The snow is back, my Christmas tree is finally up, and Amazon packages are coming about every other day. BTW, hinged trees are the worst when it comes to putting them up in a corner with no room to maneuver; thank goodness that's over. Today's news comes a little early, because I felt like it.

This week I've been working on another mixed bag of projects again. A few bug reports came to my attention, so I've dealt with some of those. One in particular was very nasty and twofold: Not only were images screwing up KEEP_TOGETHER behavior in some cases (if the parent had only one icon), but I also found out that KEEP_TOGETHER groups didn't handle atom.transform properly in the hardware graphics renderer. That was a fun one to tease out.

In spite of a few bug fixes, there's no new release this week because I'm still mulling on some other things, including how to handle those situations where people want to specify which graphics adapter to use for their game. I think that's kind of a vital one before 511 goes stable. That said, I think it may be the very last thing to do before 511 goes stable.

Another thing that came up this week, and I've been working on it since, is that it's time for a change to the subscription system. At least one major SS13 branch has suggested they'd rather use BYOND's subscription system to process their server donations, as a way of supporting BYOND, except that the subscription system doesn't currently support that. So I'm working on some changes that will allow for that, and that will also lay some groundwork for a new feature in 512: downloadable content, or more accurately micro-subscriptions. My vision for 512 is that games can expand beyond subscriptions not just to themselves, but to little add-on perks. I'm planning so far that any DLC items would be "lifetime" in nature, to simplify the system, and the donation thing will be a special kind of item. I see this also having the potential to tie into Steam at some point.

Here on the home front, I'm preparing for a disruption to the development schedule that should occur very soon--prior to the Christmas break. In fact the lead up to it has already been a little bit disruptive to the schedule, but pretty soon I expect it'll happen in earnest. (No, I am not expecting a child.) I still have finalizing 511 as a goal before the Christmas break, though.

Again I'd like to give thanks to all of BYOND's Members who've helped support the platform. You guys make it all possible. Keep playing, keep creating, and keep up the Christmas spirit because it's the most wonderful time of the year.