Greetings PaperDemons! In the interest of transparency, every quarter I post a developer update to keep you informed on bug fixes, feature releases, and upcoming development plans. This blog post includes changes since the last developer update in April.
We've had 18 releases since the last update blog post. Our current release is v31.0.1.
We've got a lot of updates to go over so we're not even going to bother discussing bug fixes. See the change log at the bottom for a full list of changes.
Art for this blog post was done by Lauren Lee.
Usability improvements and new features
Homepage
We've added a bunch of quick links to our homepage to make it easier for PaperDemon Art RPG Players to navigate the game and get to important pages such as the shop, character archive, and more. It's also a chance for us to show off the game art which often entices players to play an Art RPG.
PaperDemon Art RPG
We introduced random item drops which were first used in our Biweekly character development challenges. Soon we'll be updating all of our Portals with a random item drop reward instead of a gold reward. This roller may be adapted for partner Art RPGs at some point in the future.
Players can self-serve equip/de-equip armor and other defensive items to their character sheets.
A lot of behind the scenes stuff had also been coded for our upcoming automated battles feature. More to come on that.
There were many other content related updates to the PDARPG but we handle those through other blog posts. These were mostly technical updates.
Forums
You'll now earn XP for posting in the forums.
Per request from our partners, members are now prompted to follow a forum topic when they reply or post a new topic. This allows them to get notified of topics they're interested in.
In some forums, you can now attach artwork to your forum post. This will be more relevant when we launch our automated battles (see below).
Dates and times in the forums are now displayed in UTC instead of PST to be consistent with the rest of the site.
Other little improvements
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Easier links to player characters and items inventories from the user menu
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Players can see their arpg request history by clicking on the [ARPG Queue History] button from a submission
Art Submissions
As has been promised for more than a year, we finally redid and simplified the art submission page to make submitting art quicker and easier. You no longer have to pick from a long list of categories. The categories system was removed from art completely. The same will be done in the future for writing and comics.
The manage submissions page was also rebuilt and improved. We also fixed issues with managing custom folders (a feature only available to premium members).
Because our site relies on proper labeling for filters to work, we've migrated art filters from the old galleries system to the new tagging system. You'll be confronted with the list of tags when submitting so that we can continue to ensure a pleasant browsing experience.
We also now clearly label "🌟official" tags so that you can have more confidence when searching and selecting tags for your submissions. This was a system we've been planning for more than two years. A lot of kudos goes to knifecat for helping to plan and design this new tagging system. Popular tags are also labeled with 🔥.
🔥 Feature removals
We removed a few things because they were rarely used and this allowed us to focus on features that are actually useful.
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featured art feature has been removed
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adding multiple artists to an artwork feature has been removed
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adding art to groups has been removed
Art RPG Tools
These are features available to Art RPGs hosted with us on our Partner and Starter plans.
Plan changes
We have all these awesome tools for tracking game characters, items, and player inventories and we want to expand those to more ARPGs at an affordable price.
We're now offering our Starter plan for free to Art RPGs/Closed species that are not yet monetized. When your game becomes monetized, PaperDemon can earn a percentage of it to help cover hosting costs. If you're interested in our ARPG Starter plan, please contact me at [email protected] or DM me on Discord (username: BogusRed).
Form templates for forums
As of today, our new forums now have a template tool available to mods where they can generate a link that pre-populates a forum post with a form, making filing requests easier for players. It supports both new topics and replies.
Characters and Items
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Players can sell items back to the bank for currency with just a few clicks. No admin work involved.
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ARPG admins will now have an easier time doing multi item transfers. The previously selected user will automatically auto-populate when adding additional items for transfer.
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Art RPG admins can configure items to be "equippable" by players. They can now self-serve attach these items to their character sheet having it transfer to/from their player inventory. It also allows you to configure items to destroy upon de-equip if wanted.
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Now when you share a character or item link, it will show the image in the preview.
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Admins can now transfer items more easily between character and player inventories
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Back in April we launched filtering items by tag. This allows you to easily link to a subset of your game items.
