Hello Everyone!
Today I wanted to share my thoughts with the community on the present and future of Rift Wizard.
First of all, launch was a great success which far surpassed my expectations. So, thank you for that- thanks for all the feedback, bug reports, reviews, youtube content, and great word of mouth. Wow. I don't even know what to say, and I can't believe how many people are interested in my game, and its awesome.
So... whats next for Rift Wizard?
Well, more patches of course.
Post launch patches will be more akin to free DLC/mini expansions rather than the systematic revamps and design pivots that EA patches were. Rift Wizard has found its identity and its audience over the early access period, and I don't want to mess too much with these- so ill be keeping the core systems mostly the same.
The focus of the next patch will be a new school of magic: Metallic. Ive been toying around with some cool metal magic spell ideas, including a spell that shoots electrified metal spikes, at least one spell which constructs metallic minions, and for sure something involving magnetism. Metal magic will be a small school of magic, perhaps only a bit bigger than chaos or eye magic- but a highly advanced one, aiming to create new and interesting play styles. There will also be a skill or two, and at least one shrine to support this new type of magic.
On the one hand I worry about the game having so many spells that no new player can ever begin playing Rift Wizard. On the other hand, new magic is cool, and a huge spell library is part of the Rift Wizard experience. Perhaps someday the spell shop will need some sort of revamp to accommodate a larger number of spells, but 5-20 spells per update should be fine for a while even without that. Ultimately I think Rift Wizard just needs to embrace what it is: a super complex wizard simulator with lots of mechanical and systematic complexity to explore. The target audience for Rift Wizard is the audience which marvels rather than recoils at the enormous and ever growing spell list.
There may be a few quality of life additions as well. Most notably, seeing spell upgrade descriptions before buying the spell in question will somehow become possible this next patch.
Lastly, there will be some bugfixes and balance changes. For example, Chain Lightning sure does seem to be popular, but I'm not sure what the point of the Flame Burst Bright Flame upgrade is right now. And why are dark snakes lightning creatures?
The first post launch patch will be released this December, and beta testing will start around late October/early November.
-Dylan