State of the Mod - 01/23/2007

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[fldash]

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has shown their interest and support, including Bridger's mention of us on the famous Tales of Heroes show.  As many of you know, the goal of this project is rather ambitious.  We've been working hard to get the alpha out and hopefully it will be ready on or near the first of February as scheduled.  Most likely the first few days will be devoted to ironing out remaining issues and making sure everyone is familiar with what they will be doing and understanding how the 'round/turn' works.  Then, on Sunday, February 4, we'll start the first round.

Other than theory and design contributors, there are only three people working on the mod.  UnderHeavyFire has been working on the flash map, naradaman the PHP/mySQL, and I have been working on the actual game modification and SCAR scripting.  This is obviously leaving a lot of neglect on other areas, such as a decent website.  I'm perfectly okay with this because I know that the success of the mod won't depend upon on how great the website looks but how well the website interacts with the modification and how fun it is to play.  With that said, I'd like to be more members to the team, so if you are interested, please let me know.

Here are our goals for the first alpha:

Website Functionality:
 * Ability to sign-up, select the war in which to participate (future growth will support more than one war at once if needed), choose your side, doctrine, and preferred ranking.

 * Ability to see your 'divisions' (the troops assigned to them and their locations on the map) and move your divisions around the map (using either PHP/Flash)

 * Ability for higher hierarchies to assign resources to each level directly below them.

 * Ability to use your resources to buy units and assign them to divisions.

 * Ability for players to initiate and respond to battle requests (assign units for the battle).

 * CSV and .REC upload section for completed battles.  CSV processing may be done manually in the first alpha.

Gameplay
 * Units are available immediately in game based upon what units are assigned to the division(s) in the battle (defend/reinforce restrictions apply)

 * Manpower/munitions assignable to a battle for reinforcements and for 'special abilities'.

 * Doctrine abilities (based on your doctrine) available immediately.

 * Timed victory condition based on map-size.

 * Economy removed from game, no victory points, or posts.

Balancing
 * Constant balancing of costs, doctrines, and other items.

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This is a very aggressive list of items and I can not promise you that we will deliver on them all.  However, we must start somewhere and I feel that this is a great base for moving forward.  Please post your concerns and comments and rest assured we are listening.

[Wilson]

Do you have to say that you want to join in the alpha, or will you be able to sign up on the website?

[fldash]

You should probably post in the thread just so we get an idea of how much interest there is.  Thanks.

[Swoodle]

Yea it's lookin nice. I liked the mention on ToH, and agreed with what they had to say. If you guys pull this off it's going to get very popular very quick, and i can't help but hope that this is done correctly and well. God knows i couldn't pull anything remotely like this off.

[Soulis6]

Just want to say that if everything works out with this mod it will be my dream come true. While i love strategy games (such as combat mission, hearts of iron) i've always wanted the battles to be a bit more interactive and cool looking (company of heroes), and here is a fusion of both!

[Ucross]

As skeptical as I was, I honestly think this is going to work now.

[fldash]

I've checked feasibility of everything so far and it all looks good.  We have made lots of progress on just about every front.  The only concern I have right now is the website battle map/grid and it's functionality.  We are having implementation issues but it's due to our lack of experience with Flash and ActionScript than it is a technical hurdle.

We may be eliminating some features from the Alpha because we know players our anxious and we want to provide you with something that you can sink your teeth into.  Honestly, I don't know of many players other than those working on the mod that think it can be pulled off.

I can't promise the alpha will be perfect, because I'm sure it won't.  There will most likely be balance concerns that we'll have to answer, but I think the game play foundation we've laid out is as good as it gets.