(My last Political Post, I decided not to do one on the election, as it had been covered :) )

It is going to be entertaining to watch the outcome of the current split facing the republican party.

One one hand, you have the Fiscal conservatives, who tolerated McCain, but thought that Palin was a huge drag on the ticket, and want to dump some of the more extreme issues in order to move closer to the center.

On the other, you have the Social Conservatives, who are pissed at what the McCain campaign has been releasing about Sarah, and for the most part, have been throwing McCain under the bus. They want to move the party to the right to gather more of the base.

Personally, I want the Social Conservatives to win this, because with little to no moderate support, they are going to be hardpressed to win Elections. On the other hand, if the Fiscal conservatives get their way, the general discourse will move to the left, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Just kidding!

According to FiveThirtyEight, McCain's chance to win is at 2.8 percent, and his hopes are currently pinned on winning PA, where Obama has a 10 point lead.

Now I'm not saying that everything is wrapped up, and I hope turnout isn't stunted by overconfident Obama supporters or surrendering McCainiacs, but the chances of a McCain upset (Barring voting machine buggery) are very, very low.

Had exams this week, so not too much to talk about about the actual battle system, but I did work on fleshing out my design documents even more, and added some more npcs and enemy types.

To do list for this week:

Finish Party system.
Start the Shop/Sell system.
Finish the Load/Save system, make sure it works fine in every contingency (eg: logging off mid battle)

Alpha testing

I will be starting testing anywhere from a week to a month from now, (Basically when the game is ready). Any non byond members who want to test, simply reply to this post stating that you wish to be a tester and I'll add you to the list. Anyone who is a byond member will automatically be let into the alpha testing.

Alpha Testing Contest
I will also have a contest during the alpha for a free year of being subscribed to Phasmatis. In-game will be an extremely strong monster, and if you can beat it (Yes, if you work as a team, everyone who is on the team gets the year), and have everyone who was on the team submit a screenshot, you get a free year!

What is Phasmatis ? Phasmatis is a project that I have been working on for about two weeks. Phasmatis is an early-jrpg style online rpg, that will (hopefully) set higher standards on Byond for storytelling and gameplay.

One of the things that I want to focus on, is group based gameplay, groups will have no experience penalty for grouping, and several classes will be close to useless solo, but will make groups extremely efficient and great.

Part of the story, is that the game world ages to an extent with you. As you progress throughout the class tiers, "time" passes, and you will find that the story has progressed. NPCs that you may have met before will be older, or possibly dead, and that will drive the story.

Classes will go from Unspecialized -> Specialized, meaning that everyone will start off as a rookie, and will upgrade to different classes, eventually ending up as a very specialized character.

Example:

Rookie(Bit of everything)->Acolyte(Healing/Buffing)->Dark Priest(Debuffing/Buffing)->Shade(Debuffing)

The game itself will be released in tiers, The first Tier, where everyone is a rookie, will be released sometime in the following weeks to anyone who signs up to be an alpha tester from now through T1 alpha release. Tier two will be released to the T1 testers and anyone else asking to test until it's release. Tier 3 will be a public beta, and Tier four will be the public release.

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Work Done:

The Battle system is nearly player-testable with a few exceptions, namely the Party system, and the sub-action menu.

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What jobs are needed at this point in time:

Pixel Artist (To work on Mobs)
Pixel Artist (To work on Interface)

What jobs would be nice to have, but are not needed yet:

Writer (General Lore,Dialog)
Alpha Tester (People who actually are willing to put in bug reports or other feedback)
Composer (Silent games are boring games)
Graphics Artist (My Photoshop skills suck)
Programmer (I am planning on having a huge amount of classes/skills ingame, and a decent programmer would help the load)

Anyone who wants to contact me about the above jobs can either reply here, or contact me on my email at Techgamer@gmail.com.
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An early development picture:



(If it isn't obvious, I'm not the world's best pixel artist)
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Next Week's Update Preview: The History of Phasmatis.

Hello, if you didn't know this already, this is Techgamer, and I am restarting Venom Development, and restarting work on Phasmatis.

The reason I have came back to byond, is that I have a lot of free time due to a spaced out college schedule, and a job where I literally have nothing to do besides do homework/surf the internet.

So, with regards to that, I am restarting Venom Development. Not only will I have a lot of free time, but I have learned the lessons from the failed effort of the past.

Right now, I have put in a bit of time on the game as is, and have created some easy to use templates for anyone on the team.

Now, having said that, why join the team?

*You will have a dedicated team leader.
*See your hard work go into a great game!
*Have a good chance at earning some money.
*When the game releases, I will personally buy everyone on the team a cafepress T-shirt or Polo with the game logo(Not designed yet) on the back.

What are the requirements for joining the team?

*Must be able to set a time each week to converse with myself about the game. Preferably we can have everyone on the team able to make the set time.
*Are skilled in an aspect of making Byond games(Pixel art, Audio, etc...), or are willing to learn the aspect.
*Must have no record of stealing source code/files. You'll be trusted with the team's work.
*Be a reasonable person. Drama seems to creep in most byond teams, sadly, but I would like to keep it at a minimum.







If you are interested, contact me:

On msn at Tech_Deki@hotmail.com
By Email at Techgamer@gmail.com
Page me on Byond - Techgamer