- Server Optimizations. After some initial tests, we think we can reliably reach close to 16km² worlds supporting up to 100 concurrent players on decently powerful servers. 7.2.0 will have lots of performance updates towards making this a reality.
- Farming tweaks, bug fixes. Farming is getting looked at with some short-term fixes to clarify how some of the mechanics work better.
- Art updates. There are a lot of animation polish that missed initial steam release, but are being added now.
- Localization. We are adding localization support, and with the help of the community will be translating Eco for numerous languages.
- Stats. We had to disable stat collection earlier, because it was tanking server performance over time. This should be resolved in 7.2.0, but we added an easier option to disable the stats if it becomes an issue again.
- Modding. Closer to the end of February/Early March the modkit will have integrated support for uploading/hosting mods through mod.io, and support server side for downloading and installing these mods automatically.
A new staging build with some of the above will be out later today on the 'staging' beta branch. The general turn around time on builds is 2 weeks, and it is expected that 7.2.0 will land around March 6th, at which point 7.3.0 will be branched for next release, so on and so forth.
We also have broader long-term plans for Eco and community involvement in that process in the works - expect more news on that front in the coming weeks