Magistream Monthly Newsletter - November 2023

[Rosehill]

Hi all! We're launching a new monthly thing: The Magistream Newsletter! We aim to publish the Newsletter close to the middle of each month but on some occasions the Newsletter may go out a little earlier or later in the month, as sometimes we may have an event announcement post going up that we don't want to be pushed away from the front page by the Newsletter.

The Newsletter will contain information on what we're currently working on and planning, what technical issues have been fixed and are being worked on, as well as information of upcoming events or happenings in the near future. We'll also gladly hear if you have other topics you'd like to be included in upcoming newsletters! Feel free to discuss these ideas in this very same thread.

Upcoming events and happenings:

• Harvest event (around November 25th)
• December Monthly Donation creatures (December 1st)
• ??? (December 1st)
• A regular release (early December)

Game things being actively worked on:

• Harvest event
• Christmas event
• Activating NPCs again
• Planning for the overall roadmap for year 2024

Team discussion/planning has been revolving around:

• Attracting new players
• Making limited and retired creatures more easily available again, first steps taken to ensure this starting in December
• Site stability issues, its relation to goldmining, issues related to gold and goldmining in general

Technical things that have been fixed:

• Trades are up in limited capacity (you can only add creatures from your Main tab into a trade)
• Trade timestamps are working
• Mass moving from other tabs to main tab works again
• A bug that made opening large keep tabs crash the page has been fixed

Technical fixes being worked on:

• Using some items crashes the page
• Lorien quest is not working
• Investigating why the hover box when breeding/viewing lineages etc. isn't showing up for some people

[LunatheDragoness]

I absolutely love having a monthly newsletter!

Thank you Magistream Team!

[Kayliee]

I love the update! It's been a rough few years with the lag, then downtime but I really believe Magistream is about to hit its new stride.

[Aflame]

very excited about all the new changes and maintenance over the past few years! it's so clear how much love and care goes into this community and I'm super grateful to have grown up with ms and been able to keep coming back to it even after life gets hectic.

since this is called a newsletter, it reminded me of something I had been wondering. would it be viable to send updates like these through email? there's definitely been a few times when I've been super busy and had to pull away from games and such, but was then reminded of ms because I have my notification settings done so that I get an email when I get a pm, for example. I think a monthly email newsletter likely wouldn't come off as spammy and could be an alternate means of communication for those who may not keep up on facebook or the site formerly known as twitter. in addition to maintaining communication with new users it could also be a way to reconnect with folks who may have stopped playing but would be open to returning!

[Aoria]

Super happy to have something like a newsletter! I love knowing a little bit what's going on behind the scenes and what's being planned a little bit in advance. So glad to hear about what stuff is being worked on even with no ETAs! I hope that you guys are able to make this a consistent thing without too much struggle because I'd love to read it every month.

Having the dates for events a bit early is really helpful because then I can make notes for myself on when to come back so I know that I have time to interact with them. November especially is really busy! So knowing when to expect the events is very useful.

I am very much in favor of making more of the limited creatures more available again. Part of the problem with getting new players for a game like this is when they have huge backlogs of retired and limited creatures that new players will have a hard time getting. Even ones that are breedable I know a lot of people want individuals as close to parentless as possible so people have a hard time getting into being serious collectors when that seems out of reach for a lot of creatures if you didn't join the site like, 6 years ago. So having more avenues to get those limited creatures could be a good boon to the site and a nice thing to help get new players in, when you can tell them that even a lot of the older creatures you will still be able to get if you play long enough.

The Black Market was a pretty good avenue for that kind of thing, but of course its timing tends to be unpredictable, which makes it hard to realize that it's there until it's potentially almost gone without checking the shops tab every day. Also, it doesn't make a lot of creatures available at one time, and especially with a change to how goldmining is going to work having high prices for the rarer creatures could make it a lot harder to get many more into circulation, especially for newer players. So I think these things are definitely worth consideration on more ways to bring them around again!

[sammythethief]

I really love the idea of a newsletter! I've never had any doubt that anything I could think of that I may have been concerned about was already being worked on behind the scenes, but I'll always vote for more transparency.

I'm very excited to see NPCs coming back, and hopefully the introduction of more, if they'd fit, along with making retired creatures attainable again. I've been AWOL for years, and while I'm excited to come back and stick around, the list of donis I need to grab is daunting. Add to that the fact that many people simply aren't around anymore, and that makes the list nearly impossible to put a dent in.

Thank you so, so much for all the hard work you, Raneth, and the rest of the team have been putting into this place I may only be recently returned, but MS has always been very dear to me. I'm looking forward to sticking around, welcoming new members, and watching this place grow.

[MageLorelei]

I’m super excited for all of this! And maybe I’m misinterpreting it, but I’d love to read about the thought process of the artists and writers for new creatures in the newsletter. If they felt like sharing of course, but I think it would be a fun little blurb to read. Maybe about the previous month’s donis, or even older creatures

[SirChicken]

I absolutely love the idea of a News Letter! It's a great communication tool for both staff and users, and it really lets staff touch base with everyone. I'm glad you're adopting the idea!

I'm looking forward to all of these things! Also really curious to see what "???" will be...

[Syndicate]

since this is called a newsletter, it reminded me of something I had been wondering. would it be viable to send updates like these through email?

I know you're suggesting this as an automatic push feature for all users, but there is a way for you to do this individually in the meantime - Just incase you wanted.

Subscribe to Site News Forum

Check in the User Control Panel that it subscribed properly

Update notification options
Change the settings for this one:
"Someone creates a topic in a forum to which you are subscribed" >> Set to Email notifications
This of course means that you'll get an email notification for every new topic in the site news and not just the newsletter, but hey.

[ShirouHokuto]

Oh, I love this idea! It's great to see regular updates in a quick and easily read format. So happy to see that the mass move feature between tabs is fixed!