Project Update: Tools (4/15/2017)

[Atlas]

Greetings Runners,

I've decided to make the monthly status update threads a regular thing again. I'm going to do my best to stuff them full of information that everyone will be interested in. Out of all the ideas we've thrown out there and were well received by the community, these threads were one of the greatest ideas. So, with that short introduction out of the way let's get down to the brass tacks:

1) The most important detail to mention this month is the fact that we are getting a major tool update. Therenall has been working on updating our capability to work on all the def files, and this tool alone affects a lot of people in multiple teams. I'm waiting on this, Lykos is waiting on this, Hyperion needs a piece of this pie... so we are all greatly anticipating the completion of this. Wizard has even pulled away from netcode for what seemed like only a week to complete a tool for us as well! From what I hear, and I've been pestering the guy almost daily about this, is he just needs some down time from his job to knock out the finishing touches.

What this all means is that we will no longer have to use so much time doing things the "old fashioned way" which takes seemingly forever. Busting open files with text editors, scrolling through endless lines of nonsense... this is imperative for a team using their free time to develop Neocron. Let's put it this way: if we have say only two hours a day to dedicate to Neocron development, it would be very beneficial for the team as a whole that we can use the majority of that time for raw development, rather than using so much time to do cumbersome things to squeeze out a smaller amount of progress.

2) Finally, I would like some input from everyone on how these will proceed. What sort of information would you like to hear about in the next update (5/15/2017)? There have been other bricks laid out this month so far, but the most influential development has been the tool upgrades mentioned above.

[Roger Ramjet]

2) Finally, I would like some input from everyone on how these will proceed. What sort of information would you like to hear about in the next update (5/15/2017)? There have been other bricks laid out this month so far, but the most influential development has been the tool upgrades mentioned above.

Just whatever information you can provide I guess, no matter how minute. I personally enjoy seeing how even the little stuff is being changed, and for people who pop in occaisonally it gives them something to peruse over and show them progress is being made.

[Atlas]

Just whatever information you can provide I guess, no matter how minute. I personally enjoy seeing how even the little stuff is being changed, and for people who pop in occaisonally it gives them something to peruse over and show them progress is being made.

Yeah, I feel you I will keep that in mind for the next time and start actually taking a few notes here and there from the private team chats.

For a while there we were thinking about having me take over finishing up the vendor wave for beta completion. At the end of the day we ended up going into this tool update direction so that Lykos could keep up the good work and use his time more efficiently. I'm going to focus again on my community, lore, and level design responsibilities since he is going to continue that. I did some work on it a while ago, but that was simply to try to make Lykos' tasks quicker.

Now, we will soon have the ultimate "quicker."

[William Antrim]

Id like to see two lists of "stuff".

One - what you have achieved since the last update.

Two - what you would like to achieve by the next one - even if you dont actually achieve it.

This way I can see actual progress to get excited about. I like to pop in here once a month or so and this sort of thing would be amazing for me.

[Atlas]

I like to pop in here once a month or so and this sort of thing would be amazing for me.

You're exactly the kind of person I want to cater these updates to, so yeah that's a great suggestion.

[Brand]

you guys said something about that you had many ideas what you want to change or add to neocron. like some ideas what you wanted to do with the wastelands. so what kind of basic ideas do you guys have about how nc economic and wasteland. how do you imagine things will change in terms of nc content and team playstyle other than having op fights. i kinda have no idea in which direction you want to go and how far you go in nc changes.

[Lykos]

...

One - what you have achieved since the last update.

...

We have fixed our editing tools and can now make things even better at the BSP level.

Looking at our change log, it appears Cam and Hyperion have hammered out some textures, like around 50+ new textures for the game. Looks like Tech Haven and Viarosso got some major love. Cam also has two nice surprises for everybody in store soooo prepare yourselves for that... might need lube.

On the code side, things have shifted to full tool development mode, though I've made a few fixes in the background that didn't require a full on patch.

...

Two - what you would like to achieve by the next one - even if you dont actually achieve it.

...

Netcode. Other than that, testserver vendors because nobody wants to play with the threat of a wipe coming, so we would drop in vendors to sell your goodies. We have a lot of that testing knocked out anyway and know that people can obtain items.

Oh, and just general world and stability updates. Get ready for retail, make sure vendors are selling proper items and everything is available in game somehow.


Was that what you wanted?

[William Antrim]

We have fixed our editing tools and can now make things even better at the BSP level.

Looking at our change log, it appears Cam and Hyperion have hammered out some textures, like around 50+ new textures for the game. Looks like Tech Haven and Viarosso got some major love. Cam also has two nice surprises for everybody in store soooo prepare yourselves for that... might need lube.

On the code side, things have shifted to full tool development mode, though I've made a few fixes in the background that didn't require a full on patch.




Netcode. Other than that, testserver vendors because nobody wants to play with the threat of a wipe coming, so we would drop in vendors to sell your goodies. We have a lot of that testing knocked out anyway and know that people can obtain items.

Oh, and just general world and stability updates. Get ready for retail, make sure vendors are selling proper items and everything is available in game somehow.


Was that what you wanted?

Yeah this works for me.

The military part of me would have preferred bullet points and as many mono-syllabic words as you could muster but the sensible part of me thinks that this sort of thing is probably what alot of us "lurkers" like. The game is most definitely progressing. I look forward to reading more about it and welcome the release of the full client.