Welcome to 2004! We hope you all had a great holiday
and New Year, we did and now development is moving
quickly as various deadlines approach. This week I
thought it would be a great chance to review the progress
of each of our departments to give you a better insight
into the progress on the game.
Programming
I had a quick chat to Roxby,
our lead programmer. He tells me the main task for
the programmers right now is going through sub systems
to check everything is working before the next release
is put up. "We are also testing how the game
handles very large numbers", he continued, explaining
that stability, even at this early stage, is very
important. The programming team are also working on
the economy, the quest engine and tools, abilities
and skills.
Art
Adam informs me that all weapons
armour and animations have been finished, bar some
tweaks, and are currently being tested in game. A
handful of spells are left to tweak before they are
complete and the high-res artists are working on a
render of Fin the Fish Dragon after completing one
of Kite, one of our twins, painting Quill's beak!
World
building
With placing cities and roads
complete I went to ask Scott what his team was working
on now. Scott was busy staring at the world editor
when we chatted. "We're working on monster spawn
zones" he said. "Anything else?", I
asked, "No, just spawn zones!" he replied.
With more than five hundred square miles to cover
with critters I expect we will hear the same answer
for quite some time yet!
Operations
Phil tells me that managing
the servers, planning support, and game master recruitment
has kept his team busy. Also, his two database programmers
are in almost constant demand as various pieces of
work are completed and need integration.
First
ever Empire of the Lady screenshot!
To
usher in the New Year with a bang we present the first
ever public release of an Empire of the Lady screenshot!
The Empire of the Lady is known for its love of the
arts and high culture but also their uncompromisingly
elitist attitude. Their cities are on top of massive
pillars which stretch a hundred or more meters into
the sky and use the power of the sun to fuel their
industry and science. Those not fortunate enough to
be among the elite scrabble out a living in the slums
at the base of each city monolith.
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Letter from Gadsolme
"Tidying
away the moth eaten rags and dusty old broken
statues I found a large pile of literary volumes
that had lain forgotten for many years..."
more |
Important
Dates
Friday
16th - Dev diary
Friday 23rd - Newsletter
Monday 26th - House of Commons dev chat
Friday 30th - Dev diary.
Hot
news
-
With Christmas and New Year only just passed news
has been quiet. Regardless, RPG Vault published another
Q&A on the current status of the game and
plans for beta.
Forum
post of the week
King Satchmo has started a thread about healer
characters and playing them in Dragon Empires
and other MMORPGs..
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