Project Winter News

Join the contest here: https://gleam.io/xPWgq/project-winter-fan-giveaway

As a thank you to you guys for being an awesome community, we are hosting a giveaway to win some Project Winter swag! There will be one Grand Prize Winner, and four Runner Up Prize Winners.

The Grand Prize Winner will receive:
- Two Project Winter Game Pads
- Project Winter Print signed by the Dev team
- Project Winter T-Shirt
- Project Winter Hoodie
- Project Winter Toque
- Five Project Winter Steam keys

The four Runner Up Winners will receive:
- One Project Winter Game Pad
- Project Winter Print signed by the Dev team
- Project Winter T-Shirt
- One Project Winter Steam key

The competition will run until Monday August 12, so make sure to complete the checklist before then to maximize your chance of winning the bundle! ːlunar2019smilingpigː

Project Winter v1.1.9248 Feature Set - Let’s Role Play! (BUILD v1.1.9248_Prod)

Welcome to Project Winter 1.1! We have an exciting update this month, which will include new player roles for both the survivors and traitors. These new roles will give the players special abilities unique to their role, such as healing other players or crafting certain items for a lower price. This update also includes animated emotes, a craftable backpack to increase the player’s inventory size, and a number of polish improvements such as a new hydro power station. Checkout the build notes to see all of the new content and fixes!

NEW FEATURES:

• Expanded Player Roles Game Mode: A new gamemode is being introduced that will include expanded player roles for both the survivor and traitor classes. Each role will include a special ability that can be charged by achieving certain tasks in-game, such as opening crates and helping fix the objective.
  
  • Players now have the ability to choose between a classic game mode (Traitors and Survivors only) and Expanded Roles game mode.
    
  • Expanded Roles mode is now the DEFAULT game mode. In this mode, the players spawn into the game with a small chance of being one of four new roles.
    
  • Medic (Survivors): Able to craft medkits with only two herbs, and can heal other players once their ability is charged. This role has a 20% damage reduction against other players.
    
  • Defector (Survivors): A survivor with the ability to open a traitor crate or airdrop once their ability bar is charged.
    
  • Stitcher (Traitors): Able to craft medkits with only two herbs, and can heal other players once their ability is charged. The stitcher does not suffer a damage reduction like the medic.
    
  • Saboteur (Traitors): Energy drinks will reward traitor credits instead of increasing stats. Unlocks an ability to craft landmines with traitor credits.
    
  • A new clipboard with descriptions for all the new roles has been placed on the south facing table inside the cabin.
    
  • Hovering over your ability charge icon will pop up a short description of your ability.
    
  • When creating a new lobby, players have the ability to click a box to enable Classic mode if they do not want to play games with expanded roles.
    
  • When browsing available lobbies, players can differentiate which game mode the lobby is in by looking for the “Classic” mode icon on the far left of the lobby’s info row.
    
    
• New Global Event: Loot crate storm! A roar of a low flying plane, thunderous crashes... you know that one of those crates might contains gear, food, and survival. But there’s a catch… check out the event in game to find out what it is!
  
  
  
  
  • New randomized global event added to the mix.
    
  • Find the crate with all the loot in the allotted amount of time.
    
• Additional Inventory Slot: Craft a fifth inventory slot from in-game resources to carry all those hearts you’re collecting! (Recipe available from the crafting table menu)
  
• New Emote Animations: Characters now animate when emotes are triggered! Two brand new emotes have also been added, a pointing emote and a beckoning emote, which increases the total amount of emotes to 8.
  
• New Power Station Variation: The power station has received a makeover! The hydro station will serve the same function as the power station, but with a new aesthetic. Each game will randomize between the previous power station and the new hydro station.
  
• New Falling States: When falling from a certain height, the player will now play a falling animation. For shorter falls you will be able to move immediately upon hitting the ground, for higher falls you will be briefly immobilized while a landing animation plays.
  
• Better Traitor Picking: The weighting system is now based on the amount of consecutive times a player has been a survivor.
  
• Discord Rich Presence: See which of your friends are playing Project Winter from their discord profile. You’ll be able to see if they’re in-game, how many players are in their match, and what their reputation badge is!
  
• Outfit Randomizer: When selecting an outfit for your character you can now select the option to randomize what your character wears.
  
• Slope Speed Slow Down: Players now move slower when going uphill.
  
• New Cosmetic Crate Items: 50 new in-game crate items to unlock!
  
• Lobby Search Filter: Find specific lobbies easier by using the new search filter in the lobby browser.
  

