January 2010 Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 01 Feb 2010 08:15 am
###**Job Postings**###
2D artist: We may need someone who has experience working with NIF Skope and graphic editing software to convert 3-dimensional models to 2-dimensional images. Please inquire by PMing either Zini or myself.
###**Update**###
We have cast off the egg nog strobe light of some saturated hole in the wall. The air is frozen. We briskly plow along the arctic tundra, carried by well-oiled beasts of fortune and bacon. We have never been stronger than now. Momentum is on our side--as long as the bacon holds out.
LSD: Finished several more NPC's for Vesper, which should be quite the bustling desert town and general surrounding area after we finish. After that, he'll work on Buccaneer's Den. You would need to know LSD to realize how fitting and wondrous a spectacle that will be.
Aurora: Still working on Covetous.
Zini: Worked more on the alchemy skill and implementing it. Has also done or researched some other assorted scripting functions.
Alpha3d: Still working on Hythloth.
Gaius Atrius: One of the new interior worldbuilders. He's already half-way finished with one site occupied by bandits, or rebels, or whatever else the vagabonds are called nowadays. He, this one, is channeling the great bacon spirit.
The Brown Dragon: Another new-comer to the team for the writing department. Brown is a veteran of UV: Lazarus. I'm delighted to have someone from a successful Ultima project helping us. He'll be working on populating Jhelom.
Hyena of Doom: About to finish working on the undisclosed dungeon-like location. It's one of the areas I wrote, so I'm eager to see what it looks like.
Direhaggis: Well I finally finished all of the tutorials for the beginning of the game. Still need to do fletching and smithing at some point. I made incremental progress on one of the routes of the Endgame. I also wrote some summaries for new writers and worldbuilders about various areas that have been done or need filling in. My immediate next task will be writing up descriptions of the various potions that can be made in game. (My productivity is going to be middling for another month due to nailing down a post-Ph.D. job via interviews and sniper fire besides my other work duties).
Corv: Currently away.
Jacar: Focusing on writing up more NPCs and quests before doing the interiors.
John Franklin: After some time away for personal matters, JF has come back and is again working to finish interiors for Paws. There are other "shovel ready" areas for him and others, so I foresee things going along at a brisk pace.
Spyder: He made a great grate for a grating place, finished up the potion models (different sizes and textures), and made a fully animated, gorgeously repulsive new creature. I kept tripping over my fingers in praise of the thing. He'll next work on winged and wingless gargoyles.
As usual: if I missed something, un-miss it please. Until next time, we will continue on our makeshift sleds and behead the occasional, ill-omened gopher.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
December 2009 Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 08 Jan 2010 07:08 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: Still need 'em.
###**Update**###
December.
We collectively wanted to drop a brick on the accelerator, lean out of our respective car windows, and toss cheap bourbon whiskey at ignoble creatures while hollering how magnificent we were over the thump of Rogue Acoustic sub-woofers. Angels would scream as the earth moved, split, and then exploded under the tires of our unholy nerd fury as the sun turned up two white-hot fingers and goaded us to conquer the heavens. We. Would. Make. Progress.
Ha. Ha.
Zini: Worked on the alchemy skill.
LSD: Finished some NPC's and quests for Vesper. He's also taken up the task of combing the internet for MW and original content Oblivion mods.
Aurora: Still on Covetous.
Direhaggis: Hells bells, gentle reader. I continued working on tutorials for Ch. 1, then switching to Endgame work. Wrote another 5 alternate endings. Made decent progress writing the Guardian. Do you know how hard it is not to write cheesy villain drivel? My total input after the second week was just embarrassing.
Alpha3d: Still working on Hythloth.
Hyena of Doom: Still working on the 2nd unmentioned location from last month.
Direhaggis: I'll make it up in January or March or something, I swear!
Corv: Helps out in ways only he can.
Jacar: Writing NPCs and doing their interiors for a remote location. May yet work on a city that's passed through at least 4 sets of hands. That would be nice if applicable.
Spyder: Created models of potions using a new bit of software. The biggest ones are these massive pony keg Cure 9999 things.
