Posted on

Phoenix and Dragon Server Announcement & Gameplay Update 0.1.12

I have a big announcement to make regarding these files….

After much deliberation and consideration, we’ve decided on a new development plan. Hopefully, one which can actually deliver on a lot of promises we’ve been struggling to keep regarding the current character database. Everyone who has been following this project is likely to be aware these files are in a pretty advanced state of development already, and one of the most frequent and fair questions I’m asked is when will the server be coming out of testing.

We’ve come to the decision that this database will never come out of testing and will instead be preserved indefinitely as our public test server (Artificial Phoenix) throughout development. Currently, I want to take pressure off my developer and allow him to complete his work at his leisure, this means the big Version 2 (the full game I envisioned launching back in 2017) will probably not be coming until late 2018/2019 and will be launched as our Primary Dragon server. Everyone on the current database has shown excitement to play Dragon, and it is still entirely planned to be our A-side server.

So why keep Phoenix? Essentially we need a test server, somewhere we can prototype and is less stable but with proper meaningful data and characters. This means new and exclusive releases as we release Dragon will be first tested on the old server.

For me, this is the ideal solution as I don’t consider this database to be in any kind of dirty state, and I am really struggling to justify the removal of it long term. This message will be followed by a formal announcement and we will be moving our thread into the Live Server Advertisements this week.

Obviously, we’re aware this database is unclean, in that there have been numerous and ongoing persistent bugs through development, we’re not in a position to address this yet – but for anyone who wants a fun server to join, there is no longer a looming threat of wipe on this existing files and the squeaky clean server will be launched later in 2018/2019. I already run a test server myself, those resources will be reassigned to this server when we release Dragon which will include multi-server support.

I have coined this, the 2 server solution. It’s happening, stay tuned.

Game Updates:

Minor fixes to Guard positions and routes in BichonWall
Sabuk Conquest War Added (Unpolished)
TravellingMerchant_Damian no longer visits Bichon Wall
TravellingMerchant_Fred added exclusively to Bichon (9:30am-12:30pm and 9:30pm-12:30am)
Assigned AI to WitchDoctor
Assigned AI to HellSlasher
Assigned AI to HellPirate
Assigned AI to HellCannibal
Assigned AI to HellKeeper
Added Statue NPC to ViperMaze Floor 1-4
Added Correct Logic to SkullPile NPC (Now Randomly Teleports with [1/2] chance to same location on floors 1 and 2 of ViperMaze)
Added OldMan NPC outside SabukWall (with information regarding contesting guild and war times)
Reworked HellCave monster stats
CrystalArmour(M) and (F) now available for Sins and Archers
Rebuilt HellCave spawns
Added HellCave OverPass NPCs
Reduction in the drop of Luck Added Necklaces
Various new NPCs
Fixed Bait Prices
New Lite Client Available on Downloads Page (0.1.11)

Posted on

Open Testing

Artificial Mir II is now transitioning to Open BETA testing. With our first major patch roll out we’re looking to open the gates and allow more people to experience the game we’re rebuilding. After months of hard work and dedicated testing, we’re moving much closer to having a stable and balanced game environment so we think it would be good to let new players into the game. They may try things our existing testers haven’t even thought of and bring valued feedback to our development team.

Since development to Open BETA has been a while in the making, various players are 40+ levels ahead and therefore we feel the game in its current state is due to be wiped in the initial Open BETA stages, to allow a balanced experience to all newcomers as we launch.

Although there is a whole host of undocumented changes, and adjustments, from now on we will try our best to include patch notes and updates as often as possible.

Currently, all the changes are back-end and no client updates are required, so hop in and enjoy!

 

We will be referring to this release as 0.1.0. Latest updates and changes:

Gameplay Updates:

Added Discord Server
Partial transition to SQL
Encrypted Passwords
Single Sign-on
Added Site Discussion Board
Added Site Game Credits
Added USA Premium Dungeon Levels 20-30 30-40 40-50 Unpolished
Fixed Fishing Baits
Fixed Level Glows (50 small blue-60 blue dragon-70 fire dragon)
Buffed EM
Added Lunar 1F (Rebuild)
Various fixes to unreleased hell maps
Various other stat tweaks, bug fixes and drop adjustments.
In development (Admin Access Only): Lunar 2F-3F, BattleGrounds, Ancient Ruins, AOC

Posted on

Closed testing

We’re currently in a status of closed testing. The game server has been online for around 3 weeks and populated for around 2. A number of players have already joined and after 100s of hours of development and game time, together we’ve made a lot of progress.

We’re now much more confident with what we have and the direction we’re going to take, and therefore our next step is increase our public exposure, without full Open Testing. This means feel free to invite anyone you want to play, and feel free to mention us anywhere you like.

At the moment we are somewhere betweeen 2.3 and 2.6 comparitively to original game versions, with a few twists.

Over the next few weeks we’re expecting a number of reboots in implement various software and hardware upgrades. Our next major patch will be version 0.0.3, it’s expect within the next week and will require manual lite client patching in order to get in game. We will be posting more on this soon.