The next release of BoB

Hey everyone! I know I have been a little quiet lately. Working hard on the next release of BoB! So I thought I would start this thread to post about it as I have news to share. There may be a bug fix release that may come out prior to the big release and I may do the big release in a few phases so I can get content out faster.

There will be additional adventurers for Guards and the launch of other adventures for other alignments. A lot of content is already in game, just unfinished and untested.

So, what is one of the cool new features I think will be there? Well how about Catapults? I have them working (but they still need a lot of work). They are really fun!

I expect to have several types of Catapult type quests, like land-to-land, ship-to-ship, land-to-ship, perhaps even CVC! I can see the Locus getting a few choice Catapults to make that area a much more crazy place.

There is more in the works. When I am pretty sure it is going to work, I will let you all know about it.

Threads will be alive and well in the next release. I am just now getting serious traction in what we had planned for them and generally they are working very well. We still run into some occasional bugs, which I am fixing as I can identify them.

Hope everyone is having fun!

P

it's gonna suck for us when Oblivion or Blizzard snatches you up

Yeah, Hey Cuda, Me and you in the Locus when the release is out...

You can be target practice..

Why do I always have to be target practice?

*looks around for a noob*

Oh and the new maintenance release 9_35_023 is supportive of the build release I am working on. There were some bugs we needed to addressed sooner than later. Everything I have stated above about the release being worked on remains true.

It is also quite possible we will have another maintenance release or two before the new content has been adequately tested. I still do not have catapults fully functioning the way I want. They are getting to be as complex as the faction system I wrote 2 years ago. Oh well. Back to work for me.....

p

Since I mentioned catapults a few months ago, I thought I would give some status on them. They are pretty much done and they are really fun!

There is a quest where all hell is breaking out around you and catapults will play significantly in the future of BoB.

There is a whole system to Catapults, such as the Catapult engineer who actually operates the catapult. You as a player give commands to the engineer, setting coordinates and directing firing operations.

Catapults support both range/degree and x,y,z modes. There is a Set Catapult command that allows you to target specific coordinates. Such as:

*setc* -x20 -y10 -z5

The catapult will fire on this location and detonate ordinance 5 meters above the ground.

There are flares too. You use a flare to tell your engineer to target a specific location. So you sneak through the battle field, ordinance is blowing up all around you. You pass the enemy line and activate a flare near your enemy. Your engineer sees the flare and targets the position sending firey death.

Sound fun? It is.

There are a bunch of catapult commands to learn. One thing though, you have to get trained on Catapult use to be able to use a catapult...

I am very hopeful that this feature will be in the next content release.

p

A few months ago?
Check the date of the prior post, lol

I had to do a double take too

Looks like my Metro char will have to spend some ranks in catapult...

Yep this update has been a long time coming. I had to write a ton of code for it. There is horse stuff, catapult stuff, new quests/bosses, the Metropolis Academy where you go to get trained as an officer. I have no idea how many thousands of lines of code has to be written and debugged.

A new enemy of the Metropolis is introduced in this next update.

As per ranks in catapults, it is not implemented as a skill. You don't actually operate the catapults, you have engineer's do it for you. You just need to know how to give them the commands for setting direction, detonation altitude, etc. They make all the adjustments and fire it. One of your objectives is to eliminate enemy engineers as they are firing thier catapults at you. The enemy is also trying to eliminate your engineers. It is actually hard to keep engineers alive.

One of the challenges is to wage a battle and keep your forces in action. It takes strategy and sometimes a bit of luck.

I am currently working on a campain scenario, where you are faced with several decisions about how you wish to complete your mission. Haven't got enough of it working yet to have played through it, but I think it will be fun.

p

Do you ever even get a chance to actually play the game?

What game? Oh you mean BoB.

I actually did play for an hour or so last week. But the answer is no, I don't get to play much. My characters are all pretty much at the same level they were when I started working on BoB when Narc retired from it.

I want to get it done so I can play it. I think once it is basically done, I am going to hang up development for a while. I still have a ways to go though.

p

So the next part of the guard thread is coming?

Awesome, I've got a character that I've pretty much hung up to wait till that part's done so I can keep going through. I'm looking forward to that.

lol @ Phann
Well, you're doing a fine job for sure!

Hope to see you in game sometime soon...

Actually I am hopeful to be releaseing the next chapter of the guards and the Good thread as well.
There is still a lot to do on both and I may do some incremental releases to get it all done.

The guards will next be sent to Officer's training at the Metropolis Acadamy. Here they will learn skill such as horseman ship and catapult management. They will be sent out on missions as part of that training. Those that survive will grow in rank in the military, those that don't.... well there is a graveyard for them.

I have two other folks helping me with content at the moment, so hopefully we will be getting out something at least once per month.

p