Saving and loading of players equipment and all of the objects in the world (Player created, plants, items, decorations.. whatever) has been completely finished and now save to a database.. :). The loading proccess is very fast and uses very little network bandwidth.
Also included in this is... Holstering weapons (1H & 2H weapons coded).
All of this was tough but was lots and lots of fun to work on! Check out this preview:
So... fighting monsters with weapons a'la rune factory. Neat.
Will this have any NPC interaction and story arcs a'la Harvest Moon and Rune factory?
Well.. I want NPCs to be limited. I want the whole world driven by players interacting with each other... Since players will be able to buy out land areas and build.. It would be awesome if stores were actually player built buildings and the gear sold would be items the player (Or someone else) has crafted or found. But some NPC will exist.. Such as a tutorial guide, and a quest giver of some sort. Or I am thinking of having a town board that can be built for players to post quests for one another and offer rewards for completion.
I'm not sure too much on what the story will be or how it will be told but ideas are always brewing :).
Also.. yes... instead of boring wild life.. I'm heading towards various creatures/monsters to hunt, and capture to harvest items from and breed. Etc.