So, now that Milestone 8 is out the door, it’s time to talk about the future again.

But first, the past.  Here is the blog post I made immediately after Milestone 3, one year ago today.  (image is the broken rendering from the original Milestone 1 Win32 build, in June of 2010)

Initially, there was MMORPG Tycoon.  I wrote the original version of the game for the TIGSource Procedural Generation competition, back on the 2nd of June, 2008 (it didn’t win, but did respectably in the voting, despite being a thoroughly broken game at the time.  I think maybe it got sympathy votes for chutzpah).  After playing around with that codebase for a while and toying with the idea of making a version 1.1, or working on an entirely different game next, I eventually came around to the plan of making a proper 2.0 edition.  Milestone 1 (which I was calling a “technology demo” at the time) was released on June 24th, 2010, about two years after the initial game was released.  Milestone 2 was released just over two years later than milestone 1.  And milestone 3 was a year and a half after that.

But here’s where things get interesting (and start to really speed up).  Milestone 3 was a test I set myself.  I’d been thinking for years about going full-time on MMORPG Tycoon 2, instead of continuing to treat it as a side, hobby project.  And so at the end of 2013, I set myself a challenge;  I took a full month off of work, and spent it working on MMORPG Tycoon 2, as if I was going indie.  I worked in an office, every day, doing 9-5 hours.  I wanted to reach a new milestone-worthy build within that month, and see whether I could stomach working on the game so intensely and continuously, where for the past five years it had been something I’d spent only an hour or two on per week.  The experiment worked out surprisingly well.  Well enough to convince me to take the plunge, and as a result I quit my day job and started doing it for real.

Or rather, I gave notice that I was planning to do so.  In practice, I didn’t actually leave my then-current job until May (because they made puppy-dog eyes at me, and I’m a sucker for that).  But once I was out, the milestones started coming out a lot faster;

The “RenderTech” build was released within days after I left my day job.  Milestone 4 was a month after that.  Milestone 5 was 3 weeks later.  Milestone 6 (containing the complete AI rewrite) was 3 months later.  Milestone 7 was 6 weeks later, and milestone 8 was 5 weeks after that.   Things have definitely sped up a lot since May, but I was a little surprised to see just how much!

But let’s look at how I did, compared against my initial plans:

I planned that by the end of 2014, I would have produced three more milestone builds (MS4, 5, and 6).  I actually produced four milestone builds (MS 4, 5, 6, and 7), plus a rendering technology test build (the “RenderTech” build).

I planned that MS4 would be about cities and subscriber progression.  Milestone 4 was actually about the new road system I’d implemented.  Subscriber progression didn’t make it in until milestone 7, and was really the main new feature in that build.  The city-placement system I had envisioned still hasn’t been released (and is currently being redesigned for creation as part of MS9).

I planned that MS5 would be about “meta-game” elements;  game elements outside the main MMO simulation engine.  Specifically, this was scenarios, tutorials, VIP demands, etc.  Milestone 5 was actually about quest editing;  something I’d forgotten to include anywhere in those early plans.  Tutorials (or at least, the first signs of them) finally showed up MS8, and the same system powering them should also work for Scenarios (although no scenarios have  yet been seen in a public build).    Quests and VIP demands are tentatively on the list for either MS10 or MS11.

I planned that MS6 would be the alpha build, and would mostly contain polish, along with more game-like UI elements.  Milestone 6 was actually about the new, more flexible AI system, which I talked about earlier.  The “more game-like UI elements” have come in in the recently-released MS8 build.

Looking back over what was planned and what actually happened, I have a few notes:

First, I’m kind of startled at how many builds there’ve been, and how close together they’ve been.  I actually don’t remember having made six builds during 2014 (particularly since I spent almost half the year with a full-time job).  After leaving that job, I was typically getting out a milestone build about once a month (exception:  milestone 6, which took longer because it contained a lot of changes, as well as distractions around setting up a company, and some contract work that came up).  I’m actually pretty pleased with what’s been done in the time.

On the other hand, I didn’t actually reach an alpha build within 2014.  And I’m probably still about three months away from one.  I’m still doing a few days of contract work per week, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing me down much, and it mostly pays the bills.

One thing I do want to do is continue to produce shorter milestones.  I don’t want another three month gap between milestones, like the one between July and October (between milestones 5 and 6).  So I’m trying to define milestones more narrowly.  Ideally, I’d really like to have a new milestone build every two to three weeks.

So with that in mind, I’ve been roughly arranging three milestones.  I’m not precisely sure what order they come in yet, but here’s what I’m thinking about:

• Milestone A:  Contains a new ‘zoning’ system which will be used for designating grinding zones and cities, instead of the current “Grinding zone” building and “Town on” button.
• Milestone B:  Contains metagame features around progression within the game.  (player demands, XP).
• Milestone C:  Save game support

These three will be milestones 9, 10, and 11.  But I’m not sure which should be which.  Anyone have preferences or thoughts about which ought to go first?  I’m currently leaning toward doing A first, then C, then B.  But maybe it’d make more sense to do C first.  Anyone have thoughts?

Regardless, the theory is that each of these three should be about two to three weeks worth of work.  So I should have all three of them complete by the middle of March.

Also in the next few weeks should be the beginnings of real artwork.  That may take a little time to integrate;  I’m not yet entirely sure what to expect, but I should have better answers at the end of this week.  I’ll post more then.