One thing you might notice as early access games try out Ares 2.0 is that the web client screen is gone. I mean this screen:
I know some folks are attached to it, so I wanted to explain why it was removed.
Under the hood, Ares has two main types of connections - “game clients” for MU Client players, and “web clients” for async updates to a browser tab.
The Web Client screen required a third type that was kinda a game client, but also kinda a web client. It was convoluted, making the code more complicated and therefore harder to maintain. As I was making updates for 2.0 and looking at maybe changing the websocket implementation, this was a big obstacle.
With the addition of the Play screen and the shift to more web play over MU client play, it felt like the Web Client screen’s time had passed.
I know one reason people still use it is to check out a game as a guest from the web portal, and I did put a lot of consideration into this scenario to see if there was a way to replicate that feature. There isn’t a good solution IMHO.
Shared guest accounts just don’t make sense in a web app, and fully anonymous access to channels/pages is infeasible - you need a character object to identify where they came from.
You can see a LOT about Ares games just by browsing the portal without logging in. If you need to ask questions, it only takes a few seconds to make up a throwaway character. This is pretty much the standard for every modern web app for both practical and security reasons. (Also remember that you can rename yourself in Ares - no staff required - up until you’re approved.)
I understand that some players may be frustrated by this, but hopefully this helps to explain why this change was made. I do not remove features lightly.