Mobile update (slowly but surely)

Hey everyone! Sorry for the radio silence, I’ve been postponing an update until I had something substantial - but many are asking for an update since it’s been such a long time.   Overdue, here we go!

Mobile

We’re definitely running late on the app, coming along slower than we’d hoped - I’m so terribly sorry! No beta yet, but most of the mechanics are functioning. At this point we’re mostly hashing out a proper data syncing mechanism (simplified Operational Transformation for the tech-savvy) and trying to get the PhoneGap Facebook plugin situated. Here are some comps of what we’re working on, and I’ll post a video update when I have an alpha walkthrough I can share. Special thanks to Tomaz @litenull & Josef Wasinski for our mobile progress.

Check out Trello: Mobile Mockups for more mocks. If you’re code-savvy, download the code to start playing around with the interface. And follow the conversation / chime in with any thoughts or help (any Angular devs out there?) on the Trello board. 

Now, despite the slow pace, the good news is that this mobile development is going to help the website a lot - we may be retrofitting much mobile development effort in a migration of the current website to AngularJS (the same platform the mobile app is using). We’ve just been experiencing far too many bugs on our current platform. Moving the website to Angular will help us kick these bugs, as well as give us a platform with proper unit testing support; allow us to really share code and talent between the repositories, stimulate a more rock-solid API, and attract more developers to the project (there are more Angular devs than Derby out there). It’s not 100% certain we’ll make this move, but it’s looking likely - our proof-of-concept migration (concurrent to respective mobile progress) is going very well.

A quick note - many have seen the Android app Life RPG and are asking if it’s affiliated - it’s not. It’s a Russian replica of Habit. A bit of a kidney shot really (see my rant), but hey competition stimulates progress, so onward!

Website

Pix art is going swimmingly! Leslie @lemoness & Shane @Shaners are just tearing it up. We have two NPCs about to hit the shelves, as well as a whole slew of mounts getting ready for the mount system.

Daniel the Tavern Keep (not final version), Bailey the Town Crier:

You can see the new mounts starting at this Github comment, and keep scrolling down.

And of course, I’m bug-fixing like a mad-man! The three mains currently are theMultiple Computers Bug, Frozen UI, and Negative GP / EXP. Many of the other criticals are related to one of these.

Where’s the money going?

The first giant chunk of the Kickstarter fund went to server stabilization (remember the “offline” times infinity bug?) and migration to AWS. I’m finding the in-app purchases (disable ads, buy tokens) now covers almost exactly the ongoing server costs - quite convenient. So now that’s settled, here’s a breakdown of our hired guns: Web Developers (3, including myself), Pixel Artists (2), Mobile Dev (2), Design (1). We’re all kinda working on the cheap and in the time we find (I’m full-time), so bear with us - but just wanted to put this out in the clear so people know it’s going to good use and not to fancy dinners.

Thanks!

And of course, thanks for being patient everyone! Y’all are absolutely great people - this community is a fun bunch, and it’s awesome to see people chatting, sharing, LFG-ing, discussing tips & tricks, etc (especially in the community). Lots of fun, loving it!

Drops! New Pet System, Tokens

We’ve had a lot of discussion on a “stochastic” process, a randomized reward system. Evidently non-deterministic rewarding is more likely to drive motivated behavior than deterministic rewarding. So to add to the self improvement addiction of HabitRPG, may we present to you the drop system!

Drop System

Pets have been completely overhauled. You no longer purchase them (well you can, which I’ll explain) - instead, you now have a very small chance of finding a “random drop” from a completed item. The current drops are eggs and “hatching potions”. You can find 9 eggs, and 10 hatching potions - meaning a possibility to collect 90 pets. See this screenshot to see what I’m talking about. A few power users have reached their max avatar potential (Bailey!), and may find their motivation begin to ebb - well, this randomized incentive mechanism will up the ante! 

We plan to add a lot more drops over time (quest scrolls, gear enchantments, etc), and this was a necessary architectural build-out for our future plans on Quests and other Kickstarter promises. We’re very excited about this new system :)

We also added the Market, where you can purchase eggs or hatching potions. We recommend sticking to the drops, since it’s an added motivator; however, if you’re dying to get that specific pet and just aren’t dropping the right egg / potion combination, you can shortcut it here. Also, now that tokens have gone out (more next), backers should start stocking up and showing off!

Note, your drops are capped per day, so don’t go spamming + on a habit (really don’t, we all know how fragile our servers are). 