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Medkit crafting recipe has increased to 4 herbs instead of 3 herbs
  
• Mass hysteria event duration has been reduced by 30%
  
• Being reported now has a bigger impact on your social rating
  
• The power station and truth serum lab now have a greater minimum distance for placement to prevent them from appearing directly beside each other
  
• Poisoned crossbow now applies a more potent poison effect which will cause vomiting faster
  

OTHER CHANGES:

• Animals now drop a fur pelt item in addition to meat
  
• Adjustments to the text wrapping for various UI elements so they look better in other languages
  
• Player report menu is now accessible from the game over screen again
  
• Various graphical optimizations to improve performance
  
• Players not joining a rematch will no longer be kicked out of the game over screen when the rematch timer expires
  
• Added an indicator for the cabin safe zone to the UI
  
• Added VOIP status, reconnect button and monitoring button in the settings menu to help with troubleshooting voice issues
  
• Cooldown for ghost teleport is now a circle timer instead of a text timer
  
• Various visual improvements for the in-game text chat
  
• Location indicators that appear around the edge of the screen are now fixed to the main outdoor camera and won’t reposition for alternate camera angles
  
• Campfires no longer lock when targeted, and can now be refueled if other players are targeting them already
  
• Improvements to ranged weapon aiming visuals
  
• Updated Vivox libraries to the latest version
  
• Event items can now be recycled for 200 survivor points each
  

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed several UI text elements that weren’t localized
  
• Fixed player names with non-English characters appearing invisible in the lower left proximity chat indicators
  
• Fixed certain Japanese hiragana and katakana characters appearing as squares
  
• Fixed various issues on the maps where players could get stuck or visuals weren’t correct
  
• Fixed case where fewer animals than expected could spawn for the animal wave console
  
• Fixed several rare cases where the player could become broken and unable to use items after switching items while aiming a gun or aiming a thrown item
  
• Fixed one instance of the fulton spawning inside an ice wall
  
• Fixed blizzard visuals resetting when switching in and out of the cabin map camera during a blizzard
  
• Fixed a case where lobby names were being considered invalid while containing no profanity
  
• Fixed gloves for mountie jacket being stuck as black
  
• Fixed crate announcement reward giving only the first crate and not properly setting the badges
  
• Fixed region name being cleared when entering the settings screen while the lobby browser is opened and “best region” is selected
  
• Fixed case where escape vehicle sounds could continue to play after object was destroyed
  
• Fixed camera getting stuck when taking an escape pod near a yellow flag
  
• Fixed cases where camera could get stuck when entering and exiting bunkers
  
• Fixed case where player could get stuck on closed helipad by jumping off the plane’s wing
  
• Fixed positioning of wires from lab console to prevent the player from getting stuck on them
  
• Fixed certain escape pod drop locations being very near the truth serum lab
  
• Fixed case where players could be left on black screen during load if host disconnects
  
• Fixed animals losing aggression when targeted player enters small hot springs
  
• Fixed case where player could get stuck behind crates in a geo bunker
  
• Fixed player scores briefly appearing as 0 on the game over screen results tab when other players select the stats tab
  
• Fixed case where players could place fires underwater
  
• Fixed issue where traitors leaving early would receive points for survivors stopped when the survivors were still alive
  
• Fixed bonus objective for being exiled twice incrementing when other players get exiled
  
• Fixed “Home Run” achievement unlocking by throwing an item at a dead animal
  
• Fixed case where item icon could get stuck on UI and break a ghost ability if an item was being dragged when the player died
  
• Fixed flickering blood particle effects in some cases when equipping the raw animal or human meat items
  

=====================================================================

Welcome survivors to the new event: FreedomFest. Celebrating a joint event between Canada Day (we’re Canadian eh?) as well as our neighbours down south’s own Independence Day. We have a number of new items, a new crate as well as a new progression tree added into the game. These items are only available for a limited time so make sure you get them before it is too late!

Along with this, we have refreshed our cosmetic store. This is a special store refresh for us as we have teamed up with the College of the North Atlantic’s very talented Video Game Art & Design students who have created all the cosmetics for this month. Items were created as a capstone project by students Julia Cumby and Grace Blagdon, supervised by instructor Janice Hertel. The program offers an artistic approach to game development. More info: https://cna.nl.ca/program/video-game-art-and-design

All proceeds from these items will go to support Young Adult Cancer Canada. YACC is the national cancer organization providing resources for young adults looking for inspiration, information and support. Please visit https://www.youngadultcancer.ca for more info.

Now on with the patch notes! 1.0.8903

New Event: Freedomfest 2019!

• New progression tree to unlock exclusive items
  
• New limited time crate to purchase with Survivor Points
  
• Event will begin about an hour after this update goes live.
  

