New Year, New Nirvana, New Content

Well here we are again. 2019 has come and gone and it's been a banner year for us as a company and for NirvanaOnline as a whole and as a community. We're all very hard at work touching up the incredible lineup of content coming in 2020, so I'll be forced to keep this brief, or at least more so than usual.

2019 started out strong with the introduction of RoswellCarnivaleOnline to celebrate our 9th anniversary as a company. To community acclaim, this epic game world introduced a new art style and a new way of developing content, a lesson we will be taking with us heading into 2020. It was also the first instance of our algorithm-powered chest randomization, allowing each selected chest we hooked up to the algorithm to have its contents completely randomized. This technology led to the further improvement of Nirvana Royale and Mortieu: The Dusklight City, this year's flagship game world. Mortieu and Nirvana Royale stampeded through the summer to break every single record in our books, and paved the way for new types of activities coming to the game down the road. In addition to our Nirvana Royale and Moriteu lineup, we brought the Kozmodrome to ChernobylCarnivaleOnline. While the player numbers on this were lower than expected, it taught us a valuable lesson on which types of content our community would like to see going forward. Later in the year, we introduced the Season of Discovery, our first Season Pass available to our library clients. This Season of Discovery forced players to venture out and explore NirvanaOnline organically, and without the use of teleporters and other fast-travel systems. This was overall considered to be a success as it drove players to new parts of the game world, and flooded our servers with all kinds of wonderful data on how players search through our environments. This has given us an insight as to how to better structure environments to make different areas of the game world easier to uncover and locate. Lastly, this Season of Discovery came with an all-new type of activity that was completely unlike any other. Pinnacle Activities are the result of all of the positive feedback toward Nirvana Royale. These activities were designed to feel like mini self-contained experiences within themselves. We found new ways to challenge players with all kinds of different objectives and puzzles and combat scenarios, all of which fueled our servers with even more data to further drive our 2020 lineup.

Additionally, from the company-side, we made a lot of strives as well. At the start of the year we had just two clients. Now, we have 10 total libraries signed up, and our player numbers are higher than they've ever been. We also finally gave NirvanaOnline it's own logo, and we've begun paving the way toward stronger NirvanaNet subscription numbers. Additionally, our profit margins have been on the rise with the larger number of clients, allowing us some wiggle room to create larger and more grandiose experiences down the road.

Now we arrive at today, the last day of the year and the decade. We stand on the precipice of Nirvana's bright and shining future. In just four short months we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary as a company, and with that comes the expectation that we have something huge that will top the likes of RoswellCarnivaleOnline. Well fear not, because there's something huge in the works, and we can't wait to tell you all about it in just under a month. On February 1st begins the Season of the Sidewinder, bringing with it our long-awaited Sidewinder Springs remodel and full release. Additionally, there's a giant secret regarding the next update that will arrive just before the also-mysterious February content drop. This is all part of the epic buildup towards GW6, the massive new flagship game world that will be releasing in the first part of June, and will change and alter the horizons of NirvanaOnline forever. This new year will bring with it new features and new activities alongside new activity types that we think you're going to love. Just wait and see what's in store, because it's pretty massive.

If there's one clue we can give, it's that this upcoming year is being nicknamed the Year of the Sandbox. That's because going forward we're going to focus less on new content and a little more on building and strengthening the sandbox of NirvanaOnline. Players should feel rewarded in little ways even if they are just hanging out with their friends. More randomized chests, more Easter Eggs, more lobby games like Nirvana Royale, more varied activity types, and new game modes are just a few of the ways we plan to accomplish this. New ways to experiment and play with NirvanaOnline means new stories you can craft for yourself, and that's something we've been hearing that you'd like to see.

This finish this off, I'd like to talk a little bit about what will be happening in NirvanaOnline this evening. As we announced last month, our fan-favorite original game world that started this all, AdytumOnline, is being retired at midnight tonight. These last few hours are your final chance to experience all that our resplendent underwater metropolis has in store. The decision to remove this content did not come easy, as we know that so many players love everything that this has to offer, but sadly the content is starting to show it's age, and the overall layout of the game world has been confusing some players for too long. In the interest of further improving NirvanaOnline as a whole we will be retiring AdytumOnline and all of the Raids, Vaults, Player Houses, etc. that are associated with that. Additionally, there's a massive drop of 13 new levels coming to the game tonight at midnight. Players will be free to enjoy Widow's Recluse, a massive new spider-themed 12-player Vault. This huge new unique experience is sure to challenge new players and season veterans alike with all-new activities and tests unlike anything else in the game. Additionally, the Hotel Havok expansion pack brings 12 more activities and numerous new places to explore in Chernobyl Carnivale. Explore every single floor of this haunted hotel that was inspired by Stephen King's The Shining and even take on a new 4-player Raid in the Shrieking City! Lastly, we plan to introduce new Friday night events called Friday Night Nirvana, which will bring players together to take on challenges with developers and game creators alike. Stay tuned for more info on that early next year.

All in all, no matter what brings you to NirvanaOnline, we'll have something for you arriving this year. We've had a banner year in 2019 and we plan to top it in every aspect coming in 2020. Thank you all for your continued support, and thanks for playing our game. We'll touch base in a few weeks after NirvanaCon, and we hope to see you all early next year with the Season of the Sidewinder!