It’s been quite a while since the site was refreshed. I was forced into it by a PHP upgrade that rendered the old customizable theme I was using obsolete.
We’re now running a new theme that has been styled to match the old one pretty closely, but I did go ahead and do some streamlining: way less plugins (especially ancient ones), simpler layout in several places, much better handling of responsive layouts for mobile, down to a single sidebar, and so on.
All of this seems to have made the site quite a bit more performant, too.
Over the last few releases, we have been rolling out yet another series of improvements to the look of the worlds. And we’re getting to the point where I think the alien worlds are starting to look like the covers of sci-fi novels (especially with some player help building weird structures):
We launched on Tuesday, which feels like an eternity ago. It’s a mad scramble to get everything done, make sure you have all the content ready, to answer the huge inflow of questions, find all the spots where you weren’t quite clear enough… but you just survive on little sleep and keep pushing. And sometimes you get a good result!
I can’t tell you how much of a rollercoaster yesterday was. We hoped to see a strong Kickstarter but reaching our goal is less than one hour is just amazing, and a real expression of support from the community. Thank you all so much. (You can check out the Kickstarter here!)
We’re not stopping here. As I write this, we are on track to double our initial goal today! We hit our first stretch goal, for the Hansian species, overnight. Hansians were first mentioned in our lore in the short story “Interdicted,” which we posted up on the website a couple of weeks ago.
Why a Kickstarter? Well, the funding climate is rough. But we have seen that players love what we are making.
So we want to prove to the industry that people want a modern sandbox. An alternate world that feels alive, not like a static cardboard set. A game where different sorts of playstyles come together to make an immersive and dynamic galaxy. Where you can play the way you want, and the game values it, and the other players value it because you matter to the game’s economy.
I’ve been dreaming of making this game for thirty years. It’s what I wanted to do right after Ultima Online. It’s what I hoped Privateer Online could become. I cannibalized ideas from it for Star Wars Galaxies. The tech stack is inspired by what we did with Metaplace. It’s the culmination of all those years of design work and dreams.
If you also share the dream of getting online worlds back on track from a multi-decade detour into pellet-gathering themeparks, please consider backing, even if it’s only at the $1 tier. Every backer helps show momentum and interest. Do it as a favor to me.
