February 25, 2015

AQW Server Rewrite Update

Server Rewrite Progress Report: On Schedule

Alongside the weekly release updates and the other backend projects we're working on, Yorumi is making great progress on the server rewrite. He's currently working on porting over the stat system; that is on track to be done by this Friday.

Yorumi says:

"We're changing a fair bit about how stats in AQWorlds work. The modifications will make more sense both for gameplay and in an RPG sense. More stats (especially the secondary stats) will become useful; you'll want to use more than just LUK enhancements after we're through."

For example, mages will want to have INT and WIS, Warriors will want to focus on STR. Once we reach the PTR live-test (which is still several months away), we'll have a free PTR enhancements shop so you can try out all the different combinations.

Right now, we are less than a month away from the staff-only test of the new combat system. We are still on track for SRV 0.8 (the player live-test PTR) to begin in September. 

Server Rewrite Progress Chart

So that we all have a clear idea of where the server rewrite progress is at, we'll use server rewrite version numbering (SRV) and phases.

Phase 1: Porting the existing game over to proprietary server software (that we built ourselves. This is what Oversoul currently runs on).

• SRV 0 - research begins
• SRV 0.01 - server architecture meeting with Zhoom
• SRV 0.0015 - map and characters loading
• SRV 0.00175 - stat system
• SRV 0.02 - staff-only test of new combat system
• SRV 0.6 - full working Alpha stage
• SRV 0.8 - player live-test on PTR
• SRV 1.0 - full launch of Server Rewrite, Phase 1

Phase 2: Updating core game functionality on AQW 2.0. Phase 2 is where we're planning to make the changes you have all been asking for:

• the buyback shop*
• better PVP and guilds functionality 
• bank item previews 
• friends list syncing 
• adding rank 10 passives to new classes 
• cross-server/world chat 
• better anti-bot and reporting functionality and more. 

We cannot start adding in Phase 2 functionality until after Phase 1 is complete.

Update: Personal Buyback Shop

We've been getting a lot of questions about the personal buyback shop. The goal is to let players get back AC items they had sold or lost. The way we would do that is by reading your account history - the AC purchase log - and putting only those items into your personal buyback shop.

That means no rare items would be returning. You - and you alone - would regain access to only the items you had previously purchased. There will need to be restrictions on this so it cannot be abused, and we do not have finalized details on what items would be eligible, what price you would need to pay to buyback the items, or what kind of wait period would be required.

Because this functionality is so far out (we need to finish all of Phase 1 first), we've got plenty of time to plan the best way to meet the goals while addressing many of your concerns. We'll announce more details about this and other Phase 2 functionality additions as we get closer to the release date.