Before the server pivot, DP itself was being tightened.

Originally, each class had 40 abilities.
That was dumb.

Reduced it to 10 per class (1 per 10 levels instead of 1 per 5).

Hunter ✔
Monk ✔
Rogue ✔

All those classes are DONE.

Added new weapons.
Added a party system.

DP core gameplay stabilized.

Work slowed briefly because I was sick. Stupid flu
DP design still moved forward.

This week was mostly:
Balancing. Trimming scope. Locking in class identity.

Alright. This is going to be a ramble.

F in the chat for Discord.

I spent an unreasonable amount of time getting a headless server running properly.

Documentation is outdated.
Examples are half broken.
Nothing explains the full pipeline.

(It was bad enough that I seriously considered making an updated tutorial.)

But it’s working now.

Dedicated server.
Steam backend connected.
Authentication wired.
Everything behaving.
No duct tape.

That alone took days.

The main game is not always online.

DP and the Arcane Titans lobby require server connection.
The rest of the game does not.

When you launch the game, it grabs your Steam identity.
That’s it.

No invasive nonsense.
No forced single-player dependency.

Pirate mode?
That won’t work for DP.
DP requires the server.
The server requires Steam.
"That is how the world works" - Socko(Bo Burnham?) 2020

I was originally going to use Ko-fi for DP support.

Not anymore.

DP is now fully integrated into Steam infrastructure.

When you buy the game:
You can play Daemon Protocol up to level 5 for free.

Past level 5 requires a subscription.

That subscription is handled entirely through Steam.

No external links.
No weird call-to-action hacks.
No TOS gymnastics.

The server now:

• Tracks subscription time
• Handles entitlement tiers
• Connects DP players
• Powers the Arcane Titans global lobby chat

Yes. That thing I said I couldn’t do?

I did it.

You can now connect to the “motherbrain,” queue for Arcane Titans, and talk to other players in the lobby.

That part does not require a subscription.
Just a connection.

Yeah. It’s technically MTX.

You click a button.
Steam handles payment.
You get tier access for X days.

No loot boxes.
No RNG.
No psychological warfare.

Just time-based access.

Steam takes 30%.
Payment processing takes a cut.
Hosting costs money.

So if I charge $1, I don’t actually see $1.

I’ll need about ~20 monthly subs just to cover server costs.

That’s the reality.

Discord is gone.

DP is no longer a bot experiment.
It’s a real backend system.

I’ve breached containment.
We gremlin here now.

The past few days weren’t feature-heavy.

They were decision-heavy.

I showed the previous pricing model to a friend who wasn’t even interested in the game. I wanted a harsh, outside perspective.

Their feedback was simple:
Most indie MMOs fail. People hesitate to subscribe.

That’s fair.

So I changed direction.

Daemon Protocol will not use subscriptions.
No mandatory MTX.

DP is fully playable with the base game.

Instead, there will be two optional DLC packs:
• $3 Supporter
• $10 Patron

They provide small, non-competitive perks. Nothing pay-to-win. Some bonuses are cooperative in nature, helping the community, which indirectly helps you.

All DLC revenue goes toward server costs.

DP is no longer paywalled behind ongoing payments.
It’s supported by optional backing.

That feels cleaner.

DP is no longer a Discord bot experiment.

The server infrastructure is live.

• Dedicated backend running
• Client connections working
• Steam identity handling functional
• Arcane Titans lobby operational

AoA and Arcane Titans remain peer-to-peer for ease of connection.
If you’re using Steam, P2P just routes through Steam.
If not, nothing is forced.

DP connects to the “motherbrain.”
The rest of the ecosystem remains flexible.

Infrastructure first.
Then in-game systems.
Then content.

Foundation before expansion.

With Discord gone and Steam chat lacking structure, I brought back something ancient:

A forum.

https://ardronuniverse.boards.net/

Yes, it’s ProBoards.
Yes, it has limitations.
Yes, I spent an unreasonable amount of time editing its HTML.

Access is restricted intentionally.

Why?

Because the modern internet is bot-saturated.

Closed communities are easier to maintain signal in.

Discord was a walled garden. This is a gated courtyard.

