Robin

Just a quick update to keep people posted on the current situation. Work was done that should have fixed some issues with the way network traffic was being handled by the server. This was one of the main causes of the stability issues we faced. However, during that two week period other development was carried out that caused major functionality regression and a whole new slew of issues which need to be addressed. We'll need to try and replicate these issues and fix the causes. This won't be a quick thing to do, and unfortunately people are very busy with the run-up to Christmas, so I'll be the only person who can find some time to work on this. I'll post another announcement once we get a better idea of just what we need to do and when the game can be expected to be online again. Thanks, Robin

Restart your computer.

Greetings ninjas, For instructions on how to updater your launcher, please see this thread: http://www.ninonline.org/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/3057-new-180-launcher/#comment-45493 It's been a rough week, but we're happy to announce that we've signed off on the changes for Nin Online version 1.8.0. With this announcement we're also going from Nin Offline to Nin Online and will be restoring access to the game server for all users ASAP. (Yay!) Quite a few of you have noted a lack of communication and visibility whilst we've been working through the issues facing the game, so I'd first of all like to apologise to anyone who was confused about what exactly was happening during release. It was a rocky start, and unfortunately all our effort had to be spent on fixing the issues leaving us very little time to interact with the community (not to mention all our real life responsibilities as well). Fortunately a lot of progress has been made in making sure Nin is as stable as possible. There's still a lot to do, but we're confident the changes made so far will at least allow us to get the game running again so people can continue to play. Engine changes Robin (me) has been working on fixing various issues which were causing stability problems on the server. For those of you who don't know, I'm the guy who made the game engine that Nin Online was built on. I've been around for a while now, so some of you might recognise me from a couple of years back, however I haven't actively worked on the engine itself for a long time. I've been concentrating on bringing myself up to speed on the state of the source code, fixing various small issues that went unnoticed, and stress testing as many isolated parts of the engine as possible to see which areas of the code were causing problems under load. For now all I can say is that I've fixed two of the main areas which were causing the server to crash and more work will be done over the next few weeks to improve the stability even more. Abhi has shown an amazing amount of patience in completely re-writing our entire character saving system. I'm sure plenty of you will remember the issues we had on release day where the website was constantly going down and character data would rollback practically every time you logged off. Abhi recognised these issues and took it upon himself to completely re-think how our various server-side systems interacted. By isolating the game infrastructure from the database we were able to fix the main cause of the character data losses and also stop the website from going down. This is no small feat, and the fact that Abhi took the time to do this whilst also studying for important exams is very commendable. Thanks Abhi! Seth has been working hard on fixing the bugs our community reported during the last few weeks. (Believe me, our team communication was flooded with him completing so many tasks on our tracking board.) He's also been working hard on improving the general code-base with possible stability fixes and memory leak plugs. Seth has also been picking up .NET and has been actively working on developing the new updater, fixing the authentication server, and generally cleaning up our workspace so that it's much easier for other people to get involved. Thanks Seth! Content updates Whilst our programming team has been hard at work getting the engine fit for (re)release, our dedicated team of artists and content developers have been hard at work designing and building an entirely new geographical area within the Nin Online universe! Elk has returned to the team as a pixel artist. He's shown some amazing designs and has quickly integrated himself in to our production pipeline, so I hope all of you will warmly welcome him back to where he belongs. Welcome back, Elk! Rory, Fernando, and Elk have all been working closely together to come up with their artistic vision of what the Sand village will look like in Nin Online. This work is ongoing, and won't be released with 1.8.0, however Rory was kind enough to share some screenshots of some of the surrounding desert areas where you'll soon be finding yourself fighting those pesky Leaf village ninja. I'll leave the rest of the details for our next big content update. Thanks guys! (Warning mobile users - large images)

Unfortunately the old launcher isn't properly updating itself to the new launcher. As such, until we can get a new installer working, I'm releasing a manual patch that will let you run the game properly. Here are the steps outlining how to replace it yourself. Step 1. To do this you'll need to find where your Nin Online installation folder is. By default, this should be C:\Program Files (x86)\Nin Online Step 2. Download the new launcher from here: http://www.ninonline.org/nin_updater.zip Step 3. Extract the zip file and take the new Launcher.exe file. Step 4. Replace the existing Launcher.exe file in your Nin Online installation directory with the new one. Step 5. Make sure you set up the new launcher to run with Administrator Permissions. Step 6. Run Launcher.exe to update your client.

There is currently an issue which is stopping character progress from being saved automatically during play. As this is a time when the server stability is wonky, this can result in your character data being lost when the game server is shut down. To make sure your character is properly saved, please log off and then back on again to force a character save. If you simply log off, you might find your progress being rolled back to a previous save. We'll look in to fixing this as soon as possible.

There will be a giant 'GAME CLIENT DOWNLOAD' button at the top right of the home page and forum index page.

Hey, you took my advice on the chocolate milk thing. Good job.

Whoever fixed this sure is a great web master.

It doesn't really matter how many resources development have access to when you don't have a project owner in place. Without someone there to make calls on design decisions on a day-to-day basis things will run at a crawl. There's a reason projects like Starbound move everyone to the same time zone. When you couple that with the fact that the people with the most experience on the team are working full time jobs and juggling other responsibilities you don't have much common time between America/Europe/Asia where conversations can take place. When a project is in this situation throwing more junior developers in will do nothing but cause more problems as mentoring these people requires even more work than just doing the job yourself. Not having Rory in place to deal with this is definitely a problem, however don't assume that things will progress quickly even with him dedicating more time to the project. Previous projects I've worked on have been in development for an average of 2 years before being released, and that's with me handling all project ownership responsibilities with very little distraction.

We're doing good, just super super busy. Rory's doing his army service whilst juggling side jobs and I'm currently dealing with various family members being in prison and hospital whilst also getting ready to start a new job and move to a new apartment... again. Christmas is always a busy time of year as it is. :^)

Merry Christmas Happy New Year everyone!

I have no idea. I can't say I'm a fan, though. Keep in mind I released Naruto Realm in 2005, when the anime had only been airing for 2 years or so. Back then it was pretty damn good. The universe itself is fantastic and makes for exciting gameplay... the character arcs and writing are really awful, however.

No, he means a spell. It's a generic ORPG engine, not Naruto specific. They will be known as jutsu in the game, though.