My yearly blog? - Darthlex

Hello there stranger-whom-I-don't-know-who-is and welcome to .. Me!

I just, noticed the other day, that it had been almost a whole year since I had written anything on my MODDB profile. Thus I decided to do this, my second blog, on the 1 year anniversary of the first!

So I suppose the obvious thing would be to tell how I've progressed, both as a writer and as a person, through this year of developement. I might write a bit about what I've learned and realised, through these experiences 'n perhaps reflect a bit upon my experience working with a large team of developers. I suppose we'll see what it becomes, go right ahead and start reading!

Personally I have developed quite a lot. My english skills have been improving with time, my grammar has gotten a lot better and although I still fail in some cases, I still feel I've come far.

The last time I wrote, JKG was a fairly new experience to me and (even though I created the motto "Breaking the limits") I still found it hard to believe that JKG could truly realise the many goals it was set to strive for. My speciality comes in form of scepticism and where people often just happily create away with their minds, I often am the annoying nit-picky type that will break their ideas apart, from many different angles. With time though, I have been convinced of the abilities our team possesses and I am completely convinced that JKG will bring life back to Jedi Academy.

Although I have reached that determined feeling, the road there has not always been one I felt safe walking. At times it has taken more than a bit of pushing, to keep people truly motivated and even I have had my long period of absence, due to life-related stuff. It is in these cases where being a big team shows to be a major advantage! If one of the coders is out for a while, knowing that we have 2-3 other talented coders helps.

Sadly there are also the areas of creation that never really seemed to move much forward. It is a fact to us that we severely slowed down the writing, due to the team not getting enough work done and the lack of a leader, that could keep the writers working. Earlier this year, I took over the position of lead writer. Immediately after that, I was, regrettably, suddenly very busy with life and failed to lead anything anywhere, for a while. Now, seeing as the summer is upon us, I hope to be able to make up for this and make the team work as efficiently as possible, so that our writing may match the quality of the other very fast-approaching features, that the team is still working hard on.

..

If we take a step away from modifcations, some of you may know that I'm technically also a part of the VHEL developement team. It is sad that I've helped VHEL so little, for it truly has a space in the nerd part of my heart, as a game I have enjoyed learning to know inside out. The characters of VHEL are, to me, like close friends I've known for years. Van (Mr.12) has given me a love for these characters, that I have yet to find in any other game - If you, as me, are into well-written, humerous dialogue, then VHEL shall not disappoint you, even if it *is* aimed for girls.

After having such a nice experience with getting to know VHEL, I suddenly become a lot more interested in the indie gaming community. I had not previously truly supported it, but I quickly bound myself to some MODDB favorites such as Wolfire's well-known title "Overgrowth" as well as both "Natural Selection 2" and "Frozen Synapse" and I began understanding that the future of truly great games, lay in the hands of us, the community.

I urge the few people that read this blog message, to support indie games in any way they find themselves able to! If you think the only way to keep a game going is money, then you are very wrong! It takes support from people to be able to go on. But if you do have the money, then I also urge you to financially support the games you feel deserve to get out there!

As my ending comments to this post, I would like to express my gratitude to the people I've met in this community. The most important reason that I am still here, is the fun and relief I feel when I sit down and go on MODDB or start another document for JKG - It is my escape, as it is many other's, but I embrace it fully.

Thank you MODDB. Thank you JKG. And every person that supports either of the two!
You freaking rock! <3