Interactive & Focus Home Interactive.

Maps were extensively playtested and judged based on the following criteria:

• Gameplay (50 marks)
  
• Visual Aesthetics (25 marks)
  
• Performance & Optimisation (25 marks)
  

After careful consideration, the winners are…..




Winning: $5,000 + 1x RTX 2080Ti GPU(1) + 1x Intel i7 7700k CPU + $100 Unreal Marketplace credit for each team member(2) + 1x Epic Game Store key for World War Z Game Of The Year Edition



Judges feedback: This map has an amazing atmosphere and some great storytelling that blends well with the gameplay. The feel of fighting through a prison is a lot of fun and results in quite intense firefights due to the narrow spaces. Navigating through the map can be challenging, but it didn’t have a huge impact on the fun factor.


Winning: $2,500 + 1x Intel® NUC 10 Performance + $100 Unreal Marketplace credit for each team member(2) + 1x Epic Game Store key for World War Z Game Of The Year Edition



Judges feedback: This Is a very fun map and has a great atmosphere. Firefight is the absolute must-play mode on this map, the firefight design works really well with the more compact size and layout of the level. Checkpoint, however, suffers a bit from the more compact size and doesn’t offer enough gameplay variation to stand out.


Winning: $1,500 + 1x i7 7700k + $100 Unreal Marketplace credit for each team member(2) + 1x Epic Game Store key for World War Z Game Of The Year Edition



Judges feedback: An absolutely stunning-looking map with a great atmosphere! An adventurous experience that offers something new to the player every time. It almost feels like treasure hunting, finding an underground waterfall was definitely one of the highlights in our playtests. Unfortunately for Firefight, the map falls a bit short, it’s too much of a platformer and quite difficult to navigate through. Still a work of art that has a lot of potential for Checkpoint.


Winning: $750 + 1x i7 7700k + $100 Unreal Marketplace credit for each team member(2) + 1x Epic Game Store key for World War Z Game Of The Year Edition



Judges feedback: Overall a great-looking map. The mud village was very well constructed and offered some fun gameplay, especially on Checkpoint. It almost feels like a mini-campaign where each objective offers something different, the larger capture zones are a nice touch and require more tactical gameplay than usual. We had a lot of fun with this layout.

Push Security however is not working so great on this map, the line of sights are too long and we had a difficult time as Security to even exit the start spawn, overall the map just feels too big for Push.


Winning: $250 + 1x i7 7700k + $100 Unreal Marketplace credit for each team member(2) + 1x Epic Game Store key for World War Z Game Of The Year Edition



Judges feedback: This map has a strong visual identity, the spaces have a purpose, like the tank factory, which is definitely one of the visual highlights of this level. The cohesive design and visuals make it feel like a real place. Unfortunately, the realism that was put into this level made some of the spaces less fun to play in. Lacking cover on objectives made them difficult to defend and long travel times to objectives, were things we all noticed in our playtests. Nonetheless, this is a map with a lot of potential.



Congratulations to all our winners; our team will contact you via mod.io to arrange prize distribution and additional feedback over the coming days. Entrants can now update contest submissions to reflect feedback from the community or any changes made during the judging phase.

We hope this was a valuable experience for all involved and look forward to seeing many more community maps in the near future!

It was received really well last month... so we're doing it again! TRIPLE XP from now until Monday at 11:00am MST.

Hello everyone, my name is Tim Perreault and I’m the Production Director at New World Interactive. March is half done and the team has quite a few different things on the go. Let’s jump right in.

Key Points for State of Production #18

• Community Driven Update
  
• 1.10 Progress
  
• Test Automation
  
• Mapping Contest Update
  

[h3]Community Driven Update[/h3]
Planning wrapped up shortly after the last SoP and we’ve since moved into development. This update will be relatively small, but it’s going to pack a big punch in terms of requested features. I don’t want to spoil the reveal, but the main feature in the update has been highly requested.

[h3]1.10 Progress[/h3]
Our next major update is trucking along. We’ve got a lot completed so far, but there are still a few elements we’re working on before we’ll be able to schedule an open CTE event to preview the update and collect feedback. Based on our updated art guidelines we’ve taken an opportunity to review all the cosmetics in the release and are making some minor adjustments. We’ve also committed to spending more time testing and polishing before we release, so you should expect more of a delay after the playtest until the release goes live.

[h3]Test Automation[/h3]
One of the goals of the State of Production is to shine a bit of a spotlight on some of the developers who work behind the scenes on our project. This month, I’ve invited our Automation Developer to talk about the work he has started doing on Sandstorm over the past four months.

Hey! I'm PHEN, or Stephen Ma, and I'm an Automation Developer here at New World Interactive. Today I'd like to share with you a little bit behind the scenes of game development and hopefully you'll learn a bit more about development in general!

To describe an Automation Developer, I'll have to talk about Test Automation. First, let's talk about what a 'test' is. A test (in this case) is a deliberate process of verifying systems, features, and regressing bugs to ensure the game behaves the way we intended. As a game develops in number of features, so does the number of tests. More often than not, the number of tests needed is hundreds of times more than the number of features.

Whether that addition is being able to have a player kick open doors, blow others up with explosives, or interacting with AI, the number of ways two systems interact with each other need to be tested. Adding a new feature means we need to develop new tests to cover all new behaviors and every interaction they will have with other systems.

Each of those tests takes a non-small amount of time to execute, and with the need to test everything with every small change it can quickly scale outside what a team can do on any given day.

To come back to what I do as an Automation Developer at New World Interactive, it's someone who will actively work on getting tests into an "automatically-testable" state as early as possible. This would mean identifying a test, bringing parts of the process into code, and having it automatically run on a machine.

You might say this sounds a lot like "AI" or "Bots" - and you would be correct since there is an overlap in those development aspects, but, I'm avoiding those terms here because they don't include other aspects of the testing such as:

• Documenting evidence
  
• Identifying the root causes of issues
  
• Scheduling the test to run optimally
  
• Communicating the scale and impact of issues to the team
  
• Observing differences in actual behavior vs. expected behavior
  

A good human test will convey those important aspects in the form of a bug report, while a good automated test will have to do the same thing; but will have to do it without any human intervention.

Describing it as "AI" or "Bots" will limit someone's thinking about what automated test development should be. Designing well automated tests is a non-trivial task and requires thinking outside of bot development, hence the Automation Developer's role!

At the end of the day, I'm a developer working on the game and play an important part of the team to ensure we're making the best game we can. Most of my work is something gamers will never see in game but I'm thrilled I can share a little bit of it with you today.

[h3]Mapping Contest Update[/h3]
Community voting on our mapping contest has concluded. The top ten entries are now under review. We had our second playtest with the devs on Friday and it was an absolute blast. We’ll be continuing to playtest the remaining maps and scenarios to get a final ranking which will be announced once all the entries have been reviewed.


That’s it for this month’s SoP, until next time, keep your stick on the ice.