ArkCo News - 7/18/14

Hey ArkCoNauts! This has been quite a week for us! We can’t thank everyone enough for the support during the Midweek Madness sale, and we’re so happy to have so many new players on board! Since so many new folks are here now, we wanted to take the time to give some insight into the current state of the game, and the development process going forward. The first thing we’ve seen many new players post, is that there is too little content in the game. There is a definite reason for this, that being that the core systems are being re-coded in a far more efficient way. The first phase of this is nearly complete, the critter AI overhaul. We still have a few creatures getting finished up to be put back into the game, and then we will be progressively overhauling each area of the game, including UI, armor, weapons, housing, etc. “Why would you do this?” you ask. “It’s a serious time sink, and players feel bored with the game!” We certainly understand that, but let’s look again at the critters from the development standpoint. Prior to our rewrite, a single creature would take Jake around a week or more to fully design, code, and implement. In the new system, it has been reduced to maybe 1 or 2 days. This means that from here on out we can dump in more and more creatures at a significantly faster pace. This is the goal we’re going to be looking to achieve with every area of the game, so that by taking this time out now, we can churn out the content at a solid pace once these systems are in place. Our veteran players are definitely familiar with how we work, implementing, testing, and then pulling back features that we are not happy with or that need to be greatly improved. The result of this is being able to take your feedback, pull back things that are not working for the players in terms of experience, and then putting things back into the game in a way that feels good to the players. Now that we have a second programmer, this will become much easier to do. That being said, it will take Doug some time to get into the game’s code, learn all of our systems, and bring himself up to speed with Jake and Paul. Once he gets there, the real fun will begin, and he’ll be able to really show what he’s made of. It’s not an overnight process, but we’re very confident in Doug and excited to have his help! The game will be getting a patch this weekend, and then the patch timer on the game’s main menu page will be bumped to reflect the next patch in 4 weeks. (That one’s gonna be awesome!!) We’ll be rolling out another hefty round of bug fixes, and we want to encourage everyone, especially our new players, to keep sending those bug reports. It does matter, and it does help the game’s development, so even if you’re frustrated by an issue you encounter, you CAN be the one that helps get it fixed. We’re very grateful to be surrounded by a community that cares about the game, and is willing to take the time to share feedback. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next time for ArkCo News! Stay awesome!