"If I wanted to get a job in radio now, would I enter the office of a station manager clutching my Lifetime Achievement Award, saying, "I've got some fresh, cutting-edge ideas. I want to make new, ground breaking radio." Would anyone in his right mind, trying to get a job anywhere, even mention having been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award? Of course not.
And so I want to thank the Third Coast International Audio Festival panel for effectively ending my career."
November 2009 Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 03 Dec 2009 08:04 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: While we have gotten a few new people over the last 2 months, we are always looking for more folk that can put things on top of other things. Like I've said before: if I can vaguely work with the construction set, you most surely can do it.
Here's the latest news.
###**Update**###
Zini: I know I write this periodically, but U9R would not be possible without Zini. He implements, he scripts, and patiently explains MW's limitations to your seldom informed writer, gentle reader. He did some dungeon creation and implementation for the beginning of the main game. He's also in charge of balancing the 8 virtue classes so that their beginning, middle, and end powers are roughly balanced and useful in different situations. General miscellaneous bugs were also killed.
LSD: This man has been absolutely instrumental in helping us populate the rest of Britain proper. And he's finished up well over dozens of NPCs! Like I've written before, I think in total we've got about 70 unique ones wandering around. He's also working on characters for Vesper, followed by Buc's Den. He's also taken one for the team and helped us with some, ahem, dry runs of some mods that may be of interest to the more mature set.
Aurora: Working on Covetous. I am happy that the dungeons are getting populated. I like populated dungeons.
Alpha3d: Working on Hythloth. He's a long-time Ultima fan and definitely has a feel for both the more recent (uh, if 1991 is recent) Ultima flavor as well as those more int he past.
Hyena of Doom: Started and finished interiors for an undisclosed cold location (!). Is nearly done with another portion of said location (!). I'm really looking forward to his interpretation of the locations I set up in my mind.
Grogdon: Every so often touches up Minoc.
Direhaggis: Finished another 3 endings for the main quest. I'll continue with yet more alignment and quest influenced ones this month, as well as getting started on the 'main' ending. By 'main' I mean the one people will typically view as the logical end to events that occur in U9R. I also worked on some tutorials for the player at the beginning of the game and did some dialogue revision. Finally, I finished ~10 miscellaneous books and borrowed ~20 from the U6 and U7:BG corpus. Me and anyone else who wants to will write many, many more.
Corv: Behind the scenes stuff.
Jacar: Working on interiors for one of those undisclosed cold locations. While I can't write anything about it, I will say that he takes an existing set of ideas and a space and really pulls it together to make visual sense.
Spyder: Made a series of 'broken' models based on existing objects, a gorgeous set of painting equipment, and other things for classified locations.
I'd like to end by writing that it's immensely satisfying, as a Titan from the beginning and a writer from the first incarnation of U9R, that we have a solid team going and an end in sight. Granted, implementation will take a long time, and interiors the same, but still--we're going forward!
"Enjoy the great taste of wassail, in cans!" - Jacar
October 2009 Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 06 Nov 2009 04:32 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: We recently got a new interior worldbuilder, Hyena of Doom. We are making good progress, but we could always make more! According to Zini, once you get the object lists down, doing a few decent house interiors an hour is par for the course.
Writers: I have a good-natured rant. Every month I get roughly 3 people who want to help write. I process their applications. We accept one to work on dungeons, or other areas. And I get a few e-mails. And then I get nothing. So when I say I want a dedicated writer who I can work with, despite my working 70 hours a week as a Ph.D. student and part-time lecturer leaving U9R to occupy my 11pm-1:30am hours, I do emphatically mean dedicated.
I want someone who can bust out a simple set of interesting NPC's for a few remaining dungeons. Give me your judgmental unicorns, your trolls, your random human adventurers wandering in the dark for weeks at a time looking for love in all the wrong places. Just...just write. And post to the team forum. The names become strobe lights on a dance floor after awhile.
Here's the latest news.
