Time passes... Gnostaria still awaits

Hi all,

Just a quick note... life changes fast... I've finished University, my daughter graduates High school tomorrow and Gnostaria is still developing. No new photos because Zeruel is waiting for the latest engine to be released before showing us more... apparently it will look even better than what we've seen so far... just be patient, he's doing lots of work on the servers and behind the scenes programming that will make Gnostaria more than just eye candy, but a great game!

Later days!
Guyturf

Just a quick update from Zeruel on Gnostaria... he's been busy, but little in the way of updates for you while we wait for the Beta...

A few teaser shots though :)






Here's what Zeruel had to say just this week about progress!

"We've been getting loads of work done on both combat, skills / stats systems and items. The way we handle items is turning out incredibly powerful. We've been spending extra time on creating systems that are very flexible, powerful and easy to expand so the up front development takes a bit longer but there will be a huge payoff in the future.

I also finished implementing "power attacks" where you can click and hold the mouse, then release to unleash a more powerful attack. Right now combat has 3 main aspects (with a 4th being finished right now). The currently implemented ones are: attack, power attack and block. The new one that is being implemented is kick / shield bash -- this will be activated if you are blocking (holding right mouse button) and then try to attack while blocking (press left mouse button).

Kicking / shield bash is intended to do small (or possibly no) damage but to send the target back away from you. Knocking your opponent back will have a small chance of knocking them over, based on various conditions. Each aspect of combat (attack, power attack, block, kick / bash) will be a separate skill and each weapon type will have its own version of these skills (for example, long sword attack, long sword power attack, etc). The skill system is also being enhanced to support a related-skill bonus which I will talk about more at another time (basically the idea is that if you are very well versed in some skills, you will have at least a minimum level of competency in related skills, even if you have never explicitly trained in them. For example, if you are a master of the long sword, even if you have never used a short sword [have 0 earned points in every short sword related skill] you should still have some ability with it based on your long sword use, hence your effective skill will receive a bonus from your related skills).

The item system is quite awesome and I will speculate it may be the most powerful system for handling items ever created for an MMO. I'm not kidding.

As I mentioned earlier there will be some changes to the website this weekend so keep an eye out (it will be hard to miss).

As far as the beta goes, we were at a point a month or two ago where we wanted to get the beta out but we had some major changes take place (both in the code and in the artwork and level design) that have improved things easily 10x over where we already were. Taking the time to continue working on this branch of development puts Gnostaria in a much stronger position for beta release and will be a much more enjoyable experience for the testers with tons of extra features, a more stable game and better graphics quality and performance."

I still can't wait... I'm consoling myself with world of warcraft right now... not as much of a challenge, but it'll do...

Later days!
Guyturf

A Public Beta

It's still coming my friends, and the good news is, the next release of Gnostaria should be an open beta. Zeruel was talking about another closed alpha but he felt he'd rather hold off a bit so that everyone who is interested can join :)

Go to Gnostaria's website and signup for instant access when the beta opens up!

Later!
Guyturf

Open Beta Coming soon?

Hey all,

Just so you know, Zeruel has been teasing us fairly regularly with updates on when the beta might start for gnostaria, but the good news is that right now its set for January 5!!!

:)

If that happens, watch here for early screenshots, sorry for my long absence, but the truth is that school and RL got in the way for the month of December.

Enjoy these preview shots!





Later days!
Guyturf

The Mummy King!

G'day again my friends, Check out this composite of the Mummy King just released.



Apparently it will look even BETTER in the game!

Can't wait, check out Gnostaria for more!

Guyturf

Check it out friends, progress on Gnostaria is continuing with the latest news from Zeruel as follows:

"We received the final monster model for this phase of development today. This guy will be a formidable opponent located deep within the crypts of the forsaken graveyard. The screenshots do not do justice to this (or any of the other new content, I must admit). You have to see this one in action to get a true feel for its sinister prescence. The armor is highly detailed with gold runes and other intricate designs. I present the Mummy King:"





Looks like the progress will definitely be worth the wait, we've seen even more from Zeruel, but unfortunately my school and work schedule has been keeping me way busy for a while now and I haven't had time to post everything. The good news is the semester is almost over!

Later!
Guyturf

Undead!

Good day folks,

Check out the art that's coming these days, undead zombies and mummies in Gnostaria... OH MY!






If they look this good now, just wait for the public beta. The alpha testing continues, with more examples of what the world will contain be offered regularly. Keep checking back, Gnostaria is coming!

Guyturf

The look of Gnostaria

Good day friends,

Gnostaria stands out not only because of its potential in game play but because of Zeruel's attention to detail and willingness to invest in the art and eyecandy of the game. The difference seems to be that he is really interested in seeing real roleplaying happen and allowing the characters appearance and abilities to reflect that. Check out some of the upcoming additions to the already large array of options for appearance :)






If the hair has that much detail, imagine what Gnostaria will ultimately be!

Later Days!
Guyturf

Alpha phase 2 begins!

Great news!

Zeruel found a 'glitch' in Gnostaria and so had to upgrade the work to the latest gaming engine. This means that we have better terrain and options than ever before, and the game will load and run faster and more smoothly too :)

I like that kind of glitch.

Alpha 2 should be available to download (working) later today, when it happens, you can bet I'll have more info for you all!

