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"A Free Blog That Is Old-School Blogging Done Right!" - James
James' Developer's Blog! Want to know what James thinking about The Realms of Loria? Want to know his vision for the future of the game? Then you've come to the right place!
| Update: 1/09/08, 7:41 AM CST - James |
| This semester I've got 2 graduate classes: Cellular Neuroscience and Systems Neuroscience. One meets on Monday/Wednesday the other on Tuesday/Thursday. Needless to say, I'm suddenly really busy since I also still work full time. I am still adamant about finishing this latest update and also writing the world generating script, it just may take two weeks to get there. Sorry for the delay, believe me, I think about it quite a bit. |
| Update: 11/06/07, 2:24 PM CST - James |
This Thursday (Nov. 8th) I will be giving my presentations in Washington DC at the DC PHP Conference. Both of my presentations are on Thursday. I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous about giving my first professional presentations, but they are done, peer-reviewed, and I think ready to go.
After that is over, I'll have one huge weight off of my shoulders. The only thing left will be to finish out my Neuroanatomy class (Nov. 26th). After that, it should be smooth sailing and hopefully after a few days of nothing but playing video games I can get start a month of updates. My plan is to try and put out some update (however small) every day in December. My aim is to make most of the updates content updates. |
| Update: 10/25/07, 8:33 AM CDT - James |
Yeah, I know that game development has slowed down. I know that we promised a new version of the game and it's overdue by about two years now. I realize all of these things. Don't think that I don't, because I do. I also know that many of the old players are frustrated about it. Some have even left, and I'm sorry for that. Know that the slow development frustrates me too. The sad reality is that I have a full time job and I go to graduate school. It's incredibly hard to get any work on the game done when you're either at work, in class, or studying for said class.
But, I have about 6 weeks off for Christmas break. I plan on putting out as much content as I possibly can during that time. I'd decided that I am going to focus on storyline quests until there's at least more of a storyline than there currently is. I'm tired of the game not having a real storyline. If you recall, each addition of storyline comes with 3 quests (Good, neutral, and evil). Hopefully I'll be able to get several new additions out over the break.
Please be patient with me as I work to keep the game going. Thank you. |
| Update: 9/07/07, 2:40 PM CDT - James |
| A request to the older players: I'd like to ask that several of our veteran players make brand new characters (consult amongst yourselves as to who gets which class, but please, try them all) and then start from scratch with NO equipment from other characters (like you would play if you were a first-timer and no one helped you). I'd like to know how the game players for spell casters and non spell casters now with the combat and spell resistance changes. Please post in the message board under the general board with your findings. Thank you. |
| Update: 9/05/07, 4:38 PM CDT - James |
I'm to try and talk to the dev team (possibly hold a shorter meeting this Saturday) and discuss the damage gimp, and look at what it's doing and how we can address the concerns of the players who want it removed, without taking away the obvious benefit/reason it was originally put into place: to stop level 50 players from killing level 250 blue dragons. I want to keep the game fun and entertaining. I also listen to the players and apparently they are saying that it's not doing what we meant it to do. So, we'll look into it.
Also, I want everyone to know that we will continue to listen to your feedback about the changes to the combat/spell resistance system. We're not done with it until the community is satisfied that it's fair and at the same time doesn't destroy everyone's hard work that they have put into their characters. |
| Update: 8/16/07, 1:14 PM CDT - James |
Well, I've been accepted to grad school at UTD (where Bob is a grad student and Matt is an undergrad) in the program of Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. Yippie! I am adjusting my busy schedule such that this doesn't affect me too much (for instance, I'm dropping what I do on Wednesday evenings completely).
