Facebook Social Networking: The Future?

Okay, I'm not liking it anymore. Seriously.

Had I not established all of my groups that I lead on Facebook, I would have probably closed the account by now. Facebook is changing it so we can see a timeline and all of this needless information. It went from a simple site to share what you're doing, to having the site tell me what's important to me.

Eh? I think I can figure out and sift through what I like and don't like. That's what the filter was for. This whole side-bar thing is taking it too far.

Some people may read this site and figure "you have no right to complain if it's free". You're right, in a sense, but less users means less advertising revenue. Maybe I'm more attracted to the simple interface of Twitter, so that's just me.


Anyway, just felt the need to let that out. 

Lots of stuff going on. Busy for once!

I wanted to really try to have a new BETACinema video debut with this blog post, but I didn't finish it in time. Sucks, huh? I don't think I'm very motivated to work on it, but I hate going against my word, so I'm going to finish up the rest of it. I'll post it on Tuesday, at least I'm hoping to.

I think.


Lots of things are going on, though. My textbooks were lost in shipment and somehow got sent all the way to Las Vegas due to Amazon's shady shipping policies. I'm not driving all the way up there to get them, so I'm requesting a refund and ordering them again.

Classes have started last week, and I'm enjoying them thus far. I'm hoping for good marks this quarter. I'm already knocking out the first of my Physics homework.

The Selatria team has expanded quite a bit. Got a lot of interest and ideas going around as chapter 1 is being finished up with the cut-scenes and development is going to Chapter 2.


That's about it, I'd rant on more, but I think everything is up to speed now. Until next post.

Selatria: New Logo

We have a new logo for Selatria. I'm very impressed by it. Derrick Frainee illustrated it and subsequently was added to the team for the contribution.

What do you guys think?

Naoki Yoshida: Part XII and my thoughts on FFXIV's chaotic first year

See also: Letter from the Producer, XVIII (09/21/2011)
See also: Foundation Day Cometh! (09/16/2011)
See also: Caravan Security (09/15/2011) 
See also: Beastman Strongholds (09/12/2011)
See also: UI Adjustments (09/12/2011)
See also: Guildleve Revisions (09/09/2011) 
See also: Grand Companies of Eorzea Page Updated! (09/07/2011)


There is also supposed to be a new fight against Ifrit coming too, along with the new raids listed under Beastmen Strongholds.

In any case, this is the anniversary of a very rough year for Final Fantasy XIV. If you've been following the game, it was critically panned at the release and became somewhat of the laughing stock of the industry as far as MMOs are concerned. In a wide-spread company public relations move, last December they replaced the original producer (Hiromichi Tanaka) with Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) who was the producer and director. His outgoing and unique personality (especially from Square-Enix who was notorious up until this development team revamp for ignoring players in favor of the development team's concerns) inspired me to do these write-ups. This whole series is the most viewed out of my blog entries, and personally I love writing up on the game and explaining what I'm looking forward to and seeing this game change and evolve as I'm playing it.

However, it is kind of unfortunate (as if you see my blogs from a year ago) that I was really hoping that this game would be a success from the start, and it might get its chance to have a decent playerbase, but it's a year later and the game still needs a good amount of improvement.

I find the game to still be impossible to recommend to friends, and some probably think I'm a little crazy for trying to stick with it after all of this, and I'm still fairly confident that this game will eventually turn out to be fun. Maybe I'm just a sucker for patience though, we'll see...

As for Naoki Yoshida, I have nothing but pure admiration for his charisma and work ethic towards improving the game. Most MMOs that launch in this same situation are abandoned like a sinking ghost ship and the developers try and brush it off and move on while leaving a skeleton crew to keep the game on life support. Yoshi keeps the players going and actually communicates changes that are coming, and takes time to read player suggestions and give feedback. Maybe I'm just not used to it after playing FFXI for the last decade where we were ignored and pretty much had to just deal with things, but I really wish he was in the XIV Development Team early on.

As always, I'm still looking forward to the changes and hope that one day I can actually recommend this game to friends to join and adventure with me in Eorzea. I say the game is leaps and bounds from what it was a year ago, and I wish it would have waited until now to be released. I'm willing to bet it would have gotten a far better score. But the problem with the game lies now that there are players of all levels that the new and upcoming changes has to cater to. Both level 50 endgame players like myself and the newbies and PS3 players that will be coming in the future. That will be hard for a struggling MMORPG that's hanging on and technically getting revamped from its core.

Selatria: Open Positions for Development Team

This post has been updated, the updated post can be seen here.


The current version of the Selatria project can be played here.

Synopsis:


Selatria is a game largely developed as a collaborative effort between game designers, artists, musicians, actors, and the like. As such, it is a for-profit using mostly original-created resources. As such, each person who contributes resources used within or for the project gains a share in ownership in the project and will receive a percentage of any profits gained from sales of the project. (Percentages will not be determined until completion of the project and will be agreed upon by the group.)


