Project Eternity - Post-Funding Update #55

The Vertical Slice is just that, a cross section (think of it as a slice of bread cut out from the middle of a loaf) of the world of Project Eternity. At the end of this phase the game will be feature complete, and the content building portion of the team, including area designers, environment artists, and character artists can make shippable content now. Our Vertical Slice is eleven maps large; encompassing our village and dungeon from Prototype 2, and the dungeon and wilderness area from Prototype 1 (we call this area "The Valley of Hector" internally).

The content from the prototypes are refactored to fit within the context of the world and overall story of the game. Feature-wise, we are targeting to have the majority of the world building tools complete and all of the character classes playable up to level five.

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Larger version - The above image is a vertical slice dungeon concept by Polina. Her paint-over will be used as reference for the polish pass.
Here are our current tasks that we are working on right now:

Art

• Modeling Hide Armor for Male and Females - Hide armor has been challenging to model and texture with skin tinting because there's a lot of skin shown.

• Creating Orlan Heads - This includes modeling differences for the Wild and Hearth ethnicities.

• Polishing Prototype 2 Areas to "Beta" - Extra shine is put into the areas to make them feel more alive and varied.

Design

• Creating the Vertical Slice Area Design Document - The designers are adding more content to the world and fleshing out the village with additional quests.

• Designing and Coding the Class Abilities for the Cipher and Chanter - The Cipher and his "focus" powered spells are working, and now Tim Cain is working out the Chanter phrase system.

Programming

• Coding up the Save/Load and the Persistence System - This entails saving and loading games, and making sure the current map state is preserved across area transitions.

• Wrapping up the Area Designer Toolbox - Doors, encounters, traps, triggers, loot, NPCs, and creatures can all be placed and manipulated through script.

Spells and Ability Audit

This morning Josh emailed me a list of working class abilities and spells. I'm excited to say that we have 54 abilities and 51 functioning spells as of today! Most of the spells are at the alpha stage, meaning another pass will be done at a later date to add visual effects and sound effects.

UI Version #2

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on our UI mockups that Rob posted last week in Update #54. We loved everyone's proposed mockups and your discussions sparked some great ideas for the next iteration on the interface. We've already mocked up a new version that takes up less vertical space and is more compact overall. Once we feel it's ready to be critiqued, we will post it in a future update for more discussion.

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Dr. A said:

That dungeon image immediately made me think of Irenicus' dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2. So excited!

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azarhal said:

It really does look like a "IE" game. I don't think it's nostalgia goggles.

We might ended up with BG1/BG2 conversion at some point for it. Ahahaha.

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Couchpotato said:

Not might more than likely will. Just look at the newly released Baldur's Gate Reloaded. Where there's a will, there's a way. It took seven years for that

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Drithius said:

Except some spoiled wankers will always bemoan how the engine is "outdated" if and when the project is completed by a skeleton crew.

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Dr. A said:

That dungeon image immediately made me think of Irenicus' dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2. So excited!

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wolfen said:

For once I wanna see dungeons in roleplaying games that are pitch black.This dungeon looks to be occupied so lighting is accepted but dark dank unvisited tombs etc should not have torches every few feet.Give us torches to carry and drop when in battle or the choice of forcing a magic user to learn a spell.

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rune_74 said:

That was by far the worst part of baldurs gate 2….heh.

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rune_74 said:

That was by far the worst part of baldurs gate 2….heh.

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