Below are the patch notes for Early Access Hotfix 6.2. We are still receiving some reports of issues with the ATV causing the players to lock up after dismounting it. We have made additional tweaks with this patch and hope that it resolves the issue. Should anyone experience any issues with the ATV, please make sure to send us a bug report at support@xeragame.com
Patch Notes
Character Reduced hunger reduction rate
Map Added new supermarket model to Rockdale Added new supermarket model to Riverton Added new supermarket model to Redsville Added new supermarket model to Riversdale Fixed AI spawner in Rockdale Fixed AI spawner in Riversdale
Buildings Added doors to police station Added arms locker container to armoury in police station
Vehicles Implemented some changes that may fix the ATV rollback bug (Please inform us if this is still an issue after this hotfix)
Containers Previously search containers will not be searchable for 60 seconds if no items are found
Audio Added new footstep sound for concrete Added new footstep sound for grass Added new footstep sound for metal Added armour foley rattle sound when you have armour equipped (You can also hear other players if they have armour) Fixed an issue causing footstep sounds to play beside the player when in first person
Early Access Hotfix 6.1
Greetings Survivors!
We have completed our maintenance period and deployed a hotfix that should hopefully resolve some recent bugs that have been reported. As always we want to thank the community for providing these bug reports to us and encourage everyone to send any future reports to support@xeragame.com so that our team can get a fix in place as soon as possible.
Please note that this is an experimental build and although we tested the fixes in a development environment, we will need to deploy the patch in a live environment to gather additional feedback from the players. Should you experience any issues related to the patch notes below be sure to send your feedback to us.
Patch Notes
General Increased server auto-reboot to every 24h (was 12h)
Weapons Weapon condition damage scale cap reduced to 20% (was 50%)
Armours / Condition Fixed an issue that allowed condition of armours to be reduced while in the safe settlements
Vehicles Implemented a fix that may fix the ATV roll-back bug (Still experimental) Fixed an issue causing player movement speed to not replicate to the client after exiting vehicle Fixed an issue causing ATV to slide down hills spiratically when parked on a hill Fixed an issue causing ATV to rollback after running out of gas
User Interfaces Fixed an issue with the server browser showing the wrong region Fixed an issue that prevented being able to scroll chat Fixed an issue causing HUD quickslots to not display custom slots
If you haven't already, join our discord at https://discord.gg/xera for the most up to date information and to connect with our team.
Welcome to XERA: Survival Season 2! Patch Notes - Early Access Patch #6
Season 2 Introduction
Greetings survivors and welcome to Season 2! We are excited to give everyone a fresh start in the game this season along with releasing a ton of new content for you guys. Over the past several months our team has been working day and night behind the scenes to improve the overall player experience. Our QA team as well as our volunteer playtesting group have put a lot of time into making sure that the new season is well balanced and feels rewarding. To those who helped with the testing of the patch, we want to thank you for your hard work and dedication throughout the long hours that have been spent testing this release.
With the closing of Season 1, we would like to congratulate everyone who finished in the top 25 on the leader boards. Season 1 leader boards can be found at https://xeragame.com/leaderboard. We will be granting your seasonal reward soon to those who qualified.
As we have been working non-stop in the past week to finalize the content that is being released for this patch, we feel confident and many bugs have been fixed with this patch, however due to us working up until the release of this new patch, it is possible that some bugs may appear over the next few days. We ask that everyone please report any issues to us via our support email at support@xeragame.com so that our team can assign it to the appropriate team members, and be able to follow up on your report. Our staff is also available via our discord server at https://discord.gg/xera to answer any questions you may have.
One of the most common questions we see every day is “Why did you do this? Why was this changed?” We have anticipated some of the questions and along with these patch notes, we have included some notes from our development team to try and help players understand the reasoning behind some of the changes to the overall game play. It is very important to us that we receive useful feedback from the community as we have always been and always will be a community driven game and our team is happy to discuss ideas with the community.
