Greetings Syrnians,

Welcome to what is probably the final dev roadmap for the year, a few things for this one, updates from the last roadmap, a bit of housekeeping and all that.

Usual disclaimer:
Please note some of the items listed below may be in planning and development and as a result it will not be possible to release specifics of their intended functionality. No release dates are available unless explicitly stated. In addition this list is in no particular order of priority and represents active projects within the team.

1 - Celebration Island Tidy Up
As was revealed at Halloween, we have a new island for celebrating major holidays and are pleased to see that on the whole it's been well received. Gone is the existing Party Island though, with its four locations we all knew. I have been assured that the Striped Fish population that occupied the island's waters were successfully captured in large quantities and we may be able to release them somewhere new. We did have to use a large selection of specially designed sturdy nets..

The island itself though wasn't so lucky and has been put to the torch. It now exists as a burned and barren landscape as a result of a bit of a dev purging. Note that it will of course be added to the inventory of a certain burned collecting staff lunatic…

Anyway, enough of that. As you may have noticed there are locations for other major holiday events in the Syrnia calendar on that island, the next one being Xmas. So we are going to be looking to ensure everything is up to date on that part of the island ready for the big day as well as tidying up anything in the central regions which players brought to our attention from the Halloween feedback thread.


2 - Voting Changes
We have been looking to overhaul the voting system ever since it was removed. It was felt that the sites listed didn't reflect the target audience in all cases nor were the rewards quite suitable, so it's being worked on. Gone are the days of green gifts, instead players who vote to support Syrnia on various links will be rewarded with crystals. These aren't items you'll have in your inventory or that can be lost/stolen and instead be tied to your character. You'll gain a number of crystals for voting on each link and will be able to exchange these crystals for items. The purpose of these items isn't intended to be anything ridiculously game breaking or Pay to Win, you'll only be able to get a limited number of these per day and only by voting for Syrnia on the appropriate sites.

We are in the later stages of it, however it's undergoing some adjustments as to numbers and proposed rewards, and players may be invited to provide feedback to help us refine it.

3 - Piracy 2.0, continued
As was mentioned, we are continuing to work on the piracy changes. To build on what was mentioned last time, a focus group of knowledgeable pirates was gathered to provide their feedback on things to help make this part of the game work.
Some of the suggestions being worked on include (but are not limited to); Improved handling of donated resources as well as providing support for new higher level resources, updated handling of invasion mechanics to allow greater tactical options for the pirate captain, and a change to fill a number of skill gaps which prevent progression, especially at low levels.

Please note that there are further changes too numerous to mention here. We also haven't forgotten that mainlanders will want something out of this as well. These initial changes are intended to give the Pirate community an update which has been sorely needed and create a framework as well as a basis we can use to give them opportunities before we work on options for the mainlanders as balance. Details of this will be announced in due course.

4 - Skill 17
Finally, it's time for us to announce what the new skill coming to the game is. A few hints have been dropped over messages, forum posts, news items and the like however we can finally confirm that the newest skill to be entering the game is:
...

Brewing!

Yes, all those hops you have been growing and the like will soon have a purpose in the creation of beverages. Much of this is a skill with more of a recreational or fun side to it and ties in very much with the April Fools stuff from years ago, at least thematically of course. But I can assure you it's all new and been built from the ground up, no recycling here! There will be plans to produce equipment relevant to the skill, create various drinks and consume them for various effects. Further details will be announced as we get closer to release.


Final notes
Wrapping up this roadmap, we now have the 2022 plans. 2022 we anticipate to be a bit of a quiet year in terms of content updates. As a bit of context, the source code for the game is very dated. It's one of the reasons why updates can take a lot of time, why some changes are just not possible or practical but also why some updates don't work perfectly now and then. Consider that in its past this game has been worked on by at least three lead developers and six additional supporting developers as part of their team*.

This outdated code base is finally showing its age and much of the work at the back end of this year as well as into 2022 has been prepping the game to be in a position to rework it all. This will of course be a truly mammoth project which we anticipate as requiring a substantial chunk of the team resources for quite some time. The changes are however a necessity but will put us in a better position not just in terms of stability and reliability but also allowing us to more easily implement further development changes. What this does mean will be that there may not be that much happening into next year with new content but this all has to be done.

On behalf of the team we'd like to thank you all for your continued support so far and onwards to next year!

*PS. We counted the below:

Mike

Manda

SaucyWhopper

Wyks

Hazgod

Spindoc

Cradle

Mr Tiddles

Question: What's the 16th skill?

Drinking beer was 16

Combat

Keeping these bosses around? Too bad..

Yep, bosses are still going to be around. Tough luck.

I cannot wait for the pirate 2.0 update where we can make a pirate suit for bonus fishing experience since we are out at sea pirating.