Enjoy these previews from "Z"






































































































































Beautiful! Compare these shots with some of my earlier screenshots and you'll see the improvements clearly!

Hang in there, the public Beta shouldn't be long now!

Guyturf

Entering the promised land...

We're crossing a bridge!


Good day all. Gnostaria continues to grow and draw the attention of those who are serious about a real alternative to the MMORPG's out there. Zeruel has told us that the next round of testing will be starting soon with combat and many other features to be implemented. For the alpha stage of testing, he has a lot that will be working.


He writes in the forums on Gnostaria.com...

"it is very close to being ready (although.... this is still an Alpha afterall).

I will mention a few things on what to expect.

character creation... There is a drop down list called gender, you select male / female. There is one for hair style, facial hair style, skin color etc. All of the selections are correctly stored on the player, but they are not reflected graphically (mainly because not all of the artwork is done yet -- the art team is still producing it). A good example of this is heads (there are 3 options each for male and female heads, but regardless of which one you pick it will always appear the same for now). The next player model update (in about a week or two) will include both new heads and new hair styles (right now all of the hair and facial hair styles you can choose from exist, but they will roughly double in a few weeks). In the future (2-3 months) we will have a 3D player creation screen where you can use next / previous arrows to cycle through different features and see them in real time. We'll also have an animated 3D background instead of the flat background and some nicer GUI effects (smoother fades and things like that).

...the level is the same as the old level but with some of the new art assets (trees, rocks, re-configured sun) and cleaned up a little bit.

The way the game is loaded is also significantly different than in the past. Previously logging in, server selection, character selection and so on were handled within the game client. There is now a loader application which handles getting news on the main screen, checking for new patches, logging in / server selection / character selection / character creation and loading into the 3D game client. In the future we will be able to add additional features to this application to make handling things outside of the game more convenient.

Finally, numerous bugs have been fixed, new features implemented and drastic changes have taken place on the server-side. There's also a huge stream of new content and features on the way:

• we have a working Oblivion-style combat system -- the next step is hooking up skills and stats to play a more significant roll in the combat equations
• The foundation for character inventory is in place (including allowing things like containers inside of containers -- for example, a leather bag inside of a canvas sack inside of a burlap backpack) so the next step is to implement the final pieces for this system and create the GUI to allow players to manipulate items in their inventory
• We have some non-human models for NPCs (sheep, highly customizable skeletons) with more monsters on the way (mummies, zombies in the near future -- these are currently under production)
• Additional content for skeletons (several dramatic "appearance" animations and a very cool means of skeletal death where the individual bones explode apart based on the power of the impact and realistically shatter and bounce off of terrain, buildings and so on).
• The infastructure and animations are already in place for mounting weapons and shields on your hips and back -- some additional work needs to be done to hook all of these separate pieces together (for tomorrow's release we will hopefully have the "draw weapon" animations used, although weapons won't be mounted visibly on the players hips or back yet)
• Some code is in place for being able to give other players nicknames -- long term we are toying with the idea of not seeing a name float above a players head unless you name them. Someone can tell you a fake name (and you could name them that) or you could give them a nick name that you would more easily remember. People you don't know would appear in chat with messages like: A man says, "hello" or A human male says, "hello". You could also add people as friends, enemies or neutral contacts. This is something we can do, but we will test it first (this is something alpha testers will have a very direct impact in determining whether we use it or not)
• Emote messaging -- text messages now appear to players in range although messages when emoting at a specific target are not used yet. The emotes dynamically use different words based on the character who is acting them out (for example, figuring out whether to use him / her or he / she based on gender) and are already coded to use different messaging based on a variety of targets (or no target, which is the default action). Some additional code needs to be written to use the target, but the underlying work has already been done.
• Chat voice ranges -- players can whisper, talk or shout, with a different message and text color indicating which volume of speaking was used. We also have it so that players that are just on the edge of where they would normally be able to hear something will instead see a message that a particular person was talking although they couldn't quite hear what was said. The alpha will help determine if these voice ranges can be improved (increased or decreased distance). This is functionality that is fully implemented but could possibly use some tweaking.
• Upgrading the game engine and taking advantage of some new graphics features to implement a smooth day / night transition system and significantly faster and better handling of foliage, as well as overall performance improvements
• Dramatically improved load times (right now it takes 30-60 seconds to load the game. We are aiming to reduce this to about 10-15 seconds (or less) for a 2 kilometer by 2 kilometer area and should be able to do so within the next month or two).

These are just the near term goals (stuff to be done within about a month or less) as well as continued improvements to the quality of the code (not just the features -- keeping lag under control is always important and a big part of that is writing good code). The long term will bring a lot more content (new weapon and shield models specifically made for Gnostaria), new clothing, new armor sets, helmets, completely new building models, new levels."

End Quote!


Gnostaria has some ambitious goals, but what I like about Zeruel's work thus far is he has consistently refused to release a new update until it was actually ready, then when it is we have seen what was promised. Yes there are bugs to work out, it is still in the Alpha stage after all, but with the potential it has...

We're going to have a blast!

If you are interested in being part of the Alpha testing phase, head on over to the Gnostaria website, sign up for the forums and then post your interest in the "Gnostaria Closed Test Signup" thread... you won't be disappointed. Tell them Guyturf sent you.

Later days!
Guyturf