If you've been around the forums, you've heard of this or that feature that's going in the next release. You'll be glad to know that all of these features, and more that I haven't talked about, will be in this next version, 0.0.1 or "Atom."

The most obvious thing you'll notice is the graphics update. There's a sky, and some ground to walk around on. The camera follows your player, so you should be free to walk around wherever you choose. The character graphics have been completely overhauled. The new character will have a head, hands, feet, and even a texture. No animations yet, that will have to wait a little longer.

Underneath all of this is a more advanced networking engine that makes internet communication much simpler, easier, and faster, which should result in better performance and faster development cycles. Another big internal change is that the server will now save your character when you log out, and if you log back in with the same username, the server will restore your session and you should begin in the position you were in when you last left.

I'm putting my sights on this Sunday for release. I will most likely put up the server for download too, but I'm trying to set it up so that you can connect to my server and we can all "play" together. See you Sunday!