Greetings!

My name is Derek, and I am the Head of Production at New World Interactive. I hope that everyone has been staying inside, and staying safe during these unprecedented times. With COVID-19 affecting everyone across the globe, we sincerely hope that all of our players within the community have been minimally impacted thus far, and continue to remain healthy. While there’s no telling how long this pandemic will continue to drastically impact all of our lives, the best we can do as game creators is to take full advantage of the opportunities we have in our field to continue fine-tuning our game, and to supply an added reason to stay indoors! We’ve got a somewhat light SoP this month, with the 1.6 update going live last month, as well as our hotfix patches that were deployed within the past week. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.

Key Points of State of Production #7

• COVID-19 Statement and Update from New World Interactive
  
• 1.6.2 Patch Overview
  
• Free week retrospective
  
• Fixing spawn issue on Frontline and Power Plant exploit fixes
  
• Potential improvement for SKMM timetable and
  
• Clipping Fixes + Tavor 7 1x Kobra alignment fix
  
• Smoke fix timetable
  
• Tutorial Overhaul
  
• Refactoring the Progression System for New Players
  
• Discussion about monetization + new skins
  
• Looking ahead to 1.7 Update

COVID-19 Statement and Update from New World Interactive
For those of you who have followed the SoPs over time, you’re likely aware that one of the big reasons we came to Calgary was in an effort to centralize the studio and the team. We originally operated in a remote-only capacity, given our modder roots, and only in the last few years have we been able to create a unified site for collaboration together.

As many others have undoubtedly experienced over the past few weeks, we here at New World Interactive were not exempted from the impact of COVID-19. Our official statement on social media can be viewed here. I’m pleased to report that the studio was able to be proactive and responsive to the pandemic situations. Our team was able to act decisively and expeditiously, and we rolled out a work-from-home approach within 24 hours. Thus far, we have had no team members directly impacted by the virus, and we were also able to not only ship our 1.6 update relatively uninterrupted, but 2 additional hotfixes as well in that time frame. Additionally, the company made a sizable donation to the Calgary Food Bank, to ensure that those who are unable to provide for themselves are not left feeling gone and forgotten. I’m extremely proud of the company, the infrastructure team, the leadership team, and most importantly, all our employees for helping to ensure that we were able to get everyone into a fully remote capacity within a single work day. I also applaud the efforts of our company to give back to the community in a time where so few people have been provided so little relief.

Not only were we able to look after our team, we were also able to expand it. In the past month, we’ve hired several new team members. We’ve added additional headcount to our QA team, our Support Desk team, and our Community team, which should bolster our ability to catalog feedback, troubleshoot technical issues, and engage further in community development and outreach efforts. We’ve also recruited an additional backend programmer, and an AI programmer, which will be instrumental for our future updates. This should allow us to be even more actionable and agile when it comes to our front-facing communication efforts!

1.6.2 Patch Overview
The 1.6.2 patch contains a range of fixes for issues discovered after the 1.6 release as well as a number of new modding features requested by the community. Primarily we tried to clean up issues that were either unable to make it into earlier patches due to time constraints or hadn’t yet been detected. The patch itself was scheduled for release just after the free week as we didn’t want to interrupt players in the event with a download. Full notes for our most recent patches can be found here for 1.6.1 and here for 1.6.2

Free week retrospective
After the launch of the 1.6 update and it's free week, I thought it would be frugal to invite our Communications Director, Jon Higgins, to share some business analytics and metrics with the community.

The March 1.6 Update and Free Week was one of our most successful events to date, welcoming over 160,000 new players to the game, with 2.25 million game launches the game peaked on Sunday afternoon with close to 12,000 players online concurrently.

We would like to thank all of the Sandstorm community who welcomed the new players and helped us continue to build a bigger and better community for the game. Even after the Free Weekend ended our team observed a strong increase in our number of daily active players in the week that followed with a 42% increase in daily active users compared to the end of February.

As we will go on to mention later in this post our team is working hard on improving the first time player experience to improve retention rates as well as increasing the average session duration to boost up the number of concurrent players online. As with the original Insurgency we expect to see our player metrics continue to grow over time as we add more content and features to the game through our series of free content updates and we thank everyone who either welcomed new players or helped spread the word of the free trial period.

I’d also like to give a special shoutout to our fantastic Sandstorm Partners who helped grow our hours watched and average viewership on Twitch by over 500% compared to the previous 30 days, and increase the number of total broadcasters and hours broadcast by 70 - 80%. If you are a video or livestream content creator and want to join our partnership program you can apply at http://sandstorm.game/partners.

Fixing spawn issue on Frontline and Power Plant exploit fixes
I’ve invited our Level Design Director, Jeroen van Werkhoven, to provide some commentary on adjustments being made to correct spawn issues experienced on Frontline, as well as some of the Power Plant exploit fixes.

Hi everyone! Over the past several months, we had an issue with Frontline spawning players under the map. It was a strange issue where we thought at some point it was fixed, but under infrequent circumstances, the bug still occurred. We found out, through isolating the problem and establishing reproduction steps, that if a player dies right after the last objective has been captured and the player respawns; the player will respawn at the origin of the map. Once we found the reproduction steps, our programming team was able to fix the issue. Moving forward, we will keep monitoring the game and our forums to make sure the problem no longer occurs.

Level exploits are a severe threat to the fun factor and balance of a level. As a level design team, we always try to be proactive and fix as many exploits as possible before a map gets released into the “live” version of the game. For Power Plant, our most recently released map, we did several QA passes to look for exploits specifically, and used our knowledge from previously created maps to find critical exploits faster. Using this method, we were able to release Power Plant with fewer exploits than any previously released map. There were still a few issues we had to solve in a hotfix, which we will keep learning from, so that we can do an even better job moving forward.

