Fairytale Distillery’s Alexander Zacherl has published an update concerning where development on Das Tal — which, I see, has changed its messaging somewhat, and now bills itself as being “Where MOBA tactics meet MMO strategy” — is at after the conclusion of the first alpha release of the game:

The last time we made any major announcements was when we finished our first proper alpha test in November. The test was an amazingly fun experience for us all, we had awesome streamer coverage and a ton of great video footage to show.

But in all honesty: it showed us that the game was not yet ready for a full launch. While a good number of players enjoyed themselves intensely, too many of our testers stopped playing too early and especially newbies were churning left and right.

As such, the development plans for the second alpha release — which is slated for this coming April — are on giving veteran players reasons to play through each of Das Tal’s worlds, and on making the game more accessible to new players as well:

…in late 2015 we came up with the following list of features that we want to implement before launching Alpha #2:

• Goal System (Respect / Valley Defense / Leaderboards) [done]
• Server End Event (the last hours of a game world) [WiP]
• Opportunities System (nudging newbies to explore the game) [WiP]
• Flagging System (allowing players to flag themselves as friendly) [WiP]
• Emote System (allowing for faster communication in tense situations) [WiP]
• Clan Management (leadership voting, kick, disband)
• Building Permissions (access rights for buildings for clan members and other)
• Caravan Raids (a new event type during non-prime time hours)

We also decided that some other systems needed major overhauls:

• Siege / Capture / Respawn (more interesting flag fights, less respawn hassle) [WiP]
• Macro Game Balance (prime time duration, drop tables) [WiP]
• Equipment Progression (more motivation to upgrade your gear)

Here, then, is another project that’s off to a good start for 2016.