I've noticed that visitors have started to enjoy the improved mouse-only controls, making it trivial for casual users to explore the world and interact with it (left, ctrl-left clicking to attack things; right click to move; shift-left to heal things, etc.). Casual visitors are actually encouraged to stick around enough to test drive the world, which is very encouraging.
However, every minute of player time is costing me ungodly amounts of development and design time; more than ever, its driven home every night I spend working on this thing till 3am, that creating a living online world is not for the faint hearted. This is truly a labor of love, and I honestly don't know why I do it; there is something addictive about creating a world of your own making.
Anyways, what I've discovered in the process of creating the new sprites, is that its now possible for the look of the sprites to change as a result of attributes. Stronger characters for instance could be made to look more bulky and bigger; more intelligent characters could be made to look thinner and taller, etc.. Also it opens up the avenue to player customization of their character. I think that this will ultimately help with player attraction and retention, because you end up caring a little more about the tiny guy who is your avatar in the world.
Probably whats next at this point is more wearable/usable items, such as shirt, pants, hats, helms, greaves, etc.. of various sizes. I am also thinking of adding more non-human entities such as wolves, dogs, snakes, etc. just to give a little variety to the bestiary. Comment here if you have a preference of what you want to see first (if anybody is watching this journal).
But maybe it might be time to introduce attributes and levelling to the game. I have a prototype of it, where strength matters for example. I may just implement that first, as it might encourage players to register and have persistent accounts.