Potential improvement for SKMM timetable
Since the release of Insurgency: Sandstorm there has been a lingering issue in the code base that handled our Skeletal Mesh Merge (SKMM) process. SKMM is a process that merges multiple Skeletal Meshes (different 3D assets) into a single Skeletal Mesh using code. This reduces the rendering cost resulting in improved performance. The issue in this system was causing crashes for players. One of the greatest frustrations for our development team is the inability to easily replicate and address the root cause of these issues. With the 1.6 update, we included additional tools in the game that help our developers understand how and when the SKMM issue was occurring. With each subsequent patch, we have included incremental refinement of the system to reduce and prevent occurrences of the issue. Our goal is to eliminate occurrences of these issues within the 1.7 update cycle.

Clipping fixes
With every addition of content to the game, we do our best to review all combinations of cosmetics to ensure they appear visually appealing with limited clipping (one object appearing to stick through another). With any game engine, there are some limitations in what can and can’t be done to reduce or eliminate these visual issues. After the 1.6 update was released, our team did an additional review on cosmetics to highlight some of the more prominent instances of cosmetics clipping. Some of these were included in the 1.6.2 patch, notably a few issues with the Neck Gaiter High security cosmetic.

Additionally, we’ve fixed the Tavor 7’s alignment issue with the 1x Kobra optic. There is however a small issue where the weapon’s recoil can cause a clipping issue. We’ll try to address this in a future update.

Smoke Visibility Issues
There are three distinct smoke systems in Insurgency: Sandstorm. One for Fire Support (Smoke and Chemical Mortars), one for smoke grenades, and one for under-barrel-fired smoke grenades. While these systems all use the similar looking assets, the way they are displayed, managed, and removed from the screen is slightly different in each case. In the 1.6 update, we made adjustments to the Insurgent Smoke Mortar and Chemical Mortar Fire Support to increase the duration smoke would stay on screen. This included some minor adjustments to the particles to make them work properly with the longer duration.

Since this update, we have seen reports from players about two issues: players inside smoke clouds being able to see players outside the smoke and smoke disappearing prematurely.

While these issues both impact smoke, they have different root causes. The particles we use for smoke are larger, which creates better looking smoke effects; however, a limitation we’ve run into with the Unreal Engine is that these particles are forced to rotate based on their point of origin. That means that when a player stands at the edge of the particles and rotates their cameras, it’s possible to make the particles rotate so they are not visible to the player. This effect is only possible for players inside the smoke, which is why players outside the smoke do not see it vanish when rotating. To combat this problem in the 1.6.2 version of the game, we added an additional emitter to the artillery and mortar particle systems to help obstruct the view of players who are within the perimeter of the smoke. This will reduce, but not eliminate the issue.

To completely fix visibility of players inside smoke, we will need to implement a smoke overlay. This is a post process overlay that would cover the screen of those contained within the smoke’s volume. Once implemented, players will have a consistently obstructed view while inside smoke regardless of which direction they rotate their camera.

The issue of smoke prematurely disappearing has only recently been diagnosed. It is an edge case that has become more prominent due to the evolving nature of our gameplay. In rare instances, it’s possible for smoke particles to be despawned to prevent too many particles from being created at the same time. We’re currently exploring the option of exempting all forms of smoke from this system and thoroughly testing to ensure that the change doesn’t have any unintended consequences.

We’ve added a proper implementation of an overlay for players in smoke clouds and exemption from our particle cleanup system for smoke to our development backlog. These features will likely be released with our 1.7 update.

Tutorial Overhaul
Over the past several months, we’ve consistently received negative feedback about the state of the tutorial in our game. The wide range of issues, ranging from stability problems, to bugs and dysfunction, to the length, to the low completion rates of the tutorial, have been heard loud and clear. I’ve invited our Lead Game Designer on Sandstorm Michael Tsarouhas, to provide some detail on our planned tutorial overhaul.

Hi guys, I’m Michael Tsarouhas, also known as Mikee, the lead game designer on Sandstorm. Having a strong tutorial for a hardcore game is very important, and so we’ll be taking some time to improve ours. This should go a long way in onboarding new players, especially when it comes to consoles, sales, and free weekends where a player might be coming in with zero knowledge of what Insurgency is.

In our redesign, we’ve made a great effort to simplify, fill in gaps of knowledge, and fix bugs. To start, we’ve removed the second half of the level, meaning the Tutorial Level ends after the weapon cache is destroyed. The late level fire support mechanic section was felt to be too advanced and irrelevant for a first time player, and should instead be learned during gameplay. The ending vehicle section that follows was felt to be mechanically intuitive enough to not need explanation. We’ve also removed all enemy AI in the Tutorial Level, and replaced them with stationary targets. This ensures a new player can get familiar with Sandstorm’s special and unconventional features like free-aim, the lack of a crosshair, magazine retention reloads, etc without the stress of getting shot at. We also added a grenade section, since not every FPS out there nowadays (especially on console) treats explosives as separate weapons as we do.



Refactoring the Progression System for New Players
Furthering our efforts at improving our new player experience, we’re making some fairly substantial adjustments to the way classes and weapons are accessed. I’ve asked Mikee to provide some context and flavor, as well as to describe the rationale behind our approach to these adjustments from the design perspective.

Outside of the tutorial, we are planning to set player level limits on classes in an effort to improve the first time player experience and address feedback on Commander and Observer misuse. Rifleman will be the first class unlocked by default at level 0, followed shortly afterward by the Breacher at level 2 which in our current projection should take about 15 minutes of gameplay. Classes will slowly start to take more time to unlock, and the classes unlocked will become more and more specialized as you go along, with Observer and Commander coming at the end. By around level 20 (roughly 9 to 12 hours of gameplay in any official matchmaking mode) a player will have all 8 classes unlocked. The goal with putting Observer and Commander at the very end of this track is to mitigate new players taking up these slots and not playing their roles properly, and to make sure they’re only open to players who are at least mildly experienced. If you’re at or above level 20, this change won’t affect you. This feature will be able to be switched on and off on community servers if you prefer to have all classes available regardless of player level. Rifleman will be given infinite slots in Hardcore Co-op in line with this change, and Competitive classes will be unaffected.

