April 23, 2008 (Development Blog)

Update

Hey guys I'm taking a turn writing the development blog this week. There were a few things I would like to address. The first thing I would like to say is that, you guys need to get your assignments done... If we can't get these simple tasks done within a deadline how do you expect us to get a full blown game done? Well anyway I do not wish to rant about this, congratulations to those who have finished their tasks. We also have a meeting coming up please read about it.

We have a new member to the team... Forsman. I would like to welcome you to the team and I hope to see a lot from you.

The current GDD's as they follow I have not seen them personaly lately... Lach said he has got a lot of work done on them but I will leave that for him to go into depth. I believe we can get this GDD done by April 30.

I will be assigning people more tasks that will actualy be for our Pong game hopefully this week. Once the Pong games GDD is completed we can seriously start moving.

The team is as follows:
Lach - Founder, Programmer, Game design
Zanathar - Voice acting, C++ Programmer, Game concepts
Nightflyer - Music Composer, C++ Programmer
Natemo - 3D Artist, 2D Artist.
Hoodster2k - Game designer, Writer
Silent-Sound- Music Composer
Forsman- Web designer, Game Designer

I am very busy lately but I am not using this as an excuse... I am working hard on this project and every spare momment I have goes towards the team. I do appologize for this past week, I had a credit card stolen by one of our own ex-team members which did not go over well... Also school has taken the majority of my life over, come summer I will be opening my own store which will be dedicated all to gaming and creating video games... I will have our own server if we want to go multiplayer with our game. This is if everything goes over well.

Thanks for reading!

I'm also going to add to the blog with my own News and updates. Since the last blog, I have done a lot of work on the GDD's making them much more powerful and descriptive. Assignments were completed, members were removed, new members joined, and a few other things went on that will be discused about here.

I'm going to start off by saying goodbye to Vonsula and thank you for the work you have done for us and keeping the forums active when they were dying. Vonsula was removed from the team April 21st after informing me of life issues that did not allow him to work as a Level designer. He did suggest being a Web Designer but was unfortunatley turned down because of our current exeeding amount of Web Designers. So if anyone catches Vonsula around, thank him and say good bye. Even though we had a sad goodbye, we have the joy of welcoming our newest team member: Forsman. He came to us at the VG forums offering to create us a website for free. We obviously took this opportunity to look at his work and figured it was very good, giving him the position of lead Web designer for Stormblade Studios.

I have done a lot of work on the Valhalla's Gate GDD and Battle Paddles GDD. The Valhalla's Gate GDD is not a full 8 pages after adding in Sound/Music and updating: Updates, Controls, Basic Info, and Player Emporers. There was also quite a few Typo fixes done to both GDD's. Battle Paddles is now officialy complete and now ready to begin production. The oficial start date of the Game will be Saturday April 25th, 2008.

Silent-Sound has been working on music for Battle Paddles and told me that he is very good with Retro style music. He is also working on a Celtic themesong to place on the demo trailer of Valhalla's Gate. Please congratulate Silent Sound when you see him for the work he has been putting into the Music side of the project. I would also like everyone to congratulate Hoodster2k and Fang for completing their assignments and showing them to the team. I will or have personaly thanked you and I hope the rest do to.

The Valhalla's Gate forums have been updated to PHPbb3 but is not available to anyone while I run tests and look for bugs. Along with the forums, I have created a blog where all staff members will be able to post about things they have created or report about progress they have made with certain assignments or projects. This is also not available to anyone until it is officialy set up. A link will be posted on VG forums and these forums when they are ready for public.

The Wiki has been slightly updated with new lore. I have also written a new chapter for Alexander Erasmus's and must say that the end will be quite exciting. The end of his story is near, hehe. Hoodster2k has been working on weapons and lore for the Elves as well which will give us more to work off of. I also encourage the team to add their own Weapons and items to the list which can be found in the Staff Discussion forums.

To close this off, I would like to announce the beginning of the SSRP (Stormblade Staff Reward Points) system. The system was created not long ago to reward the staff members for a number of different things done. They will get rewarded for:

- Completing Assignments on time
- Contributing to the community without being told to
- Taking initiative or leadership
- Keeping forums active
- Being friendly to everyone
- Other notable things that will be noticed by Drizzt and I.

The rewards for the system will vary. They can be:

- Not recieve an assignment on next AD (Assignment Date)
- Recieve Staff points (For the Staff rank system)
- Your game idea for our next project may be chosen
- Get Member of the week (Will show the title under forum names and be announced to all members)
- Just get overall respect for doing a good job.

The Staff ranking system will also be visible and constantly edited. The system will show you and us who is working the hardest and who is slacking.