Daybreak Roadmap

Hello everyone,

I've had a recent complaint that there's not much going on in Daybreak's Patreon, so I at least wanted to make a post. So far none of the higher tier Patreons have asked me to write a detailed post about anything, and only Q&A been done has been short discussions on the Discord.

So instead, I'm opting to talk briefly about the Daybreak plans moving ahead for this year.

As some of you may have read in the latest dev diary, I just came back from several weeks of visiting my family, which I haven't done since before the pandemic. Between that and rewriting the early chapters due to some RR backlash, my June update progress has also fallen behind. My day-job is also in the educational content industry, and Summer (while school is out) is one of our busiest seasons, as this is the time to push all of our major updates. Needless to say between these items, I've been rather stressed of late. So pardon me if I'm focusing on trying to keep the story flowing, rather than content within the Patreon.

Anyway, plans.

I've still yet to hit the target I originally set a year ago, which is to rewrite up to the end of volume 3. Progress on this will continue as a matter of priority. The older readers know this already, but the middle of volume 3 is particularly hard to edit -- there's a ton of character drama, the catalyst of which you can see in the latest early release chapter (v3ch7). This is the segment that gave me so much headaches last time I put the series on hiatus afterwards to cool off. I think this time it'll go better as I have a better plan prepared.

After volume 3 rewrite is finished, I'll move onto volume 4. My hope at this point is to start it proper (after planning work is done, vol3 loose ends wrapped up, etc) by winter this year.

I'm also getting a second extra chapter for Volume 2 ready: a more details National Profile for Weichsel. For those of you who enjoy the Hyperion setting, look forward to it.

At the same time, I've been toying with a website alternative to move the current blog to. The issue with the current (free) wordpress site is that wordpress does inject ads into each post, in between the text, which is particularly annoying for readers whose adblocker doesn't catch them all. The new website will cut the ads as well as give me more options -- themes and plugins to work with. Furthermore, the hosting comes from one of my long-time friends, so I don't have to worry about a lot of other issues. Feel free to comment here or join the Discord to discuss your opinions, theme recommendations, etc.

These are the two immediate focus. Meanwhile the following are my long-term plans:

1. Daybreak is on its relaunch on RoyalRoad, and hopefully this time with way less distractions for me. After that is done (and the new website launched) I may also consider a few other sites. We'll see.

2. One of my big agenda items is to remake the Hyperion world map, using a proper map making tool this time instead of my extremely novice graphics editing skills on GIMP. I'm aiming to do this towards the end of volume 3.

3. Lastly, I plan to look into publishing options towards the end of year, which likely means looking for another artist before that? This is a bit speculative, as I always have a ton of things stacked up for 'end of year' when I have more vacation time. And trying to dive into the publishing industry is certainly not a small matter. Around that time I'll probably start soliciting artist recommendation as well.

Well that's all for a quick update from me. As always, feel free to make recommendation, as I do read every comment, even if I don't always have time to quickly reply.

Best regards,

~ Aorii