Hello, Miners!

As promised, we have more to share with you. So buckle up, sit tight, and start reading.

Two weeks ago, we lifted the lid on the progress towards Season 02 and showed you the first of the new secondary weapons, the Nishanka Boltshark X-80.

This time we are thrilled to share with you the second secondary weapon - wait, that’s confusing…the #2 secondary weapon…
…no…
The next weapon after the first secondary we…

The ArmsKore Coil Gun!





That’s not all though! We also got the 4th Year Anniversary to look forward to. The plan is still the same - the in-game event is set to start February 24th, with live streams on February 25th. And, rumor has it that management has allocated additional budget to something special. We hear it might be balloons. And if management has stretched the budget, there might even be one balloon per miner! One can hope.


You may have been able to tell from some of our past posts, but we are REALLY excited about this! So much passion has been poured into this project from Ole, MOOD Publishing, and ourselves. Check out the Kickstarter page for the DRG Board Game, and if it’s your cup of tea, consider backing it. We have had a blast playing the board game ourselves, and initial responses have been good. Here’s a quote from The Dice Tower who got their hands on a preview copy:

“They’ve really captured the feel of the video game! Rock and Stone!
…one of my all time favorite previews. I’ve had so much fun!”
-Mark Streed, The Dice Tower

And check out the trailer for the Kickstarter campaign



That’s all for this time, Miners. Until next time, happy mining!

Now get back to work.

With love
Ghost Ship Games

                                                           Sign up here for the Kickstarter!



January has been a busy month with a very successful release on PlayStation and the team working hard on Season 02 content. February looks to be just as exciting with the launch of the Deep Rock Galactic Board Game Kickstarter, the 4th year anniversary of DRG. We will also be revealing more of the secondary weapons you will get to use once Season 02 lands. So, let’s dive into all these events, shall we?

Last week we revealed the coming-soon page for the Kickstarter and now we can reveal that the Kickstarter campaign is just around the corner as it will launch on February 10. We have previously told you about the development of the board game here and here, and since then, there has been extensive playtesting and rules refinement. We have added a Deep Dive variant, introduced Hazard levels, adjusted pacing, clarified the rules, and tweaked numbers and card texts.

And just to be clear, once again, all the work on the board game is done by MOOD Publishing and the designer, Ole Steiness, with us acting as IP stakeholders and playtesters. The internal production team at Ghost Ship is hard at work on Season 02.



The Kickstarter will offer several pledge levels and will ship worldwide with local distribution hubs to minimize transport costs. The base pledge level will provide the standard box of the game where the four dwarves are sculpted miniatures and all enemies are cardboard standees. The Deluxe pledge level replaces all the cardboard enemies with 34 high-quality miniatures. And finally, the collector's edition consists of the Deluxe box with a bunch of merch and other extras thrown into the mix. Pricing will be revealed when the Kickstarter goes live - we have tried our best to price it reasonably and in line with similar Kickstarters.

Go sign up for the Kickstarter here and join thousands of dice-loving dwarves!



It’s hard to fathom but we are soon reaching 4 years in orbit since the Early Access launch of DRG back in 2018, February 28th. Since this is almost tradition now, we will celebrate this with both an in-game event and live-streaming from the office of Ghost Ship Games (here is last year’s stream). The current plan is to start the event on February 24th and run it for a week with the live-streaming taking place in the afternoon on Friday the 25th of February (central European time). We will have more details on this when we get close to the date.

Everything is moving along nicely with the content for Season 02. Last week we revealed the first of the new secondary weapons, The Nishanka Boltshark X-80, and we will reveal the next one in our weekly developer stream on Thursday next week (February 10th). As promised in the roadmap post, the new season will of course also include a new Performance Pass chuck full with cosmetics to unlock. On top of this, we are working on a new season Event and a special season-themed Warning Mutator.

We do not have a specific release date yet, but it looks like April is a likely target. This means you still have time to complete the Season 01 Performance Pass. And should you miss out then fret not: all the unclaimed content from the Season 01 Performance Pass will go back into the game to be obtained through Cargo Crates, Lost Packs, Cosmetic Matrix Cores, and the Shop.


With love
Ghost Ship Games

Greetings Miners,

Good news, the Lunar Festival has made its way to Hoxxes. And even better news, Management has approved the budget put forward by the party committee, so get ready for a week of company-approved celebration! You will find that the Space Rig has received a festive overhaul for you to enjoy on your next break between missions.



To cover the funds spent on the party budget, Management is also providing you with a new assignment, Lunar Convergence Cleanup. And as a recognition of your effort and dedication to help make this event possible, we are rewarding all miners who complete the assignment with a unique hat to commemorate the occasion!



Enjoy the Lunar Festival miners, you’ve earned it! It will be available from 27th Jan 2022 to 3rd Feb 2022.
Oh, by the way, the game will be on sale during this period as well.

It’s not all parties and celebrations, of course. We are hard at work on Season 02. And we have a small teaser for you. Feast your eyes on a new weapon you’ll get to unlock once Season 02 starts!



