Greetings, Spacefarers!
It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through the year, but here we are! With Galaverse underway as we speak, we are so proud of the team. Preparing for the event has dominated our development cycles for the last couple of months. The team worked relentlessly to deliver the playable demo for Galaverse, so that we could let players experience Echoes of Empire for the first time.
We want to thank the community again for the tremendous support, and for a successful first Fireside chat event. As it was our first, we didn’t record it this time around, but we will plan to do so for future Fireside chats to ensure that everyone can listen at their leisure. We wanted to try the highlights method for the first event, but the feedback was overwhelmingly toward being able to listen to a full recording.
As we move past the event, the focus in house will shift back to a more typical production cycle, and mark a return to our modular development method. Our first focus will be to continue to build on the strong foundation of the demo, while wrapping in more of the content and functionality. The economy will be seeing some love, as will crafting and trade mechanics. This will encompass features such as inventory, taxes, research and more. We will be releasing more of our feature write-ups around this work as we delve back into the game’s regular roadmap.
We are currently working on a new player facing roadmap, to refresh the one released at the beginning of the year, and give a better overview of what’s being worked on and when. This question was raised during our first Fireside chat, and we definitely agree that it’s time for a facelift to the existing roadmap. As with any plan, things can and probably will change over time, but we will continue to be transparent with the community, and to refresh the roadmap as plans come into clearer focus. To that end, we will probably focus on smaller periods of time, rather than one extended roadmap. In this way, we can better ensure that the information we have out at the time is current and relevant.
We will also be beginning work on the very much requested Echoes of Empire video, to offer a tease into the game and give you a glimpse of what’s to come. While we now have Galaverse footage out in the wild, we’re still happy to bring out more video content to show the game as it grows!
Lastly, we are working toward a summertime ship sale, and the first opportunity to pick up our NFT Flagships! While we can’t get into the details or exact date yet, it’s not too early to begin preparing for the sale. We want to offer plenty of heads up on this, to ensure that those who want to purchase ships can position themselves to do so.
This summer is going to be a busy and eventful one here at Ion Games, and we’re excited to have all of you along for the journey!