Another meowth, another update! This month we have a lot of announcements to make including color contest, mod applications, and Open Beta dates!
NPC progress
One of our last remaining goals before Open Beta is finishing art for our existing NPCs, below is the progress for Wheatley & Crowley, Nana Nettle, and the finished Maven.
Art by Hydde and Asp.
Art by Azarel.
Art by Hydde, Remmie, Amelia and Azarel.
Farmland Icons
We have also finished icons for our farmland events, these will pop up on the screen along the event.
Art by Hydde.
Dawnstone and Duskstone
We have recently added Dawnstone and Dusktone items. Dawnstone turns any cat into a kit, permanently. Permakits can do anything that adults can other than breeding. Only a Dusktone can cancel the effects of a Dawnstone, which will age up any kit immediately. Below are the finished icons for these!
Art by Hydde.
Fyret Genes and Accessories
Before every artist got retasked on the final open beta prep tasks, they made some amazing progress on Fyrets!
Art by Asp, Tybaxel and Catafyra.
Dev Update
Our dev team has been incredibly busy! They have completed several bug and styling fixes, such as accent layering issues, cat for cat trades, ghost notifications; and new features such as composting, private guild teams, arrows to move between cats, encyclopedia, overhauled cat retirement page and implemented half-step in errands–just to name a few!
Below you can see the updated retirement page, and the first sneak-peek for an upcoming item card overhaul!
Mod Applications
As a preparation for Open Beta, we are looking to hire a few volunteer Discord Moderators. If you are interested please submit the form below to apply. You must be at least 18 years of age to apply.
Please submit your information to be considered for a volunteer Discord moderator!
Color Contest
We are hosting our official PawBorough Colorwheel expansion event, where YOU are invited to submit colors to add to the colorwheel.
By the end of the contest, we will see 50+ new colors added to the wheel by users and staff.
Please click here for more information and on how to enter!
Open Beta Update
In the past 2 weeks our dev team has completed 254 tickets. We are currently working on the last missing big feature, the tutorial, as well as crushing the last remaining bugs and doing various styling fixes and cleanups.
Our art team is currently working on the last few remaining tasks: NPCs art, fertilizer icons, Onyx Composites backdrop, Moonstone Pool decor, Bazaar backdrop and finishing the Flea Market banner.
Our admin team is also busy with finishing touches–finishing writings for Encyclopedia, writing the last few missing item descriptions, finishing up Faunapedia entries, some other misc writings, economy rebalancing and making the recolor files for Moontails and the final files for Farming.
Which means….
Open Beta Dates
We are thrilled to announce the official Open Beta launch date!
Open Beta will launch on Saturday, March 21st at 2 PM PST or 5 PM EST or 11 PM GMT.
But… wait, what is Open Beta?
Open Beta is the next step in PawBorough’s development.
Closed Beta was a rougher test phase focused on identifying bugs, and building new features. Access was limited to key holders so we could refine the experience behind the scenes.
We now feel the game is at a stage when it’s ready for the general public. Open Beta will offer a much smoother experience, and registration will be open to everyone. Once the given date comes, anyone will be able to create an account and travel to Kotemara with us. If you registered during Closed Beta, you will not need to register, simply login to your existing account and onboard.
During Closed Beta, we reset accounts multiple times to properly test our systems. There will be no more data wipes moving forward. This means your onboarding choices - and everything you do after - will be permanent.
Closed Beta is not full launch yet, however. We have a lot more to do before we can call the game fully launched. However, the Open Beta experience will be much closer to full launch than to Alpha or Closed Beta. We will be focusing on the following goals, and once these are completed we’ll be hitting full launch:
All starter mystic breeds
The Notebook
Multi-cat scenes
General achievements, in addition to archetypes
Referral system
User shops
Cross-user breeding
Cross-borough competition (influence)
Periodic story event system
Universal tagging system and game-wide search functions
Cat profile comments
"Wandering" system for expanded den space
Daily Duty parties
"Additional ingredient" system to expand cook/craft complexity and options
Expansive relationship fostering, with more relationship consequences
Forum code for cat and item sharing
And finally, the golden goose of our application: Large guild/combat revamp with better, more dedicated dungeon crawler and multiplayer mechanics
We're going to be working on this list immediately following the stabilization of Open Beta. We'll be getting right to it!
While we will be depending on support from users like you to continue development, and the timeline will be dependent on our resources, rest assured that every penny will go back into making this happen, and we'll be taking all your feedback along the way!
Patreon in the future
We'll be slowing down on showing WIP media that is not front facing and presentable to the public. What this means is that Patreon supporters will continue receiving regular updates of our progress, and work in progress shots, which will otherwise be totally exclusive to the page.
What will happen to the discord?
As we've mentioned, the official Discord is a temporary establishment, and not a permanent community hub. For the foreseeable future, the Discord will remain open.
However, it will shut down between now and full launch. When that is, fully depends on usability and environment of the forums. We will be monitoring user feedback on the forums, encouraging users to migrate, and doing our best as admins to facilitate community and social interaction on the forums, with the eventual goal and community understanding of a full transition. We want to hear if you like using them, how to improve them, and what we can do to make the PawBorough forums an overall enjoyable community experience!
Our future Discord mods will be nominated to be forum moderators when our Discord shuts down, should they choose to.
Offsite trades during Open Beta.
As a reminder, this is not full launch, the game is still in a beta state. During the period of Closed Beta and offsite trades are forbidden.
If only y’all knew how mad I am that there is an official art where they look like your other boring harem love interests,,, you’d cry with me. like, cmon, they are a part of evil sect, one of them is devilishly beautiful and other is literal skeleton,,,,,,,,, give my girlies some character
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