Tokens

Finally tokens have been sent out! If you didn’t get them, either (1) you haven’t filled out the survey yet - fill it out now, I’ll take another database migration sweep in coming weeks to bring in the latecomers; or (2) you didn’t enter your ID correctly in the survey - contact me. If you got your tokens, take a look at that pet sheet and buy out your favorites. Save a few tokens for later, since we’re going to have more drops in the future ;)

Also *loosens collar* - we’ve added ads. Disabled for all you backers by default, I swear! I know, I know - but hear me out. They were actually there in the past, and people didn’t mind disabling them for the support fee (which also gives them 20 tokens, so 2 birds one stone). We have the Kickstarter fund, but between hired help that’s dwindling fast - and we’ll need support for the future. Again, backers needn’t worry since it’s disabled for them. But for upcoming users, note it’s more a push to use the market, rather than a second monetization method - since disabling ads and buying tokens happens in the same transaction.

Upcoming Stuff

Currently being worked on are 

• Mobile App, hard core! (I really hope to have some visuals soon, sorry this one is taking so long!)
• Rest in tavern
• Overhaul of Chrome extension, which includes support for Asana, Workflowy, and Google Tasks - this is actually complete! But needs to be tested, check it out here. Thanks @NeverI!
• And of course, for the rest follow the last few columns of Trello

And just another thanks for all the patience and awesomeness! You guys have been a wonderful support, and this is such a fun ride :) 

Beta Server, Mobile Update

Alright you dangerous livers out there, it’s time for that beta access I promised you - https://beta.habitrpg.com! Be warned, this is a beta server, so you’ll probably encounter bugs. If you’re faint of heart, stay on the production server. The biggest new change up there the design, thanks @zakkain! We have a few things so close to being finished - most importantly tags/categories and a new pet system (after which we’ll start doling tokens to backers). We’ll be pushing those first to beta, and on to prod after they’ve been tested a bit.

Mobile! Everyone’s like “dude, what about the #*&% mobile app!?” We’re making great progress. There are three of us now working pretty heavily on it, follow the progress here and here (and please join us if you know AngularJS!) - I’d say we’re about 40% there. I hope to have some screenshots to send in another update within a week, and also hoping (don’t quote me on it!) to have a beta preview end of this month. 

New Algorithms - The Lowdown

We’ve been fiddling with “level up” algorithms, task value organic adjustments, and other formulae throughout the system. We hit some growing pains along the way, so here’s the scoop:

The New System - It’s Beautiful!

Phillip How, aka @MrConcept has taken charge the algorithm system. “But it worked just fine before? Right?” Definitely not ;) It seemed OK at lower levels, but I was using placeholder formulae I found on the interwebs that really broke down past lvl 20 (causing strange bugs) and which conflicted with upcoming advanced feature concepts. Additionally, the Organic Habit Value system (OHV) - you know, things turning red and green - soared to previously silly proportions if left unchecked. I put that on the backburner, and was absolutely thrilled when MrConcept stepped up to the plate with “These don’t seem right… here, take a look at some numbers”. He started us off with this discussion, and ended us on this overhaul (which went in today). The guy knows his math, let’s give Phil a warm welcome to the team! Here’s the new stuff:

• More robust and precise leveling system. We now intend average users to hit level 100 in ~400 days. (At level 100, your exp-gain is converted to GP. We’re planning some end-game subclasses and special gear - TBD) 
• “Onlies” (habits with only + or - ) now experience a slow drift back to 0. See this discussion for more info, it’s actually a very slick way of handling Onlies. 
• GP / Exp separation now allows better accuracy for upcoming features like Attributes and Quests. 
• And of course Bug. Fixes. Galore.

Bug Fixes

Many users were experiencing Exp-gain of epic proportions along the way; growing pains we finally pegged. See these issues: 1 2. If anyone experiences any vestigial strangeness in their stats, try first to restore your character to some sane numbers using this tool, and if you still have any troubles chime in on the Github issue queue. But the take-away is that these issues should be fixed - phew! 

Custom day start, better algorithms, auth enhancements

You can now specify when the day begins (see this discussion). So you night-owls out there can check off your tasks a 4am without fear of death! User -> Settings -> Custom Day Start

We also have a new heavy-hitter to the Github community, Phillip How aka @MrConcept, who has completely revamped our algorithm base. You’ll now notice your Exp, GP, and TNL (till-next-level) numbers are much more in-the-tune-of RPGs you’re used to. Additionally, the notifications are way cooler :) See his treatise and code-merge here. We have some more mechanics for GP + Exp modifiers in the pipeline.

We finally have the Change Password feature, and Forgot Password will send your username along with (many a forgotten username over the months).