Dear HWS Community @everyone
sorry it took some time. Handling all the players, even with our Reward Feature took a bit of time. With 4 possible servers, had to track down each player and coordinate how to give the rewards. Also recognized that running 4 servers at the same time with feedback streaming in on all of them is something I underestimated and I’ll think how to handle it in a good way in the future.
Anyways, getting to the point, I’m still unbelievable proud and happy that 252 players showed up at our HWS Community Photo Shooting Event 2025! This is not only a record for us but technically a guinness world record! 
First I set the server player limit to 255 rather as a joke since I thought we would get ~150 players, maybe.
Then the reality hit me that we had 170 players all in one playfield already, 211 players showing in the Lobby list and apparently even more stuck in the Queue. 
While the hardware was chillin at 10% CPU and 30GB RAM, the game just couldn’t handle the player count in one chunk. We had to split the photo session in 3 sessions with max. 125 players each
Unfortunately I didn’t took the best images (too high FOV setting) and composing them in Photoshop was a bit tricky but I tried my best and that’s what you will see soon in your loading screenshot 
(I’ll add some more impressions from you)
With that incredible achievement, for such an awesome community, the reward is a sign of how much I appreciate you all being here, making all of this possible! 
All of the 252 players who are technically registered in the savegame by their IDs, even if some were lost in the open, get 2520 HWS DNA and 25 200 000 Elemental Bank credits. Additionally, not only for reaching 151 players for getting 1 Alien Core but also the easter egg 200+ player count, all of you get on top 1 Patreon Core as a special thank you! With this, your start in the season should be hopefully smoother. 
(The rewards will be given with the 10:00 AM server restart tomorrow morning — have to do some last cleanups. I’ll handle all of your tickets and requests as well! Keep pushing also on the HWS+ improvements!)
Thanks again for this huge milestone and I wish you a great season!
RexXxuS