We acknowledge this is a pretty significant change, and we don’t make it lightly. We want to be clear and honest with our community about why we are doing this. This change is primarily directed at onboarding new players better and preventing misuse of limited slot specialized classes like Commander and Observer. Right now we get a lot of feedback about how Insurgency: Sandstorm is difficult to learn and get adjusted to. We feel a large part of this is because of the amount of information overload players get. In addition to all of our esoteric game mechanics like Fire Support and those mentioned in the tutorial blurb above, we have a total absence of player progression, save for cosmetic unlocks. Absolutely all gameplay content in the game is unlocked from the start, including classes, weapons, weapon upgrades, explosives, etc. On the one hand this is great because it allows for easy experimentation and prevents unfair advantages between players if some meta weapon or equipment is only available after a couple dozen hours of gameplay. On the other hand, being a new player and seeing not 4 or 5, but 8 different classes with dozens of weapons, weapon upgrades, and other equipment can be very overwhelming and create a lot of choice anxiety. It could also lead to a player making a choice that isn’t a good first time experience in a game like Sandstorm. At events like E3, Gamescom, and PAX, we’ve seen players hop on the computer, go straight to the Gunner class, and try to run and gun all over the map with an MG3 like it’s a much faster paced FPS, only to get immediately domed and confused at why weapon recoil in the game seems so unforgiving. By easing players in over a relatively short period of 10 hours, we can better ensure they take their time at learning each class, try out each class’s weapons and weapon upgrades (all of which are still available per class and don’t need to be unlocked), and don’t stumble into Commander and play without ever once drawing their binoculars to the dismay of their team.

Discussion about paid DLC
Over the past 10 years we’ve realized that our strategy of free updating and extended game support has been a pretty big differentiator for NWI. When we looked more closely at this approach, we realized it has compromised our company’s ability to stay independent as we consider bigger projects with larger budgets. Therefore, we have decided to make a minor pivot in our philosophy and introduce some cosmetic-only paid DLC into Sandstorm that will be oriented to improving customization. For those of you that want a more personalized experience and a unique look in Sandstorm, our in-game purchases will offer you the option to build your characters in special ways you couldn't otherwise do with regular cosmetics. You’ll be able to customize your appearance in a way that will be more distinct and more enjoyable, and also (in time) be able to apply custom-made weapon skin. Why are we doing this? The bottom line is we want to be able to achieve two outcomes. The first is extending the life of our game and being able to financially manage ongoing support of the game for all of you. The second reason being that it is critical for us to explore how to best incorporate recurrent revenue as a means of removing stress from the development team, as well as to ensure we can create the types of content we currently aren’t able to provide with our team size.

Looking ahead to Update 1.7
Finally to wrap things up, now that the dust has settled on our Power Plant update we wanted to give you a little overview of what is to come in the Summer. The next update will officially be NIGHTFALL!



Our team is still working on finalizing the content for the Nightfall update, and we will cover more of this in next month’s SoP, however, be prepared for some exhilarating night based combat, slightly modified AI and the use of stealthy weaponry! Our AI overhaul will be gradual and iterative, but it’s something we’ll be working on throughout the remainder of the year.




Thank you for supporting us and helping us to continue building great games that you all love to play.

To enter, submit a two-minute video of bloopers or funny moments, creative content, sick plays, or anything you find entertaining. We’re looking for content that showcases Insurgency: Sandstorm’s unique gameplay. When submitting your video, please ensure you follow our guidelines:

• No copyright material (images, music, etc.,)
• No racism, homophobic or prejudice remarks, sexism, or excessive swearing
• The majority of the content needs to be POST update 1.6
• Video needs to be under two minutes
• Video quality needs to be at least 720p
• One entry per player

While clips don’t have to be edited, bonus points will be given for editing, style, creativity, and the flow of your submission. Don’t be afraid to get creative! Take advantage of our Replay System to get those extra awesome shots! Learn more about how to use the Replay System here.
Upload your video to YouTube with “Insurgency Clipstorm” somewhere in your title (remember, the majority of your video should be recorded on the latest 1.6 version of Insurgency: Sandstorm). Submit your YouTube video and information in the form below (you must have a Google email to upload to YouTube and to use the Form).
Submit your video using our Form.

Submission date: Submissions will be accepted between 3:00 PM MST on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, and will conclude at 11:59 PM MST on Wednesday, May 06, 2020

The Dev team will choose their favourite 10 video submissions, then turn to the community to pick the top 3 best submissions

Winners will be chosen and contacted on Wednesday, May 13, 2020 and will have 48 hours to respond.

First Place - One XPG BATTLEGROUND XL Mousepad, One XPG Summoner Keyboard, One XPG H20 Headset, a $40.00 USD credit to http://advanced.gg, One Sandstorm T-Shirt, Two digital copies of Insurgency: Sandstorm for PC

Second Place - A $20.00 USD Credit to http://advanced.gg, One Sandstorm T-Shirt, Two digital copies of Insurgency: Sandstorm for PC

Third Place -One Sandstorm T-Shirt, One digital Copy of Insurgency: Sandstorm for PC
Big shout out to http://advanced.gg and XPG for sponsoring this contest!

Please thoroughly read the contest rules here!

