I am meeting with my concept artists on the 15th. The artistic direction will be officially determined when I review all of the sample works they have submitted. I currently have five artists assigned to the prosject, based on submissions I will also name an artistic lead.
Additionally we will be making a prototype using placeholder Source assets in the near future to begin unit and item balancing. Milestones have yet to be established, but the aim is to be in beta around Q2 2013. Fortunately, the game itself does not call for us to essentially rebuild source, my programmer tells me it should be a relatively straightforward expansion on the engine. Fortunately, he will also be teaching me how to script a little bit, as I am currently a programming idiot.
On a final note, I completed and sent out the design document roughly 3 days ago, however I have continued to expand and refine things, bumping the size up from 12 to 20 pages. The revised document will be sent out on the 19th. I am going to release updated versions of the document to the staff in two week intervals. Additionally I am working on expansion of the narrative, securing a dedicated server, brushing up on my Hammer mapping abilities, and building the site.
We have our work cut out for us.
