April 29 updates

from the Xsyon updates thread

April 29 2011

Hello Xsyon citizens!

The launcher and a the next client and server update are ready, however we’re going to continue testing throughout the weekend and hold off on patching this out until I’ve arrived in Moscow. I leave early Monday morning and I don’t want any last minute emergencies with this build to happen as I’m preparing for this trip or while I’m in the air.

Wednesday will be our regular day for patches unless we have additional critical patches that need to be made.

I will work with Dezgard tomorrow on a system for keeping the launcher window up to date with critical information and hopefully we will have that ready before my departure.

April 29 2011

Hello everyone!

First of all we are in the final testing phase of our launcher improvements. I will post later today to announce the next update. The new launcher will require a full download, however the download is now less than half of what it previously was.

The following is a response to another thread but I am copying this here to keep all of you informed.

I apologize for the rough launch. We do our best to resolve issues as they arise and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in the past 6 weeks. A lot of gameplay improvements had to be placed on hold as we worked through bigger problems with lag, slow frame rate, loading times, crashes and exploits. I realize that these fixes and optimizations don’t give you players the satisfaction that new and improved features will, but they were critical issues that needed to be dealt with so that we can move forward.

Regarding game features: some were temporarily disabled to help us focus on fixing problems, some are being completely revised thanks to our new programmers and some will be replaced or modified to accommodate our plans to add farming, expansions and conflict into the game. That is the nature of the Prelude and Xsyon in general. We will do better to adjust the feature list to the current state of the game, what is changing and what is evolving.

One thing that I want to make clear about the Prelude is that this is a period for evolving the game. Things will constantly change. Our goal is to provide the right tools and systems so that players can make things happen. The Prelude is intended as a process between players and developers. With the coming launcher update, players will be able to join us on the test server to check out our changes in progress.

In this past month we’ve doubled the size of the team, but we are still very small. Our new members are just settling into their roles and there is intentional overlap between development and community management. Many changes to the website systems, communication plans and the structure of the team are in progress. At the same time, I have had to focus on our improved launcher, getting the new programmers acquainted with the code and preparing to spend the next few weeks in Russia where I will be meeting the new developers and setting up shop in the near future.

Danathur and Dezgard were chosen for their experience and vision. I am confident they will do well in providing much needed interaction with the community.

Let us know what is bothering you in a constructive manner and we can respond better to what is critical for both the game and the community. We all want the same thing here, so I appreciate all of your feedback and assistance in letting things happen and making things happen! Let’s all make Xsyon a great game and community!