We've just released a patch for update 1.6 that makes some changes to gameplay, and addresses various bugs. Highlights include:

• Fixed the 1x Kobra alignment on the Tavor 7
  
• Exposed more options for mod tools and included a new example game mode: Infected
  
• Fixed or reduced the occurrence of clipping with some of the new cosmetics
  
• Fixed a number of exploits on Power Plant

See the full changelist below:

• Fixed an issue in Frontline that could cause players to respawn under the map
  
• Reduced clipping with the Neck Gaiter High and Covered cosmetics
  
• Fixed an issue with weapon statistics not reporting correctly
  
• Reduced clipping issues with Watch Cap (with and without the Headset) combined with the female Balaclava Open cosmetic
  
• Reduced clipping with the Watch Cap (with and without the Headset) combined with the Neck Gaiter High cosmetic
  
• Implemented a potential fix to reduce occurrences of a bug that could cause either severe visual glitches or crashes
  
• Added error feedback when a mod fails to submit a rating

• Reduced instances of players being able to see through smoke
  
• Optimized new Headset texture sizes and corrected headband coloring

• Implemented the option to create theater overrides for mods allowing custom faction setups
  
• Expanded game mode scripting options
  
• Added new example game mode: Infected
  • Match begins with one player on Insurgents and the rest of the match on Security
    
  • Every time an Insurgent player kills a Security player, the Security player is switched over to Insurgents
    
  • Insurgents move faster and can only use melee weapons
    
  • Security must stay alive until the end of the round, Insurgents must kill all the Security team and convert them to Insurgents
• Added the ability for game modes and mutators to display text in the chat area
  
• Removed the Weapon Skin tag as the feature isn’t available
  
• Updated the Gamemode tag to Game Mode

• Power Plant
  • Addressed some exploitable areas players should not have been able to access, or were used in unintended ways

• Mods menu
  • When rapidly clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down button to vote for a mod it may get stuck processing
    
  • Selecting more than one filter will not always display accurate results
    
  • Rapidly changing filters can cause the page to refresh infinitely. Typing in the search bar or resetting the game should resolve this issue.
• Tavor 7 with the Kobra has a slight clipping issue when recoiling from being fired

Hello Gamers™,

It's been two weeks since we streamed for you already, so we are super excited to dive back in and share some exciting info about some re-vamped features, community created maps, a Q & A with our boy Mikee, and even a new contest!

If you've ever wanted to destroy some of our devs in PvP this is definitely the stream for you; we will be taking a bit of time during the stream to play with some of you!

We will be going live at 2:00pm MST on Wednesday, April 8th here on Steam and on our Twitch page (right here) so make sure to come say hi and see what we've got cooking for all of you!

Hope to see you there,
Aaron

Join the Insurgency developers New World Interactive and our incredible Sandstorm Partners as we raise money for Military veterans around the world via 8bit salute.

Microsoft and Xbox will be matching every dollar donated!

Greetings,

Insurgency: Sandstorm is free to play on Steam right now until April 1st. During this period, you will also be able to get the game to keep for good at a 50% discount. Perfect timing to check out new free content added last week with the massive 1.6 Update which brings public mod tools and https://insurgencysandstorm.mod.iointegration, a new map, two new weapons, new domination layouts, and much more. Check out the attached screenshots and read on for more details.

Modding support comes to Insurgency: Sandstorm! With Insurgency itself birthed from the modding scene with the original release, the Insurgency: Sandstorm mod tools are launching with full Mod.io integration to help more creators get what they want out of the game. The initial release will allow for the creation of levels, game modes, and mutators, with expanded capabilities on the way.
Taking Insurgency: Sandstorm CQB to the next level, Power Plant has tight corners and many passages, so you’ll always want a teammate watching your back. The titular structure is always in-sight, helping you to navigate the map. With a greener locale, Power Plant is a new experience for all players, available completely free as part of the 1.6 patch.



New update, new guns. The Advisor classes on both sides of the conflict will receive new weapons – the Tavor 7 for Security and ACE 52 for Insurgents. These state-of-the-art fully automatic battle rifles come chambered in a high caliber, making them highly lethal at both close and long ranges regardless of whether your target has armor.




The Domination mode is now available on five more maps - Refinery, Outskirts, Precinct, Summit, and the new Power Plant. Domination is a fast-paced, respawn-enabled, area-control mode that sees teams fighting over three control points.

Also in this update are new cosmetics, stability fixes, balance changes, and much more. We’re committed to continue support for Insurgency: Sandstorm as we head towards the console launch and beyond.



Play Insurgency: Sandstorm and the 1.6 update free from March 26 through April 1, and get the game at 50% off on Steam!

We've just released a patch for update 1.6 that makes some changes to gameplay, and addresses various bugs. Highlights include:

• Balance adjustments to Tavor 7 and ACE 52
  
• Fixed an issue causing player classes to display inconsistently on the scoreboard
  
• Fixed or reduced the occurrence of clipping with some of the new cosmetics
  
• Fixed a number of exploits on Power Plant

See the full changelist below:

• Fixed an issue where players would be unable to select different hairstyles when playing as Male Security unless they had Headgear selected as well
  
• Fixed an issue preventing the Power Plant image from displaying properly
  
• Fixed some clipping issues with the new Insurgent Leather Red, Blue, Black, and Gray cosmetic.
  
• Fixed an issue where Domination maps were displaying the full scenario name instead of the scenario type
  
• Fixed an issue causing saved replay titles to have incorrectly formatted names
  
• Fixed some display issues when wearing the Insurgent Smooth Mask
  
• Fixed a clipping issue with the Too Cool Headset and female hairstyles
  
• Fixed an issue where the Moptop hair and Headset combination could show a bald spot in the hair
  
• Fixed an issue preventing players from viewing players profiles from the scoreboard
  
• Fixed an issue causing player classes to display inconsistently on the scoreboard
  
• Reduced the occurrence of clipping with the Covered, Balaclava Open, and various Headgear cosmetics
  
• Fixed Compression item having incorrect stitching colors
  
• Fixed Headset, Too Cool Headset, Baseball Headset, Watch Cap Headset items having incorrect ear piece and headband colors

• Tavor 7
  
  • Reduced horizontal recoil
    
  • Reduced vertical recoil
    
  • Increased fire rate
• ACE 52
  • Reduced horizontal recoil
    
  • Reduced vertical recoil

• Adjusted the size of the popup asking for consent to download mods from the Community Servers menu
  
• Fixed an issue which could show overlapping text in the mod upload status
  
• Adjusted the mod subscription polling to prevent it from polling while downloads are in progress, which could potentially cause the download to restart
  
