Ueda

Glad my words had a moved you in some way. ASDF crew here too hahah! I have no plans on Nin going anywhere any time soon, but everything will eventually come to an end. Even if the game isn't gone yet, people come and go. I hope that even when Nin is gone, people will stay in touch. It's so much easier to do that then back in those days. I'm also pretty sure I'll keep the Nin official discord running as long as Discord is a thing. That being said, Nin is here to stay, I assure you I have no plans on slowing down development or closing it down in the foreseeable future! Didn't mean to set off any alarms about that. EDIT: I think I've been extra sentimental because I just finished watching Community, and the realization that I have no more new episodes to look forward to is making me feel things I don't want to feel.

It's because you're not a rogue. It'll be that way for the time being.

As Vipe explained, it's to do with the brief moments when people's clients hang due to large textures loading as you they across the map. When the client is frozen it can't move your character and send movement to the server. That causes the difference in movement speed. ie. Nobody is moving faster, a lot of people are moving slower. New client will fix this, no ETAs but we're working on it!

Added new GM command to change a map's PvP Zone temporarily. /zone command for GMs to turn any map into an arena or turn off PvP for awhile. War Zone anywhere!

Thanks for your help with the wiki/fandom this year, and thank you to @Angelik Date for helping with art

Past year Recaps

It's always nice taking time to look back at a full year of Nin Online running as an actual realized game. As of now, we've had almost 4 years of live service operation since launching Open Beta in May 2017. It feels like such a long time ago now that I actually lose count of how long it's been and have to check announcements to remember. For those who don't know the full history of Nin Online, the game project started development in mid-2013. We had multiple closed and open alpha tests, before finally launching Open Beta in 2017. This recap post is something I try to make time for every year to gather all my thoughts on the state of Nin Online and the state of Nin Online's continued development. Some random "year in numbers" stats This year, we had 10,000+ new registered accounts and 7,478 new forum posts. We localized the game service to Brazilian Portuguese. We added 263 new patch notes... Of all those patch notes, here are some of the highlights of running Nin Online for 2020... Game server recreated in C#, replaces our Visual Basic 6 server operation! Networking replaced from Winsock networking to Mirror. Unique Clan Clothings Improved Idle Animations for player and NPC characters. Village special abilities (buff WoF ) Crazy new crosshairs (rainbow spin woo) Flicker improvements (won't fail to flicker when player's front and back and blocked) First level 50+ content (Blood puppet factory area) Optimized large packets including map packet sizes by 60% Ninja Dodgeball Event 7 new side missions Added signboards in villages for directions and on-screen instructions for aviary and scroll shops New GM event system (the /eventjoin system) Moved stash from Gumi to dedicated UI button Added 43 Gold/Silver exclusive emoticons 5 Chunin Exams, 3 mini-events in the middle of the year, Anniversary Event, Halloween Event & Let it Snow event Added a friggin' gun FINALLY Fixed random DoT / Maplock bug 104 new items (not all released) 28 new mobs & npcs (not all released) 11 new jutsu animations (not all released) Nin Online Podcasts I had a lot of fun on the 4~ Nin Online podcast episodes I did this year, including the one where the new client was shown off! It was nice to talk to everyone we interviewed and hear their stories about the community and experiences in-game. I hope to do more in the future! The year of player contributions I have to say that this year has been a first in the amount of people stepping up to create art or hire people to create art, independent of any direction from myself, for Nin Online. It all began with people learning to do pixel art or getting others to help create clan outfits for their own clans, other clans and eventually entire pieces of content like weapons and Christmas cosmetics. Thank you for everyone who went out of their way to contribute to Nin