So I spent several months there just writing code like an insane monkey with a caffeine addiction... I'm spending the week cleaning house and making sure all my ducks are in a row to continue implementing the new story objectives that I wrote up. There's a LOT of code in this pile that doesn't even really apply anymore.
I had built a pretty solid mining claim system so the open world could regulate access to the mining resources. That's not exactly necessary for this segment of the story, so all of that got commented out today. As well, I had a Land Deed system in place that won't see the light of day for quite some time. These were each several hundred lines of code both on the server side AND on the client side.
It actually feels good to have those bits of code on ice for the moment. They really are features that aren't going to be even remotely useful until I have a large player-base and a story-line that encourages that kind of activity. Not there yet.
I've also been working on the UI, re-aligning the theme to match the new story line. It's just a start, but I already like it more.
As you can also see, the spheres I was using for testing out the NPCs are now replaced with the first actual NPCs, RepairBots!! They're pretty lame so far, just following around the player, with only one speed of animation atm, so it looks pretty funny when the character is running and the npc is speedwalking behind it.
I've also been working on the UDP network protocol bits, that whole bit of code will look a little different here in a few days. Because I'm terribly strange and I enjoy working with strings, sometimes I'll prototype things using them... And sometimes, most of the time, I keep using them for a little too long... 
I'm pretty much done with my prototyping now. So now it's time to do away with all the strings I tied it all together with. Truthfully I should have converted it all over to byte[]'s a while ago, before I had so many methods to re-touch.. But such is my process.. hahahaha!!
The good news is, it was pretty easy to build secondary code paths where necessary so I can run the string based net protocol right beside the new byte[] based one. Well, so long as the transition is under-way anyhow. I'll have no need for the string version when I'm done.
So, yeah, more NPC fun, UI redesigns, and net-code rewrites.. That's my life! 
I like the
Nice.
I like the Repair Bots. 
Do you have plans to have world crafting and items built by the community?