###**Update**###
*Direhaggis: I'm not going to get too ecstatic about it...but...I am about 10 hours away from finishing writing the main plot. I just need to do the last few scenes, the 'main' ending, and then that is that. I'm also working with Zini to write tutorials for all of the skills that can be done in game. The alchemy skill is pretty cool, for instance.
*Zini: Working on level-up scripts; re-balancing a few of the 8 classes to be more distinctive; implementation; and various odds and ends. He is also working on a mini-dungeon. It involves vermin. And pie. Okay. No pie.
*Spyder: Custom interiors for undisclosed and highly awesome locations.
Hyena of Doom: Interior worldbuilding for an undisclosed and moderately depressing but also cool location.
Jacar: Doing interiors for yet another undisclosed but not depressing so much as wistful and fairly cold location. This also involves no pie, but potentially squash.
LSD: Nearly finished with all of the rest of the NPC's for Britain proper. The sheer variety and number is staggering. Fortunately, like a good chunk of U9R, there is about as much or as little as you want to explore re: side quests and just background story. LSD will be moving on to help me flesh out the rest of Buc's Den and Vesper. So we've got the (forgive me) Arrr-rated ([/forgive me]) island and the crazy artists stuck in the desert angles nailed.
Sage: Finishing the outskirts of Britain, the Lycaeum, and assorted other projects.
Various Writers: I have a few people who work on U9R, well, remotely. They are working on several dungeons for the game. I'm not entirely sure if they come around to the forum, and if so what their forum names are, but they are out there--and in theory they are writing dungeon NPC's.
They say that love is more precious than the air we breath, than the force of gravity, than the wind that pulls the leaves from the trees in the Fall, than the illusions we foster. -- Joe Frank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDhSumYSp7U)
September 2009 Update Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 07 Oct 2009 07:27 am
Sorry about the delay (for a 2nd month in a row). If I told you about IRL, you wouldn't believe me--or at least my capacity for masochism. Anyway...
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: I know a few of the die-hard forum people have expressed an interest. The construction set is a pain but after the learning curve it's not bad, blah blah blah.
Writers: Britain has ~80 NPC's. Buc's Den, Jhelom, and Moonglow have fewer NPC's. Why should Britain have all the fun? Teach that smug capital a lesson and send me an application (at daath4242 at yahoo dot com)! But on a serious note: if you apply, please do so only if you are williing to really volunteer. That includes the daunting task of going through our team forum.
###**Update**###
Please note that most team members are still working on their same area (see July update). Please note they have actually made progress since July.
Please also note that I'm waiting on some dialogues from newer writers before posting updates on them. It is good to make sure newcomers do not make for new go'ers, so to speak--as is often the inexplicable case with the writing department.
Spyder: Finished some interiors for Moonglow houses. Beautiful as always. Poke us enough and we may leak a screenshot.
Direhaggis: The occasional 16 hour work day and some writer's block got in the way of substantive writing. I filled more main plot holes, got rid of some side quests that require too much implementation, and just this last week I started work on the penultimate part of the main quest. The writer's block is gone, and I abandoned a plot twist that was just not twisting right, so, yeah, onward.
Zini: Implementation of character creation and level stuff. Also collecting all of the cooking recipes you all submitted and putting that in-game.
LSD: Cranking out many colorful NPC's for Britain. You want murders to investigate, there's a quest for that. You want bitter childhood trauma? There's a quest for that. You want +7 vorpal kinky? Same deal. In Britain, there's a quest for just about, well, anything. Kind of.
"You load 16 tons, and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt."
August 2009 Update Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 04 Sep 2009 07:39 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: This is the rate limiting step for us getting to an alpha stage.
Writers: I'm still looking for a few new writers.
###**Update**###
Please note that most team members are still working on their same area (see July update).
Direhaggis: I finished the last of the main quest 'arms', and have been going back and patching up major holes. After I do the latter, I'll be moving on to the near Endgame, the Endgame, and then filling in all of the minor holes that are left.
Zini: Finished character generation and leveling mechanics. Has been focused on implementation almost exclusively.
