Hey Everyone,
We've been getting a lot of questions lately on where we're at in terms of new client development, so I thought I'd post a little check in thread to let you all know where we're at. As some of you know, the bulk of our development focus has been on the new client for the past few months, barring the time we've spent on the monthly shop rotations, QoL features, and battling quite a few server attacks and exploits. This thread will serve as a bit of an explanation/update on where we're at. I won't go over specific bug fixes, but I'll give a general overview of several areas of the experience.
What's 2.0 and why do we want it?
2.0 is how the community mostly knows the open source DBO client that almost every other server currently uses some version of. The main draw of 2.0 is malleability. It is obviously much easier to patch and debug a game client that you have the source code for. Our main goal for the release of 2.0 is as seamless as possible a transition from the current 1.0 client you are using. For the first few months of 2.0's release, there won't be any juicy changes. It will be all bug fixes, small optimizations, and QoL changes like allowing for smaller patches. Once the game is stable and bug free, then we can begin to fix all the currently broken or half implemented systems. After that, we can begin reworks and new content. With that said, fixing and reworking the broken and half/completely unimplemented systems will feel like new content and new things for you to do, they just won't come with new missions or areas (mostly).
What's the status of 2.0?
I would describe the current status of 2.0 as almost stable. We have squashed several hundred bugs at this point, and many of the missing features are almost complete. I hesitate to say that any one system is completely ready for launch because we have not yet released our changes to testers. With that said, I would comfortably wager that many of the systems we've worked on are comparable to or better than what you would experience on the other private servers. That's not something I'm completely satisfied with, so we're going to take our time and try to get things right.
What's left to work on?
There are two major unimplemented systems that we haven't begun work on, and the third remaining one sits at around 90% completion. Most of the things we've worked on are at the fine tuning stage, meaning they're ready for internal testing, and potentially release for the ones that pass tests. If you asked me for an overall estimate on where the client is right now, I'd say we're in the 75-80% area. Keep in mind though, that the last stages of development are often the most difficult and time consuming to get right.
What's taking so long?
More info here: Server Development Update/GP Decay Feedback
When will it be released?
Current projection is that we should be able to release sometime late this year, but if that doesn't happen we will delay until it's ready. Things are looking good for that timeline though.