We are excited for this fresh start to XERA: Survival and hope that you are just as excited to join us for the new Season. As was previously announced, we have done a full wipe of all game stats and items in conjunction with the start of Season 2. As a special thank you to players who participated during our holiday events, any player that had a holiday item will retain 1 copy of each different holiday item that was present in their GI at the time of the wipe.
Cheers,
The Spotted Kiwi Interactive Team
Developer Notes
Game User Interface Overhaul
We felt like the game’s UI was getting quite dated, it has done wonders for the duration of our alpha and early access - but we felt an additional polish was required moving forward. This will be one of the main changes you will notice in Season 2. We have gone through basically all the game’s UIs and gave them a face-lift, including a new font, new general feel and many bug fixes and QOL improvements.
Character Core Status
We have adjusted the rate of hunger - it will now drain faster, we hope that with this change players will need to watch it more closely and move into areas which they can find supplies to keep their hunger and thirst replenished. We felt that food items were usually eaten to obtain more backpack space - rather than actually trying to increase those stats.
Loot and Loot Tables
We have carried out some major changes to loot tables, making mid - high tiered gear less accessible. With this we hope that it will give a higher sense of achievement when coming across these items.
We have also introduced a new container interaction system, which helps us fill the world with more loot and creates a new mechanic for players to search objects for items. Over time we will make more objects interactable and searchable.
We have also reduced the amount of items that spawn at the legacy spawn points. Doing this also helps balance the loot economy by limiting the supply of items.
Currency / Vendor Changes
We have dramatically reduced the buy-back rates of all items in the game. We felt that it was very easy for players to gain a few high-tier weapons, sell them to a trader and gain a lot of currency. This allowed players to be able to stack their stash potentially with enough gear to last a season. This change will hopefully assist with the overall goal of Season 2’s looting to be more satisfying.
Weapons / Armours and Conditions system
The introduction of the condition system allows us to ultimately “tier” gear under the hood. For example, a brand new weapon will deal it’s full base damage, whereas a more worn weapon will deal less damage. The same goes for armours in a sense of what protection they provide the player is also dependent on its condition. Thus coming across less worn gear becomes more desirable. Gear also degrades with use and with damage dealt that has been dealt to it.
Important Note: We are still in the process of finishing the design behind the repairing of items, and this will be hot-fixed in the coming weeks. Feel free to give us your feedback on how you would like to see the repairing system implemented.
AI / Humanoids
We have done some design tweaks to the humanoids, one being that you can now “stun” them without them dealing damage to you. This is useful when going one-on-one with a robot using a melee weapon however, taking on a group of humanoids will still come with a certain degree of difficulty. We have also made some changes to the melee system as well in order to make fighting robots more responsive. These changes are mostly in first-person - so we recommend using first person when fighting robots with melees as it will be more accurate.
Throwables
We’ve carried out another pass on our throwables system. We have added some new animations when cooking a grenade. Fixed a lot of bugs and in this season we have introduced a new throwable - a molotov cocktail. We have some more throwables in the works that will be implemented throughout the next updates, such as an EMP grenade.
World / Map
We have introduced some new buildings, reworked existing buildings, as well as some changes to various areas throughout the map. We have extensively placed intractable cabinets throughout buildings and over time there will be more added.
We are working through our older assets and replacing them with assets that have been made in-house by our artists, including buildings, props, items and more. We will continue to do so over the coming weeks as we prepare these all for our new map.
We’ve also made some tweaks to the lighting in-game, including upgrading our sky system, and some post-processing effects to give the game an extra polish pass. Unfortunately there are still some FPS problems with the new sky system which occur during dusk and dawn, which we hope to iron out throughout the next few weeks.
Steam Trading Cards
We have introduced Steam trading cards which will be dropped for every 2 hours of gameplay (up to 3 cards). This adds an additional goal to work towards, as well as a fun activity to trade between your friends. When activated if you meet the requirements of play-time - you will be granted cards automatically.