It’s not required to play the game.
It’s optional.
But it’s curated.

DP is not just “!search” and “!fight” anymore.

It’s not a Discord MUD.

It’s a real game now.

There will be visuals(ehhhh kinda).

Scenes.

Sprites.

A character select screen.

Still largely text-driven? Yup.

Still turn-based? Yes.

But now it has space to breathe visually.

That changes pacing.
That changes interaction.
That changes expectations.

I had to step back and ask:
What is DP now?

I believe I’ve found the direction.

And I started building toward it.

This was supposed to be a day off.

It wasn’t.

I built a personal activity tracker in Python.

It logs active windows every second.

That took about 5 hours.

Total wake time that day:
17 hours tracked.
~22 hours actually awake.

Do not replicate this lifestyle.

After that, I moved into Unity:
• Scene setup
• Sprite design
• Programming
• Character select screen implementation

DP now has a functioning character select foundation.

More sprites needed.
More polish needed.

But it exists.

That’s where things stand.

DP is no longer theoretical.
It’s infrastructural.
It’s visual.
It’s grounded.

We breached containment.

Feb 21 — Project Triage Update

I tried to jump back into Ashes of Arcanum today.
Eight separate times.
Each time my brain hit the brakes, so I finally stopped and asked why.

The answer turned out to be simple: triage.

It isn’t that AoA is “too hard,” or that I don’t care about it.
The problem is the format.
The world isn’t really in a TTRPG phase anymore. Even the big studios are struggling, and the first version of AoA proved that reality pretty clearly, the game only ever had about 1–2 active players a week, and one of them was me because the Unity editor counted as “playing.”

My old table dissolved, the group scattered, and the social ecosystem that made developing a TTRPG fun just isn’t there anymore. That doesn’t kill my love for the project, but it does change the priority.

So AoA isn’t cancelled.
It’s being triaged.

Right now, it makes more sense to put energy into the parts of the Ardron Universe people can actually play without scheduling headaches, games you can boot, log into, and enjoy immediately.

AoA, by nature, is a slow-burn game. It needs a table, a group, prep time, and a level of coordination modern players rarely have room for. Meanwhile, Daemon Protocol and the other modules can reach people instantly.

So until the conditions around AoA make sense again, I’m putting it on pause.

AoA is postponed until further notice.Not dead, just waiting for the right time and environment. If that ever transpires.

Thanks for sticking around while I navigate the moving pieces of this universe.

Sorry to all 3 people waiting on its return. It will come back eventually.

Feb 22–23 — System Stall

No development progress for two days.
Complete stop.

Tracked via system logs. Sleep-heavy reset cycle.
Sometimes the machine needs to cool down.

Feb 24 — Physical Ranged Tree Complete

Finished the entire Physical Ranged skill tree for Daemon Protocol.

That includes:
• Full ability pass
• Internal scaling alignment
• Structural identity lock

Ranged combat now has a defined backbone.

Feb 25 — Weapon System Overhaul

Major systemic pass across all weapon families.

Changes included:

• Defined Small / Medium / Large weapon range tiers
• Rebalanced all weapons within each family to match those tiers
• Removed “special weapons” and integrated those mechanics into skill trees
• Reorganized Physical Ranged → Sling
• Created new Firearms family (Musket, Pistol, Rifle)
• Added Shield weapon family (3 shields, scaling tied to defense model)
• Replaced Sai with Quilion Dagger
• Evened out speed values across all weapons

System-level changes:

• Established Level 1 HP baseline
• Finalized HP and Mana growth curves
• Converted Charisma → Spirit (now tied to Mana scaling)
• Reworked scavenging minigame to scale from INT / WIS / SPR
• Defined starting DEF/IMP values
• Added shield defense scaling using that baseline
• Added “Attack Multiple Times” prompt for ranged + firearm weapons
• Locked stat distribution per level

Skill trees completed:
• Sword family
• Dagger family
• Shield family

This was a structural week.
Numbers first. Identity second. Flavor last.

Feb 26 — Birthday Pause

No dev work.

🎊🎊🎊

This was actually very hard to do... I hate days off, but they are required.

