Week 26

Submitted by

Mat on Mon, 2017-08-07 10:59

Hi,

On the last day of week 26, after breaking daily heat records in our region, a cold front finally emerged and came to our rescue. Unfortunately, it will only last a couple days before the Saharan heat hits us again, but geez, it was about time to get a day off from the sauna.

^{It's... it's been this hot!}

It's a rare moment of zen. Like the world decides to give us a short rest, a day to make a quick sum before we must continue marching on with the heavy load.

weekly report in a nutshell

Sándor spent his days with the miner animations, with some testing on props anims (ie. fires).
Gábor ended up fixing his testing tools and API integration implementation the whole week, after some extensive testing revealed a few hidden hiccups and issues.
Steve fixed about 16 bugs on server side, updated 3rd party communication libs and was working on internal dev documentations. He had little to no time for working on the World Server.
I was testing Gábor's integration code, was providing testing scenes for Sándor, and was working on environmental in-game animations.

Fleur
The coat of arms contest winner has been selected. You can check the winner here; and if you are the winner, don't forget to collect your prize! I also want to thank every participant for your time and effort!

^{"Ours is the... HEATWAVE!"}

<here comes the cavalry> - GOals for week 27

Gábor is expected to finish his code-fixing spree on Monday, so I can change my hat and sit back to integrate it all into the CoA Creator. I would like to release it to Vanguards during Week 27.
Sándor will continue working on the animations.
Steve is going to work on the World Server. In whatever time is left after the CoA Creator integration, I also want to participate in the World Server tasks to speed it up a bit.

What have you done - A Project recap

Coincidentally, it's week 26. For anyone lost track, it means that we're doing this for about half a year since the project has been brought back to life for a second run. Is it worth the time and money spent? Where the heck are we heading, if to any direction? What have we done yet? What is ahead of us?

If I were to describe my feelings in a single word, that would be... stupid. I mean, not the word (albeit...), the act. A single word comes with an unacceptable loss of meaning. What I feel is...

Impatience...

Because we're late according to our internal schedules. We've done more with less than in our phase 1, but not as much as we were aiming for. I could lament on this for a couple paragraphs, but frankly, it's that simple. We all want to be there right now where we're going to be in months. Well, at least there is space for improvement. Grr.

...Exhaustion...

Many would have cut the losses and given up at the end of our failed Phase 1. We're the more stubborn peeps, the ones that are using and embracing failures to get up and try harder, but that means that in last year, when others were taking their holidays or spent time on recreation, we were dedicating all our focus (both mentally and financially), our every effort, on reviving the project, settling a new phase and keeping it running against all odds, while also dealing with the losses and complications from the last turn. We knew and accepted that running low on everything but stubborness may eventually take a toll on us.

But it's not anything like feeling the urge of giving up. It's like running a marathon, then instantly jumping into another and barely surviving it. :). So after two years of working all day and night, and albeit we're not done yet, please excuse us but we'll be taking some quality holiday later in August to replenish our supplies for the things to come. Even if I feel guilty for resting already.

....and Optimism

In a nutshell: the project is still alive, even after the phase 1 ending crysis and the loss of almost everything we gathered to that point, and despite most would have placed bets on the opposite. This of course doesn't imply that our game will be the best of it's kind. But it does imply that we'll do our best trying to make it, and make it the best one we can. Dedication is always a good start, and a dedicated team is a true gift - if we could just started this way...

In the past six months, and with a team less than half the original size, we have developed and installed a new, scalable Game Platform, enhanced and revived our Site, created a brand new game module (the Coat of Arms Creator) and reimplemented the Game Client code from zero, with a new, much more powerful map module and a much better, truly two-way communication protocol included (not to speak a dozen other important features). Back in February, all that is left from our phase 1 resources and results were our original media assets and a broken site, and here we go again: the setup is ready for a working game, and this time, the bricks are more stable, the architecture is more flexible, and the whole thing is completely in our hands.

^{...we ain't joking... this hot!}