Online your time and money, and I'm happy to have help! The new server software The importance of the replacement of our old server software to our new C# server... cannot be understated. It's been so nice knowing the server isn't crashing when it reaches 100+ players anymore. With the new server moving to C# also comes the added benefit of a modern development environment which has helped so much in solving bugs like just today fixing the years old bug of people getting damaged by random NPC poison/bleed effects. Without the new server, this wouldn't have been possible. The way our new server handles errors like a boss, not resulting in crashes, has also been something we previously never accounted for but has been so great. Transparency & Optimism for 2021 Honestly, I feel that the second half of 2020 was slower than I would've liked it to be in terms of content updates. Also, I took a long break for the majority of December to play Cyberpunk 2077 and watch Community. :p I have a lot of optimism that things will pick up with the start of the new year, we have work and people lined up to help me in the coming months, including my plans to steal Wolf back from his big game studio job soon. I am excited to start 2021 with some content updates dropping as early as January. On top of that, Nin Online has been performing a lot better than past years financially (thanks to more players stuck at home during the pandemic and the new brazil localization), and with that I'm able to start paying people more to work on Nin, which is going to be a great going forward. Gratitude Finally, I just want to thank the Nin Online team who have really helped me with Nin Online this year. Thank you @TheWolf for working with me throughout the year. Thank you @Kenock for leading the expansion of Nin Online's game service into Brazil, constantly pestering me to work on specific issues and telling me whenever the server crashes. Thank you @Erox for being a big help with support, moderation and running events. Thank you @Serias for actively helping me with art and also moderation. Thank you @Robin for helping with the new server project. Thank you @Seth for his continued assistance despite having a busy year attending school. Thank you @Sezu for joining us again this week and already contributing a bunch of the upcoming content. Thank you @external & @Lucass for helping us moderate discord. EDIT: On one last note, there's something I'd like to say that I forgot to write about when I posted this... In a year like 2020, where myself included, a lot of us were forced to spent a large portion of it cooped up at home, the community has been a nice place to enjoy a social environment with stakes beyond short rounds of finding out who the imposter is, or running through obstacle courses with strangers. Nin Online is a special game, but not just because of what the game is, but what the community has made it become. The Nin Online community is amazing - we have "petty drama" every day, we feel strongly defensive about what they represent, and people have friendships (and pseudo enemies) that go beyond what casual interactions in other games allow you to... because you guys spend months to years in it, interacting with one another, making stories and a history of meaningful events in our collective imaginative world. Nin Online Community is truly something like no other. I have not felt the amount of comradery and stake in a long time, and as much as I try to stay neutral to everything, watching people form their own personas or show their character makes being around the community a very enjoyable experience. In 5 years, I don't know if Nin Online will still be around, it might be. In 10 years, who knows? But the one thing you'll surely remember from your time here are the experiences with people you shared here. People will come and go, nobody can stay entertained on something forever. But during your time in the community, enjoy your share of stories and impart enough for others to remember you. That's what community is about, and on a bigger scale, what life is about. I appreciate what everyone here contributes in their own way as a person to the whole community. Enjoy your petty drama and discord pvps, because it's a privilege to feel such strong emotion about something and because who knows when the next time you'll feel so strongly about anything is, Thank you!

