Year In Review: Saying goodbye to 2023
It’s hard to believe 2023 is already coming to a close, spacers… Golly.
Join me for a walk down memory lane, will you? Let’s see what we accomplished this year before we release the roadmap for what to expect next year.
(Spoiler alert: It’s gonna be great)
JANUARY
Zarrach hacking the comms and earning all of Crake’s adoration (and resources).
SCC 2.0
Officialized the Starmourn Cultural Conflict channel on Discord, where we present new projects concepts to culture-minded players and get their feedback on upcoming changes
Hack The World
Released the first ever Hack Dungeon quest line with a new fave NPC Crake. Along the way, we also added hacking QOL improvements such as experience for ICE kills and hack command queueing
Getting Wild Out There
Added two new wilderness areas to give equal access to all factions.
Craftpedia Release
The new Craftpedia system allows crafters to learn more about materials in-game for custom crafted goods. This would become especially useful as the Trend System brings in new materials to explore and use.
Now THIS Is Pod Racing!
Argus made pod racing for a promo item and will never do better than that. Over 3,000 lines of prog in that promo item
Player Event: Song Military Reunion
Ran a mini event in the Deja Brew with a reunion of Song military squads that players can engage with and RP off in the future via RP requests!
FEBRUARY
A pink nebula serves as the next waypoint in the race, prime for competition within the Song Dominion’s fleet.
New Team Members
Figment, Elan, and Kauka join the team to provide some much needed bug crushin’ love and code expertise
Bury the Ghost Dancer!
Once just a meme, Krellstones now exist properly in game with special boards, pieces, and rules that seem to be pulled from the void itself. Starmourn’s answer to True American, Krellstones brings all the chaos you crave for a dice-based game within a text-based game. Get in today to collect all the sets!
Space Racing
Players can now drop checkpoints in space to create and run their own race courses without admin intervention. Checkpoints naturally decay, so hit the track while you can!
Getting Trendy
Released Trends, the new design system by which players can contribute to the game and earn major marks
Incursions Updated
Ishvana Fleet incursions were dramatically improved and they hit much harder now (xoxo git gud, friends)
Player Event: Flower Heist
Ran another mini flower discovery event for Syzygy as part of their player plot journey to continue discovering all the flora the sector’s concealing.
MARCH
The latest trend has dropped and Shulamit’s wondering how to turn it into something reprehensible. Just another day.
Learn Me Somethin’, Professor
Created and released 18 new design tutors (1 for each tradeskill for each faction) with custom locations and backstories for each. Opened design quests to all players for the first time, via these tutors.
Trending Expansions
Added over 100 new materials, ingredients and colors into the Trending system.
Ship Furnishing
Introduced ship furnishing shops on Iota with interactive furniture items, themed goods, and pet-like droids in the pursuit of meaningful, engaging materials being made available in the world.
APRIL
That doesn’t look like any fish in Picram’s tanks… Perhaps it’s something new from the past?
Bug Stompin’
Elan crushed like 300 bugs in a weekend – Just one example of all the effort being put in by the team
Archaeology Unearthed
Released the Archaeology system with SEVEN unique areas and 10+ flora and/or fauna relics to discover with unique components to recover for each (and more to come!) The sheer volume of creative writing and lore expansion completed by the admin team and Worldbuilders was… incredible. Keeping digging – there’s more than gold to discover out there!
Museums Open
With Archaeology, released the concept of MUSEUMS through which each faction can complete free/open RP endeavors to study and recover artifacts and specimens through Archeology research
MAY
Cosmpiercers are a little riskier these days, but oh how sweet the rewards ~
Cosmpiercer System Overhaul
The Ishvana threat looms more aggressively than ever before, now taking an active part in Cosmpiercer engagements with AI space combat, ground combat, and even hacking bodies
Cache & Ta-Deth Crystal Overhaul
New ways to obtain crystal charges with options for noncoms to participate in crystal recovery. Also created the RICH cache system and timed releases to aid in coordination between the factions.
Player Event: Save the Piercers!
Ran a major RP event whereby the captains of the sector fought to defend the known Cosmpiercers from a massive assault which resulted in many piercers being destroyed. Thanks to some powerful teamwork and assistance from the mercenary boards, one was thankfully saved.
The Kali Warship is still available to explore for those spacers who are crafty enough to find and board it!
RPWHO Expansion
The RPWHO system now allows players to auto-flag themselves with a CONFIG option. RP has never been more accessible.
JUNE
Glittering shores awakening in a pink sunrise, the soft mists only slightly smelling of trash from Dregend next door.
Beachapalooza
We hosted a month long event with 6 new quests and several new NPCs to interact with on the Glittering Shores of Litharge. Poor Grilrek, probably still getting bullied today.
Project Homeworlds
Began implementing physical changes to Janilyn as part of Project Homeworlds, lovingly referred to in-house as Project HomeYaBetterWerk!, including a Customs House, interactive elements including the first Quest Board, racial shops, over 15 local produce items and meals, and a refresh of the map.
This was our practice round for an intended implementation on ALL racial homeworlds to flesh out available lore and give players a strong base to build their own RP upon. Between deep-dives in racial lore review sessions, many meetings for map review and flow, creative writing, and a dozen or more custom progs, this project took Marra and Argus about 65+ hours to complete. Whew!