• Updated download queues on dedicated servers to function as intended

• Range
  • Repositioned the spawn of the vehicle on the firing range so that it drove to the same location more consistently
• Precinct
  • Fixed an issue where players were able to fall through a floor
• Power Plant
  • Adjusted a misplaced restricted zone in Firefight East
    
  • Addressed some exploitable areas players should not have been able to access, or were able to use in unintended ways

• Smoke not obscuring vision at certain distances
  
• The alignment of the 1x Kobra optic is incorrect on the Tavor 7
  
• While downloading a mod, attempting to join a match or community server will trigger a black screen

• Resolved an issue that would prevent some players from queuing into a playlist if they hadn't previously entered the tutorial

• Fixed issues when starting servers with mods enabled and joining servers with mods
  
• Fixed various cosmetic costs, refunded players the difference if they bought the cosmetics at the higher prices

Costs that went up:
• Baseball Headset - now costs 800 (was: 400)
  
• Watch Cap Headset - Black - now costs 600 (was: 400)
  
• Baseball Headset - Dark Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Baseball Headset - Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Baseball Headset - Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Dark Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Blue - Blue/White - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Gray - White/Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Red - Red/Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Black - Black/White - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
  Costs that went down:
  
• Watch Cap Headset - Rarity is now very rare (was: rare)
  
• Headset - now costs 200 (was: 800), Rarity is now Uncommon (was: very rare) (Refund players 600)
  
• Leather Gray - White/Purple - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Peach - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Purple - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Indigo - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)

• Fixed an issue where servers wouldn't allow you to join if you were downloading a mod in the background, even if that mod was not required for the server. While downloading a mod that is required, a screen will now show progress instead of being blank
  
• Improved the prioritization of mod downloads when joining a server

Update 1.6 is here with Mod Tools Public Release, a new map: Power Plant, new guns: ACE 52 and Tavor 7, full map support for Domination game mode, improvements to Insurgent fire support, improvements to gamepad support, and more!

Since our last major release, we’ve been focused on adding new content to the game. This can be seen in our new map, guns, and cosmetics. To really open the floodgates on content, we are pleased to announce that with 1.6, our mod tool support will be moving from private to public with the ability to now manage mod subscriptions in-game. In addition to this new content, we’ve spent a lot of time working to improve the new player experience as well as address concerns of the community.

See the full changelist below:




We are pleased to release our Mod Tools to the public in the 1.6 release. This includes the full Unreal Engine Editor that will allow the community to create their own levels. The Editor itself will allow you to upload and update your mod through built in tools.
With this iteration of the mod editor, it will be possible to to create levels, gamemodes, and mutators. Mods and guides will be available through Mod.io which will become the modding hub for the game. This release fully integrates Mod.io into the game allowing community servers to host modded content, and players connecting to the server will be able to automatically download required mod content. Official and community documentation will be available from the Mod.io guides

• Integrated Mod.io support into the game via Modding submenu from the Main Menu
  
  • Browse available mods
    
  • Subscribe and unsubscribe from mods
    
  • Vote on mods
• Community Server Browser now has a filter to show or hide Modded servers
  
• When joining a server running mods, the player will be prompted to download missing mod content or cancel joining

We are happy to present our latest map, Power Plant. Set in a more lush and green environment than other maps, you can read more about the design and development of this map in our most recent State of Production.
Power Plant has the following scenarios available:

• Firefight East and Firefight West
  
• Push Security and Push Insurgents
  
• Domination
  
• Checkpoint Security and Checkpoint Insurgents
  
• Hardcore Checkpoint Security and Hardcore Checkpoint Insurgents
  
• Frenzy Checkpoint Security

We’ve added two new rifles to the game: the Tavor 7 for the Security Advisor and the ACE 52 for the Insurgent Advisor. These weapons are replacing the Security Mk 14 EBR and Insurgent SVD weapon selections on the Advisor class.
For more insight into why these changes were made, please read our most recent State of Production.

• New Security Cosmetics
  
  • Compression Shirt
  • Headset with various Headgear
• New Insurgent Cosmetics
  • Leather Jacket
    
  • Smooth Mask

Spectator Cam Preview
In an effort to improve quality of life for new players, we have implemented a new camera where after death, the camera will hover over the player’s corpse and then slowly point in the direction the shot that killed them originated from. This option is intended to help new players train their eyes where to look without giving away too much information.

• Improved spectator camera after being killed to point in direction of killing shot or explosion
  • Player can either click to skip, or after a period of time will be forced into regular spectator mode
  • Players can turn this feature off for themselves under Game settings
  • Community Server Admins can turn this off for the server
    
  • Disabled in Competitive and Hardcore Checkpoint playlists
• Implemented toggleable x-ray trails from thrown projectiles and fire support and a beam indicating the direction a player is facing
  
• Implemented controller support for spectator mode

In release 1.5 we introduced Domination mode. This mode proved to be highly popular among the player base. In 1.6, we’ve given the remaining maps a Domination treatment and made some minor tweaks to the layouts of all maps based on additional community feedback.

• Outskirts
  
• Power Plant
  
• Precinct
  
• Refinery
  
• Summit

We’ve worked hard to listen to the players and make improvements to various gameplay mechanics. Our intent is to directly address player feedback about shooting and aiming not being rewarding enough of skill, to improve player movement and acceleration to feel more controlled, and to add some flexibility to certain key bindings which have been popularly requested.