Spyder: Worked on the rest of the Tarot-like cards and animations for them during character creation. Also helped with implementation.
LSD: Doing more Britain NPC's and waiting for some summaries on my end to see what all can be done with Buc's Den and other cities/towns/villages.
July 2009 Update Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 05 Aug 2009 06:06 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: Do inquire.
Writers: Rather than wanting people to do whole cities, the writing division is at a stage where we could use 1 to several additional NPC's to fill/add variety to this or that city or dungeon. Variety is the spice of gaming.
###**Update**###
Jacar: Finishing interiors and furniture for Spektran. You all are going to have a lot of fun there, above and below ground.
Zini: A great deal of time and effort on game mechanics, design work, implementation for character creation, and the like. For instance, the skill system and magic system.
Corv: Doing a lot of technical work behind the scenes as usual.
Direhaggis: I had to move, unpack, do vacation, and juggle more work-related stuff than normal this past month. I know, what the hell. The last big quest of the main narrative is nearly done. I estimate another 1-2 hours. I realistically have roughly 40-50 hours left of writing for the whole main narrative (besides filling holes), depending on how many bright ideas I get for various endings, if the endgame sequence is multi-path, etc. After that it's off to do interiors.
John Franklin: Missing in action, quite possibly because it's summer. If you know the whereabouts of this man, give us a ring.
Spyder: Finished custom interiors for Empath Abbey and some secret locations. He also started work on Tarot-like cards similar to what one saw in the older Ultimas. He's currently taking a very well deserved vacation.
ArchChancellor: More or less done with Despise. He's leaving it at that--which I say more so that we all congratulate him, rather than wonder what subsequently happened. Like we've said: people can do 1 NPC, 1 village, or more.
Chris: Still working on Yew dialogues.
LSD: despite being on vacation, he's still producing Britain NPC's--and soon some Buc's Den ones and other illicit folk. My kind of writer.
Sage: Lycaeum NPC's and quests.
On a final note, I've thought about adding a random ending to these monthly updates, because I'm a shameless nerd and me saying variations of 'bye!' each time is getting old. So to start off...
Yeah here come the rooster. You know he ain't gonna die.
Cooking Competition Posted by: Zini on 21 Jul 2009 10:17 am
Welcome to the Titans of Ether Cooking Competition!
Proudly we announce the biggest contest of culinary skills Britannia has ever seen. Fabulous prizes are waiting for you ... Well, not exactly like that.
As you might have guessed from our various posts about the state of Redemption, the game currently is a collection of unassembled parts with most skills being mere skeletons without much content. We are now getting to a stage where this will change.
This is a huge task and since our resources are as limited as ever, we decided trying to outsource a part of it. We are now asking you, faithful community, to help us out to fill the empty skeleton of the cooking skill with um ... meat.
What we need is a list of meals that can be cooked from the available ingredients. We can offer no other prize than including your receipt in the game.
If you want to participate, please post your receipt in this thread (you can write one or more receipts per post). Each entry must have the following format:
Name: Name of the receipt
Ingredients: List of ingredients; different quantities allowed, but please limit yourself to abstract units (2x, 3x, ...)
Description: Give a description how to cook the meal. This text will be used in a cookbook or maybe a scroll. It can be a bit fancy, but please don't produce too many misleading instructions about the procedure, since the actual in-game cooking process simply is: make/find a fire, put a pot on it, throw the ingredients into the pot, take the finished meal out of the pot.
You don't need to provide any in-game stats for the meal (most meals will simply counter the player's hunger, but some will provide buffs too). We will assign them accordingly the difficulty of getting the ingredients. You can add suggestions, though.
Here is the list of available ingredients:
Watermelon
Tomato
Pear
Orange
Onion
Corn
Carrot
Banana
Apple
Cheese
Blue Cheese
Hard Cheese
Brown Sugar
Meat
Coconuts
Salt
Pepper
Lettuce
Parsley
Chive
Clove
Basil
Beans
Fish
Eggs
Water
Wine
Beer
Milk
Butter
Flour
Mushrooms
Bread
Oil
If you like, you can come up with some exotic, hard to get (Britannia-style) ingredients of your own, though these should be used in a few special receipts only. But don't overdo it. We won't add many more ingredients (the current selection already puts quite some strain on our modelling department).