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Misc usability tweaks to character pages per request from our Partners
Queues
We received feedback from our Art RPG partners that they needed to allow submissions to enter multiple ARPG queues at once. In order to do this, we reworked the queue system to allow threading so that submissions can be pending in multiple queues at once and be processed independently. This was released back in late April.
Queues are now public to players so they can see their place in the queue. We moved the queue system to the Art RPG group page and simplified the interface to be easier to understand for ARPG Admin processing. We have more plans to improve the usability of the queue experience for players including adding a page where they can see all pending requests but we haven't gotten to it yet.
Code migration
We've migrated the forums to our new code base and made the experience more consistent with the rest of the newer site. These changes were necessary for the future maintenance of our forums and to allow us to extend the forums with new game features.
What's Coming
PaperDemon Art RPG
Over the next couple months we'll be introducing a new automated battles system into the forums for the PaperDemon Art RPG that will make battles more fun, quicker, and more engaging. Expect to see that some time in October.
We started increasing our advertising of PaperDemon. You may have noticed some new members popping in regularly. But we did an analysis and found that we're losing new players along the signup and account creation process. So over the next couple months we're going to make some improvements to the onboarding and new player flows to improve retention and conversions.
We received some feedback that the wiki, which players are linked to right after signing up to teach them how to get started, might be turning off new users. People these days are always worried about scams and if parts of our site don't look consistent, they may think we are scamming them. We just have a lot of game content and felt the easiest way to organize it all was to put it into a wiki. We're going to look at alternatives that would allow us to make the game guide feel more on brand with the rest of our site while also being easy to edit.
We're going to be introducing some new ARPG mechanics tied to the XP system soon. So stay tuned for that.
We've also got tons of new items and content planned with new Art RPG mechanics but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Stay tuned for more announcements.
Art RPG Tools
We're going to introduce a way to track points directly on submissions to make point tracking easier. We're still in the planning phase on this but expect to deliver it either by end of the year or mid next year.
Submissions system
Before the end of the year, we want to launch a new beta writing system. Our writing submission system is old and doesn't support tagging which prevents our literary artists from gaining XP for their submissions in challenges. I'll be rebuilding the writing system to match the rest of the site and have some ARPG upgrades.
Development on pause part of next year
Progress on web development for PaperDemon.com is going to be taking a break for three to four months in early 2022. This is because I'm currently pregnant with my first baby 👶! We're expecting our little boy to be born in late January and I'll need to take some time off to bond with my little bundle.
During that time, there won't be any new releases except for occasional patches to keep things stable. After my maternity leave, I'll have child care and will be back to work as usual!
Full changelog
We do releases every few weeks. If you want to know exactly when new releases go live, please join the discord server and choose the PaperDemon updates role in the #rules-and-info channel.
Wondering if that bug you reported was squashed? Take a look below or view the public bug tracker.