Patch Notes
General
Implemented Quickslot System Implemented Interaction Container System Implemented Item Condition System Implemented Turret System Implemented Steam Trading Cards Upgraded Engine to Unreal Engine 4.24.3
Item Condition System
Certain Items will spawn now spawn with a random condition Condition is lowered each time an item is used or takes damage Body Armour will now degrade when damage is dealt to the torso and arms (5% of the damage value will be taken off the armours health) Helmets will now degrade when damage is dealt to the head (5% of the damage value will be taken off the armours health) Weapons will now degrade after each confirmed hit (To players or objects in the world) - each weapon has a different degradation scale Melees will now degrade after each confirmed hit (To players or objects in the world) - each weapon has a different degradation scale
Armour / Helmet Protection System
Body Armour protection will now scale depending on the condition (E.g 20% condition = 0.2 * Base Protection) Helmet’s protection will now scale depending on the condition (E.g 20% condition = 0.2 * Base Protection)
Loot
Reduced max loot range in Redwood Valley to 1000 - 1800 (was 1800-2700) Additions, adjustments and balances made to Main Spawn Table Additions, adjustments and balances made to Military Spawn Table Additions, adjustments and balances made to Crashed Helicopter / Civilian Bunker Spawn Table Added new Low, Medium, High tier Spawn Tables Added various new items to the loot tables Adjustments made to items that spawn at Police Stations - Now spawns from tiered military loot table (was main loot table)
Quickslot System
A row of quick slots will now appear on the HUD Your main equipment slots will appear on the quickslots Added ability to add items to 5,6,7,8 quickslots You can now scroll through your quick slots with mouse wheel or use the keyboard keys
Interaction Container System
Objects inside some houses can now be searched Containers randomly spawn items based off it’s own unique loot table Container rotate loot every so often, timer reset by interaction
Deployable System
You can now rotate deployable objects with your scroll wheel Some deployable items can no longer be deployed in the safe zones
World / Map
Overhauled general lighting in Redwood Valley Upgraded dynamic day and night system Updated post processing settings Updated LUT to adjust colors Added new wheat models to farms Some buildings have the new container system in them Delay added to opening car trunks Added duffle bag (container) to car trunks instead of loot spawns Added new hospital models to Redsville Added another gas station to Redsville Replaced old house models in Redsville Added new police station to Redsville Various improvements to Redsville All cabin models replaced with more detailed model Various new cabin locations Added new storage containers to compound tents Each military roadblock now has 5 AI that spawn Military roadblocks moved to new container system Fixed some doors that allowed one-way shooting to occur Fixed some fences that allowed one-way shooting to occur
Supply Drops
New supply drop model implemented Added new flare particles to supply drop Supply drops now use the new container system Supply drops will now de-spawn after 5 minutes after being opened (was 1 minute) Balanced Supply Drop Loot Tables and Drop Rates Removed G-17 Supply Drops from the spawn table
Helicopter Crash Event
Increased time between events to spawn once every 60-80 minutes (was every 45 minutes)
Weather system
Reduced speed at which clouds cover the sky when weather changes
Drone
Drone will now play static when damaged Drone will now play static when detonated or destroyed New Drone HUD implemented Drones health will now transfer to condition % when not being used
Helicopter Transport System
Helicopter transport now costs 50 currency to ride
User Interfaces
Added new text font replacing old main font Updated icon font to latest version Main HUD overhauled ATV HUD redesigned Drone HUD redesigned Inventory HUD redesigned Global Inventory UI redesigned Vendor shop UI redesigned Inventory character render moved to new capture system (higher quality) Inventory character render animations improved Updated tool-tip UI Fixed an issue with vendor UI allowing players to overflow the text box Vendor UI will dynamically update price when quantities are changed Reduced icon size on the map Updated map image Cosmetics screen redesigned Skin preview render updated to new system Skin preview now shows default attachment on the weapon Skins that you no longer own will auto unequip New server browser New leader board UI Twitch usernames will now display on the leader boards Trade menu now updates weight of the other player depending on what items you have moved in the UI Added new yellow color when only a partial stack can be picked up when looking at an item. - This will allow for partial stacks to be able to be picked up Fixed an issue with item context menu overflowing the screen Fixed an issue with level up UI showing wrong global stash weight
