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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: 7/03/08, 11:08 AM CDT - James |
There are many exciting things happening that are relevant to Loria. Unfortunately, I am not able to say any of them. Just know that these things will be extremely good for us and that they currently look very optimistic. You can bet that as soon as I am able to say it, I will. It's taking all of my strength of will to not say it, but I have to remember that nothing is final at this time.
Also, next week (July 6th-11th), Bob and I will be out of town. |
| Update: 6/04/08, 9:13 AM CDT - James |
Monday we spent all of our time planning out what we were going to do in June: the battle revamp. We discussed how we want battle to work and then divided it up into smaller chunks so we could work on it simultaneously. We laid out all of our plans on Monday because this weekend is the "Weekend of Code" where we will try to get through as much of the battle revamp as possible using every waking hour this weekend to code. I have seriously never been more excited about the game than Monday night. It's going to be so incredibly awesome. For now, my lips are sealed. Okay...I'll tell you one thing: multi-player and multi-monster battles will finally be a reality! Players will be able to band together in what we're calling Fellowships (because I love Tolkien). But not only is this cool, we're streamlining battle like never before. I also have some other surprises in store for the players, but again, they will stay surprises for now. In the 5 years this game has been running, I've never had so many things that I wanted to tell the players. When all of this comes together, it will be the best browser-based game on the internet, hands down!
Also, we're only slightly behind on completing our May goals. But I'm confident we can have them finished before this weekend since the only things left are the new character sheet and enabling music (Kudos to Matt for working his butt off on the messages and market). |
| Update: 5/20/08, 4:09 PM CDT - James |
One of the things we're doing while working on the next version of Loria is taking a hard look at every piece of the game and its interface. When we release this, every part will have been touched and changed in some way. Upgraded is a good word. For instance, the current character sheet is crowded and hard to use. We'll be changing that by having several "tabs" to view different sections of your character's information, as well as some cool user interface enhancements. We're also going to make the character creation page alot more in-depth by turning it into a step-by-step process where there is a description of each race and class.
That reminds me, in the next version, race will actually do something beyond affecting your starting stats and equipment. It's about time. |
| Update: 5/16/08, 8:04 AM CDT - James |
Wow. Game development is progressing at lightspeed. To echo Bob's sentiments, I must admit that this is going far better than we ever thought it would. I really think that at least some of that speed is because we have a cool progress tracker where we can put up things that need to be done in an organized manner, claim them, and then either give them up or finish them. What this allows for is keeping us from working on the same thing, and making all kinds of concurrent progress possible.
It's exciting to finally see the game come together without any sort of screen refreshing. It's more exciting to think of what comes next! Yesterday I had a revelation that will make this game even more like an MMO in your browser. I'm not going to tell what it is just yet, but let's just say it's amazing! It will also speed up single-player gameplay, while making multi-player gameplay easy. I'm seriously having to hold myself back from telling you what it is...it's that cool. While the idea was mine, I must give mad props to Corren for letting us use his talents to complete this idea. The concept work that he's already shown me is truly awesome.
Get excited about Loria. |
| 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. |
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