This week we have worked around the clock and the transition to the latest Unreal Engine has been completed Friday evening. Everything appears to be working fine, but didn't have time to test it more than one hour on Windows and did not have time to test it on Linux and Mac OS at all.

For these reasons, we have decided to push the update to next week.

The good news is that with our preliminary tests, we experienced a large performance increase even while we actually added new visual improvements and a new post process effect.

In addition to the many incoming features and improvements we have listed in the previous post, there is a high probability that we'll also be able to include the Hacker class! The first version will come with an automatic turret and droppable ammunitions (that's actually very useful now that the Angel class heals).

More cool items for each class will follow shortly after. To name a few:

• Placable energy shields
  
• Placable spawn points (usable only once)
  
• Energy pads for instant energy refills
  
• Teleporters

More to be announced later (vehicle related maybe?) ;)

Next update will also come with a new weapon loadout menu and a map/game mode voting system will show up at the end of each match.

So again, sorry for the long delay. Storm United Alpha 2.0 is a massive update and more testing and polishing is a good thing for everyone.

I am sorry for this silent week. Rest assured we are still working hard on the game but we are also setting up the new office.

Interviews for a community manager, UI artist, marketing specialist and a web developer have also started.

The game will get a large update hopefully this Friday. It should include the new Linux builds with tons of Linux related bug fixes and improved performance. We'll also introduce the Angel class with two healing guns (maybe even a healing station if we're lucky), new skins for almost all weapons, a new scoreboard, improved game mode flow, enhanced character animations, performance gains for all platforms, improved weapon bullet speeds and damage, new post process effects, more iron sights options, improved server admin map and game mode selection, more pistols to choose from, different zoom levels depending on selected scopes, new skill streak badges showing up (headshot, combos, long range shots, etc) and I'm pretty sure I forgot many more goodies.

Furthermore, voice actor castings started so within two weeks or so our character will start speaking in-game including a new announcer voice to replace the prototype one.

Stay tuned :P

This week’s update is visually small, however includes an important technical milestone with the new server management system. Servers are at the center of competitive gaming and being able to fully control them conveniently through a user interface is a big part of our goal to bring a seamless in-game user experience for everyone.

I am happy to list once again our weekly patch release note:

• Integrated the administration UI and all underlying systems accessible through the main menu when you are connected to a server.
  
• Next week will introduce a public game mode/map change voting UI.
  
• Separated server configurations to manage multiple game server instances per server.
  
• Improved UI on very small resolutions (though we recommend to use native resolution and instead reduced the screen percentage quality settings).
  
• Further improved jump animations.
  
• Improved 3rd person weapon holding animations.
  
• Improved 3rd person weapon reload animations.
  
• Minor modifications to the HUD and overall UI.
  
• Included a bold version of our font to use where suitable.
  
• Notification messages now emits a smoke effect.
  
• Improved the character ragdoll physics.
  
• Added a countdown timer at the beginning of matches.
  
• Replaced the background landscape from the Confrontation map.
  
• Further implemented new weapon skins (still a work in progress).
  
• Replaced prototype scope for sniper_01 with a newer version.
  
• Fixed an issue with the game crashing when switching weapons.
  
• Fixed an issue with the game crashing when planting the bomb in the
• Demolition game mode.
  
• The server browser now shows the game’s map rotation.
  
• Administrators are now able to set a password on their server.
  
• Various performance optimizations.

Note that this update is still only for Windows and Mac users. The new Linux client is scheduled to be up next week or the week after that.
A lot of progress has been done on other areas of the game, but did not make it in this release. For instance, we almost completed 2 new maps and the new Angel class only needs one or two additional weeks of work before she’s ready for duty.

Thanks for reading and if you want to have our public server’s administration password, just send me a PM and I’ll see what I can do. See you next week for yet another update!

I am thrilled to announce today that PixelBeam is opening an office in the international city of Chengdu, one of the 3 capitals of video game development of the country in the province of pandas.
The new office will be ready for action in about two to three weeks and will be in charge of:

1. Promoting Storm United.
2. Taking care of tech support, publishing daily news and organizing events.
3. Further developing our new website and integrating the incoming social features of Storm United.

To this date nothing was done to promote Storm United. We think the time has come to start planning the growth of our player base. This new office is the result of our determination to bring Storm United on the worldwide FPS scene. Thanks and stay tuned!

A new phat update just hit Steam for Windows and Mac users. New performance improvements, we improved the animation controller and the ability to customize your weapon scopes are some of the more notable goods you’ll get in it!

Unfortunately we were forced to skip this update for the Linux build, as some UE4 engine bugs are currently preventing us to run it properly. The good news is that the issue has been resolved in the latest UE4 branch so sorry Linux users, it is temporary and it is for your own good.

Release note:

• Substantial performance improvements across the game.
  
• Added new character jumping blended animations.
  
• Added character leaning left and right based on the speed and rotation angle to further increase the natural motion feeling.
  
• Improved the character holding weapon animations when looking up and down (still a work in progress).
  
• Characters now lean forward and backward through the animation controller.
  
• Added LOD for scopes.
  
• Updated almost all weapon textures and shaders to support the upcoming weapon skin system (not yet visible excluding freezegun_02).
  
• The loadout menu now allows you to attach scopes on almost all weapons.
  
• Added LOD for all characters.
  
• Updated all reload animations to fit the new character animation system.
  
• Fixed Scope_02 not completely in center.
  
• Fixed Beam UI icon issue.
  
• Updated the clanmap bottom menu (temporary colors).
  
• Added new key binding to instant switch to previous weapon (default Q).
  
• After throwing a grenade, the previously used weapon will now be reselected.
  
