Team Updates

[Kestrel]

Hello OctoWoW Community!

In the interest of transparency, we wanted to share with you some updates about our team. When we started this project as a small group, we had a goal of 100-200 concurrent player population, just enough so that we could enjoy the game a bit ourselves. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and interest that we have received and have far surpassed that initial goal!

As our community has ballooned in size, we have tried to adapt quickly to grow with it. As a result we have more than doubled our team size in the last two weeks. Onboarding new members is a fun experience and we have been absolutely blown away by the passion and talent of all those who have reached out to help in all manner of ways!

If you have reached out to us with an application but have not yet heard back, that means we have marked your email for review at a later time for one reason or another, usually because we need your skillset but don't have the capacity to onboard and support you yet.

In particular we have our 8 core Knowledge Keeper roles filled, but hope to be onboarding dozens more in the future. Due to competing priorities, we have put a pause on new Knowledge Keeper onboarding until we develop a more automated way to onboard them. If you sent us an email and mentioned being a KK that is probably why you have not heard back yet and expect a response in a week or two.

As you may have heard, our launcher is now open source and accessible at octowow.st/git! From the beginning of this project the launcher has been an ongoing issue for our team. The most obvious issue was the Windows Firewall warnings being triggered by vanillaFixes. One of the less known issues was minor security hole that revealed a file path of one of the developers.

The developer in question was our primary "launcher"/electron dev, and we would not be where we are today without his work. That being said, now that the launcher is open source, his role on the team has become a bit less mission critical. For these reasons, and some very real time constraints that have come up for the dev in real life, he has made the difficult decision to part ways with our team and enjoy the game as a regular member of the community going forward.

We are in awe of all that our community has accomplished these last two weeks. It is incredible what can be done when so many talented and passionate people are united by the same goal/vision. If you or anyone you know may want to contribute 2D or 3D art/animations to the project please do reach out to us OctoWoW@proton.me!