Firstly, thanks for all the feedback. Most people seem to be saying that they like the game mechanics but don't feel it's as fun as it should be due to the long delay when performing most actions.
I've talked about this on a discussion thread but here's a quick recap. Roun was intended to be an online only game, playable without interacting with other players if you wanted but also containing synchronous and asynchronous pvp elements. Due to the online nature all data sits server side and every action the player takes requires an interaction with the server. Unfortunately once it came out in Early Access last week the server side code just didn't cut it, making the game too slow for most people to really enjoy.
I've gotten feedback on this from current players and over the last three days I've chatted face to face with many people at a local convention (Cancon) about it.
There seems to be wide support for re-releasing as a purely single player, offline game with online pvp to be added later. As of today that's what I'm focussing on.
What does that mean for the current game?
It'll stay up for now but probably won't come out of Early Access and will be removed from the store once the single player game is done. I'm also going to drop the server support back to where it was originally (it's been scaled up to alleviate the worst of the slowness over the last few days). This means it's probably going to get slower but I just don't have the resources to keep the servers scaled up indefinitely.
Today I will also remove the store button from the settings screen so that microtransactions can't be made. It doesn't seem right to leave them in there if this version is not going to continue on to a full release.
I won't be adding new content to the current game, instead focussing on moving everything over to the single player one.
How will the single player version be different?
All data will sit client side with a server side currency check made once during startup. This will allow me to continue to push new content (locations, quests, tweaks etc) once the game is single player.
There will initially be no pvp elements in the single player version. I do intend to reintroduce online pvp as an optional feature later.
Everything other than pvp should be in the single player game exactly as it is in the current one.
Will it still be free-to-play?
I'm afraid not. The single player version will not have the same scope for microtransactions so will have to come with a purchase price. I don't know yet what that will be but I'll make it competitive with other indie RPGs on steam. There may also be additional dlc for purchase down the track.
How long will it take to make the single player game?
I'm not really sure. Theoretically it shouldn't be that difficult to make the conversion but I wouldn't want to put a timeframe on it. I'll post here when it starts getting close.
Thanks very much for your patience everybody and I hope, minus the speed issues, you have enjoyed what you've played so far.