I'm excited to share that after months of hard work, Huaxu V3 is finally here! This update represents a significant milestone in Huaxu’s evolution, as it now supports all servers of Punishing: Gray Raven — not just the global server!

For those unfamiliar with Huaxu, Huaxu is a platform designed for players to explore profiles outside the game, track historical leaderboards, discover guilds, and read the in-game story.

With the launch of Huaxu V3, players from the Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean servers can now take advantage of these features.

Development Highlights

The path to V3 has been quite a journey, involving an enormous overhaul of the backend code to support the various data sources and address inconsistencies across different servers. Some servers are significantly ahead of others, making compatibility a real challenge!

Moreover, I’ve revamped Huaxu’s user interface with a sleek new design, which also introduces the site-wide server selector. This feature allows you to choose which server’s data you want to view and works seamlessly across all pages, including the story reader.

These enhancements also set the stage for upcoming features, with the sidebar providing ample space for upcoming additions like the Overview page and Shops.

Known Limitations

Despite overcoming numerous challenges during development, a few limitations still exist.

Onslaught PPC Data

At this time, Huaxu cannot introspect Onslaught PPC. Accessing this data requires you to reach the score threshold for Onslaught every week, and maintaining active accounts on each server like this is not currently feasible due to my limited resources.

Translations

Huaxu nearly exclusively utilizes in-game data, which allows me, as a solo developer, to rapidly update when patches drop. However, this does mean there is no easy path to translated content for non-English servers, or vice versa. Since the English version is several months behind, many items and descriptions will be missing if I attempted to use global data to translate other servers.

This, combined with me not knowing whether the translations are a worthwhile development cost, has led me to decide not to include translations for Huaxu’s UI or game content at this time. However, please do reach out if you feel like translations are a must-have feature! This doubly applies if you’re willing to help with translations, as I’d love to collaborate with multilingual players to enhance Huaxu’s accessibility for everyone.

Upcoming Features

Huaxu is just getting started! With V3 now live, I’ll keep working on the features mentioned in last month’s Road to V3 post.

Here’s what’s coming up:

• Overview Page: A general overview of the game that includes current patch details and important events like Warzone/PPC rotations, banners, and upcoming happenings.
• Shops: A detailed list of in-game shops and their offerings. For RC shops, I’ll share tips on maximizing value (pack efficiency).
• Permalinks: Easily share the exact page you’re viewing with others for a uniform experience.
• Story Reader Enhancements: New features for the story reader, such as additional character portraits and better navigation through the story.

Want to help out?

To expand Huaxu’s features even further, I’m looking for frontend developers or designers to assist in building the platform. My design skills are somewhat limited, and I would love to partner with someone who can elevate the user experience and improve the platform’s design.

If this sounds like you, please reach out — I’d be thrilled to collaborate!

Wrapping Up

I’m thrilled to finally share this update! While it might not significantly change things for players on the global server, who have had access to Huaxu for over a year, I hope it proves to be a valuable resource for players on other servers.

If you have any questions, feedback, ideas, or just want to let me know you're enjoying Huaxu, don’t hesitate to contact me through any of the social links below. I’m always eager to hear from you!

~ nova

• blacknovatech
• [email protected]
• @blacknovatech