Dear Midair 2 Community,
We have a lot to share with you and hopefully by the end of this announcement you will have a good idea of the new things that are happening, plans for the near future, and the reasoning behind those plans. We look forward to discussing these and other changes with you in Discord.
Here you’ll find information about our upcoming playtesting, ways to support our ongoing development, and updates on the status of the game.
On the current status of playing the game:
Right now, the community of players is generally composed of those folks who have asked for and received keys in Discord. Up until now - the distribution of those keys has been sporadic and it hasn’t always been clear how to actually get in the game.
Those who did have a chance to receive keys have been helping us immensely with their feedback, participation, and sharing their love (or constructive feedback) for the game.
We aren’t thrilled about the process of how keys were distributed (having to ask a dev, post in Discord, and hope to be seen), though we love the community that has developed among the folks with access.
Internally and here - we refer to the currently-available-via-rare-keys version as “Live”. If you’ve already played the game - you have played the Live build.
Recently - we have hit a Steam-imposed wall around the amount of future keys that we can possibly give out for the Live version. This is the platform policy as the keys are typically meant for very limited testing.
However - we want to invite more people to play, and at the same time want to move into new phases of testing.
With that in mind, here is how the future of testing will look:
There will be a new version called “Playtest”
This is Steam’s tool to allow us to share way more keys over time
Playtest will initially be open on weekends and for a limited number of users
Over the weeks to come, Playtest will expand to many more users, and then more days
What happens to “Live”?
Live will remain operational for those with access until such a time that:
Playtest is open throughout the week and;
We are able to grant Playtest to everyone who currently has Live access
This also means that we do not plan to give out more new community keys to the Live version.
This isn’t what we would have liked, and share your frustration.
The first of the Playtests will be this weekend, and that means the next phase of the game’s journey.
The time announcement will be in the #general channel on Discord, it will start either on Friday (US) or Saturday (US).
The goal of the Playtest right now is a little bit different than what we’ve been going for before. The first thing we need to do is to load-test our new Matchmaking server. The first weekend will be a very small playtest, so please do not worry if you did not get access to it immediately.
The first playtest will feature matchmade games and limited public servers. We expect the server browser to return for future weekends.
We want everyone who requests keys to eventually join the Playtests, but right now we can’t predict when that will happen. After each weekend we will come back with the technical learnings, fix stuff, and do it again - inviting more and more of you. We will communicate updates and hope that we can even be clear about the number of folks in each test as well.
How to request access to the playtest?
Net bot channel incoming into Discord shortly. It will ask if you’d like to sign up, and will also ask you for your SteamID. Your SteamID is a 17 digit number and it’s a bit tricky to find - these two sites provide the easiest info:
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2816-BE67-5B69-0FEC
https://www.steamidfinder.com/
If you use SteamIDFinder - you are looking for the “steamID64 (Dec)”
After that - you’ll be placed into a queue. We will periodically trigger the bot to hand out keys.
Along with launching the Playtest, we are also launching a Patreon for those of you who wish to and are able to support our development.
The money raised through Patreon will be used to keep bringing you the game: from paying for the servers, to the infrastructure tools, to fulfilling some of our development goals. We hope that you will continue to support us in our efforts to get this gameplay out into the world!
The Patreon is primarily a way to support us in our development, and the donations are set in the following tiers.
$5/month
$10/month
$20/month
All Patrons regardless of spend will be included (if you want to!) in the game’s credits at launch.
For as long as you are subscribed to the Patreon at any level:
Discord patron role
Access to the Patron-only channel
The Patron channel will the the home for news before it hits the wider community, polls and surveys
All tiers will grant the same rewards when the donor has reached a spend of $20:
Supporter Cosmetics Pack
These items will be received when we get items and store up and running in the game - the final kit may vary but will definitely include the gold skins for each of the three main weapons (Tempest, Chaingun, Grenade Launcher).
If you’re not ready to donate now but still want the items that will make their way into the kit, don’t worry - we plan to offer the supporter pack as well as a purchase closer to release. It will not be available after release.
Beginning on the third Playtest weekend, Patreon supporters will also receive Playtest keys as part of their subscription at any level.
Thank you for your consideration and support!
In what order are the Playtest keys granted for the first and second Playtest weekends?
All key requests go through the Discord bot. This means that if you’ve already clicked “Request Playtest Access” on Steam - you will have to request it again through the Discord bot.
The keys will be given out in two ways - a batch according to when you joined the Discord, and a batch will be random. The random batch should give new players a chance to get into the playtests sooner than later.
Starting on the third weekend - Patreon members will receive guaranteed access to the Playtest build as well (if they did not already get lucky in the first 2 weeks).
The Discord server join date will continue to be used for all other requests as we keep expanding the testing pool each week.
What regions will be supported?
At first - we will have US/EU/AUS servers running. If you’re elsewhere - we see you - we will open up other regions in the future.
On the state of communications with you and the state of the project overall.
Our last “announcement” about the state of the game and company was on May 26th, 2023. Its subheading was, “It’s been too long…” Almost six months later, that’s still an apt description. There are no excuses available for this.
Starting now - we will hold ourselves to a much higher standard of communicating updates and working with you both in public and Patreon channels.
We are also here to tell you that the development of the game hasn’t ceased - we are continuing to build and work. Moving over to the Playtest build will also allow us to not only give you access, but to actually grow the playing community with new folks. More players, more matches.
Where is the project going from here?
The state we are in is a Closed Beta Test - which means that the game isn’t ready for a public launch. There are still many, many things we would like to implement before considering being public-ready. Maps, modes, gameplay improvements, server improvements, art - there is a lot that we would like to work on before we can support an open release. We don’t have an announcement as to when launch or an Open Beta might occur. With you playing the game and supporting our development, we believe that we are back on the right track to get there.
We are sure you have questions - so ask away! Thank you for coming along with us on the journey, and we are so delighted to open this next chapter.
Oh and by the way - October 20th is an auspicious date for us. It’s the one-year anniversary of Vector Z Studios founding!
See you in the game soon!