I've been really busy lately so the blogging has been quite sparse. The reason has mainly been my exams which aren't done until the 28th of June (sigh). But also - and more relevant - due to a huge amount of activity on the team. As I mentioned earlier, we've had a lot of applicants for the arts team. As expected one of them didn't show and one was particularly keen to work in the Unreal Engine - which we have no plans to port to btw. The ones sticking though have prooved incredibly skilled and persistent. ES has been lacking a serious art-department for a while, but I really feel that it's starting to get back on track. It's definitely a necessity if we're to complete just a fraction of our current ideas. So; To those involved: Awesome awesome work! :)
Apart from that our main focus is starting to shift to the new Orange Box version. I've caught myself sitting quite a few times until way too late, toying with details and looking into the possibilities. I'm really thrilled by the tons of options here! It's going to be great, but let's just say my exams aren't benefiting from this port :)
But we really need to be careful here: The Eternal Silence multiplayer is a game with lots of potential and many new things yet to be discovered. In the coming port there's a inherent danger of overlooking the multiplayer. But with a split team we have to face the facts: We can't put our previous level of commitment into two projects. My job here is to make sure that there's still continuing discussions and visions for the current multiplayer, while making sure that the port get's the attention it deservers to avoid the Duke Nukem Forever-trap. Recently released. Under development since 1996. That's 15 years! I know ES has a pretty good support. But there's no need to push it that far.