*Indicates a new position that has opened.


Position -- Priority

-Monster Artist/Antagonist Designer -- HIGH
-Environmental Tile Artist (Buildings, tiles, grass, bizarre environments) -- HIGH
-Icon Designer (For Status Effects/Weapons) -- HIGH


-Ruby Script Programmers  -- MEDIUM
-Voice Actors -- MEDIUM* 
-Event Planner -- MEDIUM*
-Spell Animator -- MEDIUM*
-Webpage Designer -- MEDIUM*

-Sound Effects (SFX) Producer - LOW*

-YouTube Trailer Video Editor - LOW*

Current Development Team:

Director/Producer/Lead Game Design and Concept:
Grover Wimberly IV

 
Game Concept/Design Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
William John Merriam III
Jonathan Dishaw
Jabari Smith


Storyline/Plot Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
Airen Blakovich (Co-Lead)
Jonathan Dishaw
Johan Flynn
William John Merriam III

 
Art Team:
Teresa Wambold (Lead)
Derrick Frainee (Title Logo Art)

Programming Team:
Grover Wimberly IV
Matthew Estrada
Also - Scripts Used (See Below)
 
Music Team:
Luke Simpson (Lead)


Voice Acting Team:
Jonathan Dishaw - TBD
Vikki Ceballos - TBD
Jabari Smith - TBD
Jenny Wang - TBD
Johan Flynn - TBD
Aron Friend - TBD




Scripts Used (With Permission):


Map Effect Pack - NoorXp
Credit Script - Jet
Splash Screen Script -  Vlue L. Maynara
Font Modifier - ChaosOverLord
Defense Script - Synthesize
Map Name Script - Falcao, edited by Grover Wimberly IV/Matthew Estrada
Custom Menu Script - Grover Wimberly IV
Battle Result Script - Woratana, edited by Grover Wimberly IV
Level Up Heal Script - Woratana 


Tanketai Battle Script -
Original Script by:  Enu
English Localization:  Kylock, Mr. Bubble, Shu
Contributors & Special Thanks: Shu, Moonlight, NightWalker, Enelvon, Atoa, AlphaWhelp,       blackmorning, Mithran, Kaduki, Enu             


Front-View Battle System Script Add-On- Grover Wimberly IV

Selatria -- Battle System Alpha Test Phase III : Now Online!

The new version of Selatria is now online! Unfortunately, this is going to be the last big demo of the game until the free release of Chapter 1 next year. I hope you all enjoy it! Please take a look at the credits/acknowledgments below for the team that helped design what we have so far as well.

Download Selatria Alpha Test Version -- Phase III (163 MB)

System Requirements:

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000 / XP / Vista / 7
CPU: PC with 1.0GHz Intel® Pentium® III equivalent or higher processor

RAM: At least 256MB of system RAM
Minimum Disk Requirement: 200MB available hard disk space

Resolution: 1024x768 or better video resolution
_

Screenshots:

_

Selatria Development Team: 

"Selatria" Copyright (c) 2011 Whim Independent Studios, All Rights Reserved.



Director/Producer/Lead Game Design and Concept:
Grover Wimberly IV

 
Game Concept/Design Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
William John Merriam III
Jonathan Dishaw
Jabari Smith


Storyline/Plot Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
Airen Blakovich (Co-Lead)
Jonathan Dishaw
Johan Flynn
William John Merriam III

 
Art Team:
Teresa Wambold (Lead)


Programming Team:
 Grover Wimberly IV
Matthew Estrada
Also - Scripts Used (See Below)
 
Music Team:
 Luke Simpson (Lead)


Voice Acting Team:
 Jonathan Dishaw - TBD
Vikki Ceballos - TBD
Jabari Smith - TBD

Johan Flynn - TBD



Scripts Used:

Map Effect Pack - NoorXp


Map Name Script - Falcao, edited by Grover Wimberly IV/Matthew Estrada
Custom Menu Script - Grover Wimberly IV
Battle Result Script - Woratana, edited by Grover Wimberly IV


Tanketai Battle Script -
Original Script by:  Enu
English Localization:  Kylock, Mr. Bubble, Shu
Contributors & Special Thanks: Shu, Moonlight, NightWalker, Enelvon, Atoa, AlphaWhelp,       blackmorning, Mithran, Kaduki, Enu             

Front-View Battle System Script Add-On- Grover Wimberly IV
_

Current Issues:
-When casting "Bolt", it does not appear as a title header.

Awesome IGDA-LA Conference

Hey all, I'm a little tired from doing lots of driving so this won't be a very long post.

I just got back from the IGDA [International Game Developers Asssociation] conference with my friends Jabari and Matt in Los Angeles, and it was a lot of fun. I got to hear the creative director and co-founder of Obsidian talk about downloadable content and its importance in modern gaming, and it got me very inspired to work more on Selatria itself. I wonder who will play it... or who to cater my audience to. That'll be something to sleep on.

Oh, and Matt won a PS3 game.

Until next time.