Exilecon impression, further plans and some announcements

Hey there,

I've spent 3 weeks in New Zealand and just got back yesterday. It's been a blast. Honestly, that was an amazing time and not just because of Exilecon itself.

If I'd have to put ExileCon into one word, it'd be "overwhelming". So many panels, talks, discussions, cards, people to meet and interesting events. I wish I'd have more time do all of it.

 It didn't quite feel like a "league reveal", it was a lot less mechanical and a lot more emotional and it was great to have met so many other poe players. I enjoyed talking to the devs and GGG folks and had some insightful discussions with many, if not most streamers. There's a lot to like.

ExileCon was full of discussions, events and meetups, but the other 2 weeks in New Zealand were very calming, soothing and a delight for a somewhat overworked soul.

So I've had a lot of time to think. Life, goals, filters and more. 2019 was a controversial year for me. It was full of experiences, but not only good ones. Professionally, I've advanced a lot,
but there were also some negative events on the personal fronts. Lately I felt like I was dragging around some weight... despite losing a lot of it.

New Zealand did help a lot in that regard. It was challenging at times - there were some complicated discussions, long scuba dives long flights and the campervan lifestyle was somewhat outside of my comfort zone (but it was awesome)... but I feel so renewed and refreshed after this trip.

So: I've drawn a few conclusions. 

Let's talk about the POE-related ones: I've decided to start tackling challenges, that I've been avoiding for the wrong reason. In context of POE this means I want to do 3 things:

- 1) Get out there more. Streams, videos, anything. I think the reason, I've not been doing that, is not a good one. We'll see how that goes, but feel free to post suggestions and ideas on what you guys would like to hear or see. I think there's a few insights here and there, that I can share that would be of quite an interest to POE players.

- 2) While I mostly regard FilterBlade as a finished project (that receives updates regularly), I want to tackle the advanced style generation once again. I've put it on hold last time, because this task is HARD. Potentially one of the most complicated things I've developed, since it'll require a very special custom language and nothing I've seen developer by the community, seems to  hit all the right spots. This is a daunting task (and not the only project I'm working on), but it'll be one of my focuses in the next 3 month. I feel confident enough, that I can implement it well enough. 

If you want to know what advanced styles mean: think about an importable/exportable style, that you can share with friends, that is easy to adjust, allows giving the filter a complete new feel and is created using fitting and harmonic colors. That's what I'm after.

- 3) One of the harder things, when you're developing something that is used by many people is taking large steps. Doing major changes will always provoke some controversial reactions, partially because people are simply used to it. With that in mind, I intend to pick apart and modernize some "established" sections of the filter and filterblade in the next updates, such as rare highlighting and the itemlevel 75 threshold, large parts of the color scheme, the overview and simulator screen on filterblade and more.

Stay tuned. Oh and I'll also post some alpha filters in a minute on patreon.

Thanks for your support.