• Adjusted AI so they will no longer attack players in spawn areas in standard and Hardcore Checkpoint scenarios (they will attack in Frenzy)
  
• Removed insertion and drivable vehicles from all Checkpoint levels to improve level flow and performance
  
• Insurgent Fire Support Improvements
  • Doubled the number of rockets in the Rocket Barrage and added a delay between each volley
    
  • Doubled the duration of the Chemical Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after exploding
    
  • Doubled the duration of the Smoke Mortar fire support’s smoke clouds to remain after exploding
    
  • Increased the duration of Explosive Mortar fire support by 50%

• Replay Improvements
  • Improved reliability of replay recording
    
  • Improved replay control reliability
• Improved Gamepad Support
  
  • Implemented multiple sensitivity curves which can be selected from the settings menu
    
  • Implemented Per-Axis Controller Sensitivity
    
  • Updated Controller Button Mapping
    
  • Adjusted Gamepad Weapon Recoil and Sway Modifiers
    
  • Improved aim dampening implementation
    
  • Improved Default UE4 Deadzones
    
  • Added gamepad support to most menus
    
  • Implemented Dual Shock 4 controller support
• Main Menu Improvements
  • Updated the Review pane of the Main Menu to accept and display dynamic messages
    
  • Added a banner message area for displaying short text messages
• Community Feedback Improvements
  
  • XP Boosts will be listed on playlists when active
    
  • Selecting Random during a map vote will no longer result in replaying the current scenario
    
  • Players cannot be autobalanced during the last two minutes of a match or during the Last Stand in Push/Frontline
    
  • Added some spawn protection in Versus modes to prevent the Attacking team from being wiped when they are spawned in on final waves
• Improved logging
  • Added specific logging events to assist with debugging possible crash issues

• Moved Steam notification to stop blocking important UI elements
  
• Added clock icon to indicate that fire support is on cool down to binocular view for Commander
  
• Made Preview Selection of Items and Cosmetics consistent between Appearance Screen and Loadout Screen
  
• Improved visibility of HUD markers and provided multiple preconfigured color schemes
  
• Improved how HUD markers are anchored to the screen they represent objects outside your field of view (Objectives, Supply Crates, Friendly Players)
  
• Improved UI hint when close to doors that can be kicked open
  
• Improved tutorial hints for the ADS Focus ability
  
• Updated icons for scoreboard to indicate columns are hidden while player is alive
  
• Added a consistent Apply button to all Settings screens
  
• Improved the visibility of the Find Match button and added a sound for when it is clicked
  
• Improved the visibility of damage indicators
  
• Added a contextual hint to the screen when players are in the spawn or close to resupply crates to indicate they can Change Class or Change Loadout
  
• Added contextual hints for players who have toggleable weapon attachments

• Updated EAC Launcher artwork
  
• Updated the lighting in the Main Menu
  
• Updated the look of magazines for the Mk 18 CQBR and the pistol grip on the Alpha AK
  
• Visual optimization pass on Hideout
  • Increased performance in troubled areas of the map
• Improved the flashbang effect to reduce the performance cost when used

• Outskirts
  • Fixed an exploit that let you vault through a wall
    
  • Fixed an issue where terrain wasn't properly connected to a wall
    
  • Removed access to an unintended rooftop
• Crossing
  • Fixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend from an unintended location in Domination
    
  • Removed access to a few unintended locations
• Summit
  • Added a blocking volume to prevent deploying the objective A cache from far away
    
  • Fixed a gap in the ground
    
  • Fixed a gap that would allow you to leave the map in Firefight East
    
  • Fixed a small gap in the floor
    
  • Fixed an area where players could get stuck on an invisible prop
    
  • Fixed an issue where players were able to walk on a picture frame
    
  • Fixed an issue where some debris from a destroyed wall appeared to be hovering
    
  • Fixed an issue where some ground props were overlapping incorrectly
    
  • Fixed an issue where the tactical map appeared blurry
    
  • Fixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend a point from an unintended location
    
  • Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map
    
  • Fixed multiple seams in props and walls near objective C that allowed light to shine through
    
  • Removed ability to access an unintended area
    
  • Removed ability to walk on an unintended ledge
    
  • Removed access to an unintended location
• Refinery
  • Fixed an issue where an invisible volume was blocking a door
    
  • Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map
    
  • Fixed the alignment of the tactical map

• Farmhouse
  
  • Fixed an exploit allowing players to leave the map and flank enemies
    
  • Fixed an exploit where you were able to go prone and clip inside a rock
    
  • Fixed an issue where players would have difficulty deploying a Bipod on some ramps near the B objective in Checkpoint Security
    
  • Fixed multiple exploitable areas of the map
    
  • Fixed the location of the first resupply crate in Security Checkpoint on the tactical map
    
  • Removed ability to climb into unintended locations
    
  • Removed an exploit that allowed spawn killing in Push Security when the B objective is active
• Hillside
  • Fixed an issue where vehicles were able to be driven onto some rooftops
• Hideout
  • Fixed a collision issue with a small ground prop
    
  • Fixed an area where players could get stuck between two props
    
  • Fixed an issue where players would get stuck vaulting over a prop near objective C in Firefight East, D in Push Insurgents, D in Skirmish, and near the Security spawn in Frontline
    
  • Fixed an issue where you were able to capture or defend objective D from an unintended location in Frontline
• Precinct
  • Fixed a small gap in the floor
    
  • Fixed an exploit in the map that allowed players to reach unintended locations
    
  • Fixed an unintended occurrence of the out of bounds zone
    
  • Removed ability to walk on an unintended ledge
    
  • Removed access to an unintended location
    
  • Removed the ability to destroy the objective B cache from long distance in Checkpoint Security

Based on feedback from the competitive community, we have updated the default map rotation on the Competitive playlist to utilize the most balanced maps.

• Updated default competitive map rotation. The following is the new map rotation:
  
  • Precinct East
    
  • Hideout West
    
  • Summit East
    
  • Refinery
    
  • Outskirts West
    
  • Ministry

• Fixed an issue that could cause the game to hitch briefly after shooting down a helicopter
  
• Fixed a frame animation transition issue in the third person reload animations for the M24
  
• Fixed ability to accelerate in vehicles using a gamepad
  
• Fixed ability to access color customization using a gamepad
  
• Fixed ability to interact with Tutorials, Local Play, and Play submenu using a gamepad
  
• Fixed ability to interact with the Lessons tab in-game using a gamepad
  
• Fixed access to the Settings submenu when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed an issue on the Loadout screen where the wrong button prompt would be shown with a gamepad connected
  
• Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where locked slots wouldn't correctly show they were selected
  
• Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where you could not properly wrap around from the top of the list to the bottom
  
• Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu with gamepads where you couldn't navigate between the Loadout list and the save list
  
• Fixed an issue in the tutorial where AI team members might get stuck behind a wall
  
• Fixed an issue on gamepads where you wouldn't be able to select your melee weapon if you didn't have a gun in your equipment Loadout
  
• Fixed an issue where bullets were not visible in the stripper clip of the Mosin-Nagant in third person while reloading
  
• Fixed an issue where changing audio settings in-game would leave a save prompt flickering on your screen
  
• Fixed an issue where deploying a Bipod using a gamepad would drop your character into the ground
  
• Fixed an issue where Player Reports would be miscatergorized in the reporting database.
  
