What's Next - Updates & More

Hey all!  It's been a couple months since my last "roadmap" update.  A lot has changed and been added to the game since the 1st of the year.  I'm pretty happy with the progress, even though there's been a number of bumps in the road.

New Roadmap Format
For the first part of 2022, I was working on updates planned in a quarterly fashion.  Unfortunately, that isn't panning out the way I hoped.  It's not that I didn't make a TON of updates in Q1, because I most certainly did, but a number of things "slipped" into Q2.  The way it was setup, even with words on the page saying anything could change or be delayed, it still made a lot of people unhappy when certain updates didn't happen during Q1.

This game is BIG.  It's larger now than I ever thought possible.  It keeps growing daily too.  That's all good news, but at the same time it makes updates complicated.  The game itself deals with a lot of lag and speed issues because of the growth and the sheer number of people playing any given minute out of the day.  The growth and complexity of things forced me to shift some time to making the game less "click-y".  I spent many weeks removing thousands of clicks for the average player.  None of that had originally been planned, so when updates like Cooking didn't make it in time, that's a lot of the reason.

The new Roadmap (Found under About/Updates > Roadmap) removes any notion of "when" something might be completed.  I have shifted to a more detailed description of what I'm working on, and what kind of state it is in.  As much as I plan, things happen, and sometimes something I am working on doesn't pan out or doesn't fit or takes longer than expected. That's just life.  I still plan to work extremely hard on the game and churn out amazing content and updates as time progresses, so don't fret.

A New Server and Refreshed Alpha Game
It's time to upgrade servers (again), can you believe it?  Hardware will only get me so far, but I have room here.  I'm going to be migrating the game to a new server in the near future.  I hope it will help with some load, but as always, there might be code optimizations to make or other speed fixes in combination.  Time will tell.  I will also be refreshing the Alpha game.  Right now it's a big mess as it hasn't had a sync of a lot of things since last October.  I'll be posting more details to Alpha patrons when that is closer to happening.

Android IAPs
Coming soon.  Tenfoo has been assisting me here and he made great progress recently.  We are to the point where we need to wire up the real IAPs and do some testing.  I'm optimistic these will be done very soon since the Tower is pretty much behind me for now.

Exchange Center
This is a new store in town that will unlock once you get any skill to level 99.  From here you'll be able to convert XP over level 99 into Silver.  You'll also be able to trade in certain items to get other items.  It's kind of like the Wishing Well but more like "if you trade in 10 Tribal Staffs" you can get a "Diving Helmet", etc, but I don't have all the mappings worked out.  It's a way to get hard to get items or event super rare items after the events are over.

New Exploring and Fishing Zones
There's new zones for Exploring 80 and Fishing 80 that are being setup.  I'm not sure if they will just unlock or if Quests will be required first.  More on that soon.  

Game Cleanup and UI / UX Cleanup
Another thing I want to work on soon is "polish" around the game, especially in the beginning.  It needs to be easier for a new player to jump in and go.  Possibly some video tutorials built into the game, or other tutorial type systems.  There's some places that can just be cleaned up too (like profiles).

Cooking Skill
The first new skill to be added to the game since I started.  I think this might be the most anticipated update overall.  Cooking will take ingredients to be turned into meals with time-based effects.  I have planned 10 meals to start, but there's room to grow of course.  Adding a new skill is complicated and has major effects on balance and progression, so this update isn't being taken lightly.

Other things
I'd love to start working on Horses and Bees soon.  

....

That's everything on my radar for now, but there's a billion things I want to add to the game beyond that.  Take a look at the Roadmap for more details.  I hope you are enjoying the game so far!  Thank you for all the support.