Feb 27–28 — Consolidation Pass

Expanded weapon families further, then consolidated.

There’s no reason to maintain redundant weapon types that function identically.
Lessons learned from earlier projects applied here.

Consistency matters.

Weapon bloat trimmed.
Family identities tightened.

Mar 1/2/3

Weapon System Status: Complete

Added a new weapon family. Sacraments.

All weapon families are now finished.

Which means:

Class work resumes.

Between Discords bs, the worlds bs, and the postponing of AoA. I have to say. This was probably the hardest month in my game dev history. Nothing quite like this has happened before.

Still not stopping.
it was rough.
but i'm going to try to have better months.

Peace ✌️

This is the condensed, filtered, and a little professional version of this months work.

If you want the raw notes. They will be on Discord, where I can Gremlin in my natural habitat.

This update covers development progress across Ashes of Arcanum (AoA) and Daemon Protocol(DP) throughout January.

Work this month focused heavily on tooling, system refactors, and a major redesign of Daemon Protocol’s scope and foundations.

Work began with a major push on AoA’s Game Master tooling:

• Core GM UI systems implemented

• NPC Generator UI complete

• Loot Generator UI complete

• Hostile Generator UI complete

• Music, Sound, and Ambiance Player UIs complete

• Battle Creator and Map Setup UIs complete

• All note-creation tools completed

• UI fully wired into backend code (main menu excluded)

This week established the majority of the GM-facing interface layer. With the UI foundation in place, remaining work shifts toward deeper system logic and feature implementation.

This week focused on experimentation, iteration, and stress testing core systems.

Several approaches to data handling and synchronization were explored and ultimately scrapped after identifying long-term maintenance issues. The system was rebuilt with tokens as the single source of truth, requiring a full teardown and rewrite of related networking code.

Combat and balance testing on January 17 included:

• Extensive stress testing of all combat interactions

• Adjusted starting armor and protection values

• Reworked hit bonus calculations based on weapon type and size

• Increased starting HP from 50 to 60

While iteration-heavy, this week helped clarify long-term architectural decisions and avoided future technical debt.

Major content and scope changes occurred this week:

• Over 2,000 names generated for NPC and character creation across all current species

• A renewed focus on Daemon Protocol following community interest

Daemon Protocol is now being rebuilt from the ground up, shifting from a lightweight minigame into a more robust Discord-based MMO experience, within platform and API constraints.

New foundations include:

• Full databases and persistent save systems

• Expanded loot and progression systems

• More robust class design

• Improved Discord interaction handling

AoA development remains ongoing, but this shift provided a productive change of focus while maintaining momentum.

By the end of the month, Daemon Protocol reached a near-complete foundational state.

Completed or in progress:

• Core systems fully rebuilt

• Combat logic and creature implementation remaining

• Creatures redesigned to serve gameplay roles beyond HP scaling

• Transition from “minigame” structure to a fully realized game loop

Additional changes:

• Removed redundant classes (Reclaimer, Hexer) after evaluating system needs

• Implemented Equilibrium mechanics

• Buffed Sentinel to function as a full-spectrum tank

• Began work on bounty boards

• Introduced a new town resource system (“Echoes”) replacing mana

• Early work on social systems, including online/offline presence tracking

Focus is now shifting toward strengthening social gameplay and long-term engagement mechanics before finalizing combat systems.

In the final days of January, several larger structural decisions were made for Daemon Protocol:

• Overall scope was expanded again to better support long-term play

• Class importance was reduced in favor of additional systemic layers

• Progression was reworked from a 20-level format to a 100-level, tiered system

• Experience curves were rebuilt to support the new structure

• Channel capacity was increased to account for tier scaling

Daemon Protocol is now much closer to a hybrid between a traditional RPG and an MMO-style system, while still retaining the core structure and lore of Ashes of Arcanum.

Additionally, work began on long-term future-proofing. Core systems are being designed so they can be transitioned out of Discord and into a standalone game environment if needed, ensuring the project remains viable regardless of platform changes.

These changes add development time, but significantly strengthen the foundation.

That's all for now :D see you next month~