Quarto
Unknown Enemy
We've just posted an update over at the website.
As you can see from the update, the episode still isn't too close to completion - while the missions are getting close to finished, a lot of the remaining pieces of the puzzle have yet to fall into place. Still, summer usually brings a lot of progress from those of us (i.e., Eder and Michael) who are still at university . In any case, it's nice to see the last red bit disappear from the Ep.4 section of the progress chart... while there's still a lot of yellow in there, the blues and greens are gaining ground.
Standoff News Update said:Well, we really did intend to do an update sooner than May - honest :-P.
Anyway, without wasting time on excuses, let's get to the progres. As you can see on the progress page, Episode 4 missions have shifted from yellow to green. I'm still a bit uncertain whether they really deserve green, or if they're more of a greenish yellow, but it's close enough :-P. We still have two missions which haven't been started, and some of the others haven't got proper briefings yet. Most of the missions are at least fairly bug-free, though - and, since the missing missions are only on the losing path, the winning path is already completely play-through-able.
Other progress - the Episode 4 fiction has jumped all the way from red to blue. That's really not a big deal - getting the fiction done is easy, so we're literally talking about one weekend's worth of work. Still, it's one thing less hanging over our heads, and one step closer to completion. Finally, game engine cutscenes have gone from green to blue. Visually, they're done - the music isn't done yet, but that's a different category on the progress page :-P.
(On the subject of music, we do expect some progress in a few weeks - Michael has just started his summer holiday, though he's away in Europe for the next two weeks)
The worst part is that I still haven't been able to make much progress on the remaining graphics-related tasks, and especially the videos. This is partially because, unlike the game engine cutscenes, the videos can't really be considered complete until the music is in there, because it's only then that I convert them into the game's file format - so, just as soon as Michael returns, we'll hopefully see a lot of progress in the video department.
So, that about concludes this update. Just one other thing - we've added a few new screenshots. They don't reveal any new ships or anything like that, but they offer some hints about what you can expect in Episode 4. The first shot shows the objectives screen from the first winning path - Bradshaw is a busy, busy man . The remaining three shots show Bradshaw fighting to save the TCS Reims. The significant thing on these is the damage report with no percentage values - it's one of those tiny little changes we sometimes make to bring the game just a little closer to WC2. It's really remarkable how much of a difference this makes - it used to be that you could fly around with 85% core damage without too much worrying, because you knew that it would still take several shots before you died. Now, you no longer have the comfort of knowing your exact state - so when your core reaches "severe" (red) status, things get real nervous out there ;-).
As you can see from the update, the episode still isn't too close to completion - while the missions are getting close to finished, a lot of the remaining pieces of the puzzle have yet to fall into place. Still, summer usually brings a lot of progress from those of us (i.e., Eder and Michael) who are still at university . In any case, it's nice to see the last red bit disappear from the Ep.4 section of the progress chart... while there's still a lot of yellow in there, the blues and greens are gaining ground.