Trade System
Overhauled P2P trade system UI Fixed various issues with items not transferring correctly Fixed various UI problems
Global Stash
Added search function to the global stash UI Updated loading UI Widget in Global Stash You can now right click on equipped items to quickly move them to the global stash
Vendor
Vendor will only buy items with more than 20% durability Vendor’s buy price will adjust depending on items condition
Inventory
Attach button will only appear in right click menu when you have compatible items Weapon attachments will now auto equip when joining a server Inventory will attempt to pickup partial amounts of a stack when your inventory is near full Inventory will now require a second confirmation to dismantle an item
Medical System
Medical station is no longer able to be put into your quick-med slot. It can be put in a new quickslot. Healing using the inventory will now play the heal animation
Animations
Increased smooth delay for crouch animations Implemented new first person animation blend system (Should fix snapping when crouching) Improved first person aim offset for melee weapons (should be more accurate)
Throwable System
Fixed an issue which allowed players to med while cooking a grenade Fixed an issue with grenades being thrown in a strange direction You can no longer open the inventory while cooking a grenade Throwables will now auto-throw when nearing their end of cook duration
Items
Designed a new thumbnail capture system for items Every item has a new in-game thumbnail Replaced all medical items with new models Tool-tip will now display gram value when less than 1kg Throwables will now auto-equip to the throwable slot Added a weight to nails
Compounds
New container system added to tents inside compounds Compounds will now have 1 super humanoid (even while inactive) with a 20 minute respawn time
Weapons
Fixed an issue with the Honey Badger’s iron sight texture having the wrong textures Reduced M16 base damage to 11.5% was 12%
Key Binds System
Game keybinds will automatically check and bind newly added keybinds
Melee
Improved melee hit registration while in first person Melees will now hit exactly where the crosshair is while in first person
Vehicles
You can now store items on an ATV Fixed an issue causing ATV to still make “run over” sound effects when out of fuel Super humanoid and stalker humanoid will now block the ATV instead of being able to drive through them Improved physics of running over robots at higher latencies ATV has some new textures
Humanoids
Humanoids will no longer drop loot on the ground - you will now need to search the body to find loot inside Humanoids will now despawn 90 seconds after being killed (was 30 seconds) Fixed an issue with humanoids not going into ragdoll if you move into its replication distance or load in after it has been killed Humanoids will now stop when damaged You can now interrupt a humanoids melee attack
Safe Settlements
Lowered passive stat restore while in the safe settlements Vendor NPC for the market has been named “Marquet”
Character / Player
Added new back-mount locations for weapons when the player has a backpack equipped
Crafting System
Crafting system now supports use of tools Spiked Bat now requires hammer to craft C4 Recipe now requires electronics, batteries and duct tape Crafting recipes now have tool-tips for the item Added Fishing Station Recipe Added Tier 1 Turret Recipe Added Tier 2 Turret Recipe Added Tier 3 Turret Recipe Added Campfire Recipe Added Barbed Wire Bat Recipe Added Molotov Cocktail Recipe
New Items Added or Renamed
Juice Box (Replaces Soda) Painkillers (Replaces Antibiotics) Medical Station (Replaces Medical Kit) Barbed Wire Rope Molotov Cocktail Canned Tomatoes Canned Beets Can of Tuna Crackers Chocolate Bar Bag MRE Auto-Turret T1 Auto-Turret T2 Auto-Turret T3 Sandbag Barrier Fishing Net Fishing Station Raw Small Fish Cooked Small Fish Raw Fish Cooked Fish Camp Fire Fishing Bait Wooden Sticks Hammer Wrench Sandbag Various Turret Parts (7 total) Barbed Wire Bat
Season 2 Starts May 22nd, 2020!
Greetings Survivors!
We are pleased to announce that Season 2 will begin on May 22nd. Along with the start of Season 2, there will be a FULL WIPE of all levels, and equipment when the latest patch is released.
We will also be rotating out the Season 1 skins so if you have been waiting to get the last of your season 1 skins, this is a time to do it. For Season 2, we will be introducing a new set of 27 different skins for you to earn. Premium Skin Crates with all common skins removed, will also be available in the store at the start of Season 2.