cb11a75 🍱 assets (pdarpg) revise walkthrough links to go to news, not wiki
6666c3c 🔥 prune (forums) most of the legacy code
4e6781e 🔨 refactor (forums) redirect old forum links to angular ui
ea09fd5 🔨 refactor (forums) update nav links to new forums
f4496d5 ⭐ feat (forums) move topic in new ui, prompt follow on posting
9f42954 🍱 assets (campaign) eventide ring campaign revision
f05d876 🔨 refactor (forums) delete post and thread in new ui
ffbedbe 🍱 assets (campaign) eventide ring campaign revision
3699333 🔨 refactor (forums) mod ctrls to edit/lock topic in new ui
843a7fe 🔨 refactor (forums) edit post in new ui
dad82de 🍱 assets (campaign) eventide ring campaign draft
263c130 🔨 refactor (forums) support quoting another post
36c0049 🔨 refactor (forums) new topic, reply, and quick reply in new front end
429d2df 🔨 refactor (forums) get session auths from api
d4bbdae 👗 ui (news) mark pinned news articles on hp and news page
00dee92 🍱 assets (age-gate) revise terminology on rc splash per user feedback
2ac7adb 🔨 refactor (forums) display player level on forum posts in new ui
4d9216d 🔨 refactor (forums) include player level, xp in thread
6667077 🐛 fix (forums) misc display fixes new forum UI
d5a2b37 🔨 refactor (user) export previous login date in api
0b85686 🔨 refactor (forums) add breadcrumbs to new ui
e7d648a 🔨 refactor (forums) view post permalink in new UI
95d129e 🔨 refactor (forums) attach thumb/user codes to post permalink api
67e4267 🔨 refactor (forums) view global topic UI
6e04329 🔨 refactor (forums) attach user and thumb code info to forum api
ff4cb7d 🔨 refactor (forums) add sub to forum component
7db6ef0 🐛 fix (forums) homepage news posts weren't loading
46d2f9b 🔨 refactor (forums) build angular UI for viewing a forum
af47a16 🔨 refactor (forums) get most recent post in threads
0e56e20 🔨 refactor (forums) list global forums in new UI
537f54f 🔨 refactor (forums, folders) add additional properties to api data
a099b06 🔨 refactor (forums) include forum stats in api
5857401 🔨 refactor (forums) api to add/edit/sort forums
503c26f 🔨 refactor (forums) implement post api for threads/posts
d917647 🔨 refactor (forums) set sorting order of forums backend service
7256df1 🔨 refactor (folders) set sorting order of folders backend
e0735d2 🔨 refactor (forums) record view count when viewing thread
1369a63 🔨 refactor (forums) add/edit forum, add/edit forum folders
d1e3dbe ⭐ feat (forums) grant XP when user posts a topic or reply
088b12f 🔨 refactor (forums) reply, edit, lock in new service backend
625bb22 🔨 refactor (forums) add/edit thread in new service backend
bcda7fc 🔨 refactor (forums) service and api list group forums
4d539fa 🔨 refactor (forums) get public forums and latest posts
b48ef6f 🔨 refactor (forums) get post by id
3dc20b2 🔨 refactor (forums) allow multiple actions in api
f9ed6b0 ⭐ feat (game-items) display preview img when link shared
4fdfda1 ⭐ feat (game-characters) display preview img when link shared
a117bec ⭐ feat (game-items) allow admin transfers from player to character
19529fe 🔨 refactor (folders) use new install script
ef25466 👗 ui (homepage) add links and icons to major PDARPG sections
42c6adb 👽 compat (app) upgrade angular 12
5d69c0a 👽 compat (app) upgrade angular 11
679a3ca 👗 ui (game-items) make admin multi item transfers easier
46b78d4 👗 ui (profile) add notes for admins for changing usernames
e015abb 👗 ui (nav) collapse on mobile after clicking link
c4364f7 🐛 fix (profile) fix broken link to art manage page from profile
da9bbc8 👗 ui (profile) for those who want, display real name and location on profile
3135a05 👗 ui (flags) add link to player inventory
bdb6421 🐛 fix (legacy-blogs) ampersands not displaying properly in titles
8ee6ec7 🐛 fix (blogs, art, writing, comics) support base64 encoded images in user html text
9be11f8 🐛 fix (art) sorting empty folder throws unknown error
