Dev Blog #2 Road Map
november 20. - alex
Hey there fellow anglers! Time has come for us to share the road map and the vision we have for the future of Fishing Planet.

From day one our team had a detailed vision of how an ideal fishing game should look and how it should feel.

Since the launch of Early Access we were trying to listen to all of you and take into account what you’d like to see and what would be interesting to you. To our surprise and joy both the community’s and our own Vision practically coincided. This is great as it proves that we are all on the same page.

Surely we made some changes to prioritization of features and perks that we’ll be introducing, but the overall image of the game will stay as planned from the very beginning. This only goes to prove once again that all anglers from all over the world think alike and essentially want the same things.

But we are not only good at planning and feeling what you may want, we really do what we say and throughout last three month since we've launched Fishing Planet we have proven that. Just take a look at a shortened list of things we've done:

New big lake added
Big Halloween event
Support for 2 new platforms added MacOsX, Linux
Intense optimization
45 features and functionality items added
12 Fish species added
3 reels added
4 rods added
New tackle type added - Crank-baits
43 lures added
About 26 known bug issues fixed
Multiple achievements added
and a lot more...


Now, we shall share what we plan on doing in future and the following list of features is divided into phases according to the time-frame of delivery.

This is only a less than a year perspective. We have a lot more in our heads =)

PHASE 1 FUNCTIONALITY CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Friends functionality (first iteration)
* Ability to choose and join a common chat room with your friends on the waterway
* Ability to invite friends to the game and get rewards for that
* Chat improvements for the “Friends” feature
* Ability to send a gift to a friend

Multiplayer
* Competitions
* Challenges
* Sportfishing Tournaments
* Tournament Series
* Tournament Ranks
* Tournament items and tackle

Quests with NPCs
* Bulletin/Announcement board on waterways with quests, news and many more interactions
* Quest items – unique items and tackle available only upon quest completion
* Catch-able water plants, trash and other stuff from the lakes’ bottom (boots, weird and scary stuff)

Free roaming across entire shorelines for the majority of current waterways
* Additional location on Michigan next week and a bigger shoreline available for walking near the Lighthouse

Further improvement of visual and physical tackle behavior to enhance realism

Introduction of new animations when landing the fish (no more teleport)

Fish AI improvements
* Fish AI in terms of physical behavior

Additional bobber size tuning

Christmas Event
* New trout specialized waterway that’ll stay after the event
* New clothing items (with corresponding visualization. and yes, you’ll have the opportunity to dry-clean your flannel shirt;)
* Additional fun features to make the holidays a bit brighter
* New achievements
* New tackle
* New fish species


PHASE 2 FUNCTIONALITY PLANNED FOR NEAR FUTURE (3 MONTHS PERSPECTIVE)

Additional Events

Introduction of Bottom fishing

Additional fish species, including European fish species
* 80 real-life simulation fish species
* Additional rare occasional hybrids or mutant fish for quests

New various lures

New rods and reels

New waterways, including European lakes and rivers

Global map re-conceptualization (Dashboard Globe and UI improvement)

Basic fishing system improvement
* Fish escape system improvements
* Snag re-balancing and parameterization
* Ability to walk during a fish fight
* Drag functionality improvement
* UI tension/load indication improvement (additional indicators will be introduced)
* Fish fight intensification

Leveling and Travel system improvement
* Waterways will be open for travelling, no more level locks

Item Damage and Wear logics system improvement
* Additional indication for item durability

Fish AI re-conceptualization,
* diminishing hot-spots
* diminishing similar fish weights and overall predictability

Game economy overhaul (new currency, premium account improvement with addition of premium features without hurting F2P model)

Additional weather conditions and fine-tuning of current weather conditions

Enabling night fishing

Controller support (additional UI\UX improvements)

Tackle re-balance
* Enabling additional tackle parameters that are now inactive for rods and reels to make the tackle spread across levels more balanced

Waders, Boots, Clothing
* Ability to enter water when in waders and additional equipment-based functionality

License system re-balancing

Achievement re-balancing

Introduction of Steam achievements

Visualized fishing tips (i.e. 3D splashes on water, minor fish activity due to predator activity, etc.)

Video tutorials


PHASE 3 FUNCTIONALITY PLANNED FOR 3+ MONTH PERSPECTIVE

Introduction of Teams

Introduction of Clubs

Introduction of Kayaks

Introduction of Motor boats – walleye boats, bass boats (various boat models, engines, fuel tank)

Introduction of sounders and sonars

Introduction of huge lakes (some will be replicas of real huge waterways and take 20 real-time minutes to cross on a motorboat)

3D Avatars with customization

Introduction of Co-Angling (what could be better than pushing your buddy in the water from a boat;)

Introduction of tackle, vehicle customization

Camera improvement
* Introduction of free head movement
* Additional camera focus during a fish fight on the spot in the water with the fish

3D screenshots (taking a photo with your catch is cool, right)

Crates and keys, fun gameplay mechanics

Auction for in game items (premium accounts)

Introduction of netting – alone and while co-angling

Introduction of multiple rods support

Ability to choose how to cast

More weather conditions and improvement session

Virtual reality support

PS4 and XBOX

UWA (Windows Store)

Mac Store


PHASE 4 FUNCTIONALITY PLANNED FOR 6+ MONTHS PERSPECTIVE

Introduction of Pets (Dogs, Cats, Spouse)

Introduction of Fly fishing

Crafting (lures/groundbaits/boilies/flies)

Additional tutorials

Addition of messages and notifications in game

Local shop assortment enhancement

Introduction of cars and vehicles

Introduction of residential property

Introduction of Club HQ

Addition 3D UI for tackle change (similar to first-person shooters)

Introduction of Trophy room with taxidermist services

Introduction of 3D Garage with your boats, tackle and vehicles

Adding more lures making the variety enormous

Introduction of kits and sets