We are excited to show off the hard work our team has put in over the last several months and look forward to seeing everyone's ideas for the next patch. Patch notes will be available on the 22nd once the patch goes live.
As always thank you for your support as we couldn't do this without the feedback of this great community.
For the latest daily updates, and to connect with our staff, feel free to join our official discord at https://discord.gg/xera
Season 2 Starting Soon!
Greetings Survivors!
Our team has been hard at work over the last month and we're excited to let you know that Season 2 will be starting soon. We plan to announce a firm date in the near future along with providing an update on the state of development. If you are looking to expand your Season 1 skin collection, now is a great time to get those extra skin crates before we transition into Season 2. As always, for the latest information, be sure to connect with the development team via discord at https://discord.gg/xera.
Cheers! Spotted Kiwi Interactive
Spotted Kiwi Interactive COVID-19 Studio Update
Hello everyone!
We wanted to provide everyone with an update on the status of development in response to the current outbreak of COVID-19 throughout the world.
For those who are unfamiliar with our base of operations, we have a team spread around the world. Our centralized base of operations where our development team is based is in Dunedin, New Zealand. As of today, we are no longer able to work from our office in New Zealand per a recent government mandate requiring the closure of all non-essential businesses for the next 30 days. As you may know already, other countries have put similar procedures in place in order to combat the spread of COVID-19 including multiple states in the USA where we have team members based out of as well.
At this time, no staff members have reported contracting COVID-19 and in response to mandates and to protect the health of our staff members as well as others they may be in contact with, our studio has taken the following action.
All staff members are required to work remotely from their residence and are self-isolating. All non-essential travel will cease until conditions have improved.
Staff members are to follow the guidance of their local government to ensure the health and welfare of themselves, and others they interact with.
With these responses in place as of today, this does mean that we are able to continue functioning as a team, as most of our staff work remotely already, however we want to be transparent that the impact of COVID-19 has put a strain on how much we are able to complete in the next 30 days due to lock down restrictions that have been put in place. Our development team as well as essential staff will continue to work as they are able with the limited resources available at this time. We are confident that our team will be able to weather the storm and appreciate all of the support that has been shown over the past few years with our project. We owe it to ourselves and everyone that has supported us to complete what we started and although there are some roadblocks out of our control at the moment, we are driven to work through these challenges as best we can.
From the entire Spotted Kiwi Interactive team, we hope that all who are affected by COVID-19 are able to stay healthy and stay safe during this pandemic. We will continue to provide updates to the community throughout this situation.
Cheers, Spotted Kiwi Interactive
March 2020 Development Blog and Community Update
Happy Spring Survivors!
What a year 2019 was, we successfully launched into Early Access in May and by the end of 2019 the game grew to more than 55,000 unique players. The Spotted Kiwi team has expanded to fit the development requirements and are continuously working on XERA: Survival.
We acknowledge there has been some time since our last development blog, so we hope this will give you more insight as to what is happening behind the scenes. We also would like to remind you that we are very active on our Discord and are always up for discussions.
Towards the end of the year, we focused on upgrading the game to the latest version of Unreal Engine (4.23) which included lots of improvements across the board, including client performance, server performance and more editor tools for the team. Unfortunately the upgrade did have some unexpected issues which caused our servers to randomly hang, so for the last month the team has been working hard at identifying the problem. We have now resolved this issue and can move forward with development.
The Spotted Kiwi team also took a well needed break, and we’re now refreshed and ready to take on 2020. Our expectations are to come out of Early Access by the end of this year.
We appreciate that many of you are wanting higher populations, and we are working hard on this. Further development and more content are definitely required. We are also working on a new map which we believe will add a lot of value to the game.
The team is also looking at the barrier of entry for the game - and we are exploring all options so that we can maintain a healthy player base moving forward. An official announcement will be made once we’re in a position to go into more detail about what this will look like.
Development Update
Our development focus at the moment is to encourage players to play longer, so we’ve been evaluating our core gameplay loop and also the environment side of the game. We’ve identified many ways to improve our existing gameplay loop, as well as extend it to allow for more in-depth player interactions and PVE activities.
