The release of version 2.3, Sands of Secrets, has gotten off to a rough start. Initial reception to the newly released Fritia - Turbo Hare has been mixed at best, and the event story has seen extremely strong backlash from the CN playerbase. As a result, an emergency devstream was held earlier to respond to these issues.

So What Happened?

The stream started off with kangkang, the head writer who also wrote the anniversary patch story. He was not responsible for writing this event's story, as he and other staff members were busy working on future content (updates are worked on three patches in advance normally), including having version 2.5 fully voiced. This lead to tasks being split up to be worked on individually with less collaboration. He did confirm the general concept and direction of this event's story with the writer assigned to it, but left said writer unsupervised due to being busy. He takes responsibility for not having more oversight during the production process, saying that there are "no excuses for this." He asked for the blame to be put on him, and will be personally working to fix the perceived issues with the story.

kangkang admitted that he was overconfident about the writer assigned to this chapter's story and how reliable they were, with this being an incident that he would "remember forever." He also debunked the conspiracy theory that was apparently circulating about higher-ups at Seasun taking over LiHuaMao, the specific subsidiary company responsible for developing and working on Snowbreak. No, MuMu did not get fired.

Chong Chong, the head producer of Snowbreak, then began talking. He also took the blame due to approving the story to be released. According to him, there are usually two people that take turns checking over content, but kangkang was busy working on future patches and did not check this time. kangkang was also busy with meetings with higher-ups regarding the refunds after the recent censorship wave, which didn't help either. As a result, the task of reviewing the event story was done by someone not on the writing team. A writer and a QC employee was fired as a result of this incident.

Interestingly enough, LiHuaMao doesn't actually have their own HR department according to him, and they've been dependant on Seasun for finding potential new hires. He assured players that kangkang would be able to successfully rework the story and remedy the perceived issues with it.

Up until this point, the stream had been audio-only. Realizing this, the hosts decided to add an IRL camera feed. It unfortunately was rotated horizontally, but it was something to look at.

The decision to show their faces thanks to the camera was also to debunk an alleged conspiracy theory about Chong Chong and MuMu being fired, and replaced with AI voices. Look, I don't know.

CN players apparently did not like Qingying, a new character introduced this event, allegedly due to a moment in the story where she steps on a male NPC while barefoot. The hosts said that she would be removed and would not become a playable character in the future, though this stance will change several times. Keep it in mind for now.

Realizing that their camera feed was sideways, the hosts now attempted to fix this. It took a few attempts, but they finally got there in the end.

The topic shifted to acknowledging various issues with the event story and the game overall (spoilers):

• Yao in the story was referred to in a way that could be considered a play on words to also refer to a prostitute. This was considered highly disrespectful for obvious reasons. Yao even objected to this in the story only to be referred to like that again, indicating that it was not an accident.
• The addition of "01" to various artworks in the game, which has been a problem since the game's first anniversary when the arts were first changed due to alleged sabotage. "01" in this context refers to Ling Yi, a male playable character that was removed from the game before its official release. His name resembles how "01" is pronounced in Mandarin. As well, it was perceived as the supposed saboteurs publicly signally that they had successfully infiltrated the company. The development team has been slowly finding and clearing out these alleged instances of sabotage, but have not found all of them yet, which lead to players discovering more instances of it recently.
• Rozan sent a female shapeshifter to another group of characters to serve as a "plaything." This later lead to dialogue where sounds of implied intercourse could be heard over a communicator. This was not well received.
• A girl was seen leading the way for a group of bad guys, who then kill her. Again, not well received.

The hosts said that the issues with the story were a one-time incident, but still a mistake that could not be taken back regardless. They maintain an attitude of doing anything possible to make it up to players when they make mistakes, and were initially not sure what kind of compensation would be sufficient in this case (though they did eventually figure something out, keep reading).

According to them, feedback was collected regarding the story, and this would be used when rewriting the story. They promised further details to come in a later post (see below for that). Chong Chong confirmed that plans regarding the future of Snowbreak were fully under the control of LiHuaMao and that he is still in charge. This includes who is ultimately hired despite still relying on Seasun for candidates to consider and workforce expansions in general (again, no HR department at LHM). Both of these statements were apparently to debunk more alleged conspiracy theories about a Seasun takeover.

Furthermore, hiring writers is hard, as it turns out. Potential hires require a specialized skill set as they also need to be able to program in the cutscenes to be played in-game on top of writing them. Writers also often work for other companies as well, so they aren't always available. This and other factors lead to having insufficient manpower, which meant hiring employees that weren't as thoroughly vetted.

