Under New Management
Hello once again from Epic Portions Studios. First off, we would like to thank the community for the patience they have demonstrated time and again as we labor to bring you The Harvest Campaign. As you may or may not have noticed, we have changed our projected release deadline to "To Be Determined". This is not because we have abandoned the project, merely changed direction. First off, the development team has been reorganized. Were (or Weredragon) has stepped down from the position of Project Leader due to real life concerns and in order to pursue a more personal project. In his place, Anubis, our former modeler will now be directing the project. The remainder of the team remains the same.
New Heading
As a part of the change in our leadership structure, we have somewhat changed our initial design goals. It remains our intention to provide not only a Halo-themed backdrop in which to fight the epic war game, but to also provide a player versus environment experience so that players have a reason to get on the server without having to rely on others being there in order to make for an entertaining experience.
Largely the game play experience will remain the same, but one of the new additions will be a "Maintenance Point" system that will determine what ships can be brought to a Territorial Engagement. Before those who have played Freelancer: Combat Evolved get excited, it will not affect what ship a player can have. Like our original goal, aside from some restricted ship classes, each player will be able to choose what ship class they wish to use.
There have also been many changes to the campaign metagame that faction leaders will be participating in. One change will be to the research system. Each faction's leadership will be able to decide what improvements to research for their faction, and it will progress in a style similar to a real time strategy game. Once certain specified prerequisites are met, the faction will gain access to the improvement. These improvements will be fueled by resources provided by the systems and installations that each side currently controls. These improvements will cover a wide range of possibilities, from new prototype weapons to entirely new ship classes. This is by far not the only change, and more details will be provided later.
Help Wanted
An unfortunate side effect of Were's departure is that we will no longer be able to follow our original plan of generating the systems procedurally via program, and will now have to do them by hand. For this purpose, we would appreciate it if any experienced Freelancer coders could lend us their assistance. If anyone is interested, feel free to contact us either here or on our forums.