We’ve also evaluated what changes we need to make to enable the survival game mode to work on a bigger map, while not impacting the amount of PVP interactions. We have confirmed that base building is an element we want to implement and the team is currently planning this out. We want to make sure that base building and the stash (global inventory) can work in harmony and allow for different play styles. Our intentions with base building is not to replace the stash or safe zone systems, but to design them so that they both suit a purpose in the core gameplay loop.
New Map
With the new map, we plan for it to be at least 8km², to put that into perspective, our current map is 4km², so it would be roughly 4 times the current map size. We want to spread out POIs more to make the map feel less cramped, while still having lots to explore and making sure there are smaller POIs in between larger ones (camps, roadblocks, compounds etc).
In a larger map we would have to address traveling, a few patches ago we did increase the ATVs speed, and we plan to make the ATV seat 2 players. We’re also looking at implementing another vehicle that can support 3 seats as well as travel longer distances in a shorter time. We also plan to extend the helicopter travel system to support extractions back to the safe zone, and more customizable deployments into the world.
Our artists have been hard at work creating new buildings and objects for the new map, and we hope to replace as much of the older Unreal marketplace placeholder assets as we can. There are lots of unique buildings that haven’t been put into the existing map - but are ready to go! (See artist section below)
Base Building
Our new map will also have to have base building in mind, as many of you may be aware - our goal is to have a form of base building in before our 1.0 launch. We’re discussing internally about the best way to approach base building, which retains the “arcadey” feel of the game - while ensuring building/defending/raiding a base is a balanced and enjoyable experience.
Our immediate goal for the first version of base building is to have a prefabricated system which provides players with a tiered, upgradable base, which is either found in the world or placed. Upgrading your base will require various resources and will give new benefits such as increased base HP, increased storage, and more. A prefab style base building allows us to have creative control over how bases will look (No floating/ugly bases), and so we can balance things such as choke points, defending points etc. This approach also reduces the overhead of storing/loading thousands of individual pieces, meaning we can optimize bases a lot easier (More players, more bases, more PVP). While a “cookie-cutter” approach is the plan for V1, we will gather feedback from the community and work on further customizability which could eventually lead into custom bases. Our artists will be designing the prefabricated bases with modular parts, so that means we can easily split these into individual craftable pieces for a more custom experience in future versions.
Game Modes
We feel that players can find themselves getting burnt out when playing survival mode, so our team has also been exploring the options of additional game modes. One of them being Deathmatch mode and Arms Race. We want to make sure the implementation of these modes will not split the community and will tie into the existing game mode. We plan to have rewards which tie into the survival mode, e.g loot/xp/in-game currency rewards. Check out this video here to see QA playing Arms Race: [previewyoutube="3brGYOxBuuw;full"]
We’re also open to adding more game modes, and especially “limited time modes” to help freshen things up occasionally. We also want to explore not only PVP modes, but PVE modes, such as an endless “defend an area” from humanoids.
User Interfaces
For the last month we have been evaluating the interfaces in the game, given these haven’t changed much since early alpha - we felt like there was a need for a little face lift! One of the main changes you’ll notice is a font change, but we’ve also revamped a lot of the UI elements including the HUD to add that extra bit of polish. We wanted to keep the same clean feel and add that little extra detail.
Crafting, Loot and Spawn Tables
We are looking at extending the collection of crafting recipes, which means new ingredients that can be found in the world. Ranging from new consumables, to new placeable objects and weaponry.
We’re wanting to also implement a form of item durability, so that over-time items will need to be repaired. This will assist with keeping the loot economy moving and changing constantly. Our plan is to not have items break and despawn (Armours for example), but become a lower durability and be “less useful”.
One of the main changes we want to make to the loot tables is to make high-tier loot more satisfying to find, by distributing higher tiered loot at more heavily guarded locations and harder to complete events. We are also exploring the idea of a tiered weapon/armour system (Common, Rare, Legendary etc) to also spread our rarities of loot.