As I mentioned in my last blog post, the quest of the week is on hold until September due to all the real life stuff that I've been dealing with. My wife and I finally closed on our house (3 weeks late) and will be moving in this weekend. Plus, my first class starts this Monday: Human Functional Neuroanatomy. Things are coming together and settling down, and I believe that come September I will have time to work on the game on a more regular basis. We'll see how things go once we get there. |
| Update: 7/22/07, 7:45 AM CDT - James |
Well, as I feared, I have had to work this entire weekend. It's been a big pain, and I'm really, really tired. This relocating the company thing isn't all that great. heh. Next weekend is my anniversary and we're taking a trip for the whole weekend, so I won't even have internet access or free time to sit at my computer. The weekend after that, we're moving from our apartment to our house we're buying in about five days. After THAT (second weekend in August, I think), I *might* have some spare time, but I doubt it considering everything that comes with buying a new house.
So, I am hereby announcing that my "quest of the week" is postponed until September once all this real-life junk clears up. I'm sorry to do this to everyone, but I want to keep you at a realistic expectation, instead of hoping for something I can't do.
And don't worry, the game isn't dead. Not by a long shot. |
| Update: 7/03/07, 6:05 PM CDT - James |
Well, it seems that my quest of the week has turned more into a "quest of the month". I do apologize for this, and I should have realized when I posted the announcement that July would be a bad month for me to do any sort of quests. My company is moving its headquarters office to a new office as well as opening a new branch office in the next city over. I'm a programmer technically in the I.T. department and thus required to help with the moves. Plus, all next week I'm on vacation, which is the week between the two office moves. The weekend after the headquarters office move, is my anniversary trip which will that entire weekend.
Needless to say, I'm ridiculously busy with work, plus I volunteer at a local Boy Scout troop as the Committee Chairman, and attend church events on 3 weeknights every week. My personal time is so very limited, and it kills me that I don't have more time to work on the game. Thus, my only time is weekends, which in July are definitely full. I will try to squeeze out the rest of this quest while on vacation, but don't count on it 100%.
Thank you to all in the community for your understanding and support. |
| Update: 3/08/07, 3:26 PM CST - James |
Antaria was one of the first tilesets that we made was the Antaria tileset. I am highly considering remaking it entirely. Since we put it out two years ago, Reiner has come out with lots more tiles that would look great in the capital city.
To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I'll go through some examples. The walls we made were heavily photoshopped, as well as the towers. The road tile was warped from a diagonal tile to a square tile. The arena building is a direct rip of the coliseum in Rome, and all the temples were literally custom made in photoshop as a conglomeration of many different tile sets. The VERY first tileset that we made that is still in the game today is the Antaria Castle tileset, which today is the worst (in my opinion) and is also the starting location of new players. This could affect how they view the game, and probably needs to look cooler, so I'd like to give Castle Antaria a face-lift too.
So, not only have I been thinking about remaking the tilesets, but while I'm at it, making it a city of 4x4 maps, instead of 3x3. Yes, that would make the city bigger by 7 maps, but I think it needs it. We need places to put all this stuff that we want to put into the game. As of right now, we're running out of space and it seems more and more like a fort town than a capital city. I also want to expand the castle and make it larger (you know, like a real castle) with more room for NPCs for quests and such.
On the message board in the general forum, please post your response to these ideas. Thank you. |
| Update: 2/09/07, 11:46 AM CST - James |
So, I have been neglecting this blog for a while and so now I'm gonna make a post with my thoughts. I frequently check up on our competitors to see what's new in the browser gaming universe. One of them that I check up on frequently is Adventure Quest. I went there today, and it really just hit me: that entire game is just one big advertisement to buy something. The whole game is made so that people will become guardians or buy z-tokens, or whatever else they're selling. The Realms of Loria will never be like that, ever. We're not going to wave something in front of your face and say "Look what you could get if you just paid us a LITTLE more!" We're never going to have secret areas only available to paying customers. We're never going to make you pay to play any part of this game. We might ask that you click an advertisement every now and then, but that's about it. Why? Because making money off of this game has never been our goal. Sure it'd be nice to be payed to do this, but our goal has and will always be: providing a cool RPG in your browser for FREE. Completely FREE.
Anyway...I'll get off of my soap box now. |
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