Alaunis
Shown above is a handy graphic we’ve put together illustrating Lorwolf’s four main team branches and their projects scheduled throughout the remainder of 2023. A brief overview of each team’s goals and projects have been further detailed below:
Community Suggestions
Up first is the code team, who will be spending the next few months implementing community suggestions, improving features, updating various pages, and adding new content. The art team will assist by planning out and creating whatever graphics are required for these updates.
Achievements
Work continues on the Achievement system - we have some final tweaks and balancing to do, but the structure has been built and testing has begun. We plan on Moonstones being the main reward for the overarching achievement categories, along with titles, pebbles, and other minor rewards for the lesser achievements. The art team is hard at work getting all of the graphics ready, including pixel badges for the main profession achievements. We will building out the achievements and give our players a nice mix of goals to work towards. Going along with this, our hope is that these achievement rewards give our players a way to earn a substantial amount of Moonstones through regular gameplay.
Forums Revamp
Up next is the highly requested Forums revamp - as part of a series of updates we plan on releasing over the next month based on player feedback and suggestions. The first update has already gone live as outlined in Patch Notes 1.1.3, where we added the signature section, a new rich text editor, a preview button, and a couple of QoL improvements. In addition, we will be restructuring the layout of the forums to be a bit more user-friendly. We plan on splitting each of the categories into their own collapsable sections (for mobile responsiveness), and restructuring the sidebar to accommodate an upgraded search bar and a dedicated area for subscribed, recent, and a user's threads.
Puppy/Bloodline Predictor
Additionally, the code team would like to tackle the puppy and bloodline predictor feature during the month of July. This new page will let users input the IDs of two parents to view the potential puppies (similar to how it works when breeding wolves), and a check to see if the two are related and therefor unable to breed. Ideally, this will be another useful tool for our players to plan out their breeding projects.
Mole Market Revamp
As part of the page restructuring project, we will also be updating the Mole Market. This page was long overdue for restructuring, so we are excited to dive in and give it a brand new look. This update will make it easier for users to find and purchase items, and allow us to organize the sections into more manageable categories. More info on this will be coming soon.
Poll Feature #1
We’ve also set aside a block of time spanning from August through September for us to focus on the first poll feature. We’re excited to see what the community decides!
Darkspine Seasonal Event
In other news, we’re looking forward to the upcoming Darkspine event - which will be the first pack event that Lorwolf has ever hosted! Each pack event will last one month, during which time players can earn event rewards to spend in a unique pack event shop. This shop will be stocked full of pack-related items, so our artists have a lot of work ahead of them! The months in which each pack event will occur are listed below:
Darkspine - October
Icerun - January
Murkwood - April
Goldsea - July
New Wolf Breed
You saw that right, the Art team will be tackling a brand new wolf breed starting in September! A community poll will be released shortly beforehand so we can gauge our community's wishes for what the new breed should be. This will involve many months of planning, art, and code work, so we've set aside a large chunk of time to tackle this project. We will also be adding a way for CA artists to easily add this new wolf breed pose to their existing designs, if they choose to do so.
New Items
The Art Team will also be regularly releasing new apparel, items, and companions to beef up the content in our various shops. We've dedicated the next several months to this and development is ongoing.
Campaign Chapter 2
Another huge project that is slated to begin production this year is Campaign Chapter 2! The Art, Writing, and Code teams have already begun prep work for the next chapter in the Campaign, and we've staggered each team's projects on the roadmap. Every Campaign scenario takes a large amount of prep, art, and implementation to complete, so we estimate that chapter 2 will be completed in 2024.
New Staff Hiring and Training
The Support team will spend the remainder of this year hiring and training additional staff to help support our dev team - including new moderators, artists, and coders. Lorwolf started as a passion project between Alaunis and JimJim, and swiftly grew into what it has become today. We will need many more staff members to help us build our dream and continue growing along with our community!
We hope this has shed some light on our dev team's projects and goals over the next few months. It is our wish to maintain transparency with our players, so we will keep this roadmap updated as time goes on. Please note, the plans outlined here and in the roadmap are subject to change! Moonsblessings, and happy hunting!
