Well this all sounds most enticing. It's odd how life works out sometimes; if you had said to me a year ago, just before I discovered DROD, that I would now be filled with delicious anticipation at the prospect of a computer game release, I would have been too stunned to laugh!
I read this through a couple of extra times:
The DROD 3.0 engine has been vastly improved to support all the storytelling we've packed into our upcoming DROD: The City Beneath game. What will this mean for Smitemaster's Selections? Many of the limitations we worked with before will be gone. It will be possible, for example, to embed artwork for a special character into a hold. Branching plotlines, cut scenes, player accomplishment tracking, and many more features have been added to the engine. We can even have a Smitemaster's Selection where the main character is someone besides Beethro. Using the editor that comes with the DROD 3.0 engine, you can create holds that are a hybrid between puzzle-solving and adventure RPGs.
. . and the part I've changed to italics jumped out at me. I'm not sure what that entails, but anything to do with artwork will be worth study.
This also caught my attention particularly:
Now, the other thing that will make Smitemaster's Selections very interesting is our plans to release some of them simultaneously with one or two new elements added to the game engine. You will no longer need to patiently wait two years for a release of the next full-length DROD game to play with new monsters, traps, obstacles, and other gameplay devices. We'll start to see some Selections released that showcase new game elements added to the engine.
. . . I can see the Feature Requests froum becoming busy.
I do share the slight misgivings some of you have about chat rooms however. Everything I have said about the good poeple here not withstanding, 'instant' things can cause problems, particularly where we do not have the benefit of facial expression and body language to help interpret what is written. There have been a few instances of posters to the forums re-thinking their posts in the light of suggestions/advice and quietly deleting them; I have no experience of chat rooms, but from what I understand, that quiet removal will not be possible. Once it is typed it is there, it is read. Still, "
The old order changeth, yielding place to new"
, and as long as we are careful and watchful
(may I say, particularly where our younger members are concerned) we should be able to adapt.
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Winner of: Novice Architect Excellence 2006.
FAPCA - Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics
But up untill now I have kind of bought the same product twice.
)