Great work Cradle and team so far.

Edit: And thank the sky darkening and a new fishing tool drops out of it.

Edited on 15-11-2021 22:45

Staff,

Thank you sincerely for all the work.

Balc

I hope there's a new scroll for the new skill

Promoting the use and creation of drugs (alcohol) is a horrible thing, does this mean the game is growing up to be R-rated?

Beer was produced about 7,000 years ago in what is today known as Iran, and is to date the earliest found evidence of brewing beer.

Beer is used for preventing diseases of the heart and circulatory system, including coronary heart disease, “hardening of the arteries” (atherosclerosis), heart failure, heart attack, and stroke. (When used wisely.)

@Leiali - If your only thought is you think brewing of beverages is bad and immoral making the game R rated, how are you not addressing the fact that beer, rum and cocktails exists in game already?

The media guidelines on alcohol usually state that something becomes more severe in rating when a source attempts to show off the effects of the substance and either glamourises it or is overly descriptive or graphic in its portrayal of usage and/or effects.

Arguably the current implementation of drinks as they are now, with the slurred speech, is a cheap gag trying to glamourise it. Doesn't do it overly well. The production of it therefore is not even close to the same effect.

Would also point out there's far worse allowed already and that goes on in game than just a description and addition of a brewing/fermentation process to put it even close to "R-Rated". Do your research properly please rather than going all knee jerk reaction Helen Lovejoy.

Edited on 20-11-2021 14:02

Just say no, dont fall to peer pressure

+1 Rag

I'm assuming we would be able to "brew" potions or something as well... so maybe it won't just be drinks.

@calgor Oh I bring that up, I get muted, you have [CENSORED] that heals and is used to treat a wide variety of ailments, but mentioning [CENSORED] gets you muted while alcohol, that can lead to death, is fine.

@Leiali - So does combat, combat tends to lead to death. Meanwhile excessive consumption of anything can lead to death. Would also point out there are regular chat topics which come up that are a lot worse than implementation of brewing that counts as far worse so I presume you are happy to be reporting that because heaven forbid little darlings see that...

So if your only argument is that beer leads to death when overdone and therefore bad and making this game strictly age 18+ and not going to also pick out everything else already there, you're being a complete joke. Although if you are going to go through the rest of the inappropriate topics, go right ahead. You'd at least have a leg to stand on.

Edited on 20-11-2021 18:26

I'm hoping the brewing skill will be as stated and really just a bit of fun wih a few limited benefits. It could be a nice addition implemented well, but overall not a massive change to gameplay.

I would absolutely hate to see new drinks/potions added with large benefits to things like combat performance or skill timer reductions. This would change the game beyond recognition, as whenever such items are introduced to games they very quickly become "must have" items, and lead to the wealthiest players being able to consistantly out-perform everyone else in all aspects of gameplay regardless of their previous efforts in skills. Let's not add more ways for the wealthy to side-step actual grind.

I'm holding my breath and waiting to see how this new skill is designed. It could be a very good thing to look forward to.. or perhaps not. Either way it is nice to see such large efforts to update and improve the game, this is the most active I ever remember the dev team being.

@Calgor
You shouldn’t be so quick to call someone a Joke. His second reply had a very valid point in the sense that talking about Marijuana isn’t allowed because it falls under Drugs when there’s so much research that says it has medical purposes and atleast in the US is legal even recreationally some places on the state lvl and almost everywhere medically.
A drug is a drug is a drug, and a drug is a mind altering substance such as but not limited to Alcohol and marijuana. I do not feel the game should have a R Rating due to Brewing but I do feel you shouldn’t get muted or warned for mentioning marijuana when it has more health benifits then alcohol.


It’s 2021, let’s unsensor Pot

@Rich - No, it's a joke. There are far worse things discussed in this game, there are far worse themes in this game already which could make it more of an 18 targeted game or justify a higher rating.

But if the only thing that's going to rile someone up is because we add a brewing skill which makes them concerned about the rating, which as discussed in another thread we clearly don't stick to the one we supposedly have anyway or try to have, it's bonkers. So no, I will not cut anyone any slack for something so utterly pointless.

Edited on 21-11-2021 02:31

Far worse updates aswell like scrolls. His first comment I took as joking his second had valid points.

That’s the last of this conversation I’ll partake in though, Gidday

Edited on 21-11-2021 02:52

The first was a joke, but then it was taken all serious for some reason, sorry I can't add a joking tone of voice to written text. But once it went serious I decided to make a serious point too.

That said, I'm looking forward to all the new things, yes even brewing.

Is there any update to brewing and its release its been almost a year since this was posted..

Oh another update fallen by the way. How unusual!!

Could we have a 2023 update please, just fun to hear what's going on

Maybe 2024 will bring the pirate skill gaps! 🏴‍☠️