A new beginning.
I've been reminded twice by players that it's time to post another diary entry. MaidMarian.com continues to reach more and more players. We experienced a bit of a drop in early January, however that occurs every year after Christmas and at another record high 1.8 million unique monthly visitors, rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated. I added two more servers, bringing the total to 11. Check the five year pattern on Alexa: Alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/maidmarian.com
After releasing Club Marian in September, focus shifted back to Sherwood Dungeon and I came up with a preliminary list of features that were needed to bring the game to another level. The changes you are seeing are just beginning. I received some very vocal criticism from the women of Sherwood about the Female Warrior. I wanted strong characters that would resonate with players. Apparently the female avatar was just not there yet and I generated a list of changes based on feedback. The email from female players for the new updated look with a choice of hair styles is now overwhelmingly positive - so thanks for your help. One of the goals has been to create an MMO adapted to the web but with the 3D graphics and visual impact of a boxed product. Just being the best looking 3D MMO in a web browser was not good enough. In particular I wanted the avatars to hold their own against well known, mainstream MMORPGs. Although naturally there is going to be some bias, for the first time with the characters I feel like we're reaching that goal. As far as I'm concerned, there's no technical reason why a browser based MMO can't look as good graphically as a boxed one and I'm going to keep pushing for this in all areas of the game.
Crafting and blacksmithing has been something I've wanted in Sherwood for a long time. Those ideas morphed into the Runes and Scrolls system recently introduced into the game. It's basically a collecting and combining game mechanic, where you use runes to envoke the magic of a Scroll of Summoning to craft magic weapons. Originally I was going to have players spell the Old English translations for words like "Sword" or "Axe", however the symbolic circular pattern of runes that I ended up using evokes more of a feeling of alchemy, magic and mystery. Runes have a fascinating history in Viking, Germanic and Old English lore. Have a look:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Futhorc
I also increased the number of inventory slots from 16 to 25. This was planned for a while, however the Runes and Scrolls system forced the issue. A reduction in icon size was required to create the 5x5 slot grid on the inventory. This turned out to be more work than I anticipated as almost all other screens in the user interface were also affected.
So what else is planned? You'll have to wait and see, however this year will mark a turning point for both the game and the company. Some of the changes may take you by surprise and will, with luck, be more fundamental to Sherwood's future than just new features. It's time to put my game face on.
Other random stuff:
I'm off to San Francisco in a week for the Game Developers Conference. I just started kick boxing. Wow am I ever terrible. My avatar can kick, what's wrong with me? I also play ice hockey twice a week. I'm not great at that either but I'm Canadian, so it's in the blood. I'm from Dutch (Mom) and Hungarian (Dad) parents so I love the popularity the games get in both Western and Eastern Europe. And a big hello to the huge numbers of visitors MaidMarian.com gets from Poland! My wife's father was from Poland. My wife quit her job to join this crazy company as CFO about a year ago. If your curious about where players come from, check this out.....
The 29.99% grey area represents the rest of the world. Cool eh? I've always been blown away by how evenly balanced the traffic is around the world. The word on Sherwood is spreading because of you, so keep recruiting those friends! And thank you for continuing to support the games.
Gene
