November 2020 Community Update Blog
Hello Gamers™,The time is nearly upon us. Operation: Cold Blood is only eight (!!!) days away.
To those of you who played the 1.9 CTE, thank you very much for your time. We received a lot of feedback from the CTE players and it honestly helps us determine adjustments we can or should make before the official release.
There were over 440,000 kills in the 5 days of the CTE alone, with M1 Garand leading the way with 68,792! The best weapon in the game (the Welrod) had a meager 360 kills, 12 less than the combat knife.
One thing we saw during the CTE is that a lot of Outpost scenarios are still easier than we intended, so we will be tweaking those in upcoming updates.
We also used heatmaps like the one below to determine where the most kills and deaths were happening.
I’d also like to say that we have had a huge breakthrough as far as how the AI interacts with smoke goes - so in 1.9 you will notice a large improvement.
If you didn’t try the CTE or aren’t sure what that even is, take a look here - it’s a great way for people to try upcoming content early, and it helps us a lot. All major releases such as Operation: Cold Blood will have a CTE a couple of weeks before release.
We have a few more reveals coming for Operation: Cold Blood in this final week before release, so keep an eye on our socials (@InsurgencyGame on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and our update website (www.sandstorm.game/coldblood).
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There is something I want to touch on that is coming with 1.9 that we haven’t talked about yet.
We looked at something a lot in the past few months and have come to a decision. In 1.9 the Security and Insurgent factions will have adjusted weapon availability, to match what it’s currently like in Versus.
There are three main reasons we are making this change:
- We want to improve balance between the two factions
- We want to maintain (and improve) the identity of the factions
- Having weapon availability parity between Versus and Co-op helps players that move from Co-op to Versus
Some of you may not like this change at first. Please let us know on Reddit and the Steam forums how you feel about this, but also please let us know *why* you feel the way you do about the change.
Before you make your mind up, try and wait for 1.9 to try it. In my opinion Security feels more… Security-ish with the changes.
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For the main feature this month I wanted to showcase a Sandstorm mod. It has a large team, it has a lot of content, and it’s a lot of fun to play. How many of you have tried ISMC?
If you haven’t heard of ISMC, I highly recommend checking it out. Their mod.io page is available here, and they also have a website, available here.
I spoke with their lead developer earlier this month:
fatherHank: What is ISMC?
Anders: ISMC stands for Insurgency Sandstorm Modding Collaboration. We are a team of people around the globe who are working together to create an expansive and immersive mod that introduces massive amounts of content to the game. To date, we’ve added over 50 authentic weapons, attachments, cosmetics, and gear used by actual Special Forces operators. We’ve also added brand new fire support options, additional friendly and OPFOR factions and more.
This project has been created with a modular philosophy (Editor’s note: this seems fitting for a mod 😄) - that is to say our new firearms are one ‘mod’ and our in-game clothing system is another. ISMC is ever-expanding with new content, and we’re psyched for people to experience all of it.
fH: When did development start?
A: ISMC’s development has actually happened extremely quickly - we only started around August of this year (2020). A few of us playing Sandstorm just realized one day that no one was really doing a big mod like this, and we thought, “We want this to exist; why shouldn’t we be the ones to make it?”. The modding community was already experiencing massive growth, and they accepted us newcomers with open arms. From there a lot of cool people loved the idea and were willing to share ideas and work hard together. We learned so much from them. Having the support of the modding community, and the players on our servers, led us to where ISMC is at today.
fH: How many members are there on the ISMC team?
A: Currently we have a core dev team of about 12 actively working on the mod in major ways. We have some generalist modders, 3D artists, modelers, animators, riggers, scripters, level designers, and we’ve grown our mod to also include Community Managers who run our Discord server, website, and social media pages. We even have artists who create promotional content for the mod such as graphics, trailers, and video content. Several people outside of the core team have contributed towards the mod for which we are very grateful. We are always happy to welcome new members into our dev team who are passionate about making ISMC even better!
fH: When and how did you get into modding?
A: Many of our team members, including myself, actually had zero modding experience prior to modding Insurgency: Sandstorm. I basically downloaded the modding tools and photoshop, and got a lot of help and tutoring from other members of ISMC. We all taught each other. This year has created a unique and challenging set of circumstances for all of us. With many of us stuck in lockdown at home we thought this would be a great time to learn new skills, make friends, and just have fun making cool stuff!
fH: What is the biggest challenge with ISMC?
A: Oh, the time zones for sure! We’re lucky to have a multi-national team, but considering we are all from different corners of the globe with different time zones, things can get quite difficult. Fortunately, between technology and the powerful set of tools we have available to coordinate and collaborate, we are still making substantial progress, and for the most part, keeping some pretty aggressive (self-imposed) deadlines.
fH: What is your favourite component of ISMC?
