Today we officially began real work on the revamp of the "original" wytheria. We're updating a new layout that is much simpler since our number one complaint was navigation. It will have links to all of the things pet site players expect.
We're also working on a new front page.
In order to simplify some of the game play (also per player request) we have made traveling via train free.
The news post reads as follows:
"Profits are up! Thanks to the booming Quintessence business and a government subsidization approved by mayor Cameo, the Wytherian Transit Authority announces free fares! That's right, get to Rekkits at no cost. Happy commuting."
Also along these lines we are adding a small feature that shows you the most popular/most important quests to earn money that's just a click away (see "help") as well as a briefing about some of the main characters and storyline. We are removing the right-side flash navigation system as it seemed to "over complicate" things. All the links you need quick access to will be on the top or left hand navigation bar. Happy traveling! Look forward to more changes soon!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wytheria: A new beginning
Wytheria has had many evolutions in it's years servicing the gaming community. It started out as a rather humble pet-site hosted on a shared server and using pre-made scripts. But it got popular quickly in spite of these deficiencies. This was owing mostly to the tight, friendly community, unusual storyline and appealing art. Over the years the storyline, and the game play, continued to develop and become extremely complex. This is when we started having problems:
Because Wytheria started out as a pet site and our original player base and staff were drawn there because of their interest in these pet sites, Wytheria has always tried to keep to the standards of this platform (classic system of forums, create, player shops, arcade games and quests) while trying to incorporate the developers' love of more complicated and involved role playing games. This lead to a serious problem. Players who wanted a pet site were turned off by our complicated interface, plot, and excessive amounts of reading required to immerse yourself in the world, while role players were turned off by some of the childish elements involved such as pets that could change color as they thought "this wasn't one of those games." Therefore we lost touch with both of our target audiences.
The Past:
We did actually make enough money to pay for the site but it was mostly staff buying upgrades and obviously that's not going to work for long term success. But we do have a very nice and original upgrades shop offering some things unique to wytheria. We also won VPL's "Most Original Petsite of 2008" award (we were in close competition with Exhibited Sim, a dinosaur sim game). We had over 2,000 real humans register to play and were praised for our extremely original plot and features.
The Future:
In light of what we have learned from our past experiences we are now going to split Wytheria in two. On one side we will simplify the original Wytheria: Mystic Island game into strictly a pet site. It will have the same features, pets, and art, but the layout and plot will be simplified and made easy to follow for the kiddies. We'll keep color changing pets that grow with male and female images as we have always had but we will really strip it down.
The other side of the coin will be a new site, which may include companions, but most of the other standard pet-site features are going to be done away with in favor of a more RPG style play. The story line will be "matured" to appeal to the older audiences and the art will be improved and matured as well. This new site will basically be a "second chapter" of the children's site, and original, Wytheria. Many of your old favorite characters and animals will return, but, it will be in an entirely new situation and style of play.
Work on this project has already begun but we will not do any major advertising for it for a long time to come. We're going to make sure all the features work flawlessly before opening to the public. The game will spend a long time in development and in beta before we advertise it so that we won't have a huge members base until we are ready for it.
Previews of the new art and storyline will be coming soon! We are currently in search of a working-title. More info coming your way soon!
-Cameo
Because Wytheria started out as a pet site and our original player base and staff were drawn there because of their interest in these pet sites, Wytheria has always tried to keep to the standards of this platform (classic system of forums, create, player shops, arcade games and quests) while trying to incorporate the developers' love of more complicated and involved role playing games. This lead to a serious problem. Players who wanted a pet site were turned off by our complicated interface, plot, and excessive amounts of reading required to immerse yourself in the world, while role players were turned off by some of the childish elements involved such as pets that could change color as they thought "this wasn't one of those games." Therefore we lost touch with both of our target audiences.
The Past:
We did actually make enough money to pay for the site but it was mostly staff buying upgrades and obviously that's not going to work for long term success. But we do have a very nice and original upgrades shop offering some things unique to wytheria. We also won VPL's "Most Original Petsite of 2008" award (we were in close competition with Exhibited Sim, a dinosaur sim game). We had over 2,000 real humans register to play and were praised for our extremely original plot and features.
The Future:
In light of what we have learned from our past experiences we are now going to split Wytheria in two. On one side we will simplify the original Wytheria: Mystic Island game into strictly a pet site. It will have the same features, pets, and art, but the layout and plot will be simplified and made easy to follow for the kiddies. We'll keep color changing pets that grow with male and female images as we have always had but we will really strip it down.
The other side of the coin will be a new site, which may include companions, but most of the other standard pet-site features are going to be done away with in favor of a more RPG style play. The story line will be "matured" to appeal to the older audiences and the art will be improved and matured as well. This new site will basically be a "second chapter" of the children's site, and original, Wytheria. Many of your old favorite characters and animals will return, but, it will be in an entirely new situation and style of play.
Work on this project has already begun but we will not do any major advertising for it for a long time to come. We're going to make sure all the features work flawlessly before opening to the public. The game will spend a long time in development and in beta before we advertise it so that we won't have a huge members base until we are ready for it.
Previews of the new art and storyline will be coming soon! We are currently in search of a working-title. More info coming your way soon!
-Cameo
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