Developer Log - March 2025
This month has been a bit of an odd one for Project Epoch—not because there’s been a lack of progress, but because so much of our focus has shifted outside the game itself. While we’re still deeply invested in refining and improving the core experience, March has been more about foundational work than flashy features. For the first time in a long while, the team hasn’t been neck-deep in bug squashing, and honestly? That’s felt really good.
Eredun has been laser-focused on classes, digging into high-level mana tuning, fixing lingering class bugs, and giving dungeon sets a proper round of upgrades to ensure they feel meaningful and fun. Meanwhile, Kaytotes and the rest of the web team have been pouring their energy into Epoch Web 2.0—our full website overhaul that’s been quietly taking shape behind the scenes. The effort going into these systems might not be immediately visible in-game, but it’s all laying the groundwork for a smoother, richer Epoch experience down the line.
Debugging the Timeline
It’s been just under 30 days since we wrapped up our Beta 3.5 test, and in that time, we’ve worked through the majority of the feedback and bug reports that came in. To be perfectly blunt: we’re feeling great about where things stand. The beta didn’t throw any wrenches into our internal timelines, and more importantly, it reaffirmed that the game itself is shaping up just the way we want it to. There’s always work to be done, but the foundation feels strong—and that’s exactly where we want to be.
With much of our background work wrapping up in the early days of next month, we’ll be shifting gears back into bug squashing with renewed energy. While it’s been refreshing to step back and focus on foundational systems and improvements, we’re eager to dive back into the trenches and start knocking out the remaining issues with veracity. There’s nothing quite like seeing the game tighten up bug by bug, and we’re ready to push through the next wave of polish.
Kes Korner
Despite being the newest addition to the design team, Kes has rapidly become a core force behind the scenes—and this month, her work has touched nearly every corner of Project Epoch’s questing experience. One of her largest tasks to date has been a full editorial and content pass on our now over 1,500 custom quests. That means checking for typos, grammar, and clarity in quest instructions, but it goes far beyond just surface-level polish. Kes has been improving how quests communicate direction to players, making sure objectives are clear without removing mystery, and ensuring each one hits the tone and quality bar we’ve set for the project.
In this example and many others we’ve added clearer return instructions, addressing one of the most consistent pieces of feedback across hundreds of quests: making objectives and turn-ins easier to find.
In the process, she’s also taken on the massive responsibility of cataloging every unresolved lore thread across the entire game—including both those we’ve introduced and the many left hanging by Blizzard's original content. This evolving document is now the single source of truth for open-ended narrative hooks across Epoch. It ensures we don’t lose track of opportunities to resolve or expand upon storylines down the road, and gives our worldbuilding team a clear, actionable foundation as we move into future content. It’s one of those invisible-but-essential pillars that will have a long-term ripple effect across the entire project.
On top of all that, Kes has started reviewing quest rewards to rein in some of the more questionable pieces of gear that have slipped through the cracks over the years—things that might’ve once been added as placeholders or outliers during our earlier development. Her eye for balance and believability is helping bring a much-needed sense of cohesion to itemization. It’s a massive effort, and we’re beyond grateful to have her leading it.
Blizzard Did a Thing (We Liked It)
In a rare case of “thanks, Blizzard,” one small but satisfying change this month came courtesy of the Season of Discovery PTR. New Scarlet-themed horse mount textures quietly slipped into the game files—and since we already had a Scarlet Monastery mount, it was a no-brainer. We scooped up the new look, dropped it in, and the mount from Scarlet Monastery now sports a fresh coat of (Scarlet) paint.
The Beast Got Bonked
UBRS has been one of the most overtuned dungeons in the game, and we’ve made some much-needed adjustments—especially to The Beast and General Drakkisath. The Beast’s encounter now features reduced mechanic frequency, and one ability has been removed entirely to help bring the fight more in line with intended difficulty.
For Drakkisath, the biggest problem was clarity. We’ve added a telegraphed yell to warn players of Molten Engulfment, and the true killer—Conflagration—has had its duration significantly reduced to give groups more breathing room.
And thanks to your bug reports, we discovered that Overlord Wyrmthalak was still dropping absolutely nothing (whoops). That’s now fixed, and all endgame dungeon bosses—including new Epoch additions—now have their proper loot tables in place.
Superintendent System Update
This month, we took the Superintendent from its early prototype state—used in previous betas—and rebuilt it on a brand-new codebase, ready for launch. This rewrite involved migrating the system to a more robust and maintainable framework: Laravel Zero. This change not only streamlines future updates and maintenance but also significantly improves the reliability and performance of the Superintendent as it enters full operation. It’s a big step forward in ensuring our tooling behind the scenes can scale with the project.
As a reminder, the Superintendent is our background system designed to help detect and monitor suspected VPN or proxy usage, an unfortunate but necessary safeguard due to the nature of connection methods in the private server space. It performs regular inspections of login activity and flags accounts that repeatedly appear to be using masked IPs. If you missed the original deep dive, you can read more about the philosophy, limitations, and goals behind it in our previous blog post.
Kaytotes has crunched the numbers, and we want to sincerely thank everyone who has donated or sponsored the project via GitHub Sponsors. Your contributions over the past year will directly fund the running of the Superintendent system for the entire year following launch. Your support continues to make real, tangible impact behind the scenes.
Epoch-Web 2.0
We’ve been crunching away behind the scenes on the upgrade to our new website, and we’re excited to say it’s nearly there. If all goes to plan, Epoch Web 2.0 will be deployed before the end of this upcoming month. That said, we’re not going to slap a date on it—it’ll just drop by surprise when the time feels right.
All that remains now is finishing up the homepage, doing a full mobile responsiveness pass (since our focus so far has been on the desktop experience), and slotting in a small handful of final images. We can’t wait to share it with you—soon™.
Below, we’re sharing a few sneak peeks of key pages from Epoch Web 2.0 to give you a taste of what’s coming. It’s still a work in progress, but we think you’ll like where it’s headed.
Looking Ahead
As we head into next month, our priorities are shifting firmly into launch prep territory. First up: we’ll be starting the editing process for our official launch trailer (and yes, that’s a very real hint that things are getting close now). Alongside that, we’ll be focusing on knocking out the final batch of launch-blocking bugs, plus any other high-priority issues we can clear off the list.
We also plan to deploy Epoch Web 2.0, and complete the last major background task—finalizing our GM and administration tools. With that milestone hit, we’ll be ready to begin recruiting and training our Game Masters and new community moderation staff.
Thank you all for your continued patience and support. We know the wait has been long, but your passion and feedback are a huge part of what’s brought us this far. We’re nearly there.