A: As a player, I love the canted sights system we created for ISMC. It lets you attach a long-range optic on the top rail of a weapon, but also add a secondary short-range optic at a 45º angle. So you can snipe someone a ways off, cant (tilt) the weapon, and hit enemies in the next room.
As a developer, I love the feeling of working together and succeeding as a team, coming up with awesome ideas, and creating a fun mod! I have been focusing on adding and refining firearms to the mod, so I’m a bit biased towards that. I really appreciate other members of the dev team for their constant stream of nerdy ideas that I wouldn’t think of otherwise.
Overall, I love the attention to realism in terms of how the guns operate and function in the game; everything from recoil and how different gas systems affect it to realistic fire rates and attachment placements. Our goal is realism, but all this is a passion project for us, and we keep improving thanks to feedback and help from the community.
fH: What do you have coming up with the mod?
A: We have plenty that we’re not announcing yet (SOON™), but here’s what I can say: In addition to making more content we are also constantly working on improving the stuff that's already in the mod, we want to keep making it better! We keep updating and improving our models and textures as we go and as we become more competent in our respective fields.
You can expect even better skins and deeper customization coming in the future! We’re so excited about NWI’s toggleable optic system coming with 1.9, and we’re going to create some phenomenal content working with that system. This will include a variety of new optics as well as us bringing our canted red dots, top mounted dots, toggle zoom, and magnifiers up to date with the new system.
In terms of planned updates, we are working on a Russian weapons and gear update. We have that planned as the next big update, but as always smaller updates will bring new content as we make it, so stay tuned for more guns, more choices, and a deeper and more expansive ISMC!
As the core component of ISMC is the armory containing the weapons, it provides the backbone for add-on mods such as the ‘characters’ mod that can be added on to provide custom classes and factions to the game. We are working on making more expansions like this for almost any type of gameplay; Co-op, PVP - fast paced and slow paced. We are also working on making a system where owners can dial down exactly how they want to play. ISMC is on its way to being the mod for truly every player.
fH: Are there any specific community servers that always run ISMC that you’d like to shout out? If so, how can people access them to try the mod?
A: Players can join our official worldwide servers via the Community Server browser - Look for:
ISMC Official (NA) | YALLA Co-Op
66.55.142.18:27065
ISMC Official (EU) | HABIBI Co-Op
131.153.41.186:27102
ISMC Official (AU/ASIA) | IMSHI Co-Op
108.61.227.189:27015
If you’re a server admin, you can find details about how to install the mod on our mod.io page as well as our website: https://ismcmod.com/. We’re more than happy to help walk you through it.
fH: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, Anders, is there anything else you’d like to mention?
A: Firstly, thank you to everyone who plays on ISMC servers, and to the admins that host them. And sincerely, this project wouldn't exist without NWI supporting and inspiring us. We owe so much to them for creating a game as excellent as Insurgency: Sandstorm to begin with, and allowing us to build on that. We also want to thank everyone who's talked about the mod on message boards, social media, reddit, and anywhere else you’ve heard it mentioned. We have literally zero budget so word of mouth is how we've become this popular and how we'll continue to grow! We have a lot of cool things in the near future (and beyond) to share - a lot of stuff that the community has been requesting - so keep an eye on us. Join the Official ISMC Discord to stay briefed with the latest intel.
ISMC YouTube @ISMCmod on Twitter @ISMCMod on Instagram Steam Community Group
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Welcome to the first official edition of ‘From the Field’, a (now named) section where we show off some of our favourite community content from the past month.
[previewyoutube]The first time you see it.[/previewyoutube]We’re going to start with a reaction to seeing the ‘Garand Thumb Reload’ for the first time. Keep those thumbs clear, soldier. Credit to @MAKHINA10 on Twitter.
This Redditor made an MP7 entirely out of cardboard, and it looks incredible. Need to work on your trigger discipline though my friend (credit to indopoppy on Reddit).[previewyoutube]Oops[/previewyoutube]There are pros and cons to shooting down a heli (credit to Reacher-Said-N0thing on Reddit).
[previewyoutube]Mosin Movement[/previewyoutube]Great production, great aim, great gun. 10/10 Mosin use (credit to Eziokas_YT on Reddit).
[previewyoutube]Le Insurgency[/previewyoutube]One of our French players on Discord created this piece of art. Le mérite revient à Gat (I guarantee that is incorrect French, but I tried).
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Well, that wraps up this month’s blog - soon enough we'll all be trudging through the snow, clicking heads and hearing that oh-so-distinctive ping (which is audible to ALL players around you as well, for the record).
Can’t wait for everyone to hop in to Operation: Cold Blood - I will be glued to my screens on the 8th, awaiting your feedback.
fatherHank