Balancing Changes

• Berries now respawn slower
  
• Animal Wave Objective AI is now tougher and waves have a better difficulty curve depending on number of players
  
• Time it takes to repair objective is now increased on Animal Wave Objective
  

Lobby Improvements

• Passwords will carry over when you “rematch”
  
• Users can lock/unlock the lobby while in the lobby
  

Misc improvements

• Reporting removed from the Summary screen. Players can still report people via ESC>Players menu. This is to help mitigate salty players reporting people for no reason
  
• Social Point “degradation” slowed down.
  

Bug Fixes

• Animals should not spawn within the cabin anymore
  
• “User that swapped clothes would retain the swapped name after becoming a ghost” Fixed!
  
• “Escapes counting towards deaths” Fixed!
  
• “Players getting stuck when loading into the game” Fixed!
  
• Fixed issue where player had unlimited number of downvotes by exiting and restarting the game.
  
• Fixed player names with certain characters appearing invisible in the lower left of the results screen
  
• Player voice indicators will now revert to their original name when a player dies or escapes after swapping outfits
  

Greetings Survivors! Welcome to Project Winter: The Social Update! For this update we have mostly focused on improving quality of life aspects of existing features. Here are the new things you can expect from this update:


Profile / Social Rating Page:

• Players can now access a “Profile” page from the main menu UI where their social rating (see below) is displayed, as well as their lifetime statistics that track from today onward. This is the first part of a multiple iteration feature that will continue to improve in the near future
  

Social Rating system:

• Players now have a social rating system that displays how well they do in the game and how cooperative they are. Details on the system are:
  
• All players now have a badge next to their names that displays their social rating level.
  
• Every Player starts with the same rating of ‘base’ positive (Bronze Badge)
  
• You social rating is improved whenever a player gives you a thumbs up at the end of every match. The max positive social level a player can reach is Gold.
  
• Your social rating is negatively affected when a player reports you. If your social rating degrades below the base “bronze” level, your name will display an exclamation mark badge next to it.
  
• Rating inactivity will cause your social rating to reset back to base Bronze level over time.
  
• Players can report other players a maximum of 3 times per day. This helps avoid abusing the system.
  

New Objective challenges! See what happens when nature teams up against your chances of survival.

Error messaging handling: “Player reported” and “Banned / timed out account” messages have more contextual information and options for affected players.

Trap disarming kit: Players can now find and craft trap disarming kits in game.

Rematch: Players can now choose to rematch their current team mates. The option becomes available at the end of every match.

Quick match: Click it, join a match, play.

Survival points balancing: We’ve made tweaks to the survival points system to emphasize cooperative gameplay. End of game goals are now prioritized for points over the single bonus objectives that can be claimed in game.


Housekeeping and bug squashing:

• Numerous holes in the environment have been patched
  
• Camera triggers have been optimized and should properly transition back to main camera without getting stuck (lower quality hardware might still see this issue)
  
• General level optimizations and fixes for spawned object positioning
  
• Added a non dx11 compliant version of the snow. Users affected with the “black snow and trees” issue should be able to play now
  
• Players will now see a dynamic blurred background rather than a static ‘blurred’ image if they have post-processing enabled
  
• Reduced initial cooldown of ghost abilities to 60 seconds from 180 seconds
  
• Fixed issue with player corpses not being interactable when killed during hysteria event
  
• Fixed case where activated traitor abilities could be different for host and clients
  
• Animals will no longer continue to attack the space where a player boarded the escape pod after it departs
  
• Updated visuals for player voice chat indicators in bottom left of screen. Ghosts now also display an icon to indicate who is speaking
  
• Fixed landmine explosion graphic (will now play for its full duration)
  
• Fuel bars for campfires will now hide when not being targeted by the player
  
• Fixed overlapping/stuck error messages on host lobby popup
  
• Fixed case where player controls could break when vomiting and firing a ranged weapon at the same time
  
• Fixed collision for traitor crates
  
• Update Discord and "Buy More Skins" buttons to open in Steam overlay browser to try to prevent the antivirus lock issue
  
• Fixed "escape without eating berries" bonus objective not counting poisoned berries
  
• Updated sort order of crafting items to better group item types
  
• Fixed kicking multiple players from a lobby only preventing the first kicked player from rejoining
  
• Optimizations to reduce network data sent for players and animals
  
• Timeline entries on game over screen will now show survivor and traitor icons in front of player names for more events
  
• Added timeline event for opening truth serum lab
  
• Increased opacity of text chat background slightly to increase readability
  
• Fixed "Exquisite Chef" achievement unlocking at 31 items instead of 30, and not counting pot pies
  
• Added unique ammo icons for each type of ranged weapon
  
• Fixed crossbow bolts not despawning after hitting certain surfaces
  
• Fixed ghost nameplates sometimes appearing for living players
  
• Fixed aiming reticle not appearing for snowball fight
  
• Fixed various issues with Player profile tracking stats.
  