In-game Events
The events are a core focus in the game and a great way to find player interactions. We are wanting to expand our selection of events and also make some balancing changes to the existing ones. With a bigger map, this gives us more room to spread out events and make multi-dimensional events which require multiple locations and steps to complete.
New Weapon Types
We have also been experimenting with implementing a shotgun weapon type, which is somewhat a hot topic when it comes to competitive PvP games. Mainly because of the spread - we’ve come up with some options that we will need to test. We believe going down the route of giving shotguns a predictable spread rather than “RNG” spread is the best option. Making them ultimately useless at long distances, but very effective close-range. Since these will be quite OP close range, their spawn rates and ammo spawn rates must be relatively low. We would love your feedback on this.
Seasons
The intention is to start Season 2 along-side the next patch, we are also evaluating the idea of a “season pass” system that will allow players to unlock new cosmetics just by playing the game. We have a huge backlog of cosmetics waiting to be implemented! Also please keep in mind that season 2 will start with a full wipe.
Experimental Servers
We don’t have an exact date on when this new content will be coming, but while we work on all these changes we are looking at bringing up experimental servers for all players. This will allow us to test the new map, new changes and loot balances. The request is with Steam and we hope to have some news on this soon.
Community/Quality Assurance Update
Hi guys! What a ride it’s been so far. Since May of last year, we’ve seen a lot of growth with our community. Currently we have had over 57,000 people play the game, 3500+ of which have joined since the beginning of November!
Since our early access launch, Gary has been heavily involved on the development side giving feedback to Joshua and Reuben on what the community has been saying about the updates we’ve pushed, as well as assisting with the planning of future content based on community feedback. One of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve been getting is that everyone has been enjoying our most recent Halloween, Autumn, and Winter events and we will continue to run these types of events along with some community led events between major patches. Keep an eye out for more information in the future. We also have received feedback that the majority of the community is wanting more content! We hear you and are in a place now where additional content is being worked on by the development team. Keep an eye out on our road map for updates as well as our discord channel where we will be posting updates on how things are progressing for the next major content patch!
On the QA side of things, our team recently upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.23. Although as an end user, you haven’t seen a lot of change, quite a bit has changed behind the scenes for us which comes with its own challenges and setbacks for the team. Our QA team has been working behind the scenes daily testing multiple patches per day and reporting issues to myself and the development team to ensure that when our major patches are pushed, the players are not heavily impacted by any bugs that pop up. Currently one of the challenges we have been tackling is the overhaul to the ATV system and although it still has some issues, a lot of the bugs have been fixed. Our QA team also worked hard to assist with diagnosing root causes to recent server crashes back in December, as well as other bugs that had been reported. Without their dedication and hard work, we would still be working on fixing the most recent crash issue and the team is excited to move forward testing new content that is currently in development.
In January, our QA team also started testing the new game mode “Arms Race” and all I have to say is, I can’t get them to stop playing! The next phase of testing for Arms Race will be happening throughout March as the map still needs to be finished up. We hope you guys enjoy this new mode and look forward to the release coming very soon! We need your help! Should you run into any crashes, or bugs, please submit information through our support desk (support@xeragame.com) so we can assign these issues to our QA team for replication. Without the community being involved in the reporting of bugs, we may not know about underlying issues. Also, when submitting bug reports, we do ask that you send video of the issue if possible so that we can understand more about what is causing the issues.
Are you interested in becoming a tester behind the scenes? We are now looking for testers for assisting our quality assurance team during play test sessions. When inquiring about joining the testing team, please keep in mind that the #1 thing we look for is people that are active within the community (Discord, actively playing the game, no outstanding rules violations or reports) and have a passion for helping the game succeed. If you are interested in more information, please reach out to IcedYoshi#7281 via discord. Remember testers are selected based on the needs of the development team and not everyone will receive a response or be accepted.
“One of the things I’m most excited about as we progress through our road map is the upcoming base building system! We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on what you would like to see as we prepare to start implementing the base building system. We have a pretty unique idea of how the system will work, along with how the global stash system will remain viable in conjunction with being about to store items at your base! More information will be coming in the future as we are in the very early stages of planning things out!
