Wow! This build has been a real bear to get ready. Through our work, we've opened up a few worm-filled cans. As was stated in another post, the build is in QA and we're working out some remaining bugs.

Let me say how sorry I am that it's delayed. Our intention was to send it to QA in mid-January. But issues popped up as we went to work on some core systems. We've had to go back to the drawing board a few times on these changes.

What kinds of changes caused this kind of consternation? Mostly optimization and AI work. We've been optimizing the game like crazy and adding new monster movement and AI code to help support future expansion. To be honest, the scope of that work grew beyond our expectations.

The upside is that future builds should not require such system changes. So, they should come more quickly. So, I hope you'll remain patient as we get this cleaned up and out the door to ya. We'll do our best to turn the next build around very quickly.

Thanks for your understanding and support... You guys rock! And, now that I'm getting freed up from my major programming tasks (and 14 hour days) I'll be able to get back in the game and whip monsters with ya.

steve

We know it's hard work. And getting the guts to function is wicked important. I'm new to this game myself, but I've been dying to get into it and I love it. Of course, I just like to take a peek in and hit things once in a while, so it was practically made for me! Tons of peeps seem to be looking foward to this tho.

Thanks for the update Stephen! We're looking forward to the fruits of your labors

For my part, I'd rather the extra time be taken to not only implement something(s) "right", but to do so while considering future development. In the long (dungeon)run, it just doesn't serve anyone well if something is just built and installed for the sake of "getting it in", if doing so creates walls, roadblocks, etc. that will make future efforts either requiring full system re-writes, or even impossible.

So, short version... Thank you for all that you folks do, to try and do things "right".

We're glad you all work so hard for us.
I feel all warm and tinglie... it's either love, or I wet myself....
j/k. I'll hush now.

^.^

No worries, Stephen. I've been kept plenty busy by Real Life. But darn it... this new patch had better cure cancer.

I feel your pain. I was on a conversion project a couple of years ago where our travel schedule was 11-3 (11 days onsite on the East Coast--I lived in AZ--, 3 days off--two of which are travel days) and we all worked at least 70 hours/week. Thankfully, I escaped the brunt of the travel by being assertive with my schedule, but the hours I didn't...

I had some new Screenshots posted today from the new build. One thing you may notice is that the monsters are not standing on top of each other and the ones on the outside are waiting for an opportunity to fill in a gap to get to my character.

love the new weapons, and espceically that nifty hat!

i just realised that those darned flamebolts are going to be even more annoying because i cant wipe em out in one shot anymore *sighs*

any chance they'll ever be changes so you can actually tell just by looking at the graphic if they're alive or dead? i swear i use unnerving shout ro whatever it is, just so i can see which ones are still alive.