Palate Expansion
Added quite a few additional design type options to the CUISINE tradeskill including fudge, tofu, and biscuits!
JULY / AUGUST / SEPTEMBER
Is this lights out for Starmourn? NO WAY.
Legacy Mode
Starmourn gets placed into Legacy Mode, and the team takes a little bit of time to recalibrate and determine how we move forward.
Thank you to everyone who reached out and let us know you still wanted to stick it out with Starmourn. Y’all keep us motivated and we are so grateful to all of you. <3
September – Argus and Marra officially join Neritus as Producers, now called Starmakers, and begin learning all of that stuff. What a ride!
OCTOBER
Candy Dan approaches Rapa’rak hall as the gates re-open for the Rapadruk season.
Rapadruk Sweets
A new tradition for the Starmourn sector established in 2022, Rapa’rak hall reopened this year to terrify and delight tourists looking to learn more about the Rapadruk holiday while Candy Dan and his cohorts spread the sweet-tooth spirit.
Scare the Storytellers 2023
We received a bunch of awesome (read: Terrifying) entries for Scare the Storytellers this year and are proud to remind y’all of our top two stories: Arrick the Everdying, submitted by Poet, and The Lys, submitted by Picram.
Player Event: Scatterhome Museum Heist
In collaboration with Morgan, Marra created a sensual art “enthusiast” (j’accuse!) who visited a grand showcase of the Scatterhome Museum exhibits and, probably totally unrelated, served as a key suspect in the theft of a beloved NPCs heirloom jewelry!
MORE. LORE. THNX.
Argus and Marra begin a new branch in the lore deep-dive necessary for PHYBW, the development of two new player races, and a complete rewrite for race, class, and faction blurbs.
NOVEMBER
Tomes and stacks of lore archives, highlighted and noted to the max between paw prints.
New Website, Who Dis?
Argus completes a full overhaul of the Starmourn.com website with additional review from the volunteer team and several key Worldbuilders. Check out the new discord widget (visible on mobile), updated nav bar, updated FAQ, and Things-To-Do page in addition to general updates to all other pages.
There’s still more to do, but our content is now #UpToDate with Starmourn’s current progress for the first time since the BETA announcement in 2018.
A Fresh Start
As an admin team, we agreed to cull 2,000 old bugs in the system from players that were inactive/unreachable and reports dealing with old systems, etc. Only about 70 were re-opened and the remaining items are both more accessible and more actionable now. Whew!
Team Additions
Senzei and Ferenzei rejoin the team as Coders!
DECEMBER
A Human child on Reynolds spaceport ready to beam you in the face with a fresh snowball.
Winterflame 2023
Ironbeard struck out on his trusty route for Winterflame, bombarding the Sector with gifts aplenty. With his arrival, the Winterflame festival grounds re-awoke in the Tosmar hunting grounds, once again plagued by the mischievous void imps and a mysterious fog.
Faction Winterflame Flavors
We brought in additional Winterflame flavor to each of the faction stations with custom military member reunion messages for the Dominion, a bustling snowball fight amongst the youths for Scatterhome, and a towering conifer for the Ascendancy.
Paperweight Updates
Deep in Razor’s Rift, the Paperweight Tundra got a facelift with a new 100+ room hunting ground called The Strand and a full overhaul of the Belaul’s great belfir Tree, Mymaeir. Along with this, we created a first-of-its-kind NPC generator now applied to the Belaul and Bushraki in New Dikamazi which generates a randomized collection of NPCs with 9+ personalities and custom descriptions and responses.
Player Event: Rainbow Party
Sutherin Ironbound hosted a Rainbow Party to celebrate the spirit of Winterflame and put those giant rainbow gifts from Rohna to good use.
Song Dominion Gets an Admiral’s Lounge
As part of an RP Request from the Song Dominion, we worked in concert with several Dominion leaders to create the new Admiral’s Lounge on the Danica Transit Station, now open to the WEST of the Deja Brew. As part of the release, Kauka created a new Legendary Bushraki incursion type with the players enjoyed so much that we decided to bring it into the incursion rotation!
New Player Races: Belaul and Bushraki
This post is pretty recent, so go check out the blog post below this one for more info. Both races are live NOW on the website – Make your character today!
We’re Out Of BETA!
After 5 years of hard work and dedication, Starmourn has officially been greenlit to leave BETA and take its place as a standalone game. While there’s a lot more work we want to do, and even more fun things we want to add, we’re excited to cross this checkpoint in our development journey!
End Of Year Player Commendations
As part of an annual tradition, we are collecting player nominations for New Years Rewards to acknowledge players who: Have the best roleplay, are notable titans of industry, bash the hardest and for the longest, and other categories including write-ins. Regardless of how long you’ve been playing, we’d love to see your responses.
For more information and the form to submit your votes, check out NEWS READ ANNOUNCEMENTS 479. Learn more about rewards and how to participate in the post.
Submissions should be sent to Argus in-game or on discord by January 3rd, 2024!
The past few months have been pretty busy on our end, and we’re so excited to keep rolling out new content for our community to enjoy. Stay tuned for our 2024 road map in the new year!
Your Starmourn Admin Team
Argus, Marra, Neritus, Elan, Senzei, Figment, and Kauka
