Beta Delayed Again and Future Plans. news

Greetings everyone!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty rough for me since I've been selecting subjects for Year 11. As a result I've had little time to work on the project. So I've only now been able to come back to Moddb.com and check out the mod page. I've came back to some disappointed fans, and as you can see, many people in the comments have complained that the Closed Beta was not release a few days back.

When I created this mod page I was not aware that a TBD option was available, so I just set it to an approximate date that I thought would be the day of the Beta release. If there was a TBD I would gladly add that to stop any possible confusion. We could have easily made the 31st of July the Closed Beta release date, however, a few things have slowed us down. I would first like to tell you what we DO have completed:

- All spells and mechanics for the Scourge race completed.
- All concepts for the Scourge race completed.
- Scourge in-game UI completed.
- Main Menu redesign and background completed.
- Scourge soundtrack and situational music-player completed.
- Initial introduction sequence completed.
- Pre-launched client with integrated MSN and Facebook features.
- Fully functional server and patching/updating service.

Now as you can see we've completed a LOT of features and mechanics already, but there are still a few things we need to do before a beta can be released:

- A lot of Scourge models need to be completed.
- Launch trailer needs to be completed.
- Final Client polishing needs to be completed.
- Heroes need to be polished.

The models are the biggest problem, because without them we cannot create the trailer, and there are quite a lot to finish. Now the problem is that a few weeks ago our main modeller of the team had to go inactive for a while in order to sort out some real life issues, and while it's unfortunate, it's completely understandable. It's not like this is a game we are making where we can simply tell them to do the work or they'll get fired, things happen as everyone also has a real job out there to deal with. Alex is not quite back yet, but I expect he will return soon to continue working. Originally, he was making around two models a day with simple animations completed. He was also working on a really nice and high detailed texture for the structures.

I'm sorry that the beta could not be released on the 31st, but like I said I never intended to actually release it on that day. It was just an internal estimation and we were never going to stay true to unless we absolutely could.

Now for the good news. In a few days I'm going to be wiping the team list and re-recruit all the members and ask them if they are fully committed to helping the project progress. If they can't make that commitment they may very well be let go or occasionally asked to help and get a replacement for them. I can no longer work on this project forever and I really want to get this modification into your hands. I myself have always loved the idea of modification that could improve on the original gameplay but add SO much more, no just in the game itself. I think you'll all love the new main menu that we are currently working on, and much more features will be added as the phases progress.

In future we will be releasing pictures of the main menu, in-game, and even the campaign selector.

After those two releases, we shall be creating a trailer and showing it you all to enjoy. As you could see before we were making HUGE progress with the concept arts and music pieces (I even finalized the logo and made a Beta version in preparation thinking that we could actually make that date), but unfortunately it didn't happen. It's not a bad thing, it just happens sometimes and there's not much I can do about it. If anyone thinks they can help the project in any way, please respond below. But please, don't sign up if you don't have any skills. Making up ideas does not count as a team member position, if you want to make ideas feel free to make them in the comment section, but currently there is no actual position for this and probably never will.

Thanks for the patience, I wish you all a nice week. Hopefully things can get kicked off soon. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Eternal Designs leader,

~ Kingbdogz ~