Friday with Means - April 1st, 2011: No Need to Joke
Heyhey! Means is out of town today (he explains a bit more later in the post) but wrote this up yesterday for me to post in his stead. Enjoy!
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Update Next Week:
Next week we will have a version coming out with a few small fixes and more importantly the first testable versions of the new in-game ad systems.
Engine and April 1st:
Every year around this time we sit around and think up clever little things we "could" have done to have a little fun with the whole April 1st thing. Like other years we are just too busy to make something flaky up. With the very real possibility that Duke Nukem Forever might release before our new engine does there is a certain looming ultimate irony in the air every day...who really needs more? Who would ever have thought that almost three years ago that "Before the release of DNF" would have anded up being a reasonable guess to when we might finish? We're going to have to keep working pretty hard to make it. On a positive note the new released version of the engine in Conan is running well and any small issues in that area are being taken care of quickly...it is going to be great to get some assistance from those guys in our efforts to really dig in and get this done...we really can't wait to get this out...I want to stand and look at our world in it's renewed state and share it with all of you. I'm also looking forward to not only the facelifting of old areas but pushing the boundaries of what we'll be able to do with NEW areas.
Profession Work:
The NT document was shared with the professionals earlier this week and is apparently in good enough shape now that Genele felt there was not enough reason to hold it back from the open community for another week. So they will be including it in today's post for the review of the NT population at large...we almost made it for the 7th annual NT party (was great fun...hosted by DJ Klinical in the grind) every NT should be sure to make it to next year's event. The reevaluation of all profession tools is going quite well and with only agent remaining I think we are all looking forward to digging into the implementation and testing of these changes. Perks and other systems will undergo at least one more change (after Agents) before anything will be hitting the Test environments in any shape as since the release of the initial perk documents a lot of things have changed and the process has evolved significantly. There are so many good changes in here...but it is going to be quite interesting to see how it all hangs together. I can't wait.
Kintaii Edit: The NT document can be found in the following thread: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=588733
Other Stuff:
The devilish duo of artists Flaptoot and Mstrbsrd were supposed to be arriving in Montreal to rejoin the teams on April 11th. Unfortunately Canadian immigration is a bit swamped at the moment so they will hopefully get here around the end of the month instead. We miss them and we're looking forward to getting them here with the rest of us. Sure they can work without us there...but it isn't the same.
A new code intern will be joining the team at the end of April. Thank you to everyone who applied. This program has gone so well in the past I imagine this will be something we continue to run in the future. AO +1! It's going to feel crowded in our area at the end of this month.
*WARNING* - Personal Content!
I'll be in Toronto this weekend for the first time in many, many years. Though I was born there I haven't really lived there since I was about 19...and now that there are no longer dinosaurs roaming the streets and it is safe to go out...where should I take my kids on Saturday morning?
Have a great weekend everyone!
~~Colin "Means" Cragg
Game Director, Anarchy Online
German Translation: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=588731