I hope everyone has had a great start to the new year and look forward to hearing your feedback!” - Gary (IcedYoshi)
Content Creators / Partnerships
For the last few months I have been busy reaching out to new creators along with new gaming organizations. Continuing to increase the awareness of XERA: Survival through content creators is something we here at Spotted Kiwi Interactive take very seriously. Reaching out to new creators not only gives others more awareness about the game, but it also helps to create a stronger community within the game. Although we will continue to reach out to and work with new creators, we can’t do it alone. We need the community's ongoing support, of which you all have been doing a great job!
“Maintaining relationships is vital to the community of the game, therefore as we continue our march through Early Access I will continue to support and work alongside our current creators and partners.
Planning events that our content creators can participate in with the community is something that we will also continue to focus on. This includes, but is not limited to seasonal events, special in game community events, and content creator events. Maintaining the community that we have all worked so hard to build is something that we do not take lightly, thank you all for your ongoing support and we look forward to bringing you tons of awesome content in the future!” - Jack (Backyback)
Art Update
Our artists have been hard at work over the past few months. From creating new assets in game to replace some of the store bought ones, to making more detailed custom skins, we have quite a bit to share with you. Below is a showcase of some of their recent work. This only scratches the surface of what they have been working on over the past several months.
Map/Assets
Over the past few months our artists have been hard at work behind the scenes! Below is a preview of just several of the new assets coming soon!
“I also worked on the Christmas event props that were used for the recent winter event that just concluded. The event was a huge success and there are even more new props coming soon!
Finally i would like to share my excitement for the new map and I’m really looking forward to starting work on it this year. “ - Karan
Cosmetics
For the last few months we've been working on skins for our seasonal events including the recent Halloween, autumn, and winter skins. Below are some of the skins from recent events as well as some new ones coming soon!
“As we move into the new year, I will be working towards developing more unique skins, and this will help with boosting my own creative skills as well as being able to apply textures to future skin models such as new weapons and character customization models when they come.” - Wargr
We hope that you enjoyed the most recent update on what’s been happening behind the scenes and thank you for taking time to read the development blog. We intend to keep regular communication via discord and if you have anything to contribute, feel free to reach out to our staff/moderators who will be happy to answer any questions and take your feedback. We are excited for the future and all that is planned and look forward to launching the next major update with many of these changes.
Cheers! Spotted Kiwi Interactive
Lunar New Year Sale! - 20% Off Until January 27th!
Early Access - Hotfix 5.11
Greetings everyone and Happy New Year!
With the holidays ending, so has our Jingle Bot's Revenge event. We hope you enjoyed the content and look forward to the next big event!
Patch notes for this update are as follows
General
Removed Jingle Bot's Revenge Event
Map
Removed Holiday Decorations from the map
Cosmetics
Removed Christmas Item Drops Removed Winter Crate Drops (Skins and skin boxes earned from the event are yours to keep)
Welcome to Jingle Bot's Revenge!
Greetings Survivors!
Winter has taken over Redsville and the AI are in a festive mood! Join us during our Jingle Bot's revenge event and collect 52 new skins while unwrapping your gifts scattered under the Christmas Trees throughout the map! Have you been naughty or nice this year?
Along with the release of Jingle Bot's Revenge, we have fixed a couple of minor bugs as well as added additional content for this event. Jingle Bot's Revenge will run now through Friday January 10th!
From all of us at Spotted Kiwi Interactive, we wish you and your family a safe and Happy Holiday season!
Patch notes for this update are below!
Winter / Christmas Event
Added 9 new holiday items (These items have a chance to spawn under the Christmas Trees located at major POI) Added winter skin crates featuring 52 new winter skins (skin crates have a chance of being rewarded by opening gifts under the Christmas Trees) Added sweater outfits (outfits can be changed using /outfit) AI throughout the world have been made festive Holiday Decorations applied to houses and the settlements
Helicopter
Fixed an issue with character movement not updating after exiting helicopter