• You will now see the crosshair hit cross when hitting someone while zoomed in with the scope.
  
• Changed binding key button text color.
  
• Rebaked clanmap lights causing the “rebuild light” red message.
  
• Fixed server crash caused by the demolition game mode.
  
• Added the ability to turn on or off Ambient Occlusion (AO) in the quality settings.
  
• Fixed an issue in Freeze Tag when a frozen player disconnects, his entity is not removed from the game causing the round to never end.
  
  Another big update will show up about next week and the particularly awesome update for Linux user will show up the week after. Stay tuned!
  

Unfortunately, we have not been able to make the update release this week. We are adding new features and polishing the game at a rhythm that makes builds for 3 different platforms quite difficult.

There are many small fixes, performance improvements and tweaks but allow me to list some the more notable goodies coming soon:

A new weapon skin system that wears off over time (but does not affect the gameplay). This is the first step towards the Free To Play release. New skin collections will come regularly from us but more importantly we will open a Steam Workshop, allowing players to submit their own designs as well! See below for some examples.

http://puu.sh/hPcoh/ccb037edaa.jpg
http://puu.sh/hPcpG/31d027f2c2.jpg


A quite large update has been done on the character animation controllers that now implements jumping animations for all directions. Also, the characters now lean left or right while running, making it look more natural and fluid. We have also improved the character upper body stance that will now bend forward and backward. Lastly an improved weapon holding technique has been implemented making up and down rotation with weapons better looking.

A server management user interface is two weeks away from being completed.

A public server map and game mode voting system will show up at the same time.

The ability to equip scopes and holographic sights on almost all weapons:
http://puu.sh/hPcrQ/2b1709cece.jpg

We have the Angel class character working properly currently with about 7 weapons but we haven't implemented the healing guns and towers yet so we'll wait until we have those finished to unlock her.

Within about three weeks from now, we will have a major tech update that will bring more stable and optimized Mac OS and Linux builds.

To finish this post, I want to let you guys know that our dev studio PixelBeam is about to get a major upgrade in the coming weeks - an announcement will be made soon.

And we're back with another big list of goodness. More will follow next week, and another the week after, and another after that one. When will it stop? Nevah!

Big thanks to everyone as many of these fixes and improvements are a direct result of your feedback. Here is what this week's patch brought us:

• Added a new weapon loadout selection menu (still requires some work).
  
• New weapon loadout HUD shows weapon ammo and added ability to bind weapon slots to any button.
  
• Fixed server bug preventing new players to join (the loading used to bring you back to the clanmap when it happened).
  
• Fixed an issue with UDH votes and submissions not submitting changes properly.
  
• Added new Mine item used by the Shadow class.
  
• Removed Little Cookie from map rotation (its designed for 2v2 normally and often ended up with 7v7. Next update will include a map and game mode voting system).
  
• Removed Deathmatch and Team Deatchmatch from default server rotations.
  
• Player names are now showing properly in all game modes (it is still missing names for frozen players in FT game mode)
  
• Replaced bomb navigation icons "1" and "2" into "A" and "B" to match the voice announcement.
  
• Dropping weapons now looks smoother.
  
• Added LODs for many environment meshes.
  
• Changed main menu look and feel.
  
• Added depth of field effect when entering in UI both in game and in the clan map.
  
• Removed elevator from BP3 map until we implement the elevator properly.
  
• Added missing icon for MachineGun_04.
  
• Added different impact decals for different surface types.
  
• You no longer have to press "Ready" to play the next map, it will now load automatically.
  
• Reduced the rifle_01 blue disc glowing effect.
  
• Added quality setting to disable grain.
  
• Added a smarter way to spawn players to prevent enemies to spawn next to each other.
  
• Fixed radar to showing names.
  
• Fixed navigation radar not showing frozen team mates in the Freeze Tag game mode.
  
• Replaced plants in Map5.
  
• Fixed bullets colliding with plants in the Confrontation map.

See you next week for another round.

We almost managed to push out the first big Storm United update but some of the performance optimizations we worked on has caused a last minute unexpected and undesirable side effect (lightmap related). We know how to fix it but unfortunately we don't have the time to have it ready for this weekend.

In the meantime, lots requested features and improvements have been added and a couple of extra ones will make it for the next update. Here are some of the particularly noticeable features:

1. New main menu: http://puu.sh/hpc4y/1d1ce5ebf3.jpg
2. New weapon loadout: http://puu.sh/hpc7y/c67e3ea6fb.jpg

Stay tuned for more - we will continue to improve the game at a rhythm of about 3 updates a week. This is just the beginning but when will it stop? Nevah!

We've just finished uploading an update on Steam and have all servers back online.

Here is what today's update brings:

• Added gamma correction parameter in the quality settings.
  
• Added parameter to reduce or completely turn off the motion blur post process effect.
  
• Fixed a server bug that prevented users to connect to a server successfully.
  
• Reduced the bloom effect from the LittleCookie map.
  
• Increased the match time to 30 minutes instead of 10.
  
• Built the Linux client in developer mode: This “special” Linux build generates relatively detailed log files to track bugs. The logs are located in folder: \STORMUNITEDFOLDER\StormUnited\Saved\Logs. If you have a problem, providing these logs to us on our website forum (http://www.stormunited.com/index.php/forum/technical-support) will help us fix your issue faster so please take the time to send it to us and give us a description of your OS and hardware.

See you soon for another batch of improvements and new features soon!

We've been asked to add servers for the US East Coast and for the South American Region so we've added a special Miami server that has a direct connection to various South American countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

We've also been asked for Oceanic region servers and we're working on them right now.