Development Roadmap to Multiplayer #2
Update #1
The first quarter has come and gone, along with many updates to the development of multiplayer. The first thing to address is that multiplayer is not yet ready for the public. Our estimation of Q1 was a little ambitious, but we've made a lot of progress that allowed us to have a closed test with our Patrons recently. So now it is time to give an update on what we've done, where we are at, where we are going, and beyond.
What We've Done
Right off the bat, here is the list of items we've completed from "Break It Down" section:
- Address outstanding bugs from the first Roadmap
- Implement Lobby System
- Dynamically connect players to correct server based on previous game session
- Implement Server Transfer system
- Update Chemistry UI
- Implement assets for Mushroom Picking
- Implement assets for Miki's Delivery Service
- Implement Sivania assets for A Dryad's Distress
- Implement some new assets in Sivania
- Implemented Mushroom Picking to our new Quest standard
- Implemented Miki's Delivery Service to our new Quest standard
- Implemented Sivania portion of A Dryad's Distress to our new Quest standard
- Patreon multiplayer Test of Tutorial Island and Sivania
As you can see from the list, we've hit a lot of our goals, but fell short on some. So let's dive into what's left to do in this roadmap, as that will drive part of our work leading up to the release of multiplayer.
Where We Are
Minecart Madness
We've had a lot of discussion on how this quest stands and we've decided that the current single player version of the quest doesn't live up to our new quality of quests. This means that we've updated the design of the quest. The quest will now be more engaging, fun and challenging. Because of this, we'll not be releasing this quest at the initial launch of multiplayer, it will come as a future update.
A Dryad's Distress
We implemented the portion that takes place in Sivania, but decided the portion of the quest that takes place in The Great Forest does not meet our new quality of quests. Similarly to Minecart Madness, we've redesigned the rest of the quest to be more challenging and fun. We are currently still deciding on releasing this with the initial launch of multiplayer, but if we feel that it is not worth delaying multiplayer to release this portion of the quest we will release it as a future update.
The Temple of Ra
We've had a lot of feedback about this quest from our single player version of STW. Most of that feedback is that the quest is too hard. We've looked over the current design and decided that as the quest stands, the challenges themselves are not too hard, but damage dealt to the player is too high. We will not be changing the design of this quest, but instead allowing for a more forgiving experience as you solve the puzzles. This quest is planned to be released with the initial launch of multiplayer.
Where We Are Going
We've stated in What We've Done, we recently completed a test with our Patrons from Patreon. This test lasted 48 hours and provided us with a lot of feedback. We've already started working on the list of bugs and updates that we need to make. As it stands we have just over 50 items left to complete on this list and we make progress on this list every day. As we keep hammering on this list, we'll also get The Temple of Ra implemented and assess the rest of A Dyrad's Distress completion at regular intervals - we don't want it to delay multiplayer.
So we've got some quest content to do, and this list to make things more stable/improve quality - what else needs done? We've got a few updates that we want to make to improve our release process as that will smooth out future releases of STW. This requires a little bit of work on our custom launcher. After this we plan to launch STW mutliplayer alpha servers that are running 24/7! These servers will at first be only accessible by our Patrons (new updates coming to our Patreon soon™, including lowering the cost of accessing multiplayer). As the servers prove to be stable and reliable we'll host weekend test that allow for our loyal followers to try out multiplayer first hand. The next step will be releasing the flood gates and enduring some stress tests on the servers.
As we move forward towards multiplayer we'll continue to answer questions on where we stand and be proactive on releasing information.
Beyond
If you've played the single player version of STW you might be asking yourself, what about Odin's Fjord or the Ferrousanguis region, what's up with them not being mentioned yet? These two regions are still going to be in STW, but we feel that we don't need to delay the release of multiplayer while we implement these regions. These regions, along with the quests in them, will be coming in future updates - after we release multiplayer.
The next question is, what's the plan after all the content from the single player version of STW is implemented in multiplayer and the servers are up 24/7 and stable? We plan to get back to doing what we've been wanting to for awhile now - new content updates! We hope to regularly release new content to STW in the forms of new quests, enemies, minigames, and skill updates regularly. These will often require new areas and regions so the mod is planning on growing - a lot! We're excited about where STW currently is, and we are even more excited on where STW is going!