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect bind hint was showing in the Loadout screen for Gas Masks
  
• Fixed an issue where the keybinding on the Fire lesson popup wasn't always showing
  
• Fixed an issue where the resume reload animation doesn't transition correctly when a weapon is equipped with a Foregrip
  
• Fixed and issue where Security pants didn't have correct level of detail assigned to them
  
• Fixed issues with the third person reload animation of the RPG-7 and M3 MAAWS
  
• Fixed key conflicts in controller when selecting primary while equipped with binoculars
  
• Fixed Lesson popups to display the correct keybinds when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed the layering of the Neck Gaiter High to put it above hair
  
• Fixed the location of the stripper clip on the Mosin-Nagant in the Loadout menu
  
• Fixed the potential to crash the game when attempting to quit while driving a vehicle

• If the male Security model is selected with no Headgear slot, only the None hairstyle will display regardless of which is selected
  
• Domination maps are showing the scenario string name instead of the mode in the tactical map

• Resolved an issue that would prevent some players from queuing into a playlist if they hadn't previously entered the tutorial

• Fixed issues when starting servers with mods enabled and joining servers with mods
  
• Fixed various cosmetic costs, refunded players the difference if they bought the cosmetics at the higher prices

Costs that went up:
• Baseball Headset - now costs 800 (was: 400)
  
• Watch Cap Headset - Black - now costs 600 (was: 400)
  
• Baseball Headset - Dark Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Baseball Headset - Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Baseball Headset - Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Dark Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Too Cool Headset - Red - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Blue - Blue/White - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Gray - White/Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Red - Red/Black - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
• Leather Black - Black/White - now costs 1000 (was: 800)
  
  Costs that went down:
  
• Watch Cap Headset - Rarity is now very rare (was: rare)
  
• Headset - now costs 200 (was: 800), Rarity is now Uncommon (was: very rare) (Refund players 600)
  
• Leather Gray - White/Purple - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Peach - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Purple - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)
  
• Leather Black - Black/Indigo - now costs 800 (was: 1000) (Refund players 200)

Greetings!

My name is Derek, and I am the Head of Production at New World Interactive. I hope that the winter season has not been too unbearable for everyone! As we get ready to enter the Spring, it’s time for this month’s SoP! With the 1.6 update around the corner, I can now more concretely detail what to expect in this update.

• New Map: Power Plant
  
• New Guns: Tavor 7 + ACE 52
  
• New Cosmetic Items
  
• CTE Feedback
  
• Evolving our Communication Strategy: Community Blog Revival!
  
• Regarding stability issues, crashes, and “ghost bullets”
  
• Replay and Spectator Improvements
  
• Dynamic Main Menu + Alert Improvements

I’ve invited our Level Design Director, Jeroen van Werkhoven, to provide some commentary on how we chose the setting for this map, as well to discuss some detailed aspects related to Power Plant.

"Hello! I'm Jeroen van Werkhoven, the level design director at New World Interactive." I want to share some more info about our new upcoming map. Power Plant is a fast, action-paced map, designed around CQB principles. There may be an enemy around every corner, which makes this map a lot more intense to play than any of our previous levels. Always have someone watching your back!



For the theme of this map, we wanted to try something different. Early in development, we came up with the idea to try a more green environment. We used reference material from Northern Iraq and Chernobyl, as well as other locations, and turned Power Plant into an abandoned, overgrown industrial site with a giant dam looming over the map, making it visible from almost anywhere. We believe it adds more visual appeal, and the player can use the dam as a beacon to navigate through the map. I'm very proud of everyone on the team who was involved in the creation of Power Plant. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did creating it!”


We’re adding two new weapons to the game in update 1.6. I thought the community might appreciate hearing more about how we selected the weapons, so I’ve invited Mikee to provide some color commentary on the decision-making process.





“Hey everyone, Michael Tsarouhas (or Mikee) here. I’m the lead game designer on Sandstorm, and want to talk a little bit about the new guns we’re adding in update 1.6: the Tavor 7 for the Security Advisor class and the ACE 52 for the Insurgent Advisor class. These weapons were chosen for a few reasons. For one, both these weapons (or ones very much like them) have popped up in various forum posts and social media alongside other weapon requests. This makes sense, because our community surveys have indicated that our players have a high interest in modern weapons, specifically assault rifles. So in this update, we decided to go with newer weapons that look more cutting edge, ones that feel appropriate for a well funded or well experienced Advisor to carry. This is especially true with the Tavor 7, which is a relatively new weapon system that is essentially a TAR-21 chambered in those big ass 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. Both the Tavor 7 and ACE 52 fire fast and fire hard, serving as perfect assault weapons for CQB and firing through thick materials. While both these weapons are technically battle rifles, aesthetically and design-wise they are much like ARs. They serve an important and similar gameplay function as high caliber full-auto rifles.

Additionally, we have gotten a lot of feedback about the Security Mk 14 EBR and the Insurgent SVD being too common and too powerful as battle rifles. This makes sense since they’re the only two weapons that are shared between the specialized classes of Advisor and Marksman. Rather than just nerfing them and risk making them less useful for both or either of those two classes, the Tavor 7 and ACE 52 will replace them for Advisors and lean a little more in the assault weapon function. And now, every specialized class (Breacher, Gunner, Advisor, Marksman) has a unique primary selection.”
Security:



Insurgents:



When I first started the “State of Production” blog, it was in an effort to be more transparent in regard to what we are working on and towards as a company. I ultimately would consider it to have been a tremendous success; it inspired engagement, generated feedback, and helped to shed light on what was happening behind the scenes within New World Interactive. I largely took this on because I felt it was necessary for the company to expand our front-facing communication efforts.

