We don’t play mean pranks here at Heaven’s Blessings Tiny Zoo. We don’t participate in jokes on April 1st the way much of the rest of the world does. Sometimes jokes or pranks hurt people, they cultivate mistrust, and they practice a form of lying that we do not agree with. Satan is the father of lies, and we do not wish to have any part of his destructive schemes. Jesus came to give us life, the greatest gift of all, that we might live life more abundantly. In this wise we are offering Visions for FREE from April 1st through April 5th, which coincides with Passover week and Easter weekend which culminates in the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. It isn’t nearly as powerful as the gift of eternal life that Jesus has given us, but we hope it is a blessing to you and your loved ones.
Download Visions for FREE April 1st-5th
We are presently working on an Easter patch. The play server is down today (April 1st) as it has been for the last week while we have been working in the development environment. (This is neither a joke nor a prank, it just is what it is. We’re trying to fix things!) We hope to have the last of the bugs fixed and the patch live in time for Good Friday though, so please grab your download now while it’s free and get ready to log in! We have put in a lot of new crafting recipes and some new tradeskill tools to be able to make those items in. The recipe window works (Ctrl-R) but is still a work in progress. We will be posting some of the recipes on Wikia over the next few days to compensate for this. (Would you like to help with posting recipes? Please fill out the Volunteer Application form and put a note in there that you want to help in this way.) Our tradeskill system is somewhat “hard core” by other game standards. We hope the challenge will be fun for you!
Here is an example of what crafting looks like in the game right now:
Craft an Amphora:
Gather clay from the banks of bodies of water (rivers, lakes).
Use clay on pottery wheel with a pattern scroll to make unpainted amphora.
Mining:
Crack open rocks to get minerals, metal ores and precious stones.
Grind minerals in the Mortar & Pestle to get powders.
Combine powders to create pigments.
Put the unpainted amphora with the pigment in the kiln to get a finished amphora.
Craft Olive oil:
Gather olives.
Mash olives in the Olive press with a Green Amphora to get olive oil.
Craft a pot:
Craft an ingot mold on the pottery wheel.
Use the ingot mold with the iron ore in the forge to make iron ingots.
Combine iron ingots with pot pattern scroll to make a cook pot.
Craft Unleavened Bread:
Gather pails of wheat from the wheat fields.
Pour the wheat into a cook pot at the kitchen table.
Grind the wheat into flour in the Mortar & Pestle.
Combine the flour and the olive oil in the clay oven to get Unleavened Bread.
We have recipes for perfume, roast meats, cheese, and many other things already functional in the game. We have been working pretty hard to get all these things available to do in Visions. We want the crafting experience to be meaningful. When players create something in the game it should feel like a real accomplishment and not just a quick mindless thing.
This is what we mean by semi-hard core. The recipes are relevant and meaningful. There is real effort involved in collecting the ingredients and manufacturing the ingredients into useful items. The process is relevant to how people really created things in the ancient Roman world. There is no click a button and walk away from the keyboard while the game crafts 50 identical items from ingredients in your inventory like some other games have done for their crafting experience. We wanted crafting to be an integral part of the Visions experience, and therefore are working hard to make it both fun and meaningful. Players will have to work at it, but in the end we hope the reward is worth it.
Please log in (as soon as the client is up!) and try it out. We hope it will be fun for everyone who has been looking forward to the tradeskills in Visions. Bring a friend! Now is a great time to invite friends and family to play Visions, while the download is free.
Yes, we still have expenses that need to be met. We still have to pay the internet bill and the power bill. We still need to upgrade our server so it can handle the extra zones we have been working on (you can’t see them right now because our server can’t load them all at once). But we wanted to offer the client download for free right now so people who have been wanting to play but could not afford it would be able to get in the game for our Easter event. If you do have the financial means to help us, please consider making a donation of any amount to our development team.