4f7b0be 👗 ui (user) make usernames more easily readable in red curtain
8fc22e8 👗 ui (comments) display time next to date and timezone
5e128b6 🔨 refactor (user) migrate manage acct email to new backend/frontend
90b9eb6 ⭐ feat (folders) add child folders
ad27444 🐛 fix (user) mod log panel show correct user
f8141ae 🐛 fix (pm, art) sending mod/admin pms for submissions with emoji
b6e88b1 🔥 prune (art) gallery links in site map
3f2379c 👗 ui (art) add margin to manage art header
6537b46 🔥 prune (art) legacy art files, link to new manage ui
62b7762 👗 ui (art) display folder name and description at top of view folder
652f822 🔨 refactor (folders) rebuild art folder management in new ui
de382f2 🔨 refactor (art) rebuild delete page in new frontend
24fc7f2 🔨 refactor (art) rebuild management page in new frontend
3ebb496 🐛 fix (art) manage list by folder showing wrong results
84487e9 👷♀️ build (styles) fix gulp watcher
211358b 🔨 refactor (favorites) api for listing who favorited
334f905 ⭐ feat (art) api for listing submissions for management
1aa6f52 🐛 fix (legacy-art) manage page blank
075a784 👗 ui (user) make username easily visible in main nav
5d022d7 👷♀️ build (app) fix broken sass compilation
b76504c 👗 ui (game-challenge) add icon for biweekly challenge
d7f607d 🐛 fix (app) deploy to correct port on deployment
11338ef 🔥 prune (art) gallery services from view component
c6339e9 ⭐ feat (game-challenges) display biweekly challenge on homepage
a0b3b70 🐛 fix (global-components) rich text edits weren't being saved
34fb7de 🐛 fix (subscriptions) closed/banned accounts receiving sub notices
c7cc7c9 🔨 refactor (art) new fields to support writing, comics, blogs data
0053036 ⭐ feat (game-characters) change health fields for dracostryx
54cbb3d 🐇 perf (users) debounce user searches
2733fd5 🐛 fix (forums) show unlock success message
5d7c7dc 🐛 fix (notifications) fix art and forum notifications
b819b45 🐛 fix (comments) error handling when comments don't load
83f67be 🐛 fix (comments) don't show hidden comments
e2aa93f ⭐ feat (game-items) allow player to sell items back to store for currency
f02f86d 🔨 refactor (app) remove view encapsulation setting from components
8e1f7d7 👽 compat (app) angular v9 --> v10
f9087a0 👽 compat (app) TestBed.get() --> TestBed.inject()
b3173a5 ✅ test (app) tests for v9 compatibility
5f060c7 👽 compat (app) angular
db6194c 👽 compat (app) pre-steps for angular
af77d10 👽 compat (app) pre-steps for angular upgrade, node upgrade
8d449d1 ⭐ feat (game-rollers) boss attack character roller
92b0890 ⭐ feat (game-characters) collapse admin notes
5f22e24 🐛 fix (game-items) searches showing wrong results, race condition
2b57b20 👗 ui (art) display visibility settings on view page, move arpg buttons
ffa55d9 ⭐ feat (game-items) player ui to equip/de-equip items
6bffd6c 🐛 fix (game-items) fix api for adding/editing item equipping properties
e671238 ⭐ feat (game-items) backend to allow players to equip/dequip items
55eef1f 🔥 prune (art) view art gallery pages
1615953 🐛 fix (user) search display exact username match when searching
a66a82d 🔥 prune (galleries) remove gallery side bar from art browse
c270a7f 🐛 fix (art) submit page in SSR mode
686ca97 🐇 perf (tags) tag search auto complete debouncing
445afbd ⭐ feat (art) add entry to mod queue if moved from RC/PD and vice versa
f54d8e5 🐛 fix (art) misc bugs with new submit/edit pages
c0d4dd2 🔥 prune (galleries) remove gallery list from art view
edb6e0f 🔥 prune (galleries) art edit galleries pages, templates, links
df80593 🔨 refactor (art) migrate galleries to tags
8fca123 🔨 refactor (art) migrate edit page to new front end
6e9307d 🔨 refactor (art) migrate submit page to new front end
8a56b9a 🍱 assets (arpg-directory) prune inactive ARPGs and update partners
64dfa85 🐛 fix (notifications) delete only notices of that page's type
d0b67ab 🔨 refactor (subscriptions) new subscription notices UI
