NEaB Today

23 Mar, 2011

As I anticipated to many of you, I had a very busy winter. Actually extremely busy one. At work I had to rewrite completely an application and therefore it took me all my coding energy. However that doesn't mean all is dead on the game side of my life.

So just to keep you informed about how the things are, I'm slowly starting to work again on NebulaRider. For example I finished a first version of the space harvesting mini game, and now will start writing quests and missions to be able to fill a bit the world with content. I will need to create multiple enemies (at least 10-20 at start) with different strength before we can even start to go in beta. Now for the deadline, I must say I'm somewhat unsure when I will have the time to do all that work but hopefully we will have it before the end of the year.

On the other side, I purchased a new 3D modeling / rendering software which offers me a lot more freedom for the design, yet I don't master it completely. In any case it will hopefully help me to create yet better art for NebulaRider. Yes I know it's odd that a software developer do as well the 3D art for his game, however so far I didn't found any help in those departments (neither on the code nor on the art).

29 Sep, 2010

NebulaRider got finally his first chat software, sure it is really a small thing with what NEaB offers, yet it is better than none. I worked also hard on some security issues with the game, and hopefully we will have a quiet safe game.

Next step will be the communication tool which will allow to send in game messages (like NEaB PO), and implement the experience points such that we can have levels. As without that our players will have an hard time to compare themselves to each others, it will allow us to have some sort of skill system.

22 Sep, 2010

NebulaRider development is slow, maybe because I simply under evaluated the work for it? Or maybe because I'm aiming at something too complex. Don't know. Anyhow, things are going forward. After some huge change in the concept, we nearly have again all the piece working. Missions are fully working from within the admin editor, NPC dialogs should be there too (even if not yet used), Objects can be defined / tweaked from another admin tool, and even the content of the NPC shops are handled by an admin tool.

Also, some work has been done on the loading / initialization of the game, and now it should be as fast as possible and yet show some progress while doing it.

On the content side, we may have found somebody which is willing to work on it, and provide a story line and quests. Something which is mandatory if we want to have an RPG.

Overall the game is slowly progressing, at least as an engine, and is gaining some maturity. We certainly have more work to do, but the next updates should add yet more and more things to do as player and not just some visual changes or some invisible changes. Therefore, stay tuned and cross your fingers to have soon a funny game to play with.

3 Sep, 2010

Long time since my last update. Well just to say I'm really a bit overloaded lately, anyhow I'm still working for Nebula Rider (as well as other things).

Nebula Rider can now (in our internal version) show other players on the maps, and you see them moving around. Yet you can't chat nor can't really interact with the others. At least it is a first step in the MMO direction. Other works have been done like a start to making the interface customizable (color wise yet). We will certainly offer customization and I was even thinking to let players decide where to place some stuff like maybe moving the HUD around or such.

You may ask now, when will we see all those? Well, the question is simple, the answer is not. Basically I'm reluctant to put an intermediate version which wouldn't offer that much more to you, anyhow I hope to update the preview version the coming week.

Along this, I'm talking with an artist to let you players have a customizable avatar face, (doable only once!) and that others will be able to see. And as the game may attract yet more people, I'm thinking about changing our old forum software for something new and maybe in house made. Reasons are that the current forums don't deal well with many sub categories, nor offer many features.

3 Aug, 2010

The mission editor is finally working as it should. We can create missions and we can test them. Now how great they are are not anymore dependent on the editor but on us (either we lack some code or we lack the skills to use the code we have).

Next step is the dialog editor to allow to "talk" to some NPC which will unlock either additional missions or be part of the mission. This will allow to introduce more diversity and build a richer universe. As this is not the first dialog editor (due to the one I made for NEaB) I know how it should look like. Or at least I have some ideas. Doesn't mean it's all easy but at least it should be not that much complex... hopefully.

Once this piece is finished, we will certainly need some hand on the content writing... so if you feel interested please contact us!

27 Jul, 2010

While Nasrudin works on the Inventory and try to create new kind of weapon and other ship pieces, I have been (very) busy working on the mission editor, which will allow admins to create missions directly from the game interface without any coding.

Even if this part is a lot of work, it will quiet certainly pay off at the end as any admin will be able to work on the missions / quests. The tool is also fully dynamic which means, as soon as we create a new ship behavior for example, the tool will spot it and allow you to use it.

Soon I will add the ability to save / load those missions and then Retor will be able to work on them to create the actual story.

After which I will work on the NPC which will allow some dialogs and based on the dialogs some new missions.