Single post in The state of development

I want to take a moment to explain where things are now, and where they are headed in the near- and long-term future. As you may have noticed, things got rather quiet around here for some time. This is because over time I have realised that my mental health has been severely suffering. I mentioned one time before that just the thought of working on PFQ would sometimes lead to repulsion or even actual pain, and this only got worse since then. So, towards the middle of November, I left. I went and spent three months with my parents, and with minimal time spent on PFQ. I was still around for events and in case of emergency, but for the most part I was "off the grid" and able to relax for the first time in over a decade. It was nice. It really highlighted that I've been neglecting my mental wellbeing and it has been a severe detriment to my ability to implement the suggestions and deliver on the promises that have been made. Going forward, I need to take care of myself so that I can actually perform well, leading to a better experience for all of you. In any case, towards the end of that time off, I felt eager to return. Eager to get back into the swing of things. This was great... but it was unfortunate that the thing that most needed addressing at the time was the RMT situation and consequently the rebalancing of ZC items. That was a sensitive topic, but one that had to be tackled head-on and dealt with. It was definitely a bumpy road, but things seem to have settled now and from what I can see the situation has improved overall. Still, it was a rough start to my return! I still don't enjoy working on PFQ. But that's just because the code is a mess, it's just difficult to get anything meaningful out of it any more. That was due to poor planning, rushed work and no future-proofing. This makes updates slow and harder than they need to be. I will still be making updates where I can, particularly to streamline a few things. Those should be coming Soon™️, and I'll announce them when I have information to announce. With regard to the "Reboot", I'm taking the idea apart and putting it together again. I started work on it in June of 2018 and among many other things PHP itself has received some major updates and improvements. I will therefore be upgrading from PHP 7.2 to PHP 8.1 and rewriting a lot of the code to take full advantage of what this new version has to offer. In the process I will also be tweaking the basic idea of the game. Remember that the point of "PFNew" is NOT to outright replace PFQ. It is not a "new version of the same game" like PFQ was to PF1. While it will share some similar concepts such as interacting with other users to mutually gain EXP, that's honestly just about where the similarities end. I have previously mentioned that PFQ isn't really a "game" as such. It's just a place where you collect and hoard stuff. Which is fine, but what do you do when you've collected everything? A lot of our veteran players have just... run out of things to do, and some are only staying because of sunk costs. I don't want anyone to feel like they are "obligated" to play, for any reason. I would prefer people visit my game because they WANT to play. Therefore when working with PFNew I will be trying to create more of a game, more things to do with your Pokémon besides just hoarding them forever. These are big decisions that need to be made from the beginning, and can't simply be shoehorned into the current state of PFQ. My current, optimistic hope for PFNew is that it will be open in 2024. To reiterate, it will not cause PFQ to close. Both games will run, independently of one another. So long as people play and so long as it makes sense to keep them running, I aim to run them both for as long as possible. In the meantime, your support means the world to me. It is what motivates me to continue. I just have a couple of requests to help keep that motivation and drive around so I can deliver on as many of the PFQ and PFNew plans and suggestions as possible. Please continue to invite your friends to play (I'm going to pester the artists about new referral CSes soon) and if you happen to be around when I'm on Twitch, come say hi! These interactions with you all help make my days much more pleasant. Thank you all.