Matthew

I hired Ibbit to do some pixel artwork for me. She was fast, professional, and skilled. She captured the very essence of the artwork I had in my mind and delivered it to me on the same day. I would recommend her and intend to work with her in the future. ?

@Ibbit I haven't played it for any great length of time, but my sister used to and I am aware of it generally — it looks cool, but when I played it (many, many years ago) I felt like I had nothing to do on there. Or at least, I was uncertain about what I could do in the game. ? I love Stardew Valley myself — graphically and in terms of the game systems — which is where I originally got the idea of having an online RPG in the same sort of art style (partly because that's also cheaper and more realistic to launch than having a 3D virtual world.) I am indeed looking to hire artists as I cannot make any art myself. Well, I could but it wouldn't be high quality and I feel art is something that takes many years to master. Specifically, I need folks who can do pixel artwork although that doesn't seem to be too common on here... anyway, I'd be grateful to see your portfolio. ?

Oh okay. Well, for a start it's a browser-based RPG, it's not just a point and click standard site. So hopefully that will gain some interest. I am implementing a quest system along with events. I'm undecided on dailies — whenever I play an MMO with dailies I always feel pressured and/or feel the rewards aren't worth it, so I don't bother but if people desperately want a reason to play the game every day, I suppose they could be implemented. There won't be any games (e.g. mini games, etc.) as such, but I can see a place for competitions like "Submit an amazing piece of artwork or a piece of writing to become a part of the world / lore, etc." I'm writing the first "season" of the plot right now, although one of the issues with developer-provided content is that it can be consumed far more quickly than any person or team can create it.

Activities Hmm. When you say activities, what do you mean? Community There will be player groups, alliances/guilds, and factions that your characters can work with. Given the divided nature of the realms, your character will likely end up siding with some factions over others although you're not bound to them — if you decide your character is tired of working with the "good" faction, there's nothing stopping them from switching to help the "bad" faction, or even remaining neutral. I mean, some people just want to farm in peace and not go to war. Social features In-game chat, forums, the Discord server (for now), but also guilds are a social feature I suppose.

My next steps will be acquiring people to bounce ideas and features off — obviously, I have a vision for my game, but there's no point me accruing a lot of art assets if people don't find the basic premise of the game interesting, and the gameplay fun...

Posting this more as an accountability/development thread than an announcement of anything. Furry Realms is an online multiplayer RPG featuring anthropomorphic animals. I suppose the closest comparison would be RuneScape but without the fancy 3D graphics but also a bit of Stardew Valley in terms of pacing. It is a 2D graphical game (like Stardew Valley) with a focus on community, engaging stories that have closure, and having fun at your own pace. The premise of the game is based primarily in the mythological realm of Albion (where King Arthur, Camelot, the Round Table, etc. exist.) However, other realms are connected to Albion — all the realms of fiction and myth, in fact. Albion is merely the crown jewel; the place where the Storymancer weaves their magic and helps the heroes win. The plot involves a war between those who seek to twist the realms of myth and fiction to their own dark desires (feeling that the heroes always "get everything"), and those who seek to save the realms from that terrible fate. King Arthur leads the good folks for now, while an unknown enemy stirs up the disaffected. The realms are not yet fractured and in chaos, but rumours are surfacing that the Titans are climbing back up Mount Olympus in the realm of the Greek Gods, while in Victorian London, a menace stalks the streets murdering young women. A war brewing on many fronts, your character has many choices to make — but there are no "right" or "wrong" choices, only ones with consequences. Even choosing a side may prove surprising — just because they have the title of "hero" doesn't mean they deserve it... I had been working on this game for over 2 years, but foolishly I lost everything in a crash over the weekend and my backups are corrupted. ? So, I'm starting from nothing and working my way back up. This started off as a personal "game I'd like to play" but then some folks expressed an interest in wanting to play it too, or at least having access to a community that was a bit different from most games. Furry Realms is community led in most areas — it's nothing without a community, so there are deliberate design choices to include the community in the direction of the game, the species available, moderation, arbitrating disputes, and so on. While a perfect community is impossible, I want people to be invested and feel responsible for helping to create a community they want to play with every day. Additionally, I'm only one person and can't possibly have all the ideas and time needed to make this game a success after it's been developed. I'm not sure what else to add here — I need to get artwork commissioned and get the website back up. Most folks seem to post a list of features, but I don't know if me doing that would be particularly popular. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Discord at https://discord.gg/65RzGSz

I would be interested in integrating with this site. I have an in-development game.

The syntax has changed, you need to use User.find_by(vname: some_value) https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/FinderMethods.html#method-i-find_by

Automated tests are bits of code that you write that you then run before uploading the codebase to your site. In other words, you write the tests in the style of how you expect the code to be, and the tests confirm whether that is actually true or not. For example, below is a piece of code I wrote to check that my emails are being sent out with the correct details. The language is different but the principle is the same. describe "new_forum_post" do let(:mail) { ForumPostNotification.new_forum_post(forum_post(:first), users(:matthew).email) } it "renders the headers" do expect(mail.subject).to eq("A new forum post was made by example!") expect(mail.to).to eq(["[email protected]"]) expect(mail.from).to eq(["[email protected]"]) end it "renders the body" do expect(mail.body).to include("A new forum post was made!") it "includes the unsubscribe link" do expect(mail.body).to include("https://example.com/notifications/unsubscribe") end end These tests run every time I make a change in the codebase, as well as on upload to GitHub (code storage) and the servers. If any of the tests fail (e.g. perhaps the email no longer includes the unsubscribe link, or maybe the subject has changed), the upload will stop and I need to fix whatever is broken before I can upload again. These save you a lot of time and effort over manual testers. Manual testers are important, but it's not realistic to expect people to go and test out every part of the site to make sure nothing has ever broken. These automated tests will probably cut down on the number of regressions (where a feature stops working) and bugs you encounter. Not sure what language you are using, but there are likely to be things that can do this in PHP for example.

1. Do you have a test suite implemented for your code base? I find that automated tests before deploying a new version of the game catch most bugs which will help reduce the number of bug reports you have to deal with. As for what a good rate of fixing bugs is, that depends entirely on your team and playerbase. I'd say fix the bugs that are going to have the most impact on your revenue first. 2. I don't typically shut down a feature as such, if a test fails I simply don't deploy the code until it's fixed, but if it somehow breaks in production I immediately revert the change to get back to a known stable state. 3. If I can reproduce the bug and confirm it's had an impact on the player, they get reimbursed with no further questions. 4. No, I've never temporarily taken and held something to determine whether it's a bug or not. 5. By the impact on revenue. If a bug is going to cause me to lose revenue, I need it fixed ASAP. 6. I add them to an internal issue tracker where they can get updates by email. 7. Depends on the type of bug. If it's a cosmetic issue, it's probably not a high priority and they can wait a few weeks. If it's a systems issue (e.g. causing items to disappear) or a payments issue (e.g. they get charged twice or something), then it's a high priority and I aim to get it fixed within hours. 8. I give them the thing back, make a note, and ask them to avoid using that system until I can deploy a patch. 9. The best bug report system are automated tests run before you deploy new code to your servers. :-) They'll help catch regressions, etc. before your players do.