Coming out of Beta!

[Actinate]

Hi everyone!

I spoke with Dayrinni the other day about coming out of Beta. We are still on course but are shifting from the 15th to the 19th since we will both be fully available on Saturday.

There have been a few delays on my end, and for that I apologize. I do not want to deliver unfinished or subpar content to you, so, here is what we are looking at for opening:

1. Blood Shaman newbie area. This will include areas, quests, items, npcs, etc..
2. Memorial Hill and the main city streets, including food, hat, sheath, boot, crest, and apothecary shops and Swordspire Training Hall.

New quests are not completed, so instead of jamming a bunch of new uncompleted quests in the game, I'm going to hold them back for release. When I say hold them back for release, I mean they will be released as they are completed, so you won't need to wait another year or six months, or whatever to get them.

The same new release structure applies for the following areas attached to the city: South Port, Lake Fortune, the Pagri encampment, the new docks, and the bazaar. All of these areas are done, but require specialized items and NPC development that I am not sure will be ready by the 19th, but the good news is, is that I will be releasing them upon completion, which shouldn't be that long after

I take full responsibility for the delay of new areas, and I hope you can understand my predicament. I have a baby on the way and a few other offline issues have put me in a bit of a bind and constrained my time, specifically a kidney illness that lost me months of work on the game. I am not making excuses, but I do want to be transparent with everything that's been going on so you are in the loop.

What does coming out of beta mean? It really just means we have a stable enough code base to warrant new players and regular RP events. We will still be fixing typos and bugs, polishing the game where needed, and adding new content. As you know, ATS is always a work in progress

<3 Acty

[dayrinni]

Hello!

From a code and game play PoV, this is what I'm thinking now:

1. For the first month or 2, I will work on polishing, bug fixes, and small QoL stuff (like train attribute all). I really want to get the game stable, fix the bugs that are discovered, and polish things up. I also want to write a few small areas.

2. During this time, we'll be doing design work on various things. Mainly Lunar Sages and the Ethari. It is likely Lunar Sages will be the next class. After, we will do Ethari. For the Ethari, I know we have a great opportunity here with them, where we can do amazing things - so I want to make sure I can design something astounding, where players will talk such great things about the Ethari, we will attract new players! Ok, a little ambitions but a man can dream, right?!

3. The evo system will also be worked on from a design standpoint. I am still balancing the group mobs and classes, but we've made good progress. I will resume this as well.

4. Long Term Stuff: Master Specs, Crafting and Dynamic Event System. These are our long term plans and we will get started on them in the future. Master specs will probably be started sometime later in 2019. My main thing with this I need to come up with an easier way to make abilities faster. For Crafting, this will probably be in 2020. I want to make sure we have a good player base that can contribute to the ideas of these crafting systems. For the DES, this will be a big project, and really add a lot to the game. I suspect we will begin designing this mid to late 2019.

5. Helpers: Builders and Role Play Admins. We are working on this.

So we have a lot of stuff we want to do right away and a lot of stuff to do long term.

Thanks!

[dayrinni]

We are opening July 6th - 6 years after we first entered Open Beta. Thank you for all your support!

We did not complete everything we wanted to, but we will continue working on them as we go on.