More On Alpha Postponement.

[HR-Trevor]

Upon further analysis of the situation, we've come to a very hard decision. We're changing game engines completely. Haelrahv is going to be re-developed with the Eaxia engine. GD-Exxy from Eaxia and I are working through various updates to the engine that will allow us to handle the needs of both Eaxia and Haelrahv for the future.

The staff has not begun dev with the new engine yet. I can't approximate any launch date at this time because there are several unknown factors; explicitly -- a) what extra tools and functionality is needed in the engine and how long it will take to add, b) how much time will be needed for our coders to learn a new language, since the Eaxia engine, which is a custom engine, uses a custom language.

This essentially means, however, that the only truly salvageable aspects of Haelrahv from the existing engine are concepts and areas. Areas themselves will be copied over, which means our area builders essentially have a nice chunk of time to fluff up these areas and build new ones, while the coders start from scratch, mostly.

One of the upshots of this is that Eaxia and Haelrahv will be using identical engines. This will allow the two games to share code and systems easily where desired. Since each game has its own staff, this effectively greatly increases the power each game has to generate systems and code.

Another upshot will be overall performance. New data storage and retrieval methods Exxy is developing are extremely versatile and fast, and will help the performance of both games immensely. He's been doing speed tests on this new system and the numbers are incredibly impressive.

We'll be fairly quiet for a period of time as we adjust. Some changes will take place to how we've done things to date. Some things will become apparent to you in the future as changes from the old setup, some will be behind the scenes.

One major change we are making is the way player names are structured. For technical considerations, we're going with an unique first name, non-unique last name system, ala Eaxia, DR, GS3 where there can be only one Fred, for example. There can be Bob Jones, Fred Jones and Bill Jones, but not a Fred Jones and a Fred Smith. We realize this change will probably be met with mixed feelings, however, there were a number of very good arguments for the change and few against it.

That's the update as I can offer it for now. I'm hoping the game itself will be much more solid from the start by way of these changes. Certainly this will address our needs as far as system resource, so that we do not have to concern ourselves with how may players exist or how many objects they have in our inventory -- the bane of our current engine.

As for the many, many who have applied for staff.... I will be reviewing our specific needs and doing limited hiring. I can brief you on our overall needs as they stand now.


What we DO need now:

- History / Lore writers: Must have excellent spelling and grammar; must have a high level of creativity. These persons are responsible for creating the stories, myths, backgrounds, histories, and so on for races, game areas, and so on. Must have a *minimum* of 40 hours a month of available time to work on history-related tasks.


What we DO need soon but not now:

- Programmers: Must have a programming background, though not with a specific language, just one the programmer is proficient with and has used fairly recently. Must have a *minimum* of 40 hours a month of available time to work on code.

- Documentation writers: Must have good spelling and grammar. These persons are responsible for writing documentation on how various game systems function for future player consumption. Must have a *minimum* of 40 hours of available time per month.


What we DO NOT need for the near future:

- Merchants, alterers, events organizers, wedding planners, player assistance persons, testers or area builders.


More updates as they are available.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

-- Trevor Rage / Rich Mondy