Friday with(out) Means - Feb. 11th, 2011: Brrr

burmese

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=587350



Friday with(out) Means - Feb. 11th, 2011: Brrr



Heyhey! Been a while, I know, and I'm not gonna try to drown everybody in a wall of text this week, but I hope everyone out there is doin' good. Things here in Montreal are... well, honestly, they're really, really, REALLY cold - People here warned me before we moved over that it was colder than Oslo, but it's kinda hard to believe until you actually step out into that nice -28C/-18.5F (with windchill) weather. I swear there's also been more snow here in the last two weeks than we had all winter in Oslo this year - Aythem dragged me out on Weds. this week to get some gloves and a hat, though, so hopefully I can avoid turning into a popsicle while waiting for Spring to roll around. On the plus side there's so much awesome food here that I feel like I'm going to eat myself into a coma - The sheer delight I experienced at getting to eat Mexican food again apparently simultaneously amused and terrified several of my coworkers, so to say that I'm happy over the restaurant situation here in Montreal would be a vast understatement. XD



Here in the office things are a bit slow at the moment due to some issues we've been having getting our internal tools up and running - With a game as old as Anarchy Online, our build/development machines are a bit... finicky, meaning that getting stuff transferred over to work with us here in Montreal has been a wee bit difficult. Macrosun is hard at work with our Operations team on getting things in a workable state, though, and there's been good progress from what I know (i've overheard him talking to the operations guys but that sorta stuff just goes right over my head - they sounded kinda happy last time they were spouting technobabble at each other, though, so i take that as a sign of progress), hopefully it won't be long before we're back up to full working capacity.



This isn't to say the team's been idle, however: I myself have been working on the Nano-Technician nano document (as well as working with Tarib, Famine, and Waldgeist on some very, very exciting behind-the-scenes community stuff; keep your eyes peeled for more on that in the near future), and Lindelu is putting together documentation regarding a revamp of the Shadowlands key/garden questlines, cleaning up a lot of the older bugs/issues with the questlines, making them more friendly in general, and allowing us to go through and bring the dialog/storyline more up-to-date with the current gameworld. I'm really looking forward to getting access to the tools back myself, so I can continue work on a still-secret little update I was cobbling together before we left Oslo; hopefully you guys will end up enjoying what me and Means have been working on there once we're able to talk about it a bit more.



Meanwhile, Genele's sent the first-run draft of the Adventurer nano changes off to the Professionals this week for feedback - We're actually going to try and get this one pushed out for you guys early next week (rather than waiting for next Friday's FwM post) so keep your eyes peeled on the Balance Discussion forums come next Tuesday or Weds. This document features some of the largest changes we've released so far, and I personally feel like a lot of the work we've done make Adventurers a much more entertaining, challenging, and interesting profession to play in the long run. Definitely going to be a lot to discuss either way, so keep watch next week and get ready to offer your feedback on the planned new designs and directions for Adventurers.



Otherwise not too much more to discuss from up here at the moment - We're all keeping busy, but it's a lot of documentation, coding, and in general getting behind-the-scenes stuff taken care of while we have a bit of time to breathe. One REALLY cool thing I want to share with you guys, though, are a few new textures we're going to be sneaking into the game soon! Following in the same footsteps as Docaholic, GSP DJ and texture artist extraordinaire sezmra/DJ Lauri (who is actually visiting us here in Montreal this week) has recently volunteered her talents to help out the AO team with going through and polishing up a lot of the older armour/clothing textures from Anarchy Online - Her work so far has been absolutely stellar, so we figured we'd drop you guys a few tastes of stuff to come. In the images below you can see side-by-side comparisons of the Living Cyber Armour set, the white Omni-Pol Armour, the Secundus Decus Armour set, and the Enforcer Tier One/Omni Tier set. Really, really amazing work from sez, and we're very thankful to have her help in getting these revamped textures put together for you guys. Once we have a nice bundle of 'em put together we'll start shipping the new textures out to live dimensions in an upcoming update, so stay tuned to see the new hotness available in-game. =D



And that's about it for now. Everyone on the team sends their regards (and before the conspiracy theorists start up Means is doing just fine - Just figured I'd take over for a change to break it up a bit) and we hope you enjoy the new hotness from sez. Take care guys!



~~Kintaii



PS: The attached images are animated gifs that first display the old textures, then the new. So if you're not exactly sure what's changed give it a few seconds. =D

Attached Images

File Type: gif     atrox-cyber-armour-front.gif

File Type: gif     atrox-cyber-armour-back.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-female-cyber-armour.gif

File Type: gif     atrox-omni-pol.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-male-decus-front.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-male-decus-back.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-male-enfo-tier-front.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-male-enfo-tier-back.gif

File Type: gif     solitus-male-omni-enfo-tier-front.gif

__________________

Brad L. McAtee / Kintaii

Senior AO Designer / Jack of All Trades