Fixed getting random damage from things like Snake Poison and Damage Over Times (DoTs) caused by NPCs on other maps.

Aw, thank you for the cookie!

Fixed graphics of Bone Marrow Premium Hairstyle death pose. Added new, less intrusive sound effect for Snakes (to be replaced in the near future)

I believe you have outdated graphics, make sure to force update your client!

Since I couldn't decide between two winners, I decided to appoint each of them one award for the month of december... Congratulations @Lastant & @Tekkey Hinode

Added new Legendary drop to Kuraken: Asarihanma! Added 2nd Style of Neo-Akatsuki Cloaks, now available for Neo-Akatsuki members to purchase from their stash. Added 2 New Hayashi Clan Items: Hayashi Top and Hayashi Pants New Boss Mob: Dark Weasel Added new Rare drop to Dark Weasel: Dark Scythes Added new Summon: Snake Summon Added New Hairstyle: Bone Marrow Premium Hairstyle Added New Hairstyle: Hanoka Premium Hairstyle Fixed Summons Damage Over Time (DoTs) Dog Bite (Ninken) now has Bleed.

That's not a bug

What's the Chakra Charging bug when hit or getting hit?

We'll fix this in the new client. It's just a rather small bug compared to the more significant issues that come with the current one.

As much as I love money. I'm pretty firm in believing that I don't need ALL the money, and that P2W elements will attract the wrong people, people who just want something to buy into and not commit to. Nin is by it's ideals a game for a community of people who want a place they can sink time into with returns, and not feel like their wasting their time because someone else can just spend money to progress. (This is another reason why trading items for IRL currencies is frowned upon, although we can only enforce it when we get reports of scams)

Just a heads up! I'll be picking the next winner on 30th December!

Also stretched and don't qualify!

Screens are stretched and don't qualify, warning!

Increased Hidden City of Joy event map Ammunition Supply Box respawn rates! Map Item despawn timer reconfigured to remove items from map after 15 minutes even if there are players on the map. Items used to be removed from the map if nobody was on it after 5 minutes. Fixed exploit that allowed player to use gun item outside of the Hidden City of Joy event map.

I'll improve it to fit the female base better soon!

Fixed Old Puppet Factory map rendering Black floor.

Added Let It Snow 2020 event (Will be open on 5th December) 4 New Cosmetic Rewards -Red Winter Jacket by @Angelik Date -Blue Winter Jacket by @Angelik Date -Santa's Elf Hat by @Angelik Date -Angel Wings Pistol Weapon (Only useable in "Hidden City of Joy" location) Pistol Ammunition Item Santa Claus NPC that gives out free Scroll of Stat Resets! Zombies 4 Special Mobs Dodgeball Items can no longer be used outside of the Dodgeball Event map, just incase players manage to smuggle them out (again). Added Iron Scythe weapon by @Fuze It's now snowing throughout the Ninja World! Added new hairstyle "Overlay Premium Hairstyle" by @Kvaset Added new time-limited cosmetic "Green War Armor" Resolved issue with Logins clogging up when too many people were trying to login, typically happened after server maintenances.

Dear Ninja, For this year's Let It Snow Event I decided to go a little bit further than the years past. With the help of @Angelik Date, @Fuze and @Kvaset for contributing artwork, I'm proud to announce what the event will entail this year. Hidden City of Joy For the duration of the event, our good ol' Hidden City of Joy from back in 2018, will be open to all. This time, the city is 3x bigger, features a gun store where you can buy a pistol and ammo to kill zombies (and each other), new special enemies, as well as 4 new rewards. This will be our most lowbie friendly Christmas event yet. The city is also an Arena Zone, where a single bullet is usually a kill. So watch out for both Zombies and other player's gangs. You can enter the city by talking to an Event NPC in each village. The City will open from 5th December 2020 to 5th January 2020. New Rewards These are 3 new cosmetic rewards available from Let It Snow 2020. We also have a special new cosmetic item, Angel Wings , which will only be available through Let It Snow 2020 and never again through another event. After this event, we will only ever give out Angel Wings to players who bless the server a great amount in a single month. More on that in the future... Some of the rewards from previous years are also available again! You can also get Event Coupons by trading your spare Zombie Organs and Snow Balls. Free Stat Resets FreeStat Reset Visit the Hidden City of Joy and speak to Santa Claus. This year he has a Naughty or Nice list which he will use to decide if you are eligible for a present from me. If you are naughty, no worries, you can earn you way into the nice list! New Cash Shop Items Green War Armor is a time-limited exclusive item that will be on sale for the duration of Let It Snow 2020, after which, it will never be sold again. It is tradeable and treated like a normal item after claiming from your stash, but has no Ryo value. New Weapon Released Although not exactly Christmas-related, we also added a new weapon this update... Iron Scythe Our first ever scythe. It's still going to work the same way as a sword, but this will now drop from -redacted- and be available for Weapon Masters. Art done by @Fuze Side Notes I spend most of my time through the year on development, so I rarely get time to put together fun events like this. But it's always the most fun I have working on Nin Online. The end of the year is a special time for everyone because it's the advent of a new year. Let It Snow in Nin Online has less to do with Christmas and more to do with celebrating another year of Nin Online. So much has happened in the world this year, so I thought it would be nice if we put into extra effort this year to bring some seasonal festivities. We hope you enjoy what we have prepared!