With Love
Ghost Ship Games



--- PATCH NOTES ---

• Added Lunar Festival decoration to the Space Rig Bar
  
• New Lunar Convergence Cleanup assignment available during the Lunar Festival event
  
• New hat, Lunar Festival Widebrim, awarded when you complete the Lunar Convergence Cleanup assignment

Oh, and one last thing: the prelaunch page for the DRG Board Game Kickstarter campaign is now live! We’ve been playtesting the board game both internally and externally and we’re really excited about how it's shaping up. We’ll have more info next week, so stay tuned!

Management seems to be hauling new decorations to the Space Rig in preparation of the forthcoming Hoxxes Lunar Festival. Peculiar energies are rumored to be released during the Lunar Convergence of the Hoxxes system, so be prepared… In the meantime, enjoy these small “quality of life” additions, including improved readability on both small and large monitors and a brand new voice chat indicator for yourself if voice chat is enabled!

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew


- Increased font size throughout the game for better readability on large or high-resolution monitors. This will be further improved in future updates.
- More mission assignments and their prerequisites are now visible by default to populate the Assignment Terminal for new players
- Added a voice chat indicator for yourself if voice chat is enabled
- The cursor is now hidden during the Mission Complete screen until the Continue button is visible

Deep Rock has finally invested in some pesticides and eliminated a bug where squashing a Fester Flea would sometimes cause a game crash. I guess Management was right when they warned us they are capable of clogging up costly mining equipment… Pest control, out.


With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew


- Fixed a crash related to the particle effects when squashing a Fester Flea or a Glyphid Swarmer
- Improved crash reporting

Hello Miners,

Removed extra logging again, and attempt to fix a crash

With love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

---PATCH NOTES---
- Attempt to fix crash related to Acid Spitter and Glyphid Menace
- Removed additional logging

Just adding some logging and fixed button after season level 100 showing ? icon.

With love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

---PATCH NOTES---
- Fixed button after season level 100 showing ? icon
- Testing some additional logging

It’s time for an update to the Deep Rock Galactic - The Board Game project. We have received the first testing samples from the factory and we are getting closer to a date for the Kickstarter!

A couple of months ago we announced that a board game adaption of Deep Rock Galactic is in the works. And everything is progressing smoothly towards launching a Kickstarter for the project in the next year. Actually, we now know that this will happen already in Q1 (so sometimes between January and March), so if you haven’t already signed up you can still do it here.

When we announced the board game, we could see that some of you were concerned if the board game project impacted the development of Season 01 and Deep Rock Galactic in general. The short answer is: the board game project does not impact internal development on DRG. As we stated in the first blog post, most of the work on the board game project is done by our partners at MOOD Publishing and the board game designer, Ole Steiness. Ghost Ship’s role in this is primarily to give feedback on the project and participate in some playtesting. Our main goal is to make sure that the board game aligns with our vision for Deep Rock Galactic and what we believe will be the expectations from you, the fans.




As we showed you in the first blog post, the first many months of development on a board game is done using whatever components you can scavenge from other games and quick-and-dirty print-outs glued to some cardboard. But now where the design is more or less settled, we are moving into the next phase: the production of the first samples. MOOD Publishing has done a lot of work in finding the best partner for producing the board games and ended up with a factory that has produced many other quality board games. And in parallel with this MOOD Publishing has worked together with an experienced miniature sculpturer, David Arberas, to get the 3D files just right for factory production.

And last week we finally received the first samples from the factory and the quality is just through the roof! In the video below, you can get a quick overview of the sample and all the components. Take note that this is an early sample, so the final look and feel of the plastic miniatures will be slightly different. Also, note that some of these components might end up as stretch goals depending on how we end up pricing the game (btw, using a Kickstarter is quite normal for board games filled with expensive minis since it helps estimate the production cost and distribution for a product that would otherwise have a hard time coming to reality)



That video was recorded at the MOOD Publishing office, but a few days later we received our own samples at the Ghost Ship office and we had a lot of fun just unpacking them. And we got even more excited about the quality now that we could feel them in our own hands.

We took pictures and videos which you can all see here:





During the unpacking we got a little carried away and started playing with the miniatures :-)
(the video is best with sound on)



Unpacking the board game for the first time was a really special experience and we now look forward to getting the Kickstarter set in motion, so that we can get the game into the hands of the backers. We’ll return early next year with more news on this.

And don't forget to sign up for the Kickstarter here.

With love
The Ghost Ship Crew

Another year on Hoxxes IV is coming to an end, and that means it's time to go through a few checks and balances! Your performance has been deemed exemplary, and you have been selected to participate in this very lucrative Bonus Assignment.

Take note that the Yearly Performance Bonus CANNOT be aborted once started and must be completed before this event ends on the 2nd of January, 2022.

In case you've missed out, all previous X-MAS HEADWEAR have also been added to your Wardrobe.

Complete the Yearly Bonus Assignment and earn yourself a nice Xmas present!

• 15000 Credits
  
• 550 Crafting Minerals
  
• 20 Brewing Ingredients
  
• 1 Overclock Infused Matrix Core
  
• 1 Cosmetic Infused Matrix Core
  
• The magnificent TREEBEARD and BAUBLEHEAD Yuletide Hats!

With Love
The Ghost Ship Crew

Hello Miners,

Remember when we said it was the last patch, two patches ago? Deep Rock Galactic remembers..


With love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

---PATCH NOTES---
- Fixed rare late join crash
- Fixed Rare crash
- Testing some additional logging