One Year Ago...

[John Adams]

I have to say I'm a little shocked no one mentioned that 1 year ago today, in fact about 90 minutes ago, was the exact anniversary of VG:SOH sunset I myself am surprised it's already been a year; but looking back at our accomplishments here, for such a small team quite a lot has been done. Not just to the world, like fluid motion, NPCs, objects, doors, player stats systems and the list goes on and on... but the data analysis really didn't start until the collections were all uploaded. The most shocking part of that is, that is where Xinux and I live mostly - in the raw data... and it's been a year !!!! I must be out of my mind


I had a (secret) goal for the Sunset Anniversary, and that was to bring you Combat - even in a basic form. Fortunately for me, zippyzee stopped back in and with his usual speed and diligence, he did in 1 month what I had expected would take us 6. He has definitely earned his name... zippy! I own a humungous thank you to zippyzee for helping me meet this very important goal for the project, along with Faux working tirelessly to get the abilities, buffs and LUA systems all talking together and working with Zippy on paving the way for a more robust combat experience.


The plans we have to finish out the 2nd half of 2015 are pretty lofty, but we have a good team with some steady focus and lots of ambition. As you know, we're aiming for basic Combat, Abilities, filling the world with actual content to experience, and a few other surprises I hope we can pull off by the end of this year (to be announced).

As always, thank you for your continued support in breaking our code. We love bugs, and couldn't do this without you testers pounding away at it every day.

[zippyzee]

I wouldn't have guessed we could get that much combat done so quickly, either. I had always looked the other way hoping that Lokked or another dev would go full bore into it, because I had absolutely no clue how to do it. It turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as it let me look that much more deeply into how the game works and how we can control it, and got me out of my comfort zone.

Thankfully, Volt had done a great job setting up NPCM, and I was able to branch off of that. Without it, I would have been stumped, or at least would have only been able to "rig" it to work. As it stands, it is already pretty clean and fits well into our NPC AI ecosystem. Still plenty to improve on, but looking good.

For those watching anxiously from the sidelines, this progress has opened up an enormous amount of new directions for us to head into, and there are not many of us so we have to take some baby steps now. There will be some considerable time putting in the basic building blocks, and then we can move into tweaking and balancing and making it feel, "real". Don't forget we are all working regular jobs and doing this in our spare time, which makes it all that much more impressive that we can accomplish much of anything, let alone get it this far. Especially how aggravating we can be to work with at times (John nods his head vigorously).

To see this appear out of nothing, and even I was skeptical when I started on, to giving us the actual feeling of playing Vanguard, in this amount of time is truly special. There have been a lot of people who have donated their time and energy to make it happen, and I thank them all as well. Vanguard will live on!

[Billham]

You guys (all you devs) are truly superstars and have rocked your asses off this past year like we never could have imagined. I have very little time to play any game this time of year but I find myself loggin in and wacking a few waspinglings or just running and rifting around exploring rather that spendind that time in a game that I have paid for. What does that tell you??
Thanks and keep up the awesome work. =)

[Kinshi]

I can only say, based on what I have seen from this group, since it started, is that it is the best, most organized, on the ball emulator development team I have seen in a long time, and I have been mucking about in emulators for quite a while.

What stands out to me is the organization, and the focus in that you all set up milestones, then you actually hit them and its clear that organization is what makes it happen. You guys have team communication and cooperation that is pretty unrivaled in emulator teams. Keep that up, its pure gold.

Very good work. I can see that barring unforeseen circumstances, that you WILL produce a playable VG emulator and its not a matter of if it happens anymore, but when.

[VincentG]

Amazing progress. Please know that there are a lot of us who are watching this closely. You guys are bringing back an MMO that surpasses all of the others. Thank you x100000

[falloutdc]

Happy birthday Vanguard. Now let's start content development this winter . Telon shall not vanish