As the embers of Christmas die down and fade into memory it's time to look at what we have planned for the new year. Within most MOD teams the Christmas Holidays represent the quietest time of development , members head home for the holidays and activity drops off.

It's around this of year that we kickstart development again and start rounding up members. This has of course coincided nicely with the full release of the RO2 SDK yesterday. (which has been featured below if you managed to miss it!)

PCGamer RO2 SDK News
RPS RO2 SDK News
ModDB RO2 SDK News

So what's our biggest challenge heading into 2012? I think that the biggest challenge facing RO2 mods in the new year is the pervasive negativity surrounding RO2 since it's bumpy launch last year. This represents a challenge for all mod teams for numerous reasons. There is now greater expectation for the MODs to deliver a game experience many feel isn't currently being delivered by RO2. Added to this is the feeling that by the time that the MODs have been released there won't be much of a player base left to sustain a MOD and also a general lack of enthusiasm for RO2.

However we at Pop Smoke are still confident that RO2 has a bright future. With this latest patch we've seen the continued support from Tripwire and we only expect this to grow with greater improvements and refinments in the coming months from both Tripwire and the MOD community in general that will bring players back and bring new players in. Our work is now to convince people the same. I hope you all agree with me.

So our number one priority is still to deliver an original and realistic Vietnam War experience. We are of course well aware that we will also be needing to keep up interest in our MOD in terms of new media and news on content and this is something that's being worked on.

The future is bright, the future is RO2