Unfortunately, the roadblocks have continued, and I haven't been able to get much done. I'm still battling with issues that popped up in 0.5.1.2, which I've made some progress on. In the meantime, I've also been considering the current state of ranged, and balance in general. While there hasn't been any change to balance yet, that will happen in the near future. Additionally, I've also been taking impromptu polls/surveys in the server on various topics, which is something I'll probably continue as long as I'm a developer.
As a side note, we recently hit over 1000 people active on the website, and just yesterday, we had over 500 players on the game throughout the course of the day. It's been nice to see the work everyone has done over the last few months paying off, but there's still so much more left to work on. Over the next few days, I'll pick up my slack, and release out good patch as a Christmas present to you all. I can't promise that I will fix everything, but I will do my darndest to at least get the new items into the game, and fix the buggy siege equipment.
Here's some info on the patches/what to expect:
0.5.1.6, 0.5.1.7, 0.5.1.8
-Professor: Halfway fixed adding of new items (no longer causes error when patching)
-Professor: Tweaked code for Happy hour
-Professor: Fixed Heraldic Surcoat over Mail (hey, look at that, I got one thing done)
-Professor: Attempted to add in new items/holiday items (holiday items refuse to work)
-Professor: Wrote code to lower DTV gold gain (Didn't work)
Issues to fix
-Adding of new items (top priority)
-Small siege tower/ladder bug
-Continued investigation of re-balancing ranged
-Modification of multiplier system (current XP system is terrible for new players who are less likely to win rounds)
-Fix happy hour code, DTV gold gain code
Yes, I got next to nothing done, but posting this as its own thread is far more visible than a reply to a previous one.