Over the past 9 months, I’ve been fortunate enough to ramp and recruit numerous talented individuals (many of whom I’ve referenced in previous SoP’s). With the evolution of our Community and Communications team, I believe that the time has arrived for me to hand off the vast majority of our front-facing communication responsibilities to the face, heart, and soul of our game; our Community Manager, DaraDef! While I’ll still draft a SoP near major releases, there will be substantially more updates relating to the game in the Community blog.

Dara has been instrumental in driving the growth and evolution of the way our company interfaces with our community. She is presently conducting live streams alongside Mikee, and playing with the community regularly. She is drafting and creating community sentiment reports, and now she has also opted to initialize our Community Blog. The first edition can be viewed here.
The last 30 days have been pretty challenging for us on a technical level. We had noticed an increase in reported issues pertaining to gameplay stability. Freezes that were taking place after a match starts, people were firing bullets that didn’t appear to be registering/doing damage as expected, random client crashes. We know this was an incredibly infuriating problem being faced by some of our users, and our team worked rapidly to replicate and resolve these problems. Between the utilization of our Support Desk via Nick Ward, and the curated and organized sentiment report drafted by DaraDef, we’re getting better at gathering, organizing, and acting upon community feedback as a whole. This is not always the easiest process; during sprint planning, we do our best to incorporate actionable feedback when and where we can to improve everyone’s quality of life.

However, we cannot create effective solutions without the proper data and details. While we are seeing an uptick in reports related to performance and stability problems, we are also experiencing dismal feedback and participation rates when we reach out seeking more detailed information.

In an effort to help make the community’s feedback more effective, I sat with our Technical Director, Support Manager, and Community Manager, and we’ve structured some documentation on how to best ensure we are able to act upon your feedback. You can view this document here.
Our Player Support Manager, Community Manager, and one of our community moderators create bi-weekly "community sentiment" reports to give to our team. We comb through our Steam forums (including the CTE Sub-forum), as well as our CTE surveys, and collect community feedback from players regarding things like desired gameplay changes/suggestions as well as bug reports - especially things requested/reported by more than just a couple of players.

A lot of this feedback is taken into consideration, but there are a number of reasons why you may not see changes made: Production and QA need to decide on the priority level, how much time and resources would have to be put into it - can it realistically fit into the timeline along with current planned changes and features currently being worked? Additionally, we have to look into if it fits into the vision and identity of what Sandstorm is. It typically takes the studio 2+ weeks to slot in feedback into our production cycle as it stands; this should improve over time, as we continue to grow and ramp.
In order to improve the quality of life experience for new players, we have made some improvements to the Spectator camera. When a player dies, the camera will hover over their body and turn to face the direction of the killing shot or explosion that killed them. This will help new players gain a better understanding of dangerous areas of a map and curtail camping. Additionally, this should help new players to better “train” their eyes, with where to look when engaging various chokepoints. This feature is not available in Hardcore Checkpoint or Competitive. Community server admins will also be able to disable this feature on their servers and all players will have the option to turn this feature off in their game settings. When in this special mode, players can click to skip the camera or after a brief period they will be forced into regular spectator. To hear a detailed explanation of how it works from our lead game designer Michael Tsarouhas, see our last livestream here.

While in regular spectator, players will have the ability to toggle X-Ray to show x-ray trails from thrown projectiles and fire support as well as a beam indicating which direction a player on screen is facing. This feature will show friendly players for someone in spectator because they are waiting for a spawn wave, but will show all players for anyone on the spectator team. X-ray can also be used in replays.

The replay system itself has been prone to errors, having controls that didn’t always work consistently, and problems with recordings that either only recorded a portion of a match or failed altogether. We’ve taken steps to improve the replay system’s reliability both in terms of recording and controls. We will continue to examine the stability of the system and improve it as required.

Feedback from the CTE event regarding changes to the spectator camera after death indicated that we should slightly reduce the time before the camera is forced into regular spectator mode. Feedback did indicate alignment with our plans of having this feature disabled in Hardcore Checkpoint and Competitive along with options for server admins to disable the feature.
In an effort to improve our ability to communicate with players we have added some additional communication options to the game’s main menu. There is a new banner message location that will allow us to place small text messages for a short duration of time. This will allow us to acknowledge known issues and provide communication in the game to players about what’s going on. Banner messages are intended for short-term messaging of limited duration issues such as Steam maintenance impacts, impending patches, or similar issues.

We have also updated the panel above the MOTD so we can change it dynamically. This panel would allow us to place communication to all of the players in the game that is meant to last over a period of time, such as when we were investigating the recent “ghost bullet” issue without having to replace the MOTD where we traditionally link to the latest patch notes or State of Production.

These are the first changes in a list of communication options we want to implement in future releases to expand our options for communicating with the community without having to rely on external platforms.
I’ve invited our Technical Director, Stephen Swires, to provide some commentary on the public release of our mod tools, which are due out in the 1.6 update. We know this is a feature that the community has been looking forward to for a while, and are excited to unveil this to the public.

“In the 1.6 update, we will be rolling out mod tools to the public. This will include the full Unreal Engine Editor that we use to create our own levels. The editor has built-in tools for uploading your mod and updating it.

In the initial roll-out, it will be possible to make levels, gamemodes, and mutators. Mods and guides will be available through Mod.io which will become the modding hub for the game. Mod.io is fully integrated into the game and allows community servers to host modded content and players connecting to their server will automatically be able to download the mods the server is running. Official and community documentation will be available from the Mod.io guides section.

Over the course of the year, we hope to expand the modding offering and expose more functionality to modders. In addition to this, we plan on distributing more official mod examples and guides.”