Dear community,
A month has passed since we released our first community report which gave you an insight into the topics we were discussing in the office, concepts we developed and ideas we had for the game. We received alot of valuable feedback and are glad you liked the report; that's why we want to release another one. This report covers the happenings of October and includes a brief update on what has happened regarding the ideas of the last community report.
As with the last report, a reminder that plans for the topics below are not finalised but remain subject to change. We'll be monitoring your feedback again but we do hope you like the ideas!
Update on the October CR
We received the most feedback about the duel arena concept. Since most of the feedback was negative, we have pushed the idea back and will rethink it before we present you with an alternative concept.
We have also talked about changes to fort battles and we're still working to bring the planned changes to the beta as soon as possible. Sadly this has taken more time than we expected since we found some weaknesses in our planned formulas and had to adjust them a little. This is still a very important issue for us that is discussed everyday as we identify problems and make tweaks. There is a chance we will be finally ready to show you on Monday!
As written, duel motivation was split in two, ready to be released onto the beta. We will continue to monitor the change in player behaviour there before approving it for global release.
Another topic that received alot of attention was the friends bar. We have identified several improvements that we will complete in order to make the friends bar less space consuming and more useful. It will remain deactivated until the improvements are finished.
Now onto the second part of the community report, our two focus features: multiplayer instances and raising the level cap.
Multiplayer Instances
Last month we introduced our multiplayer instances to you. Our editor is nearly finished and only needs a few adjustments and usability improvements. We have started to work on the actual battle system already -- when I last walked into the developers' office they were discussing and drawing complex sketches of how a bear could turn and what its field of vision should be. They were thinking of ways to only allow the bear to attack from its front so it would have to turn around before attacking people behind it. There are a couple of graphics for the new system as well, which we can't wait to share with you. We've come a long way and it's looking very promising; hopefully melkon will write a new devblog post for you soon.
Level Cap Raise
In one of our many ideas meetings we came to the conclusion that raising the level cap would not only give high level players something to work towards again but also assist with a couple of other issues. We therefore decided that this would become one of our next priority stories. We thought about what we would need when raising the level cap: besides quests, new jobs and new achievements, one of the most important things would be new items. We then quickly remembered that even at the moment we don't have all the items we would like between level 50 to 120 so it wouldn't make much sense to create items for greater levels now. Therefore, the first step will be to create the missing intermediate items and ensure they are well balanced. We already created 279 new items for that purpose, including trapper hats.
Balancing these new items has required significant changes to existing items. Neckbands in particular had a number of changes, since they never had any level requirement so even the coolest ties and golden jewellery could be equipped at level 1. (Needless to say, they now have new level requirements.) There are also many new fancy and named items that should be of interest especially to the collectors among us, seeking new treasures to discover for the first time.
There are a few more changes that we'll inform you about over the next few weeks, so stay tuned! To finish with, here are some less far reaching plans:
New Quests
We all love new quests -- some are cooler, some are not as cool as others but quests are generally a positive thing and exciting to play. We'll continue creating and implementing more and more new quests over the coming months. There are a couple in the pipeline already that are just waiting for the release date to come around. "Letters from Nowhere" and Main Story 2 have just started and there are many more Main Story parts to come. Furthermore, there will be a very special questline for mid- and high level players starting in November that I'm sure you will enjoy. But that's not all, we have alot more that we can't wait to present you with and that will make our translators sweat like oxes
Miscellaneous
That's all from Joony for now. As usual, we'd love your feedback (remember: constructive and respectful), so head over to the update review forum!
A month has passed since we released our first community report which gave you an insight into the topics we were discussing in the office, concepts we developed and ideas we had for the game. We received alot of valuable feedback and are glad you liked the report; that's why we want to release another one. This report covers the happenings of October and includes a brief update on what has happened regarding the ideas of the last community report.
As with the last report, a reminder that plans for the topics below are not finalised but remain subject to change. We'll be monitoring your feedback again but we do hope you like the ideas!
Update on the October CR
We received the most feedback about the duel arena concept. Since most of the feedback was negative, we have pushed the idea back and will rethink it before we present you with an alternative concept.
We have also talked about changes to fort battles and we're still working to bring the planned changes to the beta as soon as possible. Sadly this has taken more time than we expected since we found some weaknesses in our planned formulas and had to adjust them a little. This is still a very important issue for us that is discussed everyday as we identify problems and make tweaks. There is a chance we will be finally ready to show you on Monday!
As written, duel motivation was split in two, ready to be released onto the beta. We will continue to monitor the change in player behaviour there before approving it for global release.
Another topic that received alot of attention was the friends bar. We have identified several improvements that we will complete in order to make the friends bar less space consuming and more useful. It will remain deactivated until the improvements are finished.
Now onto the second part of the community report, our two focus features: multiplayer instances and raising the level cap.
Multiplayer Instances
Last month we introduced our multiplayer instances to you. Our editor is nearly finished and only needs a few adjustments and usability improvements. We have started to work on the actual battle system already -- when I last walked into the developers' office they were discussing and drawing complex sketches of how a bear could turn and what its field of vision should be. They were thinking of ways to only allow the bear to attack from its front so it would have to turn around before attacking people behind it. There are a couple of graphics for the new system as well, which we can't wait to share with you. We've come a long way and it's looking very promising; hopefully melkon will write a new devblog post for you soon.
Level Cap Raise
In one of our many ideas meetings we came to the conclusion that raising the level cap would not only give high level players something to work towards again but also assist with a couple of other issues. We therefore decided that this would become one of our next priority stories. We thought about what we would need when raising the level cap: besides quests, new jobs and new achievements, one of the most important things would be new items. We then quickly remembered that even at the moment we don't have all the items we would like between level 50 to 120 so it wouldn't make much sense to create items for greater levels now. Therefore, the first step will be to create the missing intermediate items and ensure they are well balanced. We already created 279 new items for that purpose, including trapper hats.
Balancing these new items has required significant changes to existing items. Neckbands in particular had a number of changes, since they never had any level requirement so even the coolest ties and golden jewellery could be equipped at level 1. (Needless to say, they now have new level requirements.) There are also many new fancy and named items that should be of interest especially to the collectors among us, seeking new treasures to discover for the first time.
There are a few more changes that we'll inform you about over the next few weeks, so stay tuned! To finish with, here are some less far reaching plans:
New Quests
We all love new quests -- some are cooler, some are not as cool as others but quests are generally a positive thing and exciting to play. We'll continue creating and implementing more and more new quests over the coming months. There are a couple in the pipeline already that are just waiting for the release date to come around. "Letters from Nowhere" and Main Story 2 have just started and there are many more Main Story parts to come. Furthermore, there will be a very special questline for mid- and high level players starting in November that I'm sure you will enjoy. But that's not all, we have alot more that we can't wait to present you with and that will make our translators sweat like oxes
Miscellaneous
- A fancy new forum style is being prepared for the latest version of our forum software, vBulletin 5.
- Concepts are being designed for a new game homepage.
- We're revisiting the travelling fair balancing to make construction more lucrative.
- A couple of new crafting recipes will be created soon.
That's all from Joony for now. As usual, we'd love your feedback (remember: constructive and respectful), so head over to the update review forum!