Hello, everyone! This year, my resolution is to keep you more updated about the bot's progress on a month-to-month basis. Updates so far have been sporadic, few, and sometimes even far between, but my goal is to change that starting now and keep you all updated on the latest regarding the bot.
Changes
January began with addressing issues reported in December. Despite taking a short break over the holidays, I made significant strides in improving the bot's performance on the larger scale it has become over the past few months.
The bot has been moved to an entirely new host, greatly improving its performance due to lower latency. There is now no downtime, except when applying updates. This change allows for more creativity with the bot in the future and enables quicker interaction.
In the commands department, January introduced a few new ones: !weeklyimage, !clips, and !loading. The latter two are Premium commands meant to be fun and informative about the game. The Weekly Images feature was added for added utility.
A new data source for information within the bot has been implemented, allowing for more accurate effects for food items and tonics. Horse stats are now directly linked to the game's statistics, providing greater accuracy. New emotes for different effects have been added, supporting Discord clients with light themes better.
Support for non-alphabetic characters has been added to all images. Japanese, Chinese, and Korean users will no longer see squares when looking for a specific image. This change improves internal performance and facilitates easier implementation of new images.
Search
The bot has been updated with an improved search engine. This allows for quicker results, depending on the complexity of the search. The overall search architecture improvement makes the response to !find much more snappy than before.
Ongoing monitoring of search queries that yield no results will lead to further changes and improvements as needed.
Next Month
In February, plans include implementing more changes focusing on the general functionality of the bot. Improving translations and translation support is a priority, allowing Newswire articles and game updates to be retrieved in different languages where supported.
A new Red Dead-themed level system is in the works, allowing users to gain XP over time to earn roles. This system aims to mirror how levels are displayed in the game.
The bot will be updated with new items added to the RDO Map, with a focus on improving search capabilities for locations of Bounties.
Thank You
I cannot express enough how much I appreciate all the support. Despite challenging times affecting the bot's development, I am committed to providing you with the most comprehensive knowledge base for the game we all love (or love to hate).
Cheers, and see you next month with another update!