The Mists of Maderaan

I figured I'd start this off by saying a few things about what kind of progress I have made on the game thus far, what I intend to do about releases, and what my general thoughts about this game page are.

Progress
Let me first begin by saying: This is not vaporware. While there's the occasional missing NPC, a few unfinished siequests, and a handful of convos tagged with "REWRITE" comments in the editor, this is where things stand at the moment:
- 3-5 hours of gameplay
- 7 fully coded playable characters
- 5 more 90-100% designed characters(i.e. all skills and spells determined, equipment and stats assigned but not entered into party change and skill tree systems yet)
- 4 towns of varying sizes and themes
- 6/7(Depending how you count) Dungeons/Fields of varying sizes

Ultimately, this boils down to 1/8 chapters done, with the many of the maps, characters, monsters, and dialogue already created for the second chapter.

Release
At this point, the plan, subject to change, is for episodic releases for each chapter. I've been sitting on Chapter 1 because I don't think it's fully representative of the plot or of the gameplay when taken independently from the rest of the chapters. It sets up a lot of things, but the tone and approach are a little bit different since it serves as a prologue. Chapters 1 and 2 will be released simultaneously, hopefully before fall.

The Blog
I don't really feel the need to post constantly with tidbits like "I made a new dungeon today." Frankly, I don't think anybody cares. I might post some indication should a release be on the horizon, but until then, don't expect too many news updates. Instead, I will try to use the blog in two ways:

1. As a depository for some of the cleaned up production materials along with some of the thoughts that went into the product. Particularly, I'll post my thoughts and approaches to different characters and locations. Hopefully, it can serve to a) foster some interest in some of the characters and locations to be seen, and b) serve as an additional source of insight into my intents once the player's experienced them. I'll try to back each of these up with at least one screenshot

2. As a sort of guide. I probably won't post any sort of walkthrough or detailed boss strategies, but I'll likely include some design materials concerning skills, party setups, equipment, etc. along with my personal thoughts on what sort of strategy I'm trying to elicit from the players.

So yeah, I guess this is the first long-winded post of many. I'll also of course keep putting up screens for commentary and critique. You guys have been WAY too nice thus far ;-)

Coming up soon: Character Thoughts: Hugh