1.0 Is live! And with it are a few new features for you guys! Work together to open the armoury and find a cache of weapons to use to survive, or deceive. Two new ranged weapons have also been added, a crossbow and a tranquilizer gun. Poison the crossbow to apply the poisonous effects, or use the tranquilizer gun to slow the enemy down and stop their ability to speak to other players for a short time. Check below for some more details!

• Armoury
  • Has a high chance of spawning ranged weapons inside
    
  • Only 1 per map!
    
  
  
  
• Crossbow
  • Very quiet ranged weapon
    
  • Can be poisoned at the crafting station using the poison item
    
  
  
  
• Tranquilizer Gun
  • Very quiet ranged weapon, does very little damage
    
  • Will slow the player when hit
    
  • Will stop the players ability to use proximity chat, text chat or radio chat when hit
    
  
  
  
• New Maps!
  • 3 new maps to explore
    
  • New places to sabotage
    

And of course, bug fixes!:

• Fixed issue with pickup prompts for items not appearing from destroyed resource nodes in certain circumstances
  
• Dead players will no longer disappear from the exile menu, and can still be voted for (their votes for other players will be removed, however)
  
• Fixed a bug where players would get stuck in the interactive lobby snowball fight
  
• Players outside of the interactive lobby should not see snowball impacts
  
• Fixed aiming near submarine bridge
  
• Polish for blizzard visuals in yellow flag views
  
• Fixed the druid fires
  
• Updates to settings/control mapping
  
• Updates to fonts and localization
  
• Fixed issue with a controller conflict with cycling ghost abilities and opening the stats screen
  
• Added tab key indicator to all contextual interactions that can be cycled, not just active ones
  
• Fixed player ragdolls bouncing in certain cases
  
• Adjusted UI on inventory for controller scrolling
  
• Optimizations to reduce network traffic
  
• New Steam items added
  
• Bug fixes for announcement system
  
• Nvidia Highlights disabled to address crashing issues
  
• Reveal Health traitor ability disabled for now (not working correctly)
  
• Voice chat proximity range reduced slightly
  
• General improvements for animal AI
  
• Multiple attack animals can now be spawned from surprise bunkers
  
• Updated surprise bunker prefabs to create smoother jump path
  
• Animals will now lose interest in players after a few seconds if the player enters an area inaccessible to the animal
  
• Tightened hit box on wolves
  
• Fixed an issue where wolves could be led up a set of stairs, breaking their pathing
  
• Bear will roar instead of stand to indicate you are getting close
  
• Fix issue with loading failures
  
• Fix issue where players could use the report system to report themselves
  
• Invite button should activate when players leave a lobby, not just when they join a partially full one
  
• Smoke bomb activation should cancel when entering a safe zone
  
• Melee attacks have an increased hit radius
  
• Axes are positioned differently to hit closer to the player
  
• Fixed issues with some achievements not tracking correctly
  
• Fixed an issue with the camera zoom when player dies during a blizzard
  
• General UI improvements
  
• Fixed an issue where the cabin map wouldn’t always update when the 2nd objective beacon was activated
  
• Player proximity voice chat names on HUD will now update when swapping clothes with another player
  
• Audio updates (new sounds added, some existing sounds fixed)
  
• Added music to the game that gets more intense as things happen
  

Thanks to everyone who has supported us up to this point, and to all new players… welcome! The game is what it is today due to the support and feedback of the players. All Early Access players will have their two exclusive EA Items rewarded to them today, claim them from the announcements section! We hope you enjoy the latest update!

So what is 1.0?
1.0 is the team finishing all the features we originally wanted in Project Winter + some valuable feedback from the community.

What is next?
We are not stopping at 1.0! We will be slowing down our content release schedule to monthly releases, rather than every two weeks as we have been previously. This will give us a bit more breathing room and make sure we release polished features. We will still be releasing bug fixing builds as needed, these will not necessarily be on a schedule depending on the severity of the issues seen.

Next content build will be scheduled for June 20th and we aim to include a lot of quality of life improvements on existing systems, all dependant on time, these features may include:

• Quick match button
  
• Stats / Profile Page
  
• Social Rating
  
• Iterate on repair objectives to make more interesting
  
• Living ragdolls
  
• Trap disarm item
  

As always, we look forward to your feedback and you can find us and other community members on our Discord (www.discord.gg/projectwinter)! Drop in and have a chat.