That said, I still have no plans for maintenance or upgrading the site. I haven't looked or touched the Sea3D client code in over seven years. It's poorly written (even if it looks and plays well), and based on technology that is almost a decade old now. I don't even have the code that connects with the site anymore, which means that even if I wanted to, the effort of upgrading the Sea3D client would be entirely not worth it. (And I don't wan't to anyway.)

That brings me to what I do actually like working on, and that is the Cities Online client and site. For those unaware, Cities Online is a complete rewrite of the Sea3D client (though very similar in UI and graphics), but which also includes all of the rules for Cities and Knights, as well as being a much better foundation for adding new rules as well as being (theoretically) cross-platform.

The Cities Online client is essentially done (though still needing some polish), and most of my time, when I have it, is spent working on the site, http://www.settlersonline.net. Right now it's pretty basic, but I have started adding to it again in the last couple weeks. I'll be clear: my ultimate goal is to replace s3dconnector.net with settlersonline.net, moving the new site to the dedicated server here and sunsetting the current site. There are a wide variety of issues with s3dconnector.net that aren't ever going to go away, because the problem is with the Sea3D client, which can't be updated. Cities Online is several orders of magnitude more secure than Sea3D, and the new site is designed to relieve some of the systemic issues with Sea3D, like finding hosts, cheating, multiple nicknames, etc.

So, the long-term is Cities Online at http://www.settlersonline.net. For those looking for a specific date, you should know better by now. ;) I don't have a concrete timeline, because a lot of it depends on how much time I can devote to the site, which is rather cyclical. I am devoting time to it right now, though, and Cities Online is seeing some real progress. I encourage people to check it out and give the new client a try. Cities & Knights is a lot of fun, and the site itself is much better integrated into the client than s3dconnector ever was or will be.

Thanks again to everyone who has donated (and, of course, Klaus Teuber). My goal for writing this implementation of the game has always been to create a place where people can have fun together in a worldwide community. Keeping it free and user supported is just the right thing to do.