Status Report

Heh, all the times I saw that sig I never thought it was about JO (Since JA never seems to refer to Jedi Academy, and I was tired of getting my hopes up). There ya go.

Status Update

where-in Ted explains how things went from 'get there one day!!!' to 'omg almost there!!!', and the prices that were paid. Not just by the gerbils, either...

So, what's in the up-coming full release?

Let's call it the 'LN' plotline...

Did you ever notice the LN plotline in ToEE was rubbish?

Mayor of Greyhawk: "Our friends to the West in Verbobonc have some bandit issues. Please go and interfere in their affairs, 1st level adventuring party".

PC: "Of course sir, they surely have no law enforcement capacty of their own. So what's my starting quest?"

MoG: "Deal with the bandits".

PC: "No seriously, whats my hook? Talk to a Druid? Find some Elves? Maybe a non-taxing gratuitous starting battle somewhere?"

MoG: "Just deal with the bandits".

PC: "....is that a rod in your butt?"

MoG: "Why yes, yes it is thankyou".

Sad to say, I have not been able to come up with anything much better for KotB. I've had some ideas, but none of any impressivosity. So, I am skipping the LN plotline and treating it as the 'generic' plot: you show up and just play whats in front of you. Caves to be explored? Have at it! Castellan to suck up to? Go right ahead! Creepy cleric wants a spider? One more time with gusto!

So basically you can play from beginning to end (there will be an ending after you deal with the Caves) and get to experience the whole game, except for:

- the alignment plotlines of the other alignments

- the Orc Caves, which aren't finished

- the stuff in release 2.

Whats in release 2? Well, the LG, LE, CG and CN plotlines, for starters. LE is pretty much already finished (I played it right through a few months back, just a couple of bits at the end to tinker) and LG is massively advanced, the Chaotic ones are coming along well (or were until I stopped working on them to get this current release finished). Also:

- fully developed NPCs (good ones won't tolerate murder, evil ones will have an agenda etc).

- the Keep will function as a trading post (not the 'lots of vendors' approach Gaear is taking with Verbobonc, but rather being in the Merchant's Guild will mean being able to make money trading goods you find: silks and such (not spider silk, proper bolts of silk). grog, that sort of thing).

Why am I telling you this? To explain these things WON'T be in the first release: the NPCs will still be fun and have plot-related moments that make them worth bringing along, but they will also go off-alignment without much complaint. Likewise, the bulk-goods trading at the moment is very hit and miss.

Also, certain areas of the game that I literally haven't touched in years (the burrows beneath the spider woods, the graveyard etc) will be thoroughly overhauled. I have a lot of plans for them, but won't hold up the first release implementing them...

What about the neutral plotlines? These will be the hardest to implement (I have barely touched them at this point) so for now, while you can play LN as the generic run through, you can also play NG and NE for people who want Chaotic party members (and so you can play an evil party and enjoy all the Caves have to offer).

Why this approach? By making the decision to focus on finishing the Caves and getting an ending in place, rather than literally going in 9 different directions at once, I have been able to push through, do the Caves and Inner Keep, and we are now nearly finished something that can be played all the way through, albeit without an alignment-specific focus, just yet.

That probably raises more questions than it answers, but ask away by all means

 

Hopefully in a couple of months. I won't put a specific timeline on it as I don't have that much control over my life atm to live up to it. But Iwill updae on here how we are progressing more often

 

Mine was B3. I played an Elf. The game descended into a fiasco, with us throwing the halfling between those swinging blade thingys you see on the back.

Slight slow-down in production due to RL (see Cam-Hos thread) and doing some Co8 stuff, but otherwise, Korrak's crew has expanded, and the SoEC is being tinkered still.