Changing of the Guard
Hey all, DaraDef here. It is with a heavy heart that I announce my departure from New World. I have the utmost respect for my coworkers and for the awesome members of the community who have been so welcoming and kind to me this past year, and it will be hard to walk away. This has certainly been a wild ride with all sorts of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. While I am sad to be leaving, I am looking forward to a new step in my career in video games at a AAA studio. I will miss many of you dearly. I leave my position in the incredibly capable hands of fatherHank, who I have no doubt will excel in Community Development.
Thank you all for your kindness,
DaraDef OUT!
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Hello Gamers™, it’s me, fatherHank. This is a really bittersweet day for me and for all of us at New World. Dara’s been given an amazing opportunity so we’re extremely happy for her… at the same time someone has been cutting onions at our desks, and we are incredibly sad to see her move on.
Dara has done a lot with and for this community in a short amount of time. Luckily for me she has also taught me a hell of a lot in an even shorter amount of time and I’m hoping I can fill her shoes. Her real feet may be small, but those metaphorical boots are pretty big. I’m going to do my best but the bar has been set high.
I am DaraDefinitely not happy to see her go though, New World is a little less bright today.
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With our personal sentiment out of the way, let’s move on to more game-related info:
1.7 has been released since the last blog. There were some issues with the initial release including audio that made some of you want to throw their headphones, ghost attachments and magazines, and even a suicide bomber harnessing an explosive so powerful it could crash the entire game.
Bugs are a part of life but we realize this release was a bit worse than normal. With 1.7 came an upgrade to our engine which tends to complicate things. With that being said we are talking about ways to improve information gathering from our public CTEs in the future.
We currently have a survey available that is helping us gather feedback on what everyone thought about having night maps available in PvP. If you played and want to let us know what you thought, please do by clicking here!
We will have another broader community survey coming up that will help us refine just what you all want from the continued development of Sandstorm. Please keep in mind we can’t act on all the feedback you give us, that sometimes it’s not something we can act on yet, and that sometimes you straight up will not agree with a choice we make.
We are actively doing what we think is in the best interest of keeping the game healthy and fresh. If there were a way to keep every single one of you happy all the time, that's how I would operate. It's part of my job to make sure that even when the community doesn't agree with a decision we make, that you're at least feeling heard. I’m here to pass on your feedback and I will continue to do that, so please keep it coming.
Soon we will have a release date and more details about 1.7.1, affectionately known as Operation: Clean Sweep. While most of the changes are not considered exciting (unless you’re a fiend for patch notes like I am) we do have some community requests up our sleeves that are in the works.
One small change we are working on is reducing the amount of glare on optic reticles while wearing NVGs. We have heard you loud and clear that you think the reticle itself is too bright so we are adjusting it.
Before
In Progress
That’s it for now, we are hard at work finalizing 1.7.1 and have even fleshed out most of the content being added in 1.8 👀. It’s looking to be a great update come autumn, and we’re excited to start sharing more details as they become nailed down.
I’ll talk to you all soon, let’s pour one out for my homie Dara,
fatherHank
Community Manager