I'm into the final acceptance testing, but it's looking good so far for a turnless world. Playtimes seem acceptable, game balance doesn't seem too disturbed, and I'm feeling positive that this will be a good change for the game long-term.

The final verdict on camping is that the camping system will be removed. I base this on a number of things, but the most striking I think is the following bit of statistics:

For users that have played more than 700 turns (i.e., 3 days of playing), the following healing items are held by the general populace:

15,277 vial of healing potions
25,223 healing herbs
4,942 big cheese
31,571 Small Healing Potions

This works out to about 55 healing items being held by each player out there. (Not counting other items that gain HP, people using Healer skillgems, or items held in shop inventories.)

What this tells me is that people have the means to heal themselves without camping, but are presently choosing not to use those items. Switching to a turnless system makes the camping system feel somewhat weird from a gameplay perspective, so I'm going to remove it for now and see what it does. Among the expected outcomes is a healthier economy, since pyrite spent on healing items used is pyrite not adding to artificial inflation.

The decision goes deeper than just that, but those points alone would be reason to seriously consider removing it anyway.

Anyway, at this point all that's left is testing, testing, testing. Well, that and some minor polish on the iPhone client, to prepare it for the update.

Exciting times!

Awesome to hear, can't wait for a turnless world! Especially in this Bottomless Pit

I really hope this works out as if it does it might (hopefully) mean new-users are inclined to sit around instead of being scared away by the turn system.

To begin with not being able to camp might be a pain as the first level is one of the hardest to get to but once you get your first set of skillgems and some pyrite to buy the items it gets easier. I probably have a whole load of healing items doing nothing. Camping was so much easier XD

Sounds great, I'd like to see camping to stay, but heh I have plenty of items saved up.

To be honest, I never really used camping.

I bought like 300 SP and HP Pots before I went into Bottomless Pits so I've been using those. xD

Here's a quick update on the current status. My list of things to do before releasing the turnless update and the iPhone client update is down to this:

* Prep rewards for long-term players
* Make new screenshots for the App Store
* Determine if I can do anything about the iPhone app running out of memory after ~25 minutes of continuous play (hopefully this is just testing the fix I've put in today)
* Complete assigning music to areas (benefiting only the iPhone client for now)

The last one is pretty time consuming, since there are ~140 areas to assign up to 3 different music tracks to. I'd estimate I'm about 75% done, though, so the wait shouldn't be *that* much longer.

Overall, the improvements in the iPhone client are pretty freakin' impressive, if I do say so myself. Once it's all said and done, I'll see about recording a demo video of it running for those of you who don't have easy access to an iDevice. But not until after the thing is approved in the App store - I don't want to delay this update any longer than is absolutely needed!

Stay tuned!

woot! any way a beata test could happen, for a few select players , er um *hint*

Seconded!