2016 was my first year as the simmaster. The year started well following our migration to AWS for better server stability and performance, and we made some good progress up through February when the new changes to the positioning system were announced. As the year progressed we lost some more of our dev team to inactivity and other responsibilities, leaving us with a minimal team: myself and Arjuna as admins, Erek as the primary active asim, and Ted Winner as the only active programmer, plus Kay Dallben leading the effort in understanding and using the npc scripting system. Perhaps unexpectedly, I can think of four active art team members and likely several other infrequent contributors.

To me the positioning system was a bit of a disappointment, as it remains unfinished. For personal reasons, my time spent on the game decreased to nearly zero for more than half of 2016 and so progress was nonexistent. It remains a priority as the current system prevents the release of combat due to problems I believe cannot be resolved without rewriting it, which also opens the door to a more detailed simulation as described. We're adopting several new measures this year to increase productivity and allow development to continue despite programmer absence or departure, which will be described more fully in the third 2017 update focusing on the goals for 2017. I am however very pleased that Ted joined the team and that he was able to address several longstanding bugs that had been some of the most common sources of frustration. Positioning remains our first priority, but we will be making other changes along the way instead of letting it block all other progress.

Apart from OOC issues, simmaster duties have taken a lot more time than I would like. We're adopting more hands-off policies on certain issues that have historically taken up large amounts of time, and hopefully the incoming asims (to be announced tomorrow evening!) will be able to both address the backlog of issues we have and keep things running smoothly with less time spent on my end. There will remain things that have to be handled by me (payments, donations, and server issues), but for the most part asims will be resolving rules issues on their own. It is clear that I need to spend more of the time that I am able to dedicate to SWC on forward progress for the overall game, not cases affecting one or two players.

I would encourage anyone interested in getting involved to do a few things: first, get on IRC. It is the primary way we communicate and that will not be changing in the foreseeable future. Second, get to know the teams and people who work on things you might be interested in, in non-obtrusive ways, such as listening to the general chat in the correct team room, making a few jokes when the time is right, and slowly joining the conversation so that people learn who you are too. Third, complete team apps or contact the team leader to learn about joining, once you are familiar with how it works and want to contribute. For the dev team, which is the most in need of members, we also have additional resources on the forums regarding the types of skills you should have and how to show what you know.

Thanks for playing and sticking with us thus far, and I hope we can continue to grow as a game and community in 2017.