Progress Report

Hey Lasoons,

Another year is upon us and we'd like to share our current progress state with you. At this time we're still pretty heavy into the development of the new client. As you know, switching to flash has been a huge undertaking and we're striving to create the perfect product, but doing so does force us to have to recode an entire game and server.

Some of you may be wondering why we're redoing the server as well, and the reason behind that is that we're trying to resolve several issues that we've had with the current server. One of the major issues is the packet format which is not compatible with flash. Putting that aside, another major issue is lag. While we've tried recoding several parts of the server, andwe've come to realize that we should have implemented it a different way which is exactly what we're doing. While we can't promise no-lag, we're trying our hardest to get to the point where there is none at all.

In terms of the game client, we've finished the new friends window [client side, serverside is partially done], chatting is fully functional (with smilies!) and they do look really nice if I do say so myself. (See below for a preview)

Users joining a room / multiuser (basically the ability to see other users join rooms) is done, though we're trying to work out a few kinks with the pathfinding engine. It is a bit buggy in the current version, but we're working on optimizing and improving it. This alone is one of the major sources of lag which we're trying to improve upon. We've essentially recoded the whole room system to work with spaces. This includes the server's ability to store a server-side 'image' of the room, so the server can tell if two users are walking to the tile and prevent them from standing on the same tile, or walking through each other. This will be a huge benefit to Lasuni as it will allow queues in rooms and racing style games.

We've revamped the loading screens [as seen in prior blog posts], we cut back on the graphics and made them look a bit nicer too. This will also decrease the overall file size that's loaded so that means a faster loading time to be in-game.

As for what's left to do, the list goes: Inventory, Equipment, OMG Help, Room Creation Window, Settings Window, Spaces [partially done], Furniture Engine [partially done], Avatars [partially done], Website Updates [partially done]

Now a lot of you are probably wondering about a deadline and such, but we're sorry to say that we can't make any promises as of yet. When we get a bit closer to releasing, we'll definitely inform everyone about a proper release date / party.

Anyways, the new year is nearly here, so we'll see what it brings.

Until next time~