Adding to the hiring issues, the production team had been working closely with the CN VAs to produce high-quality voiceovers, which naturally takes time. This is why not all the characters announced to have their VAs replaced have had the changeover happen. Writers also typically adjust dialogue based on the VAs' characteristics, leading to back-and-forth as lines get changed and have to be re-recorded. This results in tight production deadlines and less time to check over things, with operations being very busy and stressful on a daily basis.

The hosts thanked the playerbase for their support even during the game's struggles back in late 2023, and said that they often think about ways to express their gratitude for this. They had personally ordered the Fenny video during the latest censorship wave, and further expressed gratitude to the playerbase for standing with them during the incident.

A selector box was announced to be sent to players soon as compensation, and the initial apology letter sent via the in-game mailbox would be added to the archive.

Q&A

After all that talk, the hosts started reading chat, addressing various questions and concerns:

Is Fritia - Turbo being buffed?

The devs are aware that she isn't exactly wowing players, and said that they would be collecting feedback for future buffs.

Don't stress out too much about having fully voiced stories by 2.5, please.

Chong Chong considers this an important thing to accomplish to keep the promise initially made in the past, and emphasized that it would be ready in time.

How big is the Snowbreak team?

The development team now has around 100 people, which still isn't a lot, so they've had to rely on a lot of outsourcing.

SSR Nita when?

It's being worked on, but won't release until next year.

Is anything going to be changing with Yao? (Likely referring to the issues in the story)

Yao is potentially getting changes, possibly with regards to the story, minor changes to her name (tone pronunciation), and her personality. No specific details were given, but they are supposedly aiming to keep it consistent with pre-2.3 Yao.

Fritia plasma car when?

The devs are working on it, but it's proving unexpectedly difficult to develop. (More information was posted about this in a followup post)

If you're running into trouble having content ready in time, why don't you just make patches longer?

The hosts do not like this option, as they want events to have enough content to warrant their length, and extending event durations would lead to them not having enough content for players.

How's progress on those logistics stat farming improvements

Logistic stat rolling QoL will be added in 2.4. Finally.

Any plans for better gun sounds?

Soon™.

What took so long to respond to the complaints this time around?

Staff were still handling the drama and figuring out a response, hence the delay in getting a response out. Before, they responded quickly to prevent rumours from developing, but this time they decided to think more carefully about their response.

Hey wait! I like Qingying though.

The hosts, changing their minds on removing her, said that they would run a poll about whether she would be kept in the game, with a game account level requirement to filter out bot accounts and trolls.

Wrapping up the stream, the hosts acknowledged that there were still lots of problems with Snowbreak, but that they were working on it. They understand that they're running out of chances, and any further incidents had the risk of irreparably breaking player trust. They promised that they still understand what the players want, and that they are trying their best, putting in their full effort so that something like this doesn't happen again.

Followup Posts

After the stream concluded, a followup post was made on CN side socials further apologizing for the negative reception to the event story, along with some other details:

• The event story will be made available again in 3-4 weeks once it is written to take into account various changes:
  • Male NPCs will be removed from the event story and will no longer appear in future story content.
  • No romantic relationships will be depicted except those involving the adjutant.
  • The shapeshifting girl sent by Rozan will be removed from the story.
• Writers for stories will be credited via a pen name from 2.4 onwards.
• Qingying is again stated to no longer be appearing in the game going forward. I've reached out to Seasun for definitive confirmation on this since her fate has flip-flopped multiple times. (Update: Qingying is confirmed to have been permanently removed.)
• Previously announced plans for adjustments to Yao's character are still being discussed.
• CN voiceover will continue to be adjusted and optimized based on player feedback.
• Siris - Ksana's Ocean Hues outfit will have its idle stance adjusted.
• Enya - Exuvia's Exclusive Trainer will have its visuals adjusted.
• An SSR Nita alt is again confirmed to be in production, but that it would take a while to be complete.
• Fritia's plasma car is confirmed to be ready by 2.5.

Curiously, a second post was made not long after, detailing further changes. Most notably is that Frita - Turbo Hare's name has been shortened to just Fritia - Turbo. Not sure why, to be honest.

Compensation for this entire incident has been sent to players:

• A selector box allowing players to choose between any limited SSR operative or limited SSR weapon released up to 1.7, or 30 weapon components
• 90 Moonlit Iris (event currency)
• 4,200 battle pass XP
• 45,000 silverbucks