Hello inmates,
Last week was a very eventful one with the deployment of our very exciting customization update, and if you haven’t been tuned to our social media channels, you might’ve missed a few changes that happened in the form of hotfixes throughout the week. This post is meant to get you caught up before we announce what’s coming in the next patch!
We published patch notes 1.9 on Friday, April 20, aiming to push the update itself on Tuesday the 24th. While these notes contained improvements that had been frequently requested by the community, such as the ability to earn Fans in different game modes and to unlock new cosmetic items, not all changes were met with the same enthusiasm. Darwin Project players were concerned about the Show Director power targeting update and how it would severely limit Show Director freedom. After reading this feedback on Discord and our other social media channels, we reacted swiftly and tweaked the mandatory votes to affect only Show Directors with a rating of 3 stars or less before pushing the patch. This change has since been updated in the patch notes.
An unexpected issue that occurred right after we deployed patch 1.9 on Steam was that zones would not close properly. If you were online on Tuesday afternoon, you might’ve played a few matches that lasted way longer than they should as a result! This technical issue was caused by a huge amount of vote requests sent to Twitch due to automatic zone closures then prompting an audience vote via the Spectator Interactions extension.
We improved zone closures in a hotfix on April 25 and also fixed a small texture issue with the Founder’s Pack Legendary sets. By then we’d read even more feedback, especially from new players who discovered Darwin Project when it became free to play on Steam just days before, and we identified another trend that we felt was too often leading to unpleasant social experiences in-game: the Show Director Invincibility power. We decided to remove it as part of April 25’s update instead of waiting until the next patch to try to determine, as soon as we could, whether this would have a positive effect for both contestants and Show Directors. And so far, it looks like it might. Right now a second Warm Up power replaces Invincibility, but we’re looking forward to telling you about some new ways Show Directors will be able to spice up Darwin Project matches soon.
On April 26, we definitively fixed the zone closing issue by undoing the change requiring zone closures to be voted on by the audience. The same hotfix removed the AI Show Director, which, in the form it took last week, didn’t create as many exciting moments as we expected. We’re not opposed to potentially bringing those systems back in the future, but only if we’re able to improve them in a way we’re confident will make Darwin Project more fun. Finally, this update also addressed an issue where equipping cosmetic items would affect both the male and female character at the same time.
Later in the day on April 26, we disabled Show Director ratings in Private Matches. This one’s pretty straightforward: the rating should reflect how skilled Show Directors are at making Darwin Project matches more fun, and Private Matches with friends are not the right environment to accurately measure this.
So that was our week. Whew! Though perhaps the biggest news for our Discord community was yesterday’s introduction of the new #fashion-project channel, where all manner of elegant and not-so-elegant outfits are being shown off! Our Discord server now counts over 21,000 members, and if you haven’t joined yet, now’s a good time: https://discord.gg/darwin
On behalf of the whole team, thanks for continuously sharing your feedback with us across all our different channels. We’ve said from the start that we’re building this game hand in hand with our community, and that’s not about to stop just because there are a lot more of you!
Stay tuned for patch notes 1.10! Especially you, Show Directors.
See you in the arena!
- The Scavengers Team