Hey everybody, hope all is well!
I just wanted to give a quick update as it's been a bit since the last update / patch.
As previously stated we're trying to focus on bug fixes and overall game engine improvements at the moment, but, for a fair amount of things, simply patching up whatever the problem isn't always the best approach. Sometimes the reason there are bugs with a system is because the foundations of the system itself were not written very intelligently in the first place.
These kinds of things are 100% my fault, as I've made clear, I never really wanted to be a programmer, but that was 90% of what the game needed to get everything working, so there is some undesirable code and some less than perfectly designed systems in-game. Since we now have a more experienced programmer helping out, he is reworking some of these systems at a more "root" level rather than just putting duct tape over the holes.
The first thing that I actually had him look at had to do with "area" generation, which is what spawns resources, monsters, and so forth. Any changes to these kinds of systems affects saved games to the point that they need to be restarted or "updated" which repositions player built objects. There are some other changes to spawning underway, so rather than having beta players need to wipe or update repeatedly in a short period of time, I'm looking to group a couple of things together into one larger patch.
Beyond that, I've hired on a second developer part-time, primarily to look into performance optimizations for the time being. A third developer is due to join us shortly for reworking the character controller. And a friend of a friend is exploring some ideas for redesigning and redrawing the user interface.
So, nothing has necessarily happened overnight, but there is a lot going on! Hopefully before the Winter sale starts up we can get a few larger waves of patches up. To be honest, personally I've spent quite a bit of time this week getting my life back in order. I got my car fixed, paid off a bunch of lingering bills I had, etc.
More to come soon!