83bf3a0 🔨 refactor (subscriptions) use universal notices
9f27516 ⭐ feat (art) json apis to manage art
9d0bb50 ⭐ feat (folders) support add/edit in json api
1ec5c62 🐛 fix (app) catch more observable errors to prevent app crashes
a3adbd9 🐛 fix (art) error on submitting art, missing entry_type
fb0004b 🔨 refactor (art) management services add/edit art
db0bd7f ⭐ feat (promo) cache promo in backend
5c1f947 🐛 fix (art) cannot read property 'filterIds' of undefined
8fc0b8d 🐛 fix (game-items) cannot read property 'groupUrl' of undefined
c335095 🐛 fix (groups) admin page cannot read property 'group_id'
ab64628 👗 ui (game-items) prevent confusion of empty searches on item compendium
00f1a08 🐛 fix (game-items) mod can create store transfers
5e665e8 🍱 assets (inn) add packing and crafting step
457baf6 🐛 fix (art) mature sidebar links, art list display
678f2ca 🐛 fix (app) prevent SSR app crashes
5897557 🔨 refactor (art) submissions list component
c0f732d 🔨 refactor (art) move to submissions folder
6460917 🐛 fix (game-items) player inventory sorted in wrong order
302f98f 🔨 refactor (art) track entry type
8cc31e1 🔨 refactor (art) move to submissions folder
fd40d5c 🔨 refactor (art) consolidate constants
815fd2a 🔨 refactor (art) update to new error format
be577c2 ✅ test (art) add missing unit tests art service
67f1663 ⭐ feat (game-rollers) roller frontend for random item drop
46b51ec ⭐ feat (game-rollers) roller backend for random item drop
e80306f 👗 ui (game-items) clarify game inventory from player inventory
229639e 🐛 fix (game-items) don't submit item transfer form prematurely
e900137 🍱 assets (landing) correct links for character samples
6ea8b98 👗 ui (game) add links to a player's characters and inventories in menu
4a572cf ✅ test (app) quill module causing multiple test failures
883d027 ⭐ feat (tags) manage tags ui for mods
342b4bb ⭐ feat (tags) apis to moderate/manage tags
13d7dea 👗 ui (tags) indicate tag type/popular in tag cloud and search
b70a2ba ⭐ feat (art) implement tag filtering in frontend
d44b853 ⭐ feat (tags) add user tags filter settings
2e65044 🐛 fix (global-components) rich text editor formatting issues
80262c9 🐛 fix (flags) broken arpg flag history page missing user info
15debbf ⭐ feat (game-characters) allow larger character numbers
ea3f3a5 ⭐ feat (flags) allow setting flag on the view submission history page
f4407c9 🐛 fix (flags) error on view ARPG history for submission w/o history
1df600d 🍱 content (arpg-directory) add link to info about hosting packages
352b29c 👗 ui (arpg-directory) change button to say view group
d74d64b 🐛 fix (game-characters) prevent data from spilling into item column
6a6d7fd 🔨 refactor (tags) add script to migrate old tag format to new format
ee9ae1e ⭐ feat (tags) backend track new meta information about tags
dc8a54b 🔨 refactor (tags) replace exceptions with Result object
4246a19 🔨 refactor (tags) move to single word tags
1e843f5 🔨 refactor (game-characters) support games without schema
6a5b9ad ⭐ feat (game-items) allow filtering by item tag in group item list
72a9faf 👗 ui (game-items) display more info in item list
296d1e3 ⭐ feat (groups) group hierarchies, list child and parent groups
90637fd 👗 ui (flags) make queue instructions visible before choice is made
4a483a3 ⭐ feat (game-characters) fix sort and add more data to list
d9392e5 👽 compat (php) upgrade to composer 2 and deps
4f17e92 ⭐ feat (game-characters) display latent element on character sheet
0055f12 ⭐ feat (game-items) paginate player inventory
4f49936 ⭐ feat (flags) support threads and multi-queues
241d445 ⭐ feat (flags) link player to view their request after adding to ARPG queue
2294801 ⭐ feat (flags) move ARPG queue management to groups
012e9e6 🔨 refactor (flags) BACKEND split queues for mods vs arpg admins
f8f051c 🐛 fix (flags) console error on view user flag history
d981d1d 🐛 fix (flags) fix broken add to queue page