Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Kanto is Finished

They said it couldn't be done. They told us we were mad for trying it. But we did it.

That's complete bull, I did it. I portalled all of Kanto. By myself. I also added the interiors for Celadon, Vermilion and Fuchsia, and redid Saffron's.

As a result, Kanto is pretty much in a usable state, however we aren't releasing until Hoenn is at the same standard. Tomorrow we're hopefully going to be performing some very preliminary beta testing (more stress-testing the server to see what it can handle than actually evaluating the maps). Please don't ask to join in, this is a private affair - there will be a beta soon, as I said in my previous post.

We've been doing some more planning on the beta over the past few days, as well as designing the feedback form which we'll be asking you all to fill out once you've got through the map

Work will continue on Hoenn as soon as I regain the energy I spent today. The future is looking promising!

Monday, December 17, 2012

2010 Cieran was not very smart

In 2010, we realised that we didn't have half the interiors in Kanto. Yes, this has been an issue we haven't spoken about for quite some time. We just assumed something would happen, but none of us bothered to do anything about it. As a result we just sort of let it be. I tried to get some emulated copies of Fire Red to work (before anyone accuses us of dirty piracy, we have recreated all of Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh in Minecraft - of course we've bought the games and played them to death) but it just didn't seem to go.

I don't know what I was doing wrong because I got one working within fifteen minutes of bidoof_king remarking that I should give it another try. As a result, our last major obstacle is overcome - now we just need to build the damn things.

As a result of this (and also because today, December 18th, is our third birthday - yeah, we've been at it for a while now), we're pleased to announce that we will soon be undertaking closed beta testing in order to prepare for release. Keep following us here for announcements and invitations - we're anticipating a pretty high uptake, and our server probably can't handle several thousand people at once (our server can at times barely handle three of us - it's not a very good server, and bidoof_king's Internet connection is less than stellar.).

It's unlikely that you'll see the map in 2012, but an early-2013 release would not be unreasonable. There's some pretty big hurdles to overcome in portalling (Seafloor Cavern in Hoenn, for example), but I believe that we can do this.

So keep watching us, and you too could be exploring Kanto before everyone else!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The State of the Pokécraft Nation

So 1.4 has now been out for almost two months, and a lot of people are asking us where the map is. We never promised to release AT 1.4, only that it wouldn't be done until after 1.4 is.

Some people tell us "why not just release it now and then issue updates?". These people do not realise quite how unfinished the maps as they currently exist are. Until two weeks ago, for example, you could get about as far as Viridian Forest in Kanto before your progress would be stopped by a door. It's since been portalled, but our point is that a lot of the map is simply not traversable in its current state. Refer to the previous post for information on how updates will be issued - they will be, but we need to get to a semi-usable state first. Kanto needs interiors (Vermilion, Fuchsia, Celadon and a host of route-buildings simply don't have any interiors at all). This might not bother you, but it bothers us, a lot.

As it currently exists, what we have of the Kanto interiors are portalled, we just need to build the rest. The issue is that there aren't any maps for them. Crazy as it may sound, in eight years no-one has mapped large amounts of Kanto. But please understand that we're not slacking, we've just moved onto Hoenn, with the result that Hoenn is probably about 40% portalled already from work in the last two weeks.

We don't want to release an incomplete project, is the crux of the matter. It will be done when it's done, and complaining to us about delays or lack of updates will not speed up the matter. We are working hard already, we don't need to you goad us.

Regarding updates, we (should) be releasing Episode 2 of Wandering in the next few days, pending Rils' edits, showing off a lot more of Kanto, but also some of the holes.

For anyone wondering, the most recent thing completed was Silph Co. Those of you who know Silph Co may be aware that it has a total of 34 portals, as well as an elevator and stairs for each floor. It took me three hours to do, and please remember this - the building was already finished. The stuff was all there, it just needed updating. That's what we're up against here, a map built for software made in 2009 being ported to software in 2012. Go back and play Minecraft Classic. Spend two years building massive, massive structures using only the limited 50 or so blocks in that version. Then try and update them to 1.4.

Then you may complain to us about our speed. But until then, we're working as hard as we can to get this project done.