We hope for an active participation and thank you in advance for your contribution.
June 2009 Update Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 11 Jul 2009 07:10 pm
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: we're always looking for more people who can do houses or dungeons.
Writers: with the exception of LSD, most of the writers to come on in the last few months have suddenly disappeared. While we could still use 1-2 people to work on Jhelom and help me with Moonglow, I only want serious applicants who can do at least 5 hours of writing a week.
###**Update**###
Direhaggis: As a side project, I worked on and finished Spektran. This was originally Kultan's assignment, but he's been absent for awhile now. The arabian theme of the island, the Sultan's eccentricities, and recent events come together in a way that will hopefully be fun. I also finished a few sequences involving the Britannian Merchant Consortium and the pirates of Buc's Den. My final bit of work into July has been doing Vesper, which is the last major area before the final part of the main game. As usual, you'll have multiple ways to finish quests here.
Jacar: Working on custom interior models for Empath Abbey Spektran, including the throne and other bits. He's also doing the interiors. His work so far has really captured the essence of the place. His machine self-destructed, but fortunately he had a backup with Blender. Let it never be said that catastrophic computer trouble will stop this game.
Spyder: Working on Empath Abbey interior (which is phenomenally gorgeous even by Spyder standards). He's also doing some interiors for Moonglow.
ArchChancellor: Just about finished with Despise. As I've mentioned in the past, I think people will find what he's done captivating.
Chris J: Finished his MA! Congratulations! He's now back to working on Yew dialogues.
Zini: Beyond some scripting, Zini unfortunately experienced the unpleasant, cattle prod-like shock of dual-wielding Unbuntu and Vista. As a former, mostly happy XP user and occasional Scientific Linux guy, I continue to be amazed at how many software problems crop up for Vista. So Zini is sorting that all out.
Corv: Produced a new version of the master and helped with behind-the-scenes stuff. I haven't downloaded it yet for fear of nuking my girlfriend's bandwith quota. I'll do that this coming week.
Sage: Continues to work on the Lycaeum as a writer. I don't want to spoil anything, but the old library's purpose has changed direction in an interesting way.
LSD: Though he's away on holiday/vacation, he's said he wants to continue writing Britain NPC's and anything else that comes to mind. That is dedication. I am more or less forbidden from bringing my laptop on vacation for this very reason--so I'm envious. (I mean where better to write Buc's Den than on a tropical beach with some rum? Ah well).
That's it for June. I apologize for the delay; work and vacation. See you next month.
May 2009 Update Posted by: -Direhaggis- on 02 Jun 2009 05:05 am
###**Job Postings**###
Interior Worldbuilders: As the current interior crew can attest, the CS isn't that bad after awhile. We could use the help.
Writers: We're currently looking for people to write most of Jhelom, part of Moonglow, or one of the remaining dungeons.
###**Update**###
*Direhaggis: I finished the 'Ether' portion of the main quest, and all but the final scene of the 'Politics' part. There is now only one arm of the main narrative left: discovering and interacting with the last remaining rebel faction. That has the potential to go either very quickly, or to occupy 30-40 hours of writing (~1 month given 2 hours a day on average). After that, the penultimate portion of the game is relatively short, followed by the general Endgame and several endings. It's very close to the end, everyone. After that it's editing and interiors for me.
*LSD: One of our newer writers. He's been extremely productive before being busy for the better part of the summer. He's helped Sage and I populate Britain; done about 10 new NPCs. Off the top of my head, we've now got ~35 NPCs in Britain proper alone, so there's plenty to do in the capital.
*Chris J: Working on NPCs for Yew. Several old and new faces will be seen. Also a few books.
*Spyder: Did some minor tasks for Zini and just finished a big custom interior and related models. His next job is another custom interior.
*John Franklin: Doing interiors for a special new island.
